Gaming - Page 666

Microsoft has teamed with Google to bring Google Assistant to the Xbox family of consoles, so now you can just sit on your couch and yell 'Hey Google' to get things done on your console.

You can now use Google Assistant to turn your Xbox on and off, start up an app or resume paused games, as well as take screenshots. It's virtually identical to the Xbox skill available for Alexa, but now it's all-Google baby.

Funnily enough, Microsoft supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant -- culling Cortana from the Xbox in its last update. Microsoft itself explained that it was "moving away from on-console experiences to cloud-based assistant experiences".

Today's Outbreak Day, and Naughty Dog celebrates by discussing tons of info on The Last of Us Part II.

The Last of Us Part II is Naughty Dog's most ambitious game, and coming from the team that made Uncharted 4, that's saying a lot. The sequel will be the largest title the studio has ever made (it'll span two Blu-ray discs on PS4) and makes some big changes to core gameplay, including going 100% singleplayer. "It's definitely the most ambitious in scope game that we've ever made," said co-game director Anthony Newman.

Simple things like traversal have been amped up with more emphasis on verticality, climbing, and the overall action-adventure exploration avenues set forth by Uncharted. Ellie is more agile, fluid, and stealthy in the sequel: she can jump, climb, long jump across wide spaces, dodge-roll, go prone in high grass, and stealthily sneak. Naughty Dog also added a nifty "squeeze through" feature that lets you slide through tight spaces.

Nintendo's new Mario Kart mobile game is immensely popular on iOS and Android, amassing 20 million downloads in its first day.

Mario Kart Tour is Nintendo's quickest-downloaded mobile game of all time, eclipsing Super Mario Run by over 13 million downloads. Nintendo's new free-to-play racer also sped out of the gate with over $1 million in revenues in the first 24 hours, proving its lootbox monetization model is working. Comparatively, Nintendo's breadwinner mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes raked in a considerable $4.3 million in its first day.

There's a fly in the ointment, though: Nintendo packed in a controversial paid subscription within the free-to-play Mario Kart game. Dubbed the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass, this $4.99 a month subscription gives extra bonuses like cosmetics and an exclusive 200cc mode. This aggressive over-monetization could harm the overall sticking rate of paid gamers, at least in North America.

Death Stranding's peculiar and rather unique multiplayer won't be paygated behind PlayStation Plus.

Death Stranding's online multiplayer is pretty interesting. It's more of an indirect experience that lets you communicate, share, and help others...all without actually playing with them. The game has a shared world where you can drop items, gear, vehicles, and even help modify bases and build environment-changing structures like bridges. It's all about symbiosis, helping, and connecting with others.

Since there's no direct co-op or PVP action, Sony won't require PS Plus in order to play Death Stranding online. The news was outed from a GAME UK listing for the special edition Death Stranding PS4, whose box says "Death Stranding does not require PlayStation Plus." The North American box doesn't have this sticker, though.

The Last of Us Part II is a purely narrative-driven singleplayer game and won't have any sort of online multiplayer mode.

Unlike the first The Last of Us game, the sequel doesn't have multiplayer. This folds perfectly in with Sony's recent focus on singleplayer, system-selling exclusives, a trend that won't change even with the PlayStation 5 on the horizon.

"We're focusing on a single-player experience, so we're just making a single-player game for this," lead game designer Emilia Schatz told US Gamer.

It looks like Xbox One X consoles are struggling to handle Borderlands 3 in its current form, with players reporting (since launch I might add) that their consoles are overheating and shutting down while playing the game.

There are a bunch of people reporting this issue with 2K posting on the /r/XboxOne subreddit that it is aware of the issue, and the team is currently working on a fix. No date or time was announced, but at least 2K are aware of the issue.

How games launch this badly in 2019, is another question... however, plenty of comments on the Reddit post added that they have Xbox One X consoles and have no issues with Borderlands 3. On the other hand, some said that they experienced overheating issues with their Xbox One X shutting down to prevent further issues.

Death Stranding is finished and off to manufacturing, with Hideo Kojima himself announcing on Twitter that Death Stranding has gone gold.

In the tweet, Kojima said it had been 3 years and 9 months since the doors at Kojima Productions opened, and he thanked Sony, Guerrilla, cast members, musicians, artists, staff, and fans for supporting him and the team behind Death Stranding.

Old school gamers are aware of what 'gone gold' means -- but if you don't, it means the game is in 'release quality'. This means everything that makes the game work is fully functional for you to boot it up, play it, and finish it. There will be niggly bugs to be fixed here and there, but a full playthrough of Death Stranding is now possible.

Creative Assembly just announced the next Total War Saga game and this time round players will be heading to mythological realm of TROY.

Above we have the Campaign Map reveal which introduces us to basic layout of what players can expect when entering the games campaign. The narrator explains the premise for the campaign and describes the events that eventually lead into a siege that once stopped the world.

Paris and his older brother Hector, who are both princes of Troy travelled to Sparta to make peace with the country. While there, Paris fell in love with King Menelaus' wife, and since Menelaus treated her so badly she ran away with Paris back to Troy.

Microsoft has just released two new Xbox bundles with new Xbox One S and Xbox One X bundles including a copy of Forza Horizon 4, as well as the new DLC for its Lego Speed Championship.

The new Xbox One S bundle will cost $300 while the Xbox One X bundle costs $500 -- both of them will include 1 month of Xbox Live Gold and the Xbox Game Pass, as well as an additional Xbox One controller.

Microsoft's new Xbox One X 1TB Console - Forza Horizon 4 LEGO Speed Champions Bundle (1TB) includes the full-game download of Forza Horizon 4 with the new LEGO Speed Champions add-on, not the physical copy of Forza Horizon 4.

Sony opens up a new online storefront to sell console hardware, accessories, and games, putting even more pressure on retailers like GameStop.

Sony just opened up a new store that lets you buy PlayStation games, hardware, and peripherals directly from them. Sony is offering slight MSRP savings on console bundles, but you won't save on any games. There's a PS4 + PS Plus bundle for $339, and a PS4 Pro + PS Plus bundle for $429 (All in all these are meager discounts). Sony's store offers two shipping methods; a 2-business day free option, or 1-day express shipping for $10. PlayStation Plus subscribers get free express shipping on every order.

Overall this isn't exciting news, but it has some serious far-reaching effects. Sony is using the store to gear up for its next-gen PlayStation 5 in 2020, and we'll see exclusive promotions, offers, and discounts on the store.

Oculus' new Oculus Link tech merges lets Quest owners play Rift games through a single USB-C cable.

Today Oculus announced Oculus Link, a new feature that effectively transforms the $399 all-in-one Oculus Quest headset into a PC-powered Rift headset. Using Oculus Link software and a single USB Type-C cable, Quest owners can connect directly to a gaming PC and play dedicated Rift games on the headset.

Oculus Link effectively makes the Quest into a mobile-tethered hybrid that can switch at will (and also effectively phases out the Rift).

Nintendo puts a $5 a month subscription in its new free-to-play, lootbox-ridden Mario Kart Tour mobile game. Yes, really.

Nintendo's tried a lot of strategies with its mobile games. First it tried free-to-start with Super Mario Run, which let you play a portion of the game for free and pay to unlock the rest. This failed. Then they did traditional free-to-play with aggressive gacha-style microtransactions with games like Fire Emblem Heroes. This caught like wildfire.

Now Nintendo is trying to sell in-game subscriptions within its free-to-play mobile games, paygating content behind a recurring subscription.

BioWare just moved to a more spacious three-story, 75,000 square foot office in Edmonton, and it could help heal the studio's significant internal turmoil.

BioWare's in a rut. In fact, it's been in this rut since it shipped Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014, a game which fundamentally changed how the studio operates. BioWare never got out of the harsh, grueling crunch that Inquisition demanded, slowly eroding team confidence and morale with years of mismanagement while tanking big-budget games like Mass Effect: Andromeda, and its new failed IP Anthem. Work on Anthem got so bad that developers indicated depression and anxiety were now endemic to BioWare; rather than a bastion of RPGs, it was now a black hole that pushed some people so hard they had to take medical leave to recuperate from stress overload.

Now with new leadership under Casey Hudson and a new change of scenery, BioWare may have a shot at recovery. The company just moved into a huge new three-story office in the EPCOR Tower in downtown Edmonton that's designed specifically for games development.

Sony's goofy PlayStation 1 classic MediEvil is getting resurrected with a brand new remaster, and now all PS4 gamers can try it out.

Game demos are pretty rare these days, so when they come out it's actually a treat. Sony just released a new MediEvil demo so both new and veteran PS gamers can sample its schlocky Halloween charm while experiencing that old-school PlayStation goodness. It's almost like those early days when demo discs came in packaged video game magazines (both of which are practically extinct now).

The MediEvil demo is kinda beefy, clocking in at 11GB and featuring the first two levels of the game--Dan's Crypt and The Graveyard. It's aptly called short-lived and will only be available until October 6, so be sure to grab it asap. Everyone who plays the demo can unlock a special helm that carries over to the final game.

Like Red Dead Redemption II, The Last of Us Part II will span two discs on PlayStation 4.

The Last of Us Part II is shaping up to be Naughty Dog's magnum opus, at least insofar as overall size and dramatic story impact. Neil Druckmann says the sequel is the studio's "most ambitious and longest game in our 35 year history," and affirms the team needed to make a huge game to chronicle Ellie's harrowing journey of hate and revenge.

"To tell this kind of story the game needed to be massive," Druckmann said in a recent PlayStation Blog post.

While I don't know how good it will be to play an TBS game with a controller, none-the-less a great RTS game is heading over to consoles this year and its Sid Meier's Civilization VI.

Sid Meier's Civilization series has always had a strong place on PC in the turn-based-strategy genre, gaining mass popularity as the series released titles. Now console gamers will have an opportunity to be apart of history as Civilization VI will be heading over to the Xbox One and PS4 this November.

Confirmed during the State of Play that was held today, 2K Games will be bringing PS4 and Xbox One gamers Civilization VI with optimizations for controllers. To go alongside those optimizations, players will also have both the 'Rise and Fall' & 'Gathering Storm' DLC's. Both DLC's will be available to purchase a Expansion Bundle. Civilization VI will be available on Xbox One and PS4 on November 22nd.

Death Stranding fans that don't already have a PS4 Pro now have a chance of now getting a Limited Edition Death Stranding-themed console.

The above video has been released on the official PlayStation YouTube Channel and reminds us that Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding is only a couple months away from release. The video also introduces us to a Limited Edition Death Stranding PS4 Pro that fans will be able to pick up.

The console is completely white but has black hand-prints across the top of it, directly referencing what is seen is most of the Death Stranding trailers. The controller is also a bright pee color yellow, which seems to be in reference to the baby pods that has been seen to play a key role in the game. The front of the console also features the worlds "Death Stranding". This Limited Edition console will be retailing for $399.99, pre-orders are already open for sale. Death Stranding will release on PS4 on November 11th.

Nintendo is just about to launch the app everyone has been waiting for, Mario Kart Tour for mobile.

Above we have the first episode of Mario Kart Tour News which informs players what the game will feature and what options they will have available to them. From the video we learn that the first tour will be located in New York City and that future Tours will be based on real-world locations.

We are also introduced to how the game will control. Simple up, down, left and right thumb maneuvers will be gamers controllers (an image has been provided in the entirety of this article). It is also detailed that certain drivers will only be available during certain tour times, and that for gamers to play Mario Kart Tour they must have a registered Nintendo Account. Google Play Store link here and Apple Store link here.

Respawn has taken to their official Apex Legends Twitter page to post a cryptic message teasing the release of the future 'Crypto' character, and the possible release of an additional map.

The above Tweet shows a letter addressed to what seems to be Crypto's mother, but in reality its a coded messaged that is meant to read as follows: "As I'm sure you've heard I took your advice and I went to the Games. It's the only way I can get close to the people who framed me. All I had to do was distract the Syndicate long enough to get 'Crypto's' credentials into the system. You were right about the qualifying matches."

It continues to say "I looked into it and there's no way I could have gotten in. So I went with Plan B: I took down the Repulsor tower. I had no idea it would be so insane. I'm hoping the damage was enough to close King's Canyon so I can hitch a ride on the dropship off Solace, and find the evidence I need somewhere in New Dawn."

Quantic Dream have been making PlayStation exclusives for what feels like forever, but they've been slowly making their iconic games available to the PC with Detroit: Become Human to be the next one.

Quantic Dream boss David Cage talked with OnlySP recently, where he said: "It is an entirely new market for us, although we started as a cross-platform developer (our first game Omikron: The Nomad Soul was released on PC and Dreamcast, and Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy was also cross-platform)".

Cage continued, talking about the PC community and their reaction to Quantic Dream games hitting the PC: "The reaction from the PC community has been tremendous. It is like expanding our family. We will, of course, remain a part of the PlayStation family, but we will now also make our games available to everyone, no matter their platform".