Gaming - Page 1066

Fallout 4 is a huge game, but after more than two whole months of play, the Commonwealth is wearing thin. Console gamers are running out of things to do. So what about those console mods that Bethsoft promised us? Bethesda teased a response, saying that we'll hear official word sometime in the near future.

Bethesda confirms that it'll be sharing new info on Fallout 4's console mod support "soon". "We'll be sharing more details soon. Stay tuned," the developers replied to a Twitter question concerning mods. Before you get excited, remember that Bethesda has yet to release Fallout 4's official modding tools on PC, and that playable console mods can only be created on PC.

So that means that PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will only be able to download mods created by PC gamers, and there's obviously going to be a delay between the release of the modding tools and console mod support, so the community has an array of content built up.

Capcom just announced that they're going to be releasing an extended story mode for Street Fighter V coming up this June. This updated and extended story mode will be different then what'll be in the game when it releases.

The new story mode coming in June will add a lot of backstory to all the exuberant characters that are found in the game, letting even new players get fully acquainted with Street Fighter V. Capcom will have a mixture of real-time in-game engine cinematic's as well as over an hour of animated scenes to help bridge the gap between Street Fighter V and III, which will somehow be connected.

The main focus of the story will be on Ryu and M. Bison, though they haven't released any of the juicy details just yet on what direction the story will take. Hopefully they can cohesively explain the universe in a greatly connected fashion. Capcom plans on supporting Street Fighter V for a few years, which means we might see other story expansions in the future.

PC games piracy may be on its death knell thanks to new DRM tech called Denuvo Anti-Tamper, and more and more new PC games are starting to leverage the crack-proof software.

Far Cry: Primal and the Xbox One hit Rise of the Tomb Raider are the latest PC games to use Denuvo as a shield against warez crackers. With the aid of the Anti-Tamper tech, both games will effectively be piracy-free for months after their launch on PC. The first few months of sales are crucial for publishers, and Denuvo will ensure both Square Enix and Ubisoft are able to maximize their revenue as much as possible.

Denuvo integration was verified on Far Cry: Primal's EULA page, which reads: THE PRODUCT IS PROTECTED BY DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE ("DRM SOFTWARE") AND DENUVO ANTI-TAMPER PROTECTION TECHNOLOGY." As for Rise of the Tomb Raider, the official CrackStatus Reddit posted up proof from a CodeFusion Support page, but the image is no longer available. The site is, however, registered to Denuvo exec Reinhard Blaukovitsch, and reports suggest that CodeFusion technology is owned by Denuvo.

A rumor apparently was going around that Bungie and Activision were going to start charging real-world money, microtransactions, for in-game ammunition. That you ammo would be limited only to those with the money to afford it.

But thankfully that rumor is actually incredibly false. Activision spoke to Game Informer regarding the rumor that sprouted up from a single source at VG24/7, and they rather pointedly said that "We're not doing that."

Can you imagine what would happen if a simple in-game resource were relegated to being paid for? If Destiny were having player retention issues now, the game could have been abandoned very quickly as a result of this move. As much as microtransactions do help pay for the upkeep of servers and keep MMO's going, ammo would be a horrible move on anyone's part.

Current-gen consoles don't have disc trays you can exactly force open. So what happens when your Xbox One simply won't eject a disc? Before you wait forever on Microsoft Customer Support, use this easy tutorial to grab your disc back from the console's hungry maw.

Dealing with a malfunctioning games console is incredibly frustrating. You've spent a good $300 or so on hardware, and you damn well expect it to work. As we all know, there are no guarantees when it comes to hardware--games or otherwise--but there are a few easy homemade fixes you can do in order to alleviate the situation. If your Xbox One's disc drive is on the fritz and won't eject your disc, then break out your paperclips and let's get cracking.

PC disc drives can be manually forced open with a paper clip, and apparently so can Xbox Ones. First, unhook the console's power and extra plugs, separating it from everything else. With the console facing you, rotate it counter-clockwise so you see the extra USB port and silver button. With the light shining on this side of the console, look through its vents for a little orange dot--this is where the manual eject pinhole is located.

Endless Legend, one of the best 4X strategy games to grace PC gaming, is getting another expansion pack in April, called Shifters.

Shifters adds a new faction called the Allayi that's able to "shift" during long winters, so they aren't quite as effected by the economic down-turn that comes from the colder weather. They're also adding in a new resource that you can collect called the Pearls of Auriga which will let you unlock new powers through the Altar of Auriga, which can help suitably alter the impact that Winter has on your units.

The new expansion is expected to land sometime in April, and if it's anything like the other expansions that they've had, the integration will be deep and the actual value will be quite high. Amplitude Studios puts a lot of effort into creating the lore and backstory, and it shows in the quality of their games.

The side-scrolling action adventure MIghty No. 9 has been delayed, again, from its original February 9th release until sometime later in the Spring while some trifling issues are dealt with.

The developer posted on the games blog as well as on their Kickstarter explaining that they've been having critical network mode issues that prevented the experience from being what they intend it to. So in order to try to maintain a February release date, and not push it back any further, they'll be dedicating themselves to resolving those issues, even up to the last minute before release.

Bethesda has released new screenshots of id Software's Doom reboot, which will be released later this year. The new screenshots, we have below for your viewing pleasure.

As for the new screenshots, sure - they look good. But they really don't look great. After watching the gameplay reveal trailer during E3 2015, it felt so watered down and slow to the first-person shooter that really started it all. I want to reserve judgement, but I think we're going to be disappointed with Doom on the PC, as they're having to cater to console gamers and their controllers - versus the fast-paced mouse and keyboard action we're used to on the PC.

There are plenty of more in the full story, with another 13 images to check out.

With the Game Developers Conference right around the corner, Quantum Break developer Remedy Entertainment will talk about how they were able to get through performance and efficiency issues on the Xbox One.

Remedy used their in-house Northlight engine for Quantum Break, with the developer explaining: "Northlight is Remedy Entertainment's in-house game engine which powers Quantum Break. In this presentation we discuss how various rendering performance and efficiency issues were solved with DirectX, and suggest design guidelines for modern graphics API usage".

We will also learn about the impressive AI used in Quantum Break, with Remedy Entertainment's Head of PR, Thomas Puha, saying that some of the big issues with Quantum Break was the weak AI. At the time, the AI wasn't fully baked, so the gameplay footage we saw wasn't indicative of the final game. He said: "So a lot of the footage you have seen is from summer 2015 for Gamescom. AI really was not done at that point, hence the enemies in the trailers don't seem to give you much fight".

Ubisoft Massive has released a treasure trove of hardcore details on the PC version of The Division, where we're learning that the developer has put lots of time into making sure the PC version of The Division doesn't suck.

We can expect multi-GPU support, multi-monitor support, and resolutions of up to 4K where The Division will "automatically adapt the resolution to fit multi-screen configurations with FOV correction". Not only that, but the frame rate is completely uncapped, and The Division has 'optimized graphic settings & customized GPU effects" on the PC. Awww yeah. Here's a full list of what to expect for the PC version of The Division:

Thanks to a chat with Rock, Paper, Shotgun - we're learning that Ubisoft seems to at least state that it cares about the PC. Creative Director on The Division, Magnus Jansén, said during the interview: "PC is incredibly important to us. There are plenty of incentives to do a good PC version".

He continued: "Personally it's important - a I play on PC whenever I can and I want the thing they play at home to be the best possible version. That is not to be underestimated as a driving force. Secondly, both of the studios, Massive and Red Storm started out on PC so it's a matter of pride, or heritage and pedigree if you will. We feel kind of ashamed if we don't do the PC version really well. It really is something that we care about".

"We're a very technical studio as well. Sweden is a very technical country - we're good at infrastructure and design, and a lot of our staff come from the old demoscene as well", he added. Continuing, Jansén said: "We're a very technical studio as well. Sweden is a very technical country - we're good at infrastructure and design, and a lot of our staff come from the old demoscene as well. There's a lot of that heritage in the Swedish dev community and that is true here at Massive as well. It comes very natural to us. The engine, Snowdrop, enables the artists to do all of that great UI work and makes it relatively easy to expose all of those options on PC".

Saints Row Undercover was going to be a hand-held exclusive on Sony's PSP, until the project was cancelled, but Volition is more than happy to show-off the progress they made.

Originally Volition wanted to just port over Saints Row 2 onto the PSP, but that idea evolved into a full-blown PSP exclusive that could better take advantage of the handheld form-factor and to scale down to the PSP's horsepower level.

Strangely it seems that the majority of the staff at Volition didn't even know it existed until an associate video editor, Josh Stinson, found it by accident while rummaging through a storage room. Thankfully, the senior staff have no problem letting the public know about this would-be project of yesteryear.

A very interesting themed hotel seems to have sprung up in Amsterdam recently, being dedicated to providing a gaming friendly atmosphere and experience.

This so called Arcade Hotel has 36 different rooms in the heart of De Pijp area of Amsterdam, that include consoles of various types in your room. Room service also includes game rental for those consoles, and any console you happen to bring along with. And if you somehow get bored of playing games, there's always the comic library you can visit as well.

But more than just allowing gamers a place to unwind, it's also a place to get together with like-minded individuals. This is a gamer paradise. And if you're hungry, never fear, for this special hotel also pretty nice restaurant with food from local farms. They'r especially excited about their cheese products.

Fallout fans agree: New Vegas is one of the best games in the franchise. But where's the sequel? Surely Bethesda couldn't lose by betting on Obsidian again, and according to lead writer Eric Fenstermaker, the studio would love to make another Fallout game.

In a recent Twitter post, Eric Fenstermaker was asked if Obsidian would consider making another Fallout game, maybe something like Fallout: New Orleans. "I'm always up for working on a Fallout. I think most of us generally are. Really fun property to work with," he said.

While this isn't a confirmation, it's great to see that Obsidian still wants to tackle the series. Fallout gamers have been clamoring for the devs to spin their magic on a sequel for years now, and Obsidian even drew up ideas and plans for Fallout New Vegas 2 back in 2013.

You won't be able to race against yourself in ghost mode in the newly re-released Mario Kart 64 on the Wii U. Just as it was missing in the Wii version, so too is it here.

The ghost feature lets you race solo against your best time, sometimes being a pretty good motivator. But the Wii U Mario Kart 64 version can't actually save any of your ghost data, because normally it would save that to the N64 controller pak memory card. The same problem was present with the original Wii re-release.

Nintendo has been unwilling so far to provide a work-around, and it might mean that any N64 game that absolutely requires the memory pak might not be able to work properly unless Nintendo modifies the game. Until then, you'll have to remember your time and race against an imaginary ghost instead.

Announced in November, backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One was almost like the holy grail for some. Despite being a newer console, there're still just so many fantastic games on the 360 that bear replaying, since a lot still had a plethora of games for the older console.

The library has expanded to well over 100 games, but performance issues might make some of them nearly unplayable. Digital Foundry did a test of every major Xbox 360 game that's available right now and found some surprising results. In general, performance is much improved since it was first available, but some games still perform much more poorly than they do naively on the 360.

Halo: Reach is the biggest disappointment with framerate that sometimes dip well below 15FPS. An unacceptable experience. But the underlying emulation might not be optimized for every game yet. Gears of War: Judgement also suffers a similar problem, suffering from horrible framerates that make it unplayable.

While Microsoft's Xbox One continues to move sizable volume in North America, other regions like Japan are completely disinterested in the all-in-one. Case in point: out of the nation's 127 million strong population, only 99 bought an Xbox One last week.

According to Japanese site 4Gamer, Microsoft only sold a measly 99 Xbox Ones in Japan from Jan. 11 to Jan. 17. For the sake of comparison, over 30,000 New 3DS handhelds were sold during the same period, along with 25,592 PlayStation 4 consoles. That's a pretty serious thrashing, but remember that Japan has traditionally been dominated by mobile and handheld gaming, with Sony's native PlayStation consoles for living room gaming.

This news isn't really surprising considering the Xbox One was pretty much DOA when it launched in the region. During its launch, Microsoft's all-in-one only moved some 25,000 units in its first four days of availability. The PlayStation 4, on the other hand, utterly smashed that number with over 300,000 sales during its launch.

Atari is launching a new compilation of classic games on Steam sometime this Spring. The Atari Vault will include a lot of the great classics you may love or hate, with Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest and even Warlords making the cut.

The new Atari Vault is supposed to have full support for the Steam Controller so you can blast your enemies on a 2D plane with better precision. Atari is also adding in multiplayer support with a Steam leaderboard to help you compete.

This version of the Atari Vault is being developed by Code Mystics who has a lot of experience with bringing old-school Atari games to life again. This compilation will be playable at PAX South which is happening later this month in San Antonia Texas.

Bungie's sequel to its lukewarm MMO-style shooter Destiny has reportedly been delayed, with further rumblings that the developers may not know what's coming in the pipeline.

Many gamers feel that Destiny is less of a game and more of a kind of psychological experiment. Bungie has caught a lot of flak over the game's lifetime due to overpriced, insubstantial content, and now the devs fail to properly communicate with their dwindling playerbase. Amid this transparency breakdown comes massive speculation, some of which appears to be right: Bungie's plans for Destiny aren't set in stone. Thus, Destiny 2 has likely been delayed past its September 2016 projection.

At the same time, no one's sure what's going on with Destiny. That's basically the main problem. Bungie has this insanely ambitious idea, but things keep on moving around. First the Halo creators had a 10-year "Comet" roadmap for future content, but that plan ultimately evolved and shifted into a new microtransaction-funded model. Bungie promises that this new model will launch free, substantial new content, but there's been no announcements or reveals.

Many people dream of a career in making huge games like Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, but an ex-Ubisoft developer dispels the fantasy and reveals the true reality of AAA games development, and it's not so pretty.

I've often wondered what it's like working with hundreds of other developers on massive projects. In a recent blog post, an ex-Ubisoft games architect known simply as Maxime answers many of these questions and shares why he left his cushy, well-paying job at one of the most renown studios in the world so he could go indie. The result is a truly eye-opening story about the inherently flawed nature of big-budget games development.

According to Maxime, big projects are inherently unfulfilling because no one feels like they're making an real impact on a game. When there's a huge team of people, the work itself is reduced to repetitive gruntwork, severely cutting off that personal pride you feel in your creations. There's also an incredible breakdown of communication, meaning most of your team members will be ignored, regardless if they have great ideas or not. Over time, motivation wanes and the roaring inferno of passion you once felt dies down do a flickering flame...until you quit, or come to terms with your reality. Maxime compares AAA games development to an assembly line on a factory: soulless, rote, and never-ending.