Latest News - Page 1793

EA is injecting some much-needed hype into Need for Speed Heat ahead of its November 8 release... but man, these trailers do not do anything for the game. Both IGN and VG247 have new Need for Speed Heat 4K gameplay videos that you can check out below.

I've watched both of the videos (IGN's goes for 13 minutes while VG247 has slightly less at 10 minutes) and boy is the world of Need for Speed Heat lifeless. There are barely any other cars on the road, no peoiple walking around -- it is just dull, and lifeless. It doesn't look that bad, with the graphics looking actually quite good -- but the world is dead.

I think one of the comments on YouTube summed up Need for Speed Heat perfectly: "EA probably locked away traffic behind micro transactions".

You wouldn't think that NBA 2K20 was the best-selling game of 2019 so far, but it is according to the latest North American sales data from the NPD Group.

The sales data shows that in September 2019 the best-selling game was NBA 2K20, which is also the best-selling game of the year so far. Joining the list of best-selling games in the United States for September 2019 is Borderlands 3 and FIFA 20 in second and third, respectively, while The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Madden NFL 20 take fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Another interesting thing to note are hardware sales, with the Nintendo Switch taking out the #1 position while Xbox One and PS4 sales are continuing to dwingle. Hardware sales are down 22% overall, a trend that is only going to continue as we move into 2020 with the next-gen Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 consoles.

Remember when I said if things couldn't get worse for Blizzard? Remember when I said Activision-Blizzard could (and probably would) pull the plug on BlizzCon 2019 given all this China controversy? Activision-Blizzard already cancelled the Overwatch for Nintendo Switch launch event in NYC, but what about BlizzCon 2019?

Well, to add fuel to that big huge fire -- a huge protest is being planned for BlizzCon 2019 with protest organizer Dayton Young telling GameSpot that Activision-Blizzard's reduction of the penalty against pro-Hearthstone player 'Blitzchung' and restoring his prize money for dare speaking out against China was "a small step in the right direction"... but it's not good enough.

Young said: "That Blizzard has shown a willingness to re-evaluate their decision is a small step in the right direction, but make no mistake; Blizzard continues to punish these individuals despite widespread outrage from gamers around the world. We understand that game publishers and developers have a responsibility to moderate the content that appears on their platforms to ensure that gamers are safe from harassment, threats of violence, and other dangerous behavior. But silencing gamers who speak up about issues that affect their freedom makes us all less safe from oppression and institutional abuse".

The return of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare this year is going to be absolutely huge, with Activision and Infinity Ward making the game a real treat for PC gamers in countless ways. Another one of those is the new trailer, which is available in both 4K and get this -- even 5K. Check it out:

The new trailer is also in UltraWide goodness but the 5K trailer with a resolution of 5120 x 2880 is a surprise, as I saw other headlines for 4K until I checked it out myself. I confirmed the trailer is at 5K and a glorious 60FPS, all resolutions: 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 4K, and 5K offered at 60FPS.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's biggest draw card is that it has ray tracing abilities, a huge boon for NVIDIA and GeForce RTX graphics card owners. Not only that, but Acitvision and developer Infinity Ward & Beenox have built-in a bunch of customization options for PC gamers, too.

I can't believe we're going to be having a day that seems to be arriving very soon, where we will have 64 cores and 128 threads of CPU power inside of our desktop PCs... thanks to AMD's purported Ryzen Threadripper 3990WX.

We started hearing more concrete details on AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper CPUs in the last few days after months and months of rumors, with 'ghost_morley' on Twitter breaking down the naming schemes of AMD's new Zen 2-based Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. It looks like we can expect the following:

He did note that the naming schemes for the higher-end SKUs could change, which is something I firmly believe myself anyway which is why I put it in the headline as the 3990WX. He also adds that he expects the TRX40 and the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X will launch first.

Overwatch 2 will be revealed at Blizzcon 2019, sources say, and it could be a mixture between a sequel and a major expansion.

Blizzard has been working on Overwatch 2 for some time, and now an Overwatch streamer has some details on the sequel. Overwatch 2 will apparently feature a leveling system that fundamentally changes how heroes work, possibly with stats. This new progression scheme compliments Overwatch 2's PVE elements, which will be added in alongside PVP. There's also the possibility of PvEvP antics like Destiny 2's Gambit mode.

No new heroes will be added though. Instead, Overwatch 2 will have the same roster, just with new content. It appears Blizzard is changing how you play, not who you play as. Overwatch 2 might be more of a big overhaul of the existing game that's sold as a new SKU. It might not be an expansion, but not exactly a sequel either--it could sit in between. Cross-play between PC and consoles is also very likely, especially given Activision-Blizzard's restructured business focus on "new engagement models."

Washington senators and congress chastise Blizzard for stifling free speech in the recent Blitzchung esports China controversy.

Billion-dollar games titan Activision-Blizzard is under fire from Washington officials for the infamous Hong Kong fiasco, which saw the American company ban a professional Chinese esports player for expressing pro-Hong Kong liberation sentiments.

Today Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congressmen Mike Gallagher and Tom Malinowski, and U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Ron Wyden sent a joint letter condemning Blizzard for its decisions. Officials describe Blizzard's decision as kowtowing to Communist China as to not jeopardize access to the overseas region's lucrative gaming revenues.

After five years of development, Respawn's big new action-adventure Star Wars game is completely finished.

Jedi: Fallen Order could restore balance to the galaxy of Star Wars games. Typically dominated by grindy service games like Battlefront, Respawn's new game is a singleplayer-only adventure that combines Uncharted's exploration and environmental interactivity with Sekiro's suave and stylish swordplay, and a hint of Dark Souls rolling and dodging thrown in for good measure. It's described as a "Jedi power fantasy" by Respawn and takes place in a unique timeline between Episodes III and IV when the Jedi were being ruthlessly hunted down and slaughtered.

Now Respawn says the game has gone gold, meaning it's mastered and ready to ship to gamers across the globe. We'll probably see a few updates released here and there, but the core experience is intact.

Stadia will go through some intense growing pains at launch, and many of its features are limited.

The main reason to buy into Google's new Stadia game-streaming service is to play games on devices you already own without having to buy consoles or a PC. Stadia promises to wirelessly beam hit games to your Chromecast Ultra, laptop/desktop via Chrome browsers, and your Pixel 3-4 smartphones. But there's a lot of catches, especially when it comes to its controller.

The Stadia controller only supports Wi-Fi connectivity at launch. It won't have Bluetooth connectivity (that'll come later, Google promises) so it has to be plugged into your PC or even your phone to play games. That's a massive blow to on-the-go Stadia game streaming--no one's going to carry around an OTG cable and transform their Pixel phone into a bulky/awkward handheld gaming system.

The Switch isn't the ideal platform for The Witcher 3. It's locked to 720p 30FPS for good reason: There's lots of visual trade-offs to get the huge open-world RPG to run on the Switch's lower-end Tegra hardware, namely draw distances, lighting effects, and overall graphic settings. Now modders are using hacked Switches to get even more out of The Witcher, hitting up to 60FPS on the handheld-console hybrid.

Of course you need a jailbroken Switch for this to work. By hacking the Switch's firmware via a hardware exploit, gamers and modders can basically turn off the frame limiter and overclock the Switch's Tegra X1. This works for a lot of games, and even unlocks extra post-processing effects in The Witcher 3. Sadly 1080p resolution isn't possible--the game is capped at a hard dynamic 720p resolution when docked.

Not only can the Switch theoretically run The Witcher 3 at up to 60FPS while docked, gamers can adjust a number of extra settings to improve visual fidelity and clarity.

Blizzard Entertainment blessed the Nintendo Switch with Overwatch recently and while Switch players are enjoying the title in hand-held mode, how do the graphics pan out when compared to the already released PS4 version?

Thanks to Gaming Boulevard, we have a great side-by-side graphics comparison between the Switch version of the game and the PS4 version. From the above video we can see that the Nintendo Switch version has been hit with some quite considerable graphical downgrades (as expected). These graphical downgrades come in the form of the game appearing lighter, shadow quality being reduced, render quality distance being reduced, overall texture quality reduction and much more.

While these graphical downgrades are clearly apparent, they are more than necessary to get the game to run at a smooth 30FPS on the handheld console. According to Yanagi, the Nintendo Switch version of Overwatch, "For the Switch version of Overwatch, we really want to deliver the authentic Overwatch experience. The gameplay has to feel like Overwatch and the game has to look like Overwatch. For fixed platforms like the Switch, we do our best to configure the game to the optimal settings to achieve this goal."

The release of Luigi's Mansion 3 is right around the corner and to increase excitement levels just that little bit more Nintendo have released a short teaser trailer.

For those that don't know, Luigi's Mansion 3 will allow for players to team up with Gooigi to battle the games story mode that will pit players against some cool mini-games and of course some ghost capturing action. The new commercial video that is above shows Luigi taking down multiple different ghouls and then using his ghost catching apparatus to poop out Gooigi, a green doppelganger of Luigi.

Back in June, Nintendo hosted a Nintendo Treehouse event where they played Luigi's Mansion 3, so if you happened to miss that and are interested in some gameplay, head over to this link here. Nintendo also released a cinematic trailer for the game that includes other iconic Nintendo characters such as Mario, Peach and Toad, more on that here. Luigi's Mansion 3 will be released on October 31st exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

Researchers out of the Johns Hopkins University have performed numerous experiments on mosquito's regarding their sense of smell and how repellents affect the insects.

According to the above video, Chris Potter, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine discusses that him and his fellow scientists have been studying a specific type of mosquito called Anopheles. The scientists took Anopheles and genetically engineered them to produce a color on their nose when the neurons detect a sense of smell.

Once the scientists successfully genetically engineered the mosquito's they gathered to most common insect repellents and puffed the oder onto their noses. To the scientists surprises, the repellents didn't raise any color in the mosquito's noses, meaning that the insect repellents actually hide the natural 'human scent' that mosquito's would usually detect. This means that insect repellents act as an 'invisibility cloak' for humans.

Halo Infinite co-developer SkyBox Labs has launched their newest title 'Stela' on Xbox One today. 'Stela' takes players on a cinematic experience surrounding a young women in her final days of a mysterious world.

According to the press release, 'Stela' will introduce players to a once-thriving land that is now dying and a young women who journeys through the dying lands in search for some form of hopeful survival. Players will encounter beasts and monsters along the way who have occupied the land as their own.

Players will be faced with puzzles in gorgeous cinematic landscapes that are sprinkled with some touching single-player story that doesn't have any audio. 'Stela' is a platformer title and according to Shyang Kong, Co-Founder at SkyBox Labs, "For Stela, we really wanted to blend together a touching story with outstanding music and beautiful landscapes to make an experience that is grand in scale yet still personally intimate". Stela is available now for Xbox One for $19.99. For more information, head over to the 'Stela' website here.

Photoshop will be launching on Apple's iPad by the end of the year, but unfortunately the editing software will be arriving some missing core features.

According to Bloomberg, Adobe will be debuting Photoshop CC without some important features that many editors would deem completely necessary to the program. Scott Belsky, Adobe's Cheif Product Officer has said that that Adobe is working extremely closely with Apple to bring as many of the Photoshop features over, but unfortunately this will take some time to do.

Beta testers of the software have said to Bloomberg that many features such as "filters, the pen tool and custom paintbrush libraries, vector drawing, color spaces, RAW editing, smart objects, layer styles and certain options for mask creation" were missing. One beta tester said "Feature-wise, it feels like a beefed-up cloud-based version of their existing iPad apps and not 'real Photoshop' as advertised." Another tester who declined to be named said "I understand it is based on desktop Photoshop code, but it doesn't feel like it right now."

A new deal between WarnerMedia and Studio Ghibli's American distributor GKids will see multiple classic Japanese animation movies arrive on HBO Max.

WarnerMedia has scooped up a large selection of classic Studio Ghibli titles, the following animations will be available on HBO Max: Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle. Koji Hoshino, chairman of Studio Ghibli, spoke to Variety about the new deal, saying "We are excited to be working with HBO Max to bring the complete collection of Studio Ghibli films to streaming audiences in the U.S. As a premium content brand, HBO Max is an ideal home for our films."

Hoshino continued and said "Upon launch of the service this spring, existing Ghibli fans will be able enjoy their favorites and delve deeper into the library, while whole new audiences will be able to discover our films for the first time." Originally, Disney was responsible for many of the dubbing of these titles, which raises the question to why they didn't purchase the streaming rights from GKids. Regardless of that though, HBO Max will now be home to some of the greatest pieces of work from legendary director and screenwriter Hayao Miyazaki.

Since the release of the newest season in Apex Legends, gamers have been obliterating their opponent with the newest sniper, the Charge Rifle. Those days of laughable downs are now over.

Just a couple of days ago, developer of Apex Legends, Respawn Entertainment announced that they would be balancing the charge rifle after the community was clearly overusing it. Those balance changes are now live, and the adjustments come in the form of increasing the amount of ammo that is used per shot, changing the mag size, and decreasing damage slightly.

One of the other issues with Season 3 was players realizing that they could perform quips while in the drop ship, and since quips could be heard by players in close proximity troll gamers decided to spam the same quips over and over again. As you can imagine this was quite annoying, so Respawn has fixed this issue as well. Respawn also say they have fixed "initial circle issues" but since there is no patch notes its hard to tell what this exactly means.

Just in time for the holiday season, Respawn Entertainment have dropped two Apex Legends Special Edition retail bundles priced at just $19.99.

A new press release has been issued out detailing that consumers will soon be able to pick up the physical Apex Legends Lifeline Edition and Apex Legends Bloodhound Edition for both Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The Lifeline special edition contains; Legendary Lifeline Guardian Angel skin, Legendary Flatline Chooser of the Slain weapon skin, Exclusive Lifeline Winged Guardian banner, Exclusive Lifeline Angel Struck badge and 1,000 Apex coins.

The Bloodhound Edition contains: Legendary Bloodhound The Intimidator Skin, Legendary PDW Wrath Bringer weapon skin, Exclusive Bloodhound Feeling Impish banner, Exclusive Bloodhound Tormentor badge and 1,000 Apex Coins. Both of these retail bundles are available in-stores today. For more information about Apex Legends head on over to the website here.

The Matrix 4 just secured Neil Patrick Harris for its cast, with Harris joining franchise stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, who play Neo and Trinity, respectively.

Jada Pinkett Smith is reportedly in negotiations to return to The Matrix franchise according to "several sources" of Deadline, with Pinkett Smith starring as Niobe in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Deadline adds that "it is not a done deal yet", so don't go telling your friends just yet.

Now we just need Laurence Fishburne to join the franchise, and it'll be like a family reunion. I really want to see Australian actor Hugo Weaving come back as one of the best villains in movie history in Agent Smith, I think I'd genuinely tear up if I saw Reeves and Weaving in The Matrix 4.

NVIDIA's rumored Shield TV successor has been spotted once again, this time on Amazon -- and arriving as the purported Shield TV Pro with some new features and a new Tegra processor.

NVIDIA's new Shield TV Pro will reportedly pack an upgraded Tegra X1+ processor that is up to 25% faster than the Tegra X1 found inside of the Shield TV (and other devices). It'll also feature 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (which is upgradeable through external storage, with NVIDIA offering 2 x USB 3.0 ports on the back of the Shield TV Pro).

There will be an HDMI 2.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 4K HDR support and NVIDIA providing a big upgrade in Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound support with the upgraded Shield TV Pro.