Gaming - Page 999

Star Citizen is shaping up to be one of the biggest games ever made, and it's going to be a shining beacon of change for the PC gaming landscape. I have a larger article on Squadron 42 and how developer Cloud Imperium Games have delayed it 'indefinitely', as the scope of the game has grown bigger than CIG thought - and they want to do it right.

CIG showed off some gameplay footage from the latest build of Squadron 42 and Star Citizen, powered by Crytek's beautiful CRYENGINE, and now we have some screenshots to share with you. Check them out:

If you're an Origin Access subscriber, you can get your grubby hands-on Battlefield 1 with its Play First trial, right now.

Battlefield 1 can be played for 10 hours as a trial before its Early Access on October 18, and its full release on the PC, PS4 and Xbox One on October 21. The new Play First trial of BF1 weighs 40GB on the PC, with the installation requiring 47GB of HDD space. I'm downloading it right now, so expect some gameplay footage, impressions, and more from TweakTown very soon.

EA recently released 5 new gameplay trailers from the single-player side of Battlefield 1, and the game will include some powerful video creation tools.

The hackers responsible for Battlefield 1's DDoS attacks--as well as many others--have been caught by federal authorities and could face some serious jail time for their cybercrimes.

The two 19 year old hackers--Zachary Buchta from the U.S. and Bradley Jan Willem van Rooy from the Netherlands--have been charged for masterminding DDoS attacks for Lizard Squad and Poodlecorp, selling DDoS software and fraudulent credit cards.

The duo allegedly carried out a number of DDoS strikes, including the most recent crippling the Battlefield 1 beta servers. After the beta DDoS, Lizard Squad promised to smash Battlefield 1's servers once again when it launched on October 21.

Castlevania, that beloved sidescroller that taught you the meaning of "NES hard," is being unofficially remastered in a fan-made game with modern graphics.

Let's get this out of the way: I love Castlevania. I've been playing the games like a madman, and so far I've beaten Symphony of the Night and Super Castlevania IV, got to Dracula on Castlevania Dracula X, and am currently playing through the original trilogy on Wii U Virtual Console and Castlevania Chronicles on PS1. So when I heard that Dracula-slayer and resident indie dev Dejawolf is in the process of remaking the original NES Castlevania game in Unreal Engine 4, I practically leaped for joy (careful to avoid those floating Medusa heads!)

After more than a year of work on the project, the first chapter of the remake is currently available for download. Sadly, the game is almost unplayable thanks to its awkward keyboard controls, but it's not meant to be a final release--this is more of a demo of sorts, a taste of what's to come. I tried using an Xbox 360 controller with the game, and I could jump, but I couldn't use the whip...so I had to use Xpadder to bind my keyboard to my controller.

First we had the Xbox One, then the PlayStation 4 Pro. Now if rumors are to be believed, the NX could be called the Nintendo Duo.

Nintendo Duo. That might be the name of Nintendo's new NX handheld-console hybrid. At least if a purported "leaked" document can be believed, but there's also a huge change it's fake. Based on past evidence and postulations, this isn't a bad name; I posited how Nintendo would unify handheld and console gaming.

The way I see it, the NDuo is made up of two components: a handheld module, and a console module (hence the duo). As far as games, we have reason to believe the NDuo's games, which come on cartridges, could be swapped interchangably between the two bits of hardware. The hardware itself would be unified under a single platform, but the handheld would play a handheld-specific version of the game, whereas the console would play the full version of the game.

Battlefield 1 unlocks for Early Enlisters on October 13, letting them be teased with 10 hours of game time before the early release on October 18, and full release on October 21 - but now EA has teased us even more with 5 new single-player teaser trailers from Battlefield 1.

Battlefield 1 release schedule:

October 13 - EA Access w/Early Enlister Deluxe Edition (partial game/10 hours play)

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided didn't launch onto the PC perfectly, but Eidos Montreal is constantly updating the PC version of hte game with another update that has been pushed out with increased support for DirectX 12.

Eidos Montreal has provided an opt-in preview branch of the game, with the latest version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided featuring improved support for DX12 multi-GPU build needing the latest drivers from NVIDIA and AMD. The new v1.9 build 582.1_P9 patch has the usual general fixes and tweaks for the PC version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided have been based on gamers' feedback. The full details:

If you're rocking a multi-GPU system, you'll have to opt into the preview build using the "dx12_mgpu_preview" branch through your Steam client. There is "graphical corruption" in this build of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, with Eidos explaining it as "in a state where we can release it to you, but we are aware that some systems might still experience issues".

While we might be disappointed with Star Citizen's single player module 'Squadron 42' being delayed sometime into the future, Cloud Imperium Games has teased that it wasn't just a delay because they weren't ready - but they said that Squadron 42 has "grown exponentially in ambition and scope since first pitched in 2012". Remember, Star Citizen's creator Chris Roberts said to us exclusively that he "doesn't care about consoles"... swoon.

The news is coming directly from CitizenCon, and from the man himself - Chris Roberts. During the presentation, CIG provided a massive list of features that Squadron 42 has, and it's beyond impressive. We have the next level of AI in games, as well as an "A-list cast to match any event movie", and so much more. During CitizenCon, Chris Roberts explained about the delay behind Squadron 42, after saying he wanted to do the game right after it had raised over $127 million.

Roberts explained: "We want to do it right. It's really important to do it right. What we're enabled to do by you guys is to do it right. Because if we were in the typical situation with a publisher, they would say, 'Well, no, you've got to make the Christmas (release) window; you've got to get it out. You can do some patches and the DLC and don't worry about the people who won't think it's quite as polished and it's got a bunch of bugs. As much as we wanted to have Squadron 42 for this year, it's not going to be this year. Because from the polish we need to do, it still needs a bit more time".

First it was the Summer Games event coinciding with the Rio Olympics, complete with cool, exclusive skins and Lucioball (a Rocket League clone), and now it's the Halloween Terror event.

Overwatch's latest features arguably the game's best skins yet, including zombie Hanzo, a Doctor Frankenstein-style Junkrat (aptly named Junkenstein), a witch Mercy, and lots more, all unlockable through playtime or by purchasing loot boxes (Jack-o-lanterns) for a limited time. Additionally, it features a Brawl that's more than just a pile of select heroes: this time it's you defending the castle versus a horde of zombie robot things as commandeered by Junkenstein himself.

The event starts now and lasts through November 1.

League of Legends pro gamer Hankil "Road" Yoon has been suspended from playing the game, and fined $2000 after racist remarks were made towards another player during practice.

The news was announced just before pro team I May's group stage match, and as Mashable reports, it's not the first time players from the team have been punished for unsportsmanlike conduct. Yoon was actually suspended after an incident that took place on September 19, where he said racist remarks to another player on a Korean server.

Yoon has been flagged for verbal abuse bbefore, where last October he said racist remarks towards a fellow teammate. Leaked game chats have also surfaced, with Yoon reportedly telling Echo Fox's Henrik "Froggen" Hansen to "go die" during a match. Yoon took to Facebook saying that his not-so-great English was just a dig, and that he didn't mean for Hansen to literally go and kill himself - but Yoon meant Hansen had been dying too much in the game, and told him to "go die" in that context instead.

Mafia III Deluxe Edition physical copies on the PC have been shipping from Amazon and Best Buy without their physical manuals, which have the activation codes for the game - leaving Mafia III owners in the dark. Mafia III has only just been updated with a frame rate unlock option, yet still requires an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 to hit 60FPS at 1080p.

The physical version of Mafia III is delivered on six DVDs, and is meant to ship with a manual and activation code - but sorry, Deluxe Edition owners. Check out these comments on Amazon:

Some gamers are receiving refunds of their Mafia III Deluxe Edition copies from Amazon directly, while others are being instructed to fully return the game first before the refund will be offered. Best Buy customers are saying that they're being advised to take an exchange, or go to 2K directly about it.

Can you believe we're days away from our first official taste of Battlefield 1, with EA Access members to BF1 starting on October 13 - before it launches on October 18 for the Early Enlister Deluxe Edition owners, and the full release on October 21.

One of the standout features of Battlefield 1 will be the new and improved Spectator Mode, which will launch "soon" after the launch of BF1, and it'll let you record your best moments, play them back, and edit them, however you want to upload them to the internet, and taunt your friends and foes on Facebook, YouTube, and other sharing sites.

Battlefield 1 gamers can join matches in Spectator Mode, and then choose how they want to watch the match - with cameras available on specific players or vehicles, while the camera moves with the character or vehicle in perfect framing and angles. The camera can be tweaked, with free mode letting you switch between pre-prepared shots. VG247 notes that you can change camera settings like speed, sensitivity, field of view and depth of field, which ushers in awesomely styled film-like effects, with filters also ready to be used.

With countless PC games getting downgraded because of their console counterparts not looking so good, and game developers not wanting to make the PC version stand out, we're getting more and more downgraded games. But not Shadow Warrior 2, coming from developer Flying Wild Hog.

Flying Wild Hog representative 'KriS' explained on the Steam forums about Shadow Warrior 2 not featuring downgraded graphics on the PC, but instead the team has added new graphical effects into the game since its showings at PAX East 2016 and Gamescom 2016. KriS said: "It's not downgraded. Actually, we added tons of new GFX features and content. For example, we have added volumetric fog and light shafts (from Pax East 2016), we added real-time reflections (from Quacon/Gamescom 2016), enabled real-time shadows for a lot of lights (from Quacon/Gamescom 2016)...".

Shadow Warrior 2 won't be a performance hog on the PC either, with KriS adding that a GeForce GTX 660 can hit around 40FPS on High settings. DRM was also discussed, with KriS stating that the studio doesn't like piracy, it didn't want to spend the money on DRM, while simultaneously making the game worse for legitimate customers.

I still remember the tease of Prey from the Duke Nukem 3D days, where the developers touted that you'd be able to shoot a glass window on a spaceship, and have your enemies sucked out of it - Alien style, but oh well - Prey morphed into something else that looks pretty damn good.

The new CRYENGINE-powered reboot of Prey from Arkane Studios is here, showcasing the female main character, Morgan Yu. Prey will be released sometime in 2017 for the PS4, Xbox One and PC. Arkane Studios describes Prey as: "Whether you're using mysterious alien powers to blast your way through your enemies... or transforming into a coffee cup to casually roll through a tough situation, Prey is all about empowering you to tackle every situation in almost any manner you choose".

They continue: "This philosophy is central to everything at Arkane Studios, and is a core part of Arkane's reimagining of Prey. But this doesn't just apply to how you play. It also extends to who you are. In Prey, players will not only define themselves through their actions, but they can also choose their gender. While this choice won't change the story or how you interact with the world - because Morgan Yu is Morgan Yu, and he or she will be defined by the choices you make - it's yet another way that Arkane is saying yes to the player".

Mafia III has been involved in quite a sticky situation with the developer releasing the game with a capped framerate, but with the new patch now out - the framerate caps is removed - yet super-powerful graphics cards like the GeForce GTX 1080 are still only capable of 1080p at 60FPS.

GameGPU.com used an Intel Core i7-5960X at 4.6GHz on a GIGABYTE X99 UD7 motherboard, with 32GB of DDR4-2666MHz RAM and various graphics cards, as you can see from the benchmarks below. The quickest one of them all was the GP104-powered GeForce GTX 1080 with 56/61FPS for minimum/average, respectively - while the GTX 1070 scored 46/50FPS for minimum/average, respectively.

AMD's now older Fiji-based Radeon R9 Fury X with its 4GB of HBM1 was capable of 50FPS average, while the new Polaris-based Radeon RX 470 4GB model was capable of 35FPS average - not bad considering its a sub $200 graphics card. But for Mafia III developer Hangar 13 and 2K Games, we have to ask - why the hell is a $699+ graphics card only capable of 60FPS at 1080p?

Announced back in December, JRPG Tales of Berseria was confirmed to be yet another addition to the Tales PC lineup. Whether it would launch the same day on PC as on consoles, however, was unclear, but now we have the answer: yes (sort of). The game will hit PS4 January 24 in North America and January 27 in Europe; the Steam launch will take place January 27 in all regions.

Tales of Zestiria was the first of the series to make it to the platform, which launched the same day as on consoles. That was soon followed by Tales of Symphonia, which found itself on PC a whopping 13 years after the original launch. Both games have received mixed reviews in terms of port jobs, although between patches and mods, they're now well worth playing.

Star Citizen's anticipated singleplayer campaign module, Squadron 42, has been delayed indefinitely.

Cloud Imperium Games announced Squadron 42's delay during last night's Citizencon livestream, saying the campaign is no longer on for 2016. Star Citizen dev Chris Roberts affirmed that "most of the base technology is now complete," but the team needs time to optimize GPU and CPU implementation, shore up the game's objective-based NPC AI, and fix object container streaming.

Seeing as the studio has yet to fully polish and optimize a single level of the 28 mission campaign for release, it's easy to see why the entire Squadron 42 campaign has been delayed. The team is currently trying to finalize one mission to pristine polish and then show it off to the community.

BioWare has been quite secretive about Mass Effect: Andromeda's release date, but the release date may have been leaked ahead of schedule.

Mass Effect: Andromeda will release on March 21, 2017, according to an Amazon listing for the Art of Mass Effect: Andromeda artbook. The listing assures the artbook, which comes out on March 21, 2017, will "release simultaneously along the game."

BioWare has also listed the artbook on their own storefront, but the release date is "early 2017" and there's no mention of a simultaneous launch alongside of the game. This adds credence to the leak as BioWare would assuredly hide any mention of a simultaneous release to protect the release date's secrecy.

Skyrim: Special Edition has just gone gold, and Bethesda has revealed full PC spec requirements to ensure your rig is compatible with the remaster.

The biggest selling point of Skyrim: Special Edition is the game's conversion over to 64-bit, which removes the restrictive 4GB RAM cap limit for PC mods. With an unlimited RAM capacity mods can now take full advantage of high-spec PCs and offer even more amazing user-created content. Console versions of Skyrim: Special Edition also get mod support, and Sony has decided to allow PS4 Skyrim mods after all.

Read Also: How old mod compatibility works in new Skyrim: Special Edition

Pokemon Go is making gaming headlines once again, though this time, it's not for the latest update or new creature find. A man has recently walked into a civilian's house in search for Pokemon without acknowledging that he had entered.

The news comes direct from BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, that when the Norfolk-based man was questioned about the incident, he told police it was because he was playing Pokemon GO. This currently makes 1 out of 19 Pokemon incidents recorded by Norfolk police in July and August as of this year. This report is one amongst various assaults, driving offences, noise nuisance, and thefts that have also been logged involving the app.

Whilst the popularity of Pokemon Go is at an all-time high, will reports such as this made to the BBC stop gamers from continuing on with the app if safety is at stake? Furthermore, there has been no news from the app developer, Niantic, in regards to this offence reported.