Yesterday's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim patch has fixed some issues but created a whole lot of new ones, players are reporting. Character resistances no longer work in post-patch, meaning you'll have no protection from fire, ice, magic and so-forth - leaving you to take full damage. Oh, and dragons can fly backwards now.

...

Adding fuel to the platform war fire is Richard Garriott's claim that consoles are on the way out. Talking with IndustryGamers, the respected Ultima creator said "I think we might get one more generation, might, but I think fundamentally they're doomed." Considering rising competition from devices such as tablets he explains that "I think fundamentally the power that you can carry with you in a portable is really swamping what we've thought of as a console."

Source: IndustryGamers...

Nvidia's GeForce 290.36 Beta drivers have just been released, adding some gorgeous ambient occlusion tweaks for Skyrim, which appear to make a hell of a difference. Screen flickering and artefact fixes have been implemented for Battlefield 3 as well, while Nvidia also recommends the driver update for owners of Batman: Arkham City on the PC.

Here's are the release notes:

NVIDIA Ambient Occlusion

• Adds NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for The Elder Scrolls

...

Skyrim is awesome. But sometimes more frustrating than awesome. Thankfully, an important patch for the acclaimed RPG arrives tomorrow and it includes slew of important fixes and improvements for the Xbox 360 and PC. PS3 owners already have their patch which dramatically raises performance on the system. Here's some of what you can look forward to:

• Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)
• Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed

...

A Gulf of Oman gameplay trailer has been released by DICE showing off a bunch of awesome vehicle and destruction footage. Three popular vehicles from Battlefield 2 return with the Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand expansion including the STOVL fighter jet and desert buggy. PS3 owners get lucky with the expansion being made available to them one week before everyone else.

...

It has been revealed by Google's Paul Kinlan at Develop Liverpool last week that Google will be adding plug-and-play hardware support to its Chrome browser, including gamepads. This brings Google up to speed with Firefox, and alongside existing support for positional audio and 3D graphics opens the door for further browser-based gaming experiments.

Source: Edge...

Many of us will likely be waiting for years for fibre to reach our suburbs, but we won't be forced into cowering helplessly while our peers flaunt their massive download speeds on Australia's new fibre infrastructure. Surprisingly, that's thanks to Telstra Bigpond - a phrase not often spoken. Melbournites have had access to Telstra's 100Mbps "Ultimate Cable" service since March, but as of December all other cable-connected capitals will be able to jump aboard the service as well. More specificall...

The debut day of Steam's 2011 Autumn sale include a bunch of ripper deals, including Mass Effect 2 for $5, Portal 2 for $10, Garry's Mod for $2.50, Limbo for $5 and the Oddworld Oddbox for less than $4. More deals will be made available every day through November 27, so keep checking back for new games.

Source: store.steampowered.com...

...

The first client patch for Battlefield 3 is to be deployed on PC over the next few hours, and boy is it hefty. Squad refinements, performance enhancements, crash fixes, and a whole slew of gameplay balance adjustments have been included. Find the full patch log below for your reading pleasure.


A detailed look at Squad refinements Today's PC client patch features numerous tweaks to Squad functionality and is part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier to play with friend...