Gaming - Page 1157

Ubisoft is in a massive web of trouble right now, with Watch Dogs on PC gimped - to possibly make it not stand out from the next-gen console versions - and now a promise that Far Cry 4 on next-gen consoles will be 'equal' to Ultra High settings on a PC. How can Ubisoft's week get worse? The slightly older news that its upcoming open-world title The Division will be locked to 30FPS.

The reason? Massive Entertainment, the studio developing The Division, didn't want to trade graphic fidelity for frame rate. Massive Entertainment's Managing Director, David Polfeldt, explained the reasoning behind the 30FPS target: "I think we're shooting for 30fps because it's a trade-off, right? Graphical fidelity and immersion are more important to us than the frame rate. If we go for [60fps], we'll have to make a trade-off on fidelity and other things. But because we want to have very, very complex destruction and extremely detailed environments; a complete weather system, full day/night cycle...at some point you have to make up your mind: where do you invest? And for us, it's going to be 30fps".

Massive's Ryan Barnard also talked with OXM, where he said: "We are at the point where we're focusing on making sure that we have the graphical quality we want across all consoles. Of course, [we have] our partnership with Xbox and all the exclusive content - I don't know when we're going to be talking about the details on that, but there will be goodies for our Xbox customers that they will very much enjoy for The Division".

Come on, Ubisoft - the Internet and PC community is still rabid about Watch Dogs being gimped on PC, but now promising something once again for your other big title coming soon - Far Cry 4?

Well, Ubisoft has said that Far Cry 4 on the PS4 and Xbox One will be equal to that of the PC version set on Ultra High settings. This means that Far Cry 4 won't look that great (for a big budget, AAA title released in 2014 on next-gen platforms) or the PC version will be gimped, like Watch Dogs was most obviously.

Far Cry 4's Creative Director, Alex Hutchinson, talked with Major Nelson on his latest podcast, talking about the differences between current- and next-gen consoles. Hutchinson also talked about showing off how beautiful Far Cry 4 is on both next-gen consoles, and PCs, where he said: "We want the gameplay experience to be the same on all platforms so we're leaning on technical differences. Everything you see, whether it's the fur on the animals, the grass on the ground or the leaves on the trees. All these things are bumped up a huge amount in the next gen version".

We were one of the first media to post about Ubisoft deceiving gamers with the PC version to one of its biggest launches ever, Watch Dogs. There has been a mod created which makes the game look like it did back when it was first shown off at E3 2012.

Since then, we've seen Watch Dogs look worse when it was better shown in 2013, and then the delay was announced - pushing it over 6 months from its original launch date. There were obvious problems with the development of Watch Dogs, but why would Ubisoft hold back much more advanced graphics when compared to consoles and even next-gen consoles.

If you visit Reddit right now, and visit /r/pcmasterrace, you'll see some very disgruntled PC gamers - and rightly so. PC gamers seem to have been robbed by shafted.

Jibbed has posted on the NeoGAF forums, saying that "The Worse," who is the creator of the mod for Watch Dogs, has seen some huge improvements and locked away goodies within Ubisoft's open-world hacking title. He has discovered that Ubisoft has left "almost all of the shaders and improvements seen in 2012 and 2013 are still in the game files, such as the e3 2012 explosions". The mod, as it stands right now, includes some huge improvements, such as:

I think we're about to see a huge explosion on the Internet about this - on one hand, this is amazing for PC gamers - on the other hand, it would seem that Ubisoft deliberately gimped Watch Dogs on PC for what reason exactly? More sales on consoles? To not see the PC version look undeniably better than next-gen consoles? No matter the reason, this will not end well for Ubisoft - but it will end well for gamers, who can expect Watch Dogs to look even better.

We've already entered the world of 8K gaming thanks to Crysis being hacked to run at the insanely high resolution, but now someone has taken a screenshot of Mass Effect 3 running at 8K, or 7680x4320.

7680x4320 sounds like a lot - and it is - it is 16 times the amount of pixels that Full HD pumps out at 1920x1080 - and nearly infinitely more than what next-gen consoles seem to be doing lately with their 792p or 900p gaming. Whatever game throws 8K at me, bring it - now we need some truly next-generation GPUs to drive these insane resolutions. I think we're edging close to a world where 8-12GB of VRAM will become the norm, and I for one, cannot wait.

A full gallery of Mass Effect 3 run at 8K can be viewed right here.

E3 2014 - Most gamers think the world of Skyrim is absolutely huge, but behind closed doors at E3 2014, Square Enix was showing off something much, much bigger, with what they're calling "Project Flare".

Project Flare is cloud gaming technology, which uses supercomputers as servers to produce gaming world's that simply aren't capable on consoles, or regular PCs. Square Enix said that what they were showing off to Polygon was "not representative of a final product," with the demo showing off a huge forested world that could be explored quite quickly from a bird's eye point of view, or much slower through the perspective of a little creature.

Square Enix said that the full world map shown off was 32 kilometers by 32 kilometers - a mind-blowing 17x the size of Skyrim. Better yet, none of this was being streamed into the computer, it was being fully rendered, in full detail, across the entire gigantic game world - this included over 600,000 trees, hundreds of packs of creatures, hills, mountains, and much more.

We now know that Grand Theft Auto V is coming to next-gen consoles and PCs, but what will the limitless technology in PCs be capable of playing GTA V at? Well, Rockstar has outlined some of the improvements to GTA V on PC on a blog post about the game.

The studio said that Grand Theft Auto V for PC will have "across-the-board graphical and technical improvements to deliver a stunning new level of detail. Increased draw distances, finer texture details, denser traffic, and enhanced resolutions". Not only that, but next-gen console owners and PC gamers can also expect "new wildlife, upgraded weather and damage effects, and an array of new details to discover".

Rockstar has teased GTA V on Steam, where it also promises that the PC version of the massively popular game will be "packed with layers of new detail" that will also include "all new content and gameplay created and released since the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online including new Jobs, an arsenal of new weapons, scores of new vehicles, new properties and player customizations". PC gamers will also be excited to hear that they will receive an exclusive video editor designed for "advanced movie making".

E3 2014 - RUN. This is what the trailer to Alien: Isolation tells you to do, and I think once you're in the game, it's going to be something you'll be doing for most of it - running, away from the Xenomorph hunting you down.

If you haven't heard about Alien: Isolation until now, here is what you need to know: you play Ellen Ripley's daughter (Ellen was played by Sigourney Weaver in the various Alien movies) Amanda. Amanda faces down the Xenomorph that her mother eventually gets pitted up again, but Amanda is on a ship, in the dark, seemingly alone.

The video's description teases: "As Amanda, you will navigate through an increasingly volatile world as you find yourself confronted on all sides by a panicked, desperate population and an unpredictable, ruthless Alien. Underpowered and underprepared, you must scavenge resources, improvise solutions and use your wits, not just to succeed in your mission, but to simply stay alive". The best part about Alien: Isolation, for me at least, is that it now supports the Oculus Rift. This has made it a day-one purchase - something it was already - but even more so now. Alien: Isolation launches on October 7 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.

E3 2014 - Until now you have probably never heard of No Man's Sky, but today, we're going to introduce you. No Man's Sky is a totally different type of things, where the game has virtually no limits, whatsoever. No Man Sky will launch "console-first" on the PS4, without a release date right now. Check out the trailer below:

What you're seeing here is Hello Games' next release, which pits No Man's Sky in an infinite universe that is created by procedural generation. In the trailer that is embedded above, the player is exploring a very alien world that you can see is filled with varying, wonderful creatures. The player then jumps into a spacecraft, takes off from the planet, shoots at and explodes a few space rocks, flies into another planet's atmosphere - seeing the land of this next planet, took my breath away. I haven't had a game do that in quite some time.

Hello Games' founder Sean Murray explains: "One of the things we wanted to put across is that No Man's Sky is a game without limits. That mountain in the distance is a real place you can visit. So is that planet. And that star". Since Murray first showed off No Man's Sky, he has said that his team has added "hundreds of new procedural systems that have made the universe explode with new alien creatures, amazing geological formations and vegetation patterns, pirates and wingmen".

E3 2014 - After months of teasing, Sony has made it official: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will reach the PlayStation 4 next year. Uncharted 4 will see an older Nathan Drake than what we're used to, with "The Thief's End" possibly seeing an end to Drake's adventures.

The video describes: "Several years after his last adventure, retired fortune hunter, Nathan Drake, is forced back into the world of thieves. With the stakes much more personal, Drake embarks on a globe-trotting journey in pursuit of a historical conspiracy behind a fabled pirate treasure. His greatest adventure will test his physical limits, his resolve, and ultimately what he's willing to sacrifice to save the ones he loves".

Naughty Dog says that Uncharted 4 will be running at 1080p with 60FPS, with Drake's character featuring twice the polygons that Joel had in The Last of Us. The video above was footage all from the PS4, captured "completely in engine" according to Naughty Dog.

E3 2014 - Ubisoft is dominating E3 2014 this year, with Far Cry 4, Rainbow Six: Siege and now a truly next-gen title in Assassin's Creed: Unity. The studio showed off quite a few trailers to the game, with a cinematic trailer for your viewing pleasure below.

Below, we have some actual gameplay footage, which is a better indication of how it will look and play to gamers.

It looks quite incredible, a huge jump technologically from the previous Assassin's Creed games. This is thanks to Ubisoft not having to scale the game down to previous generation consoles, better harnessing the extra grunt found in the PS4 and Xbox One. Assassin's Creed: Unity will launch on October 28 for next-gen consoles and PC, which will include four-player cooperative play, which should be a blast!

SteelSeries has been making gaming accessories and peripherals like keyboards and mice for a long time. SteelSeries has announced that it has teamed up with Tobii, the company that makes all sorts of eye tracking gear for gamers on a new product called the Sentry Eye Tracking System.

Sentry is designed to be the world's first training device designed to improve your gaming performance. The eye tracking system promises to improve your gaming performance by tracking, analyzing, and benchmarking eye movement and behaviors during game play. The goal of the tracking and benchmarking is to help the gamers improve and win the game.

The virtual coach device tracks fixations per minute, a value of how often the user moves the eyes around the screen. SteelSeries says that a lower value for fixations per minute is better. SteelSeries is working with pro gamers to set benchmark metrics to help amateur gamers have numbers to strive for. Sentry will be available for gamers to purchase later this year.

We knew it was coming thanks to a leaked trailer, but now EA has let the cat out of the bag with an official trailer for Battlefield: Hardline. Not only that, but the company also unveiled a full release date: October 21.

The trailer doesn't show off too much, but that's because E3 2014 is right around the corner. For me, it looks like Payday mixed with Bad Boys, which is something that you can't complain about. The full reveal by EA will take place next week, something that I'm sure a lot of gamers are looking forward to.

It's Tetris' 30th birthday, and in honour of the block-arranging, totally addictive, all consuming game that propelled the Gameboy to stardom, programmer Alexey Pajitnov has had a chat with Britain's Guardian newspaper.

In it Pajitnov details his time spent at a Soviet computing lab, and his childhood love for puzzles. In the early 80s it dawned on him that perhaps puzzles would be a good basis for a videogame.

Pajitnov says the key game mechanic - that of disappearing lines - was inspired by just how quickly the screen filled up with the blocks, before going on to call Nintendo's choice of music "embarrassing" for Russian culture.

The Xbox One has been criticized as not performing as well as the PS4 by some game developers. Microsoft is looking to unlock more performance for its new game console with a software update. The update will reportedly increase the GPU bandwidth inside the console.

The increased bandwidth will hit in the June system update. Along with more GPU bandwidth, the update will also bring with it external hard drive support. Microsoft's Phil Spencer announced that the update would be coming via a tweet.

Microsoft said, "In June we're releasing a new SDK making it possible for developers to access additional GPU resources previously reserved for Kinect and system functions. The additional resources allow access to up to 10 percent additional GPU performance. We're committed to giving developers new tools and flexibility to make their Xbox One games even better by giving them the option to use the GPU reserve in whatever way is best for them and their games."

Popular mobile game Temple Run from Imangi Studios has been downloaded more than 1 billion times since it was released in August 2011, according to company officials. Originally developed by three people, the game has seen continued success as casual gaming still increases even higher in popularity.

Gamers have run more than 50 trillion meters in the game, playing 32 billion games, according to Keith Shepherd, co-developer of the game.

It's possible Imangi Studios, which has seen great success with Temple Run 1 and Temple Run 2, could develop a third game in the future. However, the studio currently has other mobile games currently in development, so no public announcements have been made just yet.

Gaming peripheral company ROCCAT has unveiled the Tyon customizable PC gaming mouse, aimed at giving gamers a mouse that can be modified. The Tyon has 16 assignable buttons, 31 distinct functions, with an 82000 DPI laser sensor, and 32-bit processor with 576KB memory. Release information and pricing hasn't been released for the United States.

The PC gaming industry is evolving and changing rapidly, and it's important for peripheral makers to try to keep up. The Tyon also has a 2-way analog stick and easy-shift on-the-fly button duplicator, so gamers can make adjustments while playing.

"Today's gaming experience demands that players adapt to the many dimensions of gameplay, whether on land, at sea, in air or space," said Rene Korte, ROCCAT founder and CEO. "Our designers and developers worked in close collaboration with gaming experts to craft, test, fine-tune, and ensure that the Tyon's abilities meet these challenges."

Gamers on the Xbox 360 that have Xbox Live Gold membership can get a cool free game this month. The game is called Dark Souls and it will be available to download until June 15. When June 16 rolls around, Xbox 360 gamers will be able to get Charlie Murder and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition for free.

Dark Souls is a game that will have players fighting the undead with each enemy becoming more and more difficult to kill. Last month it was revealed that Xbox One gamers would also be getting some free games in the Games with Gold program.

Xbox One gamers will get Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood and Halo: Spartan Assault. Exactly when those two games will be available for Xbox One gamers to download is unknown.

Fans of the video game Red Dead Redemption have been clamoring for a sequel to that game for a long time now. There seemed to be some concern that a sequel wouldn't be made. Considering the original Red Dead sold 13 million units, the fear of no follow up to the original seems out of place.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has made some comments recently that seem to indicate that a sequel to the game is in the works. He described the Red Dead franchise as being permanent and sitting alongside Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands. Those are two of Take-Two's most popular franchises putting Red Dead in good company.

Zelnick also mentioned during the conference where he talked about Red Dead that his company uses a selective approach to releasing games. He says Take-Two doesn't want to flood the market with games. Rather than giving consumers more, he says they want better games.

With Watch Dogs going on sale tomorrow, and some people already enjoying the open-world hacking title - but with Bitcoin miners attacking their system - NVIDIA GeForce owners are going to be enjoying increased performance, and better graphics.

NVIDIA worked closely with Ubisoft Montreal for Watch Dogs, as it fell under NVIDIA's Gameworks program. NVIDIA's Gameworks helps developers with a set of tools in order to fully utilize all of NVIDIA's technologies, something we saw in a video not too long ago. This is great for NVIDIA users, but AMD Radeon owners will not see these extra effects on PC, on top of reduced performance.

Forbes editor Jason Evangelho wrote a piece, benchmarking two cards against each other: the $500 Radeon R9 290X against the GeForce GTX 770 priced at $300. You can see in the image above that the $300 GPU does quite well for itself, keeping up with, and in one test beating the R9 290X which is $200 more. So, GeForce users - enjoy your increased performance and graphical bells and whistles enabled, but AMD fans - you're out of luck. It'll still run without a problem, but consider this like Mantle on Battlefield 4 - there are benefits on both sides of the GPU war.