Gaming - Page 1062

As announced in a recent press release, MSI's notebook division has decided to sponsor one of North America's premier eSports teams, Cloud 9.

This sponsorship is all part of a global business plan, says Andy Tung, the president of MSI Pan America, who stated "MSI lives and breathes gaming, and we've dedicated countless hours and resources to support the world's eSports community," adding that Cloud9 now joins "our [MSI's] family of more than 12 professional gaming partnerships worldwide."

Championed by its League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive rosters, MSI joins other Cloud9 sponsors including BenQ, Logitech, Intel, Alienware and more.

It looks like we can expect some DirectX 12 visual upgrades for Elder Scrolls Online, with developer Zenimax Online Studios teasing the upgrade in their ESO Live stream on Twitch. We can also expect the 7th core on the PS4 to be used, which should increase performance on the PS4 version of ESO, which currently runs at 1080p 30FPS, but with the additional CPU horsepower, it'll keep at 30FPS during intense parts of the game.

During the Twitch stream, Zenimax said: "Yes, we are planning on a DX12 upgrade and expect that this will give us a number of graphics performance improvements. We cannot provide an ETA at this time, but it is something we're working towards". During the ESO Live show, Zenimax also talked about the fog and limited draw distance issues, saying that they're working on it - but it's at a lower priority than some of the other things they're working on.

They added: "In certain situations, the fog is intended to be heavy and thick to contribute to the mood and atmosphere of the region. Aldcroft in Glenumbra, for example, is a spooky and moody place - as are many areas of Tamriel. The fog distances do change based on weather and time of day, and yes, we are able to change them. But, we have set maximum fog distances in each environment to hide other immersion-breaking issues such as LOD (line of distance) transitions, and very low-detail terrain, the worst culprits being the mountains and large rock features in the geography. This is an old issue and something we have been slowly working on addressing".

If you're playing the PC version of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen with anything but 16:9 aspect ratio (mainly 16:10 and multi-monitor users), you'll notice a wonky aspect ratio correction, leading to unpleasant gameplay and interface navigation. Fortunately, the mod community has come to the rescue with the Agnostic Dragon mod, which corrects this issue and related others. This one comes especially recommended because it's from Kaldaien, who worked on the Tales of Zestiria 30 FPS fix.

Agnostic Dragon is in the early stages (current version number is 0.2.0), but it should get the job done much better than the default method, and will likely be updated frequently in the months ahead. Hit the source to grab it. There you can and should also take a look at the current known issues.

Tales of Zestiria was quite a solid PC port apart from the 30 FPS lock, but even that was rectified with a community-created fix eventually. Not so with follow-up Tales of Symphonia: user reports indicate the game is again locked at 30 FPS, but also the rendering resolution is fixed to 720p (it upscales if you select a higher resolution), there is missing text and typos, the interface often displays PS3 buttons even when using keyboard and mouse, the config and save menus can take 30 seconds to load on Windows 7 (this is being investigated), and it has DRM called VMProtect that creates a new .exe upon every boot. That last bit is concerning unto itself, but it also means you can't do things like force AA through your GPU settings.

To top it all off, the developer's username was "Lazy Mofo" on Steam, before he changed it following complaints. He also has a VAC ban from about 10 years ago. Perhaps this was a false positive, but it must be noted.

The creator of the 30 FPS fix for Zestiria says he'll get around to fixing Symphonia as well, but it won't be for awhile.

While members of Korean StarCraft II professional team PRIME were arrested along with some auxiliary personel due to match-fixing and betting scandals recently, news has come to light of another arrest - this time being yet another Korean professional gamer, called 'Life' aka Lee Seung Hyun.

As announced by the same people who arrested YoDa, BBoongBBoong and former PRIME head-coach Gerrard late last year, the Changwon Prosector's office recently confirmed the nature and happenings of this new case.

Life has been arrested "on charges of receiving money for match fixing", stated the translation on Team Liquid, with a spokesperson from the prosecutor's office saying that they "can not reveal the specific allegations being called the Lee investigation" at this time.

We've known for a while that the physics-bending sensation Rocket League was coming to the Xbox One, but we didn't know exactly when. Until now, that is--the wacky, chaotically-fun sports zoomer will hit Microsoft's all-in-one system later this month.

In a recent Tweet, the developers at Psyonix revealed that Rocket League is currently in certification with the ID@Xbox program. The devs targeted a mid-February release, and since the game's such a popular spectacle, I don't see how Microsoft won't make it a priority and fast-track its approval.

The Xbox One port will release right in time for Rocket League's new loot update, which dramatically improves item drop rates and quality.

If you're like me, you've wondered why there isn't an official game for The Force Awakens. The expanded universe is just so ripe with gaming potential, and the soul-less Battlefront reboot doesn't count. Luckily we'll be getting an Episode VII game in June, and it'll be spun with the comical magic of the Lego Star Wars franchise.

Thanks to a premature Xbox listing, we know that Lego: The Force Awakens is genuine, and it's coming this June. We can pretty much expect a scene-by-scene rendition of J. J. Abram's blockbuster tinged with hilarity and whimsy befit of the Lego video game series. The screenshots show as much, and the quick 30-second trailer gives us a taste of the wacky humor that lays in store.

The Lego adventure will also serve as an important piece in the expanded universe canon: "The game will also feature exclusive playable content that bridges the story gap between Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens," reads the official description.

With the closed beta of The Division underway, and extended until tomorrow, The Division's Community Manager has come out saying that the team is aware of the various issues on the PC side of the game.

The Division's Community Manager wrote on The Division forum: "We are aware of the cheating issues in the Closed Beta on PC. The team is fully committed to providing solutions against this and a system will be in place to ensure a fair experience for players when the game is released on March 8".

The latest we've heard on The Division is that there might be an open beta in the near future, which wouldn't surprise us at all.

The developers of Serious Sam are working on a new game, and thanks to an interview between Reboot magazine and Croteam, we're finding out more about the mysterious fourth part of Serious Sam.

According to Croteam's Damjan Mravunac, the Serious Engine has been upgraded, with Serious Sam 4 being able to take advantage of photogrammetry and motion capture. Serious Sam 4 will be set before the events in Serious Sam 3, with SS4 to include features that no one is expecting, with never-before-seen features, too. Croteam has teased that Serious Sam 4 is going to attempt to pull all of the best parts of the previous games, and throw them up to their extremes.

The developer is aiming to go truly over the top when it comes to the amount of enemies on screen - which is something Serious Sam has always been famous for - as well as pushing Serious Sam 4's open world environments. Not only that, but Croteam wants to move away from the darker and monotonous aesthetics of Serious Sam 3, with the team wanting to make a more realistic-looking game, but keep it easy on the eyes with lots of beautiful color and high-quality graphics.

SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. Yes, finally - SUPERHOT will be released on February 25, according to the SUPERHOT Team.

SUPERHOT will be released through retailers and digital distributors onto the PC, Mac and Linux - look Ma, no consoles! - with the team releasing a new trailer to celebrate its impending launch. Check it out above.

The team released a press release too, which explains: "Blurring the lines between cautious strategy and unbridled mayhem, SUPERHOT is the FPS in which time moves only when you move. No regenerating health bars. No conveniently placed ammo drops. It's just you, outnumbered and outgunned, grabbing the weapons of fallen enemies to shoot, slice, and maneuver through a hurricane of slow-motion bullets".

The Fallout 4 1.3 update we told you about a couple weeks ago is now out of beta, so if you held off or just want the certified version, today's your day.

As before, it adds in HBAO+ (better shadowing at what's said to be less of a performance cost versus other options) and a Workshop Mode, fixes bugs, and improves memory optimization and general stability. And though not specifically listed, we hear performance on both AMD and NVIDIA cards is now much improved.

If you still find shadows hurt performance greatly, this mod may help you (use at your own risk).

WildStar is going to be making a big splash on Steam when it debuts sometime in the first half of 2016. The free-to-play MMORPG is adding a huge new area called Arcterra which will challenge players in seemingly new ways.

The new area is a frozen wasteland that's filled with mysterious ruins that need exploring, highly dangerous creatures that need slaying and a whole host of new challenges for single-players and group adventures. In the new arctic like area you'll have increasingly difficult boss-encounters as you rack-up more and more kills in the area. That is, you'll fight one boss, then two, battling your way up to the finale of 20 boss-like enemies in one encounter. Sounds exciting, no?

Once you defeat 20-person boss encounters you'll get a key, of which enough of those can unlock an exclusive dungeon beneath the quest hub, giving you access for 24 hours. The first faction to find enough keys gets access, however. And that's not all. The main story will continue with the second chapter to the Nexus Saga, the culmination of a very well tuned narrative story. The Vault of Archon will be that end-game, with new bosses, completely new environments and completely voice-acted NPC's.

This year's E3 event is only four months away--oh how time flies when you're having fun!--and Bethesda builds the hype by revealing the dates and times for its showcase briefing.

According to Bethsoft exec Pete Hines, the publisher's pre-E3 2016 showcase will be held on June 12. 2016 at 7:00 PM PST in Los Angeles. We're not sure if Bethsoft's gala will be held off-site again, but the reveal is notably vague when it comes to venue specifics.

So what can we expect from Bethesda at E3? Before you get excited for Elder Scrolls VI, remember that Bethsoft has said that Elder Scrolls VI isn't going to happen for a "very long time". Besides, the devs are busily working on a number of projects, including Dishonored 2, the Doom reboot, new Elder Scrolls Online content, and Fallout 4's upcoming DLC. We'll also likely see Bethesda unveil their plans for Fallout 4 mods on PS4 and Xbox One to top it off.

It's just been confirmed by Wargaming.net that Master of Orion is being developed for Linux as well as Windows. That means it'll join the 1,529 games that work with Steam's new Linux-based gaming-focused OS.

The astute Gaming on Linux noticed that Master of Orion seemed to have showed up on the list of games compatible with SteamOS via SteamDB, and asked the important question, to which the official Master of Orion Twitter account confirmed its development.

Even though we don't quite have a locked in release date, at the very least we know that the game will be immersive and attempt to stay true to the facets of the series that made it unique among the 4X genre. At E3 last year a private demo showed off vision and direction that they're taking, bringing the humor and the incredible control you have over every aspect of your civilization and progression.

Ubisoft's The Division beta has been a pretty hot topic in gaming, with just about everyone trying to get in on the action. It was so popular that Ubisoft's servers started buckling and running out of space, and there was talk that even pre-orderers might not get in. If you didn't get to try it, well, Ubisoft may be holding an open beta test rather soon.

Xbox Italy's Facebook page revealed that an open beta test for The Division will be held from Feb. 16 - 21, which is cutting it short for the game's March release. Interestingly enough, the site outright states that Xbox One owners would get another 24-hour head start in the open beta test, showing how far Ubisoft's timed exclusivity deal goes.

Honestly, this may be super disappointing to gamers who ran out to pre-order the game just to get into the closed beta. Ubisoft made no mention of an upcoming open beta for good reason--no one would pre-buy the game if they knew. It's great to know we'll get more time to play the game before it launches next month, but the whole deal will likely stick in the craw of most players.

Another inadvertent leak from Amazon seems to have revealed the presence of a rather spectacular Porsche specific expansion pack coming for Forza Motorsport 6 sometime in the future.

The expansion is supposed to include a variety of current, past and future Porsche vehicles that can be used in-game. According to the marketing description, there are a total of 20 different vehicles, including the 919 Hybrid. And of course there'll be Porsche-centric achievements that you can look forward to.

Turn 10 Studios and Microsoft haven't quite officially announced this expansion yet, though it won't be surprising if a statement is released shortly. Forza Motorsport 6 wasn't quite the revolutionary upgrade over its predecessor in terms of content, though the graphics, physics and physically modeled weather effects make for a fantastic racing game. When I reviewed it (for another site unfortunately), the thrill of racing in a semi-realistic environment was very satisfying. Adding new cars should help to keep people interested and racing. The full marketing notes are below for the new (unofficial) Porsche expansion.

Ubisoft is claiming that people could potentially confuse Ghost Recon and EA's Ghost Games studio, setting up for a long legal trademark battle of the word "Ghost" in the context of games.

EA has apparently has the trademark for the use of the term "Ghost" in relation to video games, computer software or network and wireless devices. That is, it's been trademarked for one of their studios, Ghost Games. It makes sense to protect their brand identity, though that particular mark is likely to be diluted, and thus invalid, rather quickly considering the common use.

In the trademark application, the first use of the word "Ghost" in association with video games is presented as being in 2013, which is completely false give that Red Storm and Ubisoft published Ghost Recon in 2001. Though they can absolutely argue that to nullify the mark, and it could definitely be argued to be far too common, it'll likely be a long and fruitless battle.

Cloud Imperium Games is steadily increasing their production load to get the single-player Squadron 42 finished and out to fans as fast as possible, and with their latest update they've started another Free Fly program for all everyone. You just have to create a free account at RSI.

Star Citizen is a controversial game due to it's ever increasing scope and development time. But the open-communication CIG has been able to maintain has been second to none compared to previous development cycles. But to help allay the fears of some and encourage the curiosity of others, you can play everything that's available right now. For free.

All free play accounts can access the persistent universe and the Crusader space station, which lets you fly around and complete a plethora of mission available, engage in random encounters and just have fun. Just watch out for people trying to steal your ship. You can also enjoy the social module, which is a planetside location complete with a nice bar. And of course there's Arena Commander, which lets you fly your ships in combat against friends and random people.

ARK: Survival Evolved has received quite the following on the Xbox One, even though it seems to have been plagued by rather dissatisfactory performance when compared to its PC counterpart. The level of detail and framerate have a lot of catching up to do, and the next patch from Studio Wildcard should do just that.

On Twitter they gave us a little preview of what's to come with patch v732 for the Xbox One. And it looks like a lot of content is being brought over from the PC, with a lot of small insects and beer coming over. But one of the most important fixes for Xbox One players is the improvement of the framerate. Hopefully they've been able to better optimize for a smoother experience. The stuttering that occurs is frequent, and breaks the immersion.

And this is also the patch that's going to get old-school split-screen multiplayer support, for those times when you want to brave the wild and wonderful land with your friends literally sitting next to you. The patch, which should be out around the 10th of February, will fix more than just what's listed in the Tweet below.

Homefront's development has been filled with drama, but the game is getting closer to release with a new multiplayer beta headed to the Xbox One to prove it - kicking off on February 11, ending on February 14.

Some of the gaming media out there have had some hands-on time with the 'Resistance Mode' for Homefront: The Revolution, with Polygon getting some of that time with Homefront. Resistance Mode sees players enter a mission, with the one Polygon played called "Infiltration". Infiltration has players raiding an enemy outpost, looking its food and ammo, and escorting some stolen trucks from the station, back to safety.

Homefront is powered by Crytek's impressive CRYENGINE, allowing for huge environments with buildings that you can enter, and they seem "to be a major part of what could set this game apart", reports Polygon.