Author: Kyle Orland

Players who exploited in-game glitches to get around limits on end-game loot drops in The Division may face "punishment" from the publisher, according to a community manager. That's despite the fact this tactic didn't involve actively hacking or modifying the game or its servers.

An anticipated update to The Division last week introduced Falcon Lost, the game's first raid-like multiplayer "incursion" that culminates in a difficult final boss and rare loot for successful players. The incursion was designed to provide this loot just once a week, requiring players to come back again and again over time to gain the full set of randomly doled out gear.

That's not how things worked in practice. Shortly after Falcon Lost launched, word started to leak of a glitch that let players dash through the incursion in roughly 20 minutes, collecting the loot again every single time. The key is the abuse of the Survivor Link and Mobile Cover skills, letting players warp through walls and avoid triggering key moments and enemy spawns in the incursion.

One of the Web's oldest and largest repositories for classic and current PC gaming mods will be shutting down for good later this month. GameFront announced today that its servers will be going offline on April 30 and that "any files not downloaded by that time will no longer be accessible."

"Since our founding as FileLeech almost 20 years ago, we have always strived to offer the best file hosting alongside quality gaming content," former GameFront staffer Ron Whitaker wrote. "To all of our fans who have supported us throughout the years, we thank you for making us your destination for gaming files. Despite name changes, ownership changes, and staff changes, you have always made our jobs rewarding and fun."

The shutdown is a blow to those who rely on GameFront for access to tens of thousands of mods, demos, patches, tools, maps, skins, and add-ons for PC games dating back to the mid-'90s. It's especially significant to those looking for mods and patches for older games with smaller communities or defunct publishers, which can be hard or impossible to find elsewhere.

Now that Nintendo's plans for smartphone app development have gone from persistent rumor to actual reality, it's time to start thinking about whether mobile profits can help the company's flagging console business. Earlier this week, SurveyMonkey Intelligence gave us some early information on that score, providing download, user, and revenue estimates for Nintendo's recently launched Miitomo social networking app/game.

At first glance, the results look promising for Nintendo's mobile move. Miitomo has already attracted 4 million total monthly users, with about 1 million using the game on any given day. On average, a Miitomo user spends eight minutes with the app across two or three play sessions.

More importantly to Nintendo's bottom line, plenty of those users are also paying for cosmetic items in the otherwise free-to-play app. SurveyMonkey estimates that Miitomo is already bringing in $40,000 a day in revenue, mostly from iOS users. That's enough for the SurveyMonkey analysts to write that "King, Zynga, Storm8, EA and Glu should be worried... In a nutshell, Miitomo is crushing it and Nintendo seems to have a hit on its hands!"

You might think that gamers have combed through every secret and available strategy in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (aka simply Punch-Out!!) since its original release on the NES in 1987. You'd be wrong, though. Just this weekend, word first started to spread of a previously unnoticed background Easter Egg that can help players with the split-second timing needed for some crucial knockout punches.

The three-minute video explanation from YouTuber midwesternhousewives lays out the specifics, but in short, the newly discovered secret hinges on a bearded man on the bottom row of the on-screen audience, near the left side of the screen. If you watch his face closely during the first fight with Piston Honda and the second fight with Bald Bull, this one audience member will duck slightly at the precise moment you can throw an instant, body blow knockout punch.

While the general timing for those one-hit knockouts have been well-known for decades, this is the first time anyone has publicized the existence of this specific timing clue. The animation timing could theoretically be a coincidence, but since the man doesn't seem to react at any other point in the game—and ducks consistently whenever the knockout opportunity presents itself—it seem highly unlikely.

In our original reviews of the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, we tried very hard to examine these virtual reality systems on their own merits without constant comparisons to the competition. But no product exists in a vacuum. After years of buildup, we’re now faced with two competitive, PC-tethered VR headsets hitting the market right next to each other. Unless you have a spare $1,400 to spend to buy both headsets (or more, if you need to outfit a gaming PC too), you’ll have to pick one or the other if you want virtual reality in your home as soon as possible.

Today, we’ll lay out the major pros and cons of both Oculus and HTC’s VR systems as we see them in order to (hopefully) guide you to the headset that’s right for you. If you’re just planning on scrolling to the bottom for our final verdict, though, here’s a spoiler—we’re not entirely sure you should buy either one just yet.

Headset specs
	Oculus Rift	HTC Vive
Headset weight	470 grams (~1 lbs)	555 grams (~1.2 lbs) without cables
Display	2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) OLED panels	2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) AMOLED panels
Refresh rate	90 Hz	90 Hz
Field of view	110 degrees	110 degrees
Lens spacing	58-72mm (adjustable)	60.2-74.5mm (adjustable)
Packaged Controllers	Xbox One gamepad and Oculus Remote	Two wireless motion-tracked controllers with rechargeable 960mAh batteries
Tracking	3-axis gyroscope, accelerometer, and external "Constellation" IR camera tracking system	SteamVR 1.0 tracking system with two "Lighthouse" IR laser tracking boxes (up to 5m diagonal tracking volume)
Audio	Integrated over-ear headphones with 3D directional audio support and built-in microphone	Audio extension dongle to plug generic headphones to headset. Built-in microphone
PC connection	4m custom cable (integrates HDMI and USB connections)	Three-part multi-cable (HDMI, USB, and power) with junction box for PC connection.
Included games	Lucky's Tale (and Eve Valkyrie with pre-order)	Job Simulator, Fantastic Contraption and Tilt Brush
Price	$600	$800

Recommended PC specs
	Oculus Rift	HTC Vive
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU	Intel i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
RAM	8GB	4GB
OS	Windows 7 SP1 or newer	Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Inputs	3 USB 3.0 ports (for headset, tracking camera, wireless controller dongle), one HDMI 1.3 port	1x HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2; 1x USB 2.0
Other		At least 1.5m x 2m of open space for "room-scale" experiences.

Visual similarities

On a pure baseline of technical specs, there’s remarkably little difference in the Rift and Vive. Both sport two 1080x1200 pixel OLED displays (one for each eye) that provide an utterly convincing 3D effect. Both headsets have 90 Hz refresh rates, low-persistence pixel switching, and accurate, low latency head-tracking that quickly updates your apparent VR view as you move and tilt your head in space.

No matter how many reviews you read or how many videos you watch, you can't really understand what the new round of virtual reality hardware is like until you try it. For those without an early-adopting, VR-savvy friend nearby, HTC is rolling out dozens of retail demo stations where you can put the SteamVR-powered Vive through its paces. And if the demo convinces you to lay down at least $800 on a piece of the future, those retail location will also be taking pre-orders for delivery beginning in June, according to HTC.

Currently, the Vive demos are only available at three Microsoft Stores—in New York City, Bellevue, and Salt Lake City. Microsoft has plans to expand the program to 11 more stores in the US (and one in Sydney, Australia) by the end of the month and up to 30 locations by the end of the year. (Users have to be 18 years old to take part in the demos, according to Microsoft's website.) Gamestop, meanwhile, will start demonstrating the Vive at 10 locations across the US starting April 18.

That's a lot of Vive demo stations to keep track of, so we threw together a quick Google Map (below) that shows how far you'll have to travel to get your free taste of the headset (color-coded by retailer and demo start dates, click through for more details). Customers in central Florida, the New York area, Southern California, and the Pacific Northwest are spoiled for choices, while pickings are currently much slimmer in the vast middle of the country. Who's up for a really nerdy roadtrip?

One of the most popular "pirate" servers for World of Warcraft, running a classic version of the game no longer offered by Blizzard, will be shutting down under the threat of legal action from Blizzard.

The Nostalrius servers had been in operation for about a year, running version 1.12 of the original World of Warcraft as it existed in 2006, just before the release of "the Burning Crusade" expansion. The administrators say that 800,000 registered accounts and 150,000 active players were working through quest progressions reproduced to precisely match the game of a decade ago.

But the team behind Nostalrius says its French hosting provider has been issued a formal letter asking it to shut down the servers or face a potential copyright infringement lawsuit. As such, the servers will be shut down on April 10.

So you want to get into e-sports, but you're worried that the myriad existing popular competitions can't match the grandeur and incorruptible respectability of something like the Olympic games. The UK government has a potential solution, today announcing the eGames as "an international gaming tournament where national pride is the prize."

That pride is apparently the only prize... the announcement makes it clear that "the eGames will be a medal only competition, with no prize money, but the opportunity to take home gold for your country." That might be a hard sell in a space that routinely attracts competitors with prize pools that can easily surpass $18 million, but it does line up with the lack of international prize money for Olympic athletes (local Olympic committees often give cash to gold medal winners, though).

The new eGames will be looking to bask in some reflected glory from the upcoming Rio Olympic Games, hosting its first competition as a two-day "pop up" in Rio during the Summer Olympics in August. Any nation will be welcome to field an "eTeam" (their term, not ours) in the eGames, but so far only four countries are confirmed as participants: Britain, Canada, Brazil, and the US.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) says his son spent over $1,300 of campaign funds on Steam games. (credit: David Brooks / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Update: August 21, 2018 In a 47-page indictment today, federal prosecutors formally charged Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and his wife Margaret with wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy involving $250,000 of campaign funds. That includes $1,528.68 spent "at Steam Games on video games" in 2015, according to the criminal complaint.

Margaret Hunter claimed at one point those purchases were "personal" and put on the campaign credit card in error, according to the documents. The campaign later promised in FEC reports that the Hunter family would pay back over $1,300 in Steam purchases from personal funds for this reason. But in 2016, according to the charging documents, Margaret Hunter falsely told her bank that the Steam charges were "fraudulent" and received a $1,302 credit for the purchases.

The indictment also alleges the Hunters used campaign funds for lavish personal spending on vacations, clothing, food and drink, salon trips, dental work, and more while concealing this spending from the FEC and investigators.

Headset specs
Headset weight	555 grams (~1.2 lbs) without cables
Display	2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) AMOLED panels
Refresh rate	90 Hz
Field of view	110 degrees
Lens spacing	60.2-74.5mm (adjustable)
Controllers	Two wireless motion-tracked controllers with rechargeable 960mAh batteries
Tracking	SteamVR 1.0 tracking system with two "Lighthouse" IR laser tracking boxes (up to 5m diagonal tracking volume)
Audio	Audio extension dongle to plug generic headphones to headset. Built-in microphone
PC connection	Three-part multi-cable (HDMI, USB, and power) with junction box for PC connection.
Included games	Job Simulator, Fantastic Contraption and Tiltbrush
Price	$800

Recommended PC specs
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU	Intel i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
RAM	4GB
OS	Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Outputs	1x HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2; 1x USB 2.0
Other	At least 1.5m x 2m of open space for "room-scale" experiences.

An entire generation of nerds has now grown up with the sci-fi ideal of the holodeck as the ultimate future of interactive entertainment. The Star Trek universe’s 24th century gave us a view of rooms literally filled with 3D holographic projections that users could touch, feel, smell, and talk to at will. As a way of interacting with a computer simulation, it seems believably hundreds of years beyond the current methods of using a mouse or a finger to dither around on a 2D screen.

We’re still a long way from technology that can suspend visible light (much less physical matter) in empty space as the fictional holodeck can. For now, though, the HTC Vive is a better simulation of key parts of that holodeck ideal than we had any right to expect from the early 21st century. By combining a 3D virtual reality display, position- and motion-sensitive handheld controllers, and a tracking solution that works over the scale of an entire room, the Vive transports you to a convincing simulated world that you can see and touch (even if you can’t convincingly feel it).

The characters in Star Trek didn’t have to deal with uncomfortable, slightly pixellated ski-goggle helmets or mounting tracking boxes around their living space. Still, the Vive’s ability to let you walk around and poke at a computer simulation as if it was a physical space feels like the first step toward a computing future that science fiction has spent decades training us for.