Cops 'n Robbers: The Elder Scrolls Online justice system unveiled
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.
Bioware address concerns over the absence of healers in Dragon Age: Inquisition
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.”
Take a look at how the Alienware Alpha handles the latest games in these benchmark videos
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.
Flagship Kickstarter cancelled with just five days to go, but they're "not giving up on it"
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.”
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive update adds Music Kits to help "establish your identity"
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.
Square Enix previews new Rogue class and Ninja job for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
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.
Jagex are making a Hearth-style collectible card game named Chronicle: Runescape Legends
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.
Chris Roberts demos planet exploration in new Star Citizen footage
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.
League of Legends champion Cassiopeia is in "clear need of attention", Riot admit
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.”
The real-life story that inspired Kevin Spacey's speech in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
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.
Warlords of Draenor comic introduces a new zone and orc chieftain: Blackhand
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.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare won't "lend itself" to quick-scoping
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.”
Sigils of Elohim is a free prequel to The Talos Principle
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.
Firefly Online's environment engine creates procedurally generated maps, from floating cities to derelict ships
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.
"Cinematic experience" is a nonsense term and isn't achieved by frame rates
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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