Items tagged with Gaming
You may not be able to mosey into Best Buy or Walmart and walk out with an Xbox Series X or S console tucked underneath your arm, but it's not because Microsoft is dragging its feet on shipments. During an earnings call this week, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood indicated the company was able to ship more consoles than expected, "even as demand continues to exceed supply." This suggests Microsoft was actually able to procure more inventory than it thought possible earlier this year, and subsequently ship the units out to vendors and retailers. From there, they've been flying off store shelves as fast as workers can stock them, whether physical or virtual. There's the occasional inventory restock, but...
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Had things gone to original plan, Halo Infinite would have released as a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S last year. That obviously didn't happen. More concerning, however, is that what 343 Industries showed off last year was underwhelming, to put it nicely. The disappointing graphics sparked memes, and even Domino's Pizza poked fun at the gameplay reveal. Good news though (great news, actually)—the first gameplay trailer in over a year looks absolutely gorgeous. You can hear Halo fans taking a collective sigh of relief as Microsoft and 343 Industries dropped a campaign trailer today. It's over six minutes of game footage, including a mix of cinematic cut-scenes and actual gaming,...
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Black Friday and the holiday shopping season are just around the corner, so if you are in the market for a new gaming console, now is the time to start looking. If you've had trouble getting your hands on a current-gen console, we have collected some information to help you out in this difficult endeavor, as a couple of retailers have planned restocks in the coming days that have since leaked out. Target PlayStation 5 Drop Late last week, PlayStation and Xbox console restock tracker Jake Randall tweeted about a potential PlayStation 5 restock coming either on the 21st or 27th of October. However, since nothing came about on the former date, a drop of unknown size is likely coming on Wednesday...
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If you're a gamer of a certain age, you likely feel no small bit of nostalgia for the criminal misadventures of Claude, Tommy Vercetti, and CJ, the heroes of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas, respectively. The "3D universe" of GTA (as it's called to separate it from the early 2D games and the later HD series of IV and V) were such a cultural phenomenon that many people don't even seem to realize that GTA III was in fact the third game in the series. Trying to go back and play the original versions of these games—even the PC versions—is pretty painful in the modern age. They were among the first big video games to have a fully-contiguous, fully-3D open world, and they...
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Skate 3 running on RPCS3 emulator. Owing to its ease of access as a development platform, there are dozens upon dozens of console game emulators for PCs. Besides their grey-market application of allowing PC gamers to play console games, these applications serve a vital role in the purpose of game preservation—that is, preserving old video games for later generations to appreciate. However, emulators are one of the most difficult type of applications to create and optimize, for a variety of reasons, not least of which because it requires a considerable amount of reverse-engineering. Old console game hardware is generally not documented well, if at all. To make matters worse, it's often...
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NVIDIA is quite literally taking its cloud game streaming service, GeForce NOW, to the next level by adding vastly upgraded game servers to the mix—or as NVIDIA calls them, GeForce NOW SuperPODs. These SuperPODs purportedly deliver "GeForce RTX 3080-class gaming" on the company's cloud service, and are being made available exclusively to a new, high-performance membership tier with additional perks. For anyone unfamiliar, GeForce NOW is a cloud service that enables gaming on a wide range of devices, including ones that would otherwise be ill-equipped to play triple-A titles. Be it a low-powered Windows laptop with integrated graphics, a Chromebook, a Mac, or even a mobile device like an...
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Lara croft has been raiding tombs for quite some time now, 25 years to be exact. Right now Square Enix is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Tomb Raider series and along the way has been highlighting major accomplishments for the beloved franchise. Pushing the boundaries of what 3D games could be back in the early days of PC gaming and the Sony Playstation, the team behind Tomb Raider has never been scared to push the envelope. The adventures of Lara Croft evolved with each passing game until it went dormant for some time, then came the series reboot in 2013. That reboot sparked the first entry into one amazing trilogy that took the aspects we loved about the original series and turned things...
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Like it or not, eBay is the go-to dumping ground for items that are in high demand and extremely difficult to obtain, like the latest generation graphics cards and game consoles. Go ahead and add Microsoft's Xbox Series X Mini Fridge to the list as well. It's not even out yet, but after pre-order sales came and went in the blink of an eye, scalpers who managed to secure one are now hawking their score on the auction site...at more than triple the price. They are attempting to, anyway. Some of the current listings are asking for north of $300, compared to the $99 pre-order price the sellers paid for what amounts to one of this holiday season's subjectively coolest items. Unlike the mini fridge...
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The Left 4 Dead games were great cooperative fun. For the uninitiated, four players blasted their way through frantic zombie hordes in the L4D games, working together as a team just trying to survive. Developer Turtle Rock Studios, which was acquired by Valve prior to the release of the first game, re-established itself as an independent studio following the release of the second. Now Turtle Rock is back with a third title that's not an actual addition to the Left 4 Dead franchise, but is clearly a spiritual successor nonetheless. Valve still owns the L4D franchise, but that wasn't going to stop Turtle Rock and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive from revisiting the zombie apocalypse co-op shooter...
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Corsair is officially in the monitor game, with its first-ever gaming monitor release. Technically you could say the company entered the fray a couple weeks ago when it announced its Xeneon 32QHD165, but that was merely an introduction—the 32-inch gaming monitor wasn't actually available to buy, until now. It's not cheap, though. The Xeneon 32QHD165 is "built from the ground up for gamers and creators," and carries a $799.99 MSRP. Perhaps pricing will come down after some time goes by (or during the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday festivities), especially as it lands in the hands of more retailers. But for now, it's only available from Corsair, and for its full list price. So why...
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Oh no! Alder Lake is almost here, and when it arrives, it could break support for games, someone hit the panic button! Okay, don't actually hit the big red panic button that's overstating things by a bit (or a lot). But do brace yourself for the possibility of some gaming hiccups out of the gate, as developers figure out what does and does not work on Intel's hybrid architecture. Hybrid computing is not a new concept by any stretch—Arm and its hardware partners have been highly successful with heterogeneous architectures—but in the x86 space, Intel has only dabbled (Lakefield, anyone?). Now it is getting ready to go all-in with Alder Lake, which will combine high performance Golden...
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One of the great advantages of video game emulators is that they allow us to shine up old titles that may suffer due to low resolutions or frame rate limits. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has remained one of the most popular titles to emulate for exactly those reasons: in its original Wii U format, it labors under a 30-FPS cap even despite its 1280×720 render resolution. Under emulation, the resolution can be raised and the frame rate can be unlocked. Now, it is often said that the most important part of making a good-looking video game is the visual design, not the technology used to represent it. That's probably true, too; if you look at some of the most beautiful classics in...
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If you're reading this, chances are you have been trying to score a PlayStation 5 to no avail. Like the Xbox Series X|S (and now Nintendo's Switch OLED), the PS5 is almost always out of stock. Well, good news, maybe—Sony is planning a PS5 restock in its own webstore for the holiday season, though it is by invite-only, meaning you need to be on the list to have a shot at getting one. All you have to do is register, and then wait (and hope). Sony says it will have a "limited amount of PS5 consoles" to offer up for sale during the holiday season, though precisely how many is not known. Inevitably, not everyone who registers will end up being selected, because if that were the case, it would...
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Update, 10/13/21: After the quoted pre-order delivery date came and went without actual delivery of the Switch OLED, my order status changed from "Placed" to "Delayed," where it remains at the time of this article update. However, I have some potentially good (nay, great) news to share. I spoke on the phone with a representative from Walmart, who said there were some initial logistic issues (not uncommon during the pandemic), but that those have been sorted out. I'm told Switch OLED pre-orders have already begun shipping. Furthermore, the rep told me orders will go out by end of today for everyone who pre-ordered the console (a point I wanted to clarify, as I wasn't just inquiring about my own...
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If you're reading this site, then Quake surely needs no introduction. As the father of online FPS deathmatch, the legendary classic holds a place in the pantheon of foundational video game history. Id Software's first fully-3D FPS got the Night Dive remaster treatment recently, and the results are pretty solid. The remastered version of Quake comes with the original title, both of its contemporaneous expansions, and two additional (fantastic) episodes made much later by Machine Games, developers of the recent Wolfenstein reboot titles. It's available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One systems, and owners of PS5s and Xbox Series consoles could download the last-gen versions on those systems. There's no...
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Handheld gaming consoles are hot commodities, as we have seen with Valve's Steam Deck and Nintendo's recently-released Switch OLED. Getting your hands on the former is a matter of placing a reservation, and then waiting until sometime next year. As for the Switch OLED, it's out now, but it will take some work and perhaps lucky timing to procure one. We're here to help. As much as we can, anyway. It seems everything is in short supply these days, and apparently even securing a pre-order months ahead of time doesn't guarantee you will receive what you bought at the promised delivery date. That's the situation facing many people who pre-ordered a Switch OLED from Walmart back in July, myself included—others...
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AMD is expanding its mainstream RDNA 2 graphics card line-up today with another Navi 23-based offering, the new Radeon RX 6600. As its name implies, the Radeon RX 6600 is a close relative to the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which launched just a few weeks back. This card also targets roughly the same audience, i.e. budget conscious 1080p gamers, though with proper support for FSR and a growing number of titles that enable it, smooth framerates at higher effective resolutions are also going to be possible. As was the case with the Radeon RX 6600 XT, AMD itself won’t be making its own reference cards for retail. Instead, AMD is leaning on its board partners for Radeon RX 6600 designs and there will...
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PETA recently cried fowl play against Ubisoft’s depiction of a Mortal Kombat style cockfighting mini game within its newest game Far Cry 6. It seemed to ruffle the feathers of PETA Latino, which requested that the developer/publisher remove the mini game. But wait till it sees this. PETA’s pleas did not seem to resonate within the gaming community, however. The consensus among most players seemed to be that it was just a game and that no live animals were being harmed. Some pointed out that there was a large amount of content that was far more violent and graphic than the cockfighting. Cockfighting is still legal in Cuba, by the way, where the game's setting takes place. While the...
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If you're looking to upgrade your PlayStation 5 with a fast SSD, Samsung's 980 Pro SSD is a suitable candidate. Even more so at the end of the month. That's because Samsung today announced it is equipping its speedy 980 Pro with a heastink that is specifically designed to fit inside the relatively tight confines of Sony's PS5 game console. "Ready for installation in a slim, PS5-compatible design, the 980 Pro with Heatsink enables gamers to easily expand storage on their console. This addition to the Samsung 980 Pro SSD family is delivered with a proprietary built-in heatsink with Samsung Advanced Heat Dissipation Technology," Samsung says. One of the perks of the PS5 is that Sony incorporated...
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Amazon Games' newest MMO New World is only about two weeks old, and players are already finding ways to scam each other out of massive amounts of gold. Gold is the in-game currency players use to buy not only resources at the trading post, but factions. Companies also use it to buy territories in the game. Players began sharing stories on the New World subreddit this week about entire factions meeting their demise due to a few players’ dirty deeds. What seems to be happening, according to reports on the subreddit, is that players are getting others within their faction and company to invest their gold into buying an available territory, and then taking everyone’s gold and leaving...
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As popular as it is, the practice of "remastering" old games is still a contentious topic. Some folks are positively gleeful seeing old favorites get a new coat of polish and quality-of-life features. Others are directly dismissive of old game remakes, citing new always-online requirements and the viability of the original release, maintained through the ages by faithful fans. Yet another faction is simply puzzled at the choice to spend time on rehashed releases (rather than all-new adventures). Whatever your take on the issue, Diablo II Resurrected has been a popular re-release largely owing to fans' deep affection for the original game. Unfortunately, more than two weeks on from release, some...
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This past summer, China implemented a strict time limit on how long people under 18 years old are allowed to play video games, in an effort to curb gaming addiction. Technically, they're only allowed three hours per week. Since the rules went into effect, however, determined players have found clever ways around the time limit, and China intends to crack down on those methods. China represents a massive market for video games. The time China's youth has spent playing games has led to concerns about their mental and physical health, according to a previous report, and there are even clinics that mesh therapy and military drills for people deemed to have a gaming disorder. These and other factors...
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