By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 10:57 pm
If you're benchmarking different PC hardware components in a short period of time you can accidentally lock yourself out of games that use Electronic Arts' digital distribution platform Origin, the publisher has confirmed. The news comes out of Guru 3D, where writer Hilbert Hagedoorn discovered he had locked himself out of Battlefield Hardline while running a graphics performance test using different graphics cards. After using a "handful" of graphics cards, he received a notification from Origin that too many computers have accessed his account's version of Battlefield Hardline. Hagedoorn thought that this was a new kind of digital rights management software associated with Battlefield Hardline, but Electronic Arts has since released a statement that this is a part of Origin in general. "Origin authentication allows players to install a game on up to five different PCs every 24 hours," Electronic Arts said in a statement. "Players looking to benchmark more than five hardware configurations in one 24 hour period can contact our Customer Support team who can help." It's not going to be an issue for most players, but at least now you know that if you're going to be testing a lot of new PC hardware components, you'll need to contact EA's Customer Support team first.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 09:56 pm
Mortal Kombat X's gory fatalities are a gruesome sight, but have you ever thought about the work that goes into creating the sound effects for them? Turns out, that process is almost as gross as the fatalities themselves. Yesterday, Mortal Kombat X developer NetherRealm held a live broadcast, "Kombatcast," where it offered some new information about the fighting game as well as a look behind the scene. During the broadcast, NetherRealm showed some of the foley work (the process of recording sound effects) that went into the game. In the video, which you can see above, NetherRealm developers use green goo, a plunger, and some other tools to create the gross, goopy sounds you'll hear during Fatalities. NetherRealm added that it destroys a lot of vegetables, fruits, and nuts with hammers to create other sound effects. NetherRealm also discusses how it created the game's music and other improvements it's introducing to Mortal Kombat X, so the video is definitely worth watching if you're a fan of the series. The Mortal Kombat X release date is April 14 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions, however, have been delayed.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 09:46 pm
 Update: The second wave of tickets--equal in size to the first--went on sale overnight and was gone even more quickly. By 10:04 PM Pacific, all tickets to The International were sold out, meaning it took a total of just 10 minutes for all 2015 International tickets to be sold. Unfortunately, we're already seeing some people resell their tickets on eBay, though it remains to be seen if Valve will do anything to prevent this from happening. Original Story: If you're the sort of person who takes six minutes to blink, you may have just missed your chance at the first wave of tickets for The International, Dota 2's wildly popular championship tournament. After going on sale today at 10 AM Pacific, the first half of the tickets that will be available for the event were gone by 10:06, Valve has announced. Last year, it took an hour for all of the 10,000 tickets available to be gone. The second--and final--wave of tickets for this year's tournament will go on sale later today, at 10 PM Pacific. You can place an order (or at least try) on Ticketmaster's website. There are no assigned seats, and all tickets are available for the same price of $99. Buyers are limited to five per household, a limit that carries across waves. This year's International takes place August 3-8 at KeyArena in Seattle, WA, the city that's hosted the last three tournaments. Last year, the prize pool eclipsed a whopping $10 million.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 09:30 pm
I'm not what you would call a veteran of From Software's games. I first played Dark Souls while livestreaming the entire endeavour, so I had a troupe of viewers offering me advice, and laughing at my literal pitfalls, as I crept through Lordran. I absorbed Dark Souls II in discrete chunks over a series of press preview events--a scenario too fractured to form a coherent picture of Drangleic. I feel as though Bloodborne is my first true Souls experience. I'm going in blind, and--as I'm playing before the multiplayer servers come online--there's no one around to help me. That sense of isolation dictated my playstyle in the previous games. Even with a Twitch audience, Dark Souls' world was scary, and its combat pacing entirely foreign to me. My natural reaction was to equip myself with a sword and shield from the outset. After all, defence equals safety, right? I could hide behind my shield from any of the Undead Burg's lumbering residents, and catch arrows and crossbow bolts in its wooden frame. I crept forward slowly, shield always raised, and tended to take two steps back every time a skeleton took a swing at me.  You can imagine how this would make for slow progress through the game. However, it gave me time to study my enemies, learn their attack patterns, and use the shield bash to parry their strikes and follow up with a riposte. I could parry almost every strike. What resulted was a playstyle wholly focused on being reactive, rather than making the first move. Imagine my horror when I discovered there was no shield on offer in Bloodborne's initial equipment choices. Imagine my double horror when I found out that the health regain system meant that survival encouraged aggressive action. In removing the sword and board, Bloodborne removed the only way I knew how to play the Souls games. From what I understand, it was a playstyle that was considered a somewhat amateur way to play, too. So, with threaded cane and blunderbuss equipped, I ventured into Yharnam with a timidness brought about by my assumed vulnerability. In removing the sword and board, Bloodborne removed the only way I knew how to play the Souls games.
 The first thing I needed to get past was my own fear. Dark Souls and its sequel have scary moments--such as the Capra Demon's appearance in the former, or the pitch-black hallways of the latter--but I've never been particularly scared of its enemy designs. The fear in those games comes through the mechanics--it's a fear of losing souls, and progress. That's still present in Bloodborne, but the enemies themselves are far more monstrous. They scream at you with ungodly howls, and the beast-folks' unnervingly detailed body hair accentuates every swipe of their sharp claws. Without a shield, my natural reaction is to run, but that's the opposite of what Bloodborne wants. So I keep them at a safe distance by emptying my blunderbuss' quicksilver bullets into them at fast as the weapon will reload. The first time I stagger a half-man, half-wolf doing this is a turning point. He falls to his knees, and I follow up with a visceral attack that results in much literal viscera, along with massive damage. I have just learned that my gun is basically a shield with ammo. Dark Souls' parry and riposte is there, just in a limited supply. In a way, the blunderbuss is actually safer than a shield--if you mis-time a shield bash in Dark Souls, you're going to get hit by the enemy's incoming attack. If you mis-time a stagger in Bloodborne by firing too early, you're still going to interrupt the enemy. And here, the cost isn't stamina, but readily-available quicksilver bullets. I imagine my character looking at her blunderbuss with a mixture of shock and awe upon this realisation.  Suddenly, Bloodborne's enemies aren't so scary. I'm no longer waiting for them to come to me, but I'm closing the ground--willingly, for a change--and baiting them into a strike. Those big ogres that try to squash you with a massive brick? Dead with one parry attack. Father Gascoigne? Straight to third form with a couple of parry attacks. I've also learned to do something that I never thought I'd be capable of in the first two Souls games: run past everything. There's a childish glee to be had upon realising that most of the game's enemies aren't all that quick on their feet. I figured out direct routes to the Cleric Beast and Vicar Amelia that don't require me to make a single strike, or take a single hit. I've become more focused on identifying environmental constraints, such as available rolling space, than keeping an eye on my character's stamina and health bars.  I feel now that I'm playing Bloodborne in the way that Souls veterans do. There's a confidence and cockiness to my movements that I had never thought I'd be capable of exhibiting in these games. Central Yharnam is no longer a scary place crawling with crazed citizens; it's where I go if I need to collect a few bullets and blood vials quickly. The scythe-wielding witches of the Frontier are just a roar of my blunderbuss away from no longer being an obstacle. I begin to wonder if all this time my sword and shield build was weighing me down. It has taken multiple things to get to that realisation: the time to discover Bloodborne's intricacies on my own, without a Twitch audience, without the constraints of a press event, and without walkthroughs to turn to. Most of all, it has taken a game that hasn't just encouraged me to try a new play style, but required it. Bloodborne may just be the first From Software game that I truly click with. And you know what? I haven't even used the wooden shield I found.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 09:21 pm
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin's release is nearly here, as is its convoluted, tiered pricing system. If you're planning to buy Scholar of the First Sin on Xbox One or PS4 (releasing April 7), the price is simple: $60. If you're on PC (releasing April 1), things are a bit more complicated, as there are four possible price points. There are two different PC versions of Scholar of the First Sin: DirectX 9 and DirectX 11, each of which will have its own Steam store listing. The latter offers a variety of new features and--assuming your PC can handle it--is the more desirable version. As such, the DX9 version is priced at $40, and the DX11 version is priced at $50. However, if you already own Dark Souls II and its DLC on Steam, and your computer can't handle DX11, there's no point in upgrading to the newer version, as an update released last month on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 will have already provided you with the full DX9 Scholar of the First Sin experience. If your PC is DX11-capable, upgrading to Scholar of the First Sin costs $30. That is, unless you have all of the DLC already, in which case the price is $20. In short: - Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin Xbox One/PS4: $59.99
- Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (DirectX 9): $39.99
- Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (DirectX 11): $49.99
- DirectX 11 Upgrade price for existing owners of Dark Souls II on Steam: $29.99
- DirectX 11 Upgrade price for existing owners of Dark Souls II and all DLC on Steam: $19.99
As for transferring your save data over, that doesn't have a single answer, either. Players staying on Xbox 360, PS3 or the DX9 version can move their saves, whereas those going from any of those versions to the Xbox One, PS4, or DX11 versions cannot. Additionally, these two groups of players (last-gen consoles/DX9 and current-gen/DX11) can't play with each other online due to changes that Scholar of the First Sin introduces, such as enemy spawns and item locations. For more about what's new, check out our chat with producer Atsuo Yoshimura. Bandai Namco also provided minimum and recommended system specs for the DX9 and DX11 versions of Scholar of the First Sin, which you can find below. Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (DirectX 9)Minimum System Requirements:- OS: Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2GHz / Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo E8500 3.17GHz
- Memory: 2GB RAM
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce 9600GT / ATI Radeon HD5870
- DirectX: 9.0c
- Network: Broadband Internet Connection
- Hard Drive: 12GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 9 sound device
- Additional Notes: Controller support: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (or equivalent) recommended
Recommended Specifications:- OS: Windows 7 SP1 / Windows 8
- CPU: Intel Core i3 2100 3.10GHz / AMD A8 3870K 3.0GHz
- Memory: 4GB RAM
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 / ATI Radeon HD 6870 or better
- DirectX: 9.0c
- Network: Broadband Internet Connection
- Hard Drive: 15GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 9 sound device
- Additional Notes: Controller support: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (or equivalent) recommended
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (DirectX 11)Minimum System Requirements:- OS: Windows 7 SP1 64bit / Windows 8.1 64bit
- CPU: Intel Core i3 2100 3.1GHz / AMD A8 3870 3.6GHz
- Memory: 4GB RAM
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 465 / ATI Radeon HD 6870
- DirectX: 11
- Network: Broadband Internet Connection
- Hard Drive: 23GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 11 sound device
- Additional Notes: Controller support: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (or equivalent) recommended
Recommended Specifications:- OS: Windows 7 SP1 64bit / Windows 8.1 64bit
- CPU: Intel Core i7 2600 3.4GHz / AMD FX 8150 3.6GHz or better
- Memory: 8GB RAM or better
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 (700 series) or better / ATI Radeon HD 7850 (7000 series) or better
- DirectX: 11
- Network: Broadband Internet Connection
- Hard Drive: 23GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 11 sound device
- Additional Notes: Controller support: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (or equivalent) recommended
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 09:21 pm
 Typing of the Dead: Overkill will now let you type zombies to death with words of your choosing, Sega has announced. Typing of the Dead: Overkill plays just like a light gun game you'd find at an arcade, but instead of pointing and shooting at zombies you type in specific words that appear on screen in order to kill them. With the Custom Dictionaries update, players can create their own list of words that will appear in the game, and offer them to others through Steamworks. Basically, all you have to do is create a text file with a list of words and add it to the game. You can find instructions on how to do this here. Players are already adding their own dictionaries to the game, and as you'd expect, using them for nefarious means. One user has created a "Social Justice dictionary," which includes racist, sexist, and anti-semitic words. At the time of writing, the mod was still available to download. Sega and developer Modern Dream has done a great job of supporting Typing of the Dead: Overkill since it was first released in 2013. They've released several pieces of DLC which let you play the game with different dictionaries, like the Shakspeare DLC, and the foul-mouthed Filth DLC. The game is currently on sale for $5.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 08:47 pm
 Three separate instances of swatting are being attributed to a 13-year-old boy who plays Minecraft, according to local police. The name of the boy, who is from Southern California, is not being released due to his age. According to Ars Technica, he is now back in his parents' custody and is set to appear in juvenile court in April, where he's said to likely be put on probation. Detective Gene Martinez of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, who spoke with Ars, said that the boy has admitted to being responsible, and that "he felt he was wronged." In one of these cases, he threatened to blow up a house with hostages inside. "The Camarillo incident there were 20-plus officers there. I was at that call. We basically surrounded the house. The caller reported there were 10 hostages in the house and demanded $30,000 in cash or he would blow up the house," Martinez said. "Whenever there is a hostage situation, we activate specialized units to respond." Swatting is the dangerous trend in recent years of making a prank call to police that results in SWAT teams being dispatched to a victim's home. We've seen this happen with gamers a number of times, including earlier this year with Twitch streamer Joshua Peters who later spoke about the experience. "I had police point a gun at my little brothers because of you," Peters said in an online message to the culprit in February. "They could have been shot, they could have died because you chose to swat my stream." The penalties for swatting are serious. Although probation sounds like a light punishment in this latest case, that's only due to the boy's age; 19-year-old Brandon Wilson was arrested last month on suspicion of swatting and faces up to five years in jail if he's found guilty.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 08:30 pm
 We showcase most of the primary weapons in Bloodborne as well as a few choice firearms. What's your favorite weapon so far?
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 05:25 am
Housemarque's voxel-packed side-scrolling shooter Resogun is easy to love for it's stimulating visuals and soundtrack, but once your newfound fascination with voxels and dance music finally cools, it's the challenge to survive and the call of the high score that draws you back. This tradition is upheld in the new Defenders DLC, which contains two new modes: Protector and Commando. Protector mode is a more punishing and exciting variation of the standard game--you earn powerful upgrades at a rapid pace but typically die in one hit--while the Commando mode has you defend the last house on the planet as either Arnold Schwarzenegger or an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator, sans spaceship. OK. It's obviously not Arnold Schwarzenegger, but while defending humanity's last home from incoming enemy spacecraft and environmental hazards, you do randomly spout some famous lines in his voice. It's a fun touch, but don't let the comedic side of Protector get in the way of what's most important: defending that house. You run along the ground, firing into the sky as enemies nosedive into frame. Although the house you're defending can withstand some damage, similar to structures in the classic game Missile Command, all it takes is one hit for you to die in Commando mode, and there are no continues. You do have a few of the same abilities as your spaceship, including bombs and speed boosts, and you can jump, which is useful when ground-based enemies eventually appear. Because you can fire in more than two directions with the right analog stick, Commando mode feels like it has more in common with twin-stick shooters than it does with Resogun. Blasting through increasingly difficult waves of enemies in Commando mode is challenging and the Schwarzenegger impersonations are humorous, but fighting on foot isn't as thrilling as zipping around in a ship. You don't move particularly fast, and your gun is underpowered for what feels like too long relative to how fast the number of targets increases on screen. This new style of gameplay is intriguing because it's different, but it lacks the sense of speed and excitement that's typical of Resogun. That's not to imply that it's bad or even not fun--you still experience the wonder of voxels and the drive to earn higher and higher scores, and likely a bit of laughter--but Commando mode just doesn't compare to the rest of Resogun. If you're looking for something more fast-paced and exciting, focus on Protector mode. It plays very similar to Resogun proper, where you zoom around a ring-shaped level, shooting down enemy ships and rescuing vulnerable humans on the ground, but you earn weapons and armor upgrades at a much faster rate than usual. The trade-off is that enemy swarms grow equally fast and you don't start with any extra lives; the only second chances you get are in the form of expendable shields that occasionally come as bonuses for saving humans. Piloting a fully-upgraded ship is a treat rarely afforded in other modes, where extended boosts and more destructive overdrive cannons are reserved for the best players, so Protector mode is a great way to experience a side of the game that may have been out of reach before. It's oh-so-sweet to have a massively upgraded ship, and because the difficulty also scales fast, you still feel like you're being challenged, even with all of the added firepower. If Resogun has already run its course in your mind, there's nothing in Defenders that's going to lure you back in for the long haul. Of course, it's hard to imagine how someone could ever get enough Resogun, being that it's one of the best arcade-game experiences in years. In that sense, Defenders is a worthy addition to an already great game that will no doubt please anyone with a fondness for fighting within an inch of their life while also blowing up everything in sight into tiny, beautiful pieces.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 04:30 am
 Community remasters of Half-Life 2 and Morrowind are set to impress, Batman: Arkham games could be coming to current gen, and free Xbox games for April!
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 03:30 am
 Watch as Shinnoks three variations: impostor, bone shaper and necromancer are showcased in Mortal Kombat X.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 02:45 am
 Gamers like to know how the systems in games work. But if we can see all the rules of a game world, how can it ever feel real? Danny flies to Poland and reads a Witcher book to investigate.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 02:33 am
 Erron Black the gunslinger of Mortal Kombat X features three variations including: marksman, gunslinger, and outlaw.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 02:26 am
It's been about four months since I've spent quality time in the world of Thedas--nearly 70 hours' worth of it. This week's content release for Dragon Age: Inquisition, Jaws of Hakkon, may have jump started my engine, reminding me what I love most about the core game: the sense of wonder, the thematic richness, a fantastic sense of place and personality. The new adventure becomes available in the second act of the game, taking your Inquisitor to the Frostback Basin, the foothills and valley near the mountain range at the southern end of Thedas. You've been called in to provide support for an archaeological survey of the region that is searching for the final resting place of the world's last Inquisitor, Ameridan. While piecing together the mystery of Ameridan, you'll have to navigate the region's complex geography and even more complex sociopolitical relationships. The Frostback Basin is a deceptively big zone. What seems easily conquerable on the map screen is actually a sizable and intricate mix of environments. Foothills open up into plateaus, which feature deep, dangerous pits. A lakeshore runs into the bubbling, muddy shallows of the basin, and those turn into misty swamplands and damp jungles. It's all brought to life with vibrant color and fresh ambient sounds. The Frostback Basin feels distinct from the game's other zones, and it's mostly a joy to explore. The environments in Jaws of Hakkon really show off Inquisition's lighting engine. I say "mostly," because sometimes it feels like BioWare is trying to stretch out the available content in Jaws of Hakkon. Over the course of eight hours in the Frostback Basin, five different missions make you "follow the trail" across territory you've already explored thoroughly in the course of doing other missions. Most egregious is a mission that sends you around to flip a number of switches scattered across the northern half of the zone. For the previous six hours of play, these switches had been visible but inactive, and I knew that they'd send me back eventually. They did. This decision is particularly strange because Hakkon doesn't need to be stretched in any way. The Frostback Basin is packed with all of the elements that made me love Inquisition to begin with: smart characterization, interesting combat encounters, and carefully written lore. The Frostback Basin is home to two rival tribes of the Avvar, a human society that briefly pops up early on in Inquisition. The development of these groups (and of the region's history in general) is the high point of Hakkon, and you'll get the most out of this DLC if you dig into the lore about these people and their culture and religion. Dragon Age has always been at its best when the stories it tells are multifaceted and mysterious, and the same is true here: Religious iconography blurs together; magical traditions are at once remarkably similar and fundamentally different; and the final, "true" history is often left unknown.  What's better than hanging out on a moonlit beach with some buds?Best of all, the Avvar work to break apart the classic binaries that show up throughout the Dragon Age series. They share the Elven relationship to nature, but are human. They're human, but don't belong to any of the major political powers. They're deeply spiritual, but also incredibly practical. They have a strict system to govern the use of magic, but use terms and concepts to explain the magical world that are entirely different than those used by the Templars and Circle of Mages. All of this works to complicate the world of Thedas by providing yet another potential perspective to consider. This makes it extra frustrating that so little of Jaws of Hakkon shares the cinematic sheen of the rest of Inquisition. Most other zones in the world of Thedas have a mix of two different sorts of quests. Firstly, there are the little, MMOG-style missions you complete for this or that character: kill ten bears, or recover a missing satchel, or perform some other small task. Secondly, there are the major story missions that take you out of the third-person perspective and into a cutscene view, where dramatic music supports characters who emote and animate as the plot unfolds. In Hakkon, only the very beginning and very end of the main questline offer this second sort of storytelling. Throughout the rest of my eight hours, I watched as world-shaking information was delivered without any pomp or luster. Learning about the Avvar culture is a highlight.If you told me last week that this would bother me, I'd tell you that you'd be absolutely wrong. But here I am, missing the intimate close-ups and the sweeping vistas. (Maybe this shouldn't be be surprising: Imagine an episode of Game of Thrones that never shows the detail of a character's face.) Over the course of the previous 70 hours, Dragon Age: Inquisition had quietly taught me to expect a certain rhythm: I'd meander around a zone until I was ready to commit to one of the many "big" story events. There was a sort of storytelling grammar at work, and by reducing the use of that grammar, Hakkon rarely feels as substantial as it should. Thankfully, the final hour or so of Hakkon does utilize those storytelling tools to great effect, and it joins them with some new, unique mechanics in a series of major combat encounters that build momentum and velocity until an explosive climax. Though I wish that Jaws of Hakkon was less bloated, and though I miss the cinematic flair of the rest of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I know that in a month I'll have forgotten these quibbles. Instead, I'll remember my time spent in Frostback Basin fondly. I'll remember the sharp wit of Svarah Sun-Hair, the leader of the local Avvar clan. I'll remember the holy symbols that blur the line between competing faiths. I'll remember the mist and the mountains and the sun's light through the trees. I'll remember confronting legendary foes, and the time I got to spend with some of my favorite characters in video games.
By Anonymous on Mar 28, 2015 02:08 am
 Erron Black the gunslinger has made his way into the fray in Mortal Kombat X.
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