Gaming - Page 1197

Player Affinity is reporting that a group of users from 4chan have sent an e-mail to Valve boss himself, Gabe Newell, which was very NSFW, but Good Guy Gabe still responded, with quite the tease:

Some people over at Reddit then sent Gabe an e-mail asking him to elaborate, where he responded:

We all know Max Payne 3 is nearly here, but what are the PC specifications for it? How high does it scale? Rockstar have unleashed some more information on the painkiller-addicted, slow-mo-flyin' Max Payne 3. Max Payne 3's PC System Specifications:

Operating System:

Windows 7 32/64 Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 32/64 Service Pack 2, Windows XP 32/64 Service Pack 3

Valve are continuing their efforts on the free-to-play gaming front, with a new plan to release their sure fire hit, DOTA 2, as a free-to-play title. Good Guy Gabe has come out and said that Valve are not applying a wholly conventional freemium model for DOTA 2.

Usually, freemium games are made available to everyone and then later the company monetises it by selling optional in-game items, Team Fortress 2 has done this for example. In an interview with Seven Day Cooldown, Newell said that DOTA 2 would be "free-to-play [but] it'll have some twists". He continues:

This is some exciting news for all of you Dirt, F1, and Grid fans. Codemasters, the game studio behind the aforementioned games, has announced that they will be ditching the action genre in order to better serve and focus on the racing genre which is where their heritage is. This announcement comes on the heels of the difficult Operation Flashpoint: Red River and Bodycount launches.

The new racing games will be published under the company's new publishing label, Codemasters Racing. The first game of the new label will be Dirt Showdown which is set to release on May 25. "We have kept our reputation for delivering best-in-class racing games," said communications chief Rich Eddy. "And best-in-class racing games is now our razor focus going forward."

"In racing, we are No.2 in Europe and that's not good enough. We want to take racing games across multiple platforms and genres. So that players can play anytime, anywhere and on any device," he added. "Racing is our DNA, it is our heritage, it is our specialisation and it is our absolute focus going forward."

It turns out that all of the rumors saying that Prey 2 has been canceled have been greatly exaggerated. While it's true that it may not make it to shelves this year like originally planned, Bethesda revealed today that they are in fact still working diligently on the game to make it top quality before releasing it.

Bethesda posted on its blog:

A few nuggets of Diablo III news have arrived, first up the beta servers for the game will shut down on May 1st. All stats and characters will be wiped in preparation for the full launch of Diablo III on May 15th. Second, some individuals have discovered that there will be a Starter Edition of Diablo III, that was accidentally made available for download through their battle.net accounts.

Blizzard noticed this quickly, and took battle.net down for "maintenance" at 8:45am EST. Some people were lucky enough to stealth away with the download, and have reportedly been able to play through part of the single-player campaign without the need of a product key. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Those who have been bashing around within the Starter Edition report that it is indeed Diablo III, but in a "limited form".

Most of the players say that the content found within the game is similar to the Diablo III beta. All of the classes are available to play, but the user interface prompts the user to upgrade to the full version of Diablo III in order to access certain features. Now that we have a confirmed Starter Edition of Diablo III, this is beginning to make sense. StarCraft II and World of Warcraft have enjoyed Starter Editions, which allowed players to play a limited part of the game for free.

The debut trailer for Dishonored is out, and for those of you who haven't heard about it (like me until just now) it's a new first-person stealth action game from Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks. Dishonored casts you as a supernatural assassin driven by revenge. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Bethesda and Arkane Studios explain Dishonored as:

In an undeniable attempt to gain more paying Xbox Live Gold customers, Microsoft will be offering it for free for five days. Commencing on Thursday, April 19, and running until Monday, April 23, users will gain access to Xbox Media Apps. Online multiplayer gaming will still be reserved for paying players only.

Additionally, partners such as Hulu Plus and Netflix will be opening the doors and offering free access at the same time. This should allow both services to compliment each other and both should gain subscribers during this event. There are a few limitations of the free access to these apps. For example, the free Netflix trial is only available to those who haven't yet used a free month's trial.

Depending on where the customer lives, they will get a varying amount of free apps during the trial. In the US, the free apps will include CinemaNow, Crackle, Dailymotion, EPIX, ESPN, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, iHeartRadio, Last.fm, MSN, Netflix, Syfy, TMZ, Today, UFC, Verizon, VEVO, Vudu, Xfinity TV, and YouTube. I'm already a subscriber, so I wonder if I can get the Hulu Plus trial for free for a month.

It seems like the creators of the eye-candy that is Crysis have caved, at least somewhat, to demands that the series return to the jungle for this third installment. Instead of returning to the jungle, they have turned New York City into 7 unique environments dubbed the "7 Wonders." From raging rivers to urban rain forest, this new game is sure to have some incredible eye-candy, that is if your computer can run it!

Due to the new environments, new weapons have been developed. Prophet, the protagonist of the series, will be equipped with a lethal composite bow, an enhanced Nanosuit and devastating alien tech. An excerpt from the announcement of the game:

Tribes: Ascend is officially out of beta and has landed for the general public's consumption. The beta was enjoyed by more than 500,000 people, and the free-to-play first-person shooter is now here to enjoy!

Developer Hi-Rez Studios have also released a new developer diary which goes over the custom server options, and the new games take on the classic Raindance map from the old, very popular Tribes games. The video above doesn't feature too much gameplay, but it does show off a very nice looking user interface.

Ok, now that you've read all of this, you want to know where you can get this bad boy and start getting into it? Well, you can create an account here, and I'll also let you know that the client comes down at around 2.6GB.

Resident Evil fan? Like collecting Collector's Editions? Well, you might want to put away some of your money, now, because Capcom are going to start waving an insane Resident Evil 6 Premium Edition right under your nose.

The upcoming Premium Edition of Resident Evil 6 will include a copy of the game, four different Resident Evil 6-branded tablet covers (which come in a Chris, Leon, Jake and Secret version), as well as a Leon leather jacket. An actual replica of the in-game jacket that Leon wears, which comes in small, medium, large, and extra large.

But, the pricing here is the kicker - ¥105,000 or US$1,293. Wow. Just wow. The Premium Edition is being made through Capcom's online site, e-Capcom. There is a sprinkle of good news here before you shut up and give Capcom your money, is that they generously offer free shipping. Thanks, Capcom.

I love it when companies screw up and release information on upcoming releases. Notably, the GTX 680 was posted for sale several times before the official launch. This time it is EA that screwed up. They posted Crysis 3 artwork on EA's digital download service Origin which gives us a first look at the yet unannounced game.

The image was only published briefly before being redacted, but someone saw, and saved, the image and it has since started circulating the internet. The details on the game are pretty unclear since nothing has been announced, but the image gives us a small insight into what could be in the next game.

Mainly, the image shows a crossbow being used by someone in the iconic nanosuit. This is the first time a crossbow or something similar has been used in any of the Crysis games. It appears to be set in a city, against many people's cries to return to the jungle. I would like to see it return to the jungle as well.

This is one of the more ridiculous rumors that I've heard regarding the upcoming Xbox 720/Next, so let's start off with some traditions and superstitions. First, the tradition: get out some salt and throw it over your shoulder. Second, the superstition: knock on some wood, because if this rumor is true, the next Xbox could be one beast of a gaming device.

The latest issue of Xbox World reports that the devkits for the upcoming Xbox were sent out after some secret meetings were held in London. The devkits don't look like the final product, but the hardware included is supposed to be representative of the final consumer product.

XBW's sources suggest that the devkit is powered by a state of the art 16-core IBM Power PC CPU with a GPU that is in the range of the AMD HD 7000 series of GPUs. The 16-core CPU is the interesting piece, and the most curious part of the upcoming Xbox. Most games only take advantage of a max of 4 cores. Additionally, 16-core CPUs are still in the future for desktop gaming rigs.

After Capcom's recent "Captivate" event, in which it spilled out the details on current and upcoming projects, Capcom has announced that it is well into development of the third installment of Lost Planet 3. Lost Planet 3 is Capcom's third-person shooter line of games and is pretty good, or so I hear. I've never actually played them.

Lost Planet 3 is set to be a prequel to the previous two games. Capcom provides us with a brief story line: "Lost Planet 3 introduces Jim, a rig pilot who leaves Earth to take on a hazardous but lucrative contract on E.D.N. III. Working for Neo-Venus Construction (NEVEC) who are preparing the planet for colonization, Jim joins his fellow pioneers at the Coronis base and begins surveying the uncharted terrain and obtaining samples of the planet's energy supply - Thermal Energy."

Capcom has also been nice and provided us with the screen shots you can see in this post. The development has been passed to the US-based Spark Unlimited. They are using Unreal Engine 3 rather than Capcom's own MT Framework 2.0 engine. There are more screen shots available here.

One game I'm so very anxious for is Max Payne 3, and today developers Rockstar Games published a list of the Max Payne 3's achievements and trophies. A few of the secret badges have been held back, so we don't get all the goodies at once.

I've never really been one for achievements/trophies, but there are some very keen, very dedicated gamers out there who will love this list. There seems to be quite a bit to do in the game, and it's such a change to the original two Max titles, where you just dived in and played. Now you've got a bunch of achievements and trophies to acquire.

I will note that some of these achievements/trophies do contain spoilers from the game, so if you want to stay spoiler-free, don't read below.

Nintendo is beating everybody to the next generation console with their Wii U. They have been trying to cut costs in production in order to be more profitable, but also have a low price in order to garner to a wider range of gamers. Even though it may not sport the greatest graphics, the innovative controls that Nintendo brings to the table wins over customers.

With all of this cost cutting pretty close to said and done, a Canadian media outlet is claiming to have spoken to sources close to the manufacturing of the new unit. They report that the total cost to build is somewhere in the neighborhood of $180 with $50 of that going to the new tablet controller that is being introduced with it.

The reports sources go into more detail. "Nintendo chose an economical GPU and CPU that could keep up with the performance of today's current consoles, but keep hardware costs down to maximize profits. Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses. There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution, and services to create a stream of revenue. Investors will be ecstatic with the news."

The creator of the iconic 3D FPS game genre, John Romero, has discussed his plans regarding creating another first-person shooter after his notorious failure Daikatana. Work hasn't begun on the game quite yet, but Romero says that he knows what it's going to be like and he thinks it's pretty cool.

"I'm definitely going to be making another shooter and it will be on PC first. I don't want to talk about the details but I already know what it is," said Romero. "I've already kind of designed the thing and it's pretty cool-though of course, I am going to say that." He does go over some of the specifics of the MMO portion of the game:

A new game from the studio that brought you Rock Band and Dance Central has been confirmed to be in the works. Harmonix is set to release another Rock Band brand game called "Rock Band Blitz" which will be released "this summer." We have no specific confirmation of the actual release date other than that.

This game is different from the other Rock Band games in that it doesn't require any peripherals. Instead, it goes back to some of the earlier games which rely on frequency and amplitude, where players press buttons in time with the songs which span multiple lanes. The game will feature a new soundtrack of 25 songs.

Existing customers can import DLC from previous versions to the game and use the Blitz songs in any other Rock Band game. It's nice to see that Harmonix is working on compatibility between its games rather than leaving the customer out to dry. It would be nice to see Call of Duty do something similar with its maps and map packs.

So, here we are folks, we all kinda know through various rumors that the next-generation consoles are coming from both Microsoft and Sony, but no official news yet. They should hit at the earliest, this year, and most likely, next year toward the holiday season. But now we're seeing news that Battlefield developer, DICE, are hiring for the next-generation of consoles, according to a recent job listing.

The job is for a senior software engineer and reads:

According to AnandTech, who have been informed of "an internal Apple project to bring a physical controller to the market", we could see the company release a new controller for iOS devices, for gaming. But, we also might never even see the product, ever.

Confused? Yes. The report adds "whether or not it will ever see the light of day remains to be seen". Google introduced a similar concept, where they added both wired, and wireless controller support to its Android OS with the launch of Android 3.0/Honeycomb last year. A move like this would make games such as Grand Theft Auto 3 (and obviously a lot, lot more) playable on iOS devices.

At the moment, gaming on a touchscreen can be kind of tricky, and with Apple pushing their new Retina Display on the new iPad, we should see a next-generation of games on iOS devices over the coming year. Epic Games told CVG back in February that they're "constantly pushing" platform holders to make their next-generation consoles as advanced as possible "because if they don't, Apple will go right past them", and I would have to agree, as I've said something similar for quite some time now.