Gaming - Page 1153

For years now the question of "can it run Crysis" has been inked onto the PC community, as Crytek's game was more of a benchmark than a game when it was released. Shortly after, Crytek saw the numbers on consoles and wanted the market, all but leaving the super high-end, PC-melting graphics engine business, watering it down to play it on the potato machines, or should I say, consoles.

Well, Silicon Studio has just teased their new tech engine, Mizuchi, and holy hell is it beautiful. The demo itself is run in real-time, with the level of graphics shown off in the game unlike anything you've ever seen before. We're talking Pixar-level and above graphics, but running in real-time, and looking absolutely beautiful.

I don't think we'll see a game running this engine anytime soon, but it would be great if we could have this released as a benchmark for our hardware, wouldn't it? What do you think? Would you want to run something that looks this insane on your PC?

We've been expecting this update for the Xbox One for a while now, but it's finally rolling out to users across the world, and will continue to do so over the coming days.

The new update for the Xbox One includes a new media player app, which will bring file support for MKV (which is a very big deal), animated GIFs, and DNLA support by the end of the year. We will also have new party features, new SmartGlass features, an option to boot directly to the TV, and much more. The full list of updates can be found in the full story.

The Sims 4 is only a few days away from being launched, with Electronic Arts making the PC requirements made available through the games FAQ page. Most will be surprised that you don't need a powerhouse gaming system to run it, with some pretty relaxed requirements. An Internet connection is only required for activation, so it's not an always-online mess like SimCity was.

You'll only need a "1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent)" for the CPU side of things, and 2GB of RAM minimum. 9GB of HDD space is required, with 1GB additional space needed for custom content and saved games.

A video card with at least 128MB of RAM is required, with Pixel Shader 3.0 support required - so we have NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, an ATI Radeon X1300 or better, or Intel's GMA X4500 or better. As you can see, the minimum PC requirements are very relaxed. The recommended specifications aren't that much more, with an Intel Core i5/AMD Athlon X4 or higher, 4GB of RAM, the same 9GB of HDD space, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 or better and the 64-bit version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1.

One very disgruntled gamer called in a bomb threat to a popular video game streamer, which resulted in a SWAT team bursting into the room with automatic weapons drawn, throwing Jordan "Kootra" Mathewson to the ground and handcuffing him.

Mathewson, part of The Creatures, was streaming a game of Counter-Strike in his hometown of Littleton, Colorado when the SWAT team came busting through the door, throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, searching the room - and if you notice in the video, going through his phone. Last time I checked, this was against the law, as the police officer could be removing any evidence from the phone, but that's for another day.

The Littleton police were called to the address after a false report sent into 911 of an active shooter with multiple victims, this lead to the Littleton Public Schools having multiple schools in lockdown, according to KMGH-TV of Denver. This isn't the first time a SWAT team has been called into a gamer's house, as it is known as "SWATting" where someone will call in a bomb or shooting threat, which results in the other party (or gamer) having the SWAT team bust into their room or house.

BioWare has teased that Dragon Age: Inquisition will feature four-player cooperative play, with the developer teasing on the official FAQ for that game that players will be able to game with others on new missions given by specialists, acquire gold and loot, craft new items, as well as unlocking new characters, weapons, potions, armor and more.

The developer does have a goal, which "is to make a fun dungeon-crawling experience that you can play with your friends. There will be no pay walls in Dragon Age multiplayer. Everything is accessible with gold coins. You can use premium currency, but you don't have to." Better yet, Dragon Age: Inqusition's multiplayer can be played without any effects on the single-player side of things, and vica versa. The cooperative story is completely separate from the single-player campaign, with items from the multiplayer side of things not carrying over to the single-player side.

"We wanted to make sure that the two economies are separate, which will allow a stronger progression in both SP and MP," BioWare says. They continued: "If you play Dragon Age multiplayer, you will learn how each class plays a different role in combat, how different skills work, and how your party composition can give you a tactical advantage on the battlefield. This knowledge is transferable to SP, but items are not."

The Crew skids onto gamers' machines and consoles on November 11, with Ubisoft teasing that the team working on the game is aiming for 30FPS at 1080p on the Xbox One, PS4 and wait for it... PC. Yes, the PC is getting a framerate cap, for absolutely no reason it seems.

Forum members complained that the beta of The Crew was limited to 30FPS, with an Ubisoft community manager saying: "The final game will run in 1080p with 30 frames per second on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, and will support up to 5760 x 1080p on PC for triple screen set-ups. Right now the team is focusing on providing an optimal experience for all players."

The community manager later edited his reply, saying that the development team is hoping to hit 60FPS on the PC - something that truly baffles me. He edited his post to say: "We can officially say that we're aiming for 60FPS on PC at launch. Our Beta build is still more performant at 30FPS, but you can expect to play at 60FPS on PC when the game is launched." What I don't understand is why there is a framerate cap in the first place?

Boutique PC gaming company Digital Storm unveiled the Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition, a small form factor (SFF) system that is liquid cooled and meets the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Battle Box standard.

The Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition from Digital Storm is now available for less than $5,000. The system currently includes an overclocked Intel Core i7 4790K CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z 12GB GPU, ASUS Maximus VI Impact motherboard, 16GB DDR3 and a 700W PSU, liquid cooling, and runs Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit.

"NVIDIA launched the GTX Battle Box Program to allow gamers to play AAA, combat-focused games at max settings and super high resolutions," said Harjit Chana, Digital Storm Chief Brand Officer, in a statement. "But gaming in 4K requires much more than simply upgrading components. Our Hardline Cooling System allows gamers to unlock the Bolt II's full potential and experience games in ways they never thought possible."

An interesting new game has jumped onto Kickstarter, with Sienna Storm having Sheldon Pacotti, who wrote the first two Deus Ex games. Sienna Storm puts you in "The Game", with the game being espionage. Sienna Storm will feature "stunning hand-drawn environments let the action span the globe" with "2D animations bring to life infiltrations, evasions, fights, and also other influential characters as you mark targets, meet assets, go black or drop heat".

The gameplay of Sienna Storm sounds intriguing, where it is a departure from the games we know and love today. The Kickstarter page for Sienna Storm explains the gameplay: "Sienna Storm is a unique interactive comic-style video game. Every scene is a hand drawn, animated work of art and there are multiple actions points the player may select to progress the game. Dialogues are rich and non-linear, and choices you make throughout the game not only have consequences, but also influence your standings with certain characters and involved parties".

The page continues: "There is a fair amount of challenges to resolve such as combat, hacking computers, and tailing an enemies. When you enter these challenges, you play a short strategic card game using a customizable deck. At the start of each card match, you can modify your deck to best suit the situation, even adding in new cards you've earned over the course of the game. This allows you to pick a strategy - trickery, gadgetry, or straight-up violence - that works best for the mission and your personal play style. But watch out! The matches are dynamic and based on the story, so you never know what new enemies, old allies, or dramatic plot twists are in the cards to keep you on your toes!"

It wasn't even a month ago that Star Citizen had reached its $48 million funding goal, but now it hasn't just broken through $50 million, but it is half way through $51 million sitting at $21,523,485 at the time of writing.

The $50 million milestone unlocked Alien Languages, which will see Star Citizen gamers enjoying alien languages in the game. RSI explains: "Do you speak Banu? We will work with real-world linguists to create distinctive and realistic alien languages for Star Citizen's three biggest alien races, the Vanduul, the Xi'An and the Banu. No universal translators, no garbled animal noises: Star Citizen's aliens will be speaking their own authentic languages!"

When Star Citizen hit $51 million, it saw the Web-based Known Universe Map unlocked, which is "The platform web team priority will be shifted to making the Known Universe Map available." The $52 million goal will be hit without a problem, where we'll see "The BB-12 is a brand new Manned Maneuvering Unit from Azure Sky Aero. Whether you are engaging in precision mining operations or delicate salvage retrieval, the BB-12 is capable of EVA operation for six uninterrupted hours. This new model features twenty-four precision nozzle thrusters and two redesigned heavy-duty tanks of gaseous nitrogen propellant, capable of being hot-swapped while on the drift or refueled back on the ship. With the BB-12, Azure Sky has once again cemented their place as the premier EVA tech provider."

NVIDIA's new Tegra K1-powered Shield tablet is now available in the select markets, with the company announcing that it has unveiled new Tegra K1-exclusive effects to two of Valve's most popular titles: Half-Life 2 and Portal.

These new Tegra K1-exclusive effects bring the mobile versions of the game to be "just as visually rich as the full PC editions of the game". NVIDIA says that these new effects include "render-to-texture shadows, bump mapping, specular highlights, motion blur, and higher-quality texture filtering".

Both of the new Tegra K1-powered titles are optimized to play well on the new Shield tablet, thanks to its optional ultra-low-latency Wi-Fi Direct Shield wireless controller.

With only nine months on the market, Sony has sold over 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles - a number that is far beyond most people's predictions on Sony's fourth-generation console. Sony's Worldwide Studios for Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Shuhei Yoshida, sat down with Eurogamer for a chat, where he had some interesting things to say.

Yoshida was asked about the 10 million PS4s sold milestone, where he said: "The 10m sell through in the first nine months is well beyond what we had hoped for. As you know, we have struggled to keep up with demand of PS4 for so many months. It was hard to find and purchase PS4. Now we are able to supply units so in every territory I believe you can find PS4. So we just managed to catch up with demand".

"It's just beyond our imagination. We are so happy. But I for one am a bit nervous because we do not completely understand what's happening. You need to understand why your products are selling well so you can plan for the future, right? It defied the conventional thinking. Lots of people thought the dedicated game hardware might not be needed going forward, but still lots of people are very excited. When you see the new games coming out and being announced this E3 and Gamescom, I think there's a good enough reason for a gamer to believe this is something worth investing in."

For those of you who remember King's Quest, you may begin to get excited that Sierra has a small team working on a 'contemporary reboot' of the super-classic point-and-click adventure game from way back when. Activision's MacLean Marshall talked with Game Informer about Sierra coming back from the grave, and King's Quest - our first details on the game.

Activision unveiled the revival of the Sierra brand at Gamescom last week, where the company has some big plans for Sierra's titles - old, and even new creations. Marshall talked with Game Informer about the new project, and how the company is bringing back Sierra. Marshall said: "There's one piece of the puzzle, which is that Sierra was a brand that we acquired with Vivendi. It's been dormant and there wasn't a place for it, and we didn't know what we were going to do with it. Then, over the however many years, everyone's been watching this indie movement. There was that angle, where we had this really nostalgic brand that most gamers to varying degrees by age know. We wanted to find a way to expand our digital portfolio".

Game Informer also talked with Marshall about the new King's Quest, which is being developed by The Odd Gentlemen. Marshall said: "They are doing a contemporary reboot of King's Quest. It's not just an HD port. But that's not also to say that, maybe King's Quest is or isn't the right one, that's not on the table, too. It could be HD remakes of original Sierra content. It could be contemporary reimaginings of the old Sierra IPs. It could be stuff that's new, kick-***, awesome IP that has nothing to do with the old Sierra brand, but will be a Sierra thing when it launches". The gameplay for the new King's Quest will be a big departure from what you remember, with Marshall teasing: "There's not much I can say about King's Quest. All I can say is that I've seen it, and it's not a point-and-click game. But it looks *** awesome".

Could it be? A sequel to an ever-changing online game that has been around for over 10 years and still dominates the charts, making $1 billion in revenue for 2013?

Game Informer asked World of Warcraft's Game Director, Tom Chilton, about the possibilities of a sequel to World of Warcraft. Chilton replied: "Definitely. It's something we have talked about. It's something we have talked about for ten years. I think that there are a lot of challenges there in seeing how World of Warcraft II relates to World of Warcraft, do they live alongside each other, does one feed into the other, what is that product, etc. These are challenges that have to be figured out before that becomes a reality".

What do you think of a sequel to World of Warcraft? Do you want to see it happen? Or would you want to see Blizzard just continue to evolve World of Warcraft, just as it has been doing for the past decade?

When the world found out about Silent Hills, we didn't know what to expect exactly. A return to the usual mechanics of Silent Hill, or something completely new? Well, luckily there is a "Playable Teaser" available for the PS4, providing just that - an amazing tease of things to come.

As you can see, Hideo Kojima wasn't lying when he said Silent Hills would make you 's**t your pants'. This teaser looks absolutely incredible, almost to the point where it could sell PlayStation 4 consoles on its own. Now imagine this game working with Project Morpheus, Sony's VR headset. Better yet, Kojima has announced that Metal Gear Solid 5 is coming to the PC, so imagine Oculus Rift support if it arrived on the PC.

I had actually found this walkthrough on Reddit, with one of the comments on there from 'EvenArrantzier' where he said: "I've got a sweet 110 inch projection screen and surround sound. Six 15 inch speakers spread out around the ceiling. It was fucking perfect. I'd hear the noises all around me. They really did a great job with the sound. I played for three hours with two of my friends, in a completely dark room. We spent the night screaming and yelping with fear. It didn't become any less scary despite knowing the layout and mechanics of the game. It remained as unnerving and frightening as the first ten minutes. And not a word of a lie, I swear to fuck, at one point my friend yelped, farted, and had to go to the bathroom to make sure he hadn't shit his pants. We all agree that demo was the single most terrifying thing any of us had ever experienced".

Both Microsoft and Sony were reportedly running some game demos at Gamescom 2014 using powerful custom-built PCs to display console games. Live game demonstrations of "Ori" and "Blind Forest" crashed to the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, and the PCs appear to be powered by NVIDIA instead of AMD GPUs, according to reports.

It's not uncommon for game studios, even when promoting console games, to use PCs to help enhance the demonstration experience for attendees. However, even if the game is available on all next-generation consoles and the PC, gamers will often call out the studio if graphics and gameplay don't replicate what was originally shown to them.

During public demoes, companies are tasked with providing lightning-fast gameplay mixed with pretty graphics to entice gamers and media. It seems both companies have been caught doing this over the past few years, eager to demonstrate their latest and greatest console games - but using PCs instead of their own products to get the job done.

Ubisoft is in a tough spot with PC gamers right now, but is the company finally starting to see the light? Probably not, but it is promising that it is trying to focus more on the PC, in the form of simplified DRM activation, and a better commitment to multi-platform releases.

During an interview with MVC, Ubisoft's European boss Alain Corre said: "We listen to feedback from players and continue to adapt accordingly. For instance, we switched to a simple, one-time activation for our PC games; a standard practice in the industry. We're also doing our best to bring our games to PC at the same time as the console versions".

We should begin to see the fruits of Ubisoft's labor in its upcoming titles, two of the biggest releases of the year: Assassin's Creed Unity, and Far Cry 4. Corre has said that the company is seeing an increase in revenue from the PC side of things, with its PC market growing from 11% in 2013 to 15% this year. Corre continued: "We recognise the importance and needs of PC gamers, and want to continue to improve how we create and support games for PC. We are committed to improving the optimisation of our games for each platform on which they're released, including PC".

During an interview with Joystiq at Gamescom, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said that the three-year cycle that the Call of Duty franchise finds itself in, is something its audience is used to. But even though we see a game released every year, we have three studios working on the franchise at all times.

Hirshberg explained: "That extra year of development time, particularly with the new consoles and the more powerful hardware, has really paid off thus far to iterate, innovate and try new things. To find out which things didn't work and have the freedom to fail in the creative process, so what goes on the disc is the best ideas".

It's interesting to see that the company knows it has the ability to fail, with Hirshberg continuing: "The thing that the three-year development cycle allows is these games have gotten so ambitious, we're packing so many different modes of play onto the disc. The things that started off as flyers, like zombies or co-op became their own whole games". Hirshberg says that even though the franchise is annualized, the structure it has for Call of Duty sees that the quality of the series is sustainable. He finished off by saying "Activision has a narrative that doesn't match the reality, which is quite potent".

In just a couple of months time, 4A Games will launch its Metro Redux, which sees remastered versions of two of the most popular first-person shooters of the last few years: Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light.

NVIDIA is backing this new remastered copy, so on top of the enhanced graphics, countless changes within the game, we can expect GPU-accelerated PhysX effects thanks to NVIDIA's technology. 4A Games have painstakingly changed so much of the two games, with improved geometry, encounters, lighting, and even how levels themselves end and transition.

The biggest change is going to come from Metro 2033, which will receive a graphics engine overhaul, with PnP tessellation, and some gameplay refinements that were found in Metro: Last Light. The PC side of things will see "higher-resolution textures, higher-quality effects, greater levels of PnP tessellation, support for 4K resolutions, and most significantly, re-tooled NVIDIA GPU-accelerated PhysX effects built using PhysX 3.x, the latest version of the critically acclaimed physics software".

Gamescom has been filled with some big announcements, with the creator of Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima announcing that Metal Gear Solid V will be coming to the PC. Well, he also unveiled the new Silent Hills game, too.

Silent Hills is an interactive horror game that Kojima, Sony and Konami have been working with Guillermo Del Toro, who directed movies like Hellboy and the recent Pacific Rim. Joining them is Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl on AMC's The Walking Dead. Kojima has promised that the new Silent Hills will be so scary that it will make gamers "s**t their pants". Kojima wants to create a game so scary that you'll want to turn your machine off to stop it from scaring you.

At Gamescom, Kojima said: "That's why there's a limit on how scary you can make a game, but in this case we're ignoring that. If you don't want to keep playing through the game, so be it we don't care. That's the game we're aiming for. We're aiming for a game that will make you shit your pants". We don't know what platforms Silent Hills will be hitting, but we can almost guarantee that the PlayStation 4 will be one of them.

If you have been holding gout on buying a new Xbox One game console, you might want to consider getting one of these new bundles that Microsoft has unveiled. A white version of the Xbox One will available for the average consumer to buy. That white version was previously only for Microsoft employees.

The white console is available today with the Kinect and on October 28, you can buy it with no Kinect for $399. The second bundle is the more interesting one and it is a Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare edition of the console.

It has a specially designed console with black, gray, and yellow graphics. It will also be the first Xbox One to feature 1 TB of storage, which is twice the storage currently available. The game console will land on November 3 without Kinect with a copy of the game for $499.