Almost everything that needs to be said.

We’ll still be around:

@andrewespejo
@thedonallen
@evanvelez

Special Thanks:

Our Affiliates, PR, Friends, Listeners, Fans, Readers, Subscribers, Developers, and Passersby.

KillCast Out.

Everyone can now play Star Trek Online for free as of Jan. 17th! Provided that you can run it, which should no problemo. Newbies should check out the wonderful STO wiki page whilst diving head first into the thick of things or even ask life time subscriber @Kim_Jay for details on how to rise through the ranks of Starfleet.

Download with Star Trek Online Downloader

Star Trek Online Downloader

After the download is complete, please follow these steps to log into the game and begin playing:

1. Locate the file downloaded in your download directory, and double-click it.
2. Complete the installation process to start the Star Trek Online launcher.
3. When the launcher starts, enter your Username and Password, and click Submit.
4. Patching should begin automatically. The progress bar displays the percentage of patching completed. When the patching completes, click Engage to start playing!

http://www.startrekonline.com/download

After defeating the last boss of Trine 2 you’ll look back on other could be solutions and come to the realization that you might have been doing it wrong. You see, one could easily trudge through Trine 2, but they’d be missing one of the finer points of Trine 2, experimentation. The entire campaign might run you for around 6-8 hours depending on how adept you’re at physics based puzzle solving. Frozenbyte’s addition of online co-op also raises the value of the title if you’re so inclined as opposed to 2009′s Trine which lacked these features. So how does this one stack up?

Games Looks Good Man. Real Good.

Trine 2 is essentially the same game as the terrific Trine, but that much more gorgeous. Aside of from a few new simple powers to level up, the combat remains relatively the same which leaves much to be desired. However, the game looks extremely pretty. Rays of light seem to just penetrate through intricate leaves while the wizard, knight, and thief dance seamlessly across parallax planes. You should in fact take your time to look around in Trine 2. I found myself carelessly walking off giant chasms to my death before I picking my jaw off my keyboard. Artistically, Trine 2 holds a very bright candle next to other technical marvels on PC who often have great artists at their disposal as well.

It’s Time To Choose… Wizard + Box Lift = Profit?

Just as in older Trine, you’ll be able to swap between three characters including Amadeus the wizard, Zoya the thief, and Pontius the knight, to cross each game level. Amadeus can use magic to grab onto certain objects in the game world, and create boxes and planks to be used to get around; Zoya can strike at objects with her arrows, and grapple onto certain surfaces; and Pontius is strong in combat against foes, can bash apart walls, and deflect projectiles with his shield. Combining these elements are necessary to complete each stage in the game’s world. Exploration is rewarded through experience which allows you to upgrade and augment existing abilities such as allowing the wizard to conjure more boxes (up to 4) or allow the thief to shoot ice arrows. Some abilities are often needed to reach hard to get experience orbs such as more boxes. Alternatively, one could even quickly join a online co-op game to use the abilities of the other two characters.

Clever Girl…

In hindsight, the puzzles in Trine 2 aren’t that hard, but you’ll often brute force your very own clever strategy of what you “think” is clever. Playing wrong sometimes becomes just as fun as playing right, but can often times quickly turn into spite when playing with 2 other minds online. In my own experience playing with “DyslexicAlucard,” we would use the wizard to box lift ourselves often skipping the “hard parts” of each puzzle, which is great because Frozenbyte’s puzzle design works for almost every situation, but at times makes solving the puzzles a little clunky for other characters. For example, some moving puzzles and hazards have just enough “give” to let your character pass right on by be it enough health to walk right on through acid, fire, or just make a luckily timed physics based platforming jump. It’s hard task to accomplish and I could commend Frozenbyte on this feat alone for making puzzles “work.” There are 13 chapters to complete in Trine 2, but there aren’t more levels in Trine 2 than Trine. However, Frozenbyte made the effort to make levels definitely run longer, which is acceptable because you’re able to save anywhere and pick up where you left off.

Angry Birds

The composer of the Angry Birds Theme, Ari Pulkkinen happens to be the composer for Trine 2. The melodies of Trine 2 are very akin to your traditional fantasy soundtrack, but when combined with the sound design and particularly funny voiced lines it makes you believe that you’re playing out your very own fantasy tale read to you as a child. Ah, the days of childhood.

All’s Well That Ends Well

When put together, Trine 2 seems to be dead even on all fronts including platforming, story telling, combat, and rpg elements, but we’ve seen each of these ideas executed better in games focused in two or three of theses areas. Trine 2 on its own has its strengths in visuals and puzzle design. Although the boss fights were very clever by fusing puzzling, platforming, and combat, I often found myself wanting to get through the bulk and get right to the action. The game needed more of this stuff. If you’re looking for some fun online with friends in a less scatterbrained manner then look no further, Trine 2 is your ticket.

Played On:

• OS: Windows 7 / Vista / XP
• Processor: Intel Core i7 3.4 GHZ
• Memory: 8 GB
• Video Card: GeForce 560Ti 1 GB
• Additional: A copy of the game was provided by PR for review.
  http://store.steampowered.com/app/35720/

Verdict: B+

OOOOHHHH YYYEEAAAHHH!!! This mod combined with spawning 100 dragons could only end up being a win win situation. If only Mr. Savage could see this now. RIP sir, you’ll live on in our Skyrim adventures.

Instructions:

OOOOHHHH YYYEEAAAHHH!!! ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage, intercontinental World Heavyweight Champion, now available in dragon form!

Install:

Copy the data folder in the archive to your Skyrim folder.
In the launcher, ensure that ‘Load Loose Files’ is checked.

[Download]

Non-nexus mirrors:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HQDQEZ4V
http://www.mediafire.com/?m5u8bv3vxhe9i8z
http://www.fileserve.com/file/W5pPX5e/MachoDragonMod.zip

Intel at CES is off to a rocky start after attempting to demonstrate DirectX 11 running on an Ivy Bridge based Ultrabook. The actual gameplay ended up being recorded footage after all as the VLC media player popped up in the bottom portion of the screen for all press to witness.

Video Courtesy of [Network World]

There was somewhat of a resurgence of fast paced old school first person shooters with last year’s crop of fps including the likes of Bulletstorm and Hard Reset. How well does Serious Sam 3: BFE stack up?

So how well does Splitfish bring over the FragFX Shark to the Xbox 360?

The Frag FX Shark 360 is Splitfish’s answer to “an almost perfect PC mouselike FPS experience for gamers on the XBOX 360.” For a long time PC first person shooter veterans accustomed to the precision of aiming with a mouse, this really could be the difference between a higher kill death ratio. However, after weeks of testing multiple games in multiple genres the Frag Fx isn’t quite the fit for every shooter. The top shooters I’ve played on the Xbox 360 include Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops, Halo Reach, Crysis 2 and other third party titles. It’s important to note that every game’s aiming mechanics are different and all do not perform equally well. In short, you’ll be buying the FragFX Shark for games like Call of Duty that have relatively optimal turn speeds and deadzone shapes.

The entry price of the Frag Fx Shark 360 is $89.00 not including the required Xbox 360 Wired Controller ($20 – $25) for authentication via dongle. For someone who switches out wired controllers from PC to 360, this a hassle that must be overcome every time controllers are switched out. The features and feel of the Frag Fx 360 are mostly the same as the Frag Fx for the PS3 which does not require an extra wired Xbox 360 Controller. If you’d like detailed impressions and video on the comfort of the Frag Fx Shark PS3 refer to my older review. The only difference between both products are the face buttons and that left and right click buttons have a ‘sticky’ feeling to them which is off-putting.

Each game’s aiming mechanic is different depending on deadzone, level of sensitivity, customization, and etc. On the onset, the FragFX Shark 360 opted out of having firmware updates starting with the FragFX Shark on PS3 which I reviewed. This simplifies every customization so that they can be made on the fly on the peripheral itself, but cuts down on future compatibility with other software that require deadzone tweaks and even more increased sensitivity to counteract low turn speeds in games like Gears of War 3, something that even competing products such as the XIM 3 are having a difficult time with.

Micromovents vs. Macromovements

For each game you use the Shark, you’ll want to adjust in game sensitivity all the way up to counteract the slow turnspeeds. This helps looking around while not in ADS mode (iron sights). The most trouble in setting your game’s sensitivity is using the built in on the fly dead zone dial. As the dial is increased (1-10) you’ll feel the mouse become more tolerant of your input. This effect is similar to lowering the sensitivity of your mouse in Windows and helps with Micromovents that help with headshots and moving targets.

Also, I could never find the right adjustment for most games I’ve played. For example in Modern Warfare 3, I struggled with the recommended (3-5) setting. These settings were not enough to keep the balance between looking around and having a responsive iron sight experience. Perhaps the solution to these problems is profile settings for each game that you can adjust via PC such as the XIM 3. While in the process of simplifying the Frag Fx Shark, the mouse is severely handicapped by competitors that provide what PC players actually love, options. This isn’t a controller for the casual player, it’s supposed to be for hardcore PC players and Splitfish has lost sight of that. There needs to be more options.

If you’re willing to spend $89.99 for a few functional games like Crysis 2 or the Call of Duty Series, then your purchase is somewhat redeemed. If you’re looking to play almost every shooter under the sun on Xbox 360 with the perfect precision of a mouse on PC, then you might want to throw $60 more at the XIM3 (Xbox Input Machine) which does the same thing but with significantly better results.

Key Features: (From Splitfish.com)· Play with the mouse on the XBOX 360* as you would do on a PC
· Plug and Play
· Full XBOX 360, PC and MAC support
· NEW 50h + play time
· NEW 500h + power save standby
· 1 AA battery per unit (requires only 2 AA batteries per set – batteries not included)
· Fast access to special features (eg macro, rapid-fire, button swap, stick swap, etc.)
· Brand new wireless 2.4 GHz technology
· Easy in-controller setup (no more firmware updates required)
· On the fly dead zone adjustment wheel
· SixAxis support

Verdict: C-

We’re still working on finishing Trine 2‘s new online co-op campaign as well as the single player experience, but you can give Trine 2 a go yourself since there’s a PC demo out now for download. I’ve discovered so many inventive ways to solve puzzles alone and with friends so far that it’s insane, but the game is not without a few issues.

“We are excited to bring Trine 2 to the Mac App Store so close to the release of the game on Steam,” says Lauri Hyvärinen, CEO of Frozenbyte, and continues: “The original Trine has been a great success on the Mac and we look forward to all the feedback for Trine 2!”

The Mac App Store version will be getting and update next week that will fix technical issues, improve lighting on some Macs, and controller customization. Both demos, PC and Mac supports online multiplayer.

For customers who encounter these issues, Frozenbyte can be contacted at http://www.frozenbyte.com/contact/

Trine 2 Steam [Download]

First Alan Wake PC Screen

“Remedy Entertainment is proud to announce the PC release of Alan Wake. Coming in early 2012, the game will give PC gamers the Alan Wake experience they have been patiently waiting for. Remedy is a developer with deep roots in the PC space (Death Rally and Max Payne 1 and 2), so the game will have the high resolution polish that longtime fans will expect.”

Why didn’t Alan come to PC initially? Well, Microsoft gave this reasoning behind their decision to hold Mr. Wake back on PC, aside from the obvious reason of piracy.

“Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realised that the most compelling way to experience “Alan Wake” was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive. Both Microsoft and Remedy have long histories in PC game development. This decision was about matching this specific game to the right platform.” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

Originally announced for the next generation of PCs in a tech demo showing off what’s capable in now standard CPUs was Alan Wake‘s dynamic open world engine. While the final game was a tad bit linear, the game still had large environments to roam around and surprisingly good lighting.

There’s a great interview on the reveal of what Pid is all about in the link above on GiantBomb’s site if you want to know more. The game releases mid to end of 2012 with the goal to launch on PC, 360, and PS3.

Finnish developer, Frozenbyte, releases Trine 2 today – the sequel to one of my favorite eye gushing games of 2009, Trine – on Steam right now for $14.99.

Here’s a couple graphical settings added in the final version not present in the beta in which I wrote a preview for.

The playable menu screen. Right click view full size in next window for 1920 x 1080p. (slightly compressed due to Steam pic upload)

GO’s goal is to be a mix between 1.6 and Source, but in reality all players really want is 1.6 right? Well, Valve wants to make everyone happy and is tasking Hidden Path a developer known for making tower defense games and Counter-Strike: Source in crafting a balanced a mix of Source and 1.6. How they’ll get closer to 1.6… I don’t know. But someone on YouTube by the name of (NYAGaming) has taken the time to expose what nuances Counter-Strike 1.6 players expect.

Good on you beta tester. Thanks for being a Good Guy.

Wall spamming.

Centered viewing angle.

C4 Bomb exploit/bug.

Credit [NyaGaming]

No turkeys were harmed during the filming of this video.“Did you ever sit back and think “hmm” I wonder what one day making a videogame at Gaijin Games REALLY looks like? Well… here is your chance to see an 8 hour day in 60 seconds!”

GOG.com will be having a sale for 50 percent off virtually all of their DRM-free titles starting December 12 12:00 GMT through January 2, 2012 ranging from publishers such as Interplay, EA, Ubisoft, Atari, Activision, Sierra, and more.

All sales start and end December 8 through January 2, 2012.

However, on the specific dates of December 8 at 12:00 GMT through December 10 at 11:58 GMT The Witcher 2 + The Witcher: Enhanced Edition will be “at its lowest price for the whole season” at $23.99 according to GOG.com.

GOG.com will also be giving away 400 game codes for random PC classics from December 10 until Sunday(the 11th)  on their website, twitter, facebook, etc. Not too sure about these giveaways, but start picking out games and comparing prices before all the holiday sales empty your digital wallets.

Serious Sam 3: BFE gameplay footage on ultra settings.

Users can now bunny hop  somewhat and others are reporting that movement feels a lot more like Counter-Strike 1.6.

“Fixed movement exploit – Made movement more responsive per pro feedback – Fixed an out-of-sync issue that was causing some players to get shot by invisible players – Added mp_restartgame for competitive matches.”

Since today seems to be SWTOR Friday for me, I thought it would be a good idea to remind our readers about the sexiest peripherals I have ever seen.

At E3 in June, I met with Razer and got to see the SWTOR mouse, mousepad, keyboard, and headset, and with SWTOR a few weeks away, that means that these will all be releasing as well. Although the price tag may seem a bit steep initially, remember that Razer is providing their best mouse, keyboard, and headset. However, if I had to recommend one peripheral over the others, I would say get the keyboard. The keyboard has 10 dynamic keys, that will adapt to what you’re doing in the game, also it has a multi-touch lcd display. My only gripe is that it has Mac style keys.

These peripherals are currently available for pre order on Razer’s store.

Thanksgiving is a time for family, food, and rest; however, when the intergalactic struggle between the light and dark side of the force calls for one’s help, you cannot ignore their plea. Last weekend, I was able to participate in the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, but the question on everyone’s mind is: Will this game measure of to World of Warcraft? Luckily, I have an answer, so strap yourselves in and prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly of SWTOR.

Once I booted up the beta, I was greeted with a familiar CGI video of the Sith taking back their homeland from the Jedi. The familiar music and lightsaber-fight choreography was enough to make my inner Star Wars nerd shout with joy. After that cinematic, you are directed to the usual MMO fare, which is choosing your faction, class, and customizing your character. Emo hair, check; handlebar mustache, check. I decided to make a Jedi Knight that would make most fans of the franchise cringe, but that’s all part of the fun in an MMO. After character creation, you get to watch another cinematic that gives you some background on the faction that you chose.

Let’s just get this out of the way now, while I played SWTOR, I only dabbled with the Light side of the force, I wanted the Sith story and zones to be a surprise since I would most likely be playing Sith. Once inside the actual game, the mood is set right away, and that is a mood of emergency. Flesh raiders have attacked the Padawan training area, and it seems like most Padawan are completely useless. After you clean up some messes, you eventually proceed to the next area of the map. The next area is the main hub of the map, and you get to interact with more Jedi’s and you even meet the leader of the Jedi. Now that we have some introductory game information out of the way, no more spoilers, let’s talk about what’s good and what isn’t so good.

Star Wars: The Old Republic feels like an old friend, which isn’t a bad thing. The game felt like I had played it before, mechanically. The story telling felt organic, and the voice acting on most major characters was a huge plus. If you feel anything like me, other MMOs just give you the text, and after a long session of leveling, I don’t care about the quests’ lore. The game itself felt like a Mass Effect World of Warcraft, luckily for Bioware, I enjoy both of those games. The graphics aren’t insanely intensive, and I was able to run a consistent 110 frames per second (remember Shift + Ctrl + F when you start the game, that displays FPS). The combat was intuitive, and the animations seemed pretty spot on, from what I experienced. The music, as expected, was wonderful, and it gave a feeling of epicness to the play experience. However, now we move on to the not so fun stuff: the bad.

SWTOR has a cartoonish graphical style, and it seems to be less intensive on my machine than WoW at full settings. This doesn’t sound like a terribly bad thing, but the game has horrendous amounts of texture pop. Every time I would exchange dialogue with an NPC, every time I entered a new zone, every time I rode a speeder, and every time I started the game there was texture pop. Also, on the highest settings, I had an unforgivable amount of jagged textures (however, Anti Aliasing wasn’t available in the settings). Another problem I had was the ease of the game. SWTOR felt too easy, I know this is a bit nitpicky, but when I play an MMO, I want a game that will teach me how to play my class properly while leveling. I hate when an MMO holds a players’ hand and then they get to endgame content and they suck. I may catch some hate for this, but I think that the morality bar is superfluous. I mean, if you’re a Jedi that goes fully evil, that doesn’t make you a Sith, it just makes you a shitty Jedi. Sure some of the gear requires a certain level of light or dark, but it just feels like Bioware giving the game a mechanic that works for their other games to an MMO, it didn’t work for me. Combat is also problematic. SWTOR felt like mashfest 2011 while I was in combat. This could be due to the lack of an auto attack, or this could be due to the seemingly off ability cooldowns. My main attack used to build up combo points seemed to have a nonexistent cooldown, so spam away and then use a finisher.

Conclusion? Consider it handled.

Overall, my experience with SWTOR was a positive one, but I can understand why the game has received harsh criticism. I honestly don’t think this game will rival World of Warcraft. Although it will take users away from WoW, I doubt it will serve as more than a distraction until a new patch releases. While the beta isn’t representative of the finished product, it still gives a good idea of what the games’ strengths and weaknesses are. If Bioware manages to fix the graphical issues by the release of SWTOR, I think I will be able to put up with the game long enough to see the raid content. I have seen hate on this game from a lot of Star Wars fans, but I think a majority of this is from people who haven’t played an MMO and expected SWTOR to be another Knights of the Old Republic. If you are a Star Wars fan and an MMO fan, I would say give this game a try; however, if you are only a fan of Star Wars, I would say wait until release, read reviews, and make an informed decision. SWTOR has a release date of December 20, 2011.

Looks like the Microsoft Flight launch sequence has begun which means closed beta applications are now open for all.

However, Microsoft will be cherry picking which accounts get into the beta. If you think you have what it takes see the following link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/#

“We’re thrilled to announce that the Microsoft Flight Beta is scheduled to kick-off in January 2012 and we are now accepting applications to participate in the beta program – to apply click here. Note that any beta applications sent via e-mail to msflight@microsoft.com will not be considered for inclusion in the beta program.”

As one who started playing PC games in the early 90s, the Microsoft Flight Simulator series always had a special place for me even though they weren’t really games. I played them as if they were with the intent and goal of piloting a Boeing 747 as if it were a fighter jet. Let’s hope that Microsoft Flight keeps playing like a simulator and less like Pilot Wings.

I’ve been playing for about a few hours. These are my thoughts.

I can’t add much more to what has already been said for the first Trine’s critical praise, gorgeous visuals, and rather enjoyable puzzles. One could only hope that Frozenbyte wouldn’t succumb to ‘sequelitis,’ but after dabbling a few hours with Frozenbyte’s Trine 2 beta I’ve realized they’ve pretty much struck all the chords of the first and more. Right when I booted up the beta I was immediately surprised at the quality of presentation. Instead of opting for a animated CGI menu screen, Frozenbyte simply sliced a real time playable environment for you to fiddle in because yes, the game looks that damn good. One of Trine 2′s main selling points for me is more or less addition of online co-op that works fantastically so far in the beta.

There’s of course in game voice, text, and the ability to join and create your own private games. When you create your own games you have the choice of selecting Classic or Unlimited. Classic restricts each of the three players to one class and Unlimited allows each player to change to Knight, Wizard, or Thief at anytime. This allows for some crazy possibilities on the puzzle solving side where two wizards can keep each other afloat on boxes simultaneously. It may seem kind of like broken fun, but you can always switch back to Classic mode.

Graphics, Graphics, Graphics.

Although you’re limited to adjusting graphical settings outside of game via launcher, there’s a decent amount of options for hardware enthusiasts out there. Graphical details options range from Very High, High, Medium, Low, and Very Low which all look respectable. However, you’ll want to run this game at least on High to Very High.

Anti-aliasing options range from Off, Medium (FXAA), High (FXAA + 2xSSAA), and Very High (FXAA + 4xSSAA). On a GTX 560 Ti, 8 gigs ram, and i7 2600k 4.5 ghz rig I’ve only been able to attain an average 30 fps on Very High AA, but well over 60 fps on High AA. Since it’s a beta afterall, this type of performance for the most part is better upon final code.

It’s not all just graphical settings though, the lighting in Trine 2 is tremendously improved from how it’s used in combination with the art design. Trine 2 has some of the most colorful and detailed backdrops I’ve ever seen for a 3D side scroller. It takes 2D/2D parallax planes to a different level because even the planes distant in the background seemingly have just as much detail that’s brought forth in plane that you’re playing on. When in motion, it all comes together in a fountain of gushing awesomeness.

Oh and the gameplay, yeah it’s good, too.

One of my gripes in the original Trine was the wizard’s limited mana that was often used up lifting boxes or planks. The Wizard had to wait for their bar to regen or find pots to refill it. It was easier to say ‘oh well I’ll use the Knight or Theif for this instead.’ However, in Trine 2 lifting boxes and conjuring boxes don’t affect your mana! That’s good! This left me the opportunity to at least experiment more with more ad-hoc methods of puzzle solving aside from the straight forward mix and match approach.

Take the screenshot above for example. See, there was a giant snail on the right drinking water, so using the wizard’s ability to levitate objects you’ll have to redirect that water (depriving the poor snail of H2O) to a seedling that can grow large enough to jump on so that you can…. yeah, you’ll be doing a lot of this stuff. This is just one of the fairly straight forward puzzles, but the type of puzzles you’ll be scratching your head on will be against the larger enemy types such as the one of the first mini bosses. It took me a couple of minutes until I took hint of the environment. The serpent ended up being his own worst enemy, not to draw any spoilers out for you.

Experience seems to be put to use in more effective ways in powering up the abilities of Knight, Wizard, or Thief. More points down each characters skill tree means that you’ll be driven to solve puzzles in more creative ways. For instance, by using wizard’s augmented ability to conjure four boxes instead of one or two you can traverse your way up via box rather than use the Thief’s grappling hook. Since there’s only two levels of the beta to level up from, I’ve only seen a few other abilities another being the frost arrow for the Thief. All of these abilities you gain solo seem to show up in the multiplayer games, however it is beta.

I’d like to talk more about the online co-op side of things, but there are so few players out right now in the beta that it’ll have to wait until the game launches later in December on Steam. The first two levels are a bit too easy and short, but developers say it’s basically a tutorial. The difference between the sequel and the first game is instead of more levels, the levels will be longer. I’m definitely looking forward to it. In the meantime I’ll be grinding some experience points since progress made in the beta is said to carry over to the full game when it releases according to developers on the Frozenbyte forums.

Pre-Order yourself into the beta – http://store.steampowered.com/app/35720/

Battlefield 2 veterans rejoice. We’re going back.

Well not right now, but amidst the festivities of the holidays next month when the first DLC expansion map pack goes free for all Battlefield 3: Limited Edition purchasers and the rest for $14.99. The three combat vehicles that they’re bringing back from Battlefield 2 in Back to Karkand are the STOVL fighter jet, desert buggy, and one of the APC’s.

“I wanted to complement what we already have in the base game, plus I wanted to bring back some of the classic vehicles from Battlefield 2 that we know players loved, such as the Short Take-Off/Vertical Landing fighter jet and the desert buggy. In today’s trailer, you can also get a first glimpse of a hitherto unannounced fourth vehicle bound to strike fear into the very hearts of the enemy. See if you can spot it!”, said Back to Karkand Lead Designer Niklas Fegraeus.

Your lives will end come December 1, when Terraria 1.1 releases for free. Well, our lives at least.

Meanwhile, the game has sold over 1 million copies, insane right? Also, check out this Terraria 1.1 patch overview.

“Good news everyone! Steam is having a massive Autumn Sale and the best part about this? Terraria once again is on sale for an incredible 50% off. This is a great opportunity to grab a few copies of Terraria to give to your friends before the big 1.1 release.”

Available on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/105600/
http://www.Terraria.org

As Don Allen would say, “What comes after fall? Winter? No! Insanity!”

Well, now you can try Afterfall: Insanity on PC right now and see for yourself how visceral it is. Nicolas Games has also announced a release date for Afterfall: Insanity being Nov. 25.

“Gamers who pre-order Afterfall will receive the soundtrack as a gift, regardless of whether we reach the ten million mark or not,” said Patryk Hamerlak of Nicolas Games. “This is our way to emphasize that market rules have changed. Additional content and add-ons to games used to be free but now they cost much more and those costs are continuously inching upward. We see an opportunity to help change the world, while also giving a quality game experience to players at a reasonable price.”

If you missed our preview check it out here. Music in the trailer seems pretty good.

www.afterfall-universe.com/en/buy.

http://download.afterfall-universe.com/Afterfall_InSanity_DEMO_ENG.exe

This includes black screens, squad functionality, stat padding prevention, improved damage modeling, and a whole lot more. The list below is sort of like a short story for Battlefield 3 lovers. I am one of them.

NOTE
Battlefield 3 will have a scheduled down time on Nov 22 between 07:00-09:00 AM UTC, during which you will not be able to play the game.

PATCH NOTES

Selected improvements in the Nov 22 Battlefield 3 client-side update

A full list of changes is available on the Battlelog

Major client update for the PC version Battlefield 3 as well as a server-side update for all platforms.

The update will be made on Nov. 22nd 7:00 AM UTC / Nov. 21st 11:00 PM PST.

We’ll share release timing on the console patches as soon as we are clear on the timing, these take a bit longer due to console certification process.

—- Client-Side Changes:

– Visuals, Stability and Performance Fixes:

• General performance and loading time improvements
• “Black Screen” fix for an issue occurring on some PC Configurations
• Stereo and Rendering Support for Nvidia and AMD Graphics Cards
• Adjusted the “stuttering” encountered on some PC configurations.
• Fixed several Crashes when joining MP and Co-Op sessions
• Fixed multiple problems when using multiple monitors (Eyefinity / Surround).
• Fixed visual corruption issues on certain Nvidia Cards
• Improved loading times for certain textures
• Added console command “GameTime.MaxVariableFps” to limit max FPS
• Added console command “UI.DrawEnable” to hide UI for screenshots / videos

– Balance and Gameplay Adjustments (PC)

• Fixed a problem with high speed mouse movement
• Added back some missing Growlers on Kharg Island Conquest Large
• Added back EOR sound for SQDM and TDM
• You should no longer be able to damage a friendly vehicle when sitting in an open position
• Grenades now drop to ground if you get killed while attempting to throw it(note the affect this will have on Hardcore mode!)
• Spawn protection now should work in Conquest. You should no longer spawn on points too close to enemies
• You should no longer spawn too close to enemies in TDM and SQDM
• Combat areas on Kharg Rush tweaked in order to disallow defenders to access the carrier ship after 1st base is taken and being able to enter the AA gun
• Fixed a problem with revived players not suffering suppression
• Fixed a problem with the camera when being revived in COOP
• Added joystick deadzone setting
• Fixed sound for when climbing ladders
• Fixed an issue with some weapon sounds in first person
• Fixed a swim sound loop error
• Increased the damage of Helicopter Miniguns, AA guns, and Jet Cannons against infantry
• Increased the damage of Helicopter Miniguns against jeeps.
• Reduced the physics impact of AA guns and Jet Cannons, players under attack from these weapons should no longer lose control.
• Increased the damage of the 44 Magnum slightly.
• Increased the range and minimum damage of the .357 Round from the MP412 Rex.
• Increased the range of all .45cal and 9mm weapons.
• Slightly increased the range of the P90 and MP7 and PDW-R.
• Slightly increased the range of the 5.56mm PDW-R and decreased the minimum damage at long range.
• Slightly increased the minimum range of the Mk11, SVD, and M39 EMR 7.62mm rifles.
• Decreased the maximum damage and maximum range of the G3 and SCAR-H 7.62mm weapons.
• Reduced the damage from FIM-92 and SA-18 IGLA missiles against aircraft.
• Increased the damage and range of the 40mm BUCK rounds.
• Reduced the damage .50cal weapons do against Helicopters.
• Updated T90 canister shell tweaks to match Abrams canister shells
UI Changes (PC)
• Added round duration and ticket summary at EOR
• Advanced squad polish – should be more intuitive
• Significant changes to the Join Squad functionality (see below)
• Fixed a problem regarding keybindings while playing
• You should now get a better error message when being disconnected via Battlelog

—- Server Update Highlights

• EOD Bot exploit fix
• Several crash fixes
• Anti-stat padding measures taken, disallowing ranked servers to run obscure settings
• Improved team kill kick configuration
• Support for unranked servers. Unranked servers do not report players’ scores to Battlelog, but server administrators can freely control all settings

– Share your profile and stats with new Battlelog functionality

• Ability to share your Profile and Stats pages to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter
• User Profile and Stats pages on Battlelog can now be accessed without being signed in to Battlelog if you know a user’s URL
• Single sign on from Battlelog to Origin. If you’re not logged in to Origin and join a game server, Battlelog will automatically sign you in to Origin in the background and join the game server

– Quick notes on Squad changes in the Nov 22 update

• Removed FIND ME A SQUAD option
• Allow players to join empty Squads alone, thus having 1/4 squad members
• Change order of options to LEAVE SQUAD, INV A FRIEND, SWITCH TEAM
• Disable Privacy flag when 1 man squad
• Reset Privacy flag from Private to Public when squad drops to 1 player
• All occupied Squads will now show up colored blue on the Squad Selection screen
• Players who choose not to join squads will also show up as Blue in the “Not in a Squad” line
• Squads that are currently empty will display as white — if you wish to join an empty Squad, you can choose the first one marked with white text

– A detailed look at Squad refinements

A detailed look at Squad refinements

Today’s PC client patch features numerous tweaks to Squad functionality and is part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier to play with friends and Platoon mates. These changes will also be implemented for consoles when we release the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 updates shortly. Stay tuned for the exact date of the console updates.

First, we need to look at how joining with Squads and Platoons affects the balance of teams. Initially, servers are commanded to equal out each side, so joining with friends can impact that balance while joining with Platoons further hinders this. As a result we have made some adjustments to the in-game Squad management screen.

For PC, you are now able to highlight the various Squads and select which one you wish to join by selecting a Squad and then clicking the Join Squad button. Please note that the Squad Privacy option still allows 2 man Squads which, during 64 player sessions, can lead to players with no squad position –- the number of people with no Squads will be shown at the bottom of the Squad selection list.

After the patch is applied to consoles (in the near future) you will be able to join Squads by cycling through the list and selecting which Squad you wish to join.

The goal of Skyrim Mod Manager is to make modding your PC version of Skyrim simple, clean, and fast. Why should you use this? Well, it makes things less complicated further down the road when hundreds of Skyrim mods start cropping up. Right now it may seem counter intuitive, but realize that if you don’t have perfect memory of which files you’ve changed, then you’ll end up having to reinstall Skyrim from scratch to get everything back to vanilla Skyrim.

Please keep in mind that this is in beta, but will be well supported by its creators.

“We cannot stress enough that we are still in the beta stage of NMM. NMM is in a very good state and will be usable by nearly everyone, but Beta stages are typically used for testing and bug fixing, and some of you will find bugs.”

“We are using a bug tracker system on our forums that allows you to post any bugs you might have with NMM. We cannot fix a bug if you do not report it! Using the tracker system is as intuitive as making a post on a forum, and you can login to it using your Nexus username and password.”

“We also have a beta test subforum that contains all the information you need to know to get started, report bugs and help us with development of NMM.”

“We don’t want to make you think that NMM is the solution to your problems getting 1,000 mods to all work together right now. It’s our aim to to reach that point and it’s what we’re working towards. However, even simple mods can be a complex business and trying to get many mods to all work together is something people in the community have been working hard to do since the start of this community. NMM is designed to make your life downloading, installing, updating and managing mods easier, but it will not currently be the wonder pill that will make all your conflicts and compatibility issues disappear. Load orders, conflicts and compatibility issues still exist with NMM at this time.”

“Mods may not work for a number of different reasons, and not all of them are the fault of NMM or the mod author who created the mod(s). Please remember this before you verbally abuse us, or the mod authors, for not being able to get your mods to work.”

“Having said that, development is ongoing with NMM to make these difficult aspects of modding as easy to overcome as is possible within the limits of the game. We are working hard to not only ensure these issues are mitigated as much as possible within NMM, but also to ensure our program is compatible with any other tools and utilities you might use at the moment to deal with them.”

Nexus Mod Manager – OPEN BETA - 0.12.7

[Download] via Skyrim Nexus

How well does Overkill Studio’s Heat inspired four player online co-op shooter hold on PC?

At first glance Payday: The Heist sounds like the type of shooter where pre-planning and calculated execution come together in triumphant glory; however, PayDay is a lot more about the shooting dudes part than anything else. Much like other popular four player online co-op shooters, there’s a rough framework of objectives to follow, but a good portion of them feel like checkpoints once you’ve killed enough dudes. Missions boil down into three parts.

In true fashion, each heist begins with the setup, the job, and the escape. Somewhere in between this three step process, men of the law will die bravely in the hundreds. There are only six missions in Payday including First World Bank, Heat Street, Panic Room, Green Bridge, Diamond Heist, and Slaughterhouse. The mission titled Heat almost perfectly resembles the final assault that Robert De Niro and company made across a multiple blocks in the movie Heat. This includes car filled streets for cover and civilians that flee the scene as a hail of gunfire ensues from both sides. Each mission is varied enough in objectives and setting that it avoids repetitiveness, but only for a little while. Only a select number of missions can be played on Easy including the first couple of missions and the last couple of missions immediately start on hard with no option for easy or even normal. As difficulty ranks up, A.I. will simple do more damage and pay more attention directing their fire toward you.

The PC version of the game has options to change keyboard and mouse bindings, but limits graphical options to only what resolution the game can run in. For those looking to set extra AA or MSAA will be disappointed since it’s only a DX 9 game. However, the game looks quite sharp in 1080p and the art direction more importantly is serviceable, but not beyond amazing. What’s more is that finding groups is a bit easier to do making use of Steam PayDay Groups for organizing games. Right now there quite a low amount of players online so taking advantages of Steam features or finding others to play with on forums is what will have to do for now. The max players I’ve seen on a regular weekday afternoon is around 2,000 estimated.

There are only three types of classes to play in this four player co-op game including Assault (raw firepower with weapons, Mark 11, Crosskill .45, Brenner 21), Sharpshooter (a precision based class with weapons, M308, Locomotive 12 Gauge), and Support (“for those that like supporting teammates” with weapons, Brono .44, Compact 5, and Reinbeck). Role is assigned to what package you outfit your character at the beginning of each mission rather than during the mission. Each member has optional load outs along with deploy-able ammo bags to replenish ammo. These bags though are limited in placement and position. Once you’ve deployed a bag that’s it, you can’t move it and once your team has filled up on ammo the bag disappears. This works the same for health packs that restore your base health which is your last line of defense over your regenerating health. This adds an extended layer of strategy, one where you’ll be communicating with your team when to drop the bags and when not to.

As missions carry on, ammo and health become a scarcity for new players on normal and essential for hard and overkill difficulty settings. Overkill is exactly what it is, overkill. The only way to beat these from experience and from watching several other high reputation (level) players is to know exactly where A.I. spawns and to immediately cheese and bottle neck them. As missions progress, hard enemy types with riot shields and annoying tasers start to crawl out of the woodwork which will require one of you to flank. Other missions get interesting when stealth becomes a factor, but it’s an all or nothing affair that is very hard to pull off with random players.

Where Payday truly shines is in the ridiculously hectic, but coordinated four player human co-op sessions. A.I. is atrocious when playing alone, but there is a significant amount of joy when playing with others, especially friends on your Steam list. Occasionally, there’s a low reputation player that will ruin Diamond Heist’s stealth setup, or activate and objective before finishing a side objective that will net the group more cash, but that can be usually communicated before the match.

What Overkill Studio’s churned out feels like game that needed a few more months of development. When taking hostages, shouldn’t there be a ability to hold one by gunpoint or to use as human shields? What if extra modes were added that included “Inside Man,” where one of your members are tasked with turning on the whole crew? What if the objects weren’t simple button presses, but had built in mini hacking games? There are so many what ifs that my head could explode at the possibilities. However, PayDay still by its own merit has solid foundations that make for an enjoyable game, but pales in comparison to what other online co-op shooters offer in variety, modes, or polish that the Left 4 Dead series has set with its high watermark.

C+

Trine 2–the followup of 2009s hit, Trine–is less than a month away, and we have been graced with some new screens that show the beauty that captivated us at E3. For me personally, Trine 2 feels like it will be the perfect game to play after absolutely obliterating Skyrim.

The screens showcase Amadeus, Pontius, and Zoya in action with some of the games wonderfully designed enemies. The expansive color palette is something that should catch the eye of any gamer who has complained about the brown and gray color palette of most first person shooters and post apocalyptic games that have gained so much popularity.

With the inclusion of online multiplayer, Trine 2 is a game that should be on most gamers radar by this point. Trine 2 will be available December 6. It will be readily available on PC, Mac, and some other platforms that we don’t cover for $14.99. Yeah, I just did that.

A slightly faster response compared to Sony’s breach of PSN accounts which hit the PlayStation brand hard. CtrlAltKill received the following letter from Gabe Newell.

–

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6.  We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums.   This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely. 

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

###

Now hurry up and announce Half-Life 3.

What’s your Battlefield Moment?

YouTube Credit: [W0LFEYE1]

Still happen to have a PC copy of old faithful Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare? Don’t have enough to buy Modern Warfare 3? Well, you’re in luck good sir. Star Wars: Galactic Warfare is surprisingly good. Gameplay is pretty much like Call of Duty, except for some laser rifles, thermal detonators, as well as rebel and imperial skins. Although the player counts are low on most servers, there’s usually a better way to find a busy server using GameTracker.

“This version contains seven maps (“Mos Eisly”, “Bespin”, “Bestine”, “Not A Cave”, “Jundland”, “Jundland Dusk” as well as the new “Anchorhead). There is also a new killstreak called “viper droid”.  The Y-Wing and Tie-Bomber are now part of the killstreak “airstrike” (finally!).  We have also fixed some bugs of course.  With version 1.0 you will also get an installer which makes your life a bit easier (see the video tutorial below).”

“Thanks to all who supported us over the last years. We are still stunned by the enormous feedback we have received. Around 75,000 downloads and more than 900,000 visitors on our YouTube Channels were our motivation to go on with the mod for such a long time.  A lot of your ideas and recommendations are integrated to this final release.”

“We also like to thank the worldwide CoD Modding Community. It’s so awesome that most  of you old  scruffy looking nerf herders have participated to this project. Awesome! The Force is strong with you! Hopefully you will enjoy our new version of SWM: Galactic Warfare for the time being and we hope to see you on our server for some battles:”

Normal (non-Hardcore):
DE: 213.133.110.38:30000 Galactic Warfare 1.0 FINAL | www.blackmonkeys.de
208.167.250.217:28960 Galactic Warfare 1.0 FINAL | www.blackmonkeys.de

Hardcore:
DE: 178.63.77.4:28960 Galactic Warfare 1.0 FINAL | HardCore | www.blackmonkeys.de

You can also download the Mod (incl. Serverfiles) here:

Discuss with fans: forum.blackmonkeys.de

May the mods be with you.

Here’s a nice teaser trailer highlighting Battlefield 2 maps re-imagined in Frostbite 2: Gulf of Oman, Sharqi Peninsula, Strike at Karkand, and Wake Island. We’ll have to wait until some unspecified date in December for its release free for those who pre-ordered Battlefield 3 and $14.99 for post day 0 purchasers. Battlefield 2 vehicles and weapons, and the expansion pack also features the return of a variation on Conquest called Conquest Assault, details of which will be revealed later on. Phooey.

[Battlefield Blog]

Sonic Generations surprised a majority of gamers when it was announced that there would be a PC port of Sonic Team’s Sonic Generations by studio Devil’s Details whose port job of Virtual Tennis 4 turned out well. So how does Sega’s best kept secret look like on PC in full 1080p?

Well, look on below. There’s PC specs too which are quite modest assuming you aren’t on four year old hardware with the recommended GTX 460 being released in 2010 and minimum GeForce 8800 released in 2006.

Minimum Requirements
Microsoft Windows 7/Vista/XP Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 (2×2.0GHz) or AMD equivalent
2GB RAM (Windows 7/XP)/3GB RAM (Windows Vista)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 2900
11 GB free hard drive space

Recommended Requirements
Microsoft Windows 7 Intel Core i5 @ 2.66 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.0 GHz
3GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 / ATI Radeon HD 5850
11 GB free hard drive space

The Hedgehog Engine is a beautiful thing and I’d like to see it running on my computer, for sure. Pre-Order on Steam here or choose your favorite digital distributor.

Sonic Generations releases Nov 4, 2011 for PC at a modest price of $29.99.

With Blizzcon taking place last weekend, there were a great deal of announcements, but none were quite as genius as the World of Warcraft annual pass. The real genius of the annual pass was the inclusion of Diablo 3, a mount, and beta access. I think that a lot of WoW players that were on the fence about coming back to WoW will be returning. So, this Monday, Mod Monday will cover 5 of my must have add-ons for world of Warcraft. Just an FYI, I’m not a WoW scrub. I am in a 6/7 HM Firelands guild.

1. Hydra’s TukUI
Hydra’s TukUI is the Inception of add-ons, as it is an add-on based on an add-on. Hydra’s edit to TukUI is cleans up the clunky WoW interface and gives it a clean, sexy look. Every component of this UI can be moved and toggled on or off. There is a lot to learn while using this UI, but after you master it, it’s wonderful. You can also edit the files and make the UI even more custom, but that takes knowledge of editing LUA files.

2. Skada Damage Meters
As any raider knows, knowing your DPS is always key in a fight. Basing your DPS off of world parses and using the add-on to make sure that you are pulling good numbers is the key to DPS success. I find Skada to be more accurate than Recount.

3. ForteXorcist
ForteXorcist is a buff/debuff add-on that allows for players to micromanage not only their buffs and debuffs, but the debuffs that they have applied to enemies, which makes it awesome if you play a class that needs to reapply dots during a fight. It has a custom set of bars and looks nice with the rest of your set up. I’m simplifying my explanation of this add-on, but a full explanation would take quite a long time.

4. Deadly Boss Mods
This should be self-explanatory to anyone who has ever raided, but it is the key add-on in any serious raiding guild. It tells you when to get out of fire. Enough said.

5. Quartz
Quartz is an add-on casting bar that allows you to place a custom casting bar for yourself and enemies. It is extremely useful if you are on interrupt duty during a boss fight. The bar can be resized and it is another sexy add-on to add to your arsenal.

I hope that this crash course on WoW add-ons has proven useful, if you have any add-ons that you think are viable, list them in the comments.

The first draft of the Battlefield 3 PC Server Administrator Manual has been released as well as client side commands posted by Mikael Kalms on the EA Battlefield forums.

Some highlights:
- Remote admin protocol spec included
- lists of all maps
- lists of all gamemodes (and all maps can be used in all gamemodes)
- list of gameplay-affecting settings in the admin manual
- you can mix gamemodes in the maplist
- For BF3 PC, Normal / Hardcore / Infantry Only are umbrella names for a specific group of settings; details in the manual
- there is a section in the manual which describes how changing server settings affect filters and Quickmatch on Battlelog
- unranked mode is, well, “nearly working” so for the first few days after launch all servers will run ranked
- in ranked mode you can control all settings (but at some point we will enforce PB on, game-password off .. or similar)

One thing which requires some extra elaboration is player counts, gamemodes, and how those things work together.

When you rent a server from an RSP, you rent a certain number of slots. The RSP controls the max number of players on your server.

In addition, you can temporarily lower the number of slots below the RSP-enforced setting through a remote admin command.

Now. There is currently no mechanism that enforces that a given gamemode can have at most a given number of players… so you can in theory run any gamemode with up to 64 players.
Some game modes (such as Squad Rush) will probably not work very well if you set the limit higher than intended. Most will function. Some will become less playable because the matches get a bit unbalanced. But for instance running Team Deathmatch with a lot of players should not be a problem.

[Download]

Feedback has been taken since Modern Warfare 2, and will combine the best of what Call of Duty 4 started and what Modern Warfare 2 left off.

From Modern Warfare 2 they took the Lobby System, Matchmaking with a Party, Matchmaking for Public Games, Steam Integration (Friends List, Server Browser,Achievements, Join on Friends).

From Call of Duty 4 they took Dedicated Servers (Join your favorite or set up your own,without any 3rd party hosting requirements), In-game Server Browser that allows you to filter by ping, map, gametypes, hardcore, voice, password, and more.

PC specific features that give you even more control over your experience like RCON, Custom Game Saving, NoGFX / Audio Card Requirement on DS.exe, Voice Chat, and SSAO.

It seems like both developers are on the right track when Modern Warfare 3 launches Nov. 8 2011 which available for pre-loading right now on Steam.

Does the PC version of Modern Warfare 3 support the same Private Match options?

Yes! PC players can fully customize their private / dedicated server games through full control over Class Restrictions, Custom Gamemode creation, access to unique private match modes like One in the Chamber,Gun Game, and Infected, as well as save their custom games for future use.

Will Modern Warfare 3 have Dedicated Servers?

Yes! Modern Warfare 3 supported matchmaking as well as Dedicated Servers, allowing players to find and filter via an in-game server browser or set-up their own Dedicated Server for complete control, without being restricted by any 3rd party hosting requirements. If looking for a Dedicated Server to join, if you choose not to set up your own, you can filter and favorite by Ping, Map, Gametype, Hardcore Variants, Voice, Password, and many other options.

Will MW3 on PC have unique graphic options available?

Yes! You have a lot of graphic options, including enablingand disabling of new rendering features such as SSAO, you’ll also be able to modify DOF, Shadows, Anti-Aliasing, Texture Resolution and more.

Will Remote Console (RCON) be available to server admins?

Yes! You’ll be able to admin your server using RCON. We’ll support all things you’d expect, such as Kicking & Banning players, map rotation, private chat to players, reloading the map, and more.

Does Modern Warfare 3 on PC support an in-game Server Browser? Can you also use matchmaking?

Yes! In addition to the public matchmaking system for finding Ranked public games, you can use the in-game server browser to find and favorite unranked Dedicated Servers to join, which can be filtered by a number of options mentioned above.

How is Modern Warfare 3 on PC handling anti-cheat?

Security is a major focus for Modern Warfare 3, especially coming out of Modern Warfare 2. We will be utilizing multiple methods of Anti-cheat and Security methods, including Steam’s VAC system, CEG, and our own propriety methods implemented to provide multiple layers of defense in keeping online multiplayer fun, fair, and secure for all players without limiting the control they expect on PC.

Will Modern Warfare 3 on PC support STEAM?

Yes! MW3 is fully integrated with Steamworks, including the Steam Friends List (in addition to the in-game friends list), Steam Server Browser (in addition to the in-game one), Steam Achievements, and the ability to join friends matches.

Will Spec Ops have matchmaking on PC?

Yes! As well as Spec Ops specific leaderboards and a full progressive ranking system.

What is the Maxplayer count for Modern Warfare 3 on PC?

Currently it is 18 players max (in Ground War) but it may increase post launch.

Will Modern Warfare 3 on PC have LAN support?

Yes!

What is the overall design philosophy regarding PC? How is IW/SH providing for the unique needs of PC players?

We value the PC player and have gone to great lengths inproviding a more rich experience for our players.  We keep our ear near the ground and try todeliver items most requested.  The big feature for MW3 we are supporting is Dedicated Servers, this includes a serverbrowser, voting, RCON, and more.  Also we’ve implemented some PC only rendering features including SSAO.  Lastly we are embracing the STEAM platform by integrating fully with Steam including friends list, STEAM achievements.

How is the game being optimized for PC hardware?

We do wide testing across all tiers of PC, in our office we have an old minspec machine that receives just as much care as our top tier PC.  We’ve also engaged the hardware manufactures for wider compatibility testing for us to ensure an optimized bug free launch.

Can we set our max FPS?

No. Setting Max FPS is not a user controllable option.

Will ‘lean’ be in the game?

No. We chose to keep lean out of the game to keep the gameplay experience universal across all platforms. This was a gameplay design decision.

Will there be Modtools for Modern Warfare 3 on PC?

Mod Tools will not be shipped at launch.  As always we are continually evaluating features to support post launch and this is one requiring further discussion.

What is the MinimumSpecs for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on PC?

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
OS: Windows® XP / Windows Vista® / Windows® 7
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom™ X38750 processor or better
Memory: 16 GB free hard drive space / 2GB RAM
Video Card: Shader 3.0 or better 256 MB NVIDIA®GeForce™ 8600GT / ATI® Radeon™ X1950 or better
Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0C or later

[Source]

If you’ve ever used gaming mice and keyboards, then you are aware of the painstaking process of configuring your peripherals so that they fit like a glove. As someone who has had 3 different PCs in the last 4 years, I know the pain all too well. As if my gaming habit wasn’t nerdy enough, my folder that contains my TV calibration settings and profile set ups for mice and keyboards puts the icing on the “not getting laid” cake.

Luckily, today, Razer has announced a new service called Synapse 2.0. Synapse is a cloud-saving service for your Razer gaming peripherals. No longer will you have to write down or remember your profile settings. The cloud service is something I would love to see other companies start as well, because, in hindsight, it seems ridiculous that this kind of service isn’t standard yet.

Sadly, there is a catch to this service. That catch is that Synapse 2.0 is in beta and will only be supporting the Legacy line of products and any new products releasing after its inception, which means you will be spending some cash to buy new products. If you are someone who likes to upgrade, or will be buying the sweet Star Wars: The Old Republic line of products, then you are in luck.

In addition to the cloud storage, Synapse 2.0 will be the way to update your peripherals, and it will also allow for backwards compatibility for the products you own.

If you wish to sign up for the Synapse 2.0 beta, click here. The concept is amazing, but let’s hope the execution lives up to the standard of excellence that Razer has established.

The PC patch 1.3 is now available. Steam will update the game automatically.

Now, I’ve had my issues with Dead Island, but now that Techland and Deepsilver have slowly rolled out updates to the rocky launch of the PC version as well as the respawn issues several reviewers had, I think it’s getting better. Although I would like to have seen this update sooner, there are certain certification issues that get in developers and publishers way to make sure these updates don’t break the games further.

The current level cap is 50 on consoles and raising the cap to 60 on PC seems like an incentive to start leveling up for DLC, in which Deepsilver and Techland have delayed until Dead Island is stable enough.

This patch includes the following fixes:

1) Gameplay improvements:

•  Level cap raised to 60
•  New blueprints for weapon mods added
•  Infected damage reduced
•  Infected no longer interrupt player attacks
•  A series of improvements to subsequent playthroughs implemented:
•      o quest XP rewards adjusted
•      o XP rewards for challenges adjusted
•      o in subsequent playthroughs XP is awarded for all quests completed in co-op
•  Purna’s ammo carrying capacity increased by 50%
•  Character state from a save game can now be loaded when using the Start from Chapter option
•  New balancing option added: enemy levels can now be adjusted independently for each co-op player
•  Players respawn with more health
•  Lock pick skill level required to open a lock is now clearly indicated
•  Improved rewards in weapon crates
•  All weapon crates now contain rewards

2) Fixes and interface improvements

•  Fix: players are no longer left without a weapon after dropping the equipped item and healing with a medkit.
•  Fix: equipped items no longer swap mysteriously after drinking an energy drink
•  Tweak: healing with medkits from inventory works better, makes smarter choices of medkits
•  Fix: loot from dead enemies is now always identical for all co-op players
•  Fix: Purna no longer finishes her Fury with fists equipped
•  Fix: map tracking after death
•  Fix: zone info in the quarantine zone (City of Moresby)
•  Tweak: respawn point selection is now smarter

3) General

•  Improved stability and network performance in co-op
•  V-sync option added
•  Quest and reward fixes implemented

Be sure to check out our Mod Monday of Dead Island  which vastly improves the PC Experience!

Origin released a client update to version 8.3 today introducing the cloud storage beta similar to Steam and PSN’s cloud saving system just in time for Battlefield 3. Storage in the beta is limited to PSN’s paid for limit of 100 MB with PSN Plus while Steam’s free storage is seemingly unlimited as long as you have the game for each save connected using Steam Play.

Steam wasn’t 100 percent when it launched day 1 much to the chagrin of PC gamers who only wanted to play Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike 1.6, but as time went on Valve earned gamers’ trust with community features, steam play, and infrastructures to which the rest of the industry aspires to. It remains to be seen whether EA can earn this similar trust considering their history and backlash from gamers. Origin’s high entry level game comparable to Counter-Strike 1.6 is Battlefield 3, which can only be played online with a launch from Origin. Although multiplayer requires Origin, the singleplayer portion of Battlefield 3 is confirmed to have an offline play.

• Added the ability to change your password from Settings menu.
• Added the ability to purchase DLC while in-game.
• Added the ability to import friends from select EA titles.
• Added the ability to contact Customer Support while in game.
• Added the ability to check and repair games by right clicking on the game.
• Improved search so you can be found by real name, if you added it to your profile.
• Introduced Cloud Storage Beta – store your saved games on the cloud, so you can continue playing from any computer.
• Introduced Free Games – place PC demos to casual games from the free Games page in the Origin store.

Well, we’ve come this far and Battlefield 3 fans only have to wait one more week until release. Sweet sweet release. In this video some of the bullet points that were important to me have now been checked off, namely the aircraft carriers. It won’t be long now.

DOWNLOAD THE CORE INSTALLER
OR:
DOWNLOAD THE CORE ZIP ARCHIVE

Detailed information on how to install the mod is included within the files of either link. Be sure to let the modder know you thought!

At Indiecade, I was fortunate enough to get some quality time with Phil Fish’s labor of love, FEZ. First, here’s a little background: FEZ has been in development for 5 years by a team of two people, yes, two. FEZ is a platformer in which players’ can manipulate the 3D environment in order to solve certain puzzles. It capitalizes on the faux-retro look that is popular in the indie scene; however, the only sprite based things in the game are the characters.

The 5 minute demo (rough estimation) left me with a decent grasp of the game. The aesthetic is simple, but once you look at the world from the different perspectives, you really appreciate all of the thought and time that went into producing each zone. The music also fit the aesthetic nicely. The sound effects varied from a Zelda-esque chest opening fanfare to noise sounds when certain events took place.

The controls were tight and extremely responsive. The ability to catch ledges and pull the protagonist up was a welcomed mechanic for getting to those hard to reach spots. Dialogue from the townsfolk was good for a chuckle and made me realize that life in two dimensions is as flat as those in the town. Additional devices, such as a pivot, build on the 3D puzzle concept that the game embraces. The core of the gameplay is collecting portions of a cube in order to gain access to the other zones in the game.

The game gains its name from the fez that allows for the protagonist to explore the world in 3D. Fish commented that the reason for going through the town initially without the fez was so that the player would be able to make the same trek again in 3D and go back to all the areas to explore with the new mechanic.

If 3D TVs could make life as amazing as Fish does with the use of three dimensions, then I would be sold on the concept. For now, 3D TVs will still suck and FEZ will be amazing. Look forward to FEZ in early 2012.

Music Credits: performed by Taioo “Rage – Intro theme (Apophis)”

One of the biggest RPG series on the PC in the eighties and nineties was Might and Magic. Created by New World Computing, each game in the series featured a large open world to explore, numerous side quests, and odd plot twists that one would not expect in a fantasy game.  While the story revolves around a team of adventurers trying to stop an immortal wizard from sending planets into the sun, it was the large worlds and interesting creatures that kept players coming back.  The first saga in the Might and Magic series continued five games that revolutionize RPGs on the PC.

After the completion of the first saga, New World Computing took a chance by creating a spin-off game called Heroes of Might and Magic.  This time the player would be battling other kingdoms in a tactical setting.  This series was designed around using hero characters with armies made up of monsters and traveling around a map hoping to conquer all other towns and heroes.  This game also introduces the Ironfist dynasty a series of Kings and Queens who would control the fate of the lands.  The world created in this game would be the basis for the new saga in the main RPG games.  In addition, all the Heroes sequels made by New World Computing would fall into the same world.  While it is not necessary to play both series to understand the story, the Heroes series filled in back story and developed the lords more so than the RPG series.

While Heroes IV and Might and Magic IX would involve characters from these series, they would be criticized for changes to the series that many fans of the previous games would not agree with.  While New World Computing would not have much chance to redeem themselves before their parent company 3DO went bankrupt, the legacy of their games lives on.  Many argue over which Might and Magic game was best, but Heroes of Might and Magic III is often considered the best of the tactical series.  It contained a long campaign, two expansions each with longer campaigns, and some of the most difficult tactical gaming ever.

Recently, I decided to dig out an old copy of Heroes of Might and Magic III.  While I have been playing more modern tactical games like Agarest War, Frozen Synapse, and Fire Emblem I have been drawn back into the world of Erathia due to nostalgia.  I first played the game when it came out and I found it difficult but rewarding.  I remember being very annoyed that the computer usually had an overwhelming advantage and that I never seemed to have enough resources.  However, completing a mission did feel like a major accomplishment and I spent many hours fighting through the story and finding ways of dealing with the almost always cheating computer characters.  After a couple months the struggle became less rewarding and more tedious.  By the final campaign I was so frustrated with the game that I used cheat codes to beat the last two missions of the story in order to watch the ending.  Since I never completed the game properly I never picked up the expansions.  I eventually moved on from the series and dropped all of Might and Magic for other titles and less aggravating games.

I was reminded of this series by Good Old Games when they put the franchise on sale a short time ago.  Wanting to relive the series I gave Heroes of Might and Magic III a second try.  Even if I found it too difficult at least I could try the expansions that I never played before.  In the beginning the game felt much easier than I remembered.  I flew through the majority of the original campaign.  Even the final mission was not nearly as hard as I remember.  I was quite happy with myself being able to breeze through the majority of the main game.  With my new found confidence I moved on to the first expansion Armageddon’s Blade.  The first campaign was very difficult and required me to restart missions and change my strategy several times.  However, after many hours I found that I had saved Erathia once again.  I then moved on to one of the side story campaigns from Armageddon’s Blade with the odds stacked against me to an insane degree I was able to pull through and beat “Dragon’s Blood” a campaign that is considered by many to be unbeatable due to the very difficult third mission.  However, while playing I could feel my patience for this game once again wearing thin.

HoMaM - The Shadow of Death

Realizing that I was starting to get annoyed with the game once again I shifted my focus to the second expansion The Shadow of Death which acts as a prequel to the event of the main game.  This expansion allowed the player to change the difficulty in order to make some of the more insane maps easier to handle.  I found that with the game set to normal and a story that was more compelling than the side stories of Armageddon’s Blade there was much more to enjoy in this expansion.

Even after playing for nearly two months I still have yet to complete everything in Heroes of Might and Magic III.  I feel redeemed for using cheat codes when I was younger, but I also feel the same annoyance I felt all those years ago.  Even on the lesser difficulties the computer has a tendency to come at you with overwhelming numbers of troops that do not seem possible in the short amount of time that has passed.  In addition the computer will cheat by going directly to objectives and by having luck and morale bonuses occurring with nearly every attack.  The advantages given to the computer make even easy difficulty a struggle on some maps.  Overall, I am both happy to replay this series and angry that I have spent so many hours trying to complete every mission with only moderate success.

Heroes of Might and Magic III was not designed for casual players.  It is a very hardcore tactical game and bonuses and skills picked up in previous missions might just make later missions unbeatable.  This game will test your skill and your patience.  That being said, I do not regret playing this game again.  In fact I have more respect for the franchise now than I had before playing again.  The game still stands up today even with the graphics looking a little dated.  This return to the series allowed me to learn more about the other games and it reminded me that sometimes I want an “unbeatable” mission because when I beat it, I know I have achieved something others have not.  With new sequels made by a new company it can be easy to forget the classic entries.  However, no matter what is done in the later titles none of them can compare to the challenge and reward found in Heroes of Might and Magic III.

The game and developer winners this year are…

Grand Jury Award: FEZ, Polytron Corporation – The award distinguishes the game that cultivates artistry and embodies complete passion for game development. This year the jury chose from 36 game finalists from 14 different countries.

LG Mobile Innovative Game Award: Hungry Hungry UFOs, Asher Vollmer, Sam Farmer and Ben Bharier- The nominees for this award were brought together and established the prototypes for consideration at the IndieCade 3D Mobile Game Jam, presented and sponsored by LG Mobile.

Visuals sponsored by Nvidia: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Superbrothers, Capybara Games, Jim Guthrie

Audio: Proteus, Ed Key (E.P. Coming Soon!)

Impact sponsored by G4: Johann Sebastian Joust, Douglas Wilson and Friends

Interaction: Ordnungswissenschaft, Till Wittwer, Marek Plichta and Jakob Penca

Game Design: Deepak Fights Robots, Tom Sennett

Technology sponsored by Transgaming: Johann Sebastian Joust, Douglas Wilson and Friends

Story/ World Design sponsored by BBC Worldwide: FEZ, Polytron Corp.

Special Recognition: The Swapper, Facepalm Games – it’s a game specially selected by the Jury for being a stand-out game, but not one that could fit into any other category very well.

The Trailblazers Award: Megan Gaiser

Developers Choice Award: Way, Coco & Co (Carnegie Mellon)

Audience Choice Award: The Depths to Which I Sink, Bigpants

[IndieCade2011 Games]

Straight from one of the hog’s mouth on the Steam forums Hashmallum hinted at Hard Resets next 1.02 patch. “Yep – we are finishing the second patch, and you will get a Survival mode Guess what that can be!”

One might remember Flying Wild Hog’s immediate response to criticism and users with patch 1.01 adding in triple buffering, benchmark mode, the ability to change weapon modes while in cooldown, and much more. In a statement the studio went on to say “FWH remains dedicated to their game design philosophy, and will continue to address community concerns as they arise.”

I say bravo to these fine Polish developers and their continued support for PC gaming post release. Bravo.

Don’t forget to check out @TheDonAllen‘s video review of Hard Reset here.

A once enjoyable puzzle heavy job is quickly diminished to a mix between shooting and puzzling once you gain access to a firearm early in the game. If one were itching to finally just blast through enemies, so be it, but the satisfaction gained for solving puzzles greatly outweighs muscle particularly in the earlier sections. A gun with infinite ammo (Rock Blaster), although having a cool down period, doesn’t completely transform Rochard from good to bad, but I feel the developers put a gun in your hands prematurely. Taking the alternate route of disallowing the player the use a gun could have led to more satisfying outcomes against foes by instead letting the player use the environment and Newton’s laws of motion.

Rochard plays in multiple genres of gameplay. A classic design choice term dubbed ‘Metroidvania’ snuggly fits the description of Rochard. In the case of upgrades, Rochard’s G-lifter (Gravity Gun) can only lift crates early in the game yet can later bend bullets away and launch explosives back at enemies that of which I never cease to tire.

Rochard is well paced offering up good mix of physics based puzzles, shooting, and low gravity platforming that turn normal jumps into epic feats of traversal. Gravity is changed with an easy press of the L1 button at any given time. The mass of objects stay the same, and you’ll soon find how they interact at different levels of gravity. The HUD is also nice enough to let you know the weight of the object. Even though the game offers a nice mix, there are portions of the game that feel as filler, or become a chore since the solutions become so apparent. It often ends up the case of being busy work rather than a real puzzle.

Recoil Games then explores the realm of logic puzzles by use of differing force fields. Blue force fields disallow non living matter through, while red force fields block carbon based life forms, more importantly, you. Other fields block laser fire (yellow), and the all encompassing white field block all matter. Things can get quite fun when you come across an intricate wave of different colored force fields and multiple types of objects at your disposal. Sometimes, there’s even more than one solution. Rarely will you get stuck because objects required to finish puzzles regenerate quickly, a good design choice. It’s also nice that the check points are plentiful and each save is located at those checkpoints so that you can come back to a puzzle with a clear head.

The charm of Rochard’s story and writing quickly turn predictable. Characters soon turn out to be not as humorous as they could have been and rewarded cut scenes turn out to be ones I wanted to skip. Rochard’s personality is hard to pin point. Rochard appears as it should be funny at face value considering the setting and character designs, yet the game only netted a few smirks from me throughout. Take Rochard for what it is, as I assume developers never intended on enthralling story, but one that at least kept you playing.

Minor quibbles aside, Rochard does a lot well. Something to note as well is the awesome music that reminds me of early John Carpenter and 80′s inspired electronic music. An early portion of the game even features music from Poets of the Fall. The puzzles are original, mechanically the controls feel good, characters are brought to life with solid voice acting, and replay value is present due to hidden items whenever Rochard ventures off the beaten path. Rochard will net you around 6 hours to complete and is well priced at $9.99. I’m surprised Sony didn’t push this game harder, it’s really good. Recoil Games came out of nowhere with this one taking me by complete surprise. Rochard is definitely worthy of what time you have.

B

It won’t be long now until a flood of new Origin accounts will be made just to play Battlefield 3 on Oct. 25, so EA and DICE have put out a trailer to reassure that there’s destruction in Battlefield 3.

How much destruction is actually in Battlefield 3? Well, I’ve seen most of everything in the trailer above except for that giant Caspian Border tower pole getting knocked over by an airstrike. I think that’s new.

It seems that Techland and Deepsilver are still working to patch the PC version to the best possible product with PC patch 1.2.1. No need for a link to download, Steam will update the game automatically.

When Dead Island first released, Steam had the developer build uploaded into their servers for download allowing players to noclip anywhere they wanted in the game. A later patch fixed that, and it’s nice to see developers supporting their game post launch.

This patch includes the following fixes:

1. Fixed running game on Steam in offline mode
2. Fixed damaged saves when a player has more than 190 items in inventory (weapon or stacked items, counting in items from Jin’s storage and player inventory). Corrupted savegames will be recovered when possible.
3. Fixed problems with unlocking “There and back again” with progress 72/72
4. Fixed duplicating weapons:
a. When throwing and dropping at one time
b. When dropping items from inventory
5. Optimized scanning for friends-process, to decrease lobby server workload
6. Fixed random freezes when playing 4 players coop no longer appear
7. Fixed issues when using medkits from inventory menu
8. Stacking items issue solved: miscellaneous items to 9999, medkits and alcohol to 30 instead of 10.
9. Added the option to disable voice chat in game.
10. Limited Jin’s storage capacity to 150
11. Fixed: disappearing items when there is no place in inventory and a player tries to get an item from Jin’s storage
12. Improved trading: items will be removed from the smallest stack instead of a random one.
13. Fixed problems with corrupted profiles, which caused the game to start with black screen and freeze.
14. Fixed levitating zombies after killing
15. Fixed not being able to show quest details in quest menu using Xbox controller

Our review of Dead Island on PC is still on its way.

[Source]

Gaijin Games’ next project after their long running Bit. Trip. series of games will revist the gameplay stylings of Bit. Trip. Runner with Runner 2. The sequel will be different in art style in contrast to the 8 bit look of Runner.

Runner 2 Concept Art

“The new art style is smooth, graphic, and somewhat cartoony… The style of Runner 2 is a huge departure from the 8-bit style of the BIT.TRIP series, but it will still be amazing nonetheless! Look out!”

Bit. Trip. Runner

Keep up with the development closely on Gaijin Games’ web blog http://www.runner2.com/

Terraria 1.1 won’t be released until near the end of this year, but even the developer is still treading down the long road to 1.1. This teaser will have to hold us over until then to the popular 2D-MineCraft-Vania game.

“I haven’t brought up the release date because I simply don’t know yet. There are a lot of things planned for this update, and just because of it’s nature, it doesn’t make sense to split it up in to smaller parts. You might think of it as being a (free) expansion pack.”

“The best I can give you for it’s release is that it probably won’t be any sooner then November, and quite possibly sometime in December.”

Couple things of note from GAF user Grimm Fandango:

Maxwell's Pink Hammer

Here come the FF7 Cloud Look A Likes (see Buster Sword)

Old Lighting

New Lighting "New Hotness"

More New Hotness

Faaaalllcor!!!

Disco Disco?

Feeling a little left out on the impressive console ports of Crysis 1 to the 360 and PS3? Well, the only answer to that on PC is more particles… thousands more.

Here’s what this mod does. But, be sure to see what DonAllenDoes.com on his personal site as well as to view a nice catalog of all the great work he does.

This mod adds  1,000′s more particles MAXIMUM PARTICLES, physics to most of the Particles, Bigger Explosions. And lots of fun.

“Forget exclusivity, THIS is why the PC version is the one to play.” – @TheDonAllen

File details:

1. Unzip the System.cfg and Chaos.pak files, Drop the System file into your Crysis folder located .

C:Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis

if theres one in there already, Simply open my System file with notepad and copy the text, and paste it in the one thats already there.

2. Drop the Chaos.pak file into your Game folder located.

C:Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\CrysisGame

3. Make sure theres no other Particle mods in there.

Download [XtremeChaosV7.zip]

“The development of Blacklight Retribution has been a hard earned labor of love and after receiving praise from both fans and media, we’re confident that our work will pay off,” said Jared Gerritzen, Creative Director at Zombie Studios. “Closed beta is another step towards a game that we know people will have a great time playing.”

“We’ve been looking forward to getting Blacklight Retribution into the hands of gamers, so we’re excited to open the game up to thousands of players,” stated Andrew Brown, Executive Producer for Perfect World Entertainment. “We are confident that many gamers out there will be pleased and will finally have a real first person shooter experience in a F2P environment.”

Note:  Not all players can be let into each phase.  We want to open the flood gates slowly, so we can monitor and fix any issues that arise. But with each coming phase, we will let more players in.

Minimum:
Windows XP/Vista/7(32bit)
Dual Core CPU
2GB RAM
256MB DX9 GPU
4GB Free HD Space
DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card
Broadband internet connection

Recommended:
Windows 7(64bit)
Quad Core CPU
4GB RAM
1GB+ DX11 GPU
4GB Free HD Space
DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card
Broadband internet connection

https://register.perfectworld.com/blacklight/

[Blacklight] 23

The midweek Steam sale is Portal 2–the critically acclaimed release from earlier this year–and it is half price. That’s right, Portal 2 is $14.99. I may not be the biggest fan of the franchise (I know, feel free to stone me in the comments) but at this price, it would be downright foolish to not purchase. Well, unless you’re waiting for the Christmas sales, since it will probably show up for less, maybe not. Portal 2 also comes with the “Peer Review” DLC.

It is also worth noting that the Portal pack is half price as well, for $17.49. The sale ends on October 6, so I would advise that you buy NOW.

Afterfall: Insanity is the project from Polish developer Intoxicate Studios, it started as “a fan project by a number of Polish gamers and professionalized mid-2008.”Apparently being Polish now in the video game industry means you have a lot to live up to now from the likes of CDProjeckt and Wild Flying Hog. The premise of the game is basically an action horror game based on the Unreal 3 engine. Intoxicate Studios says their small but aim for quality.

“We’re striving to prove that the creation of a great game by a small studio without extensive past experience is in fact possible.”

The game takes place in an alternate Afterfall universe set in an alternate version of history since the Second World War and the shocking events that occur in the year 2032.

You’ll play as a mysterious psychologist named Albert part of a team of medical scientists in charge of monitoring the fugitives’ mental stability in the claustrophobic depths of the underground.

SOE’s take on four player Left 4 Dead like co-op will soon be realized later this month after a short delay. In Pay Day: The Heist you’ll play cops vs. robbers along with three other friends pulling off some crazy heists. It was pretty fun at E3 2011 though not without a few hiccups which should all be sorted out now.

“This delay is a move to ensure players and fans of our promise and vision to produce high-caliber games that deliver the best quality game experience.”

System Requirements

Minimum Requirements

Well well well, with the impending release of Valve’s take on competitive Counter-Strike on the Source Engine (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive), I thought it would be interesting as to what developers in the modding community could muster up themselves. I introduce to you CSPromod, this mod has been around since 2007 as an alternative to competitive Counter-Strike: Source. All the intricacies into gameplay have been painstakingly recreated in CSPromod, including bugs that have been incorporated into pro player gameplay in Counter-Strike 1.6.

If you own a copy of a free version of Team Fortress 2 or a paid version of Counter-Strike: Source, you’ll have all you need to install it. Simply download the .exe and install to the recommended directory.

Download (http)
Download (torrent .exe)
Download (torrent .zip)

[Official CSPromod Site]

Hilarious.

Thanks! [YouTube cb2198]

Before taking a look, it’s important to note that these beta benchmarks for Battlefield 3 are subject to change due to patches from DICE, driver updates, and retail code when BF3 releases Oct. 25.

Next, SWE Overclockers looked at Battlefield 3 on Medium on the same map, Operation Metro.

Benchmarks Courtesy of [SWEOverclockers]

A 9 minute taste of Caspian Border gameplay including Jets and Helicopters.

After raising over $2 million since its inception, the humble bundle is now offering Frozen Synapse and the Frozen Byte collection which includes one of prettiest 3D side scrollers I’ve ever seen on PC. Also, included in the bundle is Splot and Shadow Claw as pre-orders.

“Please note, while Frozen Synapse, Trine, Shadowgrounds, and Shadowgrounds: Survivor are very polished games and ready to play on all platforms, the Splot and Jack Claw bonuses are different.”

“Splot is still under development and will be added to your bundle once it is completed. Jack Claw is a prototype of a game Frozenbyte was developing, but canceled before completion.”

The Mac versions of the Shadowgrounds games require at least Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6+) and Frozenbyte games will not run on Intel integrated graphics (used in many Windows netbooks / notebooks or cheap computer systems).

“For other questions check out the Frozen Synapse FAQ and the Frozenbyte FAQ.”

As long as you pay more than the average of $4.54 you will also get the entire Humble Frozenbyte Bundle as well. Frozen Synapse itself is about a $25 value which is redeemable on Steam along with Trine.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

“I built the entire Normandy SR2 by hand. I had no plans going into this project and just made most of it up as I went. I started by making the basic interior design out of dirt, and I replaced them with the proper materials after. Once the interior was done, I built the exterior shell around it. I spawned most of the materials because it would’ve been nearly impossible to collect tens of thousands of iron and wool blocks. Even though materials were spawned, I placed every single block myself. The entire project took more than a hundred hours over the course of a couple months.”

ProDumbDog from YouTube was kind enough to provide a link so that even you can take a tour inside. http://minecraft.myservr.com

Duh dun, duh, duh dun.Ultra Settings.

PC Specs:

• NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
• i7 2600K 4.3 Ghz
• 8 Gigs Ram

• Avg 40 FPS
• Min 27 FPS Explosions, Hectic, Drops
• Max 80 FPS In doors

For everyone who pre-ordered Battlefield 3 on Origin or bought Medal of Honor Limited Edition, the open beta for Battlefield 3 has started.

The beta will be running from September 27 – October 10. I think it is safe to assume that a good deal of us will be losing any free time that we once had. The two days of early access should provide a sizable advantage for those who will play a great deal.

The download is roughly 3.5 gigs, so I’d recommend downloading as soon as possible. Add Andrew and myself on Origin: ctrlaltkill and tomarcus.

AMD Catalyst 11.10 Preview driver:

• Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series for single GPU configurations
• Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series
• Enables support for Eyefinity 5×1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations  using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series
• Vision Engine Control Center:    User Interface enhancements have been implemented for the CrossfireX, GPU Overdrive, and Information Center pages.

Instructions:
Download and install the AMD Catalyst preview driver from the following location:

[Updated Correct Link]

AMD Catalyst 11.10 Hotfix for Windows 7  32-bit / 64-bit Edition

Although all platforms should look beautiful, this video is undisputed evidence that the PC is the platform to play Battlefield 3. Remember, you have a month to build a gaming rig before the game releases on October 25.

WHAT YOU NEED

• RE5 on PC
• Wiimote/Nunchuk
• Sensor Bar
• Bluetooth adapter
• GlovePIE (I use with Emotiv, but no clue if it’s required)
• RE5 GlovePIE config

WHAT TO DO

1. Start GlovePIE and click File–Open–re5.PIE
2. If you’re not playing at 1920×1080, change the 1920s and 1080s in the first few lines of the config to whatever respective resolution they need to be at, then click Run at the top by the green arrow. Your Wiimote should now have the first LED on if it’s synced properly.
3. Start up RE5. You now need to set the keyboard/mouse controls to look like the following pic, and make sure they’re set to default otherwise.
4. Enjoy.

Make sure your settings look like this before playing.

Some things to note:

• I recommend you play with these once you get infinite ammo just in case things glitch out mid-level.
• I might just be sitting too close to the sensor bar, but the cursor can get a bit wonky sometimes in menus, so you might use a mouse or controller to navigate them. The gameplay is spot-on, though.
• QTEs are doable with this setup, but not ideal. For the A+D icon, simply wiggle the analog stick left and right repeatedly very quickly and it’ll register, and F+V is + and A on the Wiimote.
• Wesker+Jill fight, skip it. It’s all a glorified cutscene, anyway.
• Turret levels/portions are fully playable with this control setup, but they’re highly sensitive.

For any questions/comments you can find me on Twitter: @TheDonAllen

Let me know what you think!

Ever since pre-orders went live for Star Wars: The Old Republic, most gamers were left wondering when this MMO would be releasing. Surprisingly, the release date is relatively close to what Amazon had listed as the filler date.

Today at the Eurogamer Expo, Bioware announced that SWTOR will be releasing December 20 in the United States and December 22 in Europe. Don’t forget to have that money in your account if you pre-ordered off Amazon; they don’t take out money until the item ships, so don’t let that overdraft you during the Holiday season.

In addition to the release date, Bioware also announced the pricing plan, which will look very familiar to anyone who has played WoW or Rift.

1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

With all of this out of the way, the next big question is when will early access begin for those gamers who pre-ordered SWTOR? Well, maybe that’s just the question on my mind. Leave a comment if you’re wondering about this as well, that is, if you feel so inclined.

Straight from the official Space Marine forums, Noun announced Space Marine’s first patch for the PC today. Mainly fixing the butterfly exploit. Yes. That one.“We thank you for your patience as we continue to work to ensure Space Marine is the best gaming experience possible on all platforms.”

Patch Notes:

• Added mute all functionality and push to talk
• Fixed ‘butterfly’ exploit.
• Update matchmaking parameters to search for local matches longer.
• Fixed a crash when cancelling a search
• Fixed an issue where profile progress would not be saved properly if steam cloud was disabled.

While the PS3 doesn’t get exclusivity on Call of Duty DLC, the console scored a sweet deal for Battlefield 3. The PlayStation 3 will be receiving the Battlefield expansions a week earlier than the 360 and PC, which seems smarter than the month-long timed exclusivity of the Call of Duty DLC–having to wait a month for content that is $15.00 seems a bit foolish (I’ve never bought COD DLC for that reason).

The first expansion will be Back to Karkland, which includes 4 Battlefield 2 maps redesigned with the Frostbite 2 engine. Also included are new dog tags, vehicles, persistence, and weapons. It is set for release later this year. As a die hard Battlefield 2 player, this first bit of DLC will be a treat.

Remember to check our post about the Battlefield 3 beta and PC specs here. We will see you on the battlefield later this month.

Today Valve announced two new game modes for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO). One of them might already be one of my favorite modes… Arsenal Mode Gun Game. Oh how I loved the haphazard display of battles between late joining glock users and AWPers.

“Targeted for release via Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam (for PC and Mac) in early 2012, CS: GO will expand upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched 12 years ago.”

Now here’s some classic Gun Game for those of you unfamiliar with it from CS 1.6.

“Arsenal Mode is based on the popular Counter-Strike: Source mod Gun Game. “Arsenal: Arms Race” and “Arsenal: Demolition” add eight new maps and expand on the classic Counter-Strike gameplay.”

“Valve is working directly with creators of Gun Game to create Arsenal Mode. “We are excited that Valve reached out and is working with us to ensure Arsenal Mode is the best version of Gun Game.”, Michael Barr project lead of Gun Game.”

For more information, please visit http://store.steampowered.com/app/1800/

[Source: Press Release]

The other night I was playing Jamestown, and I figured it was time to cap some footage of the bonus modes. Mainly, I thought it would be enjoyable for you guys to see me get destroyed over and over. Just thought I’d warn you all that this video contains some strong language.

If anyone has requests for other games for me to cap footage for, let us know in the comments. Remember, the more difficult, the better.

DICE and EA announced today that the open beta will be live September 29 for PC, 360, and PS3 as well as PC specs. The map the beta will be on is Operation Metro set in Paris, which was the exactly the same map the closed Alpha was on. That map was horribly imblanced so hopefully we’ll actually get to see the final M-COMS for that map instead getting pushed back 90 percent of the time.

DICE has also revealed the PC requirements/minimum to which they are actually a fine balance of mid range cards.

Minimum System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS VISTA (SERVICE PACK 2) 32-BIT
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ DUAL CORE (CORE 2 DUO 2.4 GHZ OR ALTHON X2 2.7 GHZ)
MEMORY: 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD (AMD): DIRECTX 10.1 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (ATI RADEON 3000, 4000, 5000 OR 6000 SERIES, WITH ATI RADEON 3870 OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
GRAPHICS CARD (NVIDIA): DIRECTX 10.0 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 OR 500 SERIES WITH NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 GT OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

Recommended System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS 7 64-BIT
PROCESSOR: QUAD-CORE CPU
MEMORY: 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD: DIRECTX 11 COMPATIBLE WITH 1024 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 OR ATI RADEON 6950)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

Hey now, hey now, don’t dream it’s over. Soon your headaches, overused bloom, blurred vision, mouse menu speeds, micro-stuttering, save back ups, black screens, and field of view problems will be gone in less than 3 clicks. Yup, this mod is that damn easy to install and it certainly won’t get you banned from Steam’s VAC [forums].

Oh, and yes it was just updated, too.

UPDATE #13 19/09/2011: v1.91 beta has just been uploaded. Here’s what’s new:

• Added a save game and profile backup and restore. Once activated, you can press F5 in-game to create a backup of your save game and profile (up to a maximum of 10, at which point, the Helper will replace the oldest backup with a new one). Important: This is not a quick-save! It only backs up what the game has saved, in case it becomes corrupted.
• Added black screen fixes – one changes the “Monitor” value in Video.scr, while the other disables Desktop Composition while Dead Island is running. These aren’t guaranteed to fix every black screen issue under the sun, but it should help with those caused from having more than one monitor.
• Slight bug fix for the vertical synchronization tweak. Shouldn’t have cased problems for a majority of cases.

Above, is a screen shot of my updated FOV to 82.5 degrees (best for 16:9). It does however, take a bit getting used to and gives a odd fish eye lens look compared to the claustrophobic default setting.

http://downloads.zafehouse.com/deadislandhelper/dih_latest.zip

[Modder's Blog]

Well, it looks like DC Universe is joining the ranks of other mediocre MMOs. DCUO is going free to play with a tiered payment plan.

Free Access – Just like it sounds. Download and play the game for free. You also get all ongoing game updates (except DLC packs).

Premium Access – This next level of access opens up to you if you spend at least $5 in the in-game store. Premium Access grants you additional benefits that improve your experience in the game, such as more inventory slots, more character slots, bank slots and more free Vault tickets. So all you have to do is pick up some cool items in the store or buy a DLC pack and you unlock Premium Access. The best part? Once you unlock Premium Access you keep it for the life of your account.

Legendary Access – With Legendary Access you can unlock the maximum level of features and benefits. To unlock Legendary Access you can pay for a $14.99 per month game pass, or save big with a discounted multi-month pass. Lifetime members are automatically granted Legendary access. Legendary Access also includes all DLC packs at no extra charge.

http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/

Find out if Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete stands the test of time.Spinning off from the popular old school RPG franchise Heroes of Might and Magic was one of the first tactical games to incorporate RPG elements such as leveling up and equipping artifacts.  The first four games in the series were created by New World Computing, the developers who also made the main Might and Magic series.  To many fans of the Heroes series part three is considered the peak of the series in terms of depth and difficulty.  Beyond the original campaign New World Computing also created two expansions that gave players new heroes, new artifacts, and new challenges.

The story focuses on Queen Catherine returning from a foreign war and finding that her father’s kingdom has fallen.  Gathering her forces Queen Catherine begins her campaign of restoration and with the aid of allies rebuilds the kingdom and defeats the dark foes that began this war.  The first expansion entitled Armageddon’s Blade continues the story with a new villain who intends to forge Armageddon’s blade in order to conquer the world.  In addition the expansion comes with several stand alone stories that expand the world of Heroes of Might and Magic III.  The second expansion, The Shadow of Death, tells of the events that led to the restoration war that began the main game.  Overall, the main story is interesting and will keep you wanting to know how the heroes team up to save the land.  The side stories are nothing special, they often focus on a power hungry individual who rises to power with either cruelty or heroic deeds.

The graphics are simple, but in a tactical game the graphics are not the primary concern.  Overall, the monsters that are used in combat are unique looking and the map you move around on is easy enough to understand.  The CG cut scenes are not that great.  Not only do they look dated, but even at the time of release (1999) they were not very impressive.  The music is simple and repetitive, but gives the game a fantasy feel that fits the settings.  The voice over is not that bad, but there is also not much of it in the game.  Aesthetically it is a little dated, but it will not hinder the enjoyment of the experience.

The game is easy to pick up and even has a tutorial in order to help new players.  The big problem with this game and what often turns people away from this franchise is the difficulty.  In almost every map you will be facing heavy odds.  The computer can be brutal even on easy difficulty and with the exception of The Shadow of Death the difficulty cannot be adjusted at all.  Many maps will take multiple reloads and replays before they can be successfully completed.  There is no singular tactic to beat a map or a campaign.  In addition some campaigns can be nearly impossible to beat without the right combination of spells or level bonuses.  This comes together to give this game massive depth in terms of strategy and allows for numerous variations in play style.

Heroes of Might and Magic III: Complete is a great game and has one of the better storylines in tactical games.  The age of the game has not detracted from the game other than the handful of cut scenes.  This game is very easy to pick up and nearly impossible to master.  In fact there are very few who can claim to have beaten every mission without using chat codes.  Overall, if you are looking for something with old school difficulty and an interesting story then give Heroes of Might and Magic III a chance.

Verdict: Recommended (for those who can handle brutally difficult games)

Quick Hit Reviews are in no relation to CtrlAltKill’s standard F/A+ grading scale.

Codemasters has released developer diary #4 detailing the unique Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), which gives players an acceleration boost to launch out of corners, and the Drag Reduction System (DRS), which adds acceleration for overtaking rival cars.

Don Allen captures a quick glimpse into the indie sci-fi platformer inMomentum due for a late Summer release from Digital Arrow. Currently the game is in a closed beta.

More about inMomentum http://momentum-game.com/

Awesome Music Composed by Composer: Gareth Coker (Primal Carnage) (Website): http://digital-arrow.com/?p=351

Follow Don Allen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thedonallen

Earlier today, Microsoft announced that they will be bringing Xbox LIVE to the PC along with their new Windows 8 OS.

Revealed earlier at E3 this year, the design will follow Windows 8′s “live tile design” in an interview with Mike Delman, vice president of global marketing for Microsoft’s interactive entertainment unit, told the Seattle Times. While Microsoft’s designs aren’t final, don’t let the tiles fool you. There will still be a traditional task-bar and start menu of course.

“We are confirming that we will be bringing Xbox LIVE to the PC with Xbox LIVE on Windows. We are very excited about Xbox LIVE coming to Windows 8.  Xbox LIVE brings your games, music, movies, and TV shows to your favorite Microsoft and Windows devices.  Bringing Xbox LIVE to Windows 8 is part of our vision to bring you all the entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, made easy.  At BUILD we are showing that it is easy for developers to create games for Windows 8 that take advantage of the power of Xbox LIVE.  We have much more detail to share about the capabilities of Xbox LIVE on Windows and look forward to the opportunity to do so in the near future.”

However, all of these capabilities will have to come with some sort of cost. A cost to PC gamers already accustomed to playing for free online, and at their own leisure. If Microsoft does get back into PC gaming, I’d like to get achievements for flying a 747 for 8 hours while on an oceanic flight to Japan, or for at least landing.

“If you want to learn more about Windows 8, you can watch the Keynote from earlier today.”

[MajorNelson]

[LATimes]

Image Credit: MajorNelson

Start building your characters in preparation for the forthcoming Diablo 3 madness!  Skill trees and character guides are now live on battle.net, so get tinkering on those points and taking a look at those rune effects. You can even link your builds for others to see. For example, here’s a Wizard Build. Another interesting piece of information is that: “In the brutal new Inferno mode, available only once the game’s been beaten on Hell difficulty, monsters outstrip players in level range. Inferno difficulty is an epic challenge intended for players who have reached the game’s level cap, and it offers epic rewards as well.”

There seems to be a ton of customization so far as the closed public beta nears, which apparently has no NDA (non-disclosure agreement). Make sure you opt in for the beta too on your battlet.net account.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard

The PC-exclusive FPS is here. Is it a faithful throwback, or a soulless imposter?

Follow me on Twitter!

For reference, my PC specs:

AMD Phenom II x4 3.5 GHz
2GB Radeon 6950 w/ unlocked shaders
4GB DDR3 RAM
Windows 7 64-bit

As with most mods, you should read the readme file before installing. If you have no idea what this mod does, I implore you to watch this embedded video. As always, have fun. More on Fist of the North Star.

Installation:

• Extract this zip as-is into your Documents\DeadIsland\out folder. Meaning that this text file will be in the “out” folder.
• Full path: “C:\Users\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\Documents\DeadIsland\out” (Or My Documents on WinXP).
• Ensure that “Data” is now a subfolder in the “out” folder. The contained files will be overriding the game’s files.

Removal:

• Unless you have other mods existing in the same folder you can simply delete the Data folder (and only the Data folder) from your Documents\out folder to restore your game. Well, and this readme.

About:

• These files will override the punch/kick strength, jump height, and strafe/move/sprint speed of the player.
• They will also override ragdoll characteristics to counteract gravity.
• Because the jump height is high enough to harm the player, I added strong health regen to each of the four characters in their respective blunt/sharp skills, this is strong enough to basically be cheating but will not keep you alive from a big fall. If you don’t want this, delete the individual skills files in Data\Skills but leave default_levels.xml.
• Fall damage is nigh impossible to turn off, I tried.
• Sorry but you’re not going to be getting any audio modifications with this, as of now there are no reliable tools to edit Dead Island’s sound banks. In the future if they are made, I will add that change.
• IntroMovies.scr disables the startup movies of the game, it’s unrelated but was already in there.
• This is optional and can be deleted without affecting the game, just a time saver.
• May be outmoded by any patches that change these files.
• Some of the contained files are named “.scr”, these are plaintext but windows believes they are screensavers, Double-clicking on them will not do you any favors.

WARNING: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

• This mod is not for use in multiplayer, and may not even work anyway, I haven’t tried.
• DI VAC Ban information: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2106453

Download: http://www.gamefront.com/files/service/thankyou?id=20769796

Here’s some footage of Hard Reset on Hard. Review forthcoming.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thedonallen

Waves is from indie developer Squid In A Box, whose aim is to create a shooter with a threshold just high enough to tease skilled players while leaving an inviting entry skill level for beginners. In essence, easy to learn hard to master. After ten years of making games for other people, Rob Hale decided to make a game for himself.

“I wanted to make an action game that didn’t punish you if you weren’t part of the twin-stick elite, but also let shooter fans really test their skills. Everything else has been abandoned in the pursuit of making the world’s best twin-stick shooter. There are no space marines in my game.”

The aim of the game is to rack up multiplier combos and set off bombs around grouped enemies in order to activate “Time Buffer” which sounds like a bullet time mechanic across five different modes. Hey, the music is pretty good and graphics and style seem cool. Keep an eye out for this one.

Waves will be available Q4 2011, for digital download on PC from squidinabox.com and Steam.

As always. Do Your Own Research

Official Website – http://www.squidinabox.com
Debut Trailer -  http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-trailer-waves/720396
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/squidinabox
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/squidinabox

It’s a rough future.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thedonallen
Stuttering is due to FRAPS

PC used:
AMD Phenom II x4 3.5ghz
2GB Radeon 6950 w/ unlocked shaders and OC’ed to 6970
4GB DDR3 RAM
Windows 7 64-Bit

The Hard Reset demo offers a good amount play throughout the first level, but be sure to play around with the weapon upgrades. There’s said to be about 12 of 20 weapon modes open and be sure pay attention to those elaborate upgrade menus. We need more of that. Get it on Steam here, read about what I thought here.

While the day one patch should have solved a host of issues, the PC version for North Americans on Steam remains not without its issues. According to Deep Silver’s facebook page:

“We deeply regret that an incorrect version of Dead Island was inadvertently made available to players on Steam launch in North America. We are very sorry for any issues you may have experienced while playing the game – the correct, patched version will be made available to North American players ASAP. Other territories are not affected by this situation, the fully patched game will be available on Friday as announced.”

[Updated 1:52 p.m.]

While it isn’t fair to pass judgement on the PC version while bugs are being sorted out, we’ll still give you a fair review of Dead Island. While the core mechanics of the game are solid, the experience you may be playing now could be better with a patch as soon as possible according to developer Techland.

I decided to capture early parts of Dead Island on PC to give those weary about purchasing it on their rigs. Early in the video I show some of the video settings and some of the environments of Dead Island. I’m getting about 75-90 frames per second.

I’m running this all on:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
Memory: 8 GIGS RAM

I think that’s about it.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thedonallen

At the start of summer, I was saddened by the loss of my computer mouse.

The mouse was a Logitech G5, and it served me well for over 5 years. I used it when I played Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft, and many other games. The mouse had an ergonomic design, on-the-fly DPI changing, and programmable buttons. Unfortunately, when the mouse died, I had no funds to purchase a new mouse, so I had to use a stock HP laser mouse. After using the HP mouse for several months, I realized it was time to purchase a REAL mouse. My criteria: programmable buttons, DPI switching, different user profiles, ergonomic design, and precision control; I need this at a good price too.

At E3 this year, I was lucky enough to meet with Razer, and I got hands on with a lot of their new products. This experience paired with good word-of-mouth marketing, led to the decision to try out Razer—also Andrew had a brand new DeathAdder that was still in the box. However, does the DeathAdder live up to the hype?

First and foremost, let’s talk packaging. The DeathAdder’s packaging is clean and pleasing to look at. The box has a flap that can open so you can see the mouse and say hi. Inside the package, Razer includes some stickers, a certificate of authenticity, and more pamphlets than a Jehovah’s Witness.

Installation was extremely simple; just plug in the mouse, go to the Razer support site, download and install the drivers, then reset your PC. After that, I was able to set up my custom profiles, which includes DPI settings (450,900, 1800, or 3500), polling rate (125Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz), logo and scroll button light, and button programming. In addition to these things, there are options for sensitivity, and you can even get into specifics and change the X and Y axis to different sensitivities. Also, if you set a button to Advanced Functions, you can make the button into a custom macro. As you can tell, this mouse has a great deal of customization, but let’s get down to how the mouse feels and performs.

The mouse has a 2-piece body. The lower half being made up of shiny plastic and it houses the two side buttons and the stock switch for profile switching. The upper half has a matte finish with a non-slip coating, to keep your fingers from sliding off when sweaty from a long marathon of gaming. The mouse has an ergonomic design, and it felt good after hours of gaming—by hours, I mean an all-nighter of Counter-Strike: Source. The main buttons were set up for easy access; however, I did have a problem with the buttons, but I will get to that in my cons section.

The mouse has low latency and is extremely precise. My main profile was set to 1000Hz with a DPI of 1800. Once I found my preferred mouse sensitivity, I noticed that the performance was exceptional. In Counter-Strike: Source my headshot ratio has gone up considerably; also when playing Battlefield Bad Company 2, the sniper sway was negated almost completely by the precision and added control of the DeathAdder and its 3.5G infrared sensor. The mouse performed well in Rift as well, it kept up with the game, and there was no lag whatsoever. The ultraslick material on the mouse feet lives up to Razer’s claims, providing an experience that has no interruptions from sticky mouse feet—something that happened quite frequently with the HP mouse and even with the Logitech G5. Also, the braided mouse cable is near 7 feet long (no snags or worry of unwanted desk interference) and if it is anything like the braided cord on my old G5, it should hold up for years. Now with the pleasantries out of the way, it is time to focus on the shortcomings of the Razer DeathAdder.

The DeathAdder is victim to a few design flaws that may not be deal breakers, but they warrant mention in this review. The ability to change to 3500 DPI, although helpful in certain situations, provided movement that was unnecessary for someone who isn’t anal about quick movement. The shiny plastic underbody is easily coated by dust after sweat is left on the mouse, but that problem is easily remedied with proper mouse care. The stock button setup on the DeathAdder has a major flaw, and that is that it lacks proper buttons for profile switching on the top of the mouse. The only button that can switch profiles is located on the underside of the mouse. The only way to remedy this is by changing the side buttons to that task; however, you have to switch this in every profile, which is extremely annoying. This problem is compounded since the ability to make custom macros isn’t very appealing when the side buttons are the best choices for that function. While the mouse has a decent weight, I am a fan of a slightly heftier mouse, and I wish that the DeathAdder had the ability to insert weights in order to give the mouse the heft that I desire. Lastly, the DeathAdder tracks motion when lifted which can prove annoying when making wider swiping motions.

The Razer DeathAdder is an exceptional mouse, and it is just the tip of the Razer iceberg as it is part of the Essential line—the Expert and Elite lines are its older brothers. The mouse boasts a modest price point of $59.99, which is surprisingly low when you think about the features that this mouse includes. Even though the mouse has some shortcomings, they shouldn’t change anyone’s mind about whether or not to purchase, since most mice in this price range don’t offer all these features. The DeathAdder may not be the most action-packed mouse in Razer’s lineup, but if you don’t have $100+ to spend on a top-tier gaming mouse, then this is a wonderful product. You can purchase the DeathAdder here; however it is currently on back order, so try Amazon—see, my review has some weight. Also, since the HP mouse failed to perform, you will be able to see the punishment that it endures later in the week.

A-

Took me a couple times…. then I started thinking like an Aug.

The Debug Menu allows you to manipulate the game (no health regen, infinite power, infinite ammo, AI options, UI options) and has a “Shop” feature, which lets you spawn yourself augmentations, money, weapons, weapon mods and other in-game items, as well as tons of debug options which you probably should leave alone.

1. Navigate into ..\Steam\steamapps\common\deus ex – human revolution\ (finding these folders depend on where you have Steam installed) and make a backup of patch0.000 though you can have Steam redownload it by doing verify integrity if you want the original file back.
2. Unpack the download into the same folder, so you’ll have a “new”, modded patch0.000 file. If you don’t need a backup, over-write the existing file.
3. Play!

The modding has just begun!

Download

via [Eidos]

Dead Island is pretty darn big. I’m sure you’re going to get lost and my scatter brained self will, too. Rather than leaving you out to dry, Brady Games have announced that they will be doing a detailed map app for every square mile of the island known as Banoi in the game. You can scrunch, squeeze, and zoom in on the maps to your heart’s content.

Features:

• Explorable maps of every area in the game
• Locations of all collectibles, including:
• ID Cards
• Banoi Herald excerpts
• Investigation Tapes
• Objective Completion tracking
• Official music from the game

The Dead Island Map App will be available for $2.99 from the iTunes App Store on Sept. 6, 2011.

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten (PS3)
As an RPG junkie, I would have to say this game is first on my list. Disgaea is one of my favorite game series this generation. I know it has been around since before the PS3, but I started with Disgaea 3. The writing is humorous and silly. The gameplay is deep and gives the player different ways to tackle the same fight. The visuals for Disgaea 4 are getting an upgrade, so the sprites will be higher resolution. If you are an RPG junkie with a PS3, and you like games that have hundreds of hours of playability, then Disgaea 4 may be the game you have been waiting for.

Dark Souls (PS3/360)
Two complaints that I hear far too much from gamers are that modern games are too easy, and that developers hold your hand too much. Well, enter Dark Souls, the sequel to 2009s controller-breaking, rage-inducing game, Demon’s Souls. Dark Souls is a game where it will only take one mistake to completely derail any progress a player is making, however, this makes for an experience that is tough yet completely refreshing. The large bosses and elaborate fights will make for a gaming experience that shouldn’t be missed.

Uncharted 3 (PS3)
If you have a PlayStation 3, then this comes as a no-brainer. Naughty Dog have developed two absolutely stunning entries in this franchise already, and Uncharted 3 looks like it will continue this proud tradition. Uncharted 3 is a game that truly pushes the limits of what a console can do, but manages to maintain a consistent framerate while making this push. The series has been known for having wonderful characters, excellent, playful banter amongst characters, and fun, inventive storylines that balance suspense with blockbuster action sequences. If you own a PS3 and don’t buy this game, then I hope you just use the PS3 to watch Blu-rays.

Gears of War 3
This is in the list just so I don’t get shit for not putting it on my list. I hear Gears of War is a game. I hear a lot of people like it. I have the first two games; maybe I should get on it.

Resistance 3
In Resistance 3, gamers will play as soldier Joseph Capelli. The third Resistance game follows Capelli’s Kerouac-esqe journey from Oklahoma to New York. Along the way, Capelli will meet other survivors of the Chimeran invasion. The journey won’t be without its fair share of bloodshed. Resistance 3 will be reintroducing many of the crazy guns from the franchise, and most guns have newer, crazier alternate fires. Actually, his journey isn’t very much like Kerouac’s at all…

The follow up to the well received tactical multiplayer shooter Red Orchestra released back in 2006 is now in beta for those who pre-order the game on Steam. The original game brought in gameplay mechanics such as bullet drop, more realistic tank play, iron sights, and threw away regenerating health points for certain wounds on the body. In Red Orchestra 2, wounds must be bandaged to stop the bleeding. These are all aspects of what make the game so appealing as a nice palate cleanser to the bread and butter dude bro shooters out there. Also, the gameplay and graphics look even sharper running on an advanced Unreal Engine 3 compared to its older counter part in 2006.

Of note is that composer Sam Hulick, composer from the Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 games, has been chosen to score the game.

Pre-orders through Steam, you will get you into the beta and 10 percent off when it releases September 13.

Techland’s zombie survivalist game Dead Island is less than a week away from its world wide launch, September 9, and Deep Silver has just released Dead Island’s launch trailer earlier today. Remember that music in the first trailer? Well, it’s back and it seems that Deep Silver have brought things full circle.

If you haven’t already read our hands on co-op preview of Dead Island, please do so here to see what we thought at E3.

Live from the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, WA – GameSpot brings you the PAX Prime 2011 Keynote with David Jaffe. Be sure to check out the abridged version, too!

Most of everything we need to know about Hard Reset was announced today by developer Flying Wild Hog, namely its $29.99 price, September 13 release date, and its generous requirements to run on your PC rig.If the preview build of what I’ve played of Hard Reset wasn’t convincing enough, here are a couple more screens that might push you over the edge to pre-order Hard Reset for an additional 10% off the buying price. If that wasn’t enough, I’d recommend taking a look at GiantBomb’s Quick Look of Hard Reset that they were allowed to capture much earlier than other sites. Considering GiantBomb’s audience, which is mostly console players, the comments on the game were generally favorable aside from the “just another shooter remark,” which basically what Hard Reset is, but to me it’s a different modernized old school shooter that I find enjoyable even after playing big budget AAA modern first person shooters.

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon 64
RAM: 2 GB
Graphics card: 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GS / ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Drive: 4 GB free hard drive space

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Intel Quad Core 2.3 GHz / AMD Phenom II x4 2.5 GHz
RAM: 3 GB
Graphics card: 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT / ATI Radeon HD 4870 or better
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Drive: 4 GB free hard drive space

As always you can do your own research on Hard Reset directly on their updated website.

Impressions on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Disgaea 4, as well as talk about publishers and developers dumbing down sequels such as the Splinter Cell series.

Runic Games unveiled the price point for Torchlight II today, for $19.99, the same price as the original Torchlight. What’s also interesting is that if one were to read between the lines, “no further purchases needed.” To a gamer today that means your $19.99 purchase is content complete unlike what some other companies are doing by holding content back.

“It’s always been our goal to provide exceptional value for the price,” says Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic Games. “Everyone who wants to play Torchlight II will be able to comfortably afford to do so, and they’ll be able to play with their friend online or via a LAN, or play single player offline, all with no further purchases.”"

Runic Games also announced the fourth playable class of Torchlight II, the magic-wielding Embermage. The mysterious Embermage joins the previously announced Engineer, Outlander, and Berserker classes. This marks the culmination of a month long buildup introducing each class to players.

Torchlight II will release for PC in 2011.

[Check Our Hands On With Torchlight 2]

The latest patch for Deus Ex: Human Revolution is now live via Steam which addresses lengthy loading times on some computers by about 50 percent. I’m happy to say that I’ve tried it and the load times are considerably shorter than 30 second load times even on my i7 2600K 4.6 CPU.

This latest patch addresses:

• A frequent issue for AMD/ATI hardware users that can cause the game to crash on startup.
• Improvements to loading speed. The speed increase depends on machine spec and settings, but loading time improvements of over 50% have been measured on some machines.

Some control fixes:

• Diagonal movement is no longer faster as intended.
• Adjustments have been made to mouse sensitivity in response to user feedback.
• Mouse sensitivity for X and Y axis can still be configured separately, but is now consistent when set to default settings.
• The range of settings for mouse sensitivity has been adjusted to provide for more accurate adjusting.
• The default mouse sensitivity has been altered to be somewhat less sensitive.

I like WhiteRa, but no toss? Seems like quarter finals to me.

The article opens with Antoniades claiming “we’ve got a plan and we’re not changing it” a simple, but arrogant statement that should instantly bring ire to those who do not want the radical changes to the Devil May Cry franchise.  The article is padded with quotes that focus upon the idea that this reboot will play and feel like the classic games in the series.  While Antoniades claims it will “feel like a proper Devil May Cry, when you have the controller in your hand”, the abundant flaws in the game leave skeptics questioning and irate fans raging.

Ninja Theory has made some dramatic changes to Devil May Cry with the new reboot.  This includes a new graphical design, a complete redesign of Dante, and gameplay that looks far less smooth than the previous titles.  In fact, the article contains a video that shows off the new combat in Devil May Cry which pales in comparison to the look of combat from Devil May Cry 4.  After a brief comparison of game footage can clearly show that this game does not stand up to the previous title.

This is compounded by the change in the frame rate from 60fps, the standard of the Devil May Cry series, to 30fps.  No matter what you do graphically the frame rate reduction will never look as smooth or polished when it is running at half the speed of the previous game.  No aesthetic design can ever make up for a lack in frame rate.  One of the excuses for the reduction in frame rate is to allow stages to transform as the game progresses.  This is not an excuse, it is a copout   Nothing looks smoother or better in a lower frame rate.  All the reduction in frame rate shows is the incompetence of Ninja Theory.

The claim that this game will be “Devil May Cry in essence” is not reassuring, as the same could be said of any game the copies the feel or style of the original Devil May Cry games.  In addition fans cannot feel good about the “dozens of meetings” about character design that have led to the drastic changes in Dante’s design and the poorly stylized design of the game.  No one was complaining about Dante’s design.  He is a beloved character and fans want him to look, play, and act just as he always has.

If fans were hoping to be reassured by this interview then they will be disappointed and this interview will only leave them even angrier.  Claiming that “the people who are skeptical secretly want to like it” shows how out of touch Antoniades is with the Devil May Cry fanbase.  No fan wants to endorse this game, while fans may try it as it is part of the series they love that does not mean that they want to like it.  Fans would not be upset with a remake, reboot, or prequel, but fans want that game to look and feel like a Devil May Cry game.  No matter what you do to a series, fans will eventually accept it, but only if the characters they love remain unchanged.

As there is no set release date, at this time, for Devil May Cry the fans can only hope that things will turn around for the game.  However, if the Eurogamer interview is any indication then this game will live up to the fan anger that has come with each trailer.

The original interview article can be found here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-dmc-sceptics-secretly-want-to-like-it

League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Talon, the Blade’s Shadow with expert strategy and tactics provided by Riot Games.

Play League of Legends FREE at http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=talonspotlight

Coming out in time to tie in with the movie Captain America: Super Soldier arrives on the Xbox 360 with a bang.  The game takes place within the movie universe and tells the story of Captain America and his team attacking a Hydra base during World War II.  The game takes many cues from Batman: Arkham Asylum, which makes this one of the better superhero games.

The game begins with a tutorial mission where Captain America is fighting in the trenches and assisting US soldiers.  The game then airdrops you into the outskirts of a Hydra base.  The base is made up of a small town, a large mansion, and several bunkers.  As you progress in the game you will find that the sewers connect to other areas in the game and you can backtrack in order to power up Captain America or to find various collectables.  While there are no major story twists it is interesting to see how Captain America and his team battle substantial odds and beat down the nearly endless minions of Hydra.

The gameplay is great, the controls are very responsive and it is easy to pull off impressive looking moves.  The game does have quite a bit of exploration and has very few respawning enemies.  The collectables are easy to find and there are extra spots for them to spawn if you missed them earlier.  Most of the collectables are for the sake of achievements; however, the schematics that can be found make it easier to beat down the various enemies you come across in the game.  There is a minor stealth element, wherein Captain America can instantly knock out a surprised enemy, but there is no stealth only sections and even though you save other soldiers there is no escort mission.  Quick time events are few and far between.  The majority of the QTEs are done during fights and are nothing more than rapid button presses.  The only annoying part about the QTE moments is that most bosses require you to perform a QTE to end the fight and if you mess up the boss will regain health and you must beat them down to that point again.  Finally, there are moments where you can control turrets which add some variety to the gameplay.

The graphics look very good and the game supports 3D for those who have 3DTVs.  Captain America looks just like his movie counterpart and has some very accurate alternate costumes.  In addition the various villains are designed to fit in the movie world which adds notable comic book villains such as Madam Hydra and Iron Cross into the game.  There is a good amount of décor in the base and mansion, but the majority of the area is designed to look beatdown from war.  This makes things look more realistic due to the lack of décor in the bombed out areas.  Overall, everything looks great and there are very few graphical glitches.

The sound design is also very solid.  The music fades in and out with the action and the ambient effects are passable.  The voice acting is very good, Chris Evans gives it his all as Captain Americaand you can tell he was having fun voicing the character.  In addition most of the team is voiced by their movie actors with a few exceptions (Red Skull, Armin Zola, and Howard Stark).  The replacement voices are fairly good, but the actor for Zola plays him differently than the Toby Jones in the movie.  Some of the most amusing parts of the voice acting are the various comments made members of Hydra during the challenge mode.  It is obvious that care was taken with the design of the audio in Captian America: Super Soldier.

The game progression is very straightforward and after going through the game once you will know what to expect.  The only reason to go back through the story is for achievement gathering or attempting a higher difficulty.  As you progress in the game you will also unlock various challenges that can be accessed from the main menu.  The challenges are fun, but add very little to the game.  The majority of the achievements can be gathered in the first play through with little trouble.  Overall the game will run about ten to twelve hours, more if you are hunting the collectables or achievements.  The challenge mode will add a little more to the time to the game.

Captain America: Super Soldier mixes combat, exploration, and story with fantastic results.  The game has great controls, nice graphics, well designed audio, and enough action to keep the player coming back for more.  The major downside of the game is that it is linear and the challenges do not add much to the game.  If you are a fan of the movie or the comic book you will enjoy this game.  If you loved Batman: Arkham Asylum then you will also enjoy Captain America: Super Soldier.  There are not many good super hero games, but Captain America: Super Soldier is one of the very few exceptions.  It is very fun to play and after it ends you wish there was more.  Captain America: Super Soldier is highly recommended and is very much worth a run.

Pros:

-Gameplay is fun and easy to get into

-Lots of exploration

-Great voice acting featuring movie cast members

Cons:

-Feels short

-Limited upgrades

-Only 10 Challenges

Anyway, Fouts notes some of the improvements that have been made to the game:

We’ve polished a lot of aspects of the game along the way to get it approved including seamless quicksaving, better controller remapping, and better cinematics transitions. I’ve also jacked up the supported max resolution of the game to 1680×1050.

With these improvements in place as well as the gun-stacking mechanic, it’s time to get excited and wait. Serious Sam Double D will be out on Steam and other services for $7.99 on August 30.

I will admit, from time to time, I look at PC gaming through rose-colored lenses, but with the rise of League of Legends, Starcraft II, and MMOs, I don’t think anyone thought PC gaming would die any time soon. The gesture is nice, but maybe a tad hyperbolic.

In this message, Razer announced that there is something in the works for August 26. This seems like it would be a product announcement, I mean Razer does release products–Wow, I can be dense. I guess all we can do is wait until the 26th and follow up on this story. Now, we contain our excitement.

Looks like the Ukraine Team dominated Valve’s own first ever Dota 2 Championship.

The International, the inaugural Dota 2 Championships held at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany over the past five days, has concluded with team “Na’Vi” from Ukraine taking first place and the $1 million grand prize.

The event was viewed by millions via the live broadcasts, and the live audiences via the tournament at Gamescom swelled to fill the enormous International pavilion and surrounding area of Hall 7 on the final days.

Valve has confirmed that it will be holding another International next year (exact location and date still to be announced), and is in discussions with organizers of upcoming Dota events to offer Dota 2 during its beta phase.

The International featured 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. In addition to the cash prizes awarded by Valve, Nvidia provided all the hardware  for the event plus hardware prizes for the winning team.

Dota 2 will be available for the PC and Mac later this year. For more information on The International and Dota 2, please visit http://www.dota2.com/

With less than a month until release, NIS America has unveiled the Official Trailer for Disgaea 4. The trailer may be over 5 minutes long, but it is filled with all the information any new or returning Disgaea player needs to know, including: an easy point of entry, limitless gameplay, the ability to invade a friends world, and huge crazy battles. For those not familiar with the Disgaea series, here is a slight rundown. The games are Strategy RPGs with a deep play style, humorous dialogue, and ridiculous characters that happen to have the most insane dispositions. If you are the type of gamer who likes to purchase games that will last 300+ hours, this is the series for you. Disgaea is exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and will be available September 6, 2011.

Disappointed with the first Trine’s lack of online co-op, this trailer for its sequel makes me happy. Game’s beautiful, too.

The sequel to GameSpot.com’s Best Downloadable Game of E3 2009, Trine 2 takes the first game’s beloved triad–the powerful knight, the swift rogue, and the crafty wizard–and puts them into an all-new adventure filled with more action, more puzzles, and the introduction of online support for the series’s popular cooperative 3-person gameplay.

Coming soon for PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and PC.

For more information, visit:
http://www.trine2.com

Skyrim will be using Steamworks according to the validity of @ElderScrolls Twitter feed.

via [NeoGAF]

I don’t think I’m as mad about Origin anymore.

Info from the [NeoGAF] thread. The OP has summed up all the info thus far.

Battlefield 3

• Developer: DICE
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
• Release Date: October 25, 2011 US
• Open Beta: September 2011
  • Medal of Honor LE/Tier 1 Edition: 48-hour early access
• Game Modes
  • Single Player Campaign
  • Co-Op Mode
    • 10 maps
    • Online
    • 2 Players
    • Tie into SP story
  • Multiplayer
    • 24 players console, 64 players PC (32 in Rush mode)
    • Conquest
    • Conquest 64 (PC Only)
    • Rush
    • Squad Rush
    • Team Deathmatch
    • Squad Deathmatch
    • 9 total maps excluding “Back to Karkand” pack
      • Caspian Border
        Operation Metro
• Multiplayer Customization

All Battlefield vs Call of Duty discussion belongs here: Modern Warfare 3 Versus Battlefield 3 Garbage Thread

Latest News/Updates

• Commo Rose Confirmed
• [Gamescom]PS3 Co-op stage demonstration
• New MP Trailer and Co-op Footage Tuesday, 4v4 TDM in Forest Map, Co-Op on PSN
• TDM rumored to be at Gamescom
• 64 players confirmed at Gamescom
• [BF3 Alpha]LAV Thermal Vision footage
• [BF Twitter]Beta launches early September
• BF3 Preorders up 2000% over BF2
• [BF Twitter]Find BF3 at Gamescom
• [EA UK Forum]Battlefield 3 will not be on Steam
• [BF3 Alpha] Terrain Deformation
• Gamepads supported, no aim assist on PC
• BF3 Co-op, Conquest Modes to be Revealed at Gamescom 2011
• [BF Blog]Detailing pre-order items for Battlefield 3

Battleblog Posts

• Battleblog #6: Building Battlefield 3 from the gun out
• Battleblog #5: Years worth of unlocks and rewards in Battlefield 3
• Battleblog #4: Up Close And Personal
• Battleblog #3: With An Army By Your Side
• Battleblog #2: With A Bit Of Class
• Battleblog #1: Lars Gustavsson on DICE’s new multiplayer philosophy in Battlefield 3

GAF Threads

• [Gamescom] New Battlefield 3 MP Trailer – “Caspian Border”
• Battlefield 3 Requires Origin, even for retail purchased copies
• Battlefield Battleblog #5: Persisting Persistance
• Priority access to the Battlefield 3 Beta (alpha testers email) [Or Free DS2/ME2/MoH]
• EA: Battlefield 3 to use Online Pass due to ‘server costs’, not to punish consumers
• Battlefield 3 Alpha Test Invites Going Out [Psyduck And Conquest At GamesCom]
• Battlefield 3 – Snipers will have Scope Reflection & Sway
• Battlefield 3: E3 2011 Gameplay Trailers
• Battlefield 3: Fault Line Series (Campaign Trailer) [Up 4: More Pre-Order Goodies]
• Battlefield 3 – Gameplay Debut [Update 2: First Direct Feed Screenshot In OP]
• Game Informer: Battlefield 3 – New Thread of Details

Trailers/Footage

• Caspian Border Gameplay – Jets and Conquest
• Paris Multiplayer Gameplay
• Thunder Run Tank Gameplay
• E3 Campaign Trailer
• Operation Metro Multiplayer Gameplay
• E3 Frostbite 2 Features
• Back to Karkand Pwned Special
• Full Length “Fault Line” Gameplay
• “My Life”

If you are a PC gamer, sometimes a mouse and keyboard can’t cut it. This is mainly the problem with platformers, since they feel better with a controller as opposed to the PC norm. One quick solution was to use a PlayStation 3 controller with the provided USB cable and downloading the MotionJoy drivers. However, this is where the problem lies if you later switch to an Xbox 360 controller.

The other day, while playing LIMBO on the PC, the game would freeze after jumping and I would have to unplug the controller to resolve the issue, just to have it happen again. Luckily, the LIMBO forums on Steam had a solution for this problem. If you have the MotionJoy drivers installed (this is on a Windows 7 PC, so it should be similar menus to get to where you need to go) go to Control Panel > Uninstall a Program, and then find the MotionJoy drivers and delete them.

After this, go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager and find the Xbox 360 controller that you have plugged in and select it. Under the controller, the MotionJoy driver will still show up, so click it and select Uninstall.

With that finished, then you shouldn’t have to worry about the controller freezing games anymore. This issue seemed to be caused by the rumble feature of the controller. If you have any other issues, leave them in the comments, and I’ll see if I have any other solutions.

Sources [MotionJoy] [Steam Forums]

If you’re not going to GamesCom to witness Conquest mode, jets, or to find out whether there will be commander mode in Battlefield 3 then zh1nt0′s livestream will be the closest to a live QnA panel as you can get without traveling to GamesCom.

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!

You´re welome to join me and Gustav Halling on a livestream at 11:40 from the 18th to the 20th of August live from Gamescom!

Other than that, I will use my iphone filming skillz0rz to bring you updates on what´s being done, said and what is going on over at gamescom

The EAUK has a very special place in a very black and cold part of my heart but since we love you with a lot of passion, we will do our best to answer your questions .

Global Battlefield Community Manager

www.twitter.com/zh1nt0

Dungeon crawlers get ready to drop down on your knees and start crawling because ClaDun X2 is coming. For those of you not familiar with ClaDun, here is our review of the game.

ClaDun X2 will feature Ran-geons, New-geons, and Tri-geons. Although that doesn’t sounds like much, with the random generation system, it turns into ENDLESS content. There are also systems in place for even more customization, including changing weapons, your character, and the background music.

I, for one, will gladly jump back into the world of Arcanus Cella. The game will be releasing via PSN on the August 30, so make sure you buy some kneepads, because you’ll be dungeon crawling for a long time.

I went of the ESEA facebook page and low and behold, look… it’s Torbull at Valve turning one of their valves… hrm…. all of this looks to be almost confirmed…

What can I say? It’s been a long time coming! Just today news from the VALVe office has emerged as our own Craig “Torbull” Levine has taken the trip down to supposedly “help develop” the new version of Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CS:GO). Is this VALVe reaching out to the community, recognizing the competitive community?

News first arrived about the new version on the ESEA.net Facebook Page, saying:

“Counter Strike: Global Operation… More info tomorrow!”

Jess Cliffe, one of the original creators of Counter-Strike, was seen posting on the SteamPowered forums, saying “Global Offensive.”

Rumors:

• Planned to be released Q1 2012
• Focuses on 5v5 competition
• Press release within 24 hours from VALVe
• Plays on an updated source engine
• Individual & Team rankings
• New Guns added
• New Grenades
• Dust & Aztec major revamp
• Spamming still viable
• Ammo is free

We can only hope and wait in anticipation as more details are revealed and are made public. As always, keep it tuned to ESEANews.com and the ESEA.net Facebook Page for more info!

[Sources]

Bunch of links from this thread “more info tomorrow”
https://www.facebook.com/ESEA.net
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment…_headquarters/
http://www.cadred.org/Forums/Thread/154712/
http://eseanews.com/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=9967

Taking a step back into the 8-bit era Breath of Death VII brings old school RPG fun to the PC.  Breath of Death VII originally was an indie game for the Xbox 360 and has been faithfully brought over to PC.  However, on Steam Breath of Death VII comes with Cthulhu Saves the World, the other old school stylized RPG by Zeboyd Games.

The story follows Dem, a skeleton who joins up with a ghost, a vampire, and a zombie to explore the ruined world.  The story is very simple, but the comedic dialogue is what keeps the game interesting.  Not only is the basic dialogue of the game amusing, but there is the ability for the characters to discuss the situation from the game menu.  There is even some new and modified dialogue in order to make reference to the new release.  The humor is what will keep you coming back to this game even with the short play time.

The game plays like any other RPG, with exploration and turn based battles.  You travel around the world exploring dungeons and fighting random monster encounters until you come across the boss of the dungeon.  In the process you will gain levels and gather new items and equipment.  One of the differences that is added in Breath of Death VII is that each area has a limited amount of random encounters and upon defeating all the monsters of the area you can travel unimpeded.  To speed this process up you can choose to fight monsters from the game menu rather than waiting for them to attack.  The game also includes a bonus dungeon which is very difficult and score attack mode, wherein the play is rewarded for beating bosses while under leveled.

The graphics are done in a throwback 8-bit style.  The game resembles the classic Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) games for the NES.  The stylization makes navigating around the world easy and keeps things simple.  The music on the other hand is far better than old 8-bit audio, but features the simple loops that video game music had back then.  Overall, the design gives the game a nice retro look without the midi music and endless palette swapping.

If you are looking for an old school stylized RPG with some very funny moments then you cannot go wrong with Breath of Death VII.  The game is great (even with a 6-8 hour story) and includes an extra play mode and variable difficulty to keep things interesting.  Breath of Death VII is highly recommended for PC and Xbox.

Good:

-Old School style

-Full of humor

Bad:

-Wish it was longer

Hooray! Terraria is now updated to version 1.0.6 and there are a ton of graphical changes as well as new items and enemies. I’m still waiting however for full steam server support and join-able sessions directly from your friends list.

Full notes on the following link as well as helpful videos and reactions from truly hardcore Terraria players.

via [TerrariaOnline]

Spec Ops co-op returns in Modern Warfare 3 with all-new Survival mode.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look into the design process of League of Legends: Dominion. Watch as members of our design team, and more of your favorite Riot personalities, explain their goals and objectives when constructing this exciting new game mode!

Dominion will be shown at PAX 2011 this month!

Sign up and play League of Legends for free: https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/en/signup/index

You’d be hard pressed to find a first person shooter exclusive to the PC these days, even more so one that does take advantage of one’s hard spent cash on a PC gaming rig. As Flying Wild Hog’s debut game, Hard Reset came off as a old school first person shooter refined for the modern fps gamer. Instead of carrying nine different weapons bound to 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or 9 keys, you’re instead armed with an assault rifle and an electricity gun. In lieu of wild types of guns is the ability for both of your two weapons to transform at will into for example a rocket launcher, black hole grenade, shotgun, tesla gun, or electro bolt, etc. There’s plenty of player choice with up to 5 different modes for each gun, with each of their own secondary firing modes. The more upgrade points you get, the further you can upgrade your two main guns into a more efficient killing apparatuses.

Does it look that good on PC?

Yep. Hard Rest is a very pretty game to look at, and I found myself staring out into the sprawling world seemingly ripped out of Blade Runner before moving onto the next piece of eye candy. When it was announced that Hard Rest would be a PC exclusive I had my doubts, but this game is definitely pushing my Core i7 2600K and GeForce 560 Ti on max settings limiting me to only 30-40 fps. The lighting is fantastic, especially noteworthy is the use of different colored neon lighting rigged up in each district of the city. This lighting gives it a “alien noire” vibe, ahem. This cyberpunk world is dark, brooding, and dangerous but not without quirkiness and secrets behind every half cracked wall. There’s a hint of humor if you look in the right places and read some of the off beat advertisements. There are a ton of secrets to find, but most of them are simply placed in a branching path in plain sight. The textures are detailed as hell, and the game’s skyboxes are teeming with flying cars, transports, and animated signs that you’d totally miss if you didn’t look up.

Dead Space UI?

To add to the presentation, the UI in this game rips out Dead Space’s virtual 3D interactive menus and makes them better. You can now actually interact with every screen, prompt, and store without breaking the flow of the game. Just as if you’re aiming at an enemy, your crosshair becomes your cursor and once you leave that store your cursor turns back into your gun. It’s small features like this that make ponder why other PC shooters haven’t adapted this earlier. Every shooter needs this!

It’s pretty hard…

Hard Reset is quite challenging on hard difficulties, and with no multiplayer of any sort it’s meant for multiple replays. At the end of each mission you’re graded on time, deaths, N.A.N.O. collected, secrets, achievements, enemies killed, environmental kills, objects destroyed, damage done, and damage taken cumulating into your mission score. There’s no regenerating HP, but there are regenerating shields which take forever to regenerate… FOREVER (until you upgrade the recharge time). Even on Normal the enemy HP is a fair bit too high.

Most of the firefights consisted of hordes of tiny robots followed by larger gorilla like robots that just love to ram you if you happen to be standing in the same spot unloading everything you’ve got into it. Flying Wild Hog makes circle strafing and running backwards a strategy again as well as using exploding enemies against other enemies while corralling them into easily digestible parts. Even though you don’t fight any humans at all,  I’d love to see what an electric bomb would do to human flesh or see the flashing outline of a skeleton posing with arms and legs in mid-air.

So what?

Is it worth your money? Well, the four level Hard Reset preview build only took under an hour to finish on normal and I’ve had a solid experience from what I played. Visuals are outstanding and the game feels great, which is important for any shooter. While the comic cut scene driven story is very lacking, the gameplay somewhat makes up for it.

Hard Reset is coming this September to a PC in front of you.

Personally I’d go Shadow well… because it sounds cool.

Here are some of the differences and background. “The Jedi Consular wields that power with an even hand studying the mysteries of the Force. They use their knowledge to bring peace, but when words fail, their understanding of the Force makes them dangerous foes. Choose your Consular’s path — become the strong, silent hand of the Jedi Council as a Shadow, or immerse yourself in the mysteries of the Force as a Sage, healing and empowering your allies.”

So what would you choose? Study wisely http://www.wikiswtor.com/Jedi_Consular

Well that was fast. Usually PC gamers have to wait a couple of months after the initial release of the console version. Good on Warner Bros. Interactive and Super Giant Games to capitalize on the buzz Bastion has been receiving lately.

I remember checking out Bastion at E3 this year and loving every bit of it while speaking to the voice actor for the narration of the game. One of the best original games to come out this year pulling elements out of Diablo II.

Bastion is available now for pre-order on Steam for $14.99 and will debut later on other PC distribution services later this month.

The PC version will be DRM free, Steamworks clouds saves, achievements, leaderboards (Steam only), full 1080p art, re-mappable PC control scheme, and gamepad support.

Also, just-released Bastion Original Soundtrack!

To pre-order Bastion on Steam, visit its product page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/107100

Verdict: B+

Games based on movie licenses usually are terrible.  Back to the Future is a prime example of a movie that had terrible games based upon the license.  However, Telltale Games have come forward to break that tradition.  Back to the Future: The Game is a point and click adventure that continues the story of Doc, Marty, and Hill Valley.

The story begins in 1986 with Marty trying to stop the sale of the estate of Dr. Brown. From there Marty finds himself on a new time traveling adventure to 1931.  Each episode ends with a cliffhanger and the next episode picks up right where the last one ended.  Although some episodes may cover similar areas, the sections that can be explored expand and change in each episode.  The story moves in a mostly logical manner and the finale adds some interesting twists and surprises.

The graphics are done in a cell shaded style.  Thus even on lower settings they look pretty good.  The character animations can be a little stiff, but are not too distracting.  The backgrounds are well designed and are very reminiscent of the movie Hill Valley.  The characters from the movies look like stylized versions of the original actors.  The alternate versions of characters and new characters created in the story also look good and suit the world they inhabit.  Overall the atmosphere presented looks and feels in synch with the movies.

The audio is very strong.  The music used in the game is from the movies, with a few extra songs to fit the time period.  The voice acting is great and features Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown.  The actor for Marty McFly is a great voice match for Michael J. Fox.  The subsequent voice work is very good and overall the acting is some of the best that can be found in video games.  In addition Michael J. Fox voices a couple characters in the final episode, which is great to hear.

The game is designed as a classic point and click adventure game.  The puzzles do not stand up to the crazy puzzles from King’s Quest and Maniac Mansion.  There are one or two tricky puzzles that pop up in the second and third episodes, but they can be resolved with a little patience.  The ease of the puzzles do make the episodes pass by quick, but they do allow the story to move in a more logical fashion than older point and click games.

This game is like a love letter to the fans.  If you love the movies then the game will be hours of fun.  Even just exploring and trying different dialogue options feels like they are part of the original script and vision.  The episodes go by quick, but the ride is well worth the price.  Between the story and great voice acting there is quite a bit to make fans of the movies happy Back to the Future: The Game is highly recommended.

Pros

+ Amazing voice acting

+ Very reminiscent of the movies

+ Well priced

Cons

- Episodes are short

- Not as hard as classic point and click games

If you didn’t get in this Alpha Trial, then wait for September when the open beta begins.

While a majority of Bungie’s titles have been on console, they did start on the PC and MAC with Marathon. I always love watching these documentaries because I just like seeing the behind the scenes stuff, so sit back and relax.“To cap off Bungie’s 20th Anniversary festivities, the team has assembled a near hour long documentary covering the studio’s past, present, and future. Featuring insight from the team — including their ever illusive Creative Director, Jason Jones — and interviews from key industry veterans and luminaries, “O Brave New World” is both a celebration of Bungie’s legacy and a love letter to the community of gamers who have embraced Bungie’s games for two incredible decades.”

Watch Jay, Evan, and me die! This is only the beginning, or is it?

Gearbox software and 2Kgames announced today that Borderlands 2 is currently in development, showing at Gamescom and PAX Prime in Seattle, and will be coming to PC, 360, and PS3 on April Fools’ day 2012. Damn, that crazy Randy Pitchford loves him some crazy release dates! So, I’ve beat Borderlands 1 and would give it a A if it weren’t for the lacking story and somewhat anti climatic ending. I did however have a ton of fun via co-op, which was the best part of the experience…. and the loot…. the loot!

“Combining invention and evolution, Borderlands 2 features all new characters, skills, environments, enemies, weapons and equipment, which come together in an ambitiously crafted story. Players will reveal secrets, and escalate mysteries of the Borderlands universe as they adventure across the unexplored new areas of Pandora.”

“2K Games and Gearbox Software are taking this show on the road, and fans and media will be able to get their first look at the game at Gamescom 2011 from August 17 – August 21, and at PAX Prime (Booth #3417) from August 26 – August 28.”

The long awaited and highly rated game Limbo from developer PlayDead is now available for download via Steam.

“Independent game development studio Playdead today announced that black & white puzzle-platforming adventure, LIMBO, is now available for download on Steam for a price of $9.99. The PC edition is the only version of the game that runs at a full 60fps.”

Check out our review.

While games like Duke Nukem may have been quite successful in sales, games like Bulletstorm and the forthcoming Serious Sam 3: BFE continue to breathe some new life into a genre easily viewed as stale. Hard Reset looks to do the same. This is game from Polish developer Wild Flying Hog set in a cyberpunk era of crazy weapons an whacky looking dudes to shoot at. As a PC exclusive it should be interesting to see how it does in sales as well as the reception from hardcore PC gamers when it releases this September.

Don’t worry more waves of codes are coming via EA.

With the release of Disgaea 4 a little over a month away, NIS America decided to bomb us with screenshots. The screens not only show off one of my most anticipated games of 2011, but they are also in English. The nice thing about English, is that I can actually read it. If you have played a Disgaea game in the past, then you know the game has ridiculous dialogue, and it is excellent to finally see some of it.

Digaea 4 will be releasing on September 6 in the US, exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

Who hasn’t dreamed of building an empire? As the leader of a nation, you could be a benevolent demagogue, or an iron-fisted tyrant. You could live in peace with your neighboring nations, or carry out an all-out assault on those who dare to encroach on your shores. Create a golden age for philosophy and the arts, or build machines of war. The possibilities are endless.

This weekend, the Steam sale is one you don’t want to pass up. Sid Meier’s Civilization V is on sale for 66% off, which puts the price down to only $17.00. Civilization V is a masterpiece which allows for you to build your own nation in any way you see fit. The game has near limitless replay value, since each match will be different from the one prior. Also, a full match can last more than 10 hours.

If you’re looking for a game that offers hundreds of hours of gameplay and looks damn good doing it, then stop reading this. Go. Now. You should be buying it right now. It should be downloading… Tell me when it’s finished.

If you’ve never played a Mommy’s Best Games game, or a Serious Sam game, then now’s the perfect time to start. Serious Sam: Double D is an indie title that fuses both worlds into a kind of irreverent stew of blissfulness.

It surprises me that Double D is the first ever foray into the second dimension for the franchise, to be honest. Serious Sam has always been about crazy enemy counts, adrenaline-fueled shootouts, and, of course, self-sacrificing headless (yet somehow still screaming) hordes, and Double D fits that description to a T. It’s also extremely reminiscent of Weapon of Choice, Mommy’s Best Games’ first title which can be found on Xbox Live Indie Games. This means that you can expect great-looking art combined with great animation to produce an experience not found often enough.

In a world dominated by three-dimensional assisting games that simply allow players to act out a part in an entirely scripted experience, Serious Sam: Double D is a throwback to a time when a game’s outcome was left entirely up to the player’s skill level, willingness to take some punishment, and patience to get better. Rather than give the player the illusion of being good, in order to successfully navigate through Serious Sam: Double D on anything other than the Chilled difficulty, one will actually need to BE good. What a concept.

To aid the player on their journey, a system has been concocted to match the game’s over-the-top personality called Gun Stacking. With Gun Stacking, the idea is simple, the player is given up to 8 slots to configure whatever tools of destruction he or she sees fit. Like that shotgun you’ve been using for the past ten minutes but found a Tommygun you’d like to use instead? Don’t worry, just stack that Tommygun right on top of that shotgun and use both. This can be repeated until up to five weapons are stacked goofily on top of each other forming a ridiculous, yet awesome looking pyramid of debauchery. Some other nice touches are the game’s raucous and rowdy soundtrack ranging from guitar-shredding to occasionally fittingly ambient tunes, and the ability to quick save at any point in time (even when playing with an Xbox 360 controller!) in true PC-gaming fashion. Also present is the absolutely under appreciated ability to speed the game up or slow it down from the start with options ranging from 50% all the way to 200% normal speed. The only complaints I could really lobby toward the game from the few hours I’ve spent with it would be that I strangely found myself running out of ammo at times, and a few too many enemies spawned right on top of me, disallowing me a chance to react.

I’d say Serious Sam: Double D is shaping up to be a great compliment to Serious Sam 3, but that would be selling it short. Even without being tied to a license at all, the game is outstanding fun, and surprisingly lengthy with 18 levels spanning 3 time periods, 62 secrets to find, numerous Challenge levels in addition to the main campaign, and tons of combinations to try with the Gun Stacker system. Look for Serious Sam: Double D to release sometime at the end of July/early August on Impulse and GetGames (and possibly other digital distributors) for $10.

After selling out earlier this week, Amazon has put the game back up for pre orders, so order now.

“Young Padawan, your training is almost over, and one of the last things you need to do is pre order Star Wars: The Old Republic.” Until this morning, it looked like training would never end, but Amazon decided to let all the training Sith and Jedi a short break, because the game is now available for pre order.

However, let’s go over the contents of the Special Edition for anyone not in the know. The Special Edition contains the following:

Limited Collector’s Edition Features

Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue
Star Wars: The Old Republic game disks in collectible metal case
The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural annotated by Satele Shan
Star Wars: The Old Republic galaxy map
Custom Security Authentication Key
Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
High-quality Collector’s Edition box

Limited Collector’s Edition – Seven Additional Digital Items

Flare Gun: Fire flares into the air
Training Droid: Hovers at your side for combat assistance
HoloDancer: Project your own holographic dancer
HoloCam: Keep visual records of in-game adventures
STAP: Sleek and unique in-game vehicle
Exclusive Mouse Droid: Spunky Droid to join your adventure
Exclusive Collector’s Edition Store: Unique in-game vendor with an assortment of items

The price seems right on the mark as far as Special Editions go, but I think one’s dedication to Star Wars is going to be a driving force on whether they will bite the bullet or not. I’m going to say this right now, if the Darth Malgus statue sucks, I will regret this purchase. May the force be with you on this purchase.

Learn ‘em, live ‘em, love ‘em. Particularly useful is the demo command instead of capturing gigs of material on your hard drive through FRAPS.

Demo Commands

demo.recordDemo [demoname] – Starts recording current gameplay and saves the file as demoname.bf2demo in your \Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2\Demos\

demo.stopRecording – Stops current demo recording

demo.ShutdownDemo -

Game Commands

game.sayAll [string] – Says the specified text in global chat

game.sayTeam [number] [string] – Says the specified text in team chat

game.lockFps [framerate] – Caps the game’s maximum framerate to specified number

game.allowToggleFullscreen [0,1] – If set to 1 allows toggling of fullscreen/windowed mode

game.toggleFullscreen – Toggles between fullscreen and windowed mode

Localprofile Commands

localProfile.setName [name] – Sets the name for your current account

localProfile.setNick [nick] – Sets the nickname for your current account

localProfile.setGamespyNick [GameSpyNick] – Sets the GameSpy login name for your account

localProfile.setEmail [email account] – Sets the email account for the current account

localProfile.setPassword [password] – Sets the password for the current account

localProfile.setNumTimesLoggedIn [number] – Sets the number of times the player has logged in with the current account

localProfile.setTotalPlayedTime [seconds] – Sets the time the game has been played using the current account

localProfile.save -

localProfile.addDemoBookmark [ ] -

Globalsettings Commands

globalSettings.setDefaultUser [number] – Sets the profile to use, the first one being 0001, then 0002 etc.

Renderer Commands

renderer.drawHud [0,1] – Turns the Heads Up Display (HUD) on or off.

renderer.drawConsole [0,1] – Turns off access to the in-game console if set to 0.

renderer.drawFps [0,1] – Displays the current and average frames per second (FPS) in the top left corner.

Sv Commands

sv.allowNATNegotiation [0,1] -

sv.interface -

sv.timeBeforeRestarting [0,1] -

sv.autoBalanceTeam [0,1] -

sv.teamRatioPercent [0,1] -

sv.autoRecord [0,1] -

sv.demoIndexURL [address] -

sv.demoDownloadURL [address] -

sv.autoDemoHook -

sv.demoQuality -

sv.adminScript -

sv.sponsorText -

sv.sponsorLogoURL [address] -

sv.communityLogoURL [address] -

sv.radioSpamInterval -

sv.radioMaxSpamFlagCount -

sv.radioBlockedDurationTime [seconds] -

sv.useGlobalRank [0,1] -

sv.useGlobalUnlocks [0,1] -

Gamelogic Commands

gameLogic.togglePause – Toggles pausing the game.

Settingsmanager Commands

SettingsManager.stringSet -

SettingsManager.boolSet -

SettingsManager.IntSet -

SettingsManager.floatSet -

SettingsManager.u32Set -

SettingsManager.stringGet -

SettingsManager.boolGet -

SettingsManager.intGet -

SettingsManager.foatGet -

SettingsManager.U32Get -

Controlmap Commands

These settings should be used in the Controls.con file under your \Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\Battlefield 2 Demo\Profiles\[profile]\ directory.

controlMap.deleteControlMap -

controlMap.dump -

controlMap.setButtonRiseTime -

controlMap.SetButtonFallTime -

controlMap.SetDoubleTapTime -

controlMap.addAxisToAxisMapping [string] -

controlMap.addButtonsToAxisMapping [string] -

controlMap.addKeyAndButtonToAxisMapping [string] -

controlMap.addKeysToAxisMapping [string] -

controlMap.addButtonToTriggerMapping [string] -

controlMap.AddKeyToTriggerMapping [string] -

controlMap.setAxisScale -

controlMap.setYawFactor -

controlMap.setPitchFactor -

controlMap.addAxisToTriggerMapping -

controlMap.InvertMouse [0,1] – Set to 1 for inverted mouse, 0 for default mouse

controlMap.mouseSensitivity [number] – Determines the sensitivity of the mouse

controlMap.keyboardSensitivity [number] – Deterimes the sensitivity of the keyboard

Maplist Commands

These commands are used to manage lists of maps by server administrators.

mapList.list – Lists map ID numbers, map name, game mode and the number of players if specified.

mapList.configFile [new location for file] – Used to specify the location of the _mapList.con file. Default is \My Documents\Battlefield 2 Demo\ServerConfigs\

mapList.load – Makes the server reload _mapList.con

mapList.save – Saves the current map list on the server to the file _mapList.con

mapList.mapCount – Shows the total number of maps in the current map list

mapList.currentMap – Shows the map list ID number of the current map being played

mapList.clear – Clears the current map list

mapList.remove [map ID number] – Removes the specified map from the map list

mapList.append [map name] [game mode] [number of players] – Add a new map to the end of the map list. You must specify the map name and game mode.

mapList.insert [map ID number] [map name] [game mode] [number of players] – Same as mapList.append command, but with this command you can specify at what map ID number to insert the new map into the list.

Inputdevices Commands

InputDevices.setInvertAxis -

InputDevices.setAxisScale -

Admin Commands

These commands are used by server administrators.

admin.listPlayers – Lists the players connected to the server, showing their name, ID number and IP number.

admin.runNextLevel – Forces the server to end the round and start the next map in the map list.

admin.currentLevel – Shows the map list ID number for the current map being played.

admin.nextLevel – Shows the map list ID number for the next map to be played.

admin.restartMap – Restarts the current map.

admin.banPlayer [player ID number] [timeout] – Enter the player ID number you want to ban. Bans the player from the server by using their IP address. The timeout value controls the length of the ban e.g. perm for permanent ban, round to ban them for the rest of the round, and 180 is 180 seconds (3 minutes).

admin.banPlayerKey [player ID number] [timeout] – Enter the player ID you want to ban. Bans the player from the server by using their CD key hash.

admin.addAddressToBanList [IP address] [timeout] – Enter the IP number you want to ban.

admin.addKeyToBanList [CD key hash] [timeout] – Enter the CD key hash you want to ban.

admin.removeAddressFromBanList [IP address] – Enter the IP address to remove from the ban list.

admin.removeKeyFromBanList [CD key hash] – Enter the CD key hash you want to remove from the ban list.

admin.clearBanList – Clears all ban lists.

admin.listBannedAddresses – Displays a list of the currently banned IP addresses.

admin.listBannedKeys – Displays a list of the currently banned CD keys.

admin.kickPlayer [player ID number] – Enter the ID number of the player you want to kick.

Remote Console

These commands are used by server administrators.

To setup remote console access to the server, onthe server create a new plain text document in \admin\ called default.cfg and enter the following text into the new file:

port=4711

password=YourPassword

Save the file, and start the server. Now you can access the server remotely by using the following commands from a client:

rcon login [YourPassword] – Use this command to login to the server.

rcon users – This command lists all the users connected to the server. Very similar to admin.listPlayers

rcon exec [command name] – Replace with a console command you would like to execute on the server. For example: rcon exec admin.kickPlayer 3

Exit - Quits the game to desktop.

via [Mavrick]

Yeah I know the 360 version of The Witcher 2 will include all DLC free in GOTY package fashion, but free DLC is mostly why I’ve turned away from most other games’ poorly overpriced DLC offerings. At least with free DLC I’m assured that the breadth of content, especially with a hardcore RPG isn’t locked away by some gate keeping publisher.

Of note is that 3D vision technology related problems with nVidia have been resolved relieving the player having to roll back on previous drivers for the game to run more smoothly. Assorted improvements have been made in the game’s 3D Vision, SLI and Crossfire functionality as well as improvements for running the game in Ubersampling mode on nVidia cards.

“A Sackful of Fluff” is a new quest in Chapter 2 of the game. To start the quest, players must visit the eccentric Elthon, who inhabits a solitary hut near the quarry outside Vergen. The quest will prove most rewarding to those who demonstrate patience.

Key improvements in the 1.3 Update include:

• Game now supports 4:3, 5:4, and 16:10 aspect ratios.
• Item storage has been added. Players can now store items from their Inventory at inns. To leave items in storage or collect previously stored items, talk to innkeepers.
• A ‘Junk’ panel has been added to the Inventory to provide greater clarity in item classification.
• A new menu option has been added under ‘Extras’ – this enables players to view in-game animated sequences (flashbacks, memory flashes, dreams stolen by harpies) outside of the game.
• ‘Dragon’ section of Prologue does not become available until after all assault-related sections have been completed, thereby softening the difficulty curve at the start of the game.

http://www.thewitcher.com/patch1-3/

The Steam summer sales may be over, but Codemasters’ has made the effort to donate profits to video game industry-supported charities. The sale will last July 19-21.

“As part of Codemasters’ fundraising charity drive, the PC edition of the BAFTA award-winning circuit and street racing game GRID will be available at the discounted price of $4.99, exclusively on Steam.”

“Codemasters will work with existing causes supported by the videogame industry charity GamesAid, as well as offering support to initiatives through Nesta and the Livingstone-Hope review.”

GRID is available now for download on the Steam store and at the following link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/12750/

If video  games are more of your thing than the comics themselves, then this guide might be of some use since Comic-Con rapidly evolved from a small humble affair into a yearly pop culture mecca. Comic-Con 2011 will be more than just comics complete with celebrity guests, panels, video game demos, and swag. Here’s a list of panels to the four day affair.

THURSDAY

10:00-11:00 Journey— Get into the indie spirit with thatgamecompany and the PlayStation Network: From the developers who brought you Flower and flOw, comes one of this year’s most highly anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusives, Journey. Meet and chat with thatgamecompany’s Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago as they (along with special guests) provide insight on their creativity and the inspiration behind their work and discuss what it takes to be successful as an independent developer. Room 23ABC

10:00-11:00 Kinect Star Wars Panel— Enter the Galaxy with studio head Jorg Neumann(Kinect Publishing) and lead producer Craig Derrick (LucasArts) as they discuss the highly anticipated title with USA Today’s Mike Snider, sharing new game play from the iconic Star Wars universe, revealing an all-new mode, and unveiling an exciting announcement. All attendees will receive a limited-edition poster. Room 32AB

11:00-12:00 X-Play Live— Now into its 13th year, G4′s X-Play is TV’s longest-running and most watched video game show. Each episode is packed with brutally honest reviews, live demos, and of course intern humiliation. Hosts Adam Sessler, Morgan Webb, Blair Herter, and Kristin Adams and executive producer Wade Beckett make their triumphant return to Comic-Con and promise a no-holds-barred live panel. They’ll take questions from the audience, debut a new comedy short, challenge the hardcore fans with trivia, and give out prizes to a chosen few. This hour of reflection and finger pointing is guaranteed to b