Archived News:
It seems Martial Empires will not be released for North America or Asia, in spite of open beta testing of this subscription-free martial arts MMORPG. The Martial Empires Website has word that legal issues will prevent gamigo from launching the game outside of Europe, though there aren't any details as to why. Word is the game's distribution will change for its full launch, so if you are participating in the beta, you may continue to do so. Thanks Massively.
The Team Fortress 2 Blog has the day two update for the upcoming Engineer update for Valve's teamplay shooter. Word is: Day Two of the Engineer Update brings the engineering faithful The Wrangler, the remote sentry gun controller; "Upward", an all-new, Valve-designed Payload Map; and 25 shiny, super-rare wrenches from our quickly-dwindling supply.
Note: To ensure everyone gets the chance to pull the lever, we've increased the weekly item drop limit for this week only. So if you thought you'd hit your item cap, think again!
Steam News announces the availability of a new automatic update for Counter-Strike: Source, imbuing the shooter remake with the most recent version of the Source engine. Here's the change list: Continue here to read the full story.
Major Nelson's post about LIVE Activity for week of June 28 once again includes the top 20 Games for Windows LIVE Titles (based on UU’s). The list follows. Continue here to read the full story.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic on GameZone.
Thanks Mike Martinez and Ant.
Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.
The Mass Effect 2 Website has word the Aegis Pack DLC for Mass Effect 2 is now available for Windows for 160 BioWare Points and Xbox 360 for 160 MS Points ($2.00 USD). Here's word on the new content for the sci-fi RPG: "What's better than the latest in high-tech armor? High-tech armor and a sniper rifle, of course! The Aegis Pack adds the M-29 Incisor sniper rifle and the Kestrel armor to Shepard’s armor locker! The Incisor is a burst-fire rifle that excels at decimating enemy shields from a distance, while the Kestrel armor comes in 5 pieces and adds a variety of weapon, shield, and utility bonuses."
The Team Fortress 2 Wrench Log is online, to help keep track of all 100 the golden wrenches being wrenched from Valve's multiplayer shooter in advance of Thursday's Engineer update. Currently 47 users have been immortalized for their craftiness.
Steam News announces the release of NASA Moonbase Alpha, a freeware game simulating the colonization of the moon. The game was funded by US taxpayers, but is free to all (we're looking at you BBC, with your Doctor Who game). Here's word on the game: "NASA has once again landed on the lunar surface with the goal of colonization, research, and further exploration. Shortly after the return to the Moon, NASA has established a small outpost on the south pole of the moon called Moonbase Alpha. Utilizing solar energy and regolith processing, the moonbase has become self-sufficient and plans for further expansion are underway."
Steam News announces the release of another new automatic patch for Garry's Mod to address a couple of issues with the Source-engine sandbox. The new version fixes player hull issues, and fixes a menu system crash caused by "naughty" add-ons.
Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer VSTEP announce that the upcoming Ship Simulator Extremes will be even more extreme than originally planned, as the updated seafaring simulation will include multiplayer support, allowing up to 24 players at a time to take part in "your own freeroaming missions in the multiplayer mode." They state that a co-op mode "is scheduled for release at a later date," though it seems pretty obvious that the pre-patch multiplayer will be co-op as well, from this description: "Your own imagination is the limit. In the multiplayer mode, you can tackle anything from oil rig explosions to rescue missions and work together as a unit – seeking to improve response time and efficiency. Salvage your friend’s distressed boat as the tugboat captain or seek assistance from other players in your quest to get into port on time. Missions that seem a daunting task to take on alone, can now be tried with the help from your online friends."
A post to the Battle.net Forums has more on how their new Real ID program will operate. Though the Real ID FAQ calls this "a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that keeps players connected across all of Battle.net," this new update says that the StarCraft II forums will be using Real ID to identify posters by their real names, but makes no mention of this being optional, giving the impression that it is not. Word is: "The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged." Thanks Ant via dslreports.com.
The PSU department at BFG Technologies has been let go, reports [H]ard-OCP in a follow-up to recent news that the company was ceasing the manufacture of graphics cards. They learn this by way of "sources inside BFG Tech," and take it as an indication that the company may not be long for this world, suggesting that if you have a BFG graphics card that you want to RMA under their lifetime guarantee, you do so quickly.
Impulse reveals the top 10 titles sold through their digital distribution service for the week of June 27-July 3:
- Elemental: War of Magic (Pre-Order)
- Sins of a Solar Empire Expansion Bundle
- Elemental - Limited Edition (Pre-Order)
- Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy
- Galactic Civilizations II - Ultimate Edition
- THQ Ultimate Bundle
- Sins of a Solar Empire - Entrenchment
- Reign: Conflict of Nations
- Company of Heroes Gold
Steam News announces the release of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Pack, offering five multiplayer maps for the military shooter sequel for the price of $14.99 USD. The description of the new content follows. Continue here to read the full story.
The Ubisoft Forums have the release of a new patch for The Settlers 7, updating the strategy management sequel to version 1.07 with improvements and bug fixes, as well as new content in the form of a pair of campaign maps, now optimized for skirmish and multiplayer play. The patch is also automatically available via Steam for their version of the game. The patch notes follow. Continue here to read the full story.
There's a THQ games sale on Direct2Drive and Direct2Drive.EU, offering all THQ titles for 25% off through July 7. You may not want to rush right off and start buying games just yet, however, as they also announce that beginning tomorrow they will be putting the most popular THQ titles on sale at even deeper discounts. Tomorrow they will be taking 50% off all Company of Heroes games, on Thursday they will offer a 75% discount on Supreme Commander Gold, on Friday S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl will be 75% off, Saturday you can save 75% off Saint’s Row 2, Sunday it will be 75% off Frontlines: Fuel of War, and on Monday they will be taking half off all Warhammer games.
The League of Legends Forums announce that their Season One will commence on July 13, offering a competitive ladder for this multiplayer game based on the DotA-Allstars modification. Season One will usher in some gameplay changes, and these are outlined in this post.
A new patch is now available for NecroVisioN: Lost Company to update the supernatural World War I shooter prequel to version 1.1. The new version address a couple of bugs, including a properly inverted mouse for aircraft piloting, and removes the game's copy protection. The patch is available from AtomicGamer, Strategy Informer, and The Patches Scrolls, and here's the change list. Continue here to read the full story.
The Team Fortress 2 Blog has an Engineer Update: Day 1, confirming recent indications that Valve is turning its attention towards an update for the Engineer class in Team Fortress 2. They explain that as players collect and craft golden wrenches in the game, more details on the engineer patch will be revealed, all leading to the release of the update itself on Thursday.
A Financial Times Story from Sunday features Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick's recent comments about his frustration with the Xbox LIVE model, where he also says that Activison has "always been platform agnostic," and saying Activision wants to support Dell's efforts at connecting PCs to televisions, saying this can compete with console "walled gardens with new gamer-friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television. PCs have long been used for online play, but PC gaming remains niche when the games industry needs to widen its appeal." In a surprising twist, A tweet by Windows Gamer, a verified account that's apparently an official voice for Games for Windows, takes a shot at them, even though Activision has produced far more PC games over the past few years than Microsoft, saying: "Activision To “Aggressively Support” Efforts To Connect PCs To TVs http://cot.ag/bYH9sd << Acti supports PC gaming? Is it April already?" Thanks PC Gamer.
Ignition Entertainment announces that Blacklight: Tango Down will be released tomorrow for Xbox LIVE, while the Games for Windows and PlayStation 3 editions of Zombie's near-future military shooter are expected "in the coming weeks." Word is: "The futuristic shooter brings non-stop fun and an exhilarating experience to the DLC venue as it offers 12 multiplayer maps, seven game types, four co-op missions and literally trillions of weapon combinations – all for 1200 Microsoft Points." Here are four new screenshots from the game.
Funcom invites current and former Age of Conan players the opportunity to try the new Rise of the Godslayer for their fantasy-themed MMORPG for 10 days free of charge. Word is: "The offer is available until July 15th and includes 10 days of free access to the expansion, as well as 10 days of free access to the core game for those with currently inactive accounts. All players have received a campaign e-mail, and can take advantage of the offer on their account page."
The Interview with Greg Black on Command & Conquer Saga hears from the ex-EALA developer, who offers some frank comments on the state of the Command & Conquer franchise (thanks Ant via VE3D via GameReplays). Here's a bit of what he has to say about the games he worked on: "So to answer your question I was not happy with how C&C3 or RA3 turned out, our games were always rushed, our engine technology aged and degraded over the years, our path finding was horrible, our online implementations were embarrassing, and ultimately our games did not, in my view, live up to the original C&C, or RA2, or Generals (which I also worked on but in a very lowly capacity)." And here is what he says about Command & Conquer 4: It's unfair of me to pass judgment on C&C4 as I did not work on it nor have I played the final game. I was however at the studio during much of C&C4's development and have played pre-release builds. The important thing to know is that C&C4 was never meant to be a true Tiberium universe canonical game, but rather an experiment in online play. It originally started as out an Asian market online-only version of C&C 3. At some point the company executives decided it made the most business sense to add a single player campaign, call it C&C4, and put it in a box. The team of course protested this change in direction but the decision stood. The team did what they could to make a good game given the realities inside EA, but ultimately it was the product of a dysfunctional corporate culture.
Sega West president Mike Hayes recently spoke with Computer and Video Games, telling them that they have no plans for an Alpha Protocol sequel. He says they are proud of the "concept" of the espionage-themed role-playing game, but that it just did not achieve the critical or commercial success to justify a follow-up. "Let's speak very commercially; the game hasn't sold what we've expected, therefore we won't be doing a sequel," said Hayes. "The concept was brilliant, though. You know this whole thing with Metacritic where you have to be in the high 70s to mid-80s minimum [to have any success] - well, with RPGs you have got to be in the late 80s." For the record, the Metacritic scores for Alpha Protocol are 73 on PC, 65 on PlayStation 3, and 63 on Xbox 360.
A new version 1.0 of the U6 Project is now available on RPGWatch offering a modification for Dungeon Siege 1 for PC and Mac that is a remake of Ultima 6. They offer a boatload of screenshots showing off the conversion, and warn that previous versions should be removed before installing the new one. Thanks Acleacius.
Steam News announces the release of a new automatic patch for Garry's Mod. The change list follows. Continue here to read the full story.
Also now available on Steam is a new automatic update for Gratuitous Space Battles, updating the tactical space combat game to version 1.42. The new version fixes a couple of problems with invalid ship designs, one of which caused the game to crash. There's also a new auto-patch for Galcon Fusion, and the change list for that one follows. Continue here to read the full story.
Chris Taylor's Kings and Castles - Video Blog Episode #21 is now online, with more on Gas Powered Games' upcoming real-time strategy game. In this installment, Chris answers more fan-submitted questions, discussing morale, employee annoying, and nut eating. He shows some gameplay footage demonstrating their continued obsession with formations. Finally, one question asks about beta testing, and Chris states that their goal is to make their upcoming beta "public," though he also mentions there will be a set number of keys.
Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
- AMD Athlon-II X4-640 CPU on Benchmark Reviews.
- Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound on TweakTown.
- ASUS ENGTX465 (GTX-465) Voltage Tweak Edition Graphics Card on Bjorn3D.com.
- Cooler Master HAF-X Cooler on PureOC.
- Evercool Transformer 4 CPU Cooler on BayReviews.
- HIS Radeon HD 5550 1GB GDDR3 Graphics Card on Overclock3D.
- MSI H55M-ED55 LGA 1156 Micro ATX Motherboard on PC Perspective.
- NZXT Vulcan Case on Neoseeker.
- SilverStone PS05 Midtower Case on OCIA.net.
- Super Talent USB 3.0 Express Drive Flash Drive on Tweaknews.
- Zotac GeForce GTX 465 Graphics Card on t-break.
A couple of readers inquired about my comment about having no air conditioning, and though I think I have explained this before, with the forecast calling for 100 degree temperatures today, it seems a relevant question. In short, we *mostly* don't need it: We have high ceilings (and low floors!) and ceiling fans in our brick house, which is very shaded by tall trees, and we are perfectly comfortable when the temps are as high as 90 or so, and even higher for relatively short spans. It's when the temps hit the mid-to high-90s for sustained periods that it starts to become uncomfortable, which is a handful of days each summer, and so far we've been willing to live with things as they are, it just makes it tough when you get a heat wave, like we've had for the past week or so. The exception is my office, which is in the finished attic, as while the rest of the house usually stays up to 15 degrees cooler than outside, my office stays at least 15 degrees hotter, so with no AC up here, it would be unbearable.
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