Gaming - Page 1040

Although we've already blown the lid off of a ton of No Man's Sky details, a lot of our questions have gone unanswered. Slowly but surely we're piecing together key elements of the game, and today we've spotted some new details on No Man's Sky's dialogue.

Thanks to a recent leak from GDC 2016, we get a nice glimpse of how the game's dialogue system will work. The pic shows a straightforward linear dialogue tree rather than a pesky wheel, with responses written in weird alien letters. Hello Games previously explained that aliens will have all kinds of crazy languages to decipher, and players will begin to understand the strange words the more they interact with certain races.

Aliens will be parts of different factions and groups, all with their languages, cultures, personality traits and technological advancements. So if you want to do business with a militant interstellar alien faction, you'll have to not only learn their language first but most likely earn their favor by doing quests and the like. Pretty neat, huh?

Microsoft has been proudly beating its chest about Quantum Break over the past months, that is, until it was revealed that Quantum Break only runs at 720p on Xbox One. Faced with this controversy, both Redmond and Remedy have kept mum on the subject, but the devs did let slip that the game's day one patch won't "remedy" the game's lower res.

According to Remedy PR rep Thomas Puha, Quantum Break's day one patch isn't going to instantly ramp the game's resolution to 1080p on Xbox One. Instead, the patch will be your standard fare of bug fixes and tweaks, despite the reports of a massive multi-GB graphics overhaul update. "No, we have never said anything like (a big graphical update). There is a title update, mostly bugfixes etc. Reviewers got it last week already."

Remedy and Microsoft have caught a lot of flak from upset Xbox gamers, especially since Microsoft continues to maintain a kind of skewed favoritism to the new platform. But then again PC gamers have the awful UWP platform and janky Microsoft Store to contend with.

A MOBA generally isn't expected to be the most demanding of games anyway, and Paragon follows that tradition by being playable on nearly anything. Epic Games has even taken the liberty of testing quite a few different GPU's to show you what you can expect for performance.

They took the time to even test out various mobile GPU's to ascertain how it'd run. As it turns out, it certainly is playable, though at much lower settings and resolutions, even on Intel's HD 4000. the below requirements aren't much for a good experience, meaning just about anyone can play the game at decent framerates.

Recommended Requirements

Halo 5 continues to get the free content updates that they've promised us and we're very close to receiving the next one, called Ghosts of Meridian. This next update will have everything you could ever want, from new weapons, a new Warzone map and more skins and customization items than you might be comfortable with.

The most anticipated inclusion is that of the new Warzone map, Skirmish at Darkstar, which is supposed to bring something entirely new to the experience. 343 Industries has taken the time to design it different enough to be unique, with an interesting blend of odd sight-lines, cover pieces and opportunities for more lateral movement than in previous maps.

To help make things even more difficult, they're adding in a new vehicle known as the Mantis, which is a bi-pedal mech type vehicle. The concept art so far is incredible and shows off the many different weapons you'll get to play with. I'd imagine this will be quite the opponent in some of the back alley's of the new Darkstar map.

The art and design lead from BioWare, Alister McNally, showed up to GDC excited to show off his new shirt, but no one seemed to really care what was on it, even if it was a teaser for the new unannounced IP from them. The shirt and it's graphics went unnoticed it seems.

What an interesting way to reveal what you're working on. But if the shirt isn't particularly eye-catching or from something that people know about already, then it's safe to say that it would go unnoticed as just something random or obscure. Now there's a force of individuals who're attempting to figure out just what it was. So if you happen to look through your own photo collection and have a picture of Alistair McNally while walking around, then share what he was wearing!

Microsoft seems to be getting quite curious about a second-hand digital game store. At least a survey that's being passed around seems to indicate their newfound interest.

But the question is an interesting one, and would you sell back your games for 10% of the purchase price? That doesn't seem like much, despite being more than you'd get otherwise. 10% of the usual $60 modern price of a AAA game would net you a whopping $6. You'd be rich.

It's an interesting business to get into, the resale of digital goods that have already been "claimed" so to speak. There are sometimes limited numbers of keys available to access and download a given game, but that's a limit of any database software and not any practical limit. As a longer-term analogue to a return policy, it could help gamers afford the latest, boosting business in the present, but there are other implications of doing something like that. Is this something they plan on having available after a certain amount of time, where a drop in price of that particular game negates any angst at trade-in price and complaints of not being able to simply trade or sell your digital keys to others? It's a start of doing something new, so one would hope they're at least asking all the right questions.

Back in 1994, Blizzard North changed the course of video games history by pitching one of the most iconic ARPG's in the industry. That game was an immortal PC classic called Diablo, and if the original pitch was heeded, the game would be very different than it is today.

At GDC 2016, David Brevik--one of the original co-founders of Blizzard North who created the Diablo series--held a lengthy postmortem on the Diablo franchise. As part of the talk, Brevik revealed the studio's original idea pitch for the first game, revealing some key facts that dungeon delvers never knew.

The pitch is quite interesting and clearly details many concepts that aren't found in the final game. Did you know the original pitch makes Diablo into a turn-based game? That's right, Condor Inc (which later turned into Blizzard North) initially wanted Diablo to take a more RTS approach. "The game runs on a turn-by-turn basis; the player moves, the then opponents move. Each character and monster may have a certain amount of action points which would determine what actions are possible in a given turn," reads an entry on page 5. We've included a few pages below, but you can check out the full PDF file here.

Now that the new Need for Speed is out, after its many delays, the PC version is being tested on the graphical side of things, with some very interesting results.

DSOGaming tried out Need for Speed in both Low and Ultra graphics settings, with the site noting "On Low settings, some shadows are missing, the absence of Ambient Occlusion is noticeable, and some environmental objects are less detailed".

As for the screenshots above, the top one is Low, while the one below it is Ultra. Can you tell the difference? There are more screenshots here.

The PC version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition has been a mess since the start, with developer The Coalition pumping out new updates to slowly make the game what it should've been at launch. The new patch has the current focus from the team:

We should see the new patch for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition in the coming weeks.

I've always thought that one of the best things about The Witcher 3 is the way the characters feel so believable, and the dialogue interactions went far to add that extra spark of immersion and magic to the game. Contrary to popular belief, CD Projekt RED aren't actual wizards--their sorcery is built around code and algorithms rather than grimoires--and the studio reveals how it spun those magical dialogue sequences.

At a recent talk at GDC, CD Projekt RED animation technical director Piotr Tomsinski discussed the science behind The Witcher 3's natural character dialogue. Rather than animate each individual scene by hand and piece together the dialogue, the devs utilized a rather powerful algorithm that compiles different ingredients like location, character type, and dialogue into a fully animated scene. Since the game has some 35 hours of dialogue alone, handcrafting each individual scene with custom mo-capture sequences would take an eternity.

"The generator requires three different types of inputs: information about the actors, [some cinematic instructions], and finally the extracted data from voiceovers," Tomsinski said at the talk. "We use an algorithm to generate markers, or accents, from the voiceovers, so later we can match the events in animation with the sound. It generates camera movement and placement, facial animation, body animations, and the lookats."

Much to the joy of fans like myself, a film adaptation of the popular post-apocalyptic game and novel series Metro 2033 is in the making.

The Metro 2033 movie will be based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's book series, and will follow the harrowing journey of Artyom's heroic struggle against the supernatural Dark Ones in the blasted ruins of Russia. The movie is expected to portray the full grit and psychological horror depicted in the landmark game series, complete with humanity's desperate efforts to survive in the underground metro tunnels.

Glukhovsky says that he's been waiting for a Metro 2033 adaptation for quite some time, but wanted to make sure the property was handled just right. "My novel and I have been waiting for this to happen for the last 10 years. I have previously been extremely careful about handing my 'baby' over to Hollywood producers for adaption for a feature film, but now I feel that it has landed in the right hands. De Luca and L'Heureux have a great vision for this project, and I feel it's an honor to work with them."

Remedy is one of my favorite developers, and as a gigantic Max Payne fan, Quantum Break is a complete mess. After letting the press see the game earlier this year, EuroGamer has published their story on the game - but with a much more watered down fashion.

The site says Quantum Break has a "native resolution of 720p" instead of the promised 1080p 30FPS from Remedy, with no word from the developer on the resolution being dropped to Xbox 360 levels, and below what Remedy has said was fact until now. The site adds that "we've yet to see evidence of full HD 1080p gameplay in close analysis - barring the title's HUD elements and menus. In every scene tested so far, a native resolution of 720p is the consistent result found in each pixel count test".

Not only but, but the report says: "the use of film grain, depth of field, and camera and object blur sets the tone for the game, creating a distinctly soft-focused look that squarely hits the cinematic target the developers are aiming for. Image quality stands out here, for both good and bad reasons". So the image quality is good, but there are bad reasons too.

The Witcher 3 is pretty much a masterpiece of third-person action, but I've always wondered what the game would be like in first-person. Imagine adding Skyrim-esque dungeon diving and combat to Andrzej Sapkowski's dark fantasy world--it'd be pretty epic.

Thanks to the talented efforts of modder Skacikpl, gamers may one day experience The Witcher 3 in first-person. Skacikpl has been tirelessly working on the new mod, but it turns out that game doesn't play nicely with the new perspective, leading to motion sickness from the camera jouncing. Plus CDPR's limited modding tools aren't much help either.

It's great to see modders completely rewrite the rules and open the doors to brand new experiences. It's also crazy to think that a simple perspective change would affect the game so dramatically. Don't expect the mod to release any time soon, as Skacikpl isn't sure if he'll even be able to optimize the mod enough to even support active gameplay...but it's a great effort nonetheless.

The hype machine for Cyberpunk 2077 is set to go into full swing this year, with developer CD Projekt Red (the studio behind The Witcher franchise) still be "a long ways away" from releasing the game, but the developer is now teasing that it's working on a "far bigger" scale with Cyberpunk 2077 being an "even more ambitious" project.

But now, CD Projekt Red has teased that we can expect some "f**king great" stuff from Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red's CEO and co-founder, Marcin Iwinski talked with GameSpot recently, where he said: "Right now, we have the success of the Witcher 3; people played it and people loved it. So it's even more responsibility. The fact that Witcher 3 performed so well allows us to be even more ambitious with Cyberpunk 2077. Right now, it's on our shoulders to deliver here. The next time you hear about Cyberpunk 2077 we will show something and it must be f**king great". Inwinski also added: "People really expect something great and that's what we have to stand up to and deliver".

Inwinski was asked if CD Projekt Red was excited to move over to making Cyberpunk 2077 after finishing with The Witcher 3, with Inwinski replying that "they definitely are". He added: "After a decade working with dragons, swords, and medieval themes, the team is feeling energized to work on a project involving guns, ammo, mutants, and implants".

GDC 2016 - Sony had a killer Game Developers Conference, announcing the $399 price on the PlayStation VR for the PS4, but what did Microsoft have? Well, nothing in the form of new hardware announcements - but the company did just drop the price on the Xbox One to $299 for a "limited time".

The normal price on the Xbox One is $349, with the $50 discount applied for now - but there's no news on if, or when the price will bounce back up to its original price. The discounted Xbox One pricing will include all of the current console bundles at participating retailers across the US.

Not only that, but the Xbox Spring Sale promotional event will also see discounts on a bunch of digital games on PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360 backwards compatible titles. This will kick off on March 22, two days after the Xbox One price was cut, where gamers can grab their game of choice and "save up to 40 to 60 percent off, with some at more than 60 percent off".

There seems to be some substantial information regarding a minor (or fairly major) refresh of Sony's PlayStation 4. In fact, some developers have reportedly told Kotaku that there have been actual discussions behind closed doors about a "PlayStation 4.5" that could include a more powerful GPU for actual 4K gaming.

More than three independent sources in the developer community seem to have been able to confirm the existence of some type of evolution in hardware and design. This information seems to be even more substantiated after a supposed behind-closed-doors meeting from Sony at GDC. And just what does it mean for current owners?

Well, it would be the anti-thesis of what makes a console such a valuable ecosystem. The hardware is similar for a full generation of development, meaning no one has to upgrade to experience their games at the greatest possible settings for that platform. Having different versions, even if one is discontinued, defeats the purpose of the fixed-specification console. This is even in line with Microsoft's want to have upgradable console hardware in the future. The console as we know it, then, might be doomed. Or we could be looking at the definitive next generation, earlier than usual.

IBM Japan has a big surprise in store for MMO fans. Out of nearly 100K applicants they only took a small sample of 208 people and showed them what they're calling a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. They've transformed, in what looks like just a technical experiment at the moment, Sword Art Online into a massive VR experience.

They had hinted at such a project this past February, but there hasn't been much word about how they were going to make the futuristic MMORPG into a VR game, but now we have some more details on what they did. They've created their own VR headset based off of the Oculus Rift DK2, called the Navugia. They added additional sensors, including a Leap Motion sensor and a Kinect V2 attached to a helmet device. The resulting experience literally puts you into the years 2022, when the game is set.

The whole thing is running off of IBM's SoftLayer cloud service with their own cognitive layer, a showcase of what their deep learning tech can do. But really it's to show what life could be like if you wanted to literally live inside an MMO. Take a walk on the wild-side and you're likely never to come back. They're taking the "role-playing" quite literally here. The photos were taken by Inside Games while they took a look at it. It's an interseting use of VR, but perhaps cumbersome at this point. Nonetheless very impressive.

You might think that something like a "trading simulator" would be boring as can be. But you might be terribly wrong too. Remember The Oregon Trail? Oh yeah, that's been remastered and re-released too. That and all manner of management sims seem to gain popularity, even among their own small niches. But still, they can be great to relax to for many reasons. Caravan wants to offer you something like that. But with an Eastern flair.

Just what is it? Well, Caravan is a trading and exploration game with a bit of strategy and RPG mixed in. On top of that there's actually story that's being told as you progress. You'll be in control of a caravan in the pre-medieval Orient with the ability to travel to the various towns along the Arabic peninsula. Your caravan will steadily grow as you across more members, heroes and camels. And they're not just making it an easy "trading" game, there's a big emphasis on recreating all the dangers, adventure, tempting business opportunities and even combat that you might run up against.

Of course, there's also that trading mechanism, where you'll manage all the important resources, like water, provisions and the caravan's animals. A tough The really cool thing is that the game is based on actual history. There's elements of real lore and actual history mixed into other fantastical bits.

Star Wars Battlefront's next update is bringing us further into the Outer Rim and adding two new heroes, but we already knew that. A new trailer shows off even more info about what we can expect from the first official expansion.

We already know that Nien Nunb and Greedo are on the way to help out within the dark halls of Ja.bba's Palace and on the dangerous factories of Sullust, but we didn't really get to see them in action and actually in-game. The new maps are actually looking quite good and intricately laid out. And in fact it looks inspired by not only the movies, but also from the map that was part of Battlefront 2. In addition to the two new maps and heroes, there'll be new star cards (a scatter gun, dioxis grenade and an adrenaline stim) and weapons. You'll be able to equip the new Relby V10 rifle and the DT-12 blaster pistol. A new Extraction Mode is also making into the game that has the Rebels recovering resources while the Imperials defend them.

This DLC, however, isn't free and needs to purchased as part of the Season Pass. But, that also gets you more content down the road when they release it throughout the year. The Season Pass is $50 in total, or the DLC cna be purchased separately for $15.

There was one platform, for better or worse, that Sonic hadn't made an appearance quite yet. He's been running along the mobile scene for some time, but not on the Apple TV. The first Sonic the Hedgehog is available right now through the TV OS app store, while the second installment is coming on March 24th.

And they aren't stopping there. If you wanted to use your micro-console as a true gaming machine, than you'll be able to play Sonic CD on the 31st of March. Strangely, all three of the games are live on the store, but only one can be purchased. That indicates that it's a complete and finished, uploaded app. There's no word from Sega on why we have to wait to enjoy all the classic adventures of Sonic. It could simply be a business decision. Regardless of why, the miniscule console is a pretty good fit for the blue blur.