Gaming - Page 962

After two years in development, SpeedTree 8 is nearly ready, featuring graphical and intuitive time saving features - and will make its grand debut during GDC 2017 next week.

The debut of SpeedTree 8 will happen with Amazon's CryEngine-based Lumberyard graphics engine, making its way to Lumberyard in Q2 2017 - but there will be support for other graphics engines in the near future. IDV, the team behind SpeedTree 8, has released some new screenshots to tease us before the big reveal next week.

Michael Sechrest, co-founder of Interactive Data Visualization (IDV) explains: "Amazon Lumberyard is an outstanding showcase for the new surface-scanned materials and modeling features that SpeedTree 8 brings to the table. Our new physically based rendering material workflow, wind algorithms and overall modeling enhancements all shine in the engine. Lumberyard will be the first to experience the most powerful version of SpeedTree yet".

I love it when video games leave a distinct impression and make you think. Team 17's new unique sci-fi game Genesis Alpha One has done both, and I'm genuinely intrigued.

Indie dev Radiation Blue's new game Genesis Alpha One has ignited my imagination. Aesthetically, it looks like it'd be at home in the Alien franchise, and I see shades of 80's style sci-fi from the greats like John Berkey, Kubrick and Ralph McQuarrie.

There's a synthetic sterility to it all that really invokes this true feeling of cold, heartless androids or genetically-modified nonhuman clones. Its space without the celestial wonder: the dark, deadly and foreboding space, the space where no one can hear your scream. The space that's our future and our damnation all-in-one.

Mass Effect: Andromeda's PC port will deliver the ultimate experience in many ways: uncapped frame rates, proper 4K gaming, 21:9 ultrawide support on day one, better visuals and PC-wide optimizations through DICE's powerful Frostbite 3 engine. But there's one caveat: it's exclusive to EA's Origin client.

If you want to play BioWare's latest and greatest new Mass Effect game on PC then you have two options: buy the game physically in DVD form or pick it up on EA's Origin client. BioWare has confirmed that Mass Effect: Andromeda won't be sold on Steam. This is likely to secure the game with Origin client DRM.

Nintendo is suing a Japanese go-kart company for hosting real-life Mario Kart racing events throughout the streets of Tokyo.

Marika is a company in Japan that hosts go-kart racing tournaments where attendees dress up as Mario Kart characters and zoom around the city of Tokyo. These races are quite popular, however Marika (an abbreviation for Mario Kart) didn't get Nintendo's permission, nor are they paying Nintendo for the rights to use their characters.

Once Nintendo got wind of this they instantly filed a lawsuit seeking "compensation for unfair competition and copyright infringement acts."

PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn is nearly here, and it is riding quite the hype wave being called the best game on the new PS4 Pro so far - developer Guerrilla Games has released the launch trailer, and details on the upcoming v1.01 and v1.02 patches.

Guerrilla took to the official PlayStation Blog, where they wrote: "It is my pleasure to be able to share the launch trailer for Guerrilla's new title, Horizon Zero Dawn. This is easily our most ambitious project that we have taken on. When we began our journey over five years ago, we wanted to have the creative freedom to imagine something fresh. As soon as we saw the enthusiasm from the team for the concept, and our lead Aloy, we knew we were on the right path".

The developer continued: "The result of our voyage is Horizon Zero Dawn - a game set in a lush post-apocalyptic world, in which Machines are the dominant species and mankind is propelled back to the stone ages. It is a game of exploration, not just of the perilous new world but also of Aloy's identity. On behalf of the entire team at Guerrilla, I hope you'll enjoy accompanying Aloy on her journey as much as we have enjoyed creating it for you".

Mass Effect Andromeda is close to its release - with BioWare sharing the PC system requirements for the game, with relatively tame requirements - like a GTX 660/Radeon HD 7850.

The full requirements:

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Obsidian Entertainment, the devs that brought us many such fine games as Pillars of Eternity and Fallout: New Vegas, want to expand their repertoire with a number of different types of games. In fact, the devs want to make their own Dark Souls-style hard-as-nails 3D RPG.

Obsidian devs revealed some interesting details about future projects and aspirations in a recent Reddit AMA. When asked if the team will make more traditional action 3D RPGs similar to Dark Souls, Fallout or Mass Effect, company CEO Feargus Urguhart replied in the affirmative.

"Absolutely, one of the reasons we are up on FIG is to see if we can find a new source of funding for our games to make all sorts. However, I'm not sure if you saw, but have both Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky working on something that isn't Pillars of Eternity."

Hideo Kojima previously said that his new mysterious Death Stranding game will "transcend established genres," but now the Metal Gear Solid creator says the game is an open-world action game with tons of freedom.

In a recent interview with PlayStation Blog, Kojima teased new info on Death Stranding. We already knew some of this info--such as the action/shooter elements and promises of delivering something gamers have never seen before, but there's some new teases too.

"You can think of Death Stranding as an action game. Many people play games in the shooting genre and I want to make a game that is very intuitive for them so they can get into the experience very easily, but when they play it for a bit they will realize there is a certain new type of depth to it, something that they might not have seen before."

AMD might have launched their Ryzen CPU family in the last 36 hours, but the tease of Radeon Vega was very welcome - and now, we're seeing benchmarks of the Radeon RX 580. But, is the Radeon RX 580 based on the Vega GPU architecture? I don't think so.

First off: the new Radeon RX 580 benchmark leaks are from a single benchmark - Ashes of he Singularity. Second, the person testing the Radeon RX 580 is coming from AMD - so we could be seeing someone trying to throw us off. Secondly, the Radeon RX 560 was also tested - which is an interesting thing to see, right? This is why I do not think the Radeon RX 500 series are Vega-based graphics cards, so let's talk about that now.

My sources told me months after AMD launched the Radeon RX 480 that there would be a revamped version with an improved PCB without the power delivery issues, and I think this is what we're seeing now with the Radeon RX 580 and RX 560. I think the Radeon RX 580 will be a heavily improved RX 480 priced at $199, and will be unveiled very soon.

Nintendo has confirmed its new Switch handheld-console hybrid will support remote game downloads at home or on-the-go, similar to the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.

Let's say you're away from home and you buy a Switch game on Nintendo's website. Even while you're gone, the Switch console will start automatically downloading the game similar to the PS4's remote download feature. The added bonus is that the Switch can auto-download purchased games while on-the-go as long as the system is connected to Wi-Fi. Before you can do any of this, though, you'll have to download a day-one update to access the eShop.

"After visiting Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch for the first time, gamers can also purchase Nintendo Switch digital games on Nintendo.com. Users can purchase the games on Nintendo's website and have them download automatically to their Nintendo Switch system at home or on the go, wherever there is a Wi-Fi connection," Nintendo announced in a recent press release.

The most important part of any game or gaming hardware is being able to play it with the included controllers. The Nintendo Switch may have a serious problem in this regard as the left JoyCon controller is disconnecting during game sessions.

Multiple game outlets are reporting connection issues with the Switch's left JoyCon. Issues range from controller disconnecting and desycning from the device to noticeable input lag and latency issues, possibly indicating a hardware fault.

When BioShock developer Irrational Games closed its doors in 2014, we heard that Ken Levine moved on to work on a new Twilight Zone interactive experience. Now Irrational Games announced it has become Ghost Story, a new studio co-founded by Ken Levine and a bunch of former Irrational employees. We think it's way too coincidental that these two are unrelated, and here's why we think the ex BioShock devs are working on a Twilight Zone interactive game-movie.

Irrational's new Ghost Story studio is a small team of twelve devs that's already working on a new game. This game will be a new IP and is entirely apart from BioShock--and we think it's a unique meld of movies and games. The team didn't go indie, however: Take-Two Interactive is still listed on the studio's website, meaning they're still part of the Grand Theft Auto publisher's label. This is important because a big project like a Twilight Zone interactive game/film crossover requires a decent investment.

Ken Levine is currently working on an interactive Twilight Zone project that will "explore the spaces between movies and games."

One thing I've always loved about Dragon Age and Mass Effect games is skill combos. The ability to combine certain skills in a potent concoction of chaos makes me feel like a mad scientist, and nothing is more satisfying than experimenting with different abilities. Mass Effect: Andromeda is carrying the torch forward with a newly evolved combo system that will make us all into crazy skill-brewers.

via GIPHY

Apparently Nintendo Switch digital game purchases can't be shared across multiple systems, hinting the same Nintendo Account can't be active on multiple Switch consoles.

Despite Nintendo making strides by finally linking eShop purchases to online Nintendo Accounts instead of hardware, thereby not forcing gamers to rebuy games they already own on different platforms, Nintendo Switch has a rather conventional approach to game sharing: locking digital game ownership licenses to the account it was purchased on.

This tidbit was uncovered in a recent YouTube video, where one curious parent gamer asked:

343 Industries studio head Bonnie Ross confirms that all future Halo FPS games will have split-screen.

"We've done a lot of learning from when we fell down, like with multiplayer in MCC, or when we didn't put split-screen in Halo 5. I think it's incredibly painful for the community and for us and I think it erodes trust with the community. A lot of learning from that and I would say that any FPS going forward we will always have split-screen in," Ross said during the DICE 2017 Summit.

Now that everyone can fire up PSN or Xbox LIVE for their multiplayer needs, split-screen FPS gaming is pretty much dead. But Halo has always been about playing with friends, and removing split-screen co-op or multiplayer is pretty much a slap in the face to fans--not that the entire game itself isn't a slap to the face, microtransactions, horrible story, and awful AI mechanics and all.

Today Capcom announced that Dead Rising 4 will shamble over to Steam and Windows 7 PCs on March 14, 2017.

Dead Rising 4 is currently locked into an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and the game is only available on Windows 10 PC's via the Windows Store and Xbox One consoles. This deal will end in March about 14 weeks after the game's initial release, allowing Steam gamers will finally be able to buy into Capcom Vancouver's re-imagining of the series.

Although Capcom reported "firm" Dead Rising 4 sales on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, it's only natural for these exclusivity deals to be timed. These companies want to maximize profits as much as possible and that means multi-platform releases (just don't expect it to ever come to PS4). Given Dead Rising 4's critical reception as the "anti-Dead Rising" game I'm wondering just how many copies the game will sell on Steam without sales or discounts. We also have the PC system specs required for Dead Rising 4 below.

This year's Call of Duty game won't take place in space; it'll be a more grounded, traditional and gritty foray into the heart of the franchise and return players back into the mud and blood firefights that made the series popular during its early days. In short, Sledgehammer Games will resurrect Call of Duty to its former glory--and we have strong evidence that the game will take place during the Vietnam War.

Sledgehammer Games studio head Glen Schofield is extremely excited about Call of Duty 2017, and further teases boots on the ground action: "There's nothing I can say about the game except there are boots and ground and I guess some roots. I hope I can talk soon or I may implode," Schofield said on Twitter.

In fact, the dev says this is the studio's best work yet and gamers will go absolutely nuts when it's revealed: "Nothing to worry about. Wait until we reveal. You're gonna go nuts. Our best yet dude! Man, I'm so psyched to show it...someday."

Nintendo today confirmed that a day one update is required to access the eShop on the Nintendo Switch console.

When the Switch hybrid-handheld console launches on March 3, it won't be able to actually download games on the eShop without an update. Nintendo affirms these system updates are highly optimized and un-intrusive, allowing users to download system firmware updates in the background while playing games.

"To access Nintendo eShop, a system update that will be available on launch day is required. The system update downloads in the background, is designed to install quickly and doesn't disrupt gameplay," the Japanese console-maker revealed in a recent press release.

Nintendo today confirmed some very disappointing news: the Switch won't have any Virtual Console support when it launches on March 3.

"Virtual Console games will not be available on Nintendo Switch at launch. We will share more information in the future," Nintendo confirmed in a recent press release.

Instead of Virtual Console games, the Switch will have three indie games (aka Nindies) available on the eShop, along with the previously announced retail launch games:

Nintendo officially unboxing their fresh console-handheld hybrid reminds us of one thing: the system launches in nine days. It's really happening!

If you've been paying close attention to our Nintendo Switch coverage you'll realize the unboxing doesn't really tell us anything new. But it's still interesting to see the device out in the wild, and we do get to see the tablet and the JoyCons sized up in two different handsizes, giving use perspective on the actual size of the system itself.

Remember that the Nintendo Switch doesn't come with any games or actual game software pre-loaded onto it, so the $299 price just gets you the system by itself. The Switch comes with 25.9GB of usable storage memory, two JoyCon controllers, JoyCon straps, a JoyCon Grip that doesn't charge the JoyCons, the Switch tablet "console," a dock that's required for TV Mode play, an HDMI cord, and an AC adapter for charging the Switch on-the-go and supplying power to the dock.