News::'Halo,' 'Destiny' composer Marty O'Donnell wins lawsuit against Bungie

Developer Bungie's former in-house composer Marty O'Donnell had his day in court and it's time for Bungie to pay the piper. In addition to the initial payout of $142,500 he's owed as a profit-sharing program, O'Donnell also gets to hold onto what VentureBeat describes as a "considerable" amount of stock in the company responsible first for Halo and now Destiny. As part of the terms, apparently unless O'Donnell gets permission he can't publish any music from Destiny as his own without Bungie's blessing. In June, O'Donnell revealed that he was starting a new studio with other game-industry vets, Highwire Games.

[Image credit: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP]

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

Comments

Via: NeoGAF

Source: VentureBeat

Tags: bungie, composer, destiny, gaming, halo, hd, hdpostcross, lawsuit, martyodonnell, music

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1M0YZBX

News::Play 'Evolve' free this weekend on Xbox One and PC

Wondering what to do with your three day weekend? Turtle Rock Studios is hoping you'll (re)visit its co-op shooter Evolve, courtesy of a few days of free access on Xbox One and PC. Even if you already own it, it may be time to knock the dust off because besides the flood of players, it's unlocking all the DLC for you to try, and just permanently unlocked a new monster, the Meteor Goliath. Thanks to its 4-on-1, primarily multiplayer setup, having a strong base of online players is key, and this is one way to try and refresh the ranks. The free preview is already under way, wrapping up on the 7th, at 11:59PM PT on Xbox One, and at 10AM PT on PC.

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft

Comments

Source: Evolve Blog

Tags: 2K, Evolve, hdpostcross, microsoft, PC, TurtleRockStudios, XboxOne

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1Qfmlm7

News::'Halo,' 'Surgeon Simulator' devs join the War Child game jam

War Child, a London-based charity that aims to improve the lives of children affected by war, is collaborating with influential developers to create a collection of games titled HELP: Real War is Not a Game. Participating developers include 343 Industries (Halo 5: Guardians), Bossa Studios (Surgeon Simulator), Creative Assembly (Alien: Isolation), Team 17 (Worms) and Hinterland (The Long Dark), all of which will participate in a six-day game jam organized by War Child. This means the studios will have just six days to create the games for HELP, and the full compilation will be sold digitally in late March 2016. Proceeds will go toward funding War Child's efforts in global conflict zones.

Filed under: Misc, Gaming, HD

Comments

Via: GamesIndustry

Source: War Child

Tags: CallOfDuty, charity, children, hdpostcross, help, helprealwarisnotagame, Warchild

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1Usuzx8

News::Playdate: Trying out 'Super Time Force Ultra' and 'Grow Home'

Here's a tough choice: would you rather play a game about a gardening robot that experiments with new methods of character animation, or a ridiculous time-travel action game that throws paradoxical caution to the wind? Lucky you -- you don't have to decide at all. On today's Engadget Playdate, we're playing both: Ubisoft's procedurally animated Grow Home and absurdly silly Super Time Force Ultra. Both are new to PlayStation 4 owners this month and free for subscribers of PS Plus. Are they worth the monthly dues? Join me and Tim Seppala at 6PM ET (3PM PT) right here, on the Engadget gaming homepage or at Twitch.tv/Joystiq to find out.

Filed under: Gaming, Sony

Comments

Tags: growhome, playdate, sony, streaming, supertimeforce, supertimeforceultra, twitch, ubisoft, video

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1hIsgnM

News::'Bedtime Stories for Awful Children,' a free ebook from 'Year Walk' devs

The dark, freezing woods of Sweden are the perfect breeding ground for terrifying tales of naughty children who get what they deserve. This week, Simogo -- the developer of beautifully macabre game Year Walk, and mysterious narrative experiences Device 6 and The Sailor's Dream -- released a free, illustrated ebook collecting a handful of five re-tooled, scary Swedish folk tales. It's called Year Walk Bedtime Stories for Awful Children, and it's available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. "We think obnoxious children all over the world deserve dark nightmares," Simogo writes.

Filed under: Misc, Gaming, HD

Comments

Via: Boing Boing

Source: Simogo

Tags: device6, eBook, FolkTales, hdpostcross, horror, scary, simogo, sweden, thesailorsdream, YearWalk

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1imhvrT

News::OSVR's open-source VR headset is slowly taking shape

The Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) headset will get a significant upgrade soon. Gaming peripheral company Razer announced the OSVR program back in January, but the first prototype headset was an underwhelming affair with uncomfortable ergonomics and a so-so display. That wasn't really the point, though. Rather than a single company aiming to dominate the VR market, OSVR is a loose band of hardware and software companies hoping to do for virtual reality "what Android did for mobile." Since then, OSVR has continued to work on improving the system, adding features like positional tracking and, aptly, Android support. The idea is to perfect the basics, open-source the hardware and software, and let anyone build on and improve it.

Filed under: Gaming, Intel

Comments

Source: OSVR

Tags: headset, intel, oled, osvr, razer, VirtualReality, vr

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1O1Vcnv

News::'Batman: Arkham Knight' for PC should be less broken now

Batman: Arkham Knight was supposed to be the perfect swansong for Rocksteady's Dark Knight trilogy. While the game was received positively on PS4 and Xbox One, the PC version was a mess -- so bad, in fact, that Warner Bros. eventually pulled it completely. That was in June and only now, six weeks later, are PC players getting a patch that should fix the most glaring issues. The new update claims to solve the game's fluctuating frame rate, while also improving its overall performance on all GPUs. Warner Bros. says it'll also remedy any low resolution textures and add a deeper set of in-game settings for you to play with. If you were hoping to buy the game now that's in a better state, bad news -- Arkham Knight is still unavailable to purchase on Steam. Perhaps that's an indication of where the game now stands -- better than before, but still a little way from what PC players deserve.

Filed under: Gaming

Comments

Via: VG247

Source: Steam

Tags: arkhamknight, batman, batmanarkhamknight, BrokenGame, patch, pc, PcGaming, rocksteady, steam, WarnerBros

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1OgMsaN

News::'Borderlands' is the latest backwards compatible game on Xbox One

Even if you spent $399 on the ultra-crazy edition of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection there was a pretty gaping hole in it. No, I'm not talking about what that purchase did to your bank account, I mean the anthology's distinct lack of the series' first game. Well, for Xbox One owners that's changing because the Vault Hunters' first trip to Pandora was recently added to the list of Xbox 360 games playable on Microsoft's newest console -- something that was teased back at E3 this year. Folks in the Dashboard Preview Program can start playing right now, of course, but everyone else who got stuck on Dr. Ned's zombie island (Microsoft says all save files, add-on content and achievements will transfer over) have to wait until the feature launches to the public this November. You still had a few lunar side-quests left to finish for Handsome Jack in the meantime anyhow, right?

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

Comments

Source: Xbox Wire

Tags: 2kgames, backwardscompatibility, borderlands, borderlandsthehandsomecollection, claptrap, gaming, gearboxsoftware, handsomejack, hd, hdpostcross, xbox, xbox360

via Engadget RSS Feedhttp://ift.tt/1L8OoPD