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If you’re a serious gamer, you’ve undoubtedly heard of DirectX. With a rich history spanning over 20 years, Microsoft’s home-grown graphics controller and drivers are still used in many games today – particularly those targeted at consoles and Windows PCs – to enable visual splendour, capable 3D graphics and more. But while it may remain a popular technology, the last version of DirectX officially launched by Microsoft, 11.1, was last updated in 2009. Five years later, with devices becoming more powerful and capable, the technology’s age has begun to shine through, leading many developers to ask Microsoft to supply the tools to take DirectX further and extract the most out of any hardware the games end up on.
According to Microsoft’s DirectX Developer’s site, the company is finally set to deliver on that promise. In a sponsored session at this year’s GDC, entitled “DirectX: Evolving Microsoft’s Graphics Platform”, Microsoft’s development manager for graphics at Microsoft – Anuj Gosalia – is set to reveal the company’s plans for DirectX12. The official GDC website offers the following description of that talk:
For nearly 20 years, DirectX has been the platform used by game developers to create the fastest, most visually impressive games on the planet. However, you asked us to do more. You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal and to do so on an unparalleled assortment of hardware. You also asked us for better tools so that you can squeeze every last drop of performance out of your PC, tablet, phone and console. Come learn our plans to deliver.
Nothing is yet known about what Microsoft plan to reveal – besides the increased power alluded to in the above description – but the talk appears as one of a number of DirectX-related talks planned to be hosted by Microsoft this year, which also apparently includes a talk on the future of Direct3D; and eight talks related to the current DirectX 11.
Four years ago, a new service called OnLive debuted, offering a whole new way to play and get games using online streaming. Rather than downloading games or buying them from stores, you streamed them from online servers and paid for the access rights – meaning low-cost, no-storage-required gaming that just required a solid internet connection and which promise to revolutionise the way we played games. The reality, however, was far less rosy. By marketing itself as its own platform – alienating both publishers who worried about game sales cannibalising those on established platforms, and players who were forced to decide whether to buy their games traditionally, via OnLive, or both; selling some games itself – cutting it off from retailers; and giving developers an extra step in the development process to support the platform, OnLive made an enemy of practically everyone; and in 2012, the company folded, its assets sold off and all the staff laid off.
Now though, OnLive is back and learning from its mistakes, thanks to a relaunch in the hands of the buyer, a new (legally-speaking) company also called OnLive. After 18 months out of the limelight, OnLive has returned under new management and carrying two new business models.
The key to the new OnLive is a brand new offering called Cloudlift. Thanks to a partnership with Valve, OnLive now has access to the full library of Steam games, bringing thousands of games of all different kinds to the platform. OnLive will now let you buy Steam games and add them to your Steam account through the service, solving the platform separation by potentially allowing the same game to run on multiple devices through both OnLive and Steam itself. The magic comes with OnLive’s streaming abilities. Once again, when playing a Steam game through OnLive, you won’t actually be downloading and playing the game locally – instead, the game is streamed to you over an internet connection from super-fast, super-capable servers hosted by OnLive, meaning no storage is required. In a genius touch however, slam in your Steam account details and as long as you’re using Steam’s Cloud Save feature, Cloudlift will grab your online save for each game as you load them up, so you’ll be able to continue the same game you have on your traditional Steam-enabled device. If you have a solid internet connection (2mb/sec minimum, 5mb recommended download speed), you may never notice the difference.
As Cloudlift is available as a smartphone app and as software for PC and Mac, the service potentially will allow Ouya and other Android-based consoles to get the full range of Steam apps and play them with high performance, instantly increasing their usefulness and the size of the game libraries; and also potentially means a game you start on your PC can be later played on the Mac at work, with little change in performance even if the power of all the devices is completely in different leagues – all you need is a compatible controller. Cloudlift comes with a heavy price tag, however, at $14.99 and £9.99 per month; and with only Steam games on offer at the moment, the choice is limited to your already-purchased and future-purchased Steam Games; you don’t get a whole range of games included in the price like with movies on Netflix. Along with this is the problem that not all Steam games come with cloud sync, meaning they can still be streamed but won’t allow players to pick up where they left off.
Luckily, OnLive are not resting on their laurels, as they have two additional plans in the works to increase the game library as they come along. First, the original OnLive game library will soon be relaunched, meaning the company will once again start sellings its own games too. While this will remain a separate service to Cloudlift for now, any games bought from OnLive will also come with seven days’ access to the same game on Cloudlift – whether this feature will remain or be enhanced in future however is yet to be seen, as the company are not committing heavily to the OnLive market to prevent it repeating its past mistakes. OnLive is also allowing games publishers to partner directly with them and deliver demos of their games to stream through the services, which will be a white-label service – so the publishers are free to credit the games however they like (expect names like “Sega Go” or “EA Live” to crop up, for example). Gaijin Games are one of the partners named to be on board.
Will the new strategy allow OnLive to succeed where it once failed? And will full online streaming become the future of, or a strong alternative to, both digitally stored and physical media gaming? Time will soon tell.
The folks over at HiRez Studios are always hard at work adding new Gods and tweaks to their 3rd person MOBA. Today, they’ve dropped a new trailer on YouTube for Scylla the Horror of The Deep.
The trailer below details the new God’s lore, moves and some different fighting scenarios.
Check it out, and don’t forget to tune in this week as our DJs will be telling you how you can win a code to unlock either Agni or Nu Wa as a playable character as well as an alternate skin.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if your typical student Dungeons and Dragons player got thrown into a castle straight out of one of the games he plays? Have you ever wanted to play a game as that typical student player? Well, you’re in luck. Such a game exists.
Unepic is the story of Daniel, your typical young male student who somehow during a bathroom break during a game session winds up in a castle occupied by a Dark Lord and his many monster minions. Not that your character realises that this is all for real, believing instead that his fellow players drugged his drink and therefore the adventure is all in his head.
The game itself is a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania-type game, with an awful lot of castle to explore as you explore, smash, fight and in some cases trick your way through towards your ultimate goal. Inside the castle there are many items to be found and also equipped as well as upgradeable skills such as the various weapon types, magicks and constitution that can have some of the 5 skill points you gain on level up assigned to them, in the manner of how your typical tabletop RPG handles a character’s skill increases. Each type of weapon has strengths and weaknesses and certain monsters will take more damage from a certain type of weapon, but it will take trial, error and a few deaths before you can be sure of what works best as a weapon for each foe you encounter.
As with most games with a role-play element included, you have an inventory of items, which can hold a limited amount of items within it (and can be sorted with the k key, helpfully displayed in the Inventory screen). Fortunately throughout the levels you can find shops that will let you both sell and buy items. I recommend selling your extra items to the shopkeepers and vendors you encounter whenever you can, because even if the monsters you squish and barrels you smash drop coins or an item only about 50% of the time, it does eventually add up. Also, upgrade your armour as soon as you can, taking less damage helps a lot on those screens with multiple opponents if you’re a lot like me and prefer melee combat over ranged. Also special unique items and coins can be earned by taking on and completing quests for the odd non-hostile resident of the castle, and if you complete special quests you can gain access to certain branches of magic too.
Combat itself is fairly simple, with a key-bind system allowing you to switch quickly between weapons and heal up within seconds if need be. Melee involves hitting the space key to swing/swipe in front of you, which is enough to deal with most enemies. Sometimes it is better to use your bow though and Unepic has a targeting system that allows the nearest enemy within sight to be aimed at using the Tab button and Space again is the attack button although it does require you to be standing still so watch enemy projectiles while shooting!
Control-wise the game works beautifully, which is a relief during those moments when you need to turn tail and get to safety to heal up before finishing off a tricky group of opponents and that requires a dash across a room and a leap up onto a high ledge. The way that the controls are set up too is also well-done, fairly easy to figure out with a minute or two of experimentation (and the first bit of the game teaches you how to do things such as pick up loot and aim your bow’s arrows). The only minor niggle I have about it is that up is the jump key but as space is attack and enter is used to interact with items and pick up loot it does make sense. It just takes a little getting used to at first.
I would certainly recommend picking up this game if you enjoy RPGs, DnD or platformers, as this is a wonderful little game. It has a great sense of humour, an interesting story and is full of little nods to other games and shows, some that come out of nowhere. Currently in Early Access on Steam, the single-player is said to be fully complete and there is a multiplayer option too for when you want to play with a friend. And what’s more, it comes with ten different language options and will soon be available on the WiiU as well.
I give Unepic an 8/10 and look forward to getting past the second boss fight soon.
