Who is really leading the French Revolution?

Source: CVG

A critical moment in the French Revolution sets the scene for Assassin’s Creed Unity in this new trailer from Ubisoft.

“Paris, 1789. Commoners starved in the streets while aristocrats squandered the wealth of the nation,” reads the video description.

“Desperate and angry, they united and revolted against the power at hand and started the Revolution… But did the people truly lead the fight? Or did obscur forces use this time of chaos to spread their power?”

Assassin’s Creed Unity is set in 18th century Paris, during the French revolution, with players cast as French-Austrian assassin Arno Victor Dorian.

Ubisoft has said the game features its “biggest playground ever”, which has been “filled with hundreds of quests, activities and rewards”.

This is the second AC Unity trailer released today – an earlier video discussed the oppression of the people at the hands of “an arrogant and decadent aristocracy”.

The Assassin’s Creed Unity release date is set for October 28 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

System Requirements Revealed

Firefly Studios has just released the minimum system requirements for their long awaited ‘castle sim’ sequel Stronghold Crusader 2. Having entered closed Beta last week, most of the remaining developing time on Crusader 2 will be spent optimising the game’s performance on PC and tweaking gameplay.

“When we first announced Stronghold Crusader 2 one of the first pieces of information released was that the game will use a newly enhanced 3D engine. By this point the team was so experienced with the Havok Vision Engine that learning something completely new and moving away from 3D would be a waste of that knowledge. Our stated goal with Crusader 2 was to create the best 3D Stronghold game yet and that’s exactly what we intent to deliver.

Everyone here at Firefly wants the playability of the 2D Stronghold titles within a 3D space and our enhanced version of the Vision Engine has thankfully provided us with the tools needed to achieve this. Naturally a concern for players at the time was ‘Will the game run on my machine?’. This is a fair question and of course we are aiming to get the game running on a wide range of systems, performance being just as high on our list of priorities as bug fixing. With the game currently in beta and as such feature-complete, we have already had time to focus on optimisation and performance testing. As a result, we have been able to determine the minimum system requirements for Stronghold Crusader 2.”

The minimum PC system requirements for Stronghold Crusader 2 are as follows:

• Operating System: Windows® XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 (latest service packs) with DirectX 9.0c
• Processor: Intel Core2 Duo 2Ghz or equivalent
• Memory: 2GB RAM
• Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GT 512MB or AMD Radeon™ HD 2900XT 512MB or better
• Storage: 6 GB available HD space
• Internet: Broadband Internet connection

The latest entry in Firefly’s best selling series of medieval real-time strategy games, Stronghold Crusader 2 is set to appear online and in store shelves on September 2nd 2014.

For more information please visit the official Stronghold Crusader 2 website.

By David Yee @ Legit Reviews

Turtle Beach is perhaps a name better known amongst console gamers since you can easily find their Ear Force lineup of headsets somewhere close to where the boxed console games are in certain stores. Most Turtle Beach Ear Force headsets are compatible with computers or any electronic device with a 3.5 mm jack nonetheless because most gamers or even most people make due with one set of headphones for all their devices. The Turtle Beach Z SEVEN we have for review is actually part of a much larger family of SEVEN headsets. The Z SEVEN is posited as the version for PCs and Macs, the XP SEVEN drops the computer compatibility and goes for Xbox 360 and PS3 compatibility, The M SEVEN is the mobile variant, and the XO SEVEN is the first third-party headset compatible with Xbox One. Then there’s also a bunch of limited edition SEVEN headsets with alternate earcup decorative plates themed after games and movies such as Captain America, Thor, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Titanfall.

Read The Review Here

By Joe Kershner @ PureOC

Today’s high demanding games can cause serious heat issues with improperly cooled graphic cards, so what do we do when they start to overheat? Look into water cooling? Not if your graphics card uses a non-referenced PCB. I’m in that boat; I picked up a few video cards without realizing they were non-referenced. The question is, what other options do we have in order to better cool the GPU and memory? Arctic has came up with a solution with the Accelero Xtreme IV 280(X), which is an upgraded air cooling solution that cools the GPU and memory utilizing 5 heatpipes and a custom rear heatsink.

Read The Review Here

By: Hilbert Hagedoorn @ GURU3D

A while ago NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX Titan Black which we review. We never tested it as it was supposed to be a professional series and targeted card. Nvidia’s Board partners however are slowly re-releasing this product as a gaming graphics card, as well as Nvidia who is plugging the product in their gaming benchmarks on their own website. As such, we figured that it is about time we review this puppy as well. Meet Joe Black, ehm Geforce GTX Titan Black.

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.

• ROCCAT Releases the Kone XTD Optical Gaming Mouse
• ASUS Introduces the H97-Pro Gamer LGA1150 Motherboard
• MSI Announces Interceptor DS100 Gaming Mouse
• Intel Retiring Four 7-Series Chipsets; Mobile CPUs
• AORUS Releases the THUNDER M7 MMO Gaming Mouse
• Tt eSPORTS Introduces the VERTO Gaming Headset
• Imation IronKey Workspace W700 Flash Drive Now Available

As obvious as it seems to say, the French Revolution was a particularly violent passage of time.

By Nick Cowen @ CVG

Crack open a history book and you’ll see that the streets of Paris ran red from about 1789 for the next ten years. Heads rolled, blood sprayed and the noggins of popinjays were pinned up on spikes.

(My mum is something of an authority on this. In the few instances I’ve been in Paris with her she’s imparted the bodycount stats outside nearly every landmark in the city of love. True story.)

The Assassin’s Creed franchise has never shied away from bloodletting – hey, the clue is in the title – but Revolutionary France is a particularly bold step even for this series. Not only does it put the action firmly on Ubisoft’s home turf, it explores wounds in a piece of French history that still resonate to this day.

Read on…

Source: CVG UK

Activision has released a new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare trailer focused on the game’s sound design. According to the official blurb, the video goes behind the scenes with Sledgehammer Games audio director Don Veca, who details “an audio intelligence system that makes virtually every impact and explosion sound unique”. The latest behind the scenes video follows the recent release of Advanced Warfare facial animation and futuristic tech trailers.

Sledgehammer’s first solo entry in the shooter series is said to be set in a plausible future, specifically the year 2054, and stars Kevin Spacey as main antagonist Jonathan Irons. The Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare release date is November 4 on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC.

Source: Battlefield Blog

Get ready to take the battle to Asian Pacific’s dense, urban landscape with Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth, the fourth expansion pack to Battlefield 4. Coming July 15th to Battlefield 4 Premium members, Dragon’s Teeth drops players into four all-new maps that introduce unique environments and gameplay ranging from the bustling alleyways of Pearl Market to the floating restaurant in the middle of a lake in Sunken Dragon.

Dragon’s Teeth sees five new weapons making their Battlefield debut in addition to a new unlockable gadget, the Ballistic shield. Dragon’s Teeth also introduces a new game mode, Chain Link, a twist on the fan-favorite Conquest mode that sees squads battle to link capture points in order to achieve victory. Fans will also get ten new assignments with unique unlocks and a new Battle pickup in the R.A.W.R., a remote controlled ground vehicle armed to the teeth.

All this plus four new maps including:

• Lumphini Garden: Cruise with fast-moving PWC’s on the canals in the pristine park to get the upper hand.
• Pearl Market: Wage wars within the bustling alleyways and upon the rooftops of the marketplace.
• Propaganda: Fight among massive despotic monuments in the grey concrete battleground.
• Sunken Dragon: Battle between modern high rises as you wreak havoc in a floating restaurant or drain the lake opening up for a frontal vehicle assault.

Get a head start playing Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth early by becoming a Battlefield 4 Premium member. Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth will be available to all non-Premium members starting on July 29th.

Publisher gains exclusive rights to create flight simulators using Microsoft’s flight technology

The award-winning creators of the best-selling Train Simulator franchise have today announced a global licensing deal with Microsoft, granting them the rights to develop and publish all-new flight products based on Microsoft’s genre-defining flight technology. The company is currently investigating new concepts in this area and is expecting to bring a release to market in 2015.

In addition to this licensing agreement, Dovetail Games is pleased to announce that it has also acquired the rights to distribute the multi-award winning Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition via Valve’s popular digital retail channel, Steam, entitled Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition.

First released in 2006, Microsoft Flight Simulator X is widely acknowledged as one of the most popular simulation products on the market. Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition will include the Deluxe Edition and the Acceleration Expansion Pack in one bundle. Dovetail Games will bring Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition to the Steam online gaming platform for the first time in late 2014.

PRESS RELEASE