‘Gwent: The Witcher Card Game’ beta delayed to October
At E3 2016 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developer CD Projekt Red announced that it’s working on a standalone Gwent title for Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4. It was supposed to enter closed beta for the former two platforms in September, but players will now have to wait until October 25th to get their hands on the virtual card game. In a statement, the studio said it still needs a little more time to work on Gwent before it feels comfortable letting the public play.
“We know we can make a first impression only once, and want to be sure everything is ready before we blast off,” CD Projekt Red said. “Delivering a good game is more important to us than keeping a deadline. Still, that doesn’t mean we don’t realize that delays can be disappointing, and we apologize for making you wait.”
You can still register for the beta on Gwent’s site, and you can check the game out earlier if you’re attending Gamescom from August 17th to August 21st. CD Projekt will let people play one round of Gwent for the first time at the show floor two months before the beta starts, and you can always play it in The Witcher 3 as well.
Source: PlayGwent
The Rapidfire K70 is a gaming keyboard that typists will love
Mechanical keyboards are favored by gamers and programmers for how precise and springy the buttons feel under their fingers. The latter is important not just for improving a player’s reaction time in a heated match, but a shorter key depression is also way kinder to a typist’s hands. So it seems that Corsair’s new Rapidfire K70 RGB would be the ultimate step up thanks to its new “Cherry MX Speed” keys, which only need to be pushed down 1.2mm: the shortest actuation point on the market. I’ve been using it as my work keyboard for the past two months and it’s been a sweet experience, though not without a few bumps.
Unlike other gaming keyboards that might pack in extra features like macro keys or a display screen, there aren’t too many bells and whistles on the Rapidfire K70. In fact, there’s not a whole lot to distinguish it from the standard K70, which was the top pick in our gaming keyboard roundup last year. It has a pretty basic key selection of 107 keys, though there are a few media buttons on the upper right along with a roll bar for adjusting the volume. The K95, also from Corsair, has a selection of 18 macro keys on the left side, but it’s not a Rapidfire model, so you’ll miss out on the benefits of MX Speed buttons.
I appreciated the simplicity of the layout, which made it ideal for mixed-use scenarios, in which you might want to use the same keyboard for gaming and work. Its compact size means its reach is far friendlier to my smaller hands, and the rubberized palm rest feels nice to the touch. I’ve had issues with rests before, as some plastics have a tendency to irritate my skin. I haven’t had that problem with the K70, even after hammering away on a few 1,200-word stories. I’m even typing this review on it, and loving it.
There are other nice touches here. The space bar is textured, and the K70 also came with some extra key caps if you prefer your WASD setup to feel a bit rough as well. It’s extremely easy to remove the caps, too: Corsair thoughtfully packed in a tool to pull them out, though you can also just give the buttons a good yank with your bare hands and the tops will come right off. This makes the whole rig extremely easy to clean, as the keys are housed in an aluminum deck with no nooks and crannies to trap crumbs and dust. This is ideal as I’m a bit of slob; it’s not uncommon for me to eat breakfast or lunch while I work. Indeed, I just noticed something stuck on the side of one of the number keys. It looks like jam? Probably best not to think about it. The important thing is that I was able to pull the key cap off, wipe it down and pop it back onto its switch with no evidence that anything was ever wrong.
The aluminum board also means the Rapidfire feels solid and is heavier than your average keyboard. In fact, It feels like something you’d keep around the office as a melee weapon in case you get caught at work during the zombie apocalypse. It’s that sturdy.
The USB cords alone make it a bit unwieldy; their braided design means they don’t tangle, but they also don’t tuck away easily, so they’re always this looming presence on your desk. It’s especially annoying as one is a USB passthrough, which I don’t need, so it just sits around like a paralyzed snake, making it harder to keep my cables in order.
In use, the Rapidfire K70 is mostly a pleasure. The buttons are smooth and responsive; a little smaller than I’m used to, but it hasn’t been a problem. I love the sound of the keys, too. Mechanical keyboards have a well-earned reputation for being noisier than the membrane and scissor-switch peripherals that populate most offices, and the K70 is definitely louder than my standard decks. But the lighter touch needed to activate the Cherry MX keys means that it’s possible to be whisper-quiet with enough practice.
What’s become more apparent in my time with the Rapidfire K70 is how sloppy a typist I can be. The larger buttons on my usual Comfort Curve Keyboard mean that I don’t need to have a good aim to hit the right one, and I often have to slam my finger to get the membrane keys to register. I don’t need to be delicate or precise: It’s a blunt instrument for typing.
One persistent problem I had with the K70 was that my palm sometimes brushed against the Alt key as I typed. It isn’t an issue on a membrane keyboard or even other mechanical layouts because it’s not enough to register as a deliberate key press. But thanks to the extremely short actuation point on the Rapidfire K70, I was activating hotkeys left and right. No, I don’t need the edit menu right now, thank you very much. Stop that.
In contrast, a mechanical keyboard is more of a scalpel, and the Cherry MX Speed switches on the Rapidfire K70 make it even more so. They’re a bit thin, so I have to be careful about hitting the center of the key cap. I barely have to touch them to register a press; it feels like I could breathe funny on the keyboard and end up typing gibberish. That won’t actually happen, though. I hit the K70 with a can of compressed air and the keys jiggled but didn’t depress enough to register as strokes.
My ham-handed typing aside, it feels and looks great — I’d be remiss in not mentioning the backlit RGB keys, which are bright and bold and pretty distracting. Of course, Corsair provides its own utility engine, so you can tweak the lighting as well as programming macros. It’s pretty robust but also a bit opaque, so if you want anything more complicated than simple keystroke shortcuts you need to put in a serious sit-down with the software to figure out how it works. But it’s easy enough to mess with the default lighting schemes and find one that looks good without being too annoying. And if the lighting does ever become a problem, there’s a button on the keyboard to just turn it off.
But I don’t really want to. The candy-colored lighting makes me happy in a way my conscious brain can’t explain. That visual treat combined with the crisp, light typing makes the Rapidfire K70 RGB a sensory delight that actually gets me excited about typing on it. It makes me want to work. When was the last time you could say that about a keyboard?
The historical research behind Mafia III’s biracial anti-hero
The 1960s were a period of dramatic upheaval in the United States. By 1968, the Vietnam War was raging abroad while civil rights activists at home were mourning the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated in April. The Civil Rights Act, Fair Housing Act and Brown v. Board of Education — landmark rulings in favor of racial equality in the United States — were all in effect, though racism still reared its ugly head across the nation, particularly in the South. The FBI finally admitted in the 1950s that organized crime existed on a large scale, and by 1968, the sun was setting on the Italian mob’s golden age.
This is the backdrop for Hangar 13’s first project, Mafia III. The game takes place in New Bordeaux, a fictionalized version of New Orleans, Louisiana, and it stars Lincoln Clay, a half-black, half-white Vietnam War veteran who takes on the Italian mob. Mafia III challenges the status quo in the same way the 1960s forever changed the United States: Lincoln represents the tensions of an entire nation and he embodies a drastic shift for the series, which has traditionally starred white members of the Italian mob.
“We’ve told that story,” says lead writer Bill Harms. “We have two previous games and we really wanted to push the franchise forward in interesting ways, but we’re also holding on to the kind of tenets of what makes a Mafia game a Mafia game. A gifted anti-hero, a specific time and place in American history. And honestly, the Italian mafia plays a huge role in this game.”
The Italian mob is important to Mafia III’s story, but it isn’t the game’s focus. Lincoln is a proud member of the black mafia, a group that was viciously slaughtered by the Italian mob. Lincoln vows revenge, and his fellow vigilantes include the Haitian mob’s “Voodoo Queen” Cassandra, Irish mob boss Thomas Burke and Vito Scaletta, noted Italian mafioso and the star of Mafia II.
“One of our big goals was reclaiming what ‘mafia’ means as a term,” Harms says.
Lincoln is a large part of that reclamation. Harms happens to be white and Lincoln, the character he’s in charge of bringing to life in Mafia III, happens to be black. To ensure he told an accurate story — from a historical and racial perspective — Harms did his homework. He watched documentaries like Spies of Mississippi and Take This Hammer, and he read interviews from the 1960s dealing with racial discrimination as it showed up across a range of fields, from housing to football.
Harms is a self-proclaimed history buff and he surrounded himself with stories and images from the era. For a long while during development, his desktop background was a picture of John Lewis (now a US Congressman from Georgia) being pummeled by police officers during the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. A Post-it note on his monitor displayed a quote from writer and activist James Baldwin in Take This Hammer, where he discusses his rejection of the n-word and why it doesn’t apply to him personally, as a black man living in 1960s America.
“I’ve probably watched that part of the interview 15 times because it’s very, very powerful,” Harms says.
John Lewis being beaten by state troopers in March 1965 (Credit: AP Images)
Lincoln allows Harms to tell a more robust and authentic story of the 1968 American South, when the Italian mafia’s golden age was coming to a close. Focusing on the black mafia provides a different lens for the series, rather than featuring another white member of the Italian mob.
During development, Harms spoke with the black voice actors working on Mafia III, and he says their personal experiences helped inform the characters as well. “We had a lot of conversations about race,” Harms says. “In terms of everything from, ‘What language are we going to use in the game, what opinions are we going to have characters express in the game?’ In the end, we just decided the best thing to do was just be as authentic as possible and let history inform what we do.”
That history includes the Vietnam War, Creedence Clearwater Revival and other aspects of 1968 Americana. News stories air on the radio throughout the game, offering details about protests, pop culture phenomena and commentary on players’ actions as they progress. And then there’s the music.
“You’re driving around in our game and CCR comes on the radio, and you just want to floor the car and drive fast,” Harms says. “It really gets you going. And it really helps capture and establish the ’60s, even if you weren’t alive then.”
Harms’ father fought in the Vietnam War, as did the father of studio head Haden Blackman. Their personal relationships with Vietnam veterans helped inform Lincoln’s character.
“When Lincoln arrives home, he doesn’t go back to his old bedroom. He sleeps in the basement,” Harms explains. “That’s because the basement is essentially a very large foxhole and that’s where he feels safe. … Obviously, we wanted to be very respectful to other people who’ve served in Vietnam. Lincoln is highly decorated; he’s served his country with honor and he was very brave. That’s also something that comes up about him as a character during the course of the game.”
In Mafia III, Lincoln is a decorated war vet, an orphan and a young man who is trying to protect his surrogate family’s legacy in 1968 Louisiana. In the end, his race provides a fresh angle for the franchise, but it isn’t the entire story. Lincoln is a man who never had a lot, and what he had was cruelly ripped away from him. Players of all backgrounds can relate to these themes — loss, death and uncertainty. Lincoln is a classic Mafia-style anti-hero, just as Harms intended.
“Even though, obviously, I’m a white person, we’re all human beings,” Harms says. “It’s finding out those areas where you empathize with people. There are things about [Lincoln] that are universal to everybody.”
‘DOTA 2’ forum hack spills almost two million passwords
The website LeakedSource has revealed that a forum tied to the game DOTA 2 was hacked on July 10th, 2016. Attackers were able to make off with almost two million records, including usernames, email addresses, passwords and IPs. You can check if your personal details are amongst LeakedSource’s records by heading over to the site and searching for your own name. Users will be able to request that their details are removed from the list using its automatic deletion tool as well.
It appears that Valve’s questionable security procedures are to blame, since the firm used MD5 hashing and a salt. In layman’s terms, it’s a quick and simple method of hiding data, but not one that should be used to store people’s private information. As this StackExchange thread from 2014 explains, a sufficiently-motivated hacker with decent hardware would be able to crack “the hashes of all possible 8-character passwords for a given salt in mere hours.” That’s why around 80 percent of the forum’s database was converted to plain text so easily.
We’ve reached out to Valve for any comment on the situation, but don’t expect to hear back from the notoriously-private company. In the meantime, it’s best to make sure that none of your passwords are shared with any other sites or services and keep your eye on Have I Been Pwned.
Via: ZDNet, PC Gamer
Source: LeakedSource
Sony is holding a PlayStation event on September 7th
It looks like we could finally see what Sony has up its sleeve for the future of PlayStation next month. Members of the press have begun receiving invites to a “PlayStation Meeting” scheduled for September 7th at 3pm Eastern. Where? The PlayStation Theater in New York, of course. This confirms reports that began floating around yesterday that Sony would finally show off the revamped PlayStation 4, codenamed “Neo.”
How powerful will it be? Will it pack in an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive like the Xbox One S? As of now, there’s less than a month until we find out. A PlayStation spokesperson tells us that there will be an update on the PlayStation business (the newly formed Sony Interactive Entertainment, most likely) and the PS4 itself.
‘Dead Rising Triple Pack’ brings zombie carnage to PS4 owners
Just in time to get in on the Dead Rising 4 hype and the series’ 10th anniversary, Capcom is rewarding fans for their patience by porting all three of the franchise’s previous entries to both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 13th.
Each port will include all of the add-on costumes previously available, and updated graphics in 1080p at 60 frames per second. The original Dead Rising will be coming to PC via Steam and will also appear on PS4 and Xbox One. Both Dead Rising 2 and Off the Record will only be available for consoles. You can purchase all three in a bundle for consoles as the Dead Rising Triple Pack for $59.49, or you can pick them up separately for $19.99 apiece.
If you opted for a PlayStation 3 back during the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 “console wars” you likely didn’t get a chance to play a Dead Rising game, given its then-exclusive status as an Xbox 360 titles. Cutting through zombies with lawnmowers and whacking into their heads with baseball bats is still just as satisfying now as it was then.
It’s a great time to play through some of the older games now while getting ready for Dead Rising 4, which is poised for a December 6th release on PC and Xbox One.
Via: Polygon
Source: PlayStation Blog
What’s on your HDTV: ‘No Man’s Sky,’ Olympics, ‘The Get Down’
Live streaming or tape-delayed to prime time, we’re watching the Summer Olympics, but there’s a lot more to check out this week than just the action in Rio. The highly-anticipated game No Man’s Sky arrives on PS4 and PC this week, allowing gamers to visit some 18 quintillion planets in a quasi-multiplayer game. On Netflix, The Get Down revisits the birth of hip-hop with its first six episodes, and The Walking Dead crew gets together to preview season seven. On Blu-ray the Japanese series Female Prisoner Scorpion is arriving, and Oblivion is out on Ultra HD Blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos audio track. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Blu-ray & Games & Streaming
- 11.22.63 (S1)
- Lucy (4K)
- Oblivion (4K)
- Supergirl (S1)
- Female Prisoner Scorpion: The Complete Collection
- Lone Survivor (4K)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
- A Hologram for the King
- 2015-16 NBA Champions
- No Man’s Sky (PS4)
- No Man’s Sky (PC – 8/12)
- Uno (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- VR Ultimate Paintball (PC – Early Access)
- Emily Wants to Play (PS4)
- Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered (PS4)
- Anode (Xbox One)
Monday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
- WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
- The Fosters, Freeform, 8PM
- Hitchcock/Truffaut, HBO, 9PM
- Chris Harris on Cars, BBC America, 9PM
- Guilt, Freeform, 9PM
- Angie Tribeca (season finale), TBS, 9PM
- The Making of the Mob, AMC, 10PM
- Are You the One?, MTV, 10PM
- Unreal (season finale), Lifetime, 10PM
- Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, TBS, 10:30PM
Tuesday
- Difficult People, Hulu, 3AM
- Casual, Hulu, 3AM
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- WWE Smackdown, USA, 8PM
- Pretty Little Liars, Freeform, 8PM
- MADtv, CW, 9PM
- Zoo, CBS, 9PM
- Animal Kingdom (season finale), TNT, 9PM
- Dead of Summer, Freeform, 9PM
- Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the LA Rams (season premiere), HBO, 10PM
- Scream, MTV, 10PM
- Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10PM
- Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
Wednesday
- Chelsea, Netflix 3AM
- Penn & Teller: Fool Us, CW, 8PM
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Unsung Hollywood: Megan Good, TV One, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
- Suits, USA, 9PM
- American Gothic, CBS, 9PM
- Dating Naked, VH1, 9PM
- Whose Line is it Anyway?, CW, 9PM
- The Night Shift, NBC, 9PM
- Catfish (season premiere), MTV, 10PM
- Mr. Robot, USA, 10PM
- Tyrant, FX, 10PM
- Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons, HBO, 10PM
- Another Period, Comedy Central, 10PM
- American Gothic, CBS, 10PM
- The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV, 10PM
Thursday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 9PM
- The First 48, A&E, 9PM
- Ripper Street, BBC America, 10PM
- Lip Sync Battle, Spike TV, 10PM
- Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, FX, 10PM
- Queen of the South, USA, 10PM
Friday
- The Get Down (S1: episodes 1 – 6) Netflix, 3AM
- Project MC² (S2), Netflix, 3AM
- Ask the Storybots (S1), Netflix, 3AM
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Killjoys, Syfy, 9PM
- Dark Matter, Syfy, 10PM
- Outcast (season finale), Cinemax, 10PM
- Ridiculousness, MTV, 10PM
- The Eric Andre Show, Cartoon Network, 12AM
Saturday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Perfect Sisters, Lifetime, 8PM
- NFL preseason: Cowboys/Rams, ESPN, 8PM
- Boston EMS, ABC, 10PM
Sunday
- 2016 Summer Olympics, NBC, 8PM
- Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
- Star Trek Anniversary Special, History, 8PM
- Celebrity Family Feud, ABC, 8PM
- $100,000 Pyramid, ABC, 9PM
- Inspector Lewis, PBS, 9PM
- The Night of, HBO, 9PM
- Ray Donovan, Showtime, 9PM
- The Hunt (season finale), BBC America, 9PM
- Power, Starz, 9PM
- Talking Dead: Season 7 Preview special, AMC, 10PM
- Survivor’s Remorse, Starz, 10PM
- Braindead, CBS, 10PM
- Motive, USA, 10PM
- Ballers, HBO, 10PM
- Roadies, Showtime, 10PM
- The Jim Gaffigan Show, TV Land, 10PM
- Murder in the First, TNT, 10PM
- Geeking Out, AMC, 11PM
- Vice Principals, HBO, 10:30PM
- Tunnel, PBS, 10:30PM
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM
(All times listed are ET)
Twitch is cracking down on ‘Pokémon Go’ cheaters
While livestreaming can be a boon for game developers, Twitch has made it clear the company has zero tolerance for players who flagrantly violate any game’s terms of service. For players streaming their Pokémon Go sessions, that means taking a hard stance on shared accounts and GPS spoofing.
“Recently we issued a statement that streaming content on our services which violates third-party terms of service or other user agreements is a violation of our own Terms of Service,” Brian Petrocelli wrote in a blog post. “Today we would like to make clear that this policy also holds true for Pokémon GO content on Twitch.”
Per Niantic’s guidelines, cheating in Pokémon Go can be anything from multiple users per account to selling accounts to “using tools or techniques to alter or falsify your location” — obviously the big point for Twitch here. As of today, anyone caught streaming their Pokémon cheats on Twitch will get a strike on their account. So think twice the next time you feel like livestreaming your GPS-hacked trip to a gym in Shibuya.
‘Pokémon Go’ update warns you not to catch and drive
You probably know that it’s unwise to play Pokémon Go while you’re behind the wheel, but Niantic and The Pokémon Company aren’t taking any chances. They’re trotting out an update to the mobile game (on both Android and iOS) that tells you not to catch creatures while driving. You have to tap an “I’m a passenger” button if you want to keep playing while moving at high speed. The game can’t check to see that you’re being honest, of course, but this will at least serve as a reminder that irresponsible gameplay can have serious consequences.
That’s not the only noteworthy addition. This is the upgrade that restores the battery saver mode on iOS, helping you eke a little more exploration time out of your iPhone. It also fixes a key bug that prevented you from getting experience with good throws, adds graphics for the leaders of the three teams, and will let a handful of users test a new “nearby Pokémon” interface. Even if you’re a cautious player, then, it’s worth grabbing this new version in a timely fashion.
Source: Google Play, App Store, Pokemon Go (Facebook)
‘Harold Halibut’ brings back stop-motion video games
Remember the days when games were willing to experiment with stop motion characters and real-world backdrops, like Mortal Kombat or The Neverhood? They’re back. Slow Bros. is working on Harold Halibut, an adventure game where both the characters and the environments are honest-to-goodness physical objects. As Harold tries to keep things lively for the rest of his fellow clay-animated crew members, he’ll navigate a crash-landed spaceship made out of metal, wood and “carefully sewn textiles.” As the teaser below shows, the result brings a uniquely imperfect style and depth that you can’t quite get through all-digital animation.
The studio hasn’t said much more about the title, although it’s planning to support Macs, Windows PCs, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. The team tells us that it’s aiming for a release sometime in 2018, too, so don’t expect to get first-hand experience any time soon. However, the game already shows that you don’t need advanced 3D models and outsized production budgets to produce a game that stands out — low-tech craftmaking can be just as effective.
Via: Rock Paper Shotgun
Source: Harold Halibut
AIVAnet 