LOS ANGELES (Oct. 29, 2014) – A new type of FINAL FANTASY game for the latest and most-powerful generation of game consoles, is almost upon us. With the launch of FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0 TM HDjust a few months away , SQUARE ENIX® today premiered a new trailer to celebrate the opening day of Paris Games Week. This latest trailer, “Enter the Fray” transports viewers to the dynamic and enthralling world of Orience, where a turbulent war of nations threatens to tear the land apart.
SEOUL, Oct. 29, 2014 ― LG Electronics (LG) today unveiled its new 4K Monitor (model 31MU97) for global rollout starting this week. The cutting-edge LG 31MU97 mates Digital Cinema 4K (4096 x 2160) resolution with a 31-inch IPS monitor to create an ultra-sharp high-end monitor that meets the standards of the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI). The LG 31MU97 is especially well suited for professionals who demand the sharpest possible images for either work or leisure.
The monitor’s ultra-high quality 4K resolution and life-like colors are ideal for photographers, video editors and graphic artists and its incredible picture quality allows for detailed and accurate retouching of any image. With the monitor’s rich and vibrant colors and impressive 10-bit color, visual arts professionals will greatly appreciate the model’s high color accuracy.
The monitor’s IPS display supports over 99.5 percent of the Adobe RGB color space and provides users with several coloring options and modes in order to meet the wide spectrum of needs that graphic professionals require. Its Dual Color Space allows the monitor to display two different color modes at once so that users can compare different perspectives of their work simultaneously. Additionally, the Digital Cinema 4K Monitor comes hardware calibration-ready with LG’s exclusive True Color Pro software.
The LG 31MU97 is equipped with several unique high-end functions that will satisfy most discerning professionals. Video pros can edit 4K content in the ideal resolution with standard Digital Cinema 4K without image scaling. Editing footage with full color ex-pression is made possible by the DCI color standard support which reproduces color realistically, covering 97 percent of DCI-P3 color space, the standard for digital cinema projectors and digital camera. And the LG 31MU97 comes with an ergonomic pivot design that offers maximum convenience for displaying as much of the image on the screen as possible to minimize scrolling and dragging.
“LG’s Digital Cinema 4K Monitor presents the company with an excellent opportunity to solidify our leadership in the global professional monitor market,” said Hyoung-sei Park, head of the IT business division at LG Electronics. “This monitor’s high-end features and functions make it the perfect solution for professionals who require a top-of-the-line monitor with all the technology currently available.”
The LG 31MU97 will be available starting this week in markets including the United States, South Korea, Germany, Australia and the UK followed by the Netherlands, Spain, Poland and Japan in November.
CARLSBAD, Calif. – Razer™, a world leader in connected devices and software for gamers, today unveiled its Razer Leviathan elite gaming and music sound bar. The new device provides premium quality audio for a wide range of entertainment applications, from desktop listening to home theater sound that’s perfect for gaming, movies and music.
The Razer Leviathan’s 5.1 surround sound mode is ideal for gaming and movies. It also features a wireless music streaming mode via Bluetooth 4.0 for seamless music listening. The Razer Leviathan is able to deliver deep, powerful bass tones through a dedicated subwoofer, distinguishing it from other sound bars in its range that cannot produce lower frequencies as accurately.
Engineered for versatility, the Razer Leviathan can be repositioned easily for any situation – under any desktop monitor, in a living room console setup, or wherever high-fidelity sound is desired.
“The opportunity to produce a precision-engineered surround sound solution for high-performance gaming, movie watching and music listening, and make it versatile to use in any setting, was a very exciting proposition for us,” says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. “The Razer Leviathan delivers what music aficionados, movie buffs and gamers alike are looking for to improve their entertainment setup.”
Rich, full-range 5.1 virtual surround sound is produced by the award winning Dolby Virtual Speakers in the Razer Leviathan. The sound bar features four finely tuned drivers (two 2.5-in. full-range drivers and two 0.74-in. tweeters) that are optimized for surround sound gaming. Regardless of source type (stereo or multichannel audio via optical input), Dolby® Digital will convert audio from a sound card, console or set-top box into a virtual surround sound stage. The result is an immersive aural experience that is perfect for recreating epic in-game battle scenes or simply enjoying favorite movies scenes.
The Razer Leviathan seamlessly connects to other Bluetooth devices in wireless music streaming mode via Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX technology for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from a wired connection. With a connecting range of up to 10 meters, music can be enjoyed without the hassle of wires. The Razer Leviathan also remembers recently paired devices, allowing users to quickly connect with a single tap, and built-in NFC technology allows for ultra-fast pairing.
The Razer Leviathan delivers chest-thumping, deep impact lows by way of a powerful 5.25-in. downward firing subwoofer that is dedicated to accurate bass reproduction and is tuned to produce distortion-free lower tones. Crystal clear mids and impressive highs are delivered by the two precision-tuned, full-ranged drivers and tweeters, rounding-out the full spectrum of frequencies created by the sound bar.
FEATURES:
TECH SPECS:
Sound bar
Subwoofer
PRICE: USA: $199/EUR: €199
AVAILABILITY:
Razerzone.com – Pre-Order
Worldwide – November 2014
Activision has released the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Season Pass trailer, detailing the program.
This past weekend, during a tour of LA County haunted events with the folks from IsItOctoberYet and Park Journey, I got the opportunity to checkout the new haunted house from Evil Twin Studios, called the Raymond Hill Mortuary. I had not initially intended to write a review of the haunted house until I emerged from its gates, exhilarated and craving another go-through. The Fremont Centre Theatre in Pasadena, CA serves as host to the Raymond Hill Mortuary, which has twisted the building’s normally-beautiful facade into a nightmare, waiting for unsuspecting guests to enter its maw. We arrived at roughly 9pm and found parking was not bad at all – being available both on the street and in a few scattered lots nearby. We parked in the nearby church parking lot and had a very short walk to the haunted house’s entrance. I was surprised to find that the line of guests waiting to get inside was stretched down the sidewalk for quite some distance.
While the Raymond Hill Mortuary has its share of monsters that jump out at you, it is the additional level of interactivity that they offer which pushes the experience over the top. With this haunted house, you will be asked to push on your comfort zones with tight, dark spaces and uncomfortable situations. I would not consider Raymond Hill Mortuary an “extreme haunt” like the infamous Blackout, but it does a masterful job of skirting the line every so often. I would caution those of you with bad knees or mobility issues to ask for the “chicken bypass” during these moments just to avoid any potential issues.
The actors inside the haunted house were all very energetic and engrossed into their roles – with only one monster slightly breaking character during my walk-through. Even then, it was to assist me in finding the exit to the room I was in. Guests of the haunted house are put into groups of 8 people each and these groups have to be spaced out accordingly to avoid bunching up.
While sending people into the experience in smaller groups means that the portions of haunted house best suited for guest interactivity can be better enjoyed by all, it also makes for a varied level of pacing during your journey. Sometimes monsters will be yelling at you to move and get out of their haunting grounds and other times you could be asked to wait somewhere longer than you probably want to as a group ahead of you finishes up.
The folks at Evil Twin Studios and the volunteers working to make the Raymond Hill Mortuary the best haunted house it can be should be very proud of themselves. The Raymond Hill Mortuary is easily one of the best haunted attractions I have visited over the course of this entire haunt season. It has just the right amount of straight-up scares mixed with slightly uncomfortable moments that make it extremely memorable without requiring a change of trousers.
The Raymond Hill Mortuary is open October 18, 24, 25, 26, 31, and November 1. Tickets cost $13 dollars online and $15 dollars at the door. The front of the line option is an additional cost of $10 dollars but well worth it if the line stretches down the block like it did during our visit. Proceeds benefit the South Pasadena Educational Foundation (SPEF). This means you can have a great time getting scared and also support a good cause.
You can find ticket information and more at the Evil Twin Studios official website.
In space, no one can hear you scream… Which, in the case of Alien: Isolation, is good because one thing you’re going to be doing is screaming and dying… A LOT!
For nostalgic purposes alone, Alien: Isolation is an amazing and beautiful game. For those who are hardcore fans of the original 1979 Alien, you are in for an absolute treat. Not only does the opening sequence and walk-through feel like you’re right back in the theater, watching it on the big screen – heck, the sounds alone are enough to put you right into the mood that this is a serious Alien game that had a lot of dedication and love behind it. If there were to ever be an unreleased, secret storyline set in with the Alien franchise, you could do a metric ton worse than Alien: Isolation.
Getting into the game play, Alien: Isolation handles very smoothly, transitioning well and making control of the Amanda Ripley character incredibly fluid. Still, one type of game Alien: Isolation is not is a First-Person Shooter, or anywhere near it. You’re not going to be picking up fully loaded grenade launchers, pulse rifles, drop-ship nukes, or any other massive arsenal weapon (sure, there are some firearms but don’t expect many). If you’re like me and are still hoping for the worthy Alien FPS license after the absolute abortions that were Aliens vs Predator and the even worse Colonial Marines, this isn’t the Xenomorph you’re looking for (Ed. Note: Can someone please make a game worthy of the Aliens movie?).
Get used to this perspective.
Unfortunately, the game play in Alien: Isolation can become rather tedious. With a fairly linear storyline, it often seemed that the amount of exploration that COULD be done throughout the ship is cut way short due to various points in the story which which basically act as a timer, albeit sans a ticking clock at the top of the screen. Along with that, it seems that the titular character is absent for a big chunk of Alien: Isolation when your main threat aboard the ship isn’t the xenomorph but more of the synthetic kind when the droids (think lots of Ash and Bishop for you movie franchise fans) “malfunction” and begin a human massacre, tearing through any human survivors aboard the ships, turning the game from an Alien title to pretty much any sci-fi / survival game out there. Robots on a space ship… Yup, nothing new there! Now while a timed game isn’t always a bad thing, one that sets you on a constant path such as Alien: Isolation isn’t going to have much replay value aside from future downloadable content. When all games nowadays run the $60 mark (not including the price of whatever future DLCs may cost), you hope that you can get more than speed runs out of a title after your first trip through it.
Creepy synthetic… I mean artificial person…
While Alien: Isolation does recommend the hardest setting as the one for the hardcore Alien fans, I would not recommend it. It’s an act of extreme frustration and this is exactly where you will die a lot. Seriously, playing this mode is pretty much like saying in your head “Alive, alive, alive, DEAD!” over and over. If there is any replay value to Alien: Isolation, it resides in this difficulty mode. Even then, the straight-down-the-line story limits what could have been an amazing exploratory journey throughout a massive space ship with the looming threat of an alien around every corner. Instead it’s more of a connect-the-dots type journey that loses track after the first few hours of game play. Once you’ve hidden in a locker for the 20th time, you start to get that feeling that you’re simply jumping through the hoops that are going to be, for the most part, set up in the same fashion for every go-around (just with a lot more death when you crank up the difficulty). While it’s a fun game for a little while, Alien: Isolation could definitely have been so much more.
[easyreview title=”Alien: Isolation Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]
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The self-published sequel to Firefly Studios’ successful castle real time strategy game, Stronghold: Crusader II puts the player in control of a military force during the Third Crusade. Stronghold: Crusader II focuses heavily on the multi-player experience, with a few different game play modes and a map editor. The game does have a very small single player campaign mode, but it only lasts about ten missions and is billed more as a tutorial for the multi-player mode rather then an actual campaign. While I enjoy multi-player game experiences, I’ve never been that good with RTS games as a genre, and never felt that I could compete online, so once the single player campaign was done, there wasn’t much more for me to do. But that shouldn’t deter you from Stronghold: Crusader II, which is a very solid RTS.
Story
Stronghold: Crusader II’s story is loosely based on the events of the Third Crusade. King Richard the First, also known as the Lionhearted, has gathered troops from Europe to launch a military campaign against Saladin and his Islamic soldiers. King Richard’s goal was to reach and liberate the city of Jerusalem, which he never reached. The Third Crusade was still considered to be successful because of King Richard’s capturing of Acre and Jaffa, while reversing many of Saladin’s conquests leading up to the war. At least, that is the setting of Stronghold: Crusader II, the story that the game tells is far less comprehensive and really leaves it up to the player to find out more.
Unlike other real time strategy games on the market, Stronghold: Crusader II doesn’t bother with much of a story line in its single player campaign. The story will be told through objectives that the player needs to complete, and not through actual narration. For instance, the player may be told that King Richard is coming to inspect his stronghold, so he needs to have a certain level of autonomy and supplies set up before the time limit expires. It was only at the mention of King Richard’s name did I realize that this was, indeed, set during the Third Crusade. It feels like Firefly Studios felt that the setting was the most important idea for Stronghold: Crusader II, and not the telling of the story of the Third Crusade. I felt that there was a missed opportunity here to tell a very interesting, historical story in the single player campaign, and it was missed.
Game Play
Stronghold: Crusader II really shines when you stop caring about the story line and really focus in on the actual game play mechanics. The game is built from the ground up like any other rts game on the market, you essentially need to gather resources in order to build a settlement, and complete the objective given to you or annihilate the other player from this Earth. Resources are easy enough to gather, you begin by focusing on wood and apple orchards to have a baseline of lumber and food to build other structures. With a quarry, you can then begin to build walls to enclose your settlement and truly build a castle in the middle of the desert to launch your attacks from. Like other rts games, speed is the most important aspect of the game. Gather items quickly to increase production and better your troops or you will be overrun, especially by the AI of this game.
Multi-player games is the focus of Stronghold: Crusader II and Firefly Studios made sure to give you enough things to do to make it worth your time. There are two different multi-player modes; co-op and versus. With co-op, you and a partner work together to build up your stronghold to take on the campaign, while the versus mode is more of your traditional multi-player fare. You can customize your games with different settings, such as beginning gold or resources, and there is also a level editor to help keep the multi-player aspect fresher with different maps.
You do get to tweak a few items in your stronghold that can either help or hurt the growth of your castle. Items like the tax rate, food rationing, religious services and so on are all customizable using a slider to set the rate you want it to be at. However, the happiness of your population will change with each move of the slider in very predictable ways. If you raise taxes and lower food rationing, then your people will become upset and leave, nevermind that you are in enemy territory, in the middle of the desert, and besieged by wild animals.
Stronghold: Crusader II does a lot right, but nothing exceptional. Everything in this game is done well, except the storyline, but nothing is done well enough to rise above the classic competition from the likes of Blizzard.
Aesthetics
The aesthetics of Stronghold: Crusader II is decent enough for the game to not look horrible, but not good enough to stand up against some of the other rts games on the market. The voice acting for the game is at least decent and does not sound horrible nor makes you want to tear out your speakers. The detail of the inhabitants of your castle is not well defined at all, and most individuals will just end up looking like blobs at the level of zoom most people play at. You can zoom into the action, but the definition does not get any better. Most stages are fairly bland to look at, since it is mostly desert landscape, but you do get some maps that have interesting terrain features, just not enough to keep each map from feeling exactly like the last one.
Final Thoughts
Firefly Studios has release a solid, multi-player focused, real time strategy game with Stronghold: Crusader II. For me, the grab of these games is a deep single player campaign with a nice, rich story line. With Stronghold: Crusader II being set during the time of the Third Crusade, I was hoping for a single player campaign that played out the events of the battles in Acre, Jaffa and Jerusalem. What we got was about ten or so single player missions, loosely organized in what Firefly Studios called a campaign, with little or no narration of the time period nor the events occurring around you. The multi-player aspect of the game does work very well, and even has a map editor to keep things fresh, but does little to rise above the best rts games of the genre. What you get with Stronghold: Crusader II is a solid and decent real time strategy game that does nothing to rise about the best of the genre. Stronghold: Crusader II is available now on Steam.
[easyreview title=”Product Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]
October 28, 2014 — Wargaming announced the addition of the Vive La France content update for its free-to-play* console multiplayer game, World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition. The update, now live globally, is available as a free download for all Xbox Live Gold members, and can be experienced by all new players through a free seven-day trial for Xbox Live account holders.
Behind some of the most iconic and powerful tanks to ever grace the field of battle, France has contributed tremendously to the storied history of armored vehicle warfare. Vive La France pays tribute to the country’s contribution with the addition of 28 all-new vehicles into the game, including such iconic tanks as the Foch 155, Renault FT and the AMX 50 100. Fast and nimble, but packing surprisingly strong firepower, the French tanks will provide players with the opportunity to experience first-hand what truly makes these tanks formidable foes on the battlefield.
Vive La France also adds two new maps into the rotation—Karelia and Asia Miao (Pearl River).
For more information on the Vive La France update, visit: http://
For more information about World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition, visit:
*Xbox Live Gold membership (sold separately) required. Additional in-game content available and sold separately.
Giants Software and Focus Home Interactive have released the official launch trailer for their new Farming Simulator 15, which will released this Thursday on the PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 platforms.
Just in time for Halloween, SOE has released makeup tutorial videos to teach players how to transform into their favorite characters from titles such as EverQuest Next and the upcoming H1Z1.
