Rockstar are kicking off another series of events to participate in for GTA V, this time based around time trials.

The event kicked off yesterday and will run through to May 12th, testing players’ speed as they thrash down pre-planned routes to complete them the fastest. There’s seven different trials all with double rewards on offer, even if you’ve already completed them before now.

As part of the event and to help you get those top times, Rockstar have put five of the fastest vehicles available in the game up for sale, with all at half the price – the T20, Zentorno, Pegassi Osiris, Hakuchou, and Akuma are all available; two bikes and three cars. Also on sale are specific vehicles mods, with engines, brakes and suspension all at 30% off. Also, when you inevitably run foul of the law travelling at speeds far above the limit, Lester’s services will be free during this time. What a relief.

The five remaining time trials are:

• Sunday May 8 – Mount Gordo
• Monday May 9 – Great Ocean Highway
• Tuesday May 10 – Sawmill
• Wednesday May 11 – Maze Bank Arena
• Thursday May 12 – End to End

“There’s also Double RP to be gained in this week’s Playlist on Land Races, with Bike-focused Touch Base (racing from the Galileo Observatory to Fort Zancudo), Sports-geared On the GOH (taking on the Great Ocean Highway) and Off-roading in Turn the Tide (from the Great Ocean Highway to Paleto Cove),”  Rockstar wrote.

Last night, after numerous rumours about their make, the first consumer graphic cards from Nvidia based upon their Pascal architecture have been revealed – the GTX 1070 and the GTX 1080. Both are to be launched in around a month’s time, with the 1080 releasing at the end of this month on May 27th and the 1070 coming June 10th.

The main boasting points for Nvidia’s new cards are that they’re both supposedly faster than the current flagship cards, the 980 Ti and the Titan X. Nvidia says that the 1080 will be twice as fast as the Titan X in certain VR applications and 3 times as energy efficient. That sounds really appealing.

Both cards are also going to run cooler as well, leaving plenty of room for overclocking. This is all down to a re-design of the cooling system that Nvidia’s used since they released the Titan in 2013, but this new system will only be sold upon Founders Editions of the cards which are just that bit more expensive.

The GTX 1070 will retail at $379/£270 with its Founders Edition being $449/~£310; while the GTX 1080 will be sold for $599/£450 and its Founders Edition at $699/£~485.

For those of you who prefer its competitor AMD, they’re due to reveal their next-gen graphic cards in the coming weeks based off their Polaris architecture. They have claimed that they’ll be offering theirs at a more mainstream price, so it’s likely to not be as powerful but might gain audience through cost efficiency instead.

After a leak earlier this morning, EA has officially confirmed the next Battlefield game, titled Battlefield 1.

The game will be set in World War 1 and will release on October 21 for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC (via Origin).

As per usual with EA games, there are a mass of pre-order bonuses. The Early Enlister Deluxe Edition will be available for all playforms on October 18 for $79.99. If you pick it up, you’ll be able to play three days early. You’ll also get extra vehicles and emblems including the Lawrence of Arabia Pack, Red Baron Pack and new visual appearance for three vehicles- the Frontline Camouflage train, the Dazzle Camouflage Dreadnought and the Night Raid Airship.

Battlefield 1 will contain dogfighting in biplanes and airships with external manned guns, and all the World War 1 “goodies” you’d expect. Trench warfare French tanks, gas masks and mustard gas were all shown off in the trailer. Melee combat will also have a larger focus with rapiers, trench shovels and spiked batons all available as melee weapons.

Check out EA’s blog post for more info on Battlefield 1.

Gearbox Software’s new shooter Battleborn is out today, just in case you’ve been living under a rock.  While the game does have a single player campaign, it also has an extensive multiplayer PvP component. As with many shooters, its going to take us some time to see how the servers hold up, how the progression system works in the long term, and just how fun the game is for extended periods of time. So, in case you were wondering where the final score is, don’t worry. We’ll be updating our review in progress over the coming days with more impressions and videos. But for now, here’s a clip from Digmbot’s launch day stream to tide you over. And don’t forget to jump down past the video when you get done for some more impressions of this new IP.

Battleborn is a hard game to define. Like Overwatch, it’s a hero shooter. Characters have unique weapons and abilities, and you level up throughout the match. However, it also shares some MOBA DNA. As you level up, you choose augments to your basic abilities. You might want to increase the AOE damage of the archer Thorn’s blight pool for example. Or, you may choose to have her gain increased movement speed whenever she touches her own blight. The choice is yours, and it allows you to customize your Battleborn to your chosen playstyle or respond to the in game situation by specializing to deal with certain opponents.

The game does have a single player campaign, which can be played solo, with friends or in public groups. Only a handful of missions are available at launch, with the rest coming out later on. With 25 characters to unlock via mission completion, challenges and more, theres no shortage of content. The game also comes with three modes. Incursion sees you escorting your minions down a lane and building gun turrets, accelerator turrets and more as you try to push into the enemy base and destroy their sentry robots. Meltdown on the other hand tasks you with driving minions into giant furnaces to score points. And Capture, perhaps the dullest of the modes, is a standard capture and hold three points affair.

What sets Battleborn apart is the sense of humor and the way that experience is handled in match. The furnaces in Meltdown think they are gods. As minions are engulfed, they will scream out things like “By fire be reborn aaaas…..HUBCAPS!” Characters have tons of witty one liners. And even the sentry bots that guard the enemy base have their own personalities- I’ll never forget the first time one killed me and then flipped me off during the death cam replay.

Then there’s the way the game handles levelling and experience. In most shooters or MOBAs, you get experience from kills or from taking down significant objectives. While this still holds true in Battleborn you also have other options available. If you want to spend shards (the game’s currency earned from kills as well as object on the map) to build and level up defensive and offensive turrets, the game will reward you with XP. This means that a support focused character can play the map and continue to level up. In addition, gear is taken into battle in the form of loadouts. There is no item shop. Instead, you must spend shards to activate your gear. The better the gear, the more shards it costs to activate. And, showing it’s Borderlands DNA, the most epic of loot in Battleborn often comes with some significant disadvantages to offset the insane buffs it can provide. All this means that the game allows players to determine how they level up, when they activate gear (if at all) to obtain power spikes, and keeps the action flowing at a pace that never feels frustrating. Getting slaughtered in straight up fights? Sit back, support the team by building healing turrets and get some levels. Kicking ass and taking names? Spend those sweet shards to up your crit chance as you activate that sweet pair of gloves you unlocked in a loot pack after that last campaign mission.

As you can probably tell, theres a lot of interesting ideas in Battleborn. The characters are memorable, the levels are well laid out and the gameplay loop is satisfying and allows you to be flexible in your playstyle. We’ll be bringing you more over the coming days, so stay tuned!

Want the system specs for Battleborn? Click HERE for PredictedCyborg’s preview of what you need to run it.

Still need more gameplay? Check out Lone and Digm playing the open beta HERE.

Today press releases and announcements on social media confirmed the date of release for one of Bethesda’s upcoming games that was accidentally spoiled in potentially the funniest way possible – Dishonored 2.

The release date has now been set as Friday, November 11th and will be released for the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and the PC on that date worldwide. There will also be a gameplay premier shown off at Bethesda’s showcase at E3 on June 12th.

This is of course the sequel to the first Dishonored game, which saw you playing as an assassin with supernatural powers. The big draw this time of course is that not only can you play as the previous protagonist, royal protector, Corvo Attano, but also Empress Emily Kaldwin. The choice in methods is also still present, meaning you can decide to proceed slowly and take out opponents silently, or enter aiming to cause mass chaos.

For more information, you can browse over to the game’s site at www.dishonored.com

This is one of two reveals today, after the announcement of Dawn of War 3 a few hours earlier.