Gaming News

We’ve been playing around with Bethesda and Tango Gameworks’ The Evil Within this week, getting it ready for review and also benchmarking on the GeForce GTX 650. During our time with the game what’s become immediately apparent is that this was in no way a lovingly crafted port. That’s not to say The Evil Within is a terrible port, but it’s clear that the console versions got top priority when this was put together. It's a straight-up port, no more no less.

Among other things The Evil Within is capped at 30fps and forces a pesky 2.5:1 aspect ratio for a cinematic experience. That’s without going into the mammoth system requirements for The Evil Within, which had gamers understandably worried. With that in mind we wanted to get a feel for how the GD Machine 2014, loaded with a GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 8GB RAM, and an Intel i5-4670K would handle The Evil Within in some benchmarks. This time around we’re going to be looking at performance with both the 30fps frame cap on and off. [More]

What is frame pacing? It’s two words sure to cause confusion for any gamer out there, but it’s a term that’s thrown around with increasing regularity. To help out we’re going to drill down to the core of what frame pacing is, how frame pacing is measured, and why frame pacing is important to your gaming experience.

Before we nailed down what frame pacing is, it’s important to understand why it's a necessity. Basically, when running a game your graphics card is rendering each frame sequentially to your display. In theory for an image to be smoother, the speed with which your graphics card can render these frames remains equal at all times. When a graphics card is running it often alternates between face and slow frames, with the GPU simultaneously attempting to send the images to display as quickly as possible. This alters the flow of the frames and can deliver uneven performance and even noticeable stuttering, even when a game appears to be running at a solid 30fps or 60fps. [More]

Ubisoft has released yet another new trailer for Far Cry 4 in the run up to its impending release. The new trailer reveals what will be included in the Kyrat Edition of Far Cry 4, a special edition bundle designed for big-time fans of the globetrotting series.

The Kyrat Edition is available to pre- order now with prices ranging from £75-£80. A season pass will be available for an extra £10, while Far Cry 4 fans who are willing to dig a little deeper into their pockets will get a selection of extra physical and digital content, including a Pagan Min figurine, propaganda poster, and a full map of Kyrat. [More]

The latest update to the Xbox One System is rolling out now and brings with it an array of new features. The update comes along side a short video giving a rundown of what Xbox One users will be getting, which includes among other things improved media streaming support.

Snap Centre will see the most significant changes. New controls will make the process easier and faster; when the menu is open you can tap the X  button to record the previous 30 seconds of gameplay, while captions can be added when sharing achievements, and players are given a list of friends who have recently also gained the same achievement. [More]

When Shinji Mikami puts his name to something, it heaps it with a level of expectation that few other names can. The man forever known as the creator of Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and, bizarrely, SNES Aladdin, Mikami has long been an accepted master of horror. Revealing a game like The Evil Within which, lest we forget, is practically the same name as Resident Evil, meant only one thing - the anticipated return of survival horror greatness.

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Most of us are familiar with Kickstarter, a global funding initiative that helps developers and potato salad makers bring their creative ideas to fruition, all the while dishing out often astonishing rewards for their backing. Its been almost 5 years since Kickstarter was founded and it has funded more 135,000 projects until now and it shows no signs of slowing.

We thought it's about time we highlight some of the best of the best Kickstarter projects going live each month, giving you some insight into these unique titles that are cropping up left, right, and centre from indie developers. Today, we take a look at some upcoming eye catching games among the hundreds that are currently live to pick out what could be next year's Divinity: Original Sin or Wasteland 2. [More]

Upcoming racing sim Project Cars has been delayed until Spring 2015. The crowdfunded game from Slightly Mad Studios was originally slated for release on November 21st in the UK on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but it has been confirmed it will now be March 17th next year.

This delayed release might actually work kindly for Project Cars. The market for racing games is pretty congested at the moment. Driveclub and Forza Horizon 2 are out already and Ubisoft's ambitious open-world racing game The Crew is out on December 2nd, alongside other big releases out in the coming weeks like GTA V, Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition which will also take a big share of the game market. [More]

Wasteland 2 has received an extensive patch from inXile Entertainment that will fix a host of problems and minor issues that users of the game have encountered since its launch last month, as well as performance improvements on lower-end systems. The update is live on Steam already and will be following shortly on GOG.com, Glyph and Origin.

The full list of changes made with the patch can be found on the developers blog, but to save you a bit of time time reading those pesky patch notes, the gist of it is suicide bombers now die when blowing themselves up. A victory for common sense and gamers alike. Monks who had previously often miraculously survived their own suicide bombs should now definitely meet their maker. Also, Kathy Lawson has seen some adjustments so that if she dies she will sound like a female, rather than crying out in pain like a man. [More]

Steam is letting everyone get a few days to try out ten different games this weekend. Until Sunday afternoon the games including racing sequel Grid 2, co-op heist game Payday 2, and survival horror title Killing Floor are all on the list.

Each game has big savings on it for those who want to purchase the whole thing once the free weekend is over. You’ll find at least 50% off all titles, with most of them marked down by a lot more than that. It’s a great opportunity try before you buy that recalls the good old days of grabbing demos of every game.  [More]