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Archived News:
The
BAFTA website announces the winners of the British Academy Games Awards,
honoring Fallout 4 as best game. Here's a rundown on the winners: Fallout
4 – the action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios – won
Best Game. This is the first win for the series which has been BAFTA nominated
six times.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, the story-based game that takes place in
a small English village whose inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared, took
home three BAFTAs: Audio Achievement, Performer for Merle Dandridge as Kate
Collins, and Music for the haunting score composed by Jessica Curry.
Sam Barlow collected three awards for Her Story, a novel piece of
interactive fiction. The game is Barlow’s first project as an independent
developer and won in the Debut Game, Game Innovation and Mobile & Handheld
categories.
Futuristic sports-action game Rocket League fought off strong competition
across three categories to win BAFTAs for Family Game, Multiplayer and Sport.
Anime-inspired Ori and the Blind Forest won the BAFTA for Artistic
Achievement. Batman: Arkham Knight, the fourth installment in the
multi-BAFTA-winning Batman: Arkham series, collected the award for British Game,
while the Gothic-inspired action role-playing game, Bloodborne, won the
Game Design category.
Interactive survival horror title Until Dawn picked up the BAFTA for
Original Property, while Prison Architect, a construction and management
sim where the player takes control of their own prison, won the Persistent Game
award. The BAFTA for Story was won by Life is Strange, an episodic
adventure that set out to revolutionise story-based choice and consequence
games.
The AMD eSports Audience Award was won by SMITE, seeing off competition
from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2,
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and League of Legends.
Showcasing the best in young games development and design talent, the BAFTA Ones
to Watch Award in association with Dare to be Digital was won by SUNDOWN,
a multiplayer stealth game created by a team of student developers from the US.
The Fellowship the highest accolade the Academy can bestow was presented to
John Carmack, a leading figure within computer and game engineering and one
of the pioneers of 3D graphics, for his outstanding and exceptional creative
contribution to the industry.
Endless Legend - Shifters is now available for Windows and OS X
on Steam, offering an
expansion for Endless Legend
that adds a revamped winter season along with a bunch of new content for the 4X
strategy game. The launch
trailer offers a look, and the announcement fills in the details:
Following four expansions since PC launch in summer 2014, Endless Legend
Shifters introduces the new Allayi Faction, a civilization with an intrinsic
relationship to planet Auriga, an enhanced winter that carries significant
repercussions, and a new building called the Altar of Auriga, among other
things.
“We’ve collected great feedback, thanks to the community that participated in
the closed beta and helped us polish the Allayi faction,” said Romain de Waubert
de Genlis, Creative Director at Amplitude Studios. “Players are in for an
entirely new experience with the enhanced winter, as they will be able to master
the elements thanks to new game mechanics.”
Endless Legend Shifters features summary:
- The Allayi: Carrying a fundamental relationship
with the new resource, the Pearls of Auriga, The Allayi are a mercurial,
magical tribe that’s dedicated itself to defending planet Auriga from
others. The Allayi shift with the seasons from friendly neighbours to
enraged thieves and, in the right hands, can become extraordinary opponents.
- Enhanced Winter: The expansion features an
enhanced winter, with a new resource to collect around the map during winter
called the Pearls of Auriga. These give players the opportunity to influence
the effects of winter, to help gain advantages and hinder enemies. Winter
will be a whole new experience for players with the possibility of lakes and
seas freezing over to allow passage of troops.
- Altar of Auriga: Factions can spend their pearls
to acquire blessings on the Altar of Auriga, a new building. Blessings are
unique and can help earn players defensive towers to protect their
territory, unique districts and city improvements, pearl stockpiles and
pearl item sets. The Allayi have exclusive blessings enabling them to shift.
Endless Legend Shifters is available now on Steam for $12.99 / £9,99 / €12,99
with 25% off, while the entire Endless series is also discounted to celebrate
the release (up to 80% discount).
Stardock announces an April 28th release date for Offworld Trading Company,
Mohawk Games' RTS game that's currently in early access.
This post on the topic
offers some screenshots and some hype, and the announcement includes the latest
on the game: Stardock and Mohawk Games have announced April 28, 2016 as
the release date for Offworld Trading Company, the economic strategy game from
Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson. Set in a future where humans have
begun to colonize on Mars, the player will take on the role as an investor
trying to control the Martian market and drive all of the competition out of
business and back to Earth.
“Offworld Trading Company is a new direction for real-time strategy, where money
is both your deadliest weapon and your toughest defense,” said Johnson. “After
all of the lucrative resource mining on the asteroid belt is claimed by
mega-corporations, savvy business hopefuls turn to Mars to stake their claim to
the red planet and build an economic engine capable of out-producing the
competition.”
The real-time, player-driven market is the foundation of the game, allowing
players to buy and sell resources and materials - even the food and water that
the colonists need to survive. Players will need to build up enough capital to
gain access to the lucrative offworld markets so that they can buy out their
rivals and claim the Martian economy for themselves. But this battle isn’t
limited to the board room. Players also have access to a black market that
allows them to employ some more underhanded methods for victory, such as hiring
pirate raiders or hackers to disrupt production or sending a covert
electromagnetic pulse to an opponent’s base.
“All of the feedback we’ve received from fans during our development process has
been great,” Johnson said. “We used it to refine and polish this game. We’re
really excited to share it with everyone.”
Offworld Trading Company is currently available in Early Access on
Steam or through
Stardock. The full version with
all of its intended features will be released on April 28, 2016.
Revenge of the Neds is now available for Killing Floor 2, offering a new
content pack for the early access zombie shooter sequel.
This page has all
the details on what this adds, including a new Versus Survival PvP game mode In
celebration, the game is currently on sale
on Steam for 33% off.
Here's more: "The Revenge of the Zeds Content Pack also welcomes players,
whether human or Zed, into the fortified abandoned Prison, with the introduction
of the brand new map. Nothing is safe in this eerie new setting as players must
escape the darkness and defeat their foes. The lever action rifle and crossbow
are included in the Revenge of the Zeds Content Pack as Offperk weapons and the
previously announced Sharpshooter Perk is well on its way for a future update."
Slitherine announces the release of U.S. Marines, a new DLC pack for Order of
Battle that adds the armed force from the title to the World War II strategy
game. You can pick this up on
this page
where there's also this launch trailer.
Here's word on the pack: Today Order of Battle, one of the most epic
wargames of 2015 (81 Metascore, 89% of positive reviews on Steam, listed as best
strategy game ever by PCGamesN), meets the U.S Marines corps in a brand new DLC.
Players are thrown into the adventurous island-hopping campaign of 1942-1945: a
long and bloody military operation that started with the assault of Tulagi and
advanced across small and isolated jungle islands, reaching up to the iconic
epilogue at Iwo Jima.
Order of Battle: U.S Marines is the second expansion of the franchise and it
includes a campaign with 11 brand new scenarios against the Imperial Japanese
troops. Players fight, amongst others, the historical battles of Guadalcanal and
Tarawa. In these savage landscape enemies adapt their strategy from ruthless
assaults to deep and well-prepared defensive systems.
U.S. Marines faction has new units on its side and the new support fire ability
for Heavy Infantry.
Continue here to read the full story.
The Star
Wars: The Old Republic website announces the release of the new chapter
in Star Wars: The
Old Republic Knights of the Fallen Empire. Here's word: BioWare™ and
Lucasfilm today released the latest episodic chapter of Star Wars™: The Old
Republic™ – Knights of the Fallen Empire. Visions in the Dark introduces a
darker, more ominous story as the Outlander’s battle intensifies both within his
Alliance and the Eternal Empire itself. In this chapter, the Outlander must face
the Immortal Emperor Valkorion and confront the truth of his destiny…
Players can embark on the Knights of the Fallen Empire storyline beginning
with Chapter 1 through Visions in the Dark for free* as a Subscriber. Star Wars:
The Old Republic is introducing additional new gameplay experiences with this
chapter:
- New Alliance Mission – Rumors of a Sith
artifact lead you to Yavin, where you discover the ancient Dashade warrior,
Ak’ghal Usar, who you can recruit as your Companion. Free from captivity,
Ak’ghal seeks vengeance against the captors who’ve nearly eliminated his
species.
- New PvP Challenges – Prepare for the fight
against the Eternal Empire in the newest 8v8 Odessen Proving Grounds or
fight to the death in the new 4v4 Rishi Cove Arena.
- New “Visionary” Cartel Market Pack –
Inspired by the latest chapter, the new “Visionary” Cartel Pack offers
players the opportunity to get unique Jedi-inspired items, including Grand
Master Satele Shan’s gear, new Acklay creature mount, and more.
Find out more about the ongoing story of Star Wars: The Old Republic –
Knights of the Fallen Empire at
www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com/Fallen-Empire.
CapCom Unity announces details about Umbrella Corps, covering mercenary
customization in the upcoming multiplayer shooter set in their survival/horror
universe. They also say to expect the release of the game on June 21st, missing
their previously announced May release date, and also falling out of their
spring release window by a couple of days.
This trailer shows
off mercenary customization, and here's more on that and delay: For the
uninitiated, Umbrella Corps is a competitive, online third-person shooter set in
the Resident Evil universe. Match types like One-Life Match and Multi-Mission
Mode generally involve up to three-on-three shootouts that reward quick reflexes
and steady aim. Zombies, infected canines, and other B.O.W.s will also swarm
players if their Zombie Jammers take damage during a shootout, adding the
tension of a looming threat to every battle.
Defeating rival teams of mercenaries and eliminating zombified threats on the
battlefield are examples of ways players earn points that can be used to unlock
parts to customize your mask, helmet, shoulder armor, body armor, and Zombie
Jammer parts. Players can swap out different designs of their zombie-nullifying
backpack. You can also express your inner merc by plastering your body armor
with awesome decals like B.S.A.A. patches, Umbrella logos, and deep cuts like
the Spencer Family crest.
Powerful new weapons can also be unlocked and customized. For example, the
Doberman Pincer is a lethal shotgun that devastates enemy players and creatures
alike, and is perfect for shutting down attempted Brainer melee assassinations.
The K-12 AX is a well-rounded SMG, delivering a balance of range and fire rate.
The Samurai Edge is a legendary firearm from the Resident Evil series – a
modified, enhanced S.T.A.R.S. handgun designed by the Kendo’s Gun Shop of RE 2
fame. Each weapon can be decked out with a range of helpful scopes to boost
accuracy or suppressors to keep your location concealed during matches.
Players can also customize their emotes using a system called I.C.O.N.
(Interconnected Communications Operations Network). These interchangeable
I.C.O.N. emotes let players use sounds and gestures to nonverbally communicate
with other players quickly, whether that means leaping into the air with the
celebrator “Woo-hoo” emote or even utilizing animal noises. Whatever gets the
job done.
Umbrella Corps is coming to both PC and PlayStation 4 as a digital download for
$29.99. Originally scheduled for release in May, Umbrella Corps is now launching
just a little later on June 21 so the development team can spend some extra time
optimizing the game to bring you the best experience possible.
Continue here to read the full story.
2K and Gearbox Software are now offering preloads of the open beta client for
Battleborn, their upcoming MOBA shooter, celebrating the news with a
Bootcamp trailer
showing off the game. Here's word: The end of the universe isn’t pretty. Hell, here in the Solus System, we’re
looking down the barrel of extinction. The Varelsi are consuming stars – whole
stars! – while we’re fighting amongst ourselves over the few remaining table
scraps of existence. And if we ever catch up with Rendain, that treacherous jerk
will get what’s comin’ for selling out every sentient being left.
Nihilistic robots, dwarves, space luchadores, interstellar soldiers,
penguin-piloted murder machines and lots of others, all teaming up to save
what’s left of the Universe… that’s Battleborn.
For a bigger breakdown on what Battleborn is all about, check out the
Battleborn Bootcamp Trailer!
JOIN THE BATTLEBORN OPEN BETA, PRE-LOAD IT NOW!
Still not sure what Battleborn is? Then join the Battleborn Open Beta where
you’ll get to experience Battleborn’s episodic-style Story Mode (read more about
Story Mode here) and crush the opposing team in Competitive Multiplayer. After
all, it’s up to you to command this motley crew of 25 unique Battleborn – this
messy, gun-toting, magic-wielding, sword-suspending, battlemech-driving,
minion-stomping crew.
Pre-load is available now for PS4, PC, and Xbox One.
- PS4: PlayStation Network
- PC: Steam
- Xbox One: Microsoft Store
The Battleborn Open Beta begins April 8th on PS4 and April 13th on PC and Xbox
One. Check out
this post for more information.
Continue here to read the full story.
The
Beamdog Forums now offer a statement from Beamdog about the
controversy surrounding the Siege of Dragonspear expansion for
Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, addressing complaints about a possible
social agenda as well as gameplay bugs in the RPG expansion (thanks Rollory).
Here's word on both of these aspects of the release: I'm Trent Oster, CEO
of Beamdog.
First off, everyone here is ecstatic to have shipped Baldur’s Gate: Siege of
Dragonspear. Siege represents years of hard work by a dedicated team that we
grew from a combination of home grown talent, original Baldur's Gate modders and
former Bioware developers. Siege of Dragonspear represents more than 25 hours of
new Baldur’s Gate gameplay, and more than 500,000 words of writing. I’m proud of
our team for launching this great expansion.
We’ve received feedback around Mizhena, a supporting character who reveals she
is transgender. In retrospect, it would have been better served if we had
introduced a transgender character with more development. This is a lesson we
will be carrying forward in our development as creators and we will be improving
this character in a future update.
The last few days have showed us how passionately many of our fans care for our
games. We've had a lot of great feedback from players who love the expansion and
are having a great time experiencing the first new Baldur's Gate story in 15
years. While we appreciate all feedback we receive from our fans, both positive
as well as negative, some of the negative feedback has focused not on Siege of
Dragonspear but on individual developers at Beamdog -- to the point of online
threats and harassment.
I just want to make it crystal clear that Beamdog does not condone this
behavior, and moreover that it will not have the desired effect as we stand
behind all our developers 100%. We created the game as a group, and moving
forward we'll work on the game's issues as a group, which I believe is exactly
as it should be.
We’ve received valuable feedback around some bugs we failed to catch for ship.
We're hard at work right now patching up the issues that slipped through and
we're striving to ship fixes and improvements quickly. We will provide a
complete list of the issues we plan to address in our next update. Issues of
note we are addressing are:
Multiplayer – We are acting on reports of multiplayer issues and hope to have
this fixed in the next update.
Minsc – Minsc has a line which generated controversy. Looking back on the line,
we agree with the feedback from our community, it has nothing to do with his
character and we will be removing the line.
We hope all our players continue to enjoy Siege of Dragonspear and we look
forward to providing an update in the near future.
A
Steam Community Group Announcement informs us of the release of new
SEGA-themed DLC for DARIUSBURST Chronicle Saviours, the super-widescreen
arcade shooter. There are three parts to this, shown off in
these videos which are in Japanese, but offer translated subtitles. Here's
word: "Just look at that! Three DLC packs based on classic Sega games are now
available for all versions of DBCS with three DLC pack based on classic Taito
games already previously released! The Sega game packs are Space Harrier, Galaxy
Force II, and Fantasy Zone. The Taito game packs are RayForce, Night Striker,
and Metal Black. Each pack includes one new ship from the game of the same name,
unique levels, and remixed music from its original counterpart. Each pack will
cost $4.99 USD individually or $11.99 USD for all three packs. The new levels
play similarly to CS mode (not in 32:9 aspect ratio), and the DLC ships are only
usable in the DLC levels. However, ships from the base game can be used in the
DLC levels."
The Nostalrius website has word that
this "progressive vanilla" private server for World of Warcraft has
received formal legal letters they say signal "the de facto end of Nostalrius
under its current form." They say they have "no plan for the future," though
they do mention they intend to release their source code at some point. There
are more details about this in a
post on reddit where they say they will host an AMA with the Nostalrius
administrators at noon eastern time today. Thanks Kxmode.
A new Eldar trailer
from Battlefleet Gothic: Armada shows off Eldar ships from a new race being
added next week to the early access sci-fi RTS game that's set to officially
launch this month. Here's word on the Eldars: "The Eldar fleet will be joining
the beta next week! They will be ready to pit their guerilla tactics against the
Ork’s brutal manoeuvres, the Chaos’ long-range gameplay and the Imperium’s
balanced style, during epic and tactical space battles. Eldar fleets are built
around strategies based on speed, surprise and sudden firepower, offering a
brand new gameplay style and deep tactical options for Battlefleet Gothic
players." Continue here to read the full story.
- The ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme Motherboard on
AnandTech.
- ASUS Radeon R9 Fury STRIX Graphics Card on
Nikk Tech.
- Cooler Master Masterkeys Pro S on
LAN OC.
- Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 Laptop on
Tech ARP.
- DXRacer Iron Series Gaming Chair on
TweakTown.
- Fnatic Gear Flick Mouse & Rush Keyboard on
Hardware Canucks.
- Fnatic Gear Flick Optical Gaming Mouse on
Legit Reviews.
- GIGABYTE P34 v5 Gaming Laptop on
TweakTown.
- GIGABYTE Z170X Gaming 6 LGA 1151 Motherboard on
HARDOCP.
- MSI Z170I Pro Gaming AC Motherboard on
ocaholic.
-
This trailer introduces Kim: The Avenger Cow, the star of an upcoming
bovine-themed platformer…
I mentioned my eye doctor appointment last week, and am now awaiting my new pair
of glasses specifically for computer work. These will be tuned for the distance
I sit from the monitor, and I expect that to be an improvement over my current
pair. As some of you mentioned in the comments, the yellow tint you sometimes
see on computer glasses is outdated, but these will have some sort of blue light
filter in spite of the lenses being clear, which is also a theoretical
advantage. I have to admit to a little disappointment at that, though, as I did
think the yellow tint would be kind of cool (which is probably why some of them
still come that way).
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