Gaming - Page 1175

Microsoft is committing to pushing Kinect down the throats, or living rooms, of every single Xbox One owner, where corporate VP Phil Harrison telling CVG during an interview that Microsoft's upcoming next-gen console will never be sold without Kinect.

Harrison went as far as stating that the Xbox One "is Kinect", adding that "they are not separate systems." Harrison said he currently owns the NSA spy box gaming console, saying that it's a "very magical experience" to power up the console through a voice command and load his profile. He added: "They are not separate systems. An Xbox One has chips, it has memory, it has Blu-ray, it has Kinect, it has a controller. These are all part of the platform ecosystem."

He continued: "It makes you think about your relationship with technology in a slightly different way. It's personal. It makes you think, I wish more devices would do this."

Today, Mad Catz announced the launch of its new Force Feedback Racing Wheel designed to work exclusively on Microsoft's upcoming Xbox One gaming console. Mad Catz says that the wheel has been specifically designed to offer the most authentic driving experience one can possibly have on an Xbox One.

The steering wheel has been CNC machined out of aluminum and then wrapped in genuine suede leather to provide a solid yet comfortable experience. Furthermore, the wheel is packed full of technology, including dual next-generation force feedback motors and high precision buttons, to ensure the highest performance possible. If that wasn't enough, the entire steering wheel is removable in the event the user wishes to upgrade in the future.

"As we approach the Holiday season, excitement continues to mount for Xbox One and we're pleased to announce our second premium product for the console" said Darren Richardson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. "We have previously commented on how the enhanced performance of Xbox One opens up additional scope for innovation and believe that the precision engineering and customization of the Force Feedback Racing Wheel will appeal to the passionate racing gamer."

Today, Origin announced that it has started offering full refunds on EA-published Windows or Mac games if you decide you no longer want it within 24 hours of the first run. "If something doesn't work out - you aren't riveted by the storyline, or sucked in by the action, or even just if the game doesn't play well with your video card - we've got your back," EA said in a statement.

To obtain a refund, you must simply apply within 24 hours from the first launch of the game or within seven days from when it was purchased. Pre-ordered games can be returned for a full refund within seven days of the game's release as long as it was purchased from Origin's digital storefront. This gives Origin a clear advantage over other digital game dealers as it is the only service with a solid 100 percent money back return policy.

Earlier today at the Gamescom event taking place in Germany, Microsoft announced that it will launch Project Spark in beta form for Windows 8 in October. For those of you who have never heard of Project Spark, it amounts to an inception-like video game development tool within a game that allows players to build custom worlds, developed characters, and render custom animations all from an Xbox One or Windows 8-based PC.

The development suite will let player-developers utilize a Kinect sensor to include voice and motion capture as well as allow players to capture facial animations and body motion to bring the characters they design to life. Users can also record their own face and superimpose it on an in-game character or record custom body motions, which they can then assign as a player's attack moves within a game.

Gamers also have the ability to fully customize the in-game world to build out that entire fantasy round they have always dreamed. The video above highlights some of the high level worlds and animations that are possible using Project Spark. Microsoft says that the closed beta will begin for Windows 8 devices in early October, and the Xbox One will receive Spark access sometime in January 2014.

Plants vs Zombies 2 released worldwide just five days ago and has already surpassed more than 16 million downloads, landing it at the top spot of EA's most successful mobile game launch in history. The sequel to the popular zombie killing game also found itself amongst some of the top grossing games on opening day the Apple App Store has ever seen.

"We are grateful and delighted with the incredible reception Plants vs. Zombies 2 has received from consumers around the globe," said Tony Leamer, Franchise Business Director for Plants vs. Zombies. "We certainly had high hopes for the game, but to see fans playing the game so quickly and in such huge numbers is truly amazing."

EA says that in the five days since launch, Plants vs Zombies 2 rocketed into the number one position in the App Store in over 137 countries worldwide on either the iPad or iPhone charts. It currently has an average rating of 4.5 to 5 stars throughout those countries and has received rave reviews from critics and consumers worldwide. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it pits garden-variety plants against a horde of period correct zombies throughout different historical time periods. EA has released the game under its free-to-play model and we found it in the Apple App Store in seven different languages.

Today, EA and Maxis clued us in on the first details of what is expected to be one of the hottest games of 2014. The companies released the first gameplay trailer of the highly anticipated life simulator, The Sims 4. EA says that the game is built on an entirely new technological platform and that players will now be able to create and control an entirely new generation of Sims like never before.

This new technology allows game developers to build upon a foundation that allows the Sims to become more intelligent, emotionally rich, and relatable. Each of them evolves into something that is affected by the interactions and emotional states of other Sims. Now for the first time ever, each Sim is capable of having its own emotional state which is affected by the environment and other Sims around. As you saw in the video above, this makes for very dynamic gameplay. EA has officially opened pre-orders for The Sims 4 Digital Deluxe Edition on Origin, and you can grab your copy at Source #2 below.

"Over 10 years ago, we created a genre, now we're taking our most revolutionary step forward by focusing on the heart of the franchise, the Sims themselves," said Rachel Franklin, VP and Executive Producer for The Sims 4. "The magic of The Sims has always come from the combination of the player's creativity and the Sims' free will, and in The Sims 4 we're taking this further by unlocking more possibilities and deeper gameplay opportunities. The Sims 4 is the bold leap for the franchise where each Sim now has a rich emotional center that drives meaningful social interactions. Your ability to affect the mind, body and heart of these new Sims brings your stories to life in a way that is more personal than ever before."

Electronic Arts and DICE announced today the long anticipated Battlefield 4 Premium pack. EA says that this new pack provides an exclusive membership for Battlefield fans and will provide access to all of the scheduled expansion packs to keep the battle raging all year long. This includes the China Rising, Second Assault, Naval Strike, Dragons Teeth, and Final Stand expansion packs.

"Fan reaction to Battlefield 3 Premium has been nothing short of amazing. We are humbled to see more than 4 million people join in," said Patrick Bach, Executive Producer, Battlefield 4. "With Battlefield 4 Premium we continue to roll out the red carpet, treating our fans like VIPs with a massive amount of new gameplay, exclusive new content and even more benefits at an incredible value."

Battlefield 4 Premium membership includes five digital expansion packs featuring new multiplayer maps and in-game content:

This morning, Microsoft officially released the list of games that will be available on launch day for the Xbox One. The list contains 23 titles of some of the biggest series that will debut this fall. The genres range from first-person shooters to RPGs and casual games such as Peggle 2 and Zoo Tycoon. I have listed out all of the "Day One" games below.

Additionally, Microsoft announced that all pre-order versions of the Xbox One in Europe will come bundled with a free FIFA 14 download. I'm sure for some of our friends across the pond, that is incentive enough to preorder their copy of the next-gen console.

Today, Rockstar Games released an all-new trailer of online gameplay footage from his upcoming title Grand Theft Auto V. With the official launch of the game growing closer, the company is doing all it can to generate as much hype as possible. Earlier this week, we saw Rockstar release a website parody of a municipality tourist site, and today the company released a three minute long trailer of gameplay footage.

I have never been more excited for a game to launch than I have for Grand Theft Auto V; the online feature appears to be everything we have hoped and dreamed it would be. The trailer alludes to a completely open world filled with hundreds of online players who can do everything from fly planes, drive cars, and even team up to form a band of thieves to rob a bank. Users can earn money by completing online missions and then use that money to buy weapons, vehicle upgrades, and even houses at which your friends can visit when they come online.

I have been hoping for months now that Rockstar would officially announce that Grand Theft Auto V would be released on PC, and after getting my hopes up earlier in the week, I have pretty much accepted the fact that I will be buying an Xbox 360 so I can play the game on launch day. Rockstar, if you're out there listening, please make the decision to put this game on the PC!

The closer we get to the launch of the Xbox One, the more we're finding about the next-gen console from Microsoft. The internal architecture of the Xbox One is built to detect if it is overheating, and will self-regulate its power.

The report is directly from Xbox's general manager of console development, Leo del Castillo, during an interview with Gizmodo. del Castillo said that this will help minimize detrimental shut-downs caused by overheating. He continued: "One thing that we have more flexibility with the architecture of the Xbox One, is that we can dial back the power of the box considerably."

del Castillo went on to add: "We had a little less flexibility with the 360. And so basically, if we couldn't dissipate the heat, there wasn't a whole lot of leverage we could pull to keep the heat from being generated, so we had a limited amount of time before it just shut down. Xbox One can actually dial it back to a lower power state, so low in fact that it can in a mode that uses virtually no air flow."

If there's one thing AMD is doing right, it would have to be the Never Settle program. The chipmaker has just launched its Never Settle Forever program, which changes things up considerably.

With the older Never Settle bundles, depending on the GPU the consumer purchased, they were given specific games. When things kicked into second gear with Never Settle Reloaded, consumers were given the choice of a few titles when they purchased a GPU. The more they spent on their GPU - or the higher the series of Radeon - the more games they received.

Now, the Never Settle Forever program is here, and each tier offers a larger range of games, and more of them. As you can see from the image above, the Radeon Bronze Reward includes one free game, from a choice of six titles. The Radeon Silver Reward includes two games from a selection of eight games. The final, and highest reward is the Radeon Gold Reward, which offers three free games from a total of nine choices.

For months now, the PC community has been in an uproar over reports that Rockstar games would not be releasing its highly anticipated title Grand Theft Auto V for the PC. Today, it appears that all those worries were for nothing as NVIDIA has apparently confirmed that GTA V will be headed to PC this fall.

Website KitGuru noticed that during NVIDIA's earnings call a senior official mentioned that Grand Theft Auto V would in fact be coming to the PC this fall. I have posted an excerpt of the statement in question below. If you would like to read the full transcript, head over to Source #2 below. If this is true, today might very well be one of the happiest days PC gamers have had all year long.

Chris Evenden, Senior Director, IR said "The PC market is evolving. As entry-level laptops face pressure from tablets. Yet sales of specialty PCs like gaming systems and work stations continue to grow. The disparity reflects how consumers use these different classes of PCs. Many consumers look for PC as a general purpose device they can use for browsing, email, social media video. But much of this can be better served by a tablet. In contrast, gamers are preparing their systems for a strong roster of games coming this fall, including blockbuster franchises, such as Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grand Theft Auto V and Assassin's Creed IV."

Microsoft has been scrambling these last couple of weeks, trying everything they can to do last minute tweaks to its next-gen Xbox One console to better compete against Sony's PlayStation 4.

Another change that has been announced today, saw Xbox chief product officer, Marc Whitten, revealing that Kinect will no longer be required in order for the Xbox One to work. He says: "Like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn't plugged in, although you won't be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor."

I have referred to the Xbox One's Kinect sensor as an NSA device, so it looks like the company is listening to people and have removed the requirement of an always-on camera pointing at for your console to work. What's more interesting is the fact that this could lead Microsoft to selling an Xbox One without the Kinect sensor, which might drop it down to the $399 price tag that the PS4 is going for.

Thomas "Thompen" Andersson, Battlefield 4's Lead Multiplayer Designer, has explained how the developer is designing Battlefield 4 to "highly encourage" but "never force" team play in the first-person shooter.

DICE's first incentive for players, involves gameplay mechanics, where he continues on the official Battlefield 4 blog: "We want to promote team play by creating great gameplay mechanics such as Field Upgrades, Commander Mode, and a new range of gadgets specifically designed to expand co-operation in the field. We have drastically expanded on the tools and benefits of efficient team play, and as a result we feel Battlefield 4's multiplayer experience is the deepest, most rewarding, and fun experience in the series."

Andersson said he believes EA DICE can "do a better job ... of letting players make more educated choices in their kit loadouts and combat roles" by showing what gadgets do and allowing gamers to compare weapons.

XLGames and 2K are currently working on Civilization Online, an MMO title which is being powered by Crytek's very capable CryEngine 3. The new Civilization Online will shift away from the usual turn-based strategy game, into a single character within one of four societies.

Civilization Online is still centered around the ideas and characteristics that made Civilization the franchise that it is today, but Civilization Online just takes it from a new perspective. From the start of the game, player's will slot into one of four societies, where their task will be to conquer the world as it progresses through the ages.

Civilization Online is a massively, real-time, open world title that will see huge environments for gamer's to explore. There'll also be crafting PvP, resource gathering and other elements built-in. Traditional combat will be a part of Civilization Online, as will the ability to conduct research, build structures and even access an auction house to get rid of the items you have crafted.

Today, Microsoft released an unboxing video of its upcoming next-gen gaming console, the Xbox One. While we have seen many images of the new console, most of them are from the unveiling ceremony or E3, and today is the first time we\'re getting a look at what the final design will be.

The unboxing features what is being called the Xbox One Day One edition. It will feature a Kinect, Day One branded controller, and the Xbox One console itself. Additionally, the company will include what appears to be a wired mono driver headset that will also come with standard editions of the console.

So what\'s changed since we last saw the Xbox One? The final design features a separate power supply brick, an included HDMI cable, and what the company is calling a \"Liquid Black\" finish. The controller now features a built-in battery compartment that is able to accommodate alkaline or rechargeable AA batteries. Charging can be completed via a built-in microUSB port, which will shut down the wireless radio when plugged in and allow you to continue playing your game through the wired connection.

According to an interview with website Eurogamer, Ubisoft has planned the end of the popular Assassin's Creed franchise. Ashraf Ismail, game director for Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, told the interviewer that "an overarching narrative for the game" is in existence, but not much more info was given.

"We have multiple development teams, then we have the brand team that sits on top and is filled with writers and designers concerned with the series' overall arc," Ismail explained. "So there is an overall arc and each iteration has its place inside this."

Lubrizol says that since the game is a yearly title, there is still room left to fit more inside this arc but there is a definitive end to the franchise. Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot said that being an annual franchise allows the team to tease future plot points and inject NPCs and players who might be seen in future installments of the series.

Today, Sony announced a new MMO installment to the EverQuest franchise. The company says that the game will not follow in the footsteps of traditional leveling systems often found in MMOs but will instead feature approximately 40 classes at launch with players having the chance to mix and match abilities as they play through the game.

The new game will also feature a fully destructible voxel-based world in which all changes the players make on the world will remain permanent. The game will also be able to react to the decisions that players make and will proactively present players with quests that match a player's gaming style. The game will launch free to play sometime later this year, but no official launch date has been set.

One of the most anticipated games of all time is nearly here, but Grand Theft Auto V is only hitting current generation consoles meaning we're going to see the games vast open world clamped down by the ageing hardware in the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Gadget Mill have found out, through GTA V's official website, that the game won't be running at 1080p. They're claiming that the website didn't include any in-game screenshots above 720p. To me, the screenshots look fantastic, which means we're seeing it rendered on a PC, or super amounts of AA at 720p.

Rockstar's previous titles, such as Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3 and GTA IV, all ran at 720p. Current generation consoles are really holding games back, and GTA V is one of them. Let's hope that Rockstar unleash the open-world game onto next-gen consoles.

I received an e-mail late last night from OUYA, I was hoping it was a shipping confirmation on my two custom controllers - which it wasn't - but it's not all bad news. Original backers are set to receive $13.37 credit for the OUYA Discover store.

Why the handouts? It's because OUYA are sorry about some original backers, like myself, not receiving their consoles on time. Some users received their consoles after they hit retail shelves, controllers have been delayed, and more. OUYA says: "If you feel you've had any kind of less-than-OUYA experience with us (a polite way of saying at any time you felt pissed at us for whatever the reason: late shipment, missing controllers, a delayed response to a CS ticket you opened), we'd like to give you a store credit of $13.37 to use toward any purchase(s) on DISCOVER."

Not too bad at all, but I think OUYA still have a way to go yet. Hopefully this fixes the issue of 73% of OUYA owners not purchasing a game yet, too. Our review will be online this week, so be sure to check back! Until then, you can check out our unboxing of the OUYA console.