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E3 Recap part #2

10. June 2009. 18:20 - Just Cause 2
Platforms: PC/X360/PS3
Genre: 3rd Person action shooter
Developer/Publisher: Eidos
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3LzEcsHVko

Supreme Commander 2
Platforms: PC/X360
Genre: RTS
Developer/Publisher: Gas Powered Games/Square Enix
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEyOX4oGBmk

Tropico 3
Platforms: PC
Genre: RTS/Managment
Developer/Publisher: Eidos
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dho1BLA0k3I

Mass Effect 2
Platforms: PC/X360
Genre: RPG
Developer/Publisher: BioWare/EA
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBRo7JWy744

Gran Turismo 5
Platforms: PS3
Genre: Racing
Developer/Publisher: Polyphony Digital/SCE
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53mHOeCumj4

MAG (Massive Action Game)
Platforms: PS3
Genre: Tactical FPS/MMO
Developer/Publisher:
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjytsuOLYGE

Mod Nation Racers
Platforms: PS3
Genre: Platform/Puzzle
Developer/Publisher: SCEE/SCE
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkNcB7b2TlM

E3 Recap part #1

09. June 2009. 18:34 - Star Wars: The Old Republic
Platforms: PC
Genre: MMO
Developer/Publisher: BioWare/LucasArts-EA
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9-Id8qXwBk

Assassins Creed 2
Platforms: PC/X360/PS3
Genre: 3rd Person action adventure
Developer/Publisher: Ubisoft/Ubisoft
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZxCpnnV6yQ

Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Platforms: X360/PS3
Genre: 3rd Person action shooter
Developer/Publisher: Kojima Productions/Konami-Microsoft Games
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xSWFkQMlv4

Halo 3: ODST
Platforms: X360
Genre: FPS
Developer/Publisher: Bungie / Microsoft Games
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCyh8fkDpxo

Forza Motorsport 3
Platforms: X360
Genre: Racing
Developer/Publisher: Turn 10/Microsoft Games
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoFXwK5M0nk

Modern Warfare 2
Platforms: PC/X360/PS3
Genre: FPS
Developer/Publisher: Infinity Ward/Activision Blizzard
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLHeXvGgJUk

God of War 3
Platforms: PS3
Genre: 3rd Person action adventure
Developer/Publisher: SCEA/SCE
Trailer URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LSJGZOYv10

Left 4 Dead 2 facing a boycot (on the PC)

09. June 2009. 18:20 -

We bet the developers did not thought of this happening, but that's what you get when you ignore your public. The fact is that L4D2 seems just like L4D but with added on content (which a few DLC's could have done). The protesters In their "manifesto" the NO-L4D2 folks have nine complaints and they are:

Significant content for L4D1 was promised, and never delivered
Valve put little faith in L4D1 since they almost certainly started working on L4D2 right after release
The fact that L4D2 is nearly identical to L4D1 will decimate the community for both games
The announced date is not nearly enough time to polish content or make significant gameplay changes
The new character designs seem bland and unappealing so far
L4D2 is too bright to fit in with L4D1's visual aesthetic
The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked, though the differently orchestrated music is otherwise welcome
L4D2's release will result in a drop in quality and frequency for L4D1 content, even compared to before
The community has lost faith in Valve's former reputation for commitment to their games post-release

Let's wait and see how Valve responds to this, but, however they respond it will be significant in future patches and DLC. Seems it's was true when someone (on t3h interwebz) said "Valve is turning in to EA and EA to Valve". So if you too feel betrayed by Valve join the L4D Boycott (NO-L4D2) group here.

Section 8 to provide user-dedicated servers for the X360

06. June 2009. 22:48 -

They say that with the purchase of Section 8 for the X360 players will get to download an application for their PC and with it the ability to host dedicated servers for the game. It will support 32 players in multiplayer opposite to the standard 16 that players are use to on Xbox Live!.

One can only hope that other developers follow in TimeGate's example (imagine Gears2 without lag) and provide the X360 gamers something that PC audience is accustomed too by default. Section 8 is expected to be released this fall on the PC (XP/Vista/Windows7) and X360. For more info on Section 8 visit the games homepage.

Gran Turismo 5 nearing completion ?

05. June 2009. 22:49 -

With the Gran Turismo PSP on the horizon (for the PSPGo and PSP3000), Kazunori Yamauchi talks about the long (to long) anticipated Gran Turismo 5, "I want to release it as fast as I can, but GT5 for us, when you talk about its status, it's at a point we can release it any time we want, but we can always keep working on it. It's very important for us to make sure everything is done perfectly and everything is done in detail."

We can say without a doubt that majority of gamers would like GT5 to be a spit polish experience, but the game is in development like 5 years now (give or take year). When ever it comes out, we can be sure it will blow our minds and with the announced damage model we are even more excited. For more information visit the official website.

Clanbase goes QuakeLive!

16. May 2009. 05:58 -

What is Quake Live?

Quake Live is a free game supported by advertisement that looks very much like Quake 3 Arena, but unlike its predecessor, it's played via web browser. The special browser plug-in is very well optimized so that even low budget desktop systems are able to run it at a stable 100+ fps, however it does require faster CPU and graphic card than Quake 3 Arena.

Maps, game modes and weapons all come from Q3 and Q3: Team Arena. Some maps have been remade and altered accordingly to beta testers feedback. There are 6 game modes included for online game play: Duel, Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Free For All, Clan Arena and Instagib (FFA). Every online match played on a ranked server is stored for one month along with its relevant information such as frags, deaths and weapon accuracy, which makes the game even more interesting.

At this moment QuakeLive does not support global private servers. Private servers are only available to GGL and now ClanBase!

More detailed information about Quake Live can be found in the Quake Live guide.

What kind of competitions?

We will kick off with Duel and TDM modes on the traditional ClanBase cup system, but with only two or more matches per week. Make sure to check ClanBase frequently to sign up as soon as we start!

While you wait on #clanbase.ql for your favourite online league to start up Quake Live competitions, you may already want to register your Quake Live Name tag here. Please note that we might be using PB GUID in the future.

Even tho we are happy with Duel and TDM modes, CTF is yet to come either in 4v4 or 5v5 mode. My guess is that ClanBase is still waiting for IdSoftware to publish new CTF maps.

If you don't have a Quake Live account yet head over to www.quakelive.com and register today!

Interview with Pendragon

16. May 2009. 05:14 -

We all know that you founded and run DotA-Allstars.com, but who really is Pendragon?
I think I'll answer this question in two parts; first - who I am as a person and second, who am I in the DotA world.

Who I am as a person is pretty easy for me. I'm 22 years old. I'm a pretty hardcore gamer - I got my gaming start in MMOs playing Everquest, moved on to Diablo 2, then DotA, then WoW, then DotA again. Professionally - I've spent the majority of my career working in Customer Service Management, and Community Management with companies like DirecTV, and Zappos.com. I currently work with an independent game developer and publisher called Riot Games.

My DotA Allstars life began in early 2004 when I first played DotA Allstars v5.40, which at the time was being developed by the original creator of DotA Allstars, Guinsoo. I had played all of Eul's original versions, and a bit of DotA: Darkness Falls, but at the time I was spending the majority of my War3 time playing Tower Wars. However, after one game of Allstars, I was hooked on DotA again and started playing 20+ games per week. Shortly after that, I discovered TDA and began working with the DotA Allstars team.

So you made DotA-Allstars.com? Can you tell us a little bit of history behind the website?
Sure! In September of 2006 there was an existing DotA Allstars on RTSGames.com, but the website had gone offline for some time and wasn't being properly maintained. I and a few of the other TDA leaders, (Syl-la-ble and Dankys) proposed that a new DotA site be created to replace the one that had been offline for over a month. On October 14th 2004, DotA-Allstars.com was born. The website and forums grew at a rate that I don't think anyone was expecting, and we began recruiting our staff of volunteers which has been instrumental to the success of DotA-Allstars.com, and DotA as a whole. The current dota-allstars.com has over 3.5 million forum posts, over 1.5 million registered members, and gets over a million unique visitors every month.

Wow! That’s pretty exciting. So what’s in store for the future of DotA-Allstars.com?
I’m glad you asked, because this is a pretty exciting time for me, and for DotA-Allstars.com. For the last year or so, I haven’t been able to put the amount of time into the website and community that I’d have liked to. Recently, however, I’ve sat down and evaluated what’s important to me in life, and I’ve realized that I miss the work that I’ve done on the DotA website, and with the DotA community, and I’ve decided that I need to make time for what’s important to me.
The first thing I did is bought 23 brand-new servers for the website which means the slow-website problem that we’ve had is in the past! I also now have a team of two full-time web programmers, and one web-designer working on rebuilding the entire DotA site from scratch. Some of the great stuff that we’re working on includes:

A Complete redesign of the entire website, which will make things faster – and hopefully a little easier on the eyes!
A DotA patcher, that will automatically update to the latest version, show you the changelog, and then launch Warcraft III, or your favorite DotA helper programs
A brand new guide system designed to make guides easier to write, and easier to find
A reputation system, to encourage contribution and useful posting
A redesign of the replay system, including being able to tie replays to your account
A Learning Center that has all the information you’d ever want to know about DotA, including guides for new players
A portal for competitive DotA news, coverage, events, announcements, etc. Including player and team profiles
RSS & E-Mail subscriptions, and a monthly newsletter, to keep you constantly updated with important information

League of Legends has made quite a name for itself in the Media and such but not a lot of people know that you are involved with it, can you tell us a little more about it?
Well, I started working with Riot Games in 2008 after meeting Guinsoo in Vegas. After the first time visiting the Riot in Los Angeles, and seeing what they were working on – I was hooked. Their first game, League of Legends, was something that I myself as a DotA player had wanted someone to do for quite some time. It’s a game that’s similar to DotA, but without the limitations of Warcraft III and Battle.net.
It only took a few meetings with the founders of Riot to realize that they understood the importance of community in an organization, and really wanted to revolutionize community in the gaming world. From then on, it was clear to me what I had to do – I joined Riot because I want to build a strong global community of passionate gamers using what I learned from my experience building and growing DotA-Allstars.com
League of Legends itself borrows the most fun elements of DotA, and makes them much more accessible, and then wraps them in built-from-scratch multiplayer services and support, including matchmaking, stat tracking, teams & clans, etc. For more information about League of Legends, you can get more information about League of Legends at:

• Main Website - http://leagueoflegends.com
• Community Forums - http://forums.leagueoflegends.com/board
• Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/League-of-Legends/82061850555

Thanks for all of that insider information, is there anything else that you’d like to add?
I’d like to give shout-outs to some of the people who have helped me with DotA-Allstars.com since it was originally created – Trystero, Citus, Mafaga, 28awg, too many to list individually. I’d also like of course to thank the people who made DotA what it is today, Eul, Guinsoo, Icefrog; they are a group of people who have done a great job and dedicated countless hours to bring a great source of entertainment to millions of people around the world.

For exciting updates about what’s going on with DotA or League of Legends, as well as chance to win prizes like DotA T-Shirts, or League of Legends Beta Keys, you can follow Pendragon on Twitter! http://twitter.com/RiotPendragon

Interview by PMS.Rinoa (Neha Nair) - Neha hails from America and has a significant background in eSport work across a varied mix of sites such as GotFrag and MYM. She's a strong content writer who is one of the most known faces in DOTA.

iPhone 3.0

11. May 2009. 14:39 -

Apple has warned the aplication programers that they should focus on the compatibility of the iPhone OS 3.0 and their applications. All those applications will be tested on the last beta version of the iPhone OS 3.0 and whichever application fails to deliver the best performance will be discarded and won't be available in the App Store.

Some programmers already dislike this Apple's decision stating that they have been forced to waste time for optimizing their applications while the iPhone OS 3.0 is still in beta version. However, Apple states that the majority of the existing applications are already compatibile with the iPhone OS 3.0 but for security reasons they are obliged to further testing.

The new version of the iPhone OS should be available in the next couple of weeks according to Apple, but with that much testing ahead, i think we will have to wait a bit more for the final release.

Broken resurrected!

10. May 2009. 23:14 - The old quake 3 players from the team Broken, who have quite some achievements under their belt, have decided to test their skills in the new comming hit QuakeLive coming from Id Software. Id has been working quite hard to transfer all the good things from quake 3 and implement it to the new game aswell as balance it for the best competitive play.
The team Broken on the other has been working on establishing a team of great teamplay for future competitive play aiming for Quake Live capture the flag and team deathmatch.

Team Broken:

BlaD3
calipt
dem0n
kinko
Nace
sol4r

We wish team Broken much success in the future!

You can contact team Broken via website on http://broken.power-net.org or the #broken.ql channel (Quakenet) on IRC.

StarCraft II Beta Test Opt-in

07. May 2009. 04:49 -

The StarCraft II beta-test period is at our doorstep!
After all those StarCraft II previews, teasers, trailers, battle reports that have been brought to us by the publisher, we are now given a chance to participate in the StarCraft II beta!! All you need to do is to make a Battle.net account or login with the existing onto www.battle.net account management and go through the new beta opt-in process ,upload a snapshot of your system specs and pray you recieve a mail that contains the beta key. Unfortunately, not all will be lucky enough to get the key, but the good thing is that the past beta history will not affect who will or will not receive the StarCraft II beta.

DirectX 11

01. April 2009. 18:37 - The next big upgrade in computer visuals is around the corner.

Windows 7 is on the way and with it the new DirectX 11.
Although unlike the case with DirectX 10 and Windows XP you will be able to install it separately, for Vista.

Many gamers are frightened by the prospect of changing their graphics card yet again in exchange for allegedly much better effects. Fortunately we have acquired some details to ease your mind before spending all that money on new hardware.

DirectX 11 should have many visible improvements over the last generation. But the full details are undisclosed at this time.

Here are just some of the new features:


               Down-level hardware and operating system support

               Improved multithreaded device

               New hardware stages for tessellation

               Improved texture compression

               Shader Model 5.0

               Compute shader

               Additional features

For comparison of DX10 vs. DX11 we have taken these screenshots from a modern FPS game to demonstrate the difference in quality.

DirectX 10.1

DirectX 11

As these pictures show there is a slight difference. The only question that remains is does it make enough difference to you?

LotRO

27. March 2009. 13:35 - Turbine invites you to check out all the new features you might have missed.

This weekend you can play Lord of the Rings Online for free ending on March 31st.

So if you've quit but been thinking about returning to the wonderful world of Middle-Earth this is the perfect time to do it. You will also recieve a 25% experience gained bonus to motivate your play.

This of course only applies to accounts previously subscribed so if you buy it now you won't get any benefit.

Here's what they have to say:

To help celebrate our latest free update for LOTRO we'd like to welcome you back for an extended weekend of free gameplay from March 26-31, 2009*. In addition, there is a +25% bonus experience boost on mob kills for everyone playing on those days!**

The latest free update for THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE, BOOK 7: LEAVES OF LÓRIEN is now available. It includes some great features we think you’ll enjoy. Here are some things waiting for you when you come back to LOTRO for these free play days:

* GAIN FREE LEVELS! – Recent game enhancements will let your existing characters gain free levels the first time they earn any XP!
* PLAY YOUR OLD CHARACTERS - They're Waiting Right Where You Left Them!
* NEW REPUTATION FACTION - The Elves of Lothlórien
* NEW 12-MAN RAID - Head to the Waterworks of Moria!
* NEW BEGINNER EXPERIENCE - Level Faster, New Quests & Tutorials
* QUEST GUIDE FEATURE (Beta) - Track Active Quests on World Maps
* THE SPRING FESTIVAL RETURNS - Enjoy New Tasks and Activities

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

16. March 2009. 18:51 - The powerful and mysterious Riddick returns for another sequel

The next game in The Chronicles of Riddick is in the works collaborating with Vin Diesels personal development company Tigon. Using this company to better the interpretation of his movies to games Vin hopes to create a new gem in the series.

As a side note also being made is the next movie, but it’s relation in terms of story to the game is unclear as they are keeping the whole thing under wraps. Details will probably be released after the game is finished.

Dark Athena will, like the first two games, be primarily a FPS but with side notes of hand to hand combat in true likeness of the movie characters brutality. Darkness and stealth hold a prominent role as Riddick sees better in the dark then his enemies. Multiplayer has also been promised meaning that you could end up punching your friends face off, a thing almost anyone would enjoy.

Knowing Vin Diesel to be an avid gamer we can expect more great things from him in the future.

Expect The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena to be out by April 7th 2009.

Star Trek Online

11. March 2009. 18:56 - Some new screenshots are up on Star Trek Online’s website.

They look great and show a lot of promise for the game. All of you Trekkies can take a look at them here.

Or if you want to view them in higher resolution you can check out the official site.

Three Kingdoms

11. March 2009. 18:41 - Uforia today announced the start of Open Beta for Three Kingdoms

Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins is an MMORPG based on the most famous Asian novel of all time known as “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and will place players in ancient China.

Here is their press release:

Uforia, Inc., a new online game
publisher specializing in massively multiplayer online games, today
announced that it is launching an open beta for its new mmo, Three
Kingdoms: The Battle Begins. The open beta will kick off at 5 PM
Pacific Standard Time today at http://threekingdoms.uforia.com. Three
Kingdoms: The Battle Begins is a new free-to-play MMO based on one of
the most well-known Asian novels of all-time.

"We had a great response to our first beta test and are happy to have
this opportunity to launch an Open Beta so players who didn't get a
chance to join the previous one can jump in and play the game as we
lead up to its commercial launch," said JK Kim, CEO of Uforia.

Players will be able to keep the characters they create during the Open
Beta for the Grand Opening later next week. Numerous bug fixes and
improvements such as new screen resolutions and tutorials have been
made to the game since the first Beta.

Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins, developed by G-rex Soft, chronicles
the tragic last reign of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), when the
Chinese empire was divided into three kingdoms at battle. This
important period in Chinese history became a subject of extreme and
continuing interest to historians, poets, and dramatists. Three
Kingdoms: The Battle Begins narrates this account and provides players
the opportunity to choose from 4 gripping and distinctive character
classes to help battle through 200 extraordinary levels packed with
boss monsters and their relentless followers. As players undergo the
world of Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins, they can reshape the story
by carefully planning and executing political assassinations.

Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins offers a one-of-a-kind quest system
that delivers missions to players while they are still in the
battlefield, maximizing the player's enjoyment of and involvement in
the battle. This unique feature enables the player to continue their
travels while having the benefit of receiving items from completing
quests. Player vs. Player (PVP) battlegrounds are available on the
hour every hour 24/7, allowing the winners of the battle to become
Lords who are granted access to exclusive skills and items. Honor
points are awarded during these battles and can be used to purchase
unique items and equipment from special merchants.

An exciting Player Kill (PK) system is also part of this epic adventure
which includes a unique "Death Note" feature. This element exists so
if a player is killed by the same opponent multiple times, the
opponent is added to the player's death note. The opponent's location
will be specified on the player's map as a blinking signal, enabling
the player to execute revenge more easily.

No WotLK for China

11. March 2009. 18:38 - WotLK was released to the public last November, but apparently that didn’t include China.

According to a China focused research firm JL McGregor & Company Wrath of the Lich King has been rejected multiple times by Chinese officials due to a “city raid and skeleton characters”. Also the version of the game presented to the government was entirely lacking the newly introduced Death Knight class.

Blizzard actually had to make a boneless version of the undead race for the previous releases of WoW in China.

How they plan to sell WotLK to a country with such strict censorship will be a major issue for them but it is one Blizzard must resolve if they plan to tap China's huge player base and grow the current number of 11.5 million subscribers.

The Sims 3

09. March 2009. 16:18 - The Sims 3 is coming out this year

That means once again you will be able to decorate your virtual house with virtual furniture and have fun with your little virtual people.

So what’s new?

Well again it will improve upon the previous installment with better graphics, lighting and shadowing, maybe even the notorious DirectX 10.

But what else; hmm.

You will get a new and better character builder to make your little computer people exactly how you want them to be. Using sliders it is possible to fine tune thir appearance to great detail. This will allow you to pick the exact color of your sims hair, eyes, skin and even choose a body type anywhere from whale to weakling.

In addition to this there’s a new “Trait” system.

By picking a certain combination of traits like “Charming”, “Evil”, “Unlucky” and “Party Animal” they come together to form a complete personality and define how your sim will behave.

Also there’s a new system of “Lifetime Wishes” that grants points useable on rewards like items or certain powers. These wishes are basically what your sim aspires to become in life, like the classic astronaut, and you recieve points if you succeed in fulfilling them.

Looks like managing a virtual life in your real ones spare time never gets old.

The game is scheduled for release in June.

Tom Clancy's HAWX

02. March 2009. 18:53 - Tom Clancy games have been known as ground combat games with great multiplayer.

Not so any more, at least the ground part.

Flight simulation games are few and far between. Not to mention good ones, those are like striking oil. But there’s a trusted name now that promises to give us a good one at last.

Tom Clancy’s HAWX makes the franchise airborne for the first time. Good thing or bad? I dare to hope good.

The single player campaign will be fully playable with friends on your wing by “JUMP IN/JUMP OUT functionality” as the developer likes to call it. Most likely this will mean that players will be able to join and leave as they please. Sounds good, but let’s wait till the game is out to assess how this plays out.

As for the more exciting multiplayer we can expect the most popular play style to be Team Deathmatch. Two squadrons engaging in epic dogfights over hostile territory is sure to get your adrenaline pumping. And with maps taking place all over the world you shouldn’t run out of scenery in a hurry.

Starting with an old rust bucket you will unlock new planes and weapons and achievements by gaining xp in a similar fashion to the great system in Call of Duty 4.

To help your flying acrobatics you will be aided by a forgiving game physics and simplified controls allowing you to pull off some daring maneuvers that would be hard to do in real life by professionals.

“THOUGH I FLY THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH, I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL. FOR I AM AT 80,000 FEET AND CLIMBING.”
- SR-71 USAF base (Kadena, Japan)

It will be available for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and later on Wii, scheduled to be out March 3rd.

WoW Steins

01. March 2009. 18:37 - There are always all sorts of gaming accessories out there to sink your money on.

But these must be among the coolest. Just take a look.

That’s right! They’re olden style drinking steins, and they come with some classic WarCraft themed illustrations.

Handcrafted in the old world style with fine-grain stoneware by world renowned stein artisans of Ceramarte, our limited production steins feature bas-relief sculpting of exclusive artwork by top World of Warcraft visionaries. Each exquisite stein is over 10" tall, weighs a hefty 3 Lbs., and is topped with a sculpted pewter lid.

You can order yours here.

Mass Effect 2

23. February 2009. 20:33 - BioWare, the makers of some truly kickass RPG’s, teases us with a Mass Effect 2 trailer

With these guys you always know what to expect, a powerful storyline and some great characters. And as far as high praise goes the original Mass Effect was right up there with the big boys.

When the game was first released everyone had a hyped friend whispering in their ear about how great and different it was.
Oddly enough it wasn’t for the PC, a flaw that was corrected some months later and made up for by numerous improvements.

Now I won’t go into the details explaining every little nook and cranny about the game, nobody wants that. Instead I will just say it played more like a FPS then an RPG and let you see for yourself what it looked like.

The sequel is scheduled for Q1 of 2010.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the trailer itself. Here is a link I've put up on my personal profile, a GamersBook first.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest

19. February 2009. 16:21 - We all know what Lord of the Rings is, right? Good.

Now as far as games go it’s been a long and bumpy road. Some good, some bad, but most were mediocre. Now there’s a new kid on the block, and this time in the form of an FPS.

Sounds weird eh, an FPS take for a franchise that lends itself so beautifully to RPG’s. But don’t run screaming just yet; take a look at some of these screens first.

As you can see it looks great. Though that’s not the really interesting part. In this game you play the role of an ordinary soldier fighting to protect his country.
Most battles are fought against seemingly overwhelming odds and it all has an epic feel to it.

You get to play from a third person perspective as one of four basic classes: Soldier, Archer, Scout and Mage.

The system was primarily built for multiplayer and they play out kind of like the different weapon specializations in other FPS games but most similar to Star Wars: Battlefront.

The Mage class bothers me personally a bit because its not very true to the LotR lore; there never were hundreds of mages on the battlefield and such. But I guess we can let that slide as it was probably built with game balance in mind.

As for the single player, relive the great battles as one of the soldiers that took part and you can even play as one of the heroes sometimes. They all look like their movie counterparts and are a lot more powerful than the normal classes.

Finally, a notice to the pirates out there. It has an innovating piece of protection. In case you’re using a illegal copy of the game it actually places invisible walls in some key locations forcing you to fail the mission thus stopping your campaign progress.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

02. February 2009. 20:50 - BioWare and Lucas Arts are putting together what hopes to be the best Star Wars game ever.

There’s been a lot of talk on the internet about this game already, and you’ve probably heard about it by now.

But just in case you haven’t the short summary would be that it is the sequel or continuation of the immensely popular Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games. KOTOR and KOTOR 2 were single player RPG’s that let you be a Jedi of the old republic from 4000 years before the movie plots take place.

The new game labeled Star Wars: ToR will be a MMORPG along the same lines, but promising to bring a grander scope to the world that a single player game just can’t deliver. Oh and this time, you probably won’t have to be a Jedi if you don’t want to.

The guys at BioWare are really starting to get the ball rolling lately as more and more screenshots and videos are emerging on the official site.

Most recently they have made a developer interview where they are showcasing how Tython, an ancient Jedi planet, is being made. This also gives us some insight of how the game might look finished.

Right now it looks very polished but there’s no official release date yet. Judging on the rate it’s going along I may be so bold as to predict a late 2009 launch.

GeForce 3D Vision

23. January 2009. 18:13 - We’ve been told for years now about products that will turn our games into “true” 3D, but this time it may just be the real deal.

nVidia has released their own take on 3D glasses called NVIDIA® GeForce® 3D Vision™.

They are basically just that, glasses that you put on, but wireless and some may even say stylish.
On first look they may look like other similar products already available, but if you look closer you can see the difference in build quality if nothing else.

So how does it work? Well you get the glasses along with an infra red emitter and a some drivers for your computer.
The glasses themselves are battery powered and rechargeable, lasting for up to 40 hours 'till they die. This means they are active, requiring a power source to run the internal electronics.

On the receiver there’s a knob that lets you adjust the depth you want your 3D images displayed at which is a first among these kind of products.

But…there are some drawbacks though.

Not all games support this kind of viewing, and many at a varying rate of success. But on a positive note most of the recent ones can, like Left 4 Dead and World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King to name some.

Also they only work on 120Hz LCD monitors (or TV’s) which are the latest fad. For this reason they are offering a bundle on Samsung monitors with this capability for 598$ or just the glasses for 199$.

If you have the money to spend, it might just be worth experiencing this. If not maybe waiting for something cheaper and better to come up down the line will pay off.

WoW patch 3.0.8

21. January 2009. 15:51 - The long awaited patch 3.0.8 finally comes live, and if you’ve waited a long time for it as most people have that’s good news indeed

Admittedly it is a bit buggy and slow but hey it’s day 1 and bound to get better as always.

Here are all the patch notes from the official site:

General
- Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach
level 55.
- Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has
changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor,
or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base
armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by
the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.
- Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night Elves on
mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You’re not seeing things.
- Racial Resistances: These can now be mitigated against by gaining
additional chance to hit.
- Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become
aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be
tapped.
- All Silence spells now have diminishing returns. This includes:
Arcane Torrent, Garrote silence effect, Improved Counterspell effect,
Improved Kick effect, Silence, Gag Order, Silencing Shot, Spell Lock,
and Strangulate.
- Dispel Resist talents have changed to protect only beneficial spells
and damage over time effects.
- Shield Wall, Barkskin, Guardian Spirit, and Divine Protection are now
off the Global Cooldown.
- A new mailbox is now available at the Crows Tavern in the Dalaran
Sewers.
- We have added over 60 new graveyards to Kalimdor and the Eastern
Kingdoms.
- The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves
in Wisp form will now move at a 75% a bonus speed.
- Reputation rewarded for killing mobs will no longer automatically
deprecate. This means trivial mobs will continue to give out their
full amounts of reputation on kill for the majority of cases in the
game (level 70 creatures in Stratholme, for example, will continue to
award the full amount of rep to level 80 players seeking to boost
their Argent Dawn faction).
- World of Warcraft now supports 3-D imaging. Visit
http://www.nvidia.com/object/GeForce_3D_Vision_Main.html for more
information.

Achievements
- The Loremaster of Kalimdor Achievement has had its quest amount
reduced.
- The Perma-Peddle Achievement is no longer a part of the
“Fool for Love” meta-achievement.
- The Winds of the North has had its requirements changed. This
achievement is now earned by getting Exalted with the Alliance
Vanguard or Horde Expedition.

PvP
- Vehicles can now be affected by most player spells, except CC, snares
and roots.
- Arenas
Arena rating requirements for all Deadly Gladiator’s Arena items have
been reduced by 100.
All rage and runic power are set to 0 when an Arena begins and the
preparation period is over.
Ring of Valor: The small pillars will now rise immediately once the
arena begins.
- Battlegrounds
Lake Wintergrasp
Wintergrasp Commendations can now also be purchased for the low low
price of 9 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. Players can visit their
respective Wintergrasp vendors and put those Marks of Honor to use!
Wintergrasp PvP vehicles have had their health increased.
Wintergrasp Tower cannons have had their health increased.
The Wintergrasp Fortress Exterior walls have had their health
increased.
The Fortress Keep door now has had its health decreased.
The Orb is now instantly clickable.
Elementals should now always despawn when the battle begins.
There are now three ranks in Wintergrasp: Recruit, Corporal, and
First Lieutenant.
Players will be eligible for participation rewards after two
honorable kills.
Players will receive increased honor with increased rank.
Players will receive additional Marks of Honor at Corporal or higher
rank.
Players will receive corporal rank at 5 honorable kills instead of
two.
Wintergrasp now extends further south so that more revenants can be
reached.
Strand of the Ancients
Antipersonnel Turrets will now gain vehicle immunities, use falloff
damage, and damage increased to 4000 + 200 per level to compensate
for falloff.
The Strand of the Ancients Demolisher has had its health increased.
The Strand of the Ancients tower cannon has had its health increased.
Seaforium charges have been moved closer to the graveyards on the 2nd
tier.

Death Knights
- All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
- Anti-Magic Shell: The cooldown has been lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
- Anti-Magic Zone: This ability’s duration has been cut to 10 seconds.
- Blood Aura now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
- Blood Presence now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
- Bloody Strikes will receive extra bonus damage from Pestilence.
- Bone Shield: The mitigation has been reduced from 40% to 20%.
- Corpse Explosion: Damage increased substantially, added 5 sec.
cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
- Dark Command: Range increased to 30 yards.
- Death Pact now grants 40% instead of 20% healing.
- Frost Presence: The bonus armor has been increased from 60 to 80% and
magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%.
- Heart Strike no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to
strike two targets.
- Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition
to its stat buff, but has a 20 second cooldown.
- Howling Blast: Cooldown removed.
- Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The
amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35%
for 540 Defense, but can go higher).
- Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical
strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing
based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast
weapons less likely).
- Mark of Blood: The total amount of healing this can grant is now
capped based on a percentage of standard creature health at the
target’s level.
- Night of the Dead now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to
your pet in addition to its current effects.
- Outbreak will no longer receive bonus damage from pestilence. The
bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
- Pestilence no longer has a 10 seconds cooldown.
- Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires
corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no
reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.
- Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25
Defense and 2% Stamina.
- Rune Strike: Damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased
to 150% from 100%.
- Shadow of Death: The duration has been changed from 45 seconds to 25
secondsseconds and now has a 15 minute cooldown.
- Summon Gargoyle: Damage dealt by the Gargoyle reduced by
approximately 20% and maximum duration cut to 30 seconds.
- Unholy Blight had had its cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.
- Wandering Plague will now properly reset after being cast and now
considers the resilience of the target in determining its chance to
be triggered.
- Vampiric Blood (DK) changed from 20% health / 50% healing to 15 %
health / 35% healing.
- Will of the Necropolis will now reduce the damage of any attack that
takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor
when wounded. It no longer affects the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell
and retains the current damage reduction bonus.

Druids
- Aquatic Form is now available from druid trainers at level 16.
- Celestial Focus (Balance) no longer includes Starfall.
- Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral
attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-
quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their
existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they
did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for
the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to
attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip
them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted
by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players
will not see that information.
- Remove Curse and Abolish Poison can now be used in Moonkin form.
- Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
- Growl: Range increased to 30 yards.
- King of the Jungle - The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot
be dispelled.
- Moonglow: This talent now also benefits Nourish.
- Nature's Grace - Now also effects Revive.
- Nourish: Wild Growth applied to a target now increases the healing
done by this spell by 20% like other heal over time effects.
- Polearms: Now trainable by Druids.
- Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and
Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
- Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
- Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only
provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
- Starfall: Instead of canceling shapeshifting, now cancels on
shapeshifting into an animal form.
- Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor
in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous
effects.
- Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260%
weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents
affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.
- Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown.

Hunters
- Hunter Aspects are now off the Global Cooldown again. They still
have a shared 1 second cooldown.
- All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or
more are no longer on the global cooldown.
- Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
- Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
- Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to
only the Hunter and their own pet.
- Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to
"deflect" spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from
attacking. Lasts 5 seconds and has a 90 second cooldown.
- Explosive Shot: Damage increased substantially, and additional
scaling added to compensate Survival Hunters for the decrease in
power of Steady Shot. No longer deals damage to secondary targets.
- Ferocious Inspiration: This talent now also increase the damage the
Hunter does with Arcane Shot by 3/6/9%.
- Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly
re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin,
Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to
those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
- Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
- Lock and Load: Now has a 30 second cooldown.
- Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
- Serpent’s Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus
attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
- Tranquilizing Shot (Hunter): Cooldown increased to 8 sec, up from
6. Mana cost reduced to 8%, down from 12%.
- Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
- Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
- Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
- Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30%
(including attack power scaling).
- Pets
All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no
longer on the global cooldown.
The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Poison (Scorpid) has been
lowered.
Rake: This hunter pet ability has had its damage adjusted to prevent
unreasonable scaling with attack power.
Scorpid Poison: No longer stacks. The damage has been adjusted to
prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
Spirit Strike (hunter pet ability) now has an initial attack (which
can crit) and then a single dot. Damage overall is higher.

Mages
- Arcane Blast: This ability has been significantly changed. Arcane
Blast now increases the damage of the next Arcane spell by 15%.
However, using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge
itself. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of Arcane spells
is increased by 15% and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by
200%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 seconds or until
any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.
- Arcane Flows: Now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by 1m/2m.
- Elemental Precision: Renamed to Precision and now works on all spells.
- Evocation: Cooldown reduced to 4 min.
- Improved Blizzard: The snaring effect has been reduced to 25/40/50%.
- Incanter’s Absorption: The amount of spell damage a Mage can gain
from this ability is now capped at 5% of the mage’s health.
- Mirror Image: The Mirror Image Polymorph ability now has a range of 8
yards. In addition, Mirror Images will no longer have excessive
threat values assigned to them when they are created.
- Slow Fall is now castable on others.
- Torment the Weak: Now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage
against targets afflicted with any type of slow (such as the combat
slow from Thunder Clap).

Paladins
- Avenging Wrath: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Avenging Wrath
cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other anymore. Forbearance
removed from Avenging Wrath.
- Divine Protection: The penalty has been removed.
- Divine Shield: The penalty has been changed so that all damage done
is reduced by 50% in place of an attack speed penalty.
- Hand of Reckoning(NEW): Available on trainers at level 16. It’s a 30
yard range taunt that causes Holy damage.
- Judgements of the Pure: This Holy talent now increases the damage
done by Seals and Judgements.
- Judgement of Wisdom: Now returns a percentage of base mana instead
of a percentage of max mana.
- Sacred Duty: Interaction with Divine Shield and Divine Protection
removed, but stamina bonus increased.

Priests
- Abolish Disease and Cure Disease can now be cast while in Shadowform.
- Holy: Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown.
- Levitate is now castable on others.
- Mana Burn: Now burns a percentage of maximum mana.
- Shadow
Shadowform: You can now shift into Shadowform while mounted or
sitting.
Vampiric Embrace- Mana cost of this spell has been removed.

Rogues
- Cheap Shot: This ability no longer has diminishing returns against
anything other than itself.
- Fan of Knives: The cooldown has been removed. In addition, now deals
150% of weapon damage when used while daggers are equipped.
- Feint: Rank 8 now reduces the damage taken from area of effect
attacks by 50% for 6 seconds in addition to its existing effects.
- Kidney Shot: This ability now has diminishing returns against all
other stuns.

Shaman
- All shaman talent points have been refunded. Please visit your
trainer to learn spells and abilities.
- Fire Nova Totem: Now no longer generates threat.
- Healing Way: Now only one application is required to reach full
benefit. No longer stacks.
- Improved Water Shield: Lesser Healing Wave now has a reduced chance
to trigger this talent.
- Magma Totem: The damage and scaling has been increased and no longer
generates threat.
- Mental Quickness and Static Shock have switched positions in the
talent tree.
- Mental Quickness: Reduces the mana cost of instant cast Shaman spells
by 2/4/6% and increases spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30%
of your attack power.
- Searing Totem (Rank 4) now does the proper damage for its rank.
- Tremor Totem's duration has been increased from 2 minutes to 5
minutes.
- Elemental
Elemental Oath: In addition to existing effects, now increases spell
damage done by the Shaman by 5/10% while Elemental Focus Clearcasting
is active.
Elemental Mastery: Redesigned. Now increases the Shaman’s critical
strike chance by 20% for 30 seconds. Cooldown remains at 3 minutes.
Elemental Shields: This talent has been removed. It has now been
merged with Elemental Warding.
Elemental Warding: Now reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%. Changed
from only reducing Nature, Fire and Frost by 4/7/10%.
New Talent: Shamanism-Your Lightning Bolt spell gains an additional
2/4/6/8/10% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of
your bonus damage effects.
Storm, Earth and Fire: This talent has been moved up in the tree, and
it’s talent points have been reduced to 3 down from 5. Wind Shock is
also included in the range increase (with Earth Shock). The damage
bonus to Flame Shock has been increased, up from 10/20/30/40/50 to
20/40/60.
Unrelenting Storm: point cost reduced to 3, down from 5. Now does
4/8/12%

Warlocks
- Curse of Agony will now scale better when used with the Glyph of
Curse of Agony. Ticks beyond the original duration will do 33% more
damage than the ticks that preceded them. i.e. 74 -> 145 -> 217 -> 290.
- Demon Armor and Demon Skin: Armor increased by approximately 120%.
- Demonic Circle: The teleport now clears all snare effects.
- Drain Mana: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
- Emberstorm: Now works with Conflagrate.
- Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which
can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.

Warriors
- Bloodthirst: Charges have been decreased to 3, but the effect has
been raised to 1% per charge.
- Fury: Bloodsurge: Now has a chance to trigger from any hit with
Heroic Strike, Bloodthirst, or Whirlwind.
- Fury:Titan's Grip: The hit chance penalty has been removed.
- Sudden Death: The amount of rage spent on an Execute while Sudden
Death is active is now capped at 30 rage. Improved Execute and the
Glyph of Execute will still increase the damage done by increasing the
amount of rage able to be converted into damage.
- Taunt: Range increased to 30 yards.

Professions
- Alchemy
All flasks no longer require an alchemy lab to create.
The Cooldown on Transmute: Titanium has been reduced to 1 day, and
the materials required have been simplified.
Reduced the cooldown on Northrend Alchemy Research from 7 days to 3
days.
The chance to discover a Northrend transmutation has been increased.
Changed the Crazy Alchemist Potion so it always gives health and
mana. It also grants the benefit of another random potion effect.
Potion of Nightmares functionality changed. You can now move to
interrupt the effect, and damage taken is no longer increased while
you are under the effects of this potion.
Added a new recipe for Ethereal Oil to grand master alchemy trainers.
You can now discover a recipe for the Elixir of Water Walking with
Northrend Alchemy Research.
- Blacksmithing
Reduced the spell power on the Titansteel Guardian to bring it in
line with its item level.
Increased the material requirements to make high level frost
resistance gear created with blacksmithing.
Increased the materials required to make several recipes that require
cobalt.
Added a new recipe for shield reinforcements that increases the block
value of shields.
- Cooking
A recipe has been added for Kungaloosh. You can learn this recipe
from an NPC in the Dalaran sewers once you have completed the quest
'The Taste Test' in Sholazar Basin.
A recipe for the incredible Fish Feast can now be purchased for
Dalaran Cooking Awards.
Succulent Orca Stew and Shoveltusk Soup have been removed from the
requirements for any cooking achievements as they will not be added
to the game.
A new recipe for Worg Tartare is now available for purchase with
Dalaran Cooking Awards. This delicacy imbues hit rating and Stamina
upon those brave enough to eat it.
- Enchanting
Many high level enchantment recipes have had the amount of Infinite
Dust and Greater Cosmic Essence requirements significantly reduced,
but with Dream Shards being added to them.
Increased the Fire damage inflicted by the Icebreaker weapon
enchantment.
Reduced the armor penalty granted by the Berserking weapon
enchantment.
Increased the amount of healing from the Lifeward enchantment.
Increased the amount of damage caused by the Icebreaker enchantment.
Added a new recipe to enchant bracers with Stamina. You can buy this
recipe from Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran.
- Engineering
Engineers may now be able to properly engineer Centrifuge Constructs.
Reduced the cooldown and increased the duration of the effect for
Hyperspeed Accelerators.
Added a new recipe for epic plate spell power goggles.
Weakness Spectralizers are now usable by druids.
The Saronite Bomb recipe now creates a lot more bombs for the same
material cost. While this breakthrough was discovered by goblins,
all engineers can take advantage of it.
Gnomish Lightning Generator has had its cast time and cooldown
reduced.
The engineering Scrapbot can now repair.
- Inscription
Jessica Sellers, a new vendor in the Dalaran inscription shop, will
sell most inscription inks for the cost of one Ink of the Sea. She
also sells Snowfall Ink for multiple Inks of the Sea.
A new recipe for Glyph of Arcane Blast has been added to Master and
Grand Master Inscription trainers.
- Jewelcrafting
Added a new recipe to convert a frozen orb and some green quality
gems into several superior quality gems.
Reduced the spell power granted by the use effect of the Figurine –
Twilight Serpent, but reduced the cooldown significantly.
- Leatherworking
Iceborne Belt pattern skill up range has been increased to the
correct range.
The epic leg armor patches now require a Frozen Orb in addition to
their other materials.
- Mining
Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive
all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore,
stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.
Weakened Giants and Iron Rune Sentinels can now be correctly mined.
- Skinning
Increased the critical strike rating granted by ranks 5 and 6 of
Master of Anatomy.
Carrion Fleshstrippers are now skinnable.
- Tailoring
- Reduced the cloth required to make a Bolt of Imbued Frostweave.
Simplified the materials required for Shining Spellthread and Azure
Spellthread.
Reduced the eternals required to make Brilliant Spellthread and
Sapphire Spellthread, but increased the number of Iceweb Spider Silk.
Greatly reduced the materials required to make the self-only
tailoring leg enchants (Master's Spellthread and Sanctified
Spellthread), but these recipes no longer grant any skill gains.
Reduced the training cost for the normal Flying Carpet.
Ebonweave now requires the tailor to be in the Maw of Neltharion in
Dragonblight to creating it.
Spellweave now requires the tailor to be at the Azure Dragonshrine in
Dragonblight when creating it.

Quests
- The quest, "Scare the Guano Out of Them!" now only requires 10
Darkclaw Guano, down from 15. Also, only the character that scared
the bat, or their party, may now loot the guano.
- Shoveltusk Meat obtained during the quest; "Shoveltusk Soup Again?"
is now correctly flagged as a quest item with no sell price.
- During the quest, "Scalps!" you can no longer use Ahunae's Knife
to scalp kills that you aren't tapped to.
- The path followed by the Har'koa's Kitten during the quest, "I Sense
a Disturbance" has been improved.
- Westguard Sergeants, Winterhoof Braves, and Ethereal Frostworgs
should no longer attempt to attack their opposite faction
counterparts unless the character controlling them is first attacked.
- Westguard Sergeant and Winterhoof Brave demoralizing shouts will now
only affect the Winterskorn Vrykul and worgs at Skorn.
- Various fixes to the Queen Angerboda event during the quest, "The
Slumbering King".
- The daily quest, "Shoot 'Em Up" now only requires 15 Jotunheim Proto-
Drakes to be shot down, down from 20. As well, the harpoon now only
costs 5 energy to shoot, down from 10.

User Interface
- Chat frames can now be made “Noninteractive”. When in this state,
they will ignore all clicks.
- Various filters can now be applied to Achievements.
- A special UI for chatting with GMs has been added.
- For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI &
Macros Forum

Items
- Emblems of Heroism can now be purchased at a 1 to 1 rate using
Emblems of Valor.
- The Darkmoon Faire exotic vendors have been updated with new items.
- Amberglow Signet now correctly grants Hit Rating.
- Deadly Gladiator’s Refuge has had its 4 piece set bonus changed.
It now reduces the cooldown of Swiftmend by 2 seconds.
- Deadly Gladiator's Staff has had the Agility and Critical strike
rating restored to ratios consistent with other instances of the
Gladiator's Staff.
- Dreamwalker Battlegear: The Rip bonus is now 4 seconds instead of 3.
- Dreamwalker’s Regalia 2 piece bonus has been changed to reduce the
mana cost of Lifebloom.
- Dreamwalker Battlegear: The Rip bonus is now 4 seconds instead of 3.
- Druid Feral Tier 7 Set: The 4 piece bonus now also decreases the
cooldown on Tiger’s Fury by 3 seconds.
- Druid Restoration Tier 7 Set: The Rejuvenation bonus has been changed
to affect Lifebloom instead.
- Gifts and Pledges of Adoration for the capital cities are now
soulbound.
- The Flag of Ownership now has only a 60s cooldown to match the 60s
duration of the flag.
- The following crafted weapons have had their stats adjusted to
properly reflect their intended power:
Corroded Saronite Edge, Corroded Saronite Woundbringer, Cudgel of
Saronite Justice, Furious Saronite Beatstick, Saronite Spellblade,
Saronite Shiv, Savage Cobalt Slicer, Notched Cobalt War Axe, Sturdy
Cobalt Quickblade, Cobalt Tenderizer
- Living Lashers can now properly be skinned with Herbalism.
- Players can now open clams while riding a vehicle, sitting, mounted,
stealthed, and invisible.
- Reduced the stats on the Savage Cobalt Slicer to match the weapon's
level.
- Some low-level rogue pvp gloves were accidentally omitted from the
patch 3.0.3 update. This has been rectified.
- Some neglected creatures in Icecrown have found the contents of their
pockets.
- Totem of Hex now correctly grants 165 spell power to Chain Lightning
and Lightning Bolt, up from 85.
- The white Polar Bear mount is now the proper (larger) size.
- Glyphs
Glyph of Conflagrate now makes it so your Conflagrate spell no longer
consumes the Immolate or Shadowflame spell from the target.
Glyph of Death and Decay has been changed to grant 20% additional
damage instead of its current effect.
Glyph of Hammer of Justice: Now increases range by 5 yards instead
of increasing stun duration.
Glyph of Invisibility duration has been increased.
Glyph of Deterrence: Now -10 seconds instead of -20.
Glyph of Holy Light now affects friendly targets in a larger radius.
Glyph of Horn of Winter now increases the duration by 60 sec.
Glyph of Spirit of Redemption: Now increases the duration of the
effect by a fixed amount of 6 seconds.
Glyph of turn evil now also increases the cooldown of your turn evil
spell by 8 sec.

World Environment
- Incapacitating Shout now has an 8 second duration.
- Conquered Soul of the Blightcallers are no longer AE immune.
- Corrected a raid emote in Violet Hold to display the proper creature
name.
- Corrected a redundant aura tooltip for Locust Swarm in Naxxramas.
- Several creatures in the Construct Quarter of Naxxramas did not have
Heroic values for hit points and damage.
- Storm Peaks, Grom'arsh Crash Site - Peon Gakra is now an innkeeper
and the zeppelin hull, an inn.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug with a Wild Mustard plant that was under the ground in
Dalaran.
- Racials
Berserking: Can now be used properly while under the affects of Hand
of Protection.
Heroic Presence: Now works properly in Ghost Wolf Form.
Shadowmeld: This ability will now properly restore threat when it is
cancelled. In addition, it will correctly remove a player from combat
if it is active when that player is the last person left alive that
the creature hates. This ability is now also unusable while affected
by Faerie Fire.
Will of the Forsaken: Using this ability while disoriented would
trigger it’s cooldown to no affect; it is no longer useable while
disoriented.
- Classes
Death Knights
Blood Aura Will now always do the correct amount of healing, based on
the actual damage taken of the target.
Blood Caked Blade: Now does the proper damage amount when triggered
by an off-hand weapon.
Bloody Strikes: The tooltip for this talent now has correct values.
Butchery: Will now always grant 20 runic power, regardless of the
creature type killed.
Chains of Ice: This ability is no longer able to land on death
knights who have Anti-Magic Shell active.
Crypt Fever: It is no longer possible to have a duration longer than
the disease which caused it. Will also no longer incorrectly increase
Death and Decay damage.
Corpse Explosion: Fixed a bug where how much Runic Power the Death
Knight had was affecting the damage done, and also increased the
damage substantially.
Dancing Rune Blade: The weapon no longer echoes the Raise Dead and
Army of the Dead spells. In addition it will now more closely match
the master’s damage and will cast Rune Strike when its master does.
Death Chill: The effect from this talent will no longer be consumed
if Killing Machine is active.
Death Pact: This will no longer cause guards to attack the Death
Knight.
Desecration: will no longer break stealth.
Ebon Plague: It is no longer possible to have a duration longer than
the disease which caused it. It will no longer stack with Crypt Fever
used by another character.
Frost Fever: This talent now works properly when spell reflected.
Gnaw: This ghoul ability is now able to be set on autocast.
Icy Clutch: This will now be applied properly in all cases to targets
that gain Frost Fever via the Pestilence ability.
Mark of Blood now works correctly with periodic damage.
Pestilence: The diseases will now spread correctly even when the
damage from Pestilence kills the primary target.
Raise Dead no longer puts you in combat when you cast this spell.
Shadow of Death: This ability will no longer cause tracking abilities
to become inactive when the death knight becomes a ghoul.
Tundra Stalker (Rank 1) will now work properly on Death and Decay.
Unholy Blight: Will no longer cause spell pushback.
Druids
Bear Form: This ability will now grant the correct attack power per
level for levels 71-80.
Entangling Roots: When determining if a new Entangling Roots should
overwrite an old one, and will now calculate the correct damage
modifiers for the creature type of the target.
Maim: Tooltip adjusted to match the duration the ability has always
had.
Opening: Opening doors and objects should no longer cause
shapeshifted forms to be cancelled.
Rake: The initial damage from this ability is now properly considered
bleed damage, and will be increased by Mangle and Trauma.
Savage Fury - Mangle (Bear) damage was being increased by a higher
percentage than intended. This has been fixed, and in result Mangle
(Bear) should see roughly a 16% damage reduction. Also fixed a bug
with Savage Fury where the Rake bleed effect was not being increased.
Starfall will no longer cause nearby creatures to become hostile for
no apparent reason while the Druid is affected by fear effects. In
addition, it will no longer pick ambient creatures as targets.
Survival Instincts: The extra health from this ability now persists
in all forms, but the ability can only be activated in Cat Form,
Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form. This prevents the health gain from
occurring multiple times if constantly shapeshifting.
Swiftmend: Riptide will no longer cause this ability to light up,
and this ability will no longer sometimes consume Earthliving off the
target.
Hunters
Aspects: All aspects now have a 1 second global cooldown.
Aspect of the Beast: Will now increase Hunter pet attack power by the
correct amount.
Aspect of the Viper: Beast Lore, Scare Beast, and Tame Beast will no
longer trigger mana regeneration from this ability.
Call of the Wild: Now only works on the pet and their own master.
Carrion Feeder: No longer causes extremely large amounts of threat
when the pet gains happiness.
Chimera Shot: The secondary effects of this shot will now still be
triggered even when the target dies from the ability’s damage.
Cower: Now longer shares a cooldown with Growl, but has its own
separate cooldown.
Dust Cloud: This pet ability will now be cast by the pet at the
target instead of while they are moving toward the target.
Marked for Death: Now works properly for Steady Shot and Glyph of
Steady Shot.
Master’s Call: Now makes the pet immune to roots and snares for the
duration as well, allowing the pet to break roots on the target even
when the pet is rooted.
Nether Shock: Pets will now correctly use this ability on all
targets, not just mana users.
Noxious Stings: When this talent triggers Wyvern Sting, the Wyvern
Sting will now last the proper duration.
Owl’s Focus: Free abilities will no longer consume this effect.
Prowl: This ability will no longer sometimes turn autocast on by
itself.
Sniper Training: Now increases the damage of Aimed Shot by the
correct amount.
Spirit Strike: This pet ability’s duration and period have both been
reduced to 6 seconds.
Spore Cloud: This ability will now work properly.
Swipe: The tooltip has been adjusted.
Tracking: Entering an arena no longer disables tracking types.
Fixed a bug that allowed Viper’s Sting to target death knights. They
are now invalid targets.
Mages
Arcane Missiles: This spell now only has one chance to trigger Arcane
Concentration.
Brain Freeze: This talent can now be triggered by Blizzard.
Burnout: This talent will now properly charge the mage additional
mana when Living Bomb causes a critical strike.
Fingers of Frost: This talent can now trigger properly from Frost
Armor.
Frost Nova: Will now properly overwrite the effect of Shattered
Barrier and of Frostbite.
Icy Veins: The spell pushback reduction from this talent now works on
Frostfire Bolt.
Improved Scorch: This talent no longer triggers effects that trigger
on casting a spell.
Incanter’s Absorption: This talent will now work properly when the
mage is sitting.
Living Bomb: Now triggers Ignite when it causes a critical strike. In
addition, the final explosion will now still occur even if the mage
is affected by a crowd control effect.
Molten Fury: This talent will now interact correctly with Torment the
Weak.
Precision: Frostfire Bolt will no longer receive double the intended
benefit from this talent.
Spell Power: Now affects the critical strike chance of Blizzard.
Paladins
Devotion aura: When mixing two different ranks of this ability in a
party, players will no longer sometimes see a spurious second copy of
the buff.
Hand of Freedom: Now works properly against the froststorm Breath
Hunter pet ability.
Judgement of Blood, Judgement of Command, and Judgement of the Martyr
will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of
the target.
Judgement of Light: The tooltip has been corrected to remove the
implication that it only works on melee attacks.
Judgement of the Wise: The amount of mana gained has been corrected
to match the tooltip.
Pure of Heart: This talent will no longer cause Curse of Agony to
do more damage than intended.
Repentance: Avenger’s Shield no longer breaks Repentance,
but unfortunately, Seal of Vengeance and Corruption damage will break
it again. This will be corrected in a future patch.
Righteous Vengeance: This talent will now calculate its damage
correctly when the damage is absorbed. In addition this ability will
no longer cause excessive damage when refreshed on targets with
damage reduction effects active.
Seal of Command: The tooltip has been adjusted to show the damage
gained from spell power.
Shield of Righteousness now properly shares a cooldown for
both ranks.
- Priest
Dispersion: This ability can no longer be cast while affected by
Cyclone; doing so consumed the cooldown to no effect.
Guardian Spirit: It is no longer possible for simultaneous killing
blows to trigger the heal from this ability multiple times.
Improved Holy Concentration: The tooltip has been rewritten to
indicate that this talent reduces cast time rather than providing
haste.
Mind Flay - Fixed a bug with targeting where you would not
deal damage if not facing the target while channeling. Also corrected
an issue where the damage from this ability was slightly delayed.
Prayer of Mending: Will now only benefit from the healing talents of
the priest who cast the original spell.
Rapture: This talent will now correctly return mana for Power Word:
Shield based on the caster’s mana poll instead of the target’s mana
pool.
Shadow Weaving: Shadow Word: Death: Will now only apply one copy of
this buff per cast.
Shadow Word: Pain now will gain the correct damage modifiers for the
creature type of the target.
Surge of Light: Prayer of Mending will no longer sometimes cause
Surge of Light to trigger on Priests who do not have that talent.
Twisted Faith: This talent will no longer sometimes cause Shadow
Word: Pain to fail due to a more powerful spell being in effect.
Rogues
Envenom: The tooltip values have been corrected to be accurate.
Fan of Knives: All poisons will now trigger correctly when used with
this ability.
Honor Among Thieves: The bug where stacking multiple rogues with this
talent caused them all to gain additional combo points has been
fixed. In addition, it no longer cancels eating and drinking if a
party member gains a critical strike while it is active.
Killing Spree: This ability no longer breaks stealth if it fails due
to all targets being out of range.
Mutilate: this ability will no longer give poisons on the off-hand
weapon two chances to be triggered.
Turn the Tables: This talent no longer generates threat when it
triggers.
Shaman
Chain Heal: This spell will now give an invalid target error message
if the primary target is a totem.
Earth Shield: Now correctly uses the Shaman’s own spell critical
strike chance to determine the chance of a critical heal.
Elemental Shields was reducing flat physical damage, not a
percentage. Now properly reduced by a percentage.
Lava Lash - Fixed a bug which allowed you to use the ability
even if you had a shield in offhand. Now requires a 1hand axe, fist
or dagger to be able to be used. Bug #147699.
Fixed a bug where Thunderstorm (Elemental) was knocking back
15 yards, instead of 20. It should now roughly knockback the correct
length of 20 yards.
Magma Totem: Fixed a bug that capped the damage of this ability at
too low of a level.
Resistance Totems: Players will no longer see two copies of these
buffs when two shamans cast the totems simultaneously.
Spirit Walk: This Feral Spirit ability will now properly clear roots
and snares from the Shaman master.
Stoneclaw Totem: The tooltip has been revised to indicate the damage
absorb shield also works on the Stoneclaw Totem itself.
Warlock
Warlock Pets: Some pets were not properly classified to receive
correct creature scaling for Wrath of the Lich King. Their health
and damage done will now be higher.
Corruption will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the
creature type of the target.
Create Healthstone: Attempting to create a healthstone when you
already have one no longer consumes mana or triggers the cooldown
of this ability.
Demonic Circle: Teleport: the button for this ability will now darken
when the Warlock is out of range of the Demonic Circle and will light
up when the Warlock is in range.
Demon Power Scaling: Spell power gained from spirit via the Fel Armor
ability will now properly affect the scaling of spell power and
attack power on summoned demons.
Drain Mana: This spell will no longer cancel when the target’s mana
poll is low or the caster’s mana poll is full. It also now generates
a very small amount of threat instead of no threat.
Everlasting Affliction: Will now calculate correct damage values for
Corruption when it is refreshed in all cases.
Haunt: Will now gain correct damage modifiers for the creature type
of the target. In addition, this ability is now limited to a single
target as intended. This also now works properly when refreshed on
its current target.
Mana Feed: This talent will no longer sometimes fire for warlocks who
do not have the talent.
Master Conjuror: Tooltip revised to indicate it does not increase the
damage bonuses of Firestones or Spellstones.
Metamorphosis: The bonus armor effect from this ability will now
calculate properly and interact correctly with armor buffs and
debuffs.
Ritual of Doom: A Doomguard summoned with this spell will now scale
properly from its master’s stats.
Shadow Embrace: This ability will now create a separate debuff stack
for each Warlock with the talent, and each warlock will benefit
properly from his or her own debuff.
Soul Siphon: Will now gain the correct damage modifiers for the
creature type of the target.
Unstable Affliction: Will now gain the correct damage modifiers for
the creature type of the target.
Warrior
Bladestorm: Fixed a bug where sometimes stuns and roots would not be
removed properly when this ability is used.
Damage Shield: Rank 1 of this ability now works properly.
Heroic Throw no longer triggers the snare from Mage Frost Armor.
PvP
The Wintergrasp Aura should now properly update in all instances,
transferring the buff when the zone control changes.
Arena: Dalaran Sewer: The Flush effect which pushes players out will
now also remove the ability to use Demonic Circles summoned during
the arena start time.
Items
Idol of the Emerald Queen: This idol was providing greater healing
than implied by its tooltip. It has been reduced to correct value.
Glyph of Ambush: This glyph will now interact correctly with
Initiative when Ambush is used outside of combat range.
Glyph of Charge: The stun from Charge will now work properly when
Charge is used with the extra range from this glyph.
Glyph of Corpse Explosion: Additional explosions from this glyph
will no longer consume Unholy Runes.
Glyph of Rejuvenation: The heal from this glyph is now properly
considered a periodic heal.
Gronstalker Set: The Aspect of Viper bonus from this set has been
changed to work correctly with the redesigned Aspect of the Viper.
Mana Potions: Warriors and Death Knights now receive a correct error
message when attempting to use mana potions.
Scrolls: Buffs from scrolls can now only be overwritten by more
powerful scrolls.
Soul Preserver: This item will now interact correctly with Desperate
Prayer, Lay on Hands, Riptide, and Wild Growth.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Uprising

19. January 2009. 19:37 - EA announced a stand-alone expansion pack for Red Alert 3, available in March

Uprising will be a continuation of the over the top strategy series in which actors really ham up the cut scenes and you can pin dolphins against armored battleships.

It picks up where the original Red Alert 3 campaign left off, of course with the good guys coming out on top. There will be 3 new campaigns, 1 for each of the factions, that will serve as kind of an epilogue for the original storylines.

There are some new things to be had also. Like about 30 new skirmish maps, new units for each faction, a Commander’s Challenge mode that aims at a tougher playing experience and a bonus campaign that focuses solely on the Empire of the Rising Sun’s psionic commando – Yuriko Omega.
It will explain how a troubled teenage girl got to be the battlefield avatar of destruction that she is, and that’s something to look forward to.

As you’ve read above it's a stand-alone game so that’s good news if you’re interested but don’t have the original lying around and can’t be bothered to go buy a copy.

It will be available exclusively for the PC and also purchasable from their website in the form of a download.

Happy New Year!

01. January 2009. 15:03 - Happy new 2009 from all of us at GamersBook .

Merry Christmas!

24. December 2008. 15:30 - Chistmas has come again and with it joy, laughter and those presents don't hurt either ;=)

Best wishes for the holiday season from all of us at GamersBook and also a merry Christmas!

Duke Nukem Forever

22. December 2008. 16:08 - Duke Nukem Forever is supposed to be a sequel to the legendary Duke Nukem 3D FPS.

And yes I will allow myself to be corny here and say it takes forever to make.

This game is in the works from way back in April 28, 1997 when the official announcement was stated. During this time the game switched several engines and undoubtedly a lot of employees.

Here are some facts in the form of a history lesson:

Duke Nukem Forever was officially announced on April 28, 1997 along with the purchase of a license to use the Quake II engine and the intention of releasing the game no later than mid-1998.

In June 1998, the 3D Realms team switched to Epic's Unreal Engine. DNF would be released in 1999.

In 1999, 3D Realms announced that they had upgraded to the newer version of the Unreal Engine.

In December, 3D Realms released a Christmas card that suggested that DNF would be released in 2000.

In early December 2000, publisher Gathering of Developers announced that they had acquired the publishing rights for DNF. Shortly afterwards, 3D Realms released another Christmas card that suggested that DNF would be released in 2001.

In 2002, after hiring several new programmers, the team completely rewrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. The engine, which now contains parts of an early version of Unreal Engine 2.0, supports such features as pixel shading, normal mapping and high dynamic range based lighting.

On September 9, 2004, GameSpot reported that Duke Nukem Forever had switched to the Doom 3 engine.
September 14th, 2004, 3D Realms announced that they had replaced the Karma physics engine with one designed by Meqon. Several sites have speculated that Duke Nukem Forever will be using the latest generation of this technology, which was designed for next-gen consoles.

On March 20, 2007, Scott Miller explained in an interview with YouGamers that they were still using the Unreal Engine, albeit a heavily modified version at this point.

After such a lengthy list of delaying the game it’s uncertain when we will again be able to hear Duke say “Who wants some?”.

But our hope can be bolstered by the Christmas wallpaper released recently for the fans. The full size image can be found at www.3drealms.com

Team Fortress 2 for 10$

15. December 2008. 17:37 - Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map.

But if you've somehow missed it over the past year now's your chance to pick up on some action.

Valve is giving Team Fortress 2 over Steam for a bargain price of 10$.

This doesn’t mean the game is doing badly however, quite the contrary.
It will continue to have updates and tweaks and has even announced a significant revision of the Scout class for next year.

A Nintendo Wii Christmas

11. December 2008. 15:38 - If you’ve tried to buy a Nintendo Wii when it was freshly released you might remember the long lines and annoying shortages.

Curiously though, this shortage is still going on. Weather this is a genuine shortage due to massive selling or just a clever hype raiser to increase the sales we may never know.

But what we do know is that Nintendo of America vice president of corporate affairs, Denise Kaigler, sent an email to the Industry Standard.

Here’s what he said:

"It's true that despite this amazing amount of product we're putting into the channel, some locations around the country are still experiencing sellouts.”

He followed with

“There's no way to know if we'll have enough Wii consoles for the holidays. Nintendo now manufactures Wii consoles at a rate of 2.4 million a month worldwide."

Concluding that

"It might not be on that shelf much longer."

So if you were planning on buying one for your friends and family, or even for yourself, you might want to start your Christmas shopping early before stocks run out.

Age on Conan

08. December 2008. 16:21 - Age of Conan, the MMO based on Robert E. Howard’s world was launched in May 2008.

Unfortunately it has not been received very well by the general gaming populace and has suffered from player decline, most trying it and going back to their previous MMO fix.

Now as the holiday season is upon us they seem to be desperate to get some people back in there and are offering gifts to new players.
Here’s how they say it:

“Climb onboard your fierce mount and ride onto the blood-covered battlefields where you will crush your enemies and lay siege to the battlekeeps of rival guilds.”

From December onwards every new player will receive a free Snow Mammoth mount for each of their characters. So if Age of Conan tickles your fancy this looks like a good time to start.

mouz.dota heading for kingsurf

05. December 2008. 09:55 - Mouz apparently decided that they will no longer sponsor their dota team, as they say it was agreed by both sides.

Here we have the new KingSurf lineup for the next season.

Ks.Puppey (Leader)
Ks.GunZ
Ks.KuroKy
Ks.LevenT
Ks.Twisted
Ks.Miracle
Ks.Jolie
Ks.Vigoss

Statement from mouz:

Our DotA team will leave mousesports as of now to head for KingSurf and therefore will no longer be a part of mousesports 2009. Both parties agree to split right after Dreamhack Winter 2008, which the team ended with a third place behind MYM and SK.

The team, which celebrated his last appearance for mousesports at this years Dreamhack Winter will move completely to KingSurf. Therewith the chapter DotA in mousesports will be closed for now. We would like to thank the team for their time in mousesports and their successes. We are proud, that we have formed a team over several months, which can compete with the worlds best opponents and say good bye to Twistd, Miracle, KuroKy and LevenT.

That is a pretty impressive lineup and it is only a matter of time before they start competing with the top teams again.

Games for Windows Live

03. December 2008. 22:35 - In its quest to develop better services for gamers Microsoft has released a standalone version of Games for Windows Live.

Currently there’s not much to see but there might be a lot of room to build on. It lacks the things you might expect out of such an application, namely the ability to chat with your friends, compare your game achievements or set up matches. For that you will still need to use a game that has Games for Windows Live integrated.

The client screen consists of four sections. First is the home page where you will be greeted with some news or tips. What follows is the Marketplace, at the moment the only really interesting part. Here you can download some content for the games you play and some demos on games yet to come. Maybe in the future it will allow game purchases. After it is the My Media tab where you can see what you have downloaded from marketplace. And lastly, Settings that serves to change your download folder and edit/view your profile information.

It might be interesting to see how this application develops but right now there is no real benefit from using it.
For those of you still interested though here is the download link from Microsoft.

GTA IV PC

01. December 2008. 21:42 - Until now GTA IV was something only console players could enjoy and was even the selling point in some cases. Not so anymore, and if you own only a PC this is great news.

In GTA IV you are back in Liberty City, but this time playing an immigrant called Niko. You have to make money and a name for yourself in order to survive.

This of course this is accomplished mostly by killing for your employers but don’t threat, because there are all sorts of things for you to do. These range from searching for a target and eliminating it, driving missions, deliveries, rescues, stunts, street racing, all kinds of bar games and even killing pigeons!

The PC version is bound to have better graphics but that’s not where it ends. It’s expanding the multiplayer limit from 16 players on the consoles, to 32 for the PC. This should allow for some awesome matches to take place because let’s face it, drive by’s with your friends are fun, and there’s no doubt more players will make it even more so.

So there you have it, get your rig ready if you haven’t already and prepare to tell your console having buddies HA, I told you so!

It’s scheduled to be in stores by December 3rd.

WoW Paid Character Customization

29. November 2008. 17:39 - Ever wish you had the chance to go back to the character creation screen and do things just a bit differently? I know I have and it seems that Blizzard might just have a way for us to do that in the near future.

Currently you can customize the looks of your character in the barber shops, but that’s limited to hair and beards. Some curious gamers investigated unused images hidden in a build of Wrath of the Lich King and found a button named "UI-PaidCharacterCustomization" that had something to do with the character selection screen.

Needles to say questions were asked about it on BlizzCon and Lead Producer Jay Allen Brack, first dodging the question, later confirmed that WoW will feature character customization.

"I don't mind stating that there will be paid character customization at some point. I can't really go into detail."

This will be a paid service like the Character Name Change to deter people from using it too often and obviously to make more money.
Details to when this will be coming or exactly what you will be able to customize are unknown at this time and are wildly speculated.

Though, whenever it is introduced the changes will most probably be purely cosmetic.

Diablo III

27. November 2008. 18:52 - By now you've no doubt heard about the next sequel to the legendary action RPG, Diablo III

There is little that needs to be said about this game but here are some highlights.

For now only 3 classes are revealed:

Barbarian, the dual wielding guardian of mount Arreat
Witch Doctor, alchemist from the terrifying Tribe of Five Hells
Wizard, a wielder of the elements

More are sure to follow in the future to a total of maybe five. From the looks of things the guys at Blizzard have outdone themselves and allowed us even more carnage then before by making walls and other object breakable. It’s yet to be seen if they will do something really creative with that feature but in good faith they almost certainly will.
So prepare to hack up an ungodly number of demons and all kinds of creatures as you make your way through the grim world of Sanctuary while a feast of lights and effects lends power to your spells. Just make sure you have some ice nearby for your clicking hand.

The speculated release date is 30.9.2009

Call of Duty 5: World at War

26. November 2008. 20:27 - Backed by Activision Blizzard (yeah you read that right) Call of Duty goes to World War II, again.

If you played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare you’ll feel right at home here. Though it has a different setting, the weapons and perks are somewhat reused and feel very familiar as do the airstrikes and radar calls. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the game features an exciting story and the same fast paced multiplayer as before.

There are some new weapons like the flamethrower and the bayonet, and also a new feature added - a four player cooperative campaign. Theres a cute mode in there too called Nazi zombies in which you and your friends can, well, fight waves of Nazi zombies.

Multiplayer is now even more fun with the addition of usable tanks, not as well done as in the Battlefield series but well enough that you can have hours upon hours of fun using them against enemy players as they try to destroy them with granades.

All in all the same formula still seems to work quite nicely so if you liked the previous games you should also give Call of Duty 5: World at War a shot.

It’s available for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii

nVidia ForceWare 180.48

25. November 2008. 19:13 - If you own a GeForce card and you don’t update your drivers regularly you might be interested in downloading these in particular.

In addition of the standard updates these actually do increase performance somewhat and come with some added functionality features.

Here are the official notes:

This is a WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8800-series desktop GPUs.
Exciting New Features:
• Enables NVIDIA SLI technology on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards with the following GPUs: GeForce GTX 280, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce 9800 GTX+, and GeForce 9800 GTX. Learn more here.
• Enables NVIDIA SLI Multi-monitor support, giving you the ability to use two monitors with your GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode. Now you can easily switch between multi-monitor desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming mode. Learn more here.
• Enables NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here. (Note: GPU PhysX is supported on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. This driver package automatically installs PhysX System Software version 8.10.13).
Blazing Fast Performance:
• Boosts performance in numerous 3D applications. The following are some examples of improvements measured with Release 180 WHQL drivers vs. Release 178 WHQL drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
o Up to 10% performance increase in 3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
o Up to 13% performance increase in Assassin's Creed
o Up to 13% performance increase in BioShock
o Up to 15% performance increase in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
o Up to 10% performance increase in Crysis Warhead
o Up to 25% performance increase in Devil May Cry 4
o Up to 38% performance increase in Far Cry 2
o Up to 18% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID
o Up to 80% performance increase in Lost Planet: Colonies
o Up to 18% performance increase in World of Conflict

Get them here http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Left 4 Dead

24. November 2008. 17:56 - If you enjoy a good shootout and some carnage you might be interested a game released last week from Valve, based on the great Half-Life 2 engine.

It’s a Co-operative horror FPS available for both PC and Xbox 360 playable with 4 of your best buddies or with people you never met online.

Just check some of these screens taken from the official website

Tabula Rasa Closing

23. November 2008. 20:00 - Tabula Rasa is a Sci-Fi MMO launched back in not so distant October 30th 2007.

It features remnant humans driven from Earth fighting the evil alien race Bane, crafting skills and a third person shooter combat system.
It was announced at the official website that the game will be closing down on February 28th 2009 contrary to NCsofts statements that the game is in fine shape.

This development came just a few days after Richard Garriot stepped down from his duties at Tabula Rasa and maybe could have been expected.

The game servers will be free to play on starting January 10th 2009 until the game comes to a close. Players with active accounts will be granted parting gifts that will include:

3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
Aion beta access (coming soon)
Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)

Official posting here

Dawn of War 2

22. November 2008. 21:54 - For all of you that are not familiar with previous Dawn of War releases, Dawn of War is a RTS game set in the Warhammer 40 000 universe.

It distinguishes itself from others by focusing on smaller groups of more powerful units, instead of the standard unit massing race, thus creating a need for better management skills.

Dawn of War 2 promises to deliver a new and innovative feature to its single player campaign, a RPG element that will allow you to level up and improve your units through the course of the game, that will make you focus on the same squad of guys and try to create an emotional connection between you.
You will also be able to upgrade your squad with new weapons and abilities which should keep you interested to the end.

Of course it will feature better visuals but the best improvement will be even better terrain interaction, if you played the first part you should remember how fun it was to see all your big strong guys being thrashed around the field by even bigger ones ;)

As for the unavoidable multiplayer we should see in some surprises as they promise it will be better than ever with the revamped Essence Engine 2.0. For now the final entourage of races is unclear but we can be sure to see some fanatical Space Marines, Orks waging Waagh and a new insectoid race called Tyranids.

The game is scheduled for a early 2009 release.

For more information check the official website www.dawnofwar2.com

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