GamerNode: Latest PC News

Developers release Zeno Clash SDK

Who doesn't love Valve's Source engine? Not only is it the platform for a multitude of great games, but it also seems to encourage developers to release the source code for nearly everything that make use of it.

Such is the case with the strange and original Zeno Clash; ACE Team yesterday released the SDK for the general public to tinker with. Players who download the files from the Zeno Clash Wiki will be able to create custom levels and mods for the game. Documentation is also available on the wiki.

[ACE Team]

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Blizzard trademarks "Cataclysm"

Yesterday Blizzard applied for a new trademark for the name "Cataclysm." The trademark would cover everything from online games to "paper-based products." Many have speculated that this indicates the name, or codename, of Blizzard's upcoming, uber secretive, next-gen MMO.

While Blizzard currently has a whole slew of unannounced titles coming in the future, I can't help but think that this is actually the name for Blizzard's next WoW expansion. Many people claim that the next expansion will be in the "maelstrom" region of Azeroth. For those of you who are not familiar with Azeroth, the Maelstrom is the big spinning thingy right in the center of the map. 

The Maelstrom was refered to as the "Great Cataclysm" in the Warcraft books, and it just makes sense to me that this would be the direction...

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Official Black Mesa trailer

If you don't know about Black Mesa: Source (now just Black Mesa), now's the time to learn. BMS, as it's been fondly referred to by its followers, is a total conversion mod for Half-Life 2 that aims to recreate the original Half-Life using the Source engine. Black Mesa's website has exploded due to the high volume of traffic this video has already generated, and for good reason; it looks amazing.

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World of Goo has 90% piracy rate

While we're on the subject of piracy (and using PotC-inspired images), a sad fact has come out today: 90% of the people playing the wonderful World of Goo have pirated it.

It's easy to laugh at piracy when people pirate games using DRM or published by companies like EA, but when the game being pirated is the creation of an indie 2-man studio running out of the developers' own pockets... Well, let's just say it's very sad news. 

According to 2D Boy founder Ron Carmel, it's been a little disconcerning to see the number of people pirating the game, but the company is not entirely crushed by it. "We're doing ok, though," he said. "We're getting good sales through WiiWare, Steam, and our website. Not going bankrupt just yet!" A few people have emailed or commented on the 2D Boy site that they in...

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Steam Cloud ready to launch with L4D demo

Steam just seems to get better and better every day. Tomorrow will see the launch of Steam Cloud, a group of tools that are set to make gaming even easier on Steam.

Steam Cloud saves things like configuration settings, key mappings, difficulty settings and even save games, and then ties them to your Steam account so that where ever you log in, your settings and saves will follow you.

"For some time now, Steam has allowed gamers to log on from any computer in the world and access their applications. This also makes it easy to upgrade a PC without worrying about losing your games," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability Steam affords gamers and developers, and we intend to expand its feature set as it is used in Left 4 Dead ...

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Waagh! What is it good for and what is it not so g...

It's been nearly a whole year since I last posted any of my opinions here at GamerNode. I've come back from a great deal of time off from writing, and as such I might be a tad rusty...so bare with me. I thought It would be a cool to take a look at Warhammer: Online and say what I believe the game has going for it and against it.

So let's start with what the game has going for it.

New-ness: Yes that's right, it has new-ness! Warhammer: Online is a breath of fresh air in the stale lungs of the MMO industry. Anything that looks new to gamers, looks cool, and seems to have some changes made to the way we play MMOs, is surely to have a crowd waiting outside of Gamestop to buy the game.

Features: From public quests, to the detailed tome of knowledge, you've got features upon features of cool th...

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Spore is on Time's Best Inventions of 2008 list

Most gamers have been touched by the concepts of super game designer Will Wright, either directly or indirectly. We've played his games (The Sims) or have played games that were influenced by his ideas.

Evidently, the effect of his work has transcended beyond the gaming world; Time magazine says that one of his recent creations, Spore, has secured a spot in its "List of Best Inventions for 2008."

We'll let Time speak for itself:

"It's blasphemy, brilliance or both to take the entire evolution of a species - from a single-celled animalcule in a drop of water to a space-faring, galaxy-exploring sentient being - and turn it into a video game.

"But that's exactly what Will Wright has done. Wright is the man who created The Sims, a game about everyday life in suburbia, but apparently he found th...

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Hellgate: London closing gates forever in Feb '09

There is sad news for fans of the action shooter Hellgate: London as Namco Bandai has announced that it will be shutting down the servers for the game next year, February 2009.

The action by Namco Bandai isn't totally unexpected as Flagship Studios, the developers for the title, sunk in July of this year due to problems at the company. An anonymous former employee at Flagship commented in a forum post on Something Awful that:

"Flagship bit off way more than they could chew and made a lot of development and structural mistakes in how they went about things. They had a lot of big dreamers on staff, but not enough nitty-gritty people who knew how to get poo poo done. It sucks, but that's life I guess."

Many of the staff at Flagship Studios jumped ship and formed their own game company -- Runic G...

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Old school PC gaming site hopes to make it big

With the global economy going through one of the most profound downturns in recent memory, some gamers are looking for ways to save money on games due to the financial crunch.

For the PC crowd, a new online game service, Good Old Games, is trying to fill this need. The site is specializing in classic PC titles such as Earthworm Jim, Gothic, the original Fallout, Freespace, and others.

The games range in price from $6-$10 a pop and are completely DRM free. GOG.com also furnishes nice little community components for its users too.

Tom Ohle, a rep from GOG said, "Our goal here is really just to build up the best collection of classic PC games and to build up a great community around that. That's our focus for now."

The GOG community is made up of old school PC game fans and people who missed ou...

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Woman kills ex Maple Story husband, gets arrested

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Especially if that woman is your virtual ex-wife.

In Tokyo, a 43-year-old woman was so angry over a sudden divorce from her Maple Story hubby that she logged on to his account and deleted him in cold, virtual blood. "I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

When the 33-year-old office worker realized his avatar had been murdered in cold blood, he contacted the authorities, who then arrested the woman on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison, or a fine of $5,000.

So for those millions still playing Maple Story who are grinding to complete your ...

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Giant "uh oh." There's no CD key for NBA 2K9

There are certain things in life that go together: peanut butter and jelly, Smith and Wesson, PC games and CD keys. But in the case of 2K Sports' NBA 2K9 for the PC, they left out the CD key. What happens when that happens? Well, for one thing, you can't install the game.

Gamers were complaining on the 2K Sports forum bemoaning the fact that their freshly purchased copies of NBA 2K9 had no CD keys to be found.

Nccomicfan, on the 2K forums stated:

"I think as more people get their copies thru the day this is going to get much much worse...could the entire US release have been packaged without CD keys?"

2K Sports wrote back to one of the many customers who called in the problem and said:

Hello, I apologize for the confusion in the matter, it appears that 2K Sports is aware of this issue and worki...

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Star Wars: The Old Republic, the new MMO

Rumors have circulated this year about BioWare and LucasArts collaborating on a joint project to produce a new Star Wars MMO. It wasn't a matter of if it would happen as much as when it would happen. Today, the official word has come in; the game is called Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The game's setting will take place about 300 years after the events of the Knights of the Old Republic. The MMO will give players the option to join the Old Republic or fight on the side of the Sith Empire.

Ray Muzyka, head of BioWare commented:

"Traditionally, massively multiplayer online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars - combat, exploration and character progression. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, we're fusing BioWare's heritage of critically-acclaimed storytelling with the amazing pedigre...

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"Piracy of games won't kill the PC game industry"

The usual "wisdom" from PC game developers is that piracy hurts and if not controlled or effectively eliminated, it will lead to the death of PCs and PC games. However, Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, disagrees with this thinking.

Stude believes that the issue of piracy is overblown.

"The [online game] revenues being generated [in China and Korea] just blow the mind. You're talking almost 5 billion dollars. Almost half the world's PC software revenues are coming from marketplaces that have almost no retail at all...

"You look at a game like Spore... despite the fact it's pirated out there on torrent networks, its selling great by any standard... it sort of bucks the notion that all games are going to be destroyed because of piracy. That's not the case... "I'm not saying that...

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First Natural Selection 2 footage

I'm sure many of you have played the original Natural Selection mod. If you have and you've been looking forward to the upcoming NS2, good news: the first video of NS2 in action has been released in the form of their fifth videocast. Showcasing the dynamic lighting, I have to say this video has me more than a bit excited.

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WoW gamer has 36 personal accounts. Cost? $5711

One World of Warcraft gamer doesn't like to depend on other players when he conducts raids in the game. He believes he can do it all by himself, and we mean that literally.

He has 36 WoW accounts. How much does this extravagance cost him per year? Try subscription fees, totaling $5711 per year, on for size.

He runs 11 PCs simultaneously to control all his characters. It may cost him $5711 in subscription fees, but this doesn't include the cost of his electric bills and Internet connection charges. The gamer goes by the screen name of Bradster, and in his own words explains why he does what he does.

"A lot have asked me, why create so many [characters]? The main reason is to invade Stormwind and Ironforge when they reach top level. I'm sure the Alliance will put up a big fight when that happe...

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How to give WoW players a bad image

This video from the Intel Extreme Masters in LA showcases a particular Team SK Gaming US member getting a little heated over a WoW battle. I'm well aware that not all WoW players (or WoW tourney players) act this way, but I'm sure those that don't can see how things like this don't help their public image. And if it does upset you, remember: stop nerdraging, guys!

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Crysis Wars - Free online trial next weekend

Crytek and EA are joining together to provide PC gamers with a free trial of Crysis Wars next week. Crysis Wars is the new multiplayer suite in the Crysis franchise and Warhead package. The free trial will be available for download on October 10 through October 12. (Friday through Saturday)

But you'll have to sign up for the event first. Starting on October 6, register at www.mycrysis.com to get an activation key to play.

Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek said, "We have been extremely pleased with the reception we have received from gamers and press for Crysis Warhead. Crysis Wars is definitely a big reason for this success and something we are dedicated to, not only as a part of future Crysis titles, but in terms of releasing new modes and continued support for our growing community."

In the trial,...

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StarCraft fan recreates Terran in Spore

Sure, Spore's DRM sucked. Yes, many people were left disappointed with the game after expecting way too much from it. But did you know that you can apparently recreate StarCraft factions using the game's editor? A Korean StarCraft fan (I know, I know) on the website Ruliweb has shared some of his (or her) Terran creations in Will Wright's opus.

Going by the Google translated username Krabby Patty (even though the Korean translates closer to something like Crab Burger, Krabby Patty is just too cool to not use) , the user shared several screenshots of a Terran base and vehicles. While there are no Zerg or Protoss Spore creations yet, we can now only hold our breath and wait until the next genius Korean StarCraft fan gets his (or her) hands on Spore. Finally StarCraft players will be able to ...

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10 years of Medal of Honor

If you didn't know, today marks the tenth anniversary of the Medal of Honor series. To celebrate the occasion, EA is releasing the Medal of Honor: 10th Anniversary bundle. Packed in the box is every PC Medal of Honor game from the last ten years. (That's five for those of you who can't count.) Priced at $39.99, that means it's roughly $7.99 per game. The games (Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Medal of Honor Spearhead, Medal of Honor Breakthrough, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault Director's Edition, and Medal of Honor Airborne) combine for over 50 single player levels and more than two dozen multiplayer maps.

According to EA, this release is just the beginning of their Medal of Honor celebration, which will continue until 2009. Expect new announcements for the series, events, and other Medal o...

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Got WAR? (We do, so play with us!)

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has been out for less than a week, and already the game is a huge hit. (Especially among Naruto fans, I've seen like seven variations of the name "Naruto" in the week I've had the game.)

While we're still waiting on some more numbers from Mythic and EA in regards to the number of players, that doesn't mean we can't have some fun. Several people from GamerNode past and present (and our friends over at GamerVision) have WAR, and if you do too feel free to join us. Right now, we're all located on the Ulthuan server on the Order side. So if you have WAR, or plan on getting it in the future, and want some people to play with who will be sure to make fun of all the idiots in the game and moan constantly about how crappy the people on Destruction are, feel free ...

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