Gaming Thread 9-29-13

Either not a lot of news came out this past week or Valve and AMD sucked all the air out of the room. There's a lot of videos this week.

More below

I'll knock Valve's three announcements out first even though none of them really had much info that was actually released.

• So Valve announced that they created a low resource Linux distro. Eh, I guess? I'd be lying if I said I had much hope for this thing as their past initiatives of getting devs to make games for Mac and Linux hasn't amounted to much outside of kickstarters and indies. I guess it's a start though.

• So the big thing that Valve believes will revolutionize PC gaming are PCs in a smaller package. They can play games that are coded for SteamOS aka Linux and lets you stream your Windows/Mac games from your computer to your Steam branded computer. Yeah, I don't get either though to be fair, I'm obviously not part of the niche that they are aiming towards as I've got a gaming rig and a HTPC so media and gaming functions are covered quite well. I'm curious in how well that streaming is going to work as I haven't come across a remote desktop setup that I actually liked. Throw in the fact that they didn't minimum specs nor price ranges and I have to admit that I'm still a bit befuddled on this whole thing on which market this is supposed to be hitting. And if this thing doesn't sell big at the start, I have a hard time seeing the OEMs really sticking with Steam branded PC.

• And then there is the Steam Controller's reference model.......yeah. Now keep in mind, you don't have to use it but it honestly reminds me of something that Razer and Falcon would have made 10 years ago. Those face buttons. It's a controller though so you can't really dismiss it until you play with it yourself.

• Anandtech did a nice writeup

• And then there was AMD, running one of the worse press conferences that I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong, what they showed was interesting but no one on stage should have ever been up there. They talked about their two new cards, the R9 290X and the R9 270x (the others are just re-spins). No benchmarks for any of them (at least meaningful benches as the Firestrike demo score doesn't prove much IMO) nor an actual price on the flagship card, R9 290X for another two weeks. The 280X will run you $299, $199 for the 270X, $139 for the 260X and less than $89 for the 250X.

One of the actual two big news items to come out of the presser is that the 290x and 270X contain an audio DSP that will give you 3D audio that they dubbed TrueAudio. If it works the way it was demoed, that's a fourth of the equation done, now just need devs to actually use it, headphones with a gyro and head tracking to get realistic sound.

The other big news is in what feels like a hail mary to try and beat Nvidia off is that they're trying to bring back the API wars of old with their new low resource API called Mantle. Ugh, I hoped that we wouldn't see the return of this as it really fragmented the PC gaming scene in the late 90's. This really does feel like a hail mary from them as they haven't been able to compete with Nvidia on the power spectrum for a while now and when they could, you always had their drivers be a POS. I personally won't go back to AMD but I sure as hell will die laughing if we see the return of Speedy3D or RRedline

• And the sundae that keeps replenishing, you have Anandtech and Digital Foundry duking it out with Anandtech claiming that Mantle is the One's API and Digital Foundry claiming that Mantle is the PS4 API

• At least we got a new trailer for Star Citizen out of the AMD presser

• LOLtaku actually wrote something decent? Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are but this article looking at end of LucasArts really is quite interesting

• F me, another decent article from the Kotaku rag this one dealing with Neal Stephenson talking about that Clang is just on hold as they wait for someone to throw them a lifesaver of briefcases full of cash

• In news that should shock no one, Sony says Gaikai should hit a bunch of devices.

• The Design Director of the upcoming Destiny from Bungie bails

• Microsoft teams up with Chinese IPTV company, BesTV to create a console for the Chinese market for whenever the hell the commies finally drop their ban on videogame consoles (they said they were going to drop it at the start of the year and still nothing).

Here is the opening cinematic for the upcoming Lighting Returns

• Microsoft is running late, no Facebook or Twitter integration with their DVR at launch. They say it will be there by 2014.

• The season pass to Killzone Shadow Fall was announced. Adds co-op and two multiplayer expansions for a reasonable $20.

Yep, South Park: The Stick of Truth is still coming out. Here is a new trailer

• EA and the NCAA settled on the player likeness lawsuit to the tune of $40 million. Downside is that EA also announced that there will be no NCAA Football game next year.

• Senior Producer of Gears of War 2, Rod Fergusson is apparently starting up a new studio with 2K in San Fran

• Microsoft announced a Fitness service for the Xbox One. They've got Jillian Michaels, Tracey Anderson, Shaun T (Insanity and T25) and old man Tony Horton (P90X dude) and apparently a few more people doing it. It's free with Gold till January 2015 where it then becomes a separate service. I have to turn in my gamer card as if this works as well as MS's Nike+ Kinect Training, this is a killer app for me. Be really nice if they could sign agreements to work with my Fuelband and my Withings Scale.

• To go along with the tour with Major Nelson hitting up Microsoft stores to get people to check out the new console, they announced an even bigger tour that has two different levels. The Test Drive stops is a bus with consoles and games where the Area One events are parties with music and stuff with an 18+ age check. They're hitting a bunch of places, starts tomorrow in New Berlin Wisconsin for some reason.

So yeah, I expect Aaron Paul to be back on TV next year after watching the trailer for the upcoming Need For Speed movie

• Stardock is going where the money is at as they opened a mobile division with three games already on the docket.

Here is the opening to the upcoming MGSV: The Phantom Pain

• DICE Summit happened and though all of the presentations are all very good, the two that I found the most interesting were

Cevat Yerli (CEO of Crytek) talking about where he and Crytek believes where cinematic gaming is heading

Watch live video from DICE on TwitchTV

And Matias Myllyrinne (Managing Director of Remedy) talking about the evolution of characters in gaming

Watch live video from DICE on TwitchTV

Rain (PSN) - Been waiting for this game to come out for a while now. Really looking forward to it. It's $15

Rune Factory 4 (3DS) - It's been a few years since we've gotten the last fantasy RPG flavor of Harvest Moon. I'm tempted to pick this one up myself. It will run you $40.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl (3DS) - I have to admit, I don't honestly see the reason for this game as it's just a remake of the first game in the engine of the fourth game eh. This one does have some story (pre-selected characters) but IMO, you're better to pick up the fourth game. It's $40.

NBA2K14 (PS3, 360 and PC) - Well, if you like basketball games, you really don't have any other options but thankfully it's a solid series. Glad they brought back Crews mode where you can take your create a player and form a 5 man team in multiplayer, I had a lot of fun in that with my friends. It's $30 for the PC (it's always gimped and broken on the PC) and $60 for the consoles.

Agarest: Generations of War (PC) - This is the PC release of the first game that came out in 2010 on the 360 and PS3. It's a good be it a slightly grindy SRPG. Sleep with girls, have your bastard children fight your wars. Fun for the whole family. It's $20 but you can get it for $15.99 if you pre-buy it on Steam. Just don't actually use the extra weapons you get for pre-buying as it will break the game.

That's it, I'm done. Send hate mail Here

The Dude

posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 04:00 PM

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