Game Tech News

Epic is currently drowning in Fortnite cash, and it’s using this opportunity to mount a challenge to Steam. For more than a decade, Steam has been the uncontested king of online game distribution, and developers have been griping about that with increasing frequency. The Epic game store offers some free titles (in addition Fortnite) to entice users, but one recent release has been crashing because it was missing some “steam” files. No, not Steam files, but files called “steam.”

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You might think spending $60 on a new AAA video game is a lot, but three video game enthusiasts just spent more than $100,000 on a single game, and they don’t even plan to play it. The record-setting price for the game makes a bit more sense when you find out it’s an ultra-rare sealed early copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) launched in Japan in 1983 as the Famicom, but it wouldn’t come to North America until two years later. Nintendo wasn’t sure how the NES would be received in the US, so it started the rollout in several “test markets” like New York and Los Angeles. The games produced for this initial run are known as “test market games,” and that’s what makes the newly sold copy of Super Mario Bros. so valuable.

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I remember the first time I heard about Diablo. The game had actually already been ought for a year, but I and my college-age friends didn’t hear about it until the beginning of 1997. Most of our college campus shut down in January for Winter Term, but freshman were required to stay on campus to complete a course of our choosing. I don’t remember what I studied. I do remember Diablo.

That’s why it’s more than a little odd to see Diablo returning to the screen in all its pixelated glory on GoG. Not that there’s anything wrong with GoG — in fact, up until Epic launched its own game store earlier this year, GoG was the closest thing in existence to a Steam competitor. But it’s a little odd to see Blizzard, which owns its own digital distribution service, ponying up to put one of its own games on a competitor’s storefront.

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It’s hard to predict what the next big trend in consumer technology will be. A few years ago, everyone was convinced it would be home 3D displays. Companies raced to get 3D TVs and monitors into stores so we could all watch Avatar and play 3D games. Even smartphones started to launch with 3D screens. It’s unlikely you have any 3D displays in your home because they were expensive, impractical, and lacking content. Nvidia is finally admitting defeat in 3D — it will end support for 3D Vision after the next driver update in April 2019. That driver will also be the last for Kepler mobile GPUs.

There are several ways to do 3D on the small screen, and that was actually one of the problems. You had to commit to one version of the technology, and getting matching devices and content could be a real hassle. Heaven help you if you wanted to buy a 3D Blu-ray player. What little interest there is in 3D gaming has moved on to VR, but even that has limited consumer appeal.

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Star Wars: Dark Forces enjoys an iconic reputation among PC gamers. It was the first major video game title set in the Star Wars universe to adopt first-person Doom-style controls — and unlike the myriad number of Doom clones that were flooding the market at the time, Dark Forces was actually good. Even better than that, it told a completely original story in the Star Wars universe at a time when the EU was barely in its infancy and nerds were hungry for new Star Wars, in any form.

Now, that classic game is getting a remake — but not an official one. Jason Lewis, a senior developer at Obsidian, is working on recreating the game and has posted art to his ArtStation page. All images shown are his property.

The artwork is gorgeous. Lewis isn’t a character artist or modeler, so it’s not clear when we’ll see a playable game, or if it can even secure a release at all (he’s working on a stormtrooper, according to PC Gamer). Not all companies have been willing to play nice with fan remakes and recreations. But Dark Forces is an iconic, incredible game, even if it’s somewhat overshadowed by its sequel. So why do I call it “terrible” that we’re seeing this happen?

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Numerous rumors have pointed to Nintendo’s intention to launch a revamped Switch hardware variant as the console enters its crucial third year. The rumors have bounced back and forth between a more powerful Switch and a budget model. Now, a report from the Wall Street Journal claims that both devices are coming later this year.

The third year of a console’s life cycle is considered make or break for its long-term success. Most gamers have made their choices for that generation, so it gets harder to attract new customers. This is usually when new hardware variants launch, generally with smaller form factors and lower prices. However, there have also been some more expensive and powerful mid-cycle consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X.

Nintendo has reportedly been in talks with partners about the new hardware for months. Those who have used the new Switches say they include numerous feature changes. So, this isn’t just a Switch “Slim” release. One or both consoles will likely have a new LCD from Sharp instead of the current JDI screens.

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Daedalic Entertainment has announced that it’s working on a new adventure game centered around one of the most iconic characters in all of fantasy. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum — unfortunately the only art or asset available is the logo shown above — will focus on the titular character’s life before at least some of the events discussed in JRR Tolkien’s novels.

In a recent interview, Daedalic Entertainment CEO Carsten Fichtelmann discussed the developer’s plans for the character. “We’re concentrating on the character of Gollum, and we’re telling his story before we learn about what happens to him in the books,” Fichtelmann said. “So it’s definitely new content that we’ll see.”

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Anyone who played computer games in the 1990s probably spent a good deal of time doing battle in Warcraft and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. These classic real-time strategy games have never been available digitally, but that ends today. Both games are on sale at GOG.com. You can even play Warcraft II online — Blizzard’s servers are still running all these years later.

The first game (Warcraft: Orcs and Humans) launched in 1994, taking place in Azeroth and consisting of just human and orc characters. The sequel came out just a year later featuring more unit types. The GOG version of Warcraft II also includes the “Beyond the Dark Portal” expansion pack.

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The trailer for Episode XI: The Rise of Skywalker has dropped. When we last saw our heroes, the Rebellion — excuse me, the Resistance — had seemingly been reduced to something that could fit inside a YT-1300 freighter. One of the questions for Episode IX has been how the Resistance could possibly mount a credible assault on the First Order in this kind of condition.

The new trailer does not answer this question. In fact, it doesn’t really tell us much about the final chapter of the Skywalker saga, beyond that this is the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.

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Gamers have been curious about what Sony might have up its sleeve for months. The PlayStation 4 era is drawing to an end, with a new console expected by the fall of next year. Questions about what the PS5 might look like, or what kind of capabilities it would have, however, have remained uncertain. As he did with the PS4 generation, Mark Cerny is making the rounds to talk about the new platform. Some of what he’s disclosed so far sounds like a doozy.

The as-yet-unnamed console (referred to here as the PS5 for simplicity’s sake) is built on third-generation Ryzen with Zen 2 architecture and is built on 7nm CPU technology. This isn’t surprising — the sharp improvement in power consumption that AMD CEO Lisa Su described at CES is going to be very interesting to console manufacturers, who want to save every milliwatt of power they can.

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