News::'EVE Online' now rewards you for helping science

At last, playing a ton of EVE Online can do a lot of good in the real world. As promised, the massively multiplayer space title now includes a Project Discovery minigame that has you contributing to real science. If you offer to classify proteins in between space flights, you'll both help scientists understand the proteins' roles in the human body (especially relating to disease) and earn in-game rewards ranging from ISK currency to loyalty points. You don't have to be a paying EVE subscriber to participate, so it won't hurt to give the project a go if you're eager to advance medicine while you explore the virtual cosmos.

Source: Project Discovery, EVE Community

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News::Immerse yourself in Vive's VR with two mixed-reality videos

Fantastic Contraption launches with the HTC Vive virtual reality headset on April 5th and it promises to take advantage of the technology's coolest features. It's a full-body kind of game that challenges you to craft objects that can overcome physical obstacles to reach specific points in the world. If that description doesn't excite you, take a look at these mixed-reality demo videos featuring Fantastic Contraption developer Colin Northway and get hype.

Source: @kertgartner

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News::'XCOM 2' gets its first DLC pack on March 17th

2K has revealed a launch date for the first XCOM 2 downloadable content: March 17th. Titled Anarchy's Children, the add-on pack will come with more than 100 "exotic" goodies, which you can use to deck out your soldiers. This includes new armor, helmets and masks, as well as fresh hair styles, face paintings and decals.

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News::'League of Legends' studio buys a fighting game powerhouse

Riot Games, the studio in charge of League of Legends, acquired Radiant Entertainment and all of its fighting game technology this week. Radiant is staffed by popular figures in the fighting game community, including former Street Fighter commentator and Capcom community manager Seth Killian. The studio was created by Tom Cannon and Tony Cannon, who are also founders of the world's largest fighting game tournament, the Evolution Championship Series. Radiant has two titles under its belt: the free, online fighting game Rising Thunder and the town-building simulator Stonehearth.

Source: Radiant Entertainment

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News::Chrono is a new game store built to reward streamers

There's a new games store in town called Chrono, and it's kind of troubling. Chrono's business model is to sell one game per day, and partner with "influencers" (Twitchers, YouTubers, bloggers etc.) in order to push that game's sales numbers. In exchange for driving traffic to the site, influencers get a cut from sales.

Source: Gamasutra, Chrono

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News::3DNes adds another dimension to classic NES games

While Nintendo and Sega have given us a handful of "3D classics" for the Nintendo 3DS, a new emulator promises to open up the field considerably. 3DNes is a Unity-based emulator that, as the name suggests, converts NES games into 3D.

Unlike SNES games, which have four background layers, NES games have a single layer for the entire background, making automatic 3D conversion tricky. According to the developer, 3DNes is based on an algorithm that analyses and separates flat backgrounds into singular, 3D objects. It's not just simply stretching out pixels on another axis, either: round objects are rendered as spherical or tubular shapes.

Via: Eurogamer, Reddit

Source: 3DNes, TASVideos

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News::Amazon now sells Japanese video games internationally

If you've ever paid an astronomical price to import a Japanese game, here's some good news: Amazon Japan will now ship video game hardware and software internationally. The change happened recently with no fanfare -- Twitter and NeoGAF users started reporting it yesterday. Not every game can be shipped; it's restricted to products sold by Amazon, rather than third-party sellers. There are also some products that don't seem to want to ship, for reasons unknown.

Via: NeoGAF, Forbes

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