Back along the Western Front: Company of Heroes 2 to get standalone multiplayer expansion
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Company of Heroes will return to a familiar stretch of Europe for its first standalone multiplayer release - a DLC pack named Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies.
“This is a new entry point for the series,” said executive producer Greg Wilson. “You can play with and against the AI, you can play in comp stomp skirmish modes with your friends and you can also go into our automatch pool against other Company of Heroes players.”
Stop wandering around aimlessly: PlanetSide 2 Missions System is live
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With the latest PlanetSide 2 update, the first phase of the Missions System has been introduced. Like the invisible hand of a friendly general, it nudges players towards objectives. Enter a new area, and the Mission System will assign you a goal based on your proximity to the various bases and fortifications, giving you the impetus to invade territory or shoot men in the face from behind the safety of walls.
There’s no end to these objectives - when you finish one, another will appear. And while there’s not tangible rewards for completion, you will still get a 15 percent XP bonus if you succeed while in a squad. Slap your eyes below for full Mission System details.
Runic co-founders pass the torch(light) and start new studio
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Two of Runic Games’ co-founders, Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer, announced their departure from the studio that built Torchlight. The pair are moving on to indie pastures, founding a new studio, Double Damage Games.
“I should say from the outset that this is an amicable departure, that I consider the amazing team at Runic my friends and family, and that it is a privilege that they've let me get away with running the place for this long,” says Baldree in a forum post.
Dean Hall outlines DayZ's future: animals to hunt and crossbows, helicopters and AK47s to kill them with
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The DayZ standalone is getting pretty damn close to catching up with its big brother, the Arma 2 mod. The original has been downloaded 2 million times, while Bohemia Interactive have shifted 1.7 million copies of the standalone. No wonder all the zombies are hiding in floors and walls - that’s a lot of survivors trying to kill them (but more often each other).
At EGX Rezzed 2014, Dean “Rocket” Hall also revealed the DayZ roadmap, laying out plans for updates. To keep up with all of this, Bohemia Interactive purchased another studio, Cauldron Studios, renaming them Bohemia Interactive Slovakia. This new team will be focused on DayZ.
Michael Abrash joins Oculus as chief scientist; Valve down another big brain
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Oculus VR is just gobbling talent up. A couple of weeks ago the company acquired Valve’s Atman Binstock, and today Valve’s VR guru Michael Abrash has joined the team as chief scientist. This could soften the blow from Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus a couple of days ago.
“We're on the cusp of what I think is not The Next Big Platform, but rather simply The Final Platform – the platform to end all platforms – and the path here has been so improbable that I can only shake my head,” said Abrash in a blog post.
Stronghold Crusader 2 will let you soak the desert in the blood of eight armies
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Stronghold Crusader 2 trailers always make me think that building castles surrounded by stalwart walls is inevitably futile. As tough as they are and as safe as you feel inside them, they are really giant targets for catapults and trebuchets. But that’s okay, because I’m the type of chap who used to craft huge castles out of Lego and then smash them to pieces.
The newest footage of the Holy Land at war is no different, complete with towering turrets that within moments become rubble as soldiers and workers run around screaming as they burst into flame. Lovely stuff, is war.
FTL: Advanced Edition will bring back your feelings on inadequacy on April 3rd
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FTL: Advanced Edition will be jumping to launch on April 3rd it was announced on the game’s website. If you already own the original version - and you’d be madder than a Rockman in a quarry not to - then you don’t have pay anything at all. It’s a free update, which is the best kind, made even better by the fact that it’s actually pretty damn big.
PlanetSide 2 in-game adverts went a bit wonky yesterday, so SOE has sent them to the ER
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Along with the new Mission System, SOE implemented some changes to its in-game notification system in the latest PlanetSide 2 update. These notifications were directed at certain players, essentially serving as adverts.
Nobody wants to get pestered with ads when playing a game, and yesterday it all got a bit out of control. The changes to the system meant that on top of offers and special deals, players were being notified about events - which would normally be pretty convenient - but with multiple events going on, deals still being promoted, and a game update that reset who should get notifications, players ended up getting bombarded.
Our bad, says SOE.
Sir, You Are Being Hunted buttressed with castle biome update
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Recognising a gap in their game’s fortifications, Big Robot have released a new update for Sir, You Are Being Hunted that adds castles into its procedural generation mixing pot. You can now populate your island of killer robots with broken down keeps and crumbling castellations.
Not A Hero has kitten bombs and cocaine as powerups
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It’s not often said of cocaine but it’s frequently used by the criminal fraternity because of its aim enhancing effects. They’re simply using it as a performance enhancer. That, and because it smells so fucking good.
Not a Hero uses it as a powerup, as it well should, it’s one of the most excellent sounding pixel shooters ever made.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided trademark filed
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Square Enix have filed a trademark for a something called Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. As is often the case with trademark filings, the details of the post are pretty vague - it could be a game, a book, heck, even stationary. Nevertheless, the last time Square made a filing like this it turned out to be a mobile game-cum-PC game Deus Ex: The Fall (which, unlike everyone who read my review, I thought wasn’t bad).
While this could be the second episode in that mobile series, Neogaf spotted the name lined up with something David Anfossi, head of Eidos Montreal, said about the next proper Deus Ex game.
Flockers is a take on the Lemmings games from the folk who made Worms
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Flockers is a marriage of two of my favourite games, Lemmings and Worms. It sees you guiding a flock of sheep through levels constructed from saw blades, metal presses, and spike traps. One misstep and your sheep will be mutton faster than you can say “Mint sauce”.
Even better, the game’s being developed by Team17, the studio that made Worms in the first place. As such, expect violence induced giggles and bad accents.
Dean Hall shows off DayZ Roadmap - horses, barricades, and clever zombies
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Dean Hall showed the development road for DayZ during his talk at Rezzed, going over what’s coming in the immediate, short, medium, and long-term future. That covers everything from crossbows to companion horses, barricade systems, and helicopters.
Shower Simulator accurately models the start of my day
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Showers are great. They’re a time in the morning where you can get so many tasks out of the way: you can get clean, have a wee (somewhat undoing the work of the previous task), practice singing, and masturbate.
Till now that leisure/work activity hadn’t been captured adequately in games. Till now.
I give you shower simulator.
Topware’s Raven’s Cry Delayed Yet Again, To Be Released This October
Topware announced today that its Caribbean-themed RPG, Raven’s Cry, will be delayed once again. According to the publisher, Reality Pump’s title will now hit streets on October 14th. In addition, Topware revealed what will be added to the title during this new delay. Continue reading
John Carmack Finally Talks About Facebook’s Acquisition Of Oculus VR
It is no secret that a lot of developers and gamers got upset with the recent news about Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR. Naturally, a lot of people wanted to see what John Carmack had to say about this whole thing and at last, Carmack shared his first thoughts about it. Continue reading
Brigade 3.0 Preview – Real-time Path Tracing Showcased
Hayssam Keilany has shared a new video from the first real-time path tracing engine, Brigade 3.0. Brigade is an extremely fast GPU path tracer that supports ray-traced global illumination, accurate reflections/refractions on curved surfaces, unlimited soft shadows and real area lights. The team is also working on reducing the noise side-effect that is caused due to its rendering method (low samples in path tracing result in noise side-effects). Brigade is basically described as a powerful graphics API that can easily replace Microsoft DirectX or OpenGL graphics within popular game engines such as Epic Games’ Unreal Engine or Unity, serving as a backend for superior graphics without disrupting the game logic. Enjoy! Continue reading
Alien: Isolation To Be Released On October 7th
SEGA has just announced that Creative Assembly’s Alien game, Alien: Isolation, will be released on October 7th. Alien: Isolation is described as a thrilling first-person survival horror experience that will focus on capturing the horror and tension evoked by Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic film. Continue reading
Oculus VR employees got death threats and harassing phone calls that extended to their families
A lot of gamers got upset with Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR and while the company expected its core community to be quite negative about this whole thing, it did not anticipate the actual ‘overall’ negativity. Continue reading
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