Xur, Agent of the Nine has been spotted at the Tower with a wealth of new exotic-class items, and we have a breakdown of what the shadowy merchant has up for sale for Week 14 from Dec. 12 – 14.

But this time he has something new: in wake of Destiny‘s recently released Dark Below DLC, Xur can now upgrade exotic weapons and armors to do more damage and pack more defense. Twelve items can be upgraded in this way, and we have a breakdown of those too, along with their changed stats.

This comes at a cost, though, as any item turned into Xur will be completely reset. That means a fully maxed item will go back to square one, but it’ll have more base defense or attack to balance things out.

This week Xur can be found be found down the stairs right outside of the Vanguard handlers, settled next to the Crucible Quartermaster. We’ve seen Xur here before, and he isn’t anywhere too cryptic this time around.

In the Garden grows a tree of silver wings. The leaves are ruin, the bark disaster. of the seeds we do not speak.

Ruin Wings (Gauntlets) - 13 Strange Coins (Dark Below Item)

• Class: Titan
• Upgrade Mats: Helium Filaments, Exotic Shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Light: 30/36
• Strength: 99/106
• Type: Gauntlets
• Defense: 333/366
• Mod 1: Heavy Ammo drops more often, and contines more ammo in each drop.
• Mod 2: Causing damage with a melee reduces your grenade cooldown.
• Mod 3: Increased Reload speed with Heavy Weapons.

“They told me it would eat my thoughts and leave me full of Light.”

Achlyophage Symbiote (Helmet) - 13 Strange Coins

• Class: Hunter
• Upgrade Mats: Relic Iron, Exotic Shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Light: 30/36
• Discipline: 94/101
• Type: Helmet
• Defense: 333/366
• Mod 1: Increases Grenade Throw distance
• Mod 2: Replenish Super Energy when you kill an enemy with a grenade
• Mod 3: Golden Gun gains one additional shot per use

“YOU WILL DREAM OF TEETH AND NOTHING ELSE” — scratched behind a buckle.

Voidfang Vestments (Chestpiece) – 13 Strange Coins

• Class: Warlock (Specialized for Voidwalker)
• Upgrade Mats: Helium Filaments, Exotic shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Light: +30/36
• Strength: 130/139
• Type: Chestpiece
• Defense: 444/488
• Mod 1: Enhanced Axion Bolt. Spawn with grenade energy
• Mod 2: Carry more ammo for Hand Cannon
• Mod 3: Carry more ammo for Special Weapons

Exotic Shard – 7 Strange Coins

Helmet Exotic Engram – 23 Motes of Light

“Truth…is where you seek it” -Lomar

Truth (Rocket Launcher) – 13 Strange Coins

• Class: Any
• Upgrade Mats: Spirit Bloom, Exotic shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Attack: 302 / 331 (Void elemental)
• Magazine: 2
• Type: Rocket Launcher
• Mod 1:  Rockets from this weapon will detonate early based on proximity to targets.
• Mod 2: Rounds fired from this weapon seek their target aggressively.
• Mod 3: Increases warhead velocity.

Exotic Upgrades

Below we have a listing of the Exotic upgrades Xur offers along with the respective upgraded stats, including the enhanced defense, Light, stats and damage incurred from each item. The merchant has six armors and six weapons for this wave, and we’ll likely see more in the next coming weeks.

Every upgrade costs an Exotic Shard as well as varying Glimmer costs, and to get the upgrades you’ll have to have the item in question. Trading it in to Xur cleans out all advancements on any given item, so be forewarned before you opt in.

Armor

Mask of the Third Man (Helm)

• Glimmer Cost: 7207 G
• Class: Hunter
• Light: 30/36
• Intellect: 85/92
• Defense: 407/447

Young Ahamkara’s Spine (Gauntlets)

• Glimmer Cost: 7127 G
• Class: Hunter
• Light: 30/36
• Discipline: 102/109
• Defense: 333/366

The Armamentarium (Chestpiece)

• Glimmer Cost: 7649 G
• Class: Titan
• Light: 30/36
• Discipline: 156/167
• Defense: 444/488

No Backup Plans (Gauntlets)

• Glimmer Cost: 7759 G
• Class: Titan
• Light: 30/36
• Strength: 104/111
• Defense: 333/366

Light Beyond Nemesis (Helmet)

• Glimmer Cost: 7159 G
• Class: Warlock
• Light: 30/36
• Strength: 96/103
• Defense: 407/447

Sunbreakers (Gauntlets)

• Glimmer Cost: 7549 G
• Class: Warlock
• Light: 30/36
• Intellect: 81/87
• Defense: 333/366

Weapons

Suros Regime (Auto Rifle)

• Glimmer Cost: 7789 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 33

Red Death (Pulse Rifle)

• Glimmer Cost: 7307 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 27

The Last Word (Handcannon)

• Glimmer Cost: 7559 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 8

Thorn (Handcannon)

• Glimmer Cost: 7673 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 9

Ice Breaker (Sniper Rifle)

• Glimmer Cost: 7477 G
• Attack: 302/331 (Solar elemental damage)
• Magazine: 6

Thunderlord (Machine Gun)

• Glimmer Cost: 7681 G
• Attack: 302/331 (Arc elemental damage)
• Magazine: 38

That’s it for Xur’s wares and the new DLC item upgrades. Essentially the damage enhancements on Exotic weapons seems to be capped at 331 Attack, with chestpieces racking up 488 defense, gauntlets capped at 366 defense, and helmets at 447.

Whether or not you’re willing to reset your gear is up to you, but since the bounty slots have been raised to 10 and you can now buy materials like Spinmetal and Relic Iron, Bungie has sped up the process some. It’ll still take a bit, but with any luck you’ll have a maxed out Thorn or Ice Breaker soon.

Also it’s worth mentioning that you might be able to get a new DLC exotic from Xur’s exotic engram. I was able to pick up the new Glasshouse Titan helm, which buffs both Weapons and Blessings of Light for the Defender class. While it’s not as strategically effective as the Saint-14 helm, it is interesting and I for one will try it out in the field.

The post Destiny: Xur's Location And Exotic Wares For 12/12 appeared first on VR World.

Developer: Bungie Studios
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: September 9, 2014
Platform: PS4 (Reviewed), Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360
Genre: Online Shooter, Action, RPG
MSRP: $59.99

Editor’s Note: I’ve taken quite a bit of time to explore the interstellar shoot-em-up adventure that is Destiny. As a result, the review is a little late, but I felt that Bungie’s new game deserved a considerable playthrough to give it justice.

Below are my findings based on my in-depth experiences with the shooter.

Destiny is a prestigious game that was set to be a revolutionary marriage of sci-fi shooter and online multiplayer RPG, but like many missions to the stars, Bungie’s dream game didn’t quite take off.

To understand how Destiny fell short, we have to take a quick look at the role that marketing hype plays in video games, and how this affected our expectations for Bungie’s sci-fantasy epic.

For the last two years or so, all eyes were on Bungie’s newest project. It was supposed to be the biggest thing the devs have ever attempted, and it was to be their magnum opus. They called it Destiny.

This new undertaking looked to be the perfect arrangement of sci-fantasy and action-packed shooter. From the start it whisked us away on a fanciful story filled with offworld planets, aliens, advanced technology and the magic of any space odyssey.

The story itself felt like something that Isaac Asimov dreamed up; an archetypal struggle between a mysterious force known as the Light and the malevolent planet-eating Darkness was entrancing. The quintessential heroes, known only as Guardians, were infused with the power of the Light to fight the terrors of the night–and to save humanity from its smoky tendrils.

Destiny promised to take us on a journey that transcends space; an intergalactic adventure across the stars that unfolded before our eyes.

Mystery played a huge role in Destiny‘s hype, and the devs took advantage of this by understandably keeping things under wraps, feeding us scraps here and there at major trade shows like E3 and the Tokyo Game Show.

We didn’t know too much about the game, but from what we saw, it looked to be a definite game-changer. Here was a game that promoted social interaction in seamless drop-in drop-out co-op across whole planets, a game that featured customizable heroes with their own deadly skills.

And a game that was filled to the brim with incredibly potent space guns.

The partnership with gaming juggernaut Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI) meant that Destiny would be a massively-scaled journey the likes of which we’ve never seen. The level of hype for the game created a sizable gap that has proven to be the folly for many different mediums, whether film, games, or even music.

Destiny couldn’t ever live up to the incredible expectations from the public as a result of the major adverts and media focus; Bungie’s new game was destined to be undermined by its own potential.

The Hive have some of the most striking environments; here they pray to the World’s Grave, a diabolical machination deadset on destroying the Traveler’s Light.

An unfinished universe: storyline, missions and characters

Destiny as a whole largely feels like a game that was shipped too early. There are very blatant holes missing in various sections, including story, meaningful character development, truly immersive activities and even loot mechanics.

Players are pulled into a galactic story that briefly prefaces the Golden Age of the Traveler, where the mysterious semi-divine sphere bestowed the gift of Light upon the Solar System. The Traveler terraforms hostile planets like Venus to make lush tropics teeming with plant life, and as a result humanity was propelled to the stars.

But this Golden Age was brought down by the Darkness, a malevolent entity that spreads chaos and death in its wake. Players never really know what the Darkness is; instead we’re met with a convoluted bunch of enemy factions–the brutish Cabal, the cunning Fallen, robotic Vex and diabolical Hive–that all vie for control and destruction of humanity.

The Darkness–and its warring factions–slowly eat away at the colonies that stretched across the stars, forcing humanity back to the Tower, which stands above the Last City on Earth.

Here Guardians, special ultra-warriors infused with the power of the Light, stand against the tide of the Darkness and search for a way to repel its wake.

Players don’t get to interact with the last city at all; it’s just a picturesque vista rather than an example of human woe and desperation.

Even here Bungie’s once-great magnum opus is marred by severe holes.

For example, players never get to actually interact with the last city on earth; from the Tower we can look down upon it and see its futuristic skyscrapers, but there’s this sense of artificial plasticity in the whole thing.

Bungie doesn’t tap into that human element at all; we never get to see the last bastion of humanity we’re fighting for, we never get to see who we’re fighting for.

There are some denizens in the Tower, but they are NPC fodder and usually have no actual bearing. The same for the game’s handful of vendors–even the Speaker, who actually communicates with the Traveler, is rote and mechanical.

This is a great fault in the story and takes away from the emotional and personal elements of the game. Destiny is branded as a kind of RPG-shooter, but it considerably lacks the deep and dynamic story arcs that role-playing games entail. Instead we’re left with a game that grinds like an RPG but trumps meaningful story for frenetic Call of Duty-like elements.

Destiny’s overhead map features a fast-travel system for loading screens rather than letting players fly through the stars, and features four main planets to discover.

The story so far…

The story itself is broken up into an array of missions across various planets like Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars. These missions further the storyline, but they seem clipped and minimalist rather than content-rich.

Every planet has its own Strike–some, like Venus, have two–along with a free-roam Patrol mode that allows players to scout the planet’s regions for smaller missions and to collect items like Relic Iron for weapon and armor upgrades.

The planets all have a set region that’s used by the Strikes, Patrols and missions. These regions are public game “worlds”, and at any given time players pass through these public zones throughout their endeavors. This intuitive mix of live drop-in drop-out co-op is a landmark for the game, and gives players the chance to easily recruit teammates if they find themselves in over their head.

As far as character development, player Guardians are stale and lack any sort of real substance. They have no actual personality other than the quintessential space marine that kills in the name of good. Most of the other NPC’s lack any sort of dynamism as well, and serve the same function as an ATM of sorts for items and loot.

Most of the NPC’s and other characters like the Ghost lack personality, but some memorable characters are the Queen, her brother and the Exo Hunter that assists players.

Sadly, Peter Dinklage’s performance as the floating Ghost companion substantiates this claim even more. The Ghost was lamented as insufferable way back in the Beta, and his amazingly cheesy, mechanical dialogue hasn’t improved any in the final game. If anything it’s worse now, as we expected improvements.

Rather than being helpful, witty, snarky or even rude, we get such bland uninteresting interactions that the Ghost feels like a hindrance.

My friends and I have also dubbed the Ghost as “Windows 98″ on account of how long it takes him to upload/download/unlock doors. The little floater essentially brings back the horrors of Goldeneye 64‘s diabolically sadistic Control Room mission, as you’ll have to set him off and kill hordes of baddies while he tedious hacks a door.

Mars is ruled by the iron might of the Cabal, titanic aliens that rely on strength and brutality to conquer their foes.

Addictively tedious: game mechanics and gear-grinding

Destiny is an extremely addictive game. Despite its faults, Bungie has tapped into a troubling trend that we’ve seen all too often in modern gaming: the promise of more content at the expense of time.

Rather than delivering the promised feast of an expansive MMO-shooter to hungry gamers, Bungie gave us enough to barely sate our ravenous appetite. And they continue to do so, bit-by-bit, with an array of updates that roll out every few weeks or so.

However it’s important we look at the entire scope of their plan. Activision affirms that Destiny is a decade-long endeavor, and since it’s not subscription-based, we’re looking at a few releases (most likely a trilogy of games) along with a dazzling array of expansions. Two of these said expansions were released during the game’s launch.

The Moon remains one of the most visually appealing planets in the game, strewn with crags, fissures and craters from the evil Hive.

Combined with a feasible business approach to sort of lockdown content behind paywalls (based on the first two paid expansions we can assume more will be coming), Destiny will be inherently updated and patched at a moderately slower basis.

Activision and Bungie have found a new way to combine the time-consuming MMO-style grind for gear with the action-packed sentiments of multiplayer FPS games. This union–or fusion–is a unique intersection that accounts for much of the game’s addictive factor.

Players simply can’t stop playing because they want to complete their character, which is only natural. But unlike other grind fests, Destiny‘s story arc isn’t part of the grind–it’s more of an afterthought that you can avoid completely to progress.

True there’s always something to do in Destiny, the activities sort of lack substance. As of right now Bungie has improved the selection a bit with activities like the Queen’s Wrath and Vault of Glass raid, but these are things that arguably should have been included upon release.

Planets like Venus have multiple environs, making every different zone a work of art.

The grind feels artificial and wholly based on the same allure of leveling up in, say, Call of Duty. Rather than bridging the gap between meaningful character and story development, players only get stronger so they can complete more endgame content–and at this point the Vault of Glass raid and Weekly Nightfall Strikes comprise Destiny‘s challenging endgame content.

Destiny is incredibly addictive, but this addiction last substance and immersion in so far as the activities that are completed.

Unlike other MMO’s, there’s no point to keep playing once you’ve hit level 30 and mastered your gear. The only thing to do is make a new character to keep things fresh, rather than be introduced to fresh new content by the developers.

Endlessly grinding for loot is filled with tedium thanks to the drop ratios. Bungie has made an improvement in this regard, but it took them almost a month, making it too little too late. Players have to grind out reputation in Vanguard strikes or PVP matches in the Crucible to buy specific gearsets, some of which call for higher ranks.

A bigger slap to the face, though, is spending all this time leveling up your Crucible ranking only to find a legendary that’s the same or even better than the one you just bought.

Exotic bounties lead to powerful rewards, but all too often its not even worth spending the time to unlock them.

Exotic items are quite rare and don’t drop very frequently, but Bungie has tried to remedy this with exotic bounties. The key word here is tried. The requirements for these bounties are absurd and remain some of the most consuming time-sinks in the entire game.

Here’s a quick for instance: to charge my Depleted Handcannon and turn it into the exotic pistol known as Thorn, I have to complete a laundry list of demands.

Frenetic in-your-face firefights comprise the bulk of Destiny’s gameplay, with RPG and story elements falling short as a result.

Game Mechanics: Call of Duty meets Halo meets Borderlands

At its heart, Destiny is a shooter that melds the authentic frenetic action of Call of Duty‘s pinpoint accuracy with Halo‘s intergalactic war on aliens and Borderlands-style loot fests.

Combat is fast-paced and enthralling, making for some of the most engrossing firefights in recent years. Guardians team up in fireteams of three to dispatch a horde of monstrosities, some of which are titans that hulk within the heart of the Moon itself, in terrific and devastating battles of wit, cunning and trigger-pulling accuracy.

The sandbox style FPS mechanics afford for a massive amount of tactical strategy, and this is further exemplified with the superpower sof each class. The Hunters, Titans and Warlocks each have two different subclasses at their disposal, making for a nice blend of skillsets that can be tapped for any given situation.

Phogoth the Untamed is one of the most memorable Strike bosses in the game. This towering behemoth shoots lasers from his head and annihilates anything in his path.

All classes have some things in common, though: they all use a melee attack as well as a powerful grenade in conjunction with their special abilities. Both the melees and grenades vary widely from Hunter to Titan to Warlock, and thanks to the requisite cooldowns, must be used tactically.

The Titan Defender’s Ward of Dawn skill makes a massive dome that shields allies from harm, and can even boost their weapons and give them overshields for a short amount of time.

The Hunter’s Bladedancer tree allows them to go invisible for a spell, making for perfect resurrections. The Warlock can fire up his Sunsinger skills to reduce his teammates special cooldowns while blasting three fiery grenades and even resurrecting himself.

The Hunter, Titan and Warlock have their own skill trees filled with passive and active enhancements, as well as two different subclasses to choose from.

These skill trees make up the bulk of the game’s RPG elements, but Guardians also have three main stats that boost combat proficiency. Discipline reduces your grenade cooldowns, Strength reduces the cooldown of melee attacks, and Intellect allows players to use their supercharged ability more often.

Speccing the right stat is extremely important for certain situations and varies widely to class preference. Flashbangs, for example, are an amazingly useful tool for Titan Strikers and can be buffed with heavy Discipline. On the other hand Titan Defenders need hefty Intellect to throw out their powerful shields more often to protect the entire fireteam.

Along with these skills and stats Guardians can equip three guns at a time; one primary (scout, pulse, and auto rifles, handcannons, etc), a special (fusion rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun) and a heavy (decimating rocket launchers and machine guns).

Missions and strikes are punctuated with tough boss battles that sometimes can last an hour or more.

Special and heavy weapons can be infused with elemental affinities like Arc and Void that deal bonus damage to certain enemy classes. The Hive, for example, are weak against Solar, whereas the Vex are weak against Void damage.

Destiny‘s combat is extremely fluid and graceful, and can often be challenging. But there are a few basic things that can hinder performance, especially in the Crucible, where communication is key.

Bungie still has a discrepancy between your actual team and your in-game fireteam, making it so that your teammates cannot hear you unless you send out a separate fireteam invitation. This is true for every mode of play, whether its Crucible or Strikes or missions, and can often be the difference between victory and defeat.

The quest for loot, not missions or story, fuels progression in Destiny.

The gear-grind struggle

Gear grinding is the other half of Destiny’s heart. There’s many ways to find gear: it can drop out in the wild, be rewarded upon completion of missions and strikes, and can be bought from NPC’s. Gear can’t be traded–another major oversight that’s included almost universally in every online-RPG-style game.

Finding end-game quality gear, though, is a chore in itself. And once you find the gear, you’ll need to upgrade it with materials like Spinmetal, Ascendant Energies and Shards, Plasteel plating and Weapon Parts. To amass the huge quantities of mats to upgrade gear requires hours of farming, which in itself can be annoying, but Bungie has found a way to keep things interesting.

To be able to upgrade your gear you have to first level it up. That’s where bounties come in. Netting EXP doesn’t do anything for your character after you hit level 20. The only way to progress higher is by gaining items with higher Light.

Exotic weapons have bonuses that are unique to their type, along with a hefty number of defense and damage mods.

When you earn EXP from bounties or killing enemies it’s instead applied to the items, which unlocks various tiers of enhancements like higher defense or Exotic-specific skills.

Blue and above items have a range of tier-specific unlockables that add to the effectiveness of the weapon or armor, and also improve the Light bonuses when upgraded.

By completing regular bounties during your mat farming runs, you can ensure you don’t lose your mind searching for that oft-hidden rockface of Relic Iron. The Ascendant materials, though, are random and are usually given by getting Gold tiers in public events. Maxing out certain bits of gear requires up to eight Ascendant materials per tier, ensuring that you’ll keep playing if you want to be the best.

Powerful exotic weapons are the highest tier of item available, but players can only equip one Exotic item type at a time.

Upgrading items in Destiny is frightfully tedious and arguably unnecessary, but Bungie has found a way to augment the experience with various events and the like. Even still it lacks substance and actually remains one of the only things you can do in the game after you reach a certain point–which is a hallmark of a badly designed multiplayer-online game.

MO’s are supposed to have an expansive wave of content to ensure that players don’t get jaded or “burnt out” on the experience; to keep things fresh.

Bungie is only recently tapping into this, and to be fair they are addressing some key concerns. Even still the overall game feels rushed and unfinished, and has a general air of incompleteness about it–an incompleteness that’ll be filled in at a later date, when it’s convenient (or paid for).

Bizarre and memorable visuals accompany the bulk of Destiny’s gameplay, but without meaningful story or characters, it lacks substance.

Conclusion: An imperfect fate

Destiny is an interesting spectacle of a game that’s been crushed by the weight of its own hype. Bungie hasn’t delivered the game-changing open-world shooter that was promised, but instead has ushered in a sort of unified mixture of addictive gameplay with snippets and miniature pieces of added content.

The experience does redeem itself in various ways, however. The game’s interplanetary environments are truly incredible, painting mesmerizing backdrops of unreal intergalactic beauty, but even this splendor seems somehow hollow. The worlds are stale even in their wonder, lacking a true sense of immersion–in a sense they seem to be visually vivid and not substantial, not real…not whole.

The absence of any real meaningful character development and messy plot holes pretty much tells players that the game’s story is still a work in progress. The events are anti-climactic and feel tacked-on rather than the deep and profound experience that accompanies most RPG-style games.

Destiny uses faraway vistas to bring a sense of open-worldness to gameplay, but it’s a false perspective as players can barely explore certain regions.

Destiny‘s principle trouble is that it’s suffering from an identity crisis. It tries to be too many things without wanting to take the time or effort to fill in certain blanks. In its current form, Destiny feels like a sort of shell or maybe a puzzle that has its borders completed, but is blank in the middle.

Although there is plenty missing in the game, Destiny will keep you busy for quite some time. The game has a way of pulling you in regardless of the absence of plot or character development. It’s cleverly designed to hook players and keep them going until they max out their character, in which time there will be a new morsel to chew on while we wait for the main course.

And that’s the real problem with the game; even a month after release, gamers are still waiting for the main course.

Pros

+ Amazing Graphics & Visuals

+ Frenetic FPS Action

+ Strategic Skillsets

+ Array of Weapons & Armor

Cons

- Loot Upgrades are Tedious

- Minimal Storyline

- Lack of Character Development

- Major Plot Holes in Story

- Non-Combat Content Lacks Substance

The post Destiny Review: The Fault in Our Stars appeared first on VR World.

The newly launched shooter Destiny has grossed more than $300 million in its first five days of availability, Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI) has announced today.

Sales across the five-day period are estimated at $325 million, and include worldwide

According the publisher, this is just one of the numerous sales milestones and records that the popular MMO-esque shooter has smashed. Other noteworthy achievements pin Destiny as the best-selling new video game franchise of all time, and it even holds the prestige as the highest day-one digital console release in history.

Bungie has also stepped forward to deliver some pretty impressive statistics on Destiny‘s online play.

According to the developers, gamers have played over 100 million hours in the first week alone. Players have also taken part in over 137 million in-game activities over this same period, ranging from co-operative Strikes, Story missions and PvP-style Crucible matches.

That’s a lot of intergalactic firefighting.

“Destiny fans played more than 100 million hours [in the first week]. That’s on par with our Call of Duty games…” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing.

“…This is just the beginning. Destiny is a platform that will grow and evolve and we will continue to work closely with our partners at Bungie to bring a long line of new experiences and content to life in the game.”

These reports are curious when compared to last week’s announcement that Destiny hit over $500 million in day-one sales.

We may be able to assume that the current sales figure of $325 million is after the initial launch sales, and that Destiny has sold a combined estimated total of $825 million in worldwide purchases to date.

In any case, the online shooter-slash-RPG has received quite a bit of acclaim from gamers since its release, but has garnered mixed reception from critics. We’ll have out official Destiny review up on VR-World here soon, so be on the look out for that in the next few days.

Destiny is now available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 for $59.99. For more information be sure to drop by Bungie’s official website.

The post Destiny Gamers Log 100 Million Hours in First Week appeared first on VR World.

Today Activision unveiled world premiere multiplayer footage for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare that left quite an impression. The trailer showcased key elements of the multiplayer experience, highlighting the blisteringly frenetic pace of combat and satisfying array of high-tech gadgets and guns.

The arsenal includes some innovative new toys such as a wrist-mounted grenade launcher, a concussion rifle and even a heat-laser that is startlingly similar to Halo 3‘s Sentinel Beam. Other goodies include fanciful space-age war-toys like machine-gun toting drones and turrets that rain a hell of bullets on enemies to tried-and-true SMG’s.

There was also this thing, which looks like it delivers terrible death on anyone that gets in front of its scope. Crossbows make an appearance, too.

But of course the real weaponry revolves around the exo-suits, which turn you into a living weapon. The exo-suits make everything you do better; from pneumatic-enhanced super-jumps to melee attacks, Sledgehammer has made every player a one-man army.

Hulking mechs only add to that deadly force–equipped with gatling guns, these bipedal armorsuits can even be self-destructed to harm nearby baddies when death is imminent.

One high-tech soldier sported av-camo that would even make Predator jealous, and wrist-mounted ballistic shields conveniently pop out to soak up those crucial bits of damage. Weapon-switching is lightning-fast, and players can utilize a pulse that sets on-screen indicators a la Blacklight: Retribution to pinpoint enemies for easy execution.

Weather hazards add new depth to multiplayer matches. Now players have to look out for risks like tsunami waves and move to higher ground while fending off enemies.

In-game maps were shown off as well, and for the first time ever it appears they’ll have dynamic weather that actually affects gameplay. One map, which showed the Golden Gate Bridge arcing out into turbulent waves, featured tsunami waves that loomed intimidatingly on the coast.

The roiling surf threatens to drown out the skirmishes as players battle each other in gridlocked firefights, and eventually the waves crash in, submerging the exo-touting fighters in the salty sea.

The core mechanics remain the same, and Advanced Warfare‘s multiplayer is very CoD-esque; the pacing is the same, as is the general themes and chaotic FPS sandbox action. In many ways, though, Sledgehammer has introduced the new generation of the franchise.

The trailer may only be around three minutes long, but it shows us more than enough to affirm that this is a new breed of first-person shooter.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare launches on November 4, 2014 across Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

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As we had already reported, a component of the AMD technology coined as FreeSync has finally been ratified and standardized by VESA as part of the DisplayPort 1.2a standard. As of today, however, the standard will be known as Adaptive-Sync. While it may not be as catchy for companies like AMD, which liked to brag about the fact that their version of adaptive refresh rate syncing was a ‘free’ upgrade the truth is the technology is best named Adaptive-Sync. This is a more open version of what Nvidia’s currently doing with their G-Sync technology, which is also an adaptive-sync technology, but requires Nvidia GPU and Nvidia monitor electronics both of which are not only cost prohibitive but fairly closed in terms of accessibility to others. As such, Nvidia must be applauded for having brought this technology to market and for having made the issue a topic of discussion and ultimately resulting in DisplayPort’s supporting of this new adaptive-sync technology.

How Adaptive-Sync works in different scenarios

Adaptive-Sync is a great technology because it will allow both gaming desktop and notebook manufacturers to not only smooth out the frame rates of gaming and graphics, but also to only refresh the monitor as many times as the GPU is capable of delivering frames. This means that with fewer refreshes we could see much better power consumption and battery life out of these displays, which ultimately results in better power bills for people that always have their monitors on and better battery life for mobile devices that connect to an external display. Adaptive-Sync has been a part of VESA’s embedded DisplayPort, eDP, spec since 2009 and as a result, a lot of adaptive-sync technology is already incorporated into a lot of the components for displays that rely on eDP for internal signaling.

Implementation of DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync technology is offered to VESA members free without any license fee, which means we will likely see big monitor manufacturers like Dell and Samsung adopting this standard fairly quickly. This announcement, as we had stated earlier would likely happen in May, and precede VESA’s DisplayPort 1.3 announcement. This announcement is expected to come around the late Q2, early Q3 timeframe and will include all of the DisplayPort 1.2a features including adaptive-sync. And thanks to the inclusion of adaptive-sync into DisplayPort 1.2, the DisplayPort 1.3 standard may have an easier time enabling things like 8K video since supporting 8K video at variable lower frame rates going to be less bandwidth intensive than 30 or 60p. While we don’t know what the exact final specifications of DisplayPort 1.3 will be, we do know it will likely include VESA’s new video compression standard called Display Stream Compression which is designed to support up to 8K video. As we’ve said before, the people at VESA would really like to be able to maintain the same cabling as DisplayPort 1.1 and 1.2, however it may not be possible in order to enable 8K and 4K 3D technologies. Until then, we’ll keep you updated and informed on the latest from VESA and all of the video standards.

Update 11:35 am: AMD has sent us a series of Q&A about the new DisplayPort Adaptive-sync technology addressing some people’s questions

Q:What is DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync?
A: DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync is a new addition to the DisplayPort™ 1.2a specification, ported from the embedded DisplayPort™ v1.0 specification. DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync provides an industry-standard mechanism that enables real-time adjustment of a monitor’s refresh rate of a display over a DisplayPort™ link.

Q: What is Project FreeSync?
A: Project FreeSync is an AMD effort to leverage industry standards, like DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync, to deliver dynamic refresh rates. Dynamic refresh rates synchronize the refresh rate of a compatible monitor to the framerate of a user’s AMD Radeon™ graphics to reduce or eliminate stuttering, juddering and/or tearing during gaming and video playback.

Q: How are DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync and Project FreeSync different?
A: DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync is an ingredient DisplayPort™ feature that enables real-time adjustment of monitor refresh rates required by technologies like Project FreeSync. Project FreeSync is a unique AMD hardware/software solution that utilizes DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync protocols to enable user-facing benefits: smooth, tearing-free and low-latency gameplay and video.

Q: Is DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync the industry-standard version of Project FreeSync?
A: The DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync specification was ported from the Embedded DisplayPort™ specification through a proposal to the VESA group by AMD. DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync is an ingredient feature of a DisplayPort™ link and an industry standard that enables technologies like Project FreeSync.

Q: What are the requirements to use FreeSync?
A: To take advantage of the benefits of Project FreeSync, users will require: a monitor compatible with DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync, a compatible AMD Radeon™ GPU with a DisplayPort™ connection, and a compatible AMD Catalyst™ graphics driver. AMD plans to release a compatible graphics driver to coincide with the introduction of the first DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync monitors.

Q: When can I buy a monitor compatible with Project FreeSync?
A: AMD has undertaken every necessary effort to enable Project FreeSync in the display ecosystem. Monitor vendors are now integrating the DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync specification and productizing compatible displays. AMD is working closely with these vendors to bring products to market, and we expect compatible monitors within 6-12 months.

Q: What AMD Radeon™ GPUs are compatible with Project FreeSync?
A: The first discrete GPUs compatible with Project FreeSync are the AMD Radeon™ R9 290X, R9 290, R7 260X and R7 260 graphics cards. Project FreeSync is also compatible with AMD APUs codenamed “Kabini,” “Temash,” “Beema,” and “Mullins.” All compatible products must be connected via DisplayPort™ to a display that supports DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync.

Q: How is Project Freesync different from NVIDIA G-Sync?
A: While both technologies have similar benefits, G-Sync uses expensive and proprietary hardware. In contrast, Project FreeSync utilizes the industry-standard DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync specification to promote wider adoption, lower cost of ownership, and a broad ecosystem of compatibility.

Q: Why should gamers purchase a system that utilizes Project FreeSync?
A: Project FreeSync’s ability to synchronize the refresh rate of a display to the framerate of a graphics card can eliminate visual artifacts that many gamers are especially sensitive to: screen tearing, input lag, and stuttering. Project FreeSync aims to accomplish this through an open ecosystem that does not require licensing fees from participants, which encourages broad adoption and low end-user costs.

Q: What is the supported range of refresh rates with FreeSync and DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync?
A: AMD Radeon™ graphics cards will support a wide variety of dynamic refresh ranges with Project FreeSync. Using DisplayPort™ Adaptive-Sync, the graphics card can detect and set an appropriate maximum and minimum refresh rate based on the capabilities reported by the display. Potential ranges include 36-240Hz, 21-144Hz, 17-120Hz and 9-60Hz.

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As many of you may already know, AMD has proposed a standard unofficially dubbed FreeSync as a way to allow monitors to sync with graphics cards in a way that allows them not to render half frames and to sync the refresh rate of the monitor with the frame rate of the GPU. This standard is designed to be a ‘free’ alternative to Nvidia’s announced G-Sync which will only work with Nvidia’s own GPUs and monitor hardware. AMD’s solution is designed to be more ‘open’ and ‘free’ meaning that you don’t have to necessarily commit to a specific brand of graphics card or monitor. While I haven’t seen FreeSync, I have seen G-Sync and I can tell you that the experience without a doubt elevates the quality of gaming without a doubt in my mind.

Now, there has recently been a rumor circulating around the press for the past few days about the fact that AMD’s dubbed FreeSync standard has been ratified by VESA and will become part of the DisplayPort standard. We did some digging around and managed to get some pretty definitive answers about this new standard that will be part of DisplayPort 1.2a. We were told that while the name itself isn’t too bad, there is a strong likelihood that when the new standard is officially announced as part of DisplayPort  that it’ll lose its current name.  We were also told that there’s a strong likelihood that we could see it as soon as May, shortly before VESA makes another announcement.

That announcement will precede an even bigger one, in the announcement of DisplayPort 1.3. For those unfamiliar with DisplayPort 1.3, we wrote a pretty lengthy exclusive article back in December detailing all of the aspects of DisplayPort 1.3, however, once FreeSync gets integrated into 1.2a, that feature will also be added to 1.3 by default. I suspect that because of FreeSync, there may be a possibility that we could see DisplayPort 1.3 gaining faster adoption as a result of the fact that a generally lower refresh rate will allow for less power drawn by the display. In fact, one of the best applications for FreeSync in DisplayPort 1.2a and later standards will be the fact that monitors will spend less time refreshing and as a result drawing less power. Not to mention the overall experiential improvements. Additionally, it may be easier to implement things like 8K video over DisplayPort 1.3 if we know that initial testing can be done at lower refresh rates than 60 Hz. Hopefully they’ve resolved the cable bandwidth issue with DisplayPort 1.3, and if we find out anything new about FreeSync or DisplayPort 1.3, we’ll be sure to report it to you as soon as possible.

The expectation is that DisplayPort 1.3 will be announced sometime in late Q2 or early Q3, which leaves DisplayPort 1.2 to come anywhere between that time and now.

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So, you guys deserved it and I’m sure that many of you asked for it. So, we’re bringing it to our global audience. Now, since we have a global audience we wanted to make sure that this giveaway was available to all of our readers across the world. However, we cannot guarantee that Origin’s services will work in all countries since Origin is required in order to be able to run Titanfall. If you can install and run Origin in your country, you should be fine.

Now, getting to the requirements for the contest and how to enter. All you have to do is make sure that you leave a comment here about what element of Titanfall excites you the most and what makes it different from any other FPS game you’ve played before. Additional entries will be granted to those that like Bright Side of News* on Facebook and Titanfall on Facebook. As well as share the post on their Facebook page, publicly since that’s the only way we can track them. You can also +1 us on Google+ and follow us on Twitter and Retweet this contest announcement. We will be giving away 5 keys, for PC via Origin, one for each year that we’ve been around for.

In the end, we just want to give you all a chance to play Titanfall, but at the same time get an idea of why you want to play it so badly. For those of you that don’t know what Titanfall is, here’s a short and sweet little trailer.

Disclaimer: This contest is open only to people that fulfill all parameters stated above in order to qualify. This contest is done in good faith and neither Bright Side Network, Inc. nor EA or any sponsors are responsible for any liabilities associated with this giveaway. All contestants must leave their comments on the stipulated page before any eligibility is considered. This contest will run from 12:00 pm Pacific on March 28th, 2014 until 11:59 pm Pacific April 4th. The winner must contact BSN* via email at giveaways at brightsideofnews.com to verify your identity and claim your prize within 24 hours of the winner being posted on the site. The winner will be posted within 24 hours of the contest ending at 11:59 pm on April 4th, 2014.

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