Gaming - Page 945

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was one of the best-looking first-person shooters of the mid-90s on the PC and Nintendo 64, even when it was a fog-of-war filled game.

For me, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil didn't have the same feel, but there's now a high-def texture pack for the game from modder 'grabeskuehle'. The texture pack keeps with Turok 2's original look and feel, but the modder has provided some gorgeous 2048x2048 phototextures.

There will be future revisions of the high-def texture pack that will replace the older textures in the first 4 worlds, and a future update that will improve the last two levels too - as well as the textures for the character/enemy models, and the weapons. You can download the high-res texture pack for Turok 2: Seeds of Evil right here.

It's been a few years since the infamous SNES PlayStation Prototype was revealed to the world, and now legendary electronics expert Ben Heck has restored it to full working order. Check out his video below which shows how he managed to get a once fabled piece of gaming history to work.

Allegedly found in a box belonging to an old Nintendo employee, the SNES PlayStation Prototype wasn't operating at all when Ben Heck first came across it, but was soon able to get the Super Nintendo components to work and play a few commercial titles. However apart from some basic functionality with the CD ROM drive, the most interesting part of the unit; the early PlayStation prototype wasn't correctly functioning and with a lack of technical specs and time with the unit, Heck wasn't able to get it operating. Until now, that is.

In a matter of year, the legendary SNES PlayStation prototype has gone from a fable, to a fully functioning product. And that's very, very cool.

Activision-Blizzard released its Q1 2017 financial results, revealing that the company has turned Overwatch into yet another billion-dollar franchise.

But it was the PC that surprised me, with $566 million revenue generated in Q1 2017 alone, and while it doesn't match all of the consoles combined - it is the most profitable platform by far. If we consider the entire console market made Activision just $615 million while PC made $566 million, and the fact that 'console' represents all Xbox and PlayStation consoles, Activision-Blizzard is making quite a lot of bank from the PC.

Activision-Blizzard made a decent $475 million from mobile gaming platforms as well, while $70 million came from 'other' platforms. Compared to Q4 2016, where PC made $400 million - the $566 million haul for Q1 2017 is a huge haul indeed.

Rumors indicate Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed game won't be called "Empire," but will instead be called "Origins." The game is predicted to still be based in ancient Egypt, and is said to have staggering freedom that eclipses the previous games--and it's supposed to have extensive boat mechanics.

Sources have told game site WWG that Assassin's Creed: Origins will be quite extensive, suggesting this will be Ubisoft's greatest endeavor to date. Origins takes place in ancient Egypt, but the exact time period is still unknown; while the sources mention boat travel across the Nile river and the Mediterranean Sea, ancient Egypt's naval presence is almost as old as the civilization itself, ditto for its boats, which go all the way back to 3500 BC.

I personally guess that Assassin's Creed: Origins will take place during the Hellenistic Period within the ancient city of Alexandria, and allow gamers to witness the great inter-mingling of the Greeks and Egyptians under the reign of Ptolemy Soter I of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

Overkill's new anticipated The Walking Dead co-op game has been significantly delayed so it can "reach its full potential" and achieve the studio's original vision.

Overkill Software, who's most known for Payday 2, is currently developing a shooter based in The Walking Dead franchise but not much is actually known about the project. Now publishing arm Starbreeze Studios announced the project has been delayed by a year from its original 2H 2017 launch to 2H 2018--which could be anywhere from July to December 2018.

"We, together with the development team of OVERKILL's The Walking Dead, decided to extend the production schedule so that the title will reach its full potential and pursue our original vision a step further," said Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint.

Tekken 7 will be playable on Sony's PS4-powered PlayStation VR headset, but only in a limited capacity with a small token mode.

Rather than push the bill with a new kind of Tekken VR experience, Bandai Namco has played it safe with Tekken 7's virtual reality mode. While Tekken 7 is coming to all platforms (Xbox One, PS4 and PC), Sony snagged the exclusive VR rights for its PSVR headset. We reported on it back in October 2015 to much excitement...but Tekken 7's VR mode is just a glorified practice mode where players spectate in third-person and battle AI to learn combos and moves.

Essentially the publisher is toe-dipping into the VR pool and doesn't want to spend too many resources making something unique--especially since the PSVR attach rate isn't nearly as big as the PS4 console's.

Tekken 7 will indeed hit a consistent and solid 60FPS on PS4, but the game apparently runs closer to 900p instead of 1080p.

Last year we reported Tekken 7 will run at 1080p 60FPS on PS4, however it appears that Bandai Namco's new fighter will hit a resolution that's closer to 900p than native 1080p. Eurogamer's Digital Foundry reports that the developer's choice of Unreal Engine 4 for Tekken 7 provides a bevy of visual upgrades at the expense of resolution.

"UE4 typically employs a form of temporal anti-aliasing that can make pixel-counting difficult, but the soft nature of the presentation doesn't seem to derive just from the extensive post-processing effects, but also from a native resolution that seems to resolve closer to 900p than the standard 1080p we tend to see on PlayStation 4 titles. Anti-aliasing coverage is also spotty at points, leading to visible jaggies across clean edges on some of the more industrial stages, which occasionally takes away some of the refinement from the presentation," Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter said after seeing Tekken 7 in action at a recent press event.

Vicarious Visions, the team behind Activision's myriad Skylanders games, will help ensure Destiny 2 has a steady stream of post-release content, expansions, and updates.

We've known for a while now that has Bungie enlisted the help of Vicarious Visions and other devs to work on the new Destiny sequel--after all, Destiny 2 is releasing on PC and will include a slew of new features and a dynamic storyline.

But up until now we weren't exactly sure what role these devs would have in the juggernaut shared-world FPS. As it turns out, the Skylanders devs will work alongside Bungie on Destiny 2's expansions and post-release content to facilitate maximum engagement--which drives active users and subsequent microtransaction earnings.

Activision affirms that Destiny 2 will come with many of the features PC gamers expect...but leaves out specifics for the upcoming stream showcase.

It's been a long time since Bungie has made a PC game, but with Destiny 2 coming to PC this September, it's critical the devs are able to harness the wide spectrum of graphics cards and PC hardware while maintaining proper features befit a triple-A shooter. In fact, Bungie is pressured on two different fronts: console gamers expect a fully-fledged campaign with better expansions, and PC gamers expect a proper port that's optimized for higher- and lower-end rigs.

According to Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg, Destiny 2 will impress PC gamers.

Overwatch is a smashing success for Blizzard, and the company has big plans for its global FPS sensation.

Blizzard has yet another billion-dollar franchise under its belt: Activision-Blizzard's latest Q1 2017 earnings confirms that Overwatch is now officially the company's 8th billion-dollar franchise, joining the ranks of Diablo, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft. Overwatch achieving stellar net sales, earnings, and record engagement levels--all in less than a year's time. In fact, Blizzard says Overwatch accrued 30 million registered users faster than any other franchise in the company's history.

Activision's Q1 2017 earnings were led by Blizzard games, which pulled in a strong $441 net revenues (almost half of the company's $1.7 billion total). Microtransactions are up 25% with Overwatch's skins and loot boxes and World of Warcraft's tokens and pets pulling the lion's share of in-game revenues.

As Blizzard's revenues soar from engagement and in-game purchases across its entire portfolio, the company is quite comfortable just releasing strategic content updates instead of new games. In fact, the company won't release a new full game in 2017, but will offset this with a ton of new content updates across all of its current games.

Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime confirms the company's shift: "This year for Blizzard is a different kind of year for us, a year that isn't necessarily built on full game launches but content title updates for our games," Morhaime said in a recent Activision earnings call. "This quarter we have meaningful new updates for every franchise in our portfolio. In fact, we set a new DAU record last quarter thanks to title updates."

This push towards updates instead of costly full game releases makes a lot of sense, and is the current trajectory for many games-makers including EA and Ubisoft. While EA and Ubisoft indeed make new games, they rely heavily on tactical updates and seasonal events for earnings, especially in titles like Battlefront, Destiny, The Division and Rainbow Six: Siege. Microtransactions, online engagement via multiplayer, and the potential for eSports are the main building blocks for AAA games these days.

One of the biggest surprise hits of 2017 would have to be the amazingly fun PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a PC exclusive that hit Steam's Early Access a couple of months ago - and has now reached 2 million copies sold.

Just 72 hours after the game went into Early Access it had made $11 million, but now that 2 million copies have been sold, developer Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene along with publisher and co-developer Bluehole Inc., would be happy. This is why the two are hosting the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Charity Invitational event, with a target of $100,000 to raised for charity.

Considering the game went on Early Access on March 24, the 2 million copies sold milestone is considerable - and even in its Early Access state, it's the most fun I've had in a first-person shooter in a very long time. If you haven't already purchased PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, you really should - and if you have, comment below and tell us what some of your best battle experiences have been so far!

Eager not to repeat Dishonored 2's disastrous launch performance on PC, Arkane's new Prey game runs quite smooth on the platform.

Arkane appears to be making good on its promise that Prey will be "really flawless when it ships." According to PC Gamer, Prey has consistently smooth frame rates on specific AMD and NVIDIA cards. Prey is able to hit 1440p 100FPS with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 on a G-Sync enabled monitor at Very High settings, and the game never dropped below 90FPS.

AMD cards should fare well, at least higher cards like the Fury X: Prey ran at 1440p 60FPS at Very High with V-Sync enabled on an AMD Radeon R9 Fury X.

Nintendo recently revealed the New 2DS XL, a $149 handheld that mimics the New 3DS' better processor, games library, and clamshell foldability--all without the gimmicky 3D function. But why would Nintendo reveal this product so close after its new Switch handheld-console hybrid?

If you've read my New 2DS XL article, then you already know why Nintendo announced the handheld, and why the Japanese games-maker isn't giving up on the hardware. But Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime took to TIME to explain the move to everyday fans.

"The Nintendo 2DS really focused on that entry-level gamer, the four-, five-, six-year old that is just getting into gaming, but wants to play Mario Kart, wants to have a Super Mario Bros. experience, wants to play Pokémon," Fils-AIme told TIME. "And we feel with Nintendo 3DS XL at $199 that it's a fully-featured product, that it is, if you will, the Cadillac of handheld gaming. And then we heard from consumers, 'Boy, I wish there was something in between.'"

Valve has made some key changes to Steam's gifting system in an effort to standardize the feature, a move that hurts key resellers like G2A...but also harms overseas gamers.

The major change to Steam's gifting system is that gamers can no longer gift a game to users in other countries if there's a huge price difference between the two regions. For example, games are typically cheaper in the U.S. than in Australia, so many overseas gamers ask their U.S. friends to buy a game at a cheaper price and gift it to them and remunerate the buyer via Paypal. That option is no longer available if the games have a price difference of 10% or more across regions.

This move specifically harms key resellers in two ways. Resellers typically buy tons of games from overseas regions at a discounted rate via sales, and then sell them in other countries for profit via gift codes. Valve no longer allows gifting via email, so you can't send a gift Steam game code to someone via email. Plus Steam now restricts overseas purchases in the aforementioned way.

Much like any modern game, Arkane's new Prey game will release with a day-one patch.

Prey's day-one patch isn't so bad and only tallies to 1.3GB in size. But size isn't nearly as important as what it fixes, and according to the patch notes, the update smooths out quite a bit of things including frame rate bugs, audio issues, saving and loading bugs, and other problems across the board.

The patch also addresses NPC interactions and UI, as well as enemy behaviors, powers, player issues, and much more. Since Prey is slated to release this Friday, we thought it pertinent to roll this info out to give gamers a better idea of what to expect from the final game, especially anyone who's interested in the PS4 version.

Imagine the feeling of finding a CD-R with the source code to the original StarCraft... your heart would stop, and you wouldn't know what to do with yourself.

This is most likely what Reddit user Khemist49 went through, when he found a gold master source code disc of the original StarCraft from 1998, something that was discovered inside of a "box of Blizzard stuff" he purchased on eBay. Inside the box, he saw a CD-R that said "StarCraft Gold Master Source Code".

He took to Reddit, where some users said to rip everything off of the CD and put it online, but the decision drove him "crazy" in the end and he decided to tell Blizzard. Blizzard's legal team reached out to him, asking him to return the disc as it contained "intellectual property and trade secrets".

Microsoft showcases Project Scorpio's beefy devkit with a quick snippet of flavorful footage.

via GIPHY

Remedy Entertainment today announced a partnership with 505 Games to publish "P7", the developer's brand new action game.

Last month we reported that the Max Payne, Alan Wake and Quantum Break devs at Remedy Entertainment are working on a fresh new game codenamed P7. Now the devs reveal new info about the project, confirming P7 is a cinematic third-person action game set in a new Remedy-created universe.

So that means no Alan Wake or Max Payne sequel. P7 will be developed using Remedy's powerful Northlight games engine tech, and will release on all platforms--PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Nintendo will significantly exceed its Switch sales forecast by over 4 million units due to extreme demand, industry analyst predicts.

In the company's recent fiscal year earnings call, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said the console-maker expects to sell 10 million units of its new Switch console-handheld hybrid in the fiscal year ending on March 2018. But analysts expect Nintendo to substantially overshoot its guidance sales by as much as 45%.

Due to high demand that's only expected to surge throughout the year, Macquerie Capital Securities analyst David Gibson predicts Nintendo will sell 14.5 million Switch consoles or more in the fiscal year, reports The Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki.