The details and trailer leaked yesterday, but Overwatch's new mode is now both official and live across PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Called Uprising in English (the French version was localized as Insurrection), the update adds a bunch of new skins, items, and a PvE mode.
The mode will run from now until May 1, and like last year's Halloween event, it will include a co-op Brawl where players team up to fight off waves of enemies.
The press release for the update describes it thus: "Our latest seasonal event turns back the clock, giving you the chance to relive a pivotal moment in Overwatch history. Explore the stories behind some of your favorite heroes, unlock pieces of the past with over 100 declassified Loot Box items, or suit up with your friends and join Tracer on her very first mission in a brand-new cooperative Brawl."
Check out the new story trailer for the game here, and we'll update this story with a link out to all of the new legendary skins you can unlock soon!
The man who gave us Metal Gear Solid is a Ghost in the Shell fan, and now he's weighing in on the Hollywood adaptation of the iconic Japanese story.
"The respect that the movie shows in mimicking the anime is unquestionable," he wrote in an essay for Glixel, Rolling Stone's video game publication.
"As a real fan of the original works, though, I can't help but feel that the production was trapped in the shell of the original, and as a result, it fails to come into its own."
Kojima calls the 2017 movie "surprisingly loyal" to the 1995 anime, identically recreating many of the scenes in the same visual style while fitting well into "the shell of a Hollywood blockbuster."
"This new movie replaces that theme with a far simpler question: 'who am I?' Without spoiling the plot, it's basically The Bourne Identity in a futuristic world connected by a vast information network. It's a story of the heroine played by Scarlett Johansson on a quest to find her identity," he wrote.
"Upon leaving the theater and returning to the real world, the characters stay behind, locked in their 'shell,' unable to break free."
Kojima acknowledges the film's shortcomings may not be entirely the fault of the film's director or its cast. The world is a very different place than it was in 1989, when the original manga was written, or in 1995, when the feature-length anime was released.
"In 2017, one cannot simply whisper 'the net is vast and infinite' and hope for the impact such a statement had 22 years ago when it was uttered by Motoko Kusanagi to such great effect. In 1995, the internet was a mysterious, brave new frontier; today, it's a known quantity. Smartphones are glued to our hands, and we are constantly connected. For us, the net doesn't feel vast or infinite.
In this modern world, then, where is the ghost of this latest Motoko Kusanagi to reside?" Kojima added.
Star Wars Celebration, the biggest event revolving around a galaxy far, far away, takes place April 13-16 in Orlando, Florida. If you can't make it to the event, you can still take part in all the fun, as the convention will be live streamed.
Star Wars Show LIVE will stream Celebration starting on April 13 at 8AM PT/ 11AM ET. Live coverage of the event will continue until Sunday, April 16, ending at 2PM PT/5PM ET. There are a couple ways to watch the stream: Star Wars has a live-stream page and the Star Wars YouTube page will have it as well.
One of the biggest panels you will want to check out is the Battlefront II panel, on Saturday, April 15. DICE, Criterion, and Motive will give us a first look at the newest Star Wars game and a trailer, according to EA. The panel starts at 11:30AM PT/2:30PM ET
In addition, there are a lot of rumors that the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars movie will be revealed during the Last Jedi panel on Friday, April 14, starting at 8:30AM PT/11:30AM ET. That panel will be hosted by director Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy.
[Updated April 4 with two more games: Civilization: Revolution and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet]
The Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature, introduced in November 2015, lets you play Xbox 360 games on the new console. But what games are available? We've now rounded them all up--and we'll continue to update this post as new games are made available.
Update: It turns out that Knights of the Old Republic project might not be happening after all.
Citing "people familiar with goings-on at the studio," Kotaku reports that BioWare Austin did indeed develop a Knights of the Old Republic prototype, but that prototype was never greenlit for full-time development. Furthermore, the site says it has heard that "the majority of BioWare Austin is working on the company's new IP, which is headed up by BioWare's Edmonton studio and and should be officially announced at E3."
Additionally, Kotaku spoke to the man who broke this news, Liam Robertson.
"Going to hold my hands up here--I think I just misheard some of the Austin stuff when I was talking on Skype, so I may have misspoke there," he said.
"Let me clarify that I don't think Knights of the Old Republic is a current project ... I believe it may have evolved into something else since then or fizzled out since then. I'm still confident Austin is doing something Star Wars related though and I'm confident in that."
In response to GameSpot's initial request for comment, BioWare parent company EA simply stated, "We have nothing to share at this time."
Original story follows.
BioWare Austin is "prototyping" a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic title, according to a report from Unseen64 and Did You Know Gaming's Liam Robertson.
Speaking on an episode of his podcast, which is exclusive to Patreon subscribers but has been reported on by The Star Wars Game Outpost, Robertson said he had it on "good authority" that the studio, which most recently developed the MMORPG The Old Republic, was working on "a sort of remake/revival of Knights of the Old Republic." This, however, has reportedly now become a new Star Wars project.
"I don't really know how that game'll end up," he continued. "I've heard that it isn't exactly a remake anymore, but it started as a remake/revival. Now it's kind of going from that blueprint in sort of its own original thing. I guess we'll see what that turns out to be, but they are prototyping it right now."
Despite using the Knights of the Old Republic name when discussing BioWare Austin's new project, Robertson said he believed that it won't be Knights of the Old Republic 3, and may in fact move away from that lore. Instead, he believes the game "is sort of like wiping the slate clean" and will "embrace the new Star Wars universe lore."
Robertson did not reveal his source, but has a solid history of bringing to light canceled video game development projects, often with input from unnamed developers that worked on them. Nevertheless, this is very much still a rumor at this point. GameSpot has contacted BioWare parent company EA for a statement.
Interestingly, Drew Karpyshyn, who served as lead writer on the first Knights of the old Republic and also worked on the first two Mass Effect titles, rejoined BioWare in 2015. Posting on Twitter, he confirmed that he was working on a new project, but didn't provide any further details.
,@jenjen1936 Yes, but that's all I can say. Hell, I might already have said too much. :)
A number of other Star Wars titles are also in development at various EA studios. DICE and co-developer Motive Studios are working on Star Wars: Battlefront 2, the first trailer for which will arrive on April 15 at 11:30 AM PT/2:30 PM ET/7:30 PM GMT.
TItanfall developer Respawn is also creating an "all-new third-person action adventure game set in the Star Wars universe." The project is being led by God of War 3 director Stig Asmussen, who joined Respawn in 2014.
In the DC series Detective Comics, Batman and Batwoman have teamed up with other heroes and battling the evil that lurks inside of Gotham City. At WonderCon, we talked to the writer of the book, James Tynion IV, about the comic and what we can expect for the future of the series.
GameSpot: Cassandra Kane [Batwoman] is the center of the series right now. Is she going to have a final confrontation with Sheba?
James Tynion IV: Oh, absolutely. Each arc, I've thought a lot about who is right at the center of each arc moving forward, and right at the center of this arc is Cassandra Kane. This story is very much a big Cassandra Kane story. Trust me, at the end of the next issue, you're going to see her re-enter the fray in the biggest, most bad ass way I could think of. I am very, very excited.
This arc was very much designed to remind people or even tell people who were not familiar with Cassandra Kane from classic continuity, why she is so bad ass, and why I wanted her in this book. I'm excited for people to see that play out.
Batman always has contingency plans for everything. Does he have one if the League of Assassins decides to invade and take over Gotham?
I think he has a few things up his sleeve, but the biggest thing here is that he has been convinced for a long time that the League of Assassins is the real threat. The League of Shadows is just a thing that Ra's al Ghul made up to scare his followers into submission. The idea of this kind of death cult that is the most elite assassins out there, so this is something that Batman is struggling with right at the beginning because he did not think that any of this was real. We're going to see that there's a reason why he didn't think it was real. That's going to be a key part of the next issue as Ra's al Ghul has entered the fray. This story also sets up a lot of stories coming up further down the line for Detective Comics.
We haven't seen Spoiler since she got upset with Tim's "death," and she left. Are we going to see her come back? She is coming back, so when is that exactly going to happen?
The big thing with Spoiler... She ended the Victims Syndicate arc knowing that she wants to help people but no longer believing that being a superhero, being a costumed vigilante, is the right way to help people. We're going to see her take a new role. One of the most telling things that I stuck there at the end of the Victims Syndicate was the idea of her ripping the wiring out of the Batsignal, and the idea that the cops were able to resolve this whole big crisis one night because Batman never found out it happened. That role--the role of the Spoiler--trying to prevent these costumed figures from attacking each other, that is her new position.
We're going to see the character The Wrath, who the most recent incarnation was brought into the universe by John Layman and Jason Fabok a few years ago is one of my favorite stories from that Detective run. We're going to see him coming back onto the scene, ready to do the attack on Gotham that he believes will make him an A-lister, and we're going to see Spoiler try to spoil the whole thing so nobody ever knows that he even tried to attack. That's sort of the new position, and Spoiler is still figuring it out. She's still trying to figure out what's her role, what's her place, and also, I will say that her acting along these lines is going to attract the attention of classic Bat character who has not appeared in a long time, and I'm very excited to bring him back.
What about Harper Row? Is she still going to be working at the hospital, the hospice?
Yeah. Harper Row is still working at the Leslie Tompkins Clinic, and she'll be continuing to show up in supporting cast facility in the book. I've got bigger Harper Row stories down the line, but for the moment, we've got a pretty big cast in Detective already, and we've got Zatana right around the corner in the summer arc Intelligence.
Speaking of large casts, what about Tim Drake?
Oh, my goodness. All I can say is that I know the next time you guys are going to see Tim Drake, but I can't tell you any more than that.
Are you going to be involved with The Button, the big event coming up in Flash and Batman?
I will definitely say The Button is going to have reverberations across the entire line. It will definitely have a major effect of Detective Comics. If you are a big fan of Detective Comics, you should absolutely read The Button.
The big thing that I'm working on this summer that I set the pieces up for in Detective #950 was the Dark Days two-parter that is going to be coming out in June and July that sets up everything to come in the fall, and I can't really say more than that. You guys have seen the big, crazy cover, and I'm working with Scott Snyder, Jim Lee, John Romita, Jr., and Andy Kubert on that. You only pull that all-star cast together to do some pretty big stuff, so I'm really excited for people to read that.
Microsoft's Major Nelson confirmed this on Twitter. If you already own the game for Xbox 360, it should show up automatically in your Xbox One game library. If not, you can pick it up right now on your console or through the Xbox Store website. Additionally, the game is included in the Xbox Live spring sale.
On the Xbox Feedback site, Black Ops II received more than 213,000 votes from people asking for it to be added to the backwards compatibility catalog, the most of any game.
The standalone DLC also has a new trailer showing off one of the game's cinematic scenes between main characters Nadine Ross and Chloe Frazer. Take a look for yourself above.
Naughty Dog also revealed the game will cost $40, and those who preorder the upcoming Uncharted game at "participating retailers" will receive a free digital copy of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Trilogy on PS4. Those who preorder on the PlayStation Store, meanwhile, will get a Lost Legacy PS4 theme on top of that.
No international pricing or release dates have been announced.
"Years ago, when we were asked if we were ever doing a single-player expansion for Uncharted we always said, 'Well, we don't have the self-discipline to do that,'" said Naughty Dog head of communications Arne Meyer. "If we tried to do that we'd create a full game.
"There's no way we could constrict and restrain ourselves, and that's exactly what was happening here. When we were doing story pitches, we were coming up with a game that would be over ten hours long and so we suddenly realised everything we said was true and we couldn't keep it short."
While the final length of The Lost Legacy was not revealed, Meyer's comments suggest Naughty Dog was not able to shorten the story's length and it therefore may take some time to complete.
Force for Change is a Star Wars-themed charity program that has been running since 2014, and the latest fundraiser has been launched to coincide with the series' 40th anniversary.
The prizes include the chance to visit the set of the Han Solo spinoff movie, attend the premiere of the upcoming The Last Jedi, and stay at Skywalker Ranch in California. For more details, check out the video below, featuring Last Jedi stars Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley:
As Hamill and Ridley explain, the prizes are themed "Past, Present, and Future." They breakdown like this:
Past: A stay at Skywalker Inn, tour of the archives and the Skywalker Ranch in Marin, California, and a personal screening of Star Wars: A New Hope.
Present: Winners will attend The Last Jedi premiere and after party.
Future: A visit the set of the young Han Solo movie in London with a cameo appearance as a background extra.
Grand Prize: The winner of this will receive all three prizes above.
This year, the program is raising money for the Starlight Children's Foundation. The fund raised will help bring entertainment, toys, and games to young patients at more than 700 hospitals and clinics.
The competition runs from April 11 to May 11. A new winner will be randomly selected from the pool of donors at the end of each week, with the grand prize awarded at the end of the four-week run. To enter, click here.
In related news, the annual Star Wars Celebration event takes place this weekend in Orlando, Florida. The first trailer for The Last Jedi is expected to be revealed, most likely during the film's panel on Friday. This week it was reported that it would have a "full trailer feel" and wouldn't just be a short teaser.
GameSpot will be attending Celebration this weekend, so check back for full coverage of the various panels and events. Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters on December 15, 2017.
Sega has announced Bayonetta is launching for the PC--over six years since it was initially released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3--and it's available now on Steam.
The re-release supports 4K and, as with all PC games, allows players to control graphical options such as texture quality, texture filtering, anti-aliasing, shadow quality, and SSAO quality. HDR can also be enabled. "Experience the over-the-top stylish action in 60 FPS, at unlocked HD resolutions," Sega said in a press release.
Until April 25, Sega is giving everyone that purchases Bayonetta on PC the Digital Deluxe Edition at no extra cost. This version includes the five track soundtrack sampler, digital artbook "from the Climax Edition, enhanced with even more concept art," wallpapers, and avatars. It also includes Japanese and English voice overs and subtitles.
You can see Bayonetta running on PC with advanced graphical options enabled in the video below.
In GameSpot's Bayonetta review, Lark Anderson awarded it an 8/10.
"Chock-full of often silly but always memorable moments, Bayonetta can stay with you even after you've stopped playing it," he said. "Regardless of which version you play, its host of hidden items and secrets, multiple difficulties, competitively balanced scoring system, and charismatic heroine make Bayonetta a game that will be revisited time and time again."
The last entry in the mainline Bayonetta series was 2014's Bayonetta 2, which was exclusive to the Wii U. Both games in the franchise have been made by Japanese studio Platinum Games. The studio's new RPG Scalebound was recently canceled.
"We've talked a lot about it internally at the company and I've written some outlines for what the game would be. And I feel really confident it would be cool if we got the chance to make it," he said.
AMD inserted itself back into the CPU market as a true competitor last month with the release of the Ryzen 7 line of processors. The microchip manufacturer also set its eyes on the mid-range market with the release of the Ryzen 5 line. All these CPUs are based on the Zen microarchitecture, which is AMD's strongest yet. Internally, AMD asserts that Zen outperforms its previous Excavator architecture by 52 percent in a battle of instructions per clock (IPC). In addition, Ryzen requires the new AM4 socket across all CPUs.
Here we have two SKUs of Ryzen 5 CPUs for review: the 1600X and 1500X, which retail for $249 USD and $189 USD, respectively. In terms of pricing, these CPUs are intended to compete with Intel's Core-i5 series. AMD touts Ryzen's advantage for "prosumers"--a mix of performance for professional tasks and consumer-level pricing. The Ryzen 7 1800X is positioned to compete against much more expensive Intel equivalents in video editing and image rendering tasks. If the Ryzen 5 CPUs scale accordingly, those looking for a balance of performance for productivity and gaming at a lower price should pay close attention.
All Ryzen CPUs adopt the 14nm FinFet manufacturing process, making them more power efficient than AMD's previous chips. Thermal design power (TDP)--or maximum power draw--for the 1600X is 95 watts, while the 1500X is 65 watts. Both CPUs sport a shared 8MB L3 cache and 512Kb L2 cache on each core that serve as fast-access memory for the processors.
The Ryzen 5 1600X and 1500X die shot.
XFR--extended frequency range--is a feature specific to Ryzen CPUs with the "X" suffix. It's a form of precision boost that recognizes your CPU temperatures and overclocks it accordingly in 25MHz increments. In theory, the more robust your cooling, the better your XFR results will be. This is one of the advantages of AMD's SenseMI technology--built in sensors to help fine-tune performance.
The Ryzen 5 1600X is a six-core 12-thread CPU with a base core clock of 3.6GHz. It has an all-core boost of 3.7GHz and a two-core boost of 4.0GHz. With XFR active, you'll be able to hit 4.1GHz. The second CPU we're reviewing is the Ryzen 5 1500X, which is a four-core, eight-thread CPU. Its base core clock is 3.5GHz with a 3.6GHz all core boost and a 3.7GHz two-core boost, capable of 3.9GHz with XFR.
When it comes to choosing a motherboard for Ryzen CPUs, six chipset options exist for AM4 socket. The following chart details the chipsets:
Chipset
USB (3.1 G2, 3.1 G1, 2.0)
SATA
DDR4 DIMM Slots
PCIe Lanes
PCIe Slots
Overclocking
X370
2, 6, 6
4
4
8, Gen 2
2
Unlocked
B350
2, 2, 6
2
4
6, Gen 2
1
Unlocked
A320
1, 2, 6
TBA
TBA
4, Gen 2
1
Locked
X300 (SFF)
TBA
2
2
TBA
2
Unlocked
A/B300 (SFF)
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
1
Locked
Methodology
For the purposes of reviewing the two CPUs, we put them through a gauntlet of benchmarks. These include several synthetic and scenario-based benchmarks. Our wide variety of tests aims to provide a clear picture of where these CPUs stand among the other AMD Ryzen and Intel Core-i7 CPUs. All results found in the charts were produced by GameSpot, and many of our charts use data from our previous tests from the Core-i7 7700K, 5960X, and 6950X for comparative purposes. We didn't have the Core i5-7600K on hand to test, which competes with the Ryzen 5 CPUs. In those instances, we've done research to provide you with information that should be accurate enough to give you an approximate idea of where the i5-7600K falls in relation to our other CPUs.
System Specifications
CPU
All AMD Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 CPUs
Intel Core i7-6950X and 5960X
Intel Core i7-7700K
Motherboard
Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5
Asus Strix X99 Gaming
Gigabyte GA-170X-Gaming 7
RAM
Corsair Vengeance 2933MHz
Corsair Vengeance 2133MHz
Corsair Vengeance 2133MHz
GPU
GeForce GTX 980
GeForce GTX 980
GeForce GTX 980
SSD
WD Blue 960GB
Corsair Force LS 240GB
Seagate 600 Series 240GB
CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-U12S (Air)
Corsair H115i
NZXT Kraken X61
Case
NZXT H340
Corsair Carbide 600C
NZXT H440
PowerSupply
NZXT 700W
Corsair RM850X
NZXT 1200W
All systems ran on Microsoft Windows 10 operating system.
Inside our test bench for Ryzen CPUs.
Our Ryzen test bench consisted of a Gigabyte AX370 motherboard paired with 16GB (2x8GB) of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM at 2933MHz. We used the Noctua NH-U12S CPU cooler with Arctic Silver MX-5 thermal paste. For storage, we used a Western Digital Blue SATA solid-state drive and we were powered by a 700-watt NZXT power supply. For consistency's sake, we stuck with the reference Nvidia GTX 980 for our video card. This is the same test bench used in our 1800X review.
With our overview of the CPUs and test methodology laid out, we can dig into the results.
Benchmark Results
Cinebench R15
Cinebench R15 is a free benchmark tool that gives you a clear indication of how well your system performs in 3D animation and image rendering. It's well known for stressing multiple CPU cores, and it shows in the results. The 1600X flexes its extra cores to lead the 7700K by about 20 percent. Considering the 7600K scores around 650-660, this would mean the 1500X outperforms it by approximately 14 percent.
X264 5.0.1 Pass 1
Tech ARP's X264 benchmark is the most demanding CPU-focused test in the review. It consists of two passes that simulate video encoding. Core count is a large factor when it comes to performing well in X264, but individual core speed still matters. AMD's 1600X is only two percent faster than the 7700K, despite having two extra cores.
X264 5.0.1 Pass 2
On the second pass of X264, the 1600X flexes on the 7700K with a 25-percent advantage. The 1500X trails the 1600X by 35 percent and the 7700K by 18 percent. Compared to the similarly-priced 7600K, the 1500X seems to outperform Intel's CPU by about 10 percent.does edge out the expected performance of the 7600K by roughly 10 percent.
7-Zip
Everyone unzips compressed files at some point in their life, so 7-zip should be a familiar program. It has a built in benchmark that gives you an idea of how well your system handles compression and decompression. Multiple cores certainly help, as seen with the 1600X outperforming the 7700K by 15 percent. From data we've seen online, the 1500X performs roughly five to eight percent better than Intel's 7600K here.
GeekBench 3.0
GeekBench 3.0 is a synthetic benchmark that takes advantage of multiple cores in a CPU. While our previous tests had the 1800X performing admirably compared to all of Intel's offerings, the 1600X keeps up the impressive showing. It trails the eight-core 5960X by just three percent, and costs a fourth less. The 1500X does fall behind the 7700K by about 11 percent, but a rough approximation of the 7600K in GeekBench 3.0 would put the 1500X at around 8-12 percent faster.
GeekBench 3.0 Single Core
Single core performance among Ryzen CPUs stay fairly close among the different SKUs. Since they're all built on the Zen microarchitecture, core clock speed is the main differentiator. Here we see better core efficiency out of Ryzen CPUs over the eight-core and 10-core Intel CPUs.
Blender
Blender is an animation and 3D graphics program that can test how fast your system renders an image. The results vary among the CPUs. The 1600X was 22 percent slower than the quad-core 7700K, but also 18 slower than the Ryzen 7 1800X. The 1500X also lags behind all the other CPUs; 19 percent slower than the 1600X.
PCMark 8 (Creative, Accelerated)
PCMark 8 is a multi-phase benchmark that simulates common use case scenarios like video conferencing, web browsing, and photo editing. Ryzen performed exceptionally well, especially considering the price tag of Intel's CPUs. We see a drop off in performance as you go down the line of Ryzen CPUs, but even the 1600X stays within seven percent of Intel's 10-core 6950X. The 1500X is behind by just 12 percent of the 6950X.
3DMark 11 (Physics Score)
3DMark 11 is a synthetic DirectX 11 benchmark that simulates performance in games. When looking at the physics score alone, you see how well CPUs handle complex physics calculations. The Ryzen 7 CPUs stayed within close range of each other, but we see a drop off once we look at the Ryzen 5 CPUs, due to the subtraction of cores.
3DMark 11 (720 Performance)
The 3DMark 11 test in 720p tells us a little more about in game DirectX 11 performance, while leaning more on the CPU. The gap closes among all our CPUs, and the 1600X is just behind the Ryzen 7 CPUs three to seven percent. The 1500X is only five percent behind the 1600X. However, the quad-core 7700K proves to be slightly faster in this case.
Star Swarm Stress Test, 1080p Low
The Star Swarm Stress Test is a benchmarking tool from the creators of Ashes of the Singularity, and simulates how your system handles having several AI units on screen through a six-minute fly-by. At low settings, where the test leans more heavily on the CPU, the 1600X stacks up with all of the Ryzen 7 CPUs, but they still lag behind the Core-i7 CPUs by about 23 percent. The 1500X falls behind the rest of Ryzen by around 18 percent.
Star Swarm Stress Test, 1080p Extreme
The performance gap among Ryzen CPUs closes when we crank up the settings to extreme in the Star Swarm benchmark. The game will average between 59 and 62 FPS across all of the Ryzen CPUs, but the 7700K still outperforms them by 23 to 29 percent.
Bioshock Infinite, 1080p Low
When we ran the BioShock Infinite benchmark on its low settings, the 1600X performs similarly to the 1700, but there is a noticeable drop-off with the 1500X by about 10 percent. All of the Ryzen CPUs pale in comparison to any of the Core-i7 CPUs, however.
Bioshock Infinite, 1080p High
When we move up to higher settings in Bioshock Infinite, the gap closes but Intel's CPUs still hold a significant advantage. Among Ryzen CPUs, the 1600X actually produced a slightly better performance, but within one frame per second of the 1800X. Even the 1500X just trails one or two frames behind the other Ryzen 7 CPUs.
SteamVR Performance Test
All CPUs performed very close to each other. The largest gap among them was between the Ryzen 5 1500X and the Ryzen 7 1800X, which is only a four percent difference. As for where VR is today, any of these CPUs in our tests will suffice, as long as you have the right video card.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DirectX 12)
Across the board, Ryzen CPUs performed so close to each other that the differences are negligible. With the power of the GTX 980 (which is still a beefy graphics card), we were able to stay above 60 FPS with all CPUs. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided tends to ask more of systems than you would expect, however.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
We used the Ghost Recon: Wildlands benchmark to see how the Ryzen CPUs fared in another modern game. Performance remained very much the same across the board. The highest average FPS came from the 1800X (67.2 FPS) and the lowest came from the 1500X (66.1 FPS); a meager difference of 1.1 FPS.
Temperatures and Overclocking
When it comes to temperatures, the 1600X and 1500X differ significantly, which can be attributed to their difference in power draw. At idle, the 1600X sat around 37 degrees celsius and shot up to about 78 degree celsius at load. For the 1500X, it idled around 28 degrees celsius and hit 68 degrees celsius under load.
Both the 1600X and 1500X are capable of decent overclocks. We were able to get both CPUs to manually boost all their cores to a stable 4.1GHz, which was achieved by bumping the voltage to 1.45V.
We decided to test our overclocks in X264 since it is the most demanding benchmark we used. It's a good bar to clear for stability since the system will shut itself down if your overclock is too high. From stock speeds, the 1600X improved by six percent in Pass 1, and 13 percent in Pass 2. The 1500X improved by slightly larger margin: 10 percent in Pass 1 and 17 percent in Pass 2.
Conclusion
Both the Ryzen 5 1600X and 1500X perform admirably for their price, $249 and $189, respectively. In professional-level tasks, they gain an advantage over their competition and compare nicely to more expensive CPUs, evident in the Cinebench R15, X264, and PCMark 8 benchmarks. If you can afford the Ryzen CPUs with more cores, you'll generally gain a proportional performance advantage.
We still don't have an immediate need for more than four cores in modern games, and even VR. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (in DirectX 11 and Direct X 12) and Ghost Recon: Wildlands had negligible differences among the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 CPUs. Even in Star Swarm, which leverages CPU speed for better performance, the only drop off in performance was in the 1500X during the low settings test.
The bottom line is you get great bang-for-the-buck performance for most video and image processing tasks and a competent gaming CPU.
The Fate of Furious is on course for a franchise-best opening weekend. Early tracking for the eighth movie in the long-running action series suggests that it could top the record-breaking box office of 2015's Furious 7.
As reported by Deadline, global expectations are extremely high for the movie, which opens on Friday. It has been estimated that it could make between $375 million and $440 million in its first three days, which gives it a good chance of topping Furious 7's $397 million take.
The big boost to The Fate of the Furious' fortunes will come from the international market. In the US, it is thought that it will actually earn less than its predecessor, with an estimated $100 million to $110 million. Furious 7 took an incredible $148 million in its first three days in 2015, which broke the domestic record for an April debut.
Overseas, the film will open on 20,000 screens in 63 territories, including China and Russia, which were not part of Furious 7's initial release. The international gross is expected to be at least $275 million, potentially as high as $330 million.
The Fate of the Furious stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham Charlize Theron, Helen Mirren, and Kurt Russell. A new behind-the-scenes promo was released last week, and you can check out trailers for the movie here and here.
As a free-to-play, online-focused game, Total War: Arena is a step in a new direction for Sega's strategy series. Made by franchise creator Creative Assembly and announced more than four years ago, Arena pits teams of 10 against each other in a real-time experience that moves faster than past entries in the series. This change is significant, and after playing a handful of matches this weekend at an event in Taipei, it seems that Arena's changes to the core formula are both well-executed and smartly designed for a new audience. At the same time, there are some issues that will hopefully be addressed before it is eventually released.
If you have been intimidated by the time commitment required for past Total War games, Arena is a refreshing change of pace. In the matches I played, the round timer was roughly 10 minutes, ending either after all units had been vanquished or one side captured the enemy's base. Players start off by choosing a Greek, Roman, or Barbarian commander from the past (Cynane and Julius Caesar are two of them) with three groups of units to control. The gameplay will feel familiar for Total War veterans, as tactics and positioning remain of paramount importance. But everything in Arena seems to move at a faster pace, something that appears to be an intentional design choice to offer a new type of Total War experience.
One of the thrills of classical-era battling with 20 total players is the unpredictability of what can happen and the impressive scale of battles that can play out. In one particular match, my team bombarded the enemy in a city setting with what felt like hundreds of units on screen at once, smashing and clashing like a scene from Helm's Deep. It was awesome. But unlike Total War: Warhammer, there is no magic or fantasy in Arena.
Given the new pace of play, death can come quickly if you don't employ the right tactics or execute as a team. In one match, I tried to get my catapult unit in place atop a hill to rain rocks on my enemies below, but I was met with a fierce charge from an opposing cavalry unit--and that was that. My second and third units stayed alive, but it was a painful defeat for what I hoped would be my strongest unit for that match. (A side-note about the catapult units--there is friendly fire, so watch out for collateral damage. Catapults are also good for taking out archers at range, particularly when they are hiding in deep brush if you can spot them)
You earn upgrades through experience that is unlocked at the end of matches. Upgrades come in the form of things like special abilities like a mega-powerful rush that your infantry units can use in a do-or-die scenario. Another is for Roman units to group their shields together, known as the Testudo formation, to allow them to avoid oncoming projectile damage.
Arena is still all about strategy and tactics, of course. Working together with your team, you have the tough but thrilling task of controlling territory and deploying units to attack at places and during points in battle where your enemies are susceptible to the most damage. The maps, at least the three that I got to try, are smartly designed, featuring options for teams of different configurations to have success. You will want to make use of environmental features such as forests or tall grass to hide your units (a group of archers hidden in bushes can be particularly effective), moving them forward when it's most advantageous. You stand to have more success when you work together. Assuming your enemies are up to task, the wrong move can mean getting flanked, leading to what the game refers to as a "rout." You don't want to see that word pop up on-screen. If you lose your commander, the morale of your units will drop--and that is never good.
Arena remains in development, and producer Jose Edgardo Garcia tells me that Creative Assembly is constantly poring over feedback to make the game better. One issue that I experienced in my preview was my projectile unit failing to build a catapult on command. It eventually worked, but not in the way it should have, Garcia said. Additionally, friendly units are marked in blue, with enemies displayed in red. In its current form, there is no further designation as to which units are yours and which are other friendlies. When I didn't move all three of my units together at the same time, it became difficult to locate where a specific group was at a glance. Garcia says he's aware of this feedback and reminded me again that Arena is in alpha. These are small issues in what was otherwise an overwhelmingly smooth and enjoyable experience.
"We want to make happy players, not pissed off players. We are very committed to keeping players happy" -- Wargaming producer Jose Edgardo Garcia on Arena's free-to-play model
Players will surely have some amount of concern about Arena being a free-to-play game. In my preview session, I was given a generous allotment of in-game currency to spend on upgrades. As with other free-to-play games (and looking at World of Tanks, specifically, as a model), it can be assumed that Arena's microtransactions will let you speed up your progress by spending real money. Wargaming, whose Wargaming Alliance unit is publishing Arena, told us that Creative Assembly is focusing on getting the gameplay refined and polished before making decisions about monetization. But for now, we're told that Arena is taking steps to avoid a "pay-to-win" scenario. That's a good thing to say, but we will have to see how it plays out in practice.
"We know our audience; we definitely get their feedback," Garcia said. "We make sure that the game is for their enjoyment, their entertainment. We want to make happy players, not pissed off players. We are very committed to keeping players happy."
If Arena takes off and becomes the hit that Creative Assembly, Sega, and Wargaming hope it can be, that doesn't mean free-to-play, online games will become the norm for Total War. In addition to Total War: Warhammer 2 (and Warhammer 3), Creative Assembly is working on a new historical entry in the series, though it has yet to be announced. These games are expected to be in the vein of the past core entries in the core paid series, featuring single-player and multiplayer. This is to say, Arena will exist as a new option outside of the core series, not a replacement for it.
Another interesting element about Arena is what's going on outside of the game. It's the first title that Wargaming's Alliance label is publishing. Representatives for the studio teased that they are already speaking with other developers about potential partnerships to help them extend their traditional games into online, free-to-play space. If all goes well with Arena, Wargaming could be seen as the go-to publisher for helping manage these kinds of transitions.
Provided the free-to-play elements are not anything gross, Arena feels like a new and exciting direction for the series. Like any other free-to-play game, its success will be dictated by whether or not it can attract and retain a playerbase.
In other news about Arena, Wargaming told us this week that a console version is possible, though it has yet to be confirmed. You can read our full interview below. Arena is currently without a release date, but representatives said they are hopeful the game will come out soon.
Disclosure: Wargaming paid for GameSpot's flight to Taipei and accommodations.
Max Payne and Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment has said its next game, codenamed P7, will be released on "a wider range of platforms" and indicated it will run on Northlight, the same engine that powered its Xbox One and PC exclusive Quantum Break.
In a post on the official Remedy website, the studio confirmed that it is "developing its Northlight technology also for PlayStation 4 consoles." Remedy has been making games primarily for Microsoft platforms since 2003, so P7 will be the first game from the studio to launch on a PlayStation platform since Max Payne 2.
Its last game, Quantum Break, was initially released on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC in April 2016. It "sold really well," according to Microsoft, even beating the company's expectations.
In GameSpot's Quantum Break review, Peter Brown awarded it a 6/10, saying its "gameplay is essentially divided equally between combat and hapless environment traversal."
He continued: "Getting to the end of Quantum Break can be an interesting ride at times, but no matter how impressive the combat is, or how great the game looks, there's no getting around the fact that it's driven by a story with limited appeal and hindered by disappointing design decisions."
On Xbox One, Ark: Survival Evolved is down to $14, while Fallout 4 gets a very nicediscount, bringing it down to just $19.80. Its DLC pass and all individual expansions are on sale as well.
This is just a very small sampling of all the deals--go to Major Nelson's blog to see a full rundown. The offers are good until April 17. Additionally, new Xbox Live Gold subscribers can sign up for just $1 for the duration of the Spring Sale.
Electronic Arts has another another bonus item for Battlefield 1's Premium membership. All subscribers will get a free map, Nivelle Nights, in June.
The map is set in the "Chemin de Dames," in France in 1917. French and German forces are fighting to hold the territory. Here is more from EA's official description (via VG247):
"The moon, the searchlights, and the artillery lights up the night skies, exposing the vast network of trenches," EA said. "Bite and hold as your foe will fight for every inch of ground. Strategy and teamwork will overcome those who have neither."
You can see an in-development version of the nighttime map in action in the video above, which comes by way of popular Battlefield YouTuber Westie.
There is no word yet on if this map will ever be made available to non-Premium members.
In addition to this map, Battlefield Premium members get access to four map packs, the first of which--They Shall Not Pass--came out in March. You can read more about the upcoming three right here. These map packs are released two weeks later for everyone to buy.
Right on schedule, NetherRealm today released a new trailer for Injustice 2 that focuses on the super-fast superhero, The Flash. The video spotlights some of The Flash's moves as he fights against a number of villains, including Gorilla Grodd. Also on display are some of the fighting game sequel's stages, which look pretty impressive.
Here's the trailer, and be sure to let us know in the comments what you think of The Flash's moves.
In other news about Injustice 2, NetheRealm released the fourth chapter in the game's Shattered Alliances series last week--watch it here. Additionally, NetherRealm has confirmed that the next Watchtower broadcast is coming up this week. The stream may have something to do with the character Scarecrow, given NetherRealm told fans to "Never FEAR..."
Overwatch is unveiling a new event starting tomorrow, according to a video first leaked on Playstation France's YouTube account. Check out the leaked video below.
Called Overwatch: Insurrection, the video's description promises to take players back in time seven years, to "relive one of the key moments in the history of Overwatch."
"Rally your friends and accompany Tracer in [her] first mission during the King's Row insurrection, our new co-operative [mode and] discover the origins of some of your favorite heroes with more than 100 new items for Overwatch: Insurrection including skins, intro screens, emotes, tags, etc.! Overwatch archives have been declassified, but this will only last until May 1st."
In addition to the new skins and items, the video seems to show a new game mode that looks similar to last year's Halloween event. It looks like you'll be fighting waves of enemies alongside a small group teammates.
No comments:
Post a Comment