Author - Jerry Paxton

Wargaming Announces Return of Master of Orion #masteroforion

2015/06/09
Jerry Paxton
E3, Geek News, News, Screenshots / Photos, Trailers / Videos, Windows PC News

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June 9, 2015 — Wargaming today announced Master of Orion, a modern rebirth of the critically acclaimed sci-fi strategy game. The forerunner of the influential “4X” style of gameplay, Master of Orion captured the imagination of gamers around the world. Its deep, strategic gameplay offered numerous ways to win—through brute force, diplomacy or resource domination.

Master of Orion brings Wargaming back to its science fiction origins, which began with the company’s acclaimed Massive Assault game series. Developed by Argentine-based NGD Studios and with key members from the original title’s team, Master of Orion stays true to its renowned 4X gameplay.

Enhanced visuals, built from the ground up, breathe new life into the vast galaxy available to explore and conquer, as well as give new personality to the many races which call it home. Players can expect a revamped user interface, an orchestral score from the original game’s composer, voiceovers by well-known actors, new user tutorials, and more to deliver a classic yet fresh experience to one of gaming’s most respected franchises.

“Master of Orion is a game that brings Wargaming truly back to its roots, not only as a company but also in how it influenced my personal interest in both games and making them,” said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming. “The series’ iconic gameplay has stood the test of time and working with NGD Studios to bring the series back to life is a truly exciting moment for the team.”

“As longtime fans of the Master of Orion, the opportunity to help breathe new life into this acclaimed game has been a dream come true,” said Andrés Chilkowski, Co-founder and CEO of NGD Studios. “While we’ve made many improvements overall to the game, we’re confident that its classic and addictive gameplay will appeal to gamers no matter if they played the game years ago or are now just experiencing it for the very first time.”

For more information on Master of Orion, please visit:

http://masteroforion.com (North America)

http://masteroforion.eu (Europe)

http://masteroforion.asia (Southeast Asia)

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Goliath Announced with Screens and Trailer

2015/06/08
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, Mac PC News, News, Screenshots / Photos, Trailers / Videos, Windows PC News

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MINNEAPOLIS, MN – June 8, 2015 – Everybody Makes Mistakes. You Make Giants. – Publisher Viva Media and independent videogame developer Whalebox Studio today revealed their new videogame Goliath. Built by a small team with big ideas and big talent, Goliath is slated for release on Steam (PC), Mac, and Linux in winter 2016 and explores the concept of survival in a world of giants, dropping players into a world at war where massive monsters roam. Fortunately, players can build giants of their own! Survive and search the world to discover the materials needed to craft tools and weapons, including Goliaths – giant robotic suits that will help even the odds against the enormous creatures that rule the land!

Goliath will be shown to the masses for the first time at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles June 16th – June 18th at booth #8005 in the Concourse Hall.

In Goliath, players find themselves in a mysterious land consisting of the jumbled fragments of a hundred dead civilizations. Several powerful factions battle for control of this strange and broken world, but even the mightiest amongst them tremble in fear of the monstrous giants that roam the land. To survive among these giant creatures, players must scavenge for resources and materials needed to create Goliaths to either use for battle or barter for their very lives. Starting with simple wooden versions, players will learn to create dozens of Goliaths from a variety of materials: wood, stone, metal and other more unique materials found throughout the world. The Goliaths can be customized and outfitted with weapons to create loadouts for various situations and players’ battle preferences. But giant robots won’t solve every problem. Players will also need to craft items and tools for basic survival, build shelters and fortresses, and choose which factions to support in the war that’s sweeping across the land.

Features

·         Build A ‘Bot Factory: Learn how to create dozens of robotic Goliath suits from a variety of materials, including wood, stone, metal and more. Each Goliath can be customized and equipped with a variety of weapons – after players have learned how to craft them, of course.

·         Survive A Savage Land: Gather materials to build the tools needed to survive, including healing salves, protective fortresses and more. As players explore the world, they’ll learn more complex recipes for better tools and weapons.

·         Choose A Side: The world of Goliath is populated with several factions that vie for control of resources and territory. These factions include humans, the sentient robotic beings The Created, the demon-like Daemonari, and the elusive Forest Folk. Each faction can offer different strategic advantages in unique weapon and robot plans, and players must carefully choose with which factions to align themselves. Players can attempt to broker peace or rally their faction to accelerate the war!

·         Procedurally Generate World: Players will explore a unique world with every game, thanks to a procedurally generated world.  

·         A Living World: Explore rolling prairies, dense forests, eerie swamps, frozen tundras and more, all with a complete day/night cycle and dynamic weather. Weather and terrain will affect how each of the robots performs, so players will need to make sure they have the right machine for the job!

·         Co-Op and Competitive Multiplayer: Players can play through Goliath’s campaign with a friend in cooperative gameplay or go head-to-head in arena combat!

For more information about Goliath, please visit the game’s official site, as well as follow the game on Facebook and Twitter.

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The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses – Master Quest Sneak Preview at Nintendo World

2015/06/08
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, News

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NEW YORK, New York – June 8, 2015 – Jason Michael Paul Productions, Inc., a pioneer in live symphonic concert performances, and the Nintendo World store in New York City, announced an in-store event celebrating “The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of Goddesses – Master Quest” tour and its impending show date in New York City in October. The Zelda Symphony event at Nintendo World will be held September 4, 2015 at 6pm.

The evening will consist of a live musical performance by a string quartet from the Zelda Symphony who will perform at the Barclays Center show, an ocarina demo by David Ramos aka DocJazz, and photo opportunities of cosplaying fans. Executive producer Jason Michael Paul and conductor Amy Andersson from the Zelda Symphony will be in attendance and available for interviews and photo opportunities.  Zelda Symphony merchandise will also be available for purchase.

The event will take place at the Nintendo World store located at: 10 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY from 6pm-9pm. There will be limited seating and tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Those who have purchased VIP tickets to the October 13th show at the Barclays Center will receive guaranteed access to the Nintendo World Zelda Symphony event.

VIP or regular tickets to the October 13th show at Barclays Center can be purchased athttp://www.ticketmaster.com/event/00004E73E8E586F6/?brand=barclays&camefrom=cfc_BARCLAYS_CTR_LZ.

Fans can view a complete tour schedule with ticketing information, and also sign up for a regularly updated digital newsletter, at http://zelda-symphony.com.

For information about events at Nintendo World please visit, www.nintendoworldstore.com and on Twitter at: @Nintendo_World.

DXRacer King Series PC Gaming Chair Review

2015/06/08
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, News, Reviews, seal of excellence, Tech Review

 

PC gamers looking for gaming furniture have had a rough time of it. While many gamers like cockpit style setups, there are a huge number of us just looking for a more traditional office chair design coupled with our gamer sensibilities. Enter: The DXRacer PC gaming chair – specifically, we will be reviewing their “King Series” seat. The King Series offers a wider seat base and the model we have features higher seat sides to keep that racing seat inspired design.

DXRacer has two showrooms in the United States: One in Anaheim, CA and the other in Whitmore Lake, MI. Be sure to check their official website for exact location information. I highly recommend that, if you are in the market for a new gaming chair and located close to one of the showrooms, you stop in and check them out. Getting a chance to sit in the various chair designs prior to buying will make sure you get the best personal fit for your style and comfort.

Opening the DXRacer King Series box, you will find a variety of pieces from the chair back to the seat bease, castors, aesthetic pieces, etc. However, the best of the included items in the box were the hex/Phillips-head screwdriver tool and detailed instruction manual. This has been the easiest chair build I have ever done thanks to this handy dandy instruction booklet and I applaud DXRacer for making it both user-friendly and verbose enough to help me get the chair built. The hex/Phillips-head screwdriver is the only tool you will need to build the chair and it does a great job thanks to its thick construction. It won’t strip in mid-use like cheaper included tools you find out there. In fact, I might actually keep the included tool in my personal tool-set for future jobs.

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The wide seat cushion and raised racing sides of the King Series gives a great combination of comfort and stability and the faux-leather vinyl material is quite supple. I used the chair over the course of a week – sometimes for several hours at a time, and don’t have any bad things to write about its comfort as a desk chair. Playing PC games while sitting in the chair is equally comfortable and I loved being able to set the angle of the entire chair back a few degrees and lean back into it. Additional adjustments include what DXRacer calls “4D” arm rests, meaning that not only do they adjust up and down and side to side but, also, they pivot left and right so you can completely customize them to where needed. The base of the King Series PC gaming chair is made with a sturdy aluminum frame and the whole thing rests on five 3-inch castors which roll equally well over tile and carpet. Castors are many times a big issue when buying office furniture but DXRacer has done right by their customers with this inclusion. The model we looked at also featured neck and lumbar support cushions which, despite installing a bit awkwardly, provided additional support.

The biggest drawback to the DXRacer King Series is its high price point. At $459 Dollars, the chair is definitely an investment – however, it should last you a very long time thanks to its durable construction. I would highly recommend those of you wanting to look at a cheaper gaming chair solution to investigate DXRacer’s “F Series”. They are $299 Dollars, albeit with a slightly different form factor – again, if you can test one prior to buying, do so. I would also love to see DXRacer come out with a line of replacement arm rests that allow the mounting of flight simulation equipment such as yokes, sticks, and throttle controls. If they did that, I don’t think I would ever have a reason to leave my office, ever. Ever……

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Overall, the DXRacer King Series PC gaming chair is an excellent choice for those of you looking at upgrading to the highest level of chairs for your PC gaming desk setup. The King Series is durable, comfortable, and should last you for many years to come. It is the luxury PC gaming chair that everyone should have the privilege of resting their keisters on.

What Is Great

  • Comfortable, firm cushion
  • Rugged construction
  • A ton of positional customization for arm rests and seat
  • Great instruction manual
  • Great castors
  • Able to support gamers up to 300 lbs

What Isn’t

  • High price point

You can find more out about the DXRacer product line over at their official website.

LG 29UM67 UltraWide IPS LED Monitor Review

2015/06/07
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, News, Reviews, Tech News, Tech Review

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21:9 aspect ratio widescreen monitors are starting to gain a lot of traction among the PC gamers out there for their increased viewing area – viewing area usually only reserved for dual monitor setups. Recently, LG let us borrow one of their newest “UltraWide” displays: The 29-inch LG 29UM67 UltraWide IPS LED gaming monitor, and we got the chance to borrow one and take it for a spin in a variety of games – as well as some movie watching for added measure.

Design

The LG 29UM67 UltraWide IPS LED gaming monitor’s design is fairly indicative of current UltraWide monitors overall. Featuring a black, shiny exterior, it is classy and slick with its extremely wide format. Assembling the monitor is not a bad experience – it attaches to its base stand via two Phillips head screws and the base stand itself is put together with four small Phillips head screws. Once assembled, it is pretty solid on its base, and has some articulation, which helps to customize the angle the user desires. Of couirse, the monitor also features VESA screw mounts in the back in case you are attaching this to a third-party mounting solution or even one of those fancy gaming cockpit monitor stands!

Features

One of the biggest features of this monitor is its support of AMD’s FreeSync technology. This is a technology designed to change the monitor’s refresh rate on the fly in order to minimize or eliminate visible image “tearing”. For reference, Nvidia has a version of this technology as well called “G-Sync”. As to the FreeSync technology, a large array of AMD graphics cards support this feature – so, chances are that you are all-set to use it if you have an AMD GPU installed. There is one caveat to this technology: It can only be used via the monitor’s DisplayPort input. It will not work using the DVI or HDMI ports. Another interesting feature of the LG 29UM67 is its ability to display two video input sources at the same time via the on-board display menu. There is enough screen real estate that makes this feature very handy as well as useful. Speaking of the on-screen display, LG has equipped the 29UM67 with a very impressive control  menu chock full of display tweaks and options. Finally, the 29UM67 has a very thin bezel which is barely noticeable when playing games or watching movies on it.

LG has even programmed some gamer-specific display modes into the monitor. The is a day and night FPS setting mode as well as a mode dedicated to RTS titles. These presets are pretty nifty and, even though I tended to customize my image in the end, I appreciated the effect that each of the gamer display modes had. If you don’t plan on customizing your image, you won’t be disappointed with the built-in modes.

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Usage

The LG 29UM67 UltraWide IPS LED gaming monitor helps your games look amazing. I prefer a wider field of view in both my first-person shooter titles as well as flight simulations. To that end, I have tried two and even three monitor setups in my time as a gamer! Unfortunately, the more monitors you connect to your graphics card, the more processing power is needed. With this UltraWide solution, you get that wide field of view without as much performance being needed to make it work.

If you compare the LG 29UM67 to a 29-inch 16:9 monitor, you will notice that, while the UltraWide is much wider than the more standard display, it is also a lot shorter. You are basically exchanging height for width. If you run any games or content that only display in 16:9, then you will get black bars on the left and right sides of the screen. Additionally, because you are now essentially not using the extra width, you are left with the equivalent of, roughly, a 23-inch display. Conversely, if you watch movies in the 21:9 aspect ratio, you will have no black bars on the screen at all! This takes a bit of getting used to if you come from a world of 16:9 displays like I did. However, it is a welcome change. The built-in 7W stereo speakers actually do a decent job of putting out stereo sound. While I would not choose them over a set of dedicated external speakers, they are more than fine if you are using the display in a quiet office or dorm environment. Dying Light, Far Cry 4, and World of Tanks all looked beautiful on this display, and the added field of view helped my overall performance as well as gameplay experience. DCS: World 2 looked incredible, and it was so nice to see as much of the cockpit as this wide display allowed.

Conclusion

Overall, the LG 29UM67 UltraWide IPS LED gaming monitor is a great example of this growing display category with a ton of built-in features as well as a fairly economical price point that won’t leave your wallet empty. It is available now from LG’s official website as well as other retailers. The monitor also comes in a 34-inch flavor for an extra $200 dollars on the price tag. If the 29-inch model is any andication, I would imagine you would be very happy with its bigger sibling too.

[easyreview title=”LG 29UM67 UltraWide IPS LED Monitor Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”5″ ]

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Evil Twin Studios Prepares The Vault of Darkness for ScareLA

2015/06/07
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, Halloween, News

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June 5, 2015 — Committed to finding new ways to inspire your summer screams, ScareLA is proud to announce its collaboration with Evil Twin Studios. We’ve poured our blood and guts into creating a brand new immersive, interactive exhibit unlike anything you have ever seen at a con before. We present: The Vault of Darkness.

The Vault of Darkness is our darkest brain child to-date: A chance for you to experience special effects, props, animatronics and more in a dark setting much like a Halloween night.

Plan to have all your senses engaged, stimulated and pushed to their limit. Upon entering the Vault, our monsters will instruct you on the rules to explore. Pay attention or you may just get lost in the dark forever…

The Vault of Darkness is being produced by Evil Twin Studios, the haunters behind Raymond Hill Mortuary, Theatre of Terror, coming to South Pasadena this fall. Support provided by Gantom Lighting & Controls.

Nightmares will come to life, see you in the dark! Dare to enter the Vault of Darkness? Go on, show us just how brave you are…

Click Here to Buy ScareLA Tickets

Insidious: Chapter 3 Movie Review #Insidious

2015/06/05
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, Halloween, Misc Review, Movie News, News, Reviews

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Insidious: Chapter 3 sees the horror franchise return – this time, with a new director. Leigh Whannell, who wrote the first Insidious as well as co-wrote the second and third flicks (not to mention wrote the SAW series), is now at the helm. You would also know Whannell from his role as the ghost hunter character “Specs” in the franchise. I was very curious to see just how this film would turn out – as it is not often a writer gets to take over and direct a story they originated. And, this is a first-time at bat for Whannell to direct a horror film. No pressure though, right?

Insidious: Chapter 3, despite its “3”, is actually a prequel to the other two films in the series, this time focusing on teenager Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) and her family as she is attacked by evil, paranormal entities. Playing her Father, John Brenner, is veteran film actor Dermot Mulroney. The cast does a great job of bringing their characters to life – with special mentions to Scott, who believably emotes terror and pain, and Mulroney, who’s on-screen frustration and torment single parents will be able to identify with all too well – demons or no. Lin Shaye, who returns as psychic Elise Rainier, continues to be the audience’s anchor throughout this series and we always seem to root for her to kick paranormal ass and save the day. This time, however, she has to be convinced to re-enter the psychic warrior business as she has sworn off of it due to personal fear of death from a vengeful entity…

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Insidious: Chapter 3 does expand on the overall mythos of the Insidious world, and does tie-in to the other films in some clever ways – ways which I will not spoil in this review. I have always looked at Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 as a sort of “theatre on film”. They are very melodramatic and much of the effects works is done right on camera, in the audience’s collective face. The films have in insane amount of “creep-factor” thanks to that style not being something most films in the horror genre make use of. Unfortunately, Insidious: Chapter 3 tends to back away from this theatre on film style and rely more on traditional “jump scares”. By the end of the film, these jump scares became a bit predictable and being predictable isn’t something I like to associate with an Insidious film.

This is probably more telling of Whannell getting his footing as a horror director, but I cut him a lot of slack because there is so much to like in the film beyond some cheap scares – Insidious: Chapter 3 has a lot of genuinely scary and creepy moments. Enough creepy moments that the jump scare dependence only makes the film lose one star in our rating system. We give Insidious: Chapter 3 a 4 out of 5 stars (see the button to explain our rating system below). If you are a fan of the series or haunted house horror films in general, you will have a creepy-good time!

[easyreview title=”Insidious: Chapter 3 Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]

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Elite: Dangerous Powerplay Update Launch Trailer

2015/06/05
Jerry Paxton
Geek News, Mac PC News, News, Trailers / Videos, Windows PC News, Xbox One News

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Cambridge, UK. 5 June, 2015 – Frontier Developments plc (AIM: FDEV) will today releaseElite: Dangerous – Powerplay free for all players.

Powerplay is the third major free update for Elite: Dangerous and the largest to date, introducing new ships, new features and an all-new strategic layer to the Elite: Dangerous galaxy.

In Powerplay, players can pledge allegiance to one of a number of galactic Powers and join the battle for interstellar conquest and control. Players can guide their chosen faction’s strategy, take on special objectives to advance their shared cause, and dominate Elite: Dangerous’ full-scale Milky Way galaxy together.

Players are rewarded with valuable perks, reputation bonuses and unique equipment for their allegiance as they defend their territory and conquer human space. Every action taken in Powerplay will have a direct and visible impact on the balance of galactic power for all players.

Powerplay’s new strategic layer connects with and enhances every aspect of the Elite: Dangerous experience, and headlines an immense free update containing hundreds of upgrades and new features, including:

  • An enhanced mission system with new objectives and new ways to play.
  • Three new ships: the Lakon Diamondback Scout, Lakon Diamondback Explorer and the Imperial Courier.
  • Drones for cargo collection, fuel trading and prospecting.
  • A new illustrated GalNet newsfeed, accessible directly in players’ ship UI.
  • High and low intensity mining sites, adding risk to mining and increasing potential rewards.
  • New minable commodities.
  • An updated bounty system.
  • Upgraded UI and animated emblems for ranking up.
  • Numerous other improvements to gameplay and performance.

The new Powerplay trailer is available here. Elite: Dangerous is available now for PC and Mac, and is coming to Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, in 2015.