Archived News:
Various U.S. retailer have revealed their preorder bonuses for Battlefield 3, DICE's upcoming military shooter sequel. In addition to the Back To Karkand DLC that accompanies all preorders: Preordering from GameStop will get players the Physical Warfare pack, which includes the DAO-12 Shotgun, a Flash Suppressor, Type 88 LMG, and Flachette [sic] Ammo. Preordering from Amazon entitles players to an exclusive Dog Tag Pack for multiplayer play. Finally, preordering from Best Buy comes with an exclusive SPECACT Kit with "8 multiplayer weapons and uniform skins free." Thanks James via BF3Blog.
GameSpy has word from WBIE at Comic-Con that Batman and Bane will team up a series of missions in Batman: Arkham City, the upcoming Arkham Asylum sequel (presumably these won't be back-breaking). They also note a tidbit apparently revealed by New Zealand-based MightyApe that different versions of the Batman will be offered as retailer-specific bonuses, offering an image depicting Bats from Batman Beyond, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Earth One, 1970s comics, Batman The Animated Series, and Rocksteady's Batman (sorry, there doesn't seem to be a batusi dancing Adam West version).
A new trailer shows off gameplay from Hard Reset, the recently announced cyberpunk-themed first-person shooter in the works at Polish developer Flying Wild Hog. The clip shows off combat with a couple of different futuristic weapons and the apparent negative effect using them is having on the player, culminating with a caption reading: "experience comes at a price." We also have a set of new screenshots from the game, and the trailer is embedded below. Continue here to read the full story.
The Fraps Website now offers a new version 3.4.6 of this video capture and benchmark utility. Here's word: "The latest version of Fraps includes an update to the loop recording mode, allowing you to specify a custom length for the buffer (rather than the default 30 seconds). To activate the recording loop simply press and hold your video capture hotkey until the Fraps counter turns pink, indicating that loop recording has begun. We have also included new optimizations for recording at high resolutions such as 1920x1080 (1080P). Performance gains should be seen in most OpenGL and DirectX games with Fraps 3.4." Thanks Ant.
Another addition to The Humble Indie Bundle #3: A free copy of Steel Storm.
- Bob Came in Pieces on Steam. Save 50%.
- Breaking The Rules: The Roman Tournament on Direct2Drive. Save 70%.
- DCS: A-10C Warthog on Direct2Drive. Save 33%.
- DCS: Black Shark on Direct2Drive. Save 33%.
- Din's Curse (OS X) on Direct2Drive. Save 50%.
- RailWorks 2 on Impulse. Save 50%.
- RailWorks 2 USA Starter Pack 1 on Impulse. Save 50%.
- RailWorks 2 USA Starter Pack 2 on Impulse. Save 50%.
Still on sale (previously reported). Continue here to read the full story.
While Dota 2 is not going to be released until later this year, the strategy sequel must be in a pretty playable condition, as Valve announces the game's first public showing is under three weeks off in a Dota 2 tournament called "The International" at Gamescom, which kicks off in Cologne, Germany on August 17. This will be a double-elimination tournament between "the 16 best Dota teams in the world," with the festivities to be broadcast for free live on the web in four languages, and the winners to walk away with a $1 million cash prize. The game's official website lists the 16 teams participating, and here's the announcement: August 1, 2011 - Valve today announced The International. This tournament will be the first time Dota 2 is shown in public, and will take place August 17th -21st at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany.
The International features the 16 best Dota teams in the world competing in the Dota 2 Championships through a group stage, double elimination playoff format over the course of Cologne's five-day trade show.
The tournament will be broadcast in four languages (Chinese, German, Russian, and English) free of charge. The winning team will receive $1 million.
"The International is the first public Dota 2 event and will give the tens of millions of gamers playing Dota around the world their first look at the new game," said Gabe Newell, president and founder of Valve. "I have had the good fortune to watch the competitors as they prepare for the tournament, and the level of play is extraordinary."
In addition to the cash prizes awarded by Valve, NVidia is providing all the hardware for the event.
Dota 2 will be available for the PC and Mac later this year. For more information on Valve and its games, please visit http://www.dota2.com/
HanbitSoft announces that the recently launch open beta test of Hellgate (which they now seem to be calling Hellgate Global) has been so successful that they've regularly had queues of hundreds of players waiting to join the MMORPG reboot. They say they've taken steps to address this, and now "users are now able to log in and play with minimal wait time." Noting that 13% of their players are logging in from the U.S., they also announce they are now doing more to accommodate this international traffic: "American users may soon be given the opportunity to step up in this ranking: a YNKi channeling service will be provided in the United States starting on August 1st, giving still more players the chance to take part in this epic battle."
There's a burst of new Diablo III information available today, as Blizzard brought some folks in to get a look at how their upcoming action/RPG is shaping up. IGN has a preview of the beta, as well as word that the game will require a persistent internet connection. "In both Diablo and especially in Diablo II, I think the intuition for a lot of people when they're playing the game is 'I want to make my character offline away from that scary battle net environment. And then once I have this powerful character, I'll jump online.' But the problem with that concept is we can't really detect if they're cheating. They might have the capability to hack their character, things like that, so at that point we can't really allow that character to be in the battle net environment. Then they're going to have to restart their character, which is exactly what happened in Diablo II, which was really unfortunate," explains Blizzard's Rob Pardo. "Your character will be online on battle net the moment you start playing. You can play a solo experience like you would in Diablo II, it's just your character is on Blizzard's servers and authenticated."
There's a post on DiabloFans.com with a big rundown on their experiences along with a FAQ, photos, video, screenshots, and interviews with the developers, taking extra effort to let you avoid major spoilers. There are many revelations, perhaps the most significant of which being the ability to buy and sell in-game items in the auction house for real money. Here's a bit from the FAQ on how this will work: Don’t Need It? Put It Up For Auction!
Nearly everything found in the game, including gold, can be exchanged with other players directly or through the auction house system. So say you’re a witch doctor and you’ve just found an incredibly rare, incredibly powerful axe that only barbarians can use. In the previous Diablo games your best option might have been to sell the axe to an in-game vendor, but in Diablo III, you now have the ability to list that axe in the auction house for your fellow barbarian players to bid on. And you know another player will probably appreciate the true value of that axe more than some heartless vendor who’ll likely just melt it down for scrap….
Amazing Search Functionality
The auction house’s "smart search" functionality can automatically sort items in the auction house based on which upgrades would be most beneficial to your character. Also, searching for the best gear for multiple characters on the same Battle.net account can be done all from the same interface without having to log out.
The Choice Is Yours
Use of either the real-money or gold-based auction house is completely optional -- that decision can be made on a per-item basis, and both versions of the auction house are functionally the same. In addition, players have the option to simply sell the items they obtain to in-game vendors for gold. They can also trade items to other players through a direct character-to-character trading system in the game in exchange for gold, other items, or just an overwhelming sense of goodwill.
Players Only
Blizzard does not plan to post items for sale in the auction house. The driving purpose of the auction house is to provide players with a fun additional in-game option for what they do with the items they obtain in the game. Items sold in the auction house will be posted by players and purchased by players.
Safe and Sanctified
The real-money auction house provides players with an easy-to-use, Blizzard-sanctioned way to collect money for items they obtain while playing Diablo III. It also helps protect players from the scams and theft often associated with questionable third-party sites by providing a secure, completely in-game method for purchasing and obtaining the items they want for their characters.
GfK Chart-Track now has the list of the top 20 bestselling PC entertainment titles in the U.K. for the week ending July 30. Thing remain pretty stable this week, with no movement among the top five positions, with The Sims 3: Generations holding the top spot. Also MCV has U.K. the all platform chart.
EA announces plans for a Battlefield 3 novel, which will be written by former S.A.S. operative Andy McNab. Word is: "The book tells the back-story of RU Special Forces operator Dima, one of the hero soldiers featured in the Battlefield 3 single-player campaign narrative. Having first-hand experience of the drama and trauma of real war, McNab and co-author Grimsdale bring an authentic voice and heart-wrenching perspective to the story." There's an interview with Andy McNab about this on Eurogamer.net. The novel is scheduled for release on Oct. 25, 2011 to coincide with the availability of the military shooter sequel.
Well, now that it's August, I guess I'll have to admit defeat in my efforts at convincing MrsBlue we should acquire a portable air conditioner. At this point if I bring it up, I'm sure she'll simply counter with the logic that we made it this far without one, and it will be cooler soon. On the other hand, it's never too early to start the push for next summer.
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