Overwatch is getting another PC beta, new dates have been revealed

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 13, 2016 9:04 AM CDT

A new Overwatch beta, a more inclusive one, will be kicking off this Friday, April 15th at 9AM PDT and running through Saturday, April 16th at 9PM PDT. A short test, to be sure, but one necessary to make sure the new pose works as stated and to further test the networking backend ready just in time for the full release. That's always the hardest part it seems.

Overwatch is getting another PC beta, new dates have been revealed

Starting this Thursday Blizzard is going to scour through Battle.net to start flagging accounts and giving them the permissions necessary to actually play. Around Thursday, when the start, you might end up receiving an email notification saying that you've been selected.

If you do happen to get in, you'll have access to the entire roster of 21 heroes available to you with three maps; Hanamura, Route 66 and Nepal. Due to the limited focus of the test, there's no Weekly Brawl or Competitive Play at all. Instead, this is all about getting as many people onto their hardware and stressing it to the absolute maximum. To that end, Blizzard has stated that for this test, you might see some unexpected downtime or even performance issues. But to not worry, that's the scope of this particular test. In other words, we'll hear plenty of complaining about it across the Interwebs, even though it's meant to happen.

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No Mans Sky is so massive, 99% of planets won't be visited by anyone

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 13, 2016 7:40 AM CDT

No Man's Sky is going to have a gargantuan galaxy to explore, one so big that they've had to build in-game probes to send out and explore it for them to ensure that the game is working as it should. It's so big, though, that Sean Murray, the founder of Hello Games, says that 99.9% of the planets won't even be discovered, let alone visited.

No Mans Sky is so massive, 99% of planets won't be visited by anyone

During a video interview with IGN, Murray was showing the progress of his game, he explained that there's likely to be no game guide sufficient enough to encompass absolutely everything. "When you land on a planet, like I said, no one has been there before. There is no YouTube video that you can look up, there is no FAQ, so you have to discover it for yourself. A big part of it is you can scan creatures, and when you scan them, you can name them" Sean Murray said. "It's actually a slightly sad but amazing thing that 99.9 percent of the planets in No Man's Sky I think will probably never be visited."

The galaxy is so massive due to the procedural generation technology that underlies it. They're able to generate an almost unlimited number of world's in the galaxy and even can spawn a whole ecosystem on each and every one of those world's. Infinite Kepler world's to explore, and almost literally no time to do it. There's infinite variety, though perhaps not infinite variety in stuff to do, which is always a concern in a space-sim that's so all-encompassing.

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First Marvel 'Doctor Strange' trailer hits the web

Ben Gourlay | Celebrities & Entertainment | Apr 13, 2016 1:56 AM CDT

While Disney and Marvel Studios gear up for the release of 'Captain America: Civil War' later this month, the studios have already begun pimping the next Marvel franchise in the making - 'Doctor Strange', which has released its first footage today.

First Marvel 'Doctor Strange' trailer hits the web

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, aka Doctor Strange - a brilliant neurosurgeon who's crippled in a car accident, but goes on to become a powerful mystic. Also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen and Rachel McAdams, 'Doctor Strange' is directed by Marvel Cinematic Universe newcomer Scott Derrickson.

'Doctor Strange' hits 2D, 3D and IMAX cinemas from November 4 worldwide.

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Armored Warfare bringing tanks of the future in the next update

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 12, 2016 5:49 PM CDT

Armored Warfare is still well into development and not nearly complete, but they're already adding new content like absolute mad. Update 0.15 has a lot of new things in store with new futuristic weapons of war, an overhaul of the Garage UI based on user feedback. There's also a lot more going on, too.

They keep on adding tiers to the garage, with Tier 10 being the latest. This tier is comprised completely of futuristic, theoretical and experimental vehicles that represent the future of what warfare might or will look like. They're planning on making models of the T-14 Armata, the PL-01, Leopard 2A7-140, SPHINX, XM1A3 and the Challenger 2B. Since these are going to be the most deadly vehicles in the game, they needed to be placed at the top, otherwise, it just wouldn't be fair. From the sounds of it, there is a chance that more super deadly vehicles will arrive alongside in the future, too.

They've also added in two new PvE missions that should be challenging. Operation Prometheus puts you racing towards a grounded cargo ship to secure the weapons that were being transported on it. Operation Meltdown has you defending a dam and an advanced nuclear reactor in a small snow-filled map. You'll be able to use the newly included Merkava 2B MBT, a premium Tier 7 tank, that they talked about some time ago.

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Former GTA 5 executive suing Take-Two for $150 million in royalties

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 12, 2016 4:30 PM CDT

Lindsey Lohan isn't the only one suing in response to Grand Theft Auto 5. The former president of Rockstar North and lead producer for the Grand Theft Auto series, Leslie Benzies, is taking legal action against parent-company, Take-Two Interactive, for the sum of $150 million in alleged unpaid royalties from GTA5.

Benzies alleges that he was actually forced out of the company after being compelled into a sabbatical that he went on starting in September of 2014. While on the compelled vacation, he apparently was privy to some information that pointed to just what he suspected, his colleagues attempting to force him out of the company. His lawyer, Christopher Bakes, gave a statement to Polygon, saying that "while on sabbatical, Mr. Benzies discovered numerous deceptions on the part of Take-Two, Rockstar, Rockstar North Ltd, Sam Houser and Dan Houser, who sought to force him out of the company and terminate his portion of royalty payments based upon arbitrary actions by the company's royalty Allocation Committee, a committee that may or may not have actually ever met."

That said, those royalties that he alleges haven't been paid, amount to a staggering $150 million. Those profits were part of a long-term agreement that Rockstar North entered into with Take-Two Interactive for an incentive program for upper-level executives back in 2008. All well and good, except now Take-Two and Rockstar are filing a counter-suit that cites that Benzies breached his contract, left without good reason and thus is not entitled to those royalties at all.

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Total War: Warhammer talks free DLC and content down the road

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 12, 2016 3:02 PM CDT

The folks at Creative Assembly have announced their plans for continued support after they finally release Total War: Warhammer. They're putting a lot of effort into the main game but they also want you to keep coming back for me. For free, as is tradition.

They plan on having three different types of DLC that'll eventually be available so that they cover every facet of the Warhammer universe, which is quite extensive. The World of Warhammer Fantasy Battles is vast, even covering it in three games would leave certain races and characters out of the mix. With DLC we're able to expand the experience post-release and, much as with our previous games, there will be a range of sizes and types of DLC pack on offer. We'll eventually see different DLC packs for new Lords, Races and Campaigns that'll bring new interesting avenues. The full explanation of what's in these new packs is below, after the break, and these aren't insignificant additions either. They want to provide an immense experience before the second game hits shelves, and it looks like they'll provide it with the

They're definitely excited about the DLC, well ahead of the games launch. This will follow a similar DLC pattern to their previous games, too, which was very heavy with new content. We're already getting around 100+ hours of stuff to do in the main game. "With both Rome II and Attila we were able to release playable factions, new formats and even a free campaign expansion as a thanks to players for supporting Total War," said Rob Bartholomew, Brand Director at Creative Assembly. "The Warhammer Fantasy Battles World is gigantic, and we're looking forward to exploring it over the forthcoming trilogy. But that incredible cast of characters and monsters also provides us the chance to make lots of interesting Free DLC to support our games over time."

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PS4 update 3.50 errors and bugs causing big issues for a lot of gamers

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 12, 2016 1:01 PM CDT

The latest firmware update, version 3.50, was released at the beginning of the month with a few new changes that made the social aspect of gaming a bit easier to attend to. It also finally brought the ability to play PS4 games through your PC or Mac remotely, among other unannounced features that were secretly baked in. What wasn't expected were the numerous bugs and glitches that also came with it, more than usual, in fact.

Some of the more surprising issues that seem to have cropped up are a great number of reported issues regarding the PS4 seemingly not able to boot-up properly after being installed. This can be resolved by booting into safe mode and reinstalling the last update, but that's a lot of hassle for an issue that shouldn't exist. Some are reporting that they can't even enter safe mode, meaning their console is completely useless now. On top of that, the many that can boot in are seeing some strange artifacts in video playing apps like YouTube and Hulu.

Other issues seem to center around the controller, too. Rampart among those are connection problems, where the controller will become unresponsive, randomly, even while plugged in. Headphones with an inline microphone also seem to have stopped working for a number of people when plugged into their controller. So far temporary fixes have only worked sparingly for different reasons.

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Apple pulls multiple Reddit apps from App Store, dislikes NSFW options

Sean Ridgeley | Software & Apps | Apr 12, 2016 12:30 PM CDT

Apple recently pulled multiple Reddit apps from the App Store, apparently due to its wariness of not safe for work (NSFW) content. Narwhal, Eggplant, and Antenna -- among many other apps -- were pulled.

Many apps have since been restored after removing their NSFW options; the official Reddit app doesn't seem to have ever been removed, although it was required to axe its "Safe for Work Browsing" toggle. With this, it's clear Apple wants Reddit app makers to avoid custom options on that front and to leave it up to Reddit account settings instead, possibly because having such a toggle implies said NSFW content exists.

"This is a feature we previously refined with Apple's help. We were surprised by the notice," said a Reddit employee under the username ggAlex. "We just resubmitted our build. We were not informed that Apple would be removing other apps. We were very upset to see that they did. Honestly, if we were interested in getting rid of 3rd party apps (which we're not), this would be the stupidest possible way to accomplish it."

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Dark Souls III launch trailer is pretty fearsome

Jeff Williams | Gaming | Apr 12, 2016 11:04 AM CDT

So Dark Souls III might have a game-breaking bug or two that completely destroys your will to continue, and that might cause literal headaches. But at least the launch trailer that Bandai NAMCO has put out just today is pretty stunning to watch. So soothe yourself on this trailer while they quickly fix the last of the bugs.

Dark Souls III launch trailer is pretty fearsome

If you can hold on to your horses, I'd bet that a fix is on the way for those crashes that are happening early on. Sure, it's frustrating and since the game has actually been out in Japan for a few weeks longer, one would think this could be taken care of and shouldn't even be in the final game. But alas, we do not live in a perfect world. And at the very least we have a pretty trailer to look at. Rumor also has it that this game is actually quite enjoyable, easily as enjoyable as the first.

In case you're even more curious, the song used in the video is Hozier's In The Woods Somewhere.

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HTC 10 features 5.2'' QHD display, 12MP UltraPixel 2 camera

Sean Ridgeley | Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones | Apr 12, 2016 10:33 AM CDT

After yesterday's leak, the flagship HTC 10 smartphone has been officially revealed.

Featuring a 5.2'' Quad HD 2560 x 1440 pixel display said to be 30% more colourful and 50% more responsive than its predecessor and the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor (in the US; customers elsewhere will get a different, currently unknown Snapdragon processor), the new phone should be well-equipped to display and handle modern tasks with the best of them. Boost functionality helps further, allowing you to optimize security, power, and memory management among other things with ease.

The design, meanwhile, includes a full-glass front with a metal body and boasts impressive durability as achieved through 168 hours of extreme testing.

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