After a fairly long break, we have a new update for Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager!

This brings the Slitherine version up to the same level as the recently released GOG one.

Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager (SPM) is the ultimate game of space exploration. The game features the race to the Moon, the historical event that started in the early 1960s and that ended in July 1969, after the successful completion of the Apollo 11 mission. To verify its accuracy and authenticity, the game has been developed in consultation with Dr. Buzz Aldrin, former U.S. Air Force combat pilot (66 missions in Korea) and NASA astronaut, who took part in the first Moon landing mission and became the second human being to walk on the Moon.

You can update your game via the game’s updater, logging into our website’s My Page section (requires the game to be registered under your username), or you can download it directly from THIS LINK.

v1.7.1 Changelog:

• Fixed a bug in the general stats screen shown at the end of the game.
• Added functionality in order to validate the fact that a rocket is not being used by a scheduled mission when attempting to close it.
• Revised the list of Soviet candidates from all three employee groups.
• Changed the TLI property of the Atlas-Agena from 366 Kg to 390 Kg. This value is more realistics and will allow players to use it in the ‘Lunar Orbiter program’.
• Achieving the ‘LK lander test in Moon orbit’ goal will now grant the achievement of ‘Soyuz 7K-L3 lunar orbital flight’.
• Removed the ‘Venus Orbiter’ goal penalty from the ‘Venera 7 Venus Lander’ mission.
• Fixed a bug that triggered a runtime exception when players exceeded the maximum number of turns.
• Accomplishing the 28_TEST_EARTH_ORBIT_LANGLEY_LIGHT_LUNAR_LANDER and 30_EARTH_LEM_TEST goals grants the DOCKING goal.
• Fixes to the ES (Spanish) strings that were causing issues with the tutorial.
• Fixed goals cancelled by 28_TEST_EARTH_ORBIT_LANGLEY_LIGHT_LUNAR_LANDER and 30_EARTH_LEM_TEST (DOCKING).
• Added functionality for cleaning the data cache when exiting the game.

Get more information about Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager from its official product page.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took a big step into Greek myth this year with The Fate of Atlantis, a three-part post-launch story arc that brought Alexios or Kassandra into the Greek afterlife – and, eventually, to the titular lost city of Atlantis, once a teeming center of the mysterious First Civilization. If you haven’t yet begun your journey into The Fate of Atlantis, its first episode – titled Fields of Elysium – is free from August 26 through September 1. During that period, players can download and keep Fields of Elysium on PS4, Xbox One, and PC (via Uplay, Steam, or the Epic Games Store).

Fields of Elysium transports players to Greek mythology’s equivalent of heaven, a vibrant paradise of white cliffs and flowering meadows presided over by the Greek goddess Persephone (actually a member of the First Civilization, or Isu). However, this seeming utopia hides dark secrets and super-powered enemies, as well as treasure-filled labyrinths and four new enhancements for your Abilities, which let you wield the powers of the Isu in battle.

Once downloaded, Fields of Elysium is open to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey players who’ve reached at least level 28 and finished the Between Two Worlds questline, along with the Heir of Memories questline. Players who want to jump straight into Fields of Elysium’s content, meanwhile, can take a shortcut option and begin playing with a pre-leveled character (although you’ll still need the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey base game to play). Should you decide to continue your journey by purchasing The Fate of Atlantis or the Season Pass, any character progression or loot you earn in Fields of Elysium will carry over into the second and third episodes, Torment of Hades and Judgment of Atlantis.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and its post-launch content, including The Fate of Atlantis and Legacy of the First Blade story arcs, are available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and will be included in UPLAY+ when the subscription service launches on September 3. For more on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, check out our previous coverage.

The PC specs for Ghost Recon Breakpoint have been revealed, giving players planning on visiting Auroa on PC a look at the PC-exclusive features, and the hardware needed to best run Breakpoint. While the full launch, on October 4th, is a little over a month away, Breakpoint’s closed beta starts on September 5th. Players on any platform can get guaranteed access into the beta by pre-ordering now or signing up for UPLAY+.

Watch the Ghost Recon Breakpoint: PC Features Overview Trailer HERE.

Features

• Full PC optimization
• 4K resolutions
• Uncapped frame rate
• Ultra-wide and multi-monitor support
• Fully customizable controls
• AMD FidelityFX
• Discord integration
• Gameplay and menu eye tracking with tobii

PC Specifications
Minimum – Low Setting | 1080p

• OS: Windows 7/8.1/10
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 1200/Intel Core I5 4460
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon R9 280X/Nvidia Geforce GTX 960 (4 GB)

Recommended – High Setting | 1080p

• OS: Windows 7/8.1/10
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600/Intel Core I7 6700K
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 480/Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 (6 GB)

Ultra – Ultra Setting | 1080p

• OS: Windows 10
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X/Intel Core I7 6700K
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700XT/Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080

Ultra 2K – Ultra Setting | 2K

• OS: Windows 10
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X/Intel Core I7 6700K
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700XT/Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080

Elite – Ultra Setting | 4K

• OS: Windows 10
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X/Intel Core I7 7700K
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon VII/Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080

Players who pre-order a digital version of Ghost Recon Breakpoint for PC (including Ubisoft Store’s exclusive WOLVES COLLECTOR EDITION) between May 9th and October 4th 2019 or have pre-ordered it before the announcement of the offer will also be eligible for additional in-game rewards in:

• Rainbow Six: Siege: 7-day renown booster
• The Division 2: Military P416 Wolves weapon skin
• Ghost Recon Wildlands: Pack of 1700 Ghost Recon Credits

For the latest about Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint and other Ubisoft games, please visit news.ubisoft.com.

All current World of Warcraft subscribers can start playing Classic today at no additional cost

WoW® Classic rings in the game’s 15th anniversary, with celebrations in Battle for Azeroth to follow in the coming month

Grizzled veterans and hardy newcomers alike can now experience Azeroth as it was in its earliest days with World of Warcraft® Classic, which is live starting today and included at no additional cost as part of everyone’s WoW® subscription globally. World of Warcraft Classic has been a labor of love for Blizzard, and the result is an authentic re-creation of the pre-expansion game in its most feature-complete state, as it was during 2006’s “Drums of War” update (patch 1.12.0). Blizzard has continued to bring WoW Classic realms online around the world to accommodate the more than two million players who have created characters in anticipation of today’s launch, and will work to add more based on player population trends.

Watch the World of Warcraft Classic Launch Trailer HERE.

World of Warcraft®, which has been played by more than 140 million players over the past 15 years, has evolved considerably across seven expansions, with numerous features, enhancements, and quality-of-life improvements. In many ways, World of Warcraft Classic is more unrelenting and demanding of self-direction from players than today’s version of the game. Bonds among the community are paramount—activities like raids and dungeon runs must be organized collectively by players on the same realm, with the toughest challenges requiring 40 coordinated and committed souls to surmount.

Classic’s Azeroth is equal parts wonder and hazard, and its trials will push players to their limits. The Alliance and the Horde, in the midst of outright war, are made to reckon with forces whose powers transcend their own brutal conflict—including some of the most iconic and love-hated of villains of the Warcraft® universe, like Ragnaros the Firelord and the Archlich Kel’Thuzad.

“It’s been a long time coming, but we’re overjoyed to welcome our friends new and old to classic Azeroth,” said J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “The community’s excitement is infectious and deeply motivating—it’s clear they’re as thrilled as we are to relive the World of Warcraft Classic experience. We look forward to rediscovering its wonders and challenges together with them, starting today.”

World of Warcraft Classic will continue to expand in the weeks and months following today’s launch, allowing players the opportunity to live through pivotal moments in Azeroth history previously lost to time. Among the host of features and activities set to be introduced to the game across six phases are iconic raids like Blackwing Lair, Zul’Gurub, and Naxxramas; player-versus-player battlegrounds like Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and the classic version of Alterac Valley; and time-limited server-wide events like the Ahn’Qiraj War Effort, and the Scourge Invasion.

More information is available on the official World of Warcraft Classic website.

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.

• Phanteks Announces Glacier Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Kit and C360-series Blocks
• be quiet! Announces Shadow Wings 2 White Fan Series
• Thermaltake Gaming Announces the Level 20 GT RGB Gaming Keyboard
• Noctua Teases All-black Coolers – VIDEO
• ASUS Unveils its GeForce GTX 1650 Low Profile Graphics Cards

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD Monday posted the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.8.2 beta comes with optimization for the week’s big AAA launch, “Control,” with up to 10 percent higher frame-rates compared to the older 19.8.1 drivers. The new drivers also include optimization for the interactive novel “Man of Medan.” The drivers add HDCP 2.3 support for Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards.

Among the bugs fixed are a “Rocket League” application hang on task-switch, performance-drops with “League of Legends” when performing a task-switch; system instability seen with Radeon RX 5700-series when memory-overclocking while a 3D application is running; and minor stutter noticed with “Fortnite” in the first few minutes of gameplay.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.8.2 beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA has released the GeForce 436.15 WHQL drivers. These drivers come game-ready for the day’s big AAA game launch, “Control.” The drivers also introduces Video Codec SDK 9.1, the software-end of NVIDIA’s on-chip video transcoding hardware, which adds a new NVEncode API, support for CUStream in the NVEncode API, and bug-fixes to H.264 MVC encoding. The drivers also pack Optical Flow SDK 1.1. Among the application-specific bug-fixes are display corruption of tracks in “Forza Motorsport 7,” and system crashes observed when installing NVIDIA drivers on systems that have multiple graphics cards with mixed GPU architectures (eg: a system that has a “Maxwell” graphics card and a “Pascal” graphics card.).

You can download the GeForce 436.15 WHQL Game Ready Drivers via GeForce.com.

For the U.S. Navy aviators of Task Force 38, the air war over the pacific ran right to the limit

By David Sears @ Historynet.com

FROM HIS HELLCAT OVER coastal Honshū—the main Japanese home island—U.S. Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) Henry J. O’Meara marveled to see a Tokyo Plain “so thickly studded with airfields that 10 or a dozen were visible from almost any point.” O’Meara, 21, had experienced combat, but many of his fellow aviators in the aircraft carrier Yorktown’s Fighter Squadron 88 were getting not only their first glimpse of Japan’s heartland, but a first exposure to aerial warfare. After plastering enemy fields with tons of fragmentation bombs on July 10, 1945, O’Meara and mates were brimming with swagger. However, O’Meara wrote afterward, the fliers also were “quite disappointed over the lack of Jap planes in the air.”

Read on…

Source: Blue’s News

An Update on Battlefield V with Ryan McArthur has a status report on Battlefield V, discussing the latest goings-on in the military shooter sequel. This includes details on what DICE is fixing in an upcoming version 4.4 patch, map update plans, and their goal of being more communicative and transparent going forward. In that vein, Ryan announces they are cancelling development of their five-versus-five competitive mode, offering the following explanation for the change in direction:

The added focus on improving the quality of the experience and adding more of the content you want has led us to step back from our original plans to offer a competitive 5v5 mode. Not creating this mode was a tough decision, but vital for us to more quickly reach our bug-crushing and content goals. However, we will still pursue building a competitive gaming experience in Battlefield™. We know that there’s already an existing competitive scene in our community, and we’re helping build features to support these communities. We want to work more closely with our players to help improve the tools that they have available to shape their play experience. This way, we can better support the places where competitive Battlefield V play already exists.

This change in focus allows us to better deliver on our promise of new content that we know our players will love, as well as providing new ways to enjoy some of our more intense existing modes.

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD late-Tuesday silently posted a WHQL-signed version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.8.1 drivers that it originally released as a Beta on August 12. The new 19.8.1 WHQL drivers, released on 20th August, are the first proper WHQL drivers since AMD’s Radeon RX 5700-series launch. Besides WHQL, the underlying code is identical to 19.8.1 Beta, and hence the changelog is untouched. TechPowerUp confirmed with AMD that there are no underlying code changes, and that WHQL signing is the only change. Adrenalin 19.8.1 adds Microsoft PlayReady 3.0 DRM standard compliance to Radeon RX 5700-series GPUs.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.8.1 WHQL drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.