Gaming - Page 1911

Both Microsoft and Sony were reportedly running some game demos at Gamescom 2014 using powerful custom-built PCs to display console games. Live game demonstrations of "Ori" and "Blind Forest" crashed to the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, and the PCs appear to be powered by NVIDIA instead of AMD GPUs, according to reports.

It's not uncommon for game studios, even when promoting console games, to use PCs to help enhance the demonstration experience for attendees. However, even if the game is available on all next-generation consoles and the PC, gamers will often call out the studio if graphics and gameplay don't replicate what was originally shown to them.

During public demoes, companies are tasked with providing lightning-fast gameplay mixed with pretty graphics to entice gamers and media. It seems both companies have been caught doing this over the past few years, eager to demonstrate their latest and greatest console games - but using PCs instead of their own products to get the job done.

Ubisoft is in a tough spot with PC gamers right now, but is the company finally starting to see the light? Probably not, but it is promising that it is trying to focus more on the PC, in the form of simplified DRM activation, and a better commitment to multi-platform releases.

During an interview with MVC, Ubisoft's European boss Alain Corre said: "We listen to feedback from players and continue to adapt accordingly. For instance, we switched to a simple, one-time activation for our PC games; a standard practice in the industry. We're also doing our best to bring our games to PC at the same time as the console versions".

We should begin to see the fruits of Ubisoft's labor in its upcoming titles, two of the biggest releases of the year: Assassin's Creed Unity, and Far Cry 4. Corre has said that the company is seeing an increase in revenue from the PC side of things, with its PC market growing from 11% in 2013 to 15% this year. Corre continued: "We recognise the importance and needs of PC gamers, and want to continue to improve how we create and support games for PC. We are committed to improving the optimisation of our games for each platform on which they're released, including PC".

During an interview with Joystiq at Gamescom, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said that the three-year cycle that the Call of Duty franchise finds itself in, is something its audience is used to. But even though we see a game released every year, we have three studios working on the franchise at all times.

Hirshberg explained: "That extra year of development time, particularly with the new consoles and the more powerful hardware, has really paid off thus far to iterate, innovate and try new things. To find out which things didn't work and have the freedom to fail in the creative process, so what goes on the disc is the best ideas".

It's interesting to see that the company knows it has the ability to fail, with Hirshberg continuing: "The thing that the three-year development cycle allows is these games have gotten so ambitious, we're packing so many different modes of play onto the disc. The things that started off as flyers, like zombies or co-op became their own whole games". Hirshberg says that even though the franchise is annualized, the structure it has for Call of Duty sees that the quality of the series is sustainable. He finished off by saying "Activision has a narrative that doesn't match the reality, which is quite potent".

In just a couple of months time, 4A Games will launch its Metro Redux, which sees remastered versions of two of the most popular first-person shooters of the last few years: Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light.

NVIDIA is backing this new remastered copy, so on top of the enhanced graphics, countless changes within the game, we can expect GPU-accelerated PhysX effects thanks to NVIDIA's technology. 4A Games have painstakingly changed so much of the two games, with improved geometry, encounters, lighting, and even how levels themselves end and transition.

The biggest change is going to come from Metro 2033, which will receive a graphics engine overhaul, with PnP tessellation, and some gameplay refinements that were found in Metro: Last Light. The PC side of things will see "higher-resolution textures, higher-quality effects, greater levels of PnP tessellation, support for 4K resolutions, and most significantly, re-tooled NVIDIA GPU-accelerated PhysX effects built using PhysX 3.x, the latest version of the critically acclaimed physics software".

Gamescom has been filled with some big announcements, with the creator of Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima announcing that Metal Gear Solid V will be coming to the PC. Well, he also unveiled the new Silent Hills game, too.

Silent Hills is an interactive horror game that Kojima, Sony and Konami have been working with Guillermo Del Toro, who directed movies like Hellboy and the recent Pacific Rim. Joining them is Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl on AMC's The Walking Dead. Kojima has promised that the new Silent Hills will be so scary that it will make gamers "s**t their pants". Kojima wants to create a game so scary that you'll want to turn your machine off to stop it from scaring you.

At Gamescom, Kojima said: "That's why there's a limit on how scary you can make a game, but in this case we're ignoring that. If you don't want to keep playing through the game, so be it we don't care. That's the game we're aiming for. We're aiming for a game that will make you shit your pants". We don't know what platforms Silent Hills will be hitting, but we can almost guarantee that the PlayStation 4 will be one of them.

If you have been holding gout on buying a new Xbox One game console, you might want to consider getting one of these new bundles that Microsoft has unveiled. A white version of the Xbox One will available for the average consumer to buy. That white version was previously only for Microsoft employees.

The white console is available today with the Kinect and on October 28, you can buy it with no Kinect for $399. The second bundle is the more interesting one and it is a Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare edition of the console.

It has a specially designed console with black, gray, and yellow graphics. It will also be the first Xbox One to feature 1 TB of storage, which is twice the storage currently available. The game console will land on November 3 without Kinect with a copy of the game for $499.

Microsoft seems to be having a big time at Gamescom, with some big titles being talked about for the Xbox One, including Quantum Break from Remedy Entertainment, the studio which made Alan Wake and Max Payne, and Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is an Xbox One exclusive.

The company has announced that they are adding many more options to the Xbox One in a future update, which will turn the Xbox One into a much more feature laden media player. Microsoft will be adding the ability to play media files from a USB drive from the Xbox One, as well as teasing that it will be providing support for the very popular MKV format, as well as DLNA network support. Major Nelson has promised that the Xbox One will receive support for new file types, including MPEG2 TS, animated GIF and of course, MKV. There should be a preview version of the app that will include USB support, but DLNA and MKV abilities will be baked into a later update.

Microsoft will also be making the Xbox One a better device for controlling your TV, with a new update to soon let you boot directly to your TV from standby mode, something that will make things easier for non-gamers who want to watch TV and not play games at that particular time. SmartGlass TV streaming is also coming, something that will allow you to be in another room and watch your shows over your home network with your SmartGlass-powered tablet or smartphone, on either Windows Phone, iOS or Android.

When the first rumbles started about the next Tomb Raider game, we heard it would reach both the previous generation and current generation consoles, as well as the PC. Well, at Gamescom which is cranking along in Cologne, Germany, Microsoft has announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be an exclusive to the Xbox One.

Rise of the Tomb Raider will reach the Xbox One in Holiday 2015 to Microsoft's console, but that exclusivity might not last too long - hopefully. Crystal Dynamic, the studio behind the game, has come out explaining why the game is an exclusive to the Xbox One:

Dear Tomb Raider Community,

For the first time since E3 2013, Remedy Entertainment has shown off gameplay footage of its upcoming Xbox One exclusive, Quantum Break. If you haven't heard about Quantum Break, it's Remedy's time manipulation game, a game that comes off of its success with Alan Wake.

Sam Lake, Remedy Entertaiment's Creative Director, and the constipated face of Max Payne, walked up on the stage of Microsoft's Gamescom press conference to show off Quantum Break. Quantum Break sees Jack Joyce as the main character, who has some unique abilities. Joyce can control time for a limited period, where he can freeze enemies in ice-like time crystals, and then dive from cover to cover.

Quantum Break's world is in peril, as the end of time is happening, with the stutters in the game representing the world itself. These stutters are the outcome of time itself breaking, with bodies, debris, and fire frozen in its tracks. One of these stutters sees Joyce climbing onto a highway, where he sees a frozen semi truck, with its front hanging off of the egde of the highway. Joyce can walk through these stutters, as if they are Matrix-like museums, with people, objects and everything in between frozen in time.

Some of you might remember a time when first-person shooters were the pinnacle of PC gaming, and John Romero was at the center of that for quite some time. He co-created Doom at id Software, and then went off to make, what he thought was going to be a big hit, Daikatana all the way back in 2000. Well, Romero is back, and he's teasing that he is working on another shooter.

During Monday night's recording of the Super Joystiq Podcast Gamescom Special, alongside special guests Mike Bithell and Brenda Romero, he said: "I'm working on several games at once right now. But [Brenda] had mentioned earlier that I'm working with a concept artist, and so I've got some cool imagery for the main character".

Brenda Romero chimed in, saying: "I'm concerned about how much you're going to say". John Romero replied with: "I haven't made a shooter since 2000. So I'm basically starting to work on another one". After he said that, the crowd of people supposedly went crazy with excitement.