Archived News:
The Massgate.net Website now offers the
promised ( story) pair of new user-created maps for World in
Conflict, Massive Entertainment's real-time strategy game. The new maps will
download automatically upon logging into Massgate, or they can be grabbed
manually from their download
section. Word is: "Time to roll out! Two new maps from the official World in
Conflict map contest are now finally released! EvilViking’s Paradise map is a
domination map with some stunning tropical eye candy, including custom-made palm
trees! Luva, on the other hand, charmed the team with a miniature Australia in
autumn colors, which should match the colors of the season."
A new movie from Need for Speed: Undercover shows off the
newly announced cops
and robbers multiplayer mode in the Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3
editions of the street racing sequel. Here's a description of the new game mode:
"Robbers must pick up the package and take it to the drop-off point while the
cops attempt to prevent the delivery. Each game consists of two rounds giving
the players the chance to play as cops and robbers. Up to eight players will
also be able to prove their driving prowess in sprint and circuit multiplayer
race modes." The movie can be found on
FileFront, Gamer's
Hell, and
MyGameTrailers.
A new diary movie from Tomb Raider: Underworld is now available. Word is:
"In the third Beneath The Surface video, entitled ‘What Could Lara Do?’,
Creative Director Eric Lindstrom, Lead Animator Primo Navidad and Lead Character
Artist Kam Yu discuss how they crafted Lara into a more credible and believable
character allowing her to do all the things you would expect of a strong,
fearless, independent adventurer. Motion captured for the first time and
featuring over 2,000 beautifully fluid animations, watch Lara as she now shoots
at two different targets simultaneously, vaults off enemies and shoots, balances
along narrow beams and poles, takes out a gun to switch hands and shoots when
clinging to a pillar or on a ledge and pushes foliage out of the way." The clip
can be found on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, Gamer's
Hell, and
MyGameTrailers.
Two new movies from Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People promote
Baddest of the Bands, the upcoming third installment in the episodic
webcomic-based game. There is a trailer on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and
Games32; and a gameplay movie on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and
Games32.
Two new patches for Rush for Berlin are now available, updating this
alternate-history World War II RTS game to version 1.25. There is an
international patch, available on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and
Gamer's Hell; and there is a German patch, which can be found on
AtomicGamer,
FileFront, and
Gamer's Hell.
Okay, thanks once again to Frans for more coolness in the forums, where there's
now a "code" view that allows the posting of comments that contain symbols the
forum would normally translate into smilies, and a preview mode for both
creating and editing forum posts. Huzzah!
The
World of Warcraft Forums offers an updated set of system requirements
covering the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for Blizzard's
MMORPG. The minimum PC specs include an Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP
1500+, 512 MB of RAM (1GB for Vista), and a 3D graphics processor with Hardware
Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM "Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or
NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better." The recommended specs include a
dual-core processor "such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2," 1 GB of
RAM (2GB for Vista), and a 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader
capability with 128 MB VRAM "Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600
GT class card or better." They also have specs for Macintosh systems, which
Massively, our source for this tidbit, points out represent a greater jump
from the Burning Crusade specs for the Mac compared with the change in PC specs
from the last expansion to this one.
The World of Gatheryn Website
heralds the coming of this Victorian-themed MMO adventure game from MindFuse
Games that may leave players mysty-eyed with its lush visuals and steam-powered
sensibilities. The site offers information and screenshots, but no release date
is suggested at this time. Here's a bit of the description: "Come, journey to
Gatheryn, a massive multi-player world of adventure, mystery and romance. Make
your way through an ever expanding world, making new friends and enemies as you
work through interactive games and puzzles, new adventures appearing with each
successful solution. You can hop aboard the nearest air ship to reach a myriad
of destinations or just to satisfy the explorer inside you." Thanks Gamer's Hell.
Sierra Community Forums
have news that Sierra is planning on closing multiplayer servers for 21
different games as of November 1 of this year. There's no indication if this has
to do with the Activision Blizzard merger or if this is normal end-of-life for
supporting these games, but there are some noteworthy titles on this list
(thanks
Eurogamer). Here's the list of server on death row: 1. Alien vs
Predator 2
2. Arcanum
3. Caesar IV
4. Dark Reign 2
5. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
6. Empire Earth
7. Empire Earth 2
8. Empire Earth: Age of Conquest
9. Ground Control
10. Ground Control2
11. Homeworld
12. Homeworld: Cataclysm
13. Nolf2
14. Red Baron
15. Sanity
16. Star Trek: Armada
17. SWAT3: EE
18. SWAT3: GOTY
19. The Incredible Machine
20. Tribes2
21. Vampire
The rumor of the day is on
X-bit labs where they have revived speculation that a Blu-Ray add-on is in
the works for the Xbox 360, which has been denied several times in the past by
Microsoft. They say "market sources" tell them a joint venture between Samsung
and Toshiba called Storage Technology Corp has been contracted to create an
external Blu-Ray drive, saying the price point for such a product is rumored to
be in the range of $100.00-$150.00. They also have an informative recap of the
background of the MS/HD-DVD versus Sony/Blu-Ray divide and speculation about
when such a product might be unveiled.
A new patch is now available for Splinter Cell: Double Agent, updating
the stealthy Tom Clancy action game to version 1.02a. The download is posted on
FileFront, Gamer's Hell,
and
Strategy Informer.
Midway has released Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War for free,
offering this real-time strategy game designed and partly developed by Stainless
Steel Studios, though it was completed by Midway after Stainless Steel closed
down during the game's production. The game offers some first- an third-person
combat with hero units, in addition to its RTS gameplay. The 2.44 GB download is
available on
ComputerGames.ro and
Gamer's Hell.
Videogaming247 quotes Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater
on how piracy is a reason Tom Clancy's EndWar is appearing on consoles
first, with plans for a PC edition remaining vague ( story). He
says this of a PC version of the voice-controlled RTS game: "To be honest, if PC
wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the
same day as the other two," also saying: "You know, the level of piracy that you
get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that
version." He goes on to agree with dire predictions about the impact of piracy
on PC gaming: "But at the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially
what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off
instead of a purchased version. Piracy’s basically killing PC."
What
Tim Cain Thinks of Fallout 3 on Edge Online talks with the programmer and
designer on the original Fallout, who was
just promoted to Design Director at startup ( story) Carbine
Studios, about Bethesda's imminent Fallout 3. He discusses his concerns
about the direction of newer versions, which seem even more appropriate to plans
for a Fallout MMOG ( story), saying: "The biggest problem I
have with expanding the game is that the original games were designed to make
you feel like you were one of the last people left on Earth. And with Fallout 3
and the online version, I'm curious about how they'll handle making the game not
feel too crowded--making it feel like there's not much life left out there after
the war." Lest anyone take this as hating on the new game, he points out he is
still eagerly anticipating Fallout 3: "It's not necessarily the direction I
would've gone, but I can tell you I have my Fallout 3 pre-ordered. I want my
life-sized Pip-Boy. I'm going to be playing that at the end of the month."
A new patch for Universal Combat Collectors’ Edition is now available to
update this space combat game fro 3000AD to version 1.00.09. The
version control file
outlines what's new, including the use of the latest DirectX, which requires use
of the August DirectX runtime distribution, which is available
on this page.
Massgate.net has word to expect another
pair of World in Conflict maps soon, saying Paradise and Ozzault, another
pair of winning entries in their recent mapping contest for the real-time
strategy game, "are up for an official release very soon."
The
Saint's Row 2 Interview on Strategy Informer hears from Greg Donovan about
Saints Row 2, Volition's imminent open-word action sequel. A variety of
topics are covered, including the game's co-op support: "Co-op as it’s been the
hardest but most rewarding element of the game. Relatively early on we figured
out we needed to do something big and co-op was obviously a new and up and
coming thing, that in open-world games hadn’t been done until that point. So, we
had to learn a lot about the technology, about design as well because it’s
paving new ground across the board. And I think compared to other co-op games,
what we’ve done is above and beyond what other games have done and so I’m really
proud of it. It was a difficult road but I’m really glad we did it and it turned
out great." On a related note,
Kotaku
has a list of songs on the game's soundtrack.
A couple more tweaks can be found in the forums, once again thanks to Frans. Posting options have been clarified, they can now be seen while editing a post, and editing a post multiple times will not result in multiple "edited" tags.
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