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Archived News:
Ubisoft now offers Tundra, the new DLC pack for Anno 2205, along with a free
update called Corporation HQ for Blue Bytes' futuristic strategy sequel. This is
available on the
Ubisoft Online Store, on
Steam,
and perhaps elsewhere. The DLC
adds a new 82,000 acre territory, new population types, an additional module
type, while the free update enhances the corporation progression screen and
allows players to sell goods depending on requests to NPC traders.
This trailer shows off
the add-on, and here are more details on both releases: Today, Ubisoft®
released Anno 2205™: Tundra, the first major DLC for the city-building
simulation from Ubisoft’s Blue Byte studio, along with a free update available
today for all 2205 players. With Tundra, players will have access to a brand new
sector to manage along with the Temperate, Artic and Moon sessions. In the
desolate land of the Vanha Plains, players will gather new resources and
complete specific quests to further improve their metropolises.
In this new 82,000 acre territory, players will discover new gameplay tactics as
they need to dry the marshes before settling in the area among the muskoxen and
the icy surroundings. Two new population types are also available, the Tundra
Scientists and the Tundra Protectors, of which players will have to manage their
specific needs. In order to fulfill these needs, five new production chains and
ten new goods types challenge players to use their management skills more
effectively.
A new additional module type can be unlocked by solving the sector quest and
inquiring on the past generations failures. This module improves farms and
factories in the Tundra sector, but also in all other regions of the game.
Throughout the story quests and optional side quests, players will control a
futuristic flying vehicle to hover over the desert landscapes.
A free update named “Corporation HQ” is also available today for all Anno 2205
players. This patch enhances the corporation progression screen to make it more
intuitive, and to provide a good overview of the player’s achievements and
improvements. With this update, players can now sell goods depending on requests
to NPC traders.
Tundra is available to owners of the Anno 2205’s Season Pass, and can be
purchased independently for all players.
Continue here to read the full story.
Early access to The Sentient is now available
on Steam, offering a
first crack at this game where you can channel your inner HAL 9000 or Ash, as
you play as an A.I. helping humanity explore space. No astronauts were harmed in
the creation of this early
access trailer offering a look at what to expect. Here's a bit: "The
Sentient, a hyper-aware A.I., was originally developed to assist the elderly
(whose life stories taught the A.I. about human emotion and empathy) -- but now
it’s tasked with helping mankind overcome the hurdles of a failing space
exploration program. Playing as the A.I., you must recover the research and
knowledge needed for humanity to find a new home." Continue here to read the full story.
Frozenbyte announces the conclusion of their
promotion that set the release price of Shadwen based on the number of
times the demo for the upcoming stealth game. Word is that based on the 3.5
million points scored by players in the demo, the game will be released this
spring for $14.55, more than 50% off the $35.00 price point they began with. You
can find details about the game on the Shadwen
website, and here's word on the results of the demo event: Finnish
game developer Frozenbyte announces the successful end of the Demo Event for
Shadwen, its upcoming stealth action game featuring time rewind and
physics-based gameplay. During the event players from all around the world were
able to play a special sneak-peek demo of Shadwen at
www.shadwen.com, and by
playing were able to lower the eventual launch price of the game. The initial
launch price was $35 and at the end it's $14.55. There were over 20.000
downloads, 3.5 million points, and over 100.000 killed guards during the event.
Shadwen will launch at $14.55 in the spring 2016 for PC and later for consoles
with exact dates to be announced later. The launch price will be in effect at
least for the launch week. The final regular price will be adjusted according to
pricing matrices and store policies. A level editor will be included for PC.
Frozenbyte CEO, Mr. Lauri Hyvärinen, is thrilled with the reception the
sneak-peek demo got: "We love the feedback. It's been great watching people play
the game and comment on things that work and don't work, we'll take those
thoughts and make the final game even better! We started out making a sneaky
stealth game but where we're going looks more like a fun time-bending physics
playground, and we're going to embrace that with open arms!"
Link of the Day:
Elephant goes on rampage during Inidan Thalappoli Festival. Amazing footage.
Thankfully no one (especially the elephant) was severely injured.
The previously announced preorders
for HTC's Vive VR headsets begins in scant minutes on the
Vive website.
AnandTech rounds up the details, saying that credit card purchases will put a
hold on the required funds, but Paypal transactions will be processed
immediately. Shipping will commence on April 5th, and they believe preorders
will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis, and that purchases will be
limited to one per customer. They also have regional pricing details for
perspective on how the North American $799 MSRP will translate to other regions,
and an outline of what all that money gets you: For your $799 on February
29th at 10am EST, you get the following:
- HTC Vive head mounted display (HMD)
- Two Base Stations (for location)
- One pair of controllers
- A Link Box
- Vive Ear buds
As part of the package, two titles were also announced as being bundled: Job
Simulator (the demo of which I still remember vividly as trying managed to
microwave steak and wine) and Fantastic Contraption. As of yesterday, HTC
announced that Google’s Tilt Brush will also be a part of the pre-order bundle
for a limited time. Tilt Brush is the VR equivalent of MS Paint, that initial
drawing platform allowing users to create, but this time in a full 3D
environment.
Continue here to read the full story.
SCS
Software announces they are working on Steam Workshop support for American
Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2, which will add the ability to share
customized trucks. Here's a bit: We are working now on update 1.23 for
ETS2, and 1.2 for ATS. One of the major features coming with the updates is
support for Steam Workshop. This feature is a really long time coming,
considering that all of our projects always were popular for user modifications.
Right now our Workshop is still in limited testing. Some of our testers are
passionate modders in their own. Even during testing there are already some cool
mods appearing.
Plants versus Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is the top new entry on
GfK Chart-Track's PC top 30 chart tracking U.K. game sales for last week, as
the PC edition of Far Cry Primal doesn't launch until tomorrow. The new
installment in the shooter series is out on consoles, however, and shows up atop
the
all platforms top 40, where the new PvZ shooter plants itself at number two.
Here's how they summarize
all the activity: Ubisoft take their first No1 crown of the year as ‘Far
Cry Primal’ breaks Activision Blizzard’s hold on top spot.
It’s a new look and a new launch window for the Far Cry series with Primal being
the first to launch outside of Q4 since the original PC version in 2004. There’s
also a second Top 3 debutant this week in the form of EA’s ‘Plants vs Zombies:
Garden Warfare 2’ at No2. Sales for the series are up 31%, although the first in
the series (2014) was a timed exclusive for both Xbox One and Xbox 360 at
launch. ‘Fifa 16’ (-38%) remains at No3 for a third week, which means ‘Call of
Duty: Black Ops III’ (-51%) slips down to No4.
Familiar faces jostle for position in the Top 10 with last week’s debutant
‘Street Fighter V’ (-78%) the most notable mover down from No2 to No10. Outside
the Top 10 3DS exclusive ‘Bravely Second: End Layer’ makes its mark at
No12.
The
Green Man Gaming & Playfire Community Blog now offers their own chart
showing the bestselling games for last week on Green Man Gaming. This could have
been handled in a few bytes of text, but they've decided to go
full video for
this, because video. In case you are just interested in the data without visuals
and music, we're here to play killjoy. Here are the five games
they list:
- Superhot
- Borderlands 2
- Street Fighter V
- Cities: Skylines - Snowfall
- XCOM 2
Continue here to read the full story.
- Minecraft
1.9 - Combat Update. "Most remarkably, the combat mechanics have been
updated to make fighting more interesting and offer more map-making
options."
- Corsair VOID Surround Hybrid Stereo Gaming Headset on
Benchmark Reviews.
- Creative Sound BlasterX G5 7.1 External Gaming Audio DAC on
Hardware Asylum.
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980Ti Xtreme Gaming Graphics Card on
eTeknix.
- ID-Cooling Hunter VC-Twin CPU Cooler on
eTeknix.
- Intel Core i7-6700K "Skylake" LGA 1151 Processor on
Futurelooks.
- Mushkin Reactor 512GB Solid State Drive on
eTeknix.
- OCZ Trion150 240GB and 480GB Solid State Drive on
eTeknix.
- Patriot Supersonic Magnum 2 USB 3.1 Flash Drive on
ThinkComputers.org.
- Razer Kraken Mobile Headphones on
Vortez.
Happy leap day everybody! There has to be some way to celebrate this right (does
some quick professional
research)... nope, not really. Anyway, happy birthday to anyone born on
February 29th, too bad most of you can't celebrate with a drink, since it takes
84 leap years to reach legal age (isn't that how this works?).
R.I.P.:
Games industry veteran Fergus McGovern has passed away - Games industry news -
MCV
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