Gaming - Page 1095

Ubisoft surprised us with the 'Silent Night' live action trailer to The Division, but Mafia fans will enjoy this 12-minute developer-narrated video of Mafia 3, courtesy of IGN.

Haden Blackman, the Studio Head and Creative Director of Hangar 13, the developer behind Mafia 3, explained: "The Mafia franchise is known for its immersive sense of time and place, and for presenting compelling stories about life within organized crime. In Mafia III, we are introducing players to an unexpected new anti-hero and an iconic city to explore, all within a hard-boiled drama set during one of the most turbulent years in American history".

Mafia 3 will be released onto the Xbox One, PS4 and PC in 2016.

Squad is the first big, publicly available game using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4. Consequently, it's brought to light a major issue within the engine: poor performance on AMD CPUs, seemingly related to an audio component of the engine. The issue has been reported by many players since even before the Early Access launch this week, but now that it's on Steam, the vocalness has intensified.

Squad developer Offworld Industries has stated, "there's very little [we] can do about this besides wait for Epic to fix it and release the fix in an engine patch." With that, we asked Epic if it was aware of the issue and if it had plans to fix it. Senior marketing manager Dana Cowley responded, "First I've heard of this. Thanks to your email I'm getting in touch with the Squad team now to investigate, and see how we might be able to help. We think Squad is awesome, and want to make sure they are set up for success." In a follow-up email, she stated, "Our guys are on top of it."

Microsoft has just released a new list of 16 Xbox 360 games that are now playable on the Xbox One, including yesteryear hits like Halo: Reach, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Portal: Still Alive.

As promised, the Redmond gaming giant has delivered a new batch of backward compatible Xbox 360 games in time for the holiday season. The new offering is much smaller than the original 100 backward compatible Xbox 360 games, but Xbox fans will be delighted to see less Kinect-based titles taking up precious room for great games. Sadly there are a bunch of Xbox LIVE Arcade games, so we can't celebrate too much...however the games themselves aren't so bad. Check out the list below for the full breakdown, and remember all of these games are now playable on the Xbox One.

Remember that all backward compatible Xbox 360 games played on the Xbox One can utilize nifty benefits like game streaming to Windows 10 PC's, cross-platform multiplayer with gamers on Xbox One or Xbox 360, and screenshot and video capture.

I still remember playing the absolute crap out of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter when it was released on the Nintendo 64 back in the 90s, but it was when it hit the PC that I was excited - as I could drive up the resolution far higher than the N64 could crank out at the time.

Well, Night Dive Studios - who has been in the headlines quite a few times now, namely with System Shock 3 under development - is behind Turok: Dinosaur Hunter remaster. Turok Remastered will include improved textures, effects, and much more. The draw distance has been greatly improved, as Turok was infamous for its use of fog to hide the horrible draw distances back in the day. This isn't a problem anymore, thanks to the greatly improved graphical horsepower of today's hardware.

Turok Remastered drops on December 17 through GOG.com, Steam, and Humble Bumble.

Are you one of the many PS4 gamers who deleted Hideo Kojima's terrifying P.T. demo, and wailed in agony when Konami pulled it from the PlayStation Store? Despair no longer, my friend, for there is a way to get the Del Toro and Kojima classic back onto your console, but it's a bit risky.

The method, which was discovered by a Gamexeon user Cara Jitu, essentially involves tricking the PlayStation Network with a proxy server and a special bit of PC software called Squid. Essentially the software masks your PS4's connection, letting users access account data that was previously deleted or removed.

Be advised that this method is described as a "grey area", and isn't 100% guaranteed as safe, so be sure to try it at your own risk. Multiple users have reported this method does indeed work, and no one has said anything about bricked consoles or PlayStation Network bans. P.T. was removed off the PlayStation Network at the behest of Konami, which in turn kicked off the inflammatory Kojima vs. Konami controversy. Sadly the method only works for PS4 users in the United States and Europe.

In a short span of several hours yesterday, beloved Metal Gear Solid developer freed himself from Konami's cruel yoke, proceeded to go indie with a resurrected Kojima Productions dev team, and found a new publisher under Sony Computer Entertainment.

To the elation of millions of fans worldwide, Sony excitedly broke the official news in a press release and video announcement combo, where Sony's own president Andrew House welcomed Kojima in a bit of footage that left us feeling warm and fuzzy. Thanks to the Metal Gear Solid series, Kojima and Sony go together like peas in a pod, and it's only natural the two work together in the future.

"I will be taking on a new challenge by establishing my own independent studio, and I am thrilled to be able to embark on this journey with PlayStation, who I have continued to work with all these past years,"said the MGS creator. "I cannot wait to deliver, with PlayStation, a game that will become a compelling franchise."

New details reveal that Hideo Kojima's new PlayStation 4 game will only be timed-exclusive to the Sony platform, and will indeed make its way to PC.

Hideo Kojima has been pretty busy lately. After freeing himself from Konami's shackles due to an expired contract, the famed Metal Gear Solid creator resurrected Kojima Productions and signed a pretty substantial deal with Sony. Up until now the details of the new partnership have been slim, but a new development unveils that Sony won't have full platform exclusivity to Kojima's new game. Thus the aggravating timed-exclusivity marketing ploy rears its head, meaning Kojima's new game (whatever it may be) will not only release first on PlayStation 4, but be solely available on the platform for a period of time.

The new information comes from a Q&A session on a Medium post written by a Sony exec. Oddly enough, The timed exclusivity news broke across multiple publications, prompting Sony to delete the post, which says volumes about the deal itself. Sadly we have no way of officially corroborating the information as the post has been deleted, but according to past coverage, Hideo Kojima's new game will eventually be released on the PC after the exclusive timer runs out. There was no mention of an Xbox One release.

Enterprising gamers never fail to amaze me: there'as always someone out there who explores the farthest depths of in-game world's in search of secrets. In this case, one intrepid Fallout 4 adventurer asked himself "what lies beneath Boston's irradiated waters?", and set off on a journey that spanned that entire Commonwealth.

It turns out that Fallout 4 is hiding quite a bit in its nuclear oceans and lakes. Lavon Smith, the Fallout 4 explorer, spent 30 hours charting nearly 100% of the game's hallowed oceans and lakes in search of plunder and treasure, culminating in a absolutely massive Imgur gallery of screenshots. Lavon's YouTube channel is also filled with tons of video footage chronicling his explorations.

Since finding treasure or interesting relics in the Commonwealth's waterways can be hit or miss, Lavon created a handy map that shows the locations of loot and points of interest. Fallout 4's oceans are absolutely riddled with radiation so you'll want to pick up the Aquaboy perk or stock up on Rad-X and equip a Hazmat suit to mitigate the massive RAD intake. Also don't ever equip Power Armor if you plan to go swimming, unless you really want to explore the bottom of the ocean. Power armor sinks like a rock underwater and moves extremely slowly--think Link's Iron Boots x 100--but the flip-side is that you don't have to worry about oxygen.

The first update to Rainbow Six: Siege has been detailed by Ubisoft, something that will include an Ultra HD texture pack for the PC. Not only that, but it does include so much more that we'll detail below:

New Content & Features

General Tweaks & Improvements

Project Reality is a very popular Battlefield 2 mod that launched in 2005 and was maintained all the way through 2015. It featured an even bigger scope and emphasis on teamwork than the much-lauded Battlefield 2 and found great success among the FPS community. The team eventually went legit, forming the studio Offworld Industries and beginning work on Squad, the spiritual successor to Project Reality with equal if not greater ambition, and much more impressive graphics, courtesy of Unreal Engine 4.

After years of hard, steady work, Squad is finally available on Steam Early Access as of today. The game is nowhere near done, but the team has gone with the vertical slice model, so while large scale vehicle combat and other elements are out of the picture for now, the smaller scale infantry combat is pretty rich and from what the community is saying, more than worth picking up at its $40 price tag. The results seem to agree, as, impressively, the game is smack on top of the Steam sales charts as of press time.

The Kojima vs. Konami controversy has been a long and outrageous ride, but it might be nearing its eventual end with the beleaguered Metal Gear Solid creator moving onto greener pastures.

Japanese games publication Nikkei reports that Hideo Kojima has started up a new development studio made up of ex-Kojima Production devs, and is currently negotiating a deal with Sony. The publication says that Kojima tapped Sony to act as publisher of a new game for the PlayStation 4 console. Details on the game and the studio's name aren't available at this time.

Kojima has also officially shed the yoke of Konami, freeing the talented developer up to tackle new experiences and franchises. Nikkei reports that Kojima's contract with Konami officially expired today, and we can only imagine how it feels to shed such a burden. Konami's treatment of Hideo Kojima has been quite ridiculous to say the least, culminating in a year-long debacle that saw Kojima's name scrubbed off of his own game, as well as being denied from accepting an award at TGS 2015. At least now Konami can't lie and say Kojima isn't gone and "just on vacation".

Despite the assurances that Destiny's microtransactions wouldn't compromise the game, Bungie has introduced $30 add-ons that boost a player's level up to 25. So if you want to boost a Titan, Hunter and Warlock to level 25, that'll cost you an absolutely ridiculous $90.

As soon as Bungie announced microtransactions were coming to Destiny, the game's entire player base cringed. Gamers know that allowing microtransactions is like opening Pandora's box, and they can eventually crush the credibility and fun of any game. Bungie jumped in to defend the move, saying that microtransactions were limited to cosmetic dance emotes and that there'd be no pay-to-win hijinks. That promise disarmed gamers, especially when they were told that the microtransactions would fund all future updates, meaning all of Destiny's DLC packs will now be free. So what's the downside?

Now we're starting to see the downside to microtransactions, and gamers are not happy. The item in question automatically levels up any given character to level 25, making it quite similar to the Spark of Light consumable that's given out for free with The Taken King DLC. The big deal comes with the item's asking price, which is an absurd $30. It's not enough that you can spend anywhere from $10 to $50 on microtransaction currency, but gamers now get charged $30 just to unlock the required level for The Taken King content? Ouch.

Current-gen console emulation hasn't hit its stride just yet, but tweakers and coders are making significant progress on the world's first Nintendo Wii U emulator, which can now run Mario Kart 8.

As you can see in the footage above, the emulated Mario Kart 8 doesn't fully mirror its console counterpart. Despite the slower frame-rates and lower graphics, the game is still indeed playable. The current build of Cemu 1.1.2b is much more stable than the glitchy mess that was showcased back in October, showing how far the emulator has come in just two months. The Wii U emulator Cemu is far from finished and we won't see PC gamers whizzing around the Rainbow Road during the holidays, however the day might come sooner than later with proper community support.

It'll be interesting to see how Cemu takes shape in the coming months, and if Wii U games will actually join the roster of emulated systems on the PC. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have yet to be emulated, but a hacker claims to have jailbroken the PlayStation 4 to allow system function tweaks and open the doors for custom homebrew firmware.

After being quoted as the most popular EA BETA in history, the player count for Star Wars Battlefront has continued a steady decline since its official launch.

While the PlayStation 4 edition seems to be travelling along well at a peak of 91.1k players over the last 24 hours, the PC player count has taken a massive hit. We reported three weeks ago that this title was sitting pretty at a PC player peak of 33,337, with today's reading on SWBstats telling us that this peak has slipped further down to 15,756 at the time of writing this article.

Paired with 12,061 current players at the time of writing this report, this concurrent number ranks EA's latest poster child release at lower than titles such as Counter Strike 1.6, DayZ and another new-release title, Call of Duty: Black Ops III. According to Steam's stats page, the lower Battlefront 24 hour peak now mean that it ranks under Euro Truck Simulator 2.

While Fable Legends is roaming around in the world of its closed beta, Lionhead Studios has announced that its free, multiplayer-focused fantasy game has been delayed from the holiday season, until spring 2016.

Lionhead is now inviting 100,000 additional players in the coming weeks to join in on the Fable Legends open beta, with Creative Director David Eckelberry saying: "To be honest with you, we rather underestimated just how big of a game Fable Legends is becoming. We've really created two games at once: We've got a multiplayer RPG on one side and a kind of RTS on the other. On top of that, we've built a new world and a whole new story to tell. This is the most ambitious game we've ever done at Lionhead and it's taking more time than we thought".

Microsoft announced Fable Legends back in 2013 with Lionhead, with Legends being a big shift in the usual Fable universe. The previous Fable games have included an in-depth single-player campaign, but Fable Legends will only include multiplayer, or AI-assisted missions. Fable Legends will include microtransactions, but Lionhead has promised that players can complete all of the quests and storylines without paying any additional money through microtransactions.

I've woken up to Christmas morning... System Shock 3 has been announced. OtherSide Entertainment and Night Dive Studios have officially announced System Shock 3, but other than the announcement that it's coming - that's all we have.

There's no teaser trailer, no screenshots, and I like it that way. Instead of some CGI creation that represents nothing in-game, or some super-polished screenshots, we're just hearing about it, and that's it. There is a website for System Shock 3, with an audio sample that teases "Did you think I'd forgotten you, insect?". After checking out the source code to the System Shock 3 teaser website, it reveals: "Join the original team behind Ultima Underworld on a quest to rekindle this legendary fantasy RPG series".

OtherSide Entertainment released a PR statement not too long after, saying: "OtherSide Entertainment, the development studio behind the upcoming fantasy RPG Underworld Ascendant, is excited to officially announce development on System Shock 3, the sequel to the landmark System Shock series. Last week, OtherSide posted a teaser website (www.othersidetease.com ) with cryptic lettering hinting at a new game. Internet hackers quickly cracked the site, prematurely revealing the game's title. As part of the fun, series' AI antagonist SHODAN appeared to mock the hackers with new taunts each day. On the updated teaser site today, fans can hear popular voice actress Terri Brosius (System Shock 1 & 2, Dishonored) reprise her role as the voice of SHODAN and see an early peek at the evolving 'next generation' look of the character by artist Robb Waters".

Star Wars: The Force Awakens releases in just four short days, and gamers everywhere are finding ways to inject a little Star Wars into their lives. With that spirit in mind, ligthsabers are now available in Fallout 4. About time, right?

If you're like me, then lightsabers are a must-have in any Bethesda RPG. These death-dealing laser-swords are essential to any Fallout or TES mod collection, and represent that free "why not?" spirit of wacky chaos that mods inject to any game. During my adventures, I used Darth Maul's double-bladed Sith-saber in Oblivion, sliced and diced baddies with Luke Skywalker's lightsaber in Fallout 3, and finished it all off by spreading terror and red death as Darth Vader in New Vegas. Finally, gamers can now continue this long-running tradition in Fallout 4.

The mod isn't just about bringing havoc and hilarity to the Commonwealth. It actually fills a very noticeable void: the lack of energy weapons in Fallout 4. "How can we have no energy melee against energy ranged?", asks the mod's creator Invalidfate. We'll likely see more lightsaber mods in the future, complete with Kylo Ren's fearsome claymore lightsaber.

Fallout 4 doesn't look that great on its own, especially after some of the games that we've seen released in the last couple of years. It looked like a spruced up Fallout 3, and while that's not a bad thing - we have magnitudes more GPU and CPU horsepower in our PCs these days - so I blame the consoles.

But, this is where the mods come into play, such as the latest version of ENBSeries. ENBSeries' members 'dpeasant', 'iriarsham', 'Kobalk', and 'Strix2206' have created something truly incredible with their mods for Fallout 4, which makes the game look insanely beautiful. There are a range of screenshots that we've attached, so enjoy!

If you want to recreate your own screenshots, try tinkering with the ENB mod presets over at Nexusmods. The official ENBSeries forum uses these kinds of mods for their photos and you can even sign up to learn more about the process.

If you've always wanted to get into Destiny but have been put off by the game's $59.99 price tag, then today's your lucky day.

Amazon is currently offering Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition for just $30 as part of its daily sales. The sale applies to all platform versions, including PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360. This version is the retail edition that features the complete package of Bungie's MMOFPS, including the base game Destiny as well as its three DLC packs, The Dark Below, The House of Wolves, and massive The Taken King update.

As someone who spent $120 total on Destiny ($59.99 for the base game, $20 per each of three expansions), I envy new gamers who are given the opportunity pick the game up for just $59.99, let alone the ultra-cheap $30. Be forewarned that once you fire the game up you'll be flooded with updates and patch downloads before you can jump in and play.

The world of DayZ is already dangerous enough, but to make the challenge all that harder, the team has announced that predatory animals are making their way into the game.

The latest devblog has teased that wolves are coming, and just like the zombies in the game, wolves and other animals will try to attack you. But, if you're good enough you could capture these animals and cook them so that you can use them to your benefit. The devblog has added that non-perishable food is about to become very scarce, thanks to the introduction of growable food, and soon, animals.

Also, dirt bikes and traditional pedal-powered bikes are also making their way into the world of DayZ - which should be interesting, to say the least.