Legendary FPS level designer Richard "Levelord" Gray dies at 68

Prolific first-person shooter level designer Richard "Levelord" Gray died Monday at the age of 68, based on reports shared on social media by Apogee Entertainment yesterday. He had "dealt with cancer on and off for a while now," according to former colleague Joe Siegler.

After studying computer engineering in the '80s and tinkering on some early games in COBOL, Gray broke into the industry at the age of 35 in 1994 with the launch of GrayDoom, a set of four maps for the then-new Doom that were widely shared on CompuServe and beyond. The work attracted the attention of Q Studios' Nick Newhard, who contracted Gray to work on level design for the late '90s cult classic Blood.

Gray was subsequently hired by 3D Realms, where he said he was given free rein in designing "half the levels" for Duke Nukem 3D. There, he was also responsible for the famous, signed "You're Not Supposed to Be Here" easter egg, which players could find only by using cheats to explore outside of the usual confines of the map.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/JxKocBT

Continue Reading…

ESA targets Anbernic emulation handhelds as "superfake" piracy enablers

For years, Chinese hardware manufacturers have carved out a market niche with an array of handheld Android gaming devices focused on retro emulation and/or more modern game-streaming capabilities. Now, though, a major game industry trade group is targeting one of those manufacturers, Anbernic, asking the US Trade Representative (USTR) to add the company to its list of "Notorious Markets" that "engage in or facilitate substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting."

TorrentFreak was among the first to notice the request from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which was submitted to the USTR last week. In it, the US trade group—which represents major publishers including Nintendo, Microsoft, PlayStation, Amazon, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, and more—notes that Anbernic devices "are routinely offered or shipped with removable memory cards preloaded with hundreds or thousands of unauthorized copies of copyright-protected video games published by ESA members."

While many online sellers do include an SD card full of ROMs alongside emulation hardware of all types, Anbernic itself does not appear to do the same when selling directly from its website. Regardless, the ESA argues that these ROM-laden Anbernic devices selling through "normal retail channels" help to "normalize hardware-based piracy by delivering illicit catalogues through a polished consumer product." This, the ESA says, meets the threshold for a "superfake," an ill-defined designation that applies to "high-quality counterfeit trademark goods ... on a commercial scale."

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/ytSsZDz

Continue Reading…

After a 10-year redemption arc, No Man's Sky is coming to the iPhone and iPad

Just over 10 years after its initial release, space exploration and survival crafting game No Man's Sky is making its way to the iPhone and iPad, Apple and developer Hello Games announced today.

It will run on devices as far back as the iPhone 11 and the third-generation iPad Air. No Man's Sky might not have the most cutting-edge AAA graphics (though they're still strong, and they've come a long way since launch via updates), but the game's uncommon method of generating galaxies of incomprehensible scale on device consistently for all players from a single-seed happening on a phone is remarkable for those of us who remember phones performing far behind consoles or desktop PCs.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/IyncTUz

Continue Reading…

Long-lost horror gaming cult classic P.T. gets a much-needed PC port

For over a decade now, the only "official" way to play Hideo Kojima's cult classic, P.T.—the long-discontinued "playable trailer" for Kojima's canceled "Silent Hills" project—has been via one of the increasingly rare PlayStation 4s that previously downloaded a copy during its monthslong availability window. Now, though, one coder is helping to preserve the game with a porting tool that builds a playable x86 PC executable from the original PS4 files.

Coder Lorean Xavier said he was inspired to work on the "P.T. for PC" project "because P.T. deserved to keep existing somewhere other than on consoles that still have it installed." The open source porting effort rebuilds the P.T. engine in C++ and Vulkan, using the original files from the PS4 game to re-create "every level, model, texture, sound, script and cutscene," according to its GitHub listing. That means players without their own legitimate decrypted copy of the original P.T. will have to track one down in order to generate a playable PC version.

The reliance on real P.T. files makes this port more authentic than previous hobbyist efforts to re-create the look and feel of P.T. for a PC audience. And while PS4 emulators recently reached a point where they could run P.T. completely, this native port also sports extra features, like upscaling and frame-generation, a camera mode, experimental third-person and VR support, and a "museum" section where you can look at and listen to in-game assets (including "unused content").

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/6aZFCE4

Continue Reading…

Someone got Doom in an SQL database

"Rendering Doom in a database is obviously a bad idea," Lukas Vogel writes in a lengthy blog post explaining how exactly he managed to render Doom using an SQL database.

OK, that's not entirely accurate. The SQLDoom project uses a small Python client to handle input and output, drive the game's timing, and display each frame to the screen. Behind that, a series of CedarDB tables tracks the game geometry and state, while about 1,300 lines of SQL queries spread across 89 common table expressions implement the game logic and generate 35 bitmap framebuffers per second.

In this, SQLDoom is a major improvement over Vogel's previous DoomQL project, which last year set out to build "a multiplayer Doom-like shooter entirely in SQL." Unfortunately, that effort ended up with raycasting-based, grayscale ASCII graphics that were more akin to the simplistic 90-degree-angled maps of Wolfenstein 3D. The newer SQLDoom, on the other hand, generates full-color 640x480 frames that look like they could have come from the original Doom executable.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/5RvX2Jl

Continue Reading…

PS5 emulation is suddenly making big strides on PC

For a long time, PC gamers could access many PlayStation 5 games only if the publisher invested in a bespoke port (something Sony has recently said it will be scaling back). Now, though, rapid advancements in PS5 emulators and other tools are making recent PlayStation titles increasingly playable on generic PCs.

SharpEmu was the first of these emulators, advancing from a "very early alpha stage" in May to a current state that can "load the eboot.bin of real games, execute native CPU instructions, and partially handle GPU-related functionality." The most recent release boasts 10 tested games that reach a "playable" state, including six that developer CursedIfElse says are "fully playable at 60 fps." That includes simple 2D games like Tetris Forever but also 3D titles like Astro Bot and the PS5 Demon's Souls remaster running at playable frame rates.

"SharpEmu has prioritized hardware accuracy from the very beginning, and we’re finally starting to see that investment pay off," CursedIfElse wrote on social media this week. "It was built completely from scratch, and this is how far we’ve come."

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/k1jcGaT

Continue Reading…

The PS5 hacking scene just took a big leap forward

For a few years now, the PS5 hacking community has been chipping away at various exploits that let users fully jailbreak their locked-down console. For the most part, though, those exploits have only worked with years-old versions of the PS5's frequently updated firmware, making them less than useful for many everyday users.

That changed Tuesday with the release of the new Relapse exploit, which works with any PS5 up to firmware version 13.6 (released in July). That means jailbreaking is now possible on any PS5 that was last updated before the mid-September release of firmware version 14.00.00.

The so-called Relapse exploit makes use of a long-known WebKit vulnerability in the PS5's hard-to-access web browser, escalating from there to gain write access to the PS5 kernel and install an ELF loader to streamline the running of arbitrary code. The new method is also a lot more efficient than previous PS5 jailbreak exploits, which could hang the system for 50 minutes per attempt.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/MLxO0vw

Continue Reading…

Shuffling the deck chairs: Xbox continues its "reset" with dramatic restructuring

When Xbox announced sweeping layoffs in July as part of a brutal "reset" for the gaming brand, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said part of the pre-existing problem in the gaming unit was "teams, studios, and functions [that] often operate independently, [making it] harder to work toward a shared goal." Today, the company announced a radical restructuring of its internal studios that is seemingly designed to reduce that "independence" for the teams behind some of gaming's biggest franchises.

The biggest apparent change is for the Halo franchise, which will now be under the remit of Call of Duty maker Activision. Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries), which recently released Halo: Campaign Evolved, will remain as just a "small team" to support the player community, Microsoft said, with the remaining staffing roles eliminated as part of 268 newly announced layoffs.

"For Halo, our goal is clear: make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place," Activision President Rob Kostich said in a statement provided to Kotaku. "It is a bold ambition, one that this franchise deserves. We have already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community."

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/3rJCkuV

Continue Reading…

Not just Proton: Getting to know Valve's new SteamOS compatibility layers

Since the release of the Steam Deck, Valve fans have gotten very familiar with the idea of the Proton compatibility layer that allows games written for Windows to run capably on the Linux-based SteamOS (though Valve's efforts in this realm date back farther than that). To get more games running on the SteamOS-powered Steam Frame, though, Valve is relying on two additional compatibility layers that are new to the Steam architecture.

The first, FEX, is Valve's port of fex-emu, an open source project that emulates x86 processor instructions on an Arm chipset. Since 2018, what started as a small cross-platform emulation project has grown to include "an advanced binary recompiler that supports all modern extensions of the x86(-64) instruction set," according to the Fex website. The emulator can also make calls to graphics libraries like OpenGL and Vulkan to reduce overhead and uses "code caching to minimize stuttering as much as possible," according to Steam's own developer documentation.

While Proton was based on the pre-existing Wine conversion tool, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge last year that the company has been funding Fex lead developer Ryan Houdek since the project was just a prototype. Back then, Valve was already anticipating that "close to a decade of work [would be] needed before [Fex-emu] would be robust enough people could rely on it for their libraries."

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/5LPrilT

Continue Reading…

Steam Frame: The Ars Technica review

In the 2010s, Valve was at the forefront of a virtual reality revolution that looked to some like it would upend the gaming industry. The Valve of six to ten years ago seemed committed to being a major player in the world of PC-connected VR headsets, first through its “strategic partnership” with HTC on the impressive-for-the-time Vive headset (plus the SteamVR platform standard that powered it) and then years later with its own Index headset (and proof-of-concept adventure Half-Life: Alyx).

Then came the Meta (previously Oculus) Quest, a low-powered, low-cost headset that proved the vast majority of VR-curious gamers didn’t want to bother with being literally tethered to a bulky, expensive gaming PC. As the Quest line carved out a modest niche through the 2020s, Valve seemed more or less satisfied to let its earlier VR hardware and software ambitions wither on the vine.

Those years of Valve’s benign neglect of VR make the imminent release of the $1,049 Steam Frame—which starts taking reservations today—more than a little surprising. Now that virtual reality’s hype-fueled, revolutionary promises have decidedly not played out, Valve is somehow ready and willing to limp headfirst into the world of standalone VR headsets—today, in 2026. And after spending a week or so with Valve’s latest foray into gaming hardware, the Frame somehow feels simultaneously overengineered and underbaked, depending on how you look at it.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/4dbYmyn

Continue Reading…

GOG brings back "big box" PC games, one printable template at a time

Those who remember PC gaming in the days before Steam may have fond memories of the "big box" packaging that made those games stand out as shelf eye candy and sought-after in-home collectibles. Today, PC gaming platform GOG is hoping to reignite some of the nostalgia for those days by adding downloadable 3D models and printable, foldable high-res packaging scans for a handful of PC games on the platform.

Thus far, the "Printable Big Box" collection on GOG is limited to just five games: Armikrog, Descent, Hitman: Codename 47, Myst, and Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. Players browsing those games on the GOG store will now see "3D Boxes" listed among the included "Goodies" before purchase. Owners of those games on GOG can download a ZIP file containing a version of the box art as an animated 3D object file (in an easy-to-open GLB format) and a "flat printable template" in PDF, SVG, and Adobe Illustrator formats. Those downloads allow for what GOG calls "a proper papercraft project for anyone who misses shelves full of PC game boxes."

The 3D model animates to show the front flap opening. Credit: GOG

"Physical media doesn’t survive the way software can—boxes get lost, crushed, thrown out," GOG writes in today's announcement. "Scanning them, and letting you print your own, is preservation in a different shape: the same mission that keeps these games running on modern PCs, applied to the objects they used to come in."

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/FdZ9MR7

Continue Reading…

The White House made a "Tetris" clone. The Tetris Company was not amused.

An anti-immigration-themed adaptation of Tetris was removed from the White House website over the weekend. The move comes days after The Tetris Company disavowed any involvement with the game and said that it "take[s] copyright infringement very seriously."

The White House's "Build the Wall" game asked players to stop a "Zombie Border siege" by stacking Tetris-styled bricks in an attempt to "hold the line." Unlike in Tetris, though, the blocks in "Build the Wall" don't disappear when you complete a line, meaning each brick contributes to an impassable barrier for the pixel-art "zombies" marching in from the "Southern Border." That change makes the gameplay pretty uninteresting for anything but cheap propaganda, and it also means that every game quickly and ironically ends with a "Border Breached" message when the blocks inevitably fill up the well.

Amerika Garcia Grewal, co-director of Texas migrant rights group Frontera Federation, told AFP last week that the makers of the game "have lost touch with what it means to be human and care for others."

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/DSv8BQh

Continue Reading…

The combat demo for Free Stars: Children of Infinity is out, and it's free

After five years in development, Free Stars: Children of Infinity—the official sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters by the old game's original creators—has released a free public demo. It's a "combat demo" in the style of UQM’s melee mode, where players can assemble a fleet from the game's roster of nearly 40 ships, then match those ships up in head-to-head arcade SpaceWar-style action. The demo can be found on Steam and GOG, and it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Console versions are coming, but they're not yet out.)

Pew pew! Credit: Pistol Shrimp Games

I have to present this news with a big disclaimer, though, because I've been part of the Children of Infinity writing team since 2021, working as a volunteer with the Pistol Shrimp Games crew and contributing NPC dialogue and some story bits. As a huge fan of the original games, it's been a dream opportunity. (Because I've been volunteering my time, I'm not financially involved and receive no compensation if you download the demo or, when it's eventually released, buy the full game.)

What's in the demo

Children of Infinity is a space adventure RPG, just like The Ur-Quan Masters (and its direct spiritual predecessors, Starflight and Starflight 2). What's been released today is just one part of the game—the arcade-style "melee" portion, which lets players jump into one-versus-one combat against another player or against a computer-controlled opponent. Each of the ships you can pick has its own maneuvering characteristics, weapons, and special abilities.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/RAEu7eo

Continue Reading…

A ratings board wouldn't let Valve release a trailer. It "leaked" it instead.

Back in 2009, Ars wrote about what was being reported as a leaked trailer for the then-upcoming Left 4 Dead 2, saying the footage "looks like it’s straight from a high-gloss action movie." Today, we need to offer an important update to this crucial, 17-year-old story: The trailer "leak" was orchestrated by Valve itself.

That news comes courtesy of former Valve writer Chet Faliszek, who said in a newly posted video about cut lines in the game that "for Left 4 Dead 2 with the ESRB... we leaked our trailer ahead of time because they wouldn't let us release the trailer."

Faliszek is of course referring to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the self-regulating industry group that since 1994 has offered sometimes questionable age-appropriateness ratings for thousands of games submitted to its purview. While many smaller and/or online-focused game makers skip out on getting those ratings these days, at the time, any publisher that wanted space on major retailers' shelves needed to submit to the ESRB's standards.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/poikvtK

Continue Reading…

Xbox imposes harsh new time limits for Game Pass game streaming

In 2020, Microsoft announced that Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions would include unlimited access to its new Xbox Cloud Gaming service (then still known as Project xCloud). Now, that kind of streaming buffet service is coming to an end, as Microsoft announced strict new limits on how much streaming is included in its various Game Pass subscriptions.

Starting in November, Game Pass subscriptions will include the following monthly limits on game streaming time:

• Game Pass Ultimate ($23/month): 15 hours
• Game Pass Premium ($15/month): 10 hours
• Game Pass Essential ($10/month): 5 hours

Subscribers who use up their monthly streaming allotment will be able to buy additional time, Microsoft said, without sharing specific pricing or availability for that streaming time. Access to downloadable versions of games included in a Game Pass subscription remains unaffected.

Read full article

Comments

from Gaming - Ars Technica https://ift.tt/5oIZkcd

Continue Reading…