Posts filed under ‘PC’

I would argue that above zombies, dinosaurs are probably the world’s most beloved sub-culture. From The Land Before Time extending to Jurassic Park, I argue that dinosaurs have maintained a special place in most everyone’s heart. The problem is that there has not been much love (or hate) for dinorsaurs in video games since the Turok series. The problem’s solution came with advent of Kickstarter. Spiral Game Studios has had the design for Orion started since 1998, but it wasn’t until their Kickstarter campaign for $10,000 that net almost $20k in over a year that they made some serious headway. They’ve released the game early on May 4th and will be continuing to update the game and produce more content for it. In fact, when I received my copy, I couldn’t even play it. It is running on the Unreal Development Kit and for some reason, mine kept crashing. So I sat by and was patient until the release when the forums would be up on Steam and more people would probably experience and fix the same problem I was having. I was correct in that assumption and ever since I did a small bcdedit on Windows to expand my virtual video memory, the game has worked. I am not going to say flawlessly, because inside the game there are certainly issues and I will point out the ones I’ve notice as I tell you more about the world of Orion: Dino Beatdown and all the dinosaurs I’ve killed.

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Yesterday ZOTAC announced the info for their latest video card that makes use of the 560 SE hardware that Nvidia pushed out last month. ZOTAC’s goal is to give gamers a taste of 1080p, without breaking their gaming budget. The 560 SE is the GF114 that Nvidia announced as having 2 SM cores disabled. I liken this to the Celeron CPU chips which come with less on-board cache due to being disabled due to bad performance. Either way, ZOTAC has found a use for the hardware, and that is a card that is still able to churn through DirectX 11 titles. Marketing director Carsten Berger explains, “1080p resolution displays and Microsoft® DirectX® 11-enabled titles are affordable and become quite popular among gamers. Our new ZOTAC® GeForce® GTX 560 SE provides an excellent value for gamers that want to get their feet wet with 1080p and DirectX® 11 gaming,”

Specifications:

•  Product Name ZOTAC® GeForce® GTX 560 SE
• GPU NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 SE
• Engine Clock speed 746 MHz
• Unified Shaders 288
• Shader Clock 1492 MHz
• Memory Clock speed 3828 MHz
• Memory 1GB GDDR5
• Memory interface 192-bit
• Display Outputs Dual DVI, HDMI & DisplayPort
• HDCP Yes
• Cooling With fan (dual-slot)
• DirectX^® version DirectX^® 11 with Shader Model 5.0
• Other hardware features Hardware accelerated Blu-ray 3D ready
• Software Features Hardware Video Decode Acceleration Technology, NVIDIA^® CUDA^™ technology, OpenGL^® 4.2
• Windows 7 capability Windows® 7 with DirectCompute support

No mention of pricing and availability, save for the fact that Nvidia is rumored to be setting their 560 SE cards at about $150. Oh, and it comes with a TrackMania 2 Canyon 3-Day Game Pass, but I’m unsure how enticing that is supposed to be.

Many of us clamored over the beta sign up from a few weeks ago, in fact over 1,000,000 people signed up in just the 48 hours that it was open. A thank you e-mail went out yesterday to those that did sign up, along with a video I will post below from Facebook giving us a sneak peak, you know, in case we aren’t selected for the beta. However, you can guarantee your entrance into the beta by just pre-ordering the game. That’s right, “From 10th April, players who pre-purchase the Guild Wars 2 Collector’s, Digital Deluxe or Standard Editions will receive guaranteed entry into all beta weekend events and a three-day head start prior to launch, giving them the opportunity to be among the first to secure their character and guild names. As a bonus, players who pre-purchase any edition will also receive an exclusive Hero’s Band, which will provide their characters with a variety of stat enhancements as they venture into the world of Tyria in Guild Wars 2.”

As if that were enough, you can get a ton of cool shit if you go for the collector’s edition. “The centrepiece of the Collector’s Edition is a detailed, hand-painted 25 centimetre statue of the bestial warrior Rytlock Brimstone wielding his signature flaming sword. Along with the Rytlock statue, players will receive a custom frame with five stunning Guild Wars 2 art prints from world-renowned artists, a 112-page Making of Guild Wars 2 hardback book, a Best of Guild Wars 2 Soundtrack CD by award-winning composer Jeremy Soule and five in-game items, including a Mistfire Wolf that will fight alongside players and a miniature Rytlock who will accompany them on their travels through Tyria.”

Meanwhile, sit back and wait for the announcement that you did or did not get into the beta, view the video below from developer Colin Johanson. Basically he is letting you down early, just like many, many women in our lives.

Of course, you can always pre-order or whatever, but keep an eye on www.GuildWars2.com.

Starting today you’ll be able to get your fix of nutty and batty gaming.  Today Gotham City Impostors is live for both Xbox Live and PSN following yesterdays release on the PC market. Gotham City Impostors allows average everyday citizens the chance to step up and fill the shoes of the local vigilante or villain. I’m not quite sure what happened to Batman or Joker, perhaps they are locked in battle somewhere. What I do know is that Gotham is free for the taking, for both sides. Whether you are playing as one of the Bats or one of the Jokerz, you’ll employ an unusual arsenal of weapons and devices to help your team control the game map.

If you hadn’t had a chance to get in on beta game-play, here is what you can be expecting. You’ll have your choice of guns, no need to be ethical here or you’ll be shot. While Batman and Joker usually have their own cash flow that provides them with tools and toys, you’ll have to make due with whatever you have. You can grapple your way across the map, roller-blade, or even hang glide. You’d better watch out for bear traps or other cleverly placed devices and don’t be surprised by a pipe bomb or two. This isn’t just all out death-match either. You’ll have to play nicely with your team and help capture objectives. Either you’ll be going after gas points that will eventually spew forth delicious death to your enemies, or transport a battery to a demoralizing device. Of course, be sure to kill everyone you meet in between those spots. Although there is no singing, this is still the most epic battle I’ve seen since the Sharks and Jets. It should run you about $15, I don’t know if anyone needs to hear about MSP anymore though.

Reverb Publishing has picked up Swedish based developer Coffee Stain Studios to publish the sequel to their first title, Sanctum. Reverb just struck it big by publishing the wildly popular Dungeon Defenders title virtually available on all formats. If you’re wondering what this means for Sanctum 2, it means that it too will be hitting consoles as well as the pc.  Sanctum itself sold over 300,000 copies just on Steam alone, so the spread of the formats bodes well for the studio.

Reverb Publishing (also known as Reverb Communications the popular PR company) is also fairly excited about the transition for the title. “We’re always searching for great games from passionate developers, particularly studios that have innovative ideas that get us excited to play them,” said Ted Lange, executive producer, Reverb Publishing. “Sanctum has been a huge success on Steam for Coffee Stain Studios, and bringing the next version to console players as well as the PC market is a great next step to share this unique experience. We all have logged quite a few hours with Sanctum and can definitively say that what Coffee Stain has in store for Sanctum 2 will blow the minds of Sanctum fans and new gamers alike.”

Coffee Stain Studios seems fairly excited about the deal as well. “With their combined public relations, marketing, sales and business development experience, Reverb Publishing has more than enough chops for us to be honored that they are publishing Sanctum 2,” said Anton Westbergh, producer and CEO for Coffee Stain Studios. “Reverb’s unique publishing model allowing us as the developer to fully retain our IP and keep the lion’s share of the revenue from the game made it a no-brainer. Their success with Dungeon Defenders proves they know how to take a digital title to market and make it a winner, and we can’t wait to see what they can do with Sanctum 2.”

I, for one, am excited to see how Reverb’s unique publishing model, which supports their developers, helps Coffee Stain Studios produce an even better version of their already popular game. The original already proved the effectiveness of a first person tower defense shooter and I cannot wait to see what is next. To learn more about Sanctum and whether or not you should be excited for a sequel, please read my review or play the game.

If you’ve been seeing a few articles about Sanctum pop up here and there on the site but haven’t considered getting the game, you might want to reconsider. Sanctum is currently part of the Midweek Madness sale featuring 5 strategy titles. Each title is $9.99 or more and you’ll save 82% of your money by getting all 5 for just $9.99, the cost of Sanctum normally.

The games included are:

Sanctum
Revenge of the Titans
Sol Survivor
Anomaly: Warzone Earth
Defense Grid: The Awakening

All these games have received a score of 70% or over on Metacritic and the bundle certainly packs a ton of value.  Check out the Indie Strategy Bundle today!

Much to my chagrin and surprise, I missed the info about the latest Sanctum updates. Shockingly, Sanctum now supports 4 player co-op gaming. Not content with just adding 2 more players to the game, Coffee Stain Studios had also added these following updates last month as well.
Wave Limited single & multi-player modes
•        Challenge based, where you pick the amount of waves you want to try to beat and the desired difficulty.
Endless Single-Player
•        You can finally play the endless mode even in single-player
Turbo Mode
•        Play with huge amounts of cash! Enemies will scale accordingly so expect some fast and ferocious action!
Updated Server Browser
•        More filter options
•        Ping!
•        Possibility to see full games (no more empty server list)
Bug fixes and performance increase

Starting earlier this week, Sanctum is also available for a cheaper price. It is now available for only $9.99. Also, if you like the music you will be in for a treat. The soundtrack featuring 11 remastered songs and a bonus track is available for only $4.99 via Steam or for a price that you can name yourself at Bandcamp (starting at $0.50, which should be cheap enough).

I just cannot resist posting this video here today. Finally Team Fortress 2‘s medic is no longer delegated to being heavy’s secret lover. Instead he is upgraded to mad scientist. You’ll just have to watch this video, which I think is the best out of all the TF2 Meet The ____ videos. See for yourself.

I am just laughing out loud falling over on my ass with this. Honestly, I think I posted it today just so I could watch it over and over and over and… well you get the idea. Enjoy!

P.S. This comes with a great mention that Team Fortress 2 is now free to play. So if you download it on Steam, be sure to give snorkle256 (me) a friend request so we can rock the medic together!

Fortix 2 released on the 11th over Steam, but since then has included a few updates. Two I made mention of already. The demo was put out on the 17th and Zombie mode was officially announced on the 24th. I hope I didn’t ruin the surprise by including it in the review a day early. Now the announcement has come that Fortix 2 will be available for digital distribution on Desura and Direct2Drive as well.  These will both be available starting Monday May 30th. As a bonus for getting it via these two channels, Fortix 2 will come with the original 15 levels of Fortix. To unlock these, you will have to complete the first area, Greemland. After that, the compass will change into a path leading to these levels. Wow, talk about even more content for your money. If you were thinking about getting it before, this would definitely be the way to go now.

Crossover titles, or even ones that just blur the boundaries of genres, always seem to attract my attention. So when Fortix 2 had info put out describing it as a reverse tower defense game, I knew I had to play it. In my mind I envisioned waltzing through mazes blasting towers with a gun. What I received was something a mite more challenging that Nemesys has created.

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