Latest News - Page 2658

With this generation of consoles and their 'increased horsepower' over the previous generation consoles, we're not seeing that many AAA titles run at 1080p 60FPS. This will hopefully not be the case when it comes to Doom, with id Software saying that it's aiming for 1080p 60FPS.

During a talk with GameSpot, Marty Stratton, the Executive Producer of Doom said: "When you're developing, you make thousands of decisions that have an impact on performance or visual fidelity. We've always been at the forefront of saying we want our games to run as fast as possible at the highest resolution possible. So for us, that goal is 1080p and 60 FPS. Along with that goal, the mantra of our technology team is that we want to be the best-looking game out there at 60 FPS and 1080p. So you draw that line in the sand".

Stratton said that for the best Doom experience, 1080p 60FPS is where it's at, he elaborated: "For us it isn't just a lofty technical goal. We really do think it's important to the feel of the game, it's important to the way our combat feels and our movement feels. It's got to be fast, it's got to be fluid, and it's all based on that. It really is a gameplay goal first and foremost. You do make decisions here or there. Ultimately I don't think you can ever expect most consumers to really nitpick".

On the publicity hustings for the latest entry in the 'Mission Impossible' franchise 'Rogue Nation', star Tom Cruise has been quizzed on whether we'll see Maverick in the skies again and unsurprisingly he's keen to sign up - but on one condition.

Speaking to ExtraTV, Cruise threw down the gauntlet to filmmakers to do it all real, or he's out. "I'd like to fly those jets again, but we got to do all the jets practical, no CGI on the jets... I'm saying right now no CGI on the jets" but then confirmed that if they could somehow do it for real, he'd be in "If we can figure all that out, and the Department of Defense will allow us to do it, that would be fun".

The original Top Gun in 1986 was a huge boon for the United States Navy, with the number of male recruits spiking by 500% in it's wake.

With the PC port of Batman: Arkham Knight being a huge mess, so much so that Warner Bros. pulled it from Steam, good guy NVIDIA is stepping up to the plate to help fix it out. NVIDIA's Tom Peterson talked about the game during his appearance on MMORPG.com yesterday, saying that some of NVIDIA's best are on the case.

Peterson said: "We're fixing a ton of things that are not necessarily related to us. Some of it may be related to our driver, some not. But at the end of the day the game is the focus and we're going to make it great". Peterson continued: "We have 200 to 300 engineers that are really visual scientists. They're the best out there. Artists, Ph.D.s. ... We've taken the approach that says let's capture what they've got in their minds, convert it to algorithms ... test it and QA it, and then provide it as middleware effectively to game developers".

Why is NVIDIA helping out? It feels like this is just NVIDIA being a helpful member of the PC community, especially when Peterson added: "I look at [Arkham Knight] as an example of where NVIDIA can help a developer get to market with a quality game. Warner Bros. ... made a few mistakes getting the game out. It wasn't fully performance optimized for PC. So now we're deploying our QA resources and our engineers to make that game as good as it possibly can be".

After 15 years of black-market gaming, China has opened up a new door to the bustling video games industry by scrapping its restrictive ban on games systems. The country's Ministry of Culture states that hardware titans like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo can not only sell but also manufacture video games consoles anywhere in the country.

This new legislature is a huge win for console-makers, as they have free reign to tap the Chinese market. Last year the Chinese government made a similar reversal with the launch of the Xbox One in the region, but console-makers were bound by unfavorable restrictive policies. To sell their consoles in China, console-makers had to agree to specific rules like being told where manufacturing facilities could be placed, gaining approval from regulation officials, and have every individual console inspected before being sold.

Now China has nixed all of these regulations and opened a new frontier of free-trade for video games consoles, completely overturning the decade-and-a-half ban.

After Anonymous took credit for a data breach targeting the US Census Bureau, the agency is now investigating the incident. The Federal Audit Clearinghouse is responsible for collecting and storing audit information from local and state governments, Indian tribes and non-profit groups.

The Federal Audit Clearinghouse stores non-confidential information, including names, site user names, and organization addresses and phone numbers.

Don't worry, as all internal confidential information remains secure: "That information remains safe, secure and on an internal network segmented apart from the external site and the affected database," said John Thompson, director of the Census Bureau, in a blog post.

Fallout Shelter will launch for Google Android mobile users on August 13, and will be available for free via the Google Play store. In its first two weeks of release for Apple iOS, the game became a top-downloaded game - and helped generate $5.1 million in revenue.

"Whether you're playing on Android or on iOS, Fallout Shelter will feature new game updates, including Mr. Handy as an all premium reward," according to a Bethesda blog post. "Have him collect resources inside your Vault, send him into the wasteland to collect loot, and defend your Vault from creatures and disasters, including all new Deathclaw invasions and Molerat infestations."

Expect Bethesda to support the game "for a long time," according to Bethesda - as the game studio is overwhelmed with support by iOS gamers.

Just how popular is YouTube for Android and iOS? Very popular, with over half of all YouTube views originating from mobile devices. Google has recently been revamping its mobile apps to provide a better experience, not just for viewers, but for content creators, too.

The latest update to YouTube includes a new 'Home' landing page, where you can take a look around and discover videos with recommendations and personal playlists based on your history. 'Subscriptions' is the new home for updates from the channels that you're subscribed to, as well as a new option being made available which lets you receive notifications once your favorite YouTuber uploads a new video.

'Account' is the last part of the new YouTube, where all of the videos you've uploaded are found, as well as your watch history and your playlists. All of these small changes to YouTube culminate in a much better application for video playback, especially with the latest update which allows for full-screen portrait videos.

The opening night of All Work All Play in Melbourne, Australia saw a few dozen of us nerds bustle with excitement at our 'full-time hobby' finally getting some mainstream screen time. Although the small turnout was a little disappointing, some familiar faces had woven themselves out of the wood work, these being the types of people you would have seen hunched over a CRT monitor in 2005, wearing baggy cargo shorts and sporting too much gel in their hair.

Although it kicked off with a rough start (technical difficulties), the end result was captivating for us enthusiasts. Following a few champions throughout the entire film, this ESL-led documentary honed in on the former director of pro gaming, Michal 'Carmac' Blicharz and Cloud 9, an underdog League of Legends team.

Following journeys both personal and on-stage, the production quality matched that Valve's 'Free to Play' and poised itself as a film that can educate and capture the imaginations of eSports enthusiasts experienced and new.

While HTC might not be doing so well when it comes to smartphone sales, it has one of the most exciting products in it arsenal, with the Vive VR headset arriving later this year.

With no firm release date other than 'the end of 2015', HTC is now saying that it will sell Vive directly through its website, as well as various retailers. HTC.com and HTCVR.com will have the first Vive units available, but it will slowly reach other destinations. HTC's Head of Global Marketing, Jeff Gattis, talked with Polygon recently about Vive, where he said: "Everybody is excited about this: They see the potential for the market, the potential to sell the things around it. They see it as a great traffic driver to their stores".

Gattis said that "retail will be part of [their] strategy" but it won't happen until Q1 2016, but that doesn't mean the Vive is delayed from its 'end of 2015' release window. Gattis added: "I don't know if we're necessarily going to hit retail for holiday, but we're still very committed to that".

In what should come as a total surprise, Mortal Kombat X has topped NPD Group's sales rankings for video games at the retail level in the US for the first half of 2015. Considering the #2 title is Grand Theft Auto V, this is a huge scoop for Warner Bros., especially after the huge issues surrounding Batman: Arkham Knight.

Most of the games on the chart will be games you either own, or have heard of, but it's quite surprising to see Mortal Kombat X top the list. Here's the top 10 sales rankings for video games at retail for the first half of 2015, according to NPD Group:

343 Industries has revealed new info on the importance of teamwork in Halo 5: Guardians' campaign mode, underlining key mechanics and tweaks they've made along the way.

For the most part 343i has kept the standard Halo formula in tact for Halo 5, but this time around the game has a decidedly more strategic co-operative feel. Gone are the days of lone-wolfing it in Master Chief's boots: throughout the missions you'll be accompanied by three other Spartans all with their own attributes, Loadouts, and specialized HUD's.

"Your team is your weapon," reads the developers' new Halo Waypoint update.

As there is a big push for consumers and retailers to adopt contactless payments, there are plenty of cybersecurity headaches that must be addressed.

The Which? Consumer group noted that data from contactless debit and credit cards can be intercepted - and while not all data is taken - it's enough to make fraudulent purchases.

"Using an easily obtainable reader and free software to decode data, we were able to read the card number and expiry date from all 10 cards," said a spokesperson from Which?, in a statement published by Sky News. "We were also able to read limited details of the last 10 transactions, although no cards revealed the CVV security code."

BlackBerry is looking for new business opportunities away from just smartphone handsets, and recently showed off a new line of security products. The company wants to continue its evolution from just a smartphone maker, and has focused more on software and cloud-based offerings.

The full turnaround may take a bit longer than what the company previously predicted, and instead of it taking six months, could take an additional 12 to 18 months.

"I'm pretty satisfied with the progress on the turnaround so far," said John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, in a statement to Reuters. "I laid out the $500 million software revenue target and I'm still comfortable with that commitment for this fiscal year, it looks good."

While Valve still hasn't confirmed the development of Half-Life 3, rumors have circling Reddit that the script for Half-Life 3 is finished, but it won't be released 'due to fear'.

Well, someone reached out to Valve's Marc Laidlaw, who said: "I can't comment on Valve's internal process, but I can say that it sounds like someone is trolling. Anonymous sources have been posting speculation masquerading as inside knowledge since the Half-Life 1 delay in 1997. If that's any comfort, please rest assured that in my experience at Valve, fear is the last thing that would ever drive a decision about what to work on".

When it came to the question of "If the story is finished, why not release it as a book or a comic", Laidlaw responded with: "There's a misunderstanding that I've always tried to address straight on when this question comes up, which is that a Half-Life story can somehow exist outside of a game. It can't. The story is created through the process of trying to figure out how to best use the features of the engine within the interesting set of constraints it poses".

Thanks to a leaked benchmark, we now know that Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 5 will feature an 8-core processor and 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. Samsung will be using its own octo-core Exynos 7420 SoC inside of the Galaxy Note 5.

The Geekbench result was used on a Verizon-powered Galaxy Note 5, with the model name of 'SM-N920V'. The benchmark has the Galaxy Note 5 has a single-core result of 1418, while the multi-core result was 4399. These scores are very similar to that of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, so we should expect the same performance on the Galaxy Note 5 that we had in the S6 and S6 edge.

Samsung is expected to unveil its new Galaxy Note 5 next month, with rumors pointing to August 12. The Galaxy Note 5 should feature a 5.67-inch 1440p Super AMOLED display, the aforementioned 8-core processor, 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and Samsung's new Shannon 333 LTE modem.

Some of the developers that worked at CD Projekt RED, the studio behind The Witcher series of games, have moved over to IMGN.PRO. IMGN.PRO is the studio responsible for Kholat and Fool's Theory, with the company joining forces with the ex-CD Projekt RED developers.

IMGN.PRO is working on a new 'demanding, ambitious' title that is powered by Unreal Engine 4, with IMGN.PRO's co-founder, Lukasz Kubiak, teasing: "Evolution is a keyword when thinking both about our business and our new project. Merging our team with the Fool's Theory crew gives us access to the best people in the industry. Since the beginning of Kholat development our goal was to deliver ambitious, high quality games. Nothing has changed in this matter. Despite the fact, that now we want to go even further. With such a talented and experienced team, we intend to create a truly sensational game. The new project we are currently working on will be completely different than Kholat, much bigger and way more powerful".

The former Senior Quest Designer at CD Projekt RED, and Fool's Theory founder, Rokosz, said: "We started working on a game that will be a daring combination of some isometric genres. I don't want to reveal too much details at this point other than we're developing the game on Unreal Engine 4. It was a natural choice for us, taking into consideration how experienced the team is in working with this tool. I can assure you that the game will break some proven schemes and we'll be revealing more information about it very soon".

Some of the most popular stories from the last month or so have been our articles on the Unreal Engine 4 powered showcases of Mario and Sonic, but now it's time for Pokemon.

YouTuber'CryZENx' has released yet another video showing what a possible Pokemon game powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 could look like, which you can view above. It's quite astonishing what can be achieved with Unreal Engine 4, but I just want to play a Mario, Sonic or Pokemon game in UE4 already.

It looks like terrorists are communicating about different attack strategies to launch cyberattacks against the United States, according to FBI director James Comey.

"We are picking up signs of increasing content," Comey said during the Aspen Security Forum. "It's a small but potentially growing problem." Comey didn't publicly discuss what types of attacks could take place - and any initial plans are relatively rudimentary - but shows increased concern from the US government.

Cybercriminals have found numerous ways to target US interests online, but there is specific concern of attacks against critical infrastructure. It would seem like organized foreign states, or state-sponsored hackers pose a greater concern, but terrorists could coordinate with hacker mercenaries.

Oops! It looks like a Universal Pictures studio in France may have been responsible for seeding a pirated version of Jurassic World from its office.

Universal submitted a US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to Google, asking it to block requests to hosted and linked copies of Jurassic World. One link was https://127.0.0.1:4001/#/fr, indicating it was a "localhost" machine. Movie studios typically use automated scanners to identify sources of their pirated content, and it would seem chaotic that the scanner identified a Universal machine.

It's not surprising that movie pirates have been all over Jurassic World, as it smashed box office records after its release on June 12. A Jurassic World sequel is planned for 2018, as the movie generated so much international box office revenue. In case you missed it, here is the TweakTown review of the film.

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is now available on the Steam marketplace more than two weeks ahead of its projected release date.

Rather than waiting until next month, Scott Cauthon, the game's creator and developer, finished the game early and went ahead and released it right away. Cauthon statement announced the news last night on the official Five Nights at Freddy's Steam community page, leading to resounding fanfare and applause. He said: "Ok, so as many of you already know, I'm bad with release dates. The game is finished. :) Enjoy!"

The game's release date has been pushed up twice now, as the game was originally slated to release on Halloween 2015, then was pushed forward to August 8.