Archive for the 'Video games' category

Doom 2009

So, the great FPS game will be back before the end of the year 2009. Either the launch campaign started early in Nepal or the bus drivers are using their vehicles as video game weapons (the latter would explain the extraordinarily high frequency of dramatic road accidents there).

The arrival of Windows 7 also annonces the arrival of a new updated DirectX to serve the PC gamers’ community. We already knew that Vista did not have the favour of the gamers (who often stayed with Windows XP) and that had (among other things) some significant impact on DirectX 10 that required Vista. Will gamers now run to Windows 7? It’s possible, but if you want to see the real progress brought to video games (here, to the very popular Crysis FPS) by the various version of DirectX, check the video below:

See what happens to video game players, when a real World Rally Championship (WRC) pilot takes them to the real dirt. “Are you ready for the real thing?” Ken Block is not only a good driver, he’s trying his best to have them p…ing their pants.

Source: Autoblog.

If you want to grab the maximum CPU power for your PC video game (or any other PC application, by the way), there is a free utility that will ensure that the PC CPU does not spend to much time on anything else: Game Booster. It may be bad for a correctly balanced performance, but some games may appreciate the help.

Nota: This is similar to AMD Fusion Tool, but simpler.

They were the FPS games of your youth (if you are as old as I am): Doom, Heretic and Hexen are three games where you killed, maimed, crushed, punched and powdered thousands of monsters and all kinds of adversaries. Did you know that you could play all three of them on line?

Point your browser to the Doom Triple Pack.

On-line Doom + Hexen + Heretic

How many PC gamers started their career with video games as raw (according to today’s criteria) as Doom or even Quake. We may find their quality too low for our eyes, but they already demonstrated their main strength: the gamer found interesting adversaries and environments where you could not know what would happen behind the corner of a corridor (that generation of video games did not yet open the doors to a wide environment like in FarCry or Crysis).

Doom 1

Already, before the year 2000, PC games were expensive. But here comes the Internet and bands of Internet users now expect to find free things all around. Authors of such games (like Id Software) decided to follow this trend and offer some of these older games as ways to attract more customers for other games. These ones start by being free, and stay as being very pleasant to play.

Doom was put in the public domain a few years ago. Consequence: Here is somebody deciding to re-write it in Flash and you will be able to play Doom (more precisely, Doom 1). You will need Flash 10 and I’m told that PowerPC Macs are not compatible, but you’re going to tote a shotgun and the BFG mini-gun at outer-space monsters and without paying (free).

Doom is not enough? You want more, more quality, more guns, more speed? Why not Quake? Id Software just opened access to QuakeLive.com. For free, you’ll get to play Quake, right now, freely, for no money. It will be fun…

More precisely, here is Quake III Arena with free access to all. It will go fast. This is violent gaming. It will only stop when you’re dead.

This is not enough? Again? So, let me offer some video games with calmer settings, but still free. Even better, Linux games.

live.linuX-gamers.net succeeded at preparing Live-DVDs (DVD that are completely autonomous, you can boot on them without installing Linux).

live.linuX-gamers.net (DVD)

Say you are parent to a kid who is more than willing to play those games that he/she discovered with his/her friends and you don’t know much about them. It’s time to learn some before you make a decision about letting fun happen or not.

From IGN vault.

You could fully appreciate this video only if you have some experience of Role Playing, but I couldn’t help posting it here.

Stan, this video is partly dedicated to you, the Dungeon Master.

Duke Nukem

You have certinaly heard about Duke Nukem Forever, if only because you are interested in PC video games. As a matter of fact, this is (was) a game frist-announced in 1997 as the sequel to Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem II and Duke Nukem 3D (the Duke Nukem trilogy), the last of them being a First Person Shooter (FPS like Doom, FarCry or Crysis) whose success was partly based on its very high level of violence (blood, dismembered corpses, etc.) Whatever! Many old/mature video gamers were awaiting the real availability o this game which well earned its title of best vaporware for many years.

Rumor was running for weeks that, 3DRealms, the developer, had finally closed doors. Take-Two still has the exploitation license, but the horizon is really dark. Some hope to see Duke Nukem ressurect, but… Apogee software, LLC confirmed its willingness to keep developping the trilogy (for the Playstation Portable & Nintendo DS), but… Take-Two attacks 3DRealms and Apogee dragging them to the Judge, but…

Finally, the end is so true that developpers started to leave 3DRealms and are actively looking for new jobs. Even worse, the game assets are dispersed widely: The Web sees the distribution of many good pieces of work, 3D models, script/plot contents (only 60% finshed), many objects and backgrounds, etc.

You can also find

• 28 screen copies for Duke Nukem Forever
• monsters
• videos like the following to see were it really went

At last, you can read the Wired eulogy.

The most fanatical readers/gamers will want to check the only real review of this (unfinshed) video game.

It is now official: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be available in our stores on September 5th (very soon, eh!)

This should be the reason to go through a last minute list of all the recent screenshots and videos displaying the best images of this FPS game coming from Russia.

• Interview videos (from VE3D)
• Screenshots (from VE3D)
• Trailer (from GameTrailers)
• Trailer in HD (from GameTrailers)

Last but not least, the official game web site essentially confirmed the specs of the game that we provided a few weeks ago already.

Project Origin is the name of the sequel to F.E.A.R. (a frightening FPS game from Monolith). However, because of licensing issues, it will not be named FEAR 2 or anything like it. Nevertheless, this filiation should attract a lot of attention (the story will start just 30 seconds before the explosive end of the previous opus).

But knowing that F.E.A.R. has had the dubious fame of being a major PC power hog, it is well worth checking what we will need to run such an FPS game. And it is definitely difficult to get some reliable information of that kind for Project Origin, while we are waiting for a realease at the end of the year 2008.

Minimum requirements

• Processor: Athlon 64 3000+ or Intel 2.8GHz
• Memory: 1 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 66xx or Radeon X16xx

Recommended requirements

• Processor: Dual core CPU
• Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 7800 GT or Radeon X1800 series (Shader model 3)

Trailer

And here is a trailer for the game:

Project Origin trailer (click to play the video)

In this PC shooter game, still unavailable, you’ll see quite some destruction.

(more…)

100 hours, that is the promise from Ubisoft Montréal (where most games only last 10 to 20 hours). This game will have a fully open map in Africa (50 square kilometers, only limited by deadly deserts) where you will meet mercenaries, and weather elements (including fire).

Analysis (in French) at JeuxVideoPC.com.

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.

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

We already knew that AMD-ATI had succeeded to frighten nVidia with its new graphics cards, Radeon HD4850 and HD4870 (the latter are able to do as well as the nVidia GTX260, for less money). But the nVidia GTX280 graphics cards were left without real competition… up to the arrival of Radeon HD4870×2.

Two RV770 GPUs (identical to the one on the AMD Radeon HD4870 card and able to bring the raw power of a GTX280 card), this is the solution found by AMD-ATI. They did it before, they intend to win again.

The announcement arrives with two information bits important for potential purchasers and for nVidia: The price will be identical to the nVidia competition ($499) and the card will be sold starting 2nd August 2008.

nVidia reply? Maybe a “super GTX280″ that is still undescribed.