Indie Pinata offers individual discounts on "curated" game collection
Another day, another indie game bundle, but the Indie Pinata is a little bit different.
Another day, another indie game bundle, but the Indie Pinata is a little bit different. Put together by developer Crunching Koalas, it's a collection of games similar in one way or another to its recently released MouseCraft. But rather than gathering them all together into a single package, it offers individual discounts to every game in the list to anyone who buys, or already owns, at least one of them.
Say you already own, for example, MouseCraft. For the next nine days or thereabouts, that entitles you to fairly sharp discounts on Triple Town, The Bridge, 10,000,000, Super Splatters, Flockers, Dungeon Hearts, Jack Lumber, Contraption Maker and Monaco. In fact, owning any of the games in the list entitles you to discounts on all the others.
Crunching Koalas said the goal of the bundle is to make it easier for fans of particular games to pick out others they might like. "Thousands of games available on Steam make it difficult for enthusiasts of certain game genres to find games that they really enjoy," the studio explained. "Games we have chosen can be similar in terms of graphics, gameplay mechanics or general feel and we think that if anybody owns at least one title from our list, there's a high chance they will like every other game from our campaign."
It seems like a can't-lose proposition: Get discounts on games you may or may not want simply by owning (or buying) at least one game you actually do want. The Indie Pinata is live now and runs until 10 am PST on July 26; proper details can be found at indiepinata.com.
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix trailer keys up
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix is a confusing partial update of a confusing series, but this new trailer should hopefully clear things up. The PlayStation-3 bound remake of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix , Chain of Memories , and scenes from 358/2 Days is looking smoother than Sora's teenage chin. The Square and Disney gangs will fight together once more when Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix arrives this fall. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Connor Sheridan One of GR+'s news crew, Connor also writes features from time to time and does a lil' streamin'-streamin' on the side. Chrom is his husband and nothing will ever come between them. Topics Disney Square Enix trailer Role Playing Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments
Bundle Stars deal offers classic strategy games
I know people are still collecting cans, doing odd jobs and taking out bank loans to replenish the void the recent Steam sale left in everyone's wallet, so don't start throwing nickels at me when I tell you there's yet another sale of video games elsewhere.
I know people are still collecting cans, doing odd jobs and taking out bank loans to replenish the void the recent Steam sale left in everyone's wallet, so don't start throwing nickels at me when I tell you there's yet another sale of video games elsewhere. You'll need those nickels for the sale.
Bundle Stars' latest deal, dubbed the “Masters of Strategy” bundle, grants you, among other things, a dictatorship over Cuba and perhaps the greatest culinary empire we have yet to witness. To be more specific, the games in question are Earth 2160, Jagged Alliance 2: Wildfire, Restaurant Empire 2, and the Steam special editions of Tropico 3and Patrician IV. None of the games are particularly new, but the pack only costs $2.98, making it a cheap way to nurture your inner cupcake-baking dictator.
All the games can be redeemed through either the Steam, Desura, or GamersGate distribution services. Or, if you're feeling particularly generous, have the game codes emailed to that one friend who offloads all of their extra games onto you. It's the least you can do.
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix hits N. American PS3s in fall
Take Heart, North American players, the Kingdom shall soon be yours. Well, an HD version of the old kingdom, anyway--Square Enix today announced Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix will arrive for North American PlayStation 3 systems in fall. Remix includes graphical and gameplay updates of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories , along with cinematic story videos pulled from Kingdom
The Indie Buskers return with a new bundle of wonderfully inventive games
Back in March we doffed our caps at the Indie Buskers, a group of developers that asked the public (yes, including you, Dave) for ideas, before turning the most popular into actual games over a 48-hour period.
at the Indie Buskers, a group of developers that asked the public (yes, including you, Dave) for ideas, before turning the most popular into actual games over a 48-hour period. Well, they've only gone and done it againover the weekend, creating such gems as Diplomatic Doom, Phone Phantom, and the novel stealth game Sneaky Brats, details of which lie after the break.
There are six games currently available in the bundle, including Friedrich Hanisch's HATESNAKE3D ("You're a space-snake in a box"), McPixel developer Sos's electreus ("My bones? Your bones! Bones' Bones? Bones bones bones..."), Sophie Houlden's Phone Phantom ("Use telephones to call customer service hotlines. If you can navigate past the robots to an actual human you can possess them!"), and of course Cardinal Quest dev Ido Yehieli's Diplomatic Doom, which finally lets you "talk to the monsters".
As for the other two, Phil Hassey's DandyDan is a game about a dandy building a hedge (naturally), while Mike Hommel's Sneaky Bandits is a "stealth game in which putting your hands over your eyes really does make you invisible." The seventh game, Space Brawl, was temporarily called off due to ill health, but developer Pekka Kujansuu plans to finish it this Sunday.
Every one of these ideas was submitted by the crowd, and once again it's resulted in some truly inventive, beautifully weird games that would never have existed otherwise. You can buy the Indie Buskers 2 bundlefor a minimum of 1 Euro, but have a look at this marvellous trailer first:
[Thanks to RPSfor spotting this inspiring collection.]
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 ReMIX trailer looks beautiful, features Goofy's voice in Japanese
The first trailer for Kingdom Hearts 1.5 ReMIX has hit the internet. In case you missed our previous news story , the game is an HD reworking of both the original game and the PS2 version of Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, itself a remake of the Game Boy Advance spin-off. There's also a cut-scene compilation from 258/2 Days, just in case the whole 'Namine' plotline wasn't complicated enough for
UK Chart: Injustice Gods Among Us topples BioShock
Injustice: Gods Among Us has claimed the No.1 position on the UK all formats all prices chart for the week ended April 20. Ending Bioshock Infinite ’s three week run at the top, Injustice becomes the first fighting game to lead the chart since UFC Undisputed 3 in February 2012. Injustice studio NetherRealm's previous game, Mortal Kombat , was beaten to No.1 by Portal 2 in week 16 of 2011. The second
Brand new Bundle In A Box bigs up Eclectic Delights
There are a lot of bundles around at the moment, so many that it can be hard to keep track, but even among the cacophony, Bundle In A Box is one that stands out.
is one that stands out. A reminder: it's the bundle that directly supports indie developers in the form of the Indie Dev Grant, in addition to donating money to charity. The latest pay-what-you-want bundle launched yesterday, offering (at a basic level) Shadows of the Vatican Act 1, Delve Deeper, War of the Human Tanks, Eversion, and first-person psychological horror Fibrillation, which is worth playing even despite the rubbish voiceover.
As ever, beating the odds (the odds currently being $2.47) will get you more games, in this instance The Adventures of Shuggy, Stay Dead, The 4th Wall and Flibble, a top-down adventure game inspired by the Atari 2600 classic Adventure. As the bundle title suggests, it's definitely an eclectic bunch, offering strategy, horror, pointing and/or clicking and more - all games, naturally, are DRM-free.
Bundle creator/organiser Kyttaro Games are also offering exclusive content for their upcoming "sci-fi action puzzle game" Droidscape (more details here). Their latest Bundle In A Box has 13 days left on the clock, and has currently raised (at the time of writing) around $240 for charity, and nearly $200 for the Indie Dev Grant - an extra $10 is added for every 100 bundles sold. If you feel like helping out/getting loads of games for peanuts, head here.
Unleash the Kitty in Hunter’s Legacy
Kitty got claws, swords, a bow, and arrows.
Hunter’s Legacy is a 2D single-player platform action game by developer Lienzo. Inspired by the classics they grew up on, Hunter’s Legacy is designed to challenge gamers of every skill level. Players control Ikki, a feline huntress of Un’Amak.
Not only does Ikki wield swords and a bow, but she’s also equipped with a wide variety of abilities to combat the multitude of enemies. Players will use their twin swords to slash enemies, while the bow can be charged to deal even more damage to enemies. These weapons can be upgraded, giving players more of an edge in combat. As the player progresses in the game, they’ll unlock more abilities to aid them in tough situations. The level design features a vertical factor that opens up several options for movement. For example, players can jump from platform to platform in the sky, or jump to a ledge below to reveal a secret path. There are several hidden areas, treasure chests, and secrets to discover. The treasures hidden in the world can be exchanged for power-ups. Players will also meet a cast of characters that will aid them in their quest.
Hunter’s Legacy is currently up for voting on Steam Greenlight. The game set to be released in 2016 on Steam for Windows PC. There are no pricing details as of yet but, the developer will be releasing the first level of the game for free a few weeks before launch. To learn more about the game and developer Lienzo visit their website, like them on Facebookand follow them on Twitter.
104 Questions And Answers About Destiny: The Taken King
Destiny has a thriving community that endlessly thirsts for more information on Bungie's burgeoning universe.
Destiny has a thriving community that endlessly thirsts for more information on Bungie's burgeoning universe. With the launch of our extensive September cover story on Destiny: The Taken King, we explained as much as a cover story can contain, but there were still some lingering questions like "Whose face is on the strange coin?" and "Are there bathrooms on the tower?" The only way to cover as much ground as we need to in an interview with The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith was to take the same approach as our No Man's Sky interview from last year, and rapid-fire our way through dozens and dozens of burning questions. Game Informer's Ben Reeves sat down with Smith at Bungie to ask what's on everybody's mind.
Check out the video interview below to learn more about Destiny's lore, The Taken King's gameplay changes, and Paul McCartney's mortality.
To learn much more about Destiny: The Taken King, click on the banner below to enter our constantly-expanding hub of exclusive content.
Night In The Woods Kickstarter Blows Past Funding Goal
It only took Alec Holowka and Scott Benson’s 2D adventure game, Night In The Woods , 26 hours before meeting its $50,000 goal on Kickstarter.
, 26 hours before meeting its $50,000 goal on Kickstarter. The near-instant Kickstarter success prompted the creators to add stretch goals, and then destroy the stretch goals after over 200% funding.
“Our brains are really great at adapting. If you had told me last week that we’d achieve 200% funding on this, I’d have been overjoyed. And if we’d have been at this point on our 30th day, I’d be overjoyed. We’re overjoyed even now!” wrote Benson and Holowka on their Kickstarter page.
Night In The Woods has already met all of its stretch goals of $100,000, allowing the team to hire Charles Huettner as an additional animator, add additional environments and quests. The team still hopes to bring Night In The Woods to consoles and Linux operating systems.
In Night In The Woods , you play as a cat named Mae. Mae is a college dropout who is returning home to her mining town to rekindle old friendships and break things.
If you’re not sold by now, check out the introduction video:
Night In The Woods seems to be heavily explorative with a wide variety of interesting set-pieces. The Kickstarter page boasts the game’s colorful cast and beautiful environments.
Here’s part of the game’s description on Kickstarter:
“ Night In The Woods comes from a deep place for us. That point where you sense things are changing and it’s time to move on but you just don’t know how. Knowing that everything will end someday, and wondering how well we’ll be able to meet it when it happens. How long we’ll be able to hold on, and when we should let go. When to accept and when to fight.”
Night In The Woods has over 4,000 backers adding up to over $110,000 in funding. There are still 22 days left of funding, how high do you think it will go? Check out the Kickstarter page.
Destiny: The Taken King's New Approach To Storytelling
You know all of those things that annoyed you about Destiny?
You know all of those things that annoyed you about Destiny? Bungie's aware of them. In addition to revamping the game's leveling system for The Taken Kingand a host of other changes, the developers are "pivoting" from how they've conveyed Destiny's story in the past. With a reinvigorated focus on quest givers and cutscenes sprinkled throughout the experience, The Taken King is hoping to tell a focused and direct story for fans of Bungie's universe. We spoke to The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith and executive producer Mark Noseworthy about lessons from Destiny's past, the importance of Cayde-6, and the changes to Ghost. Remember that you can always learn more about the changes in The Taken King by reading our full cover story.
Watch the video interview with Smith and Noseworthy below to learn more about the "100 little things" that Bungie is doing to change Destiny's storytelling strategy.
To learn much more about Destiny: The Taken King, click on the banner below to enter our constantly-expanding hub of exclusive content.
Kingdom Hearts HD collection announced for PS3
Tokyo Game Show is open for business, showing dozens of Japan's newest games to the thousands of attendees. Today at the Square Enix booth the company had a big reveal for the Kingdom Hearts series. Sorry, it wasn't Kingdom Hearts 3. Instead, it's an HD collection of three KH titles in a package called Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX. Announced for the PS3, the package includes HD remakes of the first
The Sleeper Simulant Is The Taken King's Biggest Mystery, See It In Action
When we first posted this article on Destiny’s Sleeper Simulant exotic weapon during our month-long cover story for The Taken King, little did we know how elusive the weapon would turn out to be.
When we first posted this article on Destiny’s Sleeper Simulant exotic weapon during our month-long cover story for The Taken King, little did we know how elusive the weapon would turn out to be. Even as Destiny fans have continued to uncover new secrets in The Taken King, as of this writing, no one in the game has figured out how to acquire Sleeper Simulant. There’s even a dedicated subredditfilled with Guardians hunting out clues. As the community continues to search, here’s a look at our original article on the exotic heavy fusion rifle, including our exclusive video of an unleveled Sleeper Simulant in action.
[This article was originally published on August 7, 2015]
Original Story: For the Taken King,
Destiny is crafting a suite of new exotic
weapons for players to fawn over and collect. However, not all of these will be
acquired randomly; some truly powerful tools will require work to
unlock. The journey Bungie took to create Sleeper Simulant, however, is nearly
as interesting as the path players will take to unlock it. We spoke with a few of Destiny's weapon
smiths to get the rundown on how Bungie designs an exotic weapon from scratch, and then we took the weapon for a test drive ourselves.
The Sleeper Simulant
is a fusion rifle that will sit in your heavy weapons slot, so you know it packs
a punch, since it needs to compete with weapons like rocket launchers and machine guns for your attention and use. Unlike most fusion rifles, its charged up blast can penetrate through
multiple enemies and will ricochet off walls up to five times when fully upgraded. Think hand-held rail gun, and you're on the right track.
However, in
order to unlock the gun, players first have to collect relics of the Golden Age which have been scattered across the various locations of Destiny. After players
bring these pieces back to Banshee-44 (the Tower's gunsmith), the ancient artifacts trigger a memory in the ancient Exo gunsmith, and he will invite
players on an odyssey to repair and reactivate one of the Taken King's most
striking exotics. Bungie doesn't want to spoil the story content of this mission, but it did say
that there will be unique tasks and objectives required for completion, which might even include puzzles that are too hard for any one player to figure out on their own.
We asked Bungie to walk us through the process of creating this powerful weapon, and these are the answers the team provided:
Finding Inspiration:
"We wanted to design a gun that
matched the theme of cutting edge technology that was still in its infancy, but
bears the hallmarks of a prototype that is not ready for mass distribution,"
says concept artist Jesse van Dijk. "One of the designs that exemplifies this concept
to me is the prototype of the first stealth fighter. I remember seeing it for
the first time and thinking it didn't look like a plane. In almost every
conceivable way, it was a much more advanced version of what came before and yet
it looked so much simpler. It had all these incredibly primitive geometric
shapes, so it had that dichotomy of being super advanced on one end and being incredibly visually simple on the other. We latched onto that theme for the
Sleeper Simulant, and also looked at images from NASA, such as the Mars rover."
Breaking The Rules:
"When it comes to exotics, anything goes," says gameplay
designer Jon Weisnewski. "We have a joke in the design pod that we spend all
this time building all these rules for how combat works, and then, when we make
an exotic, we pick a rule to break. For the Sleeper Simulant our idea was to
take a weapon archetype and move it out of its current role as a primary weapon
and make it a heavy. We wondered how could we turn something like a fusion
riffle into a heavy hitter. The creation of the Sleeper Simulant was a happy
high-five. We said we wanted to make a laser that bounced off walls, and the
art team showed us this image and we were like, 'Sweet, let's make these things
kiss.'"
Finding The Fantasy:
"We try to hit two fantasies for every weapon," Weisnewski says.
"One is the emotional fantasy that the player has just by owning the weapon.
How do you feel when you get this weapon? That's all dependent on how it looks,
what it's called, its lore, what it sound like when it shoots, and just how devastating
it feels to use. Our second fantasy is the gameplay fantasy, which is more like
the water cooler line that someone will give you the next day after using it.
For something like the Red Death it might be, 'That's the gun that heals me
when I shoot.' For the Sleeper Simulant we're thinking it's, 'the laser that
bounces off walls and kills a lot of guys."
Fine Tuning In First-Person:
"The design of a weapon is constantly changing through
development, and it's critical for every weapon that it gets proven to work in
first person," van Dijk says. "The perspective you have on a gun is so
different when you hold it up close to your eyes. The field of view creates
distortions that you might not even think of when looking at a weapon from the
side view. What does the gun's heads-up display looks like? How well does it
perform in a combat scenario? Can you actually see what you're shooting at, or
is the weapon in the way? All this fine tuning generally takes a while to sort
out. At this point, we never assume that a gun's design is final until we put
it in the game and see how it looks down the barrel."
Putting It In The Game:
"We went back and forth on depth of view with this gun," Weisnewski says. "The nature of the gun is that you want players to take it
into a base and fire it off and watch it ping-pong around environment and hit
multiple guys. But in actual play, players kept wanting to use it like a
precision weapon, and they would charge up their shots and try to take out
their targets from a distance and continually miss. So we started playing with
the zoom, and trying to dial that in so we could help them out a bit. Charge
time was another issue. We wanted the gun to feel really heavy and feel
powerful, but at first it was too slow and took a long time to charge up, so
players didn't want to use it."
See an unleveled Sleeper Simulant in action as we shoot it for the first time in one of The Taken King's missions
Path To Glory
Here's a look at Sleeper Simulant's upgrade path,
charting how the gun grows as you level it up. Like all new exotics, Sleeper Simulant has an intrinsic property that is unlocked immediately upon acquisition, helping to make it stand out right from the start.
Projectile over-penetrates enemies and will ricochet once.
Projectile capable of dealing precision damage Barrel column upgrades:
CQB Ballistics - Bonus to Stability
Linear Compensator - Bonus to Range, straighter recoil,
bonus to Impact. Reduced Stability.
Accurized Ballistics - Bonus to Range, bonus to Impact.
Better Target Acquisition. Reduced Stability. Support Perk:
Just a Scratch - Reduces aim deflection on incoming rounds
while you're aiming with the weapon. Helps the wielder stay on target during
the long charge up. Stat upgrades:
Speed Reload - faster reload speed
Perfect Balance - Better Stability
Single Point Sling - Ready the weapon faster, and faster move
speed while aiming. Exotic Perk:
[Final name TBD] - Increases bounce count of projectile to
5.
That's our look at the creation of
the Sleeper Simulant, but you can get more details about Destiny's The Taken
King expansion in our cover story hub. We recently posted an interview with creative director Luke Smithwhere we asked more than 100 questions about the game, but you can
also look forward to more developer interviews as well as a look at why now
might be the best time to return to Destiny.
All E3 rumours, news, and everything in between, collected in one place
It's that time of year again. E3 is coming and the rumour-pot is getting fat. In fact the heap of things-that-might-possibly-happen-at-E3-2012 has been growing like an underwater Gremlin farm pretty much since E3 2011 finished. Given that this year we have to consider new hardware coming from Nintendo, new hardware possibly coming from Microsoft and Sony, and all the games, reveals, surprises and disappointments
New Details Revealed In Our Exclusive Destiny: The Taken King Hands-On Impressions
Bungie opened its doors to us a few weeks back to show off what the team has been busy working on in recent months, and gave us the chance to play not just a few select missions, but the full scope of what’s on offer in The Taken King.
Bungie opened its doors to us a few weeks back to show off what the team has been busy working on in recent months, and gave us the chance to play not just a few select missions, but the full scope of what’s on offer in The Taken King. We have a wealth of in-depth details in our monthly magazine cover story, but we decided it was worth sharing more about our own personal experience playing through the content, along with some choice tidbits that we couldn’t squeeze into our 14-page cover story.
Ben Reeves and I each played a great deal of the content solo, and also teamed up for everything from Crucible matches to strikes. We sat down recently to discuss our takeaways from our time with the game. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started.
First Impressions
Matt: Ben, we had a pretty cool opportunity a few weeks ago when we visited Bungie. They pulled back the curtain and let us play through as much of the expansion as we could, and share what we discovered with our fellow fans. Were you surprised about how much we got to experience?
Ben: I was blown away with how much they let us play the game. We sometimes get to play games on cover trips, but rarely to this extent. We spent a whole day getting hands-on time followed by a full day of interviews, which really helped me appreciate Bungie’s new approach to design. The game and story feel much more integrated and each area feels new and different. I think this is probably the best Destiny content to date. Would you agree?
Matt: Yeah, I’d agree with your points, both about their openness and how good the game is. It was awesome that Bungie was open to us exploring so much. I think it speaks to their confidence in this being a really stellar step forward for the franchise. For fellow fans and readers out there, it’s worth noting that Bungie showed us a work-in-progress version of the game. We’re going to talk about a lot of stuff today, and we’ve had a lot of interesting articles already appear in our game hub. But it won’t surprise me if some of what we saw is different in its final incarnation. With that said, the core experience is really solid.
So, amidst all we got to play on that day – any favorite things stand out?
Ben: Well, like I said, the story isn’t embarrassingly bare this time around. It’s an actual story, for one. And the game remains a blast to play with friends. I love the grind to collect new gear and weapons, and that push to 40 will really give me a lot of reason to start playing again. Collecting gear remains one of the main reasons to play the game, in my opinion. And now there are even more things to equip.
Matt: Yep. No doubt. There are so many new weapons. I think they’ve said that there are more guns in The Taken King than were present in the base game’s launch.
This is the first time they’ve really reset the weapon and armor economy. We were getting new green weapons that out-powered our best raid gear from Year One, even after the first mission. I also really like that the game seems to pay closer attention to what you would want. Creative director Luke Smith told me that the loot backend pays attention to what you need for a meaningful improvement, it offers variety in armor or weapon type from what you’ve recently gotten, and also tries to avoid repeating the same gear, although he admits that you’re not always going to get exactly what you want on every drop, which is good, because that would eventually get boring.
Ben: In terms of gameplay moments, one of my biggest highlights during my solo time was the mission to collect my new subclass. My primary is a Warlock, and the new Stormcaller class is a lot of fun to use. You’re basically throwing chain lightning, which allows you to turn large groups of enemies into ash very quickly. The mission to unlock that class basically lets you go all out with the ability to get a feel for how it works, which was very empowering.
Matt: I played around with all three of my guardians, but I spent the most time with my Titan. And I fell in love with that flaming hammer pretty fast. As you said, there’s a potent power fantasy at the end of those missions where they give you your super on an extremely fast recharge, and you go to town on whole squads of enemies. On the surface, it’s super fun wrecking so many enemies so fast. But under the hood, it’s a way for the designers to get you familiar with the super and its use very quickly, and then set you loose on the world. It’s a great idea.
Story
Matt: You mentioned story before, which I don’t want to gloss over. It’s not as if they’re changing everything about their fiction or anything. It’s just that the new storytelling feels much more cohesive. Characters engage in more conversations, rather than everything being a declarative sentence without any context.
Ben: Agreed. The basic plot is simple: Crota’s father has returned to seek vengeance on the guardian that murdered his son (that’s you). You’re basically fighting a space devil, but I think the simplicity of the story makes it easier to follow what’s going on. I also loved how the story allows for some of the characters in the tower to interact more. It was nice to see Eris and Cayde better display their personality in these moments. It makes the Tower feel a little more alive and worth visiting.
Matt: I completely agree. Within the framework of that simple story, they can then stretch their wings as storytellers, and play with both the inherent zaniness of ideas (expressed through Cayde), but also the melodrama inherent to the setting, with characters like Zavala and Eris. I also enjoy how much The Taken King makes me feel like I’m the tip of the spear, so to speak. It’s something they experimented with in the base game, but it’s so much more powerfully expressed here. This story really casts your guardian as the true hero who breached the Vault of Glass, and brought down Crota. When the Vanguard needs someone to face Oryx, you are their first choice. I love that when you go to the Dreadnaught, you’re the one planting the patrol beacons for the guardians who will come after you.
[Next Page: We tour the Dreadnaught, and discuss leveling, gear, and new ghost shells]
BiT Evolution Retells Gaming History
What better way to learn about history than to experience it?
What better way to learn about history than to experience it? Studio Major Games is waving a magical wand (and writing many lines of code) to re-create and retell gaming’s early years through platformer, BiT Evolution .
Travelling through gaming’s 70s, 80s and 90s, BiT Evolution integrates narrative with platforming. The titular BiT is the protagonist who begins as a puck from Pong . Somehow, BiT manages to escape the borders of the game and finds his way into the realm of code, a mysterious hub between game worlds. From there, BiT begins adventures through realms that pay homage to games from Atari, Gameboy, NES and SNES eras (with more coming).
One of the main mechanics in the platformer is traversing between The Rendered Dimension and The Realm of Code. Like two sides of the same coin, they represent the same places, so BiT can switch between them to get through certain obstacles he wouldn’t otherwise, as well as collect hidden pixels. Other than that, BiT Evolution has a standard faire of enemies, spikes, and death pits, but with a focus on storytelling, the characters in each of the worlds, and evolving gameplay.
“ BiT Evolution was created as a love letter to retro platformers, and we are excited to share that classic experience with a modern audience,” Connor VanDyke, CEO of Major Games, said.
BiT Evolution is currently up on Steam Early Access. Recently, the NES world was added and the game is patched up to version 0.3.0. Major Games is gathering feedback as content for the game is getting finalized. Check out the Steam page, where BiT Evolution is on sale for $9.99 and the game’s websitefor more information.
Are there any past games that you’d love to discover or revisit? Let us know in the comments section below!
We Analyze Destiny: The Taken King’s Eight New Crucible Maps
Destiny’s Crucible has always given players the opportunity to visit new and exotic locations within Bungie’s universe, and the upcoming Taken King expansion will add eight new stamps to players’ virtual passports.
Destiny’s Crucible has always given players the opportunity to visit new and exotic locations within Bungie’s universe, and the upcoming Taken King expansion will add eight new stamps to players’ virtual passports. While Bungie used to design maps to cater to a particular game mode, most of the maps in The Taken King are more like jack-of-all-trades that work well in almost every game type, though some still shine brightest in particular modes. To get a better sense for these locales, senior multiplayer designer Andrew Weldon walked us through each map, detailing their unique features.
Bannerfall
This map should be recognizable to most Destiny players since it’s set on a Tower that’s similar to the one players congregate on in-between missions. This tower, however, is set on the other side of the city and has long been abandoned. Bannerfall is a good mid-sized map well-suited to matches of Control, and its symmetry works well for Rift matches. A large open courtyard evokes the memory of the actual Guardian Tower, while an angled back alley offers a sneaky path to victory.
Bungie’s Take: “At one time there was a fourth faction that held court in this tower along with the beginnings of the New Monarchy faction. You can see that in the banners on each side of the map. On one side you have the familiar New Monarchy logo, but on the other you have this unfamiliar logo that is still tattered and torn from when this faction used to exist.”
Frontier
This is another map set far out on the city perimeter of Earth. The location is a transfer/relay station, shuttling supplies to other perimeter stations such as the Twilight Gap map from the original release of Destiny. Frontier is a semi-symmetric map built around a train yard. A train track cuts through the middle of the map and runs across a bridge, which is a central landmark for the map and a bottleneck for combat. Frontier features a lot of good sniper sightlines, and has a good mix of open and closed spaces for firefights. It’s also a showcase Rift map.
Bungie’s Take: “One of the landmarks on the map is a little gondola platform, which is actually the same gondola you see in Twilight Gap. The idea is that these two maps are connected to each other. In the skybox, you can actually see that little outpost up in the mountains.”
Crossroads
This Vex structure on Mars is one of only two maps featuring teleporters. Crossroads is overgrown with the giant vegetation that formed on Mars in the wake of the traveler’s arrival. This map is a really good showcase for Mayhem matches, since it allows players to launch themselves into the air and teleport away while their special attacks quickly recharge. The main body of the map is separated from a smaller island reachable by launchers. Fights here tend to be chaotic.
Bungie’s Take: “It’s an interesting mix of that familiar Vex architecture that leans a little bit more towards metallic instead of crumbled stone, and there are giant rotted-out tree stumps that provide some good cover. It’s almost two maps, because there is an entire chunk that functions as its main body where the teams spawn, and then there is a separate island that is a gnarled mass of trees and roots set way off to the side. They’re connected via launchers that catapult you across the map as well as three sets of teleporters.”
Sector 618
Clumsy Guardians could easily find themselves falling to their death while crossing Sector 618’s various floating platforms. Expect a lot of leaping and platforming. Sector 618 features a square layout that has two bridges crossing a central chasm, and is the new PlayStation 4 exclusive map. The map is set inside the Cosmodrome wall, so it should feel familiar to anyone who recalls Destiny’s early story mission that has players facing off against an advancing tide of Fallen slipping through the darkness.
Bungie’s Take: “The core footprint of the map is the square created by the bridges. We wanted players to take advantage of all the movement opportunities with the platforms. You have these two bridges, but on either side you have these multistage jump routes where you can platform up to the high bridge and then jump along the side to get the drop on another player. We wanted to give players a lot of different ways to move through space in interesting ways.”
Ghost Ship
This is the first crucible map set in the Reef. The Ghost Ship is actually a Fallen ship that fell after a Hive attack. The smallest map in The Taken King, Ghost Ship features a symmetric layout, however, one side of the ship has been torn open by a Hive attack and various debris floats through one side of the ship, which helps give players a sense of where they are. Ghost Ship shines in the smaller matches with fewer people.
Bungie’s Take: “Ghost Ship features some low gravity effects, so dead Guardians and other objects will slowly float away. One of my favorite things in this map is when someone is running through one of the tiny little vent connections and they get killed by another player and ragdoll out into the hall. It tells a little story all by itself.”
Exile
This Hive prison cell sits inside one of Oryx’s ships that orbits Saturn. Players will recognize the architecture and detail work from Oryx’s Dreadnaught. Exile is a little bit longer and narrower than most Crucible maps, and is strong for both Control and Clash mode. The lower level adds a vertical element to combat, while a complicated maze of corridors leads to some violent conflicts as you take corners.
Bungie’s Take: “There are three main lanes through the map. There is the bridge side that takes you out past a window that shows you Saturn and some of the other ships in Oryx’s fleet. Down the middle of the map is a ramp that takes you through a circular room with a crystal in it. In that room is a dropdown, which allows you to enter a lower catacomb level.”
Memento
This map returns players to the European Dead Zone that was first shown off in the Widow’s Court map released with the House of Wolves’ DLC. The core of the map is an overgrown street tucked in-between two larger buildings, all set within a roughly triangular shape. In the middle is a larger courtyard that is angled down and provides some sight line blocking. This is another good Control/Clash map, but it’s moderate size means it also plays well in smaller team modes.
Bungie’s Take: “Memento is much more vertical than Widow’s Court. There is one building in Widow’s Court that has an elevation shift, but Memento has a couple of significant elevation shifts where you can get some really strong high ground advantages.”
Vertigo
In Vertigo, Guardians take another trip back to Mercury to fight on a Vex structure high in the sky above the yellow planet. At one time, a Cabal expedition force began exploring this structure, but the group mysteriously vanished and hasn’t been seen since. The odd Cabal “bolted-on” architecture adds some variety to both sides of this symmetrical map.
Bungie’s Take: “One of the key features of the map is a one-way teleporter that spits players out on a really powerful platform on the other side of the map. That platform gives you great coverage of both ends of the map and really opens up some interesting gameplay moments. Vertigo’s one central control room is really crucial and gives you fast access to anywhere on the map.”
Stay tuned later in the month for more about Destiny: The Taken King's crucible in a video interview with the team and a more in-depth look at Vertigo. Also, click on the banner
below to enter our constantly-expanding hub of exclusive content.
Fight Against Gravity in To The Bottom
Plenty of people have heard the phrase about racing to the top – top of the charts, top of the pyramid, top of the mountain – but Thumbspire is throwing in a little twist.
Plenty of people have heard the phrase about racing to the top – top of the charts, top of the pyramid, top of the mountain – but Thumbspire is throwing in a little twist. It’s a race against time, gravity, and a whole lot of spikes, enemies, and, well, spiky enemies in their latest release,.
Players must help their little creature make his way down to the bottom of the map by avoiding the spikes, which is accomplished by switching sides of the vine, and collecting orbs. Along the way, players can unlock all of their creature’s little friends to play with. The further down the map the players go, the more secrets that can be discovered and unlocked.
To The Bottom includes three different gameplay modes: Adventure, Endless, and Evil. Each level is filled with color and a wide variety of enemies and items to collect. After unlocking, each character can be customized.
To The Bottom is now available for free on the iTunesfor iOS devices. For more information on the game and Thumbspire, follow them on Twitter.
How The Taken King Changes Destiny's Competitive Multiplayer
To coincide with our September cover story on Destiny: The Taken King , we've been rolling out features highlighting different aspects of the game in our content hub .
. While we've already showcased the eight new maps for the Crucible, we wanted to go a bit more in depth on the gameplay changes to the PvP aspect of Destiny: The Taken King. We sat down with design lead Lars Bakken to talk about the new modes that the team is adding, the current role of vehicles in the game, and how PvP content can tease the future of Destiny's PvE environments. Also, this video features new music from The Taken King so enjoy your first taste of what's to come!
Watch the video below to see new, exclusive gameplay of the Crucible in Destiny: The Taken King and learn what's new for players.
To learn much more about Destiny: The Taken King, click on the banner below to enter our constantly-expanding hub of exclusive content.
Fight Against Gravity in To The Bottom
Plenty of people have heard the phrase about racing to the top – top of the charts, top of the pyramid, top of the mountain – but Thumbspire is throwing in a little twist.
Plenty of people have heard the phrase about racing to the top – top of the charts, top of the pyramid, top of the mountain – but Thumbspire is throwing in a little twist. It’s a race against time, gravity, and a whole lot of spikes, enemies, and, well, spiky enemies in their latest release,.
Players must help their little creature make his way down to the bottom of the map by avoiding the spikes, which is accomplished by switching sides of the vine, and collecting orbs. Along the way, players can unlock all of their creature’s little friends to play with. The further down the map the players go, the more secrets that can be discovered and unlocked.
To The Bottom includes three different gameplay modes: Adventure, Endless, and Evil. Each level is filled with color and a wide variety of enemies and items to collect. After unlocking, each character can be customized.
To The Bottom is now available for free on the iTunesfor iOS devices. For more information on the game and Thumbspire, follow them on Twitter.
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Our Verdict
Unless you need faster integrated graphics, desktop Broadwell offers little incentive to upgrade.
Better Late than Never. Maybe.
Broadwell. We’ve known the codename for Intel’s 14nm part for several years, but as a “tick” in Intel’s yearly tick-tock cadence, it’s extremely late to the party. Officially, Broadwell did hit the 2014 launch target, though barely, shipping in a few Core M laptops late last year. But that was with Broadwell-Y, a completely different sort of processor that’s built to run in low power (i.e.,
All of our coverage of Broadwell up to this point has focused on these two parts, and for the target markets they do quite well—Broadwell-U offers slightly improved performance, but more importantly, it increases battery life by as much as 15–20 percent in laptops. Of course, much of this was planned from the beginning; Broadwell was always a mobile-focused product, and the past several generations of Intel CPUs have had more to offer laptops than desktops. Intel even talked about skipping the desktop entirely at one point, but apparently decided against it.
Now, almost a year later than many of us expected, desktop Broadwell is finally here, along with the higher-performance 47W notebook parts as well. Broadwell for the desktop, aka Broadwell-DT (or if you like the three-letter abbreviations, BDW-DT) is both more and less than expected. Here’s what Intel is offering:
Broadwell vs. Haswell Specifications Overview Model i7-5775C i7-4790K i5-5675C i5-4690K Cores/Threads 4/8 4/8 4/4 4/4 Base Frequency (GHz) 3.3 4.0 3.1 3.5 Max Turbo Boost (GHz) 3.7 4.4 3.6 3.9 Processor Graphics Iris Pro
Graphics 6200 HD Graphics
4600 Iris Pro
Graphics 6200 HD Graphics
4600 Graphics Units 48 20 48 20 Graphics Max Frequency 1150 1250 1100 1200 L3 Cache 6MB 8MB 4MB 6MB eDRAM/L4 Cache 128MB N/A 128MB N/A TDP 65W 84W 65W 84W 1ku Pricing $366 $339 $276 $242
There are only two real desktop options right now, the i7-5775C that we’re looking at today and the i5-5675C that disables Hyper-Threading and drops the base clock speed 200MHz. There are also three non-socketed desktop parts available, with an “R” suffix, but those are intended for pre-built systems so they’re of less concern for desktop enthusiasts. Comparedto the 20 BDW-U models and seven BDW-Y (Core M) models, not to mention the five new HQ/H models designed for notebooks, having just two socketed desktop processors is telling. Again, this is a mobile-focused processor, and as we’ll see later, the performance improvements and other changes will be of far greater benefit for mobile platforms.
Then there’s the elephant in the corner. Broadwell-DT is so late that it has run up against Intel’s next “tock,” codenamed Skylake. Where Broadwell is a “tick” that builds off an existing architecture (Haswell) and moves it to a new manufacturing process (14nm), as a “tock” Skylake uses the presumably now-mature 14nm process combined with a new architecture. We don’t have much in the way of details on Skylake’s architecture yet, but we do know that it will use a new socket—LGA1151—and will support DDR4 memory, which means there will also be new chipsets and motherboards. Given the pending launch of Skylake, expected around August of this year, most “mainstream enthusiasts” are planning to wait and will likely bypass Broadwell-DT completely.
Broadwell-DT: In Search of an Audience?
It’s worth pointing out that Broadwell is not intended to compete with or replace Intel’s true enthusiast/high-performance platform, Haswell-E and the X99 chipset. Broadwell continues to use the Z97/H97 chipset, perhaps even the older Z87/H87 provided you can get an appropriate BIOS update from your motherboard manufacturer. That means it remains limited to 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU and dual-channel DDR3 memory. While there’s no technical reason Intel couldn’t support additional CPU cores on the platform, Broadwell also remains limited to quad-core with Hyper-Threading at the top—and it’s unlikely we’ll see any dual-core desktop parts, as Skylake will handle that market segment.
So, the true performance enthusiasts are likely already running a Haswell-E processor, and they’re waiting for Broadwell-E or Skylake-E. Meanwhile, the mainstream desktop users have had Haswell for two years, and it continues to serve them well. They’re going to want something more than a minor bump in performance, so they’re looking at Skylake. All of that helps to explain the lack of desktop parts, but then why would Intel even bother creating two BDW-DT processors?
Check outhow much of the processor is devoted to graphics!
The current outlook is that Broadwell-DT targets a different market segment rather than the high-performance enthusiasts. You see, with Broadwell-DT Intel is doing something they haven’t previously done for socketed processors: they’re equipping them with the fastest graphics solution that Intel currently offers. Intel is shipping the BDW-DT Core i5 and i7 (including both the C-series and R-series) with their Iris Pro Graphics 6200 solution, which pairs 48 EUs (graphics Execution Units) with 128MB of high-speed embedded DRAM. Codenamed Crystal Well—that’s apparently where the “C” suffix on the i7-5775C comes from, if you’re wondering—the eDRAM acts as a large L4 cache, potentially speeding up any tasks that need a lot of memory bandwidth. Graphics is an obvious case, but as we’ll see in a moment, there are other times where Crystal Well will help performance. Note that the eDRAM is segregated into two parts for the CPU and GPU if you’re using the Iris Pro Graphics, but if you plug in a discrete GPU and disable the processor graphics, the CPU gets to use the whole 128MB.
The inclusion of Iris Pro Graphics on the new Broadwell parts again stems from the mobile origins. There are many laptop users who don’t have a discrete GPU, so improving graphics capabilities and performance can be very beneficial. On the desktop, Iris Pro isn’t quite so interesting. It’s definitely more potent than any other previous graphics solution we’ve seen out of Intel, but it still can’t hope to compete with even a moderate dedicated graphics card. At least the L4 cache aspect can still help performance in other areas, and we’ll see some of this in the benchmarks.
If the graphics solution is the part where we get more from Broadwell than some of us expected, the part where we get less is clock speeds. Intel’s current i7-4790K comes with factory clocks of 4.0–4.4GHz and the i5-4690K is clocked at 3.5–3.9GHz. By contrast, i7-5775C is clocked at 3.3–3.7GHz and i5-5675C at 3.1-3.6 GHz. We don’t normally see a step back in clock speeds from Intel, at least not without an accompanying change in architecture (e.g., the NetBurst Pentium 4 to Conroe Core 2 Duo transition), and Broadwell should be very similar to Haswell in most respects. While the eDRAM will help performance in some tasks, the fact is that we expect there to be plenty of cases where a stock-clocked 4790K outperforms a stock-clocked 5775C.
There are a few likely reasons for the reduced clock speeds. Perhaps the size of the chip combined with the manufacturing process and eDRAM is to blame—hey, it’s possible. Intel has also dropped the TDP (Thermal Design Power) from 84W on i7-4790K to just 65W with the i7-5775C, and that’s almost certainly the bigger factor. But the cynic will look at Skylake and the expected launch clock speeds of 4.2–4.6GHz and conclude that both the lower TDP and lower clock speeds are a way for Intel to keep some separation between Broadwell-DT and Skylake-DT. The good news is that while the suffix has changed from a “K” to a “C,” the new Broadwell-DT parts are still multiplier unlocked. (Note that the “R” series processors are not unlocked.) As long as your motherboard BIOS is up to the task—more on that in a moment—overclocking Broadwell should prove beneficial… and interesting.
Arriving Early to the Broadwell Party
While we’re late with our Broadwell review [Ed—Just following Intel’s example!] , we’re actually still early as far as retail availability goes. Intel has technically launched the desktop Broadwell parts, but they’re not available for purchase just yet; that will likely happen later this month. Intel didn’t even sample us a Broadwell CPU for testing, but we have our ways around that. Engineering sample in hand, we set out to get Broadwell up and running, and in the process we may have uncovered more reasons for the delay.
Our test motherboards first needed to be updated with Broadwell-compatible BIOS revisions, and while that was expected, it’s something to consider. If you want to buy straight into a Broadwell setup, you might end up with a “new” motherboard still running an older BIOS, in which case you’d need a Haswell chip installed just to update. Caveat emptor . Proper BIOS installed, we moved to the next stage of testing performance. Or tried to.
The first board we used worked reasonably well at stock settings, but the CPU clocks were higher than expected—it ran at a constant 3.7GHz, the maximum Turbo Boost clock, rather than dropping down to lower clocks with heavily threaded workloads. Changing the BIOS settings helped, but ideally, we want “Auto” to run a chip at stock settings, not overclocked. The board also had all sorts of instability running games, but that was most likely caused by using older Intel drivers; you’ll want to install the latest Intel drivers (currently), though even then you may encounter some glitches. But the real deal-breaker was when we tried to install a discrete GPU and the system refused to boot; we couldn’t even get to the BIOS—AMD or Nvidia GPU, it didn’t matter. This same motherboard worked flawlessly with our Haswell chip, but the current BIOS has some clear problems. We have since received a new beta BIOS, but as we were busy testing our single Broadwell chip in a different board we have not been able to check compatibility yet. Next!
Board number two behaved much more reasonably, particularly at stock settings. All of the benchmarks completed, and while performance in some cases was lower than board one, that was thanks to the CPU using the correct clock speeds. Then we tried overclocking and ran into problems again. We’ve seen reports of people hitting anywhere from 4.4–4.8GHz with Broadwell samples, but our CPU doesn’t want to go much beyond 4.2GHz. We were able to hit that on all four cores at 1.36V, which represents a respectable 14–27 percent overclock, but 1.4V at 4.3GHz proved unstable, so we stopped there. 4.2GHz also matches nicely with our 4790K clocks, which range from 4.0–4.4 GHz but generally run around 4.2GHz.
The problems with overclocking continued, however, as the BIOS doesn’t properly override certain safety features. Intel CPUs have the ability to exceed their TDP by a small amount for a period of time. Not surprisingly, 4.2GHz at 1.36V ends up requiring more than 65W—around 80W according to our monitoring software—and after 10–15 seconds, the power protection would kick in and the clocks would drop to around 3.3–3.6GHz. Normally, you can adjust the power limit, current limit, and even the amount of time you’re able to exceed the power limit, but the BIOS on this motherboard doesn’t appear to have the right microcode updates yet, so that didn’t work. Good news, however: We found a “current offset” feature in the BIOS that appears to trick the CPU into thinking it’s using about one third as much power, so we’re back in business. As with the first board, the manufacturer is working on a BIOS update that should fix the problems we encountered with overclocking.
The point of these two experiences is to convey the newness and potential pitfalls associated with a platform that is not yet publicly available for purchase. Hopefully, most motherboard manufacturers will be able to get Broadwell running properly on all their Z97 boards by the time you can buy the processors, but don’t be surprised if you encounter a few bugs at first. Pre-built systems shouldn’t have any problems, as the system integrator should handle all the compatibility testing, but pre-built systems aren’t usually as cost effective, and that doesn’t help potential upgraders.
Broadwell Performance: Benchmarked and Overclocked
Having put the early teething problems behind us, let’s get to the real meat of the story: What does Broadwell do for performance on Z97 desktops? We’ve covered the core specs of the two Broadwell-DT parts, and armed with an i7-5775C we’re ready to see what sort of performance we can coax out of Intel’s new baby. We’re going to open things up a bit and test several configurations. First, we have a Haswell (Devil’s Canyon) i7-4790K, running at 4.0–4.4GHz stock. Next, we have the Broadwell i7-5775C, and for this we’ve tested both stock clocks as well as our 4.2GHz overclock. Finally, we have our beefy Haswell-E i7-5930K clocked at 4.2GHz. This will allow us to do some equivalent clock speed comparisons between Broadwell and Haswell/Haswell-E, and while we could likely coax a few more MHz out of each CPU, realistically, there’s not a whole lot to be gained by another 200MHz. Here are the two test beds:
Maximum PC 2015 CPU Test Beds Platform LGA2011-3 LGA1150 CPU Intel Core i7-4790K(4.0-4.4GHz)
Intel Core i7-5775C (3.3-3.7GHz)
i7-5775C w/4.2GHz Overclock Mobo Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SOC Force(HSW)
ASUS Z97-Deluxe(BDW) GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X
Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW)
Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 (BDW) SSD HDD PSU Memory Cooler Case Drivers Nvidia 353.06
Nvidia 353.06
Intel 15.36.21.4222
We’ll take the benchmarks in groups of similar tests, starting with a look at general processing performance. Our test suite this time includes old standbys like Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, Cinebench, POV-Ray 3.7, ProShow Producer 5, Stitch.Efx, and x264 HD 5.0, but we’ve also added 7-zip and PCMark 8 to the mix. PCMark 8 in particular can be interesting, as it’s more of a full-system workload, as opposed to focusing on raw computational performance. Where clock speed is generally king on most of the CPU-centric tests, PCMark is more likely to benefit from the added eDRAM/L4 cache on Broadwell.
General System Performance Test i7-4790K
Stock i7-5775C
Stock i7-5775C
@4.2 1.36V i7-5930K
@4.2GHz i7-5775C
@4.2 dGPU Cinebench R15 1-thread 173 155 177 163 Cinebench R15 Multi-thread 832 767 887 1235 Premiere Pro CS6 (sec) 1088 1139 963 760 ProShow Producer 5 (sec) 1296 1497 1233 1203 Stitch.Efx (sec) 770 850 733 731 x264 5.0 1st Pass (FPS) 88.66 81.12 95.24 129.67 x264 5.0 2nd Pass (FPS) 18.06 16.16 18.84 27.04 7-zip Compress (KB/s) 20548 20059 23219 32078 7-zip Decompress (KB/s) 271152 240160 281718 415594 PCMark 8 Home 3508 4359 4803 4917 5273 PCMark 8 Creative 4863 5966 6339 8097 7839 PCMark 8 Work 4561 4871 5397 5010 5189 POV Ray 3.7 PPS 1706.93 1551.58 1819.12 2577.54
If you’re not inclined to pop the hood on your Broadwell-DT system and instead choose to run stock clocks, as expected, the performance for most tasks is going to be a step back relative to the existing i7-4790K. The overall average change in performance in the above set of benchmarks is only a drop of 3 percent, but PCMark 8 skews the results. Remove PCMark from the list and the i7-5775C looks to be around 9 percent slower than an i7-4790K in pure CPU performance. The flipside is that for general use, which PCMark 8 represents a bit better than our number-crunching tests, the L4 cache can help quite a bit, allowing the i7-5775C to outperform i7-4790K by 18 percent—and nearly 25 percent in the Home suite.
With overclocking on Broadwell, effectively giving us similar clock speeds, the story changes a bit. Thanks to architectural improvements and the 128MB eDRAM cache, the 4.2GHz Broadwell chip manages to outperform the i7-4790K by an average of 12 percent across all the above benchmarks. Again, PCMark 8 skews those results, as it shows nearly a 30 percent improvement; drop PCMark 8 from the average and it looks like architectural tweaks and the larger cache give about 7 percent more performance to Broadwell-DT. Of course, we could overclock Haswell (Devil’s Canyon) to at least 4.6GHz, which would overcome that deficit, but then there’s a good chance final Broadwell processors running with updated motherboard microcode could reach a similar level.
Haswell-E meanwhile wins as the fastest processor and the 5960X variant is still recommended as our top CPU, at least when it comes to multi-threaded tasks. The relatively low score in the single-threaded Cinebench result is a bit odd, as with similar clocks it should be right next to the other processors, but the result was consistent over numerous test runs (even with affinity forced to a particular core). The other less-threaded tests, ProShow and Stitch.Efx, fall right where expected. Since PCMark 8 on Haswell-E can utilize the Titan X GPU, we’ve added a column showing how the overclocked Broadwell chip fares in those tests with the same GPU. The Creative suite benefits the most, the Home suite makes moderate use of the GPU, and the Work suite actually ran faster on Broadwell without the GPU. But in programs that can make use of the six Hyper-Threading enabled cores on the i7-5930K, it can’t be touched by the mainstream platforms, boasting a 25–45 percent advantage over the overclocked Broadwell system.
Gaming Performance at 1080p Medium Benchmark i7-4790K
Stock i7-5775C
Stock i7-5775C
@4.2 1.36V Batman: Arkham Origins 20 46 49 GTAV 25.6 37.9 42.3 Hitman: Absolution 33.3 31.2 35.0 Metro: Last Light 17 30.3 32.9 Shadow of Mordor 12.6 19.6 20.9 Tomb Raider 23.5 49.5 53.3 Unigine Heaven 4.0 13.5 23.8 26.5 The Witcher 3 7.3 11.5 12.7 3DMark Fire Strike 892 1742 1930 3DMark Sky DIver 3860 6542 7369 3DMark Cloud Gate 8235 12595 14100 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited 69576 119527 140910
While the CPU performance hasn’t changed all that much, the graphics performance has improved dramatically. Every game and graphics test we ran showed substantial gains in performance, with the exception of Hitman: Absolution. A driver update will likely fix the Hitman problem, or maybe Intel could contract another hitman and absolve themselves of responsibility, but otherwise we’re looking at 50 percent to more than 100 percent improvements to frame rates. Toss overclocking into the mix and the situation improves another 10 percent on average, indicating Broadwell is likely bumping into the 65W total TDP limit when running games at stock settings.
We’re comparing apples and oranges, of course, as Broadwell has the eDRAM plus over twice as many graphics units (48 EUs compared to 20 in 4790K). Previously, the Iris Pro Graphics was only available on notebook processors like the i7-4750HQ as well as the R-series (e.g., i7-4770R) non-socketed desktop chips. You can see in the above image that shows the labeled die shot how much die space Intel allocates to graphics in Broadwell-DT, and it’s roughly half of the total processor die. It’s also interesting to see how the four CPU cores take relatively little space; Intel could easily build an octal-core processor for the mainstream market by giving up half of the graphics unit, but that remains the domain of Haswell-E and its ilk.
On a related note, for notebook and pseudo-desktop users (e.g., NUC devices), the new 47W Broadwell parts are a lot more interesting. Decent graphics performance and reasonable power requirements are both desirable for those markets. HTPC users may also find the R-series parts worth a look, and pulling reasonably playable frame rates at 1080p medium settings is nothing to scoff at for integrated graphics. The CPU overclock also improved graphics performance, and since we're overclocking already, we pushed the GPU as well and overclocked the graphics an additional 100 MHz (9 percent) to 1250 MHz, bringing an additional 6-18 percent improvement to gaming performance. But on true desktops, the Iris Pro Graphics isn't that important.
It’s not all sunshine and roses with Intel’s graphics division, however. At least one of the games we tested, GTAV, had some pretty severe rendering errors. [Ed—The latest updated drivers fixed this.] Hitman, as we noted above, also didn’t improve compared to Haswell, which indicates a driver problem. Perhaps more concerning is that Shadow of Mordor performance is poor unless we drop below medium quality, while The Witcher 3 proved to be unplayable at any settings. The above chart shows performance at 1920x1080 with medium quality, but we tried again at 1366x768 with minimum quality settings and still failed to break 20fps in The Witcher 3. That’s another recent release, so drivers could potentially fix the situation, but at present the Iris Pro Graphics 6200 remains adequate for 1080p medium settings in most but not all games.
Gaming Performance at 1080p Ultra with Titan X Test i7-4790K
Stock i7-5775C
Stock i7-5775C
@4.2 1.36V i7-5930K
@4.2GHz Batman: Arkham Origins 180 182 183 182 GTAV 61.4 64.3 66.1 66.2 Hitman: Absolution 92.5 91.5 94.4 93.7 Metro: Last Light 106.9 110.6 111.3 109.3 Shadow of Mordor 113.8 119 119.4 114.8 Tomb Raider 129.8 137.2 135.4 136.3 Unigine Heaven 4.0 97.6 100.1 100.2 99.9 The Witcher 3 55.2 55.9 55.7 58.5 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra 3944 3956 4066 4001
For gaming performance with a dedicated graphics card, the difference between the three processors becomes far less dramatic. Paired up with the fastest current GPU, the GeForce Titan X, at 1080p ultra settings we see very little difference between the processors. Interestingly, even at stock clocks we see a consistent improvement in gaming performance on Broadwell compared to Haswell, but it’s only 3 percent on average. The large L4 cache again plays a role, and it looks like the larger L3 cache of Haswell-E in some cases has a similar benefit, but anything less than 10 percent typically won’t be noticed in normal use.
Playing the Waiting Game
Two years later, Haswell continues to hold its own when it comes to most tasks. For that matter, unless you’re running applications that specifically leverage some of the newer features of the fourth- and fifth-generation Intel Core processors, even Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge are still performing admirably—at least when you have a dedicated graphics card handling visual duties. At times it feels like things just aren’t progressing as fast as they used to.
Remember back when Intel took the original Pentium chips from a launch speed of 60/66MHz up to 200MHz, and overclocking could get you as far as 250MHz? Or how about Pentium II, which launched at 233MHz and finished at 450MHz, with overclocking reaching the low-500MHz range? Pentium III went from 450MHz at launch to a final clock of 1.4GHz, and then Pentium 4 scaled from 1.4GHz to 3.8GHz. Those were heady days! Sure, it took four years for Pentium 4 to more than double its starting clock speed, but the NetBurst architecture kept hanging around like an albatross for six years.
Six years ago we were looking at the first-generation of Nehalem Core i7 processors, with clock speeds as high as 3.0–3.2GHz. While there are many similarities between today’s Broadwell and those early Nehalem parts, in practical terms we’ve had four moderate architecture updates and clock speeds have improved by nearly 50 percent. The cumulative effect is that in six years, Intel has almost doubled processor performance for the mainstream user. Almost.
The problem is that calling these processors first-, second-, third-, fourth-, and now fifth-generation Core processors implies that there is a substantial change between each family. We could make that case for Intel’s processor graphics, but much of the past six years has been spent improving efficiency as much as improving performance. We have an old i7-920 kicking around, which just happens to be clocked at 3.6GHz—a great comparison point for Broadwell’s i7-5775C. There’s no question that Broadwell is faster, but at stock clocks it’s only about 35 percent faster on tests that don’t use the newer AVX/AVX2 instructions. Put another way, architecturally, it looks like Intel is averaging about an 8 percent improvement between each generation of Core processors—not bad, but not earth-shattering either. Then again, Broadwell is using at most 65W while that overclocked Bloomfield chip is pulling north of 150W, so that’s certainly something to talk about.
If your main question is whether Broadwell is worth the wait and a worthy upgrade to Haswell, the answer is that it represents about as much of an upgrade as Haswell provided over Ivy Bridge, or Ivy Bridge provided over Sandy Bridge. Or in other words, it’s faster once it’s running similar clocks, but out of the gate there’s a governor installed that will keep you under the speed limit. We think that sucks, and we’d much rather have seen Broadwell running 4.0–4.4GHz with an 84W TDP, but we can still get there.
Skylake, however, is set to start at those higher clocks, which means anyone looking at stock performance should be suitably impressed. Assuming Intel gets similar performance improvements from the architecture updates with Skylake, coupled with a higher clock speed, and we’ll probably see a 35 percent performance gap. Just try not to remember that at stock clocks, the i7-4790K is typically 10–15 percent faster than the i7-5775C.
Follow Jarred on Twitter.
The Verdict
Reviews
Unless you need faster integrated graphics, desktop Broadwell offers little incentive to upgrade.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jarred got his start with computers on a Commodore 64, where he has fond memories of playing the early AD&D Gold Box games from SSI. After spending time studying computer science and working in the IT industry, he discovered a knack for journalism, which he’s been doing for more than a decade. This enables him to play with (aka “test”) all of the latest and greatest hardware; it’s a tough life, but someone has to do it. For science.
We recommend By Zergnet
Opinion – The Taken King Fixes Destiny's Three Biggest Problems
Despite Destiny's
popularity, it remains a very polarizing game.
Despite Destiny's
popularity, it remains a very polarizing game. For every enthusiastic fan,
there seems to be another player
who quit in disgust. I understand the hate, because I used to be one of the
haters. However, sometimes games deserve a second chance, and The Taken King looks
to be the perfect time to give Destiny another shot.
I was busy with personal family matters when Destiny launched last year,
so I jumped into the game a few weeks later than most. In the grand scheme, a few weeks doesn't seem
like much, but with Destiny it was too long. Once I started playing, I felt
like I was struggling to catch up to my friends who had already finished the
campaign and were well on their way to collecting a full set of exotic
equipment.
After making a mad
dash to finish a campaign story that made absolutely no sense, I felt like I
hit a wall. The grind from 20 to 30 was pretty confusing and since most of my friends
were already sitting around level 27 or 28, I was locked out of playing the same
strikes they all wanted to grind through. While trying to collect my own set of
exotic armor, I got some bad dice rolls and ended up with equipment I already
had. I wasn't having fun, so I set the controller down, vowing that I was done
with Bungie's new shooter experiment.
Fast-forward six
months, when an out-of-state friend wanted to play some games with me, but
Destiny was the only title in both our libraries. I was hesitant to jump back
into Destiny, but the game had gotten two sets of DLC since I had stopped
playing, and I had heard good things from co-workers, so I gave it another
chance. By the end of the night, I was hooked again.
Destiny has been on a journey of improvement over the last year (as my colleague Brian Shea noted back in May). However, the upcoming expansion, The Taken King, looks to make big strides in fixing a few more of the game's legacy issues. I firmly believe
that there has never been a better time to jump back into Destiny. To prove it,
I've decided to lay out the biggest issues I had with the game, and then explain
how Bungie is working to fix these problems.
Problem One: The story was a mess
Destiny's story is
about an epic, centuries-spanning war between the forces of light and dark.
It's about Earth's fall after a gilded golden age and about one mysterious
figures noble sacrifice to save humanity. In many ways, Destiny has all of the
hallmarks of a great sci-fi epic. However, story recaps don't sound anything
like the game most of us played, and most of Destiny's lore is locked inside Grimoire
cards that are accessed outside of the game. Even some of my friends who have spent
hundreds of hours playing Destiny don't understand the game's deeper narrative.
The problem isn't
Destiny's plot, it's the game storytelling. Thankfully, the narrative of The
Taken King is much easier to follow. An evil creature - consumed by darkness -
has returned to our solar system, seeking revenge for the death of his son. It
is a much simpler narrative thread, and that's great because you can actually
follow what's happening. The story even bleeds over into the gameplay, shaping
story missions and helping create some memorable gameplay sequences. The
characters in the tower now have some meaningful interactions with each other,
and your ghost even relates some lore to you as you explore the world. I don't
want to oversell the story, it doesn't reach the heights of a title like
BioShock, but narratively it feels much more in line with games like Halo,
which is a big step in the right direction.
Problem Two: Destiny's light system was
confusing
One of the biggest
turnoffs for many Destiny players was its confusing leveling structure. The
game functioned like a sane RPG for the first 20 levels: you gained experience
for completing bounties and shooting enemies, and that experience allowed you to
slowly climb a ladder of ever-increasing firepower. However, after you reached
level 20, Destiny throws that traditional gameplay structure out the window.
From level 20 onward you have to collect new gear that is imbued with
something called light. The more light you have, the higher your level grows. Sadly,
Destiny does a poor job explaining to newcomers how much light you need to
reach the next level, and acquiring this new gear often feels out of your
control.
Players who hated this
system will be happy with The Taken King's new approach to light leveling.
Bungie is still fine-tuning this system, so we can't go into detail, but we can
say that your light level is now separate from your character level. You reach
level 40 doing the same things that helped you get to level 20 (completing
missions, bounties, and shooting enemies in the face). However, your light is
still very important, and is represented by a different number, which pools
together all the light-based gear you're wearing. Your light value is also a
good marker of how strong you are, and will give you an idea which strikes and
other content you can confront, since each mission will have a recommended
light level.
Problem Three: I got tired of the loot grind
Destiny's light
leveling system was exacerbated by the fact that your journey to collect that
gear often felt like pulling on a slot machine that paid out in pennies. A
well-balanced loot system is a great carrot on a stick that ushers players
through a game. Plenty of great games, from Diablo to Borderlands, have had players
collecting loot and slowly upgrading their equipment. Unfortunately, Destiny's loot
system wasn't as balanced as it could have been. In fact, some players felt
like the system was rigged against them, purposefully holding back the items
they really needed.
This is another area
where The Taken King is making some big strides. New ghost shells and a revised class item slot widen the pool of relevant items for you to collect, giving you
more treasures to seek out. But more importantly, Bungie has fine-tuned the
algorithms under the game's hood, which govern random equipment drops. Now you'll
be more likely to receive armor and weapons that you actually care to collect.
The journey from the weakest gear to the best has been smoothed over, so you
shouldn't have to wait nearly as long between finding something you actually
care to equip.
Bungie knows that Destiny is not a perfect game, but it is
dedicated to game concepts that it believes in and has spent nearly a year
fine-tuning the Destiny experience to push it closer to that ideal. I don't
blame anyone for quitting Destiny when they weren't having fun, but given the
changes Bungie has made over the last year, I believe Destiny deserves a second
chance. If you come back for The Taken King, you might discover that Destiny is
the best game you ever quit in disgust.
To learn much more about Destiny: The Taken King, click on the banner
below to enter our constantly-expanding hub of exclusive content.
Rainbow 6 Patriots preview the thinking mans shooter is now the moral mans shooter
A man watches helplessly as terrorists break into his home, beat his wife and threaten the life of his child. He's kidnapped, forced to strap on a suicide bomber vest and ordered to detonate himself in the middle of New York City's Times Square unless he wants his entire family to die. Then things get really bad. If you've seen the first gameplay footage released for Rainbow 6 Patriots, you know what
Head Of The Class: Destiny's New Subclasses And Abandoned Fourth Class
Destiny players have been eagerly awaiting a third subclass for their Guardians
for a long time.
Destiny players have been eagerly awaiting a third subclass for their Guardians
for a long time. The Taken King expansion looks to deliver big with the new
Stormcaller, Sunbreaker, and Nightstalker subclasses that should help Guardians
tear through Oryx's forces. You might be comfortable with your current class build,
but when you get a handle on these new subclasses, you'll be tempted to try
them all out. Senior designer Sage Merrill walked us through how Bungie iterated
on each new subclass in order to make sure they weren't repeats of anything the
developer has already done.
design around," says senior designer Sage Merrill. "But that fourth one just
never fit so we cut down to three. When we made that cut everything sort of
fell into place. It's not like anything wasn't working, it's just that when you
start to slice up the total space for what a class does in a shooter
environment, no matter where you put that fourth class it always sort of felt
like it was encroaching on what the other classes did."
Destiny's Evolving
Class Design
While Bungie always planned to release the initial six subclasses in the original release of Destiny, a separate team has been quietly working on three additional subclasses as far back
as the release of the game last year. The Taken King has given Bungie time to fully develop these three new subclasses, creating some of the most interesting
abilities in the game to date.
"There's a weird thing that happens during development," says Merrill.
"I remember in the initial release of Destiny, when we created the Fist of Havoc
ability for the Titan, we thought, 'Man, Fist of Havoc is so good, how are we
ever going to make something as good for the other classes?' And then we went
and made the other abilities for the other classes, and when we came back we
thought, 'Man, Fist of Havoc actually looks kind of weak now.' That happened
again when we were designing subclasses for The Taken King."
Iteration is an important element when trying to add new ways to play
with characters that players have used for over a year. For example, when
Bungie first started working on the new Warlock ability, they considered
turning the class into a kind of necromancer who could resurrect fallen enemies
as minions, and then send them after their foes. Bungie eventually settled on
the Stormcaller's ability to fire chain lightning, but the team hopes to return
to the necromancer idea at some point.
"The Void Hunter was probably the hardest," says Merrill. "We probably
rebooted him four times before settling on something we liked. He started off as
a tracker character who could see through walls, and the fantasy was good, but
it didn't play out well. It didn't feel super good to play. With other ideas it
was the reverse, where the mechanic would feel really good, but we couldn't
find that power fantasy to hook anybody into wanting to use him. So we
continued to iterate. It's no secret, but that's how you get a game to be really
good; you fix 100 things that no one will ever notice."
While Bungie has created three subclasses for each character, there is
actually a bit of diversity hidden inside each. For example, the Warlock
Stormcaller's main super is a chain lightning attack, but Bungie designed some
Stormcaller upgrades that allow players to chain together more enemies if they
want to create a character with good crowd control. Alternatively, Bungie envisioned
another path through the Stormcaller abilities that has them creating fewer
chains but dealing more damage. Another character build focuses more on
mobility, giving the Stormcaller a short-range blink that allows them to dodge
enemies attacks, which might be ideal for PvP. These different paths existed in
the original release of Destiny, but Bungie thinks they're even more distinct for
The Taken King's new subclasses.
Breaking
Down The Titan Sunbreaker
you to conjure a flaming hammer that will shatter enemy skulls with
devastating melee attacks. Thermite Grenade – these grenades create
explosions that send streaks of fire rushing toward your target. Sunstrike – this melee attack allows Titans to set
their enemies on fire. Fire Keeper – an augment to Hammer of Sol that
makes the special last longer. It also gives you an over shield as long as you're
standing in a Sunspot, which is a pool of fire that Sunbreakers can create with
their Hammer of Sol.
Bungie's Pro Tips: "The
Sunbreaker has an attack where he lunges forward and uppercuts guys," says Merrill.
"You can also do this in the air with a flaming knee. That will chain detonate.
If you launch that guy to another set of guys, they will chain pop with a
significant amount of damage. If you can line this up, this is a kind of minigame you play once you know how this works. You don't want to just kill a guy,
you want to kick him into his friends so that he chain detonates. He can also
make an area of fire around him, and while he's standing in a pool of fire, his
super goes down very slowly, so he can hold that space for a very long time. He's
all about shelling one area, moving to it, and fighting from that area."
Breaking
Down The Warlock Stormcaller
attack that deals massive damage to multiple enemies. Storm Grenade – This explosion calls down a
localized lightning storm. Thunderstrike – An electrifying melee strike
that hits from an extended range. Perpetual Charge – performing a melee kill recharges
your grenade ability, while grenade kills recharge your melee skill.
Bungie's Pro Tips: "He's not very subtle – he basically
electrocutes everybody like Emperor Palpatine," Merrill says. "His melee is probably going to
be the most contentious thing. He has a very long-range attack when his melee
skill is charged up. It's very hard to beat him in a melee fight from a
distance. Warlocks should start getting used to engaging with melee early on. If they're not going up against another Stormcaller in PvP he can win melee
fights pretty easy."
Breaking
Down The Hunter Nightstalker
can one-shot enemies," says Merrill. "This shot can also create a Void Anchor on walls and
floors that tethers enemies to one spot. The duration of this anchor is extended
with every enemy you kill, so every tethered enemy you kill increases the
length of time your tether will stay in place and capture more enemies. This is
one of the ways that Bungie was able to balance the ability for both PvE and
PvP. Voidwall Grenade – This explosion emits a
horizontal wall of burning Void Light. Smoke – In addition to grenades, Nightstalkers
can also throw smoke that slows and disorients enemies caught in the blast. Shadestep – A well-timed roll that will allow
you to avoid damage.
Bungie's Pro Tips: "The
Hunter has a bunch of toys. He has smoke grenades, and that debuff is much
stronger if you hit people directly with the grenade than if people run through
your smoke cloud later," Merrill says. "His base super is also pretty complicated. He has the bow,
and wherever his arrow hits he creates an anchor that reaches out and grab
stuff. Anyone who is grabbed by that tether is debuffed, and in PvP it's a hard
stop to all supers. If you see a Titan and a Warlock coming into your base with
their supers, you can hit above the door with your tether and it will shut them
both down and hold them in place. It's a great counter maneuver."
To learn much more about Destiny: The Taken King, click on the banner
below to enter our constantly expanding hub of exclusive content.
StreamTeam Spotlight: Parlock
Welcome back to the StreamTeam Spotlight , a weekly series where we feature one of our Indie GamePlay streamers.
, a weekly series where we feature one of our Indie GamePlay streamers. Every week, we’ll profile and interview a different member of the team to give our audience a chance to get to know some of their favorite streamers off-camera/mic. This week we’ll meet and learn a little bit about Parlock. Please enjoy!
Name/Online Alias : Parlock
Region : UK – England
PC Rig :
– 4.0GHz 8-core
– 8GB RAM
– Radeon HD 7970 3GB.
Favorite Game Genres : RPGs, Fighting Games, Immersive Sims
Favorite Games : The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion , Super Street Fighter 4 , Mirror’s Edge , Left 4 Dead , Sonic the Hedgehog
Other Hobbies : I’m too busy between being a student and running the channels to really get up to much else, but I do have a pet Gecko and have an unhealthy addiction to Twitter.
Indie Game Magazine : What was your first exposure to video games?
Parlock : Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive/Genesis. My parents bought me it to keep me from eating something or jumping out of a window or something, and I loved it. I still regularly play Sonic 1 and 2 !
IGM : What were some of your favorite games growing up?
Parlock : Sonic 1 and 2 , Tekken 2 , Soul Calibur 2 , Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 , and Hype: The Time Quest .
IGM : When you say you enjoy “Immersive Sims”, do you have a particular favorite style? Are you a dating sim fan?
Parlock : Immersive Sims are games like Thief , BioShock , Dishonored , and Deus Ex ; where they give you a large amount of tools and lots of loosely related systems, but let you experiment with them in basically whatever way you want. For example, Dishonored has the powers from “the Outsider” (the tools), and the systems are stuff like the Weepers and the Guards fighting, having NPCs offering to deal with enemies non-lethally for you, that sort of thing. It’s a dumb name for what is a really great genre, and unfortunately it seems indie gaming hasn’t quite been able to make those sorts of games yet. The only two I can really think of are Eldritch (which is fantastic) and E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy (which… well… isn’t).
But I do love dating sims as well! Me and a friend ( Solon/ RainyDayLetsPlay, he’s also on the StreamTeam) streamed Hatoful Boyfriend and managed to spread it out across like 3 different streams; we gave it full voice-acting, the works. It was absolutely magical.
IGM : When did you first start streaming?
Parlock : On Twitch, in 2013. I was drawn in to streaming in a big way because of the streams I have done with friends like Sharky and the Bear, and then Solon from RainyDayLetsPlay really dragged me kicking and screaming into the streaming community. I’ve done plenty of much more casual streaming on Livestream.com for years, but now I’ve moved to Twitch and Hitbox, and haven’t been back on Livestream for ages now.
IGM : Why do you enjoy streaming?
Parlock : My YouTube work is my primary focus, and part of that is waiting a long time between recording and getting any feedback – sometimes weeks. Streaming is much more about instant gratification and quick communication with your viewers, which I like. I also like that because nothing is saved if you don’t want it to be, you can let loose and have a totally casual stream if you want, or if you want to put the effort in to a professional, organized stream, that is also possible. It is just much more versatile than YouTube.
IGM : What types of streams do you host (Let’s Plays, Previews/Reviews/First Looks, Giveaways, Developer Q&As, etc)?
Parlock : Mainly casual LP streams where I just play games for fun. I’ve also done more serious streams, such as podcasts and discussions, and I have done a 24 hour stream for charity; I’m planning to do another one later on in the month.
IGM : What are you going to school for? Anything video game related?
Parlock : Unfortunately not, I’m a Psych student. There are ways that could be related to games, but I didn’t really want to work in games until I started Youtube and Streaming. I’ll find a way to mix the two though. Riot ( League of Legends ) did a really interesting talk about using a Psychological thing called Priming to sort of program their players in to being less abusive and toxic by changing font colors and sizes on the loading screen, so there definitely is a way to combine both of them.
IGM : What is your pet Gecko’s name? Any chance he’ll grow to be a giant dragon someday?
Parlock : Drogo! Named after Khal Drogo from A Song of Ice and Fire . He’s grown so much since in the 9 months I’ve had him, and they live about as long as a cat does, so hopefully I’ll have a dragon in a couple of years!
IGM : What made you decide to join the Indie GamePlay StreamTeam?
Parlock : Friends of mine are also part of it, and I love how it is decentralizing streams, taking them away from relying on Twitch. We need a lot more decentralization in the community, as right now we are totally at the mercy of Youtube or Twitch.
That’s it for this week’s StreamTeam Spotlight ! If you’d like to watch some of Parlock’s streams, you can check out his Content Hubon Indie GamePlay. To keep track of his stream schedule so you never miss a live stream, you can follow him on Twitter @joeparlock.
StreamTeam Spotlight is a weekly segment created to showcase members of the Indie GamePlayStreamTeam. Participants are chosen at random, and interviewed upon accepting an invitation. If you’d like to be considered for the feature, please send an email to vparisi@indiegamemag.com with the subject line “Streamer Spotlight”. Spotlight participants are not required to disclose their full name, and all information is published only after participants approve a pre-screening of the completed Spotlight. If you’d like to join to StreamTeam community, you can register here. Tune in next week to see which streamer enters the spotlight. Until then, come play some games!