Latest News - Page 2294

If there was a single game that I pumped thousands of hours into in the 90s, it would be Quake - and Quake II, and of course - Quake III Arena. Now we're getting closer to the release of Quake Champions, with developer id Software throwing up the closed beta.

Bethesda released a new trailer for one of the new champions in Quake Champions, an assassin known as Nyx. Quake Champions is going down an ability-focused, character-based direction that id Software and its partner in Saber Interactive, think will be great. Nyx has the powers of "Ghost Walk", letting her disappear in front of enemies - without being detected, or taking damage - but Nyx can reappear and consume the same space as an enemy, killing them instantly - nice.

But don't worry, rocket jumps and the usual fast-paced Quake is all there in Quake Champions - but an eSports future can be seen in the game, which is exciting me quite a lot.

NVIDIA unleashed a virtually perfect high-end/enthusiast graphics card with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition, but the new GeForce 378.78 WHQL drivers are an important step, too.

NVIDIA says that there are over 500 engineering years of work in the new GeForce 378.78 WHQL drivers, with DX12 performance boosts in many games - with up to 33% more performance on offer for Rise of the Tomb Raider. 368.25 drivers were used as a comparison, with the following performance improvements in these games:

AMD launched its Ryzen CPU family - at least the high-end 8C/16T parts in the Ryzen 7 range, but the server CPU market is about to be disrupted by their upcoming Naples CPU family.

Naples is a massively scalable 32C/64T system-on-chip (SoC) design, with support for two high-performance threads per core. We have 8-channel DDR4 support with room for 32 DIMMs on server boards, and so much more.

AMD Naples Features:

Microsoft has teased it is getting up close and personal with Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which will benefit from the beefier hardware found inside of Project Scorpio.

We've already seen Shadow of War gameplay footage, but now Microsoft is talking about the game and its upcoming Xbox Scorpio console. Matt Allen, director of technical art at Monolith said: "So far, we really like it. I don't know how much they've revealed the specs, but it is an upgrade. It's not just sort-of, 'We're going to upgrade some stuff.' There's things you can do with it. So, we're pretty excited to be working with them specifically".

Allen also talked about Project Scorpio running Shadow of War in 4K with HDR enabled, adding: "Until you've seen the game at 4K and HDR, it's different ... you can watch it [in HDR] for a while, and after seeing it for a couple of months, you normalize it. Then you go back to not looking at it [HDR], and it actually is really different". He continued: "I don't know how much consumer uptick is going to be of 4K HDR TVs, but we've got a couple, and the game looks fantastic. For me, I'm really excited about showing it off at some point. Hopefully, in the near future, we can show that off".

Indies on the Nintendo Switch may end up consistently costing more than their PS4, Xbox One and PC ports, especially if the games in question release on a physical cart for the Switch. We discuss some of the reasons this is happening in an effort to put things into perspective.

As a Nintendo Switch owner I'm not too happy about paying a premium for games that are cheaper on other platforms. Take Rime, for example: the indie will be $30 on PS4, Xbox One and PC, and $40 on the Switch. This is presumably because Rime is getting a cartridge release on the Switch, but it's also getting a disc release on PS4 and Xbox One. We can only posit the cartridge is more expensive to make then a Blu-ray disc, but it'll also be up on the eShop too for the same price. I think the pricing decision goes deeper than this, though.

As Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime confirms, third-party indie developers set the prices for their games on the Switch. "We don't make that pricing decision. When you see those differences in prices, call up that third-party publisher and ask them."

Zelda: Breath of the Wild feels alive in no small part thanks to its array of humorous, lovable, and extremely cute NPCs.

Breath of the Wild isn't just a beautiful game filled with enchanting majesty and fantasy: it's also filled with whimsy, charm, and heart-warming characters. As the first true open-world game in the series, I thought perhaps the whimsical elements would be put on the back burner. Boy was I wrong: the NPCs are absolutely amazing and go massive lengths to make the world of Hyrule feel alive. Everyone you meet in the game leaves an impression and adds a very real sense of agency to the world itself.

I'll be the first to admit I've barely scratched the surface of the game, but I wanted to share some of the quirky NPCs and how they've made me smile throughout my journeys.

Microsoft's new "monster" 4K-ready Project Scorpio now has an official Microsoft Store listing, strongly hinting at a reveal in the near future.

Xbox division head Phil Spencer has said he wants to reveal Microsoft's high-end Project Scorpio console before E3 2017 in June, and now we have the first storefront listing opening up on the MS Store. This means we could see a special Xbox event being held sometime in April or May ahead of E3, with Microsoft focusing solely on Project Scorpio and Xbox games during the June showcase. Of course there's no price tag on the Project Scorpio pre-order listing, but it does indicate a reveal is on the way.

Microsoft has confirmed that Project Scorpio's 6TFLOPs GPU will enable native 4K gaming, which will make it the world's most powerful games console.

The Nintendo Switch isn't perfect, and like any other system, it can corrupt saved games data. Since the Switch doesn't have any means to backup or migrate saved games (yet), if your data gets corrupted you could lose all your Zelda: Breath of the Wild saves. Fortunately for us, this didn't happen. Here is our experience with corrupted saved data on the Switch.

First of let me say that we were apparently quite lucky with our experience with corrupted saved data. We didn't lose any of our saved games for any of our games--even the game that was affected by the corrupted data. Here's what happened.

When I fired up Specter of Torment yesterday afternoon, I got an error message and the game crashed. The console told me my saved data could be corrupted. After spending quite a lot of time on Breath of the Wild the possibility of losing everything was extremely daunting.

Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S8 and S8+ on March 29th, and every day we get a better image of what to expect.

The latest leak comes from Roland Quandt, who has been quite reliable in the past. According to him, Samsung's upcoming flagships will be available in Black, Silver, and Violet colors.

Violet is a bit unusual, but that just might be a trend this year since Huawei introduced a not-so-typical green version of the P10 and P10 Plus.

BlackBerry Aurora, the first device manufactured by BB Merah Putih, which holds the license for making, marketing, and selling BlacBerry-branded phones in Indonesia, had been officially announced.

The phone "is not only the first BlackBerry-branded device to ever be produced in Indonesia, but it is the first BlackBerry device in the world to be equipped with dual-SIM functionality," said Stanly Widjaja, Vice President BB Merah Putih.

The BlackBerry Aurora is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 425 processor and comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory. The 5.5-inch display phone sports a 13MP main camera and an 8MP selfie cam.

Huawei P10 and P10 Plus have just been announced at MWC 2017, and it seems that the company has realized the potential of the show.

Bruce Lee, Huawei's Vice President of Handsets Product Line, said that the next P series device would be announced at next year's MWC in Barcelona.

Read also: Huawei unveils the P10 and P10 Plus

The Nintendo Switch handheld-console hybrid is meant to be a dedicated games device, not facilitate media apps and other forms of entertainment. But at the same time, ancillary features would be nice, and if it's truly a "home console first and foremost," the Switch would do well to have certain concessions like Hulu and Netflix video streaming. And it will--in time.

Nintendo America President Reggie Fils-Aime recently confirmed that Nintendo is negotiating with other companies like Neftlix, Hulu, and Amazon to bring their respective media-streaming apps to the Switch. But those apps will come in "due time," and app support isn't a priority for Nintendo. Games absolutely come first.

"We built the Nintendo Switch to be a world-class gaming device, meaning we want you first and foremost to play games on the system and have an incredibly fun experience," Fils-Aime said in a recent interview with The Washington Post.

AMD has well and truly shaken up the CPU market with the release of Ryzen processors, led by the flagship Ryzen 7 1800X. Now that Ryzen is here, we're already hearing about Zen 2 - which will be known as Pinnacle Ridge.

The current Ryzen family of CPUs is known as Summit Ridge, but Zen 2 and Zen 3 should deliver better IPC performance, new features, and other goodies. Ryzen in its first-gen appearance had a 52% IPC (Instructions Per Clock) over the previous generation AMD CPU architecture - while Zen 2 and Zen 3 should deliver 5-15% improvements in IPC.

During a recent AMA on Reddit, AMD CEO Lisa Su said: "In new product development, you always learn a lot and we have our list of thingsthat we are adding to zen2 and zen3 to get even more performance going forward".

NVIDIA is ramping up the marketing engine for Mass Effect Andromeda, with the full details on the PC graphics options revealed.

Mass Effect Andromeda will have 16 different graphics knobs to tweak, with a few of them including multiple detail levels: Ambient Occlusion, Anti-Aliasing, Chromatic Aberration, Effects Quality, Film Grain, Lighting Quality, Mesh Quality, Post-Process Effect Quality, Resolution Scaling, Shader Quality, Shadow Quality, Terrain Quality, Texture Filtering Quality, Texture Quality, and Vegetation Quality.

NVIDIA also revealed the PC requirements for playing the game smoothly at 720p and 1080p:

While audiences await the incoming 'Alien: Covenant', 79 year old Director Ridley Scott is seemingly open to staying with the franchise for the rest of his career.

Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Scott threatens that "If you really want a franchise, I can keep cranking it for another six. I'm not going to close it down again. No way", referring to the franchise remaining dormant for over 15 years between 1997's 'Alien Resurrection' and 2012's 'Prometheus'. The next film in the series; 'Alien: Covenant' features the return of the classic Xenomorph alien which is set to scare a new generation of film goers. The malevolent android David (Michael Fassbender) will be the only other returning character from 'Prometheus'.

'Alien: Covenant' will hit 3D and 2D cinemas on May 19 2017.

With tomorrow's firmware update, Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro will see tighter frame rates across the board in select PS4 games.

Sony today announced that System Firmware Update 4.50 will release tomorrow, bringing the PS4 Pro's coveted Boost Mode. Sony is careful to explain that Boost Mode won't affect all legacy PS4 games that haven't been patched with PS4 Pro Forward Compatibility updates, and only a select few will be compatible with the enhanced mode.

Boost Mode will affect PS4 games with variable frame rates the most by affording higher frame rates, and games with specific locks will maintain a more fluid and consistent frame rate cap. For example, Bloodborne won't magically be patched to run at 1080p 60FPS on the PS4 Pro, but the game will maintain 30FPS more solidly with Boost Mode activated.

Last month Square Enix showed off some new screenshots for Final Fantasy VII: Remake that led some to believe the battle system would have an command mode of sorts; however, game director Tetsuya Nomura has stepped in to clear things up.

As we previously reported, Nomura affirms that Final Fantasy VII: Remake's combat will be entirely action-based--likely similar to Final Fantasy Type-O and Final Fantasy XV--and not follow the same turn-based mechanics of the immortal RPG classic.

The confusion started when a screenshot showed Cloud ducking behind cover which led some gamers to believe certain instances of battle sequences would be command-based or scripted QTE-style events rather than freeform seamless action. This isn't so: Nomura confirms that things like taking cover will be optional, and only be available in certain environments.

Warner Bros Games and Monolith Productions just dropped the first-ever gameplay footage for Middle-earth Shadow of War, and have a strong feeling tactical gamers are going to love it.

Shadow of War is a direct sequel to Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor, and this time around players will actually get to make their own orc army while wielding enhanced new powers.

The gameplay footage is showcased on an Xbox One console, and highlights all the different combinations of powers and clever experimentation needed to strategically annihilate your foes. In a way it reminds me of Lord of the Rings chess--only in a massively dynamic open-scale third-person environment.

Nintendo has changed. With its new Switch handheld-console hybrid, the Japanese console-maker of yore has done away with clandestine business models and embraced the future. Nintendo is actively courting game developers of all kinds to ensure the Switch has a massively growing and steadily flowing games library, and indie devs are a big part of that push.

The way Nintendo sees indies is similar to how Sony strategically uses them as bite-sized snacks via PS Plus to tide gamers over in between big releases. Nintendo will do the same, but it's planning to actually match Sony's indie commitment, and eclipse Microsoft's ID@Xbox altogether. In fact, Nintendo's head of publisher and developer relations Damon Baker, if an indie game is on Steam, it should be coming to the Switch too. But Nintendo doesn't want to lock exclusivity like Microsoft--the Switch is a complimentary system.

"The way we're looking at Switch is this is a complementary platform. If it's on Steam, then there's no reason why it shouldn't be on Nintendo Switch as well," Baker told Games Industry.biz in a recent interview. "If you want to take that experience on the go, if you want to have a baked in multiplayer experience, this is the system to do it. It's got those points of differentiation, but we're not trying to go head-to-head against any of the other platforms. We just think that if the content makes sense to be over on our platform then it should be on our platform."

Rolls-Royce is well-known for its luxury cars, and they decided to stick with their motto at the Geneva Moto Show.

The company has unveiled a version of their Ghost car painted with actual diamonds. The paint, named Diamond Stardust, contains 1,000 crushed diamonds, is the most expensive paint ever used on a Rolls-Royce.

It took two months of testing to make sure that the diamonds would maintain their glow when used in the paint.