Elite Dangerous is coming to XBox One

Elite Dangerous is coming to XBox One

Microsoft announcements at GDC 2015

·         The Xbox Live SDK for Windows 10 that provides developers access to many Xbox Live services currently available on Xbox One is coming soon to a broader set of developers.

·         The Windows Universal App Platform means any developer can create a single project to target multiple devices, easing the process for game developers to bring content to more people.

·         With the Windows Store, developers will now have the ability and flexibility to deliver content across PCs, console, tablets and phones, reaching more than 1.5 billion people.

·         The Universal Development Centre is the developer portal to building and delivering games to the Windows Store.

·         DirectX 12 enables PC developers to have a new level of power and control and is a single API developers can access across devices. Announced today, Epic is creating “Unreal Tournaments” on Unreal Engine 4 running on DirectX 12, which set a new bar for visual fidelity in PC gaming.

·         All wireless Xbox gaming accessories will be designed for and supported on both Xbox One consoles and Windows 10 PCs.

·         “Elite: Dangerous” from Frontier Developments is coming to Xbox One this winter.

·         ID@Xbox will be expanding the program to enable developers to target all Windows 10 devices, including future ones like HoloLens.

·         A partnership with Motiga will bring its first game, “Gigantic,” to Windows 10 and Xbox One.

Millions of people use Windows every day, and they spend countless hours playing all kinds of games - from World of Warcraft and League of Legends to Minecraft andMinesweeper – on a variety of devices, whether they are PCs, laptops, tablets, or phones.

Gaming with Xbox has always been inherently personal and social – your games, your friends, your triumphs and stories. But moving from your console to your PC or phone is a challenge. We saw an opportunity to bring your gaming networks on the console and PC together. Most commonly, the game you play on Xbox doesn’t allow for multiplayer play with someone on the PC. And your gaming legacy only lives on one device or the other.


This morning at the Windows 10 media briefing, Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox at Microsoft, shared the company’s vision for gaming on Windows 10 and Xbox One. With Xbox on Windows 10, we’re bringing some of the most exciting features from Xbox Live and some of the most popular Xbox experiences into Windows 10 itself. The built-in Xbox app is the place where your world of gaming comes together. It’s a unified view of the games you care about, your friends, and your gaming activities. And with Xbox Live, more than 50 million members will now connect across screens in new ways.
“Over the last 13 years, Xbox has been focused on creating and expanding great gaming and entertainment experiences on console. We’re incredibly proud of the Xbox One and are fully committed to ensuring it’s the best place to play console games in 2015 and beyond,” said Spencer. “Now, we are also bringing that same focus, passion, and commitment to gaming on Windows 10, enhancing the PC games and gaming devices you already love, including the Xbox One. We’ve listened and learned from our past efforts in PC gaming and I am excited about what the future holds.” 


Let’s take a closer look at what this means for gamers. Here are some highlights of the news announced today at the Windows 10 media briefing.

• The Xbox App. Whether you only game on the PC, the console or both, the Xbox app brings together the most important aspects of your gaming life: Games, Friends, Messages, Activity Feed, your gaming legacy with Achievements, and much more.
• Xbox Live and multiplayer across devices. Xbox Live is social, interactive, and seamlessly integrated directly into Windows 10, bringing gamers the experiences they love across devices, like multiplayer gaming on Windows 10 against players on an Xbox One, and messaging and chat with friends. And developers will get full access to the Xbox Live API, making it easier to create more powerful gaming scenarios across devices.
• Game Streaming. Thanks to the deep integration of Xbox on Windows 10, games on Xbox One can be streamed through your home network to your Windows 10 PC or tablet, anywhere in your house. Xbox One gamers will now be able to play many of their favorite console games on their PC. And many Xbox One accessories will work interchangeably on the console and PC (with more on the way), so you can customize your experience in whatever way you see fit.
• DirectX 12. We’ve enhanced our graphics technology to squeeze every ounce of performance out of your supported hardware and open up a new wave of innovation for high-end graphics. Delivering greater complexity and detail on your current PC, games authored or updated for DirectX 12 are able to run faster and have richer visuals. And this technology is already in the hands of developers today. The engines used to power hundreds of games are implementing DirectX 12, including Unreal Engine 4 from Epic and, as we announced today, Unity.
• Game DVR. On Xbox One, one of the most popular features used by gamers is Game DVR, which gives simple access to recording, editing, and sharing out your most epic gaming moments. It’s not easy or consistent to do that for PC games today. We’re bringing this beloved feature to Windows 10, now accessible by simply pressing Windows+G. With the games you love playing – whether on Xbox Live, Steam, or other services – you can record, edit, and share game clips with all your social networks.
• Fable Legends. Today we announced that we are bringing Fable Legends to Windows 10 PCs, day-and-date with the Xbox One version in 2015.  This means Fable fans running Windows 10 will be able to play against their fellow gamers on Xbox One. It’s the same game, in the same world, on the same map. Fable Legends is just the first of the major game franchises from Microsoft Studios coming to Windows 10 and we will have more to share in the coming months.

In the next week, anyone will be able to download the Windows 10 Tech Preview to begin interacting with an early version of the Xbox app. We’ll post a video walkthrough of the app in the coming weeks so you can have a closer look at the initial features available to gamers.



Now, while Xbox is coming to Windows, Windows 10 is also coming to Xbox One. As you know, Xbox One runs on Windows today for its app environment. Later this year we’ll update to Windows 10 to enable seamless interaction with PC gamers and to give developers who want to extend their applications to the television an easy path to do so.
Today marks a new era in gaming for Microsoft, and we’re looking forward to sharing more about what Windows 10 means to Xbox One at Game Developers Conference in March. 

New Avengers: Age Of Ultron brings the Vision

New Avengers: Age Of Ultron trailer brings the Vision

A brand new trailer for The Avengers: Age Of Ultron finally has given fans a glimpse of The Vision.

Watch the brand new trailer for The Avengers: Age Of Ultron below.

Project Morpheus Prototype unveiled

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT UNVEILS THE NEW PROTOTYPE OF “PROJECT MORPHEUS” – A VIRTUAL REALITY SYSTEM THAT EXPANDS THE WORLD OF PLAYSTATION®4 (PS4™)  New Prototype Enables Developers To Immerse Players in Amazing Virtual Worlds Project Morpheus To Launch In The First Half of 2016

Tokyo, March 4, 2015 – At the 2015 Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) unveiled the new prototype of “Project Morpheus” (Morpheus) - a virtual reality (VR) system that takes the PlayStation®4 (PS4™) system to the next level of immersion and demonstrates the future of gaming.  Morpheus enables players to experience a sense of presence, where they feel as though they are physically inside the virtual world of a game. This unique VR experience was met with huge interest and industry enthusiasm since the unveil of Morpheus in March 2014. Over the past year SCE has been listening to feedback from both developers and consumers, and has made several enhancements that will further the capability of Morpheus to deliver a sense of presence and push the boundaries of play.  OLED display In exchange for the 5-inch LCD, the new Morpheus VR headset is equipped with a 5.7-inch 1920 x RGB x 1080 resolution OLED display. This new screen expands the field of view and enables low persistence, removes motion blur and flicker, both of which build immersion and help deliver the sense of presence for the player.  120fps output By adopting OLED, Morpheus now supports 120fps output, and is able to render 120 images per second. Furthermore, via a system software update, all PS4 systems will handle native 120fps output when connected to Morpheus. By combining the OLED display’s high refresh rate and the power of the PS4 system, Morpheus produces amazingly smooth visuals and achieves the next level of immersion.  More accurate tracking and reduced latency To make positional tracking more accurate with PlayStation®Camera, the new prototype has added three more LEDs to the headset for a total of nine. Morpheus continues to support 360 degree tracking, and additional LEDs improve robustness and stability. Additionally, the overall system has been optimized to reduce latency between the physical movement of a player’s head and rendering on the headset’s screen.  User-friendly design While inheriting the original visor style headset design that reduces the pressure on the players’ face, the new Morpheus prototype features a single band and a quick release button, which makes it easier for players to put it on and take it off. Other components have also been adjusted and configured to make the headset lighter, so that players do not find the headset cumbersome or uncomfortable to use.  Developers will be able to use the new prototype to create Morpheus content for PS4, a robust and well-defined platform that has sold over 20.2 million units*1 within 16 months of its launch. In addition to the enhancements, the new prototype will continue to support 3D audio and social screen, a feature that outputs the same gameplay that’s within the Morpheus headset to a TV so additional players can interact. Furthermore, SCE will provide an SDK that converts 60fps images to output in 120fps, which will allow developers to bring their content that was being developed on the prior prototype to the new Morpheus prototype.  SCE will continue the development of Morpheus in order to launch as a consumer product in the first half of 2016.  “With the technical specs achieved on the new prototype, we are one step closer to realizing our vision for making amazing VR experiences on PS4, and ultimately to deliver a real sense of presence to players,” said Shuhei Yoshida, President of SCE Worldwide Studios. “We believe that the near-final technology of Morpheus combined with the power of PS4 will provide a standard for game developers to target as they build on their creative ideas and turn them into VR games and experiences.”

Seventh Son: Film Review

Seventh Son: Film Review

Cast: Ben Barnes, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Olivia Williams
Director: Sergei Bodrov

The fantasy genre gets another entrant with the potential start of new franchise being kicked off with Seventh Son, the first entrant in series The Wardstone Chronicles.

Though, based on the execution of the first one, it seems unlikely any further books in the series will be adapted onto the big screen.

Barnes is Tom Ward, a seventh son of a seventh son and who suffers from hallucinations. The main focus of those - Jeff Bridges' John Gregory, the local spook and knight protector of the vale whose raison d'etre is to fight the demons who haunt their kingdom.

When the previously imprisoned Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore, all crimped red hair and bedecked in Maleficent style garb) escapes, Gregory realises that their world is in mortal danger. And having lost an apprentice to Malkin, he seeks out Ward to join his quest and save the day...

Seventh Son is such a mash-up of other elements and CGI that it barely proffers enough to stand out on its own two feet.

Following familiar fantasy tropes is all very well and fine (and many others of a similar ilk have done the same) but Seventh Son relies too much on the VFX to help it negotiate through the muddied waters of its unoriginality. The problem comes in the writing with it feeling like it's seriously underdeveloped in places in favour of simply showcasing the FX once again.

Of the main cast, Barnes is forgettable as Ward (a crime for a leading man); Vikander puts a rare foot wrong with the love interest (due to a lack of chemistry even though there is a literal spark between the pair); Moore is two shades away from pantomime dame in her crimped hair and Gothic outfit (and suffers the indignity of being made out to be a major threat before being summarily dismissed with ease) and an eccentric Bridges seems to be channeling some kind of four score and ten years ago -Yoda-like voiceover for his character as the Spook, the last of his kind and prone to the few laugh-out-loud putdowns scattered throughout.

With its training ideas and set up, Seventh Son is very much a film that wants to launch a franchise, but it's unlikely we'll see more of The Wardstone Chronicles. While it's not badly executed overall, its distinct young adult tones are evident from the start and don't help it to soar when it should - and certainly by taking things too seriously, the film doesn't work.

There's very much the feeling that Seventh Son would sit among Harryhausen's catalogue if he was still alive, but a lack of script and character development cuts down Seventh Son before it's even had chance to reach its prime.

Rating:

Newstalk ZB review - Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Whiplash and Boyhood

Newstalk ZB review - Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Whiplash and Boyhood

This week's reviews take in oldies and the films from the Oscars.

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-the-second-mediocre-marigold-hotel/

Focus: Film Review

Focus: Film Review

Cast: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro, BD Wong
Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

The con is back on in Will Smith's latest.

Well, a rom con anyway.

Smith is Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con-man who takes newbie Jess (Robbie) under his wing and into his bed for his latest scam. But when the two part ways and reunite by chance three years later, their meeting could cause all kinds of problems for either side.

For a film with as generic a title as Focus and with a subject matter of con-men and heists, this latest heist flick entrant into the pantheon does little to distract you from its sleight of hand trickery as the cat-and-mouse game plays out.

Packaged up into a pristine shimmer with many backgrounds and scenes looking like they're straight out of adverts, there's very little to shake your attention away from the flimsiest of plots and lightest of characters.

With the likes of Now You See Me, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street, Ocean's 11,12 and 13, The Hustler and others ringing in your ears, you know nobody is to be trusted (hence shattering any kind of illusion before it's started) and no lines are simply thrown away for no reason whatsoever (in fact the denouement's resolution is mentioned early on if you know where to look)

But the joy of Focus comes from seeing Smith hustling as an ultra-slick veteran conman out to score big; there's a thin crackle of chemistry between him and rookie pickpocket wannabe big timer Jess (a star cementing turn from Robbie) whose naïveté sets you off mark to begin with; (it is, after all, a conman caper, and everybody is on the make, surely)

There's a minor fizzle that never quite froths over in Crazy Stupid Love's directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's handling of Focus' action as it swirls from one moment to the next.

But like any magic trick or smart con, the real thrill is supposed to come in the chase.

However, a healthy detachment from any veracity to anyone's comments and a once-over-lightly touch for the main leads actually holds the film back from achieving some of the tension it occasionally strives for.

And at times, it's a real struggle to love - or even like - Smith whose weariness requires effort to engage with; as opposed to Robbie whose infectious and effortless charm is self evident from the moment she's on screen. Equally, the tubby comedy relief offered by one of Nicky's cohorts played by Adrian Martinez - which speaks volumes that a supporting character's better written than anyone else.

That and the fact the heists are more fun and a little more convincing than the two lead's story.

(And don't the best heist films work when you care about the protagonists?)

That's not to say a couple of sequences don't stand out in Focus.

These include BD Wong's extended cameo at a high stakes bet at a football game and an initially puzzling sequence with a goon sent for Nicky which really see the film focus in on what it does best, by sharpening the elements and giving you something to really drill down to. Which is the inherent problem of Focus - you're expecting the bait and switch at any moment, which cripples it and the two halves of the story don't quite gel together as perhaps they should.

Ultimately, Focus is a frothy style over substance tale, complete with the smooth upbeat jazzy music you'd expect of its genre and the resolution you can see a mile off, rather than a smart last minute pull-the-rug-from-under-you Eureka moment.

The greatest con Focus will be able to pull will be convincing an audience into either loving it or remembering it days after it's done.

Rating:

The Order 1886: Garret Foster interview

The Order 1886: Garett Foster interview

As The Order 1886 hits shelves, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Garret Foster, the technology director Ready at Dawn studios who oversees all the programme developments of the studio.

The Order 1886's been 4 years in the making, tell us a little more about it
It was early 2011 when we pitched the game to Sony and they liked it almost as much as we did and so we went forward with it. We were gearing up for it for a long time; we had done Daxter and the God of Wars on the PSP and we thought the kind of games we wanted to make were most suited to being on a couch, because we wanted to tell a story. When you're hopping on a train and playing things in one hour chunks, it's hard to tell a story in that short period of time. What we wanted to do was get to a scenario where we can really convey a meaningful story and not to say that you couldn't do that on a handheld, it's just that it's extremely difficult to do that.

Do you still enjoy the handheld gaming?
Yeah, don't get me wrong, I love it; If I'm waiting in line, the first thing I do is pop out a PSP or the phone and start playing something random; so I have to do that - there's no way I can't.

How did you get to the idea of The Order - in hindsight, it seems mad that nobody's ever done it before?
Yeah I think what's cool about it is, the idea was kicking around for a while; Dana and Ru (fellow workers at Ready At Dawn) had this idea that they really wanted something in the Victorian era. Ru (director of Ready At Dawn) is kind of a history buff and he's all into Victorian London and the idea of the Knights of the Round Table. Dana had this idea of wanting something kind of pretty , alternate universe, and everyone agreed that London during that time was an amazing atmosphere of ideas. I don't think anyone hates it - you talk to anyone about they just get it, everyone gravitates toward it, they love it cos so much of that is the genesis of what we are today, what our society is. Especially the western world, you see Victorian era houses everywhere, the architecture; the influence has never gone away, so it's familiar. Then we went to this natural conclusion - once you throw an evolutionary curveball into the mix, it changes everything. The whole plot of the story is mankind diverges into humans and half-breeds; and that happened a couple of centuries before the revolution and what that does is if you start working backwards and forwards there is this natural thing that you'd have to have someone to defend the common people and that's what King Arthur did, to establish the round table etc and then you're at war, what does that do for technology, how would a historical figure tie into that. The whole thing was, I don't want to say effortless but it just made so much sense. A lot of hard people put a lot of hard work into that and I look back on it and think "Oh yeah easy road" (Laughs)

What were the challenges on the technology side?
Everything's bigger; we went from making small buildings to making skyscrapers and infrastructure that goes along with that. Every turn we made, we had to re-evaluate how and what we were doing; every turn we'd look at the simplest things such as placing objects in the world and the cinematics. We didn't make our lives any easier in this game - we didn't want to have any pre-rendered cinematics in the game, it's all real time. Normally what you do is you have a cinematic in the offline, you'll render it out and have a movie player play it back. That's all fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but the thing we wanted to do was have seamless transitions and you can't do that with a black screen cut. So it may sound like that it's technical and just stroking your ego in terms of what you're trying to do, but that wasn't the real reason; we wanted to have a seamless transition because we wanted the player to be immersed and as soon as you cut, you're taken out of the game, out of the world before you even got into it.

Do you believe it makes the game harder to get into because of the cinematics?
I just think that's people not playing the game. Once they play it, they'll realise a lot of people think that just because we put a lot of love and time into graphics and cinematics, that we didn't put it in the gameplay and they think just because we did one thing, we couldn't have the other - that's absolutely not the truth. That's absolutely ridiculous; we did everything to ensure the gunplay and the characters were exactly right and so you'll see it when you play it. The controls are tight and the experience is a fun thing. The game really hasn't demoed well because the game is constantly evolving as you're playing it and it's not just a third person shooter; there's horror sections, there's exploration sections, there's action - everything's there. As you play the game, it's constantly changing and that was kind of a challenge to demo. To distill that in half an hour is hard - you have to see the whole thing and experience the journey.

In terms of the development, what got you excited going into work every day?
Every day there was something new that was uncharted.  Everything we were doing, we were doing something nobody else was doing and that was terribly exciting. A lot of time was spent pondering how do we do this because not doing it is not an option and excuse. Everyone was ultra-passionate about it.

What's the moment that stands out for you?
My wow moment came when I realised that you can play the game early on, but you can't actually play the game until later on. You don't get the polished experience until later on. At least every game I've worked on comes together at the end. I got to sit down and played it one night all the way through - I went into a dark room and went into the next day and kept playing it and I kept playing it in one sitting. I was so tired! I haven't done that since I was a kid and this is something I've been involved in.

At the launch of The Order 1886, you were watching people play?
I love watching people play, no two people play the same. We do a ton of focus testing internally and we see people play all the time and you get so much data from it. Even just like little subtleties like where do people slouch their shoulders, look, put their controller down. The psychology of that is exceptional.

Tell me a little about the characters and how the game was put together?
There's a ton of motion capture in The Order - we did it the similar way to how Avatar was put together; they had a full jump suit with motion trackers on them as well as a face camera.While they were acting, we were capturing the face - it's a pretty exciting thing to have, everything is cohesive and not as disjointed. With any filming, the actors were given a little creative freedom and allowed to put their own flair on it. As with movies, with any actor, the performance shines through - but only if they believe it. We find actors who look and move and sound like we want. All the principal characters as we had an idea of what they should look like, we brought them in and had their face 3D scanned. It was really neat that the designers could put a little of their own elements onto the characters and that was really cool. We did 16K eyeball scanning - even one of my eyeballs is in the game! I couldn't see for a few days after it because the machine is so bright! Even if you're making something stylistic, you have to make sure it's grounded in some form of reality though. If I was to make a stylistic game like The Order 1886 I'd do it the same way; I'd start with reality and add layers on top of that.

It sounds like you had a wealth of material - what was the point you had to stop and maybe rein yourselves in?
It was way too late that we realised that! (Laughs) We are constantly pushing and we don't know when to stop. Left to our own devices we wouldn't ship a game!

What is the future of The Order? Do you see it as a franchise?
I hope it is! For me personally, I had a lot of fun working on it and it's such a rich universe that there are still plenty of areas left to explore. It'd be a crime to not make another element of it. The world just begs to be explored and that's something that I hope personally keeps going on because I think as a gamer I want more. As soon as I'd finished the game, I went and bugged Ru to see what's next, what's the story, where are we going - and he said there's nothing next.... yet..

The game's story is shrouded in secrecy - where do you personally stand on spoilers?
I'm sure that our game is being streamed somewhere on Twitch right now and my personal view is I don't mind people but I think they're harming themselves.If it was my choice, I'd go into it completely blind and experience it myself. When you have a story based game, it's the best way to experience it. It's like movies, if you'd told me the plot of Pulp Fiction, I'd want to know myself - I didn't want to know she was stabbed in the chest - I think we're passed the statute of limitations of that spoiler!

What are you digging in terms of games?
Right now, as you can imagine, we've been deep in development and are just coming out of that - I have a backlog of gaming to play. People may be surprised, but I'm going back to things chronologically. I've gone back to Telltale's Walking Dead right now and it's different to anything I've played. I'm a big first person shooter and I was really into Starcraft for an embarrassing amount of time so I'm all over the board in terms of games I like. I'm really looking to playing the new inFamous as well - I really love that series. I'm actually kicking myself for not playing that when it came out - that's next in the queue! If you're a gamer, you're a gamer, you love it all regardless as you're in for the experience.

The Order 1886 is out now exclusively for PS4.