Month: September 2016

escape-from-tarkov-logoBattlestate Games has presented a new video of the online game Escape From Tarkov. The action takes place in the different weather and time of day, from the perspective of a former operative of USEC, one of the two Tarkov factions.

Escape from Tarkov is a hardcore and realistic online first-person action RPG/Simulator with MMO features and a story-driven walkthrough.

With each passing day the situation in the Norvinsk region grows more and more complicated. Incessant warfare in Tarkov has sparked massive panic; the local population has fled the city, but those who stayed are looking to improve their fortunes at the expense of others. Having accepted the new reality, savage Tarkov locals – “Scavs” flocked into well-armed gangs and started the redivision of the city. Nowadays, Tarkov is separated by unseen borders, controlled by different groups. Gain-greedy gunmen would go to any length to have their way, including the murder of civilians and direct confrontation with the two private military companies.

The players will have to experience living in the skin of one of the mercenaries who survived the initial stage of the Tarkov conflict. After choosing one of the sides – USEC or BEAR – the player’s character starts to make his way out of the city. Tarkov is sealed off by UN and Russian military, supply chains are cut, communication with operational command is lost, and in these conditions everyone has to make his own choices of what to do and how to get out of the chaos-ridden metropolis.

More info on Escape From Tarkov can be found at the game’s official website.

Escape from Tarkov MMORPGs | Donster | |

call-of-duty-infinite-warfareActivision and Infinity Ward have released a brand new story trailer gives fans a glimpse into the narrative featured in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s rich story campaign. The game returns to the roots of the series for a classic war story that, for the first time in franchise history, extends beyond the reaches of Earth into the vast expanse of our solar system.

The trailer also features the first in-game footage of actor Kit Harington, who plays Admiral Salen Kotch of the Settlement Defense Front, and UFC fighter Conor McGregor, who plays Captain Bradley Fillion of the Settlement Defense Front.

You can watch the explosive new trailer here.

Additionally, fans can pre-order the game to get access to the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Multiplayer Beta that begins October 14, first on PlayStation 4.

For more information, fans can check out: www.callofduty.com

Sunflower Update Brings Host of Improvements to Wargame

Today, Paradox Development Studios released the first major update for its hit World War II grand strategy wargame, Hearts of Iron IV. The “Sunflower Patch” is largely devoted to improving the game’s AI and user interface, as well as the usual changes to Hearts of Iron’s balance and historical database, plus a number of bug fixes.

You can read the full list of changes and updates on the official Paradox Community forum here. But read on for a brief list of some of the highlights in Sunflower.

  • Changes to how peace conferences are handled, based on a design by Steam user Neutrino
  • Hotjoin now available for multiplayer games, so you can connect to a match already in progress
  • Custom difficulty settings let you adjust the relative power of Germany, Italy, France and the Soviet Union
  • More nations can now be released as independent countries
  • Re-sync button added to address connection issues without rehosting the game
  • AI more likely to update templates, build nuclear reactors and cancel unnecessary production
  • AI less likely to risk encirclement, opt for a Communist France or throw everything at North Africa
  • Naval combat has been balanced to prevent light cruiser spam
  • Changes to national territorial cores (Portugal loses, Sinkiang gains)
  • A number of crashes caused by modding have been fixed
  • Submarines better at finding surface ships, worse at finding other subs

Go to the Community Forum for the complete rundown of all of the improvements and updates now available for everyone that owns Hearts of Iron IV.

For more information on Hearts of Iron IV, check out the games official website.

order-of-battle-blitzkriegThe hit Order of Battle: World War II will be expanded with a new campaign DLC focused on the first blitzkrieg wars of Germany in the Second World War, and a free major update!

Order of Battle: Blitzkrieg

On 1 September 1939, under the pretext of reclaiming the city of Danzig, German armed forces invade Poland. Honoring their diplomatic treaties and driven by the desire to maintain the balance of power in Europe, France and Great Britain swiftly declare war on Germany. This chain of events sets in motion the greatest war the world has ever seen: a Second World War…

Order of Battle: Blitzkrieg brings you to those frantic years which saw Germany successfully incorporating modern aircraft and tank technology in their military doctrine, and then unleashing their newly rebuilt war machine on the rest of Europe. This new DLC aims at representing those years and those brilliant campaigns, from the invasion of Poland to the Fall of 1941 and the Wehrmacht advance being halted only by the cold bite of Russian winter.

It brings several new nations, tons of new units and 12 new scenarios! Pure, unadultered, 100% Blitzkrieg gameplay.

Get more information on the product page.

Important: the game is entering its beta testing phase; we need your help to quash bugs and we want to hear your feedback, so please feel free to apply here. It’d be of great help!

A new major update for Order of Battle: World War II

The Blitzkrieg DLC will be accompanied by a big free update to the base game! What does it add?

Well, along with many balance changes and bugfixes, a brand new Specialization System is being added to the game! Complete major and minor objectives during scenarios and earn Specialization points, then spend them in the Specialization tree and completely customize your army as you see fit.

It’s not all. We’re adding a new Import Tool to carry over your core army between campaigns! Play through Morning Sun, then carry over your troops to Rising Sun! Or maybe play through the entirety of the Blitzkrieg campaign, and then use your battle hardened regiments in future-yet-to-be-announced campaigns ;) I’m probably speaking too much here.

Hardware | Donster | |

command-live-spratly-spatThe South China Sea is an area where the economic and geopolitical struggles bubble just covered under the surface. Numerous low-intensity conflicts have erupted over the years, and many countries have tried to extend their territorial claims over key islands and atolls.

In particular, domain over the Spratly Islands have been strongly disputed by China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines and other nations. The large reserves of oil and the huge volume of maritime traffic make this area crucial to the regions balance of power.

China, the strongest player in this delicate game, has recently strengthen her sea power, deploying her first aircraft carrier – the PLAN Liaoning – with the clear intent to achieve definitive military superiority, dissuading her rivals from direct military action.

However this deployment itself has disrupted the balance of power. Could it lead to an escalation that ends with open conflict for regional supremacy?

Command LIVE: Spratly Spat, the third installment in the ambitious Command LIVE series, will explore this fictional – although perfectly credible – situation!

A full analysis of the situation has been dispatched and it is already available!

Stay tuned! Command Live: Spratly Spat will be released on September, 20th!

Get more information about the game from its official product page!

Command LIVE Strategy and Wargaming | Donster | |

zotac-sonix-pcie-480gb-ssdBy  Jeffrey Edson @ PureOC

NVMe SSDs are the enthusiast topic of interest right now. The storage industry has become affordable in the SSD market, but is trending towards NVMe as a replacement. This is faster and can reach GB/s rather than MB/s. It does this by bypassing the ACHI protocol and pushes the boundaries of what basic SSDs can’t. I will be looking at a Zotac implementation of NVMe using an HHHL PCIe card at 480GB. This is Zotac’s first consumer NVMe drive, and claims speeds of up to 2600 MB/s over PCIe gen 3. Let’s see if this drive can push the limit of NVMe and stand out among its competitors.

Read The Review Here

Hardware Storage | Donster | |

toshiba-ocz-vx500By Chris Ramseyer @ Tom’s Hardware

We’ve seen tremendous growth in the entry-level SATA and premium NVMe SSD segments over the last year. The middle ground has gone relatively untouched, but it is far from neglected. The mid-range has consolidated and now includes the SATA SSDs that we previously considered premium products. Toshiba’s OCZ division has historically enjoyed a lot of success in this area, and it is looking to take the segment back with the VX500.

Read The Review Here

Hardware Storage | Donster | |

newhardware-iconCheck 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.

Hardware | Donster | |

flying-tigers-shadows-over-china-logoNarrated YouTube video tells it all!

As the big things of this world – governments, corporations, institutions – are losing traction, independent air-combat action game Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China (FTSOC) grinds along like an old river barge up Burma’s Salween gorge, fending off Japanese assaults on the left while expecting Allied reinforcements from the right. It’s been quite some time since you’ve heard from us gamedev-mechanics here at Ace Maddox, so hopefully today’s additions will make you all pleased.

Live on Steam now, this straight-forward update adds a good amount of content and bugfixes, and we’ve simply decided to call it “COCKPIT/CAMPAIGN”. Check out the voiced YouTube video for a thorough overview, or scour the changelog below for a quick rundown.

Update History/Changelog:

  • Four new cockpits and “wide” interior camera added. Hop inside the P-40E, Buffalo Mk. I, Lysander Mk. II or the Japanese Ki-43 fighter! If you’re playing on keyboard and/or mouse, just press the V key to check out the newly added cockpit “wide” camera. And, there’s also a refurbished bomb-targeting system for when you’re seated in cockpit mode.
  • Voice actors exhausted as Campaign nears competion. Development of FTSOC’s historical single player campaign is almost complete. We’ve updated some of the older voices, while a multitude of actors have been working around the clock to record the remainder of the Campaign mission’s screenplay in proper. We suggest you give the Campaign a full playthrough, so you can hear for yourselves.
  • Controller vibration. For those of you who prefer to play/fly with a gamepad, there’s now controller rumble for stronger “immersion”.
  • Improved rendering. Shadows and reflections look sharper and are more stable now, this specially noticeable when you’re seated inside.
  • Toggle HUD elements on the fly. Press the H key while flying to control displaymode of the various HUD elements (handy feature when recording video or FRAPSing stills).
  • Ship models. We’ve updated most of the game’s warship models, plus added a typical Southeast Asian wooden cargo ship, namely the Malayan Bedar (which, incidentally, does not look entirely unrelated to the Chinese junk).
  • More Challenges. We’ve added two new mini-missions in the form of challenges, so go ahead and take that dusty old Vildebeest for a bit of tinfish-safari off the Akyab coast in the new TORPEDOGS challenge, or try out the bombs and machine guns of the Allied P-43A fighter in GROUND ATTACK.
  • Added captured Japanese fighter. We’ve implemented a captured P-40E fighter, bombs included, to spice up multiplayer cockpit-dogfighting a little. Enjoy the flight!

About Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China:

Currently in Steam Early Access, Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China (FTSOC) is a historical air-combat action game based on the true events of America’s secret volunteer squadrons that flew against Japan in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre of World War 2. Secretly recruited under President Roosevelt’s authority, the Flying Tigers were officially known as the “American Volunteer Group”.

Get more information about the game at the official Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China website.