Gaming - Page 695

Control isn't far away with its release on August 27, and now we're hearing more about the RTX side of Remedy Entertainment's latest and greatest game.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics card owners will be able to enjoy real-time ray tracing in Control, which in my hands-on time with it during E3 2019 blowing me away when RTX is turned on. According to the listing for Control on the Epic Games Store you'll need an RTX 2060 at a minimum to play with ray tracing, while Remedy recommends an RTX 2080 if you want RTX on.

Minimum Requirements

Ubisoft's new uPlay+ subscription is a tactical move that fits perfectly with its service-oriented business. Here's how uPlay+ will help transform and solidify Ubisoft as a digital-focused publisher.

Ubisoft has made a radical transformation over the last few years. All of its games are now sprawling, evolving experiences focused around engagement, live content, and microtransactions, creating a business that continually makes money long after its games are sold. Last fiscal year, Ubisoft raked in $1.56 billion from digital, or about 68.8% of its total yearly earnings, and $721 million from microtransactions.

Infusing live services into all of its biggest games (even singleplayer titles like Assassin's Creed are now hybridized into live games) was just the beginning. Now with uPlay+, we're seeing the real fruits of Ubisoft's plans.

Want to play Remedy's new ultra-weird Twin Peaks-meets-The-X-Files game? You'll need a somewhat decent PC.

Today the Epic Games Store revealed Control's PC spec requirements for both minimum and recommended settings. To play Control, you can't skate away with lower-end hardware: you'll need at least an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU or AMD RX 580 (or equivalent), an Intel i5-7500 CPU or an AMD Ryzen 3 1300X CPU, and 8GB of RAM. To use ray-tracing you'll need at least an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060. Then again a lot of gamers already run a GTX 1060. According to Steam's recent hardware survey, the GTX 1060 is the most popular GPU for gamers (about 15% of active users have one, or around 13.5 million).

Recommended specs are more demanding, of course: Remedy wants you to have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti or an AMD Radeon VII, Intel Core i5-8600K or an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 16GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti for ray-tracing.

On the heels of a successful campaign test run, 343i's next closed beta will concentrate on Halo: Reach's Firefight mode.

Halo: Reach is a huge game that offers something for everyone: it has solo or split-screen campaign for offline gamers, campaign matchmaking for team play, Firefight solo or online play with others, custom Firefight, custom games, and an array of PVP matchmaking options. To get the full game running on PC, all these moving parts will get their own testing phases. First we had a very limited campaign test where less than 1,000 people got in, and now we're getting Firefight matchmaking.

343i confirmed the next flight is all about Firefight, aka the best mode ever invented, and is slated to launch later this month. It's an arcade-style survival gauntlet that pits you against teeming hordes of enemies that progressively get stronger, complete with vehicles and huge chaotic sandbox maps. Toss in some pre-defined loadouts for team-based action and you have a recipe for complete carnage-inducing awesomeness.

Xbox One backwards compatibility is a huge motivator to adopting the system. Find out if your old-school game is supported with this handy list.

Over 600 Xbox 360 and original Xbox games are playable on the Xbox One, including classics like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Morrowind, Fallout: New Vegas, and a ton of Fable games. Of course there's lots, lots more

Microsoft recently stopped adding new games to the list, so the following games are set in stone as the full backward compatibility selection. All of the games below will also be playable on the next-gen Project Scarlett console (as well as all Xbox One games), bridging four generations' worth of titles.

Blizzard are continuing to combat cheaters in Overwatch, and while most games that are played don't contain cheaters the ones that do will now be shut down upon detection.

In the most recent Overwatch developers update, Blizzard Overwatch icon Jeff Kaplan sat down to discuss the more harsh punishments being introduced into the game. According to Kaplan, "the next evolution of cheat detection" will be that once the game detects that a player is cheating it will automatically shut down the entire game.

Players that are not cheating will not be penalized in any means, whether or not they are on the team with the cheater or not. This means that for competitive matches players won't have to be concerned with loosing SR if it appears there is a cheater on the other team. Blizzard seem to be cracking down on cheaters in Overwatch and Kaplan says that "very harsh actions are happening" to anyone who Blizzard finds to be breaking the rules.

Respawn is using an interesting method of annoying cheaters and spammers in the super-famous Apex Legends, with teh developer working on a system that would matchmake cheaters and spammers into matches with other cheaters and spammers.

The developer is tapping into machine learning technology for the next level in detecting and banning cheaters and spammers in the game, as well as doubling to stop cheaters altogether. It seems that Respawn has already got an algorithm in Apex Legends that pairs cheaters and spammers through matchmaking so they play with each other, and not ruin the game for the rest of the server.

Apex Legends, like most popular games, has cheaters. In the Ranked mode of Apex Legends it creates a big problem, and it's something games like Overwatch experience with its similar game modes. Blizzard has, in the last 24 hours, said that it is working on a new system that if it detecting cheating it would automatically end the match. Blizzard won't punish the other players in the game for the abrupt end of the match, it will only punish the cheater.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is grueling, unforgiving, and outright stressful. In other words, it's a FromSoftware game. But it doesn't have to be that way--if you're on PC, that is.

Apart from the higher-end hardware, improved frame rates, and amazing visuals, one big feature sets PC gaming apart from consoles: mods. Mods can drastically change a game and breath life into an age-old classic for years (just ask Bethesda). Now modders are using clever tricks to make Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice a lot less painful.

Introducing Sekiro The Easy, a new player-created mod that buffs the One-Armed Wolf's stats to make him more formidable. The mod boosts damage, defense, and stamina to reduce damage and resource costs per attack, and even raises the item drop rate among other things. It's essentially playing Sekiro with a handicap which lets you practice against certain bosses or even explore areas you couldn't get past otherwise.

Gearbox is very interested in letting PS4, Xbox One and PC gamers play Borderlands 3 together, but there's red tape barring the way.

Borderlands 3 could eventually get cross-play. It's definitely on the table and Gearbox wants to add it in, but it's not really up to the devs. Platform holders like Sony have to greenlight Sony's traditionally been more resistant to opening the cross-platform floodgates (Microsoft and Nintendo are all for cross-play). Luckily Sony is relenting and slowly approved cross-play in games like Rocket League and Fortnite...but we're not sure how Sony's picking these games. Top earners probably get first consideration. Case in point: the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare reboot will have full cross-play.

Due to the process and bureaucracy involved, Borderlands 3 won't have cross-play at launch. The shoot-and-loot multiplayer game may unify all systems "as soon as it's practicable," says Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. And even then there's no guarantee it'll happen.

Amazon's Prime Day Deals discount a PS4 Slim model to $249, complete with two must-have console exclusives.

Prime Day is going on now and we're seeing some impressive deals on games hardware, including this $249 PS4 Slim bundled with Spider-Man and Guerrilla's excellent Horizon: Zero Dawn action RPG. The sale shaves off $50 from the console's base price and spices things up by tossing in two must-play exclusives to boot.

Remember newer PS4 Slim revision isn't beefier than the original 2014 launch model, but it runs cooler, quieter, and is overall more efficient. It's kind of a mid-cycle refresh with a shrunken 16nm APU, whereas the PS4 Pro's GPU horsepower is double the base model with 4.2 TFLOPs of compute power.

Grab a PlayStation Classic for a cool $20 and turn it into a virtual arcade machine.

Sony's PlayStation Classic wasn't a success--it was overpriced, and had terrible in-game frame stuttering issues. But there's a silver lining: it's basically a Raspberry Pi that can be manipulated, hacked, and transformed into a retro wonderbox. Now Amazon's selling the mini-console for a paltry $20, putting it on par with a few day's worth of coffee.

The PS Classic comes with 20 built-in games, but most of them run in PAL rather than NTSC, meaning you should expect frame rate issues (PAL is 50Hz and NTSC is 60Hz). The selection isn't so hot anyway. Luckily the box can be hacked and you can pop on a ton of ROMs for expanded play--the process is actually quite easy, from what I'm told--but remember it only includes regular PS1-era controllers with D-Pads, not DualShocks.

In the market for a PS4 Pro? Pull the trigger on this Prime Day Deal and grab a console and two great games for $300.

Amazon's Prime Day Deals shaves a cool $100 off the PS4 Pro and bundles two of the platform's most lauded titles: Guerrilla's detailed fantasy epic Horizon: Zero Dawn with all its mech dinosaurs, and Insomniac's immensely authentic webslinging Spider-Man adaptation. This discount comes a year or so before Sony's next-gen PS5, which is expected to release in 2020 with insane specs, but there's still plenty of reasons to pick up a PS4 (especially since the PS5 will probably be expensive).

Remember you don't need a 4K HDR TV for the system. Games with PS4 Pro enhancements also improve performance and visuals on HDTVs, including supersampling graphics for 1080p displays as well as frame rate optimizations. Games can run up to 1080p 60FPS on the PS4 Pro and typically hit 4K 30FPS on UHD displays.

Gears of War 5, the next installment in the Gears of War franchise has been declared a non-smoking title after the director of the games strong opposition to addiction.

Rod Fergusson, the Gears of War 5 studio director at The Coalition took to Twitter on Saturday about his approach to smoking in Gears of War 5. The games director openly admitted to his long standing approach against smoking and how he has actively gone out of his way to not include it in-game.

Fergusson says: "To be fair, this isn't entirely accurate. I've been against smoking from the beginning and have worked hard to not make it a part of our franchise. Ever notice that the Dizzy concept art for Gears 2 has a cigarette but the actual character in the game doesn't? I stopped it." Following up on that tweet is another which is his emotional attachment towards his opposition of smoking, he says "My dad smoked. He died of a heart attack at age 38. I was 4."

Ubisoft has a goal of letting fans contribute towards some of the upcoming titles soundtracks, by doing this they have partnered with Joesph Gordon-Levitt's HitRecord.

Last year, Ubisoft announced that they wanted musicians to contribute to Beyond Good and Evil 2 using HitRecord. Artists can send in art, music and story elements but wouldn't necessarily get paid for their contributions, only if they were selected by the game studio.

Some artists found it unfortunate that Ubisoft was asking artists to compete their work for a price, instead it could be argued that Ubisoft adopt a more traditional incentive that would be commission work. In a recent partnership announcement from Ubisoft will still be working with HitRecord to curate the music for Watch Dogs: Legion despite the controversy kick back from artists.

Monster Hunter World's new Update 6.1 will go live as of July 17, with it bringing support for NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology.

NVIDIA has released some of its internal benchmarks running at 4K with DLSS enabled in the latest version of Monster Hunter World, with over 50% performance improvements in performance with DLSS enabled and the Update 1.6 patched Monster Hunter World.

The flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti has a 53% improvement with DLSS enabled in Monster Hunter World, up from 46.7FPS to 71.6FPS -- crossing the magic 60FPS line. The second-fastest RTX 2080 (and soon to be RTX 2080 SUPER) goes from 34.7% to 54.9% which is another huge improvmenet, and interestingly NVIDIA includess the RTX 2070 and RTX 2060... not the new RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 SUPER in these MHW benchmarks with DLSS enabled.

No Man's Sky is turning three this year, and Hello Games is shifting towards another smaller-scale but highly-ambitious project.

Hello Games is a true underdog story about a dev team who lost the big game and then came back to win the World Series. They've caught the spotlight by turning No Man's Sky into a huge sprawling online cosmic wonderland, but the team is ready to make something new. Now Sean Murray teases another project outside of its new The Last Campfire game--something quite daring but more condensed than No Man's Sky.

"We've got something else going on at the studio. It's exciting, and it's unfortunately going to be ambitious," Murray said at the recent Brighton Develop event in the UK.

Microsoft's new Project xCloud game streaming service could get its own transforming wireless mini controllers similar to the Switch.

Microsoft recently published a very interesting patent that gives some clues on its upcoming streaming plans. The patent, which was filed in 2017 and published this month, shows two very Switch-like controllers that detach from a charging base. The controllers are specifically made for touchscreen devices and gamers can apparently use each half to play games similar to the Switch's JoyCons.

This small and compact splitting controller is a perfect fit for the new Project xCloud streaming subscription, which beams Xbox games directly to on-the-go devices like phones, tablets, and laptops. Playing fully-fledged console and PC games on a phone isn't really possible without an actual controller, and this new peripheral should be a separate mobile-optimized accessory sold alongside the service.

Creative Assembly is hard at work on their next-gen "ground-breaking FPS" game, but we didn't know much about the secretive new IP until the latest rumor coming from a new job opening at the Alien: Isolation and Total War developer.

The company is looking to hire a new hero designer to work on their next-gen "ground-breaking FPS" game, a new role that will see someone lead the creative process for "exciting playable chargers" that each have "a range of amazing thought and play provoking specialties". This sounds like other hero-based shooters like my favorite game: Overwatch, and very close second: Apex Legends, and that ain't a bad thing.

Creative Assembly hopes the new hire will have a "broad understanding of monetization, rewards, and art production", as well as hoping that the new staffer will provide "guidance on visual design and cosmetics". This last bit screams cosmetic items that should intertwine with micro-transactions in the unnamed hero-based FPS.

So I really wanted to travel to Japan next year for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and now I want to go even more knowing that the Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu is offering up a hotel room called the Superior Cockpit Room that features a freaking built-in flight simulator.

Yeah, so the hotel has installed an actual Boeing 737-800 flight simulator into a hotel room -- which will even have its own instructor on-hand (during the day) with people able to pay $276 for a 90-minute shot on the flight simulator. But when it's not being used, like at night... it will revert back to being a normal hotel room for around $233 a night.

The hotel will cover the flight controls with an acrylic board so that guests can't just jump on int and start having fun. I wonder if hardcore flight simulator fans would want to book the room for a couple of nights and just live in there playing on the flight simulator. I mean, who wouldn't want to? The hotel is found right next to the airport so you will feel and most likely hear the real airplanes taking off and landing while you're sitting in an actual high-end flight simulator.

We are just two weeks from the release of Wolfenstein: Youngblood with Bethesda releasing the official PC requirements for the game, where you won't need much to get it up and running, but at a minimum you'll need 40GB of HDD space.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood requires at a minimum an AMD FX-8350/Ryzen 5 1400 or Intel Core i5-3570/Core i7-3770, you'll need 8GB of RAM minimum and a GeForce GTX 770 4GB (or new GTX 1650) or "AMD equivalent". The recommended specs aren't that much higher, with an FX-9370/Ryzen 5 1600X or Intel Core i7-4770 while RAM requirements go up to 16GB of RAM and the graphics card up to a GTX 1060 6GB or RTX 2060 or again, "AMD equivalent".

So for Radeon gamers you'll need somewhere along the RX 560/570 through to the new Radeon RX 5700 to play Wolfenstein: Youngblood. Wolfenstein: Youngblood launches on July 27 and will include RTX abilities for NVIDIA GeForce RTX owners, it is also bundled with any RTX 2060 SUPER (my review here) or RTX 2070 SUPER (my review here) graphics cards or gaming PC powered by RTX SUPER along with Control.