Latest News - Page 2403

To celebrate next week's release of 'The Angry Birds Movie' on 4K UltraHD, Blu-ray and DVD, we have ten Blu-ray copies to give away thanks to our friends at Universal Sony Home Entertainment.

Why so angry? In the 3D animated comedy, The Angry Birds Movie, we'll finally find out why the birds are so angry. The movie takes us to an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds - or almost entirely. In this paradise, Red (Jason Sudeikis, We're the Millers, Horrible Bosses), a bird with a temper problem, speedy Chuck (Josh Gad in his first animated role since Frozen), and the volatile Bomb (Danny McBride, This Is the End, Eastbound and Down) have always been outsiders. But when the island is visited by mysterious green piggies, it's up to these unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.

Featuring a hilarious, all-star voice cast that includes Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids), Bill Hader (Trainwreck), and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), as well as Kate McKinnon (Ghostbusters), Sean Penn (Milk), Tony Hale (Veep, Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele), Hannibal Buress (Broad City), Ike Barinholtz (Sisters), Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street), Billy Eichner (Billy on the Street), Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black), YouTube stars Smosh (Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla), Latin music sensation Romeo Santos, and country music superstar Blake Shelton, who co-writes and performs the original song "Friends." The film also features brand new music from Demi Lovato, Charli XCX, Matoma, and Steve Aoki.

Crytek seems to be happy about the new PlayStation 4 Pro (check out my rant on that here) and Xbox Scorpio consoles from Sony and Microsoft, respectively, with some new comments on the refreshed consoles where the studio says the additional horsepower helps remove some of the limitations of current-gen consoles.

In a post on Crytek's official blog, Crytek Game Designer Niklas Walenski said that developers are limited to some extent. This limitation is normally due to various hardware limitations in consoles, but the additional horsepower inside of the new PS4 Pro and upcoming Xbox Scorpio will remove some of these limitations.

Walenski said: "We are always limited to some extent in videogame development, and we have to work within certain constraints that are usually related to the power of a system versus what we would like to do. But new hardware inevitably removes some of the limitations. We can create bigger worlds, render much more, and have more complex systems running our ideas".

Apple is pushing out its new iOS 10 update with some users reporting that their iPhones and iPads received over-the-air updates to iOS 10, and have been completely bricked - needing to be restored through iTunes.

Gizmodo reported that there are plenty of Twitter results with people experiencing iOS 10 update problems, where the over-the-air update is causing it, versus updating it over their computers. In a statement to Recode, Apple said that they had found the problem, saying: "We experienced a brief issue with the software update process, affecting a small number of users during the first hour of availability".

Apple continued: "The problem was quickly resolved and we apologise to those customers. Anyone who was affected should connect to iTunes to complete the update or contact AppleCare for help".

A few days ago I sat in front of the camera and talked about Sony's new PlayStation 4 Pro in a FB Live video, and for the first 20 minutes or so, I went on a huge rant about it. I had a few people tell me to make it into a separate video, and here it is.

In the video I point out that Sony Interactive Entertainment's President and CEO Andrew House said: "I saw some data that really influenced me. It suggested that there's a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that's obviously where it's to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our eco-system by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro - and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement".

Yeah, well I wasn't about to take that lying down. I had a personal rant in the original story, and continued in the FB Live stream from a few days ago. It's truly ridiculous that Sony think a Radeon RX 470 level graphics card inside of a constrained console can pump out 4K games - and that gamers will buy the new PS4 Pro over the PC if they want "the very best graphical experience".

Samsung recently announced a global recall of all Galaxy Note 7 phones cause of its battery issues that already led to some pretty tragic events. A 6-year old boy who burnt his hand while using the Galaxy Note 7 is just one of many reported accidents caused by this phone.

Samsung reacted pretty fast and appealed to all of its customers to return the Note 7. Regardless, some users seem pretty stubborn and are still using potentially harmful devices. To encourage users to return the devices, Samsung now plans to issue a software update for the Galaxy Note 7 that will prevent them for overheating. Their plan is to limit the battery charging to 60 percent which will certainly have an impact on the users.

AP reports that Samsung advertised the patch, which should roll out on September 20th for South Korean users, on the front page of Korean newspaper Seoul Shinmun. It is unclear weather or when the patch will go global.

Actor Jake Lloyd, best known for appearing as the young Anakin Skywalker in 1999's 'Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace' has had a rough few years, which has seen the 27 year old admitted to a South Carolina psychiatric facility.

According to TMZ, the former child actor was arrested last year after leading police on a high-speed chase, driving without a license and resisting arrest, and has been in jail since. But now his mother Lisa has revealed that Jake has since been moved to a psychiatric ward after developing schizophrenia.

Lloyd, who now goes by the last name Broadbant was last seen in the 2005 limited release feature 'Madison', but has reprised his role as Anakin Skywalker in a number of 'Star Wars' video games.

AdBlock Plus has launched its new Acceptable Ads Platform, which acts as an optional filter of sorts to let advertisements show up on specific websites.

The Acceptable Ads Platform is now available in beta form, and is described as "an interactive platform that lets publishers and bloggers choose from a marketplace of pre-whitelisted ads that they can drag and drop onto their sites." According to info from AdBlock Plus, you'll be able to turn off the program at any time: "Users can still turn off the Acceptable Ads feature completely if they choose."

"The Acceptable Ads Platform contains ad placements that abide by the Acceptable Ads criteria for size and labeling; and it allows ads to be positioned only in spots deemed appropriate by the Acceptable Ads rules for ad placement. An intuitive drag-and-drop editor gives publishers the ability to place readymade ads directly onto their site in real-time, and be instantly viewable to millions of Adblock Plus users who have agreed to allow non-intrudisve ads to support their favorite websites," reads a recent ABP press release.

Co-creator of Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft franchises Chris Metzen has retired at age 42. Starting his career as an animator and artist at the then-startup company, he rose the ranks and eventually found himself the senior vice president of story and franchise development.

Metzen says his decision was motivated by a desire to spend more time with his family, including his newborn baby. In a farewell forum post on Battle.net, he speaks fondly of his 22-year history with Blizzard, describing it as "the time of my life" and says his fellow employees were a "second family" (complete with all the ups and downs).

Valve is applying some major changes to Steam's review system in an effort to thwart fraudulent and misleading reviews, and everyday gamers will be affected.

Steam's review system is being overhauled once again, this time to counter the rampant problem of fake reviews. Valve found that developers have been manipulating aggregate review scores of specific games by providing free copies of the games as incentive for favorable feedback--and some devs go so far as to make dummy accounts and redeem their own game codes to write fake positive reviews.

To counter this, Valve has taken a simple approach: if you buy a game outside of Steam or use a free product key provided by a dev, your review will no longer count towards that game's aggregate review score on Steam.

Sony's new 4K-ready PS4 Pro may be a pretty impressive deal at only $399, but that's only half of the equation: to get the most out of the console, Sony wants you to annihilate your bank account with an expensive 60-inch+ 4K HDR UHDTV.

I've been quite vocal on the new PlayStation 4 Pro over the past week or so. I think it represents a tremendous value for what it does, leveraging a Polaris GPU at 4.20 TeraFLOPs to hit up to 1080p 60FPS native gaming and 4K 30FPS with HDR and tons of other graphics/environment settings to boot, all for just $399. But you won't hit the console's full potential unless you grab a 4K TV that's equipped with High Dynamic Range (HDR), and as you'd expect, these TVs are pretty expensive. In fact, Sony wants you to get a 4K HDR TV that's at least 60-inches, so a $399 purchase just turned into a $1,500+ purchase.

"Unofficially, the staff of PlayStation.Blog has observed good results in average living rooms with 4K TVs sized 60'' and up. If you're in the market for a new 4K TV for PS4 Pro, we strongly recommend selecting a model with HDR10 compatibility, which will enable increased image vividness and contrast in HDR10-enabled games and movies," Sony wrote on its official PS4 Pro FAQ.

The collector's edition for Sonic Mania has been revealed, and it's an amazing throwback to Sega's golden days of 16-bit glory.

Nowadays, video game collector's editions are quite dull: we get stickers, patches, artbooks, "lithographs", socks--you name it, and companies have likely thrown it in the box. But Sega's new Sonic Mania collector's edition is something new: it's a retro explosion of radical awesomeness that makes you feel like a kid again.

Following a leak just hours prior, Sega has announced the new Sonic Mania Collector's Edition on PS4, Xbox One and PC, which comes with a 12-inch Sonic replica standing on a Mega Drive that makes the infamous console siren song Sega fans know and love, a download code for the game, and a cartridge affixed with a golden ring that resembles those golden games of yore. And the best part? It only costs $69.99. The worst part? It's only available for North American fans, and won't be coming to Europe.

Pokémon GO fans can now suit up and take their buddy along for the ride with the latest Pokémon system update, allowing users to assign a Pokemon as their buddy as they walk alongside your avatar.

The new feature is available now for Apple and Android users with Niantic's latest update that lets the likes of Pikachu, stand on the ground beside the trainer avatar in the details screen. The cuteness overload factor comes into play after accumulating 10km, the little yellow mon hops onto your shoulder, replicating the bond and friendship that character Ash experienced in the original TV series.

Other Pokémon such as Jigglypuff, Charmander and Evee are amongst the available mon for the update. The advantage of having an active Buddy Pokémon while walking earns candy for that particular species, which can then be used to increase status.

Team Ninja's hard-as-nails action survival game NiOh will launch in February of next year on PS4...but the studio has no plans to bring the game to PC.

At Sony's pre-Tokyo Game Show 2016 extravaganza, Team Ninja finally revealed a concrete release date for their celebrated sadistic samurai slasher NiOh. Sadly the game won't be launching in 2016, and Koei Tecmo has announced that NiOh will instead launch on February 9, 2017 exclusively to the PS4.

The game itself incorporates elements from Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls while mingling feudal Japan into the mix for some Japanese mythology and mysticism, providing an interesting--if not extremely difficult--mix of gameplay mechanics. After trying out NiOh's early alpha and demo test, I can say without a doubt the game has staggering potential to become one of strongest PS4 exclusives available today: the swordplay is extremely satisfying, and you have a huge array of RPG upgrades and weapons to choose from--all of which have different stances and functions in battle.

For the upcoming release of Battlefield 1, Microsoft has created a new bundle pack for customers purchasing the latest Xbox One S console. The new look is for the Xbox One S (1TB) bundled with Battlefield 1 Special Edition , which is available for pre-order from various game stores, and Microsoft itself.

Gamers wanting to purchase this exclusive model, won't have to wait too long as it will be available 13th October. The Battlefield 1 themed Xbox One S console will be setting gamers back around $449 from the Microsoft store, depending on the region.

One of the biggest changes made is the appearance. The obvious colour difference is in keeping with the army/battle theme from the game. The dark, military green console comes with a matching controller and stand. The bundle pack also includes Battlefield 1 Early Enlister Deluxe Edition, which comes pre-installed on the console. The Deluxe Edition also provides the Hellfighter Pack, Red Baron Pack, Lawrence of Arabia Pack, and a new visual appearance of the Behemoths

We all hate data caps, and it seems Netflix isn't a fan of breathing internet under water, through a straw, either.

The streaming giant wrote a very strongly worded letter to the FCC, saying: "Data caps on fixed ­line networks do not appear to serve a legitimate purpose: they are an ineffective network management tool. Data caps on fixed line networks do not serve a traffic management function... the Commission should recognize that data caps and UBP on fixed line networks are an unnecessary constraint on advanced telecommunications capability".

There are some ISPs with 1TB data caps, which are okay for now, but what about constant 4K video streaming through Netflix and YouTube? Netflix notes this in their letter as well, adding: "A data cap or allotment of 300 GB of data per month or higher is required just to meet the Internet television needs of an average American. An above average television watcher, a multi-occupant household, or a consumer wishing to watch in 4K requires a much higher cap".

Samsung is really hurting right now with Galaxy Note 7 smartphones exploding all over the place, with a 6-year-old boy in New York City being burnt after the Note 7 he was watching a video on blew up in his hands.

Well, Samsung is also hurting with its shares, bleeding an out of this world $26 billion over the weekend - roughly 6.9% since Friday, reports BGR. Samsung is also set to lose another $1 billion or so with the global recall on the Note 7, and even the FAA and other agencies are telling Note 7 owners to turn their smartphones off before they get on the plane, or even put it with their checked-in luggage.

What now? Samsung will continue to slide until people forget about these issues, but $26 billion over the weekend is a mind-boggling amount of money - no matter how big the company is.

If you're like me, you're a fan of old school first-person arena shooters like Quake 3, Unreal, and more - well, if you hadn't heard of Reakktor Studios' TOXIKK, you're in for a treat.

The studio has released a free edition of TOXIKK, which includes a bunch of the full core game experience, minus all of the maps, vehicles, campaign mode, and more. The core experience is still there, allowing you to play on the official TOXIKK servers with bots, or real-life foes, as well as all of the weapons and mutators.

You can grab TOXIKK's free edition right here.

MSI has been teasing its VR backpack for a while now, showing off the awesome concept at Computex in June. The company has now revealed the final product, known as the VR One.

MSI's interesting VR One is a backpack gaming PC that weighs just under 8 pounds (3.6 kg) with batteries installed, and is powered by an overclocked CPU and NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 10 series graphics card. MSI adds that the VR One features an HDMI port, mini DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3/USB Type-C and 4 x USB 3.0 ports.

There are 2 x 90mm fans and 9 heat pipes that will keep the backpack cool, with just 41dB of noise. VR One also includes dual hot-swappable batteries that will provide just over an hour of intense VR gaming. MSI hasn't provided too much more information on VR One, so we don't know what price we're looking at for the gaming backpack PC, but it's reportedly already in mass production, with units available next month.

To celebrate this week's release of 'Ratchet & Clank' on Blu-ray and DVD, we have ten Blu-ray copies to give away thanks to our friends at Roadshow Home Entertainment.

Kick some asteroid! Ratchet and Clank tells the story of two unlikely heroes as they struggle to stop a vile alien named Chairman Drek from destroying every planet in the Solana Galaxy. Ratchet is the last of his kind - a foolhardy "lombax" who has grown up alone on a backwater planet with no family of his own. Clank is a pint-sized robot with more brains than brawn. When the two stumble upon a dangerous weapon capable of destroying entire planets, they must join forces with a team of colorful heroes called The Galactic Rangers in order to save the galaxy. Along the way they'll learn about heroism, friendship, and the importance of discovering one's own identity.

To go into the running to win a prize, simply correctly answer the following question:

Apple has reportedly made swift changes to its Project Titan car project, with sources of The New York Times stating "dozens" of layoffs have taken place.

The New York Times isn't the only outlet with information, with a Bloomberg report stating that under new leadership with Bob Mansfield, Apple's focus on the automotive industry has changed from its own car, to just autonomous driving technology. The NYT reports that the layoffs were internally pushed as being part of a reboot of the project, while Apple works out what it wants to do.

Apple has been ripping employees away from the likes of Tesla and EV battery makers, so these new plans might leave some of those staff who left their jobs out in the lurch.