Halo 5: Guardians won't drop until 2015, but a comprehensive look back at Master Chief's story arc will hit Xbox One this fall in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Watch Dogs Patch Promises Fixes for PlayStation, Xbox, PC Players
Watch Dogs ' first major patch is coming soon, says publisher Ubisoft. As soon as next week, players on various platforms will see improvements in the way the hit game looks and plays.
Details on the patch appeared the company's support forums today, listing fixes for players on PlayStation, Xbox and PC platforms. The update will be rolling out for PS4 today, with roll-outs for PS3 coming soon after. PC players get it next in a few days and Xbox One and Xbox 36o owners will have to wait until next week. Here's what's getting fixed :
MAJOR GAME FIXES •Automatically reconstructed corrupted save files which prevented loading to go further than 90%. Some collectibles may remain unrecoverable. •Fixed the issue preventing players from using hacks in game.
GAMEPLAY FIXES •Fixed several mission-breaking bugs. •Fixed minor mission and item-related issues. •Fixed the issue that caused the empty weapon-wheel.
MULTIPLAYER FIXES •Fixed several minor respawn issues. •Fixed some connection and session joining issues.
PC SPECIFIC FIXES •Fixed graphical glitches on Low & Medium settings. •Fixed some crashes on SLI configurations. •Implemented several performance improvements. •Implemented a few control improvements. •Fixed issues causing infinite messaging and timing-out when trying to access the Online Shop from the Extras Menu while Uplay is set to Offline mode. •Fixed issues connecting to a Multiplayer game. •Implemented several mouse modifications. •Fixed "Drinking Game" control issue where wrong information was displayed when played with a gamepad. •Fixed "Chess Game" control issue. •Fixed bug where the invasion setting was never saved. •Fixed graphical issues during cut scenes and cinematics. •Fixed several graphical and texture bugs. •Removed Vista OS check to prevent false positives.
•Added game version in main menu.
No mention is made of the hidden files on the PC version of the game so, for now, it's an open question as to whether this patch will be able to co-exist with TheWorse/E3 2012 mod that'smade the game look better for many PC users.
SEATTLE -- Amazon has a phone. And it is called the Fire Phone.
A portal to Amazon's extensive services -- which range from online shopping and e-books to streaming music and video -- the Fire Phone is, at its heart, meant to do one thing and one thing only: keep people renewing Amazon Prime's yearly subscription membership.
Although US-only for now, the new handset muscles its way into the already-crowded smartphone scene with a higher-than-expected spec sheet and a few innovations that beat other, more established smartphone-makers.
The Fire's quintet of infrared cameras for "3D" tricks, a universal scanning app, and a free year of Amazon Prime are all interesting and compelling, but from what we've seen so far, the Fire Phone may not offer enough of a radically different experience to win over new users. Instead, it will have to claw its way uphill against better-known competitors.
Design and OS
From afar, Amazon's Fire Phone doesn't give us anything we haven't seen before. In fact, it looks a lot like other black smartphones: a Gorilla Glass (3) front and back, rubber-rimmed sides, chamfered edges, and a physical home button. There's a physical camera button as well, which launches both the camera and Firefly, Amazon's new scanning-and-shopping app.
Look closer, and the phone's five front-facing camera lenses peer back at you. Four of these, one in each corner, are infrared eyes that work in service to all the 3D and motion effects. But there's one front-facing camera, too, for selfies.
At the launch event, Amazon emphasized the importance of operating the phone one-handed, and the rubberized spines definitely do that. The corners felt a little sharp where the back of the Fire Phone meets its spines, but the slick glass backing does add a subtle premium feel. Still, the Fire Phone doesn't scream "luxury craftsmanship" the way Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would have you believe when touting touches like steel connectors to prevent USB wobble, magnetic headphones (which we didn't see in our demo), and Dolby Digital Plus virtual surround sound, which we didn't get a chance to hear.
Tilt to scroll, part of Amazon's new dynamic camera-assisted interface, is responsive, but occasionally might be weird if you accidentally make a gesture. Dynamic Perspective on maps seem to work as advertised when we zoomed into the Space Needle on Amazon's Nokia Here-powered maps app.
Slide or tilt for context menus (L); configure a few '3D' and motion controls.
Let's jump back to the triple-duty Home key for a second. Press once for start-screen carousel, and again for the app tray, which is divided by what's stored on the device and what's stored in the cloud. Press and hold the Home key, and you get the voice assistant, much the same as what's on Amazon Fire TV. It handles dictation for email, text, and other app functions, but we didn't get much of a chance to test it, and Amazon says that it's still building out functionality.
As with its tablets, Amazon's Fire Phone runs a completely forked version of Android, which means that all you see is the company's extremely custom layer, Fire OS 3.5, and none of Google's usual services -- including the Google Play store. This Amazon Fire OS runs on Android Jelly Bean, but apparently incorporates a few Android 4.4 KitKat features, such as storage compression, for better performance.
Also like Android, you swipe down from the top for system access and notifications, to turn on the flashlight, and for Mayday, Amazon's customer-service access. Menus don't work the same way, though. Swipe (or rotate your wrist) left and right to pull up context menus for each app. For example, if you swipe right from the home screen, you'll see shortcuts for apps, games, the Silk browser, pictures, audiobooks, shopping, and Prime.
Benefits for Prime members will be the phone's real draw: the Fire Phone has unlimited storage for photos via Amazon Prime. And Kindle features like Second Screen and X-Ray will be included, as you'd expect.
Amazon's Fire Phone may not run traditional Android, but we at least know that HBO, Netflix, ESPN ScoreCenter, YouTube, and Showtime Anytime are among the first video apps to be available on the Fire Phone.
Specs: Leaning to high-end
While not at the top of its class on paper, Amazon's Fire Phone still has some fair-to-high-end specs overall. It starts with a 4.7-inch IPS LCD HD display with 590 nits of brightness and a circular polarizer for clear outdoor viewing and reading. Still, the Fire Phone's screen has only a 1,280x720-pixel resolution, lower than recent higher-end smartphones. It's equivalent to the resolution of last year's Moto X from Motorola. Still, when holding the phone in our hands during our demo, text didn't look obviously blurry or pixelated.
Inside is a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with Adreno 330 graphics (Snapdragon 805 is the company's fastest and most recent), plus 2GB of RAM. That's joined by a 13MP rear-facing camera with an f/2.0 five-element lens and optical image stabilization, and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing lens.
The Fire Phone has NFC but lacks Bluetooth 4.0, which could mean it won't play nicely with wearables -- yet. Amazon said that it will turn this feature on.
Firefly: The killer app?
One area where the Fire Phone stands out is Firefly, a universal visual-scanning app that uses the camera and a huge database to identify items and objects, and then tell you what it is or give you the chance to buy it (through Amazon, naturally). It isn't the first app to recognize QR codes, items, music and audio tracks, and URLs -- most mobile OSes can do some of these, and Microsoft Windows Phone has a similar capability, called Bing Vision.
Still, Amazon's attempt is front-and-center as a secondary camera button function, so it's a lot easier to get going with a long-press. Firefly also goes even further than Bing Vision, recognizing the audio on TV shows -- down to the time stamp -- and pulling up information via IMDB (which Amazon owns). It can also tell you about famous works of art and pull out printed phone numbers and addresses. Yes, other third-party apps attempt to do these things already, on both iOS and Android, but this looks like a universal Amazon reality-scanner...for shopping, or otherwise.
Amazon definitely wants developers on board, so it's created an SDK and already has iHeartRadio, MyFitnessPal, and Vivino, a wine database, taking part.
The handset's dedicated Firefly button (underneath the volume rocker on the right).
Dynamic Perspective: Fire Phone 3D and magic camera system
Amazon gave the 3D-like effect you see on lock screens, home screen and app tray, and in maps a technical, rather jargon-y name: Dynamic Perspective.
That's handled through all those IR cameras studded on the phone's face. Tilting the phone can zoom in on images, maps will show 3D landmarks that can be tilted and "moved" around, and tilting the phone automatically scrolls it up and down. For books, yes, it means tilting for infinite scrolling under cruise control.
The 3D interface showcased on the maps app.
Other phones have attempted tilt-to-scroll and a sort of 3D experience, and it hasn't always been so pretty on either count. Amazon's implementation is much better so far, though still at least somewhat gimmicky eye candy. The 3D lock screens look fantastic, but we aren't sold on the need for aggressively tilting the phone away to read deeper into context menus, especially when you could swipe your finger just as easily.
CEO Jeff Bezos did demonstrate what Dynamic Perspective looks like in gaming, one of the more intriguing uses of this type of shifting-perspective control. This is truly unique and over-the-top camera tech, specifically engineered to measure depth and range of motion; a lot like having a Kinect stuck on the front of your phone, even though it isn't particularly useful.
Price and availability
In the US, AT&T will offer the Fire Phone exclusively, for $199 with 32GB storage or $299 with 64GB storage, with a two-year contract. Unsubsidized prices in the US are $649 and $749, respectively, which converts to around £380/AU$690 and £440/AU$795. Amazon did not reveal when, or indeed if, the Fire Phone will go on sale outside the US, but the UK and Australia have in the past seen Kindle Fire tablets several months later.
It'll be available in the US July 25, though you can preorder the phone now. Prime customers won't get any special discounts, but at least you'll get more Prime: a free year is included with purchase, or added to your account if you already subscribe.
The handset is an AT&T exclusive and starts at $199.
Outlook
Amazon is taking huge risks in going against the big guys like Samsung and Apple. It's done it before, but in a tablet space that isn't as entrenched -- or as vital -- as smartphones.
While the 3D features and Firefly scanning app are both cool and unique (which gives Amazon some brownie points in our book), it's unlikely that people will gravitate toward these additions.
More likely, customers will come for the free year of Amazon Prime, especially if they rely heavily on Amazon's online services, like shopping and music and video streaming, or own a Kindle or Amazon Fire TV.
There's also the price-to-specs ratio to consider. The 32GB versions' $200 on-contract also gets you the Samsung Galaxy S5 or HTC One M8, both full-service Android phones at the top of their game with higher-end listed specs. Still, the difference among them isn't enormous, and Amazon does back its pricing by citing the free year of Prime and unlimited online photo storage.
"We are very sorry for the delay," developer says about the introduction of the long-awaited feature.
Rockstar Games had planned to add Heists to Grand Theft Auto Online--the multiplayer mode for Grand Theft Auto V--sometime this spring, but that's not going to happen. Writing on the Rockstar Newswire, the developer apologized for the delay, saying Heists are "taking more time to create" than originally expected.
"We are very sorry for the delay, and are working hard to bring them to you as soon as we can. Please know that we are focused as always on making the best possible content for you to play and we are thankful to all of you for your patience, understanding, and support," Rockstar said.
It's unclear how Heists will work in GTA Online, but the way they worked in the GTA V main story was fairly straightforward. You assembled a crew, chose how to approach a Heist (options were often "strategic" or "guns-blazing"), and then you executed the mission. Your "cut" of the Heist earnings were divided between crew members, and presumably it will work the same way in GTA Online.
Though Heists aren't coming to GTA Online on schedule, that doesn't mean GTA V players don't have new content to play. Just yesterday, Rockstar released the "I'm Not a Hipster" update for GTA Online, adding new outfits, cars, and weapons to the game. Rockstar is also working on the game's first story mode expansion, and is bringing the game to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC this fall.
GTA 5 Online 1.14 Update 'I'm Not A Hipster' is Now Available: Contains New Vehicles Including Dubsta, 12 New Jobs, Weapons, Clothes, Sky Diving and Much More
While fans have all been expecting the Heists DLC on GTA 5 to release this week, Rockstar has done something different. The developer has now released the GTA 5 'I'm Not a Hipster' 1.14 update. It is now available for download. It contains new clothes, cars, weapons, jobs and much more. Here are all the details.
Clothes
The update features new retro print tees, skinny jeans, hairstyles, tattoos, animal masks and more.
Vehicles (7 New)
The brand new Dubsta unlocks at Rank 100 and can accommodate up to 6 players, perfect for rolling out in force with crew members.
The update brings seven new cars. The first four are classics that are affordable but can serve up some serious power if modified. The Panto is an option for the environmentally conscious and for those looking to ride with their entire crew, the massive 3-axel, 6-seater Dubsta should be a good choice.
Glendale
Warrener
Blade
Rhapsody
Panto (Microcar)
Dubsta (unlocks only at level 100)
Existing GTA 5 Vehicles Added From Story Mode
Albany Primo
BF Surfer
Bravado Buffalo
Franklin's Bravado Buffalo S
Bravado Youga
Cheval Picador
Dundreary Regina
Trevor's Karin Rebel (clean version)
Trevor's Nagasaki Hot Rod Blazer
Michael's Obey Tailgater
Weapons (2 New)
Vintage Pistol
Antique Cavalry Dagger
Jobs (12 New)
The update brings in 12 new jobs including races with showcase opportunities, a deathmatch, two new captures, three new gang attacks and sky diving. Here's the entire list.
Races
Beach Odyssey
Before It Was Cool
Caffeine Rush
Embracing America
Hip to be Cool
Trend Setting
Other additions include
Puerta Del Sol, Legion Square Survival, GTA: Grab a Cab, East Vinewood LTS, Contend: Condo-monium, and Airwaves.
Other Additions
Pure Gold and Brushed Gold paint colours have been added to LS Customs in the 'Metals' category. These unlock at Rank 100.
A new Pure Black window tint has been added to LS Customs, along with four new jazzy vehicle horns (including one which loops and speeds up / slows down as you drive).
Eight new individual player celebrations and four new paired celebration animations have been added.
Players are now able to bookmark Jobs whilst in a Playlist from the Pause menu.
A small tick has been added to the first screen in the corona if a player has played a Job before, much like in the pause menu or Next Job Voting Screen.
The level of difficulty is now displayed when pressing D-pad down when playing Missions.
A modder tinkering with the PC version of Watch Dogs has installed various visual effects to significantly upgrade the game's graphics.
Changes to fog effects, bloom, lighting and shadows, as well as various improvements to reflections and rain, are said to achieve a look that is reminiscent of the infamous Watch Dogs E3 2012 reveal trailer.
When Ubisoft unveiled Watch Dogs that year, numerous critics and gamers reacted with amazement to the high-end graphics.
As the project crept closer to release, various videos and trailers suggested that Ubisoft would not be able to meet the expectations it had set for itself. A debate on the game's "downgrade" ensued.
But a modder going by the online handle The Worse claims to have found various effects packed in the game's PC code (it is suspected that these were left out of the game for stability reasons).
Now, with the help of various modding tools, The Worse has displayed images of the upgraded PC version, which brings the game closer to the E3 2012 reveal trailer. Pictured below are some screenshots of the mod, published first on the Guru3D forums.
E3 2014: Driveclub lets you Race in the Snow and Rain
Take the weather with you.
Clouds. Accurately modeled, dynamic, and superbly rendered clouds. If I didn't know any better, I'd wager Driveclub was a tech demo, not the fully-fledged social racing experience it's aspiring to be. Or at least that's the impression I got from its latest outing here at E3. Its social features--the dynamic challenges from your friends list, the ability to craft new challenges and send them to friends, and the multiplayer system that automatically schedules matches for your party--were all there, but there was definitely more love, and a more passionate delivery given to its looks.
To be fair to Driveclub, its weather system has just been revealed, and it does look extremely pretty. The first track I saw--a misty, overcast road set amongst the highlands of Scotland--was breathtaking in scope. Impressive draw distances saw the mountains stretched off into the mist, while the much talked about clouds diffused the sun's rays, and helped it cast a shadowy grey glow over the road. To demonstrate just how much effort had gone into the lighting system, the camera panned up above the clouds to reveal a blazing sun and blue sky, with the modelled diffusion creating the light below.
It was definitely impressive, but it seemed a tad, well, unnecessary. After all, how much are you really going to notice that the sun's rays have accurately bounced off of a paving stone when you're screaming by at 100 miles an hour? According to developer Evolution Studios, a lot. To demonstrate, we took a spin around the highlands while the rain was cranked to maximum. As the rain poured down, the light reflecting from the water on road made it trickier to see, while water droplets streaked across the screen and the car's hood, also decreasing visibility.
The game was paused to show how pools of water had formed on the tarmac, while spectators, watching from the grass beside the track, were surrounded by puddles on the sodden ground. The attention to detail on show was ridiculously over-the-top, but Evolution didn't stop there. Switching to night, I was shown how the car's headlights were affected by the rain, with each droplet reflecting more light, creating a much brighter scene than on a dry day. From there I was taken to the mountains of Norway and driven along during a particularly fierce snowstorm. More so than the rain, the snow reduced visibility to a sliver of sight, and I imagine if you're flooring it around a corner in that sort of storm, it'd be a very scary experience.
So yes, Driveclub is a very pretty thing, and it certainly features some of the best-looking environments that I've ever seen in a racing game. But here's the thing. The weather effects are quite a recent innovation at Evolution Studios, which means they're not actually going to make it into the game's October 7 release date. Instead, they're going to be part of a downloadable patch that'll arrive "shortly after" its release. And I'd love to tell you how the cars handled, and how the weather affected them, but sadly this was very much a "look, don't touch" experience. Still, what a lovely thing to look at.
Halo 5: Guardians won't drop until 2015, but a comprehensive look back at Master Chief's story arc will hit Xbox One this fall in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
