Upgraded News System

by KNYTE @ 12.09.03, 20:36:

Even though only about 10 people a week on average read the crap I write here, I still feel it necessary to let you all know that we will be implementing a new and improved news database over the weekend, and it is going to be cool. You may not see a news post until we get it up and running, but I'll still have stuff up in the forums.

More news coming next week!

It Is Thursday, And That By Itself Means Absolutely Nothing

by KNYTE @ 11.09.03, 16:17:

Previews-
Both IGN and Gamespy have new previews for Unreal Tournament 2k4. They were both apparently invited to Epic's latest display of their game creating prowess in California, and mostly cover the triumphantly returned Assault game play mode.
There is yet another interesting interview on IGN with designer Warren Spector about Deus Ex 2: Invisible War. It covers their current place with the game, some of Spector's feelings on the gaming industry, and the future of the Ion Storm team.
Fans of Command & Conquer Generals should check out this interview with EA Games producer Harvard Bonin about the status of, and plans for, it's soon to be released expansion pack Zero Hour
Files-
A multi-player demo has been released for Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Breakthrough, grab it from EA's list of available download sites.
A much needed patch has been released for RTCW:Enemy Territory and will supposedly fix a number of the bugs that have plagued the game since its release a few months ago. Grab it from the the planet or the shack.
Even more MOHAA goodness: A new tech movie has been released for the upcoming expansion Pacific Assault. Check it out on Fileplanet.
Hardware-
Tom's Hardware has an article about ATi benchmarking on the Half-Life 2 engine stating that the drivers for cards made by "unnamed manufacturers" may have "issues" that include, but may not be limited to:
Camera path-specific occlusion culling

Visual quality tradeoffs-e.g. lowered filtering quality, disabling fog

Screen-grab specific image rendering

Lower rendering precision

Algorithmic detection and replacement

Scene-specific handling of z writes

Benchmark-specific drivers that never ship

App-specific and version specific optimizations that are very fragile
Valve is very concerned about those developments since customers make their buying decisions for new hard- and software based on benchmark numbers. The problem is that the results with those optimizations have very little to do with the real game performance of those cards. I think Gabe Newell summed it up pretty well with "Our Customers will be pissed".

The always high scoring Klipsch Speakers were recently reviewed by GD box.
Check out the review of Creative Lab's new Geforce card, the 3D Blaster 5 FX5900 Ultra, on NV News.
Other-I should probably mention this article from CNN. It is now Septmeber 11th plus 730 (or so). "May the wings of liberty never lose a feather."

I couldn't come up with anything intelligent to point to the forums, but you get the link anyway!

Half-Life 2 And Doom 3 System Requirements

by KNYTE @ 10.09.03, 23:26:

I've had a few people ask me about the minimum requirements for Half-LIfe 2 and Doom 3, so here's the info:

John Carmack mentioned in a conference a few months ago that Doom 3 will ideally be able to run on a rig with a 1GHz processor, 256mb of RAM, and a higher end Geforce 1 graphics card (higher end Geforce 1 being the 32mb Ti series). Now, keep in mind that just because the game will RUN does not mean that it will be in any way pretty. In order for Doom 3 to run on a similiar setup almost all graphic options will need to be on the lowest possible setting. That means no dynamic lighting or shadow, low grade textures, and a high risk of things getting choppy whenever the bullets start flying. For Doom 3 I'd probably have to say that you're going to be want to pushing about a 2GHz processor, 512mb of RAM, and at the very LEAST a 64mb late model Geforce or ATi equivalent in order to get some of the higher level graphicaltivityliness (Yes, I made tht word up).

Half-Life 2 will be slightly more forgiving, but not my much. It's said that it will be able to run on 700 MHz processor, with 128 MB RAM, and a DX6-level video card (Like a Riva TNT2). Personally I think those numbers are a little low, and at shelf time we'll see something closer to maybe 900Mhz, or maybe a better GPU, but who knows. The original Half-Life can almost run on a Commodore 64, so maybe the same magic will happen with HL2. Even with HL2's generously low current system reqs, I'm probably going to have to say pretty the same thing as Doom 3 as far as a recommend setup goes. Set yourself up with about a 2GHz cpu, 512 mb ram, GeForce4 Ti4200 128 ddr or ATI Radeon equivalent, and you should be golden.

PS-Don't think for one second that you're the only one out there that needs to upgrade in order to get the most out of the new tech. I myself am currently in the market for some new hardware, and will hopefully have it approved (*Wife) by the time HL2 hits store shelves. If you've got any questions about hardware, or are wondering what you should get, send me an email and we'll see what we can figure out for you.

Get more info and post any questions in our forums.

Those Valve Guys Be Some Money Grubbing Whores

by KNYTE @ 05.09.03, 22:11:

For those of you who haven't heard about how Valve is pricing out Half-life 2 when it finally hits store shelves, here's a little breakdown for you:

Retail box, singleplayer, no multiplayer - ONE TIME FEE! - The package that people still on dialup internet connections, and the entire PIC clan, will hopefully buy

Retail box, singleplayer and multiplayer - ONE TIME FEE! - The standard gamer package, coming soon to a grocery store shelf near you

Retail box, singleplayer, multiplayer and other unknown cool stuff (collectors edition) - ONE TIME FEE! - The package hard core gamers, and people with too much money on their hands, will most likely buy....yes, I already pre-ordered it...twice

STEAM, singleplayer and multiplayer - ONE TIME FEE! - The package the new age web-geek will buy, cancel the ongoing pay service two months later, and then buy an over priced left over collector's edition on Ebay

STEAM, subscription model. Pay a montly fee and have access to all Valve titles, including the stuff on STEAM now (HL, OpFor, CS, TFC, etc), Half-Life 2, all future stuff they put out, and so forth. - The package the ULTRA-HARDCORE gamer will buy in addition to the collector's edition, otherwise he won't be getting the full-blown Half-Life 2 gaming experience!

Second, patches (bugfixes, maintenance releases, etc) will be free no matter which of the six option you decide to go for. - Oh good, I get their patches for free...The day that someone starts charging me to download fixes for stuff they made mistakes on, is the day that the CyberDyne shoot-out scene from Terminator 2 will be brought into real life late night news

Community-based mods will be free unless the authors want to charge for them. Free community based mods will/can be made available though STEAM free of charge. -I'm sorry, but the idea of paying a bunch of Norweigans for their crappy mods doesn't appeal to me. A warning to mod makers: If you try to charge me money for your work I will take you to court for some undefined reason

And there you have the current pricing setup, broken down in KNYTE terms, taken directly from the keyboard of Valve's Gabe Newell. Hopefully this will all pan out for the best and it won't be as ridiculous as it sounds. I don't want action game makers taking lessons from those MMORPG foolios and then start to thinking that they too can charge monthly rates just so I can kill things.

**UPDATE-I was recently informed that Valve was also paid a dollar amount in the 7 figures by ATi for rights to bundle Half-Life 2 with their graphics hardware packages.

Let Valve know that they won't get away with this kind of tom-foolery in the forums!

2003: A Sci-Fi Based Game Odyssey

by KNYTE @ 04.09.03, 19:30:

We've seen some changes in the gaming industry this year, one of the most notable being the movement from the realism/military themed games back to the Sci-Fi "roots" of PC gaming. With the release of big Sci-Fi hits this year, such as Unreal Tournament 2k3/2k4 and Tron 2.0, and huge upcoming titles like Half-life 2 and Doom 3, the industry is starting to move away from most of the games on the shelf having something to do with World War 2, and to be honest, I think it's about freaking time.

Anyway, two more big games in the Sci-Fi category threw demos out to the masses this week. The first being a big-hit sequel from Sierra, in the form of Homeworld 2. Bringing full 3-dimensional, real-time strategy back to the playing field, Homeworld 2 will once again put the noble Hiigarans in defense of their recently reclaimed home planet against the more than formidable Vaygr. Now with a totally new 3D engine, streamlined interfaces, and new multi-player modes, Homeworld 2 promises to a major contender for real-time strategy game of the year.

Grab the brand new demo from Sierra, or you can use the usual file whores.

The second recently released demo is from Techland and is a first person shooter entitled Chrome. Whilst my trying to come up with a good synopsis for it, I decided that the Chrome homepage does a much better job, so here are a few choice excerpts:
Chrome is a tactical FPP shooting game whose action takes place in the future during the colonization of the newly discovered solar system of Valkyria. An unusual and dramatic story takes place among the huge and wild terrains of the five planets, within the residential complexes of the first settlers, deep within mines rich with precious minerals and inside the headquarters of the powerful corporations fighting among themselves over the unique riches of Valkyria.

Each player has at his disposal a large arsenal, equipment and implants which allow him to choose specialized styles and tactics to complete each mission. With silent weapons, a camouflage suit and special features to sharpen physical reflexes and improve sensory abilities, the player can turn into silent assassin and strike his enemies unnoticed. With a heavy plasma gun, a dermo-shield and transplanted muscles the player can also be transformed into a human tank allowing him to storm past enemy lines.

Multiplayer including all features of single player mode, allowing 32 players to enjoy the game. Huge arsenal of armor, implants, wide range of vehicles, broad and varied terrains. Chrome multiplayer is a classical, dynamic set of games like Death Match, as well as more complicated, based on objectives, team fights.
Chrome

Grab the Chrome demo from Fileplanet or Fileshack.

I'll be throwing down on the demos tonight as soon as I get home from work, and if they're even remotely worth writing anything about, expect to see some reviews posted here tomorrow.

Blast your way into our forums.

More News

by KNYTE @ 03.09.03, 17:44:

Sorry for being lazy about updates, the Blaster worm that has been going around has been killing the callcenter I work at, so finding time to put up some news is hard. Things are starting to quiet down however, so I'll be getting things up more regularly from now on.

-Check out this cool 2 part interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi on Computer and Video Games.com about some of the things we can expect to see in Half-Life 2. The interview goes over Valve's plans for anti-cheat security, engine modifiability, and has the words "it's a secret" in it a bunch of times. Read part one by going here, and part two here.

-EA Games has released their 1.45 patch for Battlefield 1942. Grab it from EA's own list of available download servers, or you can get it from the planet or the shack.

-Max Payne 2 will ship on October 15th, and I personally will copy the heck out of it (just kidding...kinda). Check out Gamespy's up to date Maxey Payney-like coverage for more info.

-There was a recent Q&A on Gamespot confirming that Full Spectrum Warrior will indeed be coming to the PC soon following its X-box release. Stop by Gamespot and give the article a read.

Drop in on our forums.