Final Fantasy 15 takes 200 hours to completely beat

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Jun 20, 2016 9:22 PM CDT

E3 2016 - Square Enix confirms that Final Fantasy 15 will be an absolutely massive game in terms of gameplay offerings and scope, and will mirror the same staggering content that completionists expect from a Final Fantasy game.

Final Fantasy 15 takes 200 hours to completely beat

We've known for a while that Final Fantasy 15's campaign storyline lasts anywhere from 40 to 50 hours of gameplay, but Final Fantasy 15 game director Hajime Tabata has revealed that the huge open-world game can take up to 200 hours to completely master. As someone who's spent about 300 hours in a Final Fantasy game (and 120+ in Final Fantasy XIV: ARR), this number is a godsend, especially since I had concerns about FF15 being too "casualized" for its own good.

"In terms of clearing the main story, we're anticipating about 40 to 50 hours of gameplay, so there will be that at the very least. But there are a lot of side quests and extra stuff. With that alone, we're looking at about 100 hours of gameplay. So if you count all of that, we're looking at about 200 hours total if you clear everything. Fans have been waiting for quite a while, so we want to make sure there is a lot to enjoy when it's out," Tabata said during an E3 2016 showcase.

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Video: Here's how HTC showed off Mixed Reality on the Vive during E3

I'm unfit to be a space pirate, that much is clear. And HTC has the video to prove it. Call it performance anxiety, but my virtual pew-pew skills were sorely lacking at E3. What wasn't lacking was the cool factor of stepping into a small green screen studio, strapping an HTC Vive onto my head, and knowing that within seconds of finishing the demo, there'd be a cool clip waiting for me.

Mixed Reality footage is a cool trick pioneered by Northway Games (for Fantastic Contraption) and perfected by Valve and HTC. There's no denying how magical that launch trailer for the HTC Vive was, particularly because it best conveyed how it felt to be in VR, surrounded by the game world, short of actually donning headset and going for it.

At E3, HTC had attendees step into their makeshift Mixed Reality studio and play a few minutes of Space Pirate Trainer VR. They pointed a secondary camera on them and utilized capture cards and free software like OBS to blend the two realities together. Seemingly within seconds of finishing my session, screenshots and the above footage was ready for me to download.

Continue reading: Video: Here's how HTC showed off Mixed Reality on the Vive during E3 (full post)

Giveaway: Win a $200 Amazon Gift Card, answer some storage questions

Cameron Wilmot | Contests & Giveaways | Jun 20, 2016 9:06 PM CDT

This week we are giving away another $200 USD Amazon gift card to one lucky winner. We need your help to answer some questions regarding external storage. There are only four questions which should only take you about 2 or 3 minutes to complete.

Giveaway: Win a $200 Amazon Gift Card, answer some storage questions

Rules and Conditions

Step 1 - Subscribe to the TweakTown YouTube channel. Your subscription will be confirmed.

Continue reading: Giveaway: Win a $200 Amazon Gift Card, answer some storage questions (full post)

'Batman v Superman: Ultimate Cut' movie screenings coming to Australia

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Jun 20, 2016 7:18 PM CDT

Ahead of the release of the much anticipated extended cut of 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' on home video next month, Village Roadshow in Australia are offering fans free tickets to free one-off showings of the film in theatres.

Aussie fans in Sydney and Melbourne can go to the Village Roadshow website to register their interest in taking home a free double pass for the Sydney screening next Tuesday at 6pm and Melbourne screening next Wednesday at 6:30pm, with tickets being allocated through a lottery system. Winners will be drawn on at midnight on June 23 and notified by email on June 24.

Continue reading: 'Batman v Superman: Ultimate Cut' movie screenings coming to Australia (full post)

Sony to launch PS4K this year, full reveal coming in September

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Jun 20, 2016 4:53 PM CDT

Sony will launch its new 4K-upscaling PlayStation 4 Neo console in Holiday 2016 to beat Microsoft's 6TFLOPs "monster" Project Scorpio to the market, according to recent sources.

Sony to launch PS4K this year, full reveal coming in September

Although Sony's new PS4K won't be as powerful as Microsoft's Xbox Scorpio, nor will it leverage AMD's new 14nm Polaris GPU and Zen CPU SoC combo, the Japanese console-maker will likely take advantage of an earlier console release to soak up a full year of sales. We've known for a while that Sony would likely launch its PS4K in 2016 (French retailer Innelec said its coming in October), "several sources" have told Eurogamer to expect a PS4K release this year.

Instead of revealing its PS4K at E3 2016 like Microsoft did with Project Scorpio, Sony took the more reserved route by officially confirming the console is indeed on the way. Sony Computer Interactive President Andrew House confirmed that the PlayStation 4K (aka Neo) will upscale 1080p games to 4K, and that it will be up to developers to optimize games for the "enhanced mode". House also confirmed that the PS4 Neo won't have exclusive games, and that all existing PS4 games will be compatible with the PS4K.

Continue reading: Sony to launch PS4K this year, full reveal coming in September (full post)

Bethesda's new 'totally unique' games to be Skyrim-sized juggernauts

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Jun 20, 2016 3:02 PM CDT

E3 2016 - Bethesda game director Todd Howard confirmed the studio is working on two absolutely massive projects that overlap, are "totally different" than anything Bethesda's done before, and require next-gen technology that "isn't quite here yet."

Bethesda's new 'totally unique' games to be Skyrim-sized juggernauts

Remember when Bethesda's Todd Howard said this back in February? "We actually have three kind of longer term projects we're doing that are all - we'll talk about them at a future date - but they're different than anything we've done before, while also being a Bethesda-style game....Big and crazy, but in many ways different than things we've done before. It's an exciting time." At E3 2016 Todd Howard told Geoff Keighley even more details about these ambitious new games and what they hold for the future of the studio.

These two new massive projects will be fully-fledged Skyrim- and Fallout 4-sized games that come before The Elder Scrolls VI--but all three games (which were described as 'big and crazy' before) will basically be under the same umbrella in terms of planning. "I could sit here and explain the game to you, and you would say, 'That sounds like you don't even have the technology. How long is that going to take?' So it is something that's going to take a lot of time, what he have in mind for that game, and we actually have two other large projects we're also doing that are bigger than everything we've done. People will probably hear about those even before Elder Scrolls 6. That'll make sense many years from now."

Continue reading: Bethesda's new 'totally unique' games to be Skyrim-sized juggernauts (full post)

All the Final Fantasy 15 gameplay footage you could ever want

Derek Strickland | Gaming | Jun 20, 2016 2:02 PM CDT

E3 2016 - Square Enix unloaded a staggering volume of Final Fantasy 15 content at E3, blowing the doors off of the new action-based RPG with tons of gameplay footage, screenshots, and details.

Thanks to Square Enix, E3 2016 wasn't lacking for RPGs (although we did expect Sony to showcase more JRPGs at their press conference!). Gamers were given a huge buffet of Final Fantasy 15 awesomeness to chew on--not just the small morsels and teasers we're used to. In fact, I'd say that there's so much footage and info out there right now that we can hardly digest it all-in-one sitting.

The first bit of gameplay footage has FF15 game director Hajime Tabata walking us through the first 24 minutes of gameplay, revealing key details and tidbits along the way--like Noctis' companions being living, breathing comrades with personalities rather than stale NPCs, level-up systems and side abilities like fishing, photography and survival, real-time combat mechanics, dynamic 24-hour day-and-night cycles, and pretty much everything under Eos' sun.

Continue reading: All the Final Fantasy 15 gameplay footage you could ever want (full post)

Sony is rolling out PlayStation VR demos to 300 locations this week

A few lucky people got to try PlayStation VR at a handful of Best Buy locations during E3 week, but now Sony is dramatically expanding the reach of its demos. How dramatically? Beginning June 24 the PS4 virtual reality system will be available to try in 300 locations across the United States.

Demo attendees will get to go hands-on with PlayStation VR Worlds, EVE: Valkyrie, Headmaster, Battlezone, and SUPERHYPERCUBE. More game demos will be added leading up to PS VR's launch in October, and hopefully those will include the newly announced PlayStation VR titles from Sony's E3 press conference.

Want to try it on for yourself? Visit this URL, punch in your zip code, and Sony will spit out store locations close to you, including the hours it's available to play each day. Sony is definitely going all out to get PlayStation VR maximum exposure at retail. Have you tried it yet?

Continue reading: Sony is rolling out PlayStation VR demos to 300 locations this week (full post)

Dead Rising 4 may come to Steam, PS4 after exclusivity ends

Sean Ridgeley | Gaming | Jun 20, 2016 1:38 PM CDT

E3 2016 - Capcom's zombie game Dead Rising 4 will be exclusive to Xbox One for one full year and Windows Store for 90 days, Microsoft has confirmed. After the exclusivity periods end, it may end up on PlayStation 4 and/or Steam.

Dead Rising 3 was exclusive to Xbox One as well before releasing 10 months later on PC, while the game was permanently out of the question for PS4 owners. So in both cases, Microsoft is more lax on restrictions this time around, which should come as great news to all.

Dead Rising 4 will launch December 6 on Windows Store and Xbox One.

Continue reading: Dead Rising 4 may come to Steam, PS4 after exclusivity ends (full post)

Hands-on preview: Getting mental with 'Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope'

The Serious Sam franchise has always done one thing exceptionally well: balls-to-the-wall FPS action focused on twitch reflexes, overpowered weapons, absurdly large hordes of demons, and unapologetic brutality. So when Croteam announced they were bringing their shooter to virtual reality, I may or may not have literally jumped up and down with excitement. I recently played a small slice of an early build of Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope, and it's almost everything I expected from a Samuel Stone adventure.

I played using the Oculus Rift and its forthcoming Touch controllers, but a demo station was also set up with an HTC Vive, and the developers tell me they're currently talking to Sony about getting the game onto PlayStation VR.

Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope finds the titular action hero traveling from planet to planet to fend off Mental's endless hordes of demon warriors, and it's no surprise that (as always) Sam is basically the universe's last hope. Fortunately, Sam's packing a fairly deep arsenal of weaponry and skills, all of which are upgradeable between missions, lending a nice sense of progression to the game that's absent from most "shooting gallery" style VR games right now. In fact, this is the most fleshed out shooter I've seen, particularly for the HTC Vive, as most of the FPS style games on that system are just a single level. Croteam has clearly been busy. Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope will launch with at least 8 worlds and a slew of guns when it debuts this summer on Steam Early Access.

Continue reading: Hands-on preview: Getting mental with 'Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope' (full post)