News Picks/Weekly Round-up from Auryn Cox @Ciaran’s Customs

Video games are ‘good for well-being’ finds University of Oxford study

A study carried out by The Oxford Internet Institute research, found that people who play video games for long periods of time tend to report feeling happier than those who don’t.

The study focused on two games: EA’s Plants vs Zombies and Nintendo’s Animal crossing. The study involved 3,274 gamers over the age of 18 and working with the developers, they tracked the amount of time survey respondents spent in-game and combined this with a survey of players' mental wellbeing.

Study lead Professor Andrew Przybylski told the BBC that he was surprised by the results.

"If you play Animal Crossing for four hours a day, every single day, you're likely to say you feel significantly happier than someone who doesn't," he said.

"That doesn't mean Animal Crossing by itself makes you happy."

But, he added, 40 years of previous research had suggested the longer people played, the more unhappy they said they were.

The professor suggested that the reason for this deviation was a result of the social features present in both games which allow players to interact with other people.

"I don't think people plough a bunch of time into games with a social aspect unless they're happy about it," he said.

"It's like a digital water-cooler," he added, suggesting the titles both provide new ways to mingle with others online.

However, he said that those who had felt compelled to play - for example because they were seeking to avoid stress elsewhere in their lives - had reported being less content.

Currently PS Plus is the only way for PS5 Owners to back up their saved data.

Ps5 owners are currently unable to back up their Ps5 game saves without PlayStation Plus.

This is unlike the PS4, which allowed users to manually copy their game saves onto a USB drive. Users can still manually import and export PS4 saves on the PS5, they just won’t be able to do so for any PS5 exclusive games.

This means is that the only way to keep your save data is via the console hard drive – and if any of those files get corrupted or accidentally deleted, then they’re gone forever. This essentially means that the ability to back-up your saves is behind a paywall with PS Plus.

Ps Plus comes in three payment options: a monthly payment of £6.99, a quarterly payment of £19.99 and a yearly payment of £49.99.

120 fps added to Call of Duty: Warzone on the Xbox Series X but not on PS5

Infinity Ward has added 120fps support to Call of Duty: Warzone on the Xbox Series X, but not to the PS5.

That’s according to analysis carried out by Digital Foundry, which reveals that the high framerate feature was added to the Xbox Series X version of the game this week, despite no mention in the latest patch notes. Warzone’s Microsoft Store listing has also been updated to advertise its support for 120fps.

However, analysis by the Digital Foundry suggests that the PlayStation 5 version of Warzone is running at a maximum of 60fps. When the Warzone app is downloaded from the PlayStation Store, it’s also still listed as a PS4 title.

Neither Activision nor Infinity Ward have commented on the report. However, it’s likely that this due to a software limitation rather than a hardware one, as the Xbox’s backwards compatibility currently supports 120 fps whereas the PS5’s currently does not.

Demon Souls

The PS5 exclusive Demon souls has been met with widespread acclaim by fans and critics.

The game which is a remake of the 2009 cult classic was released last week and has been praised for its faithfulness to the original game and its beautifully updated graphics and minor gameplay improvements.

With both the new generation of Consoles having a very limited number of exclusives is Demon souls enough to entice undecided gamers into buying the Ps5

Halo 4 arrives on Steam.

Microsoft has released the remastered version of Halo 4 to the Microsoft Store, Steam, and Xbox Game Pass for PC/Ultimate.

With the release of Halo 4, Microsoft has fulfilled its promise last year to ship remastered versions of all of the games in the Halo: The Master Chief Collection on the PC by the end of 2020. The games were completed in chronological order, with Halo Reach being the first in December 2019, followed by Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and now Halo 4.

As with previous games in this series, Halo 4 is available as a standalone title for £6.99 or as part of the £29.99 Halo: The Master Chief Collection on the Microsoft Store or Steam.

Fall Guys has Sold Over 10 million copies on PC

It has been revealed by a financial report from engine firm Unity, the engine which the game runs on, that Fall Guys had surpassed 10 million copies on PC alone despite only releasing back in August.

Fall guys, the whacky battle royale game developed by Mediatonic and published by Devolver Digital is also the most-downloaded PlayStation Plus game ever.

Although Among us has recently stolen the limelight from Fall guys, there’s no denying the games meteoric success.

First Look at the new Among Us Map.

Among us is getting a new map soon, and the devs have released a screenshot of it on their brand-new Twitter page.

Not much is known about the new map, although developers Innersloth have revealed that it will be the largest map to date and it will be themed after one of their previous games, Henry Stickmin.

Along with the screenshot on the official Among Us twitter account was a strong hint that the map will be properly unveiled at The Game Awards, which takes place on December 10. Among Us is up for two prizes: Best multiplayer and best mobile game.

The Creators of Hitman are making A James Bond game

The developers of Hitman, IO Interactive, have announced Project 007, a new game starring James Bond.

The game which will feature a completely new and original story will tell the British Secret Service operative’s origin story. “It’s true that once in a while, the stars do align in our industry,” says Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive, “Creating an original Bond game is a monumental undertaking and I truly believe that IO Interactive, working closely with our creative partners at EON and MGM, can deliver something extremely special for our players and communities. Our passionate team is excited to unleash their creativity into the iconic James Bond universe and craft the most ambitious game in the history of our studio.”

Project 007 will be powered by IO Interactive’s proprietary Glacier technology, and the game will be made for “modern systems and platforms”, so you can probably expect a release on the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Offical Gameplay Trailer drops for Cyberpunk 2077.

CD Projekt Red has dropped a new gameplay trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of the upcoming release.

The five-minute trailer gives a robust and in depth look into the games setting and story as well as showcasing the various activities players will be able to embark on in Night City, alongside a look at a number of its gameplay systems.

In a less official release, turns out that physical copies of the much anticipated game are out in the wild with leaked footage of the PS4 version surfacing online.

In three weeks’ time cyberpunk2077 will be arriving on the PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and on the Series X/S and PS5 too, as well as on Stadia. If PC is your platform of choice make sure you check out the system requirements announced a few days back to ensure you have a capable system and are not left disappointed. 

Valhalla is the Biggest Assassins creed Launch in History

Assassins creed Valhalla has sold more copies in its launch week than any other game in the series to date.

Valhalla is the 12th mainline Assassin's Creed game developed by Ubisoft, and is the developers best PC launch ever, with an "all-time record" for sales directly from Ubisoft's own digital store.

Assassins creed Valhalla has also managed to beat Call of Duty: Black ops Cold war, taking the top spot in the top 40 UK charts this week.

Ubisoft has also clarified that achievements will be coming to Valhalla on PC. On a follow up post on the Ubisoft forums a representative described the previous information as a "miscommunication.” and reaffirmed that they are currently working on enabling achievements in for the game on PC.

AMD’s Smart Access Memory News

According to an article by PC gamer, AMD says its Smart Access Memory isn't proprietary and isn't only locked into working with its own Ryzen 5000-series CPUs and Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs. It's just that it hasn't yet worked with any other hardware vendors to enable it, though it welcomes the opportunity to do so.

The AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) feature promises up to 11% higher gaming performance across select titles by utilising both the company's new CPUs and GPUs working in unison. The basic theory is that currently the way gaming PCs are set up means that in Windows-based systems the processor can only gain access to a small part of the graphics card's memory at any given moment, which has the potential to limit gaming performance.

AMD is widening that channel to allow its Ryzen 5000-series chips to be able to access far more memory at once, "to harness the full potential of GPU memory, utilizing the bandwidth of PCI Express to remove the bottlenecks and increase performance."

However, AMD has stated that there are no plans to add Smart Access Memory support for older hardware.

Nvidia has also announced that it is working on competing technology to AMD's Smart Access Memory for RTX 30 series GPUs. Nvidia says it will soon enable similar functionality for RTX 30 series Ampere GPUs that will work when paired with either an AMD or Intel CPU.

It may take a Few Months for RTX 3000 Supplies to Catch Up with Demand

Nvidia’s shortage of RTX 3000 graphics cards may persist beyond the holiday season.

Nvidia’s Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress indicated production of the new graphics cards remains tight as consumer demand for the products has far exceeded the company’s own expectations. “Given industry-wide capacity constraints and long cycle times, it may take a few more months for product availability to catch up with demand,” she said in an earnings call with investors.

The impressive RTX 3000 cards have remained largely out of stock at major retailers and listings of the card on eBay have been at double their retail price.

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT’s Release

The latest graphics cards from AMD definitely put them back in the high-end PC graphics game. When it comes to standard game rendering the Rx 6800 and 6800XT trades blows with the 3070 and 3080 with single figure differences between them, right now its so close for some fans their next GPU decision might just come down to what card they can get their hands on.

However if cutting edge features of Ray Tracing and DLSS is what is drawing you to the high end Nvidia cards then then AMDs offerings may not be a suitable alternative for you. Right now (bar the VRAM amount) this is the main differences between the brands, Nvidia just have the superior Ray Tracing performance, not only that but some of the biggest games namely Cyberpunk 2077, have announced that they will only be supporting Nvidia Ray Tracing on release, which might come as a major blow for new Rx 6000 owners. The massive performance gains of DLSS is more interesting to lots of gamers than the graphical fidelity of Ray Tracing alone, and right now AMD do not have an answer for it, they have touched on the topic and have announced they are working on their own version of the technology but until we see it for ourself it's hard to ignore that these features let the Nvidia cards stand out.

However similarly to Nvidia’s RTX 3000 it seems it will be hard for consumers to get their hands on this hardware as stock runs disarmingly low.

About the Author

Auryn is a student journalist and an avid gamer. He enjoys strategy games as well as all the new releases from 10 years ago. He also has a few hours on Overwatch.

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