Author: Donster

Sunflower Update Brings Host of Improvements to Wargame

Today, Paradox Development Studios released the first major update for its hit World War II grand strategy wargame, Hearts of Iron IV. The “Sunflower Patch” is largely devoted to improving the game’s AI and user interface, as well as the usual changes to Hearts of Iron’s balance and historical database, plus a number of bug fixes.

You can read the full list of changes and updates on the official Paradox Community forum here. But read on for a brief list of some of the highlights in Sunflower.

• Changes to how peace conferences are handled, based on a design by Steam user Neutrino
• Hotjoin now available for multiplayer games, so you can connect to a match already in progress
• Custom difficulty settings let you adjust the relative power of Germany, Italy, France and the Soviet Union
• More nations can now be released as independent countries
• Re-sync button added to address connection issues without rehosting the game
• AI more likely to update templates, build nuclear reactors and cancel unnecessary production
• AI less likely to risk encirclement, opt for a Communist France or throw everything at North Africa
• Naval combat has been balanced to prevent light cruiser spam
• Changes to national territorial cores (Portugal loses, Sinkiang gains)
• A number of crashes caused by modding have been fixed
• Submarines better at finding surface ships, worse at finding other subs

Go to the Community Forum for the complete rundown of all of the improvements and updates now available for everyone that owns Hearts of Iron IV.

For more information on Hearts of Iron IV, check out the games official website.

The hit Order of Battle: World War II will be expanded with a new campaign DLC focused on the first blitzkrieg wars of Germany in the Second World War, and a free major update!

Order of Battle: Blitzkrieg

On 1 September 1939, under the pretext of reclaiming the city of Danzig, German armed forces invade Poland. Honoring their diplomatic treaties and driven by the desire to maintain the balance of power in Europe, France and Great Britain swiftly declare war on Germany. This chain of events sets in motion the greatest war the world has ever seen: a Second World War…

Order of Battle: Blitzkrieg brings you to those frantic years which saw Germany successfully incorporating modern aircraft and tank technology in their military doctrine, and then unleashing their newly rebuilt war machine on the rest of Europe. This new DLC aims at representing those years and those brilliant campaigns, from the invasion of Poland to the Fall of 1941 and the Wehrmacht advance being halted only by the cold bite of Russian winter.

It brings several new nations, tons of new units and 12 new scenarios! Pure, unadultered, 100% Blitzkrieg gameplay.

Get more information on the product page.

Important: the game is entering its beta testing phase; we need your help to quash bugs and we want to hear your feedback, so please feel free to apply here. It’d be of great help!

A new major update for Order of Battle: World War II

The Blitzkrieg DLC will be accompanied by a big free update to the base game! What does it add?

Well, along with many balance changes and bugfixes, a brand new Specialization System is being added to the game! Complete major and minor objectives during scenarios and earn Specialization points, then spend them in the Specialization tree and completely customize your army as you see fit.

It’s not all. We’re adding a new Import Tool to carry over your core army between campaigns! Play through Morning Sun, then carry over your troops to Rising Sun! Or maybe play through the entirety of the Blitzkrieg campaign, and then use your battle hardened regiments in future-yet-to-be-announced campaigns I’m probably speaking too much here.

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• MSI Announces the GeForce GTX 1080 30th Anniversary Edition
• Sharkoon Announces the Skiller SGM1 RGB Gaming Mouse
• MSI Launches Aegis Ti Gaming Desktop and Z170A Gaming M6 Motherboard
• Raidmax Readies the SIGMA Mid-tower Chassis
• Logitech Buys Saitek From Mad Catz For $13 Million
• Overclockers.co.uk Announces the 8Pack Rocket Compact LAN PC
• Rosewill Intros the Gram Mid-tower Chassis
• NZXT Announces the Aer Series RGB LED Fans
• New EK Water Blocks EK-XLC Predator 140 and EK-XLC Predator 280 Available for Pre-Order

The South China Sea is an area where the economic and geopolitical struggles bubble just covered under the surface. Numerous low-intensity conflicts have erupted over the years, and many countries have tried to extend their territorial claims over key islands and atolls.

In particular, domain over the Spratly Islands have been strongly disputed by China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines and other nations. The large reserves of oil and the huge volume of maritime traffic make this area crucial to the regions balance of power.

China, the strongest player in this delicate game, has recently strengthen her sea power, deploying her first aircraft carrier – the PLAN Liaoning – with the clear intent to achieve definitive military superiority, dissuading her rivals from direct military action.

However this deployment itself has disrupted the balance of power. Could it lead to an escalation that ends with open conflict for regional supremacy?

Command LIVE: Spratly Spat, the third installment in the ambitious Command LIVE series, will explore this fictional – although perfectly credible – situation!

A full analysis of the situation has been dispatched and it is already available!

Stay tuned! Command Live: Spratly Spat will be released on September, 20th!

Get more information about the game from its official product page!

By  Jeffrey Edson @ PureOC

NVMe SSDs are the enthusiast topic of interest right now. The storage industry has become affordable in the SSD market, but is trending towards NVMe as a replacement. This is faster and can reach GB/s rather than MB/s. It does this by bypassing the ACHI protocol and pushes the boundaries of what basic SSDs can’t. I will be looking at a Zotac implementation of NVMe using an HHHL PCIe card at 480GB. This is Zotac’s first consumer NVMe drive, and claims speeds of up to 2600 MB/s over PCIe gen 3. Let’s see if this drive can push the limit of NVMe and stand out among its competitors.

Read The Review Here

By Chris Ramseyer @ Tom’s Hardware

We’ve seen tremendous growth in the entry-level SATA and premium NVMe SSD segments over the last year. The middle ground has gone relatively untouched, but it is far from neglected. The mid-range has consolidated and now includes the SATA SSDs that we previously considered premium products. Toshiba’s OCZ division has historically enjoyed a lot of success in this area, and it is looking to take the segment back with the VX500.

Read The Review Here

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• ENERMAX Launches the D.F.VEGAS Series with Self-cleaning Function
• Toshiba Introduces the OCZ VX500 SATA SSD Series
• SteelSeries Releases the Rival 500 MMO/MOBA Gaming Mouse
• In Win Launches Whole New Full Tower 509
• Cooler Master Announces the MasterCase 3 Pro Chassis
• Samsung Readies SSD 960 EVO Based on New “Polaris” Controller

Narrated YouTube video tells it all!

As the big things of this world – governments, corporations, institutions – are losing traction, independent air-combat action game Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China (FTSOC) grinds along like an old river barge up Burma’s Salween gorge, fending off Japanese assaults on the left while expecting Allied reinforcements from the right. It’s been quite some time since you’ve heard from us gamedev-mechanics here at Ace Maddox, so hopefully today’s additions will make you all pleased.

Live on Steam now, this straight-forward update adds a good amount of content and bugfixes, and we’ve simply decided to call it “COCKPIT/CAMPAIGN”. Check out the voiced YouTube video for a thorough overview, or scour the changelog below for a quick rundown.

Update History/Changelog:

• Four new cockpits and “wide” interior camera added. Hop inside the P-40E, Buffalo Mk. I, Lysander Mk. II or the Japanese Ki-43 fighter! If you’re playing on keyboard and/or mouse, just press the V key to check out the newly added cockpit “wide” camera. And, there’s also a refurbished bomb-targeting system for when you’re seated in cockpit mode.
• Voice actors exhausted as Campaign nears competion. Development of FTSOC’s historical single player campaign is almost complete. We’ve updated some of the older voices, while a multitude of actors have been working around the clock to record the remainder of the Campaign mission’s screenplay in proper. We suggest you give the Campaign a full playthrough, so you can hear for yourselves.
• Controller vibration. For those of you who prefer to play/fly with a gamepad, there’s now controller rumble for stronger “immersion”.
• Improved rendering. Shadows and reflections look sharper and are more stable now, this specially noticeable when you’re seated inside.
• Toggle HUD elements on the fly. Press the H key while flying to control displaymode of the various HUD elements (handy feature when recording video or FRAPSing stills).
• Ship models. We’ve updated most of the game’s warship models, plus added a typical Southeast Asian wooden cargo ship, namely the Malayan Bedar (which, incidentally, does not look entirely unrelated to the Chinese junk).
• More Challenges. We’ve added two new mini-missions in the form of challenges, so go ahead and take that dusty old Vildebeest for a bit of tinfish-safari off the Akyab coast in the new TORPEDOGS challenge, or try out the bombs and machine guns of the Allied P-43A fighter in GROUND ATTACK.
• Added captured Japanese fighter. We’ve implemented a captured P-40E fighter, bombs included, to spice up multiplayer cockpit-dogfighting a little. Enjoy the flight!

About Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China:

Currently in Steam Early Access, Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China (FTSOC) is a historical air-combat action game based on the true events of America’s secret volunteer squadrons that flew against Japan in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre of World War 2. Secretly recruited under President Roosevelt’s authority, the Flying Tigers were officially known as the “American Volunteer Group”.

Get more information about the game at the official Flying Tigers: Shadows Over China website.

Global Operations Unique Game Mode Coming Soon!

Obsidian Entertainment and global publisher My.com are proud to announce the brand new Global Operations mode for Armored Warfare. Global Operations will change the theatre of war by adding the biggest maps the game has seen to date. These maps are fully interactive with overhead surveillance drones, stealth bombers and static anti-tank turrets functioning as a third party support for each of the competing teams, if they find the right tactics to use them to their advantage. Global Operations is an exciting new game mode for the genre and fuses the PvE and PvP game modes together in a unique and explosive mix.

The mode will kick off Balance 2.0 coming to Armored Warfare’s overhauling and streamlining existing gameplay in the future. Armored Warfare will enhance the roles of state-of-the-art weapons, like guided missiles, and advanced vehicle defense systems and will sharpen its focus to make the battlefields truly feel like theatres of modern conflict. Both Global Operations and the changes coming alongside Balance 2.0 will get a release date in the near future.

Watch the Armored Warfare – Global Operations Teaser HERE.

Global Operations:

The first of the new maps to be introduced with Global Operations is the open desert map called “Desert Crossing.” This map is bigger than any other map so far in Armored Warfare and features many interactive elements. Bombers flying overhead, AI-control turrets shooting at teams and surveillance drones will change the face of warfare in the game for good. Two mercenary forces and their local allies are clashing over a massive dry dock with an aircraft carrier in “Desert Crossing.” The battles in Global Operations are time limited and feature up to 15 vs 15 player teams. Each team starts with a pool of points. Destroying Enemy or AI controlled vehicles, and capturing control zones will reduce the enemies’ point count. If the team manages reduce this point score to zero, they secure victory!

Players can also capture special “Wildcard” objectives that give them the ability to call in military asset from their HQ, to tip the balance of the battle in their favor. The first map will contain the following “wildcards”:

• Pillboxes: static AI-controlled object firing Anti-Tank guided missiles at enemy forces
• Surveillance drone: an unmanned aerial asset that can fly above a zone and spot the enemy teams movements with ease.
• Air Raid: A powerful B2 bombing run attack that flies in from off the map to wreak havoc amongst enemy lines!
• Supply Zone: to allow resupply of ammo without needing to respawn

These just represent what will be available during the first release. The system is flexible enough that many new “wild cards” could be created and will make the battlefields truly feel like theatres of modern war.

The Modern Battlefield:

Find more about all changes coming to Armored Warfare in the near future HERE.

You can download the game for free and get more information at the official Armored Warfare website.

By Immanuel Decano @ Legit Reviews

For those of us gamers or PC users who love the look presented by RGB PC peripherals Cooler Master has something in store for us. In addition to Cooler Master’s cooling units and cases they also produce computer peripherals such as keyboards, mice, headsets, earphones, and mousepads. Cooler Master has just released a mem-chanical (membrane switches with a tactile feel similar to that of a mechanical switch but longer life than conventional membrane switches) keyboard and mouse combo that could potentially make a great RGB addition to a casual home setup/beginner’s gaming rig. Here at Legit Reviews we were given the new affordable (considering the starting price of quality RGB gaming keyboards run for around $100 to start) Masterkeys Lite L Combo by Cooler Master at $59.99 shipped with a two year warranty included for both keyboard and mouse. For younger gamers and/or those of us shopping on a budget this may be the RGB keyboard for you.

Read The Review Here