It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a new gaming keypad, but Razer is insistent on keeping up with the fad. The company just announced the Tartarus, which looks to be the successor to the ever-popular Nostromo keypad, but comes with a few more keys and Razer says that you get a lot of bang for […]
Grand Theft Auto V has been the talk of the gaming town for months now, and speculation is continuing to build as we get closer to the game’s release date. However, while we’ve seen past GTA titles release on the PC, Rockstar has yet to announce availability for GTAV on PC, but according to NVIDIA, […]
The popular horror-themed first-person shooter series FEAR is back, and this time it’s going free-to-play. Aeria Games has announced FEAR Online, an online, free-to-play approach of Monolith’s horror FPS series. FEAR Online will take the singleplayer aspect of the game and turn it into an online multiplayer experience.
The game will be developed by Inplay Interactive and will be available for Windows. The game will feature multiple team-based combat modes with ten different maps to choose from. Teams will consist of up to four players and will take on different kinds of enemies. The game will also bring back Soul King mode found in FEAR 3. This will get players “to possess enemies for new abilities and collect more fallen souls than their opponents.”
The game will continue off from the storyline following Alma Wade (the creepy ghost child), as well as focus on the FEAR elite team and the Armacham Technology Corporation. The game will follow a storyline parallel to that of FEAR 2: Project Origin. FEAR Online should be a nice transition from where gamers left off with the last title.
FEAR was first released back in 2005, and has since seen several expansion packs and sequels, including the Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate expansions, and then the FEAR 2: Project Origin sequel. An expansion of that game was later released, called FEAR 2: Reborn, before FEAR 3 was released in 2011. FEAR Online will reboot the series and bring back up to speed in today’s gaming market. Those interested can sign up for the beta now.
FEAR Online official, beta sign-ups happening now is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It’s no secret that Valve’s Steam digital gaming service holds gigantic sales throughout the year and discounts even the biggest games by 50% or more. This time around, we’re seeing probably the biggest sale of the year so far, which is Steam’s Summer Getaway Sale that is lasting 11 days throughout this month, with each day having its own set of discounted titles.
Headlining today’s sales is BioShock Infinite at 50% off for only $29.99. This specific deal will only last 24 hours, so the clock is ticking. You should be aware of four different types of Steam deals throughout this next week and a half or so. There are broad, store-wide discounts that older games receive; there are daily deals which last 24 hours; there are flash deals which only last a couple hours; and then there are community deals which are voted on by Steam users.
Obviously, the more broad store-wide deals usually aren’t that great of a deal, and usually deal with games that aren’t very popular. However, it’s the daily deals and flash deals that you’ll want to keep your eyes on. These deals only last a short amount of time, and usually consist of popular games that have deep discounts. Blink once and you’ll miss them.
However, if you’re like me and end up buying all of these cheap games but never play them because you have more important things to do, then we suggest hiding your wallets and implementing some self-control. It’s a hard thing to do when you can get Portal 2 for just a few dollars, but once you buy that first cheap game, it’s like a vicious cycle.
Of course, we’re not therapists and we’re not trying to advise you to be careful out in the crazy world of Steam sales — go crazy for all we care. Just be sure you’ll actually play them when you get them. Don’t end up like us, with a huge list of games that we’ve never played that we’ll never be able to sell again.
Steam’s Summer Getaway Sale underway: Hide your wallets is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Electronic Arts hasn’t been the most favored game publisher recently. They were crowned the worst company in America for the second year in a row, and their strict DRM policy isn’t really popular amongst gamers. To add insult to injury, the publisher is receiving more heat from PC gamers in India, as PC game prices are rising significantly.
Specifically, prices of EA games are going up at least 66% from last year, with some games even seeing a 133% increase. Last year, Battlefield 3 only cost around 1,200 rupees ($20), but Battlefield 4 will be priced at a whopping 3,499 rupees, or just shy of $60. As for console games, the price hike hasn’t been nearly as severe as PC games, which has the Indian PC community up in arms.
Currency exchange rates actually have very little to do with the price hikes. Instead, EA and its distributor are mostly just wanting to unify prices worldwide. EA wants to shift prices in India closer to international prices, which results in a huge price hike for EA games in India. This obviously isn’t going over so well.
Indian PC gamers have launched a Twitter campaign using the hastag #EAPCIndia to show EA how the price hike will negatively impact the PC gaming market in India, hinting to the possibility that piracy may be on the rise again.
As for whether or not EA will be backtracking on its decision to hike up prices in the country, it’s a coin toss, but knowing them, they like to keep their customers happy (for the most part), which we saw during the SimCity fiasco, where they ended up giving buyers free copies for their troubles. However, we’re not so sure that EA will pull a 180 on this one, seeing as how India isn’t a huge market for the game publisher in the first place.
VIA: Kotaku
SOURCE: IndianVideoGamer
EA up against Indian PC gamers in Twitter coup is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The recent announcements of the latest next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony have stirred up a lot of renewed fanboy wars, but Alienware general manager Frank Azor says that consoles are simply “becoming more and more like PCs,” proving that the PC is the ultimate gaming machine, and Microsoft and Sony are simply taking that
Microsoft demoed Xbox One gameplay during E3 2013 this past week, and we even got to see some live gameplay for ourselves with Crytek’s Ryse. However, it seems Microsoft didn’t actually use the Xbox One to play these new games. Instead, it was discovered that Windows 7 gaming rigs equipped with NVIDIA GeForce 700-series GTX
The last time we saw BMW get into the gaming PC market was way back in 2009 with the Thermaltake Level 10 case. It was certainly a beauty, and something that we’ve quite never seen before. However, BMW is back again with something new, and it’s a complete gaming PC for ASRock. It’s called the M8, and it’s different from the Level 10 in the sense that it actually looks like a traditional gaming PC this time around, but it comes with some unique features.
The M8 is ASRock’s first Small Form Factor PC, and both companies are planning to officially unveil the new rig during Computex next week. What’s perhaps one of the coolest features of the case itself is that the side panels are stuck on with magnets rather than traditional screws, so access to the internal components is a lot easier.
The front of the case has a giant knob that has an integrated OLED screen for displaying things like fan speeds, temperatures, and usage stats. The knob can also adjust the speed of the case fans to make it a bit more quieter during those times when you’re not in the heat of virtual battle.
BMW says that the case was designed to be either laying vertically or horizontally, and they say it’ll “look good from any perspective,” which we can’t argue with them too much according to the images we’re seeing laid out before us. Apparently, BMW put a lot of thought into the design of the case, saying that it “is very much an exaggerated mode of expression. It speaks to the gamers’ souls and offers iconic differentiation in a small gaming PC.
ASRock says that “one does not play games on a boring gaming rig. Gamers should be able to feel the adrenaline rush the moment they power on their PCs, just as drivers get fired up the moment they start their engines.” Specs for the new gaming PC weren’t released, however, but we do know that it’ll have 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, as well as a Creative SoundCore 3D quad-core processor for audio.
VIA: Jalopnik
SOURCE: BMW
ASRock M8 gaming PC appears with BMW design cred is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One come with some pretty impressive hardware on the inside. So good, in fact, that Electronic Arts CTO Rajat Teneja believes that the performance and hardware in the Xbox One and PS4 “are a generation ahead of the highest end PC on the market,” so not just gaming PCs in general, but the best gaming PC ever.
After that, he didn’t mention PCs again, only saying that “benchmarks on just the video and audio performance are 8-10 times superior to the current gen,” saying that “the compute capabilities of these platforms and the data transfer speeds we can now bank on, essentially removes any notion of rationing of systems resources for our game engines.”
The Xbox One comes with an 8-core processor along with 8GB of RAM. We’re not told about specifics, but a good guess would that both the PS4 and the Xbox One are running AMD’s Jaguar chip. Compared to gaming PCs, most gamers have a quad-core processor in their gaming rigs, with a few 8-core chips floating around.
However, Microsoft nor Sony have revealed what graphics their respective consoles are running, but if they’ve seen the just-announced NVIDIA GTX 780 Titan graphics chip, I’m pretty sure they’d run away whimpering. Imagine two of those cards in SLI — the gaming prowess would be practically infinite.
However, it’s possible that Teneja doesn’t actually mean these new consoles are faster, but rather just have newer technology in them, meaning that the processor inside the Xbox One and PS4 are so new, that it isn’t available for PCs yet. Then again, from the way that Teneja worded his blog post, it seems to mean that PCs don’t stand a chance against the next-gen consoles, which is quite saddening to hear.
VIA: Polygon
EA CTO: Xbox One and PS4 “are a generation ahead of” PCs is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Online gaming and ESports is starting to gain some significant popularity in China, which is said to be potentially one of the biggest markets for pro gaming, online gaming, and mobile gaming. According to the research firm Niko Partners, the online games market in China will reach $11.9 billion this year in revenue, and it will continue to tack on $2 billion more each following year for the next 5 years.
The online games industry in China has grown from a $100 million industry in 2001 to a $9 billion industry as of 2012. Many gamers in China are currently addicted to League of Legends, with many of them going to their nearest I-cafes to play. With the expanding popularity of online gaming and competitive gaming, many companies are investing their resources into China in order to take advantage of the future goldmine.
Riot Games, the creator of the vastly popular League of Legends game, will be holding its LCS All-Stars tournament in Shanghai from May 24th to May 26th. It’s the first time Riot will be holding an international event in China, and its expected to be the biggest all-start event “in gaming history”. Activision is also looking to get its foot into the Chinese market. It teamed up with Tencent, a Chinese investment holding company with 37% of the Chinese PC online games market share, to test out Call of Duty Online in the country. The game recently underwent Alpha testing, and it will be available free to all players in China.
Online games have huge potential in China, and many developers are planning on bringing their games over. However, Niko Partners advises game developers to only launch free-to-play games in the country. Niko Partners told Forbes that the current F2P model, where gamers can play the game for free, but can also purchase in-game items with real money, has been working well for China. The research firm says,
“It is the business model that makes sense for that culture, and in my opinion for the rest of the world too. Pay for a service to access a digital product, not the easily-copied digital product itself. Pay to be part of an experience, and pay for as much of that experience as you want to pay for.”
[via Forbes]
ESports and online gaming gain significant popularity in China is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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