Gaming News - Page 119

It's official: Baldur's Gate 3 is better than Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, at least if you go by Metacritic's rankings for average review scores.

As it stands at the time of writing, Baldur's Gate 3 has now achieved an average rating of 97 on Metacritic, which just sneaks past Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on 96.

That said, it is still relatively early days for Larian's RPG, as the Baldur's Gate 3 average is based off 18 reviews, whereas Tears of the Kingdom's average takes into account a huge slab of 140 reviews (5 of which were 'mixed' - with Baldur's Gate 3 reviews all remaining 'positive' at this point).

Baldur's Gate 3 just got another hotfix, and it's an important one as it mitigates a potential scenario where your saved game might become corrupted.

Corrupt saves are a nightmare bug, of course, and in this case with Baldur's Gate 3, the corruption occurs due to the save file becoming too large.

In short, the developer didn't anticipate just how much some players would do, filling up their save file with a ton of stuff relating to their character progression.

Roblox has announced a new virtual career center that allows gamers to participate in various events and even job interviews.

An introduction to the Roblox Career Center was posted to the official Roblox YouTube channel, where it explained that the career center is a place where Roblox players can learn about Roblox on Roblox. Additionally, players will be able to learn what it's like to work at the company while also having the ability to engage directly with recruiters and hiring managers.

The Roblox Career Center also offers live events where players can learn about the technical challenges developers are attempting to overcome. The features don't stop there, as the Roblox Career Center has its own in-game library where players will be able to learn more about how to be successful during an interview. There are also assessments, which the above video states will include practice problem-solving sessions.

Overwatch 2 has been released on Steam, and gamers have absolutely review-bombed the title resulting in it being deemed "Overwhelmingly Negative".

Within just 24 hours, Overwatch 2 has received more than 27,000 reviews, with just 14% of those reviews being positive. So, what were these criticisms? If you have been involved in the gaming space, you already know that microtransactions are a touchy topic, especially if the game leans far too close to money-making being the clear motivation. Steam reviewers certainly brought up this point, writing that Overwatch 2's is too microtransaction-centric and that the prices for skins is so bad its deemed "predatory behavior".

Other reviews criticized Blizzard's decision to lock new heroes behind the game's premium battle pass subscription service, while also honed in on the developers releasing the title without the promised free-to-play PvE missions, which are also locked behind a paywall. Even the reviews under the "helpful" section of the Steam listing have negative sentiments, with the top helpful review at the time of writing, saying, "downloaded the game. connected Steam to blizzard account. run the game. received some achievements. close the game"

As part of the return of QuakeCon, which is one of the world's largest in-person PC LAN gaming events, Bethesda and id Software announced that Quake II has been remastered and enhanced and is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch, in addition to Xbox Game Pass. So yeah, id Software's classic first-person shooter from 1997 is playable on all platforms.

And it's packed with goodies, with the original campaign and its two expansions (The Reckoning and Ground Zero), plus the addition of a brand-new expansion from MachineGames aptly titled Call of the Machine and a remastered Quake II 64 port for the Nintendo 64 version of the game included as a nice little freebie.

As far as re-releases go, this is up there, as Bethesda and id Software confirm that this enhanced edition includes improvements to gameplay, enhanced AI, plus improved visuals in the form of more dynamic shadows and lighting.

Sony's operating profit for its PlayStation video games business drops again as the company continues paying towards the $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie, as well as costs of games development.

Sony Corp's latest fiscal year earnings report shows record growth in PlayStation's Q1 net sales, but operating profit has slid -7% in to 3.6 billion yen. Based on foreign exchange conversion rates provided by Sony, this represents a -35% decrease on a USD basis to $263 million and marks the lowest quarterly operating income since Fiscal Year 2017.

PlayStation's operating income has dropped significantly partly because of the Bungie acquisition. In 2022, Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion, but instead of being paid all at once, the purchase price is being expensed over multiple quarters.

Sony expects the PlayStation games division to generate a record-breaking 4.170 trillion yen in net sales for the fiscal year 2023, a new all-time high for the video games industry's top platform-holder.

On the heels of new record earnings of $5.63 billion for its Games & Network Services segment, Sony has upwardly revised its total-year earnings for the PlayStation business. According to its Q1'FY23 earnings report, Sony now expects its gaming branch to generate 4.170 trillion yen in net sales, which equates to about $32 billion in today's yen to USD conversion rates.

While it's worth noting this value will likely fluctuate and change over time as foreign exchange rates ebb and flow on a quarterly basis, Sony does still expect Fiscal Year 2023 to handily beat previous record, which was set in Fiscal Year 2022 with 3.644 trillion yen, by some 526 billion yen. On a USD basis, Sony's PlayStation gaming division made about $26.917 billion in Fiscal Year 2022.

Sony's PlayStation games division kicks off a new fiscal year by breaking a new sales milestone.

Sony just reported its Q1 FY23 earnings results, and PlayStation gaming has grown to new record levels. The company managed to set a new all-time Q1 sales record by delivering $5.634 billion in sales revenues for the period on a converted yen to USD basis. Q1'23 does not make an exceptionally high record, though, and only beats the previous high Q1 periods (Q1'20 and Q1'21) by about $6-10 million.

The Q1 growth was much more pronounced in yen, where Sony recorded a +28% increase in net sales (thanks partly to a +40.6 billion yen impact).

Activision's dev teams have outlined what Modern Warfare 2 content will carry forward to Modern Warfare 3.

MW3 will be an extension of MW2, indicating a potential cross-game future for the Call of Duty franchise. Reports indicate that MW3 was originally envisioned as a kind of expansion lacking a premium experience, but morphed into a fully-fledged $69.99 premium game as Treyarch and Infinity Ward were conscripted to assist Sledgehammer Games with MW3's development.

Although MW3 is technically it's own separate game, there will be a lot of carry-over. Well, carry-forward is more apt. This is a great win for gamers, who won't have to re-buy content or start from scratch in MW3.

Humble Bundle's latest Decades of Horror bundle packs in some must-have Resident Evil games for a low price.

Humble is bringing the savings on legacy catalog titles from Capcom, packing some great action-packed Resident Evil games. The deal offers 12 games total, split into four different pricing tiers. Depending on how much Resident Evil you want, the best deal seems to be the $20 bundle that packs in greats like Resident Evil 2 REmake alongside Resident Evil 7.

There's also a the $35 bundle which includes everything in the $20 bundle with the addition of the excellent and super entertaining Resident Evil Village, a game that stands as one of the best Halloween games you could possibly play.