Gamernode: Latest PC News

PC UT3 beta demo "within two weeks"

One of the disadvantages of multi-platform development is that versions for certain platforms can get delayed--and no one likes a delayed game.

If you've been eyeballing the PS3 edition or the Xbox 360 edition of Unreal Tournament 3, you'll be waiting till 2008.

But as for the PC version, you're in luck because Mark Rein, Epic Games' vice president, announced that a UT3 beta demo is heading to PC users "within two weeks". Specifically, Rein stated:

"Folks,

Just wanted to give you a heads' up that we're getting pretty close to releasing the Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo for Windows. The Beta Demo will allow instant action play against bots as well as online multiplayer. The purpose of the Beta Demo is to test the game on a large variety of hardware configurations and get gameplay feedback from...

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Games for Windows - LIVE update plans

Microsoft just sent over an email outlining plans for the next update for its Games for Windows - LIVE service. The update, titled v1.2, will contain quite a few fixes and its expected to be released in four months.

Included fixes are support for offline achievements, additional UI features and the ability to see and track your friends through joinable games. In addition a few more games will be supporting Games for Windows - LIVE once the holiday season rolls around, so here's the list:

1. The Club (SEGA)2. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Eidos)3. Universe at War: Earth Assault (SEGA)4. Gears of War (Microsoft Game Studios)5. Viva Piñata (Microsoft Game Studios)

The impending v1.2 update is on the heels of August's v1.1 update, which included additional language support, 12 new gamer pictures, upgra...

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Orange Box unlocks midnight Oct. 10th, preload now...

If you're a PC gamer, then this coming week shall deliver some awesome gaming goodness in a form of a box: The Orange Box. That's right, Valve's eagerly anticipated Half-Life 2: Episode Two, along with side-dishes of Portal and multiplayer game Team Fortress 2 will be delivered in a nice Orange Box.

Right now, if you've pre-ordered The Orange Box, you can preload all three new games and everything will officially unlock at midnight on October 10th. Here's some more details, courtesy of a Valve email:

"We'll be unlocking The Orange Box products just after midnight Pacific time next week on the 10th of October. Lots of people have been having a lot of fun with the Team Fortress 2 beta, so we're looking forward to seeing what people think of Portal and Episode Two. The Orange Box will also be a...

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PC Call of Duty 4 demo on October 11th!

Being a PC gamer, I was pretty envious when Xbox 360 owners got the jump in the exclusive beta for Call of Duty 4 a few weeks back. But never fear because today, Infinity Ward announced that PC owners will get an exclusive Call of Duty 4 single-player demo on October 11th at 9AM PST.

The rest of the blog dissects the various improvements in the game; for example the game's enhanced AI and dynamic battlefields. Cover is also a necessity since Infinity Ward has certainly tweaked that aspect this time around. Also AI path finding has been changed, therefore squad mates will be following you much closely and also using all advantages in the battlefield.

The demo's details are as followed:

"Set in a bombed-out Middle-Eastern city, the 'Bog Rescue' drops you into a nighttime conflict-in-progress. Y...

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Ryzom Bankruptcy II: The Curse of Reliquification

Yeah, you heard it right, Ryzom is turning its newest owners bankrupt too. I'm calling it a curse, and encouraging no one to touch this project ever again. Just let it die... or risk death yourself!

Just two weeks ago, the MMO Ryzom, celebrated its third Anniversary with an announcement of bankruptcy by GameForge, the second owners of the game. This happened just 10 months after the last company who bought Ryzom, Nevrax France, declared bankruptcy. Ryzom's just caught up to my friend who wrecked 2 cars in 10 months. What did he do? HE STOPPED DRIVING.

The last time Ryzom was in dire straights, The Free Ryzom Campaign emerged and raised over 200,000 Euroes to help save the game. GameForge picked up the rest of the tab, and TFRC turned into the Virtual Citizenshup Association, which has reall...

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Jonathan Coulton to record single for Orange Box

I just got an email letting me know that "geek folk singer" Jonathan Coulton was signed by Valve to record a "surprise single" for the Orange Box. You may remember Jonathan as the guy who started the Thing a Week feature at his site where he recorded a new song each week. Or you may remember him as the artist of Internet hits such as Code Monkey, RE: Your Brains, and the folk rendition of Baby Got Back. (And in case you cared, my personal favorites are Skullcrusher Mountain, First of May, and Todd the T-1000.)

"I am delighted the Valve design team selected me to help make the surprise single a success," said Jonathan. "If it's not every geek's dream to be immortalized in a video game, it was mine."

There's no word yet on the title of the Orange Box single will be, but I for one can't wait.

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PC Gears of War release date announced!

Epic Games announced the official release date for the PC edition of Gears of War. If you've been holding out like I have, pencil November 6th on your calendars because we're going to get our chainsaw carnage on!

Among other things, the PC version will include 5 new singleplayer chapters, a new "King of the Hill" multiplayer game mode, 3 new multiplayer maps, a game editor and snazzy fights with the Brumak. In addition, the PC version will include all the Xbox 360 downloadable content released to date, which includes 19 more multiplayer maps.

Gears of War director Cliff Bleszinski (CliffyB) mentioned that the PC edition of Gears of War won't be just some lazy port, "You can tell it's not trying to be a PC game.". The game will support Windows Vista and XP, along with being optimized to run o...

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A Princess Bride game... Oh boy

The Princess Bride was a great movie. Engaging, funny and quotable... a little TOO quotable. Don't believe me? Next time you're in your circle of friends go a head and drop "Hello, My name is Inigo Montoyo. You killed my father. Prepare to die." and see what happens.

But when it was all finished, it was pretty damn complete. Well WorldWideBiggies, the developer that brought you the craptastic starvsstar, has plans to make The Princess Bride video game. This can't be good...

When's the last time a movie-to-game transition came out good? I can probably think of one: The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers, hack and slash fest on PS2. Other than that, they've all sucked. Hard.

To top it off, its a downloadable PC game aimed for casual gamers. What does that translate to? The possibility it could just...

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Unreal Tournament 3 system requirements revealed

I know, all of you PS3 owners are sad about Unreal Tournament 3 being pushed back until 2008. If you're like me, you don't have a very good gaming PC, and you were looking forward to messing around on the PS3 version.

Oh well. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, PC gamers will still get to experience UT3 this November. Today Midway released the official system requirements for the game, and I have to say, I'm pretty happy. I may end up getting to play this on the PC after all.

Minimum System RequirementsWindows XP SP2 or Windows Vista 2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor 512 Mbytes of System RAM NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended System Requirements2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor 1 GBytes of System RAM NVIDIA 7800GT...

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Lord British will fly into space in 2008

Richard "Lord British" Garriott sure does make my inner-child jealous. First he becomes famous as a game designer, and now he gets to live out my other dream!?

PC gaming legend Richard Garriott announced that in Fall 2008, he'll no longer be on this planet. Why? Because he'll be in space! (The International Space Station, to be more exact.)

Part of the Space Adventures program, Richard will be the sixth private citizen to make the flight into space. Unlike many who may take such a trip as nothing more than a badass vacation, Richard is devoting his journey to science.

"I am dedicating my spaceflight to science," he said. "It is my goal to devote a significant amount of my time aboard the space station to science, engineering and educational projects. I understand the necessity for conductin...

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Co-founder of Diablo wants to make a 3D version

Max Schaefer, former member of Blizzard North, and co-founder of the Diablo series, spoke to CVG saying "What I'd like to see is Diablo in a true 3D environment, taking advantage of the latest graphics."

He really has no say anymore, seeing that he left Blizzard in 2003 for Flagship Studios. But hey, one can still hope right?

No doubt Blizzard is working hard on Diablo 3, but let's just hope they can keep the feel of the game intact.The top down hack and slash game play has its own appeal, and has even carved out its own sub-genre. We can expect that the graphics will be upgraded, but lets not mess with the game play please.

I have faith in Blizzard though, they are making Starcraft 2 look great, and it looks like the game play is not only intact, but improved. So sit tight Mr. Schaefer, I t...

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Newell says there's still plenty of Half-Life left...

With The Orange Box around the corner, some folks may be thinking what does Valve have up their sleeves once they finish Episode Three--the wrap up to the current Half-Life 2 storyline. But there's nothing to fear, according to CVG, since Valve has plenty of Half-Life content left to craft games with.

Speaking with Gabe Newell, "But... we have this bible that covers a lot, and there's a lot of interesting stories to tell. We'd certainly love to be working in other universes because any time you get two Valve people together they come up with five game ideas and thirteen universes that they would like to tell and play them in. So there's a lot of Half-Life left at Valve."

With that said, Newell pointed to Portal, which is just one example of those "interesting stories to tell". Apparently Val...

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Pre-order Tabula Rasa, complete easy requirements,...

NCSoft's upcoming title Tabula Rasa certainly has a lot of expectations placed upon it. Being the new child of Lord British himself, Richard Garriott, the game is being scrutinized quite excruciatingly by many players now participating in the new beta. (In case you're wondering, I'm still loving it.)

Whether or not it lives up to the expectations will be seen soon when it's released, but one thing's for sure: they sure know how to treat the players nice. Right now, NCSoft is running a promotion for players who pre-order the game. The reward? 10 free days of playing time. (Basically 1/3 of a month, or 1.428571429 weeks if you want to be specific.)

To receive the playing time, gamers need to complete four easy steps:

1.Play the Tabula Rasa beta

2.Have a level 15 or higher character in the bet...

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Warhammer 40,000: DoW - Soulstorm announced

Relic Entertainment has been pretty busy lately; they've just released the first standalone expansion pack for their RTS hit, Company of Heroes. They've also announced the third expansion pack to their Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War franchise.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm, will be an expansion that is a standalone release (much like Dark Crusade), meaning you won't need any other previous Dawn of War games to enjoy Soulstorm.

Planned for a spring 2008 release on PC, Soulstorm will add, "an extensive interplanetary campaign spanning an entire star system in the Warhammer 40,000 universe," along with two brand-new races. The announcement also revealed that Titan Quest developer Iron Lore Entertainment will be assisting Relic in development.

Tarrnie Williams, general manager at Reli...

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Pre-Order Orange Box and play the TF2 Beta now!

Been waiting to play Team Fortress 2 for ten years like me? Wait no more! All you have to do is pre-order the Orange Box for PC and you can be part of the ongoing Beta.

If you don't already know, the Orange Box is Valve's all-in-one Half-Life package that bundles 5 titles together including: Half-Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and the new and innovative first person puzzle game, Portal.

And if you order off of Gamestop, you can get $5 off the regular $49.99 price. And although, you'll get the $5 discount across all the platforms, remember the Beta is a PC exclusive.

It's cheaper, you get the Beta and Team Fortress was originally meant to be played on the PC. Those are three big reasons to get it on the PC right now.

So get a click'n and I'll see ...

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Valve rethinking episodic game plan

All Valve delay jokes aside, they still deliver fine products, whenever they're released. Valve's Gabe Newell sat down with CVG and discussed possible changes to their episodic game plan.

"I think what we really want to do is have a couple of examples out there - Episode One, and how long it was to play and how long it took to develop, Episode Two, Portal and TF2 and then the third part of the trilogy; and then sit down with the community and say, 'OK, so what do you want?'"

One of the advantages of an episodic plan is that Valve can release continual updates to its Source engine in the form of bite-sized episodes rather than gamers having to wait several years for another Half-Life 2-like game.

Once Half-Life 2: Episode Three is released; Newell and company will take a look and evaluate its...

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Sony releases three free, but old games

I think I'm safe to say that all of us likes free games.

With that said, Sony Entertainment removed the monthly fee from three of their online multiplayer games, so all current and new members can enjoy them at no cost. In a hilarious move though, at the time of this writing, all of Sony's online services are down for a 14 hour maintenance; talk about a tease.

The three games are Tanarus, Cosmic Rift and Infantry. Tanarus was originally released in November 1997 and is an online tank FPS. Developed by Verant Interactive, the game was released to critical acclaim but was met with lackluster sales.

Cosmic Rift is an online space combat game, where players can choose and fly from 13 different spaceships. The game features numerous weapons, gaming zones and a variety of different objectives to c...

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Jericho denied German rating, demo out tomorrow

In some brow furrowing news, the upcoming horror/FPS, Clive Barker's Jericho, won't be getting a classification by the USK, Germany's game-rating organization, according to GamePolitics.

Therefore, much like Xbox 360's Crackdown, Jericho won't be sold to minors or via online. Also the game can't be displayed or advertised in stores in Germany.

It appears Sony and Microsoft won't market a game without a USK classification, so as of writing, it appears Jericho will only be released for PC and for 18 and older gamers in Germany.

In related news, GameSpot is reporting that Codemasters will release a demo tomorrow for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. The demo will contain:

"In the demo for Barker's latest supernatural shooter, players will attempt to survive during the Crusades time period after their strike...

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Microsoft okays MechWarrior Crysis mod

In the world of modding, there's a fine line that defines what's legal and, unfortunately, some fine-looking mods have been shut down due to legal issues. In-fact, Black Mesa -- a full recreation of the original Half-Life using the Source Engine -- had to change its name due to minor legal issues.

But in an act of glory, Microsoft gave the okay to an upcoming fan-created MechWarrior game called MechWarrior: Living Legends. In other words, the team can legally use assets and game properties from the entire BattleTech universe. Heck, getting the legal permissions to use game properties from any game is pretty rare nowadays.

Unfortunately, the mod will use Crysis. Therefore not only will you need a beefy rig to run the mod, but since it's using the toolset for a game that hasn't even been relea...

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Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway delayed

Gearbox Software has been working steadily on Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. Boasting a boat-load of new features including an Unreal Engine 3 update, more squads and improved gameplay, the year 2007 would have close out with a bang with Hell's Highway.

Unfortunately, IGN has the word that Hell's Highway has been delayed from holiday 2007 to early 2008. Bummer, because Hell's Highway has been on my radar ever since the first Brothers in Arms game was released. Ubisoft sent word that the game was delayed to the company's 2007-2008 fourth quarter, so that spells early 2008 for U.S.

Hell's Highway will boast quite a few new additions, including additional squads to command (bazooka teams, machine gun teams, mortar teams and radio teams), the ability to use heavy weapons, enhanced first-perso...

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