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I finished CoD4 last night on veteran I am still blown away by a game which, paradoxically, is neither new nor revolutionary in concept or implementation. Full review to follow shortly. I am also in the middle of redesigning the site template and seriously considering moving over to a self hosted wordpress blogging system. Stay tuned :)

An enterprising student from Norway has been coding a top-down view RTS version of VALVe's hit, Half Life 2. It is only in a very early state at the moment, although there is a download (how many mods can claim that ) available along with some screen shots. This initial release is mostly a tech demo demonstrating the developer's idea and hints at how the sides will be split. The UI looks lifted from CoH, so I hope he does not get into any legal difficulty as a result. The overall idea is quite good, but by no means unique as a Halflife 1 mod called Natural Selection combined the best elements of RTS and FPS as early as 2002.

Even still I am curious to see which direction this game will go, however in a market flooded of late with RTS games, it makes me wonder whether being HL2 themed with be enough to maintain peoples' interest past the initial wow factor. On the plus side, Half Life 2 has a great story with a variety of well defined characters which will bode very well for this mod. I am excited at the prospect of commanding squads of rebels and or combine soldiers and it could work out very well even if the game play only mimics Company of Heros in style.

For my readers who do not own a PSP or have not been following the PSP homebrew scene, I should explain this, rather absurd headline. For a few months now, an exploit that allows the downgrading of the PSPs internal software (the firmware) has been in circulation after the accidental inclusion of a 'Pandora' battery by Sony. It would appear that Sony's solution to bricked PSPs would be to flash them through software which puts the PSP into a pseudo development mode. A Sony technician accidentally sent one of these magic batteries back with a customer's PSP and this exploit quickly became viral.

Now anyone can potentially unbrick a previously dead PSP - makes you wish you bought all the cheap 'bricked' PSPs on ebay. People who did must be happy now at the prospect of selling them and making a ten fold profit. But I digress, it would appear that new Sony batteries have been altered so as to stop them being modified to trigger the service mode. Should be interesting to see how they achieved this.

People who have not played Anarchy Online will not get this reference although I still recommend reading it as you will certainly be able to pick up on the nuances. Its a comical take on what each class will learn (usually painfully at someone else's expense) when they get to the Temple Of Three Winds. Enjoy :)

Source Thread.

I have been browsing game retailers today making a list of games I want to play. Its not fair - there are some excellent titles just over the horizon and do I have the time to play?!?!? Bah as if :) To make matters worse, my gaming rig needs to be retired. A complete upgrade has been on the cards for a while but I have been umming and ahhing trying to decide what to buy into. I first started thinking about this a year(!) ago but have been delaying and delaying, there has always been something exciting on the horizon stopping me. Whether is was the release of Dx10 cards, the Dx10.1 revision, Penryn, 1333 MT/s FSBs, ATi/AMD X2xxx series and now (finally) AMD's purported Core 2 Duo Killer and the x3xxx. At the moment a G0 Stepping Q6600 looks like a great buy along with a 8800 GT but it would be sheer lunacy to dive in with AMD releasing its products in just a few days. It has come to a head now as I can't play recent games at my native monitor resolution (1280x1024 - its a 17" and I will likely upgrade that as well.) I don't really want to ruin games like Crysis or World in Conflict by playing them at their minimal settings so I have been holding off. It is a double edged sword however, since there is so much being released soon and so much good hardware already available, its hard to know when to take the plunge and hand over your hard earned money....

So without further ado let me outline games which I am particularly excited about at the moment.

#1 In what looks like a cross between CounterStrike and Tom Clancy's GRAW, Call of Duty 4 looks simply stunning. If you have not yet seen any trailers / previews then I highly recommend checking out the following videos.

I simply cannot wait and am annoyed my current system wont let me play it properly....

#2 Whilst graphically Crysis looks amazing, I was rather disappointed to witness the strength of the Korean soldiers in the demo. I play all my games in the hardest difficulty setting (No HUD and everyone speaks Korean baby -oh yeah!) and whilst I enjoyed the feeling of vulnerability coupled with the god complex thats inescapable in Crysis's nano suit, it was disappointing that I could unload 10-20 rounds into the chest of a Korean soldier and have them not even flinch. The game is very much geared to getting up close and personal where you can either break their necks or sever their heads from close range (which works beautifully) but in light of this, the demo did indicate a lack of sophistication of medium range. The combination of exceptional cinematic atmosphere, graphics and physics should make this game an instant hit I just hope the 'body armour' the soldiers wear is toned down for the final release.

#3 Taking a break from the time honored mechanics of real time strategy games, World in Conflict is as refreshingly different as it is back breaking for modern hardware. The lack of traditional base building / micromanagement is refreshing if a little odd at first. Thankfully the bullet tracers that looked like Storm Troopers laser blasts have been fixed and now the game looks a lot more realistic, although I still am hanking for the first person view demonstrated in the early videos of WIC.

Watch the above trailer and tell me you don't long for a first person shooter that intense :) I played the demo (on 'low' settings - BAH) and this is a game I am definitely coming back to once I have upgraded.

#4 Spore. Does anything need to be said about this game? From the initial developers conference video that we all saw years ago (yes the fourty minute one) to the more recent videos, Spore looks simply fantastic and is beautiful in its simplicity and power. I simply cannot wait for this game to come out so that my weird guys can abduct your weird guys :)

#5 Medieval Total War II has been out for a while but I still have not had a moment to play it. I have put a lot of hours into Rome: Total War and really enjoyed it and the thought of an upgrade to that engine that applies per character details is very appealing.

#6 F.E.A.R Perseus Mandate is coming out over here in two days. I still have mixed feelings about it but I will definitely be playing it. I just hope its a lot better than the first 'sequel.'

#7 Prey came out a while ago and curiously its now available at the bargain price of just £5 from Game! Whilst based on the now aging Doom 3 engine, the game has a refreshing blend of old style puzzle solving that I found quite fun in the demo. That coupled with the brutal killing efficiency and the 'walking on all surfaces' seen in the demo SP mode made me thirsty for more of the same. Multiplayer was limited to classic deathmatch but was still worth trying out.

I have been playing around with Xfire recently as well - add me : T0TM5 is my username. Now I just have to figure out where on my site I stick the damn widget :)

In a refreshingly philanthropic move (especially historically when intellectual property has been involved) Will Wright has donated the original SimCity for the One Laptop Per Child project in the hope that it will inspire a generation of OOTB (out of the box) thinkers. This idea was born from the 'SimCity.edu' project by Don Hopkins, essentially making SimCity into a multiplayer game to help teach Civil and Environmental Engineering running on Linux/X11.

Also, while you are browsing, an old friend of mine told me about 'The Nites', an unsigned band that have some great music on their Myspace. I highly recommend listening!

... and to my regular visitors I promise, the next post will be original content rather than hotlinking. I humbly submit myself for your forgiveness.  

"Alex Taldren" has posted an interesting article comparing PC gamers to our console brethren. Call of Duty 4 is pretty much identical across the PC, 360 and PS3, however the user ratings on Gamespot vary slightly across the three platforms with PC gamers rating the game the lowest.

It makes for a great read although maybe ~17 & 26 (PC & PS3 ratings) is too few statistically to compare to 96? (360) It is refreshing to see this data included in the comparison rather than being omitted in order to artificially give the story more authenticity and I do have to give AT praise for this!

Whilst the games themselves are likely to be similar in terms of content and graphics (at stock), the fact is that the PC is a heterogeneous platform unlike the two consoles. As a result, the gaming and graphical performance can and most likely will vary from setup to setup. Also of note will be if any nasty DRM / Copy Protection is used in the PC version as this can have a detrimental effect in some cases - Starforce anyone? This is about the only way in which I believe consoles to be superior to the PC, simple, quick, homogenous and playing perfectly out of the box. It will be interesting comparing these numbers again in a few weeks to see how they change as more people rate the games across the platforms.

Woohoo! The eagerly awaited Daedalus R13 is here after a four month break between releases! Here is what StrmnNrmn had to say today:

Whilst StrmnNrmn has not been working on increasing compatibility, he has been working on optimising the dynarec stack which should allow for a 10-20% fps increase in exisiting games. I have downloaded it and will post feedback when I have had a chance to get to grips with this new release.

Download 1.0 , 1.5 source for R13.

Found a simply great video on youtube today - "blah blah blah Mr Freeman" !! Anyone who has played both halflife games will understand it immediately despite the fact some of it is in German. I am not normally one for simply posting videos or links to things I find, but I felt this warranted it! :)

I would also like to thank my friend Simon (Gingerbreadman) for taking the time to write the previous post on my site. It is a good summary of a simple method of checking the integrity and stability of the RAM in your computer. Bad RAM has a habit of generating strange and unusual errors which sometimes makes it difficult to trap the source of the error. Read more.

I came across a second sequel to the amazing fear today entitled Perseus Mandate. The official trailer is below. It is unclear at this stage whether this game will pick up after extraction point, however I hope it is a completely new instalment albeit in the same universe.

The problem is, whilst fear was an excellent game which made stunning use of particles, slow down and a creepy little girl called alma, that was a couple of years ago. The original game tied up the storyline quite nicely, however leaving a beautiful opening for a sequel with Alma's stunt at the end. I eagerly awaited a continuation of the storyline only to be presented with Extraction Point, a game that answers very few questions and just serves up a few extra hours of game time in the same environments as the original. Whilst some new bad guys and weapons were added, recent game sequels have shown that this is not enough, particularly with a cinematic game like F.E.A.R. Needless to say I was bitterly disappointed with Extraction Point. Now we have Perseus Mandate that, on the surface, looks like another cheap effort to use the F.E.A.R engine and content to sell a few more games.

It should be noted however that in the original, you (the player) are a hapless member of F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) and that you are charged with investigating strange occurrences and circumstances. The fact that, right from the moment go, you are thrown into the twisted universe of Fettel and Alma almost makes the player forget this and take up the time honoured, if tired, role of unlucky bystander #1 who surprise surprise is either unknowingly the answer to the game or unsubtly, a human tank that bulldozes through the levels.

I think the key to Perseus Mandate will be treating it like a completely new game rather than as a sequel. The problem is that games have moved on considerably since 2005 and coupled with the rather unique engine of fear means that this game will have to do something or offer something very new or different in order to achieve its potential. Thankfully the trailer shows several interesting new events/ways in which the game plays with the player's mind. I hope that whatever story the developers choose to tell, they generate the atmosphere as well in the original.

There are so many 'horror' games on the market but most use the over used system of dark corners and imps/zombies jumping and lurching around. F.E.A.R was one of the few games that attempted to get under your skin by constantly putting you on edge and it worked remarkably well. As such I am quietly optimistic, as I dearly would love a game that matched the original in terms of atmosphere and immersion.

At the risk of annoying all the blog syndicators I ping to when I update (ok... 2) I just had to write a brief post about the Crysis demo. It is simply stunning, but you already knew that. What is more impressive is that a user called LennyRhys found a very simple modification which allows most of the Dx10 effects on Dx9 Hardware or in Dx9 mode.

[quote from original thread]

I'm one of the few VERY happy people in the crysis community at the moment. I ran the game with everything high at 1680x1050 and it looks awesome, very playable, no lag.

C2D E6750

Gigabyte P35 DS4

2GB OCZ Platinum 800MHz

Nvidia GF 8800GTX

All at stock

If you tweak the configuration files in \CVarGroups\ by copying and pasting the "very high" settings (1st paragraph) IN PLACE of the "high" settings (last paragraph) the game will load the highest possible settings even though the drop-down menus display "high.". The difference between "high" settings and the tweaked settings is immense: shadows are deeper, more realistic; the leaves have better reflective properties, better textures; the colours are better; and the level of detail is simply stunning.

[/quote]

The whole thing is reminiscent of the CellFactor: Revolution mod. According to the developer, the game would only run with a AEGIA PhysX card. A modification was quickly found which allowed it to be played in software with most of the 'snazzy' new features. Here are a selection of images from the thread, as you can see, this minor modification makes the game look even more stunning...

I had forgotten how much fun playing multiplayer games with people in the same room is. Playing online is a lot of fun, but when you know the people and watch their reactions as you play makes it all the more exhilarating. That coupled with the potential for humiliation greatly adds to the experience.

The games played were : Star Trek Tactical Assualt and Ace Combat X on the PSP. StarTrek was a lot of fun but suffered from serious glitching in multiplayer. Player positions were completely all over the place with people being 300+ distance away from where they were on the other person's PSP. Ace Combat X was a lot of fun particularly 1v1 dog fights, bloody Fenrirs...

Also played was Goldeneye and Starcraft. Prior to this I had not played Starcraft in about two years and I must say, after a few hours of play I am convinced that if all Blizzard do with Starcraft 2 is update the graphics, it will STILL be an excellent game. I still remember playing it almost ten years ago when multiplayer involved dialling my friend's modem using my computer using a 33.6kbps connection.... laggy times. It was one of the first games to have completely asynchronous factions and is still a huge amount of fun to play, although its shocking how quickly the hours shoot past when playing it...

Well I promised a few posts ago I would outline how to glitch the facility map so as to remove Ourmov. I thought everyone knew about this glitch but as I read through more and more sites I could not find any mention of it. So, here is the video - be kind to me, this is my first submission to youtube :)

In my usual excellent timing, the website hosting the programs I have written about below (http://www.rarewitchproject.com/), has just gone down. They are presently working on a site wide redesign. Will update when site comes back up. Sorry about this

Update 2: The site is now back up. Enjoy the redesigned goodness - http://www.rarewitchproject.com

Following on from the post a few days back - I have found a number of programs that help customise goldeneye. Not only can new single player levels be made and played (in emulator OR console) but all the levels have been unlocked and can be played in multiplayer.

The first utility has been out for a little while now - Goldeneye Full Face Mapper.

This program allows you to replace any texture in Goldeneye - from the wall / decals to smoke and even faces. This is a feature that RARE had completed and intended to be released with Perfect Dark but didnt due to legal concerns. Now, with a little tweaking you can change all the faces of the built in bad guys in Goldeneye.

Update: SubDragon from Rarewitch project emailed to let me know that this tool is no longer required as the goldeneye setup editor v2.1 can do this as well. Its still useful for a quick and dirty tweak however.

The second program is the most impressive - it is called the Goldeneye Setup Editor.

This is the second version of this program. The first was released in 2005 but everything had to be done manually in hex codes and as a result I didnt get anywhere with this. The new version allows for visual editing of levels and object placement and is highly recommended. It allows anything to be changed, from the missions to the placement of enemies / objects. Several user created levels are already available and range from retweaked original levels to completely new maps.

Example of Goldeneye multiplayer using G5 building from Perfect Dark

A video of a new single player level : Library

Example of a retweaked Runway level:

I must admit to being a huge Battlestar Galactica fan, so imagine my delight when I discovered a community project to make a space combat game from the same universe! It combines some of my favourite words - community and game but the best thing is that it's actually a hell of a lot of fun. The controls are complicated, as not only do you have traditional control over propulsion (e.g. thrust and 'flaps') but also manoeuvring thrusters as well. This means it takes quite a while to get adjusted and I can hear Starbuck berating me in the back of my head every time I muck up a turn. I am such a frakking nugget at the moment in this game at the moment. The Cylon raiders are every bit as dangerous as they are portrayed on TV, twisting, ducking diving making it very difficult to destroy, even in a one on one battle. There have been times when I have had an AI Cylon raider in my sights but the damn thing kept twisting and turning around asteroids making it extremely difficult to kill. There are a few issues with the game which are caused by the engine on which the game is based. Occationally there are graphical clipping errors on the asteroids but on the whole these are pretty small issues.

>

The only draw back is that you really need to use a game pad to play this game properly, preferably one with a lot of buttons although there is a lot of talk on the forums of people quite happily using a keyboard and mouse. The number of single player missions is currently a bit limited but that is mostly because only a short demo has been released. Multiplayer on the other hand is fully implemented thanks to it being based on an open source port of Freespace2 and is a lot of fun with several teams having cropped up.

This is definitely one to check out and bookmark, if their future release builds on the demo, it will rival several recent commercial games.

BtRL Videos:

Thanks to Simon for help proofing.

I was randomly looking for a quote from Goldeneye (the movie) on youtube last night when I discovered a collection of videos showing the various fun things you can do with a bit of gamesharking. The kind of things you can do are really impressive, for example, the first few preview pictures show dual wielding of weapons but with the actor camera angle / height changed. Whilst this looks excellent with dual magnums, two RPC90s or KF7s look a little weird. Did someone say gigantism? From guards that don't fit in the dam level to enormous remote mines.

One of the more fun alterations was changing the default actor model from the standard Russian guard to Natalia or the scientist models. Still more entertaining was Sean Bean replaced by a Goldeneye satellite which walked around the end of the facility level. There appeared to be several codes which just made the default soldiers go crazy, from shooting at right angles to the player to shooting at the idiot with the box on his head. The final six pictures showed multiplayer fun from levels which definitely were not included as official multiplayer maps (train, dam, cradle and depot.)

I discovered a glitch that could be exploited on the facility level many years ago. I never posted it online as I though everyone else knew about it, but recently I discovered no mention of it anywhere on the official Goldeneye fan sites. It is simple enough to do. When at the end of Facility, talk to Alec but get close to the door. Immediately when the alarm sounds, run through the door into the lab area. Ourmov WILL NOT spawn, meaning you can return to the bottling room and shoot at guards to your hearts content. Alec will even help you.  I will post a video guide to this (although its trivial to perform) soon.

Gameshark Videos:

Part 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

With many exciting releases either on the way (*buntu, MEPIS ) or already here (Mandriva) I find myself trying desperately to switch my primary OS to one of these flavors. The problem is, at the moment, I cannot run Linux as a standalone operating system without at least dual booting with windows XP. Whilst my hardware at the moment is (almost)completely supported by modern Linux my massive upgrade, which is just over the horizon, would likely prevent me from running a Linux OS with full hardware acceleration. I believe this is a problem that many gamers face and I can not see any solution presently. The problem lies in one of the main uses of my PC - gaming.

I play a lot of games and as such, migrating away from an operating system like XP or Vista is a bad idea. Even though quite a few games (Doom 3, America's Army etc) have Linux builds, most games do not. Whilst API compatibility projects such as WINE are making excellent progress, it is generally not sufficient to play modern (i.e. newly released) games properly and with no performance hit. The major sticking point is graphics card drivers. Whilst these are reasonably mature for nVidia, ATi drivers (both binary and to an extent the fglx ones) are substandard. For years ATi has been promising new and improved drivers but at the moment this has not happened. Whilst I was going to have a rant about support of new graphics cards, I am pleasantly surprised to find much improved support in recently announced drivers.

An option of course, is to goto Linux and buy a Xbox 360 / PS3. Whilst I think the simplicity of putting a disc in and playing a game (just like that - no OS, no configuring graphics and tweaking for your hardware etc) is great and a breath of fresh air, the lack of openness in a console environment massively puts me off. I like being able to make my own maps / models etc for games I play. More to the point, some of the most enjoyable games I have played recently have been total conversion mods - something not accommodated for in a console environment like Beyond the red line - a BattleStar Galactica mod. You only have to see the difference a few user made mods make to Oblivion to want to play it all over again.

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