The trademark hounds at
superannuation have uncovered another triple-play of new TM registrations at
the US Patent and Trademark Offices. The most noteworthy is
the
registration by Ubisoft that's
noted here for
Driver: The Recruit which indicates the original wheelman may be back on the
road one of these days. They also
note that
Chair
Entertainment has filed a trademark registration for Shadow Complex and
report that
Ubisoft has filed a trademark registration for Fairyland: Melody Magic.
Third Wire Productions now offers
Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam,
a new version of the game released under the title Wings Over Vietnam that's
been updated with Windows Vista support. Word is: "The game is a stand-alone
product and does not require Strike Fighters 2 to play, but if you already have
Strike Fighters 2, the games are merged to make all the stock aircraft
available."
A new
Battlezone II
version 1.3 Tech Alpha 5 is now available, extending the unofficial support
for Pandemic's action/strategy game from Ken Miller and Nathan Mate, two of the
original programmers on the game. The new version has an updated graphics engine
with hardware transform & lighting support that requires DirectX 9.0c,
additional Windows Vista and Windows 7 support, ogg vobis format music, and bug
fixes.
Message to the PC
Gamer(s) Following BF1943's Development on the EA Forums follows-up on the
reaction to
news that the PC edition of Battlefield 1943 will
trail the console versions by a couple of months. The post by DICE's Gordon
Van Dyke reassures PC gamers that "this is to give us the proper development
time to create a proper PC version of Battlefield 1943 and not a console port.
To the contrary of some less informed fans out there this is in no means an
intentional ploy to punish our PC fans. And is in fact quite the opposite, we
want to make the best damn PC version we can for our PC fans!" He refers to PCs
"requiring additional features, support, technical consideration, and can't just
be thrown out there using copy/paste." On that topic,
Planet
Battlefield (thanks
Ant) relates a translation of a Swedish interview
revealing that DICE is considering dropping some console features for the PC
editions, taking a hard look at regenerating health, regenerating ammo, and the
24-player limit for multiplayer games.
IGN's Star Trek:
D-A-C Preview includes screenshots and four gameplay videos showing off the
upcoming multiplatform Star Trek game. The clips offer the first look at the
game in action, and the article takes a stab at what the title represents:
"Paramount says it's a secret that will be revealed after players have spent a
good amount of time with the game. But our guess is it stands for the three play
modes: Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest."
'World of Warcraft' Demoed on the iPhone? offers clips that seem to
demonstrate WoW on the iPhone. It seems quite plausible this is genuine, for no
other reason than the occasional multi-touch issues encountered by the user,
which show why it may still be a while before WoW addicts can look to get their
fixes on the run in this manner.
Computer
scientists add smell to games has word on advances in smell-o-vision
technology to add odors to games, not that some of them haven't stunk before
this. The article describes military applications of a "scent delivery system"
(SDS) for "serious games" in the military, though this has obvious gaming
possibilities as well, but it's doubtful home users will embrace the sewage
smell described in this excerpt:
The SDS — scent delivery system — is one
of the add-ons that Stone has adopted to make the training games more realistic.
It consists of eight sealed chambers, each of which holds a pot of wax
impregnated with a pungent odour. Available at $25 (£17.26) each from Biopac, an
American educational supplies company, they range from the likes of gingerbread
and April showers to a mix of odours designed to evoke combat. On command from
the computer, compressed air is blown over some or several of the chambers to
stir up an instant impression of Kandahar.
“Smell is the most underrated sense, but next to vision is the most
information-rich one we have,” says Stone. He is in the process of writing code
into his games that will cause the machine to release smells at appropriate
times. For example, on the battlefield, the system will release the odour of
cordite, a pungent residue of gunfire. In close-quarter combat, the system can
render the smell of body odour. The smells are so lifelike they can be almost
overpowering. One scenario is an Iraqi neighbourhood where sewage is running
down the street. Stone’s smell generator whirs into action, sending players
scrambling to open the windows.
Trembling
Hand- Free XP!
What if, next time you fired up your favourite MMO, there was a new
button in the interface. It says "Level up", and every time you press it,
you gain a level, plain and simple. Hit it 49 times, and you're level 50.
Would you press it?
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