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'Team Fortress 2' patch fixes decade-old bug
Video games with a dedicated developer team periodically release software patches to fix broken things. Sometimes these come at the behest of the title's community, and dedicated users can be counted on to pick apart janky or erratic flaws faster than developers can address them. Unless everyone misses something for, say, a decade. That's how long a particular bug had been in the shooter Team Fortress 2 -- since it was released in 2007 -- if a pair of modders are to believed, an issue that studio Valve finally fixed in yesterday's game update.
'Rocket League' + Steam Workshop = more crazy stadiums
As cool as playing a game of soccer (football to the rest of the world) with cars in a rapturous undersea arena is, sometimes you want to go somewhere even the development team couldn't dream up. Good news then, because Steam Workshop support is en route for Rocket League.
Bethesda paves the way for 'Fallout 4' mods on PlayStation 4
Almost a year after Fallout 4 hit store shelves (and following some consternation from Sony), mod support is finally available for the game's PlayStation 4 version -- thanks to an update to the game's Creation Kit mod toolset*. Now remember, this doesn't mean you replace the towering Deathclaw enemies with "Macho Man" Randy Savage, as unlike the Xbox One version, the one on PS4 only plays nicely with mods created from pre-existing game assets. A post on Bethesda.net reminds as much, saying that these mods are plugins only, and that no archives are permitted. Is that going to limit your creativity? Pop down in the comments and let us know. * A previous version of this post wrongly stated that mods were already available. It has been updated to reflect that correction.
Rockstar liquidates cheaters' 'GTA Online' bank accounts
Not long after it launched in October 2013, Grand Theft Auto Online cheaters began artificially creating gobs of in-game money. The plague of illicitly-gained cash proliferated while Rockstar continued releasing its expansions -- until today. Players who had cheated, modded, hacked or even gotten money through glitches woke up to a message from Rockstar this morning telling them yes, they'd been found out, and the studio had eliminated their ill-gotten dough. For some players, this wiped out their in-game cash reserves to an ignominious $0.
'Skyrim,' 'Fallout 4' to offer user mods and PS4 Pro support
Bethesda and Sony have kissed and made up. Who benefits from that corporate make-out session? You, because mod support is en route for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition, according to a post on Bethesda.net. Skyrim mods will show up first, but there isn't a timetable for when that will actually happen.
Sony isn't allowing Bethesda to support mods for PS4 players
Bethesda has announced that there will no longer be mod support for its PlayStation 4 titles. Unfortunately, it seems Sony has informed the company that they will not be approving user mods in the way they "should work," where users have free reign over what they can create for Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.
NVIDIA is letting anyone build mods for 'VR Funhouse'
VR Funhouse, the free carnival game NVIDIA built to show off its latest video cards, is becoming much more than a sideshow attraction. Starting today, developers will also be able to add their own touch with the VR Funhouse Mod Kit, a new tool that'll let them edit levels and other aspects of the game. To kick things off, NVIDIA is also launching five new mods, all of which are slight twists on VR Funhouse's existing mini-games.
NVIDIA's 'Vault 1080' is a gloomy 'Fallout 4' mod
NVIDIA and LightSpeed Studio have teamed up to create Vault 1080, a special add-on level mod for Fallout 4.
Delays plague PlayStation 4 'Fallout 4' mod update
If you were looking to further explore Fallout 4's modding community as a PlayStation 4 owner, unfortunately you're going to have to wait a little longer. Bethesda has announced a delay to the PS4 Mods Beta, and hasn't yet given an ETA on when we can expect to see them become available.
'Skyrim Special Edition' is the remaster you asked for
The rumors are true: We're getting a prettier version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Developer Bethesda ported the original game to this round of modern consoles as part of the development process for last year's wildly popular Fallout 4, so it was just a matter of time before we actually saw it. And guess what? Mods are coming with it, thanks to Bethesda's framework that allows players to use fan-made customizations on consoles. This new version of the game looks really well-improved in the visual department too and you can check it out in the trailer embedded below.
Jerks are plagiarizing 'Fallout 4' PC mods on Xbox One
Maybe the team at Bethesda should've seen this coming: Now that mods are available for Fallout 4 on Xbox One, the more unscrupulous among us are apparently stealing creations that originated on the game's PC version and uploading them for Microsoft's latest console. Some flagrant examples noticed by Reddit users include in-game mods there were hosted exclusively on modding emporium Nexus Mods being added to Bethesda.net as original creations, with uploaders even copying and pasting the PC-centric installation instructions into the mod description.
Computex's most excessive PC mod is a cotton candy machine
Asia's biggest tech show regularly delivers on the PC case mods. If they're not labors of love courtesy of international case-modders, then it's a company producing the case mods itself. MSI possibly went too far commissioning this blood sugar-baiting monstrosity. PC modder Mike Petereyns was responsible for the MSI "Cotton Candy," made to coincide with the company's 30th anniversary, pairing the state fair diabetes trap with the PC producers' own GFX (GTX780Ti), camouflage motherboard and white liquid cooling system. Oh and someone was making cotton candy for everyone. Which always helps draw a crowd. Elsewhere,there was a vibranium-tinged Marvel tribute. Have a look at that in the gallery below.
'Fallout 4' gets official mod support on PC
Even before Fallout 4 was released, Bethesda was keen to stress that the latest instalment of the post-apocalyptic franchise would officially support mods. In February, it told us that PC support would arrive in April, and sure enough, it's now delivered on that promise. The studio has released its first modding tool -- called the Creation Kit -- on Steam and launched a new hub where players can browse and download each others' tweaks.
Overhauling every town in 'Skyrim' took one dev four years
Skyrim came out in 2011 but earlier this month, a modder released Holds: The City Overhaul, an expansion that renovates every village and town in the game. Even among a mod community that refuses to let the game die, this addition was a Herculean task, taking the modder an average two hours a day over three years to finish. That's a labor of love.
'Minecraft' on mobile to get mods and command blocks
On the desktop, command blocks are useful tools for experienced Minecraft players. Enter a forward slash in the chat window and you can enter some pseudo-programming to teleport, change the weather and more. They're not available in the Pocket Edition, a separate version for phones and tablets, but that will soon change. In an interview with CNET, Minecraft lead developer Jens Bergensten confirmed that command blocks are coming to both the mobile and Windows 10 versions of the game.
'Fallout 4' will fully support PC mods in April
Bethesda's Fallout 4 may have won a handful of accolades at the DICE Awards, but the company has no plans to divert attention away from the post-apocalyptic RPG. Speaking with Game Informer shortly after the ceremony, Executive Director Todd Howard provided some updates on the title, confirming that official mod support will come to the PC version of the game in April, with consoles following shortly after.
'Counter-Strike' player tricks cheaters into getting banned
Cheating has plagued the various incarnations of Counter-Strike practically since its servers went online in 1999 and one resourceful Redditor has had enough. User AndroidL created a trio of fake hacks for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that promised everything from unlimited ammo and health to some exotic viewing angles that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Except instead of those exploits, the some 5,500 folks who downloaded them got a hell of a surprise: unwanted attention from Valve's Anti Cheat system on Steam.
Massive 'GTA V' mod adds way more than 4K textures
Grand Theft Auto V got a pretty major overhaul when it made the jump from last-gen hardware to PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One last year, but that leap's got nothing on a new user mod that takes the stick-up simulator into ultra high-definition. "The Pinnacle of V" adds UHD textures for clouds, water, rain and blood, but its biggest changes go well beyond the superficial level. The designers boast that "literally every aspect of the game has been tweaked, adjusted and fine tuned" including bullet speeds, on-foot and in-car police patrols, population density for more realistic rush-hour traffic and now you can shoot through certain materials like wood and plastic too. Oh, and vehicle handling has apparently been completely redone as well -- something on full display in the video below.
The Big Picture: 'Mass Effect' Reapers invade Los Santos
It's a mod, mod world when a universe-destroying Reaper from the Mass Effect series invades Grand Theft Auto V's Los Angeles stand-in, Los Santos. What you see up above is the result of Flickr user berdu applying the pretty self-explanatory "Mass Effect 3 Reaper as Blimp" modification to the PC version of Rockstar's stick-up simulator. It looks awesome and there's video of it in action after the break. As creator JJxORACLE writes on the (currently in beta testing) tweak's download page, sometimes the vanguard of our destruction will disappear from the skies completely and there doesn't seem to be any collision detection here. Oh, and its legs can touch the ground while it moves every now and again, because, you know, it's replacing Los Santos' legless blimp.
'Fallout 4' won't support user mods this fall
One of the biggest surprises from E3 this year was that Fallout 4 would support user mods across PC and Xbox One. That's still in the cards, but it definitely won't happen at launch. Of course, that's because the tools that'd allow you to, say, replace the game's fearsome bear-like enemies the Yao Guai with 3D models of Yogi the Bear don't exist yet according to IGN. Publisher Bethesda Softworks' vice president of marketing Pete Hines says that the team's focus is on making sure the game ships on time. "Our entire focus is on finishing the game," he said. "Nobody cares about mods if the game sucks." Concise! Once Fallout 4 proper is done (and the team likely takes a bit of a break), work on The Creation Kit will begin; it'll take "clearly into next year," according to Hines.
