Tag Archives: June 2005

Free PSP Porn for all

Free Porn, wft? Joystiq are reporting on a website offering pornographic images made available in PSP format. Sam Sugar of SugarBank.com is reportedly offering up a daily dose of topless nudity pics to make for one happy PSP.

That’s right, good ole’ Sam Sugar of SugarBank.com is offering up a daily dose of free porn formatted for your PSP. For the next week or so, SugarBank will be featuring a daily series of images that, to be honest, are not really pornographic but do contain topless nudity.

Check out SugarBank.com (maybe not from work) | Via Joystiq

WoW XP Theme released

For World of Warcaft fans who like to take the game that little bit further, Stardock has created a Windows XP WoW theme with Object Desktop that completely revamps your desktop theme and wallpaper to the tune of the game, changing icons, tool-bars, start-menu etc.

The XP theme is being hosted over on the official WoW website.

Now you can enjoy the look and feel of World of Warcraft even when log out of the game, thanks to the specially designed World of Warcraft Windows XP desktop theme pack created by Stardock. Using Stardock’s Object Desktop technology, the World of Warcraft theme pack changes your title bars, Start menu, icons, push buttons, borders, and much more to mirror the user interface from the game.

Half Life 2 nominated in G-Phoria awards

Half-Life 2 Half Life 2 looks to be cleaning up at this year’s G-Phoria awards hosted by G4TV. Anybody can cast their vote for the different categories, including Game of the Year and Best Graphics. Although I should note that registration is required to cast your vote.

Nominations so far include:

Best Shooter
Best Graphics
Best Sound Design
Best Voice Performance – Female (Alyx)
Favourite Character (Alyx)
Game of the Year

Head on over to G4TV to make your opinion heard.

Valve: Getting Closer To HL2: Lost Coast Release

Half-Life 2 high-dynamic range

Valve have said in their latest Steam update that they are “getting much closer to having Lost Coast ready to release.”

The extra level to Half-Life 2 will showcase the new high-dynamic range (HDR) technology, and will be available free to Half-Life 2 owners who meet a set of as-yet unannounced system requirements.

The company also reveal that they plan to include HDR in their future game releases, including the delayed Day of Defeat: Source.

Attached to the update is a side-by-side comparison video, that shows a Half-Life 2 scene both with and without HDR:

One of the fundamental pieces of HDR rendering lies in “dynamic tonemapping.” In the Source engine, by varying the exposure of a scene based on how much light is visible, we can accurately simulate a range of brightness that is beyond what a computer monitor is physically capable of displaying. A real-world example of this effect happens every time you walk from a very dark room to an outdoor area with very bright sunlight — your eye takes a few moments to adjust to the variance in the amount of light hitting the retina. If you have a video card that supports HDR, you’ll be able to see this in the engine when Lost Coast is released.

Static screenshots of HDR fail to capture this effect, but if you click on this image you can watch it happen in a scene from the Lost Coast. Note that the left-hand side of the screen is running in Fixed Aperture (non-HDR) mode, and the right-hand side with High Dynamic Range.

Steam update (24 June) – Download the video

Lunchtime Games

A poster over on Slashdot asked a simple question – what are some fun games to play during a 20-30 minute lunch break?

The limitations were the games must be able to run well on a system not geared for gaming and must provide a fun and thorough gaming experience in a half-hour sitting.

Some recommendations were Worms, Diablo II, the original GTA (available free) and Moonbase Commander before someone made the suggestion that he should get himself a good old fashioned deck of cards.

Game To Play During Lunch?
Discussion >>

Fable: The Lost Chapters New Trailer

A new trailer for Fable: The Lost Chapters has been released by Lionhead.

The PC game will feature extra content not seen in the original Xbox hit, as well as a deeper storyline. Fable: The Lost Chapters is due out this Autumn:

Explore the original worlds and core missions of “Fable” that thrilled Xbox gamers and discover additional regions, storylines and side quests, as well as optional missions with “Fable: The Lost Chapters.” In addition, “Fable: The Lost Chapters” offers the ability to fight new monsters, practice an expanded group of spells, don new armor, wield additional weapons and interact with new expressions.

Watch the trailer

New Civ IV Media, Details

Firaxis have released a rake of new media and details about Civilization IV. Four new gameplay footage videos, an interview with developer Jesse Smith, and new screenshots have been uploaded to Gamespot, while Gamespy have an in-depth preview that reveals more details about the modding ability of the game.
Firaxis have said that this will be the “most moddable version of Civ ever”:

It’ll ship with an in-game “worldbuilder” that allows you to shift units around and redraw the map, similar to a scenario editor. More hardcore modders can jump into XML files and tweak all of the unit stats and variables in the game. Beyond that, users who know the Python scripting language can actually go in and set up scripts and triggers to make game events happen or alter the way the game plays, while a Game A.I. SDK that’ll be available shortly after the game ships will allow players to completely change the way the A.I., combat system, or game rules work. Players around the ‘net will be able to contribute their own future or fantasy mods, adding new units or tweaking the game balance — if the core game takes off, the aftermarket scene is going to be huge.

Civilization IV preview – Civ IV media on Gamespot – New Civ IV screens

Launch Steam from any web page

Steam SteamLaunch has just been launched. It is a new link-generator that allows you to ad links to your Valve games servers on a web page. All you need to do is insert your server’s IP and port number into the generator, select the game engine and a piece of html code will be generated for you to position on a web page. When users click on the link, their Steam will launch the game in question and join your server.

The service is particularly useful for clan servers and ISPs, providing users with a handy, simple, quick way to connect to an IP. Also included are options: prevent connecting if the server is full, and, display a password dialog if the server is protected. SteamLaunch supports both Half-Life 1 and Source server protocols.

The site is still a work-in-progress, the password dialog feature is not yet functional but the link generator works fine for just adding a link to your server(s).

Here is an example, join the IGNIQ CS: Source server

Visit Steam Launch for more details

Gaming, a pain in the thumb?

Gaming is a pain in the thumb, according to a German scientist and a 13 year old South African girl. In a new survey on playing video games, a new condition known as Playstation Thumb has been announced. The results of the survey suggest that in a few years time, the condition will be listed in medical textbooks. Not exactly the PR Sony would have liked while promoting their PS3.

The subjects were asked to play for two hours a day while Dr Mathiak scanned their brains using magnetic resonance imaging. They were tasked with completing typical first-person shooter objectives – entering an enemy base, rescuing the innocent and killing all the guilty.

Read the full article

Hundreds of Fan-Created Xbox 360 Faceplates

Xbox 360 faceplates

Major Nelson is running a competition for the best user-made faceplate for the Xbox 360, and has received 100′s of entries since it began on the 17th.

Some are pretty high-quality, like the Xbox Traffic Light and the Xbox 360 Guitar among lots of others you can view here.

The prize is a limited edition E3 X360 faceplate and a Plantronics Major Nelson headset; the contest will close on 30 June and to enter all you have to do is create a faceplate using some templates provided here, and you also need Photoshop for editing the templates.

350 Faceplates and growing

$2.95 Second Life Lifetime Membership Offer

Second Life

MMORPG-Gamer.com is reporting that a basic membership to the virtual world Second Life can be gotten for $2.95 until the 29th of June.

Ordinarily the price is $9.95 for the basic membership, which allows lifetime access to the full featured game except you can’t own land:

From now until June 29, 2005 a one-time fee of US$2.95 is all it takes to get a Second Life Basic account. And remember, there are no monthly fees.

Explore, shop, play games (build games!), become an entrepreneur, party, help create entire worlds– endless possibilities for a lifetime, at the cost of coffee and a bagel.

DETAILS
Simply go to secondlife.com/join, fill out the registration, choose Basic account, and input 7KXJ98 when you are asked to submit a promo code. After your 7-day free trial, if you choose to join Second Life, your credit card will be charged just $2.95.

* Already a member? Pass this offer to a friend. Sorry, no referral bonuses will be given with this offer.

But hurry, because all this ends June 29th!

Secondlife.com

Lokitorrent Now Redirected to Gaming Site

MyOwnInteractive.com It appears the domain name www.lokitorrent.com has come under new ownership, or the original owners have decided to get into the web-based gaming business.

Visiting the once highly popular bit torrent site now presents you with the message:

Redirection to MyOwnInteractive.com in progress…

Torrent download links of any kind are no longer hosted on this web site. We welcome you to visit our new web-based gaming sites.

Lokitorrent.com

MyOwnInteractive.com contains the notice “Web-based simulators and games for the intellectuals among us. Have an idea for a simulator or web-based game you wished existed? Contact us with your idea.”

Also on the page is some hidden text that announces a web-based multiplayer game that’s due to come out in Fall 2005:

Rule your own country as a benevolent leader or a crooked tyrant

With game features such as technology advancements, military research, foreign trade, and a complete economic model, you can rule your nation any way you wish.
Open design allows you to buy out your neighbors by utilizing carefully manipulated foreign trade and fair tax rates to create a strong upper class population or simply creating a massive army and taking over your neigbors by brute force and cunning strategy.

MyOwn Nation, sporting realistic options such as United Nations membership, population classes, government types, unique taxation options, welfare, education and even genocide make this the most realistic nation simulation to date.

Look for it in Fall 2005!

Lokitorrent’s original owners succumbed to the wrath of the MPAA back in February, after fighting briefly against their orders to take down the site.

Related:
LokiTorrent caves to MPAA (10 Feb)
Discussion >>

Pluck New Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Bonusmap

Blizzard Entertainment Their latest project WoW nothwithstanding, Blizzard are still rendering excellent service for their established games by regularly releasing new Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne bonusmaps. The latest medium-sized and rose-shaped map is aptly titled Deathrose and, before you ask, here’s the explanation:

The Deathrose is a rare flower that grows only in the deepest, darkest swamps of Ashenvale. In the hands of a master alchemist, the petals of the flower can be used to create some of the deadliest poisons known to exist in all Azeroth.

The map is suited for 2v2 or FFA matches and can be downloaded here for free.

New Gaming Gloves Invented

Game Hand Glove Fourteen year old gamer Zac Bandremer has developed a new type of gaming glove that has a sticky silicone palm to reduce controller slippage and blisters caused by aggressive gameplay.

The super-stretchable glove also features open fingers for “maximum sensory experience for the fingertips” and even comes with a sweatband to let gamers wipe away beads of sweat from their brow:

“With my Dad’s help, we’ve come up with a radical looking glove that’s made with a super sticky palm that grips the controller like nothing else, and it looks really, really cool, too! All of my friends use it.”

Zac and his Pops have now set about marketing the product via the official GameHand website, and they reckon it’s going to be huge.

“I know I’m a kid and all, but my goal is to get this glove into the hands of players everywhere, and make this the biggest thing. That would be very cool,” Zac says.

“I’m really proud I helped invent the GameHand. You gotta love the glove!”

Game Hand Glove via Eurogamer

Discussion >>

Engineers pay tribute to Mario in massive art display

In order to create an homage to Mario and the inspiration from his incarnation, a couple of engineers have constructed a massive Mario art display on a UCSC engineering building. The work was completed one day before National Engineers Week for people to take notice.

Well we didn’t count on one thing, bean counters are not engineers. So even under the protective banner of engineering week, the most holy of weeks in the engineering calendar, the econ department ripped down every post-itÂ® note on their floor.

UCSC Engineering Building Gets an 8bit Upgrade | Via Wonderland

Doug Lombardi talks Steam

Valve Software GameCloud.com have interviewed Valve’s Doug Lombardi concerning their controversial step from retail to digital distribution. They look at the various aspects of Steam, like the launching of Half Life 2 via Valve’s online distribution service.

They also discuss Valve’s take on the upcoming next-gen consoles, and examine the threat to PC gaming.

Gamecloud – While Steam was around before Half-Life 2 was released, that game most likely tested Steam’s viabilty when it was launched last November. Overall is Valve pleased with the way Steam has handled the load?

Doug Lombardi – Absolutely. In addition to allowing us sell our games, it enabled the prevention of the “zero day” piracy problems other major releases incurred between gold and their launch days last year. It’s also allowed us to serve several updates directly to our customers since launch – including the delivery of new games such as Half-Life 2:Deathmatch and soon Lost Coast – and aided in our anti-cheat efforts.

Distribution Revolution Q&A: Valve

First BlizzCon Festival Announced

BlizzCon Blizzard Entertainment have announced the first official gaming convention celebrating their franchises, Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. Due to take place on the 28 and 29 of October, Blizzard reveal attendees can look forward to some special events, including a Q&A session with the developers behind World of Warcraft and StarCraft: Ghost.

The BlizzCon will take place in Orange County, California, though an exact venue has yet to be announced:

WHAT: BlizzCon will be an ideal event for gamers from around the world to meet each other, participate in live Q&A’s with Blizzard developers, and share their passion for their favorite Blizzard games.

WHO: Gamers who enjoy playing any of the games developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

WHERE: Orange County, California. Exact location to be announced at a later date.

WHEN: Friday and Saturday, October 28 and 29, 2005. The event begins at 8 a.m. PDT on both days.

Blizzard.com

HMV whistle to the tune of gaming

HMV Music retailer HMV has announced a new games download service with backing from Microsoft. The goal is to expand its new download service that starts on September 5th, giving customers access to games and movies as well as music.

Initially, the Microsoft backed endeavour will only be offering Windows Media Audio files for download but in time will open the door for other entertainment as demand grows.

HMV has earmarked UKP 10 million in capital expenditure and marketing for the venture. Part of this investment will go towards funding a new piece of ‘jukebox’ software being developed by Microsoft.

Consumers will be able to obtain the software from any of the 200+ HMV stores across the country or via the retailer’s website.
Read on

Discussion >>

PS3 To Lose Over A Billion In The First Year?

According to a Merrill Lynch report, Sony could face a loss of up to $1.18 billion in the Playstation 3′s first year on the market.

The figures are based on a prediction of 14 million units sold, and Merrill Lynch’s belief that the console will have a sale price of $399, with each one actually costing Sony $494 to manufacture.

The $494 manufacturing figure was broken down into individual items – the Cell processor, Nvidia RSX Chip and Blu-ray drive each were estimated to cost a little more than $100 to produce, with the other parts and production costs making up the remainder.

Gamedaily.com ask the question if Sony can weather such a high financial loss in the first year:

Even if Sony is counting on software sales, licensing fees with publishers and eventual mass production to help them recoup their losses, putting the business in the hole by more than $1 billion will make it far tougher for the PS3 to become a profitable venture. Furthermore, Merrill Lynch says that Microsoft could make things even harder on Sony by strategically cutting the price of the Xbox 360 to coincide with the debut of the PS3. If this were to happen, Merrill predicts that Sony could lose an additional 80 billion yen ($730 million) in the PS3′s second year and 50 billion yen ($457 million) in its third year.

For the sake of comparison, the PlayStation 2 debuted at 39,800 yen in Japan and $299 here in the U.S. and over the first year of the console’s life Sony lost 51.1 billion yen or about $458 million. The company went on to recover from that loss with a profit of $759 million in the second year, and then a profit of over $1 billion in the third year. However, recovering from a loss of $458 million—less than half the initial loss Merrill Lynch is forecasting—is a far more manageable task. It was also at a time when Sony’s overall business was in better health.

Merrill Lynch: Sony to Lose Over $1 Billion in PS3′s First Year – Kutaragi: People will “work more hours” to buy the PS3

PS3 and Xbox 360, disappointing CPU performance?

AnandTech had an interesting follow-up article to their recent PS3 Vs Xbox 360 comparison. The article has since been pulled but the general gist of the article is summarized over at ars technica. According to AnandTech, developers who they were in discussion with said they were not happy at all with the performance of both the PS3 and Xbox 360 CPUs.

According to some developers that have got their hands on the development kits, if either Sony or Microsoft went with an Athlon 64 or a Pentium D in their next-gen console, they would be significantly ahead of the competition in terms of CPU performance.

Another disturbing claim made by AnandTech was that the Xbox 360′s CPU will deliver only about twice the performance of the original Xbox’s 733 Mhz processor.

We of course asked the obvious question: would game developers rather have 3 slow general purpose cores, or one of those cores paired with an array of specialized SPEs? The response was unanimous, everyone we have spoken to would rather take the general purpose core approach.

Citing everything from ease of programming to the limitations of the SPEs we mentioned previously, the Xbox 360 appears to be the more developer-friendly of the two platforms according to the cross-platform developers we’ve spoken to. Despite being more developer-friendly, the Xenon CPU is still not what developers wanted.

The Xbox 360 and the PS3: late bloomers or complete failures?

Windows Games To Run On Linspire

Linspire and TransGaming have announced the release of Cedega, a program that allows the running of hundreds of Windows-format games on the Linux-based operating system.

Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft and Battlefield 1942 are just three of the popular PC games that can be played with the product:

“Gamers don’t have to choose between Linux and Windows anymore,” said Kevin Carmony, president and CEO of Linspire, Inc. “The release of Cedega technology for Linspire fills one of the most serious application gaps that exist for widespread adoption of desktop Linux. The added bonus is that installation of Point2Play with Cedega is so easy and affordable, you’ll be able to play Windows games on Linspire for less than it would cost to purchase a Windows system.”

Press release via Slashdot

Sony packs bags for Edinburgh in August

Sony The Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival has announced that Sony recently signed up to appear in August of this year along with an already prominent list of industry giants.

This coming August, Sony will be providing a number of speakers for the event, such as Computer Entertainment UK managing director Ray Maguire, UK marketing boss Alan Duncan and Sony Online Entertainment creative head Raph Koster.

The exhibition is set to feature hands-on demos of upcoming PS2 games Buzz and Singstar Popworld, along with EyeToy Kinetic and 24: The Game making an appearance.

Already on board for the festival are rival platform holders Microsoft and Nintendo – the latter of which will be showcasing playable Legend of Zelda code to the public for the first time – along with BT, Nokia N-Gage, GAME, NVIDIA and Gizmondo.

Sony joins list of Edinburgh ’05 supporters

New Serious Sam 2 Screens

If you’ve ever experienced the frantic and fast-paced action in the first Serious Sam, you’ll be interested to learn that your days of peace will be over soon. Take 2 have released several new Serious Sam 2 screenshots that show beyond any doubt that Sam will be back with a vengeance. Some of the screens seem to literally burst with colour and action, but go and let the pictures speak for themselves here. The game’s official website puts it this way:

Maintains the same level of extreme action that Serious Sam is known for. Despite its jaw-dropping visuals, Serious Sam 2 will surpass the onscreen enemy benchmark that the original Serious Sam games set.

You should start training your reflexes soon, Serious Sam 2 is scheduled for a release this fall.

Nintendo nut sells out

Mario A massive collection of old Nintendo games and hardware is up for grabs on eBay. The package includes a Nintendo gaming system, 776 Nes titles (only 10 short of owning every single Nes game) and lots of other tidbits.

Latest bidding is at US $6,200.00, so if you want to geek out a room in your house, head on over for some nostalgia and retro.

Up for auction is a collection of games and ass. that took 15+ years to collect. First off 776 nintendo nes games.. THAT is only 10 games from having the complete set of usa released nes games…I quit collecting six or seven months ago, but i’m sure the last ten games are on ebay right now.. this list is far to long for a two finger typer like myself to type so I’ll try to make this as easy as possible.. First thing you need to do is google search MIKE ETLER’S RARITY LIST.. Print this list out… You need the first 17 pages.. Now look at all the games on the list..

Largest nintendo nes lot ever offered on EBAY

Judge Dredd Games Coming To Interactive DVD

The owners of the 2000AD comics franchise Rebellion Ltd. have entered into a 4 year deal with Smoking Gun Entertainment to bring a series of Judge Dredd games to the Interactive DVD format.

The first Judge Dredd game for Interactive DVD will be called “Citizen Brain” and is said to be expected for launch in 2006:

“With the continued success and popularity of both the 2000AD and Judge Dredd comic books, and the prospect of further 2000AD based movies in the pipeline, the timing is perfect to expand the Judge Dredd universe into new games platforms such as Interactive DVD.”

Last year Rebellion also announced development on another 2000AD favourite, Rogue Trooper, which is scheduled to be released for the Xbox and PS2 in early 2006.

Gaming legends, or junkies striking it lucky

1up.com has an interesting write-up in which they examine the use of narcotics in yesterday’s and today’s hottest gaming titles. From the pill popping Pacman, to Mario and his magic mushrooms, right down to burnt out painkiller addict, Max Payne. Yes they’re all there, our most beloved games hereos, doped up and entertaining.

Although you cannot feel too bad for the lovable junkies, with the current price of console games, I would like to think we are somehow contributing to their recovery programs later on in life.

Renders the consumer temporarily capable of eating ghosts. Here’s an eternal question: are the pellets Pac-Man relentlessly consumes supposed to be drugs or food? The smaller ones are food, maybe, but the power pills off in the corners have such a profound effect on the yellow fellow that it’s hard not to wonder about them.

If you define them as drugs, which seems like a pretty safe assumption, this would be the first pioneering appearance of drugs as power-ups in games, a tradition that would be carried on by more titles than can reliably be counted.

Where recreational electronics meet recreational chemistry

More Xbox 360 details published in online mag

Some interesting Xbox 360 details have been published in the latest version of Xbox Magazine Online. A lot of old information is re-hashed but some interesting things like with DVD playback, only one Xbox 360 processor remains on, the other 2 shut-down for whisper quite operation.

They also go into some detail about how the Xbox 360 came to bare such a name.

The concept behind the name goes a little something like this: You are the hero in the next-generation of gaming, putting you at the center of the universe. Microsoft emphasizes its desire to help developers create dynamic content that enhances this experience via its powerful next-gen console. And the customizability of XBox 360 also means you’re able to get your gaming experience to reflect your own unique persona, attitude and friends. Therefore, if you are the center of the universe, you’ll be able to spin in all directions (hence 360) and see yourself and your tastes, experiences, etc in everything around you. Voila! 360 is born!
Read on

Battlefield 2 video card dilemma

PopularTechnology.net are reporting on the recent Battlefield 2 graphics card controversy. It appears that the game will not run on an Nvidia Geforce 4 or lower, despite the fact that the card has enough mustard to run the game. EA has said they have no plans to release a fix for users of these lower end cards.

As a PC Gamer you expect to upgrade, you expect that at some point your hardware will not run the latest games acceptably. Battlefield 2 does not even give you that option. It attempts to make all non DirectX 9 compatible video cards obsolete. Which means all GeForce 4 and older video cards will not run Battlefield 2. You cannot even start up the menu. Neither Electronic Arts nor the game’s developer DICE have any plans to fix this. Even though the GeForce 4 line of video cards has enough horsepower to render the game it is not compatible with Pixel Shader 1.4. Emulation to Pixel Shader 1.3 would easily make the game playable on these cards but redundant texture checks make this difficult to implement.

EA’s response to questioning was:

We’ve been talking to Benjamin Smith on the development team about this. There are no plans to implement GeForce 4 support in a patch. The engine was not built to run acceptably (performance or appearance-wise) on the GeForce 4 series of cards.

Despite the fact that the game will run on a lower end card, a Radeon 8500 will render the game and at a slower pace than the Geforce 4, the only difference being that it supports Pixel Shader 1.4. Kind of a kick in the ass for all you Geforce 4 owners, in my opinion they still pack a small punch.

PopularTechnology.net

Call of Duty 2, fresh screens

A nice way to start this Thursday morning, with some fresh screenshots of Call of Duty 2. GameGossip have what appear to be 2 beach-landing screens of the upcoming Call of Duty sequel.

The game is scheduled for release to PC in Fall of this year with a brand new gaming engine. Don’t forget you can catch the trailer on the official website.

Call of Duty 2 redefines the cinematic intensity and chaos of battle as seen through the eyes of ordinary soldiers fighting together in epic WWII conflicts. The sequel to 2003′s Call of Duty, winner of over 80 Game of the Year awards, Call of Duty 2 offers more immense, more intense, more realistic battles than ever before, thanks to the stunning visuals of the new COD2 engine.

Check out the screens

Valve Unveil Developer Community Site

Source Engine logo Valve has opened up a new website for mod developers. The aim of the website is to provide resources and information for experienced modders and tutorials for new comers to the modding scene. The site also has lots of useful links to development sites and Source SDK engine information.

We’ve reworked our existing Source engine SDK documentation into a Wiki, which means that virtually all of the content can be edited by anyone with a web browser and useful information to share. We hope that this is an efficient and useful tool that the MOD community can use to share information on building a game using Source. The open nature of a Wiki raises some obvious concerns about what kind of content is contributed to the site, from worries about vandalism to honest inaccuracy and mistakes. There will be the occasional disruptive person, but the site provides methods for dealing with this.

The Valve Developer Community