Archived News:
Direct2Dtrive now offers episodes one and two of the BBC's Doctor Who: The Adventure Games for sale to customers outside the UK, where the games are available for free. Word is: "The Doctor is an alien, the last of the powerful Time Lords. He is an intrepid traveller through time and space, armed only by his incredible intelligence and his fix-anything sonic screwdriver. He travels alone except for the human companions he befriends, briefly sharing his life with them and showing them the astonishing wonders of the universe. He is a protector of mankind, and his mission is to save the planet from frequent and varied alien attacks. Join the Doctor and Amy Pond in these exciting adventure games full of puzzles, stealth and collectibles and help outwit and overcome two of their greatest foes – the Daleks and the Cybermen." Thanks Big Download.
WoW.com has details on the BlizzCon 2010 DirecTV pay-per-view coverage, which will once again provide a streaming broadcast of the festivities at this year's Blizzard gaming convention. Virtual tickets are now on sale for $39.95 USD, and besides the PPV coverage, this also entitles purchasers to the same exclusive in-game World of Warcraft item as live attendees. They also promise more complete coverage of this year's panels, tournaments, and announcements, as they've expanded coverage to four different streams on four channels. Thanks nin.
The Firearms: Source Website has the debut release of the Firearms: Source modification for Valve's Source engine. Here's a portion of the description that conveys what this is all about: "Wondering what some of the key features of our mod are? Firearms: Source is a fast-paced, quasi-realistic, action-oriented, warfare-centric modification for Valve's Source engine. FAS doesn't keep you waiting around to respawn or running forever to get into the action; our whole focus is on keeping you in the midst of the most brutal and violent firefights you've ever seen in Half-Life 2, period." Thanks Elden.
Mod DB offers of beta version 1.0.5 of Traitor Mode for the Human Error co-op modification for Half-Life 2. Here's the reality TV-style concept: "The first version Beta 1.0.5 has two traitor mode maps. You play as the four metrocop characters from Human Error EP1. In the beginning of each round one of the players is selected as the Traitor, while other [sic] do not know who he is." Thanks Ant.
The debut release of the Frontlines R3L04D modification for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is now available on Mod DB. Here's word: "This HUGE mod brings 42 gametypes, over 2400 Weapons Modes with 16 pre-defined modes, Help Mode, the famous War Server, HER for the realism fans with lots of Blood and Gore, Airborne support, an Intelligent Server and many other new features NEVER done to any FPS game before. More info @ www.mods.hajas.org." Thanks Ant.
What's New in Rise of Flight on SimHQ is an interview with Albert "Loft" Zhiltzov of 777 Studios about Rise of Flight, their World War I combat flight simulator. He discusses how they are evolving the game engine, but that this must keep pace with the users: "The speed of technological development in the genre of flight simulators is directly dependent on the growth opportunities for your PC. But the current recommended system requirements have the potential to improve the graphics and engineering component of the project. Some technologies, you will see very soon, and some will be delayed as long as not all PC are prepared to withstand this load."
Steam has yet another new automatic patch for Alien Swarm to further update Valve's just-released freeware shooter, among other things fixing the issue with GTX 260 graphics cards. The change list follows. Continue here to read the full story.
GOG.com is now conducting a sale on Activison RPGs, saying: "Two legendary RPGs, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption, are now on sale! If you haven't grabbed them already, now is you chance to buy them cheaper than ever. You'll receive a 30% discount if you buy the two game bundle or complete the bundle if you already have one of the games. If you buy one of the games we'll give you a 20% discount on it." They also now offer DRM-free sales of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare.
Nolan Bushnell interview on GamePro is a very brief chat with the Atari Founder about his return to gaming with the company that now bears the Atari name. They talk about the Atari heyday of the 2600 days, and a few of his thoughts on current gaming trends.
BitMob - What Role-Playing Games Can Learn from Battlefield.
Why can't RPGs have both? No matter how great Fallout 3, it's not a good action game. Too often, RPGs that aspire to be such games produce third-rate results. Reviewers praised Mass Effect 2 for its shooting, but I can't help wondering if they were all secretly thinking: "...for an RPG." More importantly, though, Shepard moved with weight and banked around corners like a human.
BitMob - Satire at Dawn- Deathspank Versus the Game Industry.
However, Deathspank has a glaring flaw. If we now take a step back, as Gilbert did, and observe Deathspank for what it is, perhaps we won’t be clever enough to derive humor, but what we can see is the shallow nature of its commentary. While Deathspank does poke much-deserved fun at the nature of game design, it doesn't bring enough new ideas of its own to resolve these issues it so happily ridicules.
Well it's going to be a million degrees again today, but at least we got some relief from the drought conditions with some severe rainstorms yesterday. A steady gentle rain would probably be preferable to the destructive thunderstorms we got, but at this point we should just be thankful for any rain.
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