Mar 19
At the Game Developers Conference, Facebook has revealed it averages 375 million people playing games connected to the social network per month. This represents connected gamers playing games on both … Continue reading
Mar 19
Flappy Bird is an unlikely story of rampant success, unanticipated stardom, and, for some on the gaming end of the app, endless frustration and feelings of soul-crippling failure. It was … Continue reading
Mar 19
1985′s Gauntlet was an amazing game that I spent way too many hours (and quarters) playing in the arcade. So I’m excited for its return so I can add even more hours to my record. Gauntlet fans have been waiting for this for some time.
Arrowhead Game Studios is developing the game and it will be a top-down co-op action RPG for PCs (with Steam integration). All of your favorite characters will be back. Which will you play?
Each character will have its own strengths and weaknesses. The Warrior does the most damage in melee combat; the Wizard has the most powerful magic; the Valkyrie has the most armor, and the Elf is the fastest. Pretty much what you would expect. Check out the trailer for some gameplay footage:
It looks pretty awesome to me. The dungeons look a bit too much like Diablo III, but I can live with that, given that Diablo quite possibly wouldn’t exist if not for the original Gauntlet.
[via The Mary Sue]
Mar 19
Dust off your PS Move controllers. At the 2014 Game Developers Conference (GDC), Sony unveiled Project Morpheus, a virtual reality headset accessory for the PlayStation 4. The headset will work in conjunction with the PlayStation Camera, the DualShock 4 and the PS Move to bring VR to PlayStation users.
The current prototype uses its built-in accelerometer and gyroscope as well as the PlayStation Camera to achieve 360º head tracking. It has a 5″ 1920 x 1080 LCD display with a 90º field of view. Sony also said that the headset will have stereoscopic audio to help with the immersion. Sadly, Gamasutra says the headset has to be connected to a PlayStation 4 by a cable, and Sony “currently has no plans to build a wireless version.”
Sony hasn’t given a release date or price for the headset. According to Gamasutra, Sony is still struggling with the challenges presented by virtual reality, saying that the company is “…still actively working to figure out how to “solve” the problems of VR, and that many of those problems remain unsolved.” That said, the company claims it’s working with game engine makers like Unity, Epic Games and Crytek to help with the headset’s software.
Sony set up a demo booth at GDC where attendees could test prototype units, so we should hear more about how it performs very soon.
Mar 18
It was only a matter of time. The Oculus Rift has caught so much attention—deservedly so—that of course one of the big dogs was going to start honing in on its virtual reality territory. Tonight, that’s Sony. And its Project Morpheus VR headset sounds fantastic.
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Mar 18
Microsoft has detailed what gamers can expect from the April Xbox One update set to arrive in the near future, the brunt of which revolves around improvements to already established … Continue reading
Mar 18
The long-awaited SimCity update that brings gamers an offline mode has arrived today, having gone through its final testing that will hopefully keep anything catastrophic from happening. This is Update … Continue reading
Mar 17
Nintendo’s “enhanced remake” of the legendary N64 launch title Super Mario 64 was a Nintendo DS port that added new characters, game modes and more. With his remake, YouTuber Aryoksini is going to improve at least one aspect of the game: its graphics.
Aryoksini is remaking Super Mario 64 using Blender, an open source 3D animation suite that has a built-in game engine. He has a long way to go – and that’s if Nintendo allows him to go on – and makes it clear that the video you see below shouldn’t reflect the finished game.
Keep an eye on Aryoksini’s YouTube channel for future updates. Nintendo’s lawyers You can also watch him work on the game on his Twitch channel.
[via CVG]
Mar 17
Redditor bacongrease00′s wife made this tome of bread and icing. It bears the cover of The Book of the Dragonborn, one of the books in Skyrim, but inside you’ll find vanilla cake and cannoli cream filling.
Unfortunately for bacongrease00 he won’t be able to stash even a crumb of the cake, because his wife made it for someone else. At least he got some karma out of it.
[via Reddit via Insanelygaming]
Mar 16
Steam Controller Touchscreen Replaced with Buttons: Button Diamonds are Forever
Posted in: Today's ChiliWhen Valve unveiled its Steam Controller last year, I was quite skeptical about the value of its built-in touchscreen. It turns out many of Valve’s testers had the same opinion. This January, at the 2014 Steam Dev Days conference, the company announced that it was ditching the touchscreen for a more conventional button configuration.
In the video below, you’ll see Valve’s Eric Hope and John McCaskey talk about the evolution of the Steam Controller at Steam Dev Days. At around 23:35 into the video, Eric talks about the point when they realized that the touchscreen was not really that useful. See, Valve added a “ghost mode” that displayed an onscreen prompt showing you what part of the touchscreen you’re touching as soon as you touch it.
Ghost mode was a great feature. So great that Valve realized it rendered the controller’s screen – which Eric said was the most expensive part of the controller – pointless. Removing the touchscreen also allowed Valve to ditch the built-in rechargeable battery and switch to AA batteries, further driving the cost of the controller down.
Then at around 25:39 in the video Eric discusses why the ABXY corner buttons on the previous prototype also had to be scrapped. Valve labeled the face buttons A, B, X and Y to make them familiar to gamers, only to arrange the buttons in an unfamiliar layout. The result was a jarring experience for testers, who had a particularly hard time accepting the fact that the four ol’ buddies were split into two groups.
As Eric said in the video, the controller is still undergoing internal testing and is nowhere near its final form. They could bring the touchscreen back. They could also place the buttons a bit farther apart. You know what they say about people with big thumbs: they have trouble with cramped controllers.
[via Valve via Ars Technica, Gamasutra & Gamesblog]
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