Gaming - Page 1176

BioShock Infinite has been quite popular on the PC, selling over four million copies since launch but now Irrational Game's hot-selling title is jumping over to the Mac.

Apple users will be able to purchase BioShock Infinite for the Mac on August 29 through Steam, the Mac App Store, and Aspyr's GameAgent storefront. GameAgent members will receive a 20% off pre-order coupon code on the game's page. If you pre-order through Aspyr, you'll receive the Columbia's Finest DLC Pack, which includes 500 Silver Eagles, five lock picks, six unique gear items and a couple of weapon upgrades for the shotgun, and sniper rifle.

The Mac system requirements aren't too bad:

Today, Microsoft announced plans on how Xbox Live will be policed in the future. Dubbed Enforcement United, the new policing system allows community members like you to volunteer to the enforcement team. Those volunteers will have the opportunity to earn rewards such as new avatar clothing, forum badges, and even Xbox Live Arcade games.

In the beginning, the only powers the enforcement team members will have will be the ability to force a user to change their gamer tag if it uses inappropriate terms, names, or words. Eventually Microsoft plans on adding the ability of enforcement volunteers to report players for illegal activity, hate speech, profanity, and insensitive treatment for the vocalization of controversial of topics.

"The Enforcement United program puts part of the enforcement process in the hands of our valued Xbox Live Gold subscribers," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "It's our way of directly involving the Xbox Live community in our efforts to foster and maintain a safe and enjoyable environment for all our members. Eligible volunteers are given the ability to judge whether certain types of content violate our Code of Conduct. If there is sufficient agreement within the community that the content breaks the rules, we'll take enforcement action on behalf of the community!"

We're not far from the launch of the NSA's Microsoft's Xbox One console, with Major Nelson announcing today that the GPU in the Xbox One having its clock speed increased.

Major Nelson announced the news during his talk with Xbox's Marc Whitten, saying that the changes will allow the next-gen console from Microsoft push out better graphics. Nelson noted that Microsoft have been listening to fans who have been saying that the Xbox One is less powerful than the PlayStation 4, so they've done something about it.

The first of these improvements is something Microsoft call a "mono driver", which is just a graphics driver that is optimized for the Xbox One. Most developers are already using this, according to Microsoft: "You start with the base DX driver and you take out all parts that don't look like Xbox One and you add in everything that really, really optimises that experience. Almost all of our content partners have picked it up now."

During its launch event, Microsoft spent a good amount of time talking up the benefits of the new cloud computing aspect the Xbox One will feature. While we expected the company to boast about high performance gains, we reserved judgement until we saw some numbers come from the developer side of things. Today, we got just what we were waiting for and honestly, the news was a lot better than we expected.

In a recent interview with OXM, Dan Greenawalt, the creative director for Forza 5, said that the new cloud computing aspect of the Xbox one created a "tremendous opportunity" for the game's AI to become better than ever. The game uses the cloud-based processing power to handle the game's "Drivatar" AI, something that saves 10 to 20 percent of the processing load that the actual Xbox One hardware sees.

Greenawalt says that by letting the cloud handle the AI side, the performance of Drivatar can be boosted by as much as 600 percent, letting the Xbox One hardware use that freed 20 percent of processing power on something else. 600 percent sounds like an almost too good to be true gain, but when you really think about it, it is actually very feasible. If the Xbox One's hardware has to handle the Drivatar AI, it must juggle it within the 10 billion other lines of code that it must process every second. When offloaded to the cloud, the Drivatar AI can be focused on exclusively and performance numbers could in theory rise exponentially.

Yesterday, Comedy Central launched its new CC: Stand-Up app on the Xbox 360. The new stand-up comedy app brings over 6,000 videos from more than 700 comedians straight to your living room for the first time ever. Comedy Central says that the app is different from the iOS and Android versions as the Xbox app focuses more on long term viewing rather than on discovery of new comedians and new material.

"We're looking opportunistically at all these different platforms, moving down the chain from biggest to smallest," said Ben Hurst, Viacom Entertainment Group's vice president of mobile and emerging platforms. "We want to get digitally distributed content everywhere." When asked if the company is worried about the new digital content leaching off viewers from its cable channel, Hurst said "We've now introduced fans to a new comedian or have gotten them excited to watch the new special. We view this as additive, not cannibalistic."

Comedy Central also launched a companion site to the Stand-Up app earlier this month named CC: Stand-Up Direct in which users can access the full stand-up library over the net and pay $5 per stream or download. The new Xbox CC: Stand-up app is available free of charge to Xbox Live Gold subscribers, which costs just $5 per month with a one-year agreement.

Last week, speculation arose that Nintendo would launch the black edition of its 3DS XL handheld console over this past weekend. The weekend came and went with no black 3DS XL showing up online or in retail stores, and we are sure this was a big letdown for some. Those who were bummed out about the no show will be excited to learn that Nintendo has officially released a launch date for the device.

Sunday, August 11, will be the magical day when we finally see the black 3DS XL arrive in stores and online for retail sales. Coincidentally, that is the same day that the new Mario & Luigi: Dream Team game arrives. No pricing info was released on the 3DS XL Black Edition, but with other colors retailing for around $200, we expect it to be priced in the same range.

In a statement, Nintendo said:

Intelligent Decisions is a company that creates virtual training simulations for the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, and they've just acquired a license to use Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3.

VP of Simulation and Training, Clarence Pape, said that the company will use the graphics engine to improve the movements of autonomous avatars in its Dismounted Soldier Training System, as well as adding haptic feedback for incoming fire, full skeletal controls and environmental variation.

Intelligent Decisions secured the license for Unreal Engine 3 from Applied Research Associates, Virtual Heroes and Epic through the Unreal Government Network. The Unreal Government Network, whilst sounding like a joke, is very real, and is a program that handles government contracts for the Unreal engine.

I seriously hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears that there will not be a movie made around the vastly popular game Super Meat Boy... at least not from one director scammer. Last week, Team Meat, the guys behind Super Meat Boy, published an hour long conference call in which a "director" was wanting to discuss working up a script for Super Meat Boy the movie. The guys caught on pretty quick that the guy was a scammer and they played along over the course the next hour and hilarity ensued.

During the conversation, Team Meat noticed that the so-called director had not even played the game as he had no clue on any aspect of Super Meat Boy. He asked them to hire him for 2 months so he could generate a "Blueprint" for the storyline at the cost of just $4,000. He then said that if everything went well, they would have to front $12k in "buddy money" for script production and if everyone was in agreement, then he would refund the $16k total that Team Meat had invested. The catch was, however, that if the director was not happy at any point, he could just take the $12k and call the whole project quits.

The video, embedded above and hosted on YouTube, is definitely worth a listen, if not for the lulz, then for the insight into how some of the true con artists in America attempt to scam possible victims. At one point, the scammer asks for sales figures and the guys reply that they are waiting on Microsoft to pay them $7 million in owed sales, and that Super Meat Boy's sales on a "small-time platform known as Steam" were eclipsed by sales on Direct to Drive. Team Meat held it together for the entire trolling session, and I must bow down to their expertise as trolling masters.

It was just over a month ago that Phil Fish announced Fez 2 at E3, but this morning it appears that the sequel to the popular indie game Fez will never be. This morning, Fish announced that Fez 2 has been canceled and he is leaving the industry for good. In a statement, Phil Fish wrote: "Fez II is cancelled, I take the money and I run. This is as much as I can stomach. This isn't the result of one thing, but the end of a long bloody campaign. You win."

Fish was quite the outspoken indie developer and stirred the pot quite a bit on occasion. He was featured in the popular documentary Indie Game: The Movie in which the cameras followed his triumphs and struggles with delays, massive bugs, and legal battles over Fez. Fish took massive criticism over Fez throughout the development process and the remarks continued even after the game was released and had become a huge hit. Apparently these comments, the pressure of topping Fez 1, and the stress that comes with being the sole developer on a massive game were just too much for Fish to take.

Valve took some time on Friday to squash a rumor from gaming blog NSS that Half-Life 3 was going to be shown at E3 2014. The report said that they had an e-mail from Valve developer John Guthrie, who said that the first-ever Half-Life 3 trailer, as well as a playable demo would be available at next year's E3.

He supposedly wrote: "I can't confirm all too much since the development is still in early stages, but for now I can confirm that we are going to release on both current and next generation consoles, and we will also release the game on our own platform exclusively for PC and Mac. We hope to have the first trailer ready for E3 2014, which we (after several times not attending) will finally come back to."

The creator of Half-Life has come out and said the report is "bogus", with the only reason they decided to step out of the shadows is because of how quickly the story had spread. I think we'll see it toward E3 2014, but I think we're going to see it released closer to the time that Oculus Rift hits the market.

Before next-gen consoles are here, and they usher in a kind-of-1080p gaming experience for us, 4K (or Ultra HD) was announced. We've seen a few sites play around with 4K gaming, but how do three 4K displays handle a game? What kind of insane rig do you need for this?

Well, Microsoft have done it, where they've slapped three Ultra HD-capable Sharp PN-K321 displays with the help of AMD and ASUS with three ASUS DirectCU II 7970s to show off some insane Ultra HD gaming. Dirt 3 was chosen as the game for its wide panoramic effect, with a single ASUS DirectCU II 7970 capable of pushing out 35 FPS, oh, at 11520x2160.

Yes, 11520x2160... I'll let that sink in for a minute.

In a day that seems to be all about Google, the company has released yet another new and exciting product. Google has just launched a new Android app named Google Play Games, which will serve as a central location for social gaming as well as game and content discovery. We first heard mention of this new app at Google I/O but details were a bit scarce and we almost forgot all about it.

The new app aggregates all of your installed games into a single location where you can see earned achievements, multiplayer engagements, and a list of frequent opponents and public leaderboards. The app is very similar to Apple's Game Center, which has been around for almost 3 years now. Unlike the Game Center which uses your Apple ID for identification, Play Games requires a connection through Google to update your account with new achievements and data.

Microsoft appears to be having issues today with its Xbox Live service. The company says that some members are currently unable to sign in to their Xbox Live accounts and they have a team engaged with fixing the issue. When visiting the current status page, users are prompted with a notice that says the outages is affecting Games for Windows Live, Windows 8, Windows Phone, the Xbox 360, and Xbox.com.

After trying to sign into my Xbox Live Account, I was greeted with an error, and also experienced a similar error when trying to connect to Xbox Live via a Games for Windows Live game. Microsoft says that those who are trying to post or view messages on Xbox.com may experience issues as well. Additionally, some 360 owners are currently unable to watch video content or listen to streaming music from their consoles.

Today, EA Sports released an extended version of the trailer it showed off at E3 for its upcoming game Need for Speed Rivals. The new trailer is one minute and 45 seconds long, which is about a minute longer than the original version, and places a lot of emphasis on the cops-versus-racers aspect of the game. Unlike previous Need for Speed games, players can now choose to play as a racer or as a cop when stepping behind the wheel of a new vehicle.

The trailer shows that the game will be sent in an entirely open environment, which will allow players to make the most of their high powered vehicles. Additionally, a series of difficult challenges will be presented for the player to complete, which will add collectible items to their inventory. Throughout the game players must maintain a healthy rivalry with the law in order to earn more street cred.

I have been to CES, Dragoncon, The Southeast Linux Festival, the WPPI Expo, and many other conventions over the years, but the one that has managed to evade me is the San Diego Comic-Con. SDCC is the mecca for geeks of all flavors--especially comic book fans--but over the years, it has become the premier showcase for cosplay fans to gather and live their dream of being their favorite superhero.

I won't pretend and say that I want to go for the comic books; my entire motive to attend is to see all of the fantastic makers who have spent hundreds and thousands of hours designing and building their costumes from scratch. One of my biggest guilty pleasures is browsing the hundreds of galleries that pop up from Comic-Con every year. Fortunately for me and you, this year Tested's Norm Chan has posted a full gallery of over 800 cosplay photos that he took during SDCC.

The gallery contains some of the best cosplay I have ever seen and I am so pumped up that I am making it my goal to attend SDCC next year come hell or high water. Head over to link #2 and check out the full gallery and if you spot someone you know, send an email to Norm letting him know the person's name and include the image number as he is trying to name everyone pictured in the gallery. The images above are provided courtesy of Tested.com

PAX Australia 2013 - There was just one single game that I truly wanted to see, and play at PAX Australia 2013, with that game being Ubisoft's Watch Dogs. It looks absolutely incredible, and Ubisoft had it on the show floor. It wasn't playable, but some pre-recorded footage. We weren't allowed to take video, but we were allowed to take photos.

We have a plethora of photos, but we were greeted to two videos - the first was some footage of the game for PAX Australia and then the E3 trailer. The main trailer had Jonathan Morin, the Creative Director on Watch Dogs, explaining the game to the crowd. Both videos were impressive, and have shown off more of the super connectivity the game has to offer. Everyone and every thing is hackable, and the video really drove this home. Watch Dogs is a day one purchase for me, and I'm sure there are thousands of our readers who think the same.

Something I loved seeing in the demo of Watch Dogs was the fact that the public's opinion can be swayed about the protagonist, Aiden Pearce. If you're the type of gamer who saves people, and doesn't screw them over by hacking their accounts, or killing them, then the public will support you as a force against the system and government. But, if you're the type of gamer who likes chaos, and causes damage and violence, the public will hate you.

After a long 23 years in the industry, THQ is finally no more. Today, Judge Mart F Walrath approved the request for liquidation by once gaming industry powerhouse THQ. The liquidation will serve to pay off creditors as much as possible with whatever money is made from the sale of THQ's remaining assets.

THQ originally filed for bankruptcy in December 2012 in hopes that some major company, investor, or individual would swoop in and save the day. Unfortunately, this was one sinking ship that was deemed unrepairable. It is expected that the sale of the company's assets could recoup anywhere between 20 and 52 percent of what US-based creditors are owed. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether or not foreign investors are entitled to recovery as well, and this could leave US investors receiving much less compensation than they had originally expected.

All of THQ's studios and intellectual property has been sold off which includes heavy hitter Relic Games who brought us titles such as the Homeworld series, the absurdly popular Saints Row, Company of Heroes, and Warhammer 40,000. As a longtime fan of THQ, I think I speak for everyone at TweakTown when I say goodbye old friend and we will miss you.

OUYA has announced that it will match some of the funds raised on Kickstarter for games being developed on its Android-powered console beginning next month. Dubbed the "Free the Games Fund," OUYA will match donations up to $1 million total for eligible game projects that are posted on Kickstarter between August 9 and August 10.

The project owners can set funding goals at any level they wish but to receive the extra funding that OUYA has promised, the game developers will need to meet their Kickstarter goals and raise at least $50,000. OUYA says that they will match every dollar raised beyond that amount up to $250,000. There is, however, a small little catch to receiving the funding: the game must be exclusive to the OUYA for at least six months after launch. Additionally, the company will give a $100,000 bonus to whichever eligible game raises the most funding.

I really hope that this incentive will create some really good games for the OUYA as my experience so far has been less than satisfying. I have played several games on the device and clocked in a few hours of total game play. To me, everything seems laggy with some games being virtually unplayable due to the near half second pause between pushing a button on the controller and it causing a reaction on the screen.

Today, the NCAA said that they will not allow Electronic Arts Inc. to use their name or logo in any future video games. In a statement, the NCAA said that it has no plans to enter into a new contract with EA Sports after the current one expires in June 2014. While not official, industry analysts suggest that this is due to a number of pending lawsuits against the NCAA from former college athletes who state that EA profited off their likeness.

EA Sports says that they will still produce college football video games which will still feature all of the powerhouse colleges such as Alabama, the University of Georgia, Ohio State, and many others as it is the schools who license their name and logos, not the NCAA. This is usually handled through the Collegiate Licensing Company who manages the trademarks of the majority of the colleges in the country.

"EA Sports will continue to develop and publish college football games, but we will no longer include the NCAA names and marks," said EA executive vice president Andrew Wilson. "Our relationship with the Collegiate Licensing Co. is strong and we are already working on a new game for next generation consoles which will launch next year and feature the college teams, conferences and all the innovation fans expect from EA Sports."

Anyone who knows me knows that I am one of the biggest Elder Scrolls fans on the planet. Naturally, Skyrim is one of my most played games and as a result, I have pretty much worn the game out and seen almost everything there is to see and done everything there is to do. Fortunately, Bethesda knows how much their fans love modding their games and freely releases content creation kits that allow users to customize the game in the form of mods.

That is where 19-year-old Alexander J. Velicky enters the story. Over the last year, Velicky has been hard at work on one of the largest Skyrim mods ever created. Dubbed Falskaar, this new mod adds over 25 hours of content as well as a new landmass a third the size of the original game. Velicky has added new characters, new voices, and dozens of new quest. The mod features 54 new characters which are voiced by 29 different voice actors. If that alone is not impressive, then nothing else in the story will be.

"I organized everyone involved, but the voice actors themselves recorded all the dialogue and submitted it to me," Velicky told PC Gamer. "I had some people help me out with a few models and textures, someone wrote a book or two for me... But otherwise all content was implemented, written and developed by me."