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Biggest Age of Empires 2 tournament ever has $120,000 prize pool

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It’s been 15 years since the release of Age of Empires 2 but it still has one of the most active, loyal fan bases of any RTS. The lobbies are still filled (and when the official lobbies went down the fans made their own multiplayer system), they coded their own mega balance patch, and they even created their own expansion pack in lieu of official support.

It’s no wonder then that the World Series of Video Games are funding a $120,000 prize pot for the Age of Empires 2 Championship, the biggest tournament in the game’s history.

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Alien: Isolation Oculus Rift support enabled with a couple of .ini changes

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Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation has been scaring our collective pants off and that was without strapping on a virtual reality headset. Now, with a couple of tweaks to the game’s .ini file, you can put on your Oculus Rift and have the xenomorph try to tear your eyes out of their sockets.

 

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Kerbal Space Program update 0.25 lets you crush unpaid interns with bits of rocket ship

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I’ve never paid too much care for where my rockets fall in Kerbal Space Program. Sure, what comes up must come down but, so long as it doesn’t fall on my crew as they fly into space, I’m good. Update 0.25, otherwise known as Economic Boom, changes all that by placing your space program facilities onto the surface of Kerbin.

If you’re not careful your falling fuel booster can take out the top floor of your administrative building and 20 unpaid interns with it. Think of the paperwork!

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Grid Autosport Oculus support coming in next update

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The next update for Grid Autosport will let you put your head into the driver’s seat if you have an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Potentially, this could make for one of the most engrossing driving experiences available on PC. Besides Euro Truck Simulator 2, of course.

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The Flame in the Flood is a survivalist raft adventure from ex-Bioshock devs

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Rafting down a forested river is considered a nice relaxing way to spend a summer. Set up camp each night and cook yourself something over the fire, maybe even break out the guitar for a few songs.

The Flame in the Flood paints a different picture.

The old America is dead, overgrown, and fast being forgotten, you must stay ahead of the changing seasons and the coming rainfall by rafting down a procedurally generated river, crafting equipment and foraging supplies as best you can.

If you die you have start all over again.

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Hang out in the Batcave with the Oculus Rift this winter

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Batman: The Animated Series is the Dark Knight at his very best, more faithful and entertaining than any of the films or that bewildering Gotham TV show that’s recently appeared. Come this winter, owners of VR devices like the Oculus Rift will be able to step into the Caped Crusader’s Batcave, based on the Animated Series version. 

A “narrative experience” rather than an objective-based game, this VR Batcave is being designed by visual effects company Otoy Inc. along with Bruce Timm, creator of the “Timmverse”, DC’s animated universe. 

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The big, fat Battlefield 4 Premium Edition is only a fortnight away

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If you wanted to get Battlefield 4 and all of its DLC right now, you’d need to drop just shy of £57. That’s for the Battlefield 4 Digital Deluxe Edition and Premium membership, the latter of which is on sale at the moment. Hold onto your money. 

Come October 21st, Battlefield 4 Premium Edition will launch, complete with all the DLC, personalisation options and 12 gold Battlepacks. And it will only set you back £39.99. That’s the same price as the Premium membership.

 

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Dragon Age: Origins is free on Origin until October 14th

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With Dragon Age: Inquisition just over a month away, now might be a good time to dip into the game that kicked off the series, BioWare’s fantastic Dragon Age: Origins. We recently added it to our 20 best RPGs on PC list for good reason. 

Conveniently, it’s currently On the House over at Origin. Dragon Age: Origins, completely free. If you don’t already have it in your library, you’d be completely barmy not to pick it up. 

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Total War: Rome II - One Year On

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When Total War: Rome II launched last year, it had big sandals to fill. It came after the most polished, focused Total War game, Shogun II, and was the sequel to what is probably the most fondly remembered installment in the series, the original Rome. Ultimately, it did not live up to expectations. 

While the combat was spectacular, huge swathes of the game were bogged down by poorly implemented features like the politics system, and the turn based campaign was painfully slow and dreadfully dull. One year on, though, much has changed. 

A slew of patches and updates culminating in the launch of the Emperor Edition last month have revitalised the game. A massive new campaign, a plethora of tweaks and broad, sweeping alterations necessitate a second look. It’s time to reinstall Rome II. 

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Warlock 2 is set to become a snake-filled waterpark with the Wrath of the Nagas expansion

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Snakes get a bad rap. They are associated with sneakiness, death, poison, the Devil and a slew of nasty mythical monsters - even though they are totally rad. But sometimes they really bring it on themselves. Case in point: Wrath of the Nagas, the upcoming expansion for the wonderfully silly fantasy 4X game, Warlock II

The expansion sees a new race, the titular Naga species, and a pair of new mages entering the magical fray. They’re a nasty bunch of water-loving snake folk, and they are driven by a single goal: drown the world. Really, guys, this isn’t doing you any favours. 

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Horror: The Evil Within will be locked at 30fps despite the steep requirements

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The Evil Within is shaping out to be a very odd PC port. It’s a shame, really, as this “next generation” of consoles seemed poised to improve multiplatform releases thanks to greater parity between the platforms, but so far this has been far from the case. 

Here’s the bad news: Bethesda had confirmed that the game will run at 30fps, and that’s all it will support. But much like Dead Rising 3, there is a way around this - it just isn’t recommended. 

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@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

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Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris – Four Player Co-Op Mayhem Dev Diary

Square Enix has released a new dev diary for Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris in which Executive Producer Scot Amos and members of his team discuss how tons of weapons, rings and amulets that grant abilities, puzzles that adjust to the number of players, and the occasional spike-pit sabotage turn Lara’s latest adventure into four player co-op mayhem. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is planned for a December 9th release. Enjoy! Continue reading

 


F1 2014 – New Hotlap Video Shows Lewis Hamilton On The Hockenheimring

Codemasters has released a new hot lap video for F1 2014. The hot lap video shows title contender Lewis Hamilton racing his Mercedes F1 W05 car around the Hockenheimring, which returns to the F1 2014 calendar, and game, having last hosted a race in 2012. F1 2014 will be released on October 17th for PC, PS3 and X360. Enjoy! Continue reading

 


Get Even To Be Powered By “Fine-Grained Texture Streaming” Tech

Graphine announced today that, Painkiller: Hell and Damnation developer, The Farm 51 has chosen the Granite SDK to power the graphics of its upcoming sci-fi thriller Get Even. Get Even will be one of the first games to almost exclusively use 3D scans of real-world objects and places in its game world. Continue reading



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Killing Floor 2 – Dev Diary 2: The Gore Part 1

Iceberg Interactive and IGN have shared a new dev diary for Killing Floor 2, in which the development team talks about the game’s gore. Killing Floor 2’s gore system is inspired by the one found in the classic Soldier of Fortune game. The game promises to be a really violent game with lots of gibs and blood flying around. Enjoy and kudos to our reader ‘Umair Khan’ for bringing this to our attention! Continue reading

 


Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition – New Screenshots Released + Launch Trailer

Square Enix and United Front Games today release a brand new set of images for Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition packs improved, higher resolution textures, improved lighting, and higher number of particle effects, higher detailed character models, volumetric fog (i.e. fog/smog/mist/steam is now present in the game world), increased pedestrians and traffic density, rebuilt sound engine to heighten realism, more destructible objects in hand-to-hand fighting sequences and all 24 DLC packs have been integrated into the main game. The game has already been released on Steam. Enjoy! Continue reading

Final Fantasy XIII – Durante’s GeDoSaTo Tool Brings Support To Higher Resolutions

And it only took Durante a couple of hours to fix Square Enix’s mess. This well known modder has released a pre-alpha version of his GeDoSaTo tool that features a pre-alpha plugin for the latest Final Fantasy game. In case you are not familiar with GeDoSaTo, this means that by using this toll you’ll be able to unlock the game’s internal resolution. Now keep in mind that this is still in pre-alpha state, meaning that you may encounter some bugs here and there. Continue reading



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Welcome to the new jungle: Riot test preseason changes for League of Legends

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Ganking in one of the universe's best free PC games is great fun, but it’s come to overshadow everything else about junglers in League of Legends. For the 2015 preseason, Riot are looking to improve “strategic diversity” in the jungle. They’d like you to have a wider roster of viable champions to pick from, and more options for customising their items later in the game.

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Here's the BlizzCon 2014 panel schedule and floor map

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Blizzard have published the floor map and schedule for BlizzCon 2014, which is useful for attendees hoping to navigate through both space and time. If you're not attending and have the temerity to still want to know what's going on, you can either check out your friendly neighbourhood PC games website or grab a virtual ticket, which grants you access to a live stream for the not-insignificant sum of £24.99.

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DICE: "we lost player trust" because of Battlefield 4 launch

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It is a matter of public record that Battlefield 4 had a shonky launch, with players, developers and publishers now all in agreement that the DICE shooter touched down with all the grace and elegance of a swan landing on a motorway because it's stupid swan-brain thinks roads look like rivers. Get it together, swans.

But while swans refuse to change their ways or admit to their mistakes, an introspective DICE are admitting that the woeful launch and subsequent issues that have plagued Battlefield 4 have harmed player trust in the series.

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Evolve's "Xbox One exclusive" alpha is coming to PC a day later

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Turtle Rock and their publisher friends at 2K have today announced that the Evolve alpha will indeed be coming to PC on October 31st, one day after launching exclusively on Xbox One. Access to the remarkably fun, four-versus-one monster hunting co-op shooter will available for anybody who pre-orders the game, and concludes on November 2nd. That's a full weekend of tracking and snaring and hiding and seeking.

Hooray for the slow erosion of anti-consumer notions of platform exclusivity! Boo for the forgotten concept of alpha and beta releases being anything other than marketing tools! Woo! Ahhh! Gahhh.

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Wild Cards: what does the future hold for Hearthstone's fresh pros?

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Hearthstone’s early Twitch explosion has left its creators scrambling to build the scaffolding to support it, while eSports names old and new rush to fill the vacuum around its top players.

Some of those players have the backing of established organisations; others are entirely alone. But none of them know whether they have a full-time job in Hearthstone ahead of them - and they’re all faced with the difficulty of deciding who to trust in a still-growing ecosystem.

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Who wants to buy Unity?

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Do you have a spare $2 billion lying around? According to VentureBeat, that’s how much Unity’s worth, and this afternoon CNET reported that the company is courting the likes of Google, possibly preparing for a sale. 

Inside sources reveal that the company has had serious talks with at least one potential buyer in recent months, while it’s been sharing presentations with other possible acquirers. 

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Becoming a people person with Warlords of Draenor's Garrisons

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By the time you set foot in Draenor next month, when World of Warcraft’s Warlords of Draenor expansion goes live, you’ll basically be one of the most important people in the universe. Your list of feats will include travelling to different worlds, tackling the Burning Legion, the Lich King, Deathwing and saving the world of a daily basis. 

Despite all of this, you’ve been a slave to the whims of others. You’ve never been put in charge, constantly performing tasks for quest givers, even if they are clearly inferior to you. With Garrisons, though, you’ll finally get a taste of what it feels like to order people around. Today, Blizzard’s spilled the beans on how you manage your minions. 

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Sunless Sea's new real-time combat leaves the dock

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Sunless Sea is a grand old time, even when it’s extremely unsettling - a nautical adventure in an underground, Victorian sea. The game’s all about collecting stories and exploring the utterly bizarre world, but there’s combat too. It was turn-based, and clever, but ultimately the execution was a bit dull. 

The whole point of Early Access, if we’re being optimistic, is for developers to see what works and what doesn’t, and this has lead to them throwing the old combat system out of the nearest port hole. Failbetter Games announced the change a couple of months ago, and after a couple of weeks of testing, the Steel update is now live, providing captains with real-time high seas battles.

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Watch 50 minutes of Dragon Age: Inquisition and marvel at ugly elves

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Dragon Age: Inquisition is a month-and-a-half away, but in lieu of placing yourself in stasis or just being patient, you can take a gander at BioWare’s Twitch stream containing 50 minutes of unadulterated fantasy action. 

The devs show off everything from character customisation and progress to tactical combat and exploration. 

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Retina-melting Geometry Wars 3 launches in November

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Geometry Wars is something I enjoy watching more than playing. I have the dexterity of someone with no thumbs or, indeed, hands. But all the pretty neon colours, drawing me into some sort of drug-fuelled ‘80s cyber world, and glorious digital explosions entertain me to no end. 

The latest installment in the twin-stick shooter series is PC-bound next month, landing on November 25th, according to publisher Activision. 

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@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Good article yesterday on EG about grey market in Star Citizen, and some really insightful comments after it:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-08-inside-star-citizens-grey-market

Oh, and great photomontage of Chris Roberts:



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Football Manager 2015 release date set for November 7 (after traditional two week beta)

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The new year’s Football Manager for Windows, Mac and Linux will launch comfortably in time for Christmas on November 7, Sports Interactive have announced. There’s a beta version available if you pre-order, and careers started there will carry over into the final game.

This iteration features the most dramatically revamped Match View since the switch to 3D - achieved with a little help from the Sega Europe PC studio massive.

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Michael Ironside thinks the recasting of Sam Fisher was a "great idea for Ubisoft"

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For eight years and six games, Sam Fisher was synonymous with the microfilm-gargling baritone of Michael Ironside, the Canadian actor and Starship Troopers survivor. But he was ousted for last year’s (actually excellent) Splinter Cell entry, Blacklist. Asked about the publisher’s decision in a Reddit AMA yesterday, Ironside waxed entirely unbitterly about his time as the don of Third Echelon.

“I think it’s a great idea for Ubisoft,” he said. “They’ve gone to motion capture, and this spring I will be 65 years old. I don't think anyone wants to pay money seeing a 65 year old Sam Fisher bounce around on set, stumbling while he kills people.”

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World of Warcraft 6.0.2 patch due Tuesday is an "overture" for Warlords of Draenor

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WoW’s 6.0.2 patch has been dubbed the Iron Tide, and is best envisioned as a wave of iron filings pushed across a table by the sheer magnetic force of next month’s Warlords of Draenor expansion. Tuesday’s update will introduce an orc-caused world event, a new max-level dungeon in the Upper Blackrock Spire, and open up neglected character names to newcomers.

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You'd better believe the War Thunder 1.43 update is a big one

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War Thunder has just taken delivery of a huge shipment of new tanks and anti-aircraft guns and jet planes and maps and modes. Dozens and dozens of the things. More than I can possibly list here. It's a staggering number, frankly. I'm reeling. Stunned.

I'm having to re-evaluate everything I think I know about War Thunder, because War Thunder 1.43 has flipped Gaijin's free-to-play warfighter MMO on its helmet.

Where do we start? Well howabout here: you can turn off weapons and race planes through canyons. Fantastic.

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Your call is important to us: Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number delayed for "tweaks and polish"

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Dennaton Games’ sequel to celebrated fancy dress murder simulator Hotline Miami is to be lavished with extra attention before its release, the developers have revealed. It’s not expected to be ready until late this year - and might yet kick down the door of 2015.

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Ian Livingstone, Games Workshop co-founder and President of Eidos, wants to open a free gaming school

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School’s a gloomy place, full of arbitrary tests and crap school dinners. Or at least it was for me, though that is going quite far back. But that could be set to change for some kids in London in 2016.

Games Workshop co-founder and Eidos CEO Ian Livingston has applied to launch a free school in London that will use gaming and problem solving to teach children instead of “relentless testing”. 

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Nvidia's plans to become a "full-service" video performance company

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Nvidia aren’t just selling video cards anymore. They’re trying to sell a package of services and performance-related products that attempts to make “The Way Its Meant to Be Played” into something more than a slogan on a splash screen.

Nvidia has been heading in this direction for a few years, but at Red Bull Battle Grounds Washington, D.C., they were bringing all the threads of their strategy together to show an eSports-focused audience that Nvidia has more to offer than higher benchmarks.

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Devour Dragon Age: Inquisition PC screenshots and system requirements

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While it released on consoles and was plagued by muddy textures, Dragon Age: Origins felt like a game made specifically for PC. Lamentably, this was far from the case with Dragon Age II, with the dismissal of proper tactical combat and the focus on enemy waves and more immediate action. 

BioWare’s promising that it will be better this time around, with Dragon Age: Inquisition. With 4K and AMD Mantle support, a customisable interface and combat that’s got more in common with Origins than its sequel, it sounds like that promise might not be hollow. 

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Infinifactory: the spawn of SpaceChem and Infiniminer

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When two games love each other very much, they rub up against each other and spawn another game. At least, this seems to be the case with Zachtronics’ Infinifactory, which looks a lot like a combination of the developer’s earlier games, Infiniminer and SpaceChem. 

Zachtronics describes it as “Like Spacechem… in 3D!”

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Painting Paris red with Killing Floor 2's M.E.A.T. system

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Grisly, bloody gore is so important to Killing Floor 2 that Tripwire Interactive developed an entire system for it: M.E.A.T. The studio’s latest dev diary peels back the flesh and reveals how it all works. 

It’s inspired by Soldier of Fortune, which gives some idea of how unabashedly violent it is. 

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@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Painting Paris red with Killing Floor 2's M.E.A.T. system

Comments2

Grisly, bloody gore is so important to Killing Floor 2 that Tripwire Interactive developed an entire system for it: M.E.A.T. The studio’s latest dev diary peels back the flesh and reveals how it all works. 

It’s inspired by Soldier of Fortune, which gives some idea of how unabashedly violent it is. 

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Far Cry 4 Gets Yet Another Trailer, Showing Off Kyrat’s Lowlands

Ubisoft has released a new trailer for Far Cry 4 in which we take a look at the massive Lowlands region of Kyrat – a peaceful place where the local culture lives and breathes. In this region, Paul Depleur – leader of Pagan Min’s royal army – poisons the beautiful lowlands through fear and torture (who is also described as a brutal psychopath mind you). Enjoy! Continue reading

 


The Evil Within – The World Within Trailer

Bethesda has released a new trailer for The Evil Within via which players can learn tactics for surviving the evil’s that lurk this twisted world from the mind of survival horror’s creator, Shinji Mikami. The Evil Within releases later this month and it will be interesting to see how it performs on the PC (especially after the controversy surrounding that particular version). Enjoy! Continue reading

 


Star Citizen Will Support AMD’s TressFX Tech, New Commercial Video Released

AMD reconfirmed today that Star Citizen will support its TressFX tech. While support for TressFX was originally announced last year (at AMD GPU14), the Red team felt the need to remind us that Cloud Imperium does not intend to drop support for it. In addition, a new commercial video has been released that can be viewed below. It’s interesting that at the end of the video we see a female character with – what seems to be – hair powered by AMD’s tech. Enjoy! Continue reading



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Distance – New Build Adds Four New Challenge Mode Levels, Spectator Mode & Faster Level Restarting

Refract has released an update recap video unveiling new features and content from the latest beta build of Distance. As the company noted, Distance Build 3153 contains four new Challenge mode levels, a procedurally generated spectator mode, faster level restarting, and several other modifications and bug fixes. Continue reading

 


Edge of Eternity – Turn Based Steampunk/Medieval JRPG – Gets New Screenshots

Even though Edge of Eternity’s Kickstarter campaign failed to even come close to its initial $200K goal, Midgar Studio released today a new set of screenshots for this Steampunk/Medieval turn based JRPG. Edge of Eternity will be coming on current-gen platforms (PS4, Xbox One, WiiU, PC and Mac) sometime in 2015. Keep in mind that this comes from an indie team, so don’t expect mind-blowing visuals. Enjoy! Continue reading

 


Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn – Game Of The Year Edition Announced

Square Enix today announced a limited “Game of the Year” edition of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn for PC will be available from November 14th. Packed with bonus content, this edition serves as a collector’s item for both Final Fantasy fans and MMORPG players. Continue reading

 


The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – EGX 2014 Developer Session

During this year’s EGX, CD Projekt RED held a 30-minute developer session. The demo that the team showcased was the same with the one that was recently released to the public, though we are pretty sure that The Witcher fans will find this session quite interesting. In addition, the developers have answered a number of questions at the end of the session, so be sure to listen to what they had to say about the story, players’ choice, Geralt’s swimming abilities, and more. Enjoy! Continue reading

 


Assassin’s Creed: Rogue – Coming To The PC In Early 2015

Ubisoft has released a new trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Rogue, in which the French company confirmed the existence of a PC version for it. As Ubisoft noted, Assassin’s Creed: Rogue is coming to the PC in early 2015 (though there isn’t any exact date at this point). Enjoy the trailer after the jump! Continue reading

 


Dragon Age: Inquisition – Here Is One Hour Of Gameplay From The PC Version With Proper PC Controls

Bioware has showcased one hour of gameplay footage from the PC version of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Contrary to previous gameplay videos, this time around Bioware has used our usual keyboard+mouse combo. Do note that there are some minor spoilers here, so watch the video at your own risk. Enjoy! Continue reading

 


The Evil Within – Console Commands Revealed – Unlock Framerate, Slow Down Time, Enable God Mode

The Evil Within has just been released on Steam and Bethesda has revealed the console debug commands that PC gamers can use. In short, you can find below how to unlock the game’s framerate, how to change aspect ratio, how to enable God mode, Noclip, as well as some other options. Continue reading

 


Alien: Isolation – Graphical Enhancements Unveiled – Improve Planar Reflections, LOD & Shadows

Steam’s member ‘AngelGraves13′ has shared some tweaks that gamers can apply to the PC version of Alien: Isolation in order to further enhance the game’s visuals. By using AngelGraves13’s tweaks, you can enable higher quality shadows, enhance the game’s planar reflections and improve the game’s aggressive LOD system. In addition, you can alter the game’s Vertical FOV to Horizontal FOV thanks to the following tweaks. Continue reading



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Cops 'n Robbers: The Elder Scrolls Online justice system unveiled

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Zenimax have come out of hiding regarding their new justice system, which is heading to The Elder Scrolls Online in the near future. Players will finally be able to don more infamous vocations, such as stealing from and/or murdering NPCs. But these Outlaws won’t have it easy. Players will also be given the chance to police these devious players as Enforcers, where they’re tasked with trying to prevent and catch criminals in the act.

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Bioware address concerns over the absence of healers in Dragon Age: Inquisition

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It looks like the Templars have stolen all the healers from the upcoming third installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition. While there’s no dedicated healer class, there are instead a multitude of ways of preventing and dealing with damage. Potions and certain abilities effects give your characters a health buffer that enemies will have to whittle through before getting to your precious red stuff.

Bioware developer Patrick Weekes has taken to the forums to quell the concerns of the community. “I've completed two playthroughs of Dragon Age: Inquisition on Normal, and I'm now working through a playthrough on Hard.” said Weekes. “Here were my concerns, and here is what I've found and how I've handled things.”

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Take a look at how the Alienware Alpha handles the latest games in these benchmark videos

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The Alienware Alpha is a living room take on the modern PC, but with the ease of use of a console. It’s a symbiotic relationship of both Steam Big Picture Mode and Alienwares own Windows tailored OS. It’s due to be out just before Christmas, and If you’re interest about picking one up, you will surely want to see it in action first.

We’ve got a slew of benchmark videos of the Alienware Alpha playing through the latest games on very respectable settings. From the simple yet slick visuals of Borderlands 2, all the way to the demanding Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

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Flagship Kickstarter cancelled with just five days to go, but they're "not giving up on it"

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Promising spaceship-bridge-perspective RTS, Flagship, has been cancelled. It had earned just over half of the £95,000 goal, and had less than five days remaining on the Kickstarter campaign. This was enough for twin developers Brad Jeffery and Matt J have decided to pull the project altogether.

“This has been a heartbreaking process for us.”

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive update adds Music Kits to help "establish your identity"

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The latest update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has brought in an interesting addition: Music Kits. These digital MP3 players replace the ambient music in different parts of the game, from in the main menu all the way to planting the bomb. There’s nine unique kits available on the store today from a variety of artists and composers, all tailor made for CS:GO.

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Square Enix previews new Rogue class and Ninja job for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

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Patch 2.4 for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is bringing with it a new class in the form of a Rogue, and a new “Ninja” job too. Rogues will use knives and daggers while they remain in the shadows. Ninjas on the other hand aren’t your stereotypical type: they’re able to use powerful energies through “signs” to manipulate the battlefield.

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Jagex are making a Hearth-style collectible card game named Chronicle: Runescape Legends

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Jagex’s new thing is a CCG “played out within the pages of a living book”, which unnerves as a concept. After all, who’s to know when a living book will snap shut on your fingers and slither off under a shelf to make a nest?

Chronicle: Runescape Legends won’t do that, we’re assured - instead, it’ll do single player quests, boss fights with classic Runescape monsters, and bitterly-fought PvP.

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Chris Roberts demos planet exploration in new Star Citizen footage

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Chris Roberts might not hold to game development convention, but he is one to hold actual conventions. At this weekend’s CitizenCon 2014 - yes, it exists - he showed CryEngine footage of a Star Citizen player landing on a new planet, exiting their ship and pottering about, as they will do in the finished space sim.

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League of Legends champion Cassiopeia is in "clear need of attention", Riot admit

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The champion roster of one of the best free PC games available has long since topped 100, and Riot Games have lately adopted a policy of polarisation. The League of Legends devs have pushed characters into specific niches to ensure they remain distinguishable from one another - but introduced some new problems in the process.

Their biggest current problem is named Cassiopeia: the half-snake mage whose venom has been inadvertently sucked from her veins.

“It was never the intention to strip her Snake Mage identity, but we agree that we’ve done so in trying to meet other goals with the kit,” said associate designer Riot Stashu. “This has left Cassiopeia in clear need of our attention, and we’re really sorry about that.”

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The real-life story that inspired Kevin Spacey's speech in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

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We’ve seen the Golden Gate Bridge go down in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's E3 demo. We've taken in homing grenades and double-jumps in Advanced Warfare's multiplayer. But nothing about the game has proven as compelling as that first Spacey speech in its reveal trailer. There, Francis himself dismissed democracy as overrated, and freedom as nothing next to the promise of “boundaries and protection”.

It turns out that monologue - alongside much else in Advanced Warfare’s plot - was inspired by a real-life story. An anecdote from pre-war Iraq.

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Warlords of Draenor comic introduces a new zone and orc chieftain: Blackhand

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Blackhand is the sort of name you could find attached to a place, weapon or organisation in the reshuffled WoW universe of Warlords of Draenor, but it just so happens to belong to the first chieftain to join the Iron Horde under Grommash Hellscream.

Blackhand and his Blackrock clan occupy the wastes of Gorgrond, which we’ll come to know as a PvE zone in the upcoming expansion. Blizzard have put together a new comic to commemorate the orc’s existence.

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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare won't "lend itself" to quick-scoping

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First, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare followed Respawn up into the higher reaches of the skybox; now, it’s going to copy Titanfall’s approach to quickscoping - by making the practice impractical.

“Let me put it this way, sniper classes are not going to be overpowered relative to their peers,” said Sledgehammer’s Michael Condry. “The ability to master a sniper rifle and be great at it will be equal to the ability to master any other class.”

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Sigils of Elohim is a free prequel to The Talos Principle

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The Talos Principle is Croteam’s obtusely named first-person puzzler, and while it won’t be gracing our PCs until later this year, a prequel mini-game, Sigils of Elohim, has appeared, and it’s entirely free. 

While The Talos Principle sees players take on the role of an AI, exploring the ruins and detritus of humanity while getting stuck into puzzles that tie into a metaphysical story about mankind’s end, Sigils of Elohim appears to be a game about turning shapes around and slotting them into spaces. 

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Firefly Online's environment engine creates procedurally generated maps, from floating cities to derelict ships

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Firefly Online still isn’t ready for you to hop onboard a ship and explore the ‘verse, but developer Spark Plug Games has put together a sneak peek at the 3D environment engine. 

This tiny preview, first shown at New York Comic Con, shows off a procedurally generated derelict, floating in space, with Captain Mal and Jayne exploring it - though in the game you’ll have your own crew, not Serenity’s. 

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"Cinematic experience" is a nonsense term and isn't achieved by frame rates

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Lately, many AAA developers have been striving for a strange, intangible thing: the “cinematic experience”. It’s a term that has become synonymous for developer-imposed limitations, a clarification or an excuse to explain why a game is - usually technically, but sometimes thematically - restricted in some way. 

There is nothing innately wrong with limitations, even within the power fantasies of modern gaming. But problems arise when this crude term is thrown into the mix. It implies a horrible end-goal, where what games really need to be more like are films. 

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@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

So from all reports The Evil Within doesn't even use 4GB of VRAM. And runs fine at 60FPS...



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!