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Archived News:
CDV announces Pacific Storm:
Allies is gold, and the action/strategy sequel should hit store shelves
later this month: Pacific Storm: Allies, the latest title in the Pacific
Storm series of WWII Pacific Theater of war titles from Buka and cdv Software
Entertainment USA, has gone gold today. The game, which puts players in the
roles of fighter jocks, ship captains and master strategists with its unique
combination of strategy and action-based gameplay, is set for a retail release
in late January. For more information about Pacific Storm: Allies, please visit
the new official site at
http://pacificstorm.cdvus.com.
The Micropolis Downloads
Page offers the source code to SimCity, released under the game's working
title Micropolis. The code is released under the GNU GPL modified for inclusion
in the One Laptop Per Child program. Full details on the release can be
found in this blog post.
SCi Entertainment Calls Off Bid Talks is a press release announcing the
Eidos parent has ended talks of being taken over, and will bite the bullet and
take an operating loss for fiscal 2008 (thanks
Gamer's Hell). The release includes
further confirmation of Tomb Raider: Underworld ( story) by saying
the game is delayed before it has even been officially announced: "By moving the
release dates -- including the new 'Tomb Raider: Underworld' game -- into the
more lucrative 2008 Christmas trading period the company said it would better
optimize long term value. However, in the meantime it may have to seek
additional working capital.
A new version 1.3.8 demo for Universal Boxing Manager offers a punched-up sample
of this punch-em-up. There's a PC demo on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell, and a Mac demo on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell.
A demo for the
newly announced Arctic Stud Poker Run offers a sample of "a decidedly
irreverent, over-the-top reinvention of real-life cross-country 'poker runs' in
which players race from place to place picking up playing cards in an effort to
assemble a winning hand." The download can be found on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell.
New beta ForceWare reference drivers for NVIDIA ForceWare accelerators (thanks
Voodoo
Extreme). There are driver for
Window XP,
Vista 32-bit,
and Vista 64-bit.
Wave to the PC! It's paying attention is an article on gesture recognition
technology being shown off by JVC at CES that may someday have PC owners
shouting wii! with glee (thanks Mike Martinez). The tech is already in some mobile phones
and could find its way into things like TVs as well, though currently the PC
side is not all fun and games: In one demonstration by 3DV Systems at the
International Consumer Electronics Show here this week, users stood in front of
a large screen and controlled a Windows computer with hand gestures: thumb left
to go left, index finger right to go right, victory sign for Enter.
A new patch is now available for Prey, updating the first-person shooter to
version 1.4 in what is planned as the final update for the game "unless some
catastrophic bug is discovered." The patch includes no bug fixes or new content,
but does add compatibility fixes and removes the game's CD check. The patch
includes the version 1.4 dedicated server for Windows, and the updated Linux
server is available on
Icculus.org. Steam users are warned not to use this patch, and there are
no corresponding 360 or Mac patches. Downloads are available on the
3D Realms website.
Valve announces they have acquired Turtle Rock Studios, developers of the
upcoming Left 4 Dead: January 10, 2008 - Fresh off the success of The
Orange Box, the 2007 game of the year award-winning collection of new games
heralded as "the best value in gaming history," Valve Corporation announces the
acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios, the Orange County-based development house
behind one of 2008's most anticipated games, Left 4 Dead.
Valve was founded in 1996 and has grown to become one of the game industry's
leading technology and content creators, with a portfolio of over 20 million
games sold worldwide. The merger of the two companies extends Valve's
development team and provides the company with a new studio in southern
California.
Turtle Rock Studios' Left 4 Dead joins a growing list of Valve's game properties
which includes the Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat
series of games as well as Portal, introduced as part of The Orange Box.
"We have been seeing very strong growth with Steam and Source, our content
distribution and development platforms, up over 150% over the last 12 months.
Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with
members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision. It also gives us a
base from which to expand our development activities in the Los Angeles area,"
said Gabe Newell, president of Valve.
"Left 4 Dead fills a long-standing demand gamers have had for a coop
first-person action experience, and it will also help Valve's expansion into the
console market," added Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of marketing.
"Valve has had great success bringing in projects and teams such as Team
Fortress and Portal. As I spent time working and talking with the creators of
those products over the past several years, it became clear that this was the
right next step for myself, my colleagues at Turtle Rock, our customers, and our
products," said Michael Booth, founder and CEO of Turtle Rock Studios. "We are
excited to be a part of such a visionary and forward-thinking company."
Founded in 2002 by Michael Booth, Turtle Rock Studios is the creator of Left 4
Dead, named one 2008's most wanted titles by many of today's leading
game-enthusiast publications and Web sites.
For more information on Valve, its games, or the Steam platform, please visit
www.steamgames.com
A StuntMANIA!pro demo is now available for either Windows or Mac users
interested is sampling Sector3 Games' trick driving simulation. The 23 MB PC
demo is available on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell, while the 27 MB Mac demo is available on
AtomicGamer,
Filefront, and Gamer's
Hell.
This press
release announces January 25 as the in-store date for the PC and PS2
editions of PDC Darts 2008, with the Wii edition to follow sometime next month.
Accompanying the announcement is the release of the PC demo for the pub game
simulator, a 237 MB download, which can be found on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront,
FileShack, and Gamer's
Hell.
The
Crymod Modding Portal has more follow-up on issues ( story)
reported with the recent version 1.1 patch for Crysis ( story) and
a request for feedback on performance improvements gained after updating (thanks
Ant and
Planet Crysis). Word is: A day has now passed since the Crysis Patch
1.1 was released. We have seen several postings pop up here on Crymod with
members reporting installation problems and general issues with the patch.
Crytek and fellow community members have been working hard attempting to find
workarounds for these problems, and we’d like to share them with you now.
Patch Problems – Workarounds
If you are suffering from an installation problem with Patch 1.1 or having other
unresolved new issues with it, several workarounds have been discovered which
can be found here:
Crysis
Patch 1.1 - Known Issues & Workarounds!. Please read through them and let us
know which ones do work and which don't.
Additionally you are welcome to inform us about new workarounds you find for
specific problems. We are currently investigating these issues in-house and keep
you updated on the status.
Performance Increase Discussion
One of the focusing points of Patch 1.1 was increasing the performance of the
game overall. After you have installed the patch, you should see some
performance increase.
To aid Crytek in better understanding how this patch has increased performance
on multiple machines, we would like to ask the community to consider
benchmarking your performance while running Crysis and post the results in our
Patch 1.1 Benchmark
Results topic.
We have previously reported on an
excellent benchmarking
tool in an earlier news posting, so if you are in need of one, we suggest
checking out this benchmarking tool developed by MadBoris.
The Cabal Online Website offers
details on an Episode II update set to launch this month for the European
edition of this free-to-play MMOG. The free expansion adds a new war system, new
maps, new monsters new skills, a level cap increase, and more.
A new unofficial patch for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is now available
to update the action/RPG from late developer Troika to version 4.5. As always,
the update address bugs and other issues with the game. The download is
available on the official home of the unofficial patch,
The Patches
Scrolls.
Exclusive:
Inside The Making Of Portal on Gamasutra has extracts from a postmortem on
Valve's innovative game excerpted from the January '08 issue of
Game Developer magazine. The article
features quotes from Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw, and Jeep Barnett on the creation of
GLaDOS, technical hurdles they overcame, and more.
EA Announces The
Sims Carnival SnapCity and The Sims Carnival BumperBlast Now Available in Stores
(thanks Gamer's Hell) has word on
availability of "The First Two PC Titles From The Sims Carnival Designed for
Casual Pick-up-and-Play Fun" (not to be confused with previous Sims titles,
which are apparently hardcore games). Word is: The Sims Carnival SnapCity
is a city-building puzzle game that is both strategic and accessible. In a fun,
open-ended gameplay environment, players are challenged to position falling,
colored blocks in just the right places to build their own personal cities.
Featuring an array of industrial, commercial and residential neighborhoods, it’s
never the same city twice! Players can also pick-up-and-play by jumping into 25
unique existing neighborhood levels. The Sims Carnival SnapCity…it’s a snap!
The Sims Carnival BumperBlast will have the player blasting away for hours! The
goal in this arcade-style game is to clear out all The Sims-styled bumpers
before the shots run out. The player is challenged to master skill shots, score
combos and bonuses, and go for the high score! With over 140 action-packed
levels, The Sims Carnival BumperBlast is a fun, casual game that can be played
time and time again.
Logitech shares surge on talk of Microsoft bid (thanks
MCV)
reports rumors that Microsoft may be planning a takeover of rival peripheral
maker Logitech. The article quotes Logitech cofounder Daniel Borel saying he's not interested in selling, but as
owner of only a 6% stake in the company, there is nothing he could do to prevent
a sale if other shareholders approved.
Did you ever get a spam that cheered you up? I deleted one this morning that had
the subject line "Summer is coming, time to tone up." Now I didn't need to check
the calendar to know this is hyperbole, but it still made me happy. I actually
shouldn't complain, we're in the midst of a mild stretch that's been very
pleasant.
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