Gaming News - Page 1608

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is coming soon, and the Faith driven shooter, powered by DICE's latest Frostbite, is going to be a graphical powerhouse on the PC. At least potentially. The PC requirements are now out and it looks like the recommended requirements, for a 1080P 60FPS experience, aren't terribly steep.

For the minimum level of enjoyment, DICE and EA seem to recommend a modest Ivy Bridge-based i3 or a six core/three module AMD FX processor paired with either an NVIDIA GTX 650 or an AMD Radeon R9 270X. Those cards are not the most expensive on the market, and with the right combination of settings, Catalyst should run just fine. The Frostbite engine is a very versatile one, capable of scaling up and down while still looking quite good. It's also very well optimized in the majority of games it's been employed in, with good multi-GPU support.

The beta for Mirror's Edge Catalyst begins on the 22nd of April and goes through the 26th. They had such a large response to the prospect of playing the beta that they actually stopped accepting any new applications after a mere 45-minutes after they opened up registration. The game will make use of the classic mechanics from the first, letting you run around the city of Glass completing missions in an open-world setting while free-running to get to where you're going. This time, it should be an even more open and fluid experience. The full PC specification recommendations are after the break.

Mark your calendar folks, because on April 22nd Max Payne will be coming to the PlayStation 4, and will probably be just as vengeful as ever. The European PlayStation Blog revealed the date of the next classic game that'll make it the PS4 with their version of backward compatibility.

This will be the 22nd such game to be brought back to life, specifically from the era of the PlayStation 2, which has a great deal of classic, hit games. Sony has recognized the value in bringing back older titles to the platform quite some time ago when they started offering PSOne and PS2 classics via the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 and Vita. They soon became popular items in the store, prompting them to continue, and evolve development to the newest platform.

Max Payne was originally released all the way back in 2001 for the PS2, the original Xbox and the PC. It was a smashing hit with its introduction of Bullet Time, a mechanism for slowing down time so you could more easily target the plethora of enemies that no doubt ambushed you often. April 22nd is the date that's available, though that might be exclusive to the EU PSN store, we'll update as we know more. The full list of PS2 games playable on the PS4 is just after the break.

John Romero has long been rumored to be working on a new game, but there's been precious little info available to actually go on aside from his confirmations. HOXAR might just be the name of that mysterious new game, if the info is sound.

That website is for a fictional company supposedly set in his new game world. The company develops immersive holodeck like experiences without the use of any sort of headset. Presumably, this is set up as a marketing stunt to help introduce us to the new, thriving world. It lends a bit of realism to the characters and is something that Romero and crew have done with past games, specifically the UAC website for Doom 3.

Unfortunately, this still doesn't give away much aside from what we might see as a start to the story of the game. It's safe to say that this technology will have some impact inside the new FPS, which it's likely to be considering that's the primary genre that he's responsible for creating. Mum has been the word up until now, but since the cat is crawling out of the bag, maybe he'll be kind enough to release a few details soon.

Umbrella Corps is reaching deep into the history of Resident Evil for a new map that Capcom is showing off. The Antarctic facility that you see below is a base that was originally featured in Resident Evil Code: Veronica from 2000. They're bringing it back and infesting it with zombies.

The original was apparently nearly destroyed in Code: Veronica and it remains in its heavily destroyed state in Umbrella Corps. That means that there are three desolate levels that bring a surprising amount of verticality into play. Those three floors are littered with all kinds of detritus that can be used tactically to help defend against yet another outbreak. In fact, I can imagine a sick game of hide and seek being played through the level Perhaps the most tactical map in the game, players can utilize cover points, interwoven ventilation ducts, and ladders to make for a very interesting and dynamic time.

The whole thing is rendered quite nicely and is a good reflection of the older map, even though it's been literally ages since we've last played through it. You can check out some more screenshots of it after the break.

Did you know that World of Warcraft is still a thing and that Blizzard are working on a new expansion pack for the game? Yeah, they are.

Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft: Legion for August 30, which will see the level cap raised to 110. Legion will also introduce a new continent, a new class (Demon Hunter), powerful new Artifact Weapons, and a brand new PvP Honor system. The key features include:

Sony's new PlayStation 4 console, also known as PS4K or PS4.5, is codenamed NEO, and will feature beefier internal components with upgraded CPU, GPU, and RAM. The new PS4 will support 4K image output and upscale 1080p games to 4K UHD.

According to Giant Bomb's Austin Walker, Sony's new PlayStation 4 won't be a dramatic upgrade over the current version, and certainly not the crazy native 4K UHD console we had hoped for. The new system, codenamed NEO, is built around the existing structure with 8 Jaguar CPU Cores at 2.1 GHz, and improved AMD GCN GPU with 36 Control Units clocked at 911MHz.

The NEO's GPU specs seem to match the specs of AMD's next-generation Polaris10 Ellesmere chip found in the upcoming Radeon R9 480, so we could see the new PS4 powered by Polaris after all. If so, we'd undoubtedly hit 1080p 60FPS in all games along with native PlayStation VR support.

Sony's PlayStation 4 technically already supports 4K video playback, so what if the new fancy PS4K or PS4.5 is just a default PS4 with a 4K Blu-ray player thrown in?

Back in 2013 before the PS4 released, Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that the console would indeed support 4K video playback and pictures on launch. "The official answer is that the PS4 supports 4K output but for personal contents, like photos or videos. Not games. PS4 games do not work on 4K." This means the PS4 can already technically play 4K Blu-rays, but the console still has limitations.

The current PlayStation 4 model might support 4K video playback, but it doesn't have a 4K Blu-ray player installed. Plus, it only has HDMI 1.4, which limits 3840 × 2160 at just 24 FPS. The PlayStation 4 was released before Sony had established the UHD Blu-ray spec, so that's one of the reasons the console didn't ship with a 4K player installed.

Rebellion has wasted absolutely no time in getting their remastered version of Battlezone 98 released. It's out now on Steam with a 20% discount for all the early adopters. Thus far, with 5 reviews, the new version has outstanding reviews as it manages to retain the charm and appeal of the original FPS/RTS hybrid.

Rebellion announced in February that they were also working on more than just the original Atari Battlezone. They have the rights to the whole franchise and have been systematically upgrading the visuals and making the original PC game playable again.

For this version, they concentrated on leaving the basic mechanics intact and just giving it a much-needed overhaul so that it fits in with other games of the genre currently out. The art style and unique hybrid control mechanics are all there, with much better graphics. It's worth a look if you enjoyed the original and even if you're looking for something new. The unique way that it blended base-building and the action still hasn't quite been emulated even today.

Another great indie game on Steam has just joined the growing catalog of those that are becoming available for Linux. Vector 36, a futuristic physics-based racing game, is now available on Linux and specifically on SteamOS, and they're encouraging everyone to give it a proper try.

Vector 36's developer responded to some of the feedback from their fans nad have finally added in this support. Of course, this is the first iteration on SteamOS and as such will be a bit less stable than desired. Bugs and glitches are inevitable, but they're an active developer and try to fix everything found while also continuing to perfect their game so they can officially launch it. If you have it, give it a whirl and see how it does, it should play just as fast as the Windows counterpart.

SteamOS is seeing a surprising amount of support even if it isn't quite as overt as we're used to. Thus far, Vector 36 joins some 1700 other games that are able to run on Linux that are available on the Steam storefront. Vector 36 is also an example of an indie developer, a very small studio, that's rising to the challenge and taking advantage of all the future technologies that they can. It might be slow going, but the results thus far have been steady and still quite fun. The game right now features leaderboards so you can properly compete and a slew of different ways to modify your own racing stallion. Flying across the wasteland that is Mars, with it's lower gravity, in a jet powered skiff is quite fun. The controls take some getting use to, but overall it's a joy to play.

Die-hard Souls fans will have to wait until autumn rolls around to play the first Dark Souls 3 DLC.

Although Bandai Namco is all too eager to sell Dark Souls 3 Season Passes at $24.99 a pop, gamers will have to wait as long as September before they can play the first Dark Souls 3 DLC. Since the second pack obviously comes after the first, we may not get the full Dark Souls 3 package until holiday 2016.

The publisher confirmed Dark Souls 3's DLC release schedule with Videogamer.com. Namco Bandai has yet to officially announce DLC details, but affirms that the two new packs will come with "new maps, bosses, enemies and additional weapon and armor sets."