Gaming - Page 572

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will change console gaming forever, and developers are extremely excited for the hardware upgrade. It's a leap from the Stone Age right to the Iron Age.

Current-gen consoles are massively outdated. They run on slow 5400RPM HDDs, have underwhelming Jaguar SoCs, and with the exception of the Xbox One X, aren't synergized all that way. But the PS5 and Xbox Series X will trigger an evolution of the console market with ultra-fast SSDs, powerful Navi GPUs, and beefy Zen 2 CPUs for improved FPS.

The SSDs mean devs don't have to massively replicate data assets, the higher-end GDDR6 RAM and storage memory controllers give speedy avenues to transfer data, and the CPU and GPU can process data at lightning-fast speeds with exceptional efficiency and power. The result is games that not only look and play great, but are easier to make.

Following a botched mixing job on the official soundtrack, Mick Gordon could be done working with Bethesda on future Doom games.

Doom Eternal's soundtrack is amazing, and I couldn't imagine the game without Mick Gordon's killer riffs. But the metalhead might not work on the next game. The reason? A falling out with the game's soundtrack. Doom Eternal's official soundtrack apparently is quite different than the in-game music rips, which, up until now, have been the only available Doom Eternal tracks.

According to findings on Twitter, the OST was neutered by bad mixing, leading to stunted sound wavelengths that ultimately affects the range of the instrumentals themselves. Mick Gordon actually responded to the thread and says he's not responsible for those edits, and that he only mixed a few songs on the OST including Meathook and Command and Control.

Microsoft could retire the Xbox One X console soon as it preps for its new next-gen beast.

It looks like the Xbox One X is on its way out the door. Today Microsoft confirmed the new Cyberpunk 2077 special edition Xbox will be the last custom Xbox One X console ever made. It's not a direct confirmation the Xbox One X is being discontinued, but it's a strong hint, and it makes total sense with the next-gen Xbox Series X on the horizon in holiday 2020.

The Xbox Series X will be pretty expensive to produce, and may retail for as low as $500 and as high as $549. Internal estimates from Bloomberg pinpoint both the PS5 and Xbox Series X cost $450 to make, and developer sources and analysts approximate a $499 retail consumer MSRP. This raised prices put more stress on Microsoft's manufacturing processes and will likely squeeze out the Xbox One X from its new middle-tier position, leaving the cheaper and more flexible Xbox One S as the entry point for the system.

I'm finally getting around to Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I know, it's been out forever. But there's something I didn't expect to feel when I played the second chapter: shame.

You're an eco-terrorist in FF7 Remake, and despite all the light-hearted camaraderie with your fellow teammates, your actions have dire consequences. Final Fantasy 7 Remake forces you to face your actions right away. As part of Avalanche, you're trying to save the planet by blowing up a mako reactor and stop Shinra from sucking out its lifestream. But it's not that simple. There's casualties, and lots of them.

After you blow up the reactor, you have to run through a ruined sector 7 and see all the harm and destruction you caused.. Everything's on fire. People are crying, scared, hurt, their lives massively disrupted by the attack. The roads are smashed, cars are utterly demolished, buildings are wrecked. It's the site of a major terrorist attack, a domestic warzone, and you have to mill you way through the suffering that you had a hand in.

Speedrunners are using a nifty mouse wheel trick to beat Doom Eternal in less than 27 minutes. id Software is good humored about the exploits, but seems perplexed on how it's even possible.

Doom Eternal devs joined up to stream a live chat while watching Xamide beat Doom Eternal in less than 30 minutes. The results were lots of disbelief, exclamations of "whoa!" and "how did he do that?" with a few "why didn't you clip that area?!" thrown in. The result is pretty hilarious and awesome, giving us rare insight into how games are made--and more importantly, how one of the best shooters in the past few years is held together.

Xamide's run was made possible by a mouse wheel glitch. Essentially there's a slow boost exploit that lets you jump incredibly high. To pull this off, you have to forcibly bind your jump to your mouse wheel by using the bind mwheeldown "_jump"_ command in the console. But not any mouse wheel will do; you need one that can seriously spin.

All live games are grind-fests, but Square Enix's new Avengers game could be exceptionally demanding for your time.

While watching the newly released Avengers trailer, I noticed something interesting: The game has ten different crafting material resources. Ten. This number doesn't include the classic free/premium currency combo that unlocks cosmetic skins. That's a lot of resources that hints at tons of collecting and grinding repeatable missions over and over to amass a mat horde. Why are there so many? Apparently the gear upgrade system is to blame.

I don't 100% know how the system works, but from the brief snippet of footage we can glean some details. It looks like items can be upgraded multiple times to unlock various perks. The perks can be upgraded more than once, but each time requires more resources. That's pretty logical and a lot of games do that. But Avengers apparently tacks on an extra resource for specific upgrades, meaning the starting resource cost is not only compounded, but also requires a separate new resource in addition to the initial cost.

If Capcom won't make it, then modders will: Dino Crisis invades Raccoon City with this new Resident Evil 3 Remake mod.

This new RE3 mod isn't exactly Dino Crisis, but it's the next best thing. The Dino Evil 3 mod over at Nexus Mods turns Jill into Regina, complete with signature fiery red hair and machete, and turns every enemy in the game into a dinosaur.

The monster swap, which was made possible by modder FluffyQuack, essentially transforms enemies into hunter betas with a different skin. The dino skin is kinda funny (those huge hips!) but it's a great effort and we'd try it out if we had RE3 on PC (we reviewed it on PS4).

Video game traffic on Verizon networks spiked by 75% in March as consumers stay indoors due to coronavirus lockdowns.

As COVID-19 wrecks whole industries and pauses the global economy, social quarantines are boosting other markets like gaming. Consumers are downloading, buying, and playing more games to stay entertained and connected. This influx puts tremendous stress on infrastructures, leading Sony and Microsoft to artificially slow download speeds on their networks. Now ISP Verizon gives some insight on the huge gaming usage spikes.

According to a recent report, Verizon saw a massive 75% uptick in gaming across its mobile and home internet services in March. There's no info on the current data numbers, but we'd expect them to be even higher in April.

Although Mark Cerny blew the lid off the PlayStation 5's specs and hardware, the console itself is still shrouded in mystery. We don't know what it looks like, how much it costs, or what the launch lineup looks like. Sony may not reveal everything in May, but we could get some brand new info on the system.

When will we get a full-on PS5 reveal? Sony's newly announced event schedule gives us some clues. Historically, Sony reveals its consoles at E3 showcases in June. But E3 2020 has been cancelled, and Sony hasn't attended E3 for the last two years. Sony with have two opportunities to reveal new PlayStation 5 info next month: At its Fiscal Year 2019 earnings report on May 13, and at its corporate strategy meeting on May 19. It's possible we'll get more info before those two events, though.

The idea is Sony could prepare investors and consumers with new PS5 info ahead of the two events. The FY2019 briefing will likely be centered around Sony's business plans and answer questions like PS5 projections vs PS4 sales in 2020, how long the PS4 will live alongside PS5, production costs, etc. Typically these events allow investors to ask questions that sometimes glean important info. That might not happen this year since both events will be livecast shows. The second event, Sony's annual corporate strategy meeting, will likewise focus on all of its business segments and basically reinforce the PlayStation ecosystem.

Now that the Doom series has made a huge comeback, we thought it prudent to take a look at what could've happened with the series. We're glad this Doom 4 project got cancelled. The series might've died out if this game got released.

From 2007 to 2013, id Software was working on Doom 4. But it wasn't the kind of Doom we got in 2016, nor is it the explosive bullets-and-guts thrillride that is Doom Eternal. The cancelled Doom 4 project was a very different type of game; instead of radical monstrosities amid fiery hellscapes and over-the-top chaos, Doom 4 was mostly based around post-apocalyptic survival with a lot of human interactions. It basically reminds me of Metro with demons.

The combat looks good--Doomguy has an awesome kick and even smashes some demon brains with his boots--and the FPS action is a bit slow, but this is a pre-rendered prototype. The death animations are pretty gnarly too. The actual rendered cinematics are pretty damn good, though. They just seem more like RAGE than Doom. The game takes place on earth during a demon infestation, and there's clans of armed humans in cluttered villages and cities straight out of a high-tech Mad Max. The game also has the spirit of Terminator's resistance fighters going up against impossible odds.

Andras Ketzer's FluidNinja VFX toolset gives us a taste of the insane fog the horizon with next-gen games

While browsing Twitter, I came across a Tweet showcasing this incredible Unreal Engine 4 dry ice lighting demo that blew my mind. The effect is made possible by something called ray-marching, a volumetric rendering technique that basically injects 2D data into 3D spaces. It's not ray tracing, though; ray tracing only does surfaces. Ray marching essentially passes through the surface data, and is described as the "big brother" of ray tracing. Ray marching is pretty complicated, but here's a nice breakdown.

The cauldron demo was made with an NVIDIA GTX 1070 and runs at 182FPS in 1080p resolution, but it's not exactly 3D geometry. It was made using FluidNinja VFX, which allows real-time fluid simulations in UE4. The demo isn't actually three-dimensional: It's a 2D flipbook that simulates 3D visuals by using shadows and depth tricks. The result is brilliantly radiant and swirling fog that looks right out of a high-end next-gen game.

When Doom Eternal hit, everyone complained about the marauder. He's tough...until you know how to beat him. But he's nowhere near impossible to kill. Apparently gamers (and even outlets) are still complaining, so it's time to set the record straight: The marauder doesn't suck. You do.

Doom Eternal is a balls-to-the-wall thrill ride of a game. It's all about massacring demons in a whirlwind frenzy of death, mayhem, and total annihilation. You're a living force of nature in Doom Eternal, a hurricane that just leaves blood and guts in their wake. That momentum is only made possible by adaptation and skill.

When enemies like the marauder show up for the first time, you hit a brick wall. But like everything else, Doomguy eventually smashes it. This tough enemy procession is the hallmark of the game, it's bread and butter, and enemies like the marauder are extremely important.

Counter-Strike: GO has surpassed DOTA 2 as the second Steam game in terms of concurrent users.

COVID-19 quarantines are resulting in huge spikes in gaming, and Counter-Strike is no exception. The game hit over 1 million active players back in early March, and now a month later it's broken 1.3 million to dethrone DOTA 2. At the time of writing, SteamDB reports CS:GO is the second most actively-played Steam game of all time. PUBG still leads with an insane 3.2 million concurrent users. Still, though, CS is doing pretty damn good for a 8 year old game. And CS:GO has had the best 24-hour peak of any Steam game to date.

Other fun facts about Steam's playerbase: Fallout 4 actually beats GTA V in all-time concurrent peak users, and PUBG actually has two spots in the top 10 list. One of them belongs to the BR's test server. Right now Steam has over 19 million people online, but only 28% of them, or 5.5 million, are actually gaming.

It has been an exciting week for Cyberpunk 2077 fans, with a tease of a concept Cyberpunk 2077 themed DualSense controller for the PlayStation 5 from BossLogic and then the Amazon Canada listing of a Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One controller, the tease of an entire custom Xbox One X console themed in Cyberpunk 2077 goodness -- and now the confirmation of the limited edition Xbox One X console... Check it out:

The new Xbox One X Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition console goes one stpe further, with what should be some gorgeous glow-in-the-dark bits. Microsoft has no pricing or pre-order details for the custom Xbox One X console just yet, but we do know that the rugged design of the Cyberpunk 2077 controller is based on Johnny Silverhand -- who is played by Neo and John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves.

Microsoft will have its custom Xbox One X Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition bundle console available in June, with no details on pricing just yet. Cyberpunk 2077 the game, will be released on September 17, 2020.

Ever wonder what a SNES-era Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle x Justice League tournament fighter would look like? Wonder no longer. This 90's style mashup makes your dreams come true.

MUGEN fans rejoice! Kamekaze's anticipated TMNTxJL fighter is now available to download, complete with tons of custom movesets, combos, and more. The game resembles a mashup of Justice League Task Force on SNES and borrows moves right out of the legendary hit Turtles in Time. The roster tons of familiar and surprising faces, many of which don't actually show up in games. There's the staples like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, and the four TMNT bros. But some more obscure characters like Cheetah, Despero, and even Chrome Dome and Armaggon show up to join the fray.

The fighting is superb and ultra chaotic, the graphics are amazing old-school 16-bit vibrant pixels, and it has a comedic and hilarious nostalgic tone that transports you back to those glory days of comics and cartoons.

Doom Eternal's environments are absolutely incredible. But don't take my word for it. Just check out the video below and see for yourself.

I've probably played Doom Eternal more than any other game this year. The gameplay is immaculate, but the in-game environments, maps, and set design are also a big part of that. Doom Eternal's burning hellscapes are a feast for the eyes: they're engaging, invigorating, chaotic, and over-the-top. Some levels have you blasting through a titanic demon's stomach and using his guts as a corridor. Others have hulking mechsuits, cruel and twisted spires, giant gates right out of a Wayne Barlowe painting.

In their latest compilation video, YouTuber Ultraclocked has managed to capture everything that makes Doom Eternal so...metal. The grisly gore, the sci-fantasy mechs and titanic BFG 10000, the skulls and moaning tortured souls, the towering monstrosities, and the ancient space-Babylonian cityscapes of Taras Nabad. It's all here, represented in high detail.

Just yesterday Bloomberg reported Sony would limit PlayStation 5 stock by up to 50% less compared to the PS4. The reason? PS5 will be more expensive, and coronavirus has disrupted Sony's marketing plans. Now Sony announces coronavirus has delayed its critical earnings report plans by two weeks, seemingly corroborating the reports.

Sony today announced its Q4'19 and full year 2019 earnings reports will be delayed two weeks to May 13, 2020. Sony's FY2019 timeline ended March 31, 2020, and Sony typically reports earnings a month later on April 30.

"Sony Corporation planned to announce its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 on Thursday, April 30, 2020. However, due to delays in accounting closing procedures and other operations resulting from the spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), please be informed that this announcement has been rescheduled for Wednesday, May 13, 2020," reads a press release.

It has been an exciting week for Cyberpunk 2077 fans, with a tease of a concept Cyberpunk 2077 themed DualSense controller for the PlayStation 5 from BossLogic and then the Amazon Canada listing of a Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One controller -- and now, the tease of an entire custom Xbox One X console themed in Cyberpunk 2077 goodness. Check it out:

The image could be fake, but with a Cyberpunk 2077 themed Xbox One controller teased -- the reality of an entire custom Xbox One X would make sense given that CD Projekt RED's game will be one of the biggest of the year. A nice new custom and limited edition Cyberpunk 2077 themed Xbox One X would be perfect.

NVIDIA teamed with CD Projekt RED for a custom Cyberpunk 2077 themed GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card, something that has been selling on eBay for over $5000. But a new custom Cyberpunk 2077 themed Xbox One X console will have console gamers happy with some limited edition Cyberpunk 2077 products.

DOOM Eternal is about to enjoy its first DLC release with Series 2, otherwise known as Coffee & Camo, and sees the developers at id Software trolling gamers.

The new Coffee & Camo DLC adds in a new Hipster Archvile Master Collection, which as you can see in the image above, has a demon rocking out with some Converse shoes and skinny jeans. Yeah, if you look closer -- the demon is wearing yellow sunglasses, has his hipster hairstyle, and is taking a selfie of himself.

You can unlock the hipster demon skin which I'm sure you're going to wait to use, as well as a Toad King Pain Elemental and Camo Slayer skins to unlock. DOOM Eternal's new Coffee & Camo event also throws in new weapon skins, icons, and nameplates that you can unlock.

The world's biggest gaming event won't take place on location this year, but the showrunners are pivoting to a digital-only event.

Unlike E3 2020, which was cancelled and failed to spin up a streaming-based show, Gamescom 2020 isn't being cancelled. It's just moving online. The event's coordinators confirmed Gamescom will still take place in August, andthat they're using the the fourth-month head start to plan out a digital direct showcase.

"It's official: Unfortunately, gamescom will under no circumstances take place on site in Cologne this year. We are, however, already working at full speed on a digital gamescom. It is, after all, the world's biggest event for games, and that's what it should be again this year. You can already look forward to how we will celebrate the best games and gamescom together with you and millions of gamers worldwide at the end of August, even if it will only be digital and not on location this time.