The class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts arising from the botched launch of Battlefield 4 has hit a snag: The judge in the case has ruled that the alleged "false and misleading statements" about the game were not actually fraudulent, but were instead just the sort vague, optimistic noise you'd expect from the upper management of a major game publisher. Despite the ruling, however, it's not a complete victory for EA.

Filed last December, the lawsuit claimed EA executives knew the launch of Battlefield 4 would be a schmozzle but made "materially false and misleading statements" about its many virtues anyway and, based on that, "issued strong fiscal 2014 financial guidance for the Company" in order to entice unsuspecting investors to sink their money into it.

As the Courthouse News reported, however, Judge Susan Illston ruled that at least some of those statements were nothing more than "corporate confidence," and while it may have been misplaced, it does not constitute the foundation for a lawsuit. 

"[CFO Blake] Jorgensen's Oct. 29, 2013 statement comparing 'BF4' to a World Series ace pitcher is puffery," she wrote. "Defendant [CEO Andrew] Wilson's Oct. 29, 2013 statement explaining that EA 'worked more closely with Microsoft and Sony throughout the entire process' resulting in a 'launch slate of games that are the best transition games that I've ever seen come out of this company' is an inactionable opinion, as well as a vague statement of corporate optimism."

It's a positive outcome for EA, but it's not necessarily the end of the story. In its defense, EA pointed out that five of the eight statements cited by the lead defendants, Ryan Kelly and Louis Mastro, were actually made after they had purchased stock in the company. The judge agreed that they cannot pursue claims based on those statements, but also said the plaintiffs can be replaced by others who did purchase stock due to alleged "misstatements" made between October 29 and December 3, as long as the purchases were made after those dates. The complainants were given until November 3 to make the substitution.

Electronic Arts has taken the wraps off a big update to Titanfall that adds ranked play, "map stars," visual optimizations, new unit types, and three new modes of play including Frontier Defense, a cooperative four-player battle against waves of IMC enemies.

The Frontier Defense mode, demonstrated on Twitch, is the big hook in today's hefty Titanfall patch. Pitting four players against increasingly difficult waves of AI attackers, it adds some all-new types of enemies to the action including Sniper and Suicide Specters, Arc Titans that can drop the shields of opponents who venture too close, and Mortar Titans that lob heavy shells from a distance. Defensive turrets can be placed around the battlefield, and new Loadout Crates will enable on-demand loadout switches during battle. Players who are killed in combat are returned to the field via a dropship that circles above the action before landing, allowing pilots to fire on their enemies through side windows before touchdown.

Two other game modes will follow Frontier Defense: Deadly Ground on November 5, in which the floor is covered by electrical fog, thus strongly encouraging wall-running, and Marked for Death Pro on November 26, a round-based version of the Marked for Death mode.

The update also adds "map stars," three of them for each primary game mode of each map, which players will earn based on their performance. The stars are persistent, and new Titan Insignias can be unlocked by earning 30 stars in a particular game mode. Seven new Titan Insignias have been added as well, two for Frontier Defense and five for Map Stars completion.

Ranked play has also been added to the game, although it will remain in beta at least until the end of October. Once the beta is finished, ranked play will be opened to all players of level 32 or higher, with new seasons beginning on the first of each month. All Gen 10 players will be given access to the beta automatically, and will also be able to invite other players to join in.

The PC version of the game will enjoy a number of changes under the hood as well. Those with the horsepower to handle it can take advantage of HBAO (horizon-based ambient occlusion) and either 2x or 4x TXAA (temporal anti-aliasing). Load times are now "significantly faster," decal rendering has been further optimized, and the interface has been improved to include a countdown indicating when new daily challenges will come available.

As promised, this is a big update, and there are numerous other additions, changes, and fixes above and beyond the main points listed here. A full breakdown of what's in store is up at titanfall.com.

Article by Kevin Lee

Nvidia just released a new GeForce driver: 344.48 WHQL. On top of adding support for new games like Civilization: Beyond Earth, this new driver enables Nvidia s Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) technology on Nvidia GeForce GTX 500, 600 and 700 series desktop graphics cards.

In case you haven t read up on DSR, it involves running a game at a higher resolution (up to 4K is currently supported) and then downsampling it to a 1080p screen to improve image quality. It s essentially brute force anti-aliasing. Thus far, Nvidia has been promoting DSR functionality as a built-in feature for its new Maxwell GPUs. Now Nvidia has brought the technology to the older Fermi and Kepler GPUs.

The most exciting thing about Nvidia s implementation is it works automatically through the GeForce Experience, and since the downsampling is done at the driver level, it s more compatible and efficient (though not as configurable) than modder-created hacks, like Durante s GeDoSaTo.

Players who want to further tweak their DSR experience can do so by clicking on the game-by-game settings in the GeForce Experience app. In this NVIDIA Control Panel you can select different DSR scaling factors and adjust the smoothness of the DSR filter, which sharpens or softens the in-game picture.

The latest 344.48 WHQL drivers also optimizes Nvidia graphics cards for new games including Civilization: Beyond Earth, Elite Dangerous, and Lords Of The Fallen. Support for Oculus Rift drivers on G-SYNC systems has also been added. You can download the GeForce Game Ready 344.48 WHQL driver through the GeForece Experience application or from Nvidia s website here.

I love RPG lore. I walk into a virtual library in pretty much any game you care to mention, and I'm stuck there until I've read every single book in the place. And there are few games with more voluminous lore than The Elder Scrolls series, which is why the two series of books recently announced by Bethesda—The Elder Scrolls Online: Tales of Tamriel and The Elder Scrolls V: The Skyrim Library—represent such a dire threat to my wallet.

Bethesda didn't actually reveal how much these books will cost, but they sure don't sound cheap. There are five "lavishly bound" volumes in total, two for TESO: Tales of Tamriel—Vol. 1, The Land, and Vol. 2, The Lore—and three in The Skyrim Library—Vol. 1, The Histories, Vol. 2, Man, Mer and Beast, and Vol. 3, The Arcane. The books will collect all in-game text from both TESO and Skyrim, plus concept art and, for the TESO books, nearly 100 pieces of all-new art "illustrating the lives, the land, and the lore of Tamriel at war."

The series is being created by Titan Books, which has previously published licensed novels and art books for other games including BioShock, Crysis, Halo, Dead Space, Resident Evil, Thief, Titanfall, and two Elder Scrolls novels, Lord of Souls and The Infernal City. The first volumes are expected to launch in March 2015.

Sometimes an ability feels so good it changes the way I play a game, and the Icarus Landing System from Deux Ex: Human Revolution feels amazing. It's a meagre tool compared to Jensen's arsenal of bionic gadgets. He can spray tiny warheads from his shoulders and brutalise guards with spring-action swords that pop out of his elbows. An ability that reduces falling damage ought not to compare, and yet it is Jensen's most graceful manoeuvre.

Film, comic and game characters who love showing off have been using the three point landing for years. It's visual shorthand that implies a high level of martial skill. It can be quite expressive when used well. Spider-Man slaps against walls in a lithe, springy motion. Pavements everywhere fear Iron Man's crunchy fist-first variation. In Ghost In The Shell Kusanagi's heavy three-point landing shows the surprising weight of her augmented body, reminding us that she's beyond human.

Like Kusanagi, Jensen's landing is obviously augmented, but the characterisation is different: more delicate and controlled. You can upgrade it to deliver a concussive blast with the downward thrust of a palm, but it's an upgrade I never take—the standard animation is too perfect. Ten feet from the floor Jensen summons a gold aura with outstretched hands. As the ground approaches he folds into a crouched pose and the electromagnetic field cushions his landing. His trenchcoat settles around him and he casually stands, as though dropping three storeys from a rooftop is perfectly natural.

It has become completely natural for him. He poise of that landing shows that he's mastered his synthetic body. At two Praxis points, it's a surprisingly expensive upgrade, the sort you're likely to take later in the game when the environments shift to multi-tiered complexes. By fortune or design, acquiring the Icarus Landing some way into the game completes Jensen's traumatic evolution from regular Joe to robo-Joe. It also riffs on Human Revolution's fondness of the Icarus myth, used as an analogy for the perils of transhuman progress. It's a punchline. The modern Icarus' wings can melt away and he'll still come back to earth in a halo of golden light and land unharmed.

For all that, I mainly love the Icarus Landing system as a piece of sensory design. It's a prime example of Human Revolution's vision of an ornate black-and-gold cyberpunk renaissance, complemented by the best noise in the game—a sonorous "fvvvwoooomph" that's both gentle and ominous. The overall effect is one of coiled power, which is fitting for a man who's had every inch of his being weaponised.

Outside of its opening hours, Human Revolution's plot isn't too concerned with issues surrounding human augmentation on an individual body-horror level, spiralling quickly into a tale of conspiracy and corporate espionage. Human Revolution lets you frame Jensen's reaction to his implants—using the famous "I didn't ask for this" line if you wish—and then moves away from the topic. But abilities like the Icarus landing and the Typhoon Explosive System do offer a stance, and the stance is: human augmentation is really fucking cool.

When you activate one of these abilities, the camera pops out of first-person to spin cinematically around Jensen's mo-capped animation. After the Icarus landing he pauses for a moment and looks up before standing—a touch of flair you'll see in any big-screen three-point landing. The artifice of the whole thing is compounded by the total lack of reaction from nearby pedestrians.

This carefully manufactured sense of cool is an essential prerequisite for the player character of a big-budget game, but in Human Revolution it comments directly on one of the central themes. Never mind the immunocompromised early adopters of bionic technology, or issues of identity concerning the replacement of natural limbs with superior robotic versions, look at this man who can shrug bombs and jump off buildings. Look at his retractable sunglasses. Look at his lovely coat.

I wouldn't have it any other way in this instance. Heroes are designed to be aspirational figures, and achieve that in problematic ways in some cases, but I've fallen for Adam Jensen. It's not because of the coat, or the shades, or the beard that could double as a can opener in moments of need. I want to jump off a building and land in a haze of electromagnetic energy, and go "fvvvwoooomph". It's the only reason I bother to navigate the fiddly rooftop walkways of Human Revolution's city environments, climbing up and jumping off repeatedly to the impassive stares of passing citizens. Bring on our augmented future. My body is ready.

Here's a trailer for adventure RPG else Heart.Break(). We'll get to what it is soon, but first I'm going to objectify the heck out of it. Blimey, this piece of digital media looks gooood.

"Else Heartbreak is an adventure game set in the peculiar city of Dorisburg," explains the trailer, "a place where bits have replaced atoms. Follow the daily lives of its citizens, fall madly in love, and learn how to modify reality through programming."

In other words, it sounds a bit like Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash, but with feelings. Hopefully, it will also sound as good as it looks; with music (and animation, modelling and world design) from Hotline Miami's El Huervo.

else Heart.Break() is due out "pretty soon," apparently. See some screenshots below.

Thanks, RPS.

The Golden Joysicks are nearly here. They are not for plugging into your PCs, but for rewarding the year's best games and game creators. In addition, they are for the world first showing of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's opening cinematic. You can see the full thing on 24 October at 3:45pm BST, live on the Golden Joysticks Twitch channel. Before that, you can see this brief teaser, by casting your eyes slightly upwards and pressing play.

In this Dragon Age: Inquisition trailer, we get an introduction to three of the game's new faces. Companions Iron Bull, Sera and Dorian are detailed; alternatively known as buff grey dude, crazy elf and slick wizard.

Inquisition, then. That's a game that's going to happen, and soon. 18 November is the US release date, with Europe lagging behind on 21 November. I'm currently blasting my way through Dragon Age 2 in preparation. Good thing I love grey/brown textures.

For all of DA2's faults, the writing is impeccable, and Inquisition's systems seem targeted at addressing its predecessors shortcomings. For more, check it out: "it" being Evan's hands-on impressions of the game.

Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope has posted an early development build of his next game. The Return of the Obra Dinn may not be set behind the desk of a border control station, but it is still somewhat administrative in nature. A first-person mystery, your job is to find out what happened aboard the merchant ship "Obra Dinn"—uncovering the fate of the ship's crew.

This demo gives you a brief idea of its central mechanic—which I won't spoil because it's a neat revelation. Still, as it's easy to miss things: make sure you've collected the watch and the passenger manifest before you've finished. You should, with some deduction, be able to work out the fate of two crew members by the end of the current content.

Systems aside, it's worth taking a look to see the beautiful "1-bit" rendering style in motion. Screenshots don't really do it justice. To download the build, head over to the game's Itch.io page, and for more development details, check out The Return of the Obra Dinn's TIGSource thread.

Eight years is hell of a wait for a cliffhanger, but the Dreamfall/The Longest Journey saga is finally continuing. Book One of the Kickstarted Dreamfall Chapters is now available for public consumption—the first of five planned episodes that, with luck, won't take another eight years to complete.

For those new to the series, the game takes place across the dual-worlds of Stark and Arcadia: one grounded in technology, the other in magic. Both The Longest Journey and Dreamfall were praised for their stories—particularly their characterisation—even if, as an adventure game series, one of them did require doing illogical things to a rubber duck.

The game costs 24/$30 on Steam, but will give you access to all five episodes as they're released. Below, you'll find a trailer from earlier in the year.