John Drury

In relatively short order, The Witcher franchise has become one of those role-playing adventure games that people wait to arrive with intense anticipation. The trailers, even these purely cinematic ones, do nothing but feed that intensity.

In The Trail, we're told, we see the foreshadowing story for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It delivers a peek into the witchers Geralt of Rivia and his mentor Vesemir as they pursue Geralt's lost love: Yennefer of Vengerberg.

The Hunt hits Feb. 24 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. For more on how the team behind The Witcher conquered Poland check out our in-depth feature.

Now sit back and soak it in.

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When Joshua Bennett went shopping for Christmas gifts for his Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying group he wanted to find miniatures that accurately represented players’ characters at the table. He couldn’t, so that’s why he helped co-found Hero Forge, a start-up that uses 3D printing technology and computer modeling to make custom miniatures.

After a $360,000 Kickstarter campaign, his company has now partnered with the industry leader in 3D printing, Shapeways, for manufacturing and fulfillment. If all goes according to plan, Hero Forge products will begin shipping before the end of the year.

"People have been customizing minis for years through ‘kit bashing’ for as long as there have been minis," Bennett said, referring to the...

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There's ordinary speedrunning — spectacular though it can be — and then there's this guy, Karl Jobst, who is playing three Nintendo 64 classics at the same time and beating them all in under an hour.

That's Jobst, above, playing GoldenEye 007, Super Mario 64, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time on three standard Nintendo 64 consoles using regular controllers and no cheats. Jobst isn't General Grievous or anything so he can only play one game at a time, but what he does is blast through one while the others are in cutscenes or other interstitial moments.

Jobst snips the finish line in 51 minutes flat, getting Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 right to the point of completion while he tackles the last stage of Goldeneye. Then he...

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Dragon Age: Inquisition will run at 1080p on PS4 and 900p on Xbox One, BioWare announced in a tweet. The disparity between platforms wasn't a concerted design choice, the message said. "We maximized the current potential of each platform," the tweet...

juliasegal:

SHAMECATION

(via TumbleOn)

The upgraded port of Halo 2 included in the Xbox One-exclusive series compilation Halo: The Master Chief Collection will not output at a native 1080p resolution, developer 343 Industries confirmed in an interview with IGN this week. The porting...

As in, the whole bally company. Clearly anyone’s been able to buy a copy of the engine for yonks.

Unity is the go-to gamemaking tool for a vast number of developers, big and small (around three million of ‘em, in fact, with Blizzard’s Hearthstone its highest-profile title, at least until one of my games comes out), and it was perhaps only a matter of time before it became an even greater concern. That time may be very soon, if reports that the game engine company’s angling to be sold are true.
… [visit site to read more]

Some days, you just need to hear an army of Uruk that all sound like teeny-tiny, English-speaking mice. Other days, it's nice to see the well-orchestrated on-screen betrayal and slaughter of those same Uruk. Today, you get both of these things....

It seems as though LittleBigPlanet 3 is turning into a sort of Blackadder reunion, as Hugh Laurie joins fellow actor and comedian Stephen Fry in the game's voice cast, according to a post on the PlayStation Blog.

Fry — who has long served as LittleBigPlanet's benevolent, cheeky narrator — previously joined Laurie not only in historical comedy series Blackadder but the sketch show A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which ran from 1987 to 1995. While both actors boast long resumes of acting roles and voice-over work, Laurie is perhaps best known on this side of the Atlantic Ocean as the star of House M.D.

In LittleBigPlanet 3, Laurie will voice Newton, the "dastardly counterpart" to Fry's good-willed Narrator.

Rounding out the cast are a handful...

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GameFly Flash Sale

 

Offers good while supplies last or Noon PDT on 10/7.

Pizza Hut was one of my favorite places to eat as a child. The restaurants always had cool arcade machines by the door, including the great four-player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game and the epic six-player X-Men cabinet. It was heaven for a young, slightly dorky kid, especially since the pizza chain would give out free pizza for reading books.

You signed up for the Book It! program, you got stars when you finished a book, and you could turn your progress in for free pizza.

It was a big deal if you were a kid who liked books growing up in the '80s and '90s, because saving a few bucks on a single personal pizza meant somehow it was easier to talk your parents into taking you. So many of my friends remember this promotion, and...

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While I am not one to wax on about lightbulbs, I do desperately adore actor Jeff Goldblum. So sure, this ad by GE for its lightbulbs is definitely a blatant attempt to “go viral,” as the people who think they sound hip say, but it’s also utterly weird and great. And also Jeff Goldblum.

Add in directors Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and the ad featuring Jeff Goldblum (whose name must be written in full, same as it is etched on my heart) as “Terry Quattro” is a piece of art, or advertising or something, that’s for sure.

Example of ad being effective: One virtue extolled by Jeff Goldblum is that the bulbs last 22 years and cost $14.97 — “That’s 66 scents a year, I use that on moist towelettes every 13 seconds.”

There is a hottub in his music room, too. With room for one more. Oh stop it, Jeff Goldblum, you rapscallion!

Too much typing. More Jeff Goldblum:

(H/T Polygon)

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor provides a clearer road map for the next generation of triple-A games than anything that has come previously.

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PlayStation Plus subscribers in North America will get access to seven games across three PlayStation platforms this October, including the driving game sampler DriveClub PlayStation Plus Edition for PS4.

DriveClub PlayStation Plus Edition will offer players 11 tracks and 10 cars playable across the full game's suite of gameplay modes. The PlayStation Plus Edition of the driving game can be upgraded to the full version of DriveClub for $49.99 when it's released next week.

Plus members will also get access to new PS4 games Dust: An Elysian Tail and Spelunky — a cross-buy title — for free this month.

On PlayStation 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara — which contains two D&D arcade games, Tower of Doom...

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pr1nceshawn:

Shocking Truths Behind What Cat Behaviors Really Mean…

(via TumbleOn)

The delightfully cheesy Japanese action game series Earth Defense Force is coming to PlayStation 4 next year with Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair. The expanded, upgraded version of last year's EDF4 — known as Earth Defense Force 2025 outside of Japan — brings with it an immensely enjoyable new addition: giant mech battles against Godzilla-sized monsters.

Earth Defense Force 4.1 includes all the oversized bug-shooting action of its PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sibling. You're still firing machine guns and rockets at alien insects and giant death robots, but the 4.1 release adds a new layer to giant monster killing. When the creature known as Huge Monster Erginus invades — right in the midst of a swarm of giant ants —...

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Farming Simulator 15, the latest entry in Giants Software's series about tilling the virtual earth, will be released Oct. 30 on Windows PC, publisher Focus Home Interactive announced today.

The game is also on its way to consoles; as announced previously, it will be available on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in early 2015. The two previous full entries in the Farming Simulator franchise, 2010's Farming Simulator 2011 and 2012's Farming Simulator 2013, were both released on Mac as well as Windows PC. However, the PC version of Farming Simulator 15 will be available only on Windows, not Mac.

New features in Farming Simulator 15 include revamped graphics and physics engines, as well as a Nordic environment and...

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Double Fine have announced that development of Spacebase DF-9 is coming to an end and the development plan listing planned features has been removed. The Steam Early Access page has been updated to state that version 1.0 is due for release. It “will be its final major update”, according to the recently updated development plans page. The previous version of that page contained hundreds of features that “might possibly” be implemented at some point. Today’s update makes it clear that any future implementation will be in the hands of the users rather than Double Fine themselves, thanks to a full source code release.

… [visit site to read more]

After nude photos of celebrities stolen off the iCloud showed up all over the Internet, Apple had a whole lot of egg on its face from customers worried about their own privacy. It seems the company is taking steps to counteract some of those concerns, at least so far as devices are involved, announcing last night that with the iOS 8 software update comes another layer of privacy: The company itself will no longer be able to unlock customers’ devices, even when served with a search warrant.

The company announced a new privacy policy last night in connection with the release of iOS 8, and also wrote on its website that even with a warrant in hand, law enforcement won’t be able to make Apple open up any device running the software, because only the customer’s passcode will unlock it.

As Apple explains it:

On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.

Eventually, only those devices incapable of running iOS 8 — which means any iPhones or iPads a few years old — will be able to be unlocked by Apple.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to the iCloud, from which Apple still has a legal responsibility to turn over certain user data if its served with the right paperwork from law enforcement. So if you don’t want your photos, videos, emails, music or anything else that could go to the iCloud accessed by the police, you’ll have to adjust your settings to keep that data from going to the cloud.

So while the Supreme Court says that police will most likely always need a search warrant to check out your phone or collect data from it, now Apple won’t have to comply with those requests based on the fact that it can’t do anything. Only you can.

Found this while looking at gaming headsets online.
Works with ps4, ps3, XBONE, xbox 360, PC and Mac. Has some decent reviews online on Engadget and PC mag. Would post links but I'm a newbie and CAG won't let me just yet.

Thanks to hidden anti-piracy measures, those who pirate The Sims 4 will find themselves staring at a pixelated mess instead of the colorful, virtual life simulation, reports Player Attack. The blurring appears harmless enough at first. When a Sim...

Do you enjoy Pizza Hut’s products, but wish they could be served up by someone with a surly, anti-customer attitude, no food service or management skills, and with a generous sprinkling of cat hair on everything? Perhaps you would enjoy the fantasy world in current Pizza Hut ads in Japan, where cats have been hired to run a Pizza Hut franchise because OH MY GOODNESS LOOK AT THE KITTY.

It is exactly as difficult as you might think for a cat to dress itself in a restaurant uniform.

You don’t have to speak Japanese, or even speak cat, to understand these videos.

How does a cat deliver a pizza? We’re glad you asked. Very slowly.

After thoroughly studying a map of the neighborhood.

Sorry if you’re somewhere that you aren’t able to watch videos. Will it make you feel a little better if we made a GIF of one of the Pizza Cat working on a spreadsheet?

It Looks Like Pizza Hut in Japan Is Now Totally Being Run by Cats [AdWeek]

HBO's Game of Thrones isn't exactly uplifting, but a YouTube video from Ozzy Man takes the worst of Westeros and makes it much more fun.

Press play above to watch the transformation from bleak to hilarious. Be warned, though: There are plenty of spoilers here, so if you're not caught up, you'll want to avoid learning whether The Hound is, in fact, willing to die for some chickens.

For more on Game of Thrones in actual video games, check out Polygon's review of Game of Thrones from Cyanide Studios and our coverage of the upcoming episodic Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series from the developer of The Walking Dead. You can also watch a video that gives the same treatment to The Matrix Reloaded.

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PS4 with Infamous Second Son download and 3 month PS Plus for $399.99 at Gamestop

 

http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/consoles/playstation-4-system/109942#bonusFeatures

 

Purchase a new PlayStation 4 and receive a digital download for inFAMOUS Second Son and a 3-Month PlayStation Plus membership for free!

Offer valid through 8/24/14.

Online Customers: Code will be emailed within 2 business days after your order ships.

Store / In-Store Pickup Customers: Code will be printed on your receipt at time of pickup.

 

The online ad leads you to believe this deal starts on 8/22 but it is actually available now.

Here is the ad: http://www.gamestop.com/gs/pages/events/SonyWeekend/default.aspx

 

The online ad also mentions $20 off a 1 year PS Plus membership with purchase of a PS4.  Not sure if it will stack with this bundle, but that's not a bad deal.

Props to "azendless" who found this deal on slickdeals. Here's the link, 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16879261431

 

Code: VCO

 

* You have to checkout with "Visa checkout" in order for the promo code to work.

Try to contain your surprise and/or disappointment; the Destiny character you spent time building up into a beacon of hope for humanity has been claimed by The Darkness. And by "The Darkness," we mean the data wipe Bungie is enacting between the beta...

Want to play the new Unreal Tournament for free, right this very second? Cor blimey and OMG you totes can! Hero of the people ‘raxxy’ on the Unreal Forums is compiling Epic’s builds and releasing them as small, playable packages that anyone can run, with multiple updates per week. The maps are untextured, the weapons unbalanced, and things change rapidly as everything’s still “pre-alpha” but it’s playable and – more importantly – fun.

… [visit site to read more]

Ubisoft has released a walkthrough of a mission in Assassin's Creed: Rogue, this year's other addition to the franchise, exclusive to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The sequence, set on ships in the frigid waters off the coast of Nova Scotia, resembles its predecessor, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag.

In the mission, we watch the player, the captain of a Templar ship in the British fleet, attack a rival French ship. The naval combat includes many familiar elements, along with burning oil and a machine gun-like weapon. After the scrimmage, the character investigates an icy shipwreck, spotting penguins and a polar bear!

Apparently you can hunt the polar bears in this game, which is great if you're a horrid monster.

Correction: Brace...

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John Romero is working on a shooter for the first time in 14 years. Romero made the announcement on Monday night's recording of the Super Joystiq Podcast Gamescom Special, alongside special guests Mike Bithell and Brenda Romero. Here's how it went...