Gaming News - Page 1710

November 7 is a special time of the year for Mass Effect fans across the globe as it signifies the heroic Commander Shepard's N7 callsign. To commemorate this day BioWare usually shows off something new or delivers teasers and does something special, and this year is no different.

In a recent update, the devs at BioWare have teased that gamers can expect "surprises" on N7 day, but at the same time they carefully said there won't be "any major announcements" for Mass Effect: Andromeda. Still though we'll likely see some Andromeda content whether it's a tiny glimpse of footage or maybe a few screenshot hints.

"While we won't have any major announcements for Mass Effect: Andromeda this N7 Day, keep an eye out on Saturday for some surprises that we're sure you'll enjoy."

The holidays are just around the corner, and that means huge Black Friday savings. If you're in the market to pick up Sony's PlayStation 4 console you'll be able to grab a console and a free game for just $299.

Some retailers like Sam's Club are actually starting holiday sales as early as next week, offering up great savings across the board. Sam's has a great deal on a PS4 bundle with a free game for just $299, shaving off a clean $50 off the console's recent permanent price drop.

The deal was spotted on the Cheap Ass Gamer forums by an actual Sam's Club employee. The poster also notes that the free game is likely the one included with the PS4 bundles, meaning you probably won't be able to pick a free game off the shelf. Sony offers a number of console bundles including Batman Arkham Knight, The Last of Us: Remastered, Destiny: The Taken King, and the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection bundle.

It looks like Activision is ramping up its titanic control over the games industry by setting its sights on the mobile market. Reports indicate that the console gaming juggernaut has bought out the infamous Candy Crush developers King for no less than $5.9 billion.

This merger further solidifies Activision's stance as a leading games publisher, now flexing their long arm over the realm of mobile games. The union could mean some different things for the gaming sector, as we might see a more unified approach to cross-platform integration--think in-app purchases via freemium smartphone mini-games and the like.

"The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in a press release. "With a combined global network of more than half a billion monthly active users, our potential to reach audiences around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before."

Last night I watched Angry Joe's great review on Halo 5: Guardians, where he talked about some of the large issues on the Xbox One exclusive. Angry Joe said that there is no split screen gameplay, which is something that is a huge miss compared to the previous titles in the franchise. Before you watch the video, there's a NSFW warning for language.

Angry Joe called over 'Other Joe' where they were "immediately met with the first sign that this isn't the Halo I would fall back in love with" when he found out there was no split screen goodness on the Xbox One. Joe had to buy an entire second Xbox One and a second copy of Halo 5 just so he could play with Other Joe.

The reason for the removal of split screen in Halo 5? According to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, "the teams make decisions based on the bar that they want to hit for complexity of what they're going to run on a single box". Spencer added: "we see the robustness of what Xbox Live is today and where people are playing across Xbox Live--you at your house, me at our house. We know that's the vast majority of the co-op play. With Halo 5, the team really wanted to focus on making that experience great, both visually on the screen that you're looking at, and all the systems in place".

With the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, we're finding out more details on the PC version of the game. Treyarch has teased that the PC version of Black Ops 3 will include full modding tools, where you can even create your own maps, and run servers for your modded content.

While Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 launches in a few days, on November 6, the modding side of the game will not reach alpha stage until March 2016. But, the developer has released a bunch of information onto its blog, where they said:

Over the years, the Call of Duty® community has proven itself to be among the most passionate in the world - and we count ourselves fortunate to make games for you.

Since it was released on PC, Rocksteady's ambitious conclusion to their Batman saga has been pretty much unplayable and broken in fundamental ways. Now it looks like the devs and publishers at Warner Bros. have finally given up and are fully admitting they won't be able to completely fix the game, offering full refunds as a result.

"We are very sorry that many of our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight," Warner Bros. official community admin said in a recent update on Steam. "We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues."

"Until the end of 2015, we will be offering a full refund on Batman: Arkham Knight PC, regardless of how long you have played the product. You can also return the Season Pass along with the main game (but not separately). For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix."

Crystal Dynamics is at it again with their latest Lara Croft journey, spinning gritty adventuring magic right before our eyes. Rise of the Tomb Raider looks like it can go toe-to-toe with Naughty Dog's Uncharted series as it portrays the true soul of classic adventurers mixed with harrowing survival.

The new official launch trailer is just as satisfying as the E3 reveal footage, if not moreso. It's a little over three minutes and sets the tone of the story, which revolves around Lara looking for some ancient treasure of immortality that was originally discovered by her father.

Needless to say that she's not the only one looking for this enchanted elixir: a nefarious group called Trinity is hot on her heels to stir up trouble. The game is pretty much everything that Indiana Jones fans would ever want to have, featuring all the classic staples like pouring through ageless texts and matching symbols, solving enigmatic puzzles, exploring deadly ruins and overcoming traps, and generally surviving the brutal wilderness with nothing but sheer strength and determination.

As a longtime Halo fan, I've always wanted to see the series progress beyond the space-marine shooty-shoot mold that's kept it the same for so long. It's always been about pushing new FPS mechanics to the bar, and at its core Halo is a shooter, but the franchise is so much more...and 343 Industries' Frank O' Connor knows it.

Halo has a thriving, expansive universe of lore, characters and themes that haven't been explored in game form. Sure the Halo games all tell stories and tap this rich vein of possibility, but nothing really comes close to the Halo Legends collection or the books that go beyond the humanity's struggle. Halo is more than Spartans, more than Master Chief...why not explore the Forerunners more, or change up the points of view with different character perspectives?

In a recent interview with TIME, ex-Bungie dev and 343 Industries exec Frank O'Connor talked about what it'd be like to explore the stories that lay beyond Halo's traditional FPS style. "You asked me what I'd be excited about in the future, and certainly in terms of interactivity, I think games or methods of gameplay that aren't simply shooting interest me," O'Connor said, hinting that a new game could bridge gaps in the franchise. "I'd love to go do a xenoarcheological expedition to the original Halo ring. You know, take some scientists down, drive around, catch samples, do some detective work, maybe there's a mystery. And it wouldn't require shooting. It's the universe and environment that can still be exciting, even without action. So that's one of the things I'd love to see us invest more in."

As a long-time Halo fan, I'm quite disappointed in Halo 5, and honestly I could probably fill a book with reasons why I feel the game is pretty bad. One of those main reasons is how awkward the aiming system is, but it's not just me--gamers have proven that Halo 5's targeting is legitimately unbalanced.

A Redditor by the name of Z0oinks has proven that Halo 5's targeting is bugged with a simple video that shows the issue in action.

What's happening is that Halo 5's aiming system is faster for linear X and Y axis aiming than it is for diagonal 45-degree aiming, creating a very clear disadvantage across the board. The awkward aiming becomes obvious when the user moves in a full circle: instead of being smooth like other Halo games, moving the reticle in a circular motion is broken and jagged, meaning users will have to compensate quite a bit.

Although Batman: Arkham Knight has finally made its way back onto Steam, it looks like Warner Bros. hasn't made any actual progress in the last fourth months of tweaking--the game is still very much a mess on PC platforms, so much so that gamers will need a minimum of 12GB of system RAM in order to counteract Arkham Knight's huge performance issues.

As soon as Arkham Knight was re-released on Steam, gamers started to realize that little to no actual improvements had been made. The latest Batman game still doesn't support multi-GPU Crossfire or SLI setups, meaning enhanced graphics performance is off the table. The game still doesn't play very well on Windows 7, leading to hard-drive paging issues during extended periods of play. But the biggest let down is that you won't even be able to play the game if you don't have at least 12GB of RAM.

"For Windows 10 users, we've found that having at least 12GB of system RAM on a PC allows the game to operate without paging and provides a smoother gameplay experience," reads an update from Warner Bros.