" Loosely based on the popular web comic Penny Arcade, this new episodic series kicks off with a six-hour game, cheekily subtitled On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. The action follows your custom-built avatar (and his disappointingly limited wardrobe selection) and early-20th-century versions of heroes Gabe and Tycho as they investigate paranormal goings-on in the city of New Arcadia. It’s a bizarre tale that’s completely unrelated to the comic’s setting, but bizarre is what Gabe and Tycho do best. "
"Those of us growing a little long in the tooth may recall with fondness the original Rainbow Six and its emphasis on tactics and strategy. The latest installment in the series, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, has done away with most of the tactical elements but replaced them with updated graphics and exciting action. The result is a fun game that seems to have stuck an excellent balance between realism and playability.
You are cast in the role of squad leader of a counter-terrorist SWAT team with vague orders to hunt down terrorists and stop them from trading in chemical weapons. Most of the time, you and your squad proceed through casinos, a monorail station, a convention center, and an assortment of generic buildings (all of which are curiously devoid of life forms) as you hunt down the terrorists or attempt to free hostages. While all of this makes for a good time, I wish the developers could have shown a little more imagination in choosing the locale.
I mean, really. Vegas again? We've been there already. Why not Rainbow Six: Dubai or Rainbow Six: Cairo? Take me somewhere I haven't been. Without a doubt, the original Rainbow Six: Vegas was excellent, but the sequel should have done more than just take us back to the same city for another romp through the same area, albeit in different buildings. Were it not for the substantial multiplayer component, this $50 release could have been an expansion pack."
Head over to the excellent WorthPlaying to read the full review.
I can remember the first time I died after getting hit with a single bullet in the original Rainbox Six. I was irate. "ONE BULLET!!!???..." - Mortal Moxie
The free open source Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) has just released its very first 1.0 release client. Wine is a way for Linux users to run Windows applications. The project has been running since 1993, and supports many applications such as Photoshop CS2, Microsoft Office, Steam, Blizzard Games, etc.
"Take-Two has entered a partnership with Universal Studios to make a BioShock movie, and Gore Verbinski has been tapped to direct it.
"I was hanging out a lot with Ken Levine talking about gaming in general and I heard from Ken directly that they were thinking about making a movie," Verbinski told Variety. "Of all the games out there, I think 'BioShock' is the one that's the most engaging. I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that's cleverly unveiled to players is brimming with cinematic potential."
Verbinski stated that he sees BioShock on the scale of Blade Runner rather than Pirates of the Caribbean, so don't expect something like the overblown antics of Jack Sparrow to be featured in the movie. Instead, he's focusing the utopian visuals and the theme of free will. He also confirmed that he's in talks with Ken Levine and his top priority is not to damage the franchise with the adaptation."
Universal Studios and its big budget + Verbinski and his ability to bring the best out of the biggest stars (Brad Pitt, Nicholas Cage, Naomi Watts) should make for a great silver-screened BioShock. - Mortal Moxie
The COD4 engine is a very tight and well balanced one in terms of both scalability and graphical eye candy goodness.
Treyarch, developer of the new 007 game, should be able to squeeze even more delight from the engine, before it releases "Quantum of Solace" in Q3 this year and in conjunction with the movies unleashing.
"The upcoming 007game just got an ammo clip of good news.* Quantum of Solace, currently in development at Treyarch, is running on the Call of Duty 4 game engine and due out this Fall alongside the movie. "We look forward to launching Bond: Quantum of Solace in Q3 concurrent with movie. This game uses the Call of Duty 4 engine and technology to bring Bond games to a new level," said Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith in a conference call yesterday (36:20 mark)."
The next GoldenEye game? Doubt it, but I can always dream! - Mortal Moxie
"Mass Effect invites players to take the role of Commander Shepard as they set out on an adventure to save the galaxy from imminent destruction. Earlier this week Bioware producer Derek French caused quite a stir when he revealed the Mass Effect (as well as Spore) copy protection activated a validation check every 10 days. EA/Bioware have changed their position, and now both games will only initiate a check when downloading a patch or extra content."
Now this sounds a little more reasonable and will most likely attract back the fans who said they wouldn't by Mass Effect due to the paranoid 10-day activation mechanic. - Mortal Moxie
PCGH met with Craig Allen, Spark Unlimited's Chief Executive Officer, to ask some questions about Legendary: The Box.
"PCGH: What is your personal opinion as a developer about multithreading and Quad core? Is this technology a real benefit for the gaming industry?
Craig Allen: As a developer we know that working and optimizing in a multithreaded environment is more difficult and taxing than in a single threaded one. Epic realizes that multithreading in n-core systems is the future as we reach practical limitations now that Moore's law can no longer be misapplied to clock speeds. The optimal machine for running modern games would be an ultra-fast 1-chip single threaded solution as it would allow developers to not have to debug multithreaded issues which are probably the costliest bugs to correct. In the mean time, we develop our games so that most of our important systems are multithreaded which means power users will see performance gains in terms of heavy rendering and physics scenes."
Make sure to check out the rest of the interview here.
Posted by AdamBlue on Friday, May 09 @ 12:00:00 CDT (13 reads) : comments?
"VVikoo, the recent addition to the GPU AIB lineup, has something rather interesting up its sleeve. As it has to compete with Nvidia AIB giants like XFX, eVGA and a whole bunch of others, Vvikoo has to make rather unique cards. The one of those cards is the 9600GT Turbo which is literally covered in copper, courtesy of Zalman's VF1000 GPU cooler.
The card itself works at 700MHz for the core, and comes with 512MB of DDR3 memory clocked at 2,000MHz. Besides the regular 256-bit memory bus, PCI-Express 2.0, DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 support, the Vvikoo 9600GT Turbo comes with whole bunch of connectors on the back plate. Since the Zalman cooler makes this card a dual-slot design, Vvikoo decided to place HDMI, DisplayPort, dual DVI's (with dual link) and an SPDIF for audio."
1up.com has an overview of the Zerg units & structures available on their website.
With the aim of providing you with a roster of the current -- according to Blizzard -- pre-alpha version of StarCraft II, we present the Zerg tech tree as we know it. While we've tried to recreate the information as accurately as possible, there may be the occasional inconsistency -- and since Blizzard is constantly tuning and retuning, all of this info is highly subject to extreme change. In other words, 1UP takes no responsibility for your failed Zerg rush.
This is part of their week-long journey into all things Starcraft 2.
This week, 1UP PC guru Jeff Green and lifelong StarCraft junkie James Mielke take a trip to Blizzard to dive deep into StarCraft II's multiplayer matches, chat with the developers about the game's development and history, and find out why Blizzard doesn't feel the need to rush -- even if its fans do.
Posted by Voodoo on Thursday, May 08 @ 08:49:30 CDT (16 reads) : comments?
" NVIDIA isn't joking around when it says it's after a dominant position in the consumer tech industry, and it's apparently willing to take some aggressive steps to get there -- like totally revamping its product lines. Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, NVIDIA veep Roy Taylor (the same guy who said Intel was "dead", you remember him), said that his company needed to "simplify the product line for consumers," and that if NVIDIA is going to "widen our appeal, there's no doubt we have to solve that problem." No specific plans were offered, but might we suggest a moratorium on the random-numbers-and-letters product-naming scheme? Just a thought. "
I found even myself lost in this past year of NVIDIA hardware releases. The card names and numbers really didn't make sense to me with some card model numbers being lower or higher than other cards for no apparent reason. Then you have the GTS, GT, GTX, GX2 crap. Come on NVIDIA. Enough is enough. Well... at least they're doing something about it. A hardware manufacturer listening to the community, go figure :D - Mortal Moxie
The PC version of Mass Effect is going to include some fairly serious security measures that may prove to be more of a threat to the game's popularity than they are to piracy.
According to Derek French, Mass Effect's technical producer at BioWare, the game's security begins with the same SecuROM online activation that aggravated so many owners of BioShock for PC. The system allows the user to activate the game three times before being required to contact a customer service rep to have it reactivated.
"Does that mean you won't be able to play your perfectly legitimate copy of the game if you fire it up on day 11, only to find that your 'net connection is down? According to a post from French, yes, actually, it does:
That is correct. And I would suggest that you contact EA Support the moment this happens (once you get your internet back) to report the issue. If there are people having problems with the system as designed, then Support needs to hear about it so they can help us evaluate it for the next game title."
Tight security measures are a good thing. They prevent piracy of games, helping game companies profit from the very games they make. Maybe it's tedious, but we have to support our developers. Piracy is completely out of control right now so I support BioWare in their decision to crack down in a very hard way. - Mortal Moxie
1) Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath Expansion Pack
2) Sins Of A Solar Empire
3) The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack
4) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
5) World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
6) The Sims 2 Deluxe
7) World Of Warcraft
8) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade
9) Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War Soulstorm Expansion Pack
10) Hoyle Card Games 2008
The fact that World of Warcraft is still on the list boggles my mind. The fact that Hoyle Card Games made the list boggles my mind. Happy Hump Day people :) - Mortal Moxie
As if EA's cash crop didn't already have enough add-ons, downloads, props, expansions and 20 MHz PIC16C74 RISC microcontrollers...
They've taken it a step further.
You can now incorporate IKEA furniture in your favorite house building simulator.
IKEA furniture is something of a mystery to me. People get all googley eyed, rabid, and sweaty chested, flocking to the nearest IKEA as if we've been given a count down to the end of the world and shitty furniture is our only means of survival. The epitome of fashion over function. Well... It definitely has great functionality. Let's change that quote temporarily to "Fashion over Quality". I've been to the IKEAs. I've marveled at the fantastically lit and arranged show rooms. I've eaten the Swedish meatballs with raspberry jelly. It's all good. It's all very very cool. The furniture is not though. It sucks. It falls apart.
I won't go into a rant, (even though I really want to!!), about the lack of durability in IKEA furniture because this is not the place. This is a gaming site! I will say that IKEA is huge right now. The stores are bringing in more sales than ever, and they're popping up all over the world in some of the strangest places. (Welcome to the IKEA of Saudi Arabia). Despite the piss poor furniture, IKEA itself promotes some ridiculously brilliant concepts and ideologies. I guess that's why EA is buying into them. EA, the Evil Robin Hood of the modern gaming world; stealing form the poor and giving to the rich.
How many more expansion packs will we see for The Sims series? The Sims Arbies? The Sims Starbucks?
Game marketing taken to a new level, or EA milking another udder for the liquid green? Eww - Mortal Moxie
GamesIndustry has learnt that Valve approached Microsoft and Yahoo - among others - to build Steam before deciding to develop it themselves.
Speaking in an interview, Valve's VP of marketing Doug Lombardi, described how the developer tried to convince other companies to build the gaming platform but was repeatedly rejected.
"We went around to everybody and asked 'Are you guys doing anything like this?' And everyone was like 'That's a million miles in the future...We can't help you.'"
Steam now serves as a digital distribution platform selling over 300 titles and hosts a gaming community with over 14 million accounts.
I remember when Steam was something that people hated. It used to receive constant bashing in the SteamPowered forums which always puzzled me. I can only now assume that it was the hesitance of people in general to accept something new. I hold Valve and its continuous investment into Steam in the highest regard as they are one of the true PC Gaming innovators. - Mortal Moxie
Found another one! This time, inspired by the movie Tron and the game Battlezone, we have Tank Universal.
Take part in huge 3d tank battles involving scores of units both friendly and not so friendly in wide open levels! Bombard the enemy from a distance or close the gap and dodge shells point blank -all in an immersive first person perspective!
20 levels, FPS like controls.
Purchase special weapon upgrades.
Fight alongside allies against intelligent enemies.
Spectacular particle fx.
Wide open levels allowing freedom of play.
Intriguing storyline switching between the 'real world' and the digital.
As always, I am looking for new and different games to play. I'm never one to follow popular trends and lucky for me this brings me some gems. This one, in particular, has got my interest...
: :
WorldShift is a next-gen cyber-fantasy RTS game designed to be quick and very easy to learn and play. It offers hectic, fierce encounters all around the Earth and a fascinating story uncovering ancient secrets about the true nature of the Shard and the Plague. But also, WorldShift introduces many features new to the genre, like modifiable factions, unqiue cooperative multiplayer gameplay, and more.
There are no technology trees featuring hundreds of upgrades; instead, WorldShift allows the players to discover and acquire a vast number of items and powerful relics that they can use to freely change their gameplay and preferred tactics and to surprise their foes. The players will gather items as they fight their opponents and as rewards for completing missions. But to discover the most powerful relics, they must form teams with their most trusted friends and embark on deadly missions where it is difficult to survive and where the real challenges await.
Market research company Niko Partners announced results from its latest report citing China's 46 million gamers spent $1.7 billion on online games in 2007, up 71% from 2006, while console sales rose by 75%.
"China's spending on games is up thanks to their booming economy," said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners. "14 million hardcore Chinese gamers play online games more than 22 hours per week. They play online, LAN, and single-player offline PC games in China's 185,000 Internet cafés and increasingly on their PCs at home, thanks to falling prices and higher disposable income."
Piracy remains an issue for packaged software via digital downloads and counterfeit copies of games, but legitimate sales of packaged offline PC games surged 56% in 2007, over 2006. Chinese gamers are showing that they like to buy the legitimate copies to ensure quality and to get customer support.
These changes and the increase in gamer headcount in China can only bring good to PC gaming as a whole for years to come. - Mortal Moxie
A follow-up from last weeks RTS segment, here's Gamernode's selection for Action games of '08:
"PC gaming is alive and well. One of the reasons why we believe so is because of the kick ass list of RTS games that are expected to come out this year. I know the RTS fans will be pleased with this year's lineup, but what about us action buffs? What good shooters are coming out this year? Well why don't we just take a look and check out these PC exclusives!"
