Archived News:
Impulse announces the availability of a new hotfix for version 1.1 of
Demigod, the action/strategy game from Gas Powered Games: Stardock
Entertainment and Gas Powered Games have released a hotfix for version 1.1 of
their action/strategy game, Demigod today. Available now via Impulse to all
registered customers, the hotfix resolves: a crash bug while purchasing
skills/items while dead, a fix for choosing the Random demigod option in
multiplayer games, and a fix for favor items not being saved between
matches.
As noted on the
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky Website, new patches are now available to
update GSC Game World's irradiated shooter prequel to version 1.5.10. There are
a multitude of patches, depending on the language of your copy of the game, and
whether it is the boxed retail edition or a digitally distributed edition. The
patches are located in their
downloads area, and are mirrored on
The Patches
Scrolls, who found this news, as well as on
AtomicGamer.
Ubisoft planning Toronto studio has news that Ubisoft is planning to take
off, to the great white north, take off, it's a beauty way to go (thanks Dave).
Here's word on the incentives involved: TORONTO -- French interactive
game maker Ubisoft on Monday unveiled plans to open a Toronto development
studio, with the Ontario provincial government pitching in $226 million over 10
years to create 800 jobs.
The move follows the Ontario provincial government in May announcing it will
invest $20.5 million into the Starz Animation Toronto 3D cartoon studio over the
next five years to create and retain high-tech jobs locally.
In its latest digital industry investment, Ontario will help Ubisoft open its
fourth Canadian studio in Toronto, alongside existing facilities in Montreal and
Quebec City, where the game maker employs about 2,000 people, and another in
Vancouver opened this year.
As part of its agreement with the Ontario government, Ubisoft will invest
another $500 million in the new Toronto studio over the next decade, after the
facility opens its doors in late 2009. Ubisoft Toronto will be overseen by
Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal, the game maker's flagship development
studio.
BioWare: Mature industry can drop violence from games is a quote from
this morning's BioWare interview. It seems they are not talking
about hardcore gamers here, it sounds more like they are talking about expanding
to a more casual audience. Specifically Dr. Greg says: "I think once we've got
the breadth of audience available to us, there could be really good
opportunities created by different people coming to games that are
story-driven."
A new movie from Section 8 is now available, offering a bunch of gameplay
from TimeGate's upcoming first-person shooter. Mechs, jetpacks, and things going
boom are all the order of the day, and the clip showing them off is available on
ActionTrip,
AtomicGamer, and
Gamer's Hell.
The
Operation Flashpoint.: Dragon Rising Website now features a new movie
from the upcoming military shooter sequel. The clip is called "fear and
anticipation," in which we "Witness the ruthless precision of the US Special
Forces and feel the fear of impending battle."
- Metro 2033 on
SKOAR. Thanks Mike Martinez.
Link of the Evening: Saving
Private Remi. Thanks Morris.
R.I.P.:
Robert McNamara Dies. Thanks Mike Martinez.
LucasArts
has made the big announcement they promised, revealing plans
to re-release some of their classic adventure games via digital distribution on
Steam. The first batch of games is to be released on Wednesday; here's word:
In this first round of releases, ten fan-favorite LucasArts PC games will
be made available Wednesday, July 8 on Steam®, Valve Corporation's delivery and
management platform for the PC. Scheduled for release are classic adventure
titles like LOOM and The Dig and hit action games including Star Wars
Battlefront II and Star Wars Republic Commando.
The complete list of games to be released on July 8 via Steam includes:
Armed and Dangerous™
Indiana Jones® and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones® and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
LEGO® Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure
LOOM™
Star Wars Battlefront® II
Star Wars Republic Commando®
Star Wars Starfighter™
The Dig®
Thrillville®: Off the Rails™
“This effort is going to make it possible to introduce a whole new generation of
gamers to LucasArts’ classic games,” said Darrell Rodriguez, president of
LucasArts. “It also gives more people a chance to play our games by making them
available long after they’ve disappeared from store shelves. We hope our fans
are as excited as we are about our plans and we can’t wait to share what’s
coming next. This is just the beginning.”
This series of launches continues LucasArts’ new mission to revitalize its deep
portfolio of beloved gaming franchises.
Codemasters announces the Games For Windows LIVE edition of
Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is delayed until
December 2009, explaining the game will support DirectX 11 out of the box. Word
is: With the introduction of Microsoft Windows 7, DirectX 11 will be made
available both as part of the operating system and as a downloadable update to
Windows Vista. Codemasters intends to immediately take advantage of DirectX 11
features that add to the realism of the racing environment. Hardware
tessellation will further improve the appearance of water and other surfaces as
well as crowd animations.
The shader performance of Shader Model 5.0 (SM 5.0) will aid in creating an even
richer 3D experience, enhancing key image quality parameters such as depth of
field, ambient occlusion and shadows. These DirectX 11 features, and many
others, will add the horsepower needed to improve performance.
This Football Manager Live Website offers a
limited number of free playable trials of Football Manager Live, the MMO
sports game. There are currently about 2200 copies left, so if you're
interested, you should hurry. Thanks
VG247.
A report we missed last week on
Official Xbox 360 Magazine
indicates the release of Left 4 Dead 2 in November will be preceded by a
playable demo (thanks
Kotaku). "With Left 4 Dead in particular we've found that word of mouth
really is the strongest thing," is how they quote Valve's Doug Lombardi. "With
Left 4 Dead 2 we plan to do a demo before the game comes out that'll have
multiplayer in it. And hopefully we can continue the free weekends with the full
game post-launch." According to
Joystiq, Lombardi tells them there will be advance access to the demo for
customers who preorder the multiplayer zombie game through participating
retailers or Steam.
Blizzard's Tom Chilton on the future of WoW on VideoGamer.com discusses the
future of World of Warcraft (thanks
Joystiq). They ask about the business model for Blizzard's MMORPG, and Tom
does not rule out the possibility that the game could eventually evolve to use a
subscription-free model with microtransaction support, though this would be way
down the road: I certainly think it's possible that we could do some kind
of micro-transaction stuff. Whether or not World of Warcraft ever goes the
direction of, I guess like Anarchy Online has gone the direction of going
free-to-play with micro-transactions. Whether we ever shift to a free-to-play
model is really too hard to say at this point. Anything I say now could easily
five years from now end up seeming like, oh my gosh, that was an incredibly dumb
thing to say, how naive!
Doctors On Call
on GamesIndustry.biz talks with doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about
the state of the game industry and what's up at BioWare. Here's a bit on what
they see doing with Project Natal: "It could, yeah. I think it applies very much
to an emotionally-engaging narrative and a story-driven game. Fulfilling
characterisation more completely in games is I guess a way to achieve that. So
it's something we'd be interested in exploring. We haven't made any
announcements or anything, but it's an intriguing technology that I think we'd
want to see more of and see what we could do with it."
Your Out of the Blue entertainment will be ready, right after a brief
Loading Screen
(thanks Ant).
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