Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by Eddie Makuch

Phil Spencer, who makes the decisions about what games will come to Xbox platforms, recently retweeted a tweet about a “Marcus Fenix Collection” Xbox One bundle that would hypothetically include remastered versions of Gears of War 1-3. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a sign that such a bundle is in the works.

Spencer now says it was a “mistake” to retweet the message. That doesn’t mean he’s not excited about the future of Gears of War, however. “Love the passion for Gears, but no announce,” he said.

Though a Marcus Phoenix Collection doesn’t appear to be in the cards, Microsoft is planning to release a comprehensive bundle for one of its other major franchises–Halo–next month in the form of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It includes remastered versions of Halo 1-4, among other special perks.

If you’re looking to pick up all three Epic Games-developed Gears of War titles in one bundle, you can buy the Gears of War Triple Pack, which was released for Xbox 360 in 2011.

Microsoft acquired the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games earlier this year for an undisclosed sum. Black Tusk Studios, which is owned by Microsoft, is now working on a new Gears of War game for Xbox One. This game is in the very early stages of development, and all we’ve seen so far from it is a blurry piece of concept art.

#GoW #GamersOutpost

by ‘Chris’

Game development studio Rare, a subsidiary of Xbox One manufacturer Microsoft, is gearing up the development of its latest game.

The decades-old studio has a few positions available within the company, with job listings posted on the official website. It’s the job descriptions that really give us a peek into what Rare are up to these days, with the postings all carrying the same message – “If you’d like to be part of a pioneering team dedicated to the next jaw-dropping, never-been-done-before Rare game, why not come and join us?”

So what is their next game? Personally, I haven’t the foggiest, but lets hope it’s a return to form for the studio which produced the greatest games of many an adult gamers childhood. Goldeneye, Banjo Ka-zooie and Perfect Dark all remain firm favourites of mine.

Since Microsoft bought Rare for around $375 million back in 2002 the studio has had mixed success with its releases, though some notable games have been produced, such as Perfect Dark Zero for the Xbox 360 as well as Viva Pinata. The second one is my guilty pleasure.

Over the last few years the firm’s primary focus has been on the Kinect Sports series of games, with the most recent release being Kinect Sports: Rivals for the Xbox One which received mixed reviews.

Here’s hoping that Rare’s “jaw dropping” game can bring them back to the forefront of game development, it’s been too long.

What do you think Rare is up to? Leave a comment down below.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Ben Gilbert

Apparently Halo‘s top-down mobile version was successful enough to warrant a second go, as Microsoft’s planning a December launch for Halo: Spartan Strike. But what is Halo: Spartan Strike? It’s a direct sequel to last year’s Spartan Assault, and it features an unnamed Master Chief-esque super soldier shooting, driving and grenading his way through a variety of Halo-flavored worlds. To be totally clear: it’s a twin-stick, top-down shooter made by the same folks who made last year’s mobile Halo (Vanguard). You’ll see New Mombasa! You’ll see a Halo-based area! You’ll see…some jungle! Sadly, we can’t actually show you any of that, as Microsoft’s worked out some form of exclusivity with another outlet. We even played a bit of it, but we can’t actually tell you how that went because of the aforementioned exclusive. Pretty dumb, right?

What we can tell you is that Halo: Spartan Strike will cost $6 when it arrives on Windows 8 devices (from Surface to phones to PC) and Steam this December 14th. The marketing gentleman from Microsoft said the game will remain exclusive to Windows 8 and PC — unlike the previous game, which ended up on consoles as well — but we don’t believe him. You probably shouldn’t either.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Austin Garcia

It seems that no matter how hard they try, Ubisoft can’t seem to get away from the controversy surrounding the 900p resolution of Assassin’s Creed Unity.

An anonymous employee from Ubisoft sent out an email unofficially addressing the controversy that has surrounded Unity‘s resolution on Xbox One and PS4. He was willing to provide his position as verification, though we are still chasing confirmation. We will update as soon as new information becomes available.

Below is an approximate transcription of his quote (beware of language):

“I’m happy to enlighten you guys because way too much bullshit about 1080p making a difference is being thrown around. If the game is as pretty and fun as ours will be, who cares? Getting this game to 900p was a BITCH. The game is so huge in terms of rendering that it took months to get it to 720p at 30fps. The game was 9fps 9 months ago. We only achieved 900p at 30fps weeks ago. The PS4 couldn’t handle 1080p 30fps for our game, whatever people, or Sony and Microsoft say. Yes, we have a deal with Microsoft, and yes we don’t want people fighting over it, but with all the recent concessions from Microsoft, backing out of CPU reservations not once, but twice, you’re talking about a 1 or 2 fps difference between the two consoles. So yes, locking the framerate is a conscious decision to keep people bullshiting, but that doesn’t seem to have worked in the end.”

“Even if Ubi has deals, the dev team members are proud, and want the best performance out of every console out there. What’s hard is not getting the game to render at this point, it’s making everything else in the game work at the same level of performance we designed from the start for the graphics. By the amount of content and NPCs in the game, from someone who witnessed optimization for lots of Ubisoft games in the past, this is crazily optimized for such a young generation of consoles. This really is about to define a next gen like no other game before. Mordor has next gen system and gameplay, but not graphics like Unity does. The proof comes in that game being cross gen. Our producer (Vincent) saying we’re bound with AI by the CPU is right, but not entirely. Consider this, they started this game so early for next gen, MS and Sony wanted to push graphics first, so that’s what we did. I believe 50% of the CPU is dedicated to helping the rendering by processing pre-packaged information, and in our case, much like Unreal 4, baked global illumination lighting. The result is amazing graphically, the depth of field and lighting effects are beyond anything you’ve seen on the market, and even may surpass Infamous and others. Because of this I think the build is a full 50gigs, filling the blu-ray to the edge, and nearly half of that is lighting data.”

Assassin’s Creed Unity launches on November 11th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Giuseppe Nelva

In the past few days the developer of Dead Rising 3 Capcom Vancouver has published several career opportunity ads which confirm that the studio’s new and unannounced games could go multi-platform from the outset, as opposed to their latest title that was initially released as an Xbox One exclusive and only recently published on PC as well.

A couple years ago the studio mentioned working on a new zombie-less IP, and back in January this was confirmed by an older career opportunity ad, mentioning two games including the new IP. The second project was probably the PC port of Dead Rising 3.

The new ads give us more information on what the studio is working on. One for a Design Director specifically requires experience in “third-person action games,” showing that the studio is sticking to the genre of its previous games.

A second post seeking a Rendering Software Engineer is the clincher on the multi-platform bit:

“In this capacity you will have the opportunity to shape Capcom Vancouver’s rendering technology and create best in class visuals for our upcoming multi-platform games.”

The ad also mentions “Develop new features and technology for our cross-platform, multi-title rendering and game engine, data pipeline and artist tools,” and requires experience with DirectX or OpenGL, indicating that the developer is probably targeting both Xbox One and PS4 (not to mention PC, of course). It also seems that Capcom Vancouver is sticking with its proprietary engine Forge, which was used for Dead Rising 3.

Another ad looking for a Senior Gameplay Designer mentions “intuitive, highly-responsive game controls” and both realistic and exaggerated actions and reactions, on top of “addictive player capabilities and fun-to-face enemies.”

Finally, a fourth post for a Gameplay Software Engineer includes in its description the fact that the game will be of the AAA sort, and will feature combat and boss fights.

It’s worth mentioning that the new ads might not even be for the new IP, as in the meanwhile the studio could have started another project, which could very well be another Dead Rising (some of the descriptions above definitely seem to fit the franchise), but whatever it is, it’ll probably start off on more than one platform.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Giuseppe Nelva

2015 will be the second full year of life of the new generation of consoles, and according to industry insider shinobi602, who is normally well informed and reliable in what his sources share with him, mentioned that Microsoft has big plans for the holiday season.

“Hmm, Microsoft’s going in hard next holiday season. Known things and some unknown things…”

Shinobi also elaborated further, mentioning that he’s talking about more than Halo 5: Guardians and Tomb Raider and we’re looking mostly at titles developed in-house. His sources did not bring up Crackdown as a 2015 game, but he explained that Quantum Break is targeting a September release date.

After a while, he also mentioned that Sony has some hard hitters in the pipeline as well, and there are “All kinds of good things for XB1 and PS4 owners” coming.

Of course, as it’s usual with this kind of information coming from insiders, it should be taken with a grain of salt despite Shinobi’s usual reliability (for instance he described Guerrilla Games’ new RPG’s leaked key artwork to a T months before it actually surfaced).

One thing is for sure: the battle for console supremacy next year is going to be even more heated than the one we’re seeing in 2014.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by ‘TheArabGamer’

Bayonetta 2 has been getting high scores across the board with both Destructoid and Gamespot giving the game a perfect 10. Now keep in mind that Gamespot hasn’t given 10 for the past 4 years and are usually the stingy type. Even big budget games such as GTA V only scored a 9 on its site.

Now why is this all surprising? Because, let’s face it, no one saw it coming. This was a game that was almost cancelled had it not been for Nintendo to pull it back from the dead and thankfully it turned out real well and not some deformed Duke Nukem Forever mess. But besides amazing review scores, Bayonetta 2 has proved something quite clear: next-gen or current-gen games are all hype and no substance.

It’s no surprise that current-gen players have been disappointed by recent games that were promised to be the next step in video games. You know which games I’m talking about: Destiny, Titanfall, Watch_Dogs, and more recently Driveclub. Why have these games been massive let downs? Previously I mentioned a lack of good story (excluding Driveclub of course) would effect immersion but I think it comes down to the core of the industry which is Game Development as a whole rather than just part of it.

Ever since the start of this generation there has been something quite off about how games have been marketed. Let’s look at Driveclub for example; the title actually features a hashtag. Now who in their right mind would consider naming their game starting with a Twitter feed? The answer: marketing people. The biggest issue I see or should I say feel, while playing games is that it’s all now become some form of marketing exploit. Even the PS4’s share button, while is still really cool, is just another way of making us market games for free. It’s obvious that designers in major publishers no longer have control over their own games and must now bend their will and creative mind over to the marketing department. It almost feels that game designers who enter a project full of creative ideas need to constantly filter their mind through marketing and that’s usually a recipe for disaster.

“The graphics need to look better.”

“How can we add multiplayer to the story”

“How can we make the gameplay feel more similar to COD”

“Do we have room for microtransactions”

These are but some of the conversation I imagine happen while these developers sit and plan their next big block buster.

Now what does this all have to do with Bayonetta 2? Because it manages to prove everyone wrong. It didn’t need to work closely with a marketing team to design its game. The game doesn’t have some tacky online that forces the player to experience the game with the friend. Heck, they even gave us the first one free and that’s without even pre-ordering it! And most importantly they simply designed it based on what makes a game fun instead of simply addicting. It was also advertised, although barely, properly by actually showing a lot of gameplay rather than just relying on cutscenes and huge marketing texts. Even when playing it felt genuine and didn’t feel off or like a chunk of it was missing a day-one patch or DLC.

I hope that as the industry moves forward it doesn’t forget its roots. Of course I could be speculating on this but it’s quite obvious that major publishers are letting its marketing department manage its game development. That needs to shift back and let the designers do what they do best. It shouldn’t be about the 1080, flashy text, or things you can put on the box. The game experience itself should be the priority first and foremost.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Chris Reed

Ubisoft has announced that the upcoming game Assassin’s Creed Unity will run at a resolution of 900p and at 30 frames per second, no matter whether you play it on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or PC. That idea didn’t sit well with some new console owners, who were hoping the game would run at 1080p and 60 frames per second. After all, shouldn’t these new $400 consoles be able to run new games at optimal specs?

But that kerfuffle turned out to be minor compared to what happened when an interview with the game’s senior producer, Vincent Pontbriand, was posted to Videogamer. Regarding Unity’s identical performance across platforms, Pontbriand said, “We decided to lock them at the same specs to avoid all the debates and stuff.”

This quote stirred up controversy because it sounded like he was saying the developers chose to limit the game’s performance on a machine that could’ve run it better (presumably the PS4) in order to prevent people from comparing it unfavorably on different consoles.

Gamers have reason to think the PS4 version could run better than the Xbox One version. The previous game in the series, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, was originally released in 900p on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 version later received a patch that kicked it up to 1080p. It’s possible Ubisoft got a lot of flak for the performance difference between consoles and is trying to avoid a similar situation with Assassin’s Creed Unity.

In the interview with Videogamer, Pontbriand went on to explain why the game will run at slightly suboptimal specs. “Technically, we’re CPU-bound,” he said. “The GPUs are really powerful, obviously the graphics look pretty good, but it’s the CPU [that] has to process the AI, the number of NPCs we have on screen, all these systems running in parallel.

“We were quickly bottlenecked by that and it was a bit frustrating, because we thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over everything AI-wise, and we realized it was going to be pretty hard. It’s not the number of polygons that affect the frame rate. We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we’re still limited to 30 frames per second.”

After the uproar over the comment began, Ubisoft issued a statement on its blog, saying: “Let’s be clear up front: Ubisoft does not constrain its games. We would not limit a game’s resolution. And we would never do anything to intentionally diminish anything we’ve produced or developed.”

Pontbriand is quoted in the post as saying: “We’ve spent four years building the best game we could imagine. Why would we ever do anything to hold it back? I simply chose the wrong words when talking about the game’s resolution, and for that I’m sorry.”

However, the 900p/30 frames per second issue highlights the larger question of whether the Xbox One and PS4 will be powerful enough to run the games developers want to make over the lifespan of the consoles. If they’re already bumping up against the CPU ceiling not even a year after the consoles launched, that doesn’t bode well for future games.

While this could be a problem in the coming years, we also know that developers find many ways to make their games look and play better as consoles age. Just compare any launch game from the Xbox 360 to a more recent title like Grand Theft Auto V, and you’ll see a major difference. The hardware is the same, but developers find ways to improve the games significantly.

Assassin’s Creed Unity launches on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 14.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Paul Tassi

It seems a day can’t go by without some news breaking about which upcoming games will hit 1080p and 60 FPS, and which ones will miss that mark. Developers are constantly coming forward to try and get ahead of these stories so their games don’t launch and their native resolution becomes some kind of scandal, which is what we saw in the early days of the new console war between Xbox One and PS4.

And really, these resolution differences are one of the last major fighting points between the two consoles, now that the two are borderline indistinguishable from one another. Sony fans tout that their system hits the 1080p/60 FPS mark more often than Microsoft’s console, while Xbox fans seem content to shrug and say they don’t care, as it really isn’t a big deal.

But some people care. A Lot. Hence the reason for this post. I thought I’d compile all the recent resolution news in one spot so you can get a handle on which game will run at which resolution and FPS on which consoles. Here we go:

– Bioware says Dragon Age: Inquisition will run at 1080p on PS4 and 900p on Xbox One, “maximizing the potential of each system.”

– Ubisoft is targeting 1080p and 30 FPS for Far Cry 4 on PS4. No word on Xbox One yet.

– PES 2015 will run at 1080p/60 FPS on PS4, 720p/60 FPS on Xbox One.

– Mortal Kombat X runs at 1080p/60 FPS, and the implication is that it may hit that mark on both consoles.

– Assassin’s Creed: Unity will run at 900p/30 FPS on both PS4 and Xbox One. Originally Ubisoft said this was to “avoid all the debates and stuff,” but later clarified that they were not purposefully hamstringing the PS4 version to be on par with Xbox One.

Those are some of the more major games where resolution has been in the news, and some big fall titles have not yet addressed the issue like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. If you want to delve into the past, IGN has a great chart showing the native resolution and framerates of a lot of games on the PS4 and Xbox One, along with which system has the advantage. It’s the one you’re guessing.

The question has always been…does any of this really matter?

I’d argue yes, but not for the reasons many think.

The functional difference between 1080p and 900p or even 720p on home consoles is not nearly as noticeable as it is on PC, where you’re sitting two feet away from the screen. Most Xbox One players have probably played many 720p or 900p titles and then popped over to their friends’ to play the same game on PS4, and were probably none the wiser about the resolution difference. Framerate, however, is more noticeable, which is why sacrificing 1080p on occasion for 60 FPS seems worthwhile.

The problem is that even the resolution difference is functionally irrelevant across PS4 and Xbox One, the debate and all these news stories feed into the narrative that the Xbox is underpowered when compared to Sony’s system. Though the power difference is largely negligible, and hardly the difference between say, the Wii U and the PS4, if given two consoles with a practically identical games line-up, many consumers may make their decision based on the idea that yes, the Xbox One is less powerful. And that’s why this all matters, and has mattered from the beginning.

The problem is, the perception is already there, and Mucrosoft working overtime to try and get Xbox One up to the same FPS/resolution standards as Sony is admirable, but probably a lot more work than it’s worth in practice.

It’s not really a functionality problem that affects games in meaningful ways. Rather, consumers simply have expectations that of course new generation consoles would be able to hit 1080p/60 FPS consistently. I mean, TV is moving for 4K for crying out loud, right? Yes, but gaming is in a different place, and if resolution is your primary concern, I suggest you take up PC gaming, as has always been the case. The new console generation hasn’t changed that equation, though that realization has been something of a letdown for fans.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Paul Tassi

Destiny’s raid has been the source of much joy and frustration among players since its launch nearly a month ago. Joy for those who have gotten to experience and beat the most challenging, most innovative, most rewarding content of the game. Frustration for those whose schedules don’t allow them to organize a 6-man raiding party to beat a raid that can take anywhere from two to ten hours, depending on your skill level and knowledge of what’s inside.

I always wondered about how with Bungie’s lack of Raid matchmaking and how challenging the content is, how many players would actually attempt and complete the Raid in its current form. Now we have answers from Bungie themselves. Here are the vital stats (via the Bungie Weekly Update and Kotaku):

Destiny averages 3.2M players every day with an average playtime of 3 hours a day(!)

1,970,807 players have attempted the Raid on Normal

472,082 players have defeated the Raid on Normal

202,729 players have attempted the Raid on Hard

36,181 players have defeated the Raid on Hard

Honestly, this is more than I anticipated in all categories. 1.9M attempts out of 3.2M active players is a pretty solid ratio. So is 472K who have actually beaten it. That’s about 15% of daily active players who have beaten the Raid, meant to be the top-tier challenging content of the game. Given these numbers, it seems it’s working as intended.

And yet, I’m still convinced the Raid needs matchmaking, both in-game and out of game.

Out of game, there are a number of pretty solid third party sites that have sprung up which try to connect players together in order to form raiding or Nightfall parties. Destinylfg, ThatWizardCamefromtheMoon, and so on. Still, it is inexcusable that none of these sites were set up by Bungie themselves ahead of time when it was them who made the “friends only” matchmaking rule in the first place. A Bungie site would have the budget to be a lot more in-depth and effective than these third party sites (though they’ve done a great job), and should have existed from the beginning.

And yet, the problem remains with these sites that if you’re going online to try and find anywhere from 1-5 strangers to round out your team, why is there simply not randomized matchmaking in the game in the first place? Finding a group of strangers online is more or less randomized matchmaking itself, only stupidly annoying to organize compared to an automated in-game system.

I understand the downsides of Raid matchmaking which always come up each time this topic is raised. There’s little to stop you from getting throw into the game with lower level players or poorly communicative teammates, but honestly, that happens already regardless. And while sure, many match-made teams will likely disintegrate and most won’t reach end the end of the Raid, at least it would give players a chance to experience the content in a way that doesn’t force them to go on outside forums looking for a group, or sending random invites to everyone they see in the Tower. And I’m willing to bet that even randomly matchmade groups could grow to become a tightly knit team if they communicate and perform well. That’s already happened to me many times on matchmade Strikes, where I’ve stuck with the same group mission after mission, and had a pair of new friend requests waiting for me when I was finished. Why couldn’t that happen for the Raid as well?

Again, this comes down to something I was talking about earlier this week, that Destiny’s next update needs to be heavily social-focused, as it’s too hard to make friends effectively in the game.

I just don’t see the downside in inserting matchmaking into high level events like Raid, Nightfall and Heroic Strikes. Right now some players don’t get to experience this content at all because of those restrictions. With matchmaking, sure, it may prove to be more challenging and frustrating than with a tightly knit group of your buddies or max level strangers, but at least the challenge is presented, not avoided entirely. Worst case scenario you don’t beat the mission and you’ll come back another day, but at least you got to try. Best case you find a good group that you stick with until the end, and you’ll probably make a few friends after an ordeal so harrowing.

Even if these Raid numbers are higher than I may have anticipated, I still believe matchmaking is a must. There’s no point hiding what is far and away the best content of the game from half or more of your players due to arbitrary restrictions that require players to manually organize their own teams outside of the game.

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/