Gamernode: Latest PC News

Mythos bringing back the MMO hack-n-slash

In the past few years, the MMORPG genre has been expanding rapidly. Many of the games released in that time, however, have been me-too clones with the same look and feel as one another, matching mechanics and interface nearly identically.

Flagship Studios' Mythos is a throwback to the online RPGs of old; a top-down hack-and-slash dungeon crawler a la the Diablo series. As a matter of fact, the folks working on Mythos were part of the Blizzard team that put together the Diablo games years ago. If that's not enough for you, Mythos is free to download and free to play. There you go.

• (5)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Infinity Ward says pirates are plundering PC gamin...

Call of Duty 4 developer Infinity Ward published an interesting blog recently from Community Manager Robert Bowling. In it, he passionately discusses the state of PC gaming, and the rampant piracy that he says cripples it.

The post is titled "They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More."

"We pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn't fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen /cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online). Not sure if I can share the exact numbers or percentage of PC players with you, but I'll check and see; if I can I'll update with them. As the amount of people who pirate PC g...

• (15)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

January 10th GameTap releases

For my New Years' resolution, it's to get more free stuff, so here's a free GameTap update!

GameTap is offering three new subscription games this week. The first game is Sam & Max: Episode 202: Moai Better Blues, the next chapter in the second episodic series about the hilarious dynamic and quirky duo. Expect GamerNode's review up in a day or two.

The second new subscription game is from developer Meridan4 called Jewelcraft. The last new game is Hitman: Blood Money, the game got pretty good reviews, so if you like assassin-based games, take Blood Money for a spin.

In addition, the list of free-play titles has been expanded to 73, which means just one new free-play game this week. The new free-play game is Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle from SNK.

For the full list of free-play games, take a...

• (0)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Saga's entering its next beta phase -- want in?

Saga's an upcoming game combining a lot of genres. You've got RTS stuff, the TCG stuff, and MMO stuff all rolled into one little package. I'm not entirely sure how it plays yet, because the press beta just started this morning; look for some thoughts on that from a few people here in the next week or so.

The game plays by using online domains. Basically, you're playing an RTS game in a completely dynamic world where your actions remain after you're done. Build a building? It's there still when you log off (I presume, at least). You can join up with friends to form teams, trade for other stuff, and try to make your mark on the world.

Much like other games you've got your humans, giants, dwarves, elves, orcs, ogres, and dark elves all making up the five various factions, and each with a vari...

• (0)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Rumor: Will Logitech be acquired by Microsoft?

Reuters is reporting on some strong indications and rumors that Microsoft may be eyeballing PC accessory maker Logitech for a ripe acquisition. In subsequent financial news, Logitech's stoke rose as much as 12% based on this speculated acquisition rumblings. 

Previously, analysts labeled rumors of a possible $8 billion takeover bid as unlikely. In addition, Daniel Borel, Logitech board member and owner of a 6% stake within the company, dismissed any acquisition rumors and remained firm that the company won't be sold off despite having virtually no say in a future final deal.

"I am a co-founder of Logitech. Would you be willing to sell your child? I have no reason to sell. But I will not be the one to decide. I own only some 6 percent so I will neither enable nor prevent a sale of Logitech."

I...

• (2)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Crytek defends Crysis' high system requirements

Crysis is one behemoth of a game. By far the most spectacular looking computer game on the market--something Crytek was successful in achieving. So why has it been getting so much flak from gamers?

Well because you need one behemoth of a computer to enjoy it in its full glory. Cevat Yerli, the boss over at Crytek however defends the system requirements that they put out for the game.

"I think an important distinction that many gamers overlooked was that we designed 'medium' settings to look and play great. Our 'medium' setting should run great on 70 percent of gaming PCs.

"I definitely think that we need to continue to educate gamers about our settings. As we've been saying all along, Crysis looks and runs great on medium and high settings on gaming rigs that are 2-3 years old. Our primary...

• (7)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

First Crysis patch finally arrives!

The first patch for Crysis has finally arrived, fixing a number of bugs as well as making some gameplay changes and performance tweaks.

The 1.1 patch weighs in at a decent 139MB and can be grabbed form here or here or wherever else you can find it!

Now, what you've all been waiting for -- other than the actual patch, of course -- the 1.1 changelist:

Fixes:

-Damage dealt to vehicles when shot by LAW has been made consistent

-F12 (screenshot) now works in restricted mode as well

-When player melees during gun raise animation, their gun will not be in a permanently raised position anymore

-Memory leaks and potential crashesUpdates:

-Improved SLI / Crossfire support and performance

-Improved overall rendering performance (DX9 and DX10)

-Enabled VSync functionality in D3D10Tweaks:

-Reduced grenad...

• (1)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Sony to release PC Blu-Ray player for under $200

Sony Electronics has announced the new BDU-X10S BD-ROM, an internal Blu-Ray player that will transform any PC into a Blu-Ray player.

The BD-ROM will be bundled with a special Blu-Ray edition of Cyberlink's PowerDVD player, allowing users to play commercial Blu-Ray discs, burnt Blu-Ray discs, DVDs and CDs. The BD-ROMs will use SATA connections and features the standard 5.25 inch form-factor, allowing it to fit into any computer that can hold a CD/DVD-ROM drive.

At under $200, the drive is quite competitively priced, and could see an outcome similar to when DVD-ROMs exploded onto the PC scene. Maybe we'll see PC games coming on Blu-Ray to save us from multiple DVDs.

"PC-based DVD-ROM drives helped accelerate mass DVD adoption, primarily because they were the least costly way to experience the t...

• (10)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Full Steam ahead for Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games is the latest publisher to join the ever-growing ranks of Steam. Now, folks can enjoy (if you haven't already) some fine games including all the Grand Theft Auto games, Manhunt, Max Payne and its sequel Max Payne 2, Midnight Club 2 and Wild Metal.

A discount is going on now where you can purchase Rockstar's entire catalog for just $53.95 USD (normally $59.95 USD) but the discount ends on January 11th. As for individual prices, they're as followed: Grand Theft Auto 3 ($9.95 USD), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City ($9.95 USD), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ($19.95 USD), Manhunt ($9.95 USD), Max Payne ($9.95 USD), Max Payne 2 ($9.95 USD) and Midnight Club 2 ($9.95 USD).

Hands-down, picking up Max Payne and Max Payne 2 for just $13.45 (thanks to that discount) is a heck of a deal. Enjoy...

• (8)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Medic achievements revealed, Soldier tweaks coming...

If you've read this, you'd remember that additional achievements for the Medic class are on the way. But as you know, we Medic fans have been waiting for awhile.

Thankfully, German TF2 fansite TeamFortress2.de can alleviate our pains; they got their hands on the mind-boggling 36 new achievements for the healing class.

A few achievements are missing their descriptions and some are direct translations so it's only a matter of time till we know the full details. The list and the accompanied icons are listed below.

In related news, it looks like the next character class to be examined is the Soldier, according to this Steam thread. If you folks remember, the Pyro and Demoman got a few changes in the past, so for you rocket-jumpers, stay tuned for the Soldier tweaks.

1. Assist Capturer- Helping w...

• (6)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

January 3rd GameTap releases

It's the New Year, so happy New Year! In the meantime, celebrate with this nifty GameTap update.

With a festive mood on their minds, GameTap is offering five new subscription games this week. The first game is a classic title from 2003, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Covert Ops Essentials. Offering new levels not featured in the original game, players will also get an inside look to the world of covert operations.

The second game is a 1985 shoot 'em up title called B-Wings, which I'm sure arcade fans will recognize. The third game is a 1986 arcade/action title named Express Raider, which puts you in the shoes of a Wild West train bandit; who doesn't want to be one?

The fourth game is one of the first scrolling shooters ever made and the first shoot 'em up game where you can shoot in four directio...

• (0)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

TF2 update, medic's future and free play weekend

This Team Fortress 2 update news bulletin mentions a few more changes to the team-based, multiplayer FPS.

Specific changes include a fix to the sniper quick-switch exploit, which allowed them to avoid zoom/unzoom times, a fix to the medic's syringe gun, which sometimes pushed players high into the air and additional player position data logging.

For medic fans (me!), you'll be happy to know that Valve is working on new features for the helpful healing class. This thread on the Steam forums mentions a player who received comments from Robin Walker about the medic's future. Apparently this is separate for the planned additional medic achievements.

"...We're working on a large new feature that'll add a set of interesting choices for Medics to make about their tactics, so in the future we expec...

• (3)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Black Mesa's Christmas media release

Black Mesa media releases are few and far between, so when the main site went down yesterday, the rumors started flying left, right and center. Thankfully, those rumors were proven to be true yesterday, when the main site came back online with a new news post, a bunch of new screeshots and hints of more to come.

What a nice Christmas present!

In the first site news since May 2007, Nathan "NateDGreat3" Ayres spoke of the progress of the mod.

"Development has been going great and proceeding steadily towards completion. The team has really settled into an efficient development pattern, with very few bottlenecks arising in development now. Internal milestones have been organized to ensure a timely release, and we've been doing a great job of hitting those milestones. It's been very exciting to ...

• (5)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Steam sale from now until January 1st

You can tell that Valve really loves the holiday season. Outside of the Portal-themed Christmas flashes and cards, you can be sure they're throwing one hell of a Christmas party. Unfortunately, we can't be there. Instead, we get some pretty nice discounts all across the board in the Steam store.

From now until January 1, 2008, save 10-50% on every game from every publisher in Steam's store. (Except Darwinia and Shadowgrounds Survivor, for some reason.) There's a lot of nice discounts, but here are some of the better ones to possibly spend more money on this Christmas season. Don't forget, you can also gift Steam games, so if you were desperate for any last minute presents...

Several games normally priced at $19.95 are on sale for $9.95, such as FlatOut 2, Peggle Deluxe, Psychonauts, Vampire...

• (6)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Crytek's present for you: free Crysis maps

Are you one of the four people here who can play Crysis? If so, Crytek brings you an early Christmas gift this year: the Crysis Tournament Mappack.

"Of course we have prepared a little Christmas present for you as well," community manager Cry-Alex wrote on the Crymod post. "Within the past few months and weeks we haven't been working on patches, SDK and Linux Server only, but also our Level Designers have been very active. Thus we are happy to announce you the release of the official ‘Crysis Tournament Mappack'.

Some of you might know this map pack series from FarCry already. We wanted to continue it for Crysis and have turned it into an official map pack that is being developed and approved by Crytek."

The mappack features 5 brand new multiplayer maps for Crysis: PowerStruggle - Desol...

• (4)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Mod DB's 2007 Mod of the Year awards enter phase 2...

It's that time of the year again! Time to vote for your favorite released and upcoming mods! Over on Mod DB, their sixth annual Mod of the Year contest has entered phase 2. After 20 days and over 40,000 votes, the first portion of the contest has ended, narrowing the field from 4,000 potential winners to 100. This next round will cut even more out, resulting in the five finalists for released mods, and upcoming mods.

You can head on over to Mod DB's Mod of the Year section to vote. If you aren't registered don't worry, because you don't need to be to vote this time. If you're really indecisive, you can also vote for several of your favorite mods.

In case you're wondering, I voted for Urban Terror and (obviously) Black Mesa. You obviously should vote for Black Mesa, too. It's meant to be. I ...

• (7)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

First Crysis patch delayed till next month

So it's been two weeks, where's the first Crysis patch? According to inCrysis, the first patch ran into technical delays and it's expected to be released sometime next month.

Sorry folks, but it looks like more waiting is in-store for Crysis fans. In the meantime, Crytek released a more fleshed out patch change log, which offers a lot more fixes and tweaks than before.

Lastly, Crytek offered some information regarding the second patch for Crysis. They're planning the second patch to be a full content patch; it'll address stability, gameplay tweaks, balancing issues and new features for single player and multiplayer. Also it'll add Punkbuster support and the game's SDK.

The "major" patch change log is as followed:

Fixes

1. Damage dealt to vehicles when shot by LAW has been made consistent2. F12 ...

• (3)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

December 20th GameTap releases

A little late, but better late than never! I just got home from college for the holidays, so what better way to celebrate that than with a GameTap update.

There are three new subscription games this week on GameTap. The first is Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future, which was ported to Dreamcast back in 1999. Street Fighter III was released in three editions so 3rd Strike features additional characters, such as Chun-Li, Makoto and Remy.

Next is a 2006 action/RPG titled Mr. Robot from independent developer Moonpod. The game received pretty decent reviews and Moonpod's debut game, Starscape, was pretty acclaimed too. The last game is an action/beat 'em up title called Metal Combat from Solar Studios. You play a mutated heap of metal and you fight other heaps of metal in a junkya...

• (0)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

The new Crysis rocket launcher. Lethal and tasty

We've seen all sorts of cool weapons in Gears of War, Resistance: Fall of Man, Halo 3 and others, but this Crysis weapon that was modded by a gamer takes the prize as deadliest weapon.

The rocket launcher was redone by "phresh" to not shoot rockets, but something far more evil and destructive. Nuclear tipped missiles? Bah, far too pedestrian and ineffective. What we're talking about is...chickens.

Now before you laugh, take a look at the video for yourself and see the carnage unveil as the rocket flames shoot out of the chicken's, er, booster.

Shooters will never be the same again. Oh, the Crysis gamer is also working on the frog edition of the X72-9 too.

I don't think I'm ready for that one yet. The chicken launcher was too intense for me. Check out the video--if you dare.

• (7)
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

PhysX physics cards only $50 in Japan

The PhysX physics card certainly hasn't been the success that Ageia were hoping for, but that could soon change.

Ageia has just announced a new deal with Japanese graphics card manufacturer ELSA, who are going to be start selling the PhysX cards in Japan. The cards will be known as ELSA Phynite X100s and will retail for around 6000 Yen, which is just over $50 USD.

The idea behind the Ageia PhysX card is similar to the idea behind graphics cards. Graphics cards were first introduced to help alleviate calculations from a computer's CPU, specifically calculations relating to 2D and 3D graphics. The PhysX card works in a similar fashion, handling calculations involving physics, allowing the CPU to work on other calculations.

With current Ageia PhysX cards still sitting in the $130-$180 USD price ...

• (5)
• 
• 
• 
• 
•