Gaming - Page 1201

Yes, you read that right. Much Different, a Swedish-based, non-profit organisation have given themselves quite the goal. A 1000 player FPS battle, which isn't even a full game, but a browser-based FPS title.

It is called "Man Vs. Machine" and is a game that:

It seems rumors of the next-gen Microsoft console is getting the most talk lately, with more news of the Xbox 720/Next console from "sources close to the project" that told IGN.

There were initial reports that the next-gen console from Microsoft would sport the new GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture that is found in the newly-released AMD Radeon HD 7900-Series, but it seems that the console might tap some of the 6000-Series of GPUs.

IGN's sources claim it will use a Radeon HD 6670-like GPU, which offers support for DirectX 11, multi-display output, 3D and 1080p HD output. In "real terms", this would allow the next-gen Xbox's graphics processing power to be nearly six times as powerful as the Xbox 360, and just "20-percent greater performance than Nintendo's forthcoming console, the Wii U."

Battlefield 3's Community Manager, Daniel Matros has said that there is "new stuff" coming for Battlefield 3. What would he mean by "new stuff", well, he has said that new content was being created, but the actual announcement won't be for a few weeks yet.

Matros tweeted:

Been obsessively playing Skyrim since launch like most people? Want to keep on that bleeding-edge, well, Bethesda have been kind enough to release the latest 1.4 beta patch for Skyrim and have made it available through Steam.

Bethesda have warned people of the update, with "apply the update at your own risk." In order to apply the update, you'll need to check your Steam settings then opt-in to the Skyrim beta listed there. Bethesda recommend backing up your save games just in case you lose them, and the resulting after effects of which would be complete rage black-out.

Details on how to apply the update are here. And below I've listed a full list of fixes and goodies, there's a lot:

Excitement, building... first off, I've just sprinkled down some salt on this news, remember, rumor, rumor, rumor. Nothing is fact in this world until we see, hear, feel or experience it for ourselves, until then it's pure faith. In the technology industry, there are so many insiders, "upstream sources" (still need to get me a few of those), and "leaks".

Today, we have some news from SemiAccurate, that talks of the next-generation Xbox chip, "Oban" that has reportedly just taped out. Charlie goes into some serious detail, and for as much flak he gets, he is right a fair bit of the time, and I enjoy his style, so on with the news. It has been reported that the new Xbox Next/720 "Oban" chip is in initial production with sources at a foundary confirming that the Oban wafters starting running in the final days of last year.

Sources at Redmond, when questioned, responded with "Who the f*&$ told you that? I am going to f#*&ing rip someone's head off". You don't say that if it's rumors, that aren't true, so SemiAccurate could be onto something here. More sources as Microsoft said that the initial order for Oban chips was for 10K wafers. Oban is supposedly being built by IBM primarily, which means an x86-based chip is out of the question.

It seems as though Eidos Montreal's kinda-secret-but-kinda-not Thief 4 will sport online capabilities, and be built upon the foundation that is the Unreal Engine 3 graphics engine. This is according to the resume's of some of the developers, which were uncovered on LinkedIn, and were posted on NeoGAF.

One resume belonged to Colas Fievet, an online programmer for Thief 4. His duties between August 2009 and December 2010 included "networking, gameplay, debugging", plus "online and offline tools on Thief 4". The previous Thief games never included online play, so Thief 4 with online play would be a first of its kind for the series.

Other CVs referenced Thief 4 running on Unreal Engine 3, which is a surprise considering Eidos Montreal used the Tomb Raider engine for their popular Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Other information included mentions of "shops, escape gates, public zones", and that the game will include a "hub".

EA really want Origin to work, Battlefield 3 was good enough to swing millions of players into the arms of EA's latest digital distribution service, and now their latest RPG, Mass Effect 3 joins the ranks. BioWare have confirmed Mass Effect 3 will not be made available on Steam, and that on the PC, it will require an Origin install for all versions.

BioWare's community manager, Chris Priestly, said on the company's official forums:

Another game, another PC kick in the nads. Syndicate, from Starbreeze Studios and EA, arrives next month and to tie you over, they've released a four-player co-op demo. The Syndicate preview allows you and up to three of your friends to play one of the game's nine co-op missions (called "Western Europe") in its entirety with an objective to infiltrate a rival syndicate, Cayman Global.

The mission requires you to take out a Colonel, take some technology blueprints and force his people back across the Atlantic. The demo is available for a limited time starting this month and will be made available on the Xbox Live Marketplace (for gold members only) and the PlayStation Network. No word on whether there'll be a PC version.

My take is, this will be a flop on PC. If it were ported well, we'd have a demo, but, as usual, we don't. In other news, Good Old Games has announced it will start selling the original Syndicate from 1993, starting this Thursday. Pricing will be set at $6. GOG are giving away copies of the game as part of a contest that calls for participants to create their own team name and method of operation:

It seems as though Remedy are working on a new AAA title, with a job advertisement on their official website listing:

It would seem as though, from that advertisement, that this new project isn't just Alan Wake DLC, but an entirely new project. One of the best bits of that is they're after an "AI Programmer", which could be interesting to see how it fleshes out over time. The ad goes onto say that Remedy is looking for "[e]xperience on AI algorithms related to, for example, path finding, obstacle avoidance, decision making, group cooperation or planning". It seems as though this new AAA console game might be shared with another co-operative AI player.

Futuremark Game Studio have just confirmed the release date and pricing for the PC and iPad versions of their upcoming orbital tower defense game, Unstoppable Gorg. In case you've forgotten what Futuremark's Unstoppable Gorg is all about, check out the gameplay trailer below.

Futuermark also announced that there is a previously unannounced version coming out, appearing on Apple Mac-based systems. On top of the newly announced Mac version, Unstoppable Gorg will be released on PC, XBLA, and the iPad. Futuremark Game Studio also announced today that Unstoppable Gorg will be released as a Steam Play title, which will let users buy it just once and play it on both the Mac and PC.

RELEASE DATES, PLATFORMS AND PRICES

Diablo 3 hitting the consoles has been a rumor for quite a while now, and unfortunately, that rumor is now fact. Blizzard admitted last year that they were experimenting with a console version of Diablo 3, but according to a tweet from a Blizzard community manager, Diablo 3 on consoles is all but confirmed.

A fan on Twitter asked "can you confirm or deny Diablo 3 coming to consoles?" with community manager "Bashiok" responding with "Yup. Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo 3 console project". No more details or specifics were unveiled.

Now that news, I don't mind. As long as the game isn't like all other multi-platform releases where the PC controls suffer because of the slow movement of console controllers, and the slow response time of TVs, etc. But when Blizzard first revealed they were looking at bringing RPGs to consoles, director Jay Wilson actually said the game felt better in some ways with a controller, as opposed to a mouse and keyboard.

I've just moved house, and as most of you would know its hectic. The thing I hate the most? I haven't had any time to play Battlefield 3. Radeon HD 7970s are out, and it feels like they're here with a sole purpose to tease me. Like a lingerie model dancing in front of you and your hands have been cut off, you know what I mean?

Well, DICE's Alan Kertz has now come out and given some more information on a forthcoming Battlefield 3 update, and has had the following to say when asked the questions below, I've put his answers in bold.

- When asked if sniper rifles would be getting a fix in terms of their red dont/holo inaccuracy when trying to aim down sights: "Indeed"

CES 2012: Mad Catz have just introduced a very interesting looking console controller. Enter the Mad Catz officially-licensed Major League Gaming (MLG) Pro Circuit controller for the Xbox 360. How is this different to any other controllers, you ask? Well, Mad Catz teamed up with Major League Gaming for one, and second, they engineered a high-end Xbox 360 gaming controller that must be not just seen, but used in order to appreciate.

It sports slip-deterring rubberized grips, a robust braided cable, and just looks beautiful. One thing that Mad Catz have changed up is that the directional pad and thumb sticks are, wait for it, modular. You can rip these puppies out and swap them around! If you like your Xbox 360-style controller, keep it as is. If you like the PlayStation 3-style (where the thumb sticks are side-by-side), then pull them out and change it. Feel like a cool kid? Well, keep it custom and do it your own way.

Not only are the ProModule components swappable, but Mad Catz sell ProModule kits (sold seperately) which provide all sorts of different colors, tensions, lengths and textures. As well as that, removable top and side faceplates are available in both matte and glossy finishes, right out of the box. Additionally, the MLG Pro Circuit Controller even comes with a ProCase, so you can throw you controller, accessories, cover and cable all into the bag and run out the door to your pro-gaming competition, or just a friends house.

CES 2012: We RumorTT'd about this a few days ago, but speaking at a "roundtable with reporters" at CES, Sony's Kaz Hirai answered a question about the possibility of the PlayStation 4 being shown off at E3 later this year. Hirai said:

Now, I'd like to go on record and call BS on this statement of a "10-year cycle", and at least bet we'll see a PS4 before the PS3 has been out for 10 years. Also, wouldn't it be perfect to pretend to let your guard down "hey guys, we're not teasing the PS4 at E3", while Sony are sitting there waiting for Microsoft to either unveil a new console, or hold off expecting Sony to not have anything.

As a huge, huge fan of original two Max Payne games, I can't help but think this is pure marketing speech here, but I have my fingers crossed anyway. VG247 had a quick quote from Remedy Entertainment's Oskari Hakkinen praising Rockstar's work on the new entry into the Max Payne series, Max Payne 3.

Rockstar threw a copy of Max Payne 3 over the Remedy, who made the original two games, to see if it lived up to the franchise, where Remedy said:

CES 2012 - So as Jen-Hsun Huang gets into the gaming segment of their CES press conference, a FPS is loaded, and the camera for the big screen moves over to a couple of guys off to the side of the stage are connected via LAN, but it seems there are three actual players!

As the discussion continues, Jen-Hsun Huang starts talking smack to the two individuals, and asks them why are you getting hit so much, who is doing all that damage, who is doing all the PWN'ing on this match? While this is going on, the large screen was showing the odd man out's view of his screen, and the player in question was handing out punishment with little damage to his own character.

A few seconds later Jen-Hsun Huang spills the beans and informs the audience that he has enlisted the help of the World's top FPS gamer, Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel! As you can see he was sitting in the audience with a lady holding his tablet as he delivered the pain to the other two LAN combatants.

Team VSB, a bunch of peeps who have built a feature-length Space Quest game called "Vohaul Strikes Back" is now available, and best of all: for free. Vohaul Strikes Back is a labor of love, with nearly 10 years of work going into the game.

It's also the first original Space Quest game of this scale since the official Space Quest 6 which was released all the way back in 1995. Vohaul Strikes Back doesn't include a voice pack, but Team VSB are working on one. If you'd like to help the team out with the voice pack, you can reach them through their forums.

You can check out their website here, and download the game (again, for free!) from here. I'm quite enjoying the amount of love these old-school adventure games are getting, now if we can just get updated Full HD versions of my favorite FMV games such as Night Trap, Under a Killing Moon and others, I'd be in nostalgic heaven.

NVIDIA will of course, be attending CES 2012 and they will have two booths to accommodate all the goodies they'll be showing off. On the list are Tegra, GeForce, 3DVision and automotice "goodness". The main booth located in the Las Vegas Convention Center's (LVCC's) South Hall will feature all of the gadget demos.

The second, ourdoors in the LVCC Central Plaza, will sport the automotive tech, including a "recently unveiled supercar that NVIDIA has never before shown to the public". NVIDIA haven't stopped there, they'll also be giving away a bunch of ASUS' recently launched NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablets through their Facebook page.

NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang will also kick off NVIDIA's annual press conference, and if you want to catch a live webcast of the press conference, you'll need this link. Seven days after the webcast, a replay will be available.

DICE are constantly tweaking Battlefield 3 and the latest news comes from Alan Kertz, Gameplay Designer at DICE, who has stated through a post on Reddit that there will be several changes to weapon attachments in Battlefield 3.

He listed various stat changes for the bipod, foregrip, suppressor, heavy barrel, and flash suppressor. Now we just need some more maps like the ones included in Back to Karkand, which feel like proper PC-made maps, well, because they are. The game is slowly getting perfected, which shows some strong commitment to longevity of the game from DICE. The full change list is below (and in the full story):

Nintendo's next-generation console, the Wii U, is only a few months away from our grubby little paws. With this thought, The Daily has learned that Nintendo plans to implement a "full-blown app store" for the system.

At the moment, Nintendo mainly use repositories that act as "light" app stores: The DSi Shop for its portables, and the Wii Shop for the current Wii console. Most of the apps found on the 'stores' are just quite basic, and don't serve customers what they want like the Android Market and App Store on the smartphone/tablet devices.

The Wii U's as-yet-unnamed store will definitely offer more, proferring a wider variety of apps, according to a person familiar with the matter. Wii U owners will be able to use apps that operate on the Wii U itself, such as MLB.TV, and others that run independently on the Wii U's controller. Considering that the Wii U's controller is a beast in itself, sporting a 6.2-inch touch screen, one can imagine the possibilities it can bring to the table.