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CCP says Facebook acquisition of Oculus Rift won't change plans for EVE: Valkyrie launch

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Ian Birnbaum at

There have been a lot of reactions to the purchase of Oculus VR by Facebook in the last 24 hours, much of it polemic and apocalyptic. Our own reactions ranged from guarded optimism to cautious disappointment, while Minecraft creator Notch immediately canned an Oculus-focused version of Minecraft. EVE: Online developer CCP, on the other hand, has expressed support for the purchase and say that release plans for the VR starfighter game EVE: Valkyrie won’t be changing.


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Titanfall now forces cheaters to play with other cheaters

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Emanuel Maiberg at

Respawn Entertainment thinks that cheaters deserve each other. The developer recently announced that it’s been collecting data since Titanfall launched, but that as of March 21, it has started enforcing bans using FairFight, which Battlefield and other Electronic Arts games use as well. Interestingly, rather than just locking cheaters out of the game, Respawn is forcing them to play with other banned cheaters.


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Goat Simulator trailer riffs on Dead Island, but with goats

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Tim Clark at

It's hard not to think that Goat Simulator's ascent from cheese dream inception to being one of the most talked about PC releases of the year owes a lot to just its name. Because you might think, in the same way SimCity theoretically lets you simulate a city (yes, I know), so the name Goat Simulator suggests it will simulate, hopefully in painstaking detail, the life and times of one of the world's lesser loved ungulates.


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Rust diary, part 3: "What happened was: I killed you"

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Christopher Livingston at

Here's a tip: don't run around at night with a lit torch or you'll get shot. I know this because I once ran around at night with a lit torch and got shot. That's why, more recently, when I was alone and lost in the middle of the night, I only lit my torch for a second to take a quick look. Here's another tip: don't light your torch even for a second to take look around or you'll get shot. I did. For a second. And I got shot.


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Wolfenstein: The New Order Panzerhund Edition comes with everything but the game

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Emanuel Maiberg at

Today, Bethesda announced Wolfenstein: The New Order Panzerhund Edition, which includes almost everything you’d want in a fancy, pricey special edition of a game. For $100, you’ll get a footlocker-style box containing an assortment of maps, case files, and an x-ray. You’ll also get the obligatory figurine, an 8-inch, hand painted statue of a robotic dog, which you’ve probably seen in trailers and other marketing. The only thing missing in the special edition is the game itself.


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How we capture 4K screenshots and video on the Large Pixel Collider

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PC Gamer at

Wes and Tyler reveal the secrets of how they record ludicrously high resolution video and screenshots on the Large Pixel Collider.


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X-COM creator Julian Gollop holds Reddit AMA: "Indie gaming is the most exciting thing I've seen"

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Omri Petitte at

For strategy gamers, Julian Gollop is a name of hallowed reverence. His Belt of Achievements includes pre-millenium classics such as Laser Squad and Chaos. Most notably, he created the X-COM series of turn-based tactical alien fragging and directed 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense—widely considered one of the best strategy games ever made. The franchise spent some time in the engineering bay before returning in 2012 with Firaxis' excellent Enemy Unknown, but Gollop has lately turned to crowdsourced funding with a small team to develop his multiplayer wizard-em-up reboot Chaos Reborn. In an AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread on Reddit last weekend, Gollop answered questions on his take of the current state of strategy games, alternate funding, and the rise of early access.


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Find out why The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter is so ridiculously good-looking

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Tim Clark at

The short answer is photogrammetry, a method of scanning photographs (a *lot* of photographs) to create and texture highly-detailed 3D objects without any of the repetition associated with common video game techniques. A longer, but far more edifying, explanation can be found over at The Astronauts' tumblr…


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Molyneux on thriving indie scene: "Enjoy this time, because it won't last

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Emanuel Maiberg at

Peter Molyneux is known for grand statements, some of which turn out to be incorrect later. His most recently stated opinion is about the rising popularity of smaller indie games. Speaking with CVG, Molyneux said that we should “enjoy this time, because it won’t last.”


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EA CEO Andrew Wilson wants to treat Star Wars games like Batman Arkham series

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Patrick Carlson at

Since Electronic Arts and Disney agreed last year to team up and produce games in the Star Wars universe, we've haven't heard much about what they have in mind other than a new take on Battlefront. That being said, a new interview with EA CEO Andrew Wilson at CNN Money makes it clear the publisher plans to go its own way rather than tie its games to the stories being developed for the next set of Star Wars films.


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Titanfall's future game modes will be free, Zampella confirms

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Phil Savage at

With Titanfall now out (and good), the Respawn team are working on the next updates for their pilot-'n-robot buddy war game. Some of those updates will form DLC, but not all of the planned future content will be hiding behind a paid mini-pack. Last night, Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella confirmed that future multiplayer modes will be released for free, and not tied up as part of expansions.


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How to teach an AI parkour

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Tom Francis at

When all you expected to be able to do in a third person action game was press a button to jump over a gap, 'traversal' in level design wasn't that hard. Adding the odd bit of scenery you can vault over isn't much harder: level designers place markers that tell your character they can vault, and what animation to play to make it look right.

But full free-running over complex terrain has become an expected feature, and the job of manually marking which bits of a level you can climb, vault or scramble over has become dauntingly huge. At GDC in San Francisco last week, Ben Sunshine-Hill of Havok explained a solution they're offering to developers as middleware: AI.


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Deus Ex short film finally released, brings Human Revolution to life

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Phil Savage at

A short minute-long teaser for the Deus Ex: Human Revolution fan film was released back in December 2012. Fifteen months later, and you can finally see the short film's extra eleven minutes. They contain improbable hair, piercing arm-spikes, and the non-standard use of a cigar clipper. As was the case back then, it's still a brilliantly realised recreation of the looks and feel of the game.


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Cosmonautica mixes trading, life sims and funky music in space

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Phil Savage at

On a platform where Euro Truck Simulator 2 can be celebrated as a compelling mix of trade and A-roads, you don't need the romanticism of space to sell your economic simulation. Still, it doesn't hurt - especially when you're also simulating the close-quarters claustrophobia of your spaceship's crew. That's Cosmonautica's aim: a mixture of space management, trading and combat, that, if this trailer is anything to go by, is all backed up by some cheery tunes.


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Trials Fusion trailer shows flips, tricks and bails

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Phil Savage at

Let's hide away from the strange new reality of virtual reality, and into the escapist fantasy of a silly score-attack video game. A new Trials is on the way, and I couldn't be more excited. Many were the hour spent swearing at the warehouses of Trials 2: Second Edition, and many more words were cursed at the open-air obstacles of Trials Gold. For the upcoming Trials Fusion, things take a faintly futuristic turn. Rather than just being more Trials - as fine a thing as that would be - a new FMX trick system will provide plenty more opportunities for foolhardy failure.


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Facebook buys Oculus VR — PC Gamer debates the pros and cons

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PC Gamer at

Less than two years ago, we were describing the Oculus as something that began as a “garage project.” Today, Facebook has bought Oculus VR for $2 billion in stock and cash, surprising all and horrifying some. Here in the PC Gamer office, we all have our own theories and thoughts on what Facebook’s involvement means for the future of VR gaming—and how the deal will impact PC gaming as a whole. Here are our reactions to the Oculus purchase, written shortly after the deal was announced.


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Notch cancels Minecraft Oculus Rift deal: "Facebook creeps me out"

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Cory Banks at

The news that Facebook will acquire Oculus VR for $2 billion in a combined cash/stock deal has, understandably, taken over the internet. Everyone on Twitter is posting reactions—some are excited, many are shocked, and almost everyone is surprised. Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson has weighed in on the news by canceling talks for an upcoming, official version of Minecraft for the Oculus Rift.


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Facebook to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion

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Tyler Wilde at

Facebook has reached a "definitive agreement" to buy Oculus VR for around $2 billion. Oculus is the clear leader in virtual reality headsets—only recently challenged by Sony's Project Morpheus—and though it hasn't yet released a consumer product, the company announced last week that the second version of its Oculus Rift Development Kit will ship this summer.


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Smite launches out of beta, asks you to punch gods in the face

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Omri Petitte at

The MOBA genre already has colossal communities in both League of Legends and Dota 2, but what's missing is an arena where the greatest gods of mythology toss magic fireworks at each other and roast a couple thousand mortal minions. Enter Smite, Hi-Rez Studios' free-to-play god-on-god rumbler, which launches in full today after a lengthy beta period and is available for all to download on its official website.


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Valve explains how CS:GO became the second most-played game on Steam

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Evan Lahti at

One of three talks Valve delivered at the Game Developers Conference last week was “Building the Content that Drives the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Economy,” a session by Technical Artist Bronwen Grimes. Grimes’ presentation mainly focused on how Valve developed its method for mostly-automating the creation of new weapon skins that roll out regularly in updates like Operation Phoenix and Winter Offensive.


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