Rise of the Tomb Raider now has DirectX 12 support in a new PC update
A new update on Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC now lets you have DirectX 12 support. Only through Windows 10 via Steam, but will arrive in the Widows 10 store pretty soon. So what does this mean exactly? Well in a new Tomb Raider blog post, Nixxes Software Head Jurjen Katsman explains how DirectX 12 will improve the quality of Rise of the Tomb Raider. Jurjen first starts explaining deeply on how DirectX 12 will improve how your PC will run the game. “We can leverage every single hardware feature and every bit of CPU power available in the most efficient way possible. With DirectX 12 we are taking a massive step forwards for bringing a lot of that flexibility to the PC as well. For Rise of the Tomb Raider the largest gain DirectX 12 will give us is the ability to spread our CPU rendering work over all CPU cores, without introducing additional overhead. This is especially important on 8-core CPUs like Intel i7’s or many AMD FX processors.” He even goes into further detail about the technical functions that will help your PC run Rise of the Tomb Raider “When using DirectX 11, in situations where the game is under heavy load – for example in the larger hubs of the game – the individual cores may not be able to feed a fast GPU like an NVIDIA GTX 980 or even NVIDIA GTX 970 quick enough. This means the game may not hit the desired frame-rate, requiring you to turn down settings that impact CPU performance. Even though the game can use all your CPU cores, the majority of the DirectX 11 related work is all happening on a single core. With DirectX 12 a lot of the work is spread over many cores, and the framerate of the game will run at can be much higher for the same settings.” This slide below is an overview of how your CPU load will be distributed if it runs on DirectX 11 or 12. The blog also mentions that when Rise of the tomb Raider is played on DirectX 11 it averages about 48 frames-per-second, when on DirectX 12 it can go up to 60 FPS. Jurjen also explained how asynchronous compute will reuse GPU power that would otherwise go to waste, and do more tasks. DirectX 12 will basically give complete control of hardware and software to the developers so they can improve the game much more. The blog also stats that Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the first games to use DirectX 12. It will allow people with “lower-quality” and “higher-quality” rigs to run Rise of the Tomb Raider better, by getting higher FPS and overall higher settings. More patches and updates will allow PC and Xbox to use these settings. More games will run DirectX 12 in the future, allowing a narrower gap in the specs you need to play games.
Review: Blast 'em Bunnies on Xbox One.
Game – Blast ’em Bunnies Release Date – March 11th on Xbox One Platform – Xbox One Developer/Publisher – Nnooo Price – $4.99 Defend your burrow from a horde of evil bunnies before they take you down! Pick them off using your carrot rifle, pelt their furry hides with your watermelon pip machine gun or wreak havoc with your runner bean laser. Want to destroy as many of their colony as possible? Your turnip mortar will do maximum splash damage. These crafty cottontails come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them can even fly, so you’ll need every weapon in your armoury to deal with this barbarous band of bitter bunnies. How they became evil, where they came from and who taught them to fly remains a mystery. But there’s no time to ponder these rabbit riddles, just grab your favourite weapon and…Blast ‘Em Bunnies! Blast ’em Bunnies is a very simple survival game and probably a survival game you never thought of before. You’re a bunny in a center of a field shooting out of your gun, you start off with carrots and can eventually pick up corn, pumpkins, and some other cool stuff such as magnets to collect more coins easily. While you do that you’re trying to kill all kinds of different evil bunnies and believe me some of them are difficult even on easy as you progress into the game. Before I go more in depth here is a list of features that are in Blast ’em Bunnies: Survival Mode – Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard Endless Shooter, Equipped upgrades for all weapons Slaughter Mode Normal – Kill as many bunnies as you can in 2 minutes, Invincibility ON, full upgrades for chosen weapon Slaughter Mode Super – Kill as many bunnies as you can in 2 minutes, Invincibility OFF, equipped upgrades for chosen weapon Slaughter Mode Ultra – Kill as many bunnies as you can in 2 minutes, Invincibility OFF, NO upgrades for chosen weapon, 3 hearts ONLY 4 Weapons to purchase and upgrade 16 Ammo Types to purchase 5 Arenas to purchase as add on content each with day to night system and 3 new music tracks 5 Skin Packs to purchase as add on content each with 21 bunny skins for the enemy bunnies Lots of missions to complete – 3 normal (refresh on completion) and 1 Daily (fresh next day after completion) GAMEPLAY: There are four weapons: the Carrot rifle, the Watermelon Pip Machine Gun, the Turnip Mortar and the Runner Bean Laser. You start the game with the Carrot Rifle and by shooting coins you can purchase the others and upgrade them all. Upgrades include: double and triple barrels, increased rate of fire and increased weapon power. As I said before there are 4 types of ammo e.g. Carrots, Heat Seeking Parsnips, Bouncing Pumpkin Bombs, Exploding Turnips, Sticky Exploding Raspberries and more. Ammo can be temporarily activated by shooting a powerup crate. At first when I started playing the game I was a little all over the place with the carrot rifle so I wasn’t really aiming well at the enemies. Once you play more and more as with every game you’ll get used to it. Also I would like to mention that for a small game like this the graphics are very good on the Xbox One. ENEMIES In Blast ’em Bunnies there is a good variety of enemies such as, the Walker, Throatslitter, Runner, Grenadier, Golden, Flyer, Burrower, Blocker, and the Boss. There is a total of 9 enemies, each one has it’s own personal quirk so keep your eyes peeled and your trigger finger ready. ARENAS & SKINS The base game comes with one amazing arena and the standard set of bunny skins. You can get the whole gameplay experience with this one purchase. However if you want to customize your experience you can purchase some of the add on content. This content comes in the form of arenas, skins, permanent multipliers and weapon unlocks. You can also customize the enemy bunnies by purchasing one of the 5 skin packs. Each skin pack contains 3 new skins for each enemy bunny and are priced at US$/€1.99. I really like the fact that you can customize your enemies that is something you never see in games these days. The skins and arenas are also sold in a variety of bundles. Combined Skin and Arena bundles are priced at US$/€ 3.99 and each one contains a matching skin and arena; All Skin & Arena bundle is US$/€ 9.99 and contains all of the skins and arenas; the Mega Bundle is priced at US$/€ 14.99 and contains all of the skins, arenas and multipliers; the Super Mega Bundle is priced at US$/€ 19.99 and contains the game, all skins, all arenas and all multipliers. Weapon packs are sold individually for US$/€ 2.99-4.99. There is the Clown Arena and Skins, Luchadore Arena and Skins, Ninja Arena and Skins, Urban Army Arena and Skins, and the Zombie Arena and Skins. ACHIEVEMENTS There are a total of 73 achievements in the game equaling to a total of 1000G. When you first start playing expect to see a lot of achievements to pop. There is a lot of small gamerscore achievements at the start. Another note about this game is that it will take a big grind to hit that 1,000G. Although the game can get repetitive after you play for a while it is fun and it can be a great challenge if you like doing survival missions to see how many waves you last. The games graphics look very nice and clean for an indie. I’d say go but it on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo 3DS or the Playstation Vita. Nnooo did a great job on the game and I look forward to see what is in the future. Also check out our game preview of the game: [rwp-review id=”0″]
Review – Just Cause 3 Sky Fortress
Game – Just Cause 3 Sky Fortress Release Date – March 8th (pass owners), March 15th Platform – Xbox One (reviewed), PC, PS4 Developer/Publisher – Avalanche, Square Enix Price – $11.99, or $24.99 season pass Rico Rodriguez and his escapades continue with addition of the first DLC pack, Sky Fortress. It is available immediately upon download and does not require any specific amount of progress within the main game. Personally, I couldn’t stand Mario as far as gameplay was concerned. He ALWAYS got in the way, died too fast and cost me way too many mission deaths. The cut scenes were a different story entirely. He was always funny and made the cinematics one of the best parts of the game. Sky Fortress, interestingly enough, doesn’t use cinematics. Instead they kept the voice overs, but opted rather for a progressive collage of photos to tell the story similar to how a comic book is set up. The new missions pop up with an alert from your buddy Sheldon. He tells you that he found something and needs your help, so naturally you go parachuting over. It’s an armored drone from the Eden Corporation that had crash landed after taking out one of Medici’s civilian communities. Apparently not going bankrupt over a decade ago as Sheldon believed, he enlists the help of Rico to take them out. It’s at this point that we are provided the new wingsuit compliments of our friend, Dimah. The addition of this Bavarium powered jet pack / wing suit not only adds a completely new dimension to the game, but also makes it a hell of a lot easier to get that “Longest time wingsuiting” award and beat your friends. Rico’s new toy also comes fully equipped with an automatic, shoulder mounted machine gun and homing missiles. In a game that’s all about the imagination when it comes to how you want to blow shit up, having a rocket powered, machine gun shooting, homing missile firing, jetpack wingsuit invokes a Stone Cold Steve Austin like “OH HELLLLL YEAAAHHHHH!!” A short tutorial takes you through the ins and outs of the wingsuit, which ends with the intro of the first big mission. The button maps are easy and ergonomic to use. Quite simply, RB fires homing missiles, X shoots the machine gun, RT is the Bavarium boost while LT slows you down. Since the suit is powered by Bavarium, it’s extremely volatile and lasts several seconds before requiring a cool down. There’s also an evade feature you can access to avoid enemy missiles. A “missile incoming” message will pop up indicating you’re about to be turned into an exploding sack of meat. You can avoid every single strike easily by holding Y and moving the analog stick left or right. This, more than anything, changes the entire game of Just Cause 3 and we’ll cover it a little more in a bit. Oh yeah, ever get stuck in the middle of a large body of water and have to swim to shore? No more. You can take off right from treading water as well. Once you complete the tutorial, Sheldon sends you up into the sky, and it’s here where you see how the DLC got its name. You come face to face with a giant airship that looks pretty much exactly like the Avengers’ helicarrier. It’s ironic too, considering your new wingsuit transforms Rico into Sam Wilson, A.K.A. Falcon from Captain America. This thing is freakin’ huge. In fact, it’s so big that it contains two provinces within itself. Each one needs to be eliminated, and here’s the best part. This isn’t even the mission. It’s only what you have to liberate in order to be able to play the mission. This airship comes equipped with anti-air guns, drone depots, mechanized drones, bavarium powered missiles and more that all need to be destroyed. There is a variety of options at your disposal here as far as how to do so, but I suggest taking out the four drone depots first. They are highly visible and located on each of the ship’s four corners. Taking them out makes it easier to not only fly through the air, but to also land on the airship and take out the ground items without being turned to swiss cheese from above. You’ll fight in the air, on the surface of the heli-carrier….umm..airship, and below decks accessible only by flying up from underneath the ship itself. When you finally take them all out, which for us took just under an hour, you’ll be able to play the first mission. There are several missions available in Sky Fortress which will take a couple hours total to play. There will also be a number of challenges unlocked, which you can choose to complete for some Wingsuit upgrades. Each challenge lets you unlock; increased wingsuit boost fire more missiles reduce your wingsuit cooldown rebel drop containing a friendly drone that will fight with you from above. Of course, since it is Just Cause 3 after all, the missions end with the utter destruction of the Eden Corporation. Rico continues his attitude of “I love it when a plan comes together” like Hannibal from A-team and goes on his way. And THIS is where the real fun comes in. All of the Sky Fortress items can be carrried into the rest of the game. This means any province you have yet to liberate is about to become rubble like Barney. You should have enough grasp of the controls at this point to essentially be indestructible. Standard provinces (ones without a police station) can all easily be defeated by simply flying around and reigning fire from the wingsuit. Provinces with anti-air cannons are no longer an issue. If air support gets dispatched, you can either avoid missiles and fight, or fly away and return when your heat level disappears. Rinse and repeat. Overall, I spent about four hours with the pack, two and a
Review – Hitman Episode 1: Intro pack
Game – Hitman Episode 1 Intro pack and prologue Release Date – March 11th, 2016 Platforms – PC, PS4, Xbox One (reviewed) Developer/Publisher – IO Interactive, Square Enix Price – $14.99, $60 for all episodes Hitman Episode 1 is the first in the series by Square Enix in their new, episodic format. Three maps are included consisting of a fashion show at a Parisian mansion, a military base hangar and a party boat. The first Hitman in this generation of consoles, Episode One excels on pretty much all levels with very limited, minor flaws. This version of Hitman offers intense variety and an overwhelming sense of replayability from it’s multiple options to solve missions. If you’re a procrastinator, you may wish to pass on this one as you may give yourself a stroke. Not only do your decisions impact the level of stealth in your apprach, but also change how you approach the rest of the mission and solve the rest of the objectives. Of the three locations, the Parisian mansion fashion show is by far the most impressive. If you’re a passive killer (yes, I see the irony) then you may wish to poison your target. Simply poison their drink and you’re in business. Of course, you’ll need to get the plate of drinks first. Also of course, you’ll need to take out the waiter and steal his costume before that. This is easier said than done in a mansion party full with a few hundred NPC’s that can bust you at anytime. More aggressive killers may be rewarded by their patience in what I found was the most hysterical homicides of all time. At one point, if you play your cards right, you may find one of your targets on an upstairs balcony directly above your second target. Pushing your target off the balcony and have him land ragdoll-like on your other target resulted in both of their deaths for me in one of my playthroughs. Not only was it hysterical to see them flop around on the ground in the manner they did, but the serene sense of calmness portrayed by Agent 47 as he simply walks off of the balcony is incredibly prophetic. You of course have the ability to simply start spraying the crowd of NPC’s with bullets as well. As fun as it is at the time to unleash your inner Rambo on a helpless crowd of posh fashion show attendees, that feeling quickly fades and leaves a sense of hollowness inside. Hitman is a game which benefits the most from the player’s sense of imagination. Sneaking up on a target to snap is neck is all well and good, but I had more fun dressing up as one of the fashion show models in order to rig an overhead lighting fixture. End result = lighting fixture meet target’s head. To be honest, the ability of Agent 47 to dress up as an uppity fashion model really demonstrates the level of variety that Square Enix went to with this installment of Hitman. Although the levels are of the sandbox variety, there is an insane amount of experimentation available to you. The levels are the most wide open, closed levels you’ll ever see. Why that may sound oxy-moronish, it’s really not. I mentioned the mansion level is the best one in my opinion. You can sneak among the crowd, walk in and out of the endless rooms and hallways, hit up the wine cellar or visit the gardens. There are a number of assist options available to you in all of these areas that can be turned on or off for a higher level of difficulty. Agent 47 can see through walls in order to locate targets, the UI can show which NPC’s have the ability to bust you (reveal your true identity) and more. While turning these off add a MUCH higher level of immersion to Hitman, I suggest leaving them on. The reason being is, unless you’re an actual hitman, you most likely won’t get through all of the levels quite easily with no assist options. That being said, the assist options don’t offer too much in the realm of easier gameplay (although it is slightly easier), but more along the lines of faster paced gameplay. Psychologically you’ll find yourself moving slower than you need to without the assists out of the fear of getting caught or missing something. This can also lead to frustration due to longer gameplay. As a result, I suggest leaving the assists on for a better overall experience. The NPC’s aren’t just background decoration in Hitman either. You can walk around and eavesdrop on pretty much all of their conversation. While some of the conversation surrounding their personal, posh lifestyle is amusing, it doesn’t always offer any gameplay assistance. On the other hand, some of the conversation leads to important clues for target acquisition, so it’s worth it to check around every once in a while on the juicy deets or the “my job sucks” conversations being talked about at the fashion show. They are A.I. on the other hand. So, in essence, they are stupid. Some things are going to stand out if you are at a party with a couple hundred people. If I crouched down in the middle of a packed mansion entrance in real life, people would notice. In Hitman, as long as you’re not close enough to pop the alarm trigger, you can do the worm on the floor and no one would be any the wiser. If I started firing off a full round of ammunition in the sitting room in real life, the guards at the next door would hear it. In Hitman, this isn’t always the case and you may simply mosey right on out the door without so much as a sidewards glance. Of course, A.I. stupidity is to be expected in games, but I would have liked to see a slightly higher sense of realism. Adding
Rocket League and Dying Light team up!
One thing about Dying Light and Rocket League is that they both have cars so both the developers thought it would be a good idea to do a crossover. In Dying Light: The Following, you can get dune buggies with a unique Rocket League themed paint job by entering the code “LightMyRocket” right here. Conversely, you can adorn your Rocket League vehicles with Dying Light-themed gear. “We’re huge fans of Rocket League and because both games offer great driving fun, we thought why not just partner up and give fans of both games some unique stuff.”- said Dying Light producer Tymon Smektala. “Rocket League’s continuing success helped us foster some really awesome partnerships for Psyonix, so when Techland reached out to us we thought being included in a AAA title like Dying Light made a whole lot of sense for both communities,” added Psyonix social media marketing manager Kyle Lemmon. There has been a lot of new content coming to Rocket League. Yesterday there was a tease for a basketball mode.
5 Years Later, Blizzard Releases Diablo II Update
In the first software update that the game has received since 2011, Diablo II developer Blizzard brought the game to version 1.14a. The main purpose of the update was to make the game more compatible with the newer operating systems, as well as a new installer for OSX. Blizzard noted that it isn’t done supporting and updating Diablo II. The game, originally released in 2000, is part of Blizzard’s plan to restore some older games for current players. Also among the games in the initiative are Warcraft 3 and the original StarCraft. “We’ve also begun working to improve our cheat-detection and hack-prevention capabilities. There’s still work to be done, but we’re making improvements every day. “There is still a large Diablo II community around the world, and we thank you for continuing to play and slay with us. This journey starts by making Diablo II run on modern platforms, but it does not end there. See you in Sanctuary, adventurers.” When Blizzard put out an ad calling for engineers for the initiative last year, the description for senior software engineer noted that “Evolving operating systems, hardware, and online services have made them more difficult to be experienced by their loyal followers or reaching a new generation… We’re restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done.” For more info and patch notes, visit the Battle.net forums.
Here's the Quantum Break Official Launch Trailer!
Quantum Break is one of the most anticipated games this year, scheduled to release on April 5th. Below, you have the official Launch Trailer provided by IGN! Take a look, enjoy and get hyped!
PS4 outsold Xbox One in February!
Sony’s console has outsold Microsoft’s console once again in the United States territory, NPD group has confirmed. In the last 14 months, Xbox One outsold PS4 twice. Here’s Sony statement regarding this subject: “We would like to thank our fans and partners for making PlayStation 4 the top-selling hardware platform and the software sales leader in February, according to NPD. We continued to see strong year-over-year sales growth for PS4 hardware and software and are truly humbled by the support and enthusiasm from gamers. We will continue to deliver amazing gaming experiences with the upcoming launches of Ratchet & Clank, MLB The Show 16 and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.” Xbox One has also been doing well, bringing revenue to Microsoft and to 3rd party publishers, and has sold more than Xbox 360 has sold at the time. Gaming is now a $99.3 Billion Industry, and has no sign of stopping at this number.
MXGP2 coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC April 8th.
Motocross racing game MXGP2 will now launch for PS4, Xbox One and PC on April 8. I’ve been a big fan of these types of games and am glad to see a brand new one come out. Milestone’s official motocross title uses the FIM Motocross World Championship license with updated tracks and riders, including Glen Helen and the new Americas tracks. The game will also feature two new indoor stadiums. You can pre-order now! If you pre-order you’ll get exclusive content. DLC MXGP2 – Cairoli Replica Equipment Airoh Aviator Helmet AXO Motion 3 Racewear Sidi Crossfire TC222 Limited Edition Boots DLC MXGP2 – Villopoto Replica Equipment Thor Verge Helmet Thor Core Orbit Racewear Alpinestars Tech10 Boots
