Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by ‘cynella’

PlayStation Home – Server closure notice

PlayStation Home has been serving the PS3 community since December 2008. During that time, tens of millions of users around the world have grown the social gaming platform into a thriving community of creative and enthusiastic gamers.

Due to a shifting landscape, PlayStation Home will cease publishing new content on the 12th of November, 2014. Gamers in Europe will be able to download content until the 3rd of December, 2014. As a token of our tremendous gratitude to the community, we will also be releasing a series of free content prior to the platforms closure on the 31st of March, 2015.

We would like to thank all of our fans for their support of the PlayStation Home platform over the years.

FAQ

Q: What happens to all of the PlayStation Home content that I have earned and bought?
A: PlayStation Home fans will still be able to download content until 26th November 2014. You will be able to use any content you have earned and bought in PlayStation Home right up until the 31st of March 2015.

Q: Am I entitled to a refund?
A: Due to the progressive and innovative nature of the gaming industry, PlayStation is unable to refund on legacy platform or service experiences.

Q: Is PlayStation Home or a similar service coming to PlayStation®4?
A: There are no plans for PlayStation Home to come to PlayStation®4. PlayStation®4 is a powerful next generation console with the connective capability to offer gamers an outstanding social gaming and community experience in brand new ways.

NORTH AMERICA NOTICE

PlayStation Home has been serving the PS3 community since December 2008. During that time, tens of millions of users around the world have grown the social gaming platform into a thriving community of creative and enthusiastic gamers.

Due to a shifting landscape, PlayStation Home will cease publishing new content on November 12, 2014. Gamers in the U.S. and Canada will be able to download content until December 3, 2014. As a token of our tremendous gratitude to the community, we will also be releasing a series of free content prior to the platform’s closure on March 31, 2015.

We would like to thank all of our fans for their support of the PlayStation Home platform over the years.

Sources: http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Home/PlayStation-Home-Server-closure-notice/m-p/22301647#M416723; http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Home/PlayStation-Home-Update-September-26-2014/td-p/44552202

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by Jacob Siegal

Over the past several months, we haven’t had many game releases to occupy our time. That’s all beginning to change, with huge games like Destiny, Forza Horizon 2 and Shadow of Mordor either already out or coming soon, but the free Games with Gold have been doing a stellar job of tiding over Xbox owners in the interim.

October continues to build upon the increasingly impressive library of free games for Xbox Live subscribers with two classics on Xbox 360 and one brand new title from ID@Xbox on Xbox One.

Xbox 360 owners have Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Darksiders II to look forward to, both well-received sequels which should certainly warrant a download, even during the busy holiday season. If you’ve never played Bad Company 2, many Battlefield fans claim that it has some of the most fun multiplayer the series has ever seen. As for Darksiders II, not many action RPGs can compete with the combat of this series. It only got better the second time around.

Chariot is the Xbox One free game of the month, and like Super Time Force before it, Chariot is an indie game. It’s inclusion in Games with Gold next month will also mark its debut, so be sure to pick it up before it goes back to full price.

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by Ryan Winslett

It’s another wide assortment of new offerings on the PlayStation Network this week, with a little something for everyone on tap including the PS2 classic, WALL-E, the latest FIFA, an all-ladies fighting game for the PS3 and a visit from Slender Man on the PS4. For those of you who haven’t tried out PlayStation Plus just yet, there’s also an upcoming free online weekend, just so you can see what you’re missing out of the PS4’s online community.

For starters, let’s break down the details on this recently announced free online weekend. Traditionally, the only way to take your games online with the PlayStation 4 is to be a PS Plus subscriber. Starting this coming Friday, Sept. 26, however, the gates will be opened to all comers. The event begins at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time and will run through Sunday, Sept. 28, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific.

Whether you’re a Plus subscriber or not, all online functionality for PS4 games will be open to everyone through that time. Whether you’re diving into this week’s new FIFA game or still hunting for legendary loot on Destiny, everyone is invited to take their games online free of charge for three straight days.

As for this week’s new PlayStation arrivals, and as I’ve mentioned twice now, FIFA 15 is up and running, offering the latest iteration of the successful soccer series to fans the world over. Pick your favorite team and tackle a season or craft your own player from the ground up. Expect oodles of gameplay options on all three Sony platforms once the network goes live this Tuesday afternoon.

In the market for a game likely to scare poop directly into your pants? Then you might want to check out Slender: The Arrival haunting up a spooky good time on the PlayStaiton 4 this week. Explore dark and creepy locations as you attempt to unravel the mysteries of one of the most notorious urban legends of the modern age. Just look out for that faceless, well-dressed demon hiding in the corner.

But that’s just the beginning for this week’s new game offerings. PlayStation 3 RPG fans will want to check out Ar Nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star, while fighting fanatics will likely be drawn to Arcana Hearts 3: Love Max for the PS3 and Vita. It comes from the teams behind Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, so expect lightning-fast, beautifully rendered fighting action.

CastleStorm Definitive Edition brings strategic assaults to the PS4 this week, as does Defense Grid 2. Coming from the creators of the Worms series, Flockers tasks players with getting their doomed sheep from A to B in one piece on the PS4, while Vita fans have the tactical, competitive gameplay of Frozen Synapse Prime to keep them busy.

Finally, the adorable, lonely robot WALL-E arrives on the PS3 as a PS2 Classic. There’s also a demo for Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 on the PS3 and PS4 coming out this week, for those of you who can’t get enough footy.

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by Oscar Lee

WWE may have gone PG the past several years on the television side, but WWE 2K15 is, fortunately, keeping a lot of the Attitude Era elements. The ESRB released a rating for the video game, giving a Teen rating for Alcohol Reference, Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Tobacco and Violence. The summary mentioned chairs, tables and even sledgehammers as weapons. Hitting another wrestler with these objects could draw blood. Some cut scenes also contain bloody faces.

Divas won’t be toned down. The ESRB mentions “exaggerated-size breasts” and “outfits that expose large amounts of cleavage.” Some of the provocative gestures won’t be censored since gamers can perform pelvic thrusts in addition to shaking a diva’s buttock into her opponent’s face.

The above mentioned cut scenes also has two wrestlers smoking cigars (perhaps referring to APA) and plenty of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Find some of the fan signs and dialogues below this block of text:

“Beer Me”

“Stone Cold loves two things in life—stompin’ mudholes and celebrating with cold beer.”

“I don’t think he’s coming down to share a beer with anybody.”

WWE 2K15 is available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on the 28th of October. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions is releasing on the 18th of November. If you haven’t already, go pre-order the WWE video game right now from our Online Store.

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by Adi Robertson

Oculus has announced a new prototype called Crescent Bay, another step towards the consumer version of its virtual reality headset. “It’s as big of a leap as we made from DK1 to DK2,” says Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, referring to the first two versions of the Rift development kit. The new headset features 360-degree tracking, letting the Rift’s external camera track the back of the headset as well as the front, making it easier for people to move without feeling constrained by staying in the camera’s range. It’s supposed to have improved weight and ergonomics — “it is much lighter. Thank god,” says Iribe. And for the first time, it includes integrated audio. Crescent Bay was announced at the Oculus Connect developer conference in Hollywood, CA. 3D audio is something Oculus has stayed out of so far, but it’s a major focus of this Rift prototype, which is meant to make virtual reality more comfortable and immersive before it’s officially released to consumers. Crescent Bay will “allow for sustained presence,” says Iribe.

The first Oculus Rift VR headsets were shipped in the spring of 2013, but a consumer version has not yet been announced, and this emphatically isn’t one. So far, Iribe says that over 100,000 Rift development kits have been shipped to 130 countries, and the company is still filling pre-orders for its second-generation model. The Crescent Bay prototype follows “Crystal Cove,” which was first shown off at CES 2014 in January — the DK2, which is based on it, came out a couple of months later.

Oculus and Samsung announced their Gear VR mobile headset earlier this month, and Iribe believes mobile and desktop VR will ultimately complement each other, not compete. Oculus created its first real in-headset user interface for the Gear VR, and it’s now said that it will be releasing a mobile app for VR games. Oculus product VP Nate Mitchell says that its current online games catalog (not yet a real store) has seen 699,000 downloads since launch. As part of today’s presentation, Mitchell also announced a new demo from longtime partner Epic Games (which Iribe says is “as close to Call of Duty as I want to get”) and a partnership with development company Unity, which will support the Rift as an official platform on its free and paid versions, removing a major barrier to making VR games.

The Crescent Bay prototype (which we’re told is still quite fragile) will be available to try at Oculus Connect, and we’ll be bringing you impressions later today. And Iribe has been talking up not just the upcoming developments but the long-term future of VR. “You can create unbelievable worlds. You can create believable worlds,” he says. “After all, this is just the beginning.”

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by Alex Schmitz

Guerrilla Games’ new IP codenamed Horizon concepts were leaked yesterday on a Chinese site. The game will have robotic dinos and a redheaded female protagonist.

New details on the IP have been revealed by well known industry insider Shinobi. He says that the game will be absolutely gorgeous and will have varied locations.

He says that there will also be a dedicated single player component and co-op.

“There’s a dedicated single player. Gorgeous landscapes, snowy tundras, jungles, vast savannahs, open world comparable to the Witcher. Cool weapons, villages and towns to encounter, “tribal” societies,” he revealed.

He also said that the game may get an E3 reveal but this leak may change Sony’s plans.

“The plan is an E3 reveal. I’m not sure if this leak will force their hand sooner or not though,” he added.

The game sounds really promising and is said to be an action RPG. Whether Guerrilla Games can pull it off or not remains to be seen. Take this as a rumor for now but Shinobi is usually very trustworthy.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

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by Owen S. Good

Online play in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS is moderated, and players who cheat, disconnect or even engage in unsportsmanlike conduct face sanctions. However, it appears a glitch is causing some users to be automatically banned for doing nothing wrong.

According to EventHubs, users who select Peach in the online “For the Glory” mode have been slapped with erroneous one-day bans. The theory, via Japan’s massive 2ch forums, is that using her down+B attack (a move that pulls a turnip from the ground) early in the first round makes the game think the player has illegally brought an equipped item into the match.

That’s only a theory, though. EventHubs notes that Link also has a down+B attack that pulls out a bomb, but no one using him has gotten kicked.

It’s a day-long ban — 1,440 minutes. Super Smash Bros. on 3DS launched in Japan on Friday, and comes to North America on Oct. 3rd.

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by William Usher

Microsoft had previously mentioned about utilizing their Azure cloud services for more than just offloading server data and hosting multiplayer games through titles like Titanfall. The company hinted at cloud streaming before, but new information indicates that they may be taking a similar approach to streaming in the same way that Sony is approaching the market with PlayStation Now.

Neowin is reporting that Microsoft is currently testing running Xbox One and Xbox 360 games in web browsers; not just Internet Explorer, either. The testing is supposedly taking place in Chrome and other popular browsers, too.

As noted in the Neowin article…

“It was about this time last year that Microsoft showed off Halo 4 running in the cloud on various devices at the company’s all-employee meeting, and this project is the on-going work from that demo to bring it to more users. Our understanding is that significant progress has been made from that demo and it is now being rolled out to more users.”

Earlier in the year Microsoft also showcased how physics-processing could be offloaded to the cloud. Although, we’ve yet to see how the real-world application of that process could be applied to gaming on a large-scale basis.

Based on the information made available, it would seem as if Microsoft gunning for having games running through browsers might actually relate to them pursuing something ever-so-close to Sony’s PlayStation Now service. With PS Now gamers have the option of playing older generation titles and soon newer-gen titles from a wide variety of supported Sony platforms and mobile devices.

With Microsoft looking into Xbox 360 emulation for the Xbox One, it seems like the perfect solution would be hosting Xbox 360 games through the cloud and allowing players to access them through the Xbox One.

It’s still not really an ideal solution, given that pricing becomes a huge factor – just like pricing is one of the most debilitating drawbacks for PS Now – and, as mentioned in the Neowin article, licensing third-party publisher games for digital streaming becomes another huge hurdle. Games with licensed music, trademarks or content face tougher roadblocks for being streamed digitally, an issue that held up the re-release of GTA: Vice City.

Nevertheless, Microsoft testing this new streaming service paints a positive sign for anyone hoping for some form of backwards compatibility for the Xbox One. Of course, there’s nothing actually official about this other than that they’re testing a streaming method. For all we know this could be one of those projects that stays in research and development limbo; constantly being iterated and worked on but never actually seeing the light of day within the eighth generation of gaming.

Of course, we’ll only know for sure when the company finally begins to make public their intentions and roadmap for the cloud.

For now it’s only been used as a sort of tertiary support system for the Xbox One and its games, and nothing has really stood out for the system that gives the Xbox One any “must buy” appeal.

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by Owen S. Good

Over the past few years, hardware modder Ed Zarick built a number of “Xbook 360” laptops, at about $1,000 each, on commission. When the Xbox One launched, his fans wondered if he’d come up with a portable version of that console as well. He has.

This is the “Xbook One,” comprising a 22-inch Vizio 1080p LED monitor, a slot-loading front-facing disc drive, and 3D-printed components. Zarick stresses no enhancements have been made to the Xbox One but, of course, modifiying its hardware in this way completely voids the unit’s warranty.

The Xbook One will work with a Kinect sensor (not shown here.) He’s accepting commissions, but Zarick expects a $750 nonrefundable deposit, and even if you provide your own console the job is going to run in excess of $1,100, with shipping. If you don’t have a console and want an HDMI out port, it’ll go over $1,500. Each unit will take about two to three weeks to finish, Zarick says.

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by Dan Crawley

Destiny is getting a supply drop of extra content just days after launch.

Developer Bungie wants to keep its shared-world, first-person shooter alive for a long time to come, and it’s already bringing fresh missions to the game, which brought in over $500 million in one day.

Starting today, Bungie is adding new events for Destiny players. These include a Salvage multiplayer mode, live from now until the end of the weekend, which pits two teams of three against each other in an attempt to capture and hold relics. Other highlights include “Vault of Glass,” a cooperative Raid mission set on Venus for players level 26 or higher, which arrives Sept. 16.

Bungie has a 10-year plan for the Destiny franchise, and keeping the playing community engaged with fresh challenges is key to its lasting success. Outlining the first installment of new content, Bungie community manager David Dague reiterated that the launch period is just the beginning of an “epic adventure that unfolds over time.”

“To keep you steeped in new challenges and clad in fresh rewards, we have some tricks up our gauntleted sleeves,” said Dague. “It’s time to roll them up and share some details about the next missions that will rely on your bravery and your gunfire.”

Players can expect to see random public events occurring more often from now on. These events, which pull people together from across a shared map to fight for a common goal, were a big part of Destiny’s open beta but have been less noticeable in the full game so far. The game’s central hub, The Tower, is about to get busier, too.

“Very soon, strange characters will arrive in the Tower with special offerings in hand,” said Dague. “And Bungie will enter the fray with some bounties of our own for you to claim – if you can.”

You can see details of the upcoming events in the graphic below.

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