Close Combat: First to Fight -- First Look 06.25.2004
You want the real thing? Destineer's authentic US Marines FPS will show you how it's done. First details and screens.

Postal 2 Expansion Preview 06.25.2004
Apocalypse Weekend: Pray you live to see Monday.

One challenge we've encountered is adapting a linear, established story into a wide-open game environment. But we found a way to do it and actually make it still feel like you are playing in the movie. The go-anywhere world of Middle-earth offers people the opportunity to fight the legendary battles over and over, yet not always achieve the same results. You may achieve victory in The Battle for Middle-earth in a different way than the movie does, sometimes dramatically so. Remember, you can also play the bad guys in The Battle for Middle-earth and experience results that certainly never happened in the books or the movies. You could say that the game will give you a chance to get outside of Mordor and rule Middle-earth with an iron fist. This offers a lot of potential for interesting, complex, and sometimes surprising scenarios.

Nvidia Brings Back SLI 01:22 pm - Jeff Tom - hardware: nvidia (18 comments)
Nvidia have brought back 3dfx's SLI system of running two graphics cards together to have them tackle games and give a higher performance. Quite a few sites have their previews of up this technology from Nvidia. Enjoy:

• TechReport
• AanandTech
• Sudhian
• HotHardware
• Gamer's Depot

Vault Nuggets 12:48 pm - Apache - games: general news (0 comments)
Today from Ye Ole Vault:

• World of Warcraft Druid Impressions
• The Saga of Ryzom Images #83
• Perimeter Screenshots #6

The Suffering Patch 11:52 am - Jeff Tom - games: action (1 comment)
A patch for Encore's The Suffering has been releasing addressing some compatibility issues and a few minor bugs. The patch comes in at a small 4MB. Mirrors: ActionTrip.

Prince of Persia 6800 Patch 11:42 am - Jeff Tom - games: action (0 comments)
A patch for Prince of Persia has been released for those users with Nvidia's GeForce 6800 fixing some graphical bugs. The patch is a minor 52KB.

Black 9 Cancelled 11:08 am - Jeff Tom - games: action (0 comments)
PC.IGN have a news story that the third-person game Black 9 has been cancelled after developer Taldren, known for the Star Trek: Starfleet Command series has been shut down. Not much else is known at this time for hit IGN for the little else that's known.

KoToR II Preview 11:06 am - Jeff Tom - games: action / roleplaying (0 comments)
LucasFiles have slapped up a preview of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, the action-RPG from Obsidian. Check it:

As I had mentioned in the E3 preview, the game's developers are very much into leaving the good parts of the original game alone and only adding and expanding things where it had fallen a bit flat. In keeping with that idea, the new game is going to have a slew of new force powers, including confusion, sight and crush. Force Sight shows the player the force auras of the characters around him. These force auras will vary in appearance based on which side of the force the character is aligned with and how strong that alignment is. As an example, a member of the Sith would have a deep red force aura while a more neutral Jedi with some Dark Side tendencies would have a very mellow, muted red aura. While Sight has more of a defensive edge to it, Force Crush is quite the opposite. Starting off rather like Vader's Force Choke, the Force Crush will lift an enemy off the floor. Instead of choking the victim into submission, however, the maneuver smashes them. As one might expect, a technique like that is probably going to be a lot of fun for the Dark Siders to play around with.

European WoW Beta Date 10:59 am - Jeff Tom - games: mmog (0 comments)
Blizzard have a press release on their website with news that July 5 is the date that sign-ups for the European beta will begin. Here's a clip:

In Europe, Blizzard plans to host the game on local servers, with pan-European network management. Additionally, the game will be fully supported by Blizzard's local World of Warcraft team, making it the first non-licensed MMORPG in Europe to have a dedicated regional team in place. The local team will be responsible for all aspects of game operation, including localized offline customer support, in-game support through game masters, and community management for the game. With this team, Blizzard intends to affirm its commitment to the European game community by delivering an unparalleled massively multiplayer experience.

Pool Paradise Q&A; 10:37 am - Jeff Tom - games: sports (0 comments)
There's an interview on Computer&VideoGames; with the guys behind Pool Paradise. Here's a cut:

And of course, there is rumours of a PSP version in the works too?

Maclean: Ah, not of Pool Paradise, mind, but we are doing something completely revolutionary. Nothing to do with pool or snooker, but strangely enough we're using the technology from Pool Paradise. And the game concept - I can't tell you what it is - is definitely related to Cueball World...

Black & White 2 Developer Diary 01:48 am - Apache - games: action / strategy (2 comments)
Gamespy is sporting a new edition of its Black & White 2 developer diary series:

For those of you who are interested in seeing how we write the dialogue for the game's cutscenes, here is a sample of action and reaction. First, we decide what the level's goals are for the player -- what exact topics need to be covered so the player knows what to do and what's at stake on this level. Next, we decide which characters can best convey those goals. Once we've decided upon that, we have to break down what each character personally wants -- they all have to have conflicting desires to dramatize the information. We then break down the actions and reactions of each character, and everything that is going on in their minds -- conscious, subconscious, and emotional. Finally, we take all the subtext (what they're really thinking), and choose the dialogue that best depicts all those conflicting emotions and secret desires.

City Of Heroes Update Q&A; 01:38 am - Apache - games: mmog (0 comments)
Homelan poked up an interview with NCSoft's Chris Julian to learn more about the forthcoming updates for its super hero themed massively multiplayer role playing game - City of Heroes:

HomeLAN - Cryptic is going to be releasing its first major free content update to the game soon. What can players expect to see in this update and what other free content updates are coming?

Chris Julian - In Issue #1, we've got new zones, new villain groups, a costume tailor for changing your look, and random indoor 5th Column and Circle of Thorns missions will be equipped with holding cells for defeated heroes. There are also instanced outdoor missions and a sewer trial room. For a free update, this one is pretty beefy.

Issue #2 will be this fall. The biggest addition will be capes. I've seen the early work on capes and they look tremendous. We will also have additional power sets and at least one new zone and trial room. Future free updates should be similar in the amount of content they provide.

America's Army Update 01:26 am - Jeff Tom - games: action (1 comment)
The America's Army website has been updated with a community with updates about them looking into Unreal Engine 3, new facilities, code mergers, and more. Here's a cut:

The release of AA:SF (Downrange) v2.1 was overwhelmingly popular. It's clear the momentum and player base for our game continues to grow, which is even more satisfying when you consider the other PC games that we're stacked up against! In fact, our recent release was so popular that it far exceeded our expectations. Consequently, as more and more players came knocking on our doors to experience America's Army (many of these, for the first time) - we had problems serving everyone and experienced temporary disruptions in authentication services. Translation: the combination of more returning players, and new players, and a net increase in overall traffic resulted in demands beyond that which our existing server architecture could accommodate.

Mercenaries Interview 01:20 am - Apache - games: action (3 comments)
HomeLan pushed out an interview with LucasArts associate producer Shara Miller about Mercenaries:

HomeLAN - Much has been made in previews about Mercenaries's open ended world and gameplay. Can you be more specific about this aspect of the game?

Shara Miller - If you see a vehicle in the world, whether it's a surface-to-air missile, a Blackhawk helicopter, or a dinky airport baggage cart, you can commandeer it. If you want to call in a bunker buster air strike to destroy a puny straw-bale hideout just because you like how it looks, that's your prerogative. Like to meet your targets up close? Maybe you'll choose to play as the American, who can take more hit points in a firefight. Prefer to bring down your enemies from afar? Well that's why God created sniper rifles and RPGs. If you're a completist, you can play through each of the 52 missions. But if you want one faction to dominate, you can strategically take contracts that will support them. This is what we mean by "open-ended gameplay."

NV45 Preview 01:11 am - Steejee - hardware: nvidia (0 comments)
Anandtech has whipped up a preview of Nvidia's next generation card, the NV45. Alright, so it's not not really next-gen, just a refresher over NV40, but it's the first of Nvidia's line to sport PCI Express support (via a bridge chip). So how does it perform?

So, what's the verdict? An on-package bridge will help NVIDIA to alleviate OEMs of any fears that they may have had about working with a non-native solution, and we aren't seeing any real performance drop due to the existence of a bridge. There is the bandwidth issue, which is very application-specific and doesn't affect anything that we normally test in our graphics suite (though we are looking for ways to incorporate a test).

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Interview 01:11 am - Apache - games: action (0 comments)
PC.IGN shot out an interview with Anton Bolshakov, GSC's Project Leader for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., one of the sicker looking upcoming first person shooters (yes, I mean that in a good way):

IGNPC: You mentioned trying to simulate the feel of a multiplayer experience in single player. What characteristics are you focused on? How do you take that impression of human intelligence and apply it to an AI?

Bolshakov: The aim is to create, as close as possible, AI that delivers a human opponent experience--unpredictable and with varying intellect. AI can be in various states, life-mode (including sleep state) and combat/offensive, in the aim it to create the illusion of reality. In essence, this means an AI character will never react the same way to a situation it is presented with--this isn't a random reaction. It's always calculated, assessed and weighted by the odds of success. As far as senses, all living things are aware of sight and sound, some more than others. They are affected by time of day, weather, terrain, cover, weapons, protection, backup and needs of survival. Quite a number of the AI (man or beast) are also affected by group bindings. Dogs can hunt in packs, and military AI can use squad tactics. The end result is already producing AI that is spookily like a human opponent.

Trouble With 915/925, LGA 775 01:09 am - Steejee - hardware: intel (0 comments)
Hot on the heels of their release, the Intel 915 and 925 chipsets have run into some problems. With the LGA 775 chips, a lengthy list of bugs. As for the boards themselves, well they're being recalled off of Japanese shelves due to the bugs.

Leaked XBox Next Specs 01:06 am - Steejee - consoles: xbox next (4 comments)
X-bit got their hands on some of the specs for the next generation XBox, codenamed Xenon. These aren't sissy bulleted specs either, they're a detailed technical specsheet. Basically, the thing is pretty freaking sweet:

The Xbox 2's central processing unit is a custom processor based on PowerPC technology. The CPU includes three independent processors (cores) on a single die. Each core runs at 3.50GHz speed of faster. The Xbox 2 microprocessor can issue two instructions per clock cycle per core. At peak performance, Xenon can issue 21 billion instructions per second.

Review Roundup 12:15 am - Steejee - games: miscellaneous round-ups (0 comments)

PC:

• Blitzkrieg Burning Horizon - Loadedinc - 8.5/10
• Ground Control II: Operation Exodus - GameSpy - 4/5
• Paradise Cracked - Gamers Europe - 2/10
• Syberia 2 - Stratos Group - 3/5
• Thief: Deadly Shadows - Computer Games Online - 89%

PS2:

• Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2 - eToychest - 75%
• Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - Frictionless Insight - 4.5/5
• Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - eToychest - 85%

XBox:

• Hitman: Contracts - WorthPlaying - 8.1/10
• Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - Gamer's Pulse - 40/50
• Shadow Ops: Red Mercury - GameSpy - 2/5
• Shrek 2 - XGR - 75%

GC: No love for you.

GBA:

• F-Zero: GP Legend - EuroGamer - 8/10
• Mario Golf: Advance Tour - GameSpy - 4/5
• Mighty Beanz Pocket Puzzles - GameSpy - 1/5

Zodiac:

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 - GameSpot - 7.2/10

Hardware Roundup 12:15 am - Steejee - hardware: hardware round-ups (0 comments)

Stuff:

• Galaxy GeForce FX 5700 LE - Beyond3D
• Intel Celeron D CPU - X-bit labs
• Dell Inspiron XPS Notebook - HardOCP
• VIA EPIA MII Mainboard - ViperLair
• Swiftech H20-8600 Water Cooling Kit - TweakTown
• NZXT Guardian ATX Mid-Tower Case - 3DXtreme
• Corsair XMS3200 XL - GamePC
• Razer Viper Optical Gaming Mouse - ipKonfig

In Other News... 12:09 am - Apache - in-house: in other news... (33 comments)
I hope ya'll had a nice weekend, I stayed in for the most part. It's so f'n hot outside in Arizona now that you really can't do much in the great outdoors unless you travel a few hours north into the mountains. So, I played some games and hung out for the most part. After playing Far Cry, I'm at the stage where I think I'm needing a new computer pretty soon. The old Athlon 2 Ghz just isn't cutting the mustard any longer. Was pretty awesome when I first got it, but that was like 2 years ago. Those funky Alienware systems look snazzy (ya, even though the last one died on me, but I'm not exactly the prototypical gamer) and that PCI express thingie with the rigged up video cards looks pretty neat, so I was checking those out over the weekend. The birthday is coming up next month, so maybe Santa will be generous this year! Oops, wrong holiday, but still... Either way, there's a few grand down the drain, whichever route I take.

Today's question is How do you think your system stacks up to the demand of state of the art games?

Games from EBGames, Movies from Movies.com, DVDs from VideoETA:

Games:

PC: Aura: Fate of the Ages, Missing, Spider-Man: The Movie 2, Yu-Gi-Oh! Power of Chaos: Joey the Passion, Perimeter, Soldiers: Heroes of World War II

PS2: Spider-Man: The Movie 2, Galactic Wrestling: Featuring Ultimate Muscle

XBox: Spider-Man: The Movie 2

GC: Spider-Man: The Movie 2, Pool Paradise

GBA: Spider-Man: The Movie 2, Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun, Mega Man Battle Network 4: Blue Mood, Around the World in 80 Days, Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction

DVDs: Barbershop 2: Back In Business, Cold Mountain, The Perfect Score [long list]

Movies: Spider-Man 2, De-Lovely, The Clearing, Before Sunset, America's Heart and Soul, Zhou Yu's Train

DVDs, meh.   Can't really say much more than that this time.

Movies, Spider-Man 2 finally hits the street.  I though the first one was alright, but not spectacular.  I hope they did a better job with the CG with the sequel, in the first one I had to whince everytime anything CG moved.

Games...well, if you couldn't get enough Spider-Man 2 at the theaters, certainly have your pick in the games section.

BonusStage Previews 06:32 pm - Steejee - games: general news (0 comments)
BonusStage sends word they've posted up a trio of previews on a slow Sunday:

First up, part two of Xenosaga for the PS2, subtitled Jenseits von Gut und Bose, roughly translated as 'What the Hell?'. More killing and confusion:

At its core, Episode 2 hasn't changed much in terms of gameplay. Players still trek through a number of environments, encountering various enemies (who still appear on screen by the way), while solving minor puzzles to advance the game. Whereas Xenosaga mostly took place in outer space, Episode 2 will feature an assortment of outdoor environments to explore along with the inclusion of a walk-able map, which is not surprisingly, identical to the one used while exploring the Kukai Foundation in the original. As for the A.W.G.S. (now referred to as E.S. Robots), players will still be able to control the monstrous mechs, but unfortunately the option to pilot one at any point during the game has been unexpectedly removed.

Second, Zoids: Battle Legends, which I'm sure everyone is just waiting to get their hands on.

Finally, Destroy All Humans! Pandemic is at the helm of this 50s style alien romp:

What will really intrigue gamers is not the fact that this game plays like Grand Theft Auto as a 50's alien nostalgia junkie, but the fact that you'll man your very own round flying saucer. If you need to get to another area rather quick, or you just want to fly around and blast buildings to rubble, you can hover along above the cities in this stylized spaceship for little gray men. You'll have to be careful, however, because the ship has no type of cloaking device, so your cover could be blown. Enough arsenals will be at your disposal in the ship, however, to make a 4th of July B-B-Q of your own.

Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires Preview 10:59 am - Steejee - consoles: ps2 (0 comments)
Games Are Fun have thrown together a preview of the latest in Koei's Dynasty Warriors line, Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires. It's still all about the stratergery and about unloading a heap of whoop ass, but will it be enjoyable whoop ass?

Empires still suffers from somewhat repetitive gameplay, and while the number of enemies on screen at one time is impressive, the game's graphic engine does have its limits. It is not that uncommon to experience a little slowdown, especially once you find yourself inside the enemy's main camp and are fighting what could be a good 30-50 enemies at once.

Misc. Screenies 10:51 am - Steejee - games: general news (0 comments)
Slooooow day:

• Vivisector: Beast Inside - PC - GenGamers
• EverQuest 2 - PC - OGaming

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault Q&A; 10:36 am - Steejee - games: action (2 comments)
PlanetMedalOfHonor has posted up part three of their "Ask EA!" thingie where people can ask EA miscellaneous crap about Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. Well, actually it's just about the guns:

Q: What fire option will have priority? e.g. if you run out of slugs in close combat, will you be able to bash someone before you reload, or will you have to reload before you can bash them (in which case you might as well fill them with lead).

A: You can bash them before you reload.

Sunday Sunday 10:27 am - Steejee - in-house: in other news... (18 comments)
Finally got a good amount of sleep, and went to be at a reasonable hour. Of course, now I don't feel like doing squat all day and want to sleep more. Meh.

Hmmm...for a question...*ponders*...

What game, if any, have you played that had the bizarre, off the wall, even stupid concept you could imagine yet was still incredibly fun and addictive?