Just as it might be true that for smartphones, if you can imagine it, “there’s an app for that”, when it comes to modern videogames, often if you can imagine it, “there’s a mod for that” – be it from flooding the majority of the world in Grand Theft Auto 5, to making Thomas the Tank Engine rain from the sky in Skyrim. World of Warcraft is no exception – but perhaps the most interesting mod yet is not an actual game mod, but one modder’s interpretation of a new look for the game.

Recently, a modder named Daniel Luchau decided to give one of the game’s most famous environments – and the hometown of newly created Human characters – a visual facelift through the use of Unreal Engine 4. In order to recreate The Elwynn Forest, Luchau took standard assets as seen in Unreal Engine 4 Tech Demos and combine them with actual models imported from World of Warcraft, though some of the latter’s textures were retouched for better visual splendour. While Luchau is keen to express that his video of the work so far is “an early build” – this only touches the surface of what Unreal Engine 4 can offer and many details and textures still look rough – there are many impressive moments even in the two short minutes of this preview. Outside of Elwynn Forest, players will recognize Goldshire, the second quest town in the area; as well as Westbrook Garrison, with the infamous wanted poster for Hogger outside…

Enough talk, take a look for yourself:

Feel free to head on over to the Forum to let us know what you think 🙂

Following on from the announcement of their new game Lego Dimensions to release at some time in the future, Lego have lined up to take on another aspect of gaming. They’ve not only revealed their other new game, Lego Worlds, it’s already available through Steam Early Access for about £11.

Lego Worlds takes on the sandbox builder game, spawning players in a procedurally generated play area that can be altered to your liking with in-game Lego sets and built upon to make your own worlds. Just like Minecraft.

The game will feature an array of creatures from ostriches to dragons, vehicles like a giant earth-moving drill and character customisation options. Build, dig, make big worlds, ride animals and fight skeletons. The Early Access version is currently missing some features and sets, but so far the reviews are good for this game. A little competition would be good for Minecraft and maybe this is a good thing for both games and they can co-exist…

… But the trailer for the game doesn’t wow me as a long-term Minecraft player. I’ve always found the art style of rounded entities/creatures next to blocky landscapes to be a little bit distracting and not in a good way. Unfortunately Lego Worlds has this art style and it niggles at me in some small but significant way. As well, no matter how many characters are available for the customisation options it will never equal Minecraft’s customisation of applying a player-made skin to a simple base.

I don’t know. I want to like this game, and I hope it does well enough. But from the small bit I’ve seen of it in the trailer, there seems to be something missing that made Minecraft great. Something that even the Vanilla game had.

I hope that I’m wrong and it proves to have that sparkle after all.

After a decent amount of testing from Windows Insiders, Microsoft have finally set a release date for the next and possibly final incarnation of their long-running operating system. Windows 10 will be released to all on July 29th.

Windows 10 of course is well-known right now for the offer Microsoft have made to all owners of Windows 7 and 8 – for a limited time after release you’ve the option to upgrade to 10 for free. This offer even extends to owners of illegal copies, although Microsoft have made it clear that any illegal copies that want to be upgraded to a legit 10 version will require the owner to pay the licence fee before updating.

A new update for Windows is adding a little icon to the toolbar that allows owners to ‘reserve’ their copy of 10 in advance and sign-up for a little prompt to your e-mail when the copy is ready for download. Clicking the option pops up a number of screens to show off the new features of 10, all of which I’ve included below. The download will be a digital one so there’s no worries of them running short, but then I’m assuming it gives Microsoft a bit of a heads-up on just how many people can be expected to be accessing the servers for the download at one time and to prepare accordingly. Also, the prompt will be quite useful to remind people.

For gamers there is hope that Microsoft are going to keep their promises to make sure gaming is as smooth and simple as we’d like. The fact that DirectX 12 will be exclusive to the OS is sure to be a draw for that section of the market as well.

I run Windows 7 at the moment, having been put off from 8 by the stories I heard of it as well as the lack of the start button (which apparently is making a return for 10, result!). Given all Microsoft has said though, I’m very tempted by the new Windows 10.

What about you? Did you avoid 8 as well, and are you looking forward to the release of 10?

“Hello World: Windows 10 Available on July 29“: [x]

In today’s stranger news, a lorry has been stolen. Not just any lorry though, a lorry containing stock of the new Splatoon game as well as various associated Amiibo figurines that was on its way to GAME’s UK warehouse. No really.

The lorry had been on a journey from Nintendo’s European headquarters towards the warehouse, and what makes this theft all the more noticeable is that among copies of the standard game and standard Amiibo figurines were a sizeable number of the Special Edition copies of the game. In fact, GAME’s entire shipment of the Special Edition was in that lorry. That’s a pretty hefty theft.

GAME has now had to send out notifications to all customers who had pre-ordered the Special Edition to inform them of the situation and how because all of the allotted shipment was taken they are unfortunately unable to substitute the missing copies with other Special Edition games.

“We have no option but to substitute the Splatoon + Squid Inkling in your order with the standard version of the game. “You will still receive your Inkling Girl and Inkling Boy Amiibo. We will be discounting this edition by £10 from £52.99 to £42.99 to apologise for this inconvenience.”

No details have been made public about the circumstances around how the vehicle was taken, but Nintendo have told GamesRadar+ in a statement that they are working with GAME to contact all affected customers and apologised for the inconvenience caused to them as a result of the theft.

Dare say a lot of special games might soon make their way onto Ebay or into CEX…

Guild Wars 2 players get a chance to head into the Heart of Thorns this evening—that is, if they’ve already got a key to enter into the jungle expansion’s closed beta. The test consists of three two-hour sessions staggered throughout the day. Players who found a rare portal during last month’s Dry Top and Silverwastes events will be able to create a new beta character to test out a small portion of the new expansion.

“Participants will be able to use a revenant—or any of the existing eight professions—to play a small amount of expansion story content, followed by two beta versions of outposts and their corresponding adventures in part of the Verdant Brink map,” explains a news post on the Guild Wars 2 site. “An early, partially completed version of the day/night cycle meta-event experience from Verdant Brink will also be available.”

ArenaNet says they’ll be adding additional participants, picked from email addresses subscribed to the expansion’s newsletter.

Here are the times of the closed beta tests:

– 11:30 am – 1:30 pm PDT / 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm CEST / 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm BST
– 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm PDT / 12:30 am – 2:30 am CEST / 11:30 pm – 1:30 am BST
– 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm PDT / 4:30 am – 6:30 am CEST / 3:30 am – 5:30 am BST

For those without access, the test isn’t under any NDA restrictions. That means you can expect the beta to be streamed by players during each test window.