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This weekend has seen the open beta for Rainbow Six: Siege open to fans of the shooter, with the beta originally due to close after the long weekend. However Ubisoft have decided to extend the period of access til the end of the month.
The big reason for the extension is down to some technical issues with the beta which saw some players unable to connect to games for a long time, so extra time has been allowed so that everyone with access who wanted to play could have enough time to play.
Speaking on Reddit the developer said: “We’ve been getting good feedback on the content of the beta, and matchmaking and server stability have already been improved. There are still a few issues to work out, of course, and we will continue to do that over the course of the beta. Given the current situation, we’ve made the decision to extend the Closed Beta by 3 days. It will run through Thursday, October 1st.”
More beta keys are being sent out as well, so there’s still a chance to get in on the action if you’re lucky. Those who pre-ordered the game should have received keys as part of that pre-order, so check your e-mail if you did and haven’t checked your messages yet.
Today’s Homefront: The Revolution developer session was a bit of a surprise today here at geek towers. We all expected Homefront 2, as the Devs from Dambuster Studios also joked about at the start of the session.
What we got, was a more than pleasant surprise. We started seeing what we first thought was another open world dirge fest. What we saw, was a structured area game (including green, yellow and red zones where gameplay takes place as separate maps), that including stunning graphics and effects including weather effects, such as fog and rain that creates puddles that then dry out naturally as the tarmac warms up again and a real day/night cycle (an overly inflated one by the devs to show it off to better effect). To the near end of the presentation showing off the dynamic enemy spawn areas, meaning that no two people doing the same mission will see the same troubles.
It’s this dynamic enemy placement that Digmbot and I most found interesting. The idea that a snipe could be around any corner, or as you walk through a building, a full enemy patrol with an APC may be there to surprise you (or for you to surprise)
They ended the session with a bit of info about the map they were using at EGX this week, which also happened to be the Gamescom map aswell this year, and that they had been pulling player activity info the whole time. Including where people died in the map, how they died and which enemy killed them, including one sniper who accounted for the most players deaths (apart from self inflicted ones). The funniest statistic was how many players had set themselves on fire. Not been set on fire from an enemy as none in that zone had flamethrowers or similar, but had walked through flame (your clothes are flammable) and even those that had misused Molotov cocktails (including one guy who must have dropped one at his own feet at the very start of the zone, which they took great delight in laughing about, I hope that guy wasn’t watching)
This all culminated in a beautiful looking game that I went from not caring about to being determined to play it tomorrow when I’m back at EGX and may even get early next year when it’s out!
Great Job Dambuster Studios!
Homefront: The Revolution is slated for a Spring 2016 release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and STEAM
David Braben and members of Frontier Developments took to the EGX stage today to talk about the future of Elite. They started off by showing the Horizons trailer and talking in detail about everything coming to the game.
For starters, Horizons will allow players to land on planets, with rocky planets being sized at up to seven times the size of Earth. Players will be able to enter an orbital cruise mode to allow them to move around the planet quickly, and from there will be able to drop down into the atmosphere and cruise about. Once they decide to land, they will be able to deploy an armed exploration rover. Mining and exploring human settlements are just a few of the things Frontier hinted at as activities once on a planet. In addition, they also confirmed that Season 2 of Elite will finally bring us multicrew ships and fighter bays for the larger vessels. This means that you can deploy a small parasite fighter from a larger ship and use it to escort a fellow crew member as they explore in their rover. Or, you could leave your ship on autopilot and deploy in a fast, powerful fighter to take on those nasty pirates sneaking up on your flank.
They also discussed the inclusion of looting and crafting. Mining and looting from wrecks and other sources will allow players to craft unique weapons and items for their ships. This could range from changing the color of your lasers to creating a weapon that causes system malfunctions on an enemy ship. They then revealed….BOBBLEHEADS. Thats right, bobbleheads are coming back. Those of us who played the original beta grew quite fond of our bobbleheads, and I for one am glad to see them making a comeback. For a limited time, a David Braben bobblehead is available in the Frontier Store.
The final bit of information worth touching on is the inclusion of the Cobra Mk 4 and the Viper Mk 4. The new Cobra was revealed in the Horizons trailer, while the new Viper was just revealed today. It trades some speed and manueverability for better internals, making the ship much tougher.
Elite Horizons and Season 2 are due out this Holiday season.
If you follow let’s players on Youtube or Twitch there’s a fair bet you’re familiar with the name of Elgato. Their capture devices are used by a lot of Youtubers with high subscriber counts because they perform well with a number of consoles. Now Elgato have just released their latest device – the HD60 Pro.
The main features of the HD60 Pro are that it is compatible with all the latest consoles, and is able to stream directly to Twitch or Youtube in 1080p at 60FPS with little latency. This on top of something called Flashback recording which allows you to go back in your latest gameplay and record something after the fact – brilliant for those times when you’re playing and something amazing or hilarious happens out of the blue. There’s also some very nice videos available on Elgato’s Youtube channel telling you how to install the device in case you need instructions; very useful.
Specs:
Interface – PCIe x1
Input – PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 & Wii U (unencrypted HDMI)
Everyone love’s a Reddit AMA, and in a recent session Frontier Developments CEO David Braben has revealed the full release of Elite Dangerous for XBOX One. The game will be coming out on October 6th, though it has been available as part of the Xbox One Game Preview program since E3 2015.
Braben also revealed that Xbox One users who were part of the preview will recieve some form of exclusive reward. No exact details were given, but he did reiterate that ships and modules will not carry over to the full release game. The monetary value of them will however, which should result in some interesting credit balances on launch day.
Elite: Dangerous is available on Xbox One and PC, with the CQC and Horizon’s updates due out within the week and later this fall, respectively.
