Monday, 31 December 2018
Monday, 24 December 2018
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Guest editorial: there was one unacceptable thing about E3 this year
Security and safety were alarmingly lax at this year's consumer-friendly exhibition, Rami Ismail writes.
This year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, like every year, was a beacon, a celebration for games as an industry. The event's three days in the Staples Center conference building in Los Angeles are technically the heart of the event, and attracted over 70,000 professionals in 2016.
Since the introduction of livestreaming, the soul of E3 lives in the spectacle (and the coverage of the spectacle) surrounding the event. Large publishers and platforms throw press conferences that attract millions of viewers worldwide, who tune in to see what their favorite games company has for the upcoming year.
This left the showfloor in a precarious position: E3 used to be an industry-only event, but the value of the showfloor, and the value of exhibiting there, dropped rapidly as companies could get more attention outside of the event. In effect, the showfloor had become a meeting space and a place for developer interviews.
So for 2017, E3 has radically changed what the show is: the expo now allows for the general public to register and visit the show. It’s an important step that is presumably necessary to ensure the continued survival of E3, and has brought back some value to exhibiting at the event. E3 graciously ensured that general audience badges were a neon yellow, and thus clearly distinct from the industry badges. Meanwhile, the enthusiasm and excitement of the general audience was a huge energy boost for the floor.
Regardless, for developers and press, the general audience has made the event a lot more clunky. The influx of 15,000 new people – many of whom understandably approached the showfloor as if it was a swag-filled consumer show – led to repeated chaos in the hall. Between a brawl, some instances of people being pushed over during opening, enormous queues, and booths having to adjust for the audience mid-show, the chaos was palpable more than once.
Press can no longer quickly move between meetings due to the crowds moving with less of a purpose, a complaint that echoed frequently throughout the hall. Off-the-record conversations also had to be relocated due to the abundance of free-style vloggers documenting the showfloor with their mobile phones.
There were more structural issues related to the event clearly not being ready for public access. Examples include a lack of volunteers or enforcers outside of the booth-provided ones; an unclear distinction between accessible and private areas; poor funnelling at key locations, and an almost non-existent clear-out policy of the E3 hall after closing time.
Now, these are all transitional pains, and I understand that E3 is in a transitional year. It is important to recognize the effort and organisation steering the direction of an event in response to an ever-evolving industry. Many of these problems could easily be resolved by replicating other industry/consumer shows – gamescom in Cologne, Germany, for example, has a industry-only day and a separate business area, so that everyone can get their work done while the audience checks into the latest our industry has to offer.
All of this would make for an acceptable E3 if it wasn’t for one other issue. I’m not sure if my experiences with security at airports has made me more aware of security checks, but there was an almost complete lack of security at the show. Badges were poorly checked, bags were not checked, and there were no metal detectors. For every day of the event, I’ve tried to walk into the building and onto the showfloor without wearing my badge. I succeeded passing by the private security personnel, unobstructed, every single time, and every time I was carrying a backpack that was never checked for its contents. It would be trivial to bring any sort of weapon to the event, and in the case that someone did, security would not be able to react fast enough in the hall to prevent anything from happening.
Despite all my love for the event, this is unacceptable. With the recent weapons threat at Phoenix Comicon, the general prevalence of weapons in the United States, and the amount of anger and vitriol thrown around online about games, this is not a safe state for such a critical industry event. All of the press conferences – even the Devolver Digital booth in a parking lot across the street – had better security, whether it was metal detectors, bag checks, or bomb-sniffing dogs. These are, and should be, minimum regulations for any showfloor that handles over 70,000 people.
Overall, it was clear that the ESA is trying to transition E3 to a new paradigm, and I welcome their efforts to experiment. I understand that we can’t expect everything to be flawless. Despite the transitional pains, the event seems to have been extremely useful and fruitful for most attendees, and as such the ‘new E3’ can be considered a careful success for 2017. Security, however, is not a ‘you get to try again next year’ issue. If the ESA is going to treat E3 as a public convention-style show, it needs to have security that can handle that. I trust they’ll make improvements, and that the industry and the general public attending in 2018 can enjoy the spectacle and business of E3 on a floor that can be reasonably expected to be safe and secure from weapons.
Sunday, 4 June 2017
Best graphics card deals today
We've searched high and low for the best prices and deals on GPUs right now.
The graphics card is an essential component and when a new, demanding game comes out it can almost become an essential upgrade. But with so many options around why not let us help find you the best graphics card deals right now?
It’s the part of your rig responsible for pumping out pixels and if you’re not getting the smooth frame rates you deserve in Dark Souls III or Hitman, then it’s time to look for a new GPU. New GPUs from AMD and Nvidia are now available, which that means older stock is getting cleared out.
Our guide to the best graphics card will tell you all you need to know about which video card is best for your needs but if you're after the absolute best graphics card deals around right now we’ve got you covered with our regularly updated deals page.
Some highlights this week: Both AMD and Nvidia have launched their new cards now. The new hardware has pushed prices on existing hardware down, making for some potentially good deals, and performance on older cards isn't suddenly worse just because something newer and faster exists. Let's go through the list and see if we can find out how low prices are getting on previous generation hardware.
We're going to break things into Nvidia and AMD cards, sorted in order of decreasing performance within each. Here's the full rundown on currently available cards.
Nvidia graphics card deals
Still a lot of price gouging models out there for Nvidia's new powerhouse GTX 1080 Ti, but if you can find them the best prices are below $700. Just be patient if you can't find a good one.
GeForce GTX 1080 | 8GB GDDR5X | $490
Prices for these cards are dropping thanks to the GTX 1080 Ti, and that's an excellent thing. Plenty of models below $500 now.
Prices for these cards are dropping thanks to the GTX 1080 Ti, and that's an excellent thing. Plenty of models below $500 now.
GeForce GTX 1070 | 8GB GDDR5 | $365
You want a GTX 1070? Sure you do, and so does everyone else. It's the best graphics card overall, in our view, delivering awesome performance at a price that doesn't quite break the bank. The baseline official MSRP is $380, and we're now seeing prices below that.
You want a GTX 1070? Sure you do, and so does everyone else. It's the best graphics card overall, in our view, delivering awesome performance at a price that doesn't quite break the bank. The baseline official MSRP is $380, and we're now seeing prices below that.
GeForce GTX 1060 | 6GB GDDR5 | $215 Here's a cheaper option from Nvidia's latest range of cards, and it'll be battling it out against AMD's RX 480. The 6GB version is $215 on Newegg, and you can also find the excellent value 3GB version for $180.
The GeForce GTX 1050 is very affordable, and it plays 1080p just fine. Plus, it's quiet, efficient, and that 4GB of VRAM is very nice for the price. Check out this deal for a model at Newegg for $130.
Rounding out Nvidia's 10 series graphics cards is the GTX 1050, and it's very high up the relative price / performance scale, especially in the US. The 2GB of VRAM may cause some problems down the line, as games are quickly progressing beyond that. For now though, you can find these for as cheap as $80 at Newegg.
AMD graphics card deals
If you're having trouble finding the higher end AMD RX cards for good prices right now, you're not the only one! We'll make sure to let you know when they're back in stock. Vega is coming soon though, and you might be better off waiting.
AMD's new budget card is $95AR for the 4GB version and $70 for the 2GB version at the moment. The specs won't blow your mind, but you won't find another new card this cheap if you just need something passable for a budget rig.
In our guide to the best graphics card we’ve detailed the four best GPUs in terms of the overall champion, the best high-end GPU, the best value, and best budget gaming video card. We've listed those above already, and with the exception of the budget offering they're all new cards that regularly go out of stock. Here's the real-time pricing for each (assuming our pricing engine can find any in stock):
Tuesday, 21 June 2016
Friday, 18 October 2013
Skyjacker lets you play space pirate in customized, destructible ships
After a long drought, the space-flight sim is coming back into vogue. Skyjacker, a new space combat simulator from indie developer Digitilus, simulates the lives of ruthless space pirates in an open, deep-space setting. Players’ ships will be fully customizable, and each mission lets them hijack, destroy, and loot enemy vessels for parts. To expand this experience, Digitilus is returning to Kickstarter to help raise funds for development.
Based on a series of novels written by Digitilus co-founder Eugene Zhukov, Skyjacker will feature a system of fully-destructible ships owned by numerous alien races. Players will follow the story of the ruthless pirate Ael, fighting as mercenary pilots harassing enemy ships traveling across the galaxy. While Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen is focused on creating a massive persistent MMO-like universe, Skyjacker will tell the story of a single pirate amid a vast galaxy.
The heart of Skyjacker will be first-person dogfighting combat, a system that the team is already very proud of. Skyjacker is only in alpha right now, but already has full joystick support. Each scripted mission will take place in a solar system generated from random variables such as the number of suns and locations of planets.
“Currently we have 24 basic types of mission scenarios which we’ll multiply to over 30 environmental assets,” Zhukov tells PC Gamer. “This way, we’re getting over one hundred possible mission conditions.”
Digitilus has turned to Kickstarter to raise funds before, and the result was the intricately detailed Starship Constructor app. Allowing players to build ships and experiment with in-game systems with the sandbox freedom of Kerbal Space Program or Minecraft was really important to the team, according to Zhukov. “Freedom is always good,” he says.
The question for me is, will the spaceship creator live up to the full creative promise of that freedom? There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but Skyjacker is a much larger project than anything Digitilus has tried before.
Zhukov was able to show me an ungainly eel-like starship built by an artist as a joke and, although he assured me it would fly “if you stuck an engine on the back,” the practicality of outlandish ships is still undetermined. It will do me no good if I can build a praying mantis starship, for example, if I can’t get it to perform in combat.
According to the developer, this freedom also manifests itself in combat, where players will be able to coordinate with each other to destroy enemy shields and disable engines without obliterating ships entirely. Having an intact ship to salvage will provide upgrades and raw materials to sell on the black market.
Players will also be able to express their creativity with the mission creator, a new toolset that Digitilus is hoping to develop with funds raised by fans. A new Kickstarter drive launches today to raise $150,000 for mission development tools as well as more powerful co-op and PvP multiplayer modes. Currently a server can support 12 players in a multiplayer match, but with funding that number could grow.
“We’ve received immense support from players,” Zhukov says, “and although we are committed to funding and completing the project ourselves, a successful Kickstarter will enable us to solidify the game and speed up the launch, providing galactic aficionados with all the features they want, much sooner than planned.”
Skyjacker is currently in alpha, and Digitilus has released a playable demo that you can play at their website.
Space Hulk’s latest free update includes new campaign to show fan appreciation
In a nod to its fans, indie strategy game Space Hulk has released a new—and free—three-mission campaign as part of its latest patch which went live today. The appropriately titled Messenger of Purgatory campaign surfaces as part of update 1.2, which also addresses the game’s optimization, visuals, and a variety of other improvements, according to its official changelog.
“We have had both a rough start as well as great support from all of you,” the developers report in the changelog. “So we decided to give you this one for free as a big THANK YOU!!”
Set—as always—in the Warhammer 40k universe, the new Space Hulk missions send you on the hunt for the remains of Captain Atarius. Thomas Hentschel Lund, CEO of the game’s developer Full Control, highlighted player feedback in his comments about the patch in the official press release today: “This game update addresses many of the fan requests and suggestions that continue to hone and refine the experience of Space Hulk.”
For some more background on Full Control’s PC translation of the classic board game, check out our preview of the turn-based strategy game.
Hat tip, Joystiq.
Interview: Assassin’s Creed IV game director Ashraf Ismail on the future of open worlds
People are obsessed with pirate ships. Before we sat down to chat proper, Assassin’s Creed IV
game director Ashraf Ismail told me a story about how one playtester
became so enamoured with the Jackdaw that he spent hours boarding it
from every possible angle. “You know, we kinda needed to get some other
things tested, but we let him at it anyway,” Ismail laughed.
Ismail’s in Sydney to show off a new build of Assassin’s
Creed IV, ahead of its release in November. During a hands on preview,
another Australian journalist spent an hour trying to overtake an enemy
pirate ship. He died dozens of times apparently (because it’s a fairly
high level feat to pull off) but eventually he did it without resorting
to cannons.
People are obsessed with pirate ships. Ubisoft is banking
on this obsession, because Black Flag will usher in one of the most
dramatic changes to the Assassin’s Creed series we’ve seen over the
course of its six titles. Naval combat and navigation is one of the core
mechanics in the forthcoming installment, which releases for PC on November 22.
PC Gamer: You’re working across six platforms and
two console generations with Black Flag. Is there more pressure on this
title than ever before?
Ashraf Ismail: For sure. As a brand there
is a pressure to bring something new and something fresh, but in terms
of the number of platforms, no – that’s not really an added pressure.
You can argue that with the next-gen stuff we need to raise the game a
bit in terms of visual quality and immersiveness. So, yes there is
multiple angles of pressure rising. But I think globally we deeply know
as a dev team, as a company and as a brand that we need to surprise our
fans. That was the objective when we started Black Flag two years ago:
the key words were fresh and fun. We know we risk going stale, but the
job is on us as developers to surprise people and that’s one of the
reasons we went with a pirate theme and especially with doing a naval
sandbox.
When you think of next-gen people have this notion that you
need to experience something that you haven’t experienced before.
Visual quality goes up, but the games also need to get bigger and
immerse you more, and that’s where the idea of the naval sandbox came
from. Not that it’s unique to next-gen, but it forced us to ask how do
we take the city building that we know and just exaggerate and go much
bigger and create a world that we’ve never had in AC, and hopefully
which gamers have never seen. So yes, there is pressure but it’s a
really strong motivator for us to try something different and to take a
risk.
I remind people that it’s really risky to take a brand like
Assassin’s Creed, which is very successful in terms of sales and
fanbase, and then to say “you know what, part of the core experience now
is naval combat.” I love the fact that Ubisoft went with it and
supported us in attempting to do this. It’s a very risky thing and we
could have totally screwed it up, but because of the pressure we know we
need to take risks. It’s been a positive experience.
Is there a risk there that you’re fragmenting the
series’ core elements – freerunning, stealth, land combat etc – with the
introduction of naval combat?
AI: Again, it’s our job to ensure that the
core of Assassin’s Creed is there. We do have a brand team, which is
outside of the development team. That team is composed of writers,
designers, project managers and so on, and they look at the larger arc
that is Assassin’s Creed. There are people there who pay attention to
what direction the game is going in and whether it is still fitting in
with the brand pillars. Things like freerunning, fighting and stealth:
these are really core and we’re never going to lose those.
I always say there’s a reason there are very few good
pirate references in video games. Actually there’s almost none. The best
in my opinion is Sid Meier’s Pirates. And that’s because if you want to
do a credible pirate game you need to have cities, you need natural
locations, you need to have an insane naval combat system but also a
naval world, and to do that in one shot… I don’t know how any team could
do it. There’s few pirate games because it’s a huge undertaking. We
have such a solid foundation in Assassin’s Creed, because Assassin’s
Creed 3 started pushing the naval navigation and nature, and they
started the naval combat, so we had the ingredients in place. We could
spend a good two and a half years developing something spectacular on
those foundations. So yes, there’s risk involved in whether the naval
stuff fits into the freerunning, but I feel like when people play the
game they’ll feel like it’s Assassin’s Creed, yet the core experience
will be so different and fresh that it will surprise people.
What are the most important elements of an
open-world moving forward, apart from graphical fidelity? What do
consumers want the most?
“We’ll always have an historical element because it’s core to the brand. Mark my words”
AI: For me, at its heart an open world
game is a promise of an experience. The more immersed you are in that
experience the more lost you can get inside the world. We worked pretty
hard on making the world believable and credible. Having NPCs that look
like real people who exist in that world, that’s always been a tenet of
Assassin’s Creed since the first game. I think we can push that further.
Beyond that – and this isn’t a hint of any future mechanics – I
personally feel like there will be some element of connectivity. We’ve
seen games that are single player games that somehow try to integrate
the idea of other people interacting with your world. I’m sure that at
some point with Assassin’s Creed, and with other open worlds, we’re
going to see more of this. Demon’s Souls is a prime example of a single
player game which is very personal which [nonetheless] let’s other
people interact with you. I think that’s the best reference out there. I
think we’ll see more of this, but all in the hope of immersing you more
in the world.
With Black Flag, we want players to be completely lost in
the Caribbean. What I mean is, you have a mission that is at the top of
the map, but when you move in that direction the game world will keep
inviting you to move off that path without you knowing it. Maybe if you
find yourself, 45 minutes later, nowhere near that mission start, but
you’ve done a bunch of harpooning and found a bunch of treasures and
updated the Jackdaw, this for me is achieving a level of immersiveness
that really only open world games can achieve. Those are the two fronts.
We’re always going to push the immersiveness layer, having systems that
attract you and pull your attention. On a pure feature basis there will
probably be more social stuff, though I’m not entirely sure how yet.
Assassin’s Creed has become more generous with
those distractions you mention. Is there an awareness within the dev
teams that there might be a stretching point for these distractions? Is
it possible to give the player too much to do?
AI: Yes, and I think the balance lay in
what the purpose of this extra stuff is. We wanted to make sure that all
the side missions and activities have a very simple function that a
player can understand. So for example in this game, we’re blessed to
have enemies that are not human: ships, inanimate objects that you can
upgrade, more cannons and hulls, more defenses. All this allows us to
have a progression system, and this system is a really easy way to
reward the player. You need gold to buy the upgrades, therefore as you
start to understand the economy of the game you start to understand what
activities you need to do to get that gold. So you think: I need gold
so I need to do this and this, which is better than selecting from a
bunch of random icons on the map and trying them out.
We run into issues when we just put in activities that have
no real purpose and are just there as content. As a game director I
won’t do that – you can have some really cool stuff but it’s just
meaningless. So the balance is really about the purpose and the
function: if I’m doing this activity because it leads me somewhere, then
it has a place in the game. You’ll see that in Black Flag: almost every
single collectible, activity, side mission has a purpose, whether it’s
to upgrade the ship or to upgrade Edward. There’s a function that’s
clear and simple. We focused on that because we know that people can get
lost in all the extra activities in open world games that are just
there [for no reason].
It’s well known that naval combat and traversal was
a difficult technical achievement. Specifically, what were some of the
more difficult aspects?
AI: There are a million different things!
I’ll start simple: the ship is an avatar. There is this psychological
connection with players where you have a 3D figure on camera and you
start to associate yourself with that character. You understand that the
shadow beneath it places you somewhere inside the 3D world. These are
mechanics that have been developed over years, starting with the likes
of Mario 64. They’d been explored before that, but Mario 64 really
defined a lot of this stuff.
So all of the sudden we have this ship that’s really big:
its dimensions are awkward and we’re not used to it, and so where do you
put the camera? How do you shoot, how do you drive? And at the same
time not only is it a massive 3D ship, but you also need to feel that
it’s a ship and still have it be fun to play and for it to be intuitive.
When we started we had a lot of different prototypes for sailing, and
some of them looked at sailing from a very accurate perspective. I’d say
on some level they were fun, but on another they were completely
unintuitive and unplayable. Just trying to sail and shoot an enemy was
impossible. Finding the balance where it feels like a ship that you’re
sailing on an ocean which has physics and you can feel the waves and
wind, but you can also be in a combat situation: to not overwhelm the
player with too many variables is really tricky. It took a lot of time
with R&D and prototyping and trying different things.
The ocean itself is honestly one of the greatest
achievements we’ve made. It’s fully physics simulated but we have full
control over it. If we want it to go from a calm sea to an intense
hurricane, we can do it. It feels natural and normal and logical and
it’s beautiful visually. The guys who pulled it off, my hats off to
them.
With the Abstergo narrative backdrop Assassin’s
Creed could feasibly go anywhere. Is it possible the series could ever
make a break from its historical settings?
AI: Feasibly, but I don’t think that makes
sense. One of the pillars of Assassin’s Creed is that it’s historical
fiction. I think it’s one of the biggest reasons why the series is so
successful. Everybody in this world can love a certain time period or a
certain historical figure, and I think one of our successes is that we
go to time periods that you’ll never be able to physically visit or see.
We excite people around this concept. To me, it doesn’t make any sense
to have an Assassin’s Creed game that doesn’t have an historical element
to it because it’s core to the DNA. I’ve been asked about whether
Assassin’s Creed will make it to space in the future, and while anything
is possible I think we’ll always have an historical element because
it’s core to the brand. Mark my words.
Users are given the opportunity to rate missions, which will offer feedback directly to Ubisoft. Do you expect conclusive results?AI: This is a very contentious feature in the game. I really wanted it in the game but our mission guys really hated it, which I understand why. We had many avenues of feedback, and one of the most important things a designer needs to be able to do is take in lots of feedback, whether its ideas or playtest results or just watching someone play and writing down notes. You need to absorb this information and then digest it. You don’t take it at face value – some stuff you can – but you need to be able to digest and understand what is happening. For me this is just another avenue of feedback. Of course when we see a mission is rated extremely poorly then okay, something went wrong. We’ll ask whether it was the writing, a bug, or was it just not a fun mechanic that was being used. On the other hand if something is rated really well, then for future games we can look at that and analyse why this mission was great.
Thursday, 17 October 2013
TowerFall setting its sights on a January launch for PC
Indie platformer TowerFall may land on PC as early as January, according to comments made by the game’s creator Matt Thorson to Shacknews. Previously exclusive to the Ouya system, TowerFall won the Media Choice Award Sunday at the IndieCade Games Festival and still looks set to include at least some of the new content we first heard about back in August.
“There’s two new archers and five new towers,” Thorson tells to Shacknews.
Already one of the Ouya console’s most popular games, TowerFall’s PC version will surely find a wider audience on PC for its 4-player combat archery. Thorson’s comments didn’t include word of the previously hinted-at single-player mode or online play, although he did mention to Shacknews at the IndieCade festival that he hoped to include a level editor as well as Steam Workshop functionality.
While the transition of a game from a console-based version to a PC can sometimes be problematic, it’s great to hear that Thorson has in mind some options for players to customize their experience, either through their own level editing or the always wild and wonderful universe of Steam Workshop.
Call of Duty: Ghosts system requirements posted by Nvidia
Update: Well, that didn’t take long. Activision’s support Twitter account has just confirmed that these specs are not official.
Original story follows below.
While it’s not official, the likely PC requirements for Call of Duty: Ghosts have been posted on Nvidia’s website. The minimum requirements are pretty friendly to those without giant rigs, but a slight step up from previous CoDs given the transition to new console hardware.
According to Nvidia, Call of Duty: Ghosts’ helicopter-crashing dog antics (and other things) will require at least the following specs to run fluidly:
- OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHZ / AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHZ or better
- RAM: 6 GB RAM
- HDD: 50 GB HD space
- Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti / ATI Radeon HD 5870 or better
- Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
- DirectX: 11
- Internet: Broadband connection and service required for Multiplayer Connectivity. Internet connection required for activation.
For comparison’s sake, these specs are similar to the minimum requirements that Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs will reportedly require, except for the crazy 50 gigs of space.
Ghosts comes out on PC November 5, apparently with dedicated servers this time. We’ve contacted Activision to confirm whether or not Nvidia’s post represents the official system requirements.
Indie dev shares thoughts on Steam Controller after getting hands-on
Dan Tabár, the game designer behind Cortex Command, got his hands on a prototype of the recently announced Steam Controller and says he has “no qualms” with the ergonomic feel of the controller and is “surprised how well it worked.” He told us he’s excited to see how the device will affect the feasibility of PC gaming in the living room.
Tabár tested the controller during a visit to Valve in September and had a chance to play some Borderlands with the new hardware, which he described as fresh off of an in-house 3D printer.
“What I like about controller specifically, is how surprisingly usable and good the touchpads felt almost immediately,” Tabár said. “It certainly is not the laptop touchpad experience frankensteined onto a gamepad. The new paddles on the back are a stroke of genius that makes me smack my forehead…and in general I just dig that Valve is clearly taking a fresh approach and leaving nothing because of some kind of sacred legacy expectations of what makes a good game input device.”
The controller’s touchpads will use a tactile-feedback technology in order to replace the thumbsticks that are mounted on the front of most traditional gamepads. At least in shooters like Borderlands, this is one area, according to Tabár, where the controller is still a work-in-progress.
“They do have some work to do on the haptic feedback for these kinds of games, because my impression was that it was rumbling and making klicky sensations constantly, not really giving me much useful tactile feedback,” Tabár said. “I see that as a polish/tweaking issue more than a dealbreaker though, and [definitely] something that will be fundamentally less of an issue with games that are built with the controller in mind.”
While he caveats that he only got to use the prototype in an FPS game, Tabár did wonder how people would adapt the controller to other genres, especially real-time strategy games.
“I do worry about people trying to use this with fast-paced RTS games and hope to stay competitive, or arcade fighting games, as another example,” he said. “Some game genres just lend themselves to specialized hardware like arcade sticks, auto racing wheels, flight joysticks, et cetera. However, as a universal controller, this seems to be a very flexible compromise.”
And as one of the three cornerstones of developer Valve’s plan to take PC gamers away from the traditional, desk-based, mouse and keyboard setups that most of us know, a feasible controller has got to be central to making couch-based PC gaming a reality. But it’s always tough to predict how new input devices will actually function without getting your hands on them.
Tabár says he’s “confident” the graphical editor for his upcoming Planetoid Pioneers project could be operated using the Steam Controller, even though the interface was designed for a mouse cursor. What’s clear from his experience is that many of the real advantages of such a radically new device won’t appear until we see games that are designed—from the very beginning—to work seamlessly with the new apparatus.
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Following the tradition of most fighting game ports, NetherRealm Studios‘ clash of DC heroes and villains will enter the PC arena a few months after the initial brawl of its console brethren in the form of the Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition on November 12. As you’d expect, the Ultimate Edition includes the base game along with all the previously-released DLC, which includes the characters Batgirl, Martian Manhunter, General Zod, Lobo, Zatanna, and a re-imagined Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. The DLC also includes over 40 new costumes and 60 S.T.A.R. Labs missions. Americans (or those who ship themselves an American copy) also get the game soundtrack. The Ultimate Edition comes out on November 12 in North America and Europe for $50/£30, and other territories “beginning November 29” with High Voltage Software at the helm rather than NetherRealm. I’m usually weary of ports not developed in house, but considering High Voltage ported the PC version of Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition, I’m not overly concerned.
President of Worldwide Studios for Sony Computer Entetainment Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed over Twitter that the “basic functions” of the PS4’s DualShock 4 will be compatible on Windows PCs without the need for additional drivers.
When asked whether Sony planned to release PC compatibility drivers for the DualShock 4, Yoshida tweeted back “the analog sticks and buttons will work just fine” and the “basic functions” of the controller will work by default. Of course, Yoshida remained vague about what those “basic functions” actually were.
The folks at Joystiq noted that most third-party controllers use the XInput API, which sort of tricks your computer into thinking that controller is actually an Xbox 360 controller. It’s worth mentioning that the DualShock 3 controller doesn’t have XInput, and requires additional software, tweaks, and quite possibly headaches to properly run on a PC.
When asked if games would automatically recognize a DualShock 4 as a DualShock 4, Yoshida tersely said to wait for a field report after the PS4 launch. There are plenty of other questions out there regarding the DS4’s touchpad and motion controls, though I’d be perfectly content if games just recognized the controller’s buttons and joysticks. Here’s hoping that’s the case come November.
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition coming to PC
Following the tradition of most fighting game ports, NetherRealm Studios‘ clash of DC heroes and villains will enter the PC arena a few months after the initial brawl of its console brethren in the form of the Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition on November 12.
As you’d expect, the Ultimate Edition includes the base game along with all the previously-released DLC, which includes the characters Batgirl, Martian Manhunter, General Zod, Lobo, Zatanna, and a re-imagined Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. The DLC also includes over 40 new costumes and 60 S.T.A.R. Labs missions. Americans (or those who ship themselves an American copy) also get the game soundtrack.
The Ultimate Edition comes out on November 12 in North America and Europe for $50/£30, and other territories “beginning November 29” with High Voltage Software at the helm rather than NetherRealm. I’m usually weary of ports not developed in house, but considering High Voltage ported the PC version of Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition, I’m not overly concerned.
Asylum Jam to focus on horror without stigmatizing illness
Decrepit psychiatric hospitals with Gothic architecture and their mentally ill patients still constitute a lot of horror fiction. The recently-released Outlast and Bethesda’s upcoming The Evil Within both take place in insane asylums housing horrific monstrosities, but Lucy Morris dislikes those tropes and seeks to challenge developers to create a different kind of horror game.
“You should not use asylums, psychiatric institutes, medical professionals, or violent/antipathic/’insane’ patients as settings or triggers,” states the Asylum Jam’s website. The 48-hour jam, running from Oct 11-13, was inspired by Ian Mahar’s Kotaku article that examined the negative effects of the horror genre’s prolific use of mental illness, including the societal perceptions that come with having one such illness.
In an interview with Polygon,Morris and participants in the game jam go in-depth on the stigmatization of mental illness, the potential for the jam to open a discussion, and their desire to explore other avenues for the genre’s future. So while Morris and developers, who can still sign up at the jam’s site, admirably try to move away from the popular horror tropes, they will try to create new, inventive ways to frighten people.
Great. Now games can make me squeal like a child for even more reasons.
Friday, 5 April 2013
Deus Ex: Human Defiance trademark filed by Square Enix [Updated]
Update: Mysterious gaming sleuth superannuation reports a couple whois searches for the Human Defiance domain shows CBS Films as the registrant, a strong suggestion that the title is for the upcoming film adaptation from CBS and Eidos Montreal. Previously, director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill said they’re targeting a cyberpunk vibe for the film’s theme.
Original: Time to activate your speculation augmentation. You did all get that particular upgrade, right? Honestly, giant arm swords are all well and good, but they’ll hardly help you to deal with the news that Square Enix have filed a new Deus Ex trademark. The trademark application – submitted February 26 and spotted by NeoGAF – is for Deus Ex: Human Defiance, and has a classification class that heavily focuses on words like “computer”, “video”, “game” and “software”. What could it all mean?
Best case scenario: a follow-up to the excellent Human Revolution. Worst case? Probably an iPad game/movie tie-in for the upcoming cinematic adaptation. Other possibilities? A port of DX:HR, a standalone time-trial of all the boss battles, an HD remake of Deus Ex: Invisible War…
Okay, clearly my speculation drives have failed. What do you think Square Enix have in store? (And more importantly, if Eidos Montreal are set to make a sequel, where the hell is Thief 4?)
Thanks, CVG.
Thursday, 4 April 2013
THQ’s remaining properties to be auctioned in April – Homeworld and Darksiders up for grabs
The date’s been set for the final court-supervised auction of THQ’s remaining properties. Those titles not bought in January’s fire sale have been divided into lots, with initial bids due in April 1st. Final bids are required by April 15th, then, pending court approval, THQ expects to sell the remaining vestige of its existence by mid-May. *Sniff*
While the tastiest morsels have already been picked away, there’s still some meat clinging to the THQ bone. Darksiders, Homeworld and Red Faction are all looking for a new home. In an ideal world, the Homeworld license will be picked up by someone who’ll actually use it, and Red Faction will end up somewhere that recognises the brilliance of Guerrilla over the mediocrity of Armageddon.
Here’s the full list:
Lot 1: Red Faction
- Red Faction
- Red Faction Armageddon
- Red Faction 2
- Red Faction: Guerrilla
- Homeworld
- Homeworld 2
- MX Alive
- MX vs ATV Untamed
- MX Superfly featuring Ricky Carmichael
- MX vs. ATV Alive Tournament
- MX Unleashed
- MX vs. ATV Unleashed
- MX vs ATV Reflex
- MX vs. ATV: On The Edge
- Darksiders
- Darksiders 2
- All Star Cheer Squad
- Elements of Destruction
- All Star Cheer Squad 2
- Fantastic Pets
- All Star Karate
- Frontlines: Fuel of War
- Baja: Edge of Control
- Full Spectrum Warrior 1
- Full Spectrum Warrior 2: Ten Hammers
- Battle of the Bands
- Beat City
- Juiced
- Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
- Big Beach Sports
- Big Beach Sports 2
- Lock’s Quest: Construction Combat
- Big Family Games
- Neighborhood Games
- Crawler
- Pax Imperia
- de Blob
- de Blob 2
- Stuntman: Ignition
- Summoner
- Summoner 2
- Deadly Creatures
- Deep Six
- Terranium
- Destroy All Humans!
- Destroy All Humans! 2
- Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed
- Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon
- The Outfit
- Titan Quest
- Titan Quest: Immortal Throne
- uDraw
- Dood’s Big Adventure
- World of Zoo
- Drawn to Life
- Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter
- Costume Quest
- Stacking
- Scripps Spelling Bee (Scripps)
- Daniel X (SueJack)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House
- Deepak Chopra’s Leela (Curious Holdings)
- Fancy Nancy: Tea Party Time! (Harper Collins)
- Supreme Commander
- Supreme Commander Forged Alliance
- Jeopardy
- Jeopardy 2
- The Biggest Loser
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Truth or Lies
- Let’s Ride Best of Breed
- Vampire Legends: Power of Three (dtp)
- Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat
- Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet
- Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet 2
- Wheel of Fortune
- Wheel of Fortune 2
- World of Zoo
- Nancy Drew: The Hidden Staircase
- Worms 2
- Worms Battle Islands
- Worms Open Warfare
- Worms: A Space Oddity
- Worms: Open Warfare 2 (Team 17)
- Nexuiz
- Paws & Claws Marine Rescue
- Paws & Claws Pampered Pets Resort 3D
- PurrPals 2
- Rio
- You Don’t Know Jack (Jellyvision)
- Rocket Riot
- Screwjumper (Frozen Codebase)
Wishful thinking time! Who would you like to see bidding on the various series?
Thanks, GI.biz
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
The War Z is back on Steam
Following customer complaints over misleading information on The War Z’s Steam page, Valve removed the unfinished multiplayer zombie survival game in December. It’s back, and Valve has explained the decision to give the controversial shooter a second chance in a brief announcement:
“Valve and Hammerpoint Interactive collaborated to address community feedback, update the Steam store page, and make the title available for purchase worldwide. In addition, a patch has been released to update existing customers. As such, the special refund offering extended for The War Z Steam customers who previously purchased the title has concluded.”
Below is a comparison of the Steam information from when The War Z launched in December and now.
Original Steam store page
New Steam store page
Details that are not yet implemented or not available in the Foundation Release, such as areas as large as “100 to 400 square kilometers,” have been omitted. The phrase “single purchase” is also gone. While it’s technically true that the game can be played with one purchase, microtransactions extend to individual bullets, making it only technically true, with italics.
Selling bullets was one of many problems we dissected in our review of The War Z. The lack of voice communication, poor sound design, homogeneous landscape, exploits, hacking, and even spawn camping were among the criticisms that resulted in our 30% verdict. On that note, the new Steam store page also displays the game’s now-available Metacritic score of 23/100.
A screenshot from The War Z’s Steam page
The question, as I see it, is: should Valve be responsible for curating Steam, making judgments based on a game’s reception, or should it take a laissez-faire approach and let us decide (given accurate information) what to buy on our own? Given the introduction of Greenlight and some of Gabe Newell’s recent comments, the latter approach seems to be the direction Valve is traveling.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Fifth set of Steam Greenlight games greenlit: Anodyne, Distance, Organ Trail, and more
Valve has announced the fifth set of games to be promoted from Steam Greenlight to Steam distribution. The service gives everyone with a game and $100 the chance to earn a Steam distribution deal—so far, 76 games have been greenlit, and 16 of those have been completed and released on Steam. The latest batch is below:
- Anodyne
- Distance
- Evoland
- Huntsman:The Orphanage
- Kingdom Rush
- Legends of Dawn
- Organ Trail: Director’s Cut
- Receiver
- Surgeon Simulator 2013
- War Thunder
While these developers should be proud of their accomplishment, Valve doesn’t seem too proud of Greenlight: Gabe Newell recently called the experiment “a bottleneck rather than a way for people to communicate choice.” He wants to go further, doing away with “artificial shelf space scarcity” entirely. We game in exciting times.
Monday, 1 April 2013
DayZ Mod update 1.7.6: new zombie logic, arrows, and a fight about cans
A screenshot of wandering zombies by Reddit user fitzybaby.
But first: zombie logic. Zeds’ max target range has been reduced from 300 meters to 120 meters, they should zigzag less, and their running speed has been reduced. That doesn’t mean you can rest easy: “zed attraction” now causes the undead to “loiter closer to players over time,” sending them wandering into new territory. Early reports indicate it’s a welcome addition.
In other DayZ news, it’s now super easy to install the mod if you own Arma 2: Combined Operations on Steam. There’s an extra step to jump to 1.7.6, though: after installing, right click on the mod in your library, select “Properties,” hit the “Beta” tab, and select 1.7.6.1 in the drop down menu.
Oh, about the cans. 1.7.6 added new cans named for contributors to the mod, presumably because it seemed like a fun idea. A segment of the community did not think it was a fun idea, and said so (some more civilly than others), prompting the hotfix which removes them.
DayZ creator Dean “Rocket” Hall attempted to toss a bucket of water on the flames, writing in the forums, “Let’s not slaughter everyone just because something didn’t go quite according to plan and some people think it’s going in the wrong direction.”
I’d have been fine with tossing back a few Rabbitmans while eating my Herpy Dooves Canned Muffins, but I understand the complaint from hardcore roleplayers. I’m more of a LARPer, in that I would actually like a beer and a few muffins if anyone has some.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
How to find a StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm launch event near you
Much as we’ve all had a love-hate relationship with brick and mortar game stores, some of my fondest memories as a PC gamer have been lining up in the freezing cold with dozens of other gamers to grab the next big collector’s edition at midnight on launch day. If you’re hoping to have that experience with Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard has created a dedicated page to find launch events in your area.
So far, there is only one event listed for each region. There will be some Blizzard presence in Mexico City, Brazil, the US, Russia, France, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and, of course, South Korea. Many of these events will also feature prominent eSports pros. The event in our neck of the woods, in Irvine, California (near Blizzard HQ), will feature MC, Polt, Suppy, and ViBE, with emceeing by Day[9] and Husky.
If you don’t live near one of the officially-sanctioned events, I’d recomment the r/barcraft subreddit, which is a hub for organizing (mostly StarCraft-centric) eSports viewing events at local venues. Depending on your area, it’s not always 100% dependable, and tends to be US-centric, but most major metro areas have at least one or two. There’s also a running list on TeamLiquid with a few more locations, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Croatia, Sweden, and Israel.
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