PC – Page 73 – StuffWeLike

Rockstar Games now on Steam!

In a press release sent out late Friday Valve has announced that a ton of high profile games from Rockstar are now available on the Steam download system. As a promotion all the games are discounted 10% during launch week so this is the time to brush up on your GTA skills before GTA4 is released. There is no word however on what upcoming Rockstar titles will be added to the system but we can only hope that a PC version of GTA4 will be made and added. All we can say is we hope you are not on a download limit!

The list and comments below are from the press release.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto II
Grand Theft Auto
Midnight Club II
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Max Payne
Manhunt
Wild Metal Country

“We were immediately excited by the opportunity to offer our PC catalog via Steam because it allows us to reach out to gamers around the world in exciting new ways,” said Rowan Hajaj, Head of Finance and Corporate Development of Rockstar Games. “We are continually looking for ways to give back to our fans and this collaboration will give people a chance to easily revisit some of our greatest titles.”

“Rockstar Games brings some of most viscerally engaging games the industry has ever witnessed to Steam’s expansive library of titles,” says Jason Holtman, director of Steam business development. “We’re delighted to provide a place where gamers across the globe can discover all the fine work Rockstar Games has produced.”

For more information about Rockstar Games on Steam, please visit www.steamgames.com/v/index.php?publisher=rockstar

Pirates MMO has new content in Feb.

Disney has announced that they are going to release more content for their Pirates of the Caribbean MMORPG game in Feb. These additions will just be to give player character new clothing, tattoo’s and jewellery. There will be additions to the actual quests and ship options later in 2008 but for now character modifications are the only soon to be released items.

Pirates MMORPG is a small game downloadable from piratesonline.com, two of the main issues of the game are the seriously dated graphics and to make the game appeal to more people you download a small game and then gameplay areas download while you are playing them. For people on slower connections this does mean an area pops up out of nowhere. The good news though is that the game is free to play but to get all the options you have to pay a fee as usual.

The Games of 2008: Part II

In Part I, we covered the games whose release dates we knew for sure. Now it’s time to head into the more obscure territory, by covering the games whose quarters we know, but not their release dates.

Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
Genre: Driving/Racing

Mario Kart Wii is, well, the Wii version of the ultra-famed Mario Kart series that you must know if you call yourself a gamer. A new system of balancing things out between newbies and experts will be featured, along with an online racing mode. Also of note is the Wii Wheel that will be packaged with the game – yet another Wii accessory to make you look silly in front of your TV. As for the rest – It’s Mario Kart! Hop in and have fun!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (PC)
Genre: First-Person Shooter

Clear Sky is the prequel to the surprise hit of this year, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Clear Sky will explain a lot of things that happened before SoC, as its protagonist is one of the reasons why the radioactive world of Chernobyl is the way it is. An armour/weapon upgrade system and improved AI has been promised, as well as a very atmospheric environment. A must-buy if you’ve played and liked Shadow of Chernobyl.

Worms: A Space Oddity (Wii)
Genre: Turn-Based Strategy (Action elements)

The Wii’s serving of the legendary Worms series takes us back to its 2D roots as our beloved Worms continue their eternal war in a brand new setting – space! A brand new interface, multiplayer and six different planets to play on are up for grabs. If you’ve never played the fantastically addictive Worms series of games before, this seems to be as good a place to start as any, especially with its unique Wii controls.

Sins of a Solar Empire (PC)
Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Perhaps winning the award for the most unique title of 2008, Sins of a Solar Empire is a sci-fi RTS that will feature seamless, real-time integration of epic strategy and close-up strategy. This means that you can check out your massive ships in space and zoom in to see your individual units, vehicles etc., all in real time! You also get to conquer planets, moons and the like, while the game’s impressive new engine is touted to be able to render lots and lots of space bodies. This might be a surprise hit in the RTS field, folks!

Frontlines: Fuel of War (PC, XBOX 360, PS3)
Genre: First-Person Shooter

Frontlines takes us to a near-future where an all-too-predictable war for natural resources (specifically fuel) has begun, causing chaos across the world. You must fight for your nation to find and defend fuel in this title! The game’s specialty will be its large-scale conflicts, which should make war more realistic than a dozen soldiers on each side fighting it out. A lot of depth in gameplay can be seen here, which makes this one first-person shooter you want to look into.

To view the large Quarter II and the other two quarters, hit the jump, babeh!

Continue reading “The Games of 2008: Part II”

The Games of 2008: Part I

2007 has been a very good year for the gaming industry, with dozens of spectacular titles that we shall play for quite a while. StuffWeLike has decided to compile a list of games we should expect for 2008. With this year being so great and all, we hope the next will be equally exciting and we aren’t wholly disappointed (yet)!

In Part I, we cover the games whose release dates have been announced and hopefully will not be delayed. Of course, we may have missed a few games here and there. If so, be sure to tell us in the comments! So here’s Part I!

Continue reading “The Games of 2008: Part I”

Crysis Patch Status Update

[Update] Crysis patch version 1.1 is now available

Crysis

For those of you who don’t know it was announced to the press that there would be a patch released for EA’s Crysis title between 7-14 days after its release back in November. After a really quiet period with no news at all details have arrived via EA about what has been the delay and when we should expect the two, yes two patches. From what we have read though unless it has been left out they have not fixed the stuttering nuke or machine gun sound effects left after you die. Or the problem with hovering guns that don’t exist, or the other multiplayer problem where if you buy an AA vehicle and then fire the gun it blows itself up instantly without taking a hit. We can hope though but when more than one patch is announced it doesn’t give you much faith. Expect 600MB Battlefield 2 size patches soon.

Below is the full release from EA.com

Dec. 21 2007

Community Update: Patch Release

Greetings Community!

Lots of questions from the community regarding Crysis Patches, the SDK and the Linux Dedicated Server have been asked, and we wanted to get all of them answered right before Christmas and right before we have our holiday break.

So let’s get started…

Patch #1 Delayed – The Reason

In an interview around the street date of Crysis we have mentioned to release the first patch within the next two weeks. Till then we already made quite a good progress on the patch itself and it was close to being shipped. Unfortunately due to heavy technical issues that appeared right before the patch was declared final we could not release it in time.

Patch #1 – Current Status

Thus we fully concentrated on the issues to get them addressed and resolved. So far the progress on the patch is quite satisfying since everything seems to be working as intended. Currently the patch is being reviewed by Crytek’s and EA’s QA departments and we expect to get the final feedback submitted in the first week of January.

Patch #1 – Scheduled Release

Based on this feedback we will be able to set a release date for the long awaited Patch #1 for Crysis. If no major problems occur we expect to have it available for public download within January 2008. This is of course related to the reports from the QA departments, but we are confident to match the schedule.

Patch #1 – Content

The last time we have provided you with a rough list of fixes the patch will include. Today we would like to go a bit more into detail and mention the major changes/bug fixes. Patch #1 is still meant to be a performance patch and does not include major gameplay changes or new features. These are being addressed in Patch #2, but more about that further below.

So here is the major change log for Patch #1: (the complete change log will be announced once the patch ships)

Fixes

Damage dealt to vehicles when shot by LAW has been made consistent
F12 (screenshot) now works in restricted mode as well
When player melees during gun raise animation, their gun will not be in a permanently raised position anymore
Memory leaks and potential crashes

Updates

Improved SLI / Crossfire support and performance
Improved overall rendering performance (DX9 and DX10)
Enabled VSync functionality in D3D10

Tweaks

Reduced grenade explosion radius in multiplayer
Clamped water tessellation to avoid cheating in MP
Reduced LAW splash damage vs. infantry in PowerStruggle mode
Slowed Rocket projectile speed down in MP slightly

Crysis SDK – Status

Due to the great feedback we have received from the pre-SDK teams till now, we have adjusted and improved both the set up and the content of the final Mod SDK (Software Development Kit) for Crysis. Due to technical limitation the retail version of Crysis is only partially supporting Modifications.

Patch #2 for Crysis will address this topic and provides full Mod support for both Singleplayer and Multiplayer. Not only that the current problems with loading up a mod in Crysis are fixed, additionally the game menu includes a mod loading system. Thus we decided to delay the SDK release until the second Patch has been finished in order to provide you with a correctly working Mod set up for the game.

Of course we will continue and extend our support within the upcoming weeks and months. For example it is planned to constantly update the official Sandbox2 Editor documentation and you can probably expect the next update on this to happen around Christmas.

Crysis Linux Dedicated Server – Status

The Linux version of the Crysis Dedicated Server is still in development and we don’t have an estimated released date for it yet. We want to make sure it is working fine and running without any problems before we release it. After some problems that have been resolved already the progress is good and we expect to have a beta version ready soon.

Patch #2 ? Information

As you might know already we are working on Patch #2 for Crysis simultaneously. The content is based on the feedback we have gathered during the Crysis Beta and the first weeks of release. In addition we are tracking several threads in the Fan Site forums where the community has given constructive feedback and suggestions.

Currently we are evaluating the collected data from the community and taking multiple suggestions into consideration for adding them to the patch. Quite a few community requests have been implemented already and others are work in progress. The patch will be a full content patch and is addressing stability, gameplay tweaks, balancing issues and new features for both Singleplayer and Multiplayer. Next to that we will fix several security holes in our system and also improve both the Punkbuster implementation and our internal Anti-Cheat solution.

We will keep you informed on the progress and announce more details on the change log within the next weeks. Once we have reached a nearly finished status of the patch we will let you know about the release date.

Regards,

-Crysis Dev Team

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Why Should Anyone Care About Duke Nukem?

So, 3D Realms has finally come out with a teaser trailer for Duke Nukem Forever. The only question that I have is, why should I care?

On 3D Realms’ forums George Broussard posted a day before the trailer came up that the trailer would be up around noon CST and continued to thank everyone that worked on the trailer for their hard work. I just think it’s a little ridiculous that he felt the need to tell everyone that it was coming out like it was some huge announcement that everyone was waiting for.

I watched the trailer, and it was absolutely nothing special. It just showed Duke Nukem doing the same stuff that he always does. Maybe if it showed a new villain or at least something that would make it look any different from the past Duke Nukems, I would somewhat care.

You would think that after working on the game for over a decade they could come up with something a little more interesting. I actually think that I was more excited for the game before seeing this trailer. And now that the teaser is out, how long do you think it’s going to be for some actual game play footage?

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