Author - Jerry Paxton

The Solus Project Getting 3 More Hours of Content for Free

April 14, 2016 – It’s our pleasure to announce that Grip Digital, together with Teotl Studios, is releasing a huge, new and completely free piece of content “The Highpoint Expansion”.  The Xbox One version is coming on Friday, 15th April and Steam / GOG version has just been released on 13th April.

In  “The Highpoint Expansion” the player will explore the new and very vertical Highpoint island, along with its accompanying massive cave level. Tons of new content is added in this free expansion, with over three hours worth of additional story and gameplay including a new cave look, acid lakes, dozens of strange flying orbs, a monstrous creature, and, last but not least, a massive windmill.

The plot thickens as the player ventures ever deeper into the world of The Solus Project and begins to understand even more of what has happened on the planet.

Alongside the new content a large new patch is included fixing known bugs and balancing dozens of existing features. The game is still part of the Xbox Game Preview Program, Steam Early Access and GOG Games in Development so players can leave feedback for the developers if they find any issues and help them to make the game ready for the full release in May. They can use any contact method directly in the game for reporting the bugs.

Highpoint Expansion is now available for free on Steam and GOG. Xbox One version is coming on Friday, 15th April.

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Thrustmaster Unveils Y-350X DOOM Edition Gaming Headset

Rennes, April 14, 2016 – Thrustmaster has created the ultimate detection weapon. A brand-new headset just issued by Thrustmaster’s R&D teams, the Y-350X is a technological powerhouse allowing users to quench their thirst for mass destruction. Officially licensed for both Xbox One and Windows, the Y-350X has met the challenge of harnessing the advantages of spatialized 7.1 virtual sound with no compromises in terms of power, thanks to the Y Power Pack – and ensures pinpoint precision, with the Y Sound Commander. More than just a headset, it’s a complete arsenal for relentless combat!

Arsenal #1: Y-350X

The Y-350X uses all of Thrustmaster’s R&D expertise to demonstrate its perfect mastery of audio technology, and meet the challenges that this degree of power gives rise to.

The incorporation of ultra-large 60 mm drivers – the most powerful to date in the world of console gaming – combined with boosted bass allows gamers to experience the full intensity of combat. The earpieces’ large design provides bass depth and power unmatched at this price point.

Since there’s no respite to be found for true gamers, total comfort and sound isolation are ensured thanks to the memory foam used in the ear pads.

Thrustmaster has selected AM3D technology as a key ally in this battle, allowing for 7.1 virtual sound on a level that’s rarely been heard until now.

When it all comes down to talent and tactical organization, knowing the terrain is essential in terms of detecting where opponents are coming from: it’s a question of survival. 7.1 sound lets you know exactly where everything is, so that you can plan your movements accordingly.

Thrustmaster has worked on the headset’s frequency response range, adjusting and optimizing it in an anechoic chamber. The goal was to let users experience a gaming environment with incredibly vivid bass response, while at the same time allowing them to understand this hostile world by way of details that only the Y-350X’s 7.1 sound spatialization, audio power and perfectly-calibrated medium and treble frequencies can provide – thereby enhancing gamers’ precision and agility.

Ready for multiplayer mode: the headset’s microphone is unidirectional, detachable and adjustable. It has been designed to target only the user’s voice, guaranteeing optimized, high-performance communication. In conjunction with the Y Sound Commander, all elements can be adjusted for incredible real-time precision with respect to in-game sounds and chatting.

The Y-350X features extended compatibility: Xbox One and Windows. *

Arsenal #2 (combined): Y SOUND COMMANDER

The key advantage for survival. Used with Xbox One Wireless Controller, Y Sound Commander is an audio control base which manages virtual 7.1 sound (enabled/disabled) and all volume, bass and chat level settings – right at your fingertips while using the controller. A unique feature in its category: it includes backlit real-time indicators for instant status overviews, allowing gamers to make quick adjustments and stay agile: volume / bass / chat and volume balance.

This arsenal is also equipped with a built-in sound card, so that gamers can manage all of this power without any interference.

Arsenal #3 (combined): Y POWER PACK

There can’t be any pauses – and that goes for your weapons too. The Y Power Pack has been designed with this in mind: it provides its own power source, so that you don’t run down your gamepad’s battery. With the Y Power Pack, the Y-350X headset is self-powered – for truly epic, extended battle sessions.

The Y Power Pack even lets gamers play and charge the headset at the same time: now there are no excuses for not keeping the fight going…

•    The Y-350X will be available from May 13, 2016, at a suggested retail price of $149.99 (taxes included).
•    To complete the range, a special DOOM edition of the best seller Y-300CPX, a universal gaming headset, will also be available from May the 13th at the suggested retail price of $59.99 (taxes included).

* Works with Xbox One Wireless Controller (sold separately).

Fallout 4: Wasteland Workshop Out Now

April 13, 2016 – Fallout 4’s second add-on, Wasteland Workshop, is available today for download worldwide on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC for $4.99! You can check out the trailer here.

With the Wasteland Workshop, design and set cages to capture live creatures – from raiders to Deathclaws! Tame them or have them face off in battle, even against your fellow settlers. The Wasteland Workshop also includes a suite of new design options for your settlements like nixie tube lighting, letter kits, taxidermy and more!

Expand the capabilities of settlements with Wasteland Workshop, then in May, travel beyond the Commonwealth to Maine for Far Harbor – the largest landmass Bethesda Game Studios has ever created for post-release content.

Stay tuned for more details on even more add-ons to be released in 2016 and on free updates like the Creation Kit, which will allow you to create mods on the PC and then share and play them across all platforms, including consoles.

For more information visit www.fallout4.com.

Armored Warfare Tier X Update Teaser Trailer

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – April 12, 2016 Developer Obsidian Entertainment and global publisher My.com are delighted to announce Update 0.15 will be bringing the first Tier 10 vehicles for Armored Warfare. Command the Challenger 2B Main Battle Tank, or outrun and outsmart your enemies in the SPHINX Armored Fighting vehicle. All of these six vehicles are cutting edge prototypes and concepts that might appear in service in the upcoming decade[S1] , but will be coming to Armored Warfare very soon.

Features introduced with Update 0.15:

  • The first six Tier 10 vehicles:
    • T-14 Armata (Main Battle Tank)
    • PL-01 (Light Tank)
    • Leopard 2A7-140 (Main Battle Tank)
    • SPHINX (Armored Fighting Vehicle)
    • XM1A3 (Main Battle Tank)
    • Challenger 2B (Main Battle Tank)
  • Two new PvE missions: Operations, Prometheus, and Meltdown will bring new challenges for players teaming up in Armored Warfare’s co-operative gameplay mode.
  • Garage UI Update: A revised User Interface based upon player feedback will enable players to efficiently filter which vehicles are shown among other enhancements.

Read the full preview on more upcoming features HERE: aw.my.com/gb/news/general/update-015-preview

Armored Warfare is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online tactical military game that puts the player into the world of modern warfare. In Armored Warfare, players get a chance to try the most powerful tools of destruction invented by mankind – from modern main battle tanks, to scouts and wheeled vehicles. Using modern defense systems like anti-missile protection and smoke grenades, various types of armor and ammunition, players can jump into fast paced battles both in PVP mode and a vast amount of PVE missions.

Download Armored Warfare for free today, visit: aw.my.com.To learn more about Armored Warfare, please visit aw.my.com, ‘Like’ it on Facebook, and follow its development on Twitter @ArmoredWar for all the latest developer updates and news.

Aliens vs. Pinball to Launch on Alien Day

San Francisco, CA – April 12, 2016 Zen Studios, a developer of hit digital franchises like Pinball FX2 and CastleStorm, is excited to reveal that it has teamed up with Fox Digital Entertainment to create an all-new pinball three-pack set in the blockbuster ALIEN Universe. Relive the terror in the Aliens vs. Pinball pack!

Aliens vs. Pinball is comprised of three distinct tables. In Aliens pinball, team up with the Colonial Marines as Ellen Ripley on a pinball table based on ALIENS, the 1986 blockbuster film. Face your fears and take on a deadly Alien threat on the Sevastopol Space Station as Amanda Ripley in the Alien: Isolation pinball table and feel the rush of the hunt as a young Yautja warrior in Alien vs. Predator pinball.

Featuring characters from the hit film franchise including Ellen Ripley, Aliens vs. Pinball offers a dynamic interpretation of the terrifying atmosphere and white-knuckle situations that have made the ALIEN anthology one of the most popular, frightening and enduring franchises in science-fiction.

Key Game Features

  • Join Ellen Ripley as she confronts her nightmares and help the Colonial Marines rid LV-426 of its Alien infestation in Aliens Pinball
  • Watch out for the merciless Alien stalking you on the Alien: Isolation pinball table
  • Defeat Xenomorphs and rise in Yautja society on the Alien vs. Predator table
  • Original iconic voiceovers and sound effects from films and videogames set in the ALIENS Universe
  • Leaderboards, score tracking, exciting social features, and more

The Aliens vs. Pinball pack will be released on consoles, PC and mobile platforms on ALIEN DAY, April 26th. For more information on Aliens vs. Pinball as well as other titles from Zen Studios, please visit blog.zenstudios.com.

Total War: Warhammer Playable at PAX East

Irvine, Calif.—April 11, 2016 – SEGA® Europe Ltd. is announcing to its fans and followers to get their bags packed and head to PAX East taking place in Beantown (Boston), April 22-24, 2016 as SEGA® and Creative Assembly will be offering public hands-on opportunities with two new extraordinary Quest Battles for the soon to be launching Total War™: WARHAMMER®.

The game will be playable at booth #8109, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10AM – 6PM. The booth will also be outfitted with key team members from Creative Assembly aiding you in, hopefully, victorious combat. They will also be giving presentations showing exclusive new campaign and battle content, along with daily live contests offering fans the chance to play live on stage and win some fantastic prizes. If you are media wishing to book an appointment, please reach out to the respective contacts below, and they will book you time for hands-on, as well as wanted developer interviews.

ABOUT THE BATTLES PRESENT AT PAX EAST:

The Amulet of Sea Gold’ – Balthazar Gelt, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, leads his men beneath the rough stone lintel of the ancient barrow mound. He feels the shadows crowd in upon him. Creeping despair writhes the hearts of the warriors as they descend. While this is not necessarily an evil place, it is a place of death; the spirits within resent the presence of the living. Gelt has fought the Undead before; he looks to the men, demands valor and then begins to channel the Winds of Magic.

‘Sword of Unholy Power’ – In the south of the Badlands at the southern edge of the Old World lies a bleak desert and piercing up into the sky is the Pillar of Bone, an ancient arcane fulcrum revered by the Greenskins who live near it. A massive Greenskin slaughter has transpired near this sacred place providing the right condition for the Undead Count to bind the necromantic energy into an artifact. However, he must destroy this Goblin Shaman and his underlings before any Greenskin reinforcements arrive!

Total War: WARHAMMER is a fantasy strategy game of legendary proportions which combines an addictive turn-based campaign of conquest and empire-building with explosive, colossal, real-time battles, all set in the vivid and incredible world of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Total War: WARHAMMER will release on May 24th 2016 and is available now to pre-order http://store.steampowered.com/app/364360/.

The Collider 2 Challenge Gameplay Trailer

April 11, 2016 – Wroclaw, Poland/ Recently several members of the Techland team took part in setting the high score for the The Collider 2, the latest game from Techland’s sister studio ShortBreak. They recorded their heated competition and compiled a special video that showcases the Clash Mode, one of the two core gameplay modes in The Collider 2.

In the Clash Mode, players put their eye-hand coordination to the ultimate test as they try to stay alive as long as possible at the near light-speed velocities, at the same time maneuvering between never-ending obstacles and lethal traps. Techland’s high score of 10,875,432 will also be the first target for players to beat in the first online tournament after the game’s launch.

The Collider 2 launches on Steam on April 19th, 2016 for $9.99 / €9.99 / £6.99 with full VR support included.

Review of the Garmin tactix Bravo Smartwatch

Recently, we got the chance to check out Garmin’s newest iteration of their tactix smartwatch, the tactix Bravo. Featuring carbon-coated, stainless steel construction and a highly scratch-resistant sapphire lens, it will take a lot to damage this watch during those MilSim airsoft games in rugged terrain. Additionally, the watch was designed to be as non-reflective as possible, as to not inadvertently give away your position to opposing players. The tactix Bravo is available in two flavors: One with a silicone watch band and another that includes two nylon watch bands (one in olive drab and the other in black). Either of these options are fine, but depend more on your personal needs. If you plan to wear the watch in a personal, outdoorsman style of operation, you might want to consider going with the silicone band. If you are wearing the tactix Bravo on top or underneath your combat shirts and gear, you may consider the nylon band option. Measuring 2 inches by 2 inches, with a depth of 0.6 inches, the tactix Bravo is a rather large watch.

The tactix Bravo features a host of sensors designed to be of benefit to those of you in the field – whether it be for real world tactical operations or multi-day airsoft games in rugged territory. By hitting the down page button on the tactix Bravo, you can get to a compass, barometer, and altimeter – all of which seemed particularly accurate while I trekked across Southern California. The compass features both the degree of the direction you’re facing as well as the general direction (e.g. “NW”, “N”, NE”) for ease of use.

tactix-bravo-5

Pairing up with your smartphone via the Garmin Connect app is very simple, thanks to the tactix Bravo’s built-in ANT+and Bluetooth connectivity. Once paired, the Garmin Connect app will keep track of your activity levels on a daily basis, as well as have the ability to interface with other fitness apps on the app store – like My Fitness Pal. The information is extremely valuable – whether you are on a regimented diet and exercise plan or just curious about how many calories you burn doing your daily activities.

Of course, the tactix Bravo can receive your texts, emails, and app notifications as you like, and the Garmin Chroma Display is refreshingly crisp and can even be seen clearly in daylight! For those of you who do airsoft night games with night vision goggles, you will be happy to know that the tactix Bravo has a night vision mode! This enables a change in the display’s color scheme and light output to be optimized for your night vision equipment. As a fun additional feature, the tactix Bravo can even control a Garmin VIRB XE action camera, but I couldn’t test that feature as I don’t have a VIRB XE camera on-hand.

One of the coolest parts of the tactix Bravo’s feature set is its built-in GPS receiver. Similar to the Garmin Foretrex series, the tactix Bravo will display your current path and also display waypoint information and leave a trail of virtual “breadcrumbs” along your path. Furthermore, it will also display your current location in MGRS, Degrees Minutes Seconds and more. MGRS is extremely important for those of you in the military, being the geo-coordinate system standard for NATO. According to the specs of the tactix Bravo, it features an omni-directional stainless steel EXO antenna, with GPS/GLONASS satellite reception. I am not sure what that means in terms of the technical side of things, but I can tell you I was able to get GPS satellite reception inside my apartment just as fast as outdoors – so it means better reception all around!

tactix-bravo-4

At Garmin’s Connect IQ website, you can download additional pages for the tactix Bravo, with choices for speedometers, watch faces, navigation data, and more. It is really interesting to see the expandability that has been created for the watch from independent developers. Going down that road, if any of you are developers interested in creating new data pages for Garmin devices, checkout the Connect IQ developer portal.

Navigating around the various screens and pages of the tactix Bravo interface is very simple. The watch has a small array of buttons: Up, down, back, action, and backlight. These all do pretty much what you would expect. After selecting whatever option you prefer, you press the action button to proceed into that option. Hitting the action button from the main display will bring up the list of activities you can perform. There is a wide variety of choices – with the tactix Bravo even having Jumpmaster and Tactical sport modes! The Jumpmaster will help you if you ever decide to jump out of a perfectly good airplane while the tactical mode enables the GPS and sensor logging and is great for when you are actually playing your airsoft games. The jumpmaster mode can be used for HAHO, HALO, or Static line jumps. Of course, for those of you looking to be active people sans airsoft or military/tactical needs, you can also choose from things such as swimming, hiking, and trail running – to name just a brief few.

Overall, the Garmin tactix Bravo smartwatch is an excellent activity tracker and wearable watch that will provide some essential navigational capabilities during your stints in rugged terrain – whether you are playing in an airsoft game, camping, or in the field. The tactix Bravo retails for $699.99 and is available now on a variety of online stores as well as Garmin’s official website.

Blue Microphones Yeti Review

Blue Microphones have long been known for their quality and this reputation has only grown – especially in this day and age of podcasts and game stream channels. Blue Microphones flagship USB-based microphone is the “Yeti”. Available in two flavors: standard and “Pro”, the Yeti family of microphone shares a similar design save for an XLR port on the Pro model. The Yeti has a professional aesthetic and is available in a variety of classy color schemes: Whiteout, Silver, Platinum, and Blackout.

The Blue Yeti’s build quality is excellent, and the microphone has a very solid feel in its three and a half pound form factor. While it sits on a removable base stand, it should be noted that there is an external shock mount available for the Yeti, which can be found on Blue’s official website. Something to note is that the Yeti stands about a foot high once connected to its base unit. It lives up to its namesake in being a monster in regards to the space it takes up. Be sure you have room on your desk or recording area to place it.

Using the Yeti is as simple as plugging it into a USB port on your computer. Any audio recording software should be able to utilize its input. I used SONAR and it had no trouble getting it to accept the microphone. As it is a USB-based microphone, however, I highly suggest consulting your audio software instructions on adding one USB microphone into your recording session. One really cool feature to note about the Yeti is that it allows you to plug a set of headphones into a latency-free monitor port on its bottom side. You will be able to hear exactly what the microphone is picking up that way.

YetiFamily_Website_Gallery_20141028

A feature of many Blue Microphones microphone units is their multiple pickup patterns, and the Yeti is no different. It features four different audio pickup patterns: Cardioid, bidirectional, omni-directional, and stereo – each with its own strengths:

  • STEREO MODE
    • Uses both the left and right channels to capture a wide, realistic sound image—perfect for recording acoustic guitar or choir.
  • CARDIOID MODE
    • Well-suited to podcasts, vocal performances, voice-overs and instruments. Cardioid mode records sound sources that are directly in front of the microphone, delivering rich, full-bodied sound.
  • OMNIDIRECTIONAL MODE
    • Picks up sound equally from all around the mic. It’s best used in situations when you want to capture the ambience of “being there”—like a live recording of a band’s performance, a multi-person podcast or a conference call.
  • BIDIRECTIONAL MODE
    • Records from both the front and the rear of the microphone—ideal for recording a duet or a two-person interview.

Switching between these four modes is very easy – simply rotate a knob on the backside of the Yeti – each mode is denoted by a small icon. These icons represent the sphere or arc of pickup for each mode. I get them confused so I suggest you simply look at your instructions or on the Blue Microphones website for clarification on which is which. I have had the pleasure of previously using a Blue Microphones “Snowball” model microphone, and had solid results. The Yeti is even better, with a much more stable base stand as well as better range of motion when connected to said stand.

Overall, the Yeti from Blue Microphones is an exceptional microphone – whether you are a podcaster, video game streamer, or budding musician looking to lay-down some tracks. Its plug and play capabilities mixed with the Yeti’s four pickup patterns makes it especially handy in just about any situation.

[easyreview title=”Blue Microphones Yeti Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”5″ ]

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