Gaming - Page 1149

The public launch of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare didn't go as well as some would have hoped, with an unknown number of Microsoft Xbox One gamers reporting problems with the digital download.

Here is what Microsoft said: "We've received reports that some users are having issues getting their pre-ordered copy of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. We're happy to say that our team has fixed the problem, but if you are still experiencing any issues, delete the game and re-download it. Thanks for your patience while we got this issue worked out. Have fun!"

Interested gamers can download the Day Zero edition of Advanced Warfare for the Xbox One today, even if it wasn't pre-ordered. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare officially launches on November 4 for the PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4.

PAX AU 2014 - Last night, Roberts Space Industries took the stage of the Forum Theatre in Melbourne to show off the FPS mode of Star Citizen. We found out that developer Illfonic has been tirelessly working on the first-person module of the game for quite a while now. We were at the event itself, watching the entire thing in awe. Check out the footage below.

What the video doesn't show you, is the little details that RSI and Illfonic have put into the game. Because you're in space, and on various spaceships, in the game you're wearing a suit. When you breathe, your breathe is hitting the visor and creating a fog. As you run, you will breathe faster, and more often, which results in the visor getting foggier and foggier - immersing you into the world of Star Citizen. From there, Chris Roberts explained that they've created "correctly simulated eyes, head & body", which allows a much more realistic portrayal of the game world to be achieved.

From there, it allows the first- and third-person animations to be unified. The team explained this by showing off switching between first- and third-person modes, which was seamless, as the eyes were being rendered in the same place. So instead of the eyes being a camera or window into the game world, and then the third-person view being a wider, but more far away look into the world, it's completely unified. It provides a much more realistic sense of being there, as your eyes and where they're fixated, becoming your focal point.

Sony confirmed there are worsening problems with the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Network, following the "Masamune 2.0" system update, according to reports. Formerly known as Standby Mode, the new "Rest Mode" is plagued by a bug that doesn't allow the console to power back on - and the PlayStation community forums have been flooded by angry gamers.

In addition to the Rest Mode problem, others have complained that YouTube functionality has struggled, with video uploads no longer working properly. Sony is reportedly working to address these problems, but didn't offer a time table for the fix.

"We are aware of issues reported by some PS4 users following the release of PS4's latest system software update, v2.00," Sony recently told GameSpot. "We are investigating these issues and will provide an update as soon as we have more information."

PAX AU 2014 - After the 'A Chat With Chris Roberts, The Original Wing Commander' at PAX Australia 2014, we cornered the man himself, Chris Roberts, to ask him a few questions. During this chat, Roberts said that he "doesn't care about consoles", as he thinks the future of gaming is PC. Star Citizen is a massively popular game, all without being released, entering the Guinness Book of World Records for the most crowdfunded thing, ever.

The game is currently sitting on $59,126,683 (at the time of writing), just shy of $60 million. I asked Chris if he thinks the game will reach, and go over $100 million in funding, something he said he thinks will happen before the game launches. Roberts said that the $100 million haul should happen as the game hits version 1.0 "based on the trajectory" of the never-ending stream of funds.

I asked Chris what he expected when he first unveiled Star Citizen on Kickstarter, where he was hoping to see $4 million toward development. He didn't expect to reach $10 million, and now pushing on the edges of $60 million, the game's scope has expanded beyond Roberts' initial goals. The massive injection of fuding allows Roberts Space Industries to hire more staff, call in more contractors, and get much more of the game done not only quicker, but more polished during every patch thanks to community feedback.

It is rumored Microsoft is working on a new cheaper and smaller processor for the Xbox One, with AMD currently developing a 20nm 'slim' model. The current CPU is a 28nm technology, but AMD and Microsoft wants to innovate - while also helping make the console smaller - to entice additional sales, as the console struggled to keep up with the Sony PlayStation 4.

It's worth noting that 20nm architecture is expensive, and with such high demand from smartphone manufacturers, prices will likely remain high.

"This opens the door to a much smaller cooling assembly and a thinner chassis, which in turn leads to cost benefits throughout the whole manufacturing and distribution process," said Richard Leadbetter, a well-known and respected technology influencer. "Smaller consoles mean less packaging, meaning cost savings in physically shipping the units out from China to retail markets worldwide."

PAX AU 2014 - I have just stepped back into my hotel room after a hectic first day at PAX Australia 2014, which was held in the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, with the highlight of the day being the 'A Chat With Chris Roberts, The Original Wing Commander', the guy behind Star Citizen, which has raised close to $60 million through crowdfunding so far, with no signs of stopping.

Chris had some great things to say during the speech, with that 1-hour chat available right here. But, we organized a chat with the man himself after the talk with the PAX AU crowd, where he had some interesting things to say. We talked about the state of PC gaming, where we have people like Alex Hutchinson, the Creative Director of Far Cry 4 saying that resolution in games is "not something" he "cares about". Roberts on the other hand, had the total opposite to say.

He said that the team is working on 4K and 8K textures, pushing the boundaries of the APIs in DirectX 11 and Mantle, where he said that Mantle and DX12 are going to provide some performance improvements to Star Citizen. This is because the game is quite CPU bound, something that DX12 should help out with when it launches next year. He finished the chat with a few great quotes, where he said: "I don't care about consoles" as he is really gunning for a true PC exclusive game in Star Citizen, something that pushes the entire PC gaming world forward in leaps and bounds.

MSI has unveiled the GT80 Titan gaming laptop with a SteelSeries mechanical keyboard, becoming the first gaming laptop to include a mechanical keyboard. It's a unique product because mechanical keyboards tend to have better feedback, prevents key jamming and helps increase durability.

The GT80's keyboard has a keycap just 27mm of thickness - and the laptop itself is the world's slimmest and lightest 18-inch laptop, 17 percent thinner and 22 percent lighter than rival products.

"Performance is key for gamers and the GT80 Titan will forever change the mobile gaming experience," said Andy Tung, MSI Pan America President. "We are proud to be at the forefront of the gaming evolution and will continue to provide solutions that deliver the most outstanding gaming experience in the world."

It was only a few hours ago that we were reporting that EA announced that Battlefield: Hardline, which is being developed by Visceral Games, will be released March 17, 2015, and now we're hearing about Star Wars Battlefront.

EA has announced that Star Wars Battlefront, DICE's take on the Star Wars universe, will reach gamers in Q4 2015. Considering Star Wars: Episode 7 is due on December 18, 2015, this makes perfect sense - ride the marketing wave of the movie. Blake Jorgensen, EA's Chief Financial Officer confirmed that Star Wars Battlefront will indeed be a first-person shooter, and it'll be EA's "major first-person shooter" for the year.

The following year, 2016, DICE's Battlefield franchise will be fresh out of the oven, with Battlefield 5 (or a rename, or whatever it arrives as), will arrive in the third quarter of EA's 2017 fiscal year, so sometime in the last quarter of 2016. This means we're waiting an entire two years for the next true Battlefield game, which is sad news.

With the 30FPS and low-res debacle causing outrage amongst gamers, Techland has just announced it has cancelled the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of its zombie survival game, Dying Light, which will now be exclusive to current-gen consoles, and the PC.

The developer said that the previous-gen versions were compromising the "core version of Dying Light", adding that it had spent the past three years of development on Dying Light "making sure that all the features of our game add up to create a truly next-gen experience". The developer continued: "Much of this 'next-gen feel' is tightly connected to the technological side of Dying Light. For instance, up to 200,000 objects can be displayed in the game at once. Add to this our use of realistic, physics-based lighting technology and you really start to push the next-gen systems to the limits. Features like these along with our core gameplay pillars - such as the player-empowering Natural Movement, threefold character development system, and vast open world - are all an inherent part of how Dying Light plays. However, combining all of these into one fluid experience is only possible on technologically advanced platforms".

"After thorough internal testing" the developer decided to axe the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, so that players will receive "the full and best experience regardless of the platform you play on". Dying Light was meant to be released before the end of the year, but was delayed until February 2015.

Electronic Arts today announced that Battlefield Hardline will be released on March 17, 2015 in North America, with a March 19, 2015 release date set for Europe.

Instead of a war-themed game, Hardline takes a new spin on cops versus robbers, with a single player storyline of officer Nick Mendoza fighting corrupt cops and drug dealers in Miami. Multiplayer gamers will play in teams "on one side of the law or the other," trying to either complete heists as a criminal or bust the bad guys as law enforcement.

Battlefield Hardline was delayed until 2015 so developers had additional time to make improvements and closely evaluate beta player feedback. EA doesn't want a repeat of the chaos that ensued with the release of Battlefield 4, which suffered numerous problems.

The kool-aid continues to be consumed over at Ubisoft, with Far Cry 4's Creative Director, Alex Hutchinson, having some interesting things to say when it comes to 1080p.

When asked about resolution, Hutchinson said: "It's certainly not something I care about in a game" when asked by Total Xbox about the target resolution of 1080p and 30FPS for Far Cry 4 on Xbox One and PS4. He continued: "It feels weird to me that people are cool about playing a sort of retro pixel game, and yet the resolution somehow matters. It's like: is it fun, is it interesting, is it new, is it fresh, are there interesting questions. With the 4K TVs and things - somebody was telling me that with a 4K TV, to even see it, your living room has to be big enough to sit like 12 feet from the screen. I don't know the exact numbers, but it starts to get a little crazy. I'm just in it for the experience, I'll play a SNES game if it's cool".

It continues, where Hutchinson reiterates that resolution isn't that important, where he said that consumer interest in high-end visuals is starting to fade away, rendering itself at a resolution of 480p, probably. He agreed with the sentiments of Crytek's Nicolas Schulz, who back in October said that it's getting "difficult to really wow people" with flashy graphics (we'll come back to that in a minute, Nicolas). Hutchinson backed Schulz up, saying: "Exactly. And also I think it's a bad axis. We should not be in a business that sells itself - we are, a little bit, but that sells itself on the flavour of like, gadgetry and technology. I think that's a bad sign. If our thing is 'woo, the same exact thing you had before, at twice the resolution, instead of a new thing'... A new spin or an evolution, I think is much more interesting".

After a troubled launch, SimCity is finally on its feet, with EA very quietly debuting its new SimCity BuildIt software for both iOS and Android. The software has launched for Android in Canada and on iOS in New Zealand.

The app is free to download, but has in-app purchases, with EA saying that there is an offline mode, but "many of the coolest features do require an online connection". EA says that longtime fans of the series will find some interesting things inside of BuildIt, adding that the company has "streamlined to make the experience more fun and manageable on touchscreens".

SimCity BuildIt allows on-the-go gamers to tend to zones, roads and traffic, services, city specializations and data layers of their metropolis, and the familiar goal of landmarks returns. If you're getting a bit bored and want to bring down hell on Earth, just create a disaster for fun. BuildIt's in-app store allows you to "trade resources with friends and other cities", too.

PlayStation 4 exclusive racer DriveClub has not been having a good time, with the game going back to the drawing board earlier this year, and now that it has launched, it has been experiencing some rather big problems.

DriveClub owners can't get into most of the game thanks to various server-related issues, with developer Evolution Studios saying it needs to pump more time into the game. The studio has said that there was an update rolling out over the weekend that "will improve online performance across the game and it also brings specific improvements for multiplayer racing and leaderboard updates". The studio continued, saying: "we still have more work to do to get everything back on track before we can give you any bigger or better news. We will keep you up to speed".

Even still, there's no ETA on when the version promised to PlayStation Plus subscribers will be released. The studio blaming netcode for the problems with DriveClub's online abilities is a bit vague, which would be pissing off gamers.

Ryse: Son of Rome has been out on PC for just a couple of weeks now, but Crytek has already released a patch that is hitting Steam as we speak. The new patch is improving performance for multi-GPU setups, as well as NVIDIA's new second-generation Maxwell GPUs. Here's what to expect from the updated version of Ryse:

Sony's forthcoming update to the PlayStation 4 is an interesting one, with the new update providing something the company teased earlier in the year: Share Play. Share Play allows people to play your games, either with you or by themselves, even if they don't own a copy of the game.

The company didn't provide much details on Share Play, or when it would launch, when it teased it a couple of months ago. All Sony said is that it was coming "this fall" but now we have a firm date: October 28. Sony took to the PlayStation Twitter account, saying: "PS4's next software update, Masamune, will be available on 10/28. Includes Share Play, USB Music player, and more!" The tweet also teases that the new PS4 update will include the ability to play music from a USB device, all while playing a game. We should also expect a YouTube app for the PS4, an improved voice command system, and the ability to tune the background color of your PS4's home screen.

Let's talk Share Play. Share Play isn't some unlimited function where you could buy a single copy of a game and then a friend just plays through the entire thing for free. Share Play will limit your friends to 60 minute portions of play time, which is still very generous of Sony.

It feels like so long ago that World of Warcraft was this unstoppable MMO that made mountains of money for Blizzard, but Riot Games has since come in and run straight to the top of the MMO ladder, making billions of dollars along the way.

In the global MMO market, League of Legends is making some serious waves, with one in every eight dollars spent going into the coffers of Riot Games, and its international partners through League of Legends players. League of Legends now holds a 11.9% share of the MMO market, generating a massive $946 million this year alone (and it's not even over yet).

Last year, the game moved from fourth to third in the top 10 MMOs for worldwide revenue, but now it is sitting in the number one spot. Crossfire is right on its heels with 11.2% and has generated $897 million this year, Dungeon Fighter Online has 11.2% generating $891 million, World of Warcraft is now fourth with 9.1% and generating $728 million for Blizzard while fifth spot goes to World of Tanks with 4.6%, which has generated Wargaming a nice $369 million.

We're weeks away from Grand Theft Auto V receiving its next-gen polish on the Xbox One and PS4, but we're not hearing anything about the rendering resolution of the game on the Xbox One and PS4... until now.

In the next issue of Official PlayStation Magazine, there will be a 10-page on the game, diving right into the world of GTA V on Sony's console. The cover has since leaked, showing scans of the feature and teasing that GTA V on the PS4 will be running at 1080p. OPM have some massive statements for the world about GTA V on the PS4, saying things like "Grand Theft Auto V on PlayStation 4 breathes fresh, oh-so-new-gen life into the greatest game ever committed to Blu-Ray", now I don't know about you, but that's a pretty big statement.

Better yet, OPM continues: "Farewell, 720p. You served your purpose adequately enough. Still, our eyes have been gagging for 1080p's pin-sharp pleasures and Los Santos sandbox is only too happy to oblige on PS4, running at a native 1920 x 1080 pixels. For a game erected on hundereds of tiny incidental details, the resolution bmp is a huge game changer for GTA V". The publication continues: "Glimmering 1080p presentation, hugely increased draw distance, 100 new songs, fresh wild-life, a bumper version of GTA Online, this is sandbox you've dreamt about ever since you slotted Sony's angular baby under your TV".

3D Realms is back, unveiling a slew of nostalgia with its new 3D Realms Anthology, which is available through their website for $19.99. The pack includes some of the biggest names in gaming from the 90s.

We have: Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy, Wolfenstein 3D, Rise of the Triad: Dark War and more, all DRM-free. Better yet, there are free downloads of some of their other games, including Alien Carnage, Major Stryker, and Stargunner. The company got rid of its former staff in 2008, but kept the rights to Duke Nukem and other big names. Get in on the new 3D Realms Anthology and enjoy some great PC gaming memories - remember folks, even these games run at past 30FPS.

Nintendo is reportedly prepared to begin development of a 3DS and Wii U successor, hoping to recruit a new senior software architect position that is located in Redmond, Washington. This is a unique change since the posting is for a US-based job instead of a position in Japan - but Nintendo was careful to use rather generic terminology for a future-facing project.

The company has previously said there were no immediate plans for a new console platform, but the rumor mill has been in overdrive. If you're interested in applying for the position, you'll need the following requirements: "The ideal candidate will have had experience working directly in a GPU architecture and design team with significant responsibilities. Low power and SoC design experience would be a plus." And a bachelor's degree is required, though a graduate degree in computer science/engineering or electrical engineering is preferred. Also, at least five years of lead or architectural role experience wouldn't hurt, according to the job posting.

Naughty Dog has some serious games under its belt for Sony, with PlayStation exclusive titles like Uncharted and The Last of Us, with the latter recently going through a Remastered edition on the PS4. The Last of Us: Remastered was running at 1080p and 'mostly' 60FPS, with an option to enable 30FPS if you really wanted to.

When asked about hitting 1080p and 60FPS for its upcoming games, including Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Naughty Dog's Community Manager, Arne Meyer said: "I think that's what we want to push for with anything we're doing on this generation. That's sort of the mandate from when we were building the PS4 engine. Let's see if we can do this and hit it. We hit it with The Last of Us Remastered, so why not stick with this?".

Uncharted 4 will soon hit the PS4, and with near confirmation it'll be running at 1080p and 60FPS, fans of the original three Uncharted games have wondered of a remastered version of the popular games. Meyer talked about those rumors too, where he said: "I personally think it would work well, because there's a lot of attention on the studio between the success of Uncharted 2, 3 and The Last of Us. It'd be nice to give players the opportunity to go back and play the older games, and people who are new to the PlayStation platform". What better way to drum up to the launch of Uncharted 4 on the PS4, than with a remastered Uncharted trilogy released?