October 31, 2015

Celebrate 20 Years of Tribes By Downloading The Entire Series


Posted on October 31, 2015 by Rae Michelle Richards

Tribes developer Hi-Rez studios has released the entire back catalog of Tribes titles available for free on their official website in honor of the series’ 20th anniversary. If you are into fast paced shooting action with a retro look & feel this might certainly be worth your bandwidth.

For those unaware the Tribes series is a futuristic first person shooter series with a focus on infantry based aerial combat.  The latest title in the franchise, Tribes: Ascend is a free-to-play multiplayer only title for Windows PC that released in 2012. Its game modes include the classic Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Arena (limited player re-spawns) and Rabbit (hold the flag, basically).

For such an old free-to-play title Tribes: Ascend is still receiving updates. In just the past two months the game has received two new maps – Ice Coaster and Terminus.

We reviewed Tribes Ascend upon it’s launch in 2012 and had this to say:

Two teams struggle for dominance on expansive maps over flags, kills, capture points, more kills, energy generators, and orbital death lasers. The currently available standard game types are Deathmatch (team or solo), Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold, and Arena. To facilitate this mayhem, players choose from nine character classes, divided into light (Pathfinder, Sentinel, Infiltrator), medium (Soldier, Technician, Raider), and heavy (Juggernaut, Doombringer, Brute). When you first register your account, you receive the Pathfinder, Soldier, and Juggernaut classes for free, with the others on the bench hoping you find them worthy of your real life money or your real life time.

If you’re wondering exactly what games are included in the free Tribes anniversary download here’s a complete list:

  • Earthsiege (1994)
  • Earthsiege 2 (1996)
  • Starsiege: Tribes (1998)
  • Tribes 2 (2001)
  • Tribes: Aerial Assault (2002)
  • Tribes: Vengeance (2004)
  • Tribes: Ascend (2012)

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[Source]


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Just What The Hell Are They Yelling About: An Introduction to Hearthstone


Posted on October 31, 2015 by Broken Joysticks

Earlier this week the Hearthstone World Championship officially started. Even though it was only the round of 16, viewer count peaked at over 100K, briefly becoming the most viewed game on Twitch. The Hearthstone competitive scene is big, and it’s a pretty cool place. I’ve enjoyed following competitive Hearthstone ever since its beta, and I have managed to put in three top 500 on the European ladder over the last year. By this point the Hearthstone scene has been clearly established, and it can be intimidating for a newcomer to figure out just what the hell is going on. This article, which is going to be the first in a multi-part series, is going to tell you the basics of Hearthstone. After reading this you should be able to tune into a Hearthstone stream and follow along without any issue. It won’t turn you into a pro, but it’ll let you watch other, better players play the game. This is without a doubt the best way to improve, and it’s also loads of fun. Even if you’ve never played the game before, after reading this you should be able to tune into the World Championship and have just as much fun as the rest of us.Read More


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3 new flight modes to be added in Star Citizen 2.0 Release


Posted on October 31, 2015 by Fionna Schweit

Star Citizen

Star Citizen has been pretty controversial recently. Robertson Space Industries, the developer, has been accused of not delivering of having major staff issues, many backers requested updates on time tables and finances, and it even seemed some former employees corroborated these stories.  Well RSI hopes to put to bed all the malcontents with patch 2.0 for the alpha which brings major changes.  The change will add three new flight modes, Quantum travel, and move to a “third order motion control system,” what ever the heck that is.

Here’s what we know about the three modes: ships will now launch in the first flight mode precision mode. During this launch top speed is reduced and acceleration scaled back in exchange, the player gets  finer and easier maneuvering. An opposite mode will be called cruise: “Velocity at the expense of control,” as Cloud Imperium Games explained in yesterday’s update. The third mode, which is called SCM  is quite the same as the current area commander flight model, but now calculates maximum velocity dynamically as a function of force and mass in order to optimize each ship’s performance in a fight.

StarCitizenDev-2015-10-16-14-17-57-96

Additionally we will get Quantum Travel, which sounds like something out of bad scifi, but is similar to cruise mode, utilizing a quantum drive, and enabling long distance travel over short time periods. The limitations of the Quantum Drive mean that any ship equipped with one can achieve the same maximum velocity of 0.2c—that’s one-fifth the speed of light—but some will take longer to get there than others. In the blog post it says

 “At these speeds, tiny variations in angle will result in massively different flight paths, so this is where slower ships will have the chance to escape a faster ship accosting them,”Of course, traveling at these incredible speeds is quite dangerous, so the ship computer will automatically pull you out of Quantum Travel if the possibility of collision is detected or the ship has any downed shields.”

2.0 will also feature many bug changes, fixes, and the standard patch balancing and content addition you are used to seeing in a major patch release.

 

check out the blog here for full info and some nice videos of the new stuff in action.


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Overwatch’s newest character is a Star Craft II Pro


Posted on October 31, 2015 by Fionna Schweit

The newest addition to the line up for Blizzards huge MOBA overwatch has been annoucned. Her name is D.VA (pronounced DIVA). She appeared briefly on Blizzards official over watch twitter with a link to the  StarCraft 2 WCS site. In game  Hana “D.Va” Song is, in game lore, a real StarCraft 2 pro. She’s the best in the world, in fact, but she’s taking a break from the game so she can serve her homeland.

“At the age of 16, D.Va became the #1 ranked player in the world and proceeded to go undefeated for the next three years in all competitions,” her official StarCraft 2 player biography states. “D.Va is an international star, beloved by her fans at home and abroad, and has toured in exhibitions around the world. Recently, she has taken a step back from competition to focus on her commitment to protect the safety of her homeland.”

Capture

Intrestingly she is not yet listed on the Blizzard official Overwatch site, so we have no idea what she can do. Personally id love to see her pilot a mech, as many forum posts and websites have guessed.  She is also described as “MEKA’s newest recruit” on Twitter, lending that theroy even more credence.

We will wait official word from Blizzard then update the story!


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