Gaming - Page 1001

Samsung just can't catch a break. After the whole exploding batteries on Galaxy Note7 fiasco and the global recall of the devices, we witnessed many, and I mean many, memes and GIFs making fun of the poor Note7. Clearly, that wasn't enough.

While Samsung is trying to soften the blow, a GTA 5 player HitmanNiko created a mod that replaces the sticky bomb with a Galaxy Note7. As you can see in the video below, the virtual Note7 can cause a lot of damage.

Samsung continued the sale of the Galaxy Note7 in South Korea after a successful exchange program, and other countries will see a relaunch in the upcoming weeks. But now they have a new competitor to worry about - Google's Pixel.

A new patch is out now for Forza Horizon 3 on both Xbox One and PC, though it mainly focuses on the highly publicized PC issues, particularly performance.

Apart from fixing the stuttering and stability, it disables mouse move detection while driving, and adds a variety of control options, including steering wheel sensitivity, center spring scale, and damping scale. Additionally, it includes a ton of fixes for wheel controls, so if you had any issues with yours before, they should be fixed.

Playground and Team 10 are said to be working on force feedback issues and yet more wheel support, as well as further stability and performance improvements, so if you're still not satisfied after this update, hold tight.

Media streaming on Xbox One might get a whole lot better thanks to Microsoft's new universal platform.

VLC has been submitted to the Xbox One's UWP app storefront, and if approved, users will be able to reap all the benefits including expansive playback support. Right now the Plex app is currently meeting the needs of media streamers, but VLC supports UPnP network share browsing, HTTPS streaming, and a galaxy of codecs for all kinds of different media files.

I don't see Microsoft standing in the way of VLC showing up on the Xbox One app store, and I hope to see tons of other useful desktop apps arrive on the console to add even more functionality to the system. UWP, after all, is one of the Xbox brand's major benefits and Microsoft would be wise to take full advantage of all the apps they can muster.

It's just hours before Google's big new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphone reveal, and we've received even more fresh leaks on the potent handset duo.

Thanks to recent leaks, Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphone announcements have been spoiled and we already know most of the important info, including the duo's beefy specs--4GB of onboard RAM, Snapdragon 821 processors, roomy storage, etc. But Google still has some surprises up their sleeves, and they could be, well, magical.

A new bit of info from a now-pulled Verizon listing mentions something called "Google Magic," which could refer to Pixel-exclusive software or unique gesture-tracking features. Google is expected to unveil its new Daydream mobile VR headset at today's reveal event, so I'm thinking "Google Magic" has something to do with Daydream.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided launched back in August without a huge impression left on gamers, but now the console versions of the game have been updated with support for HDR.

HDR support for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has reached the Xbox One S, PS4 and the upcoming PS4 Pro. The full patch notes:

The following features have been added:

Gears of War 4 is nearly upon us, with The Coalition unleashing the pre-loading of the PC version of the game. The developer is urging gamers to update their Windows 10 installations before pre-loading the game.

Remember that you'll require a monster amount of HDD space to install Gears of War 4, with a 73.3GB download for the game. The new update for Windows 10 that you'll require is the KB3194496 update, released yesterday - and if you don't have the update, you should be restricted from downloading Gears of War 4 - at least until you update Windows 10.

Gears of War 4 launches on October 11 for both the Xbox One and Windows 10-powered PCs, with the Ultimate Edition dropping a few days earlier on October 7.

We were the first source in the world to announce that NVIDIA's unannounced Pascal-based Tegra would power Nintendo's next-gen NX console, and it seems more and more outlets are confirming this news - including the latest leak on NX.

According to Direct Feed Gaming, Nintendo NX will be 3-4x more powerful than the Wii U (in raw Gigaflops numbers), adding that game developers won't have too much trouble porting over their Xbox One and PS4 games to NX. Nintendo's new NX console will support Unreal Engine 4 and other mainstream gamer engines, making game ports much easier.

Nintendo will most likely skip on 4K and HDR support for NX, and that the "hybrid" side of the console might be interesting, but all of the other crazy rumors are supposedly just that, rumors.

Remedy has not had a good experience with the PC version of Quantum Break, and now that the Steam version has been released, people are testing the game on both DX11 and DX12. It seems that DX11 is performing better than DX12, and we shouldn't be surprised.

Eurogamer has a detailed report on Quantum Break performing better on DX11, running a GeForce GTX 970 and seeing an increase from 33FPS on DX12 to 44.7FPS on DX11. On the newer GeForce GTX 1060, the performance jumps from 39.5FPS on DX12, to 47.5FPS on DX11. It's far away from 60FPS, but details can be adjusted on DX11 on a mid-range card like the GTX 1060, and still hit 60FPS.

As for the DX12 performance, we should expect that as Microsoft and nearly every developer releasing DX12-capable games seems to have dropped the ball. Some games are scraping through, but games like Quantum Break are massive AAA titles that should have performance completely locked down on APIs like DX12, instead we're met with a myriad of issues on the Windows Store version of the game, and now gimped performance on DX12.

Hello Games set its own price for No Man's Sky on PS4 and PC--Sony and other business partners had nothing to do with it.

For the longest time, I thought that No Man's Sky's $60 price tag was a result of some business decision between Hello Games and its distributors, including Sony and iam8bit. But that doesn't make a lot of sense considering No Man's Sky is $60 on Steam and GoG, too.

Still, I thought it wasn't as simple as Hello Games arbitrarily deciding to charge that much for their indie game--it just didn't seen possible for them to be that greedy. I mean who in their right mind would put the highest possible pricetag on a product that barely resembles the game you spent years hyping?

Despite all the lies, gamers might finally have an honest resolution from No Man's Sky developer Sean Murray.

On his new YouTube Gaming LIVE showcase, games personality Geoff Keighely delivered an inside perspective on No Man's Sky. Keighley says that Sean Murray is "open" to coming on the show to discuss the game and what went wrong, and why he lied--it'd be like a sort of confessional, so to speak.

Since No Man's Sky's backlash launch, Sean Murray has basically quit the internet: he hasn't tweeted anything for over a month, and has yet to actually address the lies and deception. In fact, Hello Games is currently being investigated by the UK's Advertisement Standards Agency for misleading advertising.

Have you ever wanted to make your own portable emulator arcade out of an SNES controller? Well, now you can.

DIY tech modder Anthony Caccese has created a DIY on how to stuff a Raspberry Pi Zero into an Super Nintendo controller, effectively letting you make your own all-in-one emulator and controller solution. The SNS-005 can be easily plugged into a TV via an HDMI cord, and is powered by its own 3.7v 500mAh internal battery that last about 2.5 hours, and can be charged up at any point via Micro USB.

This project is for all aspiring DIY tecchies out there who've always wanted to tinker with a Raspberry Pi and make something awesome. I have to say that this invention is pretty nifty, especially since mini emulator arcades are typically small handhelds or tiny set-top boxes you connect controllers to, so it's really neat to see an all-in-one solution made out of a controller.

The devs at Voofoo were able to use Sony's new PlayStation 4 Pro console to hit native 4K 60FPS in their new indie-style racing game Mantis Burn, and Digital Foundry thinks there's more to meets the eye with the PS4 Pro.

Remember when PS4 architect Mark Cerny said the PS4 Pro uses "many new features from AMD's Polaris architecture as well as several even beyond it"? Now it looks like some devs are tapping the console's "beyond Polaris" tech in order to achieve some impressive performance. Eurogamer's Digital Foundry recently tried out Mantis Burn, a Micro-Machines-type racing game that's the first to hit native 4K 60FPS on the PS4 Pro.

While Mantis Burn isn't a huge AAA endeavor, Digital Foundry was still surprised that the devs could hit native 4K with forward rendering and hit a consistent 60FPS in the game, leading them to conclude the PS4 Pro has some "secret sauce" that we don't know about yet:

Rocksteady confirms that their upcoming Batman VR game for Sony's PlayStation VR headset will only take about 2.5 hours to beat completely, with the main story lasting only an hour long.

"The core narrative is about 60 minutes in duration, however additional content is unlocked that provides about another 90 minutes of gameplay on top of that. So there are plenty of reasons to play through the game multiple times in order to see everything that we have put into it," Rocksteady Studios Brand Marketing Producer Dax Ginn told Press Start.

I already knew what to expect from most PlayStation VR games, especially since Sony has confirmed that most PSVR games will be "simple passive experiences". But if you're excited about the PlayStation VR, you need to understand that most of these games will not be full experiences (with the exception of Resident Evil VII), and there's a good reason for that.

EA would have to love the news from Activision that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will include Modern Warfare Remastered, except that the Modern Warfare remaster requires the Infinite Warfare disc to be inserted in order to work.

The official Call of Duty website has listed in fine print: "Modern Warfare Remastered is a full game download (game disc must be inserted to play Modern Warfare Remastered)". Modern Warfare Remastered is a digital download that is only provided with the Infinite Warfare special editions, and not the base Infinite Warfare game which costs $59.99 - it's not sold online, and it looks like Activision won't be doing that for the forseeable future.

Pokémon GO has been making headlines again, this time it has been announced that the app will now be avaliable in 11 new countries and regions around the world. Direct from the source 'Nintendo Insider', which stated that Pokemon GO developer Niantic would continue to expand their growth of the app via the addition of new locations.

Countries and regions now with access to the Pokémon GO includes: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Macedonia, Mongolia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Users from these areas will now be able to put on their trainer's cap and join in with the rest of the world by exploring their towns and cities capturing Pokémon. The app like in all other areas will be available on Google Play and iTunes.

Alongside the unveiling of the 11 new locations, Niantic then went on to explain about the recent development with Apple and the unity of Pokémon and the Apple Watch. This news was announced at the Apple Special Event this September, as the two companies are looking to combine both products. The expansion of Pokémon GO and recent talks about the Watch headlines does challenge the idea that the company is expanding in more ways than one.

Microsoft is at it again! The Backwards Compatibility Program has recruited three more classic titles that will now be playable on Xbox One. Lost Odyssey, Toy Story 3 and Guwange have been recently tweeted out to the public via Larry Hryb's (@majornelson) Twitter page, posting pictures of the selected games that now are available to play on the latest-gen platforms.

Mistwalker, developers of Lost Odyssey, sees the game set in a magic-industrial revolution, with immortal characters suffering the repercussions of amnesia from a meteor that wiped out the majority of forces.

The verticle scrolling shooter game from Cave, Guwange features the Muromachi period in Japan. The single or multi-player title allows gamers to play against force wilding elements and enemy bosses whilst trying to score as many points as possible.

Overwatch continues to expand its reach as an eSports champion, with the inaugural Overwatch Open Grand Final taking place last night, and the European eSports team 'Misfits' took out the $100,000 top prize.

Misfits had it rough, with two fill-in players hitting their ranks just three weeks before the grand final against EnVyUs, which had been undefeated since Gamescom in August - but Misfits took them out 3-1. Both teams won a round each before Misfits pushed EnVyUs against the wall in the third round, and then secured their $100,000 payday on the fourth round.

The tournament had $300,000 of prize money up for grabs and was hosted at the Turner Studios' ELeague arena in Atlanta, with 12 teams competing for the $300K prize pool.

As we get closer and closer to the EA/Origin Access Play First Trial of Battlefield 1 on October 13, and its full release on October 21, we're getting hit with more and more footage and details on the game. Today, we have a new 12-minute gameplay video from the single-player missions of Battlefield 1.

The 12-minute video is from the mission in BF1's single-player campaign called Storm of Steel, with a bunch of close quarter combat, and some tank-driving goodness. Storm of Steel is one of the missions included in EA/Origin Access Play First Trial for October 13, but Battlefield 1 does things differently when it comes to the single-player side of the game.

You can choose different characters, which are all spread out across five different "War Stories". EA has said why it used multiple protagonists, explaining: "We felt that to have one character hopping through those different settings wouldn't be as immersive or totally respectful to the setting".

Xbox division head Phil Spencer says Microsoft isn't trying to beat competitors like Sony--it's trying to be the best place for gamers to play and developers to make money. Wait...what now?

Microsoft was utterly smashed in last console generation thanks to the company's E3 2013 blunders: the PS4 completely dominated sales over the original Xbox One. But now that Sony has damaged their brand image with the new 4K-ready PlayStation 4 Pro, the Xbox brand is on a comeback streak, and gamers are starting to seriously consider the Xbox brand again.

Microsoft has a bunch of aces of its sleeve this time around, with their new cross-platform initiative that melds Xbox consoles with Windows 10 PCs, Xbox 360 disc-based backward compatibility versus Sony's hideously awkward streaming BC service, explosive sales of the new 4K upscaling Xbox One S, and the new native 4K Project Scorpio system is generating tons of buzz.

Amazon today announced Twitch Prime, a new initiative that allows Amazon Prime users to get ad-free Twitch streaming for free.

Twitch Prime is included with the annual $99 per year sub as well as the $11 per month Amazon Prime subscription, and also includes monthly freebies like ad-free viewing, games, skins, and add-ons. For example, this month Twitch Prime subscribers will get a new Hearthstone hero, a free indie game, and skins for Paladins and SMITE.

Amazon promises that Twitch Turbo will still be available to those that already have it, but new Turbo subs won't be offered. So if you want the benefits of Twitch Turbo, you'll have to sign up for Amazon Prime to get it. Amazon Prime already has gamer-centric benefits in itself, including 20% off new game pre-orders as well as free Prime shipping on certain games.