Monthly Archives: October 2017
First 13 Original Xbox Games Announced for Xbox One Compatibility
Microsoft has revealed the first 13 backwards-compatible original Xbox games for Xbox One to IGN – several of which we got to play. These first 13 will be available tomorrow, October 24. All are enhanced with 1080p resolution, higher and/or smoother framerates, and faster loading times.
These are the first 13 games you can play on any Xbox One if you own the title, beginning tomorrow:
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Ninja Gaiden Black
- Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
- Fuzion Frenzy
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
- Psychonauts
- Dead to Rights
4 Xbox 360 Games Getting Xbox One X Enhancements
Microsoft’s Xbox backwards compatibility team is adding Xbox One X-specific enhancements to four high-profile Xbox 360 games that are already playable on Xbox One: Halo 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Assassin’s Creed. All four updates will be available for free to anyone who owns the game on November 7, the same day the Xbox One X launches.
Some titles now have 10-bit color depth unlocked where they previously had 8-bit, others have HDR lighting enabled, and all have nine times the on-screen pixels. I got to see Halo 3 running in a developer mode that clearly showcased the difference. The left half of the screen was standard Xbox 360 emulation on Xbox One, which already offers framerate smoothing and other subtle benefits. On the right it had HDR and the 9x pixel count.
How to Play All of The Evil Within 2 in First-Person on PC
A hidden console command lets players turn The Evil Within 2 into a first-person survival horror.
As reported by DSOGaming, the modification switches the camera from behind the shoulder of Sebastian Castellanos to within his tormented grey matter.
The line of code necessary for the change seems to have been left in the game by developers Tango Gameworks.
Due to the fact that there is a first-person section already in The Evil Within 2, it is unclear whether this is an Easter egg for savvy fans or an experimental tool used by the development team.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 Campaign Takes ‘5-7 Hours’ to Complete
Arguably Star Wars: Battlefront 2's biggest change is the addition of a single-player campaign mode, and a producer on the game now says it will take "around 5-7, maybe 8 hours" to finish.
Speaking to Press Start, Motive studio producer David Robillard explained that the team "wanted to stay very driven towards the Star Wars fantasy that the players are going to experience and not have it be drawn out".
IGN recently went hands-on with the game's first three chapters, taking around two hours to do so, which should give some indication of how the mode's missions are divided up.
Walking Dead: How Rick’s Attack Compares to the Comics
The Walking Dead's Season 8 premiere, "Mercy" (which was also the 100th episode of the series), was overflowing with intense action as Rick coordinated a multi-pronged attack on Negan and the Saviors. This plan was also a major part of the comics story arc of "All Out War," some of which we've already seen back in the Season 7 finale and Sasha's transformation. Set-pieces have been shifted around a bit, for the sake of the TV series, but Rick's assault on the Sanctuary remains mostly the same.
How The Darkness and Quake Helped Shape Wolfenstein II
Jens Matthies has made a name for himself by showing the gaming world his spin on IPs that may not be his own, but that have been forever changed as a result. Today, Matthies is the creative director at MachineGames, and is about to release Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Before his work on Wolfenstein: The New Order and its sequel The New Colossus, Matthies worked at Starbreeze Studios.
In its infancy, Swedish studio Starbreeze cuts its teeth on original IPs The Outforce, Enclave, and Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. For its fourth title, Matthies and the rest of Starbreeze worked on an unoriginal IP, which had some cult-classic street cred, at least for movie fans. Writer/director David Twohy’s sci-fi action-horror Pitch Black was about to have a cinematic sequel, and Starbreeze was in charge of creating a game prequel that would tie in to the universe – The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
WWE TLC: Live Blog and Results
So this PPV sure as hell changed a lot over the last 48 hours!
A backstage outbreak of either viral meningitis or (now reportedly) mumps, that we'll just call "Mumpingitis," has felled both Bray Wyatt and freakin' Roman Reigns, causing them to miss the TLC PPV completely. Now AJ Styles is subbing for Bray, in a match against Finn Balor that's got just about every fan super-excited, and Kurt Angle is making his return to a WWE ring for the first time since 2006 to team with Seth and Dean in the 5 on 3 handicap main event. It's all nuts!
How will they account for Kurt wrestling against his own RAW guys when he's GM? How will they protect the dude in a match that's filled with giant, dangerous table spots? Will he get knocked out backstage, spend most of the match off-camera, and then come down for the clean up win at the end? Will he get taken out and replaced by Jason Jordon? They wouldn't promise us the moon and then deliver Uranus like that, would they?
PUBG Creator Talks About Xbox and the Future
We caught up with Brendan Greene, better known as PlayerUnknown, during TwitchCon and spoke with him about the future of his runaway hit.
Greene sees the future of PUBG as a service, where you buy the game and it evolves with time, rather than working toward a sequel.
"We still want to polish and refine, add more maps, add more assets," he said.
Greene told us even when the game was still a mod, he imagined it would make a great eSport someday, saying the TwitchCon PUBG Omen Challenge was the sort of spectacle he hoped to one day see.
For the upcoming Xbox One version of the PC megahit, Greene told us he believes the community will drive the "competitive edge" of the game.
Box Office: Boo 2! Tops, Geostorm and Snowman Flop
Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween opened in first place this weekend at the North American box office, debuting to an estimated $21.7 million.
While the film didn't quite reach the $28.5 million debut garnered by its predecessor in 2016, Lionsgate's sequel, directed by and starring Tyler Perry, was well received by moviegoers, earning an A- CinemaScore.
This weekend also brought with it the debut of Geostorm, which placed second with $13.3 million and received a B- CinemaScore. Director Dean Devlin's disaster film, starring Gerard Butler, is shaping up to be an expensive flop, given its sizable $120 production budget. While Geostorm has done better in foreign markets, making $49.6 internationally, the film is still a far cry from being considered a success.
The Original Rambo Is As Important Today As Ever
Many old movies, when you go back and watch them, feel horribly dated. Some of the best movies might hold up cinematically, but even those can feel ancient when you start to dig into the themes and ideas. As First Blood - yeah, the original Rambo movie - hits its 35th anniversary on October 22, digging back into it proves that while, yeah, it's definitely a movie from 1982, it's also an amazingly prescient one. It's intelligent, vulnerable, and looks at ideas that we're still talking about right now.
We remember Rambo as another one of the silly over-the-top action heroes of the 80s, right along with Arnold Schwarzenegger characters like Dutch (Predator) and John Matrix (Commando), and we remember Sylvester Stallone as a caricature of himself, a slurred voice and dazed eyes. But Rambo didn't start that way, and Stallone delivered on the promise the role offered.