Microsoft is planning on making the Xbox One and PC more compatible when Windows 10 launches at the end of July, and today the company announced that a lot of Xbox features will launch early on PC through the Windows preview program.
Xbox spokesperson Larry Hryb (known as Major Nelson) described the features on his blog, stating that they will come this month. The update adds a "My Games" list, which automatically organizes games you've bought from the Windows Store. You can manually add other games to it, similar to Steam's games list.
This update also enhances game hubs, which consolidate information about each purchased game. If you own Xbox One games, you can launch streaming sessions from their game hubs. Additionally, this update adds the activity feed and Showcase to Windows, letting you see your friends' activities and share Game DVR clips to it.
Finally, this new preview version of Windows 10 also tweaks and refines the Xbox Avatars app, adding an option to take pictures of your avatar.
The new Diablo-centric in-game event for Heroes of the Storm, the Eternal Conflict, is now live, adding a new playable character and map, with more new content still to come.
The other major addition today is the Butcher, a boss character from Diablo III. He's a melee assassin with some unique mechanics, like being able to gather meat from defeated minions and heroes that offer him a damage boost for as long as he's alive. This means the patch notes contain the line, "All meat is lost upon death," making these the best patch notes in recent memory.
At least two more Diablo III characters are also on the way as part of the Eternal Conflict: The Skeleton King and the Monk. We learned about them earlier this month following the release of another Diablo character, the Crusader.
There's a good deal of other new stuff in today's patch. Some of it ties directly into this event, like the addition of Treasure Goblins who reward you with gold to buy new characters, while other aspects are more run-of-the-mill HotS patch changes. These include various visual and audio tweaks, balance adjustments, and shop fixes. The amount of gold earned for reaching certain hero levels has been changed as well; you'll still ultimately earn the same amount, but you'll now get 750 gold earlier than you otherwise would.
Full patch notes can be seen on Blizzard's website.
Blizzard has been coy about nailing down exactly how long the Eternal Conflict will last or how much new content it will bring. A press release today describes it as a "multiweek" event and refers to "three new characters," so the three we know about may be all it has planned for the time being.
The nominees have been announced for the E3 2015 Game Critics Awards, with DICE's shooter Star Wars: Battlefront leading the way with five total nominations, including one for overall Best of Show.
Battlefront, due November 17 across console and PC, was also nominated for Best Console Game, Best PC Game, Best Action Game, and Best Online Multiplayer.
Looking at nominations by publisher, Electronic Arts and Sony led the way with 11 nods each, followed by Bethesda (seven), and Microsoft and Nintendo with six each.
See below for the full rundown of nominees for the E3 2015 Game Critics Awards. These were decided by a panel of 38 publications, including GameSpot. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, July 7.
Throughout the years, video game publisher Bethesda has been approached by film studios looking to make Fallout and Elder Scrolls movies. But the Maryland-based company, unlike others in the field, has shot down every proposal to extend its gaming franchises to the big screen.
Now we know why.
Bethesda marketing executive Pete Hines tells GameSpot that the company sees video games as the "best form of entertainment in the world." Retaining the kind of creative control necessary to faithfully adapt Fallout or The Elder Scrolls for the silver screen would be a tall order--it might not even be possible.
"Yeah, for a long time," Hines says after I ask if Bethesda has been approached for Fallout and Elder Scrolls movies. "Generally speaking, we view ourselves as a video game company. We make video games. Movies and TV shows are an entirely different thing."
Hines admitted, however, that Bethesda has a "really good window" into the film and TV markets by way of film icon Jerry Bruckheimer and CBS president Leslie Moonves. They both sit on Bethesda's board of directors, alongside former MGM CEO Harry Sloan and Hollywood legal expert Ernest Dell.
"We have a lot of folks who really know that space really, really well," Hines said.
In fact, their expertise in the areas of film and TV could be exactly the reason why there hasn't been a Fallout or Elder Scrolls movie to date.
"We've gotten a lot of very good advice about, 'There's way more things that can go wrong than can go right with this,'" Hines said about making a video game movie. "The concern is always...do you want the world's view of The Elder Scrolls to be what [director Todd Howard] envisions in Skyrim or do you want it to be some other director who decides to make a movie that looks like Cats?'"
"We think games are the best form of entertainment in the world" -- Hines
Hines said an example of a video game movie done wrong would be 2005's Doom, which starred Karl Urban and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Bethesda had no part in the production of this movie, having acquired Doom developer id Software in 2009.
"You look at the Doom movie, which I've only been able to bring myself to watch part of; well, that's not what I want people thinking of when they see Doom," Hines said. "I want them thinking of what [Doom executive producer Marty Stratton] had up on stage [at E3] and what we want it to look like and feel like."
"We spend so much time and energy having developers make the games represent their brands the way they want," he added.
To then turn that over to someone else, letting go of creative control, could be a disaster, Hines said. Time and again film companies promise total creative control of a project, but, "It has been proven true zero percent of the time," Hines said.
Though Hines may sound pessimistic about the opportunity for a Fallout or Elder Scrolls movie, he stressed that the door is always open, and Bethesda has a "never say never" attitude about it.
"Our energy and focus is on [how] we think games are the best form of entertainment in the world. And we're going to try to keep trying to be the best in that space and not pretend like we're great TV producers and filmmakers," he said.
Bethesda's mentality around video game movies matches up very closely with that of Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive. President Karl Slatoff said back in 2013 that Take-Two has been approached on numerous occasions for a Grand Theft Auto movie, but has never reached an agreement due to quality concerns.
"If you're going to invest in a movie--you can make a lot of money on movies--but as a licensor, you've got to look at what the success rate is, what the movie has to do for you to generate substantial economics that are worth taking the risk," he said at the time.
In an interview with Rare Gamer, Rare lead engineer James Thomas was asked about how achievements are handled in the upcoming collection. "So the 360 games are as they currently are on the 360, nothing added or taken away," he explained. "The benefit of this is that you get to use your existing achievements to get a head start in unlocking the bonus content within Rare Replay. … Now some swift maths should then give you a hint as to how much Gamerscore is within the remaining games and it's fair to say we've pushed the boat out on that one and broken normal conventions."
Some may view this as a negative, as re-earning achievements can be part of the fun of playing these games. However, there are other benefits to this arrangement, as Thomas noted that save games stored in the cloud will transfer to the Rare Replay versions of games you've played on 360.
Thomas also had some good news about the version of Conker's Bad Fur Day included with Rare Replay. Rather than offer the Live & Reloaded Xbox remake, which censored numerous parts of the game, Rare Replay offers the original N64 game.
"We did have a good old think about which of the versions we'd prefer to use but as we're trying to tell the story of characters created at Rare we'd prefer to start any tail at the beginning," Thomas said. "We felt that the Xbox version altered a little too much, whereas Banjo and Tooie are both the XBLA versions as we felt that not only did they stick to the original but made them look exceptional at the same time."
This likely means that the game won't offer online multiplayer, though.
Amazon Mexico officially began selling items in Mexico today, marking the latest branch for the retailer. Instead of domestic goods, movies, or books, however, the first customer bought an Amiibo.
The Ike figurine, from the Fire Emblem series, was the very first item bought through Amazon Mexico upon it opening for business, according to CNN Mexico's Twitter account.
Nintendo's Amiibo line of figurines, which have functionality with Wii U and 3DS games, have been popular collector's items and have often proved extremely difficult to find. Users on the Amiibo subreddit report that those hard-to-find Amiibos were available on Amazon Mexico for slightly cheaper prices. They were only able to be shipped within Mexico, however.
It was only a matter of time before fans would make Nintendo's Wii U shooter, Splatoon, appear on other systems via mods. Now, a user-created Team Fortress 2 mod has brought the Splatoon's paint-shooting action to the PC.
The Splat Fortress mod, created by YouTube user DrLilRobot and a small team of coders and artists, features pretty much everything you'd want in a Splatoon port. Players even have the ability to transform into a squid and swim through the paint they've put down on the ground.
Of course, there mod is rough around the edges. There seems to be only one usable weapon at the moment, and paint spreads in large squares rather than in organic splotches like in the real game. Also, the players all look like Demoman--although, to be fair, there is a sweet squid hat.
Considering this is a user mod created by a small group of fans, though, Splat Fortress is impressive. It's not available to the public yet, but it looks well on its way. And, if you don't own a Wii U, it'll probably be the only way for the foreseeable future that you can try out something resembling Splatoon.
Any coins you have--which are earned by redeeming codes included with games/hardware, filling out surveys, and so on--must be spent before tonight at 11:59 PM PT. Unspent coins will be lost.
If this feels like yet another Club Nintendo deadline, that's because it isn't the first. March 31 marked the last day for earning coins, while April 30 was the last opportunity for claiming free gifts earned by reaching certain milestones. Today, however, truly marks the end of Club Nintendo, which will shut down for good tonight.
220 games have been banned in Australia in the last four months, marking a dramatic increase from prior years. That's according to an ABC Australia report, which analyzed numbers from the Australian Attorney General. During this time period, Australia refused classification to four times more video games than it did from 1994-2014 combined.
Games like Hotline Miami 2 have been banned in Australia
The increase came about because Australia is joining a new classification system for video games, called the International Age Rating Coalition. It's designed to help the government keep up with the huge number of games being sold digitally. Since the beginning of March, the country has participated in a pilot program for the system, which has resulted in the classification of 150,000 already released games. Although the details of how exactly this program works are unclear, most of the games that have been refused classification appear to be mobile games.
Australia's full participation in the global program begins tomorrow, on July 1. The system works by giving developers a form to complete. They're asked to categorize explicit content in their games. The IARC is meant to classify more games than the government can alone. The impetus to call out false reporting in the classification forms falls upon the players instead of the government.
The PlayStation 4 is far and away the leading current-generation console in Europe, Sony Europe president Jim Ryan has revealed in a new interview. Speaking with VG247, Ryan claimed the PS4 is currently enjoying nothing less than 70 percent marketshare in every European country.
"We have a very significant market leadership," the executive explained. "We have market leadership in every country in Europe, and have very significant market leadership in continental Europe. Extremely significant. I don't think marketshare's any less than 70 percent, and frequently greater than 90 percent in continental Europe."
Also in the interview, Ryan explained that the PS4 is still seeing "very considerable" momentum at its current price point. As such, he said Sony has no immediate plans to cut the price of the console.
"We're happy with the price and we're happy with the value proposition," Ryan said. "We'll leave it where it is for now."
EA Sports has published the first raw gameplay footage of Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, providing an extended overview for what the game looks like, how it plays, and more.
The video you see below is for the game's new Quick Round feature, which allows players to complete a full, 18-hole round faster than in previous games. The tournament on display in the video is the Arnold Palmer Invitational, played at Bay Hill in Orlando, Florida.
Watch as a created character takes on the field of pros with commentary from Golf Channel's Frank Nobilo and Rich Lerner, who are both new to the series for this year. Something you won't see in the video are loading screens between holes, one of the features EA has been making a point to call out.
The game was originally expected to launch in June, but was later delayed so that EA could make sure the online infrastructure will be smooth and stable at release. Launching during the same week as the Open Championship at St. Andrews certainly doesn't hurt either.
Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows is a stealth game that gives players control over shadows, allowing them to sneak past guards, teleport between shadows, and do a whole range of other ninja-like activities.
Last year, developer Lince Work launched a Kickstarter funding campaign asking for $70,000 to develop the game. Over the course of its 30-day campaign period, it raised $31,000 and, ultimately, was not funded.
Undeterred, its developer has decided to continue working on the game, and--if a newly released gameplay video is any indication--it's shaping up to be a game worth keeping an eye on.
Those that remembered the good old days of Tenchu: Stealth Assassin will undoubtedly have their interest piqued, as Twin Souls' third-person stealth and combat seems to draw inspiration from the series.
Lince Work says Twin Souls is designed to reintroduce the concept of third-person ninja simulators, a style of gameplay untapped since the original Tenchu." While clearly inspired by stealth classic such as Metal Gear Solid, Thief, and Splinter Cell, the game is pitched as "the lost child between Tenchu and Portal."
Its big gameplay twist, however, is the ability to manipulate shadows. This means that players can create pockets of shadows to conceal themselves within. Like some sort of multi-disciplined shinobi from Naruto, protagonist Aragami can also summon giant snakes and dragons from within the shadows to take care of enemies.
The game takes place in a world where humans have mastered the ability to manipulate earth, water, air, fire, light, darkness, and life. As Aragami, an undead shadow assassin, you embark on a quest to free a noble girl from an army of light-wielding warriors.
The journey will take players to places that were important to Aragami in his past life and bring him into contact with personal objects. Over time, his forgotten soul and his undead soul will become entwined once again. Naturally, he'll probably unlock some extra abilities on the way.
Twin Souls is planned for release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. For those interested, you can see more of the game on its official website. As you can probably tell, I'm very excited about seeing more of the game. Do you like the look of it? Let us know below.
Lego Minifigures Online launched on PC last October as a free-to-play, Diablo-like game centered around the Minifigures collectible line. Developer Funcom decided a few months ago to overhaul parts of it, and the renewed title was released today on PC, iOS, and Android devices. The game now costs $30 on PC, the mobile version retails for $5 plus $4 for each additional world, and there are no more microtransactions.
The unusual decision to shed the free-to-play model and turn toward a premium price point came about during Funcom's reassessment of the game. We spoke with designers John Wiksen and Erling Ellingsen from Funcom to talk about this choice, its impact on development, and the new features in the re-release of Lego Minifigures Online.
GameSpot: How did the free-to-play model work in Lego Minifigures Online when the game initially launched?
John Wiksen: In the free-to-play model you'd be getting [minifigure] parts as you went through dungeons and eventually be able to put together figures. And we used that as a gating mechanism between the worlds. So for customers who used money on the game it was easier to get parts.
Erling Ellingsen: [It] was [also] set up with a membership model. By being a member, you got a lot of stuff included in that. If you were a free player, you could buy stuff like minifigure bags, which would make it easier to get through the game because of these gates. You could buy diamonds, too, which was our microtransaction currency.
JW: Those diamonds have been completely removed.
When did you decide to go back and change that model?
EE: It was a few months ago. We'd been collecting data and player feedback.
JW: Now we can create awesome content just for the sake of creating awesome content, without needing to put it behind anything.
So moving to the buy-to-play model gives you more leeway with development?
JW: Yeah, now we can just think about what is best for the player, what is most fun for the player and at all times just increase the value of the content there.
EE: A lot of the parents [who see the overhauled game] breathe a sigh of relief when they hear that it's going buy-to-play, because it means not having to worry about memberships or having your credit card being in there.
It's unusual to move from free-to-play to a different pricing model. What have been some of the obstacles that have come from that decision?
JW: There weren't that many challenges going away from free-to-play. It was just a relief.
EE: It's much more difficult to make a free-to-play game.
JW: You feel kind of dirty when you're creating a microtransactions-based game, because you need the content you're creating to be behind gates. You can't just give the content away for free because you're supposed to be selling this game also. So when we removed that, we had a better game in general. And it's way easier to create a good game now because we can just focus on creating a good gaming experience from the start, rather than just a pretty good gaming experience with more unlocked via purchases.
Other than the pricing model, what have you changed in this new version of the game?
EE: We made the flow entirely different, and we added stuff like cinematic storytelling and voiceovers and unique events in the world--lots of stuff that's new there. And the cool thing is, you can play on [these devices] and whatever you play on, you'll play in the same world. So you could be playing on a PC, I could be playing on a tablet, and we could be playing together in the same online world. Or I could be sitting on a bus playing on my iPhone and be playing it on that too. So it's very accessible across a lot of different devices and you can still be playing with your friends no matter which one you're on.
Is there cross-save support?
EE: Absolutely. You could be sitting at home on your PC and then jump on your phone. It's a very innovative thing that we're very proud of.
What are some of the challenges that come with making an MMO that's accessible to kids?
JW: In any other MMO, you have a ton of abilities to use. But it's easier for kids to know that if you switch to this character, it will do this thing, and if you switch to a different character it will do that thing. And so [in our game] you just swap between them and you have technically six abilities, but you only have two active at a time. And the same with the skill tree--again, for the kids, every option is a good option. We don't have a tree that tells you that you should go in this or that way. It should just be good choices. But for the more experienced players, maybe he wants his video game character to be a very DPS [damage-per-second] guy, so therefore he can do the min-max thing that the game allows for.
EE: It should always be so the youngest players don't feel like they've done something wrong.
Lego Minifigures Online is available today across iOS, PC, and Android. You can check out its website if you're interested in playing it. This game is one in a series of Lego titles being released this year. Others include Lego Jurassic World, Lego Dimensions, and Lego Worlds.
At E3 2015, not only was there a significant increase in the number of women presenting games at the expo's big press conferences, but the games themselves saw more playable female characters come to the fore. Here's a look at the biggest games with the biggest female names attached to them.
A note on how we decided which games to include: we only picked games whose playable female protagonists are unique characters unto themselves. This means games where you have the option to play as a male or female version of the same character, such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Fallout 4, and Call of Duty: Black Ops III, aren't included. However, games where a choice between a male and female player exists with those two protagonists being unique and separate characters, are included.
Though DICE is being quite heavy-handed in its positioning of Faith as "a catalyst for change" (geddit?), it's interesting that the developer has made the character powerful and self-sufficient without allowing her to even pick up guns this time around. In Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Faith fights on her own terms.
Daughter to Dishonored protagonist Corvo Attano and Empress of the Isles, Emily Kaldwin is a playable character is Dishonored 2 alongside her father. Not only will choosing to play as her offer unique perspectives on each mission, but she has an entirely new set of otherworldly powers that are separate from Corvo's.
There is little else that's more badass than fighting robotic dinosaurs with a bow and arrow, but that's daily life for Aloy in Horizon: Zero Dawn. We see her training, crafting, and ultimately hunting her mechanical prey with agility, guile, and a variety of different arrow types. Her dialogue suggests she belongs to the game's oldest, more advanced tribe.
Lara Croft established herself as a strong-willed survivor in 2013's Tomb Raider reboot. With that origin story complete, we're now going to see her transformation into her eponymous role in Rise of the Tomb Raider. While a survivor is always on the back foot, this time around Lara seems more of the active adventurer: smarter, and more experienced.
A new IP from the creators of Mega Man and Metroid Prime, ReCore follows a character named Jewel and her robotic dog companion, who is trying to help her bring humanity back to the game's planet. Jewel must explore the planet's sand-swept surface and dark underground vaults while retrieving robotic cores to activate new companions.
Evie Frye was announced as a playable protagonist when Assassin's Creed: Syndicate was revealed, but it wasn't until E3 2015 that we actually saw her in action. In contrast to her brawler brother, Jacob, Evie offers more stealth-focused gameplay, and her missions take a more investigative tone than the street-level fist-fights we saw previously.
Developer Ninja Theory is exploring mental health and psychosis through Senua, the main character of the studio's new game, Hellblade. You'll explore the depths of Senua's mind as the symptoms of our own mental issues are represented in the world itself, or heard through voices in her head. Those representations will become more literal as the game progresses.
The already-massive world of Grand Theft Auto V will grow even larger next week when Ill-Gotten Gains Update: Part Two arrives across console and PC. Rockstar Games announced today that the free update will be available for all platforms on Wednesday, July 8, and also provided a first look at what it will bring.
Like Ill-Gotten Gains Part One, the second chapter is focused on all manner of extravagant attire and high-end vehicles for Grand Theft Auto Online. In addition, the update will bring the previously PC-exclusive radio station, "The Lab," to consoles for the very first time.
Rockstar says it will share more details about Ill-Gotten Gains Update: Part Two next week. But for now, you can check out some of the update's new content in the gallery below.
The developer also teased that it will offer an Independence Day Special, presumably this weekend, featuring items such as the Firework Rocket Launcher, at reduced prices.
Nintendo's quirky team-based shooter Splatoon will be updated with a new ranked battle mode called Tower Control.
The mode will be available on July 1 at 7 PM PT, and tasks players with jumping onto a tower placed in the middle of the map and defending it as it moves towards a goal point placed in enemy territory.
"Once someone jumps onto the tower, it starts moving along a set path toward the other team's goal," Nintendo explains. "If the tower doesn't arrive at their goal before time runs out, the team that's moved it closes toward their opponent's goal wins."
"Ride the tower all the way into the other team's goal though, and you'll get a decisive knockout victory."
On June 26, Nintendo added two new weapons to the game in advance of the first Splatfest event.
The first of these new weapons is the Carbon Roller, which excels in mobility. Its fling attack has limited range, but you'll have access to Burst Bombs and the Inkzooka while using it.
The Custom Dual Squelcher, meanwhile, features both a high rate-of-fire and range. With it equipped, you'll be able to use Squid Beakons and the Killer Wail.
Star Citizen's FPS mode, called Star Marine, has been delayed indefinitely due to an array of technical and gameplay-related issues.
During PAX East in April, developer Cloud Imperium Games released a new video of the mode, which you can see below. It was expected for release later that month, but that never happened.
The long and short of it, according to Roberts, is that the current version of Star Marine does not meet the standards that Cloud Imperium Games wanted to achieve.
"There are several issues that will need additional time in order to deliver the first iteration of the gameplay we want you to experience," he said. "The challenges facing the FPS launch are a mix of technical blockers and gameplay issues. The most significant technical hurdle faced today is the networking backend."
Roberts went on to say that Cloud Imperium Games attempted to continue development using "legacy code," but it was later decided to partly abandon this approach--this led to even more issues.
"That meant developing what we're calling a Generic Instance Manager (GIM) and rewriting both the Matchmaker and (for the larger project) the game Launcher from scratch," Roberts explained. "Those efforts are all going well, but they've all taken additional time for our engineers."
Roberts did not provide a timetable for Star Marine's release. However, he did note that only about 15 percent of the overall Star Citizen development team is working on Star Marine. Development on other areas of the game is continuing on schedule as the FPS team works through the issues.
In addition, the Star Marine team is building new characters and weapons, and making "subtle" map changes, alongside its efforts to get the mode up and running, Roberts said.
Hardcore Star Citizen fans will want to read the full blog post for an exhaustive breakdown of the challenges Cloud Imperium Games is facing with Star Citizen's FPS mode.
With E3 now over, Microsoft is looking ahead to the summer's next big industry event, Gamescom, which is open to the public and runs from August 5-9 in Cologne, Germany.
The company has officially announced plans for the show, confirming that its briefing will take place on August 4 at 7 AM PDT / 10 AM EDT / 4 PM CET.
Microsoft says it will use the briefing to highlight the "greatest games lineup in Xbox history," including Xbox One exclusives like Scalebound, Quantum Break, and Crackdown.
Microsoft's Gamescom briefing will be streamed live. GameSpot will have all the news for you as it's announced.
If you're attending the show itself--which is open to the public--you can visit the Xbox booth to play upcoming Xbox games like Halo 5: Guardians, Forza Motorsport 6, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Microsoft is also holding an "Xbox FanFest" this year at Gamescom, with more details about this promotion scheduled to be announced later.
According to a video from Unseen64, the title was tentatively called Mario Volleyball, before being renamed Mario Spikers to bring it in line with the studio's previous titles.
Next Level Games prototyped and pitched the game to Nintendo in 2007, likely intended for the Nintendo Wii. The game featured the same physicality to gameplay as Strikers, which allowed players to knock down others characters.
For Spikers, however, this was escalated with the inclusion of wrestling-like moves. As pointed out, Next Level Games previously worked on a fantasy wrestling game for now defunct publisher THQ called WWE Titans: Parts Unknown, and the studio was drawing on this experience for Spikers.
The contact mechanics eventually became a combat system complete with special moves and, ultimately, this is what is likely to have caused Nintendo to abandon the project.
Wrestling moves such as piledrivers and the general violence was deemed to be against the company's nature, and the project was abandoned.
Next Level Games has maintained a close relationship with Nintendo since then, producing a number of new entries in iconic franchises. At E3 2015, the studio's latest project was revealed to be Metroid Prime Federation Force.
The upcoming Nintendo 3DS title features a four player co-op mode, and is expected to release in 2016. For more of its announcements, take a look at GameSpot's E3 2015 Nintendo news round-up.
Cloud Imperium Games has announced the latest ship available to buy for its PC space game Star Citizen, and it's one of the most epic--and expensive--ships made available to date.
The Genesis Starliner is described as a "next-generation passenger ship" built using the "highest quality parts." For $400, you can experience space travel "as it was meant to be," Cloud Imperium Games writes on a special landing page for the ship.
Forty passengers and eight crew can fit aboard the Genesis Starliner, which also includes a "fully modular interior" that allows players to customize it at their discretion. Want a luxury-themed state room? Sure. A no-passenger cargo configuration is also totally acceptable.
The theme for the Starliner is that, unlike other Star Citizen ships, this one has not been built to exist inside any traditional parameters.
"One of our dreams when planning Star Citizen was to go beyond the typical space sim experience," Cloud Imperium said. "We've built a lot of ships along traditional lines: fighters, bombers, battleships and carriers all have a natural (and fun!) gameplay role in a world at war. Ships like the Orion, the Carrack and the Reclaimer all come naturally, too: mining asteroids, exploring new worlds and the like are all types of gameplay that fall naturally into our universe. But with the Starliner, we're introducing something new: a ship that doesn't have a naturally apparent style of gameplay."
"We've said it again and again over the past two years: we want Star Citizen to be a living, breathing world," the developer added. "Which means spending resources building out (and building up) ships that would exist in a real world, even when they aren't combatants or adventurers. Our job with the Starliner was to determine how passenger travel in the 'verse would be both fun and necessary… and then to build out a ship worthy of that system. Designers have spent a lot of time working on the realism: everything from safety features (detailed below) to a plan for how to make passenger travel fun, interesting and rewarding for those who choose to fly the Genesis.
You can buy the Starliner today at the Star Citizen website here. For a closer look at the ship and crew, check out some concept art in the gallery below.
With close to $85 million in funding, Star Citizen is the most successful crowdfunded game in history.
Director Paul Feig has shared the first images of the new costumes for the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot.
Take a look below to see the costumes that Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon will sport in the film, which is due to arrive in theaters in 2016.
You'll notice they don't stray far from the classic outfits of past films.
The issue with leaderboards on PS4 was simply that they were not displaying. After you apply the new update, leaderboards should begin to show up in the next 24 hours, Hill explained.
Destiny's limited-time multiplayer event, Iron Banner, will return today, June 30, Bungie has announced. The event kicks off at 10 AM PDT / 1 PM EDT, which is now just a few short hours away.
"Earn Gauntlets, Chest, Machinegun, and for the first time ever… the Pulse Rifle (Skorri's Revenge)," Bungie wrote on Twitter.
During its E3 2015 Direct, Nintendo used muppet versions of Shigeru Miyamoto, Reggie Fils-Aime, and Satoru Iwata in little sketches between announcements and gameplay demos. They were delightful.
Now, Nintendo has released a video of Shigeru Miyamoto visiting Jim Henson's Muppet Studios. The video, which you can watch below, is essentially six-minutes of Miyamoto fanboying out.
It's sweet to see Miyamoto discussing the Muppets and Jim Henson's studio with the same kind of reverence that many video game players would have for him and his creations. Clearly, the muppets are one of the sources of that quintessential child-like delight that Miyamoto's game's inspire.
"I've admired Jim Henson studios for a very long time," Miyamoto says during the video. "When I was young, I didn't want to be a puppeteer, but the person who makes the puppet."
"So the fact that we were able to do this together is just great for me. I never even dreamed that one day my own puppet would be made by the Hensons."
Victims of Steam item trade scams will no longer be reimbursed for their loss, Valve has said.
In an FAQ on the Steam support page, Valve explained that replacing items lost in scams--particularly the rarer variety, which tend to be the main target--could devalue the worth of the item overall.
"Our community assigns an item a value that is at least partially determined by that item's scarcity," it explains. "If more copies of the item are added to the economy through inventory rollbacks, the value of every other instance of that item would be reduced."
"We sympathize with people who fall victim to scams, but we provide enough information on our website and within our trading system to help users make good trading decisions. All trade scams can be avoided."
Elsewhere, Valve detailed the course of action it takes in the event it ascertains a user is in fact a scammer.
"If evidence exists that the Steam user is a scammer, Steam Support will ban the account from using the Steam Community, including Trading and using the Steam Market," it said.
"The length of the ban is dependent on the severity and quantity of the scams. In some cases, scammers will be banned permanently. If a scammer has multiple accounts, all of their accounts may be subject to the ban as well."
It continues: "In some cases, scammers will hijack an account and use it to commit scams, fraud or more hijackings. In these cases, we lock the account until the rightful owner contacts us about the hijacking."
A sequel to Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed The Last of Us is in production, according to voice actor Nolan North.
North, who is known for providing the voice of Uncharted's Nathan Drake, was asked if he was working with Naughty Dog on any more projects after Uncharted 4: A Thief's End at MetroCon.
"For now, [Uncharted 4] is the last one," he replied. I know they're doing The Last of Us 2, but my character in The Last of Us... untimely demise."
North is referring to David, a leader of a group of survivors in the the first The Last of Us.
Troy Baker, who voiced protagonist Joel in The Last of Us, however, has said he "knows nothing" about a sequel. Speaking at Indy PopCon, Baker discussed where he thought a potential sequel could take the story.
"I don't know if we're going to do another one or not," he said. "If we do, I trust Neil [Druckmann, creative director] and Bruce [Straley, game director], and everyone at Naughty Dog to tell a story that needs to be told."
Druckmann and Straley are currently heading up the development of Uncharted 4.
"If you're a big fan of Amy Hennig and her style of story, she's gone to EA and is going to reboot a brand new Star Wars franchise in the style of Uncharted," he said.
He also said it was "along the same lines" as Star Wars 1313, LucasArts' cancelled third-person action game.
CLG looked shaky this week, losing both of their games to Team Liquid and TSM. And although Team Liquid pulled off a convincing win against CLG, their game against former sister team, Gravity, pointed to much larger problems in their team dynamic. Problems they'll have to fix if they want to make Worlds this year.
Because CLG's uncharacteristically poor performances late in the season is a reoccurring theme every split, fans have chalked it up to the team's tendency to fall apart or "choke" under pressure when playoffs are nearing. No matter what the reason, they're still in second place, only behind their long time rival, TSM.
On the other hand, TDK have finally debuted their starting roster with Emperor and Ninja, taking their unexpected first win of the split against Team Dignitas. That begs the question: is this a fluke or is this the start of an upward trend in TDK's favor?
Earlier this month Valve opened preorders for its Steam hardware, with the added bonus that you'd be able to get your purchase a month early. Now, the first wave of preorders has sold out.
Valve today announced that this special preorder window for Alienware Steam Machines, Steam Link, and Steam Controllers is over. If you had jumped on a preorder early, you'll get your hardware on October 16. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until November 10. However, the hardware is still available for normal preorders through Steam.
Steam Machines are gaming PCs designed for use in the living room, running SteamOS and coming with a Steam Controller. Several hardware companies are selling them, such as Alienware, Asus, and iBuyPower. You can read more about them here.
Steam Link, on the other hand, lets you stream games from a PC in a different room to a TV. You'll have to have your own gaming rig to take advantage of a Steam Link, but it costs only $50. If you just want a Steam Controller to connect to your PC, that also costs $50.
Are you going to buy any Steam hardware? Let us know in the comments.
Retro City Rampage, the Grand Theft Auto-inspired adventure game from developer Vblank, is being ported to another platform: MS-DOS.
That's right, the operating system released in 1981 is getting one more game. Announced on Facebook, this port will run on Intel 486 PCs, and it will require 3.7 megabytes of hard drive space and 4 MB of RAM. The developer stated in the post that owners of the PC and Mac versions of the game can pick up the new port for free.
The port will include all the features of the original game, including the open world and all of the game modes. The developer wrote, "[this port] proudly demonstrates once again thathttp://www.gamespot.com/grand-theft-auto-2/ RCR isn't yet-another-retro-styled game, but something that could've actually been released in 1989."
Vblank has brought the game to numerous different consoles and platforms. So far, you can play Retro City Rampage on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita, Wii, 3DS, Xbox 360, and PC. Vblank also created a prototype Nintendo Entertainment System port of the game.
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