LA Noire: Complete Edition gets DirectX 11 support

L.A. Noire PC version The Complete Edition now supports DirectX 11, courtesy of a fresh title update from publisher Rockstar.

The patch promotes the detective drama's graphics from the previous rank of DirectX 9.

L.A. Noire launched in November last year for PC after an earlier release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The Complete Edition includes all of the game's downloadable add-on cases for no extra charge.

Rockstar said the title update includes:

DirectX 11 support added for improved performance on many Windows Vista and Windows 7 setups using DX11 graphics cardsOption added to game launcher allowing switching between DirectX 9 and 11 renderersAdditional checks added that make sure a selected video resolution is fully compatible with L.A. Noire

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Bethesda knew Skyrim could run into "a bad memory situation" on PS3

UPDATE: Bethesda has contacted Eurogamer to clarify Todd Howard's comments on the performance of the PlayStation 3 version of Skyrim.

Bethesda's statement is below:

"The team knew the PlayStation 3 version could [Bethesda's emphasis] run into a 'bad memory situation' and they coded solutions that they felt would work - and in their tests the solutions did work. Post release a 'small percentage' of users were still experiencing issues where it couldn't keep up, and the team went to work hard on solving it."

ORIGINAL STORY: Bethesda knew before Skyrim launched that there would be gamers on PlayStation 3 that would face a "bad memory situation", director Todd Howard has revealed.

But he believed only "a small percentage" would be affected, he told Kotaku. (A small percentage of 10 million shipped copies of a game is still rather a lot - a victim of your own success, you could say.)

Howard recalled how it was "obvious" when testing that Skyrim got in "situations where it taxes the PS3".

"We did a ton more testing this time around," Howard said, "so the game is definitely our most solid release regardless of platform.

"Here's my saved game!"

"The way our dynamic stuff and our scripting works, it's obvious it gets in situations where it taxes the PS3. And we felt we had a lot of it under control. But for certain users it literally depends on how they play the game, varied over a hundred hours and literally what spells they use, did they go in this building?"

The "common misconception", Howard revealed, was that PS3 frame-rate problems were caused by large game-save files. "No it's not," Howard said. "It's literally the things you've done in what order and what's running."

Howard thought Skyrim patch 1.2, the one that broke resistances and made dragons fly backwards, "took care of a lot of it". And he was stumped when this wasn't the case.

So Bethesda asked users for their saved games and set about putting together Skyrim patch 1.4, which Howard hopes has solved the problem. However, having been in this position before, he's hedging his bets.

"Now that we've been through this we're not na?ve enough to say 'we have seen everything', because we have to assume we haven't," he verbally shrugged. "There are still going to be some people who have to come back to us and say, 'OK, my situation is this.'

"'OK, send us your saved game.' We literally need to look at what you have running. We tried doing it through e-mail. We need to open the saved game and look at it.

"We've got one guy who has seven dragons on the other side of the world, and a siege about to happen in this city and another 20 quests running. And, OK, this is what the game is trying to do and it's having a hard time running that."

Analysing the latest patch's performance.

Video(Playlist,1);

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Metal Gear Online to be switched off in June

Metal Gear Solid 4 multiplayer spin-off Metal Gear Online will be switched off on 12th June, publisher Konami has announced.

The PlayStation 3 stealth-'em-up service is to be culled on its birthday. It will have lived for exactly four years.

Konami will begin shutting MGO's services down as soon as next month. The MGO Online shop will close its online doors for the last time on 21st March.

Metal Gear Online will then stop accepting new registrations from 24th April. From that date, existing expansion packs and shop content will be made available for free.

Finally, the plug will be pulled on 12th June at 11.59pm Japan time.

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Street Fighter x Tekken PC release date announced

Crossover fighting game Street Fighter x Tekken launches on PC on 11th May, Capcom has announced.

That's some two months after the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions release - on 9th March in Europe.

The PlayStation Vita version is still without a release date. More details on it "will be shared in the near future," Capcom said.

Meanwhile, Capcom confirmed the expected addition of M. Bison, Akuma, Ogre and Jin Kazama to the game's 40-plus roster. The quartet completes the game's list of playable characters.

As part of the announcement Capcom released a raft of new assets, including new trailers showcasing the final four's skills.

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Syndicate launch trailer blasts out the dubstep

its not made by the riddick-developers, most if not all of them left Starbreeze and work elsewhere these days.

but hey, its not syndicate* either, so who cares about even more false advertising with good names.

* mind you i m no "WAAAAH this is a FPS" whiner, i d play a syndicate FPS ... but a syndicate FPS would be about replaceable agents wreaking havoc in huge levels with tons of civilians ..... not some douchebags like MILES KILO, AKUMA (still cant get over these retarded names....) and their personal sob-story about revenge wrapped up as a linear as fuck, scripted to hell corridor shooter like this appears to be

edit: does EA actually tell the press to namedrop "Riddick" all the time ? i mean the large personal changes in starbreeze were all over the news .... journalists should know this is not riddicks developers yet pretty much every syndicate related article mentions it.

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Prince of Persia creator Mechner remaking Karateka

Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner is remaking his 1984 martial arts game Karateka.

Its development marks Mechner's first deep involvement in day-to-day development for years.

Karateka, which Mechner created while at Yale University, launched first on Apple II. It proved a big hit, and drew praise for its realistic animations.

The side-scrolling brawler was set inside a Japanese fortress, ruled by the evil Akuma (no relation to the evil Street Fighter). You had to fight guards and eagles to rescue Princess Mariko.

It was later ported to a raft of platforms, including the Amstrad, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Game Boy.

The new version is a downloadable game due out on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade later this year.

"Today's downloadable game space is a perfect match for the combination of simple fun gameplay with a strong, human story that gamers embraced in the original Karateka," Mechner told Variety.

"In remaking Karateka, I want to honour the original game with a compact, pick-up-and-play game that is fluid, atmospheric and beautiful. It's a reinvention that brings the original story to life with all the incredible graphics and sound capability of today's consoles."

Mechner compared the game to a "silent movie". "I wanted to keep that simplicity," he said.

"Making the original Karateka was a labour of love. To have so many people embrace it and share their stories of playing it has been really rewarding. I am always surprised to hear how much impact that game had."

Mechner's last made a game eight years ago, with 2003's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Since then he's focused on writing graphic novels and movies, including the big budget 2010 Hollywood Prince of Persia film, which starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton and Ben Kingsley.

There's plenty more on Mechner's blog.

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Rockstar mulling LA Noire 2 development

Rockstar is currently mulling the future of last year's crime thriller L.A. Noire.

Will there be an L.A. Noire 2? Rockstar has said it will not "count out the possibility", despite controversial developer Team Bondi now no more.

"Don't count out the possibility of a new game in the L.A. Noire franchise in the future. We simply have not decided anything," a Rockstar spokesperson wrote, answering a reader Q&A on the company's official site.

"We're all very pleased with how that game turned out and are considering what the future may hold for L.A. Noire as a series."

Rockstar said it was in no hurry to create a follow-up however.

"We don't always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean we won't get to them eventually - see Max and Red Dead for evidence of that - we have so many games we want to make and the issue is always one of bandwidth and timing."

Brendan McNamara-headed Team Bondi was shut down by administrators last year after swirling accusations of employee mismanagement during a brutal "crunch" period on L.A. Noire.

In the near future, Rockstar already has its plate full launching upcoming shooter Max Payne 3. Then presumably next on the cards is the already-announced Grand Theft Auto 5, more details of which Rockstar plans to share soon.

"We know that there are a ton of questions you all have about the game, including release date and lots else," Rockstar said of GTA5.

"Right now, we are very hard at work on the game and are excited as well to show and tell you more as development progresses - expect that we'll be talking much more about GTAV starting at some point in a few months' time." E3 then.

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