28 July 2014 • 19 hours 24 min ago •
Story by Jeremy Peel
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Paris! It’s the city of love - so long as you stick to the neat gardens of Le Marais, plant your fingers in your ears and sing Clair de lune at the top of your voice. On the other side of the river, the mob tip carriages back and forth until their passengers spill out onto the cobbles. An assassin, as ever, lives in the space between.
Here’s everything Ubisoft have told us about the diverse districts of Assassin’s Creed Unity’s open world thus far.
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28 July 2014 • 18 hours 13 min ago •
Story by Jeremy Peel
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Once you’ve installed the GTA IV mod that turns you into an elephant, iCEnhancer is likely your next port of call. It’s the comprehensive graphics upgrade that leaves Rockstar North’s six-year-old opus looking realer than real.
But yesterday’s iCEnhancer 3.0 release is set to be its last for a while. Technical artist and lead modder Hayssam Keilany has decided to step away from “guys trying to bring me down constantly”.
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28 July 2014 • 16 hours 46 min ago •
Story by Jeremy Peel
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The BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme ran a feature of Twitch last week. Newsnight asked: “Who would want to watch teenagers just clicking away playing their video games all night?”
The report that followed was better-balanced than you’d hope - but it’s still caused minor uproar in the streaming community.
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28 July 2014 • 14 hours 10 min ago •
Story by Jeremy Peel
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On Friday, Facepunch Studios made the mistake of talking publicly about one of the prototypes they’ve been working on. No sooner had programmer Adam Woolridge introduced arcade shooter Rift-Light, than commenters concluded that Early Access funds were being used to divert manpower away from Rust. In a spurt of crowdsourced fiction, others decided that the Steam-swallowing survival game had been cancelled outright.
“They are probably going to be even angrier to find out that we have three other prototypes being worked on by Facepunch staff,” wrote Facepunch’s Garry Newman today. “Should HBO make one TV show at a time? Should Warner Brothers make one movie at a time?”
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28 July 2014 • 12 hours 52 min ago •
Story by Jeremy Peel
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Rainbow Six Siege was the toast of E3 - and the single family home map on show has become so familiar in subsequent streams that some of us could probably find our way downstairs to the fridge for a snack in the middle of the night.
But that’s okay. Ubisoft Montreal’s maps will have to offer enough variety in approach to withstand not several playthroughs, but several hundred. And this one’s doing just fine so far.
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28 July 2014 • 12 hours 22 min ago •
Story by Jeremy Peel
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You simply must take another look at Star Wars: The Old Republic. There are at least a couple of worthy Knights of the Old Republic sequels buried in BioWare’s MMO - and one, the Imperial Agent plotline, is the most compelling story ever told about a glorified janitor.
But we get it: it’s entirely reasonable to be put off by fast-resetting quests, conspicuous mounts and noisy allchat. That’s why whenever Obsidian talk about the possibility of an honest-to-god, single player KOTOR 3, we stop and listen.
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For almost 20 years, Blizzard has been constructing the universe of Warcraft, from the birth of the Titans to the wars between the Horde and the Alliance. There’s a lot to take in, with each game, expansion, comic and novel expanding and fleshing out the gargantuan story.
If you’re not sure who the gods are or why Ner’zhul had a portal fetish, then worry no more. YouTuber Nobbel87 has taken on the massive task of gathering the lore of Warcraft and turning it into a digestible 40 minute video. So you can get an overview of the entire history of Blizzard’s universe in the length of time it takes a lecturer to teach you about one Ancient Greek vase.
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The war between AMD and Nvidia for our hearts is less like a titanic battle and more like playground one-upmanship. The latest update for the AMD Gaming Evolved Client continues the competition, with AMD and Raptr boasting that it’s quite a bit better than Nvidia’s GeForce Experience.
The update brings with it a slew of new features, including game DVR, Twitch broadcasting and rolling recording. A webcam overlay and user voice capture have been added as well. It’s supported on any recent AMD graphics chip featuring the GCN Architecture.
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If you fancy putting your creative prowess to use, then Landmark might be your cup of voxel tea. It’s not finished yet, but it’s still floating about in Early Access, so you can buy your way in early. The cheapest pack, the Settler Pack, would normally set you back £14.99/$19.99, which is a little pricey for a game that will be free at launch. You get early access, a title and a pickaxe for your cash.
If it’s the price that’s been keeping you away, then you might be a bit more interested now. All packs are 66 percent off for the next day, which is quite the discount. We got Mr. Cobbet to check it out back in March, so take a gander at his Landmark closed beta review to see if it tickles your fancy.
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While there were a few people who tuned into ESPN’s coverage of the Dota 2 International and became distressed, confused and, in some cases, downright angry, the sports broadcaster was “delighted” with how the coverage went.
The apparent success of ESPN’s International schedule has, a source close to the broadcaster told The Daily Dot, led to it looking to expand coverage of eSports.
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While Batman is usually preoccupied with the villainy that consumes Gotham - villainy that he’s not been very good at laying to rest, frankly - he does sometimes bugger off into space. It’s usually because the Justice League have got some sort of extraplanetary crisis on their hands.
And that’s exactly what’s happening in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. From Comic-Con, a new trailer for TT’s latest not-really-about-Batman DC Lego romp has appeared. And, of course, it looks flipping excellent.
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Legendary, ReelFX and Oculus VR have put together a VR “experience” based on kaiju-bashing action flick, Pacific Rim. It was at Comic-Con last week, and sounds exactly like the sort of awesome multi-media projects I hope more companies use VR to make.
Pacific Rim: Jaeger Pilot is a combat simulator that uses Industrial Light and Magic assets from the Guillermo del Toro movie developed using Unreal engine 4. Unfortunately the trailer below just shows a few clips from the film, so if you weren’t at Comic-Con, you’ll just have to use your imagination.
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Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes series are often a bit rough around the edges, but usually compelling fare nonetheless. There’s no sociopathic Holmes or over the top action sequences punctuated with explosions, so it’s certainly a lot more representative of Conan Doyle’s character than recent movies or TV shows.
The latest in the series is Crimes and Punishments, and so far it seems like it could be Frogwares’ most polished installment, adding a slew of new features to the consulting detective’s deductive arsenal. It also looks rather nice, with extra attention being paid to textures on objects and clothing. There’s a practical reason for this - as these details are key to solving crimes.
Frogwares’ has put together a 20 minute walkthrough - absent spoilers - showing off what Holmes and his buddy Doctor Watson can get up to in Victorian London and the surrounding area. Take a look below.
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