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Regarding Gears of War Difficulty Levels 11:22 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Consoles: Xbox 360
(0 comments)
One of the Epic level designers shared his views on the levels of difficulty in Gears of War:
From a difficulty standpoint, I find Hardcore to be my cup of tea most of the time. I can play on Insane, but I have to be much more careful and methodical about how I progress through the level. I only play on Insane when I'm having a good day and I feel like taking a bit of a beating.
Keep in mind that I know most of the levels like the back of my hand and I still have a lot of trouble with Insane difficulty in many instances.
Even two guys in co-op in Hardcore can rack up a staggering number of deaths if you don't work together effectively... like trying to grenade tag every enemy you see when you've got a grenade (I'm a glutton for DBNO punishment). I spent most of today playing through Hardcore with one of the other level designers and we find many scenes to provide quite a challenge, even for two guys who are good at games and who know the levels.
Battlefield 2142 Demo Tomorrow? 11:17 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action
(0 comments)
Planet Battlefield has an interesting post from what appears to be an EA rep stating that there could be a BF 2142 demo released on Oct. 4th for people who pre-ordered the game from EA's downloader doodad. Hi, Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts. If you have pre- ordered the game from EA Downloader, then only you can download the demo version of the game.
Note: The tentative release date for the release of the demo version of the game is 4th October, 2006. If you still have further concerns regarding the issue, please do not hesitate to write back to us.
Playstation 3 Overheating Problems? 10:34 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Consoles: PS3
(14 comments)
Sony shares experienced a 2.75% drop after Playstation 3s were seen having overheating issues:
"While the reason for this is unknown, we suspect it may be due to overheating as a result of enclosing the units and the high temperatures at the venue," analyst David Gibson of Macquarie Equities wrote. "We are concerned that such a problem has occurred so close to full production and is clearly negative news for the company."
"It's not a problem with the PlayStation 3 unit itself," Sony spokeswoman Nanako Kato said. "For a normal player at home, there shouldn't be any problem."
Next-Gen has more.
Age of Empires III: Warchiefs demo tomorrow 10:12 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Real-Time Strategy
(0 comments)
Tomorrow Ensemble will be releasing a demo for Age of Empires III: Warchiefs:
The 517MB demo features the first two single-player missions that continue the saga of the Black family. There will be two playable factions to choose from--the Germans or the all-new Iroquois Confederation. Players' persistent home cities can be improved across multiple games as they explore the California coast in the colonial days.
Duke Nukem 3D on Xbox Live? 06:26 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action
(26 comments)
Probably not! It looks like 3D Realms tried, but Microsoft wasn't very interested. Recently, the service has been on a classic gaming kick, which makes it doubly disappointing.
"You'd be surprised what they've turned down. Don't just assume MS will want it just because you like it, and it's popular," he says. "Hate to sound defeatist, but it's not as easy as 'send it to Microsoft and get it on there'. It's a rather complicated procedure, and MS is fairly picky about what goes on there."
Update - They haven't submitted it to Microsoft, so we'll never know. :(
Scarface Review at Game Informer 06:14 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action
(3 comments)
Game Informer posted the first online review of Scarface: The World is Yours giving it an 8.5/10 score. The biggest way in which it distinguishes itself from the pack is its focus on the economics and power struggles of being a drug kingpin. Unlike Grand Theft Auto, in which you're frequently at the mercy of powers much greater than yourself, Scarface allows you to blaze your own path to greatness, eventually restoring Tony Montana to his seat atop the Miami underworld. Starting out by pulling small jobs and slinging grams on street corners, you'll soon find yourself growing in influence, to the point where you're commanding an army of henchmen, numerous storefronts around the city, and cruising your seaplane down to the islands to move kilos. The epic scope and the sheer amount of money at stake gives Scarface a sense of urgency that few games in this genre have achieved. Greed is a powerful motivator, and I soon found myself wrapped up in the quest for bigger dollars, more glamorous cars, and all the ostentatious items that can be purchased in the game's Exotics catalog. Even better, employing henchmen like drivers or boat pilots allows you to call on any of your cars at any time - which beats the tar out of having to jack a scooter on the fly. Meanwhile, some print mags have bombed it out with a 48% review score average.
Medieval II Total War Min. System Specs 06:05 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Real-Time Strategy
(7 comments)
Creative Assembly today revealed the minimum system specs you'll need to play Medieval II Total War (thanks Jeff). Minimum System Requirements:
English version of Microsoft� Windows� 2000/XP.
Celeron 1.8GHz Pentium 4� (1500MHz) or equivalent AMD� processor.
512MB RAM.
8x Speed DVD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers.
11.0 Gigs of uncompressed free hard disk space.
100% DirectX� 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers.
100% Windows� 2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers.
DirectX� 9.0c.
128MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 1 support and the latest drivers.
Must be 100% DirectX� 9.0c compatible.
Monitor must be able to display 1024x768 resolution or above. Next, they should post the specs needed to play at 5000x3750.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Screenshots 05:20 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: MMOG
(19 comments)
SOE sent over some new screenshots of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes showing off various outdoor venues in the upcoming massively multiplayer game.
(Click to Enlarge!)
       
Neverwinter Nights 2 Diary 05:01 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing
(2 comments)
Gamespot conjured up a new edition of its Neverwinter Nights 2 designer diary series. This installment is by Chris Avellone who discusses the story: The story in Neverwinter Nights 2 begins with a series of brutal attacks in the Mere of Dead Men, including your home of West Harbor. These attacks begin to escalate up and down the Sword Coast, and you find yourself in the middle not just of a growing war in the Forgotten Realms, but a battle that has been raging across the dimensional planes for centuries. To make matters worse, you find yourself fighting wars not on just one but several fronts. There's the politics of Neverwinter and the challenges of fortifying your own stronghold, as well as enemies from Luskan in the North and the extraplanar githyanki that have declared a crusade on you. You find yourself locked in battle with all these factions, but you're in a position to play them off against each other to buy time and learn more of the events and history that led up to this conflict, and how to end it once and for all. In other Neverwinter news, PC.IGN has a creature feature up about the villans in the sequel.
Flight Simulator X final demo 04:26 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Simulation
(3 comments)
If you think you have a top-of-the line PC and want to really give it a test, consider giving the final demo for Flight Simulator X a little spin. Sounds pretty tame, but hey! The demo weighs in at nearly 800 mb.
Next-Gen Starts When I Say So 02:54 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action
(12 comments)
An unusually excitable Mark Rein was delighting the audience at GDC London where he talked about Sony's next-gen hype, Gears of Wars' impending release, some of Epic's top engine licensees and supporting those crappy Intel integrated graphic chips for UT 2007. Here's the poop on 'Gears: The Epic VP then took the stage, commenting that Gears Of War ships in around 6 weeks, commenting: "We're trying to counteract all the hype the game has" by keeping a lot of the game features concealed and fresh. He also revealed that Gears Of War itself will take twelve-and-a-half hours to complete (not a recently cited ten hours, he made sure to point out), and that there is "plenty of replayability" after the fact.
Far Cry v1.4 Released 02:48 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Action
(10 comments)
Ubisoft has released v1.4 of Far Cry for people who still play the game. "You can upgrade from the previous v1.33 or any older version, and this release adds remakes of assault maps, joypad support, security fixes, multiplayer improvements, gameplay tweaks, bug fixes and more."
Halo Wars Blog Update 02:43 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Consoles: Xbox 360
(0 comments)
Ensemble's Bruce Shelley updated his blog to talk a bit about Halo Wars (thanks Blue's News). Halo Wars has been proceeding for months under the code name Phoenix. We have been working with the Bungie team closely to be sure that the vision for Halo Wars syncs up with their games and story. Our goal is to develop a full RTS game specifically for the X-360. We think X-360 gamers are ready for the RTS experience and the MGS leadership believes a quality RTS can expand the platform community. Our team specifically sees this as a cool challenge to take advantage of the technology, do something different, and open up a new genre to the platform.
The Halo Wars team is the fastest growing at ES right now. Much of The WarChiefs team is rolling over to it and many of our new employees are also joining. The team is being led by veteran ES producer Chris Rippy and Lead Programmer Angelo Laudon. Both have been with ES from the start, nearly 12 years ago. Angelo was Lead Programmer on Age I and Age II. The Art Lead is Mathew Goldman, an industry veteran with many titles to his credit from years at Bioware. Lead Designer is Graeme Devine, another industry veteran with 20+ years experience. We think the project is in great hands.
This game has a long way to go before being published and we won't be getting into too many specifics about it for a while. But it is being played every day now and we are feeling very good about where it is and where it is going. You can check on it at our Halo Wars community site here:
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Dev Diary 12:54 pm
- Andrew Burnes
- Games: Action
(1 comment)
The latest Quake Wars dev diary is up on GameSpy's site, if you care for that kind of thing:
In the past, story-based immersion in multiplayer games was considered (not without reason) the inbred third-cousin to gameplay, not least because the majority of hardcore gamers disabled every possible graphics feature in the pursuit of frame rate and smoothness of play. During my clan and tournament days in Quake 1 and Quake 3, I did exactly the same. At that point, narrative immersion just got in the way of my fragging.
In 2002 we started development of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory for id Software, and we built on this idea of story-driven multiplayer by reinforcing each level with plot-driven objectives. There was even a radio transmission you could play in the Limbo Menu of a newsreel story outlining why you were there. These plots inspired the gameplay ideas of robbing a bank or escorting a tank to destroy a fuel depot, but they were still largely cosmetic from the player's perspective. The tactical objectives -- seen purely as game mechanisms -- could still exist in the absence of the plot.
Hardware & Tech Nuggets 01:30 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- hardware: General News
(0 comments)
RPG Vault Goodness 01:20 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: Role-Playing
(0 comments)
The Chronicles of Spellborn Peek #3
Spellborn International guides us farther into its online world by taking us through the first Trial Cave and beyond - Includes five exclusive screenshots
Previews Aplenty 01:15 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News
(0 comments)
Interviewage 01:10 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News
(0 comments)
Game Reviews 01:05 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News
(0 comments)
In Other News... 01:00 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- In-House: In Other News...
(27 comments)
Star Trek: Enterprise got picked up by one of the HD channels I get. I never really watched the series when it was "live" on the air, so they are 95% new to me. I have to say, I like the show a lot. I think they're picking up Battlestar Galactica too, so that's going to be sweet as well. I've seen all of those already, but it's awesome to watch them in high-definition.
Today's question was submitted by Andrew Mulvey:
What game(s) would you replay now if you were able to upgrade your machine with the latest cutting edge hardware?
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