The day has finally come. Xûr, the exotic weapon and armor salesman in Destiny, is selling Gjallarhorn. For those of you who missed purchasing Ice Breaker from Xûr when it was first on sale—you know, back when strange coins were still strange and not slowly accumulating into the hundreds in your vault—try not to miss the boat on this one.
For 17 strange coins you’ll have the opportunity to buy at least several to make up for its absence from your inventory–and Crota hard-mode runs–for the past few months. Unless you already had one, then continue in your apathy.
Now while this may appear to come as literally the best thing ever, we should reserve that feeling of extraordinary bliss. In the Update Preview released by Bungie on July 16, they stated the intention to nerf Gjallarhorn’s Wolfpack Rounds. So for those of us who never had it, at least we’ll get one that’s not as good.
The reason for nerfing it? Apparently everyone was using it and “was so strong that for many people it had become the only answer to getting through tough encounters.” Who knew?
Additionally citing that they “strive for Destiny to be a place where a single weapon or strategy does not dictate how, or with whom, you spend your time.” (Maybe if DLCs—okay, every level in the game—weren’t just the same maps run in reverse I’d be inclined to agree with that assessment.)
So at least now while you’re waiting on your 8-second Ice Breaker cool downs (also to be in the new patch), now you have some time to admire the five Gjallarhorns in your inventory you just bought.
As our swollen feet and scarred souls can attest to, this year’s Gamescom was quite a show. We had two intrepid men on the ground across the three days, who between them managed to devour nearly 80 appointments (and approximately four whole food meals). In the wake of the excitement we’ve carefully considered all that was laid before us and, after much chin stroking, have come up with our games of the show.
These have been split into two categories: things we actually played, and things we only saw. Joel and Jeremy have picked a winner and a runner-up in each, giving us a total of… carry the one… eight games. Read, enjoy, call us big idiots in the comments!
Games we played
Winner: Dark Souls III
Joel: Anyone who knows my gaming predilections will find this as surprising as the Earth continuing to orbit the Sun, or people in supermarkets still not knowing how to use the self-service checkouts. I love the Dark Souls games like the imaginary children that I don’t have, and am delighted with how this is shaping up.
When I saw it back at E3 the FromSoft team were making all the right noises: bigger environments, traditional Souls combat, sexy new graphical whizzbangery. And all of this is bolstered by the fact that creative genius Hidetaka Miyazaki is in charge once again after stepping back from (the still very excellent) Dark Souls II.
While I loved Bloodborne, having a shield strapped into my left hand again felt hugely comforting, even if my parrying skills have clearly rusted somewhat. It’s also great to know that the variety and choice of weapons is present and correct - within a 30 minute hands-on I had the chance to try out three different blades, including a meaty greatsword.
So far, so Souls, and even the environment - sprawling ramparts known as the Wall of Lodeleth - had a familiar feel to it. However this is a series in which the Demon Firesage is in the details, for too many tweaks will wash away what makes the games so special. Here those come in the form of (at least with the build I got to try): quicker movement, offset by a stamina bar that drains more rapidly; Estus flasks being far quicker to use than in the previous game; and a ‘ready stance’, which increases the moveset for a given weapon, allowing you to do things like break through shield defences or wallop enemies into the air.
Once the technical kinks are ironed out, there’s little doubt that the gameplay is going to be up to snuff. Where this falls on the Souls spectrum will likely be down to the design of the environments and the feel of the world as a whole, and the degree of narrative satisfaction. With Miyazaki back in charge, all signs point to gorgeous view ahead.
Winner: Eve: Valkyrie
Jeremy: It begins just as past Valkyrie demos have: you jerk your head this way and that about your cockpit, taking a second to adjust to arms and legs that aren’t yours as your ship’s systems come online. Then you’re flung from somewhere within the bowels of a much bigger vessel, along the runway of a huge magnetic slingshot, gasping out into space. And it’s still glorious.
But what comes next is new: not the tentative fire of other pre-alpha players, but the voice of your lieutenant in your ear. This is the first time we’ve played a scripted single player mission in CCP’s competitive dogfighter. It’s supposed to be a simple escort mission - doomed as soon as your lieutenant makes the mistake of saying the word “routine”. It's the scale that gets you as you break formation to weave around the capital ships you’re protecting (“Where are you GOING, pilot”). They are whales to your plankton.
And of course it goes spectacularly wrong. A fleet warps in without warning. You’re ordered to swat the ships buzzing around the carriers, and for a minute there’s a chance to appreciate the honed laser jousting of the game proper - the firm push of the thrusters behind you; the driftless movement designed to dodge simulation sickness; the way velocity bleeds as you turn, granting a moment’s grace to lock onto passing fighters. You’re peripherally aware of the screams and gurgles in your headphones. It is not going well.
And then you are dead. Not yet, but it’s coming. Your meeting with the vacuum is booked at the precise moment the Amarr Titan pops into being before you. In the footage, I can see that its distinctive dome, the most terrible Sky dish in the universe, takes up maybe a third of the screen. In VR, it feels like you’ve been swallowed whole. As it charges up a shot, energy lashes across the Titan like solar storms on the surface of the sun. Your wards are blown to smithereens, and the debris opens your cockpit like a tin can. Electronics crackle, and you watch those new arms freeze.
The lieutenant’s still audible, just. And so is her resignation: “See you in the next life.”
Bewilderingly, this shiver-inducing bit of fan service is intended just as an on-ramp for the multiplayer - there are no current plans for a fully-fledged single player campaign. Until there are, you’ll find me outside the CCP office with a placard.
Runner-up: Star Wars: Battlefront
Joel: I am not a hardcore Star Wars fan. In fact, given how far lovers of the series take their passion, maybe I don’t even qualify as a fan at all. But I’ve seen the films multiple times (the good ones, at least), enjoy them, and admire the scope and scale of the universe.
One thing I’m pretty sure I am going to be a fan of, however, is Battlefront. I played both the co-op Survival Mode and the multiplayer Hoth battle at E3, and each was authentic like having your hand cut off by your own father. Now I’ve had a chance to fly about in the new Fighter Squadron mode, and it’s every bit as wonderful.
This is Battlefront’s aerial combat mode, in which up to 20 players pilot X-Wings and TIE Fighters - or, if you collect certain upgrade tokens, more pimping vehicles such as the Millennium Falcon itself - and duke it out across the skies. It’s accessible in a way that piloting Battlefield’s vehicles never has been: flight is easily controlled (even if I did stack it into the ground on more than one occassion) via the analogue sticks, with evasive maneuvers mapped to the D-pad. A fairly generous lock-on system aids the aiming of your cannons, and there are missiles, speed boosts and the like which work via cooldown.
Much like the ground game, DICE haven’t felt the need to overcomplicate things. Simple, satisfying systems mesh with an incredibly evocative visual and soundscape to make what will surely be the definitive interactive Star Wars experience. Geez, I sound like I’m writing the press release…
Runner-up: Skyworld
Jeremy: VR tabletop games are an idea that early Rift developers have tended to nod along to during convention panels - before returning to their simulated cockpits and first-person adventure games. A team in Rotterdam, bless them, are really doing it. Don the Valve-endorsed HTC Vive to play Skyworld, and you’re presented with a circular table. You can spin it like a Lazy Susan by grabbing at its edges using the kit’s two wireless controllers. But there’s no need when you can physically walk around the Vive’s tracked space, checking the hex-covered board from all angles or - though it goes against every knee-preserving instinct in your body - stepping right into the centre of it.
With your head literally in the clouds, you can point and poke at the pieces dotted around the map’s central mountain - directing soldiers to attack enemy production buildings and, eventually, a many-turreted castle. My developer guide suggests I might want to order in a few more units, and he’s right - because as soon as I select the armoury, the table flips to reveal a clockwork man hammering away at his anvil. For an encore, we cast a spell to take control of the dragon perched atop the board’s peak - directing the wyrm at my cheek to light up one of the forts below.
It’s important to stress that none of this feels gimmicky: dragon commands might be endgame material, but Skyworld feels like a very real and grounded strategy game. It’s lent extra earthiness, in fact, by the efforts developers Vertigo have made to style their troops like miniatures. Valkyrie is wonderful, but VR’s capacity for making PC games tactile shouldn’t be overlooked. Games we saw
Winner: Ubisoft VR demo
Joel: I’m definitely cheating here, because I did actually play this… but I didn’t gohands-on. How so, you ask? Because my first glimpse of Ubisoft’s virtual reality output was a tech demo controlled entirely by head-tracking. LOOPHOLE.
In it you are put into the… feathers of an eagle soaring across the Paris skyline. It’s graphically very lo-fi - think of how Assassin’s Creed Unity probably looked two months into development - but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the experience brilliantly conveys a sense of speed, and the controls are remarkably responsive. Tilt your head so that your ear touches your shoulder and you’ll peform an extremely tight turn, and you have such taut reigns on your bird of prey that you can even dive right down to street level and weave between buildings, under bridges and the like.
What also matters hugely is the lack of motion sickness. I, it must be said, am really not very good when it comes to tolerating the physical effects of virtual reality gaming. In fact, only a few hours before I sat down to try this I’d had another VR experience - one that, on paper, was far more gentile. However in the wake of that I felt extremely nauesous, so when I was told what was about to happen at the Ubi stand I was none too thrilled. And yet, 20 minutes or so of soaring around a high speeds, ducking and diving through the Eiffel Tower, and I felt fine.
My enjoyment may have been boosted by the fact that the multiplayer component of the demo, a capture the flag affair in which you could squawk at other bids to take them out, went extremely well. Apparently I have natural aptitude for avian deliveries.
Winner: XCOM 2
Jeremy: They could have done so much less. That’s what struck me about Firaxis’ sequel to the game that revived turn-based tactics. Julian Gollop, by his own admission, only got X-Com right once. Only now, with Chaos Reborn, is he close again to having a dense strategy layer speak meaningfully to the skirmishes beneath.
It took a large team at Firaxis four years and a few false starts to do the same - and nobody could have blamed them for positioning players once again as Earth’s last-ditch defence against invasion. Yet in November we’ll be captaining a mobile base on a planet long since captured by the aliens.
There’s a nod to Enemy Unknown in the form of the globe, still levitating above the staffers in Mission Control. But it flickers and disappears as the camera nears, replacing the sphere with a flat view of the planet’s continents. It’s here that theCommander - say it in gravelly baritone for best effect - will work to expand the resistance, scanning for missions and reacting to the ADVENT administration’s countermeasures.
Like you, the aliens have short-term aims as well as long ones. And like you, they’re researching. Dark Events will occur - enemy attempts to build better armour, or advanced ammo - and you can have a go at preventing them. But you won’t succeed in stopping them all.
It’s that realisation, that the baddies are playing Enemy Unknown while you play XCOM 2, that makes this sequel so exciting. The geospace antics are vaguely reminiscent of the espionage of Invisible Inc., but there’s nothing else directly comparable. Firaxis know they got it right first time - so they’ve built something with the same ethos, the same desperation, from an utterly different perspective. Welcome back, Commander. You’ve got some catching up to do.
Runner-up: Sonder
Joel: I spent 30 minutes being given a one-to-one demonstration and explanation of this indie title from Macedonian studio Kamai Media, and I’m still pretty confused. But I’m also intrigued. This is a game in which you can control any of the cast of characters, switching between them freely… or you can play as none of them.
Each has an AI personality so will go about their business independent of your control, but you can jump in at any time in order to select from dialogue options or make choices. And the choices you make will have a real impact on the game, not just in the short-term, but way down the line within the six episode structure. The Kamai team have crafted their own non-linear narrative system which tracks each decision and alters the world accordingly, and it’s incredibly complex - I’ve seen under the hood of this thing, and it’s like a spider ingested a rainbow and then continually shot out webbing while riding atop a Spirograph.
The general conceit is that humans have been sent on a mission into space, cryosleeping their way to a far-off planet. Yet, predictably enough, they wake up while en route and… things start happening. There are echoes of Alien, minus the flesh-hungry xenomorph (I think…), and Moon, only with less crippling loneliness.
You can rewind to any point at any time in order to change your choices or explore alternate timelines, and you’ll need to - while episodes will only take 20 minutes or so to complete start-to-finish, information you gather during each playthrough will be crucial to solving the mystery at the centre of the game. And keeping characters alive, because every single one of them can be killed off if you muck things up. Good luck with that.
(Sonder will be coming to Steam Early Access in mid-September, with the first episode releasing fully in October.)
Runner-up: Skyshine's Bedlam
Jeremy: There remains one aspect of Fallout 1 which isn’t often referenced or replicated - its time limit. The original Vault Dweller was given a gentle shove out into the wasteland not to find their dad or their destiny, but to source a replacement part for their bunker’s water cleaning facilities. A 100 day ticker instilled overland travel with a sense of urgency unusual in a genre that, before and since, has taken a more meditative tack.
Skyshine’s Bedlam feels like the natural successor to that forgotten aspect of Fallout. It’s a tactical post-apocalyptic RPG that goes full roguelike - placing you in charge of a crew of killers making your way across the desert in a ginormous, upgradable armoured vehicle, the Dozer.
The aim is to make it from the metropolis of Bysantine to the mythical utopia of Aztec City with as much of your gang as possible. And the idea is that each attempt is a single session - a series of random encounters that you probably won’t survive.
In combat, the divergent abilities and AI routines of your Marauder, Mutant and Cyborg enemies leave Bedlam reminiscent of Card Hunter. You can’t move everybody in a turn, so scraps are positional puzzles in which you do your best to keep your raiders out of trouble and stick the knife in when you can.
I’m a bit worried Skyshine’s Bedlam won’t get the attention it deserves when it arrives in September - not least because there are two Bedlams out this year. Don’t let it happen. Take 'em down to Aztec City.
Microsoft teased its audience at the Gamescom 2015 about a new and special edition of Xbox One controllers based on the upcoming Halo game, and now just recently pre-orders for the controller have gone live. Halo 5 themed Xbox One controller is currently available on Amazon, GameStop and the Microsoft Store for $70.
What’s new and unique about this set of controller is that it represents a Master Chief vs Spartan Locke theme of Halo 5, giving it a bright touch of a basic green army color. Apart from this, Microsoft has also announced a Halo 5 Xbox One bundle once the game is officially launched in October this year.
The bundle is said to be priced at $500 and will include a 1TB console, a special edition controller and a copy of the game along with several other Halo 5 items.
In other news regarding Microsoft Xbox One, the company had recently teased a new elite Xbox One controller at E3 2015. What’s new about this controller is that it comes with four slots for interchangeable paddles, along with an entirely new and classy look and Hair Triggers for those who play shooting games on their consoles a lot.
The new Elite controller is said to be developed for pro-level gamers and will certainly offer a completely different experience than what the original Xbox One controller gives.
So I spent hours trying to find the best 40'' tv with the least amount of input lag. I made the decision that the Samsung UN40EH5300 it's a 1080p 60hz 40'' TV.
I've been fiddling around with the calibration on xbox one where it walks you through a few pages to get the best picture ( Closed eye, open eye, etc... )
I have my settings at 36 frames , PC ( RGB FULL ) , 1080P.
Yet I can't see the " closed eye " ever. Even when I make my TV as bright as possible. Are some TV's just not able to see the closed eye? I know some tv's can't display the sun but what about the closed eye? I did everything the menu said as well " HDMI Black level" "Black input" I tried every single variety of settings with my tv.
Also the TV just looks... mediocre like I wasn't amazed at how great battlefield 4 or Forza looked. My 20'' 4 year old Dell monitor seems to have nicer colors. Is that normal? is " game mode " killing my picture quality?
So my questions are:
1.Does " game mode " just kill the picture quality and I should live with it?
2. Does it matter if I can or can't see the eye and the sun and just set the TV settings to what I think is nice ( I usually have my settings extremely bright and colorful to the point where my eyes almost bleed )
3. Is there a better 40'' TV? ( not a Vizio or mitsubishi or subaru I want a legit brand )
Mozilla is testing a new private browsing mode in Firefox that doesn’t just keep no trace of your porn browsing habits on your machine but that also blocks online services that could track you while you’re surfing the web.
That’s not unlike what plug-ins like Ghostery and the EFF’s Privacy Badger can do for you, but Firefox now combines that with its own incognito mode.
“Our hypothesis is that when you open a Private Browsing window in Firefox you’re sending a signal that you want more control over your privacy than current private browsing experiences actually provide,” the Firefox team writes today.
Even when you are in the private browsing mode, after all, online services can still track you through techniques like fingerprinting, even when they don’t have access to all of the cookies on your machine.
If you’ve ever used a plug-in with this kind of functionality, you’ve probably seen sites that simply break under the unbearable pressure of not being able to track you. Just like these plug-ins, the experimental Private Browsing mode lets you unblock some trackers so you can still use these sites.
The latest updates to these pre-beta versions of Firefox also now enforce add-on verificationto keep users safe from rogue extensions.
Mozilla has lately gotten a lot of flak for adding features like a messenger and built-in Pocket support to Firefox. Adding this enhanced Private Browsing mode, however, will likely be something most Firefox users will welcome.
Thanks to Apple updating Boot Camp, that is. If you have had a hankering to try out Microsoft’s latest operating system — and I can recommend at least taking it for a spin — now’s the time.
Apple’s full directions here are worth your time, but the broad strokes are simple: If you have a Mac no older than ‘mid 2012,’ and are running the most recent build of OS X, you should be able to get Windows 10 running without too much bother.
Boot Camp will also let you upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 if you have a prior build running on your machine at the moment. If you don’t have Windows installed already, you will probably have to buy yourself a copy of the code. Microsoft is providing a year of free upgrades, after all, not a free ride for everyone.
TechCrunch’s initial impressions of the first, “final” Windows 10 build remains: Lots of promise, more polish than Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, and a return to desktop preeminence. That and it’s still a bit buggy.
Here’s the full list of compatible Macs, via Apple:
Microsoft likely doesn’t mind Apple making it easier for Mac users to run Windows 10 — after all, it has to reach that billion device threshold. I doubt the software firm cares much about what device is running Windows 10, provided that it is in fact running the code.
It’s Friday, so if you were going to play around at your desk and call it work, you now have a prime excuse. Good luck.
The Apple TV is expected to get a hardware upgrade, but no new service until 2016. (Courtesy of Apple)
Waiting for Apple's breakthrough television service? You may have to wait a little longer.
While many were hoping that Apple would launch a new TV service at its usual fall iPhone event, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a note that the tech giant will probably delay the expected TV service until 2016. According to a report from Apple Insider on the investor note, Apple is still negotiating contracts with content providers. In the note, Munster said that he puts the chances of seeing the TV service debut at 50-50.
We've heard this tune before; many Apple observers expected that the company would release a streaming TV service this spring alongside Apple Music. But, after reports of protracted negotiations, those hopes faded even before Apple chief executive Tim Cook took to the stage.
Competition in the streaming video space is more crowded than ever, as more and more traditional television and cable companies look to put their content on smartphones and tablets. Apple will have to compete not only with the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon for consumer subscription dollars, but also with a growing number of networks and other companies such as Dish and Sony, which offer their own separate streaming services.
But coming late to that party doesn't necessarily spell doom for Apple. While the proliferation of streaming services is giving users more choice, it's also made for a confusing landscape. Cord-cutters have made it clear that they don't want fat cable bundles that force them to pay for channels they don't want. But paying for several, small services is also a pain. If Apple can waltz onto the scene with attractive, slim bundles that give users a good sampling of networks at a lower price, it will have a good market.
That's definitely a tall order, however, which may explain why there are so many delays. Apple's reputation is for releasing polished products — even if its Web services, such as Maps, tend to be a bit less gleaming than its hardware — and its consumers are less likely to tolerate launch glitches. Just look at the launch of Apple Music.
