Herding Cats…In Space
By T.J. Hafer @ IGN
I made the jump into Ancient Space, looking to replenish my fleet-based, sci-fi RTS reserves, and what I found did the trick—but only just. Around me shimmered a constellation of gorgeous environmental art, strong mission variety, and impressive tactical depth. But the more I saw, the more I felt weighed down by the gravity of uninspired story presentation, and gameplay elements that sound better on paper than they are in practice.
There is something rather dark lurking at the centre of Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which just might make it the most mature offering this gaming franchise has seen in a while.
By Nick Cowen @ CVG
It’s not reinventing the series in terms of mechanics and structure by any means. Advanced Warfare looks, sounds and plays like its predecessor for the most part – the addition of jetpacks notwithstanding. The E3, Gamescom and more recent reveals have ticked the usual COD boxes: layered multiplayer, high octane campaign set-pieces and – this just in – the addition of a Survival mode similar to that in Modern Warfare 3.
And yet, on closer inspection, Advanced Warfare seems to be treading in far more nebulas moral terrain than its predecessors. In past entries in this series, players controlled Rangers, Marines, SAS thugs and Black Ops bagmen, but never at any time were they under the impression that the soldiers at the centre of the action weren’t the good guys. Advanced Warfare has no such safety net.
Release date set for Crusader Kings II expansion and other DLC
“Charlemagne stubbornly did what he wanted and refused to listen to doctors, indeed he detested them, because they wanted to persuade him to stop eating roast meat, as was his wont, and to be content with boiled meat.” – Einhard
And who more stubbornly does what they want than Crusader Kings II players? In ten days you will have another century to beat into shape. New kingdoms, new characters, new events; Roland has sounded his horn and Charlemagne is coming.
Paradox Interactive today revealed that “Charlemagne”, the newest expansion to the best-selling strategy game Crusader Kings II, is scheduled to release worldwide on Tuesday, October 14, 2014. Charlemagne adds new story events, the ability to create new kingdoms, and an additional century to play. The expansion also features game options to allow players to follow their progress in history with the inclusion of a new in-game “Chronicle” that highlights a dynasty’s conquests, marriages, and labors for the faith.
The new video developer’s diary from the Crusader Kings II development team goes into some of the gameplay changes that await you.
Charlemagne will be available for Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs via digital stores everywhere for 14,99USD. In addition, Paradox will also release four new pieces of downloadable content (DLC) to accompany the new expansion for Crusader Kings II, which will let players further customize their in-game kingdoms beyond the options already included in Charlemagne.
New DLC designed for Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne will also be released alongside the expansion. Period appropriate clothing and portrait packs for the Early Middle Ages will be released for both Eastern and Western Europe and the Dynasty Shields: Charlemagne collection will give appropriate coats of arms. An e-book of the medieval epic “Song of Roland,” will also be released on October 14.
To learn more about Crusader Kings II, visit the games official website.
Gary Grigsby’s War in the West, the massive new strategy masterpiece, confirmed for 2014!
“No amphibious attack in history has approached this one in size. Along miles of coastline there were hundreds of vessels and small boats afloat and ant-like files of advancing troops ashore” (Dwight D. Eisenhower – Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe)
July 1943 – The German war machine is jammed. On the Eastern Front the Soviets are progressing relentlessly, and Rommel had to retreat and finally leave North Africa. But to make the Axis capitulate, the Allied forces have to turn up the heat on the Western Front. Even if the German army has been weakened after 4 years of ruthless combat, its soldiers are battle-hardened veterans and its commanders are building almost impenetrable defensive lines in Italy. The time for launching massive seaborne and airborne operations has come; the Western Front is re-opened!
Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings the players all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to their plan.
Today we have the pleasure to unveil that the game will be released in early December 2014! So watch out for more details and get ready for the release!
Get more information on Gary Grigsby’s War in the West from the official product page.
Developer claims AMD tech has “kick-started” a new generation of lightweight APIs
Independent UK developer Rebellion today announced that summer chart-topper Sniper Elite 3 is the latest in a small but growing list of high-profile games to include support for AMD’s advanced Mantle API.
Released today as a free Steam update timed to coincide with AMD’s recent Catalyst™ 14.9 WHQL driver release, the Sniper Elite 3 update also includes a new Benchmark mode for both Mantle and DX11.
Writing in an in-depth analysis of Mantle’s performance impact on Sniper Elite 3 for the Rebellion website, the studio’s Head of Programming, Kevin Floyer-Lea explained why Rebellion was so keen to support the API from the beginning:
“This brings the PC closer to console programming, where developers are used to having direct control over available resources and squeezing the most out the hardware.”
Floyer-Lea continues “Whatever else may happen with Mantle in the future, it’s most definitely kick-started a move to more lightweight APIs”, referencing the recent announcements made around Microsoft’s DirectX 12, Apple’s Metal, and Khronos’ Next Generation OpenGL initiative.
Check out the “Benchmark Mode” video HERE.
Find out more at the official Rebellion Blog.
By Kenny @ PureOC
In the past few years, the Closed Loop Cooler has advanced liquid cooling much further into the mainstream market. Today we’re looking at the latest, the Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate. It has a 360mm radiator with lots of cooling potential, and it looks very impressive. Let’s take a closer look and see how it fares in testing.
By Ian Cutress @ AnandTech
ASRock is quietly confident of its OC Formula range. We awarded the Z77 version because of its aggressive tactics at the $240 price point and while the Z87 model offered even more but at $330 it missed that sub-$250 market which cheaper overclocking builds are built on. The Z97 OC Formula ditches the Lamborghini on the box and comes back down to earth at $210, although the feature set becomes lighter as a result. The mainstream overclocking motherboard market is always hot at $200, so today we are putting the Z97 OC Formula through its paces.
By Niels Broekhuijsen @ Tom’s Hardware
In a blog post, Bryan Langley from Microsoft has written that the final version of the just-announced Windows 10 will come with DirectX 12. To be clear, the current technical preview that’s available does not come with DirectX 12.
In the blog post, Langley points out that Microsoft has also been working with Epic to create a DirectX 12 branch in the Unreal Engine 4 GitHub repository. If you’ve been granted a pass to the DirectX 12 Early Access program, you can already kick off your development for the new API on Windows 10.
What makes DirectX 12 so interesting is that it allows developers to code much closer to the hardware, resulting in reduced overhead and therefore improved performance. This is similar to AMD’s already-available Mantle API, which was designed from the ground up to deliver better performance than DirectX 11.
Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.
