Games, Tech and fun times ahead

It's that time of year again where we find out the new technology, games and every thing else fun and to start of the long list of new stuff EPIC studios have released information about they're upcoming Unreal Engine 4. Epic has officially announced that the engine will be showcased next week in San Francisco during GDC 2012.

Within the announcement, Epic stated that it will unveil Unreal Engine 4, the “next-generation game technology”, to “select licensees, partners and prospective customers during the exhibition.”

VP of Epic Games Mark Rein stated his excitement for the debut of their “ass-kicking” new tech:

          “What’s really exciting about seeing this love letter to hardware manufacturers is understanding how Unreal Engine goes from iPhone right up to the most ass-kicking PC you can buy that’s hopefully representative of what the next-gen might be. And it’s ready today.”

The images that have been shown so far are ridiculous and if they put out a performance at this years conference like they did at last years they will be fighting off buyers


-Loz Jones

League of Legends: New character Rotation

It's that time of the week again in League of Legends, the new character rotation is out featuring some of the best spell casters out at the moment and also some great melee characters. Good luck out there!


-Loz Jones

League of Legends: Fiora

Its that time again where we are introduced to a new champion in the League and this one excites me more than others have in the past. Fiora, the Grand Duelist, is shown in the comic reel below wielding a single blade against a large opponent in the streets of Demacia. Unlike other customs of Demacia, duels are a time honored occurrence and can be seen quite regularly. Yet anyone that walks into Fiora’s path rarely comes out alive.

Adding Fiora to League of Legends will help bolster the ranks of female melee champions. Perhaps Riot Games is making a statement that female characters can be as tough as any other champions in the league which is undeniably true. Summoners have known this ever since Katarina walked on the Fields of Justice.

Abilities:

• Duelist (passive) - Fiora regenerates health over 6 seconds each time she deals damage. Striking champions will cause this effect to stack up to 4 times.
• Lunge - Fiora dashes forward to strike her target, dealing physical damage. Fiora can perform the dash a second time within a couple seconds at no mana cost.
• Riposte - Fiora's Attack Damage is increased. When activated, Fiora parries the next basic attack and reflects magic damage back to the attacker. Works against champions, monsters, and large minions.
• Burst of Speed - Fiora temporarily gains additional Attack Speed. Each basic attack or Lunge she lands during this time increases her Movement Speed. Killing a champion refreshes the cooldown on Burst of Speed.
• Blade Waltz (ultimate) - Fiora dashes around the battlefield to deal physical damage to enemy champions. Successive strikes against the same target deal less damage.

Lore:

As the youngest child of the noble House Laurent, Fiora always considered herself destined for greatness. The Laurents had dominated the dueling culture of Demacia's aristocracy for centuries, and Fiora's father was regarded as one of the finest swordsmen the nation had ever seen. Inspired by his tales of glory, Fiora began training as soon as she could wield a blade and quickly showed greater talent than any of her siblings. As she grew older, her self-confidence and rigid discipline only widened the gulf of expertise between Fiora and her peers. Her fellow duelists perceived her confidence as arrogance, but none could defeat her in combat, and each victory only heightened her lofty self-esteem. Even so, Fiora never allowed herself to become complacent in her training, and she drove herself ever harder to become a worthy successor to her father's legacy.

Her devotion turned out to be misplaced. On the eve of an arranged duel, Fiora's father was caught slipping a slow paralysis poison into his opponent's drink. Following the incident, many of his past opponents came forward with their own accusations: envenomed weapons, bribery, blackmail, and more. In an instant, he had destroyed his family's honorable reputation. Fiora was outraged. Not only had her hero betrayed her ideals, but Demacia's dueling elite now doubted her own ability. She desperately wanted to wipe the stain from her family's history but, even more, she wanted the world to acknowledge her mastery. She found her solution in the one arena where she could fight the world's strongest warriors without being accused of dishonesty: the League of Legends.

“Fiora’s ego would be insufferable if it wasn’t so . . . justified.” – Jarvan IV

All in all the new champion looks like something that could hold its own against alot of powerful pains in my ass like Master Yi and so on, as usual she will probably coming out late this week or early next to coinside with the next free champion rotation

- Loz Jones

Barcraft!!!

Fans of the video game StarCraft II can take their passion to a new level this Sunday.


On Feb. 26 the first BarCraft event in Victoria will take place at Hecklers Bar and Grill, 123 Gorge Road East.


"The game is not much more than a year old, it was released in Summer 2010," said event organizer Tristan Clausen.


StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is a military, science fiction, real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. "This is the first game that really exploded on the spectator scene," said Clausen. "And it's only recently that technology has caught up to the point where we can do this."


The Victoria BarCraft event will broadcast Major League Gaming tournament, StarCraft 2 Winter Arena from New York City. Thirty-two of the world's top online competitors will battle head-to-head for the top prize of $10,000.


Due to the time difference, locals will watch the games on-demand beginning at 4 p.m.


"You have to purchase a pass to be able to watch the event," said Clausen but there will be no charge for fans at this first BarCraft event. "Major League Gaming posts them online the following week all the time. But they want those who want to see the event, but maybe can't afford to buy a pass, the ability to enjoy it - it's a way to pool our resources."


Clausen likened the game to digital-age chess. "The typical game can be over in as few as seven minutes or up to a half-hour or 45 minutes," he said.


The first version of the game was released in 1998, when Clausen was a younger man. "Now I'm a gown-up, married with a job, but I still like to watch a match here and there. As the interest has grown and it has increased in popularity, I saw some interesting possibilities." He had always wanted to attend a BarCraft event, but none had been held in Victoria. "Then it occurred to me if I wanted to go to one, I would have to organize it myself," he said.


While he's not worried about attendance, he does want to make sure those who have never seen the game don't feel as though they can't drop by to watch for a bit. "Anyone who has a passing interest is welcome to come. All the games have live commentary. They do a wonderful job so you know what's going on."

Ps4 you sneaky Mofo's

The Sony PlayStation 4 could pack in Xbox graphics chips, according to Forbes. Sony may abandon Nvidia, its faithful PlayStation 3 graphics companion, in favour of Xbox buddies AMD.
AMD currently produces the GPU for the Xbox 360 and is likely to do the same for the Xbox 720. If Sony follows suit with the PlayStation 4, Nvidia is going to be left out in the cold on the console front. Just as well Nvidia is making a push for the phone market, then.

If the rumour turns out to be true, fans can expect comparable mega-quality graphics from the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 – so the next round of the console wars is unlikely to be fought on visuals. Instead, gamers struggling to choose between the heavyweights will have to use exclusive titles and add-ons as the deciding factor. Or they could just pick the one with the prettiest box.
Sony is likely to announce the Playstation 4 later this year

Ivy Bridge Delay?

Chip giant Intel has confirmed that its next-generation microprocessors, code-named Ivy Bridge, will arrive around two months later than initially planned.

Delays have been rumoured for some time, amid speculation that the economic crisis has led to a slump in notebook sales, with several of Intel's top-tier notebook vendors unable to get rid of their Sandy Bridge notebook inventories.

However, speaking to The Financial Times, the company's executive vice-president Sean Maloney said that the delay was not caused by a lack of demand, but because of the new manufacturing process needed to make the smaller chips.

Originally scheduled for an April launch, mass shipments of Ivy Bridge – the processor set to succeed Intel's Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, currently used in Core i3, i5 and i7 chips – will begin eight to ten weeks later than initially planned, according to Maloney. Intel said that the company was on target to start shipping Ivy Bridge “in the second quarter”.

The most notable difference between the Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge processors is that Intel is building the next generation CPUs using 22nm architecture – a nearly 30 percent drop in size from the existing 32nm chips. Ivy Bridge CPUs will consume less power and make more room for the integrated graphics chip, allowing Intel to boost the graphics processing capabilities bt up to 60 percent. They will also support Microsoft DirectX 11.

The news comes as mobile operator Orange launches the first Intel-based smartphone, called Santa Clara, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Today, ARM-based processors dominate among smartphones and tablets, but Intel is putting a lot of resources on getting a slice of this growing market. The Santa Clara has an Intel Atom Z2460 processor at 1.6 GHz and runs Android OS.

“It's always good to have competition, because it gives consumers more choice. It also allows technology to improve faster, and at the end of the day when you have competition it also has an impact on pricing,” said Yves Maitre, vice president for Devices at Orange Group.

Gears of war 3: Forces of Nature DLC

ATTN Gears fans, Gears of War 3's Executive Producer Rod Fergusson appeared on the latest edition of GT.TV to announced the final Gears of War 3 map pack entitled "Forces of Nature". As outlined on the show, each map is set either in the middle of, or amidst the aftermath of, a natural disaster in order to fit with the theme. The show featured footage of the 3 brand-new maps (Aftermath, Artillery, and Cove) and 2 remakes (Jacinto and Raven Down) that will be included in the DLC, which is coming on March 27, 2012, but we also reached out to the devs to get official descriptions right here on Side Mission which you can read below:

The Maps:

• AFTERMATH – Aftermath is a government park after a tsunami. There is seaweed and wreckage everywhere, and the main play space sits under a huge cargo ship which was deposited on top of a building during the storm. The area floods and quakes during gameplay, as the whole thing is teetering on the edge of falling into the water below. This has gameplay implications as it is difficult to aim during the quakes, and difficult to be stealthy while splashing through the water

• ARTILLERY – Artillery starts out looking like an ordinary military base, but during gameplay a storm kicks up. Lightning begins to flash on the horizon and eventually a tornado develops and sweeps near the play space. Dust and debris are kicked up making it difficult to see, and the buffeting winds can mask your approach.

• COVE – Cove is a small port that the Stranded have taken over and turned into a little village. The map is very open with long lines of sight, but there is a really, really heavy layer of fog that masks just about everything. There’s a really nice sniper nest inside a central ship, but the sniper’s form is silhouetted by the low angle light shining through the fog.

• JACINTO – Jacinto was a beautiful city, but huge stalks have popped up through the buildings and flooded the entire area with imulsion. Half of the map is dead and crumbling, with imulsion fumes hanging in the air. To make matters worse, the drizzle that is present when a match begins quickly develops into a heavy rain storm that impedes visibility and lines of sight as water starts sheeting off the buildings.

• RAVEN DOWN – Raven Down is a very small crossroads that is blanketed in a blinding snow storm. A Raven helicopter has crashed in the storm, and crashed through an elevated train on its way down, so there’s train wreckage to deal with as well. The snowstorm ebbs occasionally, but is more often so heavy that it’s difficult to see more than a few meters ahead at any given time.

In addition to the maps, Fergusson revealed to GT.TV that the DLC will include a few Easter Eggs of sorts – four special weapons hidden in the maps called “Elemental Cleavers”. As an example of what you can expect, you'll be able to locate a “snow cleaver” that can gust an icy breeze at an enemy and stun them from a distance or an “emulsion cleaver” that explodes on impact and does a small amount of AOE burning damage to nearby enemies (in addition to the normal cleaver damage). Also, there are Achievements tied to these weapons for anyone that can find these cleavers and get 25 kills with them in Horde or Beast mode.

Characters:

Lastly, Epic let us know that those of you who purchase this DLC will get 4 new character models (pictured above – including the never-before-seen "Savage Hunter" on the far right) and 5 new weapon skins for immediate use, and 2 additional weapon skins (that were designed based on community feedback) that can only be unlocked through gameplay in the 'Forces of Nature' DLC which, again, is scheduled to land on Xbox Live in late March.
With these characters alot of the Cgears community is angry and annoyed that they are just releasing the pre-order bonus skins due to the fact that many people went out and tried to aquire all of the bonus skins before launch and now all of that was just a waste in my opinion EPIC need to release maybe another female like locust character: maybe skorge, queen myrah in regal attire, who knows but there are alot of characters that could be created and used in Gears of War 3 for example they could look deep ionto the law or the graphic novels and select Anya's mother who was part of the COG until her death and they could also bring in a tribesman like Tai skin, there are many options but EPIC seem almost resistant to new characters being brought in.




    -Loz Jones

Guild Wars 2 Crafting

Endless amounts of people have been biting at the bit to try and gain some news on the up coming Guild Wras 2 MMORPG and one of those people being me who could not stop playing Guild Wars and i am still playing it to this day, Guild Wars 2 sits proudly on top of my most anticipated games list and for many other people like me this short video entailing the crafting in Guild Wars 2 is a wonderful look into the way that NCSoft have taken my beloved franchise. 

Guild Wars 2 Beta sign up is done.

NCSoft posted that they are having a closed beta soon and that you had to sign-up for a chance to gain access and ofcourse i signed up staraight away.
One million users have signed up for the upcoming Guild Wars 2 beta as of yesterday, according to the official ArenaNet twitter account.
The firm quickly released a video on Facebook showing the studio's celebration of the milestone.
Beta sign ups ended yesterday at 6PM GMT after being open for 48 hours. Beta testing will begin this spring.
No official date has been announced for the release of Guild Wars 2, however.