New Dying Light The Following Story Trailer

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Techland, the developers behind Dying Light, have given fans another glimpse into the story for the upcoming expansion in a brand new trailer titled “A Prophecy Incarnated”. This trailer also gives viewers a brief glimpse at some of the new characters to be introduced in this expansion as well as its’ new environments.

Dying Light: The Following is a major expansion for the original 2015 game. Following the original game’s protagonist The Following drops players into a new area known as Harran’s Outback. Game-play balance is adjusted in The Following with a focus on wider open rural areas, drivable vehicles and the usage of firearms.

There are multiple ways that players can gain access to the following – it will be included in the re-release of the original game with several improvements as Dying Light: Enhanced Edition, it will be included for Season’s Pass holders or separately as ala carte DLC for $19.99 USD.

Here is the brand new trailer:

[youtube id=”n-YAUSsk4xM”]

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Pathfinder Rusty Dragon Inn Miniature Set Now Available

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Pathfinder Miniatures

Any experienced tabletop RPG player will tell you that having the proper miniatures can help the immersion of a good gaming session immensely. Sure, the orc you just slew might be represented by a left over red RISK piece but wouldn’t it look better if it was an accurate painted plastic model instead?

WizKids has announced that their latest line of miniatures, The Rusty Dragon Inn set. This set includes figures which includes 51 figures based on heroes, villains, NPCs and other characters from the popular fantasy RPG setting.  These figures are available in two different configurations, as a $15.99 USD booster that includes 4 figures (1 large and 3 standard sized) or a $127.99 8 booster pack brick for the more serious collector.

Pathfinder Miniatures

It has actually been a long while since I played a good pen & paper RPG and Pathfinder just might scratch my RP itch. For the uninitiated the Pathfinder series of role-play systems builds off of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rule-set using the D-20 Open license and is backwards compatible with most Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 books. Not only does Pathfinder smooth out some of the rough rule issues with 3.5 but it also expands on the existing classes and has a colossal 350 monster bestiary!

If you want a closer look at WizKid’s figures they’ve got some promotional shots on their official website.

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Independent Games Festival 2016 Finalists Announced

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

The Independent Games Festival have announced their line-up of finalists across seven different categories for the IGF Awards which are to be announced during the 2016 Games Developer Conference in San Francisco California.

It must have been a painstaking process for the 400 evaluators to select this small list of finalists from among the more than 750 entrants that were in the running this year. Evaluators are selected from industry professionals based upon their expertise in the distinct categories, according to the IGF.

So what is in the running this year? Toby Fox’s Undertale, the minimalistic train simulator Mini Metro, the gothic turn based RPG Darkest Dungeon and the crime fiction game Her Story, just to name a few.

Check out the full list of nominees after the jump. Broken Joysticks will be attending the Game Developers Conference this March and will bring you as much coverage from the IGF awards & other events as they happen!Read More

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Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Open, Servers Crash Despite $600 USD Price Point

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Oculus

As expected Facebook owned Oculus opened up pre-orders for their much anticipated virtual reality headset this morning. No one knew what the price point of the fledgling technology was going to be before the pre-order page went live. Potential Oculus Rift owners were greeted with a $599 USD (849.99 CDN) price point and of course there was so much traffic going to Oculus’ servers that at times the page wouldn’t load.

So what does almost a thousand dollars Canadian get you? There’s the Oculus headset of course but the slickly packaged virtual reality headset also includes several other items in its’ stylish black case. You’ll also get an Xbox One controller for Windows, the Oculus Remote which the company says “”is a new input device we designed to make it simple and intuitive to navigate VR experiences.” Also included in the $599 USD package are redeemable codes for EVE: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale – two of the games available for the platform at launch.

The Rift will ship to 20 countries initially starting on March 28th and of press time pre-orders placed today are expected to ship sometime in June of this year. Oculus has also announced that they will have a “limited retail presence” launching in April.

Are you excited for the prospect of Virtual Reality? Let us know in the comments section. If you’re wondering if your PC is up to snuff to run Oculus Rift here are the minimum specs as released:

  • graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
  • processor: Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
  • memory: 8GB+ RAM
  • output: Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
  • input: 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
  • operating system: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer

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Valkyria Chronicles Remastered First Trailer Released

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

You might have missed it over the holidays but SEGA’s official YouTube channel released a new trailer for Valkyria Chronicles Remastered for the PlayStation 4.

In addition to a higher resolution (1080P versus the PS3 original’s 720P) the PS4 version includes an additional difficulty level called “Hard EX Mode” and three additional chapters that expand the game’s story. First print copies of the game will also come with a playable demo for the upcoming action spinoff Valkyria: Azure Revolution.

There has been no word on a western release. The last time a Valkyria game was released in North America and Europe was the PC port of the original game on Steam.

[youtube id=”uhm7Abn6sOA”]

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A Boy And His Blob Heading To Xbox One and PlayStation 4

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

A Boy And His Blob

WayForward Technologies’ 2009 reimagining of  A Boy and His Blob is coming to the Xbox Live Marketplace and presumably the PlayStation Network in just over two weeks time.

Spotted by eagle eyed readers on the Xbox Live Marketplace this current gen port of the Wii original looks to boast impressive 2D art assets that no doubt benefit from the bump to an HD resolution. The Xbox One version will clock in at about 2.19GB if the Xbox Live Marketplace is correct.

The game is a 2D platformer where the player, taking the role of the titular boy, must utilize his friendly blobs shapeshifting powers to solve puzzles.

Here is the official description from Xbox Live:

A Boy and His Blob makes its triumphant return! As the boy, you feed Blob jelly beans and watch him transform into cool and useful objects to solve puzzles and escape danger. With its robust and emotionally driven story, challenging puzzles, and visually impressive art style, A Boy and His Blob marks the re-release of this 2009 cult-classic!

We will have more on A Boy and His Blob as soon as it is officially confirmed. The original 2009 version appeared exclusively on Nintendo Wii.

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Steel Series Announces The Rival 700 – A Mouse With A Headshot Counter

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Steel Series Gaming Mouse

Hardware manufacturer Steel Series has announced the Rival 700 Smart Gaming Mouse, a pretty neat piece of kit that is being marketed to the hard-core Counter Strike: Global Offensive crowd. What makes this mouse worthy of your headshots over say a rival mouse? Aside from a number of pretty neat inclusions, which I’ll get to in a moment, the Rival 700 Smart Gaming Mouse has a build in OLED screen that will act as a headshot counter when using StatTrak weapons in Global Offensive.

Aside from the customizable OLED screen (which can be tweaked using the Steel Series Engine) the Rival 700 Smart Gaming Mouse is modular allowing owners to swap out their cables as well as sensors made from a variety of different materials.

Steel Series  also hopes that player’s wont just use the Rival 700 for input but also for receiving new forms of feedback.  Included in the body of the mouse are small vibration motors near the palm rest that can be customized to make distinct patterns depending on the alerts you are receiving in game.

If you want more information on the Rival 700 Steel Series has an entire marketing website dedicated to all of the fine details about their latest high-end input device. This 7 button highly customizable mouse will retail  for approximately $99.99 USD according to Steel Series’ press release and will be available later this Spring.

 

Steel Series Gaming Mouse

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Rise of the Tomb Raider Minimum PC Specs Announced By Square Enix

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix’s sequel to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be making its way to Windows PC on January 28th 2016 the publisher announced alongside the game’s minimum specs.

The minimum specs for Rise don’t seem so bad – the game only requires 25GB of install space, which is similar to the PS4 / Xbox One console versions. In terms of required graphics hardware you’ll need to be running an NVIDIA Geforce 650  or an AMD HD 7770 or better with at least 2GB of video ram. In realistic terms this means as long as you are running mid-tier hardware from 2012 Rise of the Tomb Raider will run albeit with some features disabled.

In terms of exclusive Windows PC features Rise of the Tomb Raider will feature support for 4K resolution, if your rig is up to snuff. It will also be one of the first games to use NVIDIA’s VXAO technology – which provides a voxel based performance boost for lower end GPUs and the game will be fully integrated into the Windows 10 Xbox game software.

Multiple editions of Rise of the Tomb Raider are available for Windows PC. The standard edition will set you back approximately $59.99 USD, the Digital Deluxe Edition will cost aprox $89.99 USD and it includes the Season’s Pass along with all existing DLC. If you are feeling like spending the big bucks there is a physical collector’s edition that includes all of the above, a free copy of 2013’s Tomb Raider, a replica necklace and journal from the game and a 12 inch Lara Croft statue.

If you are feeling adventurous you can pre-order Rise of the Tomb Raider here.

Tomb Raider Minimum Specs

Minimum OS: Windows 7 64bit
Processor:  Intel Core i3-2100 or AMD equivalent
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 650 2GB or AMD HD7770 2GB
RAM: 6GB
HD Space: 25GB
DirectX: DirectX 11

Rise of the Tomb Raider CE

Here is everything included with the physical collector’s edition for Rise of the Tomb Raider.

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NVIDIA Opens Up CES Keynote With Self Driving Car Announcements

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Today at their CES press event NVIDIA opened up their discussion of upcoming technologies with their recent investments in self driving cars. A special computer developed by NVIDIA called the NVIDIA Drive PX2 is powered by a 12 CPU-core system that is liquid cooled and contains the companies upcoming Pascal GPU.

NVIDIA is billing their self driving car initiative as something that will revolutionize society by spurring urban re-design, more accessibility to transportation and reduced number of fatalities. Jim-Hsun Huang called humans the weakest link in the driving equation. NVIDIA is trying to position themselves as a provider of the systems that will power the future of self-driving car.

According to Mr.Huang there will be two different theories behind self-driving car concepts:

  • The car as a virtual driver – The car is equipped with sensors and offers advice to the human operator
  • Driver-less car: On board computer handles all of the driving, no human operator needed.

During the presentation Mr.Huang also discussed the recent development with artificial intelligence and the concept of “deep learning” – the ability for software to find details on its own based upon past “experiences”. NVIDIA’s GPUs powered by the CUDA core is used in a number of A.I Neuro-Net projects like IBM’s Watson. By using GPU technology the processing of deep learning has leaped 20% – 40%.Read More

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AMD Officially Announces Polaris Line of GPUs Due Out Later This Year

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

We’ve known for a while that AMD has been working on a new iteration of the Graphics Card Next platform codenamed Polaris. Today the company made it official, with the apparent release of several slides containing information on the new architecture.

As predicted the new cards will be branded under the Radeon 400 series moniker and bring with them a whole host of improvements over the previous generation Radeon 300 series. In terms of the manufacturing process AMD will be using a combination of 16nm fabrication alongside a licensed process from Samsung that uses 14nm. They’ve also focused on the performance per watt, making the Radeon 400 series less demanding on laptops when compared to its predecessors.

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UK Sales Charts For The Week of Jan 2nd Dominated By Black Ops III

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Black Ops III

Our first games sales numbers to include the post holiday discount period have arrived thanks to the weekly UK software charts. Not surprising several AAA franchise compose the top ten including EA’s Star Wars Battlefront, Activision’s Call of Duty and Bethesda softwork’s Fallout 4.

What is a little surprising is to see Just Cause 3 crack into the top ten – currently occupying the 8th place. Considering that game was released so late in the pre-holiday season (early December) it is encouraging to see it ahead of Forza Motorsport 6 and just behind the latest Assassin’s Creed.

Here are top ten titles from the UK for the week ending Jan 2nd:

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Xbox One Exclusive Scalebound Delayed Until 2017

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Platinum Games has posted an update on the development of their exclusive Xbox One roleplaying game Scalebound. The development team has decided to delay the title until an unspecified time in 2017. Platinum says that the extra time will allow them to implement new features and achieve their ambitious vision without compromise. Up until now it was expected that the game would launch sometime this year.

Scalebound was originally unveiled at E3 2014 during Microsoft’s press conference. The game focuses on protagonist Drew who must venture through the massive world of Draconis where dragons roam and 20% of the world is covered in a mysterious Pulse energy. The idea for Scalebound began taking form sometime during the development of Bayonetta but the technology available at the time did not allow for Platinum to realize their vision.

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Check Out This Stunning 4K Star Citizen Short Film

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Star Citizen

Star Citizen is one of those games that I’ve kind of been keeping an eye on for some time. Despite not actually owning it, I’ll still find myself going to YouTube and watching footage from the latest PTU patches and additions as well as read the developer’s announcements simply because the game’s scope and aesthetic fascinate me.

Enter some absolutely drop dead gorgeous gameplay curtesy of YouTuber Xenthor Xi. While some of the scenes in this 8 minute 4K demonstration are rather mundane – watching Xenthor’s ship landing or it’s pilot eject into the emptiness of the void are not that impressive on their own but combine them with some clever editing and a smooth Jazz soundtrack and you’ve got something reminiscent of Cowboy Bebop.

I can’t wait to see what else the community comes up with!

[youtube id=”Rb4XE3c41Xg”]

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Ever Wanted To Build a $30,000 Computer? Because This Guy Did It!

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

What is your dream computer? I bet it’s nothing like the computer that Linustech built that cost a whopping $30,000 USD. Comprised of seven individual systems housed in one giant case it is an entire LAN Party contained in one giant box.

In all honesty if you wanted to build a single PC comprised of most of the parts that Linustech used it wouldn’t cost the down payment on a house.  Each individual system is powered by an Intel Xenon Processor – which is a server class processor most game players wouldn’t put into their rig, a top end AMD Nano Fury Graphics Card and a staggering 32GB of DDR 4 ram.

This video was sponsored by Kingston and the monster computer will be on display at their booth at CES later this month.

Alongside his list of parts Linus Tech also posted a 15 minute video that gives an excellent tour of this absolutely amazing build.

[youtube id=”LXOaCkbt4lI”]

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Hackers Get Full Windows 95 To Work On New 3DS

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Nintendo 3DS Windows

Only one day after the new year we’re going to party like it’s… 1995?

A clever hacker has gotten Microsoft’s two decade only operating system Windows 95 to run on Nintendo’s New 3DS according to a post on console modification forum GBATMP.  RetroRampage37 released a rough build of the Windows 95 hack and certainly it fill our minds with the idea of playing older DOS games on Nintendo’s handheld.

As of right now the hack does not appear to work on the original 3DS but to be sure the community is working on it. As for the utility of this hack – it is pretty much useless outside of playing older DOS games like Sim City 2000, Command & Conquer, the original DOOM and other older gems. Also playing these games in what amounts to a DOSBOX with no keyboard is also less than ideal.

Nevertheless – for now Windows 95 has been revived on the New 3DS, until Nintendo patches whatever loophole RetroRampage37 used to run unsigned code on the hardware.

[youtube id=”nu3_X6HcVrI”]

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