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AMC may allow phone use in theaters
Adam Aron, new CEO of movie theater giant AMC is pondering allowing texting and phone use during films in a bid to get more millennials into seats.
"There does seem to be a consensus that there are pockets of consumers who do not see as many movies as other segments of the population and that we can be doing more to attract those people. Millennials come to mind," he said to Variety. "We need to reshape our product in some concrete ways so that millennials go to movie theaters with the same degree of intensity as baby boomers went to movie theaters throughout their lives."
Asked if this would include allowing texting or phone use, he replied positively.
Continue reading: AMC may allow phone use in theaters (full post)
How to fix mod conflicts with Fallout 4's Wasteland Workshop DLC
Fallout 4's new Wasteland Workshop DLC doesn't play nicely with some of the game's must-have mods, but luckily there's an easy fix. We'll show you how to get everything back in tip-top shape so you can make epic arenas and paste neon signs all over your settlements.
When Fallout 4's $4.99 Wasteland Workshop DLC launched on Tuesday, it caused a lot of problems for PC players who loaded up their games with mods. The DLC causes severe incompatibility issues with mods built on the hugely popular Settlement Keywords framework. Amazingly useful mods like Homemaker, OCDecorator, NX Pro Farming and Snap n' Build override the Wasteland Workshop's added items, pretty much disabling the DLC.
So in order to get access to Wasteland Workshop content, users had to disable Settlement Keywords and all the mods associated with it, causing a pretty big blow to their saves. Now there's an easy fix--all you have to do is download this Wasteland Workshop Homemaker and Settlement Keywords Patch, install it with the Nexus Mod Manager, and you'll be in tip-top order.
Continue reading: How to fix mod conflicts with Fallout 4's Wasteland Workshop DLC (full post)
Throwback Thursday; reliving the horrors in Clive Barker's Undying
The best horror games in the genre don't rely on any one element to keep you engaged and interested. Instead it's a combination of discrete factors that prove to keep your heart and mind racing, fearful of the shadows before you despite it being merely a video game. And the true outliers that really amaze will have stories and perhaps even dialogue written by professionals that are able to craft stories in ways that excite and scare on both the more obvious and the deeper, subtle levels. In fact, it's what's left to the imagination that can be even more terrifying.
Clive Barker's Undying is, and was, an outlier of a game, one that belied expectations but still only managed a cult following (how appropriate). Strangely, DreamWorks and EA had a winning combination here, with a plot that's better than most current horror movies and games with action that's sufficient, if a bit simple at times. But overall it's a game worth playing, and definitely worth playing again.
You're invited to go see an old friend, but find him sick in bed and surrounded by supernatural occurrences. You might have thought you were brought in to help ease him into the other side, but no, your job is to explore the strange incidents that have been plaguing his estate, incidents that are likely to be fairly eerie, despite the age of the graphics engine. The whole story unravels in a logical way, having you explore a chilly mansion filled to the brim with magical mayhem just waiting for you to trigger it. It plays like a book, that is, the story is at the forefront. And it's awesome.
Continue reading: Throwback Thursday; reliving the horrors in Clive Barker's Undying (full post)
Homefront: The Revolution coming to SteamOS, after the Windows version
Dambuster Studios is still going to be bringing Homefront: The Revolution to the rest of the gaming community, arguably the fringes, with native OS X and Linux compatibility at some point, though it'll be prioritized after it arrives on Window first. Which is after it arrives on consoles.
Homefront: The Revolution was originally going to be released on all platforms right from the start, but instead the developer has decided instead to concentrate on ensuring that the console versions, and the Windows version, are better optimized instead of diverting resources to the other versions. This, though disappointing for those that would like to give it a chance on their Steam Machine, it also means a more dedicated team to make it the best initial experience as possible. Depending on the low-level API they choose to use for these versions, porting could take some time to be truly workable.
Vulkan could be the obvious choice for that API, though initial results with the first release show only a marginal increase in performance compared to OpenGL. Regardless of small performance differences, having it open to more platforms is only a good thing. One would hope that the far-reaching multiplayer aspect can be played persistently across all platforms. That is, letting everyone from all platforms play together.
Continue reading: Homefront: The Revolution coming to SteamOS, after the Windows version (full post)
DOOM's multiplayer armor unlockables are absolutely fabulous
In preparation for the incoming DOOM open beta, Bethesda has just revealed a glimpse at all the awesome armor and item unlockables that DOOM's multiplayer has to offer, and they're pretty impressive.
According to the latest Bethesda.net post, DOOM's multiplayer is going to offer Halo-like player customization options with tons of different armor permutations to choose from.
Here's how DOOM's multiplayer progression works: you'll get EXP just from playing, and bonus EXP based on your performance--getting the most kills, saving teammates, being the game's MVP, etc. That EXP is spent on unlockables including armor sets, weapons, equipment, hack modules, and custom additions like paintjobs and the like. There's over 300 armor pieces in the game, with five base armor sets--UAC, Demonic, Bounty Hunter, Templar and Utilitarian--all of which have their own striking appearance.
Continue reading: DOOM's multiplayer armor unlockables are absolutely fabulous (full post)
Lando has been confirmed for Star Wars: Battlefront Bespin expansion
Any Star Wars game that expands into Bespin just wouldn't be complete without Lando Calrissian himself, so he's been confirmed to be making an appearance as one of the new heroes in the next Bespin expansion to Battlefront that's being released this summer.
The lovable rogue will be making an appearance alongside Dengar, the scar-faced bounty hunter who was the rescuer of Boba Fett in the Legends extended universe material. In June, we're promised AT-ATs landing on Cloud City with a chance to save it from certain destruction. EA and DICE will be adding even more blasters to the game, Star Cards and another new game mode as well. We're thinking this one will center around the carbonite chamber. Maybe a variation of Hot Potato, but with blocks of carbonite with people in them.
That's all great news, surely, but come May the Fourth we'll see special activities in-game that they have yet to announce. Just as with The Old Republic, there'll be no shortage of special events here too. EA is committed to doubling down on those in-game events, with double score weekends, community missions and other ways to interact with the community that they haven't quite announced yet. I still can't get over how interesting it'll be to see AT-ATs walking around the iconic floating city on Bespin. Every other rendition has never had enough room for such monstrosities.
Continue reading: Lando has been confirmed for Star Wars: Battlefront Bespin expansion (full post)
A new Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter gameplay trailer shows up
Bigben Interactive just released a new gameplay video of their upcoming adventurous romp into the Sherlock Holmes universe with Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter. We're being promised the chance to live the life of the master detective himself, in full. They've also announced that it'll be releasing on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on June 10th.
So it's more of a cinematic trailer that shows a glimpse of what the gameplay itself will be like, which is full of baritsu-fueled barfights and lots of deductive reasoning in a very frigid looking British backdrop. In this adaptation of the good detective, you'll be going on a singular unique adventure to save your own daughter. And, of course, there's bound to be countless interactive mysteries to uncover along the way. And bar fights.
For this they wanted to make the experience very much immersive and interactive, letting you pay the role and really get a chance to do what Sherlock Holmes would have done if detecting in the real-world, with clues that aren't always just going to be in the easiest of places. You'll have to work for them, and you'll probably end up being satisfied as a result. It's one to watch, though, and might surprise in its unique ability to make you a Sherlock Holmes, digitally of course.
Continue reading: A new Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter gameplay trailer shows up (full post)
Final Fantasy was already a dying brand in Japan, needed rescuing
The director of Final Fantasy XV, Hajime Tabata, has done wonders to increase awareness of and get people interested in the new game, despite it having an incredibly long development time. When he took over as the director of the game in 2012, however, that excitement wasn't quite there like it is today. In fact, he saw that it was a dying IP, one that needed a bit of rescuing.
In an interview with Game Informer, Tabata talked about how the brand identity was a challenge for him when he took over. The influence that Final Fantasy had was wavering, even in Japan, as Tabata conducted a few surveys to attempt to understand where they stood. "The gravest situation of all was that, at the time we were starting Final Fantasy XV, we didn't see an increase in new fans of the franchise," Tabata continued expressing his concern, "The reality is not that the situation is okay or in favor of us. Rather, it is more grave and serious than we had initially thought." He also added something quite interesting, "The way we understood Final Fantasy after our analysis is that it was a dying IP that had already peaked."
It was difficult for them to continue the development of Final Fantasy XV in the wake of that information they've uncovered. It makes the decision to invest further capital and resources a rather futile given the possibility for a much lower return on investment.
Continue reading: Final Fantasy was already a dying brand in Japan, needed rescuing (full post)
Final Fantasy IX now available on PC, one of the last to hold out
With the inclusion of Final Fantasy IX on Steam we can now play nearly every game in that series on PC, a feat that wasn't likely even five years ago. This, one of the greatest in series, fantasy RPG saga is even being offered with a 20% discount to celebrate the transition from the, arguably great looking, 2001 original to the masterpiece it is today.
The original is mostly intact aside from the obvious upgrades to cinematics and character models. The originals were fantastic for their time, and a testament not only to the artistic skills of the individuals who created them, but lack in resolution and poly count compared to games today. That could have been a turn-off for many gamers, even self-professed retro gamers as well.
They've integrated Steam achievements, 85 of them, and a new autosave feature, which seems to be the ever increasing standard way to progress through RPGs. Seven different game boosters are being included so you can play it at high speed, or with no encounters and in other ways. If you'd like to re-experience the magic of Gaia, then head on over to the Steam page to check it out. This is one of the greatest Final Fantasy games created.
Continue reading: Final Fantasy IX now available on PC, one of the last to hold out (full post)
Sony announces 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' for 2017
With the impending release of Captain America: Civil War, Marvel is on a huge streak right now and Sony will continue that with the announcement of the 2017 reboot of Spider-Man starring Tom Holland.
Sony announced 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' for 7/7/17, with Tom Holland playing Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Spider-Man is being fully integrated into the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing a big part in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War.
Spider-Man: Homecoming will also star Marisa Tomei as Aunty May, and Zendaya as Michelle. As for the director, we have Jon Watts who directed 'Cop Car' in 2015, which starred Kevin Bacon. Other than that, Watts is unknown - which is kind of excited.
Continue reading: Sony announces 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' for 2017 (full post)
Far Cry Primal v1.3 patch adds Survival Mode, 4K textures to PC, more
The new v1.3 patch for Far Cry Primal is now available, which adds a few nice additions to Ubisoft's open-world first-person shooter, adventure, and everything else game.
The new patch is available for download in all regions, adding Survival Mode, 4K textures on the PC, and more. Survival Mode has gamers testing out their skills with the Stamina Bar, Permadeath, and more. Survivor Mode also sees fast travel consuming your precious stamina, and manual healing also uses stamina, too.
The full list of things changed and added into the v1.3 patch of Far Cry Primal:
Continue reading: Far Cry Primal v1.3 patch adds Survival Mode, 4K textures to PC, more (full post)
Some of the Oculus Rift exclusives are now running on the HTC Vive
With the Oculus Rift CV1 now out in the wild (and my unit in my hands) as well as the HTC Vive (where is my Vive, HTC?!) gamers are now discovering some very cool things with VR gaming.
One of those is LibreVR, which is in an alpha state, and is "a proof-of-concept compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK and OpenVR". This means that any game that is exclusive to the Oculus Rift and is made by the Unity engine or Unreal Engine 4, can work on the Vive. In the words of Neo: "whoa".
Right now, LibreVR works with Rift exclusive Lucky's Tale (which comes in the box of the Oculus Rift) and Oculus Dreamdeck. The performance isn't perfect yet, but it'll improve as time goes on. We don't have our Vive headset yet, but when we do we'll be testing the hell out of this.
Continue reading: Some of the Oculus Rift exclusives are now running on the HTC Vive (full post)
Nintendo's NX console is faster than the PS4 'by a noticeable amount'
2016 could be a year when Nintendo comes out with a console that beats the half-assed 'next-gen' console offerings by Microsoft and Sony, which quickly became 'oh so they made them 10% faster than last-gen' units with its next-gen NX console.
According to the latest rumors, the Nintendo NX console is faster than the PS4 "by a noticeable amount" - and it's not just in graphical power - this is in the NX's GPU, CPU, and RAM. The new rumors have a 'tier 4' ranking assigned to them, which means they've got multiple sources backing up the rumor.
The new T4 rumor says that NX is faster than the PS4 "by a noticeable amount" but the sources don't know the clock speeds, or what type of memory the NX console will use. The CPU is said to be 15-30% faster than the PS4, and that a next-gen Zelda is "100% confirmed".
Continue reading: Nintendo's NX console is faster than the PS4 'by a noticeable amount' (full post)
The new Radeon Pro Duo includes Fiji GPU, can be used on a keychain
AMD will be launching its first dual-GPU video card since the Radeon R9 295X2, with the new Radeon Pro Duo to be released on April 26 for $1499. Some lucky people have gotten their hands-on the Radeon Pro Duo, which is Radeon Technologies Group's first video card since it broke away from AMD last year.
The Radeon Pro Duo features 2 x Fiji XT GPUs on the 28nm process, with 4096 stream processors per GPU. We have a GPU clock speed of 1GHz, with 16 TFLOPs of FP32 performance, and 0.9 TFLOPs of FP64 compute power. Underneath, we have a 4096-bit memory bus courtesy of HBM1, with 4GB of HBM1 per GPU for 8GB HBM1 total. The 4GB HBM1 per GPU is clocked at 500MHz, with 512GB/sec of bandwidth. In total, the Radeon Pro Duo has a 350W TDP, and is liquid cooled.
But something that's quite cool, is that RTG's first video card includes a spare Fiji XT GPU. This can't be used for anything, but it's something you could use as an ornament - or you could throw it on your keychain and rock an awesome GPU around with you.
Continue reading: The new Radeon Pro Duo includes Fiji GPU, can be used on a keychain (full post)
AMD's Polaris 10 leaked screenshots show a 1050MHz core clock
Some strange new screenshots of rather benign parts of the operating system might just show the verifiable, bona fide existence of AMD's Polaris 10 GPU. Someone decided to show off the device ID of an installed GPU and corresponding AMD Graphics Manager shots with that list the operating frequency of the elusive GPU.
VRWorld received a small tip from someone in the industry (supposedly) with some evidence of working engineering samples of the upcoming Polaris 10 GPU. We've recently learned the device ID's that are supposed to be associated to the new Radeon R9 4xxx series of cards, and this matches up perfectly. This happens to be one of them, if it's not doctored. Interestingly, the clock speed of the card is at only 1050MHz.
We know that Polaris is built on the 14nm FinFET process and should feature GDDR5X RAM. We've previously heard that HBM 1.0 might make an appearance, though it seems more likely that GDDR5 in some guise will also be included for higher VRAM capacities. Internal enhancements to GCN and the inclusion of enhanced geometry processors, a new command processor and a much better memory controller should allow for higher performance gains than we might be able to conclude otherwise.
Continue reading: AMD's Polaris 10 leaked screenshots show a 1050MHz core clock (full post)
Old-school Fallout dev joins Obsidian, is New Vegas 2 in the works?
Leonard Boyarsky, Diablo 3's senior world designer, has left Blizzard Entertainment to world on epic RPGs at Obsidian.
Obisdian Entertainment, the studio behind such classic cRPGs as Pillars of Eternity, has snapped up another talented developer to work on their latest game Tyranny (and possibly a secret Fallout-related project). Leonard Boyarsky recently departed from Blizzard after a full decade of Diablo 3 mastery to join longtime friend Timothy Cain at Obsidian.
Interestingly enough, both Cain and Boyarsky were heavily involved in Interplay's original Fallout games, handling art direction and designing specific in-game scenarios and story elements. Remember that Obsidian is just itching to do another Fallout game, so it's not impossible that Boyarsky could actually be working on Fallout: New Vegas 2.
Continue reading: Old-school Fallout dev joins Obsidian, is New Vegas 2 in the works? (full post)
Microsoft finally delivers free Quantum Break pre-order codes
Microsoft has finally started to ship out the free Quantum Break PC codes to those who pre-ordered the Xbox version.
One of the major benefits of pre-ordering Quantum Break on Xbox One--besides the free Alan Wake copy--was that you got a free copy of the game to play on Windows 10 PCs. Pretty snazzy, right? But Microsoft is a week late in delivering these promo codes, triggering a wave of disappointment from early adopters. After all, these gamers gambled their money on a product they believed was worthwhile, and I guarantee the cross-buy promo had something to do with that.
Now Remedy has assured Xbox owners that the codes are being sent out, so all is right in the world. Except it's really not, because Quantum Break is a hot mess on PC, plagued with technical faults and poor optimization. Remedy has since delivered an official update on the upcoming fixes, but the devs have also admitted they can't fully fix the PC port. Major PC benefits like multi-GPU support via SLI and Crossfire won't ever be support in Quantum Break, nor will there be any fixes for ugly texture pop-ins.
Continue reading: Microsoft finally delivers free Quantum Break pre-order codes (full post)
Designer Danny Coster leaves Apple for GoPro
First a Microsoft VP resigned and joined another company and now an Apple designer has done the same. Danny Coster, who joined the company in 1993 and has contributed to many major projects since (likely including the pivotal Bondi Blue Mac pictured here), has left for the position of Vice President at GoPro.
The Apple industrial design group has been tightly knit since its inception with not one shake-up on record, so this move is more than the usual coming and going. Longtime member Richard Howarth will take up Coster's position.
Coster recently expressed a desire to spend more time with family and friends, noting the high pressure that comes with working at Apple, so this is likely the reason for the change.
Continue reading: Designer Danny Coster leaves Apple for GoPro (full post)
Witcher 3: Blood and Wine expansion may launch in June
A Polish website may have accidentally leaked the release date for The Witcher 3's hugely anticipated Blood and Wine expansion.
According to ShackNews, notable Polish gaming site GRYOnline broke an NDA and listed Blood and Wine for a release on June 7 across all platforms. As news broke out about the apparent slip up, the website has since updated the listing to TBA 2016.
CD Projekt RED has yet to officially unveil the release date for The Witcher 3's final expansion, affirming that it's still coming "sometime in 2016". Gamers have huge expectations for Blood and Wine, and rightly so: CD Projekt RED says that the expansion will be "even better than the main game", featuring a wealth of content along with a "charismatic new enemy".
Continue reading: Witcher 3: Blood and Wine expansion may launch in June (full post)
Leaked Windows 10 Mobile screens show off some upcoming features
Some new screenshots have shown up that seem to show a few, albeit small, changes to Windows 10 Mobile. These new, small, improvements are supposedly part of a new build that'll be making it into a public build that'll be rolling out very soon. Or so sources say.
The changes focus on making significant changes to the Action Center and how it's arranged. In this, as of yet unknown version number, build it looks like you're able to rearrange quick actions by dragging them and dropping them where you'd like them. Microsoft, if these are to be trusted, has put a few settings in different places, such as the Glance screen now being in the Personalization section, which makes a bit more sense.
Other than that, there are some other improvements, or additions, in what might be the next build. A new Active Hours and a custom restart time. But aside from these screens, there's really no concrete information about what they're planning for the next Windows Mobile builds. This is, however, part of the Redstone branch of updates, which means that it's only available for those that are already running Windows 10 on their phones, or have been invited to update already. There'll be no updating for any phones any older than those already inducted into the Windows 10 hall of fame.
Continue reading: Leaked Windows 10 Mobile screens show off some upcoming features (full post)












