Gaming - Page 1957

Just how big is The Witcher 3? Huge. The RPG is so large that it has over 450,000 lines which required 950 speaking roles. Side, a voice production company, was hired to handle all of the voice roles in CD Projekt Red's ambitious RPG, where it took over two and a half years to record the dialogue alone.

Senior writer on The Witcher 3, Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, talked about the game's vocal directors, where he said: "masters of the human psyche and heart, with a keen ear for language in its many regional and social variations". So if you had any doubts in how massive in scale The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is, with two and a half years behind the game in voice recording alone, it makes it one of the biggest games of all time.

Sorry gaming fans, Microsoft Xbox chief Phil Spencer says the company isn't trying to purchase the Silent Hill game franchise from Konami.

Konami is focused on making changes internally, and will make mobile game development a priority moving forward - but that doesn't mean Microsoft can purchase Silent Hills.

"Konami will continue to embrace the challenge of creating entertainment content via different platforms," said Hideki Hayakawa, president of Konami, in a statement published by GameSpot. " Not only mobile platforms, but for home consoles, arcade units, and cards, to meet the changing needs of the times."

Carbine Studios has confirmed it will make its WildStar massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) a free-to-play game title.

When the game launched last June, it required a monthly subscription - Carbine Studios originally facing criticism to charge players - and it looks like things will change this fall. Developers watched how other similar games tried to make a transition from subscription to free-to-play and believe they will have time to work with players during the transition.

"WildStar is now a much better game than it was when it launched nearly a year ago," said Mike Donatelli, product director at Carbine Studios, in a statement to GameSpot. "We're at the point where it's time to really focus on growing the game, and we as a team feel that the best way to do that is to make it so that everyone who wants to play can do so with as few hurdles as possible. This means removing the two biggest barriers of entry to the game - the cost of the box and the required subscription."

Windows 10 isn't far away, and with it are the big benefits promised by DirectX 12. Slightly Mad Studios is promising even more with Project Cars running on DX12, where we should expect a huge 30-40% performance improvement with the next-gen API.

SMS boss Ian Bell has talked about the benefits of DirectX 12, where he said that the DX12 version of Project Cars will be 30-40% better, while the DX12 version of Project Cars on the Xbox One will see a smaller 7% boost. The DX12 patch for Project Cars is expected to drop at the end of the year, a few months after Windows 10 arrives.

Bell said that slower quad-core processors in PCs will see a ~40% boost thanks to DX12, as the API will handle multi-threading much better than DX11 does.

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick believes the full potential of the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One haven't been fully realized yet. Take-Two has plenty of next-generation console games in the pipeline, including NBA 2K16, Borderlands 3, WWE 2K16, Battleborn, and others.

"We have yet to see entirely what the technology can allow," Zelnick said while speaking during the 43rd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. "We've had a couple releases for new-gen, but I don't think we remotely have seen what can be done, and that's super exciting. And that speaks to many of our titles; hopefully all of our titles, ultimately."

Meanwhile, PlayStation President Andrew House also expressed excitement that E3 2015 will feature new PS4 titles that really show what the console is capable of.

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, believes game studios must show their customers a bit of respect so they don't feel like they are being "robbed."

Speaking during the Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, he spoke bluntly about the current state of the evolving gaming market: "You never want the consumer to feel as though you've picked their pocket," Zelnick recently said. "You want a consumer to feel like you gave them a great experience. You want them to be happy that they spent money on the experience."

Zelnick also discussed the controversial free-to-play ecosystem, which typically makes a game available for free - but the games are monetized based on microtransactions:

A prototype of a new Microsoft Xbox One controller hit the Internet a few days ago, and Austrian retailer Libro has unveiled what the device is expected to look like. The new unit will feature a 3.5mm headphone jack, with no other upgrades expected.

There are rumors the controller will be unveiled on June 8, which is before the E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles.

GameSpot received the following email from Microsoft earlier in the week: "We're gearing up for an exciting E3 where we'll showcase more games and experiences. We have nothing further to share at this time."

Now that Project Cars is out, gamers across the world have been pushing their systems and consoles to the limits playing one of the best looking games ever made. But it could soon get better.

According to Slightly Mad Studios boss, Ian Bell, the team has been working on the Xbox One version of the game to optimize its performance, as it has been suffering from stuttering problems. Bell added that Project Cars "loves" DirectX 12, and that the DX12-powered version of Project Cars will run "extremely well" on the Xbox One.

Bell said: "With DX12 the Xbox will perform extremely well for us. With the upcoming imminent patches it's already much better. We'll need to do some work of course but the way our engine is structured lends itself to the main benefits of DX12. We never said we'd run 30 cars at night in the rain at 60. We said the game runs at 60FPS, which it does. So Gran Turismo, but it drops to 20's under heavy action in the wet at night".

Despite being in production for years, the upcoming tie-in game to 'Mad Max: Fury Road' missed the theatrical release window for the film and is not slated to hit PS4, Xbox One and PC in September to co-incide with the Blu-ray release. But with the film getting rave reviews, Avalanche Studios are keen to keep the game in the consciousness of gamers and have now released an explosive new storyline trailer.

Officially announced at E3 2013, the 'Mad Max' game was originally intended to hit Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms but now, the previous generation console versions have been abandoned.

'Mad Max' will be available in September.

Slightly Mad Studios is slightly mad when it comes to the Wii U version of Project Cars, as the Wii U is struggling to hit 30FPS at only 720p. This has caused the studio to wait for the announcement of Nintendo's next-gen console, but Nintendo won't be revealing the NX console until 2016.

Ian Bell, boss of Slightly Mad Studios has said that he wants to see the Nintendo NX console announced at E3, but with the studio only able to achieve 23FPS on the Wii U, the next-gen Nintendo console is really needed if Nintendo gamers want to see Project Cars. Bell said: "I can't say too much but we're awaiting E3 with baited breath. Don't read wrongly into that... OK I'll come clean. At the moment we're running at about 23FPS on the WiiU. We're awaiting/hoping for more of a hardware announcement at E3...".

Bell continued: "Honestly, unless we really cut the looks back I think we're looking to Nintendo's next console. 720p yes. I suppose if they don't announce something at E3 or soon after we will have a go at it. We could reach a fairly solid 30FPS but it might take a hell of a lot of work. On the other hand, about halfway through us finishing, Nintendo might announce a new console (I have zero knowledge on this BTW but I've heard 'rumours'). Our work might just be the best thing that ever hit that new console in the driving sim genre. So we're playing a waiting game at the moment and yes, economics do come in to it".