General – Page 5 – StuffWeLike

Blizzard Exec: Microsoft not doing enough for PC Gaming

It’s great that there’s a resurgence of PC gaming, or at least PC game development. Valve is already doing fantastic with promising stuff in Steam Cloud. Blizzard show their respect for the venerable platform by making pretty much all their games PC-exclusive (and they’re all big hits, too). I mention this because I believe that Blizzard has every authority of accusing Microsoft for not doing anything for Windows and gaming.

Ever since Microsoft dipped its feet into the console world, it’s never come back, devoting all of its gaming attention to the Xbox and Xbox 360. This is with good reason, as Blizzard COO Paul Sams notes, because it is where Microsoft Games’ bread and butter is, and it is their system, after all.

But they just can’t continue to ignore Windows.“Certainly they have a lot in Windows. And Windows is a system that supports all the business applications as well as games.” he says. That’s true: active participation from Microsoft is what is necessary to bring forth the PC as a gaming platform. Windows is easily the most widespread platform right now, with more copies of Windows in this world than every other console combined.

Take heed, Microsoft, and mend your ways!

300 Follow-up definitely happening!

$Frank Miller\'s 300$

Trust Hollywood to not let a money-making oppurtunity slip by. While a sequel wasn’t the first thing on our minds when we saw the epic 300, we all thought about it sometime or the other, and then rumours began. Official word came here and there, and now it’s definitely up: the 300 follow-up will happen!

Variety reports that Legendary Pictures has confirmed a 300 follow-up with Zack Snyder signed on as director (yes!) and Frank Miller working on the writing. What’s more, if the report is spot-on accurate, Miller is working on a graphic novel, which should be in every way as awesomely epic as its predecessor! This is excellent, with both Snyder and Miller on the project, it has to be awesome! I, uh think.

Snyder, however, has said that he’ll wait for Miller’s novel first before he commits anything, but yeah. Legendary is going to make sure that the story is as great as it was before, because as Thomas Tull from Legendary said, “The vision of Frank Miller’s universe that Zack Snyder brought to the screen in ‘300’ is unlike anything ever seen before.” And that’s totally true.

We wonder what the movie will be about. Will it be a prequel with Gerard Butler back kicking Persian ass as Leonidas? Will we see Leonidas Jr. become a badass king? Will we see the Spartans taking revenge? Speculation abound! We will see where Legendary and Miller go with this.

No Half-Life 2: Episode Three at E3!

Yesterday was a time to be excited when news hit the Internet that a slew of titles will be appearing at E3 that demand excitement. Among these was Half-Life 2: Episode Three, perhaps the most-delayed of all the Half-Life 2 titles. Valve wants to release a Half-Life 2 episode every year, and going by the record, I don’t think they’re going to make it this year either, thanks to this news.

News just in that Doug Lombardi, the marketing director confirmed that Half-Life 2: Episode Three will not be appearing at this year’s E3. According to him, the inclusion of the game’s title in several E3 lists, such as E3.net was a “misprint”. Well, we’re glad that got of the way fast. No point in waiting all the way till E3 and then asking Valve “Where the hell is the episode you promised?” only to feel Valve’s look of confusion and rage.

But E3 or not, I think it’s about time Valve dishes out some info on Episode Three, like at least when they plan to release it, or whether they even have started work on it! What is surprising is that Valve’s plate is currently clean with only one title in the works, Left 4 Dead (which was the result of Valve’s acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios). Left 4 Dead is scheduled to release in November this year. Maybe we’ll get a teaser trailer with it? Maybe we’ll have some news by then? We can only hope.

David Jaffe: Marvel games need story; I agree

David Jaffe may not be a household name, but just so you know, he’s the genius designer behind the Twisted Metal series for the Playstation and is also known for God of War. On his blog over here, he was seen criticising the guys who make games for Marvel’s movies and their comics, too maybe. Now that he mentions it, who makes those games anyways?

Man speaks the truth as he opens his blog post with the following lines:

Please stop putting Spiderman games in big open sandbox environments where you swing around and do oh so slight variations on 4 pretty dull mission types (chase/race/collect/etc) and then once in a while toss in a boss fight and/or a somewhat unique mission.

I mean seriously, we get the point: we get to swing around and stuff, but please; more emphasis on the stuff and less on the goddamn swinging.

Jaffe demands that Marvel’s comics are ace, but the games are terrible and the biggest problem here is that they are “POWER-BASED” and not “STORY-BASED”. Marvel’s comics are known for their great stories and scripts, as he mentions the big man Stan himself. You’d wish the games would follow suit, but they have to be ridiculous affairs that throw you into this huge story with repititive missions and lack of any sort of direction whatsoever.

Check out the post!

Asus unveils Godlike PC Gaming Rig

There are computers. And then there is this monstrosity from Asus’ stables. Behold: The ASUS ARES CG6155 Desktop PC, designed to give gamers the ultimate gaming experience. Hell, the experience is so ultimate, even the game developers have no clue what it feels like.

The case you see above has been inspired off of armours from both Eastern and Western influence, perfectly matching the PC’s theme of providing- I dunno, UNLIMITED ABSOLUTE POWER. It looks stylish and Asus makes it a point to add substance as well.

The machine contains only the most high-end components money can buy, easily making it the ultimate gaming rig you can buy. Oh wait, you can’t: the price will probably be large enough to buy a Pacific island and build your own vacation home on it. Still, if you are the sort willing to sacrifice a great vacation for unlimited Crysis gameplay, be my guest.

The specifications:

OS: Microsoft Vista Ultimate

CPU: Intel Core2 Extreme QX9650 (Overclockable up to 4.0GHz)

Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI

Memory: Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz up to 8G

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 3-Way SLI

HDD: Up to 4TB

ODD: Blu-ray DVD

LAN: 2 x LAN 10/100/1000

Power Supply: 2 Kilowatts (Dual Power)

Accessory: Gaming Keyboard, Mouse, Mousepad, Headset

Seriously, it’s like Asus decided “Okay, show me the topmost stuff in every possible PC component. Great, now let’s package it all together with a killer CPU case and sell it and hope that some rich-ass geek will buy it!”

WTF: Choose Your Own Adventure: Pong

There are some times when I am utterly shocked. I am at a loss of words. “What would you call this?” I ask myself. Is it the most utterly depressing thing that has ever happened to entertainment media, or is it the most ingenious idea ever? This is definitely one of them. The name itself should be enough to satisfy your curiosity: Choose Your Own Adventure: Pong.

It has all the gameplay of Pong, translated into paper format. You turn pages to determine the moment of your bat. The ball remains ominously stationary on each page, its position entirely dependant on what choice you make next, whether you go up or (urp) down. A truly epic adventure. Its something you’ve never experienced before.

This sort of stuff makes us wonder as to what went through the creator’s mind when he thought of it. How could he hope to sell it to anyone without as much free time as himself? Perhaps that is why he lets you “read” the excellent adventure book cover-to-cover in the free online viewer that we have helpfully embedded below.

Go ahead, enjoy your adventure!