Let's do the last round up of news of 2018!
SALES & DEALS
Super Meat Boy is now available for free on Epic’s digital store until January 10th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/super-meat-boy-is-now-available-for-free-on-epics-digital-store-until-january-10th/
As promised, Epic is currently offering for free Super Meat Boy on its digital store. All you have to do is log in, visit the game’s store page and acquire your free copy. Do note that this is a limited offer that ends on January 10th.
Super Meat Boy is described a tough as nails platformer where you play as an animated cube of meat who’s trying to save his girlfriend (who happens to be made of bandages) from an evil fetus in a jar wearing a tux.
Chinese-only RPG The Scroll Of Taiwu has sold 1 million copies on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/chinese-only-rpg-the-scroll-of-taiwu-has-sold-1-million-copies-on-steam/
Chinese-only indie RPG The Scroll of Taiwu, in which you manage a martial arts dynasty, has sold more than one million copies on Steam.
ConchShip Games announced the milestone on Steam this week and, as analyst Daniel Ahmad points out, it's interesting because Steam operates in a "grey area" in China. The country has an active freeze on new game approvals, but the appetite for gaming hasn't diminished. In October, Steam surpassed 30 million users in China, and its popularity continues to grow.
Fanatical will end the year with a new Star Deal: BioShock: The Collection, featuring the three games, has a 79% discount for the next 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/bioshock-the-collection
SOFTWARE/DRIVERS
Valve reveals 2018's most controller-friendly Steam games
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-reveals-2018s-most-controller-friendly-steam-games/
Valve's end-of-year lists just keep on coming: it has followed up its round-up of the 100 best-selling Steam games with a post on the most controller-friendly games in 2018, broken down by controller type. For each device—Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro or Steam controller—it lists the 50 games that were played most with that controller, the games that were uniquely popular with each controller type, and the games that used each controller most in local multiplayer.
EA adds third-party games to Origin Access Premier, including Darksiders 3
https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-adds-third-party-games-to-origin-access-premier-including-darksiders-3/
EA has added a handful of third-party games to its Origin Access Premier service: Darksiders 3, management game This is The Police 2 and surveillance game Beholder 2. It's the first time that non-EA games are being made available exclusively to Premier subscribers.
The basic Origin Access, which is $5/£4 a month or $30/£20 a year, has an ever-expanding "vault" of 167 games, which you can download and play at any time as part of your subscription. Origin Access Premier—$15/£15 a month or $100/£90 a year—has an extra seven. Previously, they only included new EA games such as FIFA 19 and Battlefield 5, but now it appears EA is happy to add newer third-party games too.
MODS/EMULATORS
Orbital is the first Playstation 4 emulator currently under development, sees small progress
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/orbital-is-the-first-playstation-4-emulator-currently-under-development-sees-small-progress/
Back in March, we informed you about the first Playstation 4 emulator that is currently under development. And a few days ago, its creator Alexandro Sanchez shared a new video showing its current state.
According to Alexandro, all drivers initialize correctly now and VFS is successfully loaded. First userland application, /mini-syscore.elf, is decrypted and launched successfully and shortly after /SceSysAvControl.elf is lauched which successfully handles system events. Simultaneously, mini-syscore detects an issue with the HDD, which is to be expected during first-time boots, and launches /safemode.elf. The system enters Safe Mode successfully, but gets frozen while rendering the safe mode menu.
What ultimately this means is that this emulator is in a very early stage and is not intended for consumers/players. And as you may have guessed, the emulator is nowhere close to emulating any PS4 game so don’t expect to be playing God of War or Spiderman any time soon.
>> The beginnings are always hard, but let's give them time.
CEMU 1.15.1 available for download to Patreon backers, comes to everyone on January 6th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/cemu-1-15-1-available-for-download-to-patreon-backers-comes-to-everyone-on-january-6th/
The team behind the best WiiU emulator, CEMU, has released a brand new version that is available for download to all its Patreon backers. Version 1.15.1 brings various Wiimote improvements, Audio improvements, adds button to download community graphics packs and more.
Going into more details, this new version of CEMU replaces existing Wiimote library with its own implementation (which should offer sightly better performance when using wiimotes and better support for wiimote extensions, fixes a crash that could occur when the overlay was enabled but no stats were selected, fixes a render state corruption and fixes a rare crash in recvfrom_ex.
Furthermore, CEMU 1.15.1 adds support for native Wiimote classic controller extension, fixes a bug where playback cursor could run out of bounds for ADPCM streams, fixes issues with controller profile saving/loading when using certain UI languages and allows cemuhook code cave area to be viewed in disassembly view.
Wolfenstein 3D SNES ported to the PC and is available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/wolfenstein-3d-snes-ported-to-the-pc-and-is-available-for-download/
Wolfenstein fans, here is something for you today. Modder ‘AstroCreep’ has ported the SNES version of Wolfenstein 3D to the PC and has just released this mod to the public. This mod uses Executor’s Second Encounter port as a base, meaning that it requires the latest version of ECWolf and Wolfenstein 3D 1.4, and then adds assets directly imported from the SNES version of Wolfenstein.
As the modder claimed, this isn’t a complete experience yet though. AstroCreep used a modified HUD from ECMac and a few placeholder sounds and HUD graphics are left from PC Wolf. Apart from these small differences, though, this is identical to the SNES version as all sprites and textures have been replaced with SNES counterparts.
What’s really cool here is that this port of the SNES version looks better than the real deal. It runs faster and looks better as the SNES version was a pixel-y mess.
>> Download it from ModDB.
After 9 years, Half-Life 2: MMod is available for download, improves graphics, AI, VFX, Sound & more
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/after-9-years-half-life-2-mmod-is-available-for-download-improves-graphics-ai-vfx-sound-more/
The HL2MMod team has released a new mod for Half Life 2, called Half-Life 2: MMod. Half-Life 2: MMod aims to enhance and expand gunplay, combat mechanics and the immersion factor by giving the player more options and combat opportunities as well as refine how the player handles his arsenal.
Half-Life 2 : MMod also offers minor AI enhancements, extended abilities for combine soldiers (dynamic jumping, firing smg1 underbarrel grenades, shotgunner double blast, etc.), multiple bug fixes, enhanced visuals, VFX re-design, sound redesign and much much more, while keeping nearly every new feature in the mod totally optional.
>> This mod is also available from ModDB.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein gets HD textures using ESRGAN, available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/return-to-castle-wolfenstein-gets-hd-textures-using-esrgan-available-for-download/
Earlier this month, we informed about a new technique via which modders can enhance the outdated textures of older games. And a few days ago, Shiba Inu has released a HD Texture Pack for Return to Castle Wolfenstein using ESRGAN.
As we’ve already reported, Enhanced Super Resolution Generative Adverserial Networks, or ESRGAN, is an upscaling method that takes an low-res image and adds realistic details to it. By doing it over several passes with the goal of fooling its adverserial part, it will usually produce an image with more fidelity and realism than past methods.
Shiba Inu has released the HD Texture Pack to the public and you can go ahead and download it from here. In order to install this pack, you’ll simply have to place the pak1.pk3 file into Return to Castle WolfensteinMain dir. Unfortunately, though, this pack does not contain any TGA format textures with alpha channels.
>> There's also a video comparison between the original game and the game with these upgraded textures.
There is a The Lion King mod for Monster Hunter World that you can download right now
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/there-is-a-the-lion-king-mod-for-monster-hunter-world-that-you-can-download-right-now/
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Monster Hunter World has the potential to become the next GTA V when it comes to mods. And while we haven’t seen that many 3D models switches yet, modder ‘UberGrainy’ has released a The Lion King mod for it.
As you may have guessed, this mod replaces Teostra with Simba from The Lion King. Naturally, this mod is incompatible with any mod that replaces Teostra. Still, I’m pretty sure that it would make more sense to have Scar instead of Simba but I guess there wasn’t any HD 3D model for the big bad lion of Disney’s cartoon.
Those interested can download the mod from here. All you have to do in order to install it is unzip the archive of your choice (with folders) into SteamSteamappscommonMonster Hunter World.
PREY – Real Lights plus Ultra Graphics Mod Version 1.3 is available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/prey-real-lights-plus-ultra-graphics-mod-version-1-3-is-available-for-download/
In case you weren’t aware of, this mod aims to improve graphics and effects: all the lights cast shadows, corrected shadows for the original light sources, ultra view distance, improved particles, improved AO+IL, no texture pop-in, no shadows pop-in, uses only high poly lods, improved reflections, all decals stay almost forever, new effects, volumetric lights and more.
Version 1.3 fixes a model lod issue whit a file misnamed introduced on V1.2, a bug that makes a specifical particle effect to stay in screen after killing whit the q-beam the bigger thypons introduced on V1.2, as well as more specific levels related lighting inconsistencies left on vanilla game.
>> This mod is available from Nexus Mods.
GAMING NEWS
New Streets of Rage 4 screenshots released
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/new-streets-of-rage-4-screenshots-released/
DotEmu has shared four new screenshots for Streets of Rage 4. These new screenshots showcase the newly sprite models and the environments that Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games have created.
Action-based RPG Bloody Spell is coming to Steam Early Access on January 16th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/action-based-rpg-bloody-spell-is-coming-to-steam-early-access-on-january-16th/
Elong Games has announced that Bloody Spell will be coming to Steam Early Access on January 16th. Bloody Spell is described as an action-based role-playing game developed by 5 people for more than 2 years and appears to be a mix between Sekiro and Devil May Cry/Bayonetta.
Deep Learning Super Sampling, DLSS, is coming to Battlefield 5
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/deep-learning-super-sampling-dlss-is-coming-to-battlefield-5/
It appears that Deep Learning Super Sampling, or best known as DLSS, will be coming to Battlefield 5. This information comes straight from NVIDIA’s own slides regarding its upcoming graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX2060, in which the green team revealed some interesting performance numbers.
New hack n slash FPS created by a single person, Bright Memory, hits Early Access on January 12th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/new-hack-n-slash-fps-created-by-a-single-person-bright-memory-hits-early-access-on-january-12th/
Back in 2017, we informed you about the Unreal Engine 4-powered game Bright Memory; an FPS hack n slash that is developed by a single developer. And today, we are happy to report that this game will come to Steam Early Access on January 12th.
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