Latest News - Page 2528

The Division Beta is now in full swing, with the servers for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and the PC turned on and ready for human players to start rescuing Midtown after another disastrous Black Friday. But this time, they're sending in The Division to take back New York, because it's descended into complete chaos. And they need your help.

But New York seems kind of tame once you first get there, and very sparse. Looks like the disaster already took out most of the population. But first the elephant in the room. The graphics exactly the most mind-blowing or revolutionary given the state that the game is in. There is a slight downgrade, though on the PC you have the ability to control particle detail, the quality of the volumetric fog, sub-surface scattering, local reflections, parallax mapping quality, shadow quality and general object detail. And with everything turned to it's absolute highest, it does look good and New York is highly dynamic but there's it probably won't satisfy those naysayers in the crowd. So the graphics aren't revolutionary, but at least they are revolutionary.

The cover-based tactical nature of The Division makes it fun, and the system they employ, at least on the PC, works extremely fluid and quite well. You can easily move from pieces of cover as you take down a group of baddies, freeing some hostages, in no-time. It's satisfying how responsive it is, and it came as a total surprise. In fact the whole movement and control system in general is well implemented on the PC and it doesn't feel like a carry-over from consoles.

Most of you have either heard about or have been in the middle of Snowzilla - which reached the East Cost of the United States in a big way between January 22 and 24.

Well, mega porn giant Pornhub had a noticeable increased in their traffic, with the company focusing a new report on the four East Coast cities, which were plowed by Snowzilla the hardest. Pornhub's report sees the traffic in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington were swollen, compared to usual.

Washington had the largest increase in traffic, with 22% more on Friday, 21% more on Saturday and the tip of it happened on Sunday, with a 25% increase in traffic compared to an average day for Pornhub. If you want to get into the nitty gritty, Pornhub has traffic by the hour over Snowzilla, too.

With all of the financial information coming out from various companies, we're now finding out about Sony's position in the console market.

Sony posted its latest financial results for Q4 2015, where it reported 8.4 million PS4s were sold. VG247 reports that this is "more in nine months of the current financial year than it sold in the full financial year previously, when it shifted 14.8 million".

The company is expecting to sell 17.5 million PS4 consoles across 2016, rolling through its $4.89 billion in sales thanks to the PlayStation side of Sony throughout Q3 2015. At the start of 2016, Sony said it had sold close to 36 million PS4s, compared to Microsoft which has reportedly sold around 20 million Xbox One consoles - we'd say Sony is kicking some serious Microsoft ass in the console race.

With Star Wars continuing to make huge profits at the box office, Slashfilm visited the Sundance Film Festival and tried out Lucasfilm and Disney's experimental New Frontier showcase that has been there in a bigger presence over the last few years, but this year Industrial Light & Magic joined in on the VR fun, teasing their new experimental work from the ILM x Lab.

ILM were showing off a project they call Holo Cinema, which Slashfilm explains: "which is basically an installation that lets you step into the world of Jakku from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But this isn't just another Oculus VR demo. Instead, it's presented using projections on the walls and floor that are synced up to your point of view using 3D head tracking. It's hard to describe exactly what this looks like, and even the videos can't accurately explain it. But the feeling is that what you are seeing is really in the room with you. BB-8 rolled around me, I could kneel down and look into his droid eyes. I walked around C-3PO".

This is all the tip of the iceberg, too - as they explained to Slashfilm that Holo Cinema is "just one of the many things they were developing at ILM x Lab. The experience is more augmented reality than virtual reality, although it sounds like ILM will be working on many VR experiences to be released in the coming years". The company plans on working with big-name filmmakers and screenwriters on future VR content for Star Wars experiences.

It feels as though G.SKILL releases a new enthusiast RAM kit every other week, with the announcement of a kick-ass new kit of RAM in the form of the new Ripjaws V-powered DDR4-3200MHz kit.

The new DDR4-3200 kit is available in up to 128GB kits, which is for the serious enthusiast. G.SKILL has improved the latency on the new RAM, with CL14-14-14-34, making it more efficient than the standard DDR4-2133MHz, which has latencies of 15-15-15-35. G.SKILL has used the usual XMP 2.0 profits, making it super simple to drop this 128GB kit into your system, and go.

The new G.SKILL 128GB DDR-3200MHz kit arrives in 8x16GB DIMMs, and will be available from the usual places by the end of February, starting at $1069.99.

Samsung seems to be updating its budget line of phones, the Galaxy J series with the J1 already available in some parts of the world, and the J5 and J7 waiting somewhere in the sidelines. And the kernel source code for the Galaxy A9 even sort-of confirms the specs that the flagship budget device (is that a thing?) will be rocking.

Avid readers and source code investigators over at GSM Arena seem to have found some startlingly solid evidence of what just might be the specifications. Inside that kernel there're references to a device that goes by the codename "j7xlte," which by rights, is the Galaxy J7.

Delving even deeper seems to reveal another tidbit that says a bit more about the specs of the mysterious device with a line hidden that seems to be a model number; ss_dsi_panel_S6E3FA3_AMS549JR01_FHD. Thus far this seems to point towards a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 with around 3GB of RAM attached to a 5.5-inch FHD SAMOLED screen. Not terrible specs considering the budget status of the device.

There's plenty of bizarre stories that feature the self proclaimed King of Pop, but the real life story which saw Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor road trip across the U.S. after planes were grounded following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is about to be dramatised in an upcoming television movie.

According to the Wrap, Joseph Fiennes is set to play Michael Jackson in the upcoming half hour TV special 'Elizabeth, Michael, and Marlon' for the SkyTV Network, alongside Brian Cox as Marlon Brando and Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor.

Apparently stranded in New York by the grounding of planes following the September 11 terrorist attack, Jackson and friends Brando and Taylor rented a vehicle to get back to California in a story first reported by Vanity Fair. Allegedly, the morbidly obese Brando insisted on stopping at nearly every KFC and Burger King restaurant they passed.

Loot Crate has always been known for their gamer and general geek friendly monthly supply drops, with unique and sometimes rare items contained within. But now they're extending their monthly service to include a gaming focused subscription service that they're calling Loot Gaming.

They announced the new service at their PAX South panel today in a way to further serve their gaming community. They've always had a special relationship even with developers, having obtained special Fallout 4 themed loot for their November crate even before Fallout 4 was out.

That early relationship has prompted them to launch their gaming focused subscription service, so you can only get video-game themed Loot Crates each month, foregoing the more general nerdery. They're going to work closely with developers to try to get exclusive items for their crates, themed merchandise not sold anywhere else. Loot Gaming will be $25 per month and will start this spring.

Last we heard, CPU architect Jim Keller had left AMD for Samsung. Turns out that's only half true, as Keller is now confirmed to be the new Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering at Tesla Motors, where he'll help build self-driving cars.

"Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world," said Tesla, relaying the news.

The story trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD has been released on Nintendo's YouTube channel. And give a glimpse into one of the better installments of the series, and shows off the great new graphics of the remaster.

The game is heavily stylized and the story can definitely seem like it's a bit on the wild-side, but it's entertaining and whimsical in the way that can capture good childhood memories. If you've never had a chance to play the game before, it's a fascinating tale, to say the least. And the puzzles are some of the finest of any Legend of Zelda games.

If you're interested and happen to have a Wii U lying around, then The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is coming to a console near you on March 4th 2016. There's even a very nice Wolf Link amiibo to give you exclusive in-game items.

The Surface family is doing fantastically well for Microsoft, who reported $1.35 billion in revenue from it between late September and late December. The launch of the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book boosted sales 29%, double the previous quarter's $672 million.

Total non-GAAP revenue for the same fiscal quarter was $25.7 billion, which Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner is happy about, saying, "It was a strong holiday season for Microsoft highlighted by Surface and Xbox. Our commercial business executed well as our sales teams and partners helped customers realize the value of Microsoft's cloud technologies across Azure, Office 365 and CRM Online."

Rise of the Tomb Raider just came on the PC after a very brief exclusive period on Xbox One. When it was first released it was was a very good looking game on the Xbox One, using the 7 processor cores and all compute units available to it to great effect. Even PureHair, or the evolution of TressFX 2.0 created by Crystal Dynamics, was turned on for the Xbox One. And it ran fairly smooth at it's 1080P resolution. The problem was, however, that it had its performance hiccups and there was plenty of potential for higher framerates and a much better looking environment. Though the settings are somewhat desolate, they're teaming with life and the opportunity to recreate them with good detail.

The Xbox One did well, performance wise, but how does this masterpiece of a game play on the PC? Well let's find out just how it does. Take a look at our infographic after the break.

The delightful space-based MOBA Fractured Space is completely free to play this weekend. And if you hurry and download it over the weekend, then you'll be able to keep it for free, forever.

The game has been in Early Access on Steam since November of 2014 and has seen steady attention and development from Edge Case Games and they're finally getting very close to their projected release date sometime later in 2016. To celebrate, they're letting everyone try their beloved MOBA for free. And you get to keep it forever.

Fractured Space is the first MOBA that takes on a decidedly science fiction direction, taking some cues from EVE Online, except this is a pure combat game similar in style to World of Tanks or, more appropriately, World of Warships. Like those, you take your gigantic capital ship and team up to destroy the other team in interstellar maps brought to life with Unreal Engine 4. Though the combat might be somewhat analogous to EVE Online's brutal warfare, there's no game quite like this. And for free, why wouldn't you at least take a look see?

Sony is still working on its PlayStation VR headset, which will debut sometime in the first half of this year for the PlayStation 4 - but it will meet stiff competition from the Oculus Rift, and the HTC Vive. Well, what do some developers think of the PlayStation VR headset?

According to Carlos Coronado, the developer behind MIND: Path to Thalamus: "Yes, it's in the plans. Sony VR is an amazing closed VR system, and I think that is amazing! The hardware and the user base is already there so aside from the GearVR I think it is going to be one of the wider audience VR headsets when it is released. MIND: Path to Thalamus will run at 90 or 120Hz on PSVR, depending on testing".

Then we have Interdimensional Games, the developer working on Consortium: The Tower, where they said: "We think it's pretty cool, and it's certainly good that the PS4 has such a large install base to start with. We are very interested in making a custom VR mode for The Tower, but the priority is to make an awesome "normal" game first and foremost".

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is a natural choice for a competitive sport, with it's fast-paced, team-based gameplay. The ESL has teamed up with Ubisoft to start the very first professional gaming competition with a large $100,000 prize pool.

Season One is going to kick off with European matches at the Intel Extreme Masters being held at Katowice, Poland on March 4th 2016. Eight total matches will determine the top competitors. North American matches will begin a few weeks after the Intel Extreme Masters. The ESL has partnered with Microsoft and will be using the Xbox One as their preferred platform to compete on.

"Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege was built from the ground up with competition in mind," said Xavier Marquis, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege creative director, Ubisoft Montreal. "We're excited to partner with ESL, one of the biggest names in esports, to deliver a league for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege fans to compete and enjoy the game they love."

The next update to Ghost Game's Need for Speed reboot, which is called the Showcase update, is arriving next week and it's adding far more substantial under the hood changes than just more vehicle customization options.

When it hits next week we'll see the addition of a photo mode that lets you take screenshots as if you're using a real DSLR. You can change the focus, depth of field, brightness, contrast, saturation and just about any other setting you could think of. After snapping the shot of course you'll be able to share it easily too.

Also coming is a new Wrap sharing feature, where you'll be able to share all the unique paint schemes that you've created. Ghost Games says that this is one of the most requested features, because there're a lot of talented artists out there making some interesting creations. So why not let everyone else enjoy in your vision?

Tribes: Ascend, a game that was long thought to be dead and abandoned, has just been updated with quite a few balancing tweaks along with a gameplay tweak that brings it into parity with other MMO FPS's.

The largest and most significant change is having Q be the default button that switches between previously selected weapons. That should be a given, seeing how common that is in FPS games. Other quality of life fixes include weapon adjustments, an increase in the lifetime of your bullets (which increases the range of your projectiles) and a lot of small bug fixes in addition to those aforementioned balance tweaks.

If you thought that Tribes: Ascend was going to die a dishonorable death, you would be wrong. Though there was a long hiatus from development with very little attention at all, it seems that Hi-Rez Studios is making sure the classic open-world FPS doesn't just disappear.

Volition is doing the absolute unthinkable with the cancelled Saints Row Undercover game that was supposed to release on the PSP. After showing it off recently to the public for the first time, they're actually releasing it so everyone can play it. For free.

Just yesterday Volition released an ISO of the cancelled game to Unseen 64 so that it'll be forever preserved and available to play legally by anyone who wishes to give it a try. This was after they hosted a live-stream that went through the game, showing off how far development had actually come.

If you want to play it, just grab one of the better PSP emulators, download it (it's legal and encouraged by the IP owner) and give it a whirl. Just keep in mind that development never finished, and there're plenty of bugs, but it does run fairly smooth. And it's fairly fun to boot.

EA is reportedly doubling down on PC gamers, with the company saying it's on a mission to regain the trust of PC gamers across the world.

The new PC-focused commitment from EA stems from the PC-focused initiative thanks to the clear refund policy on Origin, and the EA Access-like service, Origin Access. This is just a tease of what EA has planned, with Origin's Senior Marketing Director Peter O'Reilly saying: "We are on a journey to regain the trust of the PC gamer".

He continued: "Over the last couple of years we have focused on ensuring a great play experience from launch and bringing players a better experience on Origin with programs like the Great Game Guarantee, On the House, and now Origin Access. We're excited about the progress we've made, but are always pushing ourselves to innovate on behalf of players".

This is the second full week using the Thermal Take Black V2 gaming mouse infused with Synaptic's IronVault optical fingerprint reader, and it's been a mostly great experience, when it comes to the fingerprint reader that is.

To be fair, the particular mouse that it's embedded in isn't quite my cup of tea, but that isn't what's being evaluated here, aside from the positioning of the sensor itself. So let's get that little hiccup out of the way from the beginning. The mouse just isn't quite comfortable for my hand and everyone has their own preferences when it comes to their HID's, but let's move on to the important bits.

The sensor itself has proven to be an accurate and surprisingly useful device. Enrolling your fingerprints is as easy as with any other capacitive sensor you might be used to (read: iPhone or any mobile phone for that matter). Just follow the instructions on the application that interfaces, and you're in business, able to use that stored fingerprint to be the basis for logging in to websites. It's almost magical, and much more so than when it was first introduced to the greater consumer by Apple.