Archive for July, 2008

While Crysis Warhead is now in pre-order for $29.99/29.95€, we heard that it will come along with a new multi-player component named Crysis Wars.

• new online multi-player modes
• 21 maps

Crysis Warhead is a sort of complement to Crysis, the FPS PC video game that shocked the FPS game world last year. For my own part, I’ve drawn pleasure from the mere act of replaying the solo game campaign, for its realistic combat scenes, its pleasant images, and its great playability.

But EA is preparing a kind of follow-up. It’s all about following the deeds of a character already found in Crysis. this time, in Crysis Warhead, you are Sergeant Sykes (”Psycho”). It is not a sequel to Crysis (even if everybody was disturbed by the abrupt end essentially opening to the following two episodes in the series), but a a parallel approach to the same part of the scenario.

Nevertheless, what PC configuration will be needed? EA told us that software optimisations will help a lot the users with relatively small PC configurations, who were unable to play Crysis correctly (EA said that a 400€/$620 PC would be enough for the “High quality” settings).

Minimum requirements

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6550
• Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 66xx or Radeon X16xx

Recommended requirements

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
• Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: Radeon HD4870 or GeForce GTX260

See also: Image gallery at IGN.

Currently, there are two groups of rumours running through the Internet forums about the future successor to the Canon EOS 5D digital SLR camera.

1. There will be two cameras at the same time (either Canon EOS 3D and Canon EOS 6D, or Canon EOS 3D and Canon EOS 7D) launched just before the Olympics (to allow pro photographers to publicly play with them during this very public event).
2. There will be two cameras at the same time (either Canon EOS 3D and Canon EOS 6D, or Canon EOS 3D and Canon EOS 7D) launched after the Olympics (usually pronosticated for Monday, September 8, 2008).

Did you notice the common points and the divergence?

Unfortunately, it is rather impossible to say where is the information and where is the fake news bit.

For sure, we heard a lot of rumours more or less tolerable, but here is one that does not seem to have a lot more ground than the wishes of some Sony customers afraid of discovering too high a price for the upcoming Sony Alpha 900. Guess what? 24 millions pixels could ask for a steep price, nearer to 3000€ or 4000$ than the target of 2000$ that you could maintain if you are ready to purchase a bargain end-of-life Canon EOS 5D (nearing official retirement but not dead yet, for sure).

The arrival of the Nikon D700 with a Full Frame sensor of a lower resolution than the high-end cameras like the Nikon D3 (or the Sony Alpha 900) had people murmuring that maybe (and I have to heavily insist on this maybe word) Nikon and Sony would share a 12-16 million-pixel Full Frame sensor. Nikon would launch a Nikon D700 and Sony would launch a similar Sony Alpha 800 sometimes nicknamed “flagcheap” (”flagship” designating the top-of-the-line Sony, the Alpha 900, “flag-cheap” is a word game on “cheap” for a cheaper camera).

It is impossible to tell if there is any truth to it. Assuredly, the lack of recent information about the Sony Alpha 900 (and most importantly its price target) had heads spinning and marketing laws or logic law being what they are, plugging a price hole in the Sony SLR camera range may become an urgent necessity. Sony could fill it with the Alpha 800. And it previously occured that Sony hid some products behind the visibility of another camera (see the example of the Alpha 300/350).

In the spotlight: Sony Alpha 900 Canon EOS 5D Mk II Nikon D700 FX Download Nero for free

Some of our pets can become heroes or -at least- be more unusual than we would think. The Pet Blog collected a series of astonishing histories about cats high moments, like:

• Oscar a.k.a. “Unsinkable Sam”
• Simon, of the Royal Navy
• The Alamo Cat
• Fred, the undercover secret agent
• Tama, train station master

Source: The Pet Blog.

On the one side “Teach”, on the other “Learn”. Is it all simply an illusion? Ask teachers and students.

I don’t intend to go too deep into this kind of extreme photography right now, but I wanted to indicate two news items that could be reflecting on the continuous trend toward larger sensors and additional pixels:

• 50 Megapixel Hasselblad H3DII-50: 36×48mm CCD sensor.
• Kodak Unveils 50-Megapixel CCD

Again, those people are keeping pixel size around 6µm (a good target to keep diffraction low and manageable).

With the arrival of several Full Frame SLRs on the market, people start wondering what they should buy or what they should wait. Actually, we can expect to see very real price differences, so I thought it would be good to make a summary for us:

As you can notice, it is expected that the Sony Alpha 900 will be targetting low prices despite it’s 24MP sensor (or it will have a little Alpha 800 brother, while the Alpha 900 would shoot for a higher price point). But the current Canon EOS 5D seems to be an astonishingly good bargain (while stocks last).

These days, I received a number of news in preparation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky launch. This is an FPS video game for PC that should attract many players already in love with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be shown by GSC Game World in Los Angeles for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (with probable availability in the stores around the end of August)
• Image gallery 1 on IGN
• Image gallery 2 on IGN
• Analyse/preview du jeu en français sur JeuxvideoPC.
• Analyse/preview du jeu en français sur ImpactVirtuel.
• And still the required PC configuration to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky