Gaming - Page 991

UPDATE: Blizzard won't be remastering the original Diablo games, but instead recreating the first Diablo adventure within Diablo III. There was no mention of porting Diablo II over in this fashion, so it looks like D2 will remain as it is.

Original story is as follows.

Blizzard may unveil remastered versions of the original ARPGs that started it all at Blizzcon, with HD ports of Diablo I and Diablo II along with a new Necromancer class being the major Diablo announcements at the show.

The new NES Classic Edition, or NES Mini as it's collectively known, aims to bring the world back to the golden age of 80's console gaming. But what makes the little box tick? Is it just a Raspberry Pi slapped into a cute teensy NES replica?

As it turns out, the NES Mini is quite close to your basic cheap tablet in terms of internal hardware. The tech itself is somewhat similar with a Raspberry Pi 2, but Nintendo has customized the NES Mini and removed a bunch of basic components found on the Raspberry Pi models, and Nintendo also went with a cheaper Allwinner alternative for obvious reasons.

Unlike a Raspberry Pi 3, however, the NES Mini's 512MB Spansion NAND Flash memory is soldered directly onto the PCB, so you won't be able to easily swap in Mini SD cards loaded with tons of ROMs.

N7 Day is just three days away, and EA is expected to finally reveal Mass Effect: Andromeda's 2017 release date. That date won't be set in stone, however: EA says that it will delay the game as far as half a year if BioWare needs more time.

Even amidst its new push towards action games, EA understands that the Mass Effect IP is a juggernaut that can't be rushed out the door.

BioWare has been diligently working on the game for years now, and the game itself has shown up at major trade shows like E3 2016 with hardly any in-game footage. There's a reason for that: EA is giving BioWare all the time they need to make the game great.

Steam may soon require all games sold on its digital storefront to be accompanied by actual in-game screenshots instead of disingenuous, non-representative "bullshot" images that devs and publishers use to dazzle gamers.

Good news, PC gamers! Bullshots are coming to an end, at least on Steam. Valve plans on rolling out a new Discovery 2.0 update in a few weeks that asks developers to showcase authentic images of their game. This means the obviously doctored Watch Dogs bullshots and those infamous No Man's Sky images will need to be swapped out entirely--along with a ton of other misleading screenshots.

"We ask that any image syou upload to the screenshot section of your store page should be screenshots that show your game. This means avoiding using concept art, pre-rendered cinematic stills, or images that contain awards, cmarketing copy, or written product descriptions. Please show customers what youre game is actually like to play," Valve wrote on the blog update.

Facebook is making a big push into PC gaming with the launch of its Gameroom, a Windows desktop gaming platform. The app is available for users to download on Windows 7 and up.

The app is easy to install and lets users play games without the distraction of the News Feed. Users can browse the games by category, see all the games they usually play on Facebook and get all the game notifications in one place.

The Gameroom is filled with many games, some that you are already familiar with from Facebook, but there are also some native Gameroom games that you can check out.

Dishonored 2 has gone gold - and we know that means it's finished in some way, and will have some massive day one patch and will take weeks until it's more of a finished form because gold means so much right now - trash talk aside, Arkane Studios has revealed the PC requirements of Dishonored 2.

You'll need 8GB of RAM and 60GB of HDD space, as well as a mid-range graphics card and Steam of course. Even if you buy the physical copy of Dishonored 2, you'll still need to download "additional files" from Steam to activate the game.

NVIDIA technology and features are found in Dishonored 2, with the new GeForce 375.70 WHQL drivers recommended for the game, with NVIDIA including HBAO+, TXAA, Ansel, and Surround support.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider could be the third installment in Square Enix's new Tomb Raider reboot series.

While riding on a subway, a Montreal Redditor noticed something quite interesting on a passenger's laptop: a presentation deck for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which may be Lara Croft's third adventure. The news broke earlier this morning, and the game's name has since been verified by multiple sources including Kotaku.

As Crystal Dynamics is based in California, not Montreal, it appears the studio may be handing the torch off to Eidos Montreal, Square Enix's Montreal-based team. Eurogamer has apparently confirmed that Eidos Montreal will be developing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but also notes that Crystal Dynamics is almost certainly still involved with the franchise.

Although Nintendo's new Switch handheld-and-console hardware clashes with traditional smartphone gaming, the Japanese console-maker aims to have synergy between the two platforms.

Nintendo's new smartphone gaming push may actually see some sort of parity across its new Switch system, possibly bringing some aspects of its mobile games lineup including Pokemon GO, Super Mario Run, and more to the handheld via cross-platform interactivity.

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima has confirmed the Switch can be tethered to mobile devices via My Nintendo, the company's new Nintendo Account user framework.

Civilization VI and NBA 2K17 have been big sellers for 2K Games this year, but when you look at the larger flops like Mafia III and Evolve, what's going on with the company? According to an ex-developer from 2K, the company "can be so incompetent".

Hacker Noon reported that the ex-2K developer said: "Basically what had happened was that Ken had been pushed past his limits with the stress of running BioShock Infinite - the team was so huge and unwieldy that he wanted to go back to basics and build a game with a skeleton crew like in the old days. He basically tried to quit, but 2K said "no, don't go, you can do whatever you want - just stay with us", with the post not finished yet.

"2K should have managed that situation better. If you have a big team who work well together in Boston, why not put a new studio head at the top and keep the team together? It could still be called Irrational - it would still have the majority of the original staff. Then Ken could go and do his thing, and everyone else could continue to do theirs - you know - making successful games for 2K...", and we're just getting started.

Cyan Games has an update for Obduction which is packed with technology features and updates, expanding the already immersive world they created.

Obduction's latest patch includes VR support, letting Oculus Rift users (sorry, HTC Vive owners) play the game in VR. Not only that, but the patch includes support for both HDR, and NVIDIA's screenshot-taking Ansel feature.

Ansel lets you set up, compose, and take ridiculously high-resolution in-game screenshots - and then adjust them and add post-processing effects, and even 360-degree shots that can be viewed through a smartphone, PC or VR headset.

We're getting some more insight into the future of Xbox from the head of Xbox himself, Phil Spencer, where he said during an interview with Game Informer that the PC version of Battlefield 1 was the best-looking version of the game.

During the interview, Spencer was asked about his comments during E3 2016 where he used the phrase "gaming beyond generations", with Game Informer asking: "Does this mean that in the future, console gamers will need to buy hardware more regularly if they want to play the best possible version of a game?"

Spencer replied: "It's hard to tell. Clearly in the case of Xbox One, Xbox One S and Scorpio, the answer would be, I don't know if it's more regularly, but you're going to want Scorpio to run the game at the highest resolution or framerate - whatever the developers decide to do with that game".

Activision is preparing for the big launch of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and over the last few weeks they have together with developer Infinity Ward taken loads of information from the multiplayer beta of Infinite Warfare leading up to the official launch.

The day one patch for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare includes:

WEAPONS

Battlefield 1 is one of the best-looking games ever made, and it looks and runs absolutely beautifully on the PC - so it seems fitting when Xbox boss Phil Spencer praises the PC version of BF1.

During an interview with Game Informer, Spencer was asked "One of the reasons that people choose consoles over PC is because they don't like that feeling of missing out on the best possible version on their platform. Is there a danger that you're introducing that into the console space with Xbox Scorpio?"

His reply: "The best-looking version of Battlefield is going to be PC. Somebody's going to be able to throw enough hardware at Battlefield to get it to outperform what any of the consoles on the market are going to do. I guess you could say, as a console person, that you feel like you don't get to play the best version of Battlefield so somehow you're disappointed".

Titanfall 2 has flown too close to the sun, and by sun we mean the releases of Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Skyrim Special Edition (which only runs at 30FPS on the Xbox One and PS4, by the way). The first-week sales numbers are in, and it's not looking good at all for EA and Respawn Entertainment.

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Titanfall 2's physical sales in the UK are "well below the ones achieved by its predecessor", which it should be reiterated - was released on the Xbox One and PC only. GamesIndustry.biz reports: "In fact, the game's launch sales are barely a quarter of the ones achieved by its original - despite the fact that this sequel has the added benefit of launching on PS4. Titanfall 2 debuts at No.4 in the GfK Top 10, while the original reached No.1".

Now we have to question the future of not only the Titanfall franchise, but of developer Respawn Entertainment - their sequel to Titanfall looks like it won't be something that's remembered, but will EA continue throwing money at them?

It has been five years since Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but now the developer has their remastered version of the game on current-gen consoles, and while it looks better than it did when it was released, it's only capable of 1080p 30FPS.

Skyrim Special Edition runs at 1920x1080 on the PS4 and Xbox One at a targeted frame rate of 30FPS, with Digital Foundry noting in its technical analysis of the game that the Xbox One hits 1080p with "some degree of overhead left over", meaning it could run at anywhere up to 60FPS, but they added it's "almost certainly not enough to sustain 60fps frame-rates, necessitating the 30fps cap".

The newly polished version of the game looks "pretty solid" according to Digital Foundry, with Bethesda using some of the temporal anti-aliasing that was used in Fallout 4, also released by the developer. The report says: "It can be viewed as an enhanced PC port for the current-gen platforms and in comparison to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, there's a night and day improvement in terms of performance and stability, not to mention resolution, art quality and overall levels of detail".

EA is experiencing quite a week, with the successful launch of Battlefield 1, a limped launch of Titanfall 2, and then in the middle of it all the company has banned an entire country from its digital distribution service, Origin.

A post on the /r/gaming section of Reddit by 'trivial_sublime' paints a pretty bad picture for EA, with the poster saying: "I live in Myanmar, and I own about 20 games on Origin, and have spent hundreds of dollars on the platform. I've bought the full editions of all of the Battlefield games up to this point, with their season passes. I was trying to log into Origin a few days ago, and got a bizarre "Access Denied" message. I googled it, and found that "Origin is no longer available in Myanmar".

A post on EA's own website from '1guntra' said that they were getting "Access Denied" error messages when connecting from Yangon, Myanmar. An EA representative responded, saying: "We are working to restore access to Origin for our players in Myanmar. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we'll share updates on timing as soon as possible".

Director Cory Barlog has initiated that the God of War reboot, will not be happening at Sony's PSX 2016 later this year (Dec 3-4).

Between hardcore fans and audiences, whispers of any hope that a short snippet of gameplay may be revealed at the event, were soon shut down after he took to Twitter to drop the news.

Check out @corybarlog's Tweet:

It has recently been revealed that Crash Bandicoot willl be joining the new Skylanders Netflix show, Skylanders Academy.

The video trailer turned up via YouTube as Pix Pinguino uploaded a segment of Crash in in his first appearance of the show. The famous Australian Bandicoot debuts in Skylanders Academy's eleventh episode, titled "Crash Landing." Audiences can currently watch all 12 episodes via Netflix.

Skylanders Academy comes as the first production from Activision Blizzard Studios and has already been confirmed for a Season 2 has already been confirmed on Netflix, later next year.

System requirements for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered are here, ahead of the game's November 4 launch. Well, the minimum are, anyway: no recommended requirements are anywhere to be found. Then again, they weren't for the original Modern Warfare either.

The 450 versus 7850 is strange, to say the least.

If you're curious to, compare those to the original requirements, the difference between which is quite a bit higher than one might expect:

Half-Life remake Black Mesa has been in development for about eight years. It finally saw the light of day in 2012, albeit with the infamous Xen levels and thus the ending missing. At long last, they are nearing completion: developer Crowbar Interactive has pinned down a release window to summer 2017.

Explaining the extended timeline, Crowbar says bringing the game to Steam -- which requires porting and optimization -- has taken up a lot of resources. The rest of it is due to a strong desire to do justice to the levels as well redesign and expand them so they represent what "Valve would have done without the limitations of the time." As you can see from the map comparison above, they are much, much bigger and more complex; hopefully the new designs don't mean Xen is even more maddening than before.