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Valve’s Steam Machine and their Linux-based OS SteamOS might have been delayed, but that hasn’t stopped other manufacturers developing their own PC-based consoles. Already custom PC builds are popular amongst gamers and computer enthusiasts so much that most PC sites contain the option to build your own custom builds, and recently Alienware has been showing off their Alienware Alpha, which works off a Windows OS rather than a Linux-based one.
Now ASUS have announced their own effort – a console about the size of a Wii called the GR8 Console PC. It comes with a range of parts that mostly cannot be removed and upgraded, except for for the amount of RAM which can go up to 16GB and the amount of storage it has. So it’s probably not for the gamer who wishes to upgrade their machine as they go.
Memory & storage: 1600MHz DDR3L memory (up to 16GB) 2 x SO-DIMM. SATA 6Gb/s; 1 x 2.5″ 1TB 7200rpm HDD, or 2.5″ 256G SSD, 1 x 2.5” extension bay for HDD/SSD, Free 100GB of ASUS WebStorage for 12 months
Connectivity: Front 1 x Headphone, 1 x MIC-in, 2 x USB 2.0 (1 with USB Charger)
Rear 3 x Audio jacks (LINE_IN/LINE_OUT/MIC), 1 x S/PDIF optical out, 1 x HDMI (support Ultra HD 4K), 1 x DisplayPort (support Ultra HD 4K), 1 x LAN(RJ45), 4 x USB 3.0, 1 x 19V DC-in, 1 x Kensington lock
Power consumption: 19V DC, 6.32A, 120W Power Adapter, 0.4W when off, 13W at idle, 70 to 77W at full 3D loads
ROG-exclusive features: SupremeFX Audio, Sonic SoundStage, Sonic SenseAmp, Sonic Studio, Sonic Radar II, GameFirst III, Miracast Receiver
Bundled software: Kaspersky Anti-Virus (1-year full license), AiSuite III, ASUS HomeCloud with Wi-Fi GO!/Media Streamer, DTS Connect
Power cord, User Manual, Quick Start Guide, Warranty Card
Size: Max. 238 x 245 x 60 mm (2.5-liter chassis)
Weight: 1.284kg
The price is estimated to be set at $999 too so it seems to be aiming for a middle market between console gamers and PC gamers. I only hope there’s enough people there to be interested in ASUS’ efforts.
CCP has just revealed a whole bunch of information about their next expansion to their popular EvE Online game, as well as what can be expected from the next patch in December in their EvE Vegas event today.
The expansion named “Phoebe” will introduce a feature that many players have been waiting for: the unlimited skill queue that allows for the queuing of a year’s skill training. Currently it’s only possible to queue skills up to a day and any one skill that breaches the limit will put the brakes on any other queuing until it falls back below the 24-hour limit. Currently third party tools are being used to help players plan out their skill training but with the new updated queues CCP are hoping to bring that within the game itself.
The system for corporation and alliance systems are also getting some tweaks. CCP are hoping to make it easier to recruit new members to corporations as well as adding a queuing system to allow for members to be ‘kicked’ easier as well.
There will also be new exploration content aimed at players who are exceptionally skilled in such activities. They will be more difficult to probe but CCP hope that the greater rewards involved will make players wish to give it a go.
There was also brief mention of what was called “glass cannon weapons”. The upside is that they are much more powerful than previous weapons but they come at the cost of lowering resistances. How low? To zero. So obviously their use will require some careful planning and strategies to make use of them without getting your own craft damaged badly.
On to the patch, codenamed “Rhea” will arrive in December. A lot of it is being kept secret for now but the main feature teased was the reveal of two new ships – the “TUG” and the Tech III Tactical Destroyers. This also came with some model reworks too.
The “TUG” is a freighter-size ship and is designed to haul fully fitted ships inside its large ship maintenance bay. It will allow players to move larger numbers of battle-ready ships to one place at once or into null and incursion sites.
The Tech III Tactical Destroyers will come in four empire specific versions, and its main feature is that it won’t be using the same modular system as the current Tech III ships. It will instead have three distinct flight modes that can be switch mid-flight to deal with situations as they come up. Defensive mode increases resistances and reduces ship signature; Speed mode will improve velocity and agility and Sniper mode will increase weapon range, lock range and sensor strength.
Sleeper hull components are the parts that build the new ships, and the components have been a part of the unfolding story recently. The Sisters of EvE announced the new Sleeper technological findings and then asked the four empires to donate components; with the empire who donated the most being the first to have the parts made available to them. In order, Amarr will be first, Minmatar second, Caldari third and Gallente last.
Rounding off the keynote CCP Seagull reminded players to keep their eyes on the in-game news and to check the EvE universe itself for more changes, saying that some changes will remain purposefully unannounced to allow for players to discover them for themselves.
Warner Brothers are currently working on the prospect of a Minecraft Movie and thus are trying to pull together a team of names to help with the production and directing of the movie. The producer of the Lego Movie, Roy Lee, has already been brought aboard and now another person is supposedly in talks to join the project.
Hollywood journal Deadline have said that Warner are currently “in talks” with Shawn Levy to direct the movie that Warner signed on to make in February. Levy’s past credits include the Night at the Museum films, The Internship and Date Night. All comedic movies, so does this hint at the direction the film is being taken in possibly?
Levy worked with Warner Bros previously on This Is Where I Leave You, and it seems the experience was positive enough that Levy is tempted to continue the partnership with another project.
Excited for the Minecraft movie? What do you think it could be about? tell us below if you have any ideas!
Who recalls the ‘Saga’ dispute that happened between King and the developers Stoic, who were making a game called The Banner Saga? It was earlier this year and get quite a bit of coverage throughout the gaming media, including our own.
Eventually the two parties came to a settlement, although the terms of it are not publicly known although Stoic have said that they got everything they wanted out of the deal. They’ve also since revealed that at the time they were planning to fight King’s bid to block them using Saga in their game’s title, they had considered Kickstarting their legal counsel.
They responded to a question from a developer on Reddit by saying that “we felt that we had a strong enough presence on Kickstarter that if worse came to worse we could run a campaign to raise the funds to fight it and would probably get the money rather quickly.”
And indeed they already had a strong fanbase that had backed their game previously, even before the media attention came to the case and covered it. “thankfully the whole gaming community came to our aid arguing on behalf of us on the web. If you’re a small company with little following and you don’t get the large media companies and gaming community behind you it may not wind up as well.”
In the end it worked out well for Stoic, who notes that the coverage probably made the game a lot wider known in the community than it had been before.
This week I selected 2 random games from my library to take a look at. They are the first person programming game Glitchspace, and the logic, puzzle game Hexcells Infinite.
Glitchspace
Summary
Glitchspace is a is a first person programming game that’s centered around a visual programming mechanic. You find yourself in a cyberspace world in search of the Glitchspace, a part of cyberspace filled with glitches in the system that can be exploited. As you travel, you find yourself reprograming certain parts of the world around you to help you on your way.
When you come across a programmable object in game you are able to bring up a canvas that contains the info of the object though symbols called nodes. You can delete or add nodes to the canvas and connect them together to edit the object. Depending on what you add to the canvas you can: apply a force to an object, moving it out of the way; scale an object down to make it the correct height for jumping on; duplicate and move an object to create stairs, or floating platforms; make an object have no collisions to pass through it; change the physical properties of an object; make an object move when you touch another object; as well as many other things.
This game is still currently in Alpha so they are adding more and more to it. At the moment they only have a short story mode which is basically a tutorial. When you finish that the game unlocks sandbox mode which allows you to mess around with the mechanics how you like. They also recently added Oculus Rift support to the game so it may be interesting to see where that goes.
My Thoughts
I did not know what to think of this title when I got it. It had an interesting concept I haven’t really seen before and it got me curious. Of what I played of it, it didn’t disappoint. I don’t have much knowledge about programing, but this game, with its visual mechanic, made me feel like I was actually accomplishing something. It makes you think logically about what needs to be done and the current “story mode” helps you learn everything pretty well.
I personally can’t wait to see where this game goes in the future and I hope that they add more content to the game including more of a story hopefully. While I did enjoy the game, it is still in Alpha and unless you are desperate to try it now, I would definitely wait for it to be finished or wait for a good sale. With the Early Access you never know what will come of the game later on.
Hexcells Infinite is a logic, puzzle game much like Minesweeper, but more complex. In this game you need to find all the highlighted blue cells in each puzzle and try not to make too many mistakes. There are a few ways to figure out where they are at. One is that some of the non-blue cells will have a number on them saying how many blue cells are touching them from 0-6. Some of the blue cells have numbers on them as well, but these numbers indicate how many other blue cells are in a designated area around them. Some puzzles also have numbers along the outside of the puzzle area saying how many blue cells are in a particular column, row, or diagonal. You will have to use all these clues to complete the puzzle. You should be able to figure out, logically where the cells are with making as few mistakes as possible.
The main campaign consists of 36 challenging puzzles, each getting harder as you go along. The game also has a random puzzle generator which uses random seeds that can be shared, or it can make puzzles based on the current date. This mechanic can be used to create more and more puzzles, almost giving you an “infinite” supply.
My Thoughts
I do like to play a nice casual puzzle game every once in a while to calm down. Currently this game has become one of my favorites to play while listening to music or podcasts. It has a nice relaxing atmosphere to it and is also challenging.
I think this is defiantly a must buy for anyone who likes games like Minesweeper, or Logic/Puzzle games in general. And with the fact that you can have practically infinite amounts of puzzles to work on, it is defiantly worth the cheap price tag.
