1. Half Life - 30959 servers, 50352 players
2. Half Life 2 - 17240 servers, 38658 players
3. Battlefield 2 - 6285 servers, 22764 players
4. Call of Duty 2 - 5099 servers, 7895 players
5. Unreal Tournament 2004 - 2596 servers, 6411 players
6. Americas Army: Special Forces - 1825 servers, 5584 players
7. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - 3298 servers, 5549 players
8. Call of Duty - 3450 servers, 4834 players
9. Neverwinter Nights - 1215 servers, 3479 players
10. Quake 3: Arena - 1913 servers, 2827 players

Rag Doll Kung Fu demo 06:11 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (0 comments)
Thanks to a couple Half-Life sites for the news that there's a new demo for Rag Doll Kung Fu that you can download via Steam. If you don't have Steam or were marooned on a desert island the past couple years, there are instructions on how to get it at the Rag Doll Kung Fu site.

Wired Poops on PoP 05:55 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: General News (0 comments)
Wired wonders why Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones contained so many bugs. Even on normally safe console systems like Nintendo's Gamecube:

I love the unique storytelling style in which characters narrate the plot, as if telling an ancient tale, during gameplay. But the game's environmental noises are sometimes so loud they overpower the voice tracks. So if you want to hear the story, the game forces you to stop moving while you wait for the voiceovers to finish. Combining story and gameplay into a seamless whole is impossible, and you may not even be able to hear the voices -- sometimes, the audio tracks will become completely inaudible.

And that's not the only bug. Twice, the GameCube version fatally crashed on me. This is unacceptable for a console game, and the fact that last year's game suffered the same problems is not heartening.

Microsoft Induces Market Slump 01:11 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (10 comments)
The top story on today's Wall Street Journal is Xbox 360 Rollout From Microsoft Rattles Industry (free subscription req) where they place square blame on Microsoft for the lackluster overall holiday gaming sales. Boring 2005 titles are another culprit.

"Consumers are starting to recongnize a lot fo the sameness in titles," says George Harrison, senior vice president of marketing at Nintendo's U.S. unit. "For big public publishers, the bigger you get, the more risk-averse you get."

"The lineup this year is arguably not as compelling," Electronic Arts Chief Executive Larry Probst told analysts this week.

Top 10 Games of 2006 04:44 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (30 comments)
Here are the top-10 games that we're (or at least I am) looking forward to checking out in 2006:

10) BioShock from Irrational Games
BioShock, you say? Why does that name ring a bell? Well, if the name sounds familiar it's because it's the spiritual successor to another game that ended with Shock and was developed by Irrational. Can you guess what it was? You betcha!

9) Half-Life 2: Aftermath from Valve
Usually we don't include expansion packs in these sorts of things, but when it's Half-Life, we're more than willing to bend a few rules. Aftermath begins where Half-Life 2 ends off, hopefully giving us closure on some pesky cliffhangers which have been haunting our dreams the past year.

(Click to Enlarge!)


8) Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends from Big Huge Games
Anyone who enjoyed Rise of Nations, appreciates high-end 3D graphics and craves to pit magic vs technology is sure to dig Rise of Legends. My dragon is so going to kick the crap out of your robot. Bank on it, suckah!



7) S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from GSC Gameworld
Usually Eastern European countries and first person shooters don't seem to mix. Up to now, most have turned out to be buggy wrecks. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. seeks to legitimize the Eastern Bloc as a powerhouse of 3D gaming as hopefully they have learned from other's mistakes and will ship a solid end product.



6) Prey from Human Head & 3D Realms
Originally canned due to limitations of older technology, 3D Realms has re-opened the portal back to Prey using id's Doom 3 engine with Human Head Studios doing the dirty work. Prey tells the tale of Tommy, a reluctant Native American hero who saves the Earth from a hostile force of aliens. 3D Realm's unique take on gravity seems to be one of the major selling points.



5) Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion from Bethesda
Got bloom? Get some! Bethesda is poised to dethrone Bioware as kings of the RPG world with The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion for both the PC and Xbox 360. Promising dozens of hours of play, state of the art graphics and highly customizable gameplay, Oblivion just may obliterate the competition for best RPG of 2006.



4) Gears of War from Epic Games
Gears of War is Epic's first real attempt at making a solid story driven single-player shooter for a console. CliffyB, who moonlights as a top male model, has long been known for his level design skills, is now heading up the development of perhaps the only Xbox 360 title PC gamers will ever care about. Halo sold millions of Xbox, will Gears of War do the same for the 360?



3) Unreal Tournament 2007 from Epic Games
Another game by Epic! This time it's for both the PC and is a launch title for Sony's Playstation 3. Lead design honors go to Steve Polge, who is best known as the man who made those kick ass bots for Unreal and UT. Will the AI rock the house? You betcha! Will the gameplay on the PC be dumbed down since it's a console game as well? Hopefully not! Epic is good enough to make sure that won't happen, so we'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt.



2) HellGate London from Flagship Studios
Anyone know who Bill Roper is? Of course you do. He's the Diablo dude! Him and many ex-Blizzard folk jumped ship to form Flagship Studios and their first title is called HellGate: London which is set in a post-apocalyptic world where demons have invaded the earth and your job is to stop them. It's a first person shooter with tons of role playing elements. Just imagine Diablo, but with guns, a first person view and kick ass graphics. Aww, yeah!



1) Duke Nukem Forever from 3D Realms
Duke Nukem Forever, which incidently was also our top pick of upcoming 2002 games (don't ask!) in theory has to be pretty f'n close to done by now. I'm guessing that we will see DNF at E3 this year and it's going to blow everyone away. The keys will be innovative gameplay, interactive environments and co-op multiplayer. Hopefully we'll see more of the game very soon...

Just the Steam Stats, Ma'am 04:29 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)
This week's Valve update covers some Steam stats, like they have delivered approximately 10 million gigabytes of data since the start of the year. They also logged over 50 billion player minutes for Valve games as well.

In Other News... 12:15 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (17 comments)
Merry Christmas, Heathens!

There's nothing like enjoying 80 degree weather to get ya in that holiday spirit. Sub out snow with sand, pine trees with cactus, eggnog with gin and tonics, a winter wonderland with the 18th hole of a golf course, and you too can enjoy an Arizona Christmas. Good times... I feel so retired!

Today's question:

Who was naughty and who was nice?

What were some of your best and worst moments of 2005?

Many of you have noticed by now that our third game has been announced in PC Gamer, and its name is Defcon. You'll see we've made room for it on the new site, and we'll have some nice screenshots and information for you to look at soon. We are also pleased to announce that Gary Chambers (Icepick to the IV community) is the mystery second developer on the Defcon project, and has been working for us full-time for the past six months since graduating.

Codename Eagle Battlefield 2 Mod 02:34 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (2 comments)
Fans of Codename Eagle might be pleased that a mod team has brought the spirit of the game over to Battlefield 2:

CE: Legends is a total conversion mod that pays tribute to Codename Eagle, a game released in 1999. The timeline is around WWI including biplanes, early tanks, a motorcycle, even a giant zeppelin blimp. Gameplay is geared for action and each player starts out with an array of weapons to choose from. The level "No Man's Land" is included in this build of the mod along with support for several original BF2 levels that use new gamemodes.

Supported gamemodes include: Capture the Flag, BF2 vs CE, and Singleplayer 11 new vehicles and 9 new weapons

The screenies look nice; it's a World War 1 themed game with biplanes and all that jazz.

An Almanac of Pimps, Orcs and Lightsabers 03:16 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (3 comments)
From the off the beaten path department comes The 2006 Gamer's Tome of Ultimate Wisdom: An Almanac of Pimps, Orcs and Lightsabers, a book by William Abner:

The 2006 Gamer's Tome of Ultimate Wisdom: An Almanac of Pimps, Orcs and Lightsabers book by William Abner is filled with entertaining reviews, previews, and commentaries on all gaming platforms and the gaming industry as a whole. The 300 page book takes a month-by-month look back at the significant game releases of 2005 and looks ahead to the exciting titles gamers can expect to see in 2006. Along the way the Gamer's Tome offers insights into anything and everything that has to do with gaming, including why sports games are the biggest rip-off in the industry, advice on how to talk about games in public without being shunned by "regular" people and even what energy drinks give you that extra oomph you need to get through an all-night LAN party.

Hardware & Tech Nuggets 12:45 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (1 comment)
It guess the fat lady has sung for Opera:

Boards

• ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition - Digit-Life
• Gigabyte G1975X - Legionhardware

  Cases
  

• Aspire's LAN Party Proud X-Qpack Case - Tomshardware

  Cooling
  

• Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro - techPowerUp

  Memory
  

• Corsair 2048MB XMS PC3500LL PRO Dual Channel DDR - Big Bruin

  Video
  

• ATI X1800XL Video Card Overclocking Guide - Legit Reviews

Game Reviews 12:30 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)

Civ IV


• Civilization IV - Game Revolution - A-

  360
  

• Kameo: Elements of Power - The Armchair Empire - 7.9/10

  Xbox
  

• True Crime: NYC - Gaminghorizon - 5.6/10

  PS2
  

• Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows - Game Revolution - D+

  PSP
  

• The Con - Gaming Age - D

  DS
  

• Mario Kart DS - The Armchair Empire - 9/10

In Other News... 12:15 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (12 comments)
Merry Christmas Eve, you pagan bastids!

Today's question:

What games are on your holiday play list?