biteho.com

Crysis Remastered is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 18, and Crysis will, once again, push limits. If you’re playing on PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, you’ll be able to play the game with ray tracing enabled, making this the first game to feature ray tracing–a rendering technique that is generally used for superior lighting and reflections–on current-gen hardware.

You can check it out in the video below. It shows off how ray tracing is used in the remaster on consoles to produce higher quality reflections. The footage doesn’t show much actual gameplay, but you get to see ray tracing in effect during a brief firefight.

It’s not quite on par with some of the results we’re seeing on PC (check out this Cyberpunk 2077 footage with ray tracing, for instance). But this is the first time this rendering technique has been used at all on the hardware. Crysis Remastered will presumably feature ray tracing on PC, too; here’s what the new version of the game looks like on PC with the settings maxed out.

The game has already launched on Nintendo Switch; ray tracing is not available on Nintendo’s portable machine, though.

Ray tracing is a much-touted feature of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, too, and many games will make use of it on next-gen systems. Xbox Series X and PS5 versions of Crysis Remastered have not been announced, though.

Among the many new and exciting features coming to Halo: The Master Chief Collection in the future is a custom game browser that will let players take part in various custom games.

In a new blog post, developer 343 Industries showed off some mockup images of the custom game browser and discussed how it will work. The custom game browser is tentatively slated to come to Halo: MCC with the launch or after Halo 4’s release on PC later this year. You can see the mockup images below, but note that it is subject to change. The custom game browser is not yet working in the game, but the teams are working on it.

“One of our key goals for the CGB, is to allow players to locate games you want to play quickly and easily so you can get into game fast without a headache of too many options and menus,” 343 said. “To accomplish this, we are going to keep the tool simple.”

You’ll find the custom game browser from the multiplayer menu screen, and from there, you can make other choices including Quickmatch, Browse, Filter, and Create. Quickmatch takes you into a custom game that the matchmaking algorithm chooses. The Browse selection opens up another menu from which you can view the custom games currently in rotation and choose one, while the Filter option does just that–it lets you filter which gametypes you want to play and which games you want to play. The Create option allows you to make a custom game that will then live inside the browser.

343 has released mockups for the Filter and Browser screens, but again, remember that all of this is subject to change. There are no mockups available yet for the other options.

The custom game browser is just one of many new features scheduled for MCC this year. Others include crossplay, input-based matchmaking, server region selection, mouse & keyboard support on Xbox One, and file sharing on PC, among many others.

In other Halo news, Microsoft has delayed Halo Infinite. The game was scheduled to be a launch title for the Xbox Series X, but it’s now slated for release sometime in 2021.

Charles Barkley has never been in an NBA 2K game, including this year’s NBA 2K21, and now we know why. In a video that has been circulating online, Barkley explains that he does not feature in the games because he’s disappointed at how little they pay some of the legacy players who feature–not because he needs the money himself, but because it could be a good revenue source for older players with less money.

The video seems to be from a recorded online fan Q&A that Barkley took part in, with the relevant question coming from a young boy named Nick, who has uploaded the video to his own YouTube. It’s pretty charming. This actually happened back in July, but went largely unnoticed until the YouTube recommendation algorithm started bringing it to people’s attention over the weekend.

Asked why he’s not in 2K, Barkley responds “That’s a great question. I’m asked that question a lot.”

Speaking about the benefits for current players in comparison to older, retired NBA stars, Barkley explained his disappointment at how 2K compensates them: “they pay the guys chump change.” He’s referring to the generations that came before him, who were paid far less and are much less likely to be be wealthy now.

“Just giving me some money doesn’t help anybody,” Barkley says, acknowledging that he’s already well-off. But he says that 2K calls him every year, and that he says he’ll do the game if they ever agree to pay the older, retired players featured in the game $1 million per year.

“I’m not talking about old retired players like me…there’s players older than me who didn’t make any money,” Barkley says.

Barkley has previously spoken out against 2K for their policies. In 2016, he said the following: “I’m not trying to be a pig or greedy. They should donate the money to the retired players. If they would give a million dollars a year to retired players union, they can use my likeness.”

Barkley is no stranger to the world of video games. Barkley: Shut Up And Jam started a brief series of street basketball games on the SNES and Genesis, before Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden took the series in a very different direction over a decade later.

The NBA 2K games, meanwhile, make a huge amount of money.

Polybius is one of the greatest urban legends in video games, and it has persisted for decades despite no evidence of the arcade cabinet ever existing … aside from an homage bearing the same name. As the story goes, a machine from a company called Sinneslöschen was placed in a single arcade in Portland, Oregon in the early ’80s, but it was quickly removed after putting players into a hypnotic trance. Despite the game not being real, Numskull Designs took it upon itself to create a quarter-scale Polybius arcade cabinet to honor the mythos.

Created by the same company behind other quarter-scale arcade cabinets such as Galaga, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders, the Polybius cabinet’s design is based on internet images and rumors that have been swirling for years. The bubble-like lettering can be seen in “leaked” images, and its simple and imposing design seems like something a government agency would create when looking to brainwash people into becoming sleeper agents or whatever else conspiracy theorists have dreamed up.

Numskull Designs didn’t create a game from scratch for the Polybius cabinet. Instead, it displays a startup screen bearing the Sinneslöschen name and then plays a series of mesmerizing images and sounds. It also sports 10 USB ports on the back so that you can use it to power any other quarter-arcade machines you have in your collection.

Despite the small size, the Polybius cabinet features a full LED backlit marquee, a built-in speaker with volume control, and a full-color display. The Kickstarter campaign is currently a little more than 70% funded with a few weeks remaining (it interested me enough to back it) and rewards include the cabinet itself, a hat, and enamel pins. You can check out the rest of the lineup at the official Numskull website. A special 40^th Anniversary Edition Pac-Man cabinet is also available.

Please enter your date of birth to view this video

By clicking ‘enter’, you agree to GameSpot’s
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

enter

Fast & Furious 9 has been pushed back to April 2021. That’s a long wait to find out what’s next for Dom’s family, and to finally learn how Han survived Deckard Shaw’s assassination attempt. It’s also a long time to wait to see the next evolution of the franchise’s trademark outlandish set pieces… set pieces which will surely reach new (ahem) heights when the Fast franchise goes to outer space, which is sounding more and more likely lately.

This series began in relatively straightforward fashion with a simple Point Break style plot in The Fast & the Furious. There was some impressive stunt driving and a few grappling guns but otherwise the proceedings were mostly plausible. From there, however, every successive entry upped the ante, adding ever more improbable tech, stunts and plot twists. Just a few examples include Owen Shaw’s ridiculous flip car, Brian running up the side of a falling bus, and Letty’s soap opera amnesia.

At this point the gang that started as simple thieves and street racers has now engaged in high-speed battles with helicopters, a tank, a drone, a submarine and a cyborg. They’ve stolen hundreds of millions of dollars, become folk heroes wherever they went and been on both sides of covert government operations. One might say it’s been a wild ride. And again, outer space might be next.

To tide you over until the next installment drops in 2021, we’ve put together a gallery of the most ridiculous stunts, silliest plot threads, and inexplicable character choices from all nine movies so far, including the latest spinoff, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. We’ll just ignore Fast & Furious Crossroads…

Massive spoilers for all Fast & Furious movies…

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-dumbest-moments-from-the-fast-furious-movies&captions=true”]

What are your favorite dumb moments from this bonkers franchise? Let us know in the comments!

And for even more dumb stuff, check out the dumbest Transformers movie moments!

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/f9-fast-furious-9-official-trailer-1″]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Would you like to know more? Follow @FireballMcPhan on Twitter. Service guarantees citizenship.

Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox Series S will not run Xbox One X Enhanced versions of backwards compatible games, and will instead run the Xbox One S versions of Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles with other beneficial features.

As reported by VGC, while the Xbox Series S won’t run the Xbox One X Enhanced versions of Xbox One and Xbox 360 games, it will still be a step above the Xbox One S with “improved texture filtering, higher and more consistent framr rates, faster load times, and Auto HDR.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/08/xbox-series-s-world-premiere-reveal-trailer”]

“Xbox Series S was designed to be the most affordable next generation console and play next generation games at 1440P at 60fps,” A Microsoft spokesperson said. “To deliver the highest quality backwards compatible experience consistent with the developer’s original intent, the Xbox Series S runs the Xbox One S version of backward compatible games while applying improved texture filtering, higher and more consistent frame rates, faster load times and Auto HDR.”

When a game has been Xbox One X Enhanced, it means the developer has made improvements to a standard Xbox One game, including higher resolutions, faster framerates and/or improved textures.

This all shouldn’t be too surprising, as the Xbox One X can run games up to 4K, while the Xbox Series S can run games at 1440p at up to 120 FPS. However, the Xbox Series S does support 4K upscaling for games.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/11/why-xbox-series-s-game-pass-is-microsofts-secret-weapon-next-gen-console-watch”]

Additionally, as first reported by Digital Foundry, the Xbox Series S also has less RAM than the Xbox One X – 10 GB vs 12 GB – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t upsides to this new next-gen system.

“It may be be running backwards compatible games in Xbox One [S] mode, but because the GPU is so much more capable, and knowing what we know about how backwards compatibility works, you should actually still be able to clean up performance issues,” Digital Foundry’s John Linneman said. “So games that maybe struggled on Xbox One S – either the dynamic resolution was overly-aggressive, with slowdown and things like that – conceivably they could actually run noticeably smoother on this machine.”

Furthermore, the Xbox Series S also boasts DirectX Raytracing, 4K streaming media playback, variable rate shading and refresh rate, and much more.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will both be released on November 10, 2020, and will cost $499 and $299, respectively. Pre-orders for both consoles begin on September 22, 2020.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=confirmed-xbox-series-x-games&captions=true”]

For on the Xbox Series S, check out the leaked “virtual press briefing” that was part of the original reveal plan for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, the first gameplay footage shown on a Series S, and 56 comparison shots of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.