A new update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's Special Edition has arrived on PC. As detailed on Bethesda's website, the 1.3 update includes stability and performance improvements. It also fixes a problem where slow time effects "weren't behaving properly," while 144hz displays should have better support with this update applied.
Finally, the update addresses a problem where players were unable to log into Bethesda.net. This update was released widely today on PC following a beta version that launched on Steam in late November. Update 1.3 will come to consoles later, Bethesda said, though it didn't say if there are going to be any console-specific fixes/improvements/tweaks. Skyrim Special Edition 1.3 Update
General stability and performance improvements
Fixed an issue where slow time effects weren't behaving properly
Better support for 144hz displays
Fixed issue with being unable to log into Bethesda.net
The Import/Export expansion for GTA V's multiplayer mode, GTA Online, is out now, Rockstar Games announced today. The developer also published a launch trailer--check it out below. As announced previously, Import/Export is all about stealing cars and further fleshing out your criminal enterprise beyond the Further Adventures in Finance and Felony add-on. The Import/Export expansion also adds a new Executive Garage where you can store up to 60 vehicles that you've acquired by unlawful means. As a boss, the members of your Organization will be tipped off to cars they can steal--here's what the map of this looks like:
"A range of buyers are always ready to shell out for your newly acquired inventory," reads a line from the expansion's description. "Use the Ad-Hawk Autos network from your Vehicle Warehouse to connect with buyers and deliver the goods. Private buyers are straightforward and will accept vehicles at stock spec but if you want to increase your margins, appeal to Showroom and Specialist Dealers who are seeking modded vehicles and are willing to pay extra for them." As you steal more vehicles, you'll unlock missions where you can boost "Special" vehicles. As you'd expect, these missions won't be so easy. These "co-op based efforts ... will require your Organization to deal with a range of SecuroServ operations and plenty of vehicular mayhem," Rockstar said. "Completing Special Vehicle missions opens up the ability to purchase these vehicles at a special SecuroServ trade price, and owning specific Special Vehicles also unlocks new VIP Work. These unique modes of transportation range from the armed and the armored, to the amphibious and the airborne, and will all be stored in the lower level of your Vehicle Warehouse." There are eight new Special vehicles available (see the full list below), while two new Super-class cars (the Pegassi Tempesta and Ocelot Penetrator) are added with this update. Additionally, new upgrades including the Principe Diablous Custom and Annis Elegy Retro Custom are available.
Import/Export Special Vehicles
BF Ramp Buggy
JoBuilt Phantom Edge
Karin Technical Aqua
Nagasaki Blazer Aqua
Brute Armored Boxville
MTL Wastelander
Imponte Ruiner 2000
Coil Rocket Voltic
What's more, a new Adversary mode called Turf Wars comes to GTA Online with the Import/Export update. Here is the official description: "Two to four teams strap themselves into a range of speedy vehicles and compete to control tiles. Drive over each tile to claim it with your team's color while defending your turf from your foes, all while picking up strategically-located rockets in this new vehicular-themed Adversary Mode." You can earn double RP and GTA$ in Turf Wars.
Additionally, the Import/Export update allows players to customize their character's appearance in a major way, it sounds like. "You've changed your clothes, your tats, your hair, your car, your friends--but you've still got that nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Now with Import/Export, you'll be able to change your character's appearance by giving yourself the mother of all makeovers…" Rockstar teased. This update also adds new Stunt props to the Rockstar Editor's Director mode, while the ability to form a party and join a GTA Online session together has been added on PS4. Further still, Rockstar announced a big sale on a number of items. Now until December 19, there will be discounts on bullet-proof tires, car armor, body armor, and all ammo. Additionally, the SuperVolito and SuperVolito carbon helicopters are discounted by 25 percent. Import/Export, like all of GTA Online's other add-ons, is completely free. It's available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
From rage-filled Barbarians with glorious mustaches to pyromaniac wizards, raise your own army and lead your clan to victory! Build your village to fend off raiders, battle against millions of players worldwide, and forge a powerful clan with others to destroy enemy clans. PLEASE NOTE! Clash of Clans is free to download and play, however some game items can also be purchased for real money. If you do not want to use this feature, please set up password protection for purchases in the settings of your Google Play Store app. Also, under our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, you must be at least 13 years of age to play or download Clash of Clans. A network connection is also required. FEATURES ●Build your village into an unbeatable fortress ●Raise your own army of Barbarians, Archers, Hog Riders, Wizards, Dragons and other mighty fighters ●Battle with players worldwide and take their Trophies ●Join together with other players to form the ultimate Clan ●Fight against rival Clans in epic Clan Wars ●Build 18 unique units with multiple levels of upgrades ●Discover your favorite attacking army from countless combinations of troops, spells, Heroes and Clan reinforcements ●Defend your village with a multitude of Cannons, Towers, Mortars, Bombs, Traps and Walls ●Fight against the Goblin King in a campaign through the realm PLAYER REVIEWS Clash of Clans proudly announces over five million five star reviews on Google Play. WHAT'S NEW One of the Biggest Clash Updates - Ever! • Town Hall 11, new Hero Grand Warden & new defense Eagle Artillery! • New troop levels, defense levels, and Clan Spell donation • Revamped Shield system that lets you attack whenever you want! • Bigger League Bonuses, Trophy offers, and so much more!
Following the recent demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes in India. Steam, one of the largest online marketplaces for the sale of games and even hardware has in addition to debit cards, credit cards, and bitcoin, now supports net banking, digital wallets and even cash on delivery in India.
These local payment options are handled by Novaplay, a gaming company started by e-sports firm Nodwin.
With the ESL (Electronic Sports League) purchasing a stake in Nodwin, it should come as no surprise that the company is trying to establish itself in the nascent Indian digital downloads market through NovaPlay in addition to e-sports.
Net banking support is extensive, with the banks such as HDFC and ICICI along with SBI, Bank of India, and Standard Chartered now listed as direct payment options on Steam. Some such as Punjab National Bank and DCB even allow the use of corporate accounts. Oddly, though, Bank of Baroda appears to be usable only if you have a corporate account. Perhaps this is a sign that this feature launched prematurely. Furthermore, there's no change in prices to reflect the 15 percent service tax on digital downloads sold by companies outside India that is applicable from December 1 either.
How to buy games on Steam in India using cash on delivery
After adding an item to your cart on Steam, pick Cash on Delivery as a payment option.
You will be redirected to a page run by Novaplay — Valve’s partner in India. Here you can put your billing and shipping information.
When you enter your details, a Nova executive will get in touch to collect the cash amount.
Your order will be emailed to you within 72 hours of receiving the payment
If you were thinking of using this to offload old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, think again. The site clearly states that in accordance with the demonetization drive it will not accept old notes.
Keep in mind that much like the presence of other local payment options such as net banking and digital wallets, it’s very much work in progress at the moment.
Hopefully, everything falls in place in time for the Steam Winter sale!
With Minecon 2016 (an annual convention for all things Minecraft) over, Mojang announced that the game will have full cross-play support between consoles, PC, and mobiles. What this means is, you could play with friends even if you're on different platforms.
But, there's a catch. In order to do this you'll need to be subscribed to Minecraft Realms, which is the company's paid subscription service. Currently the official site lists Minecraft Realms starting from $3.99 for two friends and $7.99 for 10. It hasn't been updated yet to reflect this announcement just yet.
Minecraft brings everybody together, including competing devices! Realms supports cross-platform play, & there's a free trial! #MINECON2016pic.twitter.com/oyHyiHgWt0
Furthermore, we're clueless as to if platform holders like Sony would agree to this. Reason being, Rocket League which allows for cross-platform play cannot do so until Sony agrees.
With a movie in the works, VR support, mod support for a plethora of devices, and selling around 10,000 copies a day, it seems like the hype around Minecraft is far from over.
It still remains popular seven years after its initial release, with children's and adults alike. The average Minecraft player is between the ages of 28 and 29, according to Microsoft, and women constitute 40 percent of the playing demographic.
It has sold 73 million units in total, and stands third behind Tetris and Wii Sports in the all-time list for best-selling video games. Microsoft bought the game's intellectual property and the studio behind it - Mojang - in 2014 for $2.5 billion (roughly Rs. 15,375 crores). Part of the game's appeal has been the use of extensive third-party mods which allow players to customise it as they wish, or build anything from their dreams.
A photo posted by plz comments in english (@sonic_games_uae) on
Thanks to this several Indian retailers are expected to bring in copies of the game as early as Monday, September 26 at a price not too dissimilar to Rs. 3,999 (your mileage will vary from store to store) for which it is available for pre-order on Amazon India.
For the record, FIFA 17 is only officially available at Amazon India from September 29 - the actual release date of the game, the reasons for which we’ve covered in-depth here. This is par for the course considering FIFA 16 and FIFA 15 saw independent game stores bringing in the game earlier than EA’s own partners in the country.
We've seen this happen with The Division, Far Cry Primal and Street Fighter V, Indian merchants with contacts in the UAE bringing in copies through parallel import channels. Prior to this games like Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, The Order: 1886, and Just Cause 3 were some big name titles that found themselves available locally prior to release - all of which were stock meant for the Middle East. While three days might not seem much for many a casual gamer, for FIFA fans it gives them the headstart in mastering FIFA 17's many nuances, and there are plenty.
For what it's worth, its also said that FIFA 17 is to be a step down from last year's game. While there's fun to be had in FIFA 17, it's nowhere close to what it should be. Some fundamental changes to the moment to moment gameplay are detrimental to the overall experience and The Journey mode falls flat. Rather, it’s padded in all the wrong places. FIFA 17 isn’t the best effort from EA but it isn’t the worst either. There is a better football game this year, and it isn’t from EA.
The Xbox One S has been out for barely a month but that hasn't stopped Microsoft to announce a Gears of War 4 special edition console. But the sci-fi shooter isn't the only game getting a new Xbox One S variant. Today the company announced that Battlefield 1 will receive not one, but two limited edition consoles.
First up is the Storm Grey Special Edition console. It comes in the aforementioned colour along with a matching controller. It includes Battlefield 1 Standard Edition, a month of EA Access, and a 500GB hard drive. It's limited to the US only and exclusively at Microsoft Stores and Wal-Mart for $299 (around Rs. 20,000)from November 1.
If you need a higher capacity Special Edition Xbox One S and reside in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe there's the Xbox One S Battlefield 1 Special Edition Bundle (1TB), which features a military green console with matching stand and controller, a full-game download of Battlefield 1 Early Enlister Deluxe Edition, the Hellfighter Pack, Red Baron Pack, Lawrence of Arabia Pack, a new visual appearance of the Behemoths, five Battlepacks and one month of EA Access all for $349 (approximately Rs. 23,300). It will be available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand starting October 18 and in Europe starting October 13.
And this is not all. There's also a third bundle. It includes a month of EA Access, Battlefield 1 Standard Edition, and the usual white Xbox One S 500GB console for $299 (roughly Rs. 20,000). It will be available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand from October 21 and in Europe from October 13. Microsoft states that all these consoles come with a digital copy of the game, except those bought at GameStop.
Although the Xbox One S has no release date for India, enterprising independent retailers have managed to procure the 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB standard editions of the console. Starting from Rs. 30,000 it's a far cry from Microsoft's official pricing on the original Xbox One that starts at Rs. 34,990.
More so when you consider that unlike the Xbox 360, the Xbox One's hardware is a lot more robust. India has received every Xbox One bundle available internationally such as FIFA 16, Assassin's Creed, Quantum Break, and even the Forza 6 Limited Edition Xbox One console. While Microsoft India has no plans of launching the Xbox One S in India, we won't be surprised if it changes its tune in time for these bundles.
If you're playing any of Blizzard's games on Windows PCs, you can now stream your gameplay via Facebook Live - the social network's live streaming video feature. This means you can show off to the world heated matches of Overwatch or even intense raids in World of Warcraft aside from the likes of Diablo, Starcraft, and Hearthstone. Amusingly the news comes from Blizzard, via its YouTube channel.
"Blizzard Streaming is now available in the Americas, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, with global access coming soon," reads the description of the video on the company's YouTube video.
While this partnership was originally announced in June, it's finally live now. Although it's limited to Windows PCs at the moment, you can expect Mac support soon enough. Dubbed as Blizzard Streaming, it's accessible once you update the Blizzard client on Windows. A camera icon will be available. On clicking it for the first time you're prompted to allow the client to share to Facebook on your behalf. You can then choose who can see your live stream.
This marks yet another update to Facebook Live. Earlier in the week, it was made available to Indian users and soon after, verified accounts could make use of two-person broadcasting.
With Facebook Live partnering Blizzard, it will be interesting to see which other gaming companies it works with next. As for gamers themselves, Facebook Live is just another option in addition to the likes of Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Hitbox to name a few.
With the PC version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Konami proved it could craft a fantastic game for a platform that's long been ignored by the company. If you were expecting Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 (PES 2017) also from Konami to be as good on PC, think again.
It's routine for the company to hold off performance related information pertaining to the PC version of PES. Although that hasn't stopped gamers from clamouring for details, taking to Twitter to voice their concerns.
Adam Bhatti, PES Global Product and Brand Manager tweeted this to several fans asking about the game's PC port:
@CWChap@omario2013sabir@AsimTanvir we've answered many times, it's a shame you haven't seen it. Do not expect it same level as PS4/XBone.
In the past this meant that the PC version would be a hybrid of sorts, sitting square in the middle of last generation consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, and the current generation's PS4 and Xbox One. While it's unclear if this is the case now, Bhatti's reply hinted that it might.
This appears to be par for the course. Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 was subject to the same treatment.
"It won't reach PS4 and Xbox One level but the future of the series, we're looking at that right now," Bhatti told Gadgets 360 at the time, stating he was aware of the series' rabid PC user base. "I know the fans really want it to be on par with the PS4 and Xbox One and we'll get there, we're aiming for that. It's one of those things where we have to I guess, being a smaller team than some of our competition, we have to prioritise sometimes because we don't have the resources and we'll definitely get there with the PC version, it'll be on par soon."
This year though isn't "soon" enough. Hopefully PES 2018 will be different what with Bhatti "planning to work on PC next year."
PES 2017 is out on September 15 for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and PC.
Until Pokemon Go makes it way to countries outside of Australia, New Zealand, and the US, a vast majority of eager fans have little choice but to resort to obtaining the game through unofficial means, which means downloading the APK file. It's something we've outlined in this handy guide for Android users.
In the event you've obtained Pokemon Go through other sites, there's a chance it might not be the right APK. According to security software company Proofpoint, a malicious version of the game has been uploaded to various APK download sites.
"This specific APK was modified to include the malicious remote access tool (RAT) called DroidJack (also known as SandroRAT), which would virtually give an attacker full control over a victim's phone. The DroidJack RAT has been described in the past, including by Symantec and Kaspersky. Although we have not observed this malicious APK in the wild, it was uploaded to a malicious file repository service at 09:19:27 UTC on July 7, 2016, less than 72 hours after the game was officially released in New Zealand and Australia," the firm said.
This means that there's chance that the Pokemon Go APK you downloaded is a fake, and could give anonymous individuals complete access to your phone. Here's how you can tell if the Pokemon Go APK you've downloaded is RAT-free.
Method 1:
The Secure Hash Algorithm or SHA is a string of characters unique to specific data. It's a way to check if a file has been altered or not by acting like a signature for a text or data file.
To calculate the SHA-256 hash of your Pokemon Go APK this is what you need to do:
Choose the Pokemon Go APK from your Download folder.
Hit Calculate.
If safe you should get: 8bf2b0865bef06906cd854492dece202482c04ce9c5e881e02d2b6235661ab67
At the time of posting this, no updated versions of Pokemon Go have been released so it is safe to assume any other SHA-256 hash belongs to a malicious APK.
As per Proofpoint, the SHA-256 of one of the malicious APKs is 15db22fd7d961f4d4bd96052024d353b3ff4bd135835d2644d94d74c925af3c4
Method 2:
On your Android device go to Settings -> Apps -> Pokemon Go
View the Permissions section.
Here's what it should be asking permission for:
And here's what one of the malicious Pokemon Go APK asks for:
As you can see, it would ask for access to your call logs, record audio, check your browsing history, and even send messages and make calls on your behalf. Scary.
Hopefully Niantic and The Pokemon Company rectify this by making Pokemon Go available to all regions soon. Till then though I'd advise caution prior to downloading.
While Pokemon Go is officially available in Australia, New Zealand, and the US, it's yet to make its way to other nations such as India and Japan. This has resulted in a slew of fans the world over to sideload the game. Well, at least on Android.
The impact of these players, in addition to those in countries where Pokemon Go is available, is that the game has been unplayable for a vast number of people due to its servers unable to deal with the load. So much so that developer Niantic who made Pokemon Go along with Nintendo and The Pokemon Company is delaying its release in other markets till this is fixed.
"We thought the game would be popular, but it obviously struck a nerve," Niantic CEO John Hanke said to Business Insider, stating that the launch in other countries has been "paused until we're comfortable". Despite the rabid interest the franchise has generated over the years, something Niantic is aware of, it has been caught by surprise.
Earlier this week, the game was discovered on Australia and New Zealand app stores. Usually, most developers use these markets to test out certain aspects of the game such as microtransaction prices and certain design elements. We've seen that with titles from other big name publishers like Rovio and EA. Chances are, the same applies here. The US launch seems like a knee-jerk reaction and server overloads seem like a result of this. The fact that the game is easily accessible on Android for those not in the aforementioned markets simply compounds matters.
In tribute to the UEFA Euro 2016 championship, Facebook has introduced a new football (aka soccer) game hidden as an Easter egg inside its Messenger app. Called Keepy Up, users need to enter the football emoji to start the game.
To activate the game, you need to be running the latest version of Facebook Messenger for Android or iOS. Then, just send the football emoji in any conversation inside the Facebook Messenger app. Tap on the emoji after sending it, and Messenger opens the game up automatically. The challenge is to keep the football from touching the ground. The game keeps your best score intact for the next time you use the emoji and want to replay.
The interface is simple, with the ball bouncing about the white screen, more vigorously as the level advances. Users can easily exit the game, and back to their conversation whenever they feel like. There's no pausing the game though, you'll have to end it to continue chatting.
Facebook had done a similar trick in March with its Messenger Basketball game. It got activated in the same way, but needed the basketball emoji for starting it. Facebook also claimed that the game had received 300 million plays in just one week.
Facebook Messenger for Android recently also announced SMS support. The Android app now supports SMS messaging bringing voice chats, emojis, and location sharing to SMS messaging. The chat service recently also introduced as many as 1,500 new emojis into the app. Several emojis dedicated to women in different roles were also included. Notably, it even standardised emojis on all of its platforms.
The new game is being rolled out globally to all users. The update should have hit the App Store and Google Play in your region, but if it hasn't, it will soon.
