Gaming - Page 1089

The EA Vault is being opened to everyone with an Xbox Live Gold membership on the Xbox One starting next week. That means that anyone that meets those requirements will get access to the 14 games that have made their way into the vault recently.

That free access is for a limited amount of time, however, and will last from January 14th through the 24th. But that still gets you access to all the games that have been placed in the vault, and some of them are actually still quite enjoyable. You'll find Battlefield Hardline, Dragon Age: Inquisiition, Titanfall, FIFA 15, Madden 15, Battlefield 4 and more.

If you want regular access to the EA Vailt, and to the other features of EA Access, it's around $5 a month or $30 per year. There're other benefits as well, like being able to play games a few days before the actual release and giving you 10% off of EA games should you decide to make the purchase. This is one program that the PlayStation 4 doesn't have, as Sony has said it didn't see value in the EA Access program.

Codemasters will be hosting a session at GDC 2016, where they will be talking about their EGO Engine 4.0, which has support for DirectX 12.

The description of the GDC 2016 session teases: "Codemasters present a post-mortem on their new rendering engine used for F1 2015 detailing how they balanced the apparently opposing goals optimizing for mainstream processor graphics, high-end multi-core and DX12. The F1 2015 engine is Codemasters' first to target the eighth generation of consoles and PC's with a new engine architecture designed from scratch to distribute the games workload across many cores making it a great candidate for DX12 and utilise the processing power of high-end PC's".

It continues: "This session will show the enhanced the visuals created using a threaded CPU based particle system without increased the GPU demands and also cover the changes made to the engine while moving from DX11 to DX12. We will also discuss the graphics effects added using the new DX12 features Raster Ordered Views (AVSM and Decal Blending) and Conservative Rasterization (Voxel based ray tracing) adding even greater realism to the F1 world".

This will come as a surprise to everyone... yeah, probably not. The best-selling game of 2015 was Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, according to the latest data from market research firm, NPD Group.

In the US, the Call of Duty franchise has been the top-selling franchise for the last seven years. But, each year, the COD franchise hasn't topped the list of best-selling game, especially against Grand Theft Auto V in 2013. Black Ops 3 didn't launch until November 6, taking just two months to secure the best-selling game of 2015 award. According to Activision Communications Manager, Scott Lowe, the Call of Duty franchise has sold over 250 million copies to date.

As for the games that were also in the charts with Black Ops 3, we have Madden NFL 16 with second place, Fallout 4 with third place, and Star Wars: Battlefront in fourth position. Also included in the list, were NBA 2K16, Minecraft, Mortal Kombat X, FIFA 16, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

Can you believe The Division is so close to release, that Ubisoft is launching the beta of The Division on Xbox One on January 28? PC and PS4 gamers get it 24 hours later on January 29, with the beta closing up shop on January 31.

Ubisoft's official Twitter account for The Division announced the news, tweeting "Your mission is about to start. The Division Closed Beta starts January 28th! Register on thedivisiongame.com/beta". The company also took to Facebook to announce the news, with a new "RPG Gameplay" trailer released recently, which we've got embedded above for your viewing pleasure.

The Division is getting its very own Xbox One bundle from Microsoft that gives you a 1TB Xbone combined with the game and a 14-day Xbox Live Gold trial so you can actually get online and enjoy the cooperative RPG to its fullest.

By pre-ordering the bundle (or the standalone game itself) you'll have guaranteed access to the beta that's going to kick off on January 28th, letting us all band-together (supposedly) to take back New York City in a format that, on the surface, looks very similar to Destiny. The gameplay should be different and hopefully is designed in the spirit of other Tom Clancy games, and of his literary works.

Playing The Division at E3 last year was a treat, though the frozen streets were surprisingly sparse. There's scuttlebut in the community about downgraded graphics from what was initially shown, but the examples that are coming out still do look good even if they aren't up to the pretty visuals of the first official gameplay trailer. This definitely isn't another Watch Dogs debacle, at the very least. If that's any consolation. So pick your poison and pre-order, or do the prudent thing and wait for it to release and be reviewed. Ubisoft has promised us that the PC version won't be just another port, but a game that they'll actually optimize so it runs well and looks spectacular, as it should on high-end PC's

Fresh from the Public Test Universe (PTU), Alpha 2.1 for Star Citizen is now available for download.

The focus of the new ~27GB patch is mainly on finding those gigantic bugs and stomping them so that the Star Citizen experience can be maintained. That is, you don't fall out of your ship randomly or crash to the desktop, as can sometimes happen in an alpha build. Thus 2.1 is far more stable than its predecessor.

And aside from the monumental task of fixing a tremendous amount of issues and bugs, there are now two additional flyable ships available, the Aegis Vanguard Warden, which is a flying weapons platform similar to the A10 Warthog, and the MISC Freelancer, a large multi-purpose ship that can be refitted for a variety of missions. The militia variant is particularly attractive, but you'll eventually be able to modify it in-game to suit your own specific needs. While not flyable, the Aegis Sabre will be available in your hanger module if you own it, which is only a cool $170 at the moment. New weapons and the Million Mile High Club are also available in this update.

David Bowie and his genius has unfortunately been lost to us as he becomes one with the Force, but his legacy will live on in a lot of different mediums. Even in the world of gaming,

For some it seems like only yesterday that his music, and his likeness, was used as a major plot point in Omikron: The Nomad Soul. That RPG changed the face of the genre forever, or at least I'd like to think it did, and in part because of David Bowie and his contributions. His music alone made it one of the most unique and enjoyable games of that era. And while Omikron itself was slightly buggy (read: very) when it first launched, I couldn't get enough of it. A recent playthrough I did reinforced how unique it was.

And David Cage, the founder of Quantic Dream, the studio that made Omikron, has been kind enough to share some of this memories of working with the iconic David Bowie. His battle with cancer might tragically be over, but we'll always remember him as being singularly unique and inspiring.

During a recent official PlayStation Blogcast it was revealed that the fantastic cell-shaded RPG, Dark Cloud 2, is going to join an already stellar cast of revived PS2 games on the PS4 via emulation on January 19th.

This came amidst a discussion on their favorite games of 2015, including the recently emulated that have been able to bring great value to the PS4. One of the greatest reasons to keep a PS3 is the large library of older games that some still find quite enjoyable, or that perhaps some haven't had a chance to enjoy quite yet. That issue is slowly being rectified, however.

Dark Cloud 2 follows two time-warped kids as they make their way through procedural generated dungeons to put a stop to an evil emperor whose hell bent on destroying the world, but from the past. It was unique in how it presented leveling up, where you leveled your weapons instead. Look for that and many more classic games coming soon via emulation to the PS4.

The monthly sales report for December from the NPD Group is now out and it shows that the PlayStation 4 enjoyed a nice healthy lead for the last month of the year, which was likely expected by many. That isn't to say that the Xbox One did poorly, just that the PS4 remained on top last month and throughout the entire year.

The PS4 was built upon the success enjoy over the first part of the year and was able the sell around 5.7 million units during the holiday season and over 35 million games. The holiday season covers the period between November 22nd all the way through January 2nd, though that's no easy feat.

While the PS4 didn't quite have the amount of exclusives or timed exclusives as the Xbox One, that apparently didn't stop it from being the leading console of the year. For the Xbox One, no numbers are quoted, though the VP of Xbox Marketing did note that they enjoyed a hefty 61% increase in sales over the same period last in 2014. So both consoles enjoyed great growth year over year and record profits.

Square Enix has made the leap to have Hitman be a fully episodic game, meaning that content within will be spread out throughout the year, released intermittently as it's ready for release.

The first portion of content includes a prologue mission and a Paris mission releasing on March 11th. The next location will be set in Italy and will release in April, followed by a mission set in Morocco coming in May. After that initial schedule we'll see content updates every month with at least three different locations spanning Thailand, the US and Japan.

The general idea is that they want to get it right and have each of the massive set pieces make their way to us in a more complete state, so as to avoid the problems that have occurred with other massively scaled games in the past who suffered a lot of criticism as a result. "We decided to take the full leap and publish HITMAN as a truly episodic game experience," said Hannes Seifert, Head of Studio at Io-Interactive. "Part of that decision is for that little bit of extra time to ensure every location we release is at the quality level fitting for a HITMAN game. But the main driving reason is that this will allow us to create a living game that will expand and evolve over time and establish a foundation for the future - this is the first game in a storyline which will continue and expand with future Hitman games."

The minimum PC specifications needed to enjoy Rise of the Tomb Raider, out January 28th, are now out. And for the bare minimum, it doesn't seem to require a whole lot for a good experience. Remember, the below specs are for minimum only, it's not even a recommended setup.

All you really need to just play the game, and of course not at 4K with everything on, is an older Sandy Bridge Intel i3-2100 or AMD equivalent and at least a GTX 650, or an HD 7770 from AMD. That's it. That means it should be playable, though at the lowest of settings, on a variety of hardware out there.

But that's just the minimum, and we know that with the plethora of options, we'll be able to dial in the experience and also dial it up a notch for some, hopefully, very impressive visuals at 4K and even above, for those with Eyefinity setups.

Just Cause 3 was developed to make good use of DirectX 12 by Avalanche Studios, with the studio talking about the use of DX12 in their engine in the past.

Well, during the Game Developers Conference 2016 event in March, a programming session will take place, organized by Avalanche Studios and Intel. The duo will be talking about the changes the developer made for Just Cause 3, with the session being presented by Intel's Graphics Software Engineer, Antoine Cohade.

The session teases: "Just Cause 3 is Avalanche studio's latest addition to the mind (and lots of other stuff) blowing open world action-adventure series: Just Cause. Published by Square Enix, the game released on December 1, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. During the development of the game, Intel and Avalanche have been working closely together to optimize the game on Iris graphics, but also to make use of DX12's features to improve the performance even further as well as bring additional visual quality to the game!"

Twitter now has its own gaming focused Twitter feed, but we're not entirely sure why they've done this. As we understand it, it's just a feed to tweet and retweet other gaming related topics and memes. So in other words, it's very similar to any other gaming site or other related feed, except super official and from Twitter themselves.

But this is an initiative to help gamers find what they're looking for in an easy to find package. "There are thousands of gaming-related Tweets sent on Twitter each day," Twitter said in a statement about their new venture. "Whether folks are discovering a new game, Tweeting at a gaming personality, keeping up with gaming news or following their favorite esport, we want want to make it easy for gaming fans to find and join the most vibrant conversations about games."

It's similar to their other official feeds about other topics, such as Twitter Music, Twitter Government and others, but it's a strange thing given that the search function is very useful and effective at finding the topics you want, with or without hashtags, which aren't really required anymore.

World of Tanks, the free-to-play online armored vehicle mayhem simulator, is completing it's console infiltration by releasing on the PlayStation 4 on January 20th 2016.

The Xbox 360 was the first foray into consoles for Wargamin.net's World of Tanks, and it was a rousing success. The Xbox One was next, and in it they added cross-play functionality between the two consoles so that you didn't have to leave your friends behind. Now the PS4 is the next to be blessed with what might be arguably the most fun free-to-play MMOTPS (massively multiplayer tank person shooter).

On PC and Xbox One alone there are around 12 million daily users that log-in, far more than the amount of concurrent Steam users on at any one time on an average day. The micro-transactions in-game aren't required by any means, and you can play, successfully, without spending a dime.

CD Projekt RED is extremely confident that The Witcher 3's final expansion, Blood and Wine, will be an amazing experience.

The upcoming Blood and Wine expansion isn't like your average DLC: CDPR says that it's actually like its own separate game. The content features a huge 20-hour story that's entirely separate of The Wild Hunt, featuring nothing but fresh gameplay experiences. Blood and Wine will conclude the epic journey of Geralt of Rivia, and CDPR is sending the legendary witcher out with a bang. While many regard The Witcher 3 as a perfect magnum opus, CDPR notes that they felt they could improve, and Blood and Wine will be the fruits of their improvements.

How can you top something like The Witcher 3? To start, the Polish devs have created a new "charismatic enemy" that players won't soon forget, and tied that devious antagonist with a winding, sprawling story that arcs across the new region of Toussiant. The result is something that CDRP says is "even better than the main game".

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is getting it's very own amiibo exclusive dungeon to compliment the already large selection of difficult dungeons in the classic Gamecube game.

The name of the new dungeon was revealed on the French Amazon site as "La Cave du Crepuscule" which translates, through Google Translate of course, to The Cave of Twilight. Ominous sounding, to be sure, and a good fit for the revival of Twilight Princess. Amazon France posted the details in error, though it seems that even Amazon US has followed and you can take a look at the unreleased amiibo, which is Wolf Link.

We've known about Wolf Link for some time, though what we didn't know is that Wolf Link would come with a special dungeon to complete. Other amiibo's will also have other cool effects and should give you in-game boosts and other incentives when you use them. You'll be able to replenish your health or arrows or some such. The listing also says that you'll be able to use these amiibo's with the upcoming Zelda title for the Wii U. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD comes out on March 16th, which isn't too far off. And the other Zelda game is still slated for a general "2016" release date.

One of the most requested features, and long awaited ones, is that of being able to play your own music in the background of a game on the Xbox One. But it looks like that feature won't be making it to the console until at least this coming Summer, says Phil Spencer.

That doesn't mean that it's impossible to interject your own music into the game, just that it's a bit more inconvenient. You're still able to use the Xbox music app, Groove, to play your favorite personalized tunes, though you'll have to do it with the Snap feature, having a slim line on the side with the app. It also doesn't replace the game music, either.

There's certainly a very large demand for being able to have personal soundtracks in their games with over 22,000 people having requested it on the Xbox Feedback site. So it's a natural progression, and having it play seamlessly would be just one more advantage over the competition.

Elite: Dangerous has just surpassed selling 1.4 million copies across both the Xbox One and the PC, and incredible and well deserved accolade.

Elite: Dangerous was among the first batch of space-sim revival kickstarter's, having easily surpassed their goal of 1.25 million. Over 25 thousand backers gave what they could to make the dream a reality, which was a revitalization of a genre that has been largely ignored in recent times.

The game finally released in December of 2014 and then officially on Steam in April of 2015 to a fairly great reception. A total of over 84 million hours have been played by its player base (and I've got only a paltry 81 currently). But it hasn't been smooth sailing completely, with the initial launch having been of a fantastic yet somewhat shallow game.

If you're excited for Tom Clancy's The Division, we have a bit of troubling news: the game will feature microtransactions. It is an Ubisoft game, after all!

The Division will support "optional in-game purchases", according to a listing spotted on the Netherlands' PlayStation Store. We're not sure if the purchases are limited to consoles or not, but they'll likely carry over to all platforms. Ubisoft is notorious for peppering its AAA titles with microtransactions that range from simple cosmetics to actual performance-boosting items, but the publisher has been quite careful not to push into the dreaded "pay to win" territory.

Thanks to its MMO-like elements, the Division is prime territory for microtransactions. The game features the kind of persistent world states found in MMO's or games like Destiny. The survival/shooter/RPG will be online only, and players will be able to jump seamlessly into co-op and PVP missions without needing to change mods."The game is built around seamless online integration. Going from playing alone, to playing in a group, to playing PvP will all be handled with very little or no interruption," Ubisoft explains.

The CEO of GameStop, Paul Raines, spoke at the ICR Conference 2016 in Orlando today about his thoughts on the future of VR in the industry, which is one of the leading trends going into 2016. He seems to prefer the PlayStation VR over the rest.

In general he's excited about the prospect of VR and where it's going. It has the potential to be a huge industry, even if the price is somewhat high initially. Raines thinks that all top-tier makers offer good quality headsets that are near equal in quality, but it's the quantity of material and content that'll make or break any particular brand. And in that case he's more a fan of the PlayStation VR, because of the sheer volume of games and the backing it has. It's a very focused device.

To explain, he said "The more important thing will be the title count at launch." Raines continued by saying "I think that's going to be big. And from what we can see at this point, Sony seems to have the strongest title count." VR is going to be a big part of the future, and Raines wants to capitalize on that, especially with Sony's device.