GTN’s Hot Press – Gaming 21/12/10

Posted by AJ on December 21, 2010
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Today we have a trailer heavy Hot Press for you on gaming with two great videos for games coming out next year and a roundup of today’s best Steam deals in the Christmas sale.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River – Introducing Staff Sgt Knox:

In the latest video released by Codemasters we are introduced to Staff Sergeant Damien Knox who tells us that by using his experience he will protect his marines and accomplish the mission set.  Some great game play footage is shown in the trailer showing off various vehicles, environments which are set in night, day and in between and various weapons.  It will be interesting to see how much freedom you will have in accomplishing your missions but we do know now from Codemasters via their Twitter that the focus is on infantry in this game which means that there will be no flying around in helicopters this time round!

Visit the official Operation Flashpoint: Red River website here.

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Titan – Blizzard’s new MMO?

Posted by AJ on December 17, 2010
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At the end of November some leaked documents appeared online via MMOGameSite which seemingly detailed Blizzard’s release schedule up to 2015.

In this document there are the details of WOW, Starcraft and Diablo 3 expansions but interestingly there was also a release date for an unknown title called ‘Titan’ for Q4, 2013.  There were rumours circulating that this could be Blizzard’s next gen MMO which was first hinted at a couple of years ago.

Interestingly at Blizzcon this year Blizzard announced that other than WOW Blizzard were not currently developing another MMO and had no plans to.

Seemingly this has all changed because when Blizzard’s senior VP, Frank Pearce, was interviewed by Destructoid he was asked about Titan:

The media is not supposed to know anything about that. It’s our next-gen MMO project.

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution Extended CGI Trailer

Posted by AJ on December 11, 2010
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Eidos have released a 5 minute trailer for their upcoming prequel to the Deus Ex series, Human Revolution which is due out in March next year.  The trailer is mainly footage of other trailers which have previously been released but this also includes a lot of previously unseen footage.  The trailer is absolutely stunning and the musical score is another masterpiece in its own right.  Eidos are doing a fantastic job hyping everyone up for Human Revolution so lets hope they can deliver a game as good as this trailer suggests!

See the video below and for more information on the game see the official website here:  www.deusex.com

AJ

Kinect (Project NATAL)

Posted by John Mahoney on December 9, 2010
Posted in: Gaming, Hardware, Review. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

Kinect was originally announced as Project NATAL, continuing Microsoft’s tendency to codename products after locations (Natal being a city in Brazil, where one of the creators originates), with the selling point being about not reinventing the wheel, but getting rid of it entirely. Huh.

The reception of Kinect is quite mixed, but I get the impression (from people on the internet, which is always quite pessimistic) that most people think it either “won’t work”, or “Microsoft smell”, and while I would agree with the latter, I think it’s actually quite good and worth trying, at least. Continue Reading

World of Warcraft ‘We didn’t start the fire’

Posted by AJ on December 5, 2010
Posted in: Gaming, News. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

Don’t you just love it when communities come together in games to create truly wonderful pieces of work?  Well Dark Endeavor of Durotan Realm did exactly that and created a lip dub to Billy Joel’s ‘We didn’t start the fire’.  Ok it isn’t the best of quality but when communities come together to create pieces of art and to have fun it really does put a smile on your face.

Due to the music being claimed as copyright it appears you can only view it on You Tube so please follow the link here.

AJ

F1 2010: Season 1, Race 3 – Kuala Lampur, Malaysia

Posted by AJ on December 4, 2010
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Track Information:

Circuit Name:  Sepang International Circuit.
Number of Laps:  56.
Circuit Length:  5.543 km.
Race Distance:  310.408 km.
Lap Record:  1:34.223 by JP Montoya in 2004.
For more information including a circuit diagram please see the Formula 1 website here.

Practice:

Practice 1:

I went for an engine change in this practice session.  The game automatically changed the engine to a newer one however due to the wear and tear percentage still being in the high 90s then I felt it would be useful to keep this engine and use the new engine for the next race.  This way if I particularly have to push an engine in a race later on in the season I have some margin for the next 7 engines.  Due to regulations changing an engine means missing the rest of this practice session. Continue Reading

The Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed

Posted by Jonathan Hill on December 1, 2010
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In this article I am going to look at ways to play the daddy (probably a grandfather by now) of all FPS using a modern system. The original will still work on XP (as long as you don’t want to use a USB mouse) but if you have Vista you can pretty much forget it, I can’t even get the launcher to work on 64bit Vista Home Premium. There are a huge number of ways to get it working, but I am going to limit myself to my favourite 3, PrBoom, jDoom and DOSBox. All three of them are good, they all have their benefits and disadvantages, but which is best? There’s only one way to find out!

FIGHT! Continue Reading

Borderlands GOTY Edition

Posted by AJ on November 30, 2010
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Borderlands was developed by Gearbox Software and was first announced in 2007, to be released in 2009 for the PC, 360 and PS3. I was annoyed at release, because they delayed the PC version so they could improve the graphics further beyond the console-counterparts but it turned out to be an excellent game that has sucked up many of my hours.

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Why Paid DLC and multiplayer Don’t mix

Posted by AJ on November 29, 2010
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When SEGA announced that they were going to be charging around £5 for a pack of four multiplayer maps for AvP it wasn’t the first time a developer had done this in a game but as it was the first time it had an impact on me (as I own the game in question) it was the first time I really thought about it. My first thoughts were of how stupid the idea of charging for extra multiplayer maps is and then I happened to come across another article on the same site just moments later. The article in question was an interview with the devs at Futuremark (They made Shattered Horizon, a niche multiplayer game that is still more popular than AvP multiplayer) and in it (among other things) they explained why paid DLC for multiplayer games shouldn’t be made.

Jukka: We are not opposed to selling additions in principle, but there are right and wrong ways to go about it. With multiplayer games for example, you don’t want to split the player community with artificial price fences on additional content. A paid update, if we ever do one, should not leave you feeling left behind if you don’t get it, or leave you feeling isolated if you do, but should instead feel like a natural and unconstrained choice to pay more if you want more.

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Medal of Honor – Opfor vs Taliban

Posted by AJ on November 29, 2010
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It is ‘un-British’; therefore the game must be banned.  Retailers should not sell Medal of Honor ‘to show their support for the armed forces’.

These were some of the words said by Dr Liam Fox our Defence Secretary back in August.  His views were that Medal of Honor should have been banned due to having the ability to play as the Taliban and ‘kill’ our troops.  It seemed that at the time there was some confusion as there were no British available to play in the game, only American and Taliban forces.  Still I suppose he meant our Allied troops.  The game has now been published and the media frenzy behind the calls for a ban have all died down.  Electronic Arts (EA) changed the Taliban naming to ‘Opfor’ although they stated this was not due to the media outcry however I suspect this did have something to do with it.

What the media and Dr Fox didn’t mention was that you play as ‘Opfor’ only in multiplayer and against a faction called the ‘Coalition’.  It is clear however that you are playing the Americans as the ‘Coalition’ and the Taliban as ‘Opfor’. Continue Reading