Gaming - Page 1065

Gears of War 4 is a very well anticipated game, being one of the titular franchises of the Xbox consoles. The Unreal Engine games have never failed to at least provide hours of violent entertainment, and a good to boot. And thankfully the creator of the series is very satisfied with the direction the games writing is going in.

Unfortunately Cliff isn't exactly kept too much in the loop once the franchise was sold to Microsoft in 2014, but it seems that those working on Gears 4 are at least appreciating his creative genius enough to inform him of the progress they're making. And that's great news.

The first three games have done very well, featuring a harrowing story combined with a very well done cover system that evolved appreciably throughout. Gears of War 4 is riding on a wave of expectation from fans who want it to live up to the rough anticipation in their minds. And who wouldn't at least expect it to blow our minds a little bit. Graphically it should be a nice upgrade, considering Gears of War Ultimate Edition looks, and plays, quite nicely on the Xbox One.

This past December at The Game Awards we were delighted to hear that we'd be graced with another, modern Tron game from Disney. But only the PC was mentioned, leading some to believe that consoles, which would be a perfect medium for such a competitive game, were being overlooked.

Now we have confirmation that Tron will be released on the PS4 as well as the Xbox One. On February 16th Tron Run/r, as it's called, will be released on all platforms for $20. Right now it's currently in Early Access on Steam.

In Tron Run/r you'll get to customize your own avatar and participate in all the classic activities from both of the Tron movies, with a lot of the familiar neon environments being recreated. There'll be upwards of 30 different levels to play through. And there's even a Stream mode which remixes existing levels into far more difficult creations.

Microsoft and Sony have both opened up 7 out of the 8 CPU cores that power their respective consoles, giving devs a bit more processing power to play with. Now that developers are starting to harness the extra CPU power, it's time to put the extra boost into perspective to see if the added core will make a difference or not.

According to the devs at Techland, who used the extra cores while developing The Following DLC for Dying Light, the 7th core adds a "good reserve of CPU power" for demanding situations. Given the limited nature of both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, devs are keen to use any extra power they have access to.

"Dying Light was made and optimized to work on six cores since that's what was available when we made the game. So the opening up of the 7th core CPUs on both platforms simply gave us a good reserve of processing power. It essentially gave us a helping hand in dealing with more processor intensive situations, but given when Dying Light was developed, it simply means we use the additional CPU power as a nice to have and not something we need have to rely on," Techland dev Tymon Smektala told Gamingbolt.

Star Wars Battlefront just received it's January update and it brings a lot of changes to weapon and hero stats, finally bringing about the nerf we've been waiting for.

EA has also started to bring new content into the game with this update, keeping inline with their promise to add something each month. Private matches and daily challenges are added along with Hoth-themed skins for Luke and Han.

Also, no longer are Han Solo or Boba Fett quite as OP as they used to be. If you played smart, you could last for nearly half the match as either, even one-shotting people from a distance. But EA and DICE of made some much needed changes, lowering the damage they put out. The re-balancing of weapon stats has also commenced, something that has been requested for some time.

We only just reported that the Call of Duty franchise generated $570 million in digital revenue throughout 2015, but League of Legends made nearly 3x that money in the same period of time.

Riot Games and Tencent (the latter company purchased the former company late last year) made an insane $1.62 billion in digital revenue from League of Legends in 2015, eclipsing every other game on PC. The closest to League's $1.6 billion was CrossFire from SmileGate, which made $1.1 billion while Dungeon Fighter Online made $1.05 billion, according to digital games industry analyst firm Superdata.

Superdata CEO Joost van Dreunan said: "The top 10 PC games earn more than the top 10 mobile games. Despite a heavy industry focus on mobile gaming, the combined earnings of digital PC games for the top titles came in higher, totaling $6.3B in sales compared to $6.18B for mobile. PC-based gaming - consisting of free-to-play MMOs, subscription-based games like World of Warcraft, social games and PC downloadable games - earns over $32 billion annually, well above the $25.1 billion generated by mobile games. Three of the year's top five digital PC games (Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3) were released in 2015, indicating that PC gamers have made significant progress transitioning to purchasing games digitally".

With the Call of Duty franchise making $1.6 billion in revenue over 2015, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Activision made an insane $570 million in digital revenue for the year, just from COD.

Thanks to digital games industry analyst firm Superdata, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare pulled in $355 million in digital revenue while Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 made $224 million - a total of $579 million for the Call of Duty franchise in digital revenue, for 2015. FIFA 15 didn't do too bad, pulling in $332 million in digital revenue for EA, while Grand Theft Auto V made $322 million for Take-Two Interactive.

With Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare making $355 million in digital revenue for 2015 - you probably think that's a lot. Wrong. League of Legends made a whopping $1.6 billion in digital revenue for 2015, which overshadows anything COD did by a long shot. Even CrossFire made $1.1 billion, Dungeon Fighter Online pulled in $1.05 billion, World of Warcraft made $814 million and World of Tanks commanded $446 million in 2015.

Announcing their game completely out of nowhere, Three Fields Entertainment has unveiled Dangerous Golf. The developer is a British studio made up of former Criterion developers, with Criterion being the developer behind the infamous Burnout series.

Dangerous Golf, as TFE explains: "Dangerous Golf is an irreverent, silly, fun approach to golf games that challenges players to break the rules and wreak havoc on more than 100 holes in four unexpected locations. It's as serious a golf game as Burnout was a serious simulation to driving games. We wanted to mix the attitude of Burnout with the destruction of Black whilst setting the golf ball on fire - a nod to NBA Jam. This type of gameplay is part of our DNA, and something we think our fans will truly enjoy".

The game features the latest technology, where it's powered by Unreal Engine 4 and uses NVIDIA's PhsyX, APEX and FleX technologies. TFE added: "Our team worked closely with both Epic's Unreal Engine 4 team and NVIDIA to not only push the boundaries of their PhysX, Apex Destruction and Flex technologies, but also to deliver a truly physics based game experience. As such, players will enjoy causing amazing destruction by smashing thousands of physically simulated rigid body valuables, shatter priceless heirlooms into small pieces and paint the environments with physically simulated liquids".

EA has released all of the details about the forthcoming DLC for Star Wars Battlefront as part of their Season Pass. And there's even some free content on the way as well.

The Season Pass, controversial as it is, seems to bring the infusion of content that the game should have had when it was released. There's going to be four new expansions coming out starting in March of this year. Each one will slowly introduce us to more maps, 16 in total, weapons and vehicles to choose from. They're also bringing new game modes for us to play with that should help to keep things interesting.

Aside from the paid Season Pass content, EA and DICE plan on releasing some free goodies to those that don't want to pay for the DLC. They'll have a new Survival mission set on Hoth and a new Hoth multiplayer map that'll support larger game modes as well, such as Walker Assault and Supremacy. The full details of everything coming out is below, after the break.

Thankfully LucasArts and Raven Software released the source code for Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy letting modders have the power to do some pretty amazing things with an already great base game. And already people have been re-exploring the game with some interesting results.

One of the most interesting mods to come from the generosity of Raven Software is Jedi Fighter, a mod that transforms the game into something that plays homage to some of the more classic fighting games, like Street Fighter II. It's a battle of good versus evil, with five different locations from a TIE hanger bay to Hoth and more. They've added in 10 characters from the expanded universe, ones that might be familiar. And of course it has the obligatory dynamic camera so you can have a cinematic view of the action.

It's the Star Wars fighting game we've been waiting for, the one we never knew we really wanted. It's fast paced and looks quite nice actually. In order to play the mod, you'll have to download the OpenJK engine to get it to work.

Frontier Developments, the developer behind Elite: Dangerous, just released a new developer diary that gives a pretty nice inside look into Planet Coaster, the roller coaster theme park simulation game that they're working on. And the work they're doing seems to be pretty fantastic so far.

David Braben took the stage at the PC Gamer show at E3 last year to dropped a small nugget to an enthusiastic crowd. Roller coasters are fun in real-life, and who doesn't want to make their own theme-park in glorious 3D and use VR to explore it?

The new five minute dev diary shows off some of the tools that you can use to build your own personal nightmare machines.They also explain how you can share your creations with others by publishing them online. The game engine, Cobra, looks great, and is shared with Elite: Dangerous. It's nice to see how adaptive it is. The game itself looks like a lot of fun, with the way you can create nearly anything with real-world physics too. The shared underlying engine means that VR is a distinct possibility.

Final Fantasy Explorers is finally out for the 3DS in the west, and it lets you take on some familiar roles while you quest for that blasted Grand Crystal that seems to always be needed.

The quest for the Grand Crystal, a recurring theme in Final Fantasy lore, is crucial for the stability of the world. And you certainly can't go it alone, so you'll be able to take up to four different players, other humans via the Nintendo Network or even locally. Connect, then go forth and explore the world.

There'll be 20 classic and highly customizable jobs that you can choose from. Be a Dragoon (like the legendary Kain), Black Mage, Paladin and much more. You'll be limited to eight skills that you'll be able to use, though. But those skills you use? They can be available in other jobs too, when you master them. And if you're feeling frisky and like a fight, you'll have the chance to turn into some legendary Final Fantasy heroes from other games, like Cloud and Tifa.

Homefront: The Revolution is going to be supported with new content for at least a year, the studio told Gamespot.

Fasahat Salim, whose a game designer at Dambuster Studios, had a lot more to say, too. There's definite plans for DLC for at least a year, meaning deeply integrated story content that'll be well worth the the download. They have a unique way in which they'll introduce it too. When they're finished making new missions, they'll be released to the public to play. No waiting for a full DLC pack, and no paying for it either.

You read that right. There are no plans for a traditional season pass, or map packs do be bought later. Everything that's available in the game will be free. That doesn't mean you won't have to work for it though. But all content will be free. Even the microtransaction-based loot drops will only contain items that can be obtained in the game for free.

Platinum Games is making a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game--yes, really--and it looks absolutely incredible. In fact, I might go so far as to say that Mutants In Manhattan looks like the best TMNT game I've ever seen, and that's not something anyone should take lightly.

Activision has just officially announced TMNT: Mutants In Manhattan with a new reveal trailer, showing off some serious turtle power action. Platinum's distinct cell-shading graphics are carried over from their last Transformers venture, and the style is a perfect blend of classic Mirage and IDW comic styles.

What makes the footage so utterly captivating is the action-packed chaos that our shelled heroes inflict. Leo, Mike, Ralph and Mikey wreak some serious havoc on the streets of Manhattan, with a ton of fast-paced ninjutsu combos and attacks that dominate foes.

Ubisoft is very proud of their creation, Tom Clancy's The Division and with how they've handled a more open development cycle this time around. They certainly don't want to repeat some of their past mistakes.

To help bring back consumer confidence, they've posted the patch notes for the version we'll be playing in the upcoming closed beta. And Ubisoft tells us that they and their alpha testers have found and fixed nearly 10,000 different bugs and glitches. So the closed beta should be mostly a smooth experience. Or at least you won't find yourself suddenly floating over Manhattan.

They're turning a new leaf, it would seem, when it comes to development. Despite the negativity that persists due to historically buggy and "bad" releases of games, Ubisoft's corporate culture wants to change so that it can better support the developers and their actual goals of making awesome gaming experiences.

Since Sony's PlayStation 4 is utterly dominating the current console market with tons of global sales, it's only natural for the Japanese console-maker to invest pretty heavily into the brand's future. To ensure the momentum keeps going, Sony has announced a new division that's totally dedicated to the PlayStation brand.

The new division is called Sony Interactive Entertainment and it will serve as the headquarters for everything PlayStation, according to Sony President Shawn Layden. "We are announcing the formation of a new company called Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) that will serve as the headquarters for everything PlayStation. This new company will power the next 20 years of PlayStation innovation. It will be headquartered out of the United States in San Mateo, California, joins the forces of both Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Sony Network Entertainment LLC, combining the strengths and talents of both companies."

Sony Interactive Entertainment will focus on the next two decades of PlayStation hardware and content, including PlayStation VR virtual reality gaming, the upcoming PlayStation 5 console, and expanded content offerings like Sony's TV-streaming-over-PS4 service PlayStation Vue.

The eSports world continues to expand, with research firm Newzoo and its new '2016 Global eSports Market Report' out, saying that 2015's total worldwide eSports revenue was $325 million.

$325 million might sound like a lot, but Newzoo expects the eSports economy to grow 43% to $463 million this year. The research firm attributes the 43% growth to an audience of 131 million, eSports enthusiasts along with another 125 million "occasional viewers who tune in mainly for the big international events". Newzoo said that global and local eSports markets should generate around $1.1 billion in 2019.

Digging deeper into the research, Newzoo said that investment into and advertising around eSports continues to expand rapidly. Newzoo said: "This year has been dominated by the amount of investors getting involved in eSports. An increasing amount of traditional media companies have become aware of the value of the eSports sphere and have launched their first eSports initiatives. With these parties getting involved, there will be an increased focus on content and media rights. All major publishers have increased their investment into the space, realizing that convergence of video, live events and the game itself are providing consumers the cross-screen entertainment they desire from their favorite franchises".

Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition is being worked on by developer Techland, with the Enhanced Edition being a new package that will include all of the content from Dying Light, as well as something new.

The Following expansion will include all of the previously released content and DLC, but the Enhanced Edition will spruce up the visuals and draw distance in Dying Light, as well as improve the performance on the console versions of the game, improve the overall gameplay, and more.

Techland has been working on Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition for 1.5 years now, but have been unable to get the Xbox One version of the game above its current rendering resolution on the normal version of Dying Light: 1536x1080. The PS4 version of Dying Light for comparison sake runs at 1920x1080. During an interview with GamingBolt, Lead Producer on Dying Light Tymon Smektala said: "It's still 1536×1080. We believe a smoother frame-rate is more important than the exact resolution".

Lance Perkins was surprised to see $8206 charged to his credit card for something he didn't remember buying, as it was his 17-year-old son buying copious amounts of in-game FIFA goodies.

Perkins' son had spent $8206 in FIFA, so he attempted to have his credit card company drop the bill - so that he didn't need his son charged with fraud. Well, that didn't work, and his next option - asking Microsoft to drop the bill - didn't work, either. But, after a little while, Microsoft ended up budging, refunding the massive FIFA microtransaction bill.

Speaking with CBC, Perkins said he was "very pleased" with the outcome. He added: "Let's thank them for making that choice". But for me, doesn't this open a can of worms? Can't I go and buy $8000+ worth of microtransactions, and just blame one of my kids? Where would it end?

The open world RPG iteration of Five Nights at Freddy's has been removed from sale on the Steam store after the developer received a bevvy of complaints about the the game being in an unfinished state.

The decision to remove it from sale was made by the developer, Scott Cawthon, despite the mostly positive user reviews it was receiving. He simply wasn't satisfied with the end product and agreed that it was released prematurely. He's also worked with Valve to ensure that you can get a refund for it no matter how long it's been owned.

There's a lot of work to be done to make sure it's not only playable, but actually a polished and fun product for everyone. And when it's finally re-released, it'll be completely free, and hosted on GameJolt.

The long-awaited Final Fantasy XV is finally set to get a release date in a few months, and Square Enix is whetting our appetites with a few small snacks in screenshot form.

Square Enix's new batch of FFXV screenshots show off Noctis and company battling a variety of interesting baddies in open-world Lucis, and show off a glimpse at the devastating firaga spell. We also get a look at the most recently Active Cross Battle system display screen, which looks quite sleek and compact. Even still, I find the HUD lacking and too clean-cut, and it really doesn't remind me I'm playing a Final Fantasy game.

Apart from the new screens, the devs will be holding a brand new Active Time Report on Saturday,January 30 starting at 8:00PM PST on the Square Enix YouTube channel. The new show's theme will focus on magic, new battle system updates and footage, and the political strife between Lucis and the Niflgaard Empire.