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The next wave of Oculus' latest VR headsets start shipping in October
After a few stumbles toward the finish line, the first wave of the latest Oculus Rift prototype shipment has concluded is well under way. It's no small number, either. Oculus' vice president of product Nate Mitchell tells Road to VR that his company shipped over 20,000 DK2 headsets in this initial push. Crazy, right? Consider this then: there are still over 40,000 orders left to fulfill. If you happened to order later than the first on-sale day, though, you may not be one of those lucky enough to call the second development kit your own. Road to VR has spotted a change to the prototype's order page, however, that should give you a better idea of when to expect the second next shipment if you order today. Hopefully your Halloween costume isn't planned out just yet because once your virtual reality goggles arrive in October, you might not want to take them off. If you need something to keep you busy until then, well, there's always Google Cardboard.
Go flex your Flak Cannon skills in the 'Unreal Tournament' alpha right now
How's this for irony? If you're the impatient type, an alpha version of the forthcoming Unreal Tournament is available for download right this instant. It'll almost assuredly push your grit to its limits, though. As is typically the case with prototype games, you might rip out more than a few hairs over unbalanced weapons and possible game-breaking bugs because, well, it's a work in progress. The development team at Epic Games says that the shooter will be updated every Friday to tie up the likely multitude of loose ends ahead of the final product. If any other "worthy" changes crop up before that, IGN reports the patches could be more frequent. So, if you want in on some of the action Epic teased earlier this summer, now's your chance. Correction: The alpha build isn't an official Epic Games release, but instead a product of the Unreal Engine 4 development community.
Playdate: We're livestreaming 'Divinity: Original Sin' on PC! (update: on pause)
Welcome, ladygeeks and gentlenerds, to the new era of gaming. The one where you get to watch, and comment, as other people livestream gameplay from PCs and next-gen consoles. Because games! They're fun!
These are the biggest third-party games at E3 2014
Sure, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all have their own internally developed games, but there's so much more to E3 than what The Big Three show off for their respective platforms. Even better, almost every game from the likes of Activision and Electronic Arts will appear on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One so there's almost no need to choose which platform to buy if you want to play a specific title, either. Let's get down to business, shall we?
'Battlefield: Hardline' is an insane version of cops and robbers, beta launches today
Who hasn't played cops and robbers at some point in their life? That's what Battlefield: Hardline is. Matches can handle 32 players and the portion of the match we saw at EA's press conference resembled classic heist flick Heat's climactic bank robbery, but the craziness is amped up dramatically. Player-controlled helicopters can swoop in to take out the robbers, cranes knock down building facades, and players can drop off of bridges and onto the back of a teammate's speeding motorcycle. Granted, this was a prepared video that cut around from perspective to perspective of multiple players, but it looked more chaotic than any match of Battlefield 4 that I've seen. Even better, if you want to play it right now, a beta launches today on PC and PlayStation 4. If you have a copy of Battlefield 4 on PS4 you can access the test-version via the dashboard of Sony's latest console. Need something to do while it downloads? Take a peek at gameplay video after the break.
'The Sims 4' launches this September on PC
You like playing with people's lives, right? When The Sims 4 hits this fall, you'll be able to take that to an entirely new level. Your virtual people will have "heart," can die of laughter and you can import someone else's custom person (or house, even) directly into your game, pretty simply from the look of it. When and where does it all happen? September 2nd this year, and on PC.
Good Old Games is taking on Steam with an (optional) PC service of its own
Anyone who's ever bought a game on Steam or Origin is familiar with the concept of a desktop client, but what if managing your game library through a piece of software was merely an option instead of a necessity? That's the question Good Old Games is exploring: the retro PC game seller just announced GOG Galaxy: a new PC gaming platform that promises to provide customers with auto-updating software, a player communication portal and the ability to play multiplayer games with both GOG Galaxy friends and users on other platforms. Oh, and like everything else in GOG's library, the client and every game that uses it will be completely DRM free.
Fans streamed 2.4 billion hours of competitive gaming last year
We've known that streaming game video from the likes of Twitch has been popular, but the extent of it hasn't exactly been clear. Last year 2.4 billion hours were spent watching competitive gaming (eSports) broadcasts online, according to a report from market research firm IHS. Think about this for a second: if there are around 8,766 hours in a year, in 2013 people watched some 273,785 years of League of Legends (LoL), Dota 2 and StarCraft 2 competitions. For context, the 528,000 who streamed this year's Super Bowl only tuned in for around 48 minutes each, or 422,400 hours total. IHS says that this eSports feat wouldn't have been possible without services like Twitch which are capable of handling huge amounts of viewers for live audiences -- like last fall's LoL tournament that drew 32 million viewers, with 8.5 million watching at the same time. The next step? Turning all of those eyeballs into profit, of course. By 2018, IHS forecasts that eSports advertising revenue will be worth $300 million. Cha-ching. [Image credit: Associated Press]
ASUS crams 4K gaming into a sleek and distinctive laptop
What should a company do immediately after unveiling an incredible 4K laptop that's only 19 mm thick? Why, repeat the feat while throwing in some gamer-level GFX from NVIDIA on the way. You might have heard that we were particularly impressed with ASUS' Zenbook NX500: Besides the specifications, it was quite the looker too. However, if brushed-metallic finishes aren't your thing, maybe the moody black and red undertones of the ROG GX500 will be more to your liking. Has the Razer Blade finally got competition in the slimline gaming laptop market? We prodded and poked ASUS ROG's new beast earlier today, and we reckon it's a yes.
Headshot: Watch new Unreal Tournament devs play first deathmatch
In three weeks time, what can you accomplish? When we last heard from the Unreal Tournament team at Epic Games, they'd only announced that the project was a thing. Well, now there's video of them playing a round of deathmatch in an early build, as spotted by Joystiq. It isn't much to look at, what with the lack of complex textures and level geometry, but, it's a totally playable game and there are definitely people running around and shooting at each other with frickin' lasers. What's more, you can join in on the work-in-progress mayhem for yourself if you're paying the $19 per month for a subscription to Unreal Engine 4. You can leave feedback in the official forums with a free account, too. Like Tappy Chicken before it, this fast progress by a small team shows just how flexible and easy the new development tools are to use. Who knows, maybe we could see a beta version sooner than expected -- better dust off those Flak Cannon skills just in case.
Steam In-Home Streaming now beams PC games to any room of your house
It has been in beta since mid-November, but Steam's In-Home Streaming is now available to all. Folks who have a fleet of computers at home can link 'em up and then remotely install and play PC games just like you were sitting at your desk. As you might expect, this also enables access to titles on machines running other OSes -- like OS X, Linux and SteamOS, of course. You'll still have to wait a bit to nab up a Steam Machine, but if you're champing at the bit to give it a go, all the info you'll need to get start awaits via that source link.
Open data gives rise to a virtual Denmark in Minecraft
Since the US government opened its troves of public data we've seen some pretty neat projects like climate-change prediction tools and deforestation-monitoring systems. Denmark, on the other hand, has taken a different approach: the Danish Geodata Agency used internally developed topographic maps and elevation models to build a 1:1 recreation of the happiest country within Minecraft's blocky confines. Unlike the virtual Great Britain we've seen before, this pixelated Denmark is more than just natural features like hills and forests. As Ars Technica has spotted, it includes accurate replicas of highways, homes, landmarks and businesses too. The project was intended to showcase the country's open-data initiative to its students and educators, but anyone can take a gander until the Danish government's game servers shut down in late October. Server rules, however, have disabled enemies and TNT -- no Creeps allowed, naturally.
Watch this six-way trailer for Evolve, the latest shooter from the makers of Left 4 Dead
With each successive round of gaming consoles, developers get a little more inventive with the available technology -- the same goes for how they tease their audience ahead of a game's launch, too. Turtle Rock Studios (the team behind Left 4 Dead) recently released an interactive trailer for its upcoming co-op shooter, Evolve. The clip follows a session of four players as they stalk and then battle the gigantic, player-controlled creature that's out to end them. The rub of it is that with a single mouse-click you can swap between the perspectives of each combatant on-the-fly, and watch how the game unfolds from their respective points of view. Want jump from bipedal-monstrosity to soldier and back again just before the former attacks the latter? Go for it.
Sid Meier's latest Civilization game reaches for the stars
If you were worried that legendary game developer Sid Meier wouldn't get his chance to make a new Alpha Centauri, it's time to put those fears to bed. Civilization: Beyond Earth is coming this fall, and, as the name suggests, it takes the venerable PC strategy series to the stars. As Rock, Paper, Shotgun tells it, publisher Electronic Arts still holds the rights to the Alpha Centauri name (which was a Civ spin-off to start), so this is developer Firaxis' effort at a sequel, sans the actual title. The trailer below doesn't show any game-play, but it paints a simultaneously somber and epic picture of just why humanity has to leave Earth. Joystiq and PC Gamer have meaty features and interviews with info from the dev team, so if you're jonesing for more details on the game's randomly-generated alien planets, be sure to check 'em out.
Blizzard's Warcraft card game is getting an undead single-player expansion
Were you hoping for a single-player campaign in Blizzard's Warcraft-themed card game, Hearthstone? Well, you're getting one. The outfit's announced Curse of Naxxramas at PAX East, and, in addition to fresh challenges and more than an entire deck's worth of shiny cards, there's a new Adventure mode en route for solo players. As Joystiq has noticed, Naxxramas also features a new game-board based on Warcraft's floating necropolis of the same name. The first area, subtly named Arachnid Quarter (gee, wonder what's lurking in there?), is free for everyone and will roll out simultaneously across iPad, Mac and PC sometime later this year. If you want to complete the expansion's other successive areas as they release, you'll have to buy-in either with in-game gold or your hard-earned meat-space ducats. Still not sure what the hype is about? Well, the game doesn't cost a thing, so there really isn't much risk in giving it a shot for yourself. It'd probably be a good idea to start practicing ahead of Naxxramas' ambiguous release date, anyhow.
Gamespy's multiplayer servers are going dark, be prepared
Even if you've only played a handful games with online multiplayer in the past dozen years, chances are that at least a few of your sessions have been powered by Gamespy's back-end tech. On May 31st, the company is shutting down its servers for good, and as a result, a bunch of games are losing their online capabilities. For console games, that largely amounts to multiplayer. For certain PC titles though, that also includes authentication servers for CD keys -- losing those means losing access to the game itself. You probably weren't playing most of what Gamespy's listed anymore (WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2009 on PS3, anyone?), though, and a good deal of what's there are somewhat obscure Wii, DS and PC titles. There are, however, high-profile stand-outs: most anything from Rockstar Games and Activision, or the PS3 version of Borderlands and the hardcore military-sim (and basis for DayZ) ARMA series, for instance.
Microsoft aims to power up PC and mobile games with DirectX 12
The time for teasing is over. Today at GDC, Microsoft pulled back the curtain on DirectX 12, a shiny new edition of its venerable graphics APIs that some lucky developers can start mucking around with later this year. Microsoft Graphics Development Manager Anuj Gosalia talked up a storm out in SF: he noted that DX12 would (among other things) yield performance boosts across all of Microsoft's platforms, including Xbox One and Windows Phone.
Steam Family Sharing exits beta, lets you borrow all of your friends' games
One of the inherent drawbacks of digitally distributed games is that you can't loan them out to friends, but Steam has rewritten the rules a bit. Now that Valve's Family Sharing feature is out of beta, pretty much anyone can authorize another user -- that they trust with their account and its attached reputation/information -- and their device to "borrow" a game from their library. It's taken a few months to happen, but if your best Steam buddy owns Rust, you should finally be able to give it a shot before plunking down the cash for it yourself.
Sinister gamepad hopes to replace PC gamers' keyboards, leaves the mouse (hands-on)
Putting aside arguments over platform exclusives, graphical output and the convenience of gaming from the couch, one element separates console and PC gamers more than any other: control. Those parked in front of a television have an all-in-one gamepad with analog nubs, clicky buttons and smooth triggers, while those who bask in the glow of a monitor boast wield a high-accuracy mouse and and full QWERTY keyboard. While trying to jump from one platform to the other, inventor Chris Zhao-Holland found the differences frustrating. Sure, games on the PC benefited from mouse control, but the stiff inputs of the keyboard lost the built-in sensitivity of the console's dual-analog joysticks. It didn't take long for him to cook up the idea for Sinister, a modular PC keypad that hopes to take the best from both worlds. Zhao-Holland dropped by Engadget's West Coast office with an early prototype, presenting us with a 3D-printed palm-rest adorned with Xbox 360 buttons and a single analog nub. These buttons are modular, and can be rearranged mid-game without forgetting their function. The contraption looks a little like a mash up between one of Razer's keypad peripherals and a Splitfish controller, and oddly, functions like both. A pair of switches on the unit's side decide if the PC will recognize it as an Xinput device (like an Xbox 360 controller), a mouse and DirectInput device (with keys that need to be assigned through a companion program) or a mixture of both. These disparate modes give lend the device compatibility, but each comes with its own caveats.
Hands-on with GestureWorks' Gameplay virtual controller (video)
With the exception of the Razer Edge, Windows 8 tablets are at a disadvantage when it comes to gaming -- most PC games are built with keyboard, mouse or a gamepad in mind. Although Civilization V and other select titles have special multitouch controls for the Surface Pro enthusiast, the majority of games are simply unplayable without peripherals. The solution? Find a middleman. GestureWorks Gameplay promises to solve the tablet owner's mobile gaming woes by creating a virtual touch interface that emulates keyboard and mouse inputs. The suite allows users to create custom multitouch controllers with virtual joysticks, d-pads, buttons and even mappable swipe gestures. It's a curious proposition, particularly when one considers the efforts Android and iOS gamers go through to dodge touchscreen controls. We met up with the company to get a quick look at the program's beta.
