The beta version of Dishonored 2's performance-orientated Update 1.2 is now available on Steam
- By Ash
- in News
As is tradition with most AAA games these days, Dishonored 2 released on the PC with a whole host of bugs and issues. To Arkane Studios' credit, however, they responded rather quickly by releasing a small beta update in order to correct some of the more egregious issues. While it certainly helped, especially for AMD users, this wasn't the 'big' patch that was supposed to fix most of the problems.
That honor belongs to Update 1.2 which just recently landed on the Dishonored 2 beta client on Steam. It brought with it numerous performance and optimization improvements, a couple of fixes for the dreaded framerate stuttering, the squashing of many alt-tab related bugs, as well as a variety of other changes. If you're interested in the full list I would suggest you head over here, but for now allow me to just show you the highlights:
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is coming to the PC in Q2 2017
- By Ash
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Despite being absolutely insane the Danganronpa series has managed to settle in quite nicely among the PC crowd, so much so that the original now stands at a 97% approval on Steam - not the easiest of feats to accomplish. Given the reception so far it really shouldn't surprise you to hear there are even more Danganronpa games heading over to the PC in the near future.
This time around its Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, and even though the name might lead you to believe its the same brand of madness, in reality it is more of a spin-off game. Unlike the visual novel style of gameplay from the previous games, Ultra Despair Girls is more of a third-person action adventure with horror elements. Perhaps it would be for the best if you just saw the trailer, rather than watch me desperately try to explain the unexplainable:
An upcoming Dishonored 2 update will add a New Game + mode and customizable difficulty settings
- By Ash
- in News
When it comes to stealth games, the good ones anyway, there are always a wide variety of strategies for each and every mission. Some players (me included) like to sneak in undetected and leave nothing more than a couple of guards with headaches in their wake, others prefer to instead set the entire building on fire and dispatch all of the guards with ruthless efficiency, and others yet prefer to carefully thread the line between sneakyness and stabbyness.
Trying to create a game that equally balances out each of those playstyles is nearly impossible, because what one side might find fun and engaging the other side will see as a living nightmare. The only real way to make this work is to allow the players a way to create their very own difficulty settings, which just so happens to be exactly what Dishonored 2 devs are planning to do!
Here's a short gameplay preview of Star Citizen's FPS module 'Star Marine' coming in with Alpha 2.6
- By Ash
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While I'm still not sure whether Star Citizen is the brain child of a genius or a madman, there is no denying that its scope is absolutely massive. The final version is supposedly going to feature interplanetary exploration, a massive and fully realized universe, trading, various crafting professions, traditional space-sim combat, and even a dash of FPS combat to spice all of that up. And that's just all of the things the developers are talking about right now, who knows what they're going to cook up in the future!
But rather than focus on what might happen when Star Citizen finally releases, let's instead focus on what's coming with the upcoming Alpha version 2.6 - FPS combat! And in order to give you a taste of what is to come the developers released a brief gameplay preview showcasing all of that 'Star Marine' action. Have a look:
System Shock Remastered's estimated release date has been pushed back to 2018
- By Ash
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[Update]: The System Shock Remake has now arrived, and it's looking quite good so far! The console versions are also on the way, though those will be coming at a later date.
Ever since System Shock Remastered got successfully Kickstarted back in July the estimated release date was set for December, 2017. As you can probably guess from the title, this is no longer case given that the latest Kickstarter Update has brought with it a brand new estimate - the second quarter of 2018. While these sort of delays are certainly to be expected given how early in development System Shock Remastered currently is, I still can't help but feel a tinge of sadness knowing that I won't get to play it for well over a year.
Then again, that is not technically true as System Shock Remastered already has a playable demo, albeit from a very early alpha build. If you're interested in what that might look like, the developers also released an accompanying trailer showcasing their work so far. Check it out:
Ubisoft's upcoming extreme winter sports game Steep is currently free to try out
- By Ash
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Ubisoft's extreme winter sports game Steep is set to release soon, and if you're interested in getting in an early sneak peek you currently have a chance to do so. All you have to do is head over to its Steam page, install the open beta, and try to make it down the mountain without 'tagging' every single tree along the way.
The open beta will end on November 21, however, so if you really want to give it a proper try I would recommend starting the download as soon as possible. On the other hand, if you have absolutely no idea what Steep is all about, let alone whether you should even care about it, here's the recent overview trailer to hopefully clue you in:
Rocket League's next update will allow you to create and share your training sessions
- By Ash
- in News
Back in the 'old days' you could simply start up a Rocket League match, bounce the ball around like a drunken maniac, and occasionally score a goal while doing so. These days, not so much. While Rocket League didn't become any more complicated over the months, at least not to a significant degree, the playerbase has most definitely become a lot better at it!
Given the rather sharp increase in player skill it has become quite apparent that the in-game training options are just not up to par. Thankfully, Psyonix has just recently announced that not only are they well aware of these issues, but that they are almost ready to release their solution - a customized training mode!