Gamernode: Latest PC News

How To Get 80 Dollars From Microsoft

Buy Windows Vista. Microsoft, the worldwide leader in including operating systems on computers, has announced a price drop for their newest OS child, Vista.

Later this year Vista will be dropping from 399 dollars to 319 dollars for the full Ultimate version while the Home Premium version will drop from $159 to $129. And if you act now I hear they're throwing in a set of steak knives absolutely free.*

If the savings aren't enough to get you to jump to the Vista side of the fence consider this; these price drops will come hot on the heels of the highly anticipated Service Pack 1. According to WindowsVistaBlog the service pack will be "addressing specific reliability and performance issues we've identified via customer feedback, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for se...

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Pray to the Conan gods for beta keys

When I was a kid, I remember praying to God for a new Nintendo 64 for my birthday. Even though I did get the N64, it was eight months after my birthday and I had a lot of catching up to do.

Then I remember talking to Santa, asking for that sweet KNex rollercoaster set for Christmas and lo and behold there it was under the tree. Yet somehow I had the creeping suspicion that there was a middle man involved in all this.

Funcom community manager Tarib is doing a first--asking fans of the upcoming MMORPG "Age of Conan" to write down their "betaprayer" to any of the Hyborian gods.

"The funniest/best/most creative/outstanding entries will be rewarded with a key for the General Beta." Overall 200 keys for the beta will be awarded to those who take part in this competition over at the Age of Conan ...

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Battlefield Heroes trailer

Here's the debut trailer that gives a first-hand look at the upcoming, free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes. With an emphasis on cartoony graphics and its pick up n' go gameplay, here's a casual shooter for all PC gamers to enjoy.

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US Government to search for terrorists in WoW

If real life terrorists weren't enough for the regular US citizen to worry about, the United States Government seems to think that these extremists also have a second home in World of Warcraft. The Reynard project is the defense against these terrorists.

While only in the beginning stages of development, the project is claimed to be able to detect abnormal behavior in the World of Warcraft environment, which will then translate in being able to find any odd actions on the online world in general. While World of Warcraft is the testing area, the world wide web and all of it's subsections are the ultimate goal. While this is all well and good, it is odd and confusing why World of Warcraft is the target to be tested.

One could argue the ten million subscribers is a great base to test on, but...

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Steam to experiment with video and music?

Steam is a force to be reckoned with; I use it practically every day and I join the 15 million other folks around the world who use the service too. With plenty of games available at my fingertips, Steam is a forerunner in the upcoming/current age of digital distribution.

Over on Tom's Games, Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing for Valve, answered a question regarding what's next for Steam this year. Lombardi said, "...And we're also looking at other types of content like video and music. We're definitely having those conversations and meetings, and we're reaching out to folks with other types of digital entertainment.

I think before the end of the year, you'll probably see some pilot programs with other digital entertainment on Steam."

Considering Steam has dominated PC gaming over t...

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Dead Space and Mass Effect (PC) dated

In a double whammy-like fashion, EA announced official release dates for Dead Space, an upcoming sci-fi, survivor/horror, third-person shooter for PS3, PC and Xbox 360 and Mass Effect for PC.

In the spirit of ghouls and ghosts, Dead Space will be released on Halloween, October 31st, in North America and Europe. You can view Eddie's top 10 most anticipated games of 2008--Dead Space falls in #5 and a new trailer is shown on the game's newly redesigned website.

Note that while the press release omitted any PC mentionings, it's been confirmed that the game will be for the PC as well as the consoles on the aforementioned date.

As for Mass Effect for PC, EA pinned down May 6th as the official release date in North America. In addition to the new features outlined here, other confirmed new features...

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sells 1.65 million copies worldwide...

In Ukraine gaming magazine Gameplay, Sergei Grigorovich, CEO of GSC Game World, mentioned some sales figure for their FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. garnered quite a lot of controversy for its prolonged development (over six years) but upon its release, the game received a warm reception.

According to a translation, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sold 1.65 million copies worldwide. 950,000 units were sold in CIS while 700,000 units were sold worldwide. To sell over one million copies worldwide for a game that was so long in development is a heck of a feat, especially on just one platform (PC) too.

GSC Game World is working on a prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, which is expected in a few months. In addition to enhanced AI, Clear Sky will feature around...

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The Orange Box for PC outsold console versions

The Orange Box was a success both commercially and critically for all platforms but gamers have been left in the dark on exactly how much the gaming package has sold. Over on Tom's Games, Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing for Valve, gave a little insight on the sales performance of The Orange Box.

According to Lombardi, the Xbox 360 version sold over a million copies, while the PS3 version sold over a few hundred thousand copies. Overall, he estimated that the Orange Box would have sold about 1.5 million copies on consoles. But as for the PC version, Lombardi said that sales for that platform were stronger.

Regarding the strong Orange Box sales for PC, he said, "I'd say significantly stronger, at least a two-digit percentage increase over the console sales. And that includes Steam s...

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Portal 2 announced

I hope nobody is terribly offended by video content, because the following clip contains a tidbit of information I think you all are going to like.

At the very end of this G4 interview with Portal's lead designer Kim Swift, she tells us that Valve's lead marketing director Doug Lombardi has indeed announced that Portal 2 is in the works.

It's funny how little enthusiasm surrounded that statement from either end of the discussion, but I'm sure we can make up for that here at GN. Who's excited?

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Intel acquires Offset Software, Project Offset

In what will hopefully prove to be good news, Intel has acquired Offset Software, the developers behind the very impressive Project Offset.  One can only assume that this acquisition will mean better funding for the project, and ultimately, a better final product.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Project Offset, it is a first-person shooter/melee rpg set in a fantasy realm.  It will incorporate a hybrid fighting system described as being similar to modern fighting games, and will tell its story via the parallel tales of multiple protagonists.  Be sure to take a look at the video I've posted below.

The announcement was made by technical director Sam McGrath yesterday at Offset Software's website:

"February 20th, 2008 - Intel Acquires Offset SoftwareToday we have some major news to a...

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Audiosurf: the first GamerNode audio, video, and r...

While I can't recall ever using the news to showcase a new review coming up, I felt like I should do it this once since we're trying something different and otherwise people may not know it exists. (Plus I can break the rules like that.)

For the first time, we've reviewed a game via audio, text, and video all simultaneously. To make things more impressive, the video of the review is a video of someone playing the game using the audio of the review for the game being played! Wrap your mind around that one. It was a several day task spanning multiple continents and accents (Kyle didn't know jambo is Australian) and the final product can be found in the Audiosurf review page, here.

Let us know what you think. Like it? Think it sucked? Want to see more or less like it in the future? Obviously ...

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Quake Live to be a 'freemium' game

Today, during the Game Developer's Conference, iD Software announced that their new partnership with IGA Worldwide is what will spawn the new, free Quake Live game.

Formerly known as Quake Zero, Quake Live will be the next iteration in the Quake series as a re-creation of Quake 3 with new online competitive features inside a free, downloadable client.

"IGA understands game developers and game players which makes them the perfect partner for Quake Live. Whether it's been the ease of implementing their SDK or just their excitement about QUAKE LIVE, they have been fantastic to work with," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. "As we work to bring QUAKE-style deathmatch excitement to the masses, IGA has fully supported our vision."

"Quake Live's expected features include a matchmaking serv...

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Molyneux states PC gaming is lacking innovation

During GDC, Peter Molyneux -- Lionhead Studios' boss -- gave some comments regarding the state of PC gaming. Stating that PC gaming is lacking innovation and in a tragic state, the comments seem to mirror similar thoughts Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski made last week.

Molyneux said, "I think it's a huge tragedy. I mean, you might as well say PC gaming is World of Warcraft and The Sims... The weird thing is everyone's got a PC, they're just not buying software for it."

Molyneux also stated that while PC gaming innovation took a rebound with the release of a few popular casual games like Peggle, Puzzle Quest and Diner Dash recently, the market is back into repetition and a lack of innovation.

"The fascinating thing is when they first started, all these games came out like Peggle and Mystery File...

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American McGee's Grimm debut trailer

For some reason, I can't get enough of the idea of taking sweet, innocent children's fairy tales and turning them into a sick and twisted horrorshow. I don't know if it's just me, but that's something that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Here's the debut trailer for American McGee's Grimm, an episodic PC game from the mind that brought us the similarly deranged Alice. Look for it this summer.

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Amazon.com getting into gaming digital distributio...

The Tech Report spied a job posting by American e-commerce company Amazon.com who are looking for a "Software Development Engineer - Video Game and Software Downloads." Judging by the job description, one may deduce that Amazon is looking into getting its hands on digital distribution.

The job description states, "The Software and Video Games Digital Technology Team is the right team for you. Our team is responsible for digital distribution of software and video game products from the Amazon website, including the newly launched Amazon Software Download store."

Amazon currently has its software downloads page up but only tax software is available for purchase. Digital distribution is certainly rising in popularity lately and is attributed to its use in many PC gaming communities and services...

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The Witcher's surprise revealed, new edition!

If you've been holding out to experience an excellent RPG such as The Witcher, then May will be a grand time to get your hands on the game. The surprise has been lifted today and CD Projekt RED announced that The Witcher will be re-released in May with plenty of new enhancements, changes and improvements.

In the massive press release, Maciej Szczesnik, project manager for CD Projekt RED, mentioned some of the new game features in the new edition. Things included are lower loading times (reduced up to 80%), wider PC configuration support, a complete revision of the English translations (changes to other languages are promised too), over 50 new character models, inventory menu UI changes and over 100 new animation gestures during dialogue scenes.

Adam Kicinski, CEO of CD Projekt RED, said tha...

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Parliament to ISPs: ban illegal downloaders

The BBC is reporting that in the UK, talks are in place attempting to force Internet Service Providers to ban users from the internet if they illegally download files.

Representatives of Parliament note that the plan is still in the very early stages and has yet to be placed before legislative committees. The Internet Service Providers Association was quick to sound off on the proposal.

"ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope," commented representatives of the organization.

This threat may sound menacing, but I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it, my little game, music and movie pirates. File swapping was going on long before the government knew about it, in ways they couldn't understand...

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The Witcher sells 600K copies, surprise on Monday

Being a PC gamer allows me to enjoy great titles like The Witcher. Coming totally out of left field (in this case an ocean) during a turbulent time of excellent games usually would of spelt disaster for a seemingly unknown game from a brand-new start-up game developer but The Witcher earned plenty of critical acclaim and praise by critics upon its release.

CD Projekt RED, the game's developer, announced today that The Witcher sold over 600,000 copies worldwide in just three months. You don't have to be a scientist to know that for a debut game by a newly started developer to sell 600K copies is pretty darn good.

Adam Kicinski, joint CEO of CD Projekt RED, was grateful for the game's success and discussed the overwhelming odds held against The Witcher, "It's a great success for us, made all ...

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NVIDIA planning PhysX integrated video cards

After the announcement that NVIDIA would acquire PhysX physics software/hardware developer AGEIA earlier this month, rumors ran rampant that the video card developer would integrate the PhysX technology straight into its video cards but when will we see them hit the market?

Over on The Tech Report, they have word from NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang that the GeForce 8 cards will be able to run PhysX.

"We're working toward the physics-engine-to-CUDA port as we speak. And we intend to throw a lot of resources at it. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it helps our GPU sales even in advance of [the port's completion]. The reason is, [it's] just gonna be a software download. Every single GPU that is CUDA-enabled will be able to run the physics engine when it comes. . . . Every one of our GeForce 8-s...

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TF2 patch tomorrow; patch notes detailed

Valve posted up the patch notes to an upcoming Team Fortress 2 patch, which is due for release tomorrow. The patch notes include general optimizations and performance tweaks to the Source Engine, a new TF2 map, numerous gameplay and performance fixes for a few existing TF2 maps and two fixes for SourceTV.

Badlands, a remake of the original Team Fortress Classic map, will be finally released tomorrow; in addition with a few changes to Dustbowl, CTF Well and Granary will be implemented too. One notable fix will affect snipers, "Added a small delay (200 ms) before a zoomed sniper shot can get a critical hit."

For SourceTV users, a new fix, "SourceTV now uses a hidden slot on the game server. This allows for 24 player servers to also have a SourceTV proxy connected to it," should alleviate any ...

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