Gamernode: Latest PC News

December 6th GameTap releases

Hey, isn't this a surprise, another week, another GameTap update, yay!

There are three new subscription games this week on GameTap. First up is a decent RTS game called Perimeter, which was released in 2004 from Codemasters and K-D Labs. A follow-up expansion pack was released in 2006, but it received less enthusiasm than its parent game.

Next up is a 2004 action game from Majesco called Blowout. The story is pretty simple; you play a mercenary in space and you shoot things. The last new subscription game is Carrier Air Wing from 1990. Capcom developed this action arcade game where you can choose from three different jet fighters and destroy generic enemy military units.

GameTap is feeling pretty jolly this season because the list of free-play titles has been expanded to 68, which equals to 1...

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Feast eyes on first Star Trek Online screenshot

In light of putting Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising on indefinite hold, developer Perpetual Entertainment has its phasers set to amaze with Star Trek Online by releasing the first screenshot to the space MMO.

In an accompanied DevLog, Perpetual's Mike Stemmle explained the game's Interaction System. As Stemmle put it, "In a nutshell, the Interaction System controls every non-combat, player-to-NPC interaction in the game."

"If you want to talk to a Ferengi shopkeeper, it goes through the Interaction System. Need to get some additional phaser training at the local Starfleet Academy? That's the Interaction System. Want to beam down to a planet? Interaction System. Responding to a distress call from a crippled starship? That's the Interaction System, too."

When implementing the Interaction System, P...

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Top 10 best selling PC games for November

The NPD Group has been nice enough to release the latest list of the top 10 best selling PC games in the US, for the week ending November 24:

Coming in at number one is the amazing Orange Box, reviewed here, by GamerNode, which is actually quite impressive since NPD Group numbers do not take Steam sales into account. Secondly, and rightly so, is Call of Duty 4, reviewed here, Infinity Ward's pearl of a shooter; it's a great addition to the CoD family.

This next one had me stumped. I actually had to Google the title to work out what it was. Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst, is the latest in a series of point-and-click-adventure-puzzle-solving games by Big Fish Games. Props for being the 3rd highest selling game!

Next are the MMORPGs, Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, capable of eating your soul...

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Dell reveals WoW flavored laptop. Only $4500...

Dell has unveiled the new "XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition notebook PC", or "Super-Nerd Edition notebook PC" as I like to call it--a laptop made especially for WoW fans.

The laptop comes pre-loaded with the original World of Warcraft, along with the expansion, The Burning Crusade and is available with either Alliance or Horde artwork to adorn their system.

On top of that you get a backpack full of WoW-related items, including the following:

You also receive a special "Quest Envelope" with these exclusive rare items:

Pricing starts at just under $4,500 USD, so you'd better start saving those pennies if you want this any time soon!

[via Gaming Today]

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Too many beta testers hurt Tabula Rasa game

While maintaining a decent sized following, NCSoft's relatively new MMORPG, Tabula Rasa, hasn't garnered the overwhelming response the studio was looking for.

During the 2007 Independent Game Conference in Austin, Tabula Rasa creator Richard Garriott gave his opinion on what was right and wrong about his MMORPG.

First, Garriott admitted that there were too many beta testers, which may have hurt the game's potential since there wasn't enough implemented content to entertain them at the time.

"We invited too many people into the beta when the game was still too broken. We burned out some quantity of our beta-testers when the game wasn't yet fun. As we've begun to sell the game, the people who hadn't participated in the beta became our fast early-adopters."

Garriott went to praise the Guild Wars...

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Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on the way

A lot of people I talk to about Microsoft's Windows Vista all seem to take the same stance on when they will start using it: Service Pack 1. It's like some magical point in the development of Windows Vista when the OS will suddenly become acceptable to use.

eWeek has taken an in-depth look at this issue, and they've discovered that this same train of thought is widespread throughout many large companies.

"A big psychological blocker inside many large companies is the belief that Microsoft products shouldn't be adopted until after the first major patch or service pack has been released," said Lee Nicholls, global solutions director at Getronics, a workspace management services company. I see a good deal of companies holding back until they feel the product is stable and fixed."

This is obviou...

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Firefox 3 Beta 1--the details

A couple of weeks ago Mozilla released the first beta of Firefox 3, the newest version of their highly succesful web browsing alternative to Internet Explorer. PCMagazine has gone over the beta release with a fine tooth comb and reported their findings.

The basic gist of it is that the new Firefox 3 beta looks pretty much identical to the previous iteration, but once you get under the hood you'll find that it is a very different beast indeed.

One of the bigger changes is the implementation of Gecko 1.9, which brings a myriad of bug fixes, implements new web APIs and makes Firefox 3 the first Mozilla browser to pass the Acid2 test.

There is going to be more room than ever for custom add-ons and third-party extensions. Developers will also get new graphics and font-handling capabilities and co...

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BioShock patch now live, details revealed!

So you're waiting for the upcoming BioShock patch, right? For us PC BioShock owners, this will mark the first official patch for the game while it'll be the third patch for Xbox 360 gamers.

But if you're wondering what will be included within the patch, don't worry because The Cult of Rapture has since been updated with the full patch details. For one thing, you don't have to wait too much longer because the patch will go live tonight at midnight PST.

Juicy PC patch details include additional plasmids and gene tonics, widescreen fixes, a fix for rebinding keys, the ability to turn off Vita-Chambers and a fix for the awkward pause before accessing the interface and hacking minigame. One of the big fixes I've been waiting for are to the game's subtitles and it looks like the patch will fix the...

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UT3 patch to bring myriad of fixes

Unreal Tournament 3 has been out for a little over 3 weeks and Epic Games is already working on a patch for the game.

Although no official patches have been released, Epic has already released beta patch 101 along with a change log, as well as the change log for a second beta patch. There are a huge number of changes, additions and fixes in both patches, with one of the main issues, the somewhat lacklusture UI, being addressed in both patches.

It's good to see Epic jumping right into the patch stage so soon after the release of the game, hoping to squash as many bugs as quickly as possible. From previous iterations of Unreal Tournament, it's pretty easy to see that Epic really do try to deliver the best experience to the end-user, months, and ever years after their games have been released.

A...

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Valve Store updated in time for the holidays

In case you haven't noticed yet (and I'm sure on this site many of you have), Valve's store has been updated with some new things, including Aperture Laboratory Holiday Greeting Cards (pictured below) just in time for the holiday season. Here's the release:

"If Portal's Weighted Companion Cube and cake could express holiday cheer-and we remind you that they cannot-they'd send an Aperture Laboratory Holiday Greeting Card. This limited-edition pack includes 15 Portal-themed greeting cards-three each of five different sets, each with a unique holiday greeting inside. Slip in a new Aperture Laboratories parking sticker, available separately, to warm the heart of your favorite Portal jumper."

Also new is a shirt or two, a couple posters, and three new lithographs. I myself am going to be picking...

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Deus Ex 3 to use Tomb Raider engine

Hot off the announcement of Deus Ex 3, Developmag snagged an interview with Eidos' Montreal studio head Stephane D'Astous. He revealed some preliminary details for the game.

First, Deus Ex 3 will utilize Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider engine, which was most recently used in Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Presumably the engine will be modified to suit a first-person view instead of a third-person view, along with general visual enhancements.

"We chose the Crystal engine because we plan to help develop this engine more and then share it back with the rest of the company, the other Eidos studios. Having that technology from the start gives us a great advantage and foundation for our coders - there are no doubts about the approach, and we have few uncertainties."

In regards to Eidos Montreal solely foc...

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November 29th GameTap releases

I'll take the reigns over for this week's GameTap update, woo hoo!

There are three new subscription games this week on GameTap. First up is a successful multi-platform racing game called TOCA Race Driver 3. It was released just last year from Codemasters and features a series of different racing modes, including World Tour and Pro-Career.

Next up is an old arcade game from 1989 called Mad Gear. The game was developed by Capcom and is a classic racing game. The last new subscription game is Gore: Ultimate Soldier from 2002. It boasted a few exclusive FPS features for its time, including an armor system, a stamina system, defined player classes and destructible items.

In addition to the three new subscription titles, the list of free-play titles has been expanded to 54 with the inclusion of Psy...

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8800GTS 512MB G92 put to the test

Tweaktown managed to get their hands on one of NVIDIA's new G92 based 8800GTS 512MB cards. As usual they gave it a good thrashing in their benchmarks to get the all important results for everyone looking to upgrade.

The G92 based 8800GTS 512MB card is NVIDIAs newest release in the update to their 8000 series of video cards.

The 8800 GTS 512MB is supposed to sit in between the current high level cards, namely the 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra, and the budget king, the 8800GT 512MB.

Here are some of the results:

The new 8800GTS 512MB G92 is looking to be a very good card for those people wanting to run games in resoultions of 1920x1200 and above, pipping the GTX in Crysis and a number of other games. The Ultra still wins out, but being the super expensive NVIDIA offering, it was always going to.

If ...

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First Crysis patch on the way

Crytek, the people behind Far Cry and Crysis, have released information regarding the upcoming patch for Crysis.

The patch will be the first since the games release and will address the following issues:

This may seem like an extremely short changelog, but Crytek has stated that "...this is not a major patch to the game, but more an update on performance and some Multiplayer tweaks that have been requested by the community." By the sounds of things, a lot of the other problems people are having will be addressed soon in a larger patch.

In related news Crytek has endorsed a fix found by members of the community for the dreaded Weapon Sound loop bug. If you are experiencing, the problem the Crysis dev team recommends you follow these instructions to remedy the situation:

1. Open console and ty...

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Full Steam ahead for Sega

The latest publisher to join the growing ranks of Steam is Sega.

A few past Sega games were brought to Steam, such as Medieval II Total War ($39.95), Medieval II Total War Kingdoms ($29.95), Medieval II Total War Complete Pack ($69.90), Rome Total War Gold Edition ($19.95), Rome Total War Alexander ($14.95), Rome Total War Complete Pack ($29.95) and OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast ($19.95).

In this press release, there's only one new Sega game that's currently available on Steam: Sega Rally Revo for $49.95 USD. Future game releases include Universe at War: Earth Assault (December 5th), The Golden Compass, Sega Rally, Worldwide Soccer Manager, Futbol Manager and more.

Past publishers who've signed with Steam include Activision, 2K Games, Eidos Interactive, Capcom, THQ and Codemasters.

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Microsoft releases new high-end wireless keyboard

Microsoft has just released a new high-end keyboard and mouse set, the Wireless Entertainment 8000 package, and it got me thinking. 

When I say it got me thinking, I mean Frank locked me in his basement until I could come up with an article, but that's not the point. (Well, I did provide bread and water for you. - frank ) Do we really need these expensive PC peripherals? The keyboard is aimed at those with Media Centre PC setups in their living rooms, but it can be used with any computer.

Clocking in at around $300 the set is indeed expensive. You can get a Logitech G25 racing wheel, one of the best racing wheels available, for the same price, and an Xbox 360 for only $50 more. Hell, you can get a new 8800GT 512MB card for less than $300!

Of course, there will always be people who want the b...

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New Leisure Suit Larry game revealed?

Is Sierra planning another Leisure Suit Larry game? During today's Howard Stern's radio show, Artie Lange mentioned he recorded some lines for the title in question. Lange will play a character named Big Al.

The latest Leisure Suit Larry game was back in October 2004 with Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. While the game didn't feature any participation from series creator Al Lowe, the game was the first Leisure Suit Larry title to get a multi-platform release and still retained much of the series' humor and wackiness.

Lowe's last participation in a Leisure Suit Larry title was the 1998 canceled game Leisure Suit Larry 8: Lust in Space. The game's funding was cut, Sierra's ties to adventure games ended and Lowe subsequently left Sierra in 1999.

[Via Wired]

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Deus Ex 3 teaser trailer

The original Deus Ex is one of the most highly regarded games of all time. The second game, Invisible War, was a disappointment to many. Now the series is coming into its third installment, five years later, and Eidos has released the first teaser trailer for the game. There isn't much there, but it's enough to get some fans salivating in anticipation of what may be to come.

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Crysis 2 will focus on... visuals! Surprise!

So by now, Crysis has left a reasonably sized impression in the PC gaming world. Hot off its success, Crytek must be pretty happy with its sophomore title -- but they're not stopping there. In fact, Crytek is all set to begin work on Crysis 2.

InCrysis has the word from Steven Bender, lead animator and animation manager at Crytek, about the first details for Crysis 2.

"According to him, the developer's attention will be even more focused on graphics. There will be numerous improvements regarding textures (especially facial textures) and 3D-animations. Their ambitious aim is to push the game's visuals to an advanced level, that could be considered near photorealistic movie quality."

Surprise, surprise, Crysis 2 will continue to push the visual envelope! (There are some minor spoilers in the ...

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Eidos confirms Deus Ex 3

In an interview with Gamasutra, Stéphane D'Astous revealed plans for Eidos Interactive to open a new developmental studio in Montreal, Québec. D'Astous, who'll serve as general manager for Eidos Montreal, also revealed that the new studio will begin development on Deus Ex 3 - remember the rumor folks?

According to D'Astous, Eidos Montreal currently employs two teams: a Q/A team that will test all of the studio's games and an in-house development team that has begun preliminary work on Deus Ex 3. In regards to Deus Ex 3, D'Astous praised the series' history and is excited to be working the title.

"This game was very highly rated at its release in 2000, and we have this great huge mandate to do the third one, and everybody is very excited."

But as for a possible release date, D'Astous doesn't w...

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