Latest News - Page 2516

The latest trailer to X-Men: Apocalypse is here, with Bryan Singer continuing his directing run after the stellar X-Men: Days of Future Past. Check it out, below:

The trailer highlights the movie's main villain - Apocalypse - reintroducing the concept of his Four Horsemen. In the comics, the Four Horsemen are mutants who bodies and minds are changed by Apocalypse, becoming his slaves. During the war, these mutants are his closest allies, and when he needs to attack someone or something, these mutants carry it out.

The trailer expands on our look of the new Jean Grey and Scott Summers (Phoenix and Cyclops), but the larger battle is still at play. X-Men: Apocalypse kicks off after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, with a younger group of mutants taking helm.

The Division has been one of the most successful new games that Ubisoft has ever released, reaching over $330 million dollars in revenue globally within the first five days after it was released. But it didn't just sell well, people are actually playing it too, with over 1.2 million players having enjoyed it concurrently over this past weekend across all platforms.

That's an impressive amount of people playing a game at any one time, despite it starting off with a few, nearly game breaking, problems. There's been an incredible amount of actual involvement by the player-base, with a generally positive attitude even with the problems and association with past Ubisoft titles. Right now there is a recorded all-time peak, just through Steam alone, of 113,887 players at any given time. That's not bad at all, and almost more than the Team Fortress 2 record of 117,917.

"The Division taking the top spot in the industry for first-week sales of a new franchise is a tremendous achievement. We are very proud of our teams, and humbled by and thankful for the millions of players who are giving us their feedback and support," Ubisoft's CEO, Yves Guillemot, said in a statement regarding the success. "The Division is the latest example yet of our unique ability to deliver immersive gaming playgrounds that keep players engaged, and that they eagerly share with their friends and community."

Gaming Evolved, or Raptr, hasn't exactly had the shining reception that AMD might have wanted when it was included with their driver set. But it's getting better with each iteration, and more useful too. The newest update vastly improves the video capture and recording features of the integrated Play.tv, beyond a lot of other free or premium platforms.

Recording, if you set it to, can begin automatically once you start a game up now. It can detect and begin without you having to remember to turn it on, capturing the entire play session and even going so far as to deleting older videos as time goes on to save storage space. They've added the ability to use a hotkey to "bookmark" a particular moment in the game, which will make a 30-second video clip when you press that hotkey. Play.tv will also record your mouse clicks, webcam, mic nearly everything so you can analyze your competitive play. And now they have a real video editor that allows you to actually edit those clips and make them viewable right from the app. It used to be quite the pain to get things ready for sharing.

Something quite revolutionary is the new integration with League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. When you play these games, the AMD Gaming Evolved client uses live match data to automatically create highlights that are completely pre-edited, ready to watch or share instantly. They plan on adding in more games that are compatible with it soon as well.

GDC 2016 - NVIDIA announced their latest GameWorks 3.1 package at the Game Developers Conference, and then Unity announced their latest version of their popular engine - and now, Unity Technologies has revealed that it will be adding support for NVIDIA VRWorks into the Unity engine.

VRWorks being added to Unity means that it'll soon support VR SLI and Multi-Res Shading, which will make it much easier for developers to build VR support into the Unity engine for GeForce video cards. As for the Unity engine, it continues to expand at rapid levels, with VR games like Cloudlands: MiniGolf VR, Hover Junkers, and Job Simulator.

But, the Unity engine isn't just there for games - as there are various VR applications it can be used for, such as social, medical, tourism, design, education and training. Multi-Res Shading is capable of providing a 50% performance improvement when used in the right application, which is something that game developers - and gamers - can get quite excited over.

Microsoft announced that they've changed their internal policies regarding cross-console play, but there's been the question of whether or not it was actually possible. The president of Sony Computer Entertainment, Shuhei Yoshida, says that the technical part of having the two platforms work together in games would potentially be the easiest part of the process. In fact, Sony has had cross-platform play available with the PC since the PlayStation 2 days, so they're definitely not against such an idea.

Yoshida is all for allowing gamers to play together whatever the platform, they've been pioneers since Final Fantasy 11 (which is still operational by the way). But connecting to the PC is much more straightforward with it being a much more open network. Speaking to Eurogamer, he said that "Because PC is an open platform it's much more straightforward. Connecting two different closed networks is much more complicated so we have to work with developers and publishers to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish." But it isn't an insurmountable challenge at all.

He continued by mentioning that the technical aspects of it were the easiest part to overcome. The challenge lies in whether or not it's in their best interest, from a business perspective, to actually allow it. It comes down to policy and business issues more than anything. But at least it's possible, and we're bound to eventually see Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gamers enjoying non-exclusive games harmoniously. Or at least semi-harmoniously.

Skyforge, an MMO that crosses the line between science-fiction and fantasy letting you play almost as a god, has received a new update called Dark Omen, and it's all about improving the quality of life for your pantheon (the equivalent of a guild) and bringing a bit more content before they drop an even larger and more substantial update coming very soon.

Overall this update is a quality of life update. In the update they've created a new operations system where higher level players can combine their powers to fight off any invasions much more efficiently, and spectacularly too. They've made this easier to use, and much better looking too. An Elder God questline has been added, so you have a chance to learn the backstory of what it actually takes to become a divine Elder God on Aelion. That questline culminates in a showdown with a massive boss battle unlike anything seen so far in the game.

One of the issues that players have noticed is that of merging their pantheon of warriors with another. Sometimes growth meant teaming up with others, but there was no easy way to accomplish this. Allods Team, the developer, have added a new Pantheon Fusion tool that makes it much easier to join forces against the invading forces that are trying to wipe you out.

A new online collectible card game is coming out of the gates swinging, and wants to capture your attention in a way that no other game of its genre quite has just yet. Star Crusade: War for the Expanse gives you a massive overarching story, where you get to be in control of one of the six different, powerful factions struggling for power.

Star Crusade offers a deep and highly customizable card battle experience with more than 400 playable cards and multiple different types of playable modes. They've got single-player matches and competitive battles against friends or random people. Four-player play, sharing and gifting of your deck is all coming soon as well.

Competitive collectible card games are a genre that's been growing as of late. The popularity is now crossing over into the digital realm with the likes of Hearthstone continuing to gain momentum since it was officially released in 2013. It's quite the phenomenon really.

MSI's Vortex, the minuscule yet powerful cylindrical PC that may be the illegitimate offspring of the Mac Pro, is finally available for purchase.

The Vortex is a mean, lean fighting machine it looks like. They've been able to stuff in a quite a few high-end components into the small area, and everything is capable of being upgraded, within reason of course. All models share an Intel Core i7-6700K, an Intel Z170 motherboard, a 256GB PCIe M.2 SSD with a 1TB storage drive. They also all share a Killer E2400 wired ethernet/ Killer N1535 wireless card, four USB 3.0, two mini-DisplayPort and two Thunderbolt 3 connectors around back. The less expensive version comes in at $2199 and has dual GTX 960's sitting in SLI with 16GB of 2133MHz DDR4. The more expensive version is $3999 and swaps out those 960's for dual GTX 980's and has a total of 32GB of RAM instead. All powered by a 450W power supply.

The whole 6.5L package is a marvel of engineering no less than the Mac Pro it was likely inspired by. The cooling system is very efficient, and is quite the capable performer. The GPU's are all of the MXM variety, also shared with the Mac Pro design. A necessary design consideration if you want to pack as much power into as small a space as possible.

GDC 2016 - Sony is getting serious when it comes to performance and the PlayStation VR, where according to Gamasutra, Sony is aiming for 60FPS or above.

During GDC, SCEA Senior Dev Support Engineer Chris Norden had some interesting things to say about PlayStation VR to developers. He said to developers at GDC that Sony would most likely reject games with variable frame rates, or anything running under 60FPS.

Norden said: "Frame rate is really important; you cannot drop below 60 frames per second, ever. If you submit a game to us and it drops to 55, or 51... we're probably going to reject it. I know I'm going to get flak for this, but there's no excuse for not hitting frame rate. It's really hard, and I'm not going to lie to and say it's extremely easy...it's really difficult. 60hz is the minimum acceptable framerate. Everybody drill that into your heads".

GDC 2016 - Razer's external GPU enclosure now has a price, with the Razer Core costing $499 on its own, or $399 if it's purchased with compatible Razer gaming notebooks.

The Razer Core is a unique GPU enclosure, which takes dual-slot, full-length video cards. GPUs that are installed can include the Radeon R9 Fury and GeForce GTX Titan X, as the Razer Core has an internal 500W PSU. The Razer Core also feature 4 x USB 3.0 ports, GbE connectivity, and two-zone lighting.

Core connects to your laptop through Thunderbolt USB-C, which offers up to 40Gbps of bandwidth. Installing a video card inside of the Razer Core is super simple, as it's a tool-less design. Better yet, AMD's impressive XConnect technology is something that's compatible with Core, meaning your laptop can seamlessly switch between onboard graphics, and the GPU inside of the Core.

MSI has announced its new GeForce GTX 950 models won't require any additional PCIe power connectors, as they'll be powered by the PCIe port itself, consuming a maximum of 75W.

There are two new models from MSI: the MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5T OCV3 and the MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GD5T OCV2. Both feature the GM206 GPU, which rocks 768 stream processors, 48 texture units, 32 ROPS and a 128-bit memory interface with 2GB of GDDR5 RAM. Both of the cards have their GPUs clocked at 1076MHz, but have boost clocks of 1253MHz.

The difference between the cards is their cooling, and how long they are. The 2GD5T OCV3 model sports a dual fan design and a longer PCB that MSI wants to see installed into a traditional desktop PC, while the shorter 2GD5T OCV2 models uses a single fan, and is destined for mini-ITX machines.

DICE and the Frostbite Engine team are putting their weight behind AMD's GPUOpen initiative, as you can see from the tweet and video below.

In the video, DICE rendering engineer Arne Schober touts the level of hardware access GPUOpen offers programmers like himself, while also praising the friendly, powerful ecosystem it encourages.

"It is really nice to have physical access to the source code and be able to handcraft the tools to our own needs," he says, later adding, "By opening up the source, we can help each other across the entire industry, solving problems together instead of individually. This would improve our effectiveness and lower development costs at the same time by sharing our knowledge."

After years of promises, Nike finally revealed the prototype self-lacing Nike Mag shoes last year, on the 30th anniversary of the 'Back to the Future' franchise and provided star Michael J Fox with the first pair. Now, the company has re-iterated it's promise that fans will have the opportunity to purchase the shoes this year (if they're lucky), but perhaps even more interesting is the further implementation of the technology into a whole new line of products.

Explaining the HyperAdapt 1.0 technology, Nike's Vice President for Design and Special Projects Tinker Hatfield said "It is amazing to consider a shoe that senses what the body needs in real-time. That eliminates a multitude of distractions, including mental attrition, and thus truly benefits performance. Wouldn't it be great if a shoe, in the future, could sense when you needed to have it tighter or looser? Could it take you even tighter than you'd normally go if it senses you really need extra snugness in a quick maneuver? That's where we're headed. In the future, product will come alive." The company also released a video showing how they'll work.

The 'Back to the Future' styled Nike MAG shoes modeled on their appearance in 'Back to the Future Part II' will be available later in the year via online auction, with proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

GDC 2016 - Sony has revealed that all existing PS4 games will be playable within the PlayStation VR headset, along with a host of media playback like Netflix and 360-degree photos.

With the PlayStation VR's newly revealed Cinematic Mode, gamers can play PS4 titles in a virtualized space within the headset. The mode essentially transports gamers into a sizable rendered living room environment where the game is broadcast on a huge digital screen that measures up to 225 inches wide.

"With the headset on, users can also go into 'cinematic mode' to see the entire 16:9 PS4 menu and play all of their PS4 games," said Sony President Andrew House.

Modder Kaldaien is at it again with a mod for the recently released JRPG Disgaea. While a decent port, Disgaea still has some room for improvement, particularly on the visuals front, and that's what the 'Pretty Prinny' mod, as he calls it, is primarily focused on.

Among other things, it adds 'proper' V-Sync support and removes the 720p internal resolution cap as well as artifacts related to sprite smoothing. Pretty Prinny is only at version 0.2.1 at the moment, so expect lots more to come, including additional visual enhancements as well as performance and stability improvements. Tonight version 0.3.0 will be released with SSAO and MSAA support.

Hit the source to download the mod and for configuration and installation instructions.

Opera 36 is out and marks a major release for the alternative browser, bringing with it a new look and some key new features.

First up is the overhauled start page, which is now better optimized for widescreen monitors, and includes a customize button that allows you to alter themes and your news section, among other things. More will come in version 37.

There's lots of love for Windows 10 users, too: colours will change depending on your OS theme and such, touch input is supported (and accommodated with UI elements that auto adjust in size, and a fullscreen icon), and native notifications are included.

The Unity engine is one of the singularly most used game engines in the world. They've been working very hard at making game creation a more accessible endeavor, and that's paid off tremendously. Unity has been updated to version 5.3.4, which is stable, gorgeous and full of easy to use tools.

Unity has to keep up with the pace of innovation, so they're also introducing a more widely available public beta program for their unstable, yet advanced, beta versions. Which is now up to version 5.4. At their keynote at GDC they said that they're very committed to the future and evolving the engine to keep pace with the rest of the gaming community, and in order to better serve their users they've opted to open up beta testing to everyone. This way more people get to play with,and find all the things that could possibly go wrong with new implementations of technology, or new tech altogether.

Right now they estimate that Unity covers around 30% of the market. And that's across the 25 different supported platforms. That's a lot of games and developers that have their hands in the Unity pie. And so they're making it even easier to build games with improved collaborative functions that let you save assets to a cloud-based system to be shared among a team working far apart. And there's a lot in beta 5.4 to like and want to share with others. Just look at the difference above from version 5 to the 5.4.

It's been a few months since the hidden Cortana functionality was accidentally found in the November Xbox One update, but it seems that the full functioning digital assistant is getting much closer to being released. And the Xbox boss is quite excited about it too.

The Xbox One already has a great voice command system, one that's evolved upon their successful Sync and other speech recognition technologies, but in order to bring it into parity with the rest of their brand, they need to bring Cortana, a true digital assistance, into the mix. There's no release date quite yet, but Mike Ybarra did say that it was "coming along great."

Cortana would be just another feature that the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's current lineup doesn't have. Just how useful it would be for a primarily gaming (re)focused device is unknown. It also means you'll need a microphone in order for her to hear you, which is either Kinect or through a headset plugged into your controller (or USB port). It'll be interesting to see just what kind of commands will be available and how they'll be used on the Xbox One. Just using your voice to launch a game isn't exactly exciting, or new, so there's hope that something more is coming from the infusion of Cortana.

GDC 2016 - AVADirect entered the VR gaming PC world quite quickly, and in a huge way, with beautiful, and compact VR gaming PCs. Their next step? Giving away the AVA Sixense Ultimate VR Desktop & Sixense STEM System Devkit. Yes, an entire VR gaming PC and the super-awesome STEM controller system from Sixense Motion.

The AVA Sixense VR Desktop can be configured with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, GTX 980 Ti or Titan X - providing the ability to play virtually any game at 1080p and above at 75FPS+. The STEM system from Sixense is an amazing wireless motion tracking controller setup for desktop and mobile VR, which is something we fell in love with at CES 2014.

But we're all here for the giveaway, which has a total value of $2599 - in this, you get the AVA Sixense VR Desktop packed with an Intel Core i7-6700, GeForce GTX 980 Ti from EVGA, 16GB of DDR4, and the STEM base with two STEM controllers - the best start for a VR system. All you need from here is the Oculus Rift and you're good to go.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward added in something very special when it came out. Aside from the great addition to the story, they gave us the ability to fly about the different locations of Hydaelyn with customizable winged mounts. The process to create those and really integrate them fully into the greater game was a bit more difficult than you'd think, and that process of animating the mounts is detailed in the newest Developer Diary video from Square Enix.

It was a challenge to make sure that flying was a smooth process that didn't detract from the beauty of the game. The designers had to decrease the overall amount of data while flying so there wasn't any stuttering. That and adding in an element of elevation was tricky, you can't have the controls be jerky or unintuitive.

The most important part, naturally, was introducing the Fat Chocobo as a potential aerial ride. But how does one make a gigantic creature like that capable of flight? Well, with the right motivation; cake. Check out the video, it's a very enlightening look into the creative processes that they go through to bring things to life.