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Archived News:
There's a playable demo for rFactor 2
on Steam, surprisingly
racing in more that two-and-a-half years after the initial release of the
motorsport sequel. They don't outline what's in the demo, so here's the brief
description of the game: "rFactor 2 is a realistic, easily extendable racing
simulation from Image Space Incorporated. It offers the latest in vehicle and
race customization, great graphics, outstanding multiplayer and the height of
racing realism. rFactor 2 features mixed class road racing with ultra realistic
dynamics, an immersive sound environment and stunning graphics." Thanks Frans.
Frederick Raynal announces the formation of Gloomywood, the studio developing
2Dark, the crowdfunded horror game coming
from the man described as "the creative force" behind the
survival/horror classic Alone in the Dark. They are offering access to the game's closed beta to
those who preorder via this page,
saying the game is set for full release early next year. They also offer a
recent trailer with
some gameplay footage to give a sense of how this will play out. Here's word:
"Set for a PC release in early 2016, 2Dark challenges players to rescue groups
of children who have been captured by a pack of demented serial killers, each
more frightening than the last. Featuring a unique look and a twisted storyline,
2Dark will ensure players never rest easy while scouring the game’s dark
environs." Continue here to read the full story.
EA's Battlelog has details on Battlefield 4: Legacy Operations, a free DLC
pack coming soon to Battlefield 4 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. At
the center of the release is Dragon Valley 2015, an updated version of the
Dragon Valley map from Battlefield 2, saying this "opens up for vehicular mayhem
on land, air, and sea, with a massive number of flags, and destructible and
repairable bridges." This
trailer shows off some play testing of the map, and here's a bit on how the
original had to be changed: If you played Battlefield 2, you likely
remember the map – it was huge, with a massive number of flags, and destructible
and repairable bridges. Our goal for this map is to make a great, large vehicle
map for Battlefield 4 but at the same time modernize the original where
appropriate.
Some things had to change when reimagining the map. Battlefield 2 featured a
poor draw distance (how far you can see in the game world) by today’s standards,
and the original map was built around those limitations. We tackled this in
several ways: first we increased the terrain verticality to closer mimic a real
life Chinese river valley – and to give us more terrain occlusion for long
distances, especially on the central island. We also added a dynamic cloud
layer, which not only adds a welcomed air-to-ground separation in terms of
gameplay, but also helps shroud far distances at ground level. This has the
added bonus effect of allowing you to have intense aerial firefights above the
cloud level, which looks really, really cool in Battlefield 4.
Continue here to read the full story.
Marek Rosa's dev blog discusses the latest patch for Space Engineers, which
adds planets to the space game, "because you wanted them." He explains "Space
Engineers now has the largest, fully destructible, volumetric and persistent
planets in the universe," pointing the way to
this forum post with patch notes for the new version 01.108 and
this trailer showing
off the new version in action. There are even more videos in the
blog post, and here's a bit on what to expect: Planets are fully
destructible, volumetric and persistent. You can drill a hole from one
pole to the other, but you will have to put a lot hours into it. Planets
have up to 120 km in diameter, which is a surface of 45 238,93421 km2! Even with
planets this huge we had to apply smart visual tricks so they appear nice and
round from afar. That’s why mountain ranges goes flat once you hit a critical
distance from the planet.
Every object on a planet surface is affected by its gravity, which is why
we added a new option for station grids - the Station voxel. By enabling this
option a station will be static only when touching the voxel (one block build
“inside of it”). When you cut some parts of the station away it will become a
dynamic object and could break apart. And since you will be building
stations on a spherical surface from now on, buildings can't be axis-aligned,
but you can orientate the block so that it’s aligned with the landscape surface.
Continue here to read the full story.
Steam News announces a
weekend celebrating the 10th anniversary of publisher Klei Entertainment,
offering a sale and the chance to play all Klei's games for free: In
celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Klei Entertainment,
save up to
85% on their catalog of titles including Don't Starve, Invisible, Inc., Mark
of the Ninja and more*!
Additionally, all of their titles are available to play for free starting now
until Sunday at 1PM Pacific!
If you already have Steam installed,
click here
for the list of participating titles. If you don't have Steam, you can download
it here.
*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time
Ubiblog
offers details on the Season Pass for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.
This trailer
illustrates plans for this year-long content subscription to the shooter sequel,
and here's an outline: Rainbow Six Siege is almost here. If you listen
closely, you might even be able to hear the clicking of heavy boots up by the
chimney as Operators prepare to breach. And after Siege launches on December 1,
waves of fresh content will come rolling in for a full year. New goodies like
maps, modes and operators will be free for all players, but with the Season
Pass, you’ll get your hands on some of this of this stuff a little earlier.
You’ll also get access to some weapon skins and other bonuses. Take a look below
for a full rundown of what the Season Pass has to offer.
The Rainbow Six Siege Season Pass includes:
- Seven-day exclusive early access to the eight new
operators, which you can instantly add to your roster upon their release
- Permanent 5% Renown boost that will allow you to
unlock content quicker
- The exclusive Season Pass Porter weapon skin
- The Safari Bundle of five weapons skins
- Two extra daily Renown-earning challenges (giving
you a total of five)
- 600 R6 Credits that can be used to purchase
additional in-game content, like weapon skins
Continue here to read the full story.
The Paragon website now
offers another of the promised weekly character reveals from Paragon, Epic's
upcoming PC game. This video
introduces Steel, though any resemblance to Shaq are purely coincidental. The
cinematic just shows the character's appearance, as they continue to be cagey
about revealing too much of what this game is about. Continue here to read the full story.
This video offers a
look at progress on The Pillars of the Earth, the upcoming video game adaptation
of Ken Follett's novel of the same name. The clip shows a 2017 release date, and
comes with the following description: Daedalic Entertainment presents the
first video material for "The Pillars of the Earth", the game adaption of Ken
Follett's bestseller. The video shows first scenes of the game's characters and
gives some insight to its development process. The focus will be on the
presentation of the involved artists and writers, as well as the fate of the
games protagonist, Aliena. One of the original's key moments will be brought to
life through interactive literature.
Continue here to read the full story.
- Beyond Eyes on
Steam. Save 40%.
- Goat Simulator on
Steam. Save 66%.
- I am Bread on
Steam. Save 66%.
- Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars on
Humble Store. Save 25%.
There are a couple of System Shock tidbits we missed in the
Fast Company interview with Night Dive Studios we mentioned
earlier this week, as the developer discusses plans to remake the action/RPG
from the ground up, following up on their
recently released
Enhanced Edition (thanks
All Games Beta). And perhaps of greater interest, it turns out that Night
Dive now owns the rights to the series, and it's not out of the question that
they will eventually turn their attention to creating System Shock 3.
This excerpt conveniently covers both topics: One example: Night Dive is
developing a full remake of the original System Shock, going well beyond the
basic rerelease that launched a couple months ago. Night Dive has acquired the
full rights to the franchise, and Kick says he’s been working with Robert
Waters, the game's original concept artist, to reimagine his designs from the
early 1990s.
"Seeing the difference between his artistic abilities back then compared to now,
and his ablity to reinterpret those ideas, it's just been really exciting for
us," Kick says.
Part of the plan for this remake also includes a console version, which would be
a first for Night Dive. Kuperman believes much of the company's future growth
will come from creating console adaptations for more PC games, along with some
ports for mobile devices.
We may even see a System Shock 3 someday, though Night Dive would need a larger
publisher to take on the task. Kuperman says the company is "having some
conversations" on this front. "To really do another game in that series is going
to take resources and time and commitment that we don't have, and it's really
not our core business," Kuperman says. (Until now, 2K Games’ Bioshock series has
stood in as a spiritual successor.)
A new "campaign"
trailer from Mordheim: City of the Damned highlights the four separate
campaigns in Rogue Factor's tactical/RPG that's gearing up to graduate next week
from early access on Steam.
Here's word: Rogue Factor's tactical-RPG Mordheim: City of the Damned
showcases its four independent campaigns in the new Campaign Trailer. With a
campaign for each Warband, the Human Mercenaries, the Skaven from Clan Eshin,
the Sisters of Sigmar and the Cult of the Possessed, explore a unique story and
meet the Dramatis Personae!
These battle-hardened heroes of Mordheim will chaperone you through each of the
campaigns. They are powerful and unique warriors who can completely turn the
tide of battles with unique abilities and skills.
Introduce yourself to Luther Wolfenbaum, Bertha Bestraufrung, Fylch Sharptail
and Merga Ottweiler in the trailer below, sampling a taste of their aptitude for
combat with new debuff skills, powerful single-target heals, area-of-effect
dodge buffs, and a powerful mage spell, Forsake, able to shutdown enemy magic
users by increasing the chances of spells backfiring.
Continue here to read the full story.
My Herman Miller Aeron chair is now over 15 years old, so it's been at least
that long since my last chair-related backache. Last year I replaced the arms,
which had developed cracks in the padding over time, but otherwise it's held up
very well until recently. Another problem popped up, however, as the tension
screw to adjust the height of the left arm started slipping, causing the arm to
gradually lower itself under any weight. The arm slides up and down in a
channel, so I started looking for something that could be placed in there to
prop it up, frustrated that the thin 6" steel dowel I found in my MacGyver kit
seemed way too long to serve this purpose. After failing to dig up something
smaller to try, I gave the too long dowel a shot, and it turns out the bottom
of this channel is much deeper than I imagined, and holds this at the exact
perfect height I wanted, with the possibility of it slipping completely
eliminated. I love it when a plan comes together. No wait, that was a different
80s show.
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