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Archived News:
User reviews for Batman: Arkham Knight on Steam from before today's
re-release of the action/adventure are now flagged as "pre-release"
reviews, in spite of being submitted for the officially released version of
the game, which was quickly pulled from sale. Arkham Knight also now
lists today as its release date, but it does not seem these older reviews have been
removed from the game's aggregate score, as it currently reads: "User reviews:
Mixed (17,741 reviews)." Thanks
Kotaku, where they note that on one hand, these older reviews may leave the
impression that the game still suffers from problems that have been fixed, but
on the other hand, this argument could be used to apply such footnotes to the
reviews of The Witcher 3 (or for that matter every game on Steam that has been patched since
release).
IO Interactive offers a new
Welcome to Sapienza
trailer from Hitman, the upcoming return of the hired assassination series.
This serves as a tourism piece, as it will make you want to visit this sunny
coastal town, put on your most festive black suit, and murder a few locals.
Here's their take: Today, Io-Interactive and Square Enix gave the first glimpse of a new
location for the upcoming HITMAN, available on March 11th 2016. The video, which
debuted at Paris Games Week today, shows off sunny Sapienza, a fictional town
situated on the southern coast of Italy.
Cut to the atmospheric track “Between Two Points” by The Glitch Mob featuring
Swan, the video gives players a sense of the expansive scale of the location.
From a luxurious mansion to the medieval church situated by the beach and the
cramped alleys littered with stores, Sapienza is a dense location full of
challenges and packed with opportunities and stories for the enterprising player
to unfold. And as with all locations within HITMAN, dark secrets and engaging
stories are everywhere to be found in charming Sapienza.
Continue here to read the full story.
Newly formed indie developer Resonator announces Anew, an open-world, dual-stick
action game they will be bringing anon to Windows and consoles. They have
launched the Anew website with an outline
of plans for the game, some first screenshots, and word on the qualifications of
their development team, which boasts veterans who have worked on a long list of
AAA franchises. Here's word: Anew is an open-world, dual-stick action
game which showcases a beautifully painted, storybook world. You are a child
with limited resources, waking up on a distant alien moon, twenty light years
from Earth. You must carry out a mission of critical importance. Battle, puzzle,
and journey through an exotic and dangerous world. Seek out game-changing
equipment, upgrades, vehicles, and companions to expand your options for combat
and exploration.
Anew will feature original musical compositions by the amazingly talented
Wilbert Roget, II. Wilbert has written music and received several D.I.C.E and
G.A.N.G award nominations for games such as Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris,
Dead Island 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Slitherine announces Polaris Sector, a science fiction game they say will
offer fresh take on the 4X strategy genre. An
official product
section for the game provides details and screenshots, and though they are
not yet committing to a release window more specific than "next year,"
on this page
they are accepting applications from prospective beta testers. Here's
word: With Polaris Sector, developer SoftWarWare is bringing a fresh take
on the 4X genre. Obviously, exploring systems with hundreds of stars, exploiting
resources and negotiating treaties with other alien factions are essentials for
building an empire. However this time players will have to give special
attention to the mechanics of technological progress and warfare. Their
engineers and scientists provide a high level of flexibility and ultimately the
players will have a plethora of options for designing warships and finding the
right balance between fundamental and applied sciences. Will they be visionary
enough to build weapons and research technologies that will make the difference
in battles fought decades from now?
This ambitious sci-fi strategy game is now ready to enter the beta. And we
invite players to help us test it! By signing up for the beta, players will have
a chance to be selected to be one of the lucky few who will be able experience
Polaris Sector before release and help us with the final touches, ensuring a
smooth release next year.
Steam News announces
that those who pre-purchase
Football Manager 2016
will receive a gift copy of
An Alternative Reality: The Football Manager Documentary as well as
immediate access to beta testing of the association football/soccer sequel:
Pre-Purchase Football
Manager 2016 and play the beta now!
PLUS, receive a gift copy of
An Alternative Reality: The Football Manager Documentary, which will be
located in your Steam inventory.
Football Manager is the most realistic, in-depth and immersive football
management simulation available – it’s the closest thing to doing the job for
real. Taking control of any squad from more than 50 countries across the world,
you decide who plays and who sits on the bench, deal with the media and solve
player problems. You're in total control of tactics, team-talks, substitutions
and pitch-side instructions as you follow the match live with the acclaimed 3D
match engine.
Link of the Day:
"Here’s the image
for the cake." Thanks Kareem.
A
WB Games Community announcement confirms
today's re-release of
the Windows edition of Batman: Arkham Knight, the superheroic
action/adventure sequel. This was pulled from sale
in June after complaints
of bugginess and poor performance, but they now feel this is now actually
suitable for release. Visiting the forum should bring up a pop-up about
an exclusive skin for forum participants (posting is not required), and in
addition to the "DLC parity" with consoles they previously announced, they also
now offer the October game update with the Batman Classic TV Series Batmobile
Pack and the Crime Fighter Challenge Pack #3 (available separately or included
with a season pass). Along with all that, they are also gifting the Arkham
library to all who buy the PC version before November 17th, are running a
special Team Fortress 2
cross promotion for all who purchase by then, and promise PC players a
week's early access to the Community Challenge Pack in January. In spite of the
over four month wait for the game to be fixed,
they note that new graphics card drivers and SLI/Crossfire profiles to
support the new version are not yet available, and that some hard drive paging
issues still occur on some configurations after extended play sessions. They say
paging problems can be avoided under Windows 10 by having at least 12 GB of RAM,
and that if they occur for other users they can be solved by restarting the
game. Here's word: With the game now available for sale, I wanted to
provide a status update since the release of the September patch.
As we confirmed earlier today, the PC version of the game now supports all
add-on content that has been released thus far for console. The configurations
for this content are being updated now and we expect everything to be available
in the next few hours. We’ll confirm when this process is completed.
We are still working with our GPU partners to add full support for SLI and
Crossfire. In addition, we are working with these partners to address stability
issues on certain cards related to the latest drivers.
After extensive testing, a hard drive paging issue with some GPUs on Windows 7
may occur after extended gameplay sessions. If you encounter this, simply
re-launching the game will resolve the issue.
For Windows 10 users, we’ve found that having at least 12GB of system RAM on a
PC allows the game to operate without paging and provides a smoother gameplay
experience.
The Quake Live website reveals that id
Software's multiplayer shooter is now exclusively available
on Steam, and now
carries a $9.99 price tag, a surprising increase of infinity percent for what had been a
free-to-play game (thanks
Kotaku).
This announcement does not specifically address the price jump, but it does
explain the Steamworks functions that are now part of the game: "Today marks a
new beginning for Quake Live. Last year we expanded our platform to Steam, and
today we have retired our old launcher and services in favor of integrating a
robust array of Steamworks alternatives. We are now fully utilizing Steam for
Friends, Chat, Lobbies, Voice Chat, Server Browser, Statistics, Achievements,
Anti-cheat, Trading Cards, and Workshop." The comments reveal a lot of
discontent over this change, as players say this came without warning, and
leaves players scrambling for refunds for money spent under the old business
model. The announcement refers these complaints to customer support, but does
not outline any established policy about how they will be handled. This is not
the first time a change in policy has upset players of this online shooter, as
it dropped OS X and Linux support when a standalone client was released
in
January 2014. Here's word on the latest changes to this reworked version of
QUAKE III Arena: Subscription Service Retired
By retiring our services and subscription service, all players now have the same
benefits and features in-game. All players can participate in map voting
processes, have full access to customize their game to the same degree as
others, and have the ability to run their own Listen Servers and configure their
matches to their own liking. Players wishing to have more control over how they
play now also have new callvote options, allowing them to opt into some of our
newer gameplay mechanics such as Starting Weapons, Global Ammo, and Item Timers.
Over time we found that these features were effective in some modes more than
others, and so modes like Free For All now have loadouts disabled by default.
If you have an active Pro subscription, and you failed to download the game
through Steam before this launch, please
contact customer support for assistance [www.quakelive.com].
The Overwatch website
announces the promised closed beta testing of Overwatch is underway,
offering access to some who applied to test the multiplayer shooter. They
outline their goals for the test, and say participants are permitted to post
videos and impressions from the game. There's also
a post on the GeForce website with details for those with NVIDIA graphics
cards, explaining what cards will help achieve high framerates at high
resolutions, along with system requirements for more typical resolutions. An
Overwatch Closed
Beta FAQ explains that there will be no OS X version of this (thanks
Ten Ton Hammer), and also offers system requirements: Q. What are
the system requirements for the Closed Beta?
A. See below!
Minimum (targeting 30fps):
- Operating system: Windows® Vista/7/ 8/10 64-bit
(latest Service Pack)
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i3 or AMD Phenom™ X3 865
- Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460, ATI Radeon™ HD
4850, or Intel® HD Graphics 4400
- Memory: 768 MB VRAM, 4 GB System RAM
- Storage: 7200 RPM with 5 GB available HD space
Recommended (targeting 60fps on Medium settings):
- Operating system: Windows® Vista/7/ 8/10 64-bit
(latest Service Pack)
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 or AMD Phenom™ II X3,
2.8 GHz
- Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660 or ATI Radeon™ HD
7950
- Memory: 2 GB VRAM, 6 GB System RAM
- Storage: 7200 RPM with 5 GB available HD space
For the best performance, please be sure to update to the latest drivers
available for your graphics card.
Due to potential changes, the system requirements for this game may change over
time.
GOG.com announces that more RPGs from the beloved Dungeons & Dragons
series are now available on their DRM-free marketplace. Here's word on the
release of the Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Krynn
series: Saving throw successful.
At the behest of the mighty wizards, you have made a thousand-hour journey
through the Forgotten Realms. As you reminisce upon your experiences, the
critical hits, and the skill checks, little do you know that your quest is far
from over. At dawn, you choose a new path through the DRM-free realm of GOG.com,
and seek more adventure in the realms of Krynn, Dark Sun, and
Ravenloft.
The missing pieces of cRPG history are coming back together! Our Dungeons &
Dragons inventory just got bigger with three new packs containing seven long
lost RPG digital premieres.
--Dungeons &
Dragons: Ravenloft Series - featuring Strahd's Possession, Stone Prophet -
is one of the largest and most popular D&D settings ever. A gothic-noir universe
ruled by the dark powers that be.
--Dungeons &
Dragons: Krynn Series - featuring Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn,
The Dark Queen of Krynn - a trilogy of famous Dragonlance stories, based on the
incredibly successful Forgotten Realms video-game formula.
--Dungeons &
Dragons: Dark Sun Series - featuring Shattered Lands, Wake of the Ravager -
a pair of titles set in the post-apocalyptic take on D&D - a world where magic
is banished and water is as scarce as hope.
Traverse, and become lost once more in, the incredible digital worlds of
Dungeons & Dragons - once again resurrected from video game limbo and delivered
straight to your modern computer. Hassle free, DRM-free, on GOG.com!
The
Battlefield 4 Battlelog has word that the promised Community Operations
update is now available for Battlefield 4 along with the fall update for
the first-person shooter sequel.
This post offers the fall update patch notes, which are far more extensive
than most game manuals these days. Here's word: It’s time to harvest the
fruits of your labor. The Community Map Project led to the creation of the
Operation Outbreak map, and it’s rolling out worldwide today with
Battlefield 4 Community Operations. Grab the free* DLC from the Origin My
Games tab or the PlayStation PS Store or Xbox Marketplace.
The Battlefield 4 Fall Update is available today as well.
Check out the Fall Update notes here!
Operation Outbreak has you fighting in the jungle over a Medical Clinic, Temple,
Ghost Town, Logging Camp, and Palm Oil Plantation – all of which were created
based on feedback and suggestions from the Battlefield 4 community. You helped
build the map, and now it’s time for you to blast it apart.
Petroglyph announces a November 3rd release date for Battle Battalions,
the real-time tactics game formerly known as Victory Command before a name
change. They celebrate the news with the
official Battle Battalions
launch trailer, and
game's website outlines the release plan: We’re going live next
Tuesday, November 3, 2015 with Battle Battalions! You can download the game
client now here or
get it from Steam here
on Tuesday, Nov 3.
We want to give special thanks to all the community members who have helped us
so far with your feedback and comments.
Please keep in mind that this date simply marks the beginning of a long stretch
of exciting new updates and features to continually make Battle Battalions even
better! It’s full speed ahead!
Continue here to read the full story.
The
Gearbox Software website now offers a Battleborn
competitive multiplayer
reveal trailer showing off more of their upcoming first-person shooter. The
description outlines the game's multiplayer modes: The Universe was once full of stars – then some jerk started snuffing them
out one-by-one. Eventually the Battleborn assembled as a team to save the last
star and fight for the survival of the universe. But before all that, they
fought each other for whatever land, resources, and power that was left. And
that’s the basis of Battleborn’s three unique competitive multiplayer modes:
CAPTURE – It’s classic capture-and-control showdown between two teams of
heroes. But more Badass. Because we said so.
INCURSION – March your small army of robots to the other side of the map.
MELTDOWN – Sacrifice your minions to the metal gods. The side with the biggest
scrap heap wins.
Beat down your friends in competitive multiplayer. Join forces with your
friends and beat down the Varelsi in the Story Mode.
Continue here to read the full story.
A new
Development Update on the Roberts Space Industries website has another
progress report on Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium's upcoming open-world space
game. They offer more details on Star Citizen 2.0 and Star Marine. They also
offer a new work-in-progress
trailer showing off Port Olisar. Here's what they describe as the coolest
news from the update: The coolest news? SHIPS CAN NOW SPLIT IN TWO (or
more!) Yes, the Tech Design and Code team have been working hard and getting
this very exciting feature working in the engine and they’ve finally cracked it…
so you will now be able to break ships up in to large chunks once you’ve dealt
out some catastrophic damage! You can really go to town on your worst enemies
and deliver irreparable damage to their ships, for instance, breaking up the
Constellation in to four whole chunks. The system still needs more love to get
it ready for release but in terms of the technical functionality we’ve
definitely broken the back of it (excuse the pun!)
Continue here to read the full story.
NCSOFT announces the first closed beta weekend for Blade & Soul gets
underway tomorrow for purchasers of Founder's Packs for the game. They promise a
total of 21 days of testing with four additional such weekends planned between
now and the game's 2016 launch.
This post has more details, and a
new "When Heroes Rise"
trailer offers a look at the game, and here's more on testing plans: NCSOFT
announced today that the first closed beta weekend for Blade & Soul begins
tomorrow, 29th October at 18:00 CET / 17:00 UTC. All players who have purchased
a Founder’s Pack of any tier will have access this weekend, as well as a random
assortment of players who signed up on the Blade & Soul website. Slated for a
free-to-play launch in the first quarter of 2016, Blade & Soul seamlessly melds
martial arts and mythology as players seek vengeance against evil forces bent on
destroying their world
“Closed beta is a very exciting time for Blade & Soul, as this is the first time
that a lot of the community will have hands-on time with the game”, said Nicolas
Coutant, producer at NCSOFT West. “We’ve been hard at work developing a unique
MMO experience that players will enjoy, and we can’t wait to see more players
breathe life into the martial arts world of Blade & Soul”.
Continue here to read the full story.
With autumn rolling in, I have started filling my backyard birdfeeder to help
the hearty fellows who remain in the area get through the winter. When I first
started putting a feeder out, any time it ended up empty for even a short while
it would take several days for them to rediscover the bounty after it was refilled. But now after
feeding them for several years I guess we're on their radar, because even though
I took it down in the late spring, the birds started flocking to the feeder
within a couple of hours of me putting it back up. I'm happy about that, since
it's pretty cool (pun somewhat intended) to see them all cavorting out there.
R.I.P.:
Peter Dougherty, Who Brought Rap to MTV, Dies at 59. Was a good guy.
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