Gaming - Page 1063

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.

We all know Fable Legends is one beautiful game, with baked-in support for the Windows 10-exclusive DirectX 12 - but what about the performance side of things?

Well, according to a new interview with Lionhead Studios Director, Stuart Whyte with BidnessETC, anything that helps out with increasing the visual side of things in a game, is loved by developers and gamers alike. Lionhead is making great use of DirectX 12, with the development team able to achieve "a significant amount of horsepower - resulting in increased visual fidelity, higher frame rates, and improved shadows and effects".

Whyte added that Lionhead is setting a performance increase of "up to 40%" when using DX12, compared to DX11.

With thousands of gamers entering The Division beta, Ubisoft has taken to the official Twitter account of The Division, announcing that the beta has been extended until Tuesday, February 2 @ 12PM CET, or 6AM EST, or 3AM PST.

Ubisoft opened up The Division beta for the PS4 and PC last week, with those who pre-ordered getting access, and those who were lucky enough to score a key from somewhere else. NVIDIA released their new GeForce 361.75 drivers for both Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Division, while Jeff gave his thoughts after his first day in the post-apocalyptic New York setting in The Division.

Let's face it: campaign modes in modern shooters are dying. But why would studios avoid the opportunity to flex their creative muscles and tell a riveting singleplayer story? Well, it's pretty expensive to make campaign modes, and coupled with the fact that most people just play multiplayer anyway, studios are moving towards MP-only releases.

According to FPS guru Cliff Bleszinski, the push away from singleplayer is simple: "campaigns cost the most money." But how much money does it cost to make a campaign? Sometimes more than half of the entire budget. "[Campaigns] usually cost 75% of the budget," Cliffy B said in a recent interview with PC Gamer. "And you burn through the campaign in a weekend, and then [players] go to multiplayer."

Cliffy B makes a good point, even if it is disappointing for campaign-lovers like myself. At the same time, however, there's a reason most people skip the campaign: they just don't care about it and want to get in on the action right away. What if devs put more effort into making the campaigns last longer? That would likely cost even more, so it's not bound to happen, but we know that the standard three-act story arc is antiquated in our age of constantly-evolving digital consumption.

Final Fantasy XV is looking outright incredible. Square Enix showcased a bunch of new content in its latest Active Time Report, including an interesting three-minute combat sequence, new story info, new details on magic, and confirmation that the game's release date will be revealed in March. We also have the final progress report for the game that details new changes and features.

The combat footage introduces a surprising mashup of Metal Gear Solid with modern Final Fantasy. Noctis and co. sneak into a nefarious Niflheim base, espionage style, and then go up against a hulking Magitek mech straight out of Kojima's imagination. We get to see how stealth will work in the game: users can warp from place to place without blowing their cover, and even stealthily warp-kill enemies.

The real fun happens once the all-out brawl begins, and once again we get a hefty glimpse at the svelte, almost beatific fluid grace of FF15's combat. We get to see Noctis perform some aerial warp combos that underline the potential and magic of the game's Active Cross Battle system. Gladius swipes his mighty blade to smash a whole line of soldiers, and the whole time the group works together in tandem with devastating results.

The Ghostbusters franchise is no stranger to huge merchandising deals--Paul Feig's new all-female Ghostbusters has already lined up action figures from Mattel, and it looks like the reboot will be getting its own video game, too.

According to Retail Merchandiser, the new Ghostbusters is a "fully-fledged" game from Activision that will release alongside the movie in July of this year. The publication also says that the upcoming Ghostbusters game will be a movie tie-in, so the all-female cast will obviously reprise their ghost-busting roles, and it'll be available on PS4 and Xbox One.

But why is Sony taking this route? It all goes back to the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise. To celebrate 25 years of the iconic paranormal investigators, Sony helped make the successful Ghostbusters: The Video Game in 2009. The game, which was written by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, featured voice acting from the original cast and was a big hit. Arkoyd said that the video game was "essentially the third movie."

In the games industry, delays are commonplace. When Platinum Games' Xbox One exclusive Scalebound was delayed into 2017, Xbox One gamers were of course let down, but Microsoft reminded us it's important to give devs the time they need for their projects.

Xbox One Marketing guru Aaron Greenberg recently sat down with IGN to talk about Xbox marketing strategies. At 32:17 Greenberg was asked about Scalebound's delay, and he revealed that it's both a marketing and development decision whenever a game is delayed.

"We were looking at our lineup for this year, and where [Platinum Games] is with Scalebound...that game is super aspirational and huge, and we want to give them enough time and resources to make their vision. From the production standpoint, it makes sense to delay the game. Strategically we think just give it time to breathe and let's make sure we give it enough space to ensure the game is great. First we have to make sure the game is ready, second we have to figure out when's the best time to launch it. Given our 2016 lineup, we decided Scalebound will launch in 2017--a timeframe that'll give it better success."

If you ever wanted to know the depths with which the universe was modeled in Evochron Legacy, well now you know that even the physics of gas giants have been put into the game. And now you won't just be crushed instantly from the high-gravity either, it'll be a more gradual death.

Evochron Legacy keeps getting updated, and not because it was broken on launch, but because there's always something that might not have been thought of by the one man development team, and he's open to feedback. This time he's fixed the physics for when you feel like flying through a gas giant, which is just one small part of the vast universe that's being procedural rendered in this game.

Other cool fixes are mainly quality of life based, with a change to how Fog works in planets, how the equipment list sorts things and a reduction in the chance that your hired crew will actually leave. It's sad to see people leave with no notice and for no reason.

Buyer beware--if you pre-order The Division late, you still may not get into the game's ongoing beta test. Despite Ubisoft guaranteeing pre-buyers access to the beta, server space is filling up fast, and the devs are having a hard time keeping up with the demand.

Right now the web is full of articles talking about The Division beta (including us), and it's pretty much the hottest thing going on this weekend for gaming. These posts and videos and content have a way of changing your mind on pre-ordering the game: gamers who initially avoided pre-orders might second guess themselves. What those sites aren't telling you, however, that you may not get access to the beta if you're late to the party.

"We're working hard to let in as many people as possible, however, due to unprecedented demand we are no longer able to guarantee access to the Closed Beta," reads the game's official beta redemption site. Ubisoft promises that it's on the case and will try to let in as many players as possible, but ultimately it looks like there's a finite amount of space--so the worst possible scenario is that you'll be denied access. The least possible scenario has you waiting for an undetermined amount of time to jump in.

Bungie realizes you might love your firteam, it would seem, and has detailed their upcoming Crimson Doubles multiplayer mode that'll be running over Valentines day, from from February 9th through the 16th.

Crimson Doubles will be a 2 vs 2 Elimination requiring you to kill the other team. This is mode where you're able to enter the tournament with whomever you wish, not through the traditional matchmaking way. That's not new, necessarily, but they're adding a Broken Heart Bluff.

That works by bolstering your teammates maximum armor, agility, recovery and even weapon handling speed when you die, so that they can take revenge upon their fallen comrade. Of course there're new rewards like shaders, emblems and Ghost Shells to go along with the themed update.

The Division Beta is now in full swing, with the servers for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and the PC turned on and ready for human players to start rescuing Midtown after another disastrous Black Friday. But this time, they're sending in The Division to take back New York, because it's descended into complete chaos. And they need your help.

But New York seems kind of tame once you first get there, and very sparse. Looks like the disaster already took out most of the population. But first the elephant in the room. The graphics exactly the most mind-blowing or revolutionary given the state that the game is in. There is a slight downgrade, though on the PC you have the ability to control particle detail, the quality of the volumetric fog, sub-surface scattering, local reflections, parallax mapping quality, shadow quality and general object detail. And with everything turned to it's absolute highest, it does look good and New York is highly dynamic but there's it probably won't satisfy those naysayers in the crowd. So the graphics aren't revolutionary, but at least they are revolutionary.

The cover-based tactical nature of The Division makes it fun, and the system they employ, at least on the PC, works extremely fluid and quite well. You can easily move from pieces of cover as you take down a group of baddies, freeing some hostages, in no-time. It's satisfying how responsive it is, and it came as a total surprise. In fact the whole movement and control system in general is well implemented on the PC and it doesn't feel like a carry-over from consoles.

With all of the financial information coming out from various companies, we're now finding out about Sony's position in the console market.

Sony posted its latest financial results for Q4 2015, where it reported 8.4 million PS4s were sold. VG247 reports that this is "more in nine months of the current financial year than it sold in the full financial year previously, when it shifted 14.8 million".

The company is expecting to sell 17.5 million PS4 consoles across 2016, rolling through its $4.89 billion in sales thanks to the PlayStation side of Sony throughout Q3 2015. At the start of 2016, Sony said it had sold close to 36 million PS4s, compared to Microsoft which has reportedly sold around 20 million Xbox One consoles - we'd say Sony is kicking some serious Microsoft ass in the console race.

Loot Crate has always been known for their gamer and general geek friendly monthly supply drops, with unique and sometimes rare items contained within. But now they're extending their monthly service to include a gaming focused subscription service that they're calling Loot Gaming.

They announced the new service at their PAX South panel today in a way to further serve their gaming community. They've always had a special relationship even with developers, having obtained special Fallout 4 themed loot for their November crate even before Fallout 4 was out.

That early relationship has prompted them to launch their gaming focused subscription service, so you can only get video-game themed Loot Crates each month, foregoing the more general nerdery. They're going to work closely with developers to try to get exclusive items for their crates, themed merchandise not sold anywhere else. Loot Gaming will be $25 per month and will start this spring.

The story trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD has been released on Nintendo's YouTube channel. And give a glimpse into one of the better installments of the series, and shows off the great new graphics of the remaster.

The game is heavily stylized and the story can definitely seem like it's a bit on the wild-side, but it's entertaining and whimsical in the way that can capture good childhood memories. If you've never had a chance to play the game before, it's a fascinating tale, to say the least. And the puzzles are some of the finest of any Legend of Zelda games.

If you're interested and happen to have a Wii U lying around, then The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is coming to a console near you on March 4th 2016. There's even a very nice Wolf Link amiibo to give you exclusive in-game items.

Rise of the Tomb Raider just came on the PC after a very brief exclusive period on Xbox One. When it was first released it was was a very good looking game on the Xbox One, using the 7 processor cores and all compute units available to it to great effect. Even PureHair, or the evolution of TressFX 2.0 created by Crystal Dynamics, was turned on for the Xbox One. And it ran fairly smooth at it's 1080P resolution. The problem was, however, that it had its performance hiccups and there was plenty of potential for higher framerates and a much better looking environment. Though the settings are somewhat desolate, they're teaming with life and the opportunity to recreate them with good detail.

The Xbox One did well, performance wise, but how does this masterpiece of a game play on the PC? Well let's find out just how it does. Take a look at our infographic after the break.

The delightful space-based MOBA Fractured Space is completely free to play this weekend. And if you hurry and download it over the weekend, then you'll be able to keep it for free, forever.

The game has been in Early Access on Steam since November of 2014 and has seen steady attention and development from Edge Case Games and they're finally getting very close to their projected release date sometime later in 2016. To celebrate, they're letting everyone try their beloved MOBA for free. And you get to keep it forever.

Fractured Space is the first MOBA that takes on a decidedly science fiction direction, taking some cues from EVE Online, except this is a pure combat game similar in style to World of Tanks or, more appropriately, World of Warships. Like those, you take your gigantic capital ship and team up to destroy the other team in interstellar maps brought to life with Unreal Engine 4. Though the combat might be somewhat analogous to EVE Online's brutal warfare, there's no game quite like this. And for free, why wouldn't you at least take a look see?

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is a natural choice for a competitive sport, with it's fast-paced, team-based gameplay. The ESL has teamed up with Ubisoft to start the very first professional gaming competition with a large $100,000 prize pool.

Season One is going to kick off with European matches at the Intel Extreme Masters being held at Katowice, Poland on March 4th 2016. Eight total matches will determine the top competitors. North American matches will begin a few weeks after the Intel Extreme Masters. The ESL has partnered with Microsoft and will be using the Xbox One as their preferred platform to compete on.

"Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege was built from the ground up with competition in mind," said Xavier Marquis, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege creative director, Ubisoft Montreal. "We're excited to partner with ESL, one of the biggest names in esports, to deliver a league for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege fans to compete and enjoy the game they love."

The next update to Ghost Game's Need for Speed reboot, which is called the Showcase update, is arriving next week and it's adding far more substantial under the hood changes than just more vehicle customization options.

When it hits next week we'll see the addition of a photo mode that lets you take screenshots as if you're using a real DSLR. You can change the focus, depth of field, brightness, contrast, saturation and just about any other setting you could think of. After snapping the shot of course you'll be able to share it easily too.

Also coming is a new Wrap sharing feature, where you'll be able to share all the unique paint schemes that you've created. Ghost Games says that this is one of the most requested features, because there're a lot of talented artists out there making some interesting creations. So why not let everyone else enjoy in your vision?

Tribes: Ascend, a game that was long thought to be dead and abandoned, has just been updated with quite a few balancing tweaks along with a gameplay tweak that brings it into parity with other MMO FPS's.

The largest and most significant change is having Q be the default button that switches between previously selected weapons. That should be a given, seeing how common that is in FPS games. Other quality of life fixes include weapon adjustments, an increase in the lifetime of your bullets (which increases the range of your projectiles) and a lot of small bug fixes in addition to those aforementioned balance tweaks.

If you thought that Tribes: Ascend was going to die a dishonorable death, you would be wrong. Though there was a long hiatus from development with very little attention at all, it seems that Hi-Rez Studios is making sure the classic open-world FPS doesn't just disappear.

Volition is doing the absolute unthinkable with the cancelled Saints Row Undercover game that was supposed to release on the PSP. After showing it off recently to the public for the first time, they're actually releasing it so everyone can play it. For free.

Just yesterday Volition released an ISO of the cancelled game to Unseen 64 so that it'll be forever preserved and available to play legally by anyone who wishes to give it a try. This was after they hosted a live-stream that went through the game, showing off how far development had actually come.

If you want to play it, just grab one of the better PSP emulators, download it (it's legal and encouraged by the IP owner) and give it a whirl. Just keep in mind that development never finished, and there're plenty of bugs, but it does run fairly smooth. And it's fairly fun to boot.