By Anonymous on May 22, 2015 12:26 am
 Turn your opponent into tiny little giblets by throwing up a washed up corpse in Mortal Kombat X.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 11:18 pm
Being an RPG, there's a fair amount of reading to do in The Witcher 3, particularly on the inventory screen where you might be comparing various numbers with each other. It's a real problem, then, that much of the in-game text is exceedingly small, making it difficult to easily read--though this is something that will thankfully soon be fixed. In response to a tweet inquiring about the issue, CD Projekt Red community lead Marcin Momot explained, "We are working on addressing the font size issue right now. Another patch coming soon." The size of the in-game text has been a source of complaints since Witcher 3 launched earlier this week. Some users have resorted to using the PS4's zoom feature that was added in the March system update, but that's cumbersome and arguably only useful inside of menus. You can see the issue in the screenshot above (courtesy of NeoGAF), though if you're sitting close to a computer monitor, it may be difficult to see that there is a problem. There's no word on exactly when the patch resolving this will be out, but a new patch--1.03--was released today on PC. This largely deals with fixing various bugs and improving performance, but the console version of the patch said to be coming "very soon" might also deal with the text issue. We've contacted CD Projekt Red to find out more and will report back with anything we learn. In the meantime, here are the full patch notes for the PC version of patch 1.03: - Improves stability in gameplay and the UI
- Improves performance especially in cutscenes and gameplay
- Fixes grass and foliage popping that could occur after density parameters were changed
- Improves Nvidia Hairworks performance
- Boosted texture anisotropy sampling to 16x on Ultra preset
- Sharpen Post-process settings extended from Off/On to Off/Low/High
- Blood particles will now properly appear after killing enemies on the water
- Corrects a bug where player was able to shoot bolts at friendly NPCs
- Improves menu handling
- Corrects an issue with Stamina regeneration while sprinting
- Fixes a cursor lock issue that sometimes occcured when scrolling the map
- Generally improves world map focus
- Improves input responsiveness when using keyboard
- Corrects some missing translations in the UI
- Corrects an issue in dialogue selections
- Rostan Muggs is back
- Minor SFX improvements
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 10:30 pm
 Take a look at the trailer for Sons of Winter, the fourth episode of Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 10:30 pm
Episode four of Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series will be released on May 26, the developer announced today. Telltale Games has also revealed a new trailer, which can be viewed below. The episode is titled Sons of Winter and continues the story of House Forrester as they struggle to survive in The War of the Five Kings. The episode will launch on May 26 for PC via digital distribution services including Steam, and for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network. An Xbox Games Store release for Xbox One and Xbox 360 will debut a day later on May 27, and an iOS and Android version will launch on May 28. The series will span six episodes in total, at $5 each or $25 for the entire season. The series is based on the world of HBO's Game of Thrones TV show, which itself is rooted in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire universe. The most recent entry in the series, Episode Three: The Sword in Darkness was well-received in GameSpot's review, scoring an eight and noted for hitting a high point for the series thus far. Check out some screenshots from episode four below.     
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 09:35 pm
 The next Need for Speed game will see the series get a full reboot for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 09:34 pm
The Need for Speed franchise still has a lot of upside when it comes to its commercial potential. That's according to EA developer Ghost Games general manager Marcus Nilsson, who tells GameSpot as part of the new Need for Speed reveal today that the franchise has seen better days when it comes to sales.  "Need for Speed, ten years ago, sold a lot more copies than it sells now," Nilsson said. "Which means we have a lot of room to move up. We have a global, known brand; it's strong. But I think we have a lot of upside for this franchise based upon getting our details and information and features in order." Nilsson's comments came in response to a question about if he felt much pressure working such a storied franchise. He said, "Not really, if I'm perfectly honest with you. I don't feel pressure by it. I feel humbled to be associated with it." The new Need for Speed game, inspired by the Underground series, will launch this fall for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. It's an open-world racer described as a "full reboot" of the series with an "innovative" story. For lots more on the new Need for Speed, check out GameSpot's full interview with Nilsson.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 09:32 pm
2014's Need for Speed movie--starring Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul and Michael Keaton--made a lot of money, but didn't exactly win over critics. We already gave you our thoughts on the movie, but what does Need for Speed game director Marcus Nilsson think? Did it capture the essence of the games?  "I think it depends on what type of Need for Speed you're looking at. If you look at Rivals last year, Rivals was obviously a game almost without any type of story. The Need for Speed movie obviously has a narrative that pulls you through," Nilsson told GameSpot. "People kind of had different opinions about that narrative and how good that is or how bad it is. I think [the movie] captures some stuff of what Need for Speed is. I think it captures the action driving, it's all about the car and edge-of-your-seat driving. But I think it didn't fully deliver on everything the brand needs to be." With Need for Speed 2 reportedly entering production, maybe Nilsson will have a chance to share his input on how to do a better job the second time around. EA studio Ghost Games today announced the next Need for Speed game, an open-world racer inspired by the Underground series and featuring an "innovative" story. Check out GameSpot's full report on the new game here.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 09:30 pm
This year's Need for Speed game is a "full reboot" of the iconic racing series, and is due to launch this fall for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, developer Ghost Games announced today, following numerous teases. Ghost isn't sharing much in the way of specifics about the game (look for more at E3, general manager Marcus Nilsson tells GameSpot), but the studio has shared a teaser trailer. What we do now know are high-level points about the new Need for Speed game. First, the game (which is inspired by the Underground series but doesn't have a name yet) will be an open-world, day-to-night racer featuring "deep customization," car culture by way of a partnership with EA's own Speedhunters, and even an "immersive narrative" that Ghost says will pull players through the game. We recently had a chance to speak with Nilsson about the new Need for Speed game. Among other things, he talked about how an extra year of development benefited the game, the pressure he feels working on such an iconic series, and why story--yes, story--will play a major role in the new title. The extra year2014 was the first year in a decade that EA did not release a new, core Need for Speed game. Ghost used the extra development time to think about what the franchise really stands for, and that took time. "Need for Speed needs to understand what it really is," Nilsson told GameSpot. "What are the core values of the brand, what are the types of experiences that we want to give to gamers? And sometimes it can be hard to do that when you have different development teams in different parts of the world. So the theory, or the strategy, for us was to become the owners of Need for Speed." NilssonAfter Ghost was finished with Xbox One and PS4 launch title Need for Speed Rivals, the studio formulated an idea for a "very specific game." "To build that specific game, we needed time and needed to understand from fans: what is the type of game you want us to build?" Nilsson said. "So what we've been doing in this year off is we've been trying to understand what people think Need for Speed should be standing for." The end result of spending an extra year on development is a better overall product, Nilsson says. "What people get from this year that we didn't ship a game, is they get a game that delivers on all the core tenets of what Need for Speed should be. And they get that in a very high quality form," he explained. PressureNeed for Speed is one of the most iconic video game franchises in all of gaming. It's been around for two decades and even recently spawned a major blockbuster starring Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul. Given the weight of working on such a massive media property, you might think Nilsson was feeling some pressure. "Not really, if I'm perfectly honest with you. Need for Speed, ten years ago, sold a lot more copies than it sells now," Nilsson said. "Which means we have a lot of room to move up. We have a global, known brand; it's strong. But I think we have a lot of upside for this franchise based upon getting our details and information and features in order. I don't feel pressure by it. I feel humbled to be associated with it." The missing piece: storyNeed for Speed games are known for their white knuckle action and lovely visuals, not usually story. But the new Need for Speed, surprisingly, will place a major emphasis on narrative. Nilsson says more details on the game's "innovative" story will be revealed later, but he shared some thoughts on how a strong story could make all the difference in helping revitalize the Need for Speed brand.  "We are taking a very innovative approach to how we tell a story. That's actually probably as much as I can say at this time," Nilsson explained. "If you just go back three years with Need for Speed: The Run, there were stories in Need for Speed. Absolutely not the best executed stories. But we had stories. And I think a missing piece from the last games we had has been narrative. I think we can deliver a better game to our fans if we connect to them emotionally through story." Online/social featuresNilsson also stressed that the new Need for Speed will advance the seamless online mode from Rivals, AllDrive, offering players a range of new tools to help them start playing with friends and groups. "We're doing a lot more with that now," Nilsson said about the new Need for Speed's online mode. In the single-player story, other people can enter your game and interact with you. "So it creates a very almost distraction-based gameplay for you as you play in this world," he said. Standing out in an increasingly crowded racing genre"Quite clearly, there's more interest in the genre. I've seen some numbers from the industry saying it's growing again. I quite frankly think that as we move to new consoles, new games try new ways...even if it's just pushing graphics, or pushing more polygons, or better physics in the cars," Nilsson said. "You can give more to the user on these more powerful hardware consoles. Having said that, I think each game will have to find its niche and it's more about quality execution than ever. So you need to be able to deliver really high quality, because of the competition we now have, which is far more than just games. TV, Facebook, whatever it is. But I am very happy to see more energy and interest in the racing genre." Ghost Games, based in Sweden, is a subsidiary of EA. More information about the game will be announced during EA's E3 briefing, which is scheduled for Monday, June 15, at 1 PM PDT        
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 09:12 pm
Ubisoft's has rolled out a new deal to entice people to buy The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from their PC digital store. Anyone who buys a digital copy of The Witcher 3 from Uplay will also receive a free game.  Your choices are: There is no word on how long the free game offer will last. If you're interested, you may want to act quickly. Head to the Uplay page here to check out the deal. Just today, May 21, The Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red released a new patch for the PC version of the RPG that improves the game's graphics and overall performance. The Witcher 3 launched this week behind glowing praise. But it hasn't been a total victory for CD Projekt Red, as the developer recently spoke out to address "graphics downgrade" concerns.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 08:48 pm
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company on Thursday announced Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, the next entry in the turn-based Pokemon spinoff series for 3DS.  Details about the game are light at the moment, but it appears it isn't deviating too much from the core series, which has now sold more than 13 million copies worldwide. In its very brief announcement, Nintendo said Super Mystery Dungeon will offer "even greater, randomly generated dungeons." Players will do battle with the help of Legendary and Mythical Pokemon in their effort to "save the world in a sweeping tale of adventure and mystery." Super Mystery Dungeon will launch for 3DS in North America this winter. The most recent entry in the series was Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, which was released in the west in 2013. In a 5/10 review, critic Heidi Kemps wrote: "It's as cute as a button, but dull, simplistic dungeon exploration drags Gates to Infinity into mediocrity."
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 06:30 pm
 Check out the Steam trailer for Tera.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 04:00 pm
 Summon the strength of your inner-caped crusader with the latest Batman: Arkham Knight trailer.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 10:22 am
It's tempting to launch into a "fans of the genre" preamble when it comes to Stretchmo, the latest in a series of block-pulling puzzle games for the 3DS. However, that would be selling it short. There's little risk that players who enjoyed Pushmo and Crashmo won't find more of the same appeal waiting for them here. Because it is "free-to-start," Stretchmo is even more approachable than either, making it a suitable starting point whether you have experience with the series or not. "Free-to-start" is a wonderfully upfront term, but it doesn't suit any other game on the Nintendo 3DS eShop as well as it does Stretchmo. Let me clear something up right away: if you expect from Stretchmo a familiar free-to-play game structure with actions, timers, and assorted currencies that can be exchanged for one another, you will either be very disappointed or very relieved. The same can be said if you come to it after having played Pokemon Rumble World or Pokemon Shuffle, which were both released earlier this year under the same free-to-start banner. You are given access to seven tutorial levels in Stretchmo that explain the game's basic mechanics for free, but unlocking everything else requires a transaction. While you can happily spend hours plucking away at the content in Pokemon Rumble World and Pokemon Shuffle without paying a cent, Stretchmo is more like a supremely limited game demo by comparison--with only a few minutes of play time available, for that matter. You don't even have access to camera rotation in these early levels, a feature that becomes absolutely crucial in solving the more complicated puzzles that come later on. You can at least rewind, which comes in handy after accidentally (and inevitably) tumbling down from somewhere precarious.  These aren't necessarily bad things in this free-to-start venture. Stretchmo is much truer to the term "free-to-start" than some of the other games that share the descriptor, but expectations may need to be adjusted accordingly. Stretchmo is best thought of along the lines of the Picross e series--a relatively accessible puzzle game broken up into manageable chunks with even more manageable price tags attached to each one. Pushmo, Crashmo, and Stretchmo (known in Europe as Pullblox, Fallblox, and Fullblox, respectively) are all about manipulating structures built from various Tetris-like blocks to reach a goal, and each game has changed the rules of this manipulation to stand on its own. As Stretchmo's name implies, the primary way of interacting with blocks is by stretching them from the front, back, or either side. A thoughtfully stretched block path allows you to climb up to the goal, whether it's a flag or a sickeningly cute little baby blob character that's been trapped. In the purchasable level packs, you're introduced to a variety of gadgets that have various effects when triggered; they may shoot a platform out, stretch a block in every direction, or provide you with a tunnel to get past an otherwise insurmountable obstacle. Most of these gadgets are drawn from previous games, and they add a little mechanical variety to keep things interesting.            As for the level packs, the game encourages you to complete them in order as they increase in difficulty, but because each pack starts with a refresher on some of the most basic Stretchmo strategies, there's no reason for a confident player not to stray. Whether or not you're a veteran of the series, however, you'll ultimately find twists that appeal to you. For example, while the Mallo's Playtime Plaza level pack is very simple and straightforward, in Corin's Fortress of Fun, the gadgets you encounter primarily release enemies who are used to climb to the goal and that can attack you and send you back to the start of the level. It's much more action-oriented than the other areas of the game, and it provides a good challenge, not to mention a good change of pace. When you run out of puzzles, you always have the option to create a few levels of their own or scan QR codes to load user-made levels. The downside of this system can be finding those QR codes in the first place--especially if you don't feel like wading through Miiverse comment after Miiverse comment about Stretchmo's pricing to find them. The lack of an online level gallery certainly doesn't help, especially given the fact that the WiiU's Pushmo World had one. It's a firm step backward in a game otherwise full of small (but respectable) steps forward. Stretchmo is as solid and endearing as the games that have come before it in the series; it's cute, colorful, and the perfect puzzle game to keep on your 3DS for dull commutes. It inherits all the best parts of Pushmo and Crashmo and bundles them up in a package (or rather, a series of packages) that is well suited to anyone, regardless of their series experience. Although it may not offer a groundbreaking change in the series, it distinguishes itself enough to be joyful in its own right.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 09:31 am
When the going gets tough, the tough sometimes take a fishing pole and start fishing in a bloody Jacuzzi stuffed with a mutilated body. That's, at least, the lesson you learn in Technobabylon, a point-and-click adventure that's set in 2087 in a city where a powerful AI controls and observes all. It's a cyberpunk quest with ideas that elevate it above cliché, using clever and (mostly) logical puzzles to keep you entertained for hours. This kind of material usually runs the risk of slipping into tired homages to Neuromancer seasoned with a dash of Blade Runner, but Technobabylon rejuvenates the formula by shifting the focus. Here, you spend much of your time in the guise of Doctor Regis, a member of the Central AI's police force that's sent out to handle all the things that need an actual body. He may have a penchant for covering monitoring cameras in his office, and he may dislike contemporary technology, but he's very much a part of the system. Still, the genre's tendencies toward loners and outsiders reveals itself here as well, although it's largely limited to Latha Sesame, who spends her sad days wired to a Matrix-like "Trance" while her crummy apartment and recycled paper clothes rot around her. Bigs are rare enough that Technobabylon can safely poke fun at them elsewhere. Much as in Game of Thrones, the story benefits from shifts in perspective between these and other characters. Knowing the truth about how a particular event played out, for instance, makes it all the more difficult to control the actions of a character who places the blame and motives elsewhere. This is heavy stuff, and Technobabylon has the good sense not to take itself too seriously. The splashes of humor tend to appear in some of the game's toughest (or at least most time-consuming) puzzles, where they serve as a nice chaser to the frustration that comes with matching incorrect inventory items or not knowing what to do with that goo that's in your pocket. The script smartly recalls past secondary references and repurposes them for new and often humorous effects, and at one point, a character's grating silliness actually becomes a clue. I should use this line with Comcast sometime.As a result, Technobabylon feels like a real world, mixed with as much mirth as menace. Even the dystopia isn't as bleak as what you'll find in the likes of Shadowrun; for better or worse, it presents a generally believable picture of what life would be like toward the end of the century. True to the zeitgeist, Technobabylon even sneaks in exploratory conversations regarding sexuality and spirituality, but they're never heavy-handed or superfluous. Like so much of Technobabylon, it simply is. These elements come together to make the few choices encountered feel more meaningful, although the events reach the same basic outcomes regardless of the means it took to get there. The game depicts these events so capably that I find myself half-forgetting that developer Wadjet Eye drenched the whole project in a pixelated aesthetic that seems better suited to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past than the futuristic landscape where the action takes place. The strong voice acting generally helps, as do the expressive conversation windows. (However, as a Texan, I laughed when two characters claimed they could recognize each others' Texas accents. Doctor Regis sounds more like Regis Philbin than anyone I've ever met in my neck of the brush.) It's a simple and increasingly outworn style, but there are stunning shots here nonetheless, such as when the camera rushes up the side of a skyscraper to peek through a hole in a shattered window. People and objects are well-crafted but just blurry enough to make the imagination do the right amount of legwork, and sound effects often pull the weight for what the visuals can't achieve.  Technobabylon sometimes shakes up the rhythm by making you pilot things remotely.It's worth mentioning that, strictly speaking, Technobabylon isn't an entirely new game--its DNA reveals the vestiges of shorter freeware episodes released earlier in the decade. The art style has improved, however, and the mini-games from that era are mercifully gone, but the basic puzzling remains much the same, even if it serves different purposes for the new storyline. This is generally a good thing, as it's given Wadjet Eye the time to clean up cumbersome elements. Some of the associated problems with pointing and clicking remain, however, such as in a room where I had to grab a table's edges and pull it across the room. Minutes passed before I realized that something so simple as the table's edges existed, and then I had to endure the mildly tedious chore of searching for just the right pixels to grab them. Fortunately, the puzzles themselves tend to find a sweet spot that delivers the right degree of challenge, and the character commentary that pops up when clicking on an item in your inventory or the world wisely makes up for the absence of a hint option. (Or, at least, I don't think there's one. It seemed like there might be hints in the developer commentary, but it repeatedly crashed the entire window every time Wadget Eye CEO Dave Gilbert finished his introduction.) While Technobabylon places a heavy emphasis on picking up objects and using them on something else, it never floods you with items. Many of the game's best ah-ha moments happen when you stop clicking on items in the world and play with matching items in your inventory, which suddenly opens solutions where there previously seemed to be none. The doctor...is out.That's not to say that I didn't get stuck. Quite the contrary--I can recall at least four incidents when I couldn't progress for an hour or more, but to the game's credit, it usually sprang from some mistake of my own. I once wasted 30 minutes thinking that I was supposed to throw a sheet over a camera, for instance, and (in a slightly more UI-blameworthy mistake), I didn't realize that a certain object wasn't working in my inventory because I hadn't right-clicked on it. Up until then, left-clicking had sufficed for inventory-related items. Regardless, I consistently enjoyed Technobabylon. The puzzles are always meaningful, and the story proves that you can teach the aging dog of cyberpunk some new tricks. At times, I found myself genuinely surprised by story developments; at others, I marveled that it kept me smiling through rough patches when another game might have had me switching it off and playing Skyrim out of spite. And when a game can explore issues of sexuality and government surveillance while giving you a plausible reason to use a fishing pole at a crime scene, that's pretty all right.
By Anonymous on May 21, 2015 05:31 am
 We ran The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on our triple SLI GTX 980s to get some 1080p60 gameplay of the White Orchard area. Enjoy.
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