Latest News - Page 2545

Monopoly has approximately a bajillion versions to date, but the upcoming Ultimate Banking Edition will be the first and only to scrap cash entirely and replace it all with a battery-powered ATM and credit cards. No doubt this will make the game more efficient, but it also takes out the fun of stealing money from other players when they aren't looking. And isn't that half the fun of Monopoly, really? Well, at least you can still rip people off at every opportunity as the banker.

Even Chance cards and property cards will be swiped, which has opened the door for new cards that affect the cost of rent and the like which previously would have been difficult and annoying to keep track of, especially for children. For some reason, Community Chest cards have been given the axe.

Ultimate Banking Edition will release this autumn and will go for $25.

The 1989 comedy 'Kindergarten Cop' not only proved that Schwarzenegger wasn't just funny, but he could hold his own against his most formidable enemy - children and also provided the classic line "It's not a toomah". So when Universal announced a sequel to the comedy last year, it was with not so much trepidation, but intense cynicism - especially with the absence of Arnie. And they were right. It looks pretty bad.

Releasing straight to video (cue alarm bells) in May, the low budget, low aiming, name stealing movie masquerading as a follow up to the classic comedy stars Dolph Lundgren, Bill Bellamy and Sarah Strange, alongside a bevy of child actors who you'll never see again. You can even buy it on Blu-ray too, because God knows, it needs all the resolution it can get.

Weibo user HQ Vision has leaked some details on the Samsung Galaxy Note 6 smartphone. Apparently, that '6' is there for more reasons than one, as the device will house 6GB LPDDR4 RAM, making it the first smartphone to do so. This would put it ahead of even the Galaxy S7, so if you're keen on RAM, you may want to instead go for the S6.

Vision also claims the phone will feature a 5.8'' 2560x1440 screen (just slightly bigger than the 5.7'' display on the Note 5), a 12MP rear-facing camera with optical image stabilisation, either 64GB or 128GB of default storage, and likely, the option of either a Snapdragon or Exynos CPU. Finally, it's said to support the S Pen stylus.

The Note 6 is expected to launch later this year.

Bethesda has finally spilled the beans on Fallout 4's DLC, revealing the first three content packs--Automatron, Wasteland Workshop, and Far Harbor--for all platforms. The studio also revealed that many more content packs are coming, but the Season Pass has been hiked up to $50. Despite the price, you can actually get all of the DLC packs for free, provided you help Bethesda out with some beta testing.

Both PC and console gamers have been given the opportunity to test early builds of all forthcoming Fallout 4 DLC. For their invaluable bug-squashing feedback, Bethesda promises beta testers will not only get early access to the "full version (complete with achievements)", but will be able to keep the content and retain all of the progress they've made for free. If you're interested, you'll want to zoom on over to this link and put in your request as soon as possible.

The studio says it'll begin selecting applicants in the coming weeks, so it's not on a first-come first-serve basis. The sign-up sheet asks you hardware technical specifications like video cards, CPUs, and RAM, so it's clear Bethsoft wants to test the content across a wide variety of rigs. It's great to see Bethesda opening this up, especially since console gamers don't have mods yet and are starved for new content.

University of Southampton scientists have developed a new digital data storage technique that allows one to store up to 360 TB of data for up to 13.8 billion years.

The technology is especially exciting for archive organizations, museums, libraries, and the like, all of which value highly the extreme long-term preservation of data. Already the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Newton's Opticks, Magna Carta, and King James Bible have been saved; the Declaration was recently presented to UNESCO by the ORC at the International Year of Light (IYL) closing ceremony in Mexico.

The technique utilizes nanostructured glass memory (dubbed the 'Superman memory crystal') created in fused quartz (one of the hardest and most durable natural structures in Earth's history) and femtosecond laser writing to record data in five dimensions (5D).

Bethesda today announced three new Fallout 4 DLC packs, and says that many more are on the way. In fact, the publisher plans to release "more than $60 worth of content in 2016", which is phenomenal news for console gamers. However, there's a bit of bad news: the season pass' price tag has increased.

Before we dive into the three new add-ons--Automotron, Wasteland Workshop, and Far Harbor--let's talk a little bit about Bethesda's content roadmap. The studio will release a slew of new add-on DLC packs throughout this year, but to adjust for this revised plan, the Season Pass has jumped up to $50.

PC gamers will actually get to beta test these DLC packs out before release, and keep them for no extra cost. You'll have to sign up here, though. Now let's move onto the DLC!

GameStop's CEO, Paul Raines, told Fox News yesterday that Sony's PlayStation VR HMD is going to be available starting this fall, and that they'll be carrying it in stores of course.

During an interview regarding how tax refunds help to drive the economy and how taxes could be more fun if they were like video games, Raines mentioned the upcoming release of VR hardware in general being one of the major industries that'll likely be targeted by customers. He also mentioned quite pointedly that PS VR will be in stores this fall, that they'll "launch the Sony product this fall."

Raines is excited about the potential in the VR market, especially with his chain of stores providing one of the only ways to try VR for yourself once the PlayStation VR is available in store. It could very well be the revival of his brick and mortar operations, adding a particular value that can't be had anywhere else. Certainly, with the PS VR specifically, Raines things it's better than the other solutions with better content at launch, he says.

The Khronos Group has announced that Vulkan is finally released and ready to be used on any platform you desire. The full specification of Vulkan, 1.0, is available for everyone and is as robust and mature as DirectX 12, even.

Vulkan, of course, is the open-source answer to DirectX 12, a low-level API that's also been borne from the ashes of Mantle and shaped into something that can be used by anyone and is completely platform agnostic. At its core, Vulkan provides the same low-level access to the driver with far less overhead than graphics API's of the past.

"The release of the Vulkan™ 1.0 specification is a huge step forward for developers. The Vulkan API, which was derived from Mantle, will bring the benefits of low-overhead high-performance Graphics API to the benefit of cross-platform and cross-vendor targeted applications," said Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD. "The promotion of open and scalable technologies continues to be the focus at AMD, as a pioneer in the low-overhead API space. As a member of the Khronos Group, AMD is proud to collaborate with hardware and software industry leaders to develop the Vulkan API to ignite the next evolution in PC game development."

NVIDIA has released its 361.91 WHQL-certified drivers, complete with optimizations for a handful of new and upcoming titles, bug fixes, and added or updated SLI profiles.

Street Fighter V is the big game to benefit from the optimizations, but the upcoming Arma 3 update, next weekend's Hitman beta, and the Chinese Monster Hunter Online beta receive love, too. As for SLI profiles, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Bless, Need for Speed, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2, and XCOM 2 comprise the list of titles supported.

Download the drivers now through GeForce Experience. If you still haven't downloaded Experience, grab it here.

Rebellion just posted a new trailer for their remake of the 1998 version of Battlezone, the tactical, sci-fi tank strategy game based loosely on the original. And it's an exciting look into the care they're taking in remastering this classic, iconic game.

If you ever played the original then you're probably very excited about the return of this legendary game. They're taking that original and remastering it with new graphics, effects and a better UI on top of it all. They're also building in multiplayer again so that you can have massive futuristic tank battles with your friends.

The whole base-building mechanic is all there and it looks to be just as fun to play with as it was so many years ago. Despite the graphics being remastered and not built from the ground up it still looks great. Is there a chance that Vulkan or DX12 will underlay the foundation? Now that would be fantastic! Battlezone 98 Redux is coming this Spring.

Big changes are coming to Shallow Space, a space RTS with big potential. Originally it was suppose to be a full-on, completely customizable RTS allowing for massive battles in a rich galaxy. But they're expanding the original vision and adding a much more engaging way to play. Making it an open-world adventure with even more direct control of your ships.

While playing their alpha version, it was noticed that the customization was a fantastic idea, but with the combat mechanics, it was almost impossible to actually fully utilize those upgraded parts of your ships. There was something missing. The solution to the problem is letting you take direct control of your ships in the fleet and fly them around yourself, engaging the enemy in some very fun scenarios. To that end they're adding in support for controllers to play with your ships.

That's not all, though. The maps were far too linear, following a strict story-line that just isn't up the standards that we seem to have set for modern games. The developers are working towards making it more open-world, letting you fly around the Shallow Space (the are of the galaxy you'll be in in the game of the same name) to build up resources, level-up your ships and showing off your fighting prowess. The different map areas will be instance based, meaning enemies, allies and resources will spawn around you.

Sniper Elite 4 just might be in development, or so someone's resume on LinkedIn just so happened to leak. When Rebellion was approached concerning the listing, they were more than happy to provide a statement that, more or less, confirmed that it's likely.

The profile is of an individual who works at a digital arts company called ADIA Entertainment, and has supposedly worked on Sniper Elite 4 as well as a great deal of other games and even as an architect for the Unreal Engine. Rebellion's Jason Kingsley, the co-founder, talked to Videogamer to dismiss the claims, despite being flattered by being searched for an mentioned alongside such high-profile games. The employee actually doesn't work for Rebellion, though they didn't outright dismiss that they worked on Sniper Elite 4.

In fact, he went on to say that "Last year we celebrated the Sniper Elite series' 10th birthday and 10 millionth sale, so our IP is still hugely important to both Rebellion and independent UK games development. We're actually gearing up to announce a new Rebellion game soon, so expect to hear more from us before GDC!" This ambiguous statement is almost a sure way of saying that it's coming, and likely well into development.

AMD today announced that they'll be bundling in the new Hitman from Square Enix and IO Interactive with an R9 390 series GPU or an FX processor.

The free game code is only offered if you happen to get an R9 390, 390X or a 6-8-core FX CPU of any variety and will run from February 16th to April 20th 2016. So if you're in the market for a new GPU and are looking at buying Hitman, this bundle might be worth a look.

AMD is putting together this bundle because of their relationship with Square Enix with the development of Hitman. DX12 features should be available shortly after release and will take good advantage of the async shaders in AMD's GCN architecture. Despite the 390 and 390X being Hawaii based parts, Hitman with DX12 should still be a smooth experience.

A new trailer has been released for the upcoming The Walking Dead: Michonne mini-series that lets you take control of one of the deeper and more troubled characters from the series, Michonne. This new series is a deep-dive into her psyche, giving additional background information to compliment the TV series.

The first episode, titled In Too Deep, Michonne joins Pete and his crew on the sailing ship The Companion as they cruise the coast looking for survivors and additional supplies. They come upon a desperate signal for help that draws them to a scene of a horrific massacre where Michonne and the crew are lead further to the floating survivors' colony of Monroe. And of course you have to go investigate, because where there's danger, theirs also lurking opportunity.

Like all Telltale games, it's an interactive story that allows you to complete actions as quick-time events. Though it's not nearly as frustrating and incredibly engaging. The first episode is coming on February 23rd for the PC and on Mac. You'll also find it on the PSN for the PS4 and the PS3, the Xbox Store for the Xbox One and the Xbox 360.

Elite: Dangerous has a surprisingly fun "mini-game" with it's competitive CQC game mode. Compete in a fast-paced fight to the death against other skilled fighter pilots in some startlingly tight spaces. Frontier Developments is now offering just that module as a separate standalone purchase for those wanting a different kind of competitive experience.

For $7.49, you can take to the arena in Elite: Dangerous and compete against your peers in what they're calling the ultimate futuristic gladiatorial contest. Purchasing from the Frontier Store will get you a discount on the upgrade to the actual full game, minus the full purchase price of ED: Arena. It doesn't look like Steam offers such a deal at the moment.

CQC mode in Elite: Dangerous has the potential to be a new type of eSport, leveraging a different skill set than the usual FPS games require by having you also think about how to maneuver a ship with true, realistic Newtonian physics. You can either have automatic compensation of inertia to drive you in the direction your nose is pointed, or turn off all the assist and pull off maneuvers that aren't possible in gravity.

Already released to those in the US and UK, rumors have mounted that Apple plans to release its payment platform to China extremely soon, with France and Canada to follow before the end of 2016.

While not confirmed by the tech giant directly, China bank announced the release on its official WeChat recently, stating the formal local launch of this service to be February 18th at 5:00.

Some Apple fanatics are looking for and discussing a possible Apple Pay French announcement during WWDC 2016, however unlikely. As for further releases, iPhone In Canada has recently found some Canadian banking related code, helping its mission to string together various Apple Pay related clues regarding a local release in its nation.

Chris Schlerf, one of the writers at BioWare that was working on bringing Mass Effect Andromeda to life has decided to move on to Bungie to help impart a deep narrative in, presumably, the sequel to Destiny.

But this isn't necssarily surprising give that the story to ME: Andromeda is likely very much finished giving this prolific writer the opportunity to work on something else. And he's gone on to be the lead writer at Bungie, currently working on Destiny, or so his profile says. This could mean an actual story is on the way in the form of DLC or that Destiny 2 could contain a much more expansive fiction and backstory.

Thankfully on his way out Schlerf mentioned how proud he is of the story and how great he thinks Andromeada will be. In a Tweet late last night he mentioned how it's "really gonna blow people away," further explaining how proud he is of his involvement.

Yesterday we wrote about the fact that setting your precious iPhone's date to January 1, 1970 will destroy its usability - something that's currently unfixable, even by Apple.

Tech guru and YouTuber Tom Scott has posted a handy and easy to understand explanation as to why this event occurs. The quick and complicated explanation is that it is an "integer underflow caused by the Unix epoch," with Scott later on expanding this information for people like me who have no idea what 90% of those words mean.

Scott explained that setting your iPhone date to January 1, 1970 means that the value integer for this becomes 0. While this integer itself being 0 doesn't matter, when your phone tries to receive a text message and display it as being sent in the past, your phone will try and set this calendar integer into the negatives in order to explain the past-tense text message, crashing your phone.

Known for its wide range of mobile accessories and reliable power banks, Arctic has recently announced a new company direction - gaming headsets.

Announcing the P533 Series in a recent press release, this technology and lifestyle brand has signified a slightly altered company direction. The two headsets on offer are identical in specifications but offer different color schemes, being released in both Racing and Military color schemes.

Sporting cloth earcups, a 2m extension cable, a 3.5mm AUX connection, neodymium drivers and compatibility with Xbox, PlayStation, tablets, smartphones and PCs, this new range is available for $79.99 from the company directly.

We're receiving more details about Doom, with the alpha leaking online. Internally, Doom is known as Zion to id Software and features a 'similar architecture' to Doom 3.

Modding tools were found in the Doom alpha, with the tools known as idStudio, but we don't know if these will be made available to gamers. Thanks to Doomworld's member 'Marrub', we have the following details on Doom to share:

DOOM Engine: