Gaming - Page 893

Christmas Eve was celebrated quite uniquely for Overwatch as the director Jeff Kaplan decided it was a good idea to sit in front of a livestream on Twitch for 10 hours just staring blanking into the camera while occasionally moving to open a present and having to deal with a boom mic in his face.

This quirky livestream began to slowly attract attention as people in the chat began to discuss if whether this was in-fact Jeff Kaplan live or just a looped video to just to fool everyone of an announcement for Overwatch over Christmas. From the random blinking and movements of Kaplan it is believed that is was not a loop and that he actually did do a 10 hour live stream of mostly looking into the camera.

Twitter users that were viewing the stream captured some unique moments of Kaplan interacting with the environment and proceeded to post them onto Twitter proving that it was not a loop. Kaplan opens a Christmas present on stream which turned out to be a framed photograph of Genji captioned "I need healing," and also Kaplan gets hit with the boom mic at one stage throughout the stream.

The PC version of Battlegrounds is being updated with 'PC update 1' that will fix performance in the game, with servers being offline for a couple of hours.

PUBG's new patch will not just improve server performance, but we should see fixes to in-game lag, and character position readjustment issues. Bluehole explains: "Creating a smooth playing environment to allow our players to fully enjoy Battle Royale was one of our top priorities for PC 1.0 launch".

The developer continues: "However, a multitude of causes have triggered the in-game lag issue to become worse or happen more frequently in the last few weeks. In the process, we were not able to implement the measures to visibly address the issue more quickly".

Wargaming Fest 2017 just passed over the weekend and what we learned is that World of Tanks will be upgraded to 1.0 in March 2018. The update will give a full graphics overhaul through a new engine, as well as redesigned maps and sounds.

World of Tanks will have its graphical engine updated to a new engine called Core. Since this is a full graphics overhaul, the in-house developers which have designed this new engine have provided a performance test for players to see if their PC will be able to handle the new game.

The test can be found on their official website.

It looks like Nintendo is having trouble being in 2005, with the company reportedly having issues with the production of their 64GB game cards for the Nintendo Switch.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nintendo has delayed the 64GB cards until 2019 due to "technical issues", meaning game developers and gamers will have to wait at least another year before we get larger games. WSJ writes: "Nintendo Co. told outside game developers it is delaying delivery of 64-gigabyte game cards for the Switch console until 2019, people familiar with the matter said, meaning gamers may have to wait longer for some data-rich software titles".

They continued: "Nintendo had planned to make 64-gigabyte cards available to partner developers in the second half of 2018, but recently told them that it would push the date back to 2019 owing to technical issues, according to people with direct knowledge of the discussions. They said the notice disappointed some software makers, especially U.S.-based publishers that often produce data-heavy games. Those publishers may wait for the 64-gigabyte card to release those kinds of games for the Switch".

Sony recently announced the free lineup of games for PlayStation Plus subscribers for January, which sees PS4 owners getting the most bang for their buck.

For January, PS Plus subbers will net Eidos Montreal's excellent sci-fi cyberpunk shooter Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Telltale's rather decent Batman episodic series for the low cost of $0. Mankind Divided is definitely worth your time, so if you pay for PS Plus be sure to grab it and make some space on your no-doubt cluttered hard drive for it. Check out our review to see why I liked the game so much (spoilers: it has great action and surprisingly deep story arcs that really pull at the heartstrings).

Other free PS Plus offerings include another PlayStation VR game called Starblood Arena, a mech arena combat game that's probably pretty fun in VR. Of course we have the PS3 offering, which includes Sacred 3 and The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, whereas PS Vita gets Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness and Uncanny Valley (both of which are cross-buy on PS4).

Super Mario Land 2 receives a neat little ROMhack that splashes brilliant Game Boy Color hues into the game, while adding some extras in the process.

Thanks to the efforts of hacker toruzz, a fantastic Mario handheld game gets a new lease on life...well sort of. The ROM-manipulator managed to inject color into Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, a game that Nintendo has yet to colorize on specific platforms. To grab the hack you'll need to have the original ROM file extracted from the physical game, but once you download the ROM you'll get access to a brilliant nostalgic world that has a few extra tricks.

Apart from the arduous task of colorizing the game, toruzz also added some extra features such as being able to play as Luigi and even helps clear up some messy lag that was a result of the Game Boy's original hardware.

Frontier Developments have released a new in-engine trailer for their upcoming 2018 game, Jurassic World Evolution. The trailer shows off the graphics of Dinosaurs found in the park as well as vague release date.

Courtesy of IGN, the trailer shows off some Dinosaur breeds that will be featured in the game; Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Raptors are seen and of course the iconic Tyrannosaurus.

Players will be able to breed their own Dinosaurs and maintain them in their very own park. The franchise is based on the movies, so everything ranging from keeping the Dinosaurs healthy, constructing attractions, scientific research and maintaining the appropriate security will be required to run a successful park.

Any Zelda fan will know about the rather labyrithine Zelda timeline that's full of inconsistencies and errors (I am Error), and AVGN even made a video about it way back when. But surely Nintendo has cleared everything up and has an idea where Breath of the Wild fits. Right?

Breath of the Wild is one of the best games of 2017--it might even be the best game of the year--because of its storytelling, its amazing open-world, and all of the complex pieces that come together as a wonderful whole. But there's just one question that's been bugging die-hard Zelda fans: where does BOTW fit in with the timeline? Does it fit in? Nintendo's Hidemaro Fujibayashi and Eiji Aonuma weigh in on the matter...but not in the way we'd hoped.

"I wouldn't say that we're not concerned with the timeline. It's obviously something that we know is very important to people, and they do a lot of research on," Fujibayashi told GamesRadar. "But I think at this point, we're not really at the stage where we want to talk about where Breath of the Wild is in the timeline. I think, as with the pixelated food, it's something that at this point we want to leave up to people's imaginations."

The creation, development, and iterative process of Hideo Kojima's new game is well on schedule--in fact KojiPro is making such progress that Sony is very surprised.

Just yesterday it feels like I was covering the Konami vs Kojima debacle, and chronicling how Hideo Kojima broke his bonds to find a new home at his self-started Kojima Productions studio. Fast-forwarding to months and months later, the Metal Gear Solid creator's new bizarre and absolutely intriguing game Death Stranding is rapidly progressing in its development. Last month we reported that Death Stranding is in a playable state, and that the game is progressing on schedule...but now Kojima himself shared a neat little tidbit on what's next.

"Development on Death Stranding is going well enough that SIE told us, 'We have never before seen a game being created at such a fast pace.' We are planning an announcement that will further surprise everyone in 2018," Hideo Kojima said in a recent interview with Japanese game publication Dengeki PlayStation.

Battlefront II's dreaded lootbox controversy is starting to bleed over into other games, namely Destiny 2, whose players are tired of the Eververse in-game purchase storefront.

I'd say this has been brewing for some time, the push-back against microtransactions, lootboxes, and other strategies employed by publishers to get gamers to spend money on live service games. When done right, it can be a boon; cosmetic MTx is mostly seen as acceptable when it doesn't affect the game. But when handled badly, as with Battlefront II's skewed progression system and ultra-grindy launch state, it's a bane and can have a big effect on a playerbase. After gamers got EA to change up Battlefront II, players are taking aim at another big service game: Destiny 2.

I've long thought Destiny 2 is a great game...but only when played sparingly. If you play it a lot, prepare to be disappointed. The game's progression has been stagnant for a while, and the new Curse of Osiris expansion did little to alleviate this. Pressure has been building since September over the Eververse microtransaction system, which peddles randomized cosmetics/skins as well as mods to players for a fee (but Bright Engrams can be earned without paying too). Gamers initially were perturbed by it, but thought that the extra cash would help pay for bigger and better DLC and expansions, which is something Activision outright promised.

When you think of Dante's superhuman feats and slice-and-dice action in Devil May Cry, you probably don't associate the game with mobile phones. But in true modern day fashion, even DmC is getting a mobile game.

According to reports from MMO Culture, the new Devil May Cry: Pinnacle of Combat game is being developed by Chinese dev Yungchang Game, not Capcom. Interestingly enough the Chinese game dev apparently acquired the rights to DmC to make a smartphone port, which seems to counter Capcom's plans to embrace more platforms directly--however we're still not sure what the contractual terms are.

The new DmC mobile game is powered by Unity and will be an action-based title...but I'm curious how well users can control Dante's acrobatic escapades via a touchscreen. Hey, if they can make a battle royale mobile game, this should be possible too. Other features include an online mode of play with PVP and team action (which makes a lot of sense for the Chinese mobile market), and it's probable the game will have some sort of in-game purchases or microtransactions to monetize the online modes.

Sony's PS4 has continued massive sales throughout its 4-year timeline, and according to an IDC analyst, the console could hit 100 million sales by 2019. But what about Sony's next-gen plan? The PS5, or whatever it may be called, could launch in 2021.

This month Sony reported that the PS4 has sold-through 70.6 million units since the console launched back in 2013, up a mighty 10.2 million units from its figures from June. According to senior IDC analyst Lewis Ward if these numbers continue the PS4 could hit 100 million total global sales by 2019, tacking on 29.4 million units in about two years time. "I think the PS4 will probably get [to 100 million] in 2019," Ward said in a recent interview with GamingBolt.

These predictions would put the PS4's total sales at about 66% of the PS2's 151 million lifetime sales in a span of about six years.

The latest version of Wii U emulator CEMU now supports multi-threaded CPUs, with CEMU v1.11.3 adding support for multi-threaded CPU emulation, amongst other new features and improvements.

CEMU v1.11.3 also features other optimizations that include cache drawcall index data across frames if the GPU buffer cache accuracy is set too low, a new graphics pack texture rule options, and adds task and task settings API. The new CEMU v1.11.3 is available to Patreon backers, and then to the public next week.

CEMU v1.11.3 Release Notes:

Psychonauts 2, Double Fine's anticipated platformer has sadly been delayed as the developer has realized the scope of the game they are making and how much time the project they had in mind will actually take.

The news was broke on Psychonauts 2's Fig page, Double Fine discussed the production of the upcoming title stating that the development team consists of "five full level teams" which are "working on the real-world locations and brand new mental worlds." Even though the teams are ramping up with the development of the game questions have begun to surface for the company as to how long the game is going to take to fully develop and is it going to be same vision they originally intended.

Within the production section of the blog post, Double Fine admit that they have learned through predicting when the finished product will be completed that Psychonauts 2 will not be seeing the light of day through 2018, but will have a more likely chance of a completion and release in 2019.

Heroes of the Storm has taken to Twitter today to announce their next Hero, which is scheduled for release in January next year. 'Blaze', the Veteran Firebat has been selected as the next Hero that will be stepping onto the battlefield, originally from the very first Starcraft games and a pivotal unit throughout the Starcraft universe, Blaze has been given a quick teaser video confirming his debut to Heroes of the Storm.

Blizzard have taken the original Firebat unit and will implement him into their MOBA but have also given us no knowledge of what Blaze's abilities are, or where he fits in on the battlefield. Since there is no knowledge of his abilities all that can be done is educated guessing based off the unit within the Starcraft universe. Firebats within the Starcraft universe are AOE (area of effect) masters mostly used for defensive purposes due to their dual arm-mounted flame throwers.

Firebats also use armored plating, to complement this Firebats also have a upgrade to their armor called 'Juggernaut Plating' which increases the Firebats health and base armor. This is not a lot to go on as Blaze could very well be changed before his release but from what is known about Firebats already, it could very well could be implemented into Heroes of the Storm.

The Division was one of the most-hyped games of the last few years and while it might be doing alright now, it didn't start off that well. The game launched in March last year, and has since been patched and had DLC after DLC released pleasing fans alike.

Now we have Massive Entertainment Managing Director David Polfeldt saying that the developer will continue to support the game, as long as there are people playing it, but he didn't rule out that they aren't working on a sequel or an offshoot of The Division.

Polfeldt spoke with IGN recently, where he said: "I think it's a wonderful, wonderful brand that has so many potential stories in it. There are a lot of things that we didn't do in The Division 1 that are interesting to look at for that brand. I definitely think there's lots of space for continuation which is beyond just keeping The Division online. But...I can't talk about that too much right now".

It was during the Star Citizen Holiday 2017 livestream that developer Cloud Imperium Games chose to unveil the PC requirements of Squadron 42... and how weird they are. This is what you'll need to run Squadron 42:

See that? You'll need a DX11-capable graphics card with just 2GB of RAM, but 4GB is strongly recommended. 2GB of VRAM for a game that has been pushed as one of the most ambitious PC games, ever?! Hmmm.

It's good for those who aren't rocking GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, as it'll open the game to the backers who pledged towards Star Citizen all the way back in 2012.

Crytek will pay you in digital cryptocurrency to play specific games...just not in Bitcoin or Ethereum.

While there's still reports Crytek hasn't paid its employees for work owed, the games-maker will apparently pay gamers in its new "Crycash" cryptocurrency to play Warface, it's free-to-play shooter. In order to make its own cryptocurrency, Crytek co-founder Faruk Yerli teamed up with Wachtang Budagaschwili, who sits as CEO of the startup.

As per info gleaned from Yerli, Polygon explains that as gamers play Warface and achieve certain things, they'll get Crycash. This will essentially be treated as a reverse digital currency--instead of buying, you're getting something in return for your time and effort. It's kind of like a reverse microtransaction of sorts. The cryptocurrency will be put in a digital wallet, and can potentially be traded and exchanged for Bitcoin and Ethereum (not sure about this one).

On the heels of selling over 20 million copies to date, the last-man-standing shooter won't stop smashing barriers.

Today PUBG finally exited early access and embraced the harsh realities of a bona-fide release on PC (the Xbox port is still in early access and based on the performance issues it's likely to stay there for quite some time). While it's quite impressive that PUBG Corp was able to keep their promise to launch the game in 2017 alone, the game's official launch is accompanied by yet another milestone: the game has reached 30 million players worldwide across all platforms.

With sales numbers like these as well as this strong playerbase, it's only a matter of time before big publishers step into the arena. Epic Games jumped in with Fortnite, and rumor has it Valve is jumping in with a battle royale gametype for CS:GO, but nothing's been confirmed just yet. We can only imagine how much cash Bluehole will make from PUBG's in-game cosmetic microtransactions, which were planned to go live in the final release.

Following the big fiasco around Middle-earth: Shadow of War and the most recent Battlefront II, gamers have asked the powers that be to regulate lootbox "gambling," which is something that other countries have long done. While the movement has yet to gain major traction insofar as legislation, Apple is cracking down in its own way.

According to the latest Apple App Store review guidelines, games and apps published on the storefront that contain lootboxes must disclose the odds of everything that can pop in said in-app purchase.

"Apps offering loot boxes or other mechanisms that provide randomized virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to purchase," reads part of the long review guidelines.