Latest News - Page 2585

Something rather exciting might be happening with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise this year. A new game could be in development, if certain now deleted Facebook posts are to be believed.

A band that has worked closely with Sonic the Hedgehog and have provided music for some of the later games, Crush 40, posted on Facebook that "We are planning a few performances to commemorate the anniversary of Sonic," but that wasn't the exciting part. They continued "We might participate in writing new songs for the anniversary game...stay tuned." indicating the existence of a new anniversary game. The post was promptly deleted, though not before we were able to see it. Even better is the graphic released by Sega commemorating the occasion, shown above.

It doesn't necessarily mean an entirely new game is being commissioned, but it might point towards something else. Whether that be a web-based game, a new mobile game or something on an even smaller scale. The formula for a successful Sonic the Hedgehog game seems to be directly tied to the older games. The newer more free-roaming and 3D titles were never quite as accepted, though they didn't do that poorly either. Our bet is on a remake of the original, given the logo that's come out.

The first DLC for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, as part season one or Operation Black Ice, has been delayed for season pass holders until February 2nd, a slight delay if anything.

Originally the new content, which includes new operators from the Canadian Joint Task Force 2 Counter-Terrorism unit, a new map and some new weapon skins, was originally planned for release on January 26th for those that have purchased a season pass.

Ubisoft confirmed the slight delay on Twitter while answering a question from a fan, and they reiterated that season pass holders merely have early access to the new content, and everything will be available for free for all players of the game. If you're a PC gamer, we highly recommend downloading the Ultra HD texture pack while waiting for the DLC to arrive.

A blind gamer has done something rather remarkable, proving that no disability can stand in the way of enjoying the world of gaming. He was able to complete The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time after five years, no easy feat.

Terry Garrett's journey started nearly five years ago in 2011 when he started a YouTube channel to show that being blind doesn't stop a person from playing video games, regardless of how open-world they might be. And since that time he's been making steady progress by using sound as a means to navigate and know where things are in the world.

Garrett plays an emulated version of The Ocarina of Time so that he can take advantage his emulators ability to save game states for quick trial and error in particularly troubling spots. To navigate the world he places his speakers directly in front of himself so that he can more easily hear the auditory cues from the in-game world. This way he can locate enemies, Links fairy friend Navi and can even find his way by listening for his weapon striking a nearby wall.

Far Cry Primal is going to feature a language you've probably never heard of in the game, but the best part is that it's going to be based off a real proto-European language dating back to around the Stone Age.

The developers actually went and sought out linguists who specialize in languages from around the stone-age, or proto-European languages. But oddly, what was initially presented to them was seen as too "modern" for the setting they were going for, even though the language likely actually represented spoken words from the time-period they're portraying.

The creative director, Jean-Christophe Guyot, went back to the linguistic experts and asked them to attempt to devolve the language in a logical manner so that it could more easily align with with the overall creative vision they wanted to share with Far Cry Primal. To them, they wanted something even more primitive than the languages spoken during that time-period portrayed.

Platinum Games's heart is heavy with the news that they're going to delay the release of Scalebound until 2017. They want to get it right, and with a game of this size and scale, that means they need more development time.

A statement on the Platinum Games website from the Scalebound team reads that "In order to deliver on our ambitious vision and ensure that Scalebound lives up to expectations, we will be launching the game in 2017." it goes on saying that "This will give us the time needed to bring to life all the innovative features and thrilling gameplay experiences that we have planned." It certainly can't be an easy decision to make, but with so many games from 2015 having had the appearance of being unfinished, Scalebound and the amount of ingenuity they want to bring to gaming will have to wait until it's done right. Though we are always skeptical, more time to perfect things from good companies generally results in awesome things.

They also say that there will be plenty more to share in the upcoming year, so that we won't be completely in the dark during these longer days of development. We're particularly excited to see more specifics with the way you interact with your friend and companion, not to mention seeing more gameplay mechanics throughout the year.

Even more records are being broken now. Garry's Mod, the highly addictive physics sandbox has sold over 10 million copies since it debuted as a standalone game in November of 2006, breaking that mark just over the New Year holiday.

And who would have thought that such a modification could have become what has today? What was once a simple free mod that let you play with the assets in Half-Life has turned into a massively entertaining game in it's own right. According to Garry Newman, the creator of this fine addition, 4 million copies were sold just last year alone.

And it's likely not going to stop there as more and more fans are created due to the weird and wacky creations that you can find all over YouTube. What the future holds for Garry Newman and if he has plans to expand his masterpiece into more franchises would be delightful, but unknown. I'm sure there's plenty of nostalgia from gamers of all ages with his mod. Anyone have any creations they'd like to share?

Rumors about Nintendo's NX have been floating around though nothing truly concrete has made its way from Nintendo themselves. Until now.

Speaking to Sankei West, Kimishima Tatsumi talked a little, though not too specifically, about the future of the NX console. Apparently they're well into development and they're already planning how to best break into the market again by bringing over their best franchises.

It was also mentioned that the aim of the NX is to provide a different, and new, experience when compared to the Wii U and the 3DS. Tatsumi said (with a very rough translation from Google Translate) "With the aim of what can be a new experience different from the current WiiU and 3DS, it is recommended a steadily developing." What this'll mean is anyones guess. But it wouldn't be too far off to think that Nintendo wants to innovate in similar ways that they have with 3D, touch and with motion controls. It wouldn't necessarily be a stretch if they planned on making a first party VR experience even unlike the upcoming PSVR.

Joss Whedon might have directed the two single biggest Marvel films - 'The Avengers' and it's 2015 sequel 'Age of Ultron' (also the third and fifth highest grossing films of all time), but according to a new interview he's done with the studio for good.

Speaking to the Oxford Union society, Wheddon was asked if he'll have any involvement with the studio moving forward down, but the director shot down this prospect quite overwhelmingly, responding "I sort of had my finger in all of the films in the second phase, but then I just had to concentrate only on Ultron, and sort of know when it was done I was just going to stop. So I made a completely clean break - not because we had a falling out - just because I was like, "I can't..." If I was still there going, "Well, here are my thoughts on this film," I'd be there every day. I wouldn't do anything else because there are a lot of films, and it is a lot of fun. It's very seductive. When you can put your little fairy dust on things and just improve them slightly, and they actually listen to you. I was a script doctor for a long time, and the part where they listen to you was very rare; so it was very important for my own self to go "we can still be friends," but..."

The next film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the third entry in the 'Captain America' series 'Civil War', hits cinemas in May.

On the heels of CES 2016, Lenovo has announced its new ThinkPad X1 family of hardware that includes a new modular tablet, a new Yoga Pro laptop that sports a 360-degree OLED display, and a sleek new all-in-one desktop.

Lenovo has just unveiled its new ThinkPad X1 triumvirate of pro hardware that will push forward into 2016, sporting tech innovations like OLED screens, ultra-thin AIO setups, WiGig wireless docking, USB Type C and a galaxy of peripheral add-ons like 3D sensors and more. Lenovo's X1 trinity is composed of the ThinkPad X1 Tablet, ThinkPad X1 Yoga, and finally the all-in-one ThinkCenter X1 AIO desktop.

The modular ThinkPad X1 Tablet is Lenovo's answer to the Surface Book, and features a slew of modular attachments that change up the device's main functions. These peripherals include the basic stylus-and-keyboard combo, but add-ons like an optional $149 3D RealSense camera sensor that captures and renders real life objects aim to transform the tablet.

What happens when a massive flock of 1,000 deathclaws take on 10 hulking robotic behemoths? Chaos, of course!

The Brotherhood of Steel's massive Liberty Prime robots are pretty much like titanic suits of power armor, and as such they're regarded as the most destructive force in the Fallout universe. Well, besides maybe the fearsome monstrosities known as deathclaws. But who would win in a square go? YouTuber EZPlays aims to answer that question in his newest video, pitting 1,000 rancorous deathclaws against 10 Liberty Primes in a destructive battle scene that reminds us how great PC console commands really are.

If you'd like to set up your own Fallout 4 battles, we've put together a great step-by-step tutorial that will show you how to create epic monster showdowns with the game's console commands.

The devs at Guerrilla Games have recently explained why Horizon Zero Dawn just doesn't have room for multiplayer, as it's a story-driven RPG akin to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

In a recent interview with IGN Latino America, Horizon Zero Dawn's executive producer Mark Norris iterated that the game wants to build a strong connection to players, and multiplayer will just get in the way. "There are questions as to why a multiplayer will not do. The reality is that we are putting together a new IP. We are making a new franchise for the first time in 10 years and what we really want to do is improve the experience for the player. When you get to face these machines as Eloy, with this great character, who is the real star of the story and everything that happens, have this connection with her. But what happens when you take the elements of multiplayer? You play as a supporting character? How does that work?."

In the current age of gaming, it feels like multiplayer components are thrown in on a whim as a means to keep gamers buying new DLC and season pass content. Mega publishers always want to tap the rich vein that is paid add-ons, and often a game's base singleplayer game type suffers as a result.

Steam just smashed a record today with over 12 million concurrent users online worldwide. This is naturally during another successful Steam Winter sale that's likely inspired people to take it easy today just before the post-holiday work week begins.

As of around 1:55PM EST 12,333,557 people were playing something on Steam, split mostly between DOTA 2 at 940,373 players logged in and Counter-Strike with 652,925 players vying for domination. Fallout 4 was a distant third with "only" 116,827 individuals wandering through the wasteland. This totals nearly 10% of the total user-base online at any one time.

This is far more than is normal for this time of year, though not nearly as high as the concurrent user count in November, with over 13.4 million concurrent users. The Winter Sale, which ends on the 4th of January, is the likely culprit as people find the time to try out the spoils of the sale.

There are a lot of steamers on a variety of services that have seem to have a gimmick added to their repertoire in order to attract an audience, being drunk just one of those tools. This particular streamer, Kneecoleslaw, wasn't just drunk while playing video games, but she was also abusing her cat as a result.

Certainly there's nothing wrong with a good gimmick that harmlessly engages your viewers and makes them laugh, that's the point of entertainment, to entertain. Kneecoleslaw seems to have taken her beloved activity a bit too far, however, and was at a point where she didn't even initially listen to her friends advice to stop abusing her cats. She's seen in the videos, posted below for those that don't wish to watch it, choking her animals until repeated pleas from a friend to let the cat go.

Kneewcoleslaw has been quickly banned by Twitch and the video was brought to the attention of PETA who have promptly began an investigation into the matter. PETA may not be the shining example of animal rights, but the issue could reasonably be brought to the attention of her local law enforcement or animal control. But really, this shows how drinking on stream can go from harmless gimmick to a serious issue in a very short amount of time. And this isn't even the worst example either.

While most of the attention of Disney's $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012 was focussed on 'Star Wars', leading to the release of 'The Force Awakens' last month, the company has been relatively quiet about the 'Indiana Jones' franchise, which it also picked up in the same deal. But fresh from comments from director Steven Spielberg confirming that Harrison Ford would return as the free-wheeling archaeologist, comes confirmation from Disney CEO Bob Iger that the company is keen to move ahead with another entry in the franchise.

In a 35 minute interview with Bloomberg, Bob Iger talks about the 'Star Wars' franchise moving forward and casually confirms that "Indiana Jones, by the way ... will be coming." Go to 7:40 for the comment in question.

The last 'Indiana Jones' film 'The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' in 2008 was a financial success, yet somewhat of a critical failure, so there's work that needs to be done to win fans over again. But with Harrison Ford turning 74 this year, they'll want to get a move on.

Homebrew creations never cease to amaze me. Just this week we saw hackers jailbreak a PS4 to run Linux and play a Pokemon handheld game, opening the doors for current-gen homebrew creations. Now those enterprising console-crackers have found a way to get Windows 95 to successfully run on Nintendo's New 3DS XL handheld, showing the versatility of today's gaming hardware.

The honors go to a modder named Shutterbug2000, who posted up proof of Windows 95 running on the handheld onto the GBA Temp forums. How exactly would you go about getting a 20-year-old Windows operating system to run on a modern video game system? Shutterbug explains:

"Back a while ago, I tried compiling the dosbox from libretro, and using retroarch to emulate dosbox. Yet, every time, it froze on a rainbow glitchy mess. [Then] I tried it on my n3ds, and it just worked," Shutterbug2000 said in a forum response. "So, I think the o3ds just isn't powerful enough to run dosbox, or there's not enough RAM. At it's core, this is just libretro/retroarch dosbox. But I figured, hey, everyone want's Windows on their 3DS, right?"

During an end-of-year livestream by Roberts Space Industries last month, Chris Roberts gave some more details on the VR side of Star Citizen.

Roberts said that RSI would be refocusing its VR efforts for Star Citizen in the coming months, adding "The status of VR integration is that we've been pretty busy with getting [Alpha] 2.0 [out] and we're trying to get 2.1 so I would say we still have some stuff to integrate from the most recent CryEngine drops. They've been actually doing quite a lot of VR, I'm pretty sure you guys have noticed that they've completely doubled down and they're all VR now".

Roberts continued: "So there are some updates on VR that we need to integrate in. It's a little more complicated because we've changed the engine so much, we've changed the rendering pipeline to enable us to do a lot of things that we need to do so it's not very easy. Nowadays we've diverged from CryEngine where we don't take regular updates from them any more although we will cherry pick certain features that maybe we're not working on that we think would help out well and VR is a good example of that".

Mirror's Edge Catalyst will be released this year, and we're finally hearing more information on the next adventure of Faith from EA and DICE.

According to DICE's senior concept artist, Per Haagensen, Faith will look "more mature" in Mirror's Edge Catalyst. Haagensen added that DICE wants to show off "her skill, confidence and attitude in a dynamic manner, without her looking like a martial artist or super hero".

He added: "When I set out to sculpt her for the Key Art, aside from the realistic aspects of her appearance, more than anything it was to convey the pose with enough action, tension, and interest to make the audience curious about who this person is".

It was only a couple of days ago that we heard that AMD's next-gen GPU architecture would be called Polaris, but now we're hearing about a refreshed Xbox One that would feature this new GPU.

The news is coming from a rumor posted on the Overclock.net forums, where you can see the device model listed as "Xbox One Polaris", but the software version is also something worth noting: "Polaris-222". Now, this could just be a huge coincidence, that Microsoft's updated Xbox One software is called Polaris - but with a rumored Polaris architecture in the works from AMD? Well now. Keep in mind that AMD's APUs power the Xbox One, it makes sense.

We definitely have the rumor stamp out for this one, but if it turns out to be true, you can bet we'll hear more about this in the coming months.

Oculus VR has announced that the Oculus Rift's Touch controllers won't be launching alongside the VR headset, and have been delayed to the second half of 2016.

In a recent blog post, the VR pioneers at Oculus said they need more time to perfect the wireless VR peripheral. Luckily, this delay won't affect the main attraction: the Rift is still on schedule to release in Q1 2016 with pre-orders following in the new future.

"On the path to perfecting Touch, we've decided that we need more time before release, and we'll now be shipping Touch in the second half of 2016. Pre-orders will open a few months prior to launch," the announcement reads. "On Touch hardware, we've made significant advances in ergonomics, and we're implementing many changes that make Touch even more comfortable, reliable, and natural. We're also implementing changes that improve hand pose recognition.The Oculus Touch originally made waves as the first-ever controller made specifically for a VR headset, and like the Rift, the hardware has gone through many changes and variations."

The $32 million collaboration between the Google-owned Boston Dynamics team and DARPA has been put on the backburner indefinitely, as the US Marines Corps has decided not to go forward with the LS3 "robotic mule" produced by the project. The main reason: it's too damn loud. Repairs and squad integration were also concerns.

The purpose of the creatures was to carry up to 400lbs worth of equipment, though judging from the look of them, enemy intimidation was part of the appeal as well.

It's not all for naught, though: Boston Dynamics and DARPA explain this was a research opportunity from the start more than anything else.