If you bought a VR kit for your Mac and planned on using SteamVR, then you are out of luck. Valve are ending VR support for MacOS, so they can “focus on Windows and Linux”. Mackers can still access legacy builds, but this means no more improvements, and no more bug-quashing.
There are ways to jack in without using SteamVR, but still. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth.
Preview coverage from German outlet Gamestar has today revealed the first in-game screenshots of Daedalic Entertainment’s anticipated next-generation stealth game. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
The images follow-on from Edge Magazine’s world exclusive coverage back in January, which announced the game for the first time. It was in that article Daedalic conveyed its passion for telling darker, unconventional stories from The Lord of the Rings universe, as well as its intention to design a very different-looking Gollum from Peter Jackson’s iconic films.
Today’s screenshots highlight an almost cartoony aesthetic, which is certainly a contrast to other video games based on the franchise, such as Monolith Productions’ Middle Earth series. The design of the titular protagonist himself, however, is perhaps more conservative than what had been suggested during Edge’s coverage. He looks almost identical to his design in Jackson’s films.
For a character who has been slapped on everything from vending machines to vibrators, it was only a matter of time before someone made a Hello Kitty gas station.
In the era of coronavirus, it's time to flip the script on a hit game. ...
It's no secret that EA DICE's Star Wars: Battlefront 2 had something of a rocky start. After the game faced an enormous backlash for its microtransactions system, it was at the forefront of loot box discussions in 2017 - with EA later admitting it "got it wrong" over the controversial microtransactions.
Yet despite all this, the team at DICE continued to plug away at Battlefront 2 with regular updates long after launch, somehow managing to turn around community sentiment in the process. And now that DICE has announced it's shifting focus to the next Battlefield title, several members of the community have made a lovely tribute video for the devs.
On the Star Wars: Battlefront 2 cinematography channel Cinematic Captures, multiple prominent members of the Battlefront community came together to say thank you for all of DICE's hard work, and it's quite a touching video. Community members emphasised the work done by DICE to improve the game from launch, and took the opportunity to express their gratitude.
After zipping through space, swimming under the ocean, and generally gazing up at the goliath-sized crotch of rapper Travis Scott during Fornite's latest live event, everybody was dropped back into a normal match. Gone were the pyrotechnics, the pause to combat. Guns reappeared in people's hands, kill totals back on screen. The feeling of excitement and the sense of having shared something unique abruptly ended. It was back to digital murder.
This jarring feeling is a growing pain for Fortnite, as it continues down its ever-fascinating path of evolution. It's been a long time since it was just another video game about shooting people, but it still feels a long way from where Epic would like it to be. Fortnite uses a recurring butterfly motif to signify elements of change: the end of the Travis Scott concert, for example, or plot moments in its live events, but the game still feels in its chrysalis phase.
On the surface, Fortnite's addition of a new mode without combat wasn't all that interesting. Party Royale features a shrunken down map that's part digital theme park, part tropical island hangout. There's currently no gameplay incentive to load it up, no XP to find or challenges to unlock. Its arrival in the middle of last week with no prior fanfare was a typically low-key launch for the experimental Fortnite, almost laughably so.
When it comes to Snowrunner, what I really want to tell you about is the back window of the starter truck. I appreciate this is not a normal sort of thing to come away from a game with, but isn't that just Snowrunner in general?
Anyway: most of the time the back window is just a back window. Through it you get a partial view of the truck interior - the dash, the seats, a guy at the wheel trying to stay in control. But then the truck jounces and rolls and lists and yaws and that window catches the light a certain way. Suddenly, the texture! The glass is not just something you look through but something you look at - it's covered with a fine layer of sprayed mud, tiny particles of the stuff, and it almost looks like someone's tried to wipe all the grot off it before moving on to better things.
Details matter in Snowrunner. They matter because, like Spintires, the origin story of this strange and wonderful series, you have time to notice the details. It's not that you're up close as such, but more that the landscape moves past you at about two miles an hour, and that's when things are going well. This is a game about being stuck right in the moment - often a moment in which you're stuck, right, in the mud. You get time to see the breeze in the trees, the speckles of the earth, and the smear on the surface of a window.
Right, disclaimers up front for this one. I’ve known Tom Francis, developer of Gunpoint, for at least fifteen years. I remember when he was hired as Disc Editor (“What’s a ‘disc’, grandpa?”) for PC Gamer, I’ve eaten homemade pizza round his house, and felt cool because I already knew him when he was all super-famous at GDC in 2014. I can in no sensible way be expected to be objective about his creations. Fortunately I’ve never tried to be objective about anything in my life, and Tom’s now so successful he probably can’t even perceive the atoms I’m made of [exemplified in the further disclaimer that he used to write a column for us – ed.]. So I thought I’d have another play of Gunpoint.
It’s awful, isn’t it?
CERO, the Japanese entertainment rating organization, will resume operations on May 7, 2020, after temporarily stopping due to the pandemic.
The post Japan’s CERO Ratings Board Will Resume Operations On May 7, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.
Several months into a project to improve the League Of Legends client, Riot Games say they’ve made measurable improvements but also hit a few snags. After making progress enzoomening client startup times, Riot say it actually backslid a bit. But they’re not done, they think some slowdown might be caused by the state of *frantic gesture* all this, and they have more plans for speed boosts. Maybe this time they actually will fix the client.
A few months ago, Katharine reviewed the rather excellent (and catchily-named) MSI Optix MAG272CQR gaming monitor. While it’s not the best 1440p panel we’ve looked at (that honour goes to the AOC Agon AG273QX), Katharine gave it a pretty firm thumbs up thanks to its super accurate screen and high 165Hz refresh rate. At £399, it isn’t bad value, but if you’d rather save £100 and make do with a 144Hz refresh rate, then MSI’s slightly older first gen model of this monitor is now going cheap at Argos.
The art includes some notable figures — Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, R2-D2, and C-3PO from a prequel-era battle, Leia and Han Solo battling AT-AT's and Stormtroopers on Hoth from the original trilogy, and Rey, Kylo Ren, and BB-8 from the sequel trilogy, with Chewbacca, sporting his medal, alongside them. Looming large over them is Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, while notable vehicles and locations, like the Death Star, are also showcased.
While we're still waiting for a release date for The Skywalker Saga, we learned quite a bit about it at E3 2019 when we previewed the upcoming LEGO Star Wars.After 160 hours, it was finally time to reach a certain new milestone of my journey in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I’d seen and heard of players obsessing over their villagers to a concerning degree before, but I never quite understood their passion for these virtual talking animals. Until now.
Unlike a certain trash koala that I couldn’t wait to get rid of since the very start of the game, Maddie was a dog villager with a pop star personality that just brightened up my island every day I talked to her. She was one of my first five villagers, though, which meant that she could never be upgraded to her unique house, and would always be stuck with a generic home for her in-game personality type.
The first time she asked if she should move away, I answered with a very vehement “no.” She was glad that I wanted her to stay, then went about the rest of her day.
But as my island developed and more villagers came to stay, I started to notice the appeal of having unique houses for each of them. After a while, Maddie’s generic little home started to make me sad. She’s a pop star, dammit. She’s gonna make it big someday; she deserves a proper house to live in.
So when she asked me again if she should move away, I answered sadly, “Yes… you should.”
Game Freak's James, a Pokemon designer and Tembo director, celebrated May the Fourth with a piece of Darth Pikachu Star Wars fanart.
The post Pikachu Star Wars Design Created by Game Freak’s James Turner appeared first on Siliconera.
Traipse around your island in the latest looks by Marc Jacob and Valentino.
The post Marc Jacobs and Valentino Release Animal Crossing: New Horizons Outfits appeared first on Siliconera.
You may remember that a class action lawsuit was filed against in Nintendo in 2019, pertaining to the "drifting" technical issues that were bothering a bevy of Switch owners. Well, it seems that Microsoft is next in the firing line, as a similar suit has been filed against its top console brand, Xbox.
The suit was filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington by New York resident Donald McFadden. McFadden states that they purchased two of the pricey Xbox Elite Controllers that both exhibited signs of "drifting" - when analogue movements are detected by games despite the sticks themselves remaining stationary.
McFadden alleges that Microsoft is fully aware of the issue but "failed to disclose the defect and routinely refuses to repair the controllers without charge when the defect manifests." The suit directs attention to similar complaints from Xbox users found online, as well as repair videos, services, and replacement parts available from third-party sellers.
Nintendo's drifting lawsuit ended up in arbitration, following a judge's refusal to outright dismiss the case. Nintendo itself no longer charges for drift repairs, though it maintains that the Switch Joy-Con is a high-quality, precision product. The results of the Xbox suit - short or long term - remain to be seen.
Now Xbox faces lawsuit over drifting controllers [VGC]
A girl with flowers growing on her head and a mysterious translucent white being embark on an adventure to find a fantasy kingdom in a gorgeous new concept video for the sequel to Rayark’s touching piano-powered rhythm game, Deemo.
Valve has ended support for SteamVR on macOS so its dev team can focus on Windows and Linux. ...
On Star Wars Day, the holiest of days, we are duty-bound to celebrate the cultural monolith that is Star Wars. So let’s run through the most iconic characters from our beloved fascism allegory, and relive their finest moments.
It’s not a great time to be looking for the best gaming monitor deals at the moment, thanks to demand outstripping demand with supply chains disrupted around the world. We’ve done our best all the same, and below you’ll find some of the best gaming monitor deals going on right now.
To help you find your next gaming monitor for the best price, we’ve rounded up all the best gaming monitor deals from the last week right here. As well as including several of our [cms-block] 2020 recommendations, we’ve also included a bunch of other great gaming monitor deals that I’m confident will offer impressive performance and excellent colour accuracy. Whether you’re looking for the best G-Sync monitor deals or the best cheap ultrawide monitor deals, here are the best gaming monitor deals of the week.
A month on from its release on PlayStation 4, Modern Warfare 2's campaign remaster has arrived on Xbox One and PC. With developer Beenox taking point, the game features new texture work, lighting and post-process effects all delivered by a more advanced offshoot of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare engine. Perhaps as much remake as remaster, the game respects Infinity Ward's original vision, while modernising the game for the current generation. From our perspective, it was a success on PlayStation 4, and the Xbox One version is just as good - if somewhat under-ambitious when it comes to getting the most out of Xbox One X.
Still, at least there actually is support for Microsoft's enhanced machine. Looking back at the first Modern Warfare remaster from 2016, the game never benefited from any kind of specific enhancement. The only advantages came from the inherent improvements delivered by hardware-level backwards compatibility, meaning better performance and a dynamic resolution set-up that guarantees the top-level 1920x1080. That's still the case even today, but crucially, Modern Warfare 2 Remastered does deliver a higher resolution mode on X hardware.
Former Oculus exclusive Vader Immortal is coming to PlayStation VR this summer as a single experience encompassing all three episodes in a game entitled Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series.
Executive producer Mark Miller has also teased on the game's announcement at the Official PlayStation Blog that there will be more to share about the title on PSVR in the coming months, so stay tuned for further details.
For more on Vader Immortal, check out Reiner's review of the first episode.
[Source: Official PlayStation Blog]
Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment
An exploit in past Naughty Dog games gave hackers access to TLOU2 files
Photo by James Bareham/Polygon
A buyer’s guide to the PlayStation 4 platform, to help you get up and running quickly and easily
There’s tons of sequels launching this summer, but we’re most excited for some of the new stuff
In times of need, TV is a valuable resource — but one can only rewatch The Office so many times before it feels stale. Fret not: Though some shows and productions have been delayed due to COVID-19 concerns, many are still set to premiere and return. While they can’t offer the exact comfort of a tailored-to-coronavirus Parks and Recreation special, the new and returning shows of the summer promise to whisk away our collective attention to a different time and place far, far away from any...
Photo: Warner Bros. Studios via Polygon
With movie theaters temporarily closed, here’s what to expect
Photo: David Greedy/Getty Images
Mitchell’s scores were vacated from the leaderboards in April 2018
The company hasn't specified any games coming in the showcase, but we can likely expect first looks at its annual sports franchises such as Madden and FIFA, and we may get a glimpse at the next-gen Battlefield game coming in 2021. There's also the small matter of Project Maverick, the mystery Star Wars game that seemingly leaked in March.
EA Play is just one of the events in the IGN Summer of Gaming calendar, which will include broadcasts, announcements and news from the likes of CD Projekt Red, Sega, Square Enix and many more.
[poilib element="accentDivider"]
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter.
Image: Summit Entertainment
Image: Shutterstock via Polygon
Image: Electronic Arts
Graphic: James Bareham/Polygon