Latest Articles (Page 1535)

There was a time when the notion of a 40 or 50-inch living room display was the stuff of dreams, but now it is commonplace, delivering an immersive gameplay experience through large, pin-sharp imagery - but what if we want to go bigger and really replicate the epic, cinematic feel that many triple-A titles are striving for? We could sit closer to the display or adopt a desktop set-up to help bring us closer to the action, but this still falls short of replicating the true big-screen experience at home. HDTVs can't really deliver, but projectors can, offering up mammoth 100-inch images for the cost of a conventional living room flat-screen display.

Everyone needs an occasional helping hand in a game, but usually it's a furtive visit to a strategy guide or a video walkthrough. When developers start to program failure-sensitive helping hands into their games, and we activate them - then comes the abject humiliation. "So you do this for a living?" loved ones will sometimes ask.

Has Destiny truly achieved platform parity between Xbox One and PlayStation 4? Shooting ahead of expectations with a boosted, crisper 1080p output and no immediately apparent frame-rate penalty, first impressions suggest the Xbox One version holds up handsomely compared to its PS4 counterpart. But we wanted to go deeper, requiring a period of extended play to fully address our two outstanding concerns: firstly, are the Xbox One's graphics settings truly a match for those seen on the Sony hardware? And, just as crucially, is 30fps on later, potentially more demanding stages a lock for each platform?

With a clear visual divide between Destiny's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 beta builds, both versions nevertheless come out looking very respectable indeed. A locked 30fps is a core mandate for each platform, it seems, and with the Xbox One release open for access since Wednesday, it's clear this version is no exception. However, with resolution currently locked at 900p for this Xbox One build - and 1080p being targeted for release - are there any other sacrifices being made to suit this console's more restrictive specs?

Bungie has released a huge 2.44GB update for first-person shooter Destiny that adds a raft of much-requested features.

Skill, in Destiny? This guy levels in his sleep.

Three months is a long time in Destiny. Since the game launched, the cycle of shooting and looting has taken us around the galaxy many times and the repetition is not doing the content any favours. The bounties, dailies and weeklies have become overfamiliar, while the descent into the Vault of Glass Raid has gone from 'mythical aspiration' to 'a couple of hours on Tuesday night'. It seems contradictory to complain that a game I've spent 200 hours playing is running short of things to do, but such is the nature of MMOs: they take over your life, so they need to keep the content coming.

(Put the needle down on the Replacements record.)

DayZ's standalone remake has sold 3m copies on Steam Early Access, where it launched in December 2013.

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters, the upcoming visual novel/RPG hybrid from the developers of Deadly Premonition, is now slated for a 13th March release in Europe on Vita and PS3, publisher NIS America has announced.

UPDATE 23RD JANUARY: Time's up. Thousands of you have put your name down for a key and we're sorting through them now, via magical and fair robot means, to pick our lucky recipients. Keep an eye on your inbox over the next couple of hours.

Daedalic Entertainment has confirmed a PlayStation 4 edition of its arty adventure game Silence: The Whispered World 2.

You know how no-one really works past 3pm on a Friday anyway? No? Uh, me neither. Anyway, we've come up with possibly the best way to end the week - an office Trials Fusion livestream. Come 3pm, our regular livestream host with the most Ian Higton will be joined by a bunch of would-be challengers, including our new senior video producer Johnny Chiodini, and together they'll keep you company right up until quittin' time. The winners will earn our love and respect, the losers will be appropriately harangued, and we'll all go home with a better knowledge of how bike-based physics work. Sound good?

Pokkén Tournament developer Namco Bandai has just finished showing off a detailed look at its upcoming Pokémon fighter.

Dying Light developer Techland has nailed down a new release date for the game's physical version in Europe - 27th February. That's a month after the game was due to arrive in boxed form - and still will as a digital download - on 28th January.

UPDATE 23RD JANUARY: Whatever Heart of Thorns is, and I suspect it's an expansion, will probably be announced during the Guild Wars 2 PAX South bonanza tomorrow - conference is a such boring word. This kicks off 4.30PM GMT and you can watch it via the embedded Twitch stream below.

Parkour always looks pretty cool when you watch clips of real-life people with a camera strapped to their forehead make an attempt at it on YouTube. Unfortunately - discounting perhaps one exception - it never seems all that empowering or intuitive when developers try to recreate those moves in-game. Third-person games like Assassin's Creed seem to get it right, so what are first-person parkour titles doing wrong? Our new senior video producer Johnny Chiodini investigates, hopefully while managing to not look down.

There's something interesting going down in massively-multiplayer land and it's a game called Crowfall.

UPDATE 23/1/15 9.50am: PlayStation UK has released the 10% off PSN discount code, which is valid for use from now until 9am UK time on Monday, 26 January.

Sony is contacting US PlayStation Network users with details of how they can claim compensation for the infamous 2011 PSN hack.

In 1895, the Lumière brothers made a short film about a train pulling into a station called L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat. Legend has it that people ran to the back of the theatre screaming as they thought the steam engine would smash into them - a scene popularised in Martin Scorsese's film Hugo. "Fools!" I'd think as they overreacted to something that wasn't even there. Then, earlier today, I did basically the same thing when I walked through a hologram of NASA's Mars rover.

Free-to-play online multiplayer shooter APB Reloaded is being given a new lease of life on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Hotline Miami and Shadow Warrior publisher Devolver Digital has announced that it will be publishing a turn-based action-stealth platformer called Ronin.

Driver: San Fransisco developer Ubisoft Reflections has revealed the latest in its string of experimental risks with the physics-based PC platformer Grow Home.

Dead Rising: Watchtower, the film based on Capcom's open-mall zombie series, has received its first trailer.

UPDATE 22/01/2015 11.19pm: The latest batch of Star Wars game has arrived on GOG. It includes:

Trials Fusion has finally added online multiplayer to all platforms as part of a free update, publisher Ubisoft has announced.

Game of Thrones: Episode 2: The Lost Lords is set to come out during the first week of February, Telltale has announced.

UPDATE 22/1/15 11.05am: The next update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection will enter into a public beta phase before being generally released.

Microsoft announced last night that Xbox One games will be streamable to Windows 10 PCs and tablet devices over a local Wi-Fi network.