Page 3145 – Capsule Computers

-

February 15, 2016

Earn Your Ticket to the Call of Duty Championship – Compete in the Challenge Division

Whether it’s at home with your friends, online with players around the world, or centre stage at the Call of Duty Championship—competition is part of Call of Duty’s DNA. This year with the start of the Call of Duty World League, we set out to take Call of Duty eSports to the next level with year-round competition, world-class online broadcasts, and a massive $3 million prize pool. But from the beginning, we knew that the Call of Duty World League needed to be about more than just the pros—it needed to give fans and amateur players around the world a chance to compete at the highest level. With that spirit, we’re excited announce the first series of events in the Call of Duty World League Challenge Division.

The Challenge Division will offer amateur players outside of the Pro Division a path to the Call of Duty Championship. At the end of the season, based on performance through the year, 80 teams worldwide will be invited to the Championship Qualifiers. In addition to the Call of Duty Championship Qualifiers, top performing teams in Challenge Division events in February and March can make it to the Stage 1 Relegation tournament where they can take on Pro Division teams and earn their place in the CWL Pro Division and maybe their own guaranteed spot in the Call of Duty Championships.

With so much at stake, we’re pleased to announce the first wave of Challenge Division events! To participate in a Challenge Division event in your region, click on the links below for sign up instructions.

ANZ Events

In the Australia/New Zealand region, there will be three online events for Stage 1:

USA Events

Starting last weekend, February 12th – 14th, North America saw its first LAN event at UMG South Carolina, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Players were competing for their share of $100k and all of the action was available to view live from the Call of Duty Twitch channel.

In North America there will be four online tournaments, each featuring a $25,000 prize pool. Both Pro Division and amateur teams can compete in these open events. In addition to the prize money, amateur teams can earn World League points toward the Pro Division Relegation tournament and Call of Duty Championship qualification. Here are the dates for the events:

European Events

Europe will also have a LAN event in EGL 15, taking place March 5th – 6th at the Truman Brewery in London. $25,000 in prize money and World League points will both be on the line. Teams can also sign up for the Oxent LAN taking place in Paris on May 6-8 with $50,000 of prize money and World League points for a chance to gain entry to the Call of Duty Championship Qualifier.

In Europe, there will also be three online events in Stage 1, each with $5,000 prize pools. Again, all teams are welcome to compete, with players competing for World League points and their shot at the Call of Duty Championship:

—

Keep up with the latest Call of Duty competitive news by following @CODWorldLeague.

The Martian Review

Mateja Simovic

-

February 14, 2016

0

The Martian
Studio: Scott Free Productions, Kinberg Genre, TSG Entertainment
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Format: DVD (Reviewed), Blu-Ray
Release Date: 2nd October, 2015
Price: $39.99 – Available Here

Overview

Hard science fiction is something of a niche genre when it comes to cinema viewing. For whatever reason, filmmakers and studios don’t appear to be interested or comfortable with working in the realm of scientific possibility without resorting to some manner of fantastical elements. Last year two new entries into this niche came out, much to my delight. One of these entries was The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott, which came out and blew audiences away as a resounding critical and popular success. Unfortunately, I missed the theatrical release of the film proper but have gotten a chance to review its DVD release.

Does it hold up on the transition to the small screen? Probably, but you should read on to check.

Story

The story opens with up on Mars with a focus on the astronaut team of Ares III. Part way through their mission to conduct experiments on the Martian surface, mission control reports that a strong storm is headed their way. The commander makes the decision to evacuate the team and scrub the mission. On the way to the rocket which would take them back to their spaceship in orbit, one of the astronauts gets impaled by debris and blown away in the storm. Assuming that their comrade is dead, the rest of the team escape and mourn over their loss.

Unbeknownst to them; the forsaken astronaut, Mark Watney, turns out to be very much alive and stranded on the red planet. After tending to his wounds and getting his bearings, it dawns on him that unless drastic action is taken, he will not survive to be rescued. He immediately goes about (in his words) “science-ing the shit out of this” to overcome his limited supplies, shelter, and energy.

Back at mission control, NASA soon find out about Watney’s miraculous survival and his dire situation. After Watney is able to jerry-rig a method of communication with ground control, it is up to him and his colleagues back on Earth to try and work out a way to rescue him. Along with Scott’s direction, this sets up a story which is equal parts hilarious comedy, tense drama, and nail-biting action as man attempts to overcome elements not of Earth. The story is awesome and thanks to the pedantry of the original author and various scientific advisors; is largely scientifically accurate in its depictions of space exploration.

Although the directors themselves argue over what the best approach to rescuing him is, the central antagonist in the film is not a person but rather the harsh and inhospitable environments of Mars and space. It’s refreshing that the film doesn’t feel the need to personify or elevate the complications faced by the protagonists by giving the audience a villain to hate. Instead, the conflict which does arise between the directors is reasonable and logical in how they all approach the problem of getting Watney home and how they’re willing to gamble in each of their attempts. Jeff Daniels as NASA administrator, Teddy Sanders, was a particularly good casting and he brings the necessary gravitas and caution to the character.

The entire supporting cast work together to pull out some amazing performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor does an especially good turn as Vincent Kapoor, one of the NASA directors, alongside Sean Bean’s performance as Mitch Henderson. These two work well opposite Daniels’ Teddy Sanders and help us to see the points of conflict between the various NASA decision-makers without villainising anyone.

The stand out performance in this film, however, is no doubt Matt Damon as Mark Watney. Watney’s character is conveyed to the audience largely through the video logs he makes and serves as a narrator to frame the action we see. Damon brings out a plethora of emotional states throughout the film as his character goes from highs and lows with each success and failure. With all of this, he gives the character a warmth and wit that is difficult to find in many other performances. It is almost impossible to not like a character who is so warm, vulnerable, nerdy, and funny.

Visuals

Scott’s rendition of the Martian landscape is absolutely breathtaking. The cinematography depicts an arid and desolate expanse of lifeless desert. The shots filmed on Mars are suitably saturated with a red tint to give us the sense of an alien landscape.

The shots in zero-gravity are similarly breathtaking but with an added sense of tension for most of them as the astronauts work to conduct zero-G docking manoeuvres. The effects in these scenes are top notch and beautiful as objects and debris float around in weightlessness. The design of the Ares spacecraft is also pleasant and I feel draws upon elements from sci-fi predecessors like 2001: Space Odyssey.

Audio

The film’s soundtrack works on so many levels. There are your standard orchestral scores working to match the film’s beats as they unfold and it does a good job. Where sound design shines is with the use of diegetic pop songs. As a running joke throughout the film, Watney is stranded on Mars with nothing but 80s and disco music to keep him company. So through several instances, and largely as an ironic joke, we have songs like Starman and Waterloo playing to accompany our main protagonist on his quest for survival.

Extras

To be honest, I feel like the extras on the DVD aren’t really all that impressive. Besides a blooper reel, most of the extra content included was limited to some of the marketing devices created for the film before its release. It’s pretty cool that all of these are in-universe advertisements or documentary footage concerning and starring the protagonists, but I feel that it would have been cool if they had been able to get some audio commentary from the writer or an astronaut. I feel that this is a small gripe considering the quality of the film is well worth the DVD price, but it’s a missed opportunity in my opinion.

Overall

This film is pretty bloody awesome. The story is both tense and inspiring with great performances from Damon and the supporting cast. The visuals are of a similarly high quality with a beautiful Martian landscape and zero-G shots. The audio design is its star by all rights and more than deserves its own kudos. The DVD extras were a little underwhelming but didn’t undo my immense enjoyment of the film proper. This is hard sci-fi at its best and is definitely worth a place in your collection as the classic it will no doubt be. Use it to indoctrinate your kids, parents, or other/s with a healthy love for science.

Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.

Army Gals’ Continued Kickstarter Success Leads to Battle Girls 2140 Addition

Travis Bruno

-

February 14, 2016

0

Remember the Kickstarter that was being held for Dharker Studio’s Army Gals visual novel and how it was doing so well that they decided to add an additional visual novel into the mix? Well it seems that the continued successful funding of the project has prompted the studio to add yet another original English visual novel to the project.

With seven days left to earn funding the new visual novel appears to be similar to the original concept as it is called Battle Girls 2140 and the campaign has already reached the point where additional funds are being put into this title which will eventually be released on PC, Mac, and Linux. Those who wish to update their pledge to opt in for Battle Girls 2140 or simply want to learn more about the project can check out the official Kickstarter page.

Battle Girls 2140 takes place in a futuristic setting where the player is the country’s chosen mech pilot, but these mechs require co-pilots. This gives the player three potential partners to work with in the upcoming mech tournament and each of the three girls, Shien, Maika, and Akiko, have their own strengths and weaknesses in combat and it will be up to the player to determine how to best utilize their abilities and potentially unlock some romantic possibilities.

Street Fighter V Introduction Videos Released for Rashid, F.A.N.G., and M. Bison

Travis Bruno

-

February 14, 2016

0

Even though it may be the weekend that hasn’t slowed down the character introduction trailers for Street Fighter V. Capcom has released another set of videos and this time around they are focusing on showing off a couple of new characters in the form of Rashid and F.A.N.G. as well as the long time villain of the series M. Bison.

You can check out the three introduction videos below and as for the game itself, Street Fighter V will be available in a few days on February 16th for the PlayStation 4 and PC and will feature sixteen playable fighters at launch with six more planned for 2016.

Rashid

F.A.N.G.

M. Bison

ARK: SURVIVAL EVOLVED DELIVERS XBOX ONE UPDATE FEATURING SPLIT-SCREEN MULTIPLAYER, NEW DINOS AND…MMMMM BEER!

Press Releases

Philip Federico

-

February 13, 2016

0

ARK: SURVIVAL EVOLVED DELIVERS XBOX ONE UPDATE FEATURING SPLIT-SCREEN MULTIPLAYER, NEW DINOS AND…MMMMM BEER!

Seattle, WA – February 12, 2015 – Studio Wildcard, the team that never sleeps, delivers today its second jam-packed Xbox One update for the definitive online dinosaur experience, ARK: Survival Evolved. Headlined by three new creatures and peppered with fun items like Beer Barrels and Electric Prods, ARK offers gamers the highly anticipated, exclusive Xbox One split-screen multiplayer functionality. Now Survivors can sit side-by-side on a couch or jump online with their fellow survivor, craft a few in-game beers, and then rampage into the fields to fight the scaley hordes!

Check out the ARK Dung Beetle & Dimetrodon Spotlight on YouTube HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBYOPCMPZxo
Watch the ARK Gallimimus Spotlight video on YouTube HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpeU8O4OkPw

Exclusive to the Xbox for extended period of time, the split-screen multiplayer functionality is available for both local offline play and Non-Dedicated online play as well.

New dinosaurs and creature featured in this update:

Gallimimus (with Three-Seater Passenger Saddle): While the Gallimimus in real life might have been a large, chicken-like omnivore belonging to the clade Ornithomimosauria (similar to today’s ostrich family and closely related to raptors and modern birds), in ARK: Survival Evolved it’s an herbivore with no natural means to defend itself except for running away. Luckily for the Gallimimus, it may very well be the fastest dinosaur on ARK, and is capable of ferrying up to three Survivors in a specially-designed Saddle!
Dimetrodon: Known as everyone’s favorite adaptable carnivore, the Dimetrodon offers players shade during excessive heat and shelter from extreme cold by way of its massive insulating sail running down its back. It is reasonably friendly to Survivors and its favorite place to roam is the swamplands plentiful with small prey.
Dung Beetle: The Dung Beetle is a wondrous organic biofactory that eats excrement and other useless waste and then metabolizes it to produce burnable oil that can power generators and fertilize crops. It is the perfect pet for cleaning up around the tribe’s dirty living quarters!

Today’s Xbox One version update also includes a battery of items and optimizations that bring content parity with the PC version through v234, including:

New Armor: SWAT-style Assault Armor tier
New Weapon: Electric Prod stunner weapon capable of rendering even the strongest survivor unconscious
New Structures: Greenhouse/Glass structure tileset to aid survivors in growing plants
Deep-Sea Loot Crates: Just what it sounds like. Cool stuff underwater.
Beer Barrel: These craftable Beer kegs can make tasty brews, with various status enhancing effects, however the subsequent ‘hangover’ effects are not so pleasant!
Loads of bug fixes, serious performance update (~15%), fixed memory leak
Non-dedicated servers now support up to Eight survivors and 33% larger tether distance

The world of ARK is constantly evolving and thousands of players are already providing feedback, suggestions and bug reports to the development team. Players are invited to join the ARK discussion now by visiting the Xbox One forums on survivetheark.com/forums/.

ARK: Survival Evolved is available now for download on Xbox Game Preview for $34.99. Xbox One players will receive exclusive content including a bionic “Tek” T-Rex, Safari Hat, and Survivor’s Trophy, free access to Xbox-specific ARK official servers (up to 70 can play on a server simultaneously), and a steady delivery of exclusive Xbox One content prior to full game launch.

ARK: Survival Evolved will launch in summer 2016 on Xbox One via the ID@Xbox program, PlayStation®4 with Project Morpheus support, and full release on Steam PC. The game is currently playable in Microsoft’s Game Preview on Xbox One and Steam’s Early Access program, which includes Oculus Rift VR support and an integration of Steam community features such as Steam Economy and Steam Workshop for custom maps and mods. Players can host private/LAN servers and have access to a custom-built version of the Unreal Engine 4 Editor for creating mods. The world of ARK is designed to be modder-friendly and ever-expanding!

To join our growing band of survivors, journey to Steam or Microsoft’s Game Preview on Xbox One to download the game. For the latest updates follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, subscribe to us on YouTube, visit the Website at http://www.playark.com and watch us tame and train leviathan dinosaurs on Twitch.TV.

NEKOPARA Vol. 2 to be Released in English on February 19th

Travis Bruno

-

February 13, 2016

2

NEKOPARA Vol. 2 to be Released in English on February 19th

Previously it was announced by NEKO WORKs that they were planning on releasing the Japanese version of NEKOPARA Vol. 2 in February and now we know when this sequel to the very popular PC visual novel will be available for English speaking audiences.

Sekai Project’s All-Ages English version has been placed up on Steam and will be released on February 19th while Denpasoft has listed that the 18+ version (and patch for the Steam version) with uncensored sex scenes will be “coming soon.”

A short summary of what to expect in this release can be found below:

Business is booming for La Soleil, the patissiere run by Kashou Minaduki with his two catgirls, Chocola and Vanilla, his sister Shigure, and the Minaduki family’s four catgirl sisters.
Among them are the sarcastic oldest sister who hides behind a facade of toughness, Azuki, and the clumsy youngest sister who always tries her best even if she ends up doing more harm than good, Coconut. No one got along better than these two catgirls when they were younger, but lately, they’ve been fighting all the time.
Despite their sisterly love, a small misunderstanding ends up driving a wedge between them. As the story of these catgirl sisters unfolds, they’ll grow to understand each other and strengthen their familial bonds in this heartfelt catgirl comedy, which is only a little lewd. Now open for business!

Tales of Berseria Adds Rokuro and Eleanor to Core Cast

Travis Bruno

-

February 13, 2016

0

Tales of Berseria Adds Rokuro and Eleanor to Core Cast

This week’s issue of Weekly Jump has revealed some new details for Tales of Berseria in the form of a terrible looking picture of gray-scale page for the game. The page reveals that two more characters will be joining the cast of the game and they are called Rokuro, a young swordsman that is a “daemon” who managed to keep hold of his reason and follows Velvet due to a debt to her, and Eleanor, a girl that belongs to the Taimishi group and a “Seiryou” who is friendly with anyone except those that are against the Seiryou.

You can check out the scan below. Tales of Berseria is currently set to be released in Japan for the PlayStation 4 and PC and Bandai Namco has already announced that they plan on releasing the game in the West for the PlayStation 4 and PC.

TOBの新キャラ pic.twitter.com/CwluzQPuTm
— カズ (@kazu4281) February 11, 2016

Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator Hitting Europe June 10th

Travis Bruno

-

February 13, 2016

0

Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator Hitting Europe June 10th

It looks like that, unlike the original release of Guilty Gear Xrd, gamers in Europe won’t have to wait forever to have a chance to play Revelator. Publisher PQube has announced that they plan on releasing Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator both at retail and as a digital download on June 10th, only three days after Aksys Games plans on releasing the title on North America.

For those who haven’t been following this version of the game, Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator adds six new playable characters to the roster, a new online lobby, additional story, a “Stylish Type” control system, and more. You can check out a new trailer for the European release below.

Tekken 7: Fated Retribution Trailer Shows off Updated Rage Attack Mechanic

Travis Bruno

-

February 13, 2016

0

A new trailer for Tekken 7: Fated Retribution‘s arcade release has been released by Bandai Namco and this time around the company is highlighting the “Rage Attack” system. While Tekken 7: Fated Retribution adds a number of new characters, outfits, and features, the Rage mechanic is being overhauled to allow players to use the Rage system earlier than before.

Rage attacks add various new elements to attacks such as increasing damage, launching opponents, knocking them back, or temporarily stunning them. You can check out the video below while the game itself is still set to be released in Japanese arcades sometime later this year.

Ace Attorney 6 Rival Lawyer Revealed, Mood Matrix Returns

Travis Bruno

-

February 13, 2016

0

Capcom has released some new details for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 6 by revealing that the new prosecutor and rival to appear in the game is named Nayuta Sadmadhi and that he is from the Kurain Kingdom and an international prosecutor who has worked on cases around the world. When taking on a case he believes that the trial is a ritual to mourn the souls of the victims and that lawyers in his way are trying to prevent their souls from salvation and while he may speak politely, he can be ruthless against criminals and opposing attorneys.

Capcom has also confirmed through the official website that the “Mood Matrix” that appeared in Dual Destinies will be returning in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 6 and that Athena will once again be the main one using the system.