Archived News:
Star Trek Online Website now offers subscription options for Cryptic's upcoming Trekkie MMORPG, which include an option for lifetime subscriptions. This page has word on special offers available only for pre-order customers: Annual subscriptions for $119.99 USD/year which will earn you two additional character slots or a lifetime subscription for $239.99 that also include two extra slots as well as a playable Borg. There is an accompanying FAQ with further details, including an outline of the Borg's special abilities, but nowhere does it say whether the Borg is exclusive to these lifetime subscriptions. After the game's launch they offer three different plans, in US dollars they are $14.99 monthly, $41.97 quarterly, or $77.94 semi-annually. Update: This story originally listed annual subscriptions as $199.99. Apologies for the error.
A playable demo is now available for The Legend of Vraz, the recently announced 2D action/adventure game from independent Indian developer Zatun Games. Downloads are available on the Zatun Games Website, AtomicGamer, FileFront, and WorthPlaying. Here's a bit from the developer's description of the game: "If you have played the original Prince of Persia, love retro /amiga-esque graphics or wish to experience a gameplay experience like never before then this game is for you. Ever wondered what would happen if Mario and Prince of Persia met India. Well you can find out now!"
RailSimulator.com announces an exclusive distribution partnership in the US and Canada with eDimensional, and that the boxed version of RailWorks is now available in US territories. A great deal of DLC is online for the game, which is addressed in the included quote from eDimensional's Nathan Newman: "eDimensional is delighted to be the exclusive North American distributor of the best-selling RailWorks Train Simulator. Consumers in the US and Canada will finally be able to obtain the ultimate train simulator locally as well as access and add to the growing catalog of exciting add-ons developed specifically for RailWorks. This is great news for simulation fans everywhere."
Joystiq has a new cinematic trailer from Splinter Cell: Conviction, showing an interrogation that looks back at what made Sam Fisher a stealthy loose cannon in the just delayed installment in the stealth/action series.
Mod DB offers version 1.10 of The Dawn of the Tiberium Age, a recreation of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. The new version adds an enhanced mode, explained here: "While the classic mode aims to be a perfect replica of C&C95 on Tiberian Sun's engine, the aim of the enhanced mode is to improve or add features to the ones you're already familiar with from the classic mode." Thanks Ant.
Direct2Drive tweets that they are offering the Orc Lords expansion for free to anyone who purchased Hinterland from them, as Steam did last June. To get the expansion for Tilted Mill's strategy game they offer the following: "FREE update to Hinterland: Orc Lords for all who have purchased Hinterland from D2D - will req re-download & re-install." Bowie fans, feel free to sing along: The Hinterland, the hinterland, we're gonna sail to the hinterland!
A new beta 0.5 of the Renegade X modification for Unreal Tournament 3 is now available, updating this recreation of C&C Renegade, the Command & Conquer shooter. Changes include two new maps, power plants, new weapons, mod tools, enhanced visuals, and bug fixes; complete details can be found in the change notes. The new version includes an auto-updater for easier patching going forward, but this presumably will not be put to much use since they also announce this is the last major version for UT3, and they will be spending the next few months translating the mod to the Unreal Development Kit to allow for standalone play. Thanks BeyondUnreal.
CNET News has an article on U.S. video game sales figures from December 2009 as reported by NPD Group, saying a disappointing 2009 sales-wise was capped in December by the best month in history. Word is: "According to NPD, the industry turned in U.S. sales of $5.53 billion in December, up 4 percent from $5.32 billion a year earlier. While it could not have been any more of a relief to the companies in the video games business that they had finally turned in a month of year-over-year growth, the December results were especially impressive given that in December 2008 the industry for the first time surpassed the $5 billion mark for a single month." Thanks Neutronbeam.
An interview on French Site GameKult has reassurances from Ubisoft France CEO Geoffroy Sardin that Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in production. They asked about the status of the action adventure sequel as well as recently delayed I Am Alive and were told: "They are both still in production." Thanks VG247 for the tip and thanks Baconslicer for the translation.
A BBFC Classification reveals plans for a Game of the Year edition for Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady's well-received superhero brawler. Presumably details on its content are forthcoming. Thanks Joystiq.
WGA opts for vidgame sequels on Variety reveals the nominees for the Writers Guild of America's awards for video game writing, which will be handed out on February 20 at simultaneous ceremonies at the Century Plaza in Los Angeles and the Hudson Theatre in New York. The nominees are: Assassin's Creed II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Wet, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Heckling the Future With Chris Hecker on Gamasutra is a conversation with Chris Hecker, formerly of Maxis, and currently an independent developer, working on SpyParty, a multiplayer espionage-themed game. They cover a range of topics, including a point-blank question about whether it's true that he was the one who squeezed some of the science out of Spore, and how he would change how the game turned out given the chance: "There are two parts to this question. First, did I somehow hypnotize Will Wright and make the game in my cute image? The answer to that is "no", as Will, executive producer Lucy Bradshaw, and I have all stated publicly. Sadly, those statements didn't get as much coverage as the inflammatory accusations. The second part is harder. What would I have changed? Personally, I wish there was more consequence from the player's choices in the editors. I think players could have explored various ecological niches by building different creatures, and gotten some firsthand experience at the idea of compromise and tradeoffs in a dynamic environment, and had a pretty compelling time doing that."
- Aliens vs. Predator on IGN.
- Mercenary Wars on GameZone.
A thread on the Electronic Arts UK Community Forums has reaction to news that there will be no console access in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, DICE's upcoming military shooter sequel (thanks Joao). This was learned via a Tweet by DICE's Johan Andersson that said simply: "No console." Johan checks in at the end of the thread with a follow up explaining that this is to prevent hacking, and that the first Bad Company had no console either, but of course that was not released for the PC: We have not removed a console from BC2. The simple reason is that BC1 and BC2 never have had an in-game console. Which also means that the game won't be possible to hack in this regard.
The Peggle Nights Website offers free downloads of the Art Contest Level Pack, free DLC for the Windows and MacOS editions of Peggle Nights, the pachinko-inspired puzzle game. Word is: "Want to see what happens when Peggle fans combine their Ultra Extreme creative talents with the fun of Peggle Nights? Then get these five all-new Adventure levels and 10 Challenges. They're based on the top entries from PopCap's 2009 Peggle Art Contest!"
Candella Systems Ltd and Eipix Entertainment announce Eclosion, a top-down space shooter in the works for Windows, XBLA, PSP, and Wii. The game will feature a solo campaign with co-op support and a soundtrack created on retro synthesizers like the original SID chip on the Commodore 64. Word is: "An intense top down shooter featuring cutting-edge 3D graphics, particle systems and post-processing effects, Eclosion features a multitude of ships, upgradeable weapons and combat environments ranging from ice worlds to deep space asteroid belts." The announcement does not include a release date, but after inquiring we were told the PC edition is expected in "early summer." A set of four screenshots accompany the news.
A post to the Total War Forums by Creative Assembly's Mark (SenseiTW) O'Connell announces February 23, 2010 is the official release date for Napoleon: Total War, the next installment in the large-scale real-time strategy series. On a related note, there's a new article on the Total War Blog by Mike Simpson called "Why Napoleon," discussing the setting of the game and new features they are introducing to the series.
A story on Frictionless Insight outlines a study published in science journal Cerebral Cortex relating the size of different areas in the brain to performance in video games. Word is: "Participants with a larger caudate nucleus and putamen outperformed others when forced to shift priorities and pursue changing goals within the same game. Participants with a larger nucleus accumbens (part of the brain's reward center) also outperformed others, probably due to the 'sense of achievement and the emotional reward' accompanying achievement in early learning." The study was funded by the Office of Naval Research and includes research from the University of Illinois, University of Pittsburgh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Florida State University. No word is included on where to cut your head open to measure your brain to see how it's impacting your gameplay.
A Windows playable demo for Dark Void is now available, offering a sample of Airtight Games' action shooter, in spite of indications that a PC demo wasn't coming. The demo is available on FilePlanet, where a free registration is required, and they are calling this an "exclusive," so it's possible mirrors will not be allowed. The download is about 1 GB, and word is: "Dark Void delivers a ground breaking combination of fast paced vertical combat mixed with mid-air and on-foot action. Exclusive to FilePlanet, this is the first demo ever released for this awesome title!" Update: We're told permission has been granted to mirror the demo, and it is now also available on FanGaming and WorthPlaying.
EA is soliciting suggestions for a Collector's Edition for Dead Space 2, the upcoming horror-themed shooter sequel. Here's word from the game's Facebook page: "Once again we need your help! IF we were to put out a Dead Space 2 Collector's Edition, what would you want to see in it? I will have our Executive Producer Steve Papoutsis comment on some of your suggestions next week...so make them good!"
Matrix Games now offers a new patch for Guns of August, updating this World War I strategy game to version 1.34. The patch is available on this page, and word is: "The new update comes with a few bug fixes, including a problem with rail movement when a unit withdraws from a hex, and a rule change to the amount of naval units required to prevent an invasion from taking place in a port." The patch is mirrored on Gamer's Hell and The Patches Scrolls.
A Modern Warfare 2 God Mode Video on Before It's News is a NSFW video showing problems with the One Man Army perk in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The player/narrator shows balance issues as he repeatedly reloads his class and lays waste to everyone on the server in a Domination match, explaining what he feels needs to be changed. Perhaps there's a way to counter his strategies in the existing game structure, but none of his 100 victims were able to work it out. On a more general note, Where Infinity Ward Went Wrong: A Concise Summary on the Infinity Ward Forums is a lengthy post outlining 14 specific problems with Infinity Ward's military shooter. Thanks Joker961.
Thanks Ant.
IGN - Zerg Rush! The Seoul of PC Gaming.
This was a surreal discovery, and not just because I was sitting in a sushi restaurant with a collection of StarCraft mods playing in the background. Up until this point I knew that StarCraft was big in South Korea – I knew that every second person I met played it, I knew that it was occasionally played in front of cameras in Seoul's upper-class Coex mall, and I knew that it could be viewed on TV. However, my inability to tune my own set into anything other than a console had kept me from noticing what I swear I realised in this restaurant: StarCraft wasn't only on television; StarCraft was on television all the freaking time, and watched by everyone from teenage boys to sushi chefs.
GameSpy - God's PR Problem- The Role of Religion in Videogames.
Clearly, God -- the divine as a concept -- plays a huge role in modern gaming. Virtually every fantasy role-playing game, from World of Warcraft to the simplest roguelike, explicitly includes the divine in the form of priests calling down healing prayers or smiting evil foes. How, then, does this square against the subtext of games like Assassin's Creed II, which -- on close reading -- can be parsed as a kind of atheist screed? (Unsurprisingly, after extensive e-mail negotiations, AC2 developer/publisher Ubisoft refused to discuss the matter in any way, sticking to the disclaimer that runs at the front of their game -- which states that it was crafted by people of many backgrounds and faiths.)
- ASRock ION 330HT-BD Blu-ray NetTop on [Phoronix].
- ATI Radeon HD 5670 Graphics Card on AMDZone, Benchmark Reviews, Bjorn3D, CHW (Spanish), Guru3D, Hartware.net (German), HotHardware, Neoseeker, PC Games Hardware, PC Perspective, RBMODS, and The Tech Report.
- HIS Radeon HD 5670 IceQ 512 MB Graphics Card on techPowerUp.
- Insignia NS-CNV43 GPS on Digital Trends.
- In-Win Maelstrom Full Tower Case on OverclockersHQ.com.
- OCZ Vertex 2 Pro SSD on PC Perspective.
- Powercoler Radeon HD 4770 VS HIS Radeon HD 3870 Graphics Cards on Ultimate Hardware.
- QNAP TS-119 Turbo NAS on XSReviews.co.uk.
- Raidmax Skyline Mid-Tower Case on Hi-Tech Reviews.
- Samsung 46B6000 46" LED TV on Computer & Consumer Electronic Reviews.
- Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 1,024MB Graphics Card on Elite Bastards, Hardware Canucks, HEXUS.net, Legit Reviews, Modders-Inc, Ninjalane, Overclockers Club, PureOC, and TweakTown.
- Seagate Barracuda XT Hard Drive on Digital Trends.
- SilverStone Fortress FT02 Case on Hardware Secrets.
- Thermaltake Element V Case on Legion Hardware.
- Thermaltake Litepower 450W PSU on [H]ard-OCP.
- Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 1200Watt Power Supply on eTeknix.com.
- ZOTAC GeForce GT 220 1GB GDDR3 on Testseek Labs.
That Throwback Pepsi made with real sugar has made its welcome return, along with a revival of the Throwback Mountain Dew. I don't drink much soda these days (it's bad for my LPRD), but the Pepsi is so good I can't resist the temptation, and we have stocked up a bit. The weird part is I have always been a Dew fan and don't much like Pepsi normally, but replacing that corn syrup with sugar makes an incredible difference in how it tastes. Here's hoping it's so popular they change their minds about this being a limited edition product and start making it full time.
R.I.P.: Teddy Pendergrass, Singer, Dies at 59. Thanks Neutronbeam.
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