The rumours about the technical specifications of Watch Dogs have escalated this week, mainly due to a passage on the website of Playstation.com that said “Hack everything as you make your way through Chicago’s underground as you experience Watch Dogs in a way that only PS4 can provide, at 60 frames per second in 1080p,”. However, the passage was then amended recently to remove the last bit, which left everyone wondering how Watch Dogs was really going to run.

Ubisoft have now released the actual statistics, saying that on the Playstation 4 the game will run at 900p and on the Xbox One at 792p. Both games will run at 30fps rather than the 60fps some were hoping for. However this was a choice made, says creative director Jonathan Morin in a blog post, simply because they wanted to focus more on the gameplay than the technicals and also simply because as more open-world game with a lot of dynamic elements higher resolution and framerate would be much harder to keep consistent than for a corridor-based shooter. Even though Watch Dogs was originally supposed to release half a year ago, the time was spent making a better game to play, not simply to look at.

In the same blog post Ubisoft have also outlined the differences between the versions of the game for the next-gen and last-gen consoles. In single-player mode the only difference will be areas containing a few less NPCs in the PS3/Xbox 360 versions without any supposed effect on the core gameplay. However on the multiplayer side, the Decryption competitive multiplayer mode and the ability to free roam with multiple players will not be included for the last-gen versions, which might not sit too well with some gamers still with the older consoles.

Watch Dogs will release for the PS4/ Xbox One/ PS3/ Xbox 360/ PC on May 27^th, with the Wii U version being released later on in the year.

Ubisoft Blog Post is here.

The new Wolfenstein game is having a fairly positive reception right now. The more we’re told, the more the fans of the franchise are looking forward to it, although some remain to be convinced. A new detail has emerged though which might win a few over.

Jens Matthies the creator took part in a Reddit Ask Me Anything recently, in which he revealed that the singleplayer-only game will have something of an ‘alternate timeline’ function in the game, in which one early decision can alter how the rest of the game will play out although he described it more of a ‘tone’ change rather than a story change, noting that the end cinematic will remain the same. However he does encourage players to do a second playthrough so they can see what would happen if they chose the other option.

He has also said that even the first playthrough of the game could take up to 20 hours for those people who need to find every last thing within a game, adding that there should still be enough incentive on top of the ‘alternate timeline’ to make players want to do a replay of the game.

A game with thought put into the story certainly sounds interesting. We’ll have to see how well it delivers on the promises being made.

Wolfenstein: The New Order will be out on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on May 20^th in Europe, North America and Australia.

Just as we thought everything was going to be okay after Gamespy shut down…

EA have just recently made public the fact that due to the imminent closure of the service and thanks to technical challenges and concerns for the player experience several of their older games will effectively be going offline at the end of the month as they haven’t come up with a plan for continued support “at this time”.

This announcement comes a few days after Gameranger had said they would support all games left high and dry though, and it’s entirely possible that the games left without a planned future could still be saved by this although EA have stated there are significant hurdles on the technical side to overcome. In fact, one of the games on the list below Gameranger have already stated they will be supporting after May 31st. Keep your fingers crossed people.

Games affected:

• Battlefield 1942 for PC and Mac (including The Road to Rome and Secret Weapons of WW2 expansions)

• Battlefield 2 for PC (including Special Forces expansion)

• Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for PlayStation 2

• Battlefield 2142 for PC and Mac (including Northern Strike expansion)

• Battlefield Vietnam for PC

• Bejeweled (r) 2 for the Wii

• Bulletstorm for PlayStation 3

• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars for PC and Mac (including Kane’s Wrath expansion)

• Command & Conquer: Generals for PC and Mac (including Zero Hour expansion)

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 for PC and Mac

• Crysis 2 for PC

• Crysis for PC

• Crysis Wars for PC

• Dracula – Undead Awakening for the Wii

• Dragon Sakura for Nintendo DS

• EA Sports 06 for PC

• F1 2002 for PC

• FIFA Soccer 08 (KOR) for the Wii

• FIFA Soccer 08 for Nintendo DS

• FIFA Soccer 09 for Nintendo DS

• FIFA Soccer 10 for Nintendo DS

• FIFA Street 3 for Nintendo DS

• Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers for PlayStation 2

• Global Operations for PC

• GREEN DAY: ROCK BAND for the Wii

• James Bond: Nightfire for PC

• Madden NFL 08 for Nintendo DS

• Madden NFL 09 for Nintendo DS

• Master of Orion III for PC

• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for PC and Mac (including Breakthrough and Spearhead expansions)

• MySims Party for Wii

• MySims Racing for Nintendo DS

• MySims SkyHeroes for the Wii and DS

• NASCAR Sim Racing for PC

• NASCAR Thunder 2003 for PC

• NASCAR Thunder 2004 for PC

• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for PC

• Need for Speed: ProStreet for Nintendo DS

• Need for Speed: Undercover for Nintendo DS

• Neverwinter Nights 2 for PC and Mac

• Neverwinter Nights for PC, Mac and Linux (including Hordes of the Underdark and Shadows of Undrentide expansions)

• SimCity Creator for Wii

• Skate It for Nintendo DS

• Sneezies for the Wii

• Spore Creatures for Nintendo DS

• Spore Hero Arena for Nintendo DS

• Star Wars: Battlefront for PC and PlayStation 2

• Star Wars: Battlefront II for PC and PlayStation 2

• THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND for the Wii

• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 for Nintendo DS

Good news for the players of games set to lose their multiplayer servers with the closure of Gamespy: another company has stepped into the breach to scoop up and restore multiplayer services to them all.

Gameranger, a service started originally to facilitate multiplayer on Mac computers, is filling the gap to allow players of games like Grid and Battlefront 2 to continue to play online after Gamespy closes on the 31^st of this month. And what’s more, they aim to make the experience even better than it was before. They’re dedicated to fixing as many bugs as they possibly can for their new players.

Scott Kevill is the creator of Gameranger and says that his service can dig into the internals of the game to fix bugs, game-breaking or small, and also to hopefully improve on the overall performance of the games they now host. It was also developed to allow support for games, without the need for updates meaning players can just hop in and play. Kevill hopes that by taking on the task of supporting the games that he can keep their communities together instead of letting them fragment.

Gamespy closes at the end of the month, but it seems despite the questions about how the games that weren’t going to be moved to new servers would survive, everything is going to be okay. The remaining games are now in safe hands. Here’s hoping that the move can be made with minimal disruption to players.

The Indie Game Show with DJs Digmbot and PredictedCyborg
Sunday night, 6pm til 9pm GMT, 1pm til 4pm EST.

Tonight on the Indie Game Show…

Elevate Entertainment!

Developers of small mobile platform games, having released them on platforms such as Android and Kindle Fire among others. Elevate are joining us tonight to talk about a game that will be releasing within a few days: Lumena – described as a ‘no-nonsense rhythm game’, as well as to take your questions from the IRC!

Elevate Entertainment Website: [x]

The Game: [x]

Click the link for your player to tune in:

Join us both on the website and in IRC @ irc.sanitarium.fm 6667 for indie gaming discussion and your chance to ask our guests questions!