General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article


LG Releases 31-inch 4K Monitor for Professionals Priced at $1,400

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 06:08 PM PDT

LG 31MU97Supports over 1 billion colors

Professional photographers, video editors, and graphic designers looking to get the sharpest images possible won't have to look too far. LG has released the LG 31MU97 4K monitor that meets the required standards of the Digital Cinema Initiative for professional or general use.

The LG 31MU97, also called the Digital Cinema 4K monitor, is a 31-inch IPS 4K monitor that is capable of helping professionals edit 4K content without resorting to image scaling. With a 4096x2160 resolution and 10-bit color, the 4K monitor covers 99.5 percent of the AdobeRGB spectrum and supports over 1 billion colors to provide more accurate and detailed images. In addition, there is the Dual Color Space feature which lets the monitor display two different color modes at the same time, allowing users to compare different versions of their work concurrently. 

For those of you that need your monitors to have multiple connections, the LG 31MU97 should be more than adequate. It comes with two HDMI ports, DisplayPort, MiniDP, and three USB 3.0 ports. Users will also be able to directly connect the monitor to a tablet or external HD and, according to LG, the monitor is Mac compatible. 

The LG 31MU97 should be available now for $1,399 at Amazon, Newegg, B&H, Fry's, and Tiger Direct.

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Lenovo Purchases Motorola from Google for $2.91 Billion

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 04:42 PM PDT

Lenovo LogoThe deal has gone through

Back in January, it was announced that Google would be selling its Motorola division to Lenovo pending approval from authorities. Google, which had acquired the mobile company for $12.5 billion in 2012, was looking to sell it and now that all parties involved have signed off on the deal, Lenovo has acquired Motorola for $2.91 billion.

Of the $2.91 billion, $660 million will be in cash while 519,107,215 of newly issued, ordinary shares of Lenovo stock (valued at $750 million) was transferred to Google at the close of the transaction. As for the remaining $1.5 billion, that will be paid to Google in the form of a three-year promissory note. However, a separate cash compensation of $228 million will also be paid to Google to cover the cash and working capital held by Motorola at the time when the deal closed.

According to the deal, however, Google will maintain ownership for most of Motorola's patent portfolio though Motorola will be given a license to the patents and other IPs in it. However, Motorola will retain 2,000 patent assets in addition to a number of patent cross-license agreements and the Motorola brand.

With Motorola under its umbrella, Lenovo has high expectations according to Lenovo executive vice president Liu Jun who said, "With the complementary strengths of our two companies, we expect to sell more than 100 million mobile devices this year – including smartphones and tablets – by leveraging the Lenovo brand's leading market position in China, our shared momentum in emerging markets, and Motorola's strong foothold in mature markets like the U.S."

The acquisition of Motorola makes Lenovo the third largest maker of smartphones, which will now has access to the Moto X, Moto G, and Droid series of smartphones.

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Newegg Daily Deals: Samsung 840 Evo 1TB SSD, Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD, and More!

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 10:02 AM PDT

Samsung 840 Evonewegg logo

Top Deal:

Cough-cough, wheeze, grind, tink-tink, whir, thunk, poof. If that's what your mechanical hard drive sounds like these days, we suggest backing up your critical data ASAP. When you're finished, send the poor guy off into into retirement and consider filling his role with today's top deal for a Samsung 840 Evo 1TB SSD for $390 (normally $410 - use coupon code: [EMCWPGP87]). Not only will it run quieter, but also much faster with up to 540MB/s read and 520MB/s write performance.

Other Deals:

Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive for $50 with free shipping (normally $60 - use coupon code: [EMCWPGP38])

Intel 530 Series  2.5-inch 480GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive for $220 with free shipping (normally $240 - use coupon code: [EMCWPGP88])

Intel Core i5-4570 Haswell Quad-Core 3.2GHz LGA 1150 84W Desktop Processor for $190 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: [EMCWPGP33])

Acer G6 Series 27-inch 6ms Widescreen LED Backlight Slim Bezel Monitor for $180 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: [EMCWPGP63])

MSI's GT80 Titan is World First Laptop to Sport a Mechanical Keyboard

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 09:51 AM PDT

MSI GT80 TitanFinally, a gaming laptop with a mechanical plank!

Call us keyboard snobs if you will, but once you've experienced the pleasure of typing on a mechanical keyboard, it's difficult to go back to those squishy membrane planks. Peripheral makers have stepped up to the plate with plenty of mechanical models in the past few years, though MSI gets a virtual high-five for being the first to plop a mechanical keyboard on a gaming laptop.

MSI's GT80 Titan uses Cherry MX Brown key switches, which are known for being light, tactile, and non-clicky. It's a popular switch among gamers because of their tactile response while remaining relatively quiet compared to Cherry MX Blue switches, which are loud by comparison.

Little else is known about the 18.4-inch GT80 Titan, at least on an official basis. Rumor has it the GT80 Titan may wield a GTX 980 SLI configuration and up to 32GB of RAM. Given the laptop's size, we're betting on this being a full-blown desktop replacement.

No word yet on price or availability, only that it's "coming soon," according to the GT80 Titan's teaser page.

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Samsung Partners with Ubisoft to Bundle Assassin's Creed Unity with Select Hardware

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 09:22 AM PDT

Assassin's Creed UnityCelebrate your upgrade with a free game

Hey, if Ubisoft and Samsung want to start handing out free games, we'll all for it. In this case, the free title is Assassin's Creed Unity, which you're eligible to receive if you purchase a Samsung U28D590D (UD590) 4K Ultra HD monitor or a Samsung 850 Pro solid state drive (256GB, 512GB, or 1TB) from a participating retailer -- don't worry, there are several to choose from.

The list of participating retailers include Best Buy, Amazon.com, Newegg.com, Microcenter, Sam's Club (monitor only), ABT (monitor only), Fry's, Tiger Direct, and Electronics Express (monitor only). Should you purchase one or the other from any of those retailers, you'll receive a download code for Assassin's Creed Unity.

"Our monitors create a one-of-a-kind, immersive gaming experience and our SSDs ensure quick load times and robust performance for drastically improved gameplay," said Ron Gazzola, vice president of marketing at Samsung Electronics America. "The UD590 premiere monitor and the 850 PRO SSD will bring Assassin's Creed Unity to life and allow players to experience the game in a completely new way. We're happy to be providing this extremely popular offering to our customers."

The UD590 is a 28-inch monitor with a 3840x2160 resolution. It's a TN panel with a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 1ms response time (GTG), 370 cd/m2 brightness, two HDMI ports, and a DisplayPort.

As for the 850 Pro Series, they're the first SSDs to use 3D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory, which stacks 32 cell layers on top of one another rather than trying to decrease the cells' length and width to fit smaller form factors. The drives are rated to deliver read and write speeds of up to 550MB/s and 520MB/s, respectively.

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Microsoft Gets into Wearables with $200 Fitness Band, iOS and Android Users Invited to Play

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 08:54 AM PDT

Microsoft BandNot just for Windows Phone users

Rather than continue to watch from the sidelines, Microsoft just made a move into the wearables category by introducing its Microsoft Band, a $200 fitness band that works with Windows Phone, iOS, and Android devices. Coinciding with the launch is a new platform called Microsoft Health, which includes a cloud service for consumers and the industry to store and combine health and fitness data.

Microsoft says its fitness band is designed to be worn all the time by people who are active both in the gym and on the job. It's armed with 10 smart sensors for 24-hour heart rate monitoring, calorie burn measurements, advanced sleep quality tracking, and more.

Like other smart wrist wearables, the Microsoft Band will alert you to incoming calls, emails, texts, and social updates. It also gives you access to Cortana, Microsoft's virtual assistant. It's available to order today from the Microsoft Store.

Also available today is the accompanying Microsoft Health app, which you can download for Windows Phone, Android, or iOS. The purpose of Microsoft Health is to making tracking personal fitness a bit easier, and one way it does that is by uniting data from different devices and services. With that information, you can be informed as to which exercises burned the most calories during a workout, the recommended recovery time based on the intensity of a workout, the amount of restful versus restless sleep, and more.

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Corsair Gaming Sabre RGB Mice: Choose Your Type of Sensor

Posted: 30 Oct 2014 06:05 AM PDT

Corsair Gaming Sabre RGBDo you prefer an optical or laser sensor?

Corsair Gaming, a division of Corsair that's focused on (*drum roll*) gaming hardware, today introduced the Corsair Gaming Sabre RGB, an ultralight mouse for gamers. There are two versions of the Sabre RGB, one that rolls with a laser sensor and another that goes old school with an optical sensor. The former sports an 8200 DPI with ultra-precise tracking on just about any surface, whereas the optical sensor tops out at 6400 DPI with multi-color smooth and accurate tracking, Corsair Gaming says.

Both versions are featherweight fighters with bodies that weigh less than 100 grams. They both also sport four-zone 16.8 million color backlighting, CUE software for personalized performance and color customization, eight programmable buttons, high-quality switches rated for 20 million clicks, and braided 1.8 meter easy-flex cables.

"As a competitive Counter-Strike GO player, I need an agile and accurate mouse to allow me to get consistent head shots with minimal effort and maximum efficiency," said Jason Christian, Product Manager for gaming peripherals at Corsair Gaming. "To this end, I designed the Sabre RGB mice from the ground up to be lean and ultralight with the same level of precision of our M65 and M45 mice."

The Sabre RGB Laser Mouse is available for $70 MSRP and the Sabre RGB Optical Mouse goes for $60 MSRP. If you're feeling lucky, head to Sabre's website where you can enter to win a Sabre RGB mouse, Nvidia GeForce graphics card, and a copy of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

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MMORPG News

MMORPG News


Rift: Nightmare Tide Review in Progress #1

Posted: 29 Oct 2014 04:10 PM PDT

Nightmare Tide Review in Progress #1

For the past two years, RIFT has been the one MMO that is always on my playlist. Perhaps there is a special event going on. Perhaps I was just getting bored and wanted to see some familiar faces. But this time around, it was RIFT's newest expansion that lured me in: Nightmare Tide. But is this new addition to the game just a small puddle that gets in the way? Or is it a whirlpool that will suck players in with its powerful current? Let's dive in and find out!

Marvel Heroes 2015: Top Costumes to Add

Posted: 28 Oct 2014 11:39 PM PDT

Top Costumes to Add

Gazillion has cranked out a staggering number of new heroes, villains, and costumes for Marvel Heroes in the year and change since the game has launched, but comics fans are an insatiable lot so we always want more. This week, we've put together a short list of costumes we'd like to see make it into Marvel Heroes at some point.

Conquer Online: Dragon Warrior Launches into Game on October 30th

Posted: 29 Oct 2014 12:37 PM PDT

Dragon Warrior Launches into Game on October 30th

Conquer Online is getting ready to welcome the latest playable class into the game on October 30th. The Dragon Warrior will arrive to give players an opportunity to try out a Kung Fu fighting style complete with nunchucks!

Kyn: Moody Halloween Screens Fresh Off the Press

Posted: 29 Oct 2014 12:31 PM PDT

Moody Halloween Screens Fresh Off the Press

The Kyn team is setting a spooky mood for Halloween and has prepared a fantastic batch of a half dozen screens on which to feast your eyes. You can check them all out on our Kyn game page.

Elite: Dangerous: Beta 3 Kicks Off

Posted: 29 Oct 2014 12:09 PM PDT

Beta 3 Kicks Off

The third beta phase for Elite: Dangerous has officially kicked off. In response to tester feedback, the team has refined features and added new ones in preparation for Beta 3. Players will be able to won multiple ships, check out resource gathering by mining, and a long list of content are now included in the game.

The Crew: Console Beta to Resume November 6th

Posted: 29 Oct 2014 12:01 PM PDT

Console Beta to Resume November 6th

Ubisoft has sent out a tweet that the console beta test for The Crew will resume on November 6th. Both XBox One and PlayStation 4 owners are invited to sign up on the game's official site.

Moonrise: Inspirations and Themes

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 06:24 PM PDT

Inspirations and Themes

Last week, I shared some details of my process of world-building for this new Undead Labs/Kabam game. This week, Ian leads a discussion about the inspirations that we drew on for building the story of Moonrise, as well as some key themes that our story explores.

SMITE: Nox, Goddess of Night, Casts Her Shadow in Game

Posted: 29 Oct 2014 09:05 AM PDT

Nox, Goddess of Night, Casts Her Shadow in Game

With the latest SMITE update, Nox, the Goddess of Night, has arrived in game. A mage of formidable skills, Nox can damage and send out her Raven minion to deal even more. In addition to Nox, new skins, voice packs and daily log-in bonuses have been added.

World of Warcraft: Blizzcon 2014: Rumors and Speculation

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 05:20 PM PDT

Blizzcon 2014: Rumors and Speculation

What has me wondering, however, is what those massive gaps in the Blizzcon schedule mean. These are the times and places that are usually reserved for THE BIG THING™ that Blizzard is most keenly focused on in any given year. A cursory look shows that the Keynote will take place on Friday morning, ending at 11:45 a.m. Then nothing, not a single thing sits on the schedule until after 2:00 p.m. This is not the Blizzcon of the past and it is prime gaming real estate.

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