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Game of Thrones Season 8: 'longer than 60 min' each episode
Game of Thrones will be getting its final season next April and as we move closer to the release of the first episode we are starting to learn about each episodes runtime.
In a recent Reddit AMA, David Nutter, director of half of the final Game of Thrones episodes and the man behind the slaughter of the Red Wedding, answered a few questions regarding the coming season. One of the questions was regarding the episodes within Season 8 and their runtime, according to Nutter "Season 8 episodes will all I think be longer than 60 minutes. They'll be dancing around the bigger numbers, I know that for sure."
Being a massive Game of Thrones fan this is to be completely expected, we already knew last year that we were looking at almost movie-long episodes as we were riding on the cusp of that from last seasons episodes. The final season of Game of Thrones is going to be one of the biggest finales TV has ever seen, so hearing that each of the episodes are around 1hr+ is a great sign for fans, because we are going to want as much Game of Thrones as possible before it departs from the big screen.
Continue reading: Game of Thrones Season 8: 'longer than 60 min' each episode (full post)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey Nov patch: New Boss/Quests & More
Ubisoft have announced their coming content update for Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the update will be feature a bunch of content from new quests, new game features, balancing updates a raised level cap and even new mythical beasts to slay.
The November content update planned for Assassin's Creed Odyssey will be adding a bunch of new features for gamers. Starting off, we have beginning of the 'Lost Tales of Greece' questlines, the first quest is titled 'The Show Must Go On' and will take players back to the Battle of 300 in the form of an actor playing King Leonidas. The second quest is called 'Divine Intervention', players will encounter a mysterious women who will "test your qualities through several divine trials!"
The content update will also be adding 'Epic Events', in these events players will have to hunt down Epic Mercenaries or Epic Ships. Players that complete these tasks will be rewarded with either Orichalcum, new ship designs, gear or more. Ubisoft have also thrown a new boss into the mix within this content update, introducing Steropes the Cyclopes. Steropes will be found through a new quest titled 'The Lightening Bringer', players will have to defeat Steropes and upon completion will receive a legendary bow.
Continue reading: Assassin's Creed Odyssey Nov patch: New Boss/Quests & More (full post)
Fortnite update intros 'Food Fight' Limited Time Mode, more
Epic Games has just revealed that the latest update to Fortnite in v6.30 will include a new objective-based multiplayer mode that is called Food Fight, in a blend of capture the flag and a protect-the-VIP modes. Check out the teaser video below:
Fortnite's new Food Fight game mode will see 12v12 teams that will start on their respective sides of a huge barrier, with each team protecting their respective mascot (Durrr Burger or the Tomato Head) with the barrier stopping either team from entering enemy territory for many minutes in the opening of the game, where players can build fortification to protect their mascot.
Food Fight will see you battling in the Durrr Burger and Pizza Pit, as you build defenses to defend your mascot and attack the enemy mascot... but no, well, food fights? This is a disappointment, it would've been awesome to have actual food fights in a Fortnite update called Food Fight.
Continue reading: Fortnite update intros 'Food Fight' Limited Time Mode, more (full post)
MSI debuts GeForce RTX 2070 AERO ITX, the first small Turing
NVIDIA has given MSI the great ability of making a bunch of awesome custom GeForce RTX graphics cards, but then MSI just upped the ante with its new GeForce RTX 2070 AERO ITX graphics card... the first ITX-based RTX 2070.
The new MSI GeForce RTX 2070 AERO ITX is the first small form factor ITX-based RTX series graphics card, packing everything Turing has to offer except for the inclusion of VirtualLink connectivity for next-gen VR headsets. Connectivity wise MSI still includes 3 x DP1.4 ports and 1 x HDMI 2.0, less than the other RTX series cards, but then this is the one and only ITX style RTX series card.
MSI doesn't overclock the GeForce RTX 2070 AERO ITX, with a single-fan cooler and 175W TDP. It should run quite warm with stock fan speeds, but I'd like to see the cooling on this card when it's under stressful gaming loads, and/or overclocked.
Continue reading: MSI debuts GeForce RTX 2070 AERO ITX, the first small Turing (full post)
AMD EPYC Milan CPU: Zen 3 on newer 7nm+ node teased
AMD only just announced its next-gen EPYC 'Rome' CPU last week in San Francisco during its Next Horizon event, with the new EPYC Rome CPU packing a huge 64C/128T of processor performance on the next-gen 7nm process node.
But during the Supercomputing 2018 event, the US Department of Energy announced it was working with Cray on their new Shasta Computer Blade server which will be inside of the US DoE's upcoming new supercomputer.
This new supercomputer will pack 8 of AMD's next-gen EPYC Milan CPUs on the even newer 7nm+ node, with the system broken into dual-section design with one feature copper water blocks on the EPYC Milan CPUs, while the other four EPYC Milan CPUs are on an inverted PCB, which is also water cooled. The new supercomputer will feature 64 DIMMs that can be watercooled, too.
Continue reading: AMD EPYC Milan CPU: Zen 3 on newer 7nm+ node teased (full post)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 update out, includes Nuketown map
Activision and Treyarch have pushed out a new update for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, something that includes a one-week exclusive to the remake of Nuketown for PlayStation 4 gamers before it arrives on Xbox and PC next week.
Treyarch has also made some changes to the progression rate of the Black Market, a tweak that was made by adding Daily Tier Skips. There have been fixes made to the Zombies mode, rebalances to the multiplayer Specialists, and more. Treyarch adds: "To celebrate the launch of Nuketown, Zombies now spawn on Nuketown Island with a new Zombies Supply Stash spawn location behind the Nuketown sign".
The full Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 update 1.05 notes can be found here.
Continue reading: Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 update out, includes Nuketown map (full post)
Samsung Galaxy S10: 8nm Exynos 9820, dedicated NPU, 8K video
Samsung is slowly providing the pieces to its 2019 smartphone plans together, with a tease of its new InfinityFlex display that will be the centerpiece of its first foldable smartphone in the Galaxy F. But now... the company has just announced an even more important part of its 2019 plans: Exynos 9820.
The new Exynos 9820 is Samsung's latest processor which is being made on the 8nm node, and features a dedicated neural processing unit, or NPU. This means the Galaxy S10 will be filled with a bunch of AI abilities, but a bigger point here is the camera support in the new Exynos 9820. Samsung is taking things to a new level offering 4K 150FPS video with 10-bit color, or 8K at 30FPS. Samsung is claiming that the NPU will have 7x the performance in AI tasks, with things like real-time scene detection and more.
Exynos 8920 will have up to 20% higher single-core performance, while power efficiency hits up to 40% higher, while multi-core performance is up to 15% faster compared against the Exynos 9810. Samsung is teasing up to 40% higher GPU performance with the new Mali-G76 against the previous-gen Mali-G72. The GPU also packs 35% improvement in power efficiency.
Continue reading: Samsung Galaxy S10: 8nm Exynos 9820, dedicated NPU, 8K video (full post)
Xbox boss says he's 'very excited' about next-gen Xbox
We keep hearing about Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console and that Radeon Technologies Group has been co-developing its next-gen Navi GPU for the PS5, but now we're hearing a little bit more on Microsoft's next-gen 'Xbox Scarlett' console.
During an interview with LevelUp, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said he was "very excited" about Microsoft's plans for the next-gen Xbox consoles. Spencer said: "The reason I love the consoles that we build is because I think we can build very special consoles. I see it today with Xbox One X and how games run on the Xbox One X; I think it's a fantastic place to play. When I look at our future plans, I am very excited about what we are going to do in the console space".
This sounds like generic marketing speak for 'yeah, our next-gen consoles will be better' but Spencer hasn't provided much to go on here. We all know the next-gen Xbox will be better than the previous-gen Xbox, anyone with a couple of brain cells can work that out. But, will the next-gen Xbox Scarlett console be a large leap over what we have with current-gen Xbox consoles, even up to the beefier Xbox One X?
Continue reading: Xbox boss says he's 'very excited' about next-gen Xbox (full post)
Command & Conquer and Red Alert being remastered for the PC
I can't believe that I'm typing this but EA has just announced Command & Conquer and Command & Conquer: Red Dawn are being remastered, alongside Covert Operations, Counterstrike, and Aftermath expansions are receiving remastered love.
The news gets even better with the C&C remasters being worked on by ex-Westwood developers that formed into Petroglyph Games. Even Frank Klepacki, the composer who worked on the music for the original C&C games and other Westwood classics, is coming back to work as the composer and audio director for the Command & Conquer remakes.
Command & Conquer co-creator and Petroglyph co-founder Joe Bostic said: "Here we are 20+ years later and EA has reached out to us regarding C&C. They had decided it was about time to revisit the original C&C games to give the fans what they had been asking for. Petroglyph has many former Westwood employees and is a perfect fit for bringing the original Command & Conquer games back to life. I'm excited to revisit the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert for our legacy fans, along with introducing the games to a new audience! Our battle-plan mission is to 'remaster' rather than 'remake' the original C&C games".
Continue reading: Command & Conquer and Red Alert being remastered for the PC (full post)
ABZU will be taking a dive into the Nintendo Switch, Nov 29
ABZU developer Giant Squid Studios and publisher 505 Games are excited to announce that they will be throwing ABZU into the deep end of the Nintendo Switch on November 29th.
505 Games has released a new trailer onto their YouTube Channel to celebrate the announcement of ABZU coming to the Nintendo Switch. For players that don't know, ABZU was originally launched back in 2016 and is a underwater adventure that brings to life a gorgeous visual representation of the deep dark world of the ocean.
Players will be taking a dive into the depths of the ocean and bare witness to the amazing sea life that creates a 'mediative'-like experience that developer Giant Squid Studios has accurately implemented into their game. ABZU will be arriving to the Nintendo Switch on November 29th. It is currently available for pre-order and will be 10% off to those that do so.
Continue reading: ABZU will be taking a dive into the Nintendo Switch, Nov 29 (full post)
'Fortuna' update brings Warframe new concurrent gamer high
Digital Extremes announced at TennoCon 2018 that they would be bringing 'Fortuna', the 2nd massive open-world update to Warframe. Now that update has been released it has caused Warframe to reach a new peak in concurrent gamers.
For a little bit of background context on the timeline of Warframe's player count, the game was released back in 2013 and then got an open world update titled 'Plains of Eidolon', this update pushed the concurrent player count to what was at the time a record of 122,000 players. On June 14th, Digital Extremes launched 'The Sacrifice' story update which rose the concurrent player count to around the 129,000 margin, both of these figures are based off Steam.
Now the 2nd open world update has been released Warframe has broken into a new high. According to GitHyp, Warframe has reached a concurrent player margin of 132,000 players. If you are interested in more of breakdown into what the 'Fortuna' update contains, check out this post here. For more information about Warframe, visit the official blog here.
Continue reading: 'Fortuna' update brings Warframe new concurrent gamer high (full post)
Game of the Year 2018 nominees: 6 games worth playing
The 2018 Game of the Year nominees are in and this time round we have a selection of very well received titles from across a range of different fan bases.
Some will remember the controversy last year about the nominations for Game of the Year. PUBG was just exploding and giving birth to what is now the Battle Royale genre craze, this earned it a spot in the 2017 Game of the Year nominations. Many people didn't like the idea of, what was at the time, a not completed game being in apart of the Game of the Year rewards. This year though, I don't think many people will be complaining with the games that have been selected to compete against each other.
The Game of the Year nominees for 2018 are the following: Marvel's Spider-Man for the PS4, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2, Capcom's Monster Hunter: World, Sony Santa Monica Studios' God of War, Matt Makes Games' Celeste and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyseey. If I was to give my opinion on who will be taking this years Game of the Year, I would say it would have to be a toss up between Marvel's Spider-Man and Red Dead Redemption 2. Both titles sold amazingly well are renowned as some fantastic games in their own regards. Who will take first place though? I'd be putting my money on Red Dead Redemption 2.
Continue reading: Game of the Year 2018 nominees: 6 games worth playing (full post)
Insomniac release Spider-Man DLC 2 trailer 'Turf Wars'
Players will be required to step into "Turf Wars" in the new DLC coming to Marvel and Insomniac Games' Spider-Man for PS4. Check out the new trailer for yourself below.
The coming DLC expansion is titled "Turf Wars" and will put players right in the middle of the Maggie crime family and gang leader HammerHead. Spider-Man will be required to stop the feud between both competing groups and once again bring peace to New York City before it becomes the "greatest casualty."
Insomniac Games has planned to release the DLC to players on November 20th. In other news about Spider-Man, if you haven't already picked up a PS4 console and have been considering doing so, PlayStation has provided consumers with a web-slinging deal to grab onto to. Over the course of PlayStation's Black Friday Week, a 1TB PS4 system that includes a physical copy of Marvel's Spider-Man and a DualShock 4 wireless controller will be going for just $199, check that out here. For more information on Spider-Man for PS4, visit the official website for our favorite webhead here.
Continue reading: Insomniac release Spider-Man DLC 2 trailer 'Turf Wars' (full post)
Nintendo Black Friday Sales: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe & More
Nintendo has joined in on the pre-Black Friday hype by announcing that they will be bringing consumers 2 limited-edition hardware bundles.
Nintendo has launched a new trailer onto their YouTube Channel to announce that they will be allowing for consumers to save a bit of coins this Black Friday on selected Nintendo products. The trailer features Luigi ticking off items on his 'to-do' list, the last chore to be completed is 'wrap Black Friday gifts.' Luigi realizes he needs some help with the wrapping, so he sends off his gifts in bag down a warp pipe and a note attached asking for help.
The bag arrives to Nintendo America Ambassador, Ganda Kris and she proceeds to show the audience each of the gifts that will be available over the course of the sales. On Black Friday, Nintendo will be bringing consumers a Nintendo Switch system containing a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for just $299.99. There is also a Nintendo 2DS Super Mario Maker Edition that will be going for $79.99. These prices will only be available on Black Friday and from participating retailers; Target, Best Buy, Walmart, GameStop and Amazon. For more information visit the official Nintendo Holiday Deals here.
Continue reading: Nintendo Black Friday Sales: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe & More (full post)
NVIDIA's new GeForce Game Ready 416.94 drivers released
NVIDIA has released a new set of GeForce drivers with the GeForce Game Ready 416.94 WHQL release, which include optimizations for the latest games that have dropped with Battlefield V, Fallout 76, and Hitman 2. You can download the new GeForce Game Ready 416.94 WHQL drivers here.
The new driver should be of importance to GeForce RTX series owners with Microsoft resuming the rollout of its troubled Windows 10 1809 update that was broken from day one. This new update adds in DirectX ray tracing (DXR) abilities, which in turn enables RTX features for Battlefield V for GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, and RTX 2070 graphics card owners.
NVIDIA notes on the official driver download site: "Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases, including Virtual Reality games. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1".
Continue reading: NVIDIA's new GeForce Game Ready 416.94 drivers released (full post)
NVIDIA announces Quadro RTX 4000: Turing goes single-slot
NVIDIA made quite the splash with its Turing GPU architecture a couple of months ago now, unveiling a family of Quadro RTX graphics cards with Turing GPUs as well as a new range of GeForce RTX graphics cards, with both families continuing to grow.
The company has just announced during the annual Autodesk University Conference its new Quadro RTX 4000 graphicws card that will join the ranks of the Quadro RTX 5000, RTX 6000, and flagship RTX 8000. The new Quadro RTX 4000 has quite a few highlights: there's 40% more memory bandwidth than the previous-gen Quadro P4000 card, with 36 RT cores for some real-time ray tracing content.
Inside, the Quadro RTX 4000 features Turing TU106 which has 2304 CUDA cores, 288 Tensor Cores, 36 RT cores, and 7.1 TFLOPs of FP32 performance. NVIDIA using 8GB of GDDR6 on the Quadro RTX 4000, pricing it at $900. The TDP is just 160W, 25W lower than the GeForce RTX 2070 which also packs the TU106 and 8GB GDDR6. This is because the GPU clocks on the Quadro RTX 4000 are lower than the GeForce RTX 2070, saving precious power consumption (and thus, less heat).
Continue reading: NVIDIA announces Quadro RTX 4000: Turing goes single-slot (full post)
US rapper Soulja Boy announces his own... CONSOLE?!
Move over Microsoft and Sony, the Xbox and PlayStation consoles will have a new competitor with American rapper Soulja Boy announcing his own video game console while he was streaming himself playing Fortnite. Check it out below:
Soulja Boy himself said during the Fortnite stream while holding up a console on camera: "I'm giving away my new console, that's right I'm coming out with own video game console". He announces that he will be releasing his own game, on his own console... without any other details unfortunately.
There's absolutely no details on this new console, and even Google searching turns up next to nothing official. But now I want to know what's inside of it, who is working on games for it, and whether he was just tripping balls the entire time playing Fortnite and is trolling the world.
Continue reading: US rapper Soulja Boy announces his own... CONSOLE?! (full post)
Overwatch update adds Ashe, balances everything else
Blizzard has just updated Overwatch and baked in its latest hero 'Ashe' into the mix, a new long-range Damage Hero that sports a semi-auto rifle and B.O.B. which is Ashe's awesome Omnic sidekick. Ashe is connected to McCree, something you can see in the animated short below.
Ashe has been playable inside of the PTR for the past week, but the new update that Blizzard has pushed out for Overwatch rebalances a bunch of the heroes. The developer has balanced my main; Mercy, with developer comments including "Mercy's ultimate was charging a bit too slowly after her base healing was reduced in a previous update. These changes should restore some of her ultimate's strength and let it build up more quickly".
Mercy's ultimate 'Valkyrie' has been tweaked:
Continue reading: Overwatch update adds Ashe, balances everything else (full post)
AMD EPYC Rome: 64C/128T processor teased at 2.35GHz
AMD unveiled its new EPYC 'Rome' CPU last week during its Next Horizon event in San Francisco, but was silent on its CPU clock speeds at the time. But now more details have surfaced through a new presentation on the next-gen 'Hawk' supercomputer that is being co-developed between HLRS and HPE.
The new Hawk supercomputer will be one of the first to market powered by the next-gen AMD EPYC 'Rome' CPUs on 7nm, offering a huge 64C/128T at a purported base clock of 2.35GHz. If this is true, it's a decent bump from the 2.2GHz base CPU clock of the first-gen EPYC 'Naples' CPU which offered 'just' 32C/64T in comparison. The EPYC 7601 has a base CPU clock of 2.2GHz across all CPU cores, 2.7GHz boost on all CPU cores and up to 3.2GHz on single-core loads.
We could expect CPU base clocks of higher than 2.35GHz on other designs, with AMD having wiggle room moving down to the 7nm node for the second-gen EPYC 'Rome' CPUs compared to the 14nm node on the first-gen EPYC 'Naples' CPUs. The new EPYC 'Rome' CPU is also using the new Zen 2 architecture, which has its own room for improvements in IPC performance, and more over the previous-gen Zen+ architecture.
Continue reading: AMD EPYC Rome: 64C/128T processor teased at 2.35GHz (full post)
Samsung Galaxy F rumors: March 2019, costs up to $1770
Samsung has already started teasing the most important part of its future smartphone, with the company unveiling its new InfinityFlex display that will be used in future foldable smartphones like the purported Galaxy F.
The latest news on the Galaxy F smartphone is from South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency, where they are reporting that Samsung will unveil its new Galaxy F foldable smartphone in March 2019. It's expected that the Galaxy S10 will be unveiled beforehand, with the biggest change in Samsung's next-gen Galaxy S10 flagship smartphone is the inclusion of 5G.
Yonhap is reporting that Samsung could price the new Galaxy F foldable smartphone at a whopping $1770, which puts it out of the hands of most people but it will be one of the biggest changes in the world of smartphones in years. It'll be an experiment at first for Samsung, just like the Galaxy Note was all those years ago, and it ended up disrupting the entire smartphone market.
Continue reading: Samsung Galaxy F rumors: March 2019, costs up to $1770 (full post)






















