Gaming News - Page 1593

A new second-generation Xbox One model has been in mass production since February 2016, according to recently unearthed documents.

Microsoft is planning its own mid-cycle second-generation Xbox One refresh to counter Sony's new 4K-ready PlayStation Neo, leaked documents suggest. The Japanese documents were spotted on NeoGAF, and have since been translated to read:

New Project

Galactic Civilization III has just been updated to version 1.7, and this one is quite sizable in nature. The focus of which is to help make managing your no doubt plethora of Starbases much easier than it was then ever before.

Starbases, for all the obvious benefits, had some limitations. Namely, that you had to manage each one explicitly. But now you can very easily upgrade your floating space stations from your shipyards, too, which will deliver those upgrades as quickly as possible from the closest shipyard as well. Stardock has also added a more detailed look into the various systems of those bases, making it far more convenient to run your empire.

Among the other changes in v1.7 are a few improvements to the diplomacy system that was itself recently overhauled. Trade prices are now actually dependent on your diplomacy with the various species around you. They've closed a few loopholes, such as the stacking of treaties, that were exploited often. Now it's a bit more random and a bit more fun as well. There's plenty more than just that with the full change log that can be read right here.

Microsoft reveals a special edition Xbox One designed by Stark Industries.

I've long thought that most custom special edition consoles are pretty lackluster, but Microsoft has just unveiled an interesting Xbox One designed by none other than Tony Stark. Microsoft and Marvel teamed up to promote Captain America: Civil War, with the partnership culminating in this special Stark Industries-themed Xbox One. The console looks pretty interesting, especially with its mock arc reactor, but I'm worried about ventilation as the system's top is pretty much covered up.

This Xbox One is part of a giveaway, so don't expect to see them in stores. You can enter the win the console by retweeting this Tweet from Xbox France, or liking the Xbox France Facebook page. We'll also likely see a Captain America-themed console as well.

Nintendo had originally announced that they were going to release the NX console alongside the Wii U and that they didn't necessarily have any intention of replacing their older console.

That original statement might have been a slight bit premature, even if it might seem somewhat natural to discontinue the last-generation if the new one has both backwards compatibility and is about the same price as the outgoing console. The Wii U will live on for some time, though the president of Nintendo, Tatsumi Kimishima, said that they could cease manufacturing the Wii U by March 2018.

The old system still has some life left in it despite it being of the "older" variety. The third-party game selection might not be the best, but the first party games could still be enough to draw in new customers until then, likely at a reduced price point after the NX officially releases. They have even forecasted that they'll be shipping 800K Wii U's this year, even though they shipped 3.26 million last year. It's possible that number might actually be higher in reality, even.

Console games typically don't give you terribly many options when it comes to customizing your graphical experience. In fact, you really don't get any at all. A new PlayStation 4 exclusive action game coming out soon actually completely changes that with an option to select Action or Movie modes in the settings.

The setting was noticed just today by ZhugeEX, who went through the demo available on the PSN and noted that the setting increases the fidelity when set to Movie mode and decreases the graphical goodies in favor of a higher and more smooth framerate in the Action mode. Action mode looks slightly worse, yet seems to run quite a bit faster. A tradeoff, sure, but one that might be appreciated depending on what you re looking for.

It's precisely that choice that consoles have previously lacked completely. Console games probably shouldn't quite have the full gamut of settings available that their PC counterparts do, but being able to choose between two pre-defined modes that set resolution, among other things, to certain presets could help to increase the life of the PS4, even if it lives on beside the PS4.5 (Neo). The demo for Nioh is available on the PSN right now, though only until May 5th. The demo is an alpha build, so it isn't necessarily representative of what we might actually see when it's finished and this option might even be fleeting.

After Nintendo stated it would release five titles for mobile by the end of the year, today we have confirmation both the beloved Fire Emblem tactical RPG series and the popular Animal Crossing simulation series are coming to the platform this autumn.

Fire Emblem will be adapted to be more accessible than the more in-depth series titles to date, while Animal Crossing will feature connectivity with the series games on other platforms. Both games will have "more prominent game elements" than the recently released Miitomo app.

Nintendo says "the game content [for both titles] will tie closely into [our] dedicated games business", which is awfully vague, but we'll speculate it could mean cross-platform microtransactions, points, achievements, save data, and so on, and possibly discounts on console and handheld titles, among other possibilities.

If you're not like most people and don't or don't like to run 1920x1080 resolution in fullscreen mode, you've probably run into some trouble with Dark Souls 3 on PC. Fortunately, modder Kaldaien has created 'Souls Unsqueezed', a mod that cures this trouble.

Unsqueezed is in the very early stages -- it's currently numbered version 0.1.0 -- but already offers some very welcome features and fixes in Borderless Window Mode, better performance in windowed mode, and much improved HUD scaling for those with high-DPI and/or multi-monitor setups.

In the future, it will unlock the resolution of many effects which are currently stuck at 720p.

We took the time to talk with the creators of an upcoming resurgence into the tactical turn-based RPG realm. This is a genre that hasn't exactly seen the most attention as of late, which seems to be due to not fully understanding realizing the potency of it. Regardless of why there haven't been many games in this realm, this one wants to blend the classic with the modern and bring back the wondrous joy that you may or may not have been privy to when the genre was created so many years ago.

Taylor Bair, the co-founder of Twin Otter Studio with his sister, Rebecca, was able to answer a few questions about their upcoming project, Arcadian Atlas, which is now on Kickstarter to help fund the development of their game. Tactical RPG's of this nature, with a high-fantasy setting, aren't nearly as common as you'd think, so these two are very excited to bring this back to the world in the unique way that they plan bring it back.

We grew up with classic games from the SNES like Suikoden, Chrono Trigger, and Breath of Fire, so we wanted to create something that evoked those, but had a charm all its own as well.

Glenn Fiedler, a seasoned online FPS dev who has worked with Respawn, Sony and Pandemic, took a closer look at the nature of The Division's hacks and exploits to see if they could be fixed. According to Fiedler, Ubisoft will likely have to completely rewrite its netcode to fix the game.

"Most of the smaller glitches can be fixed. But then I saw this video. This is super bad news," Fiedler wrote. "Because here we have a client-side cheat program that is poking memory locations and giving players infinite health, infinite ammo, and teleporting players around the level. This indicates that The Division is most likely using a trusted client network model."

"I sincerely hope this is not the case, because if it is true, my opinion of can this be fixed is basically no. Not on PC. Not without a complete rewrite. Possibly on consoles provided they fix all lag switch timing exploits and disable players moving and shooting while lag switch usage is detected (trusted client on console exclusive games is actually more common than you would think...), but not on PC unless they completely rewrite most of their netcode and game code around a server-authoritative network model."

Armored Warfare recently held a competition where you had the chance to sign-up with one of three different mercenary factions represented in the game to attempt to conquer the others on a bloody modern battlefield. The ultimate prize was a weeks worth of premium play time for the entire team. That competition has come to a close with the Remnant as the clear victor.

Everyone is a winner in this case with the other two factions also earning three days of premium time, though the free-to-play game doesn't require that to be enjoyed at all. The surprising statistic from the competition is that it wasn't always strictly decided by PvP battles, as one might expect. Winning PvE missions also counted as wins, it seems, and the overwhelming victories came from the PvE side of things. Also, of the 27,428 members of the Remnant, they dished out a combined 6.7 million points in damage from ramming alone.

The game is quickly coming into prominence and catching the eye of those that are even playing World of Tanks due to the more modern vehicles, better mechanics and better matchmaking system available. Built on the CryEngine, it runs smooth, looks great and thus far is actually quite the surprise. Having never heard of it, I took a few moments to explore and it was both accessible and enjoyable beyond what I'd first initially thought. More on that coming soon. Check out their infographic after the break.