I still haven’t played a game I enjoyed more than Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor on the PlayStation 4. Raiding bases, targeting orc leaders, conducting an entire civil war among the orc ranks behind the scenes thanks to the Nemesis System: sorry to say, but Snake got beat at his own game here. This is the best guerilla warfare game of the generation.
Shadow of Mordor had a few problems in regards to its “Ubisoft Towers” exploration system and a few generic design choices, but if there was one game I would go back and play all over again in 4K, it would be this one. Monolith has a brand new trailer available for the launch of the PlayStation 4 Pro, showing what the game looks like with the new hardware behind it.
The game now runs at 4K resolution, and it maintains its 30fps frame rate.
Is the resolution boost enough to make you double dip?
I’m in no way a member of this crowd, but there is a large group of gamers out there opposed to the idea of playing video games a second time unless there is a practical reason for doing so. Achievements, new game plus, a remastered edition. I mean, why experience something you’ve already experienced? They don’t understand!
With a locked 30fps and a resolution which may or may not play native 4K, Monolith doesn’t specify, is that enough to get you diving back into Middle-earth once again?
quarter, is facing yet another speed bump. The company is already recalling its brand new GoPro Karma drone, which only started arriving in customer’s hands within the last couple of weeks.
The GoPro Karma, which went on sale October 23, could potentially lose power while it’s in flight. This is dangerous for a number of reasons – the drone could land on a house, land on a highway, on someone’s head… you get the idea — but most importantly, it also shows the drone doesn’t function properly. GoPro said that the issue was only reported in a “very small number of cases,” but that it decided to initiate the recall to prevent any dangerous situations.
“Safety is our top priority,” GoPro CEO Nicholas Woodman said this week. “A very small number of Karma owners have reported incidents of power failure during operation. We have moved quickly to recall all units of Karma and provide a full refund while we investigate the issue.” Woodman apologized to GoPro’s customers and said he wants the process to be as easy as possible. He also said GoPro is working in “close coordination” with the USPSC and the FAA.
Following Karma drone recall, where goes GoPro go next?
The bigger story here is that GoPro tried to enter a new product category with its drone, potentially taking a stab at DJI and other drone-makers who have found success. Its goal was to cater to its active audience who might otherwise be strapping GoPro products onto other drones. That attempt failed, and it’s a scary situation for a company that’s seeing sinking sales for its flagship camera products. Where goes GoPro go next?
Valve’s rolled out a new update to the Steam store. Fire up your client or load their main page in your browser, and you’ll be met with a new interface.
The biggest things I’ve noticed? You’ll find a drop-down menu in the top right corner of every game, and you set preferences, ignore it or wishlist it right there. Each game also features a pop-up of screenshots when you hover over it. That’s handy.
The Steam store was updated for content discoverability
It’s hard to get noticed on Steam. Unless your game is selling like gangbusters or hyped like crazy, it’s more than likely not going to be noticed by most shoppers. Steam performs visual updates like this one to, of course, sell games.
Depending upon your choices and your friends, you might wind up playing some cool obscure titles. The Discovery Queue and Curators sections have all been retooled and have their own concise home. That’s great news for developers.
Civilization VI is officially a success. This comes after the weaker than typically received Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Last Friday, Firaxis used the official Civ Twitter account to announce that the game has sold more than one million copies.
Some of those players are playing concurrently, too, and over the weekend Civ VI was the most played game on Steam after Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Those two games, of course, are made by Valve. That makes Civilization VI the most played non-Valve game on Steam this weekend.
Civilization VI‘s biggest problem is its AI
If you play the game yourself on tougher difficulties or cruise some fan sites, you’ll quickly run into problems with the AI. I was dubbed a warmonger and attacked only 50 turns into my most recent game. What had I done? Nothing. In fact, I wasn’t even bothering with combat this round instead focusing entirely on early settlements and clearing out barbarian camps near my home city.
Fan sites spout more of the same. If that problem is addressed soon along with ironing out bugs with the UI, Civ VI could be the best ever.
You ever just read something about a game that both sounds like a good idea while causes an instinctual sigh of disappointment? That was me this morning when I read about Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare‘s “YOLO Mode.” That’s YOLO for “you only live once,” just in case you weren’t around in 2011.
They announced YOLO Mode as part of a massive detail post meant to lead up to the game’s release tomorrow. Here’s how they explained the new mode.
YOLO MODE
This mode is unlocked after beating the game on Specialist, and well… you only liveonce. By that we mean genuine permadeath. If you die, you will start all the way back at the beginning of the entire game.
YOLO Mode: Great idea, terrible name
I’m down with permadeath, and I love the idea of this roguelike mechanic making its way into a shooter like Call of Duty.
With the name? Activision and Infinity Ward just happened to catch that time when the term YOLO isn’t new enough to be relevant or old enough to be funny. It’s just… sigh-inducing.
Still! I’ll try it when the game hits. We’re down for a review copy, but Activision doesn’t send them out until release day or the day before. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare hits on November 4, 2016.
Final Fantasy XV Director Hajime Tabata, current champion of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, now has a new spot in his heart for the Nintendo Switch. Speaking with French publication Gameblog, Tabata expressed interest in developing for Nintendo’s recently announced console.
I’m very interested in this machine! As a player, but also as a developer. The Nintendo Switch that you can transform into a controller, that you can put into a dock, that you can move around with, on which you can replace elements.
It’s been a while that I’ve told myself that I would like to make games on a Nintendo machine, so if the Nintendo Switch could be that opportunity, I’ll be delighted!
Tabata does have a history with Nintendo
Of course, I don’t think Final Fantasy XV will be coming to the Nintendo Switch anytime soon. Tabata has always seemed to be a tech kinda guy with a love for the powerful consoles and PCs.
However, he does have a brief history with Nintendo, co-directing the Nintendo 3DS game Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. This is the only point in his credits that show a history with Nintendo, and most of his other directing projects have been limited to the PSP and home consoles.
Tabata has yet to announce his plans after Final Fantasy XV launches next month. I wonder if it will be a Nintendo Switch game.
Both controllers will be out by Christmas, at least in Germany.
A pair of new third-party controllers have been announced for PS4 that resemble the Xbox One's highly regarded Elite controller. However, they haven't yet been confirmed for North America.
New controllers from Razer and Nacon were each announced today on Germany'sPlayStation Blog(viaNeoGAF). Both are said to be targeted toward professional gamers and the esports scene, though they'll be of use to anyone looking for an alternative to existing controller options.
The Razer Raiju features more than a few similarities with the Elite controller. It has two extra shoulder buttons and two rear triggers, the latter of which can be removed. A hair-trigger option allows you to more quickly pull the triggers to maximum input, and you can flip between two profiles. These let you customize unspecified aspects of the controller, which presumably will include defining what the extra shoulder buttons and triggers do. Finally, the Raiju features a 3.5 mm headset jack with integrated controls (for muting and adjusting v olume) and rubber caps on the analog sticks that can be removed.
The Nacon Revolution Pro offers a different take; most notably, it flips the position of the left analog stick and d-pad to resemble the asymmetric design of an Xbox controller. It also features four shortcut buttons, an eight-way d-pad, and what are described as highly precise analog sticks. It can store up four profiles for remapping buttons, configuring shortcut macros, and dictating the sensitivity of the analog sticks and triggers. It also has a 3.5 mm headset jack and internal compartments for storing weights so you can customize the balance of the controller.
Both controllers are compatible with all PS4s and can be connected to the system using a detachable three meter USB cable.
Prices were not announced for either one, but the blog post--which, again, was intended for those in Germany--says they'll be out by Christmas. Official pages on the Razer and Nacon websites are already live, but they don't offer much more information as of yet. It seems safe to assume the Razer one will come to North America, but with Nacon being a newer, European-focused company, the same may not be true of the Revolution. We'll report back as more details are announced.
NINTENDO’S NEXT CONSOLEis almost here. Nintendo Switch, previously codenamed NX and announced this morning, is on track to release in March 2017. When it’s out, your home and portable play will be combined into one unit: Switch is a tablet with detachable controllers that can dock with your TV, playing its games anywhere.
The hanafuda maker is still playing its hand close to its chest, however, only unveiling a short, three-minute concept video of the Switch, plus a little bit of information in follow-up press releases. Nintendo promises to unveil more information later, including lists of games, system specs, and the all-important price.
For now, here’s everything we know about Nintendo Switch.
It combines home and portable into a single unit.
You can play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on your big-screen TV at home, but why stop there? Pull the Switch out of the docking station next to your TV, and you can take that game on the go. This means more than just convenience: It means that Nintendo’s home and portable game libraries will now be combined into one single platform. No more having to support both the home Wii U and the portable 3DS with separate Mario Kart games—Nintendo can just create one game that’s played by everyone. And you don’t have to buy two pieces of Nintendo hardware to enjoy all the company’s games, anymore.
It has many different control options.
You’ll notice joysticks and buttons on the sides of the Switch. These will let you play Zelda when used in tandem. But you can also break those controllers off, like so many pieces of a Kit Kat bar, hand one to a friend, and play a round of competitive, portable Mario Kart anywhere you like. This will of course mean that each player’s control option is limited to one joystick and a handful of buttons. But many Nintendo games already control just fine with such a setup. You can also play local multiplayer games using two or more Switch consoles.
You also have the option of controlling a game with one controller in each hand, like playing an old-school Wii game with the remote and nunchuk attachment. These controllers are known as Joy-Cons, and you can put them into an accessory called the Joy-Con Grip to create a single controller that’s sort of shaped like a standard gamepad. And if you truly want a standard gamepad experience for hardcore gamin’, you can just buy the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller.
But the teaser trailer does leave some questions unanswered. Is the screen on the Switch a touch screen? We assume it must be, but we didn’t see anyone touching it. Do the Joy-Cons have motion sensors? I give that about a 50 percent chance, but again, we didn’t see it. Can you use the Joy-Cons to point and click at the TV screen, like a Wii remote? Not sure!
Nintendo Switch will indeed have videogames from Nintendo and other software makers.
Phew! Here’s a list of every single game we can see in the video.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The only game we definitely knew was coming to NX prior to this announcement, so not a surprise. If you want to read all about it, we played the Wii U version at E3, which Nintendo says will be identical to the Switch version.
Skyrim. Bethesda’s medieval RPG epic is coming to Switch, if you wished Zelda had more murders.
Mario Kart 8. From what we’re seeing in the video, it seems like the Wii U version of Nintendo’s racing game will be ported to the Switch. Not sure what changes might be made.
An unnamed basketball game that is probably NBA 2K17.1
Super Mario. Switch is getting what Wii U never did: a new single-player Mario game in the style of Super Mario 64. About time.
Splatoon. In this case, it doesn’t look like a straight port of Nintendo’s Wii U paint-splattering shooter game, since the characters have customizable hairstyles, which isn’t possible in the current-gen version. An upgrade, or a true sequel? Still not sure.
Ubisoft, back at this year’s E3, also announced that Just Dance would come to Switch. We didn’t see it in the video. Speculation time: Is it because Nintendo isn’t ready to announce that the Joy-Cons have motion controls? Maybe we’ll see Ubisoft’s dance game at that time.
Nintendo Switch is powered by a version of Nvidia’s Tegra mobile processor.
Nintendo usually doesn’t like talking up what’s inside its hardware (which got it into some trouble with Wii U when many people weren’t even aware that it had announced a new piece of hardware). That changes with Nintendo Switch, as it’s publicly touting the fact that inside the unit is an Nvidia Tegra, the high-performance mobile gaming chip.
“The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an Nvidia GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards,” Nvidia wrote on its blog. But the company isn’t just providing the chips, it says, noting that it was involved in the creation of the “algorithms, computer architecture, system design, system software, APIs, game engines and peripherals.”
Many different publishers and developers have pledged involvement (but that doesn’t mean much).
As usual with the launch of a new game platform, Nintendo has a massive list of major game developers and publishers that are publicly announcing support for the Switch. Just take all this with a grain of salt, because none of this means they’ll definitely release games on the platform—just that they’re looking into it.
Games will be sold on small SD card-sized memory cards.
While you will surely be able to buy games digitally on Switch, physical game retailers aren’t being left out of the equation. You’ll be able to buy your games on tiny cards about the size of a 3DS game cart, if you’re into that sort of thing. No promise that every game will get such a physical release, of course. And no details on how big those cards are.
Nvidia will launch its GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1050 next week, pushing its 14nm Pascal hardware into lower price points and presumably offering some tough competition for AMD’s Polaris family. The GTX 1050 Ti will be a 768-core card, with 4GB of RAM, a 128-bit memory interface, 48 texture units, and 32 ROPS, while the GTX 1050 is a 640-core card with 2GB of RAM, 40 texture units, and 32 ROPS. Boost clock is 1392MHz on the 1050 Ti and 1455MHz on the 1050.
The GTX 1050 Ti and 1050 aren’t built on TSMC’s 16nm technology like the rest of Nvidia’s products, according to Anandtech — these chips are 14nm hardware and apparently built at Samsung. We first reported on rumors that Samsung and Nvidia would work together more than a year ago, and while we weren’t sure which chips the two companies would collaborate on, it appears that Nvidia chose to bring up some of its lower-power designs on Samsung silicon. 16nm availability may be tight at TSMC, given that the firm is building Apple’s A10, or Nvidia may just be taking advantage of having more than one firm with cutting-edge process technology on the market.
The GTX 1050 Ti and 1050 are set to debut at $109 and $139 respectively, which puts them squarely on the RX 460’s turf. This comparison hasn’t been strong for AMD so far this cycle, due to a mixture of high prices and weaker-than-desired positioning. The RX 480 8GB remains stuck well above $239 with only intermittent exceptions (there are a few reference board GPUs available for $249, but many cards are in the $279 to $299 range).
RX 460 prices have come down slightly since last month, but AMD hasn’t done particularly well when put head-to-head against Pascal this cycle. The GTX 1060 6GB is faster than the RX 480 and often available for less, and the RX 460 may have a tough fight on its hands against the GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti. Here, moving first may have helped AMD’s sales cycle, but it also allows Nvidia to tailor their own product to beat Team Red.
Capcom has released two more teaser videos for Resident Evil 7 in what it is calling a series. We’re sure to see more of these in the coming days.
Our character finds a shotgun tucked away in an item box and then immediately jumps into a menu system to load his weapon. That’s the Resident Evil I grew up loving! You gotta love that inventory management.
The other teaser looks more like the previous trailers with the main character picking up a ringing telephone and talking to a strange voice on the other line.
Hey, this looks like the Resident Evil I know!
The surprising change in these teasers is that the game is starting to look more like a genuine Resident Evil than what previous teasers have shown.
Capcom has vastly changed the way we look at Resident Evil with this latest game, turning to indie first-person horror games like Amnesia: Dark Descent and Outlast for inspiration rather than its predecessors.
It’s a smart turn given the downward spiral of the franchise’s critical reception, but long-time fans think Capcom ist straying too far from its roots. The company claims that the final product will more closely resemble a traditional Resident Evil, and this is the first evidence we’ve seen of that.
Resident Evil 7 will launch for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on Jan. 24.
Super Mario Run is set to debut on iOS devices in December of this year. The game features familiar Mario mechanics developed for play with a single hand.
This release marks the Nintendo’s long sought after dive into mobile gaming. It should be huge.
So huge, in fact, that 20 million iOS users have signed up to be notified when it releases.
Tim Cook dished that stat to BuzzFeed Japan.
Super Mario Run will have an indelible effect on the mobile gaming industry
The mobile gaming space has some incredible software. Make no mistake, developers have been pushing some of the best games we have today out on the mobile space.
When Nintendo steps up with a real game, though? Super Mario Run will leave a mark.
Nintendo’s set to release the game with their free-to-try model in place. You’ll download Super Mario Run for free, but that will only get you access to a handful of levels. If you want more, you’ll need to pay. Once you pay, the game is yours without ads forever.
This could become the standard if Super Mario Run takes off, and I expect it will. If that’s the mark Nintendo leaves on mobile gaming, it’s a good one. Especially if it means fewer timed microtransactions.
