NEWS | Week beginning June 22nd | Broken Batman, Steam Summer Sale Figures & Fallout Ingenuity

Good afternoon guys, and welcome back to another weekly news round-up! E3 is officially done and dusted, meaning everything should be returning to normal!

Better luck next time?

First up, we have a case of the 'Broken Batman'. On Tuesday, Batman: Arkham Knight was released on Playstation, Xbox and PC, however, the game is now only available on consoles. Why, you may ask? It's because the game is broken!
Users are reporting issues with frame-rate, where the game stutters, as well as audio glitches and sporadic freezes, making the game near impossible to play. Because of this, Warner, the publisher of Batman, have decided to completely pull the game from PC until all issues have been resolved. Warner have even instructed retailers, such as GAME, to not to sell Batman to customers no matter what. An employee working for GAME told news site Eurogamer that "We have the stock, but I'm not allowed to sell it to you".

I find the steps that Warner have taken to be quite admirable. Not only have they ordered retailers not to sell the game, as well as completely removing the game from online stores, they are also offering full refunds to users. Most publishers would merely push out an endless amount of patches in order to attempt to fix any issues. This shows to consumers that Warner are listening to their customers and are trying their utmost to fix the game.
Well done Warner, but next time, make sure your game works first before you sell it!

Next up, the Steam Summer Sale figures have been released, and, as always, they are quite remarkable!
For those of you who are not familiar with the Steam sales, they are sales that come around maybe once or twice a year, and almost ALL of the games on the Steam Store are discounted. The discounts can vary from a measly 10% to a massive 90%, depending on the popularity of the game, how new the game is, etc.

First up, the Top 5 Best Sellers of the Steam Summer Sale are:

1. Counter Strike: Global Offensive - 899,405
2. Total War: ATILLA - 488,827
3. Total War: Shogun 2 - 439,250
4. ARK: Survival Evolved - 431,456
5. Castle Crashers - 417,927

Did you pick up any deals?

It's no surprise that we're seeing games such as Counter Strike and Total War on this list. The games have thousands of registered players and users, and by the looks of it, those numbers will only increase.

Next, we have the Top 5 Titles with most revenue (conversions accurate June 28th) :

1. Total War: ATILLA - $14,733,246 - (£9,357,412)
2. ARK: Survival Evolved - $10,738,940 - (£6,820,539)
3. Counter Strike: Global Offensive - $6,736,543 - (£4,278,528)
4. The Witcher 3 - $5,101,299 - (£3,239,948)
5. Total War: Rome II Emperor Edition - $4,616,222 - (£2,931,865)

Again, these are impressive figures. This goes to show that people love a good sale!

Go to DSOGaming.com to view the rest of the figures on the Summer Sale!

Finally, one Fallout fan has used a bit of imagination when pre-ordering his copy of Fallout 4. Instead of paying with real money, a dedicated fan has decided to instead pay with over 2240 bottlecaps!

2240 bottlecaps in all their
glory!

The fan, known as Seth, said the 2240 bottlecaps were "everything I've been able been able to save since I played Fallout 3 for the first time". Seth later recieved an email from Matt Grandstaff, Bethesda's Global Community Lead, with a photo of the opened box full of bottlecaps, captioned with a promise that he'd get a copy of the game in November because "he's the first person to do this" implying that he's going to be the only person who will be able to pull this stunt off.

It was a nice idea from Seth, he's used his imagination to pull on the heartstrings of the Fallout devs, and it has clearly worked!

For those of you who do not know, Bottlecaps are the currency of choice in the Fallout universe.

So that's it for this week folks! What news story interested you this week? Have you been affected by Broken Batman? Did you pick up any deals in this years Steam Summer Sale? Have you pre-ordered a copy of Fallout 4 yet? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

Connor :)

Post-E3 hype!

Evening guys! E3 just ended and there were some mad crazy announcements! Tonight I'll be covering my top 3 announcements from E3 this year!

FAAALLLLLOOOOUUUUTTTTTTTTTT

"I'll take all of them!"

Firstly, as many of you may know, I am a huge Fallout fan! So you guys should understand when I say I was hugely excited for Bethesda's conference on Monday! And quite frankly, it didn't disappoint. Not only did we get to see 35 minutes of gameplay, Todd Howard, Game Director at Bethesda announced that a free-to-play, game called 'Fallout Shelter' is to be released on mobile devices. So not only do we get one Fallout game, we get another free Fallout game too! Bethesda also revealed that a collectors edition of the game was to be released, containing a number of different items, most notably a working Pip-Boy! For those of you who have no idea what that is, it is basically a wearable watch/tablet. You can fit your phone inside of it and use it as an external device for your phone!

The 35 minutes of gameplay that was shown looked amazing. Just to name a few of the cooler looking features, Bethesda has seemed to added a brand new colour-palette. So no more bleak and depressing scenes and locale. A voice-acted main character, so you too can actually talk in the wasteland! And finally, probably one of the biggest surprises, Minecraft-esque customisation. No I don't mean everything is blocky and square, I mean that you can build! They showed in the demo the player building a home from scratch, collection resources and materials from the surrounding environment and putting together a structure. Fallout is known for its heavy customisation, but Fallout 4 looks to completely change the game and what we know of Fallout, and I'm looking forward to it!

Much customisation...

Even more ways to play!

As previously mentioned, it was announced that a mobile game, 'Fallout Shelter' was to be released. The app was released as soon as the conference ended and is only available on iOS devices currently. The game sets you the task of being an Overseer in a vault of your choice (an Overseer is like the Head of the vault). You have to set each person in your vault different tasks and slowly build up your vault. Not a new concept by any means, but already, the game can be seen as a success, as it has
already knocked Candy Crush Saga out of the top 3 in the AppStore. If you have an iOS device, go download the game and give it a play!

To top it all off, we also got a release date for Fallout 4. November 10th 2015. This definitely came as a surprise, as many believed that the game would come out some time in 2016, but hey, I ain't complaining!

Here's the full Fallout 4 conference from E3 if you haven't already seen it:

Star Wars Battlefront looks AMAZING!!!

Next up, Star Wars Battlefront. A brief gameplay demo was put on show during EA's conference at E3, and, it looked amazing.
Star Wars Battlefront was a game that I grew up with as a child. As most children were, I was a Star Wars fan and Battlefront allowed me to play as my favourite characters on my favourite planets and locations such as Tatooine and Hoth. Such sweet memories!

SWWWOOOOOOOSSSSHHHHHHHH

From the E3 demo, I can say that the new Battlefront looks fantastic!
The demo was set on the snowy planet of Hoth. Yes, we're back. The demo perfectly captured the feel of the previous two games, but in a HD next-gen kinda way. There were AT-AT's (the big walker things), AT-ST's (the leggy walker things) and Arc Starfighters (fighter planes!!). Everyone I loved is back! However, not only did vehicles make an appearance, but so did my favourite characters! We saw a glimpse of both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, doing their thing with the lightsabers.

BIG SPACE THINGS YYEEEEAAAAHHHHH

I thought that the gameplay looked very Battlefield-yy? There seemed to be a number of different objectives that players had to either go and capture and/or destroy, depending on what side you're fighting for. There also seemed to be side objectives within the match. In the demo, the Rebels had the opportunity to take down the AT-AT by using cable ties attached to the rear of the Snowspeeders, much like how it happened in the film. It all seemed very real and genuine, which is what you want to seem from a Star Wars game!

Much like Fallout, a release date was also announced during the conference . Keep November 20th 2015 free Ladies and Gentleman, Star Wars is back!

Here's the Battlefront gameplay if you haven't already seen it:

HoloLens. I want.

Finally, HoloLens. Do you remember that we talked about it a while back, say Monday 2nd March? No, well click here to remind yourself quickly! Done? Okay let's continue. 

It was so cool!

I said that you could, and I quote "Look down at the table, and you can play a game of checkers with the computer". Now they didn't play checkers, however, they did play a game of Minecraft! That guy wearing the HoloLens (left) was in a game with another presenter and he had full viewing of the structure they built within the map! The guy simply looked down at the table, and boom, Minecraft appeared! He even poked his head around the map and put his head inside the structure! 

$84 million and counting...

This is exciting stuff, simply because us video gamers are often left disappointed by video games. For example, look at Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a website that allows people with ideas to post their ideas, and then people give them money to fund the product and make it succeed. Now, of course, not every Kickstarter project is a failure, look at Star Citizen. The game has over 900,000 backers and has raised a whop
ping $84,228,549 (accurate as of 19th June). It is known as one of the most successful Kickstarter projects ever.

However, majority of the time, you see a game that looks to have high potential, then does not deliver. The video gaming industry is full of broken promises unfortunately.

The fact that we saw the HoloLens live in action and it looked to work shows Microsoft have actually been trying to make a decent, working VR headset, which I commend. Currently, there is no scheduled release date, and it will probably cost a great deal. Even so, I still want one.
Plz can I have??

Here's the HoloLens demo if you haven't already seen it:

So guys, these are my top picks from E3 this year. It was rather difficult to come up with top 3 as soooooo many tremendous announcements were made this year.
Do you agree with my top 3 picks? What were your favourite announcements from E3 this year? Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for taking time out of your day to have a read of my blog! I hope it's worth your time!

Connor :)

CVGB Special! What can we expect from E3?

Good afternoon guys! Welcome to a Connors Video Game Blog Special! With E3 only around the corner, starting officially on June 16th, I thought I'd so a special post and cover what we can expect to see at E3! From games to consoles, I am going to cover the top 3 things you can expect to see at E3 2015 this year!

The obvious, Games!

E3 is a gaming convention, therefore, seeing new games is almost guaranteed. Most games, like Fallout 4 and Batman: Arkham Knight have already been announced by their respective publishers 

the attraction of E3 to big publishers like EA and Ubisoft is huge, with hundreds of thousands of gaming enthusiasts and journalists attending each year, getting your game at E3 is the easiest way of raising awareness, especially as most are ready to open their wallets to the site of a shiny new game, especially collectors editions, with their rare collectible items and such. The temptation for most is too much, so it's also an easy way for publishers and developers to raise some quick cash.

So preeettttyyyyyyy.....

So brrookkkkeeen....

This years E3 could be one the of the best yet, mainly due to the fact that developers and publishers have a better grasp over the current generation consoles. In previous years, it could be argued that the current generation of consoles (Xbox One & PS4) were fresh out of the block and most of the games being released for the consoles were unarguably broken. Going back to a previous post where I was discussing whether the big publishers cared out us as consumers (click here to refresh your memory), games like Assassin's Creed Unity were broken beyond repair, and
this has seemed to be the unfortunate trend of the past couple of years. Now that the current-gen consoles have been out for a while and developers have had a chance to experiment and see what the consoles can do, the quality of games we can expect to see will undoubtedly increase.

Consoles?

So bigger DOES mean better!

Now this doesn't often come up, but as video games develop and new technology is pumped into the creation of these games, the size of the games is going to dramatically increase, as a result, Sony and Microsoft (and maybe Nintendo??) are likely to release new consoles with a much bigger hard-drive. We already know that Microsoft are releasing a new Xbox One with a 1TB hard-drive, and it is rumored that Sony are going to do the same thing.

Most games these days have huge file sizes. GTA 5 for example has an install size of 45GB+ and The Witcher 3 has an install size of 50GB these games are going to take up an obscene amount of space on your hard-drives, especially as you're already likely to have a bunch of games already installed on your console, announcing a new console at E3 alongside the announcement of other big games is a huge opportunity for the console developers, and under the circumstances, consumers are likely to spend big. A win-win I suppose!

The squashing of rumors!

In the video game industry, rumors come flying left right and center. It is only to be expected. Gaming conventions like E3 are the perfect time and place to squash any rumors that may be floating about! From the anonymous 'sources' that claim 'the next big game' is going to be announced to 'another next-next gen console' is in the works. The truth is, if you don't hear nothing from the important people, i.e Sony, Microsoft, etc, then the rumors are probably false.

NEWS | Week beginning June 1st | Fallout 4 Confirmed!, New PS4 & Xbox One consoles & Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection

*Jesus I swear these titles are getting longer and longer each week...*

Evening guys! Prepare yourself for another round of video gaming news selected by me, Connor!

First up, Fallout 4 has finally been confirmed! After 5 years of patient waiting, Bethesda has finally announced Fallout 4, to be released on PS4, Xbox One & PC.

"Welcome Home..."

For those of you who have no clue what this 'Fallout' is, Fallout is a Role Playing Game that allows players to explore an American Wasteland ravaged by nuclear war. Often set in the future, the game explores how life has expanded and progressed in a post-apocalyptic world. Pretty cool huh!
Anyway, on Wednesday, Bethesda threw out a sneaky tease on Twitter, linking users to a website with the classic Fallout 'Please Stand By' screen, with a timer. Once that timer reached 00:00:00, users were redirected to the official Fallout 4 website: www.fallout4.com. The site contains links to pre-order the game, as well as a teaser trailer.
Although no release date has been announced, it is expected that Bethesda will reveal the release date at their E3 conference on June 14th.
As a Fallout fan I am hugely excited about this announcement. The last Fallout game to be released was Fallout New Vegas in 2010, so you can argue that it's been far too long. The teaser trailer looked amazing, confirming previous rumors that the game will be set in Boston, with landmarks such as Fenway Park and the Massachusetts State House all appearing in the trailer.
To put it simply, it's gonna be great!

Here's the teaser trailer if you haven't already seen it:

Next up, both Playstation and Xbox are expected to announce that they will be releasing 1 Terabyte consoles soon. As reported by Polygon, Amazon listed a $400, or £250 bundle with a new 1TB console, which is also rumored to include a new controller including a 3.5mm jack and a copy of The Master Chief Collection.

Memory Wars...

Sony on the other hand had certification documents sent to the US Federal Communications Commission leaked, which state that Sony has registered a new 1TB console.
Both these leaks may not come as a big surprise. E3 is right around the corner, and a number of huge games could be announced/are expected to be announced, such as Fallout 4 and DOOM. Therefore, it would make sense that both Sony and Microsoft are releasing new consoles with bigger hard-drives, especially as more modern games are as big as ever in terms of installation size. GTA 5 for example, had a installation size of 45GB+. The newer the game, the more technology is put into creating it, therefore file size dramatically increases. It makes sense that consoles with bigger hard-drives are being rumored. Expect an announcement sometime during E3...

Finally, following a leak on the US Playstation Store, Playstation have announced that the Uncharted series will be getting a remastering on the PS4. Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection will launch in the UK on the 9th October.
The package will contain the single-player campaigns of all 3 of the Uncharted games, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, as well as beta access to Uncharted 4: A Thief's End multiplayer. If you pre-order the collection, you will also gain

"Coming to a Playstation Store near you!"

access to player and gun skins and if you buy the digital version, you will also unlock a dynamic PS4 theme.
An Uncharted remastering has always been expected, with Sony already remastering several classic PS3 games, such as The Last of Us (already out) and God of War 3 (coming out this July).
Personally I love the Uncharted series, so it'll be great to be able to play through the series again with upgraded graphics, textures and other cool HD stuff. Roll on October 9th!

What did you think of this weeks stories? Are you excited for Fallout 4? Will you be upgrading to a PS4 or Xbox One with a massive 1TB hard-drive? Will you be pre-ordering the Uncharted Collection?

As always, let me know in the comments, and of course, thank you for reading!

Connor :)