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Archived News:
The Bethesda Blog points the way to this new text diary written by Josh (J.E.) Sawyer where the Obsidian Entertainment project director talks a bit about the NavMesh in Fallout: New Vegas, as well as the overall experience of working on their imminent RPG sequel. The blog also embeds the Fallout New Vegas Developer Diary #6 focusing on the voice actors in the game, starting naturally with the return of narrator Ron Perlman, also hearing from Matthew Perry, Wayne "Mr. New Vegas" Newton, William Sadler, and Kris Kristofferson. With the game due tomorrow, the Bethesda Blog also offers details on New Vegas midnight launches and digital unlocks. Finally, they also announce the first DLC for the game, though at this point it is only expected for Xbox 360.
Anger Management on GamesIndustry.biz (registration required) is an interview with Tim Willits of id Software, who talks about RAGE, their upcoming first-person shooter, discussing the burden of creating a new IP, mod support, controller support, multi-platform development, cloud services, joining Zenimax, and more. On that last topic, they separately highlight a bit where Tim says that in spite of id's traditional "when it's done" mantra: "I can tell you that if we weren't part of the Zenimax family, we'd be trying to rush this game out. So it's so nice being able to say, let's ship it next year, let's get the multiplayer awesome, let's get the game as great as we can make it. Without their support, I honestly think that Rage would not be as good as it's going to be."
First-person action/adventure The Ball is now available for pre-purchase through Steam. Pre-purchasing before the game's release on October 26 (after which point pre-purchasing will, of course, be impossible) will get you a 10% discount off the game's regular price, as well as an exclusive in-game character for Killing Floor, the zombie shooter from Tripwire Interactive, The Ball's publisher. Here's word on the game: The Ball is a first person action-adventure game featuring a full single-player experience built on Epic’s Unreal™ Engine 3 technology. As a swashbuckling archaeologist working on the slopes of a dormant volcano somewhere in Mexico, you get stuck in a cavern. It doesn’t take long before you realize this is more than just a cave. You reveal ancient ruins that have been hidden from outsiders for centuries and discover a mysterious artifact, a gold and metal shelled Ball. As you progress towards solving the mystery of this amazing place you must unlock the secrets of the Ball and learn to control this ancient artifact. Venturing deeper into the volcano, you reveal some of mankind’s greatest secrets and you will start to encounter not just puzzles and traps, but also various strange creatures – the guardians of this mystery. These creatures have to be overcome, using only the Ball to defend you.
Though it's not reflected on the Lionheart: Kings' Crusade Website, a playable demo for Lionheart: Kings' Crusade is now available to offer a sample of Neocore's recently released real-time strategy game. The demo offers the game's first mission as well as part of the second one. Word is: "The demo offers a taste of the complete Lionheart experience. Demo players can test the management phase and mission briefings. Forge into the first mission's battle and prepare for the battle of the second mission. View the tutorial battle on Cyprus and create a profile so that the saves you created during the demo will be available after puchase [sic] of the full game." The download can be found on AtomicGamer, FileFront, FilePlanet, Gamer's Hell, and WorthPlaying.
New version 260.89 WHQL-certified drivers are now available for NVIDIA GeForce/ION accelerators. Word is: "This is a WHQL release from the Release 260 family of drivers. This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, and 400-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs." The new drivers add support for new GT 430 accelerators, and offer performance improvements for GTX 460 and 480 cards. There are drivers for Windows Vista/Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit, and Windows XP 64-bit.
2K Games announces plans to release new DLC for Sid Meier's Civilization V next week on October 25. They will offer a Mongols Civilization and Scenario Pack that will be free to all owners of the turn-based strategy sequel as well as sales of a Babylonian Civilization Pack for $4.99 USD which was included for free with the Civilization V Digital Deluxe Edition. Here's word on the add-ons: The Mongols Civilization and Scenario Pack calls for the strongest leaders to ride with Genghis Khan and his Mongol horsemen to establish the largest continuous land empire ever seen. Rulers lead their civilization from humble beginnings on the steppes of Asia, until all under heaven tremble at the might of the nation.
Players can continue expanding their conquests with the Babylonian Civilization Pack as the Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 630 – c. 561 B.C.). As King of Babylon, gamers will be able to expand their empire with advanced Babylonian Bowmen to rightfully earn the title of Nebuchadnezzar the Great.
Valve announces that Steam has surpassed the 30 million account mark. Here's word on some of what this represents: During the past 12 months the platform had year-over-year new user growth of 178%, pushing the total number of active accounts to over 30 million, with over 1,200 games now offered. Peak simultaneous player numbers were also up to over three million, with over six million unique gamers accessing Steam each day.
In addition to new user growth, Steam sales during the trailing 12 months increased by more than 200%, putting it on track for a sixth straight year of realizing over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales. To meet this demand, the Steam infrastructure has been increased and now has ability to run at 400Gps, enough bandwidth to ship a digitized version of the Oxford English Dictionary 92.6 times per second.
The World of Warcraft Vault has a list of items and mounts that will no longer be obtainable in the World of Warcraft in the upcoming version 4.0.3 patch for Blizzard's MMORPG. Blizzard explains: "As stated in the Under Dev page ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/), patch 4.0.3 brings about The Shattering, a cataclysmic event that will forever change the face of Azeroth. As we prepare to raise the level cap and introduce two new races with the Cataclysm expansion, it's important to keep in mind that the game world is going through tremendous changes that will affect the availability of certain rare mounts and items." The following items will cease being offered: Swift Zulian Tiger, Swift Razzashi Raptor, Razzashi Hatchling, Tome of Polymorph: Turtle, Crusader's White/Black Warhorse and Swift Alliance Steed/Swift Horde Wolf, Reins of the Blue Drake, Mimiron's Head, and Invincible. Word is: "Although we have no current plans to introduce new ways to obtain the Zul'Gurub mounts, pets, and the tribute mounts, they may return should we find a place where they fit in the future."
Here's the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Cinematic Intro with a complete version of the clip which debuted in an abbreviated form during the NFL broadcasts yesterday. As one has grown to expect, the clip is pretty epic. The embedded version follows. Continue here to read the full story.
The official launch of a new 3D beta of Dead Frontier is complete, offering an update to this free-to-play survival/horror MMORPG. This trailer shows off the game, and here's word: "Dead Frontier combines 3rd person survival horror action with more traditional role-playing elements to create a totally unique MMO experience. Players will need to have their wits about them as they struggle for survival in the decaying, zombie infested city of Fairview. If you're a fan of zombie apocalypse books, movies or games, you need to try this game!"
The Winter Voices Website now offers Avalanche, the first of seven planned episodes in Winter Voices, a new role-playing series for Windows and OS X from French developer BeyondthePillars. Episodes are €4.49 or $4.99 each, and here's word: "'Winter Voices' is an entertaining and pioneering game whose main female character is at grips with the phantoms of her past. The team’s editorial and creative angle is to enable the player, through the provision of regular episodes, to follow the heroine’s physical and mental journey in an adventure that is riveting to the end."
The Graham Annable interview on Adventure Classic Gaming talks with the LucasArts veteran and Telltale Games creative director about his background in game development as well as current and future projects, Puzzle Agent in particular. Specific topics include his influences, his past work for television and the movies, how he landed at LucasArts, what a Grickle is, the pitch for Puzzle Agent, his artistic influences, and what the future holds.
The Project Reality Website offers a new version 0.95 of the Project Reality realism modification for Battlefield 2, DICE's military shooter sequel. They offer downloads of the new version as well as a password to unlock the encrypted version that was released in advance. Here's word on what's new: "Project Reality v0.95 features thousands of changes. All of these changes combined with the addition of new vehicles, weapons, maps, and a new faction, have helped make PR v0.95 into our largest most featured [sic] packed releases to date and promises players the most realistic, team oriented, online gaming experience available on the PC." Thanks Ant via Planet Battlefield.
Games On Net - Devil's Advocate: Take Control of your Destiny. Ill-informed opinion of the day.
The misguided belief that controllers are somehow a simpleton’s tool is not helped by the fact that controller-centric consoles have a higher, or at least more visible, proportion of children’s games than the keyboard and mouse-bound PC. So it’s easy to see why an association can be drawn there - although of course, that sort of inane logic also works in reverse to label everybody who prefers the mouse and keyboard as a nine-to-five’ing, data-entering, go-nowhere office monkey, because after all - that’s where keyboards and mice get used most often.
I went back and tried those jalapeno-flavored 1st degree Doritos, and found that, like many hot foods, they become much more tolerable after the first one and your mouth is used to the burn. This lead to checking out the 2nd degree "fiery buffalo" wings, which were not much hotter, though the flavor is a little more appealing. The thing is that they also still have that weird Doritos aftertaste, which has a bit of an artificial quality to it, so I don't know if I can be inspired to sample the 3rd degree chips, in spite of how much I like the flavor of habanero peppers.
R.I.P.: Leave It to Beaver's Barbara Billingsley dies at 94. "Ward, don't you think you were a little hard on the beaver last night?"
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