Archived News:
A post on the Witcher 2 Website has workarounds for some issues in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings to help players out while waiting for the patch planned for next week. They discuss difficulties with activation codes, CRC errors on installation, the game failing to launch, poor performance on high-end GPUs, and ATI-specific issues. There's also a separate note for folks with CRC mismatches downloading DLC, saying: "We are aware of that problem and we have a solution already prepared in the upcoming patch. Until that we ask you kindly not to download the DLCs until the patch release as it won't work without it."
The APB-Reloaded Website announces the problems holding up open beta testing of the open-world action game revival are cleared up, and the beta is on track to launch on Monday: The last patch fixed the annoying disconnect issue we were dealing with, so now version 1.5.1.85 will in fact be the formal Open Beta. Since it is STILL a Beta game, keep in mind we will have various known issues, but at this point we are confident the game will hold up technically while we work on the series of game items we need to improve on and polish (and part of Beta is of course to get those kinks worked out).
American McGee's Website has word that the Alice: Madness Returns app for iPad on the iTunes App Store is now available, offering a free interactive storybook to bridge the gap between the events in American McGee's Alice and the upcoming action/adventure sequel. Included is a coupon good for $10.00 off preorders of the game itself. Word is: "The Alice: Madness Returns Interactive Storybook is available now in the US as a FREE App on the iTunes App Store, it will be coming (very) soon to iOS devices worldwide and to the Android Market."
Here are the "estimated" system specifications for ARMA 3 that accompanied yesterday's announcement of the military shooter sequel: OS - Windows 7 / Vista
CPU - Intel Core i5 or AMD Athlon Phenom X4 or faster
GPU - Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 or ATI Radeon HD 5770, shader Model 3 and 896 MB VRAM, or faster
RAM - 2 GB
HDD - 15 GB free space
DVD - Dual Layer compatible
DirectX® - 10
The Star Wars: The Old Republic Website now has a new developer blog discussing combat audio in BioWare's upcoming Star Wars MMORPG. The article is written by audio designer Scott Morton, who introduces things by saying: "Combat is the most dynamic and action-oriented aspect of The Old Republic, and it’s also one of the areas of the game that can be drastically affected by audio. I’ll explain the thought process and design approach we typically go through when creating sound for a combat ability." Included are a couple of media clips demonstrating some of what's being discussed, and the article is followed by a brief community Q&A.
Steam news announces a new automatic patch for Left 4 Dead 2 with localization fixes for the zombie shooter sequel, as well as this week's new mutation, "Gib Fest." The Left 4 Dead Blog outlines how this works: "Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well… chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy."
Games
- Ancients of Ooga on Steam.
- Cities in Motion (OS X) on Steam.
- Cities in Motion: Design Marvels DLC on Impulse.
- Cities in Motion: Design Marvels DLC on Steam.
- Death and the Fly on Impulse.
- WTCC 2010 – Expansion Pack for RACE 07 on Steam.
Patches
- Ancients of Ooga on Steam. Save 15%.
- Cities in Motion on Steam. Save 20%.
- Cities in Motion Collection on Steam. Save 20%.
- Indie Sack Pack Vol. 1 on Direct2Drive. Save 50%.
- Sniper: Ghost Warrior on Steam. Save 75%.
Still on sale (previously reported). Continue here to read the full story.
The Bethesda Blog has word on plans to patch the Windows and console editions of Brink, the recently released first-person shooter from Splash Damage. Here's word on highlights of the PC patch that's expected early next week: We’ve identified the cause of sound dropping out on certain maps when playing networked games for a prolonged amount of time. This will no longer occur.
Graphical performance has been improved, especially when using Ambient Occlusion. We’ve worked closely with both AMD and NVIDIA, and you should see performance and stability improvements in future driver revisions from both parties.
The server browser is tweaked in this update, as well; among other things, a new filter allows you to display only servers with a certain number of players on them, and full servers will no longer be filtered out completely.
There are some smaller fixes for minor issues including your character’s voice occasionally resetting when deleting another character, and a memory leak when alt-tabbing out of the game.
Finally, the dedicated server is set to get an update at the same time as the main game, which will result in improved CPU performance. We’ve protected certain cvars that previously allowed server admins to accidentally break objectives involving NPCs.
A Superannuation tweet points the way to Starbreeze's latest financials and their prior fiscal report (both in Adobe Acrobat format) for details on Project Redlime, the upcoming game said to revive "one of EA’s most acclaimed classic franchises" ( repeatedly rumored if not confirmed to be a Syndicate remake). The reports are in the company's native Swedish, but Giant Bomb has a Google translation where Starbreeze says they are expanding the scope of the project. "The reason for our joint decision is above all that we wish to implement a number of creative enhancements, we want simply [to] do an even better game," is the translated quote from CEO Mikael Nermark. "It also requires an expansion of the project because of the high staff turnover during the autumn and winter, as we have previously reported. It has taken time and resources to recruit key employees, while it takes time for new developers to come into the project. We have now secured the [manpower for] RedLime." Thanks Computer and Video Games.
Here's another reminder that we still have a slew of keys to the closed beta test of Rise of Immortals for the taking, which can gain you access to Petroglyph Games' upcoming Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. If you are interested, here are the instructions on how to get a key of your very own.
The New Vegas DLC Issues section on the Bethesda Softworks Forums has many reports of problems with the new Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout New Vegas, Obsidian's action/RPG sequel. Some users are experiencing crashes, and others are still struggling with issues stemming from previously reported bugs in the E-DE, My Love side quest from the original game. An update to the Bethesda Blog from Nick, one of the blog's maintainers, explains they are working on addressing these issues: "Frank — we are aware of the issue and are working on a fix for the next patch. That said, if you already have a save game where the bug is occurring, the fix will not apply and you’ll need to revert to an earlier save prior to ED-E leaving in order to play through Honest Hearts." Thanks Eurogamer.
Mostly harmless BioWare developer Alistair McNally tweets that they are staffing up to continue the Dragon Age RPG series with Dragon Age 3: "I'm looking for exceptional environment artists to join me at #BioWare Edmonton, Canada to work on #DragonAge3 #gamejobs #jobs #3D #artists." Thanks IGN.
MCV reports it "understands" that IGN is in the process of selling digital distributor Direct2Drive to game rental firm GameFly. Word is: "An official announcement isn't expected until next week, but sources have told us the deal is almost complete."
The King Arthur II Developer Diary on RTSguru.com discusses the upcoming role-playing/strategy game sequel. The article is written by Neocore Games content designer Viktor Juhász and is titled "Remixing Mythology, Part 1: Choosing the Right King Arthur for the Right Purposes." Word is: "The blog focuses on the underlying tale(s) of King Arthur and how the team sifts through them for the 'right' touch."
IGN - Dragon Age II and the Decline of the Old-school RPG.
This is what makes Dragon Age II such a mystifying game. By conventional wisdom, it is a vastly improved sequel – gameplay is far more fluid and dynamic, conversations are much more in-depth and the plotline is intriguing and engaging. But somehow by fixing the "problems" of the first title, Bioware removed the soul and the heritage of the Dragon Age namesake, making it nothing more than another middling RPG. Without the features that made Dragon Age: Origins so unique, the title felt featureless in a cluttered, yet dying genre.
IGN - Why Half-life 3 Isn't Coming Soon.
For a series like Half-life, this poses a question of impact – both that initial 'wow'-factor and the kind of artistic direction and technical leap that it takes to make those jaws hang loose. If and when we do see the next Half-life adventure, Valve will want to make a major splash. This is a franchise close to the hearts of millions of gamers – and both previous titles were, critically, also technological showcases for Valve's impressive art department and tech suite.
I'm waiting on the honey-do men this morning, as MrsBlue found the handymen to look at the gutter problems we've been having. There's a tree growing into one corner of the gutters, and even worse, one of the downspouts has separated, and is gushing water. It's fairly shocking that we haven't had a basement flood with the gutters in that shape and all the rain we've been having lately, so we're lucky this hasn't been a huge problem already.
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