Kotick was also offered the chance to buy Blizzard in the 1990s for $7 million, and then in the early 2000s for $700 million.

[12:10] “I took a look at World of Warcraft and I thought, ‘Who would want to buy a subscription to that?’”

[12:10] “So, of course we ended up merging with them in 2008 when they were worth $7 billion.”

You can buy World of Warcraft for just £4.99 from Amazon.

Activision Blizzard owns the following gaming brands:

Crash Bandicoot series
Guitar Hero series
Call of Duty series
Tony Hawk franchise
Spider-Man series
Spyro the Dragon series
Warcraft series
StarCraft series
Diablo series

The Logitech G7 went down the route of 2 seperate batteries that could only be used in the G7. Only one battery could be used at a time, so while that was in use the other could be recharged in the charging dock, which also had a USB port for the USB receiver. It worked well, but could be a bit annoying when the battery ran out of juice mid-way through a game or work, but it only took a couple of seconds to swap. At first the batteries lasted around 7-8 hours each between charges which was more than enough generally for 2-3 days of use. But over the years the battery life has shrunk to less than an hour on both which made the mouse more and more frustrating. Unfortunately as good as the mouse was, very comfortable and with a relatively good sensitivity (2000dpi), new batteries for the mouse would of cost around the same as what the moues is worth second hand. So for the second time since owning the G7 I went out looking for a new mouse. My first outing resulted in buying the corded Razer Lachesis. That didn’t last long though, the feel of the mouse was wrong, the mouse was too light and the shape of the buttons never felt right as well some issues with the mouse not being usable upon Windows start up which I imagine was down to drivers.

So now the Microsoft Sidewinder X8 is in, same price as both the Razer Lachesis and the Logitech G7 but is packed with a lot more features.

It comes with one standard rechargable AA battery, so the battery can be charged using a standard battery recharger or the more useful and usable charger that also acts as a receiver. In what looks like a hockey puck is a small wire wrapped around the middle with a small pad with 3 metal elements on it. This attaches magnetically to the bottom of the mouse but in such a way as not to pull off easily. This provides a charging facility over USB which is great as when the battery is running low, you can just plug the cable in and carry on as normal, then when the battery is charged up, just take the cable out and carry on, no changing batteries required here.

Another nice touch is that in the hockey puck like receiver is a set of 2 feet for the mice with different levels of slipperiness to go with the standard feet on the mice, so you have 3 sets of feet.

The mouse has different resolution settings like the G7 and Lachesis but like the Lachesis goes all the way to 4000dpi. The Lachesis and G7 have 2 buttons below the scroll wheel to go up and down the sensitivity settings, the X8 offers 3 buttons allowing 3 different settings. The X8 also features a nice LED screen next to the thumb which tells you the DPI as well as the battery charge state, I feel it would of been better to be more like the G7 and allow more than 3 settings and to be able to scroll through as you would easily be able to tell which sensitivity you are on by looking at the LED screen.

The scroll wheel on the X8 feels very solid with a textured metal finish allowing good grip which although I think it shouldn’t, actually feels better than the rubber used on both the Lachesis and G7 and gives a reassuring click sound when pressed.

So far I highly recommend the X8 at the moment I would say it is a better mouse than the G7 and definately better than the Lachesis from my experiences, but only time will tell.

Skins were exported from the game then modified using Photoshop and saved back in to VTF for Counter Strike: Source.

Blue Scout

A blue coloured Scout. Download

Blue Scout Skin

Daisy Scout

A pink Scout with daisy’s on the sides. Download

Daisy Scout CSS Skin

Hi-res Desert Eagle

A hi-res Desert Eagle skin, giving off better details on the original Valve skin. Download

Hi-res Desert Eagle skin for CSS

Hi-res M4A1 Carbine

A hi-res M4A1 Carbine skin, giving off better details on the original Valve skin. Download

M4A1 Carbine Skin for CSS

Silver P90

A hi-res silver P90 skin. Download

Silver P90 for CSS

Why do all the old games seem to be more fun years and years on when the graphics have been improved so much?

Will I be wanting to play Crysis again as a classic game in 10 years time because it was a classic game of the time (well Crysis may not be the best example, but you get the idea).

I have also found myself playing SWOS (Sensible World of Soccer) 96-97.  Not the absolute rubbish remake that came out a couple of years ago.  The original was so good because it was simple and fun not because it was 3D.

My favourite Final Fantasy of all time was Final Fantasy VI which was 2D sprites.

So is the fact that games are becoming 3D that makes most games dull and boring with no fun factor (well a little fun maybe when you are killing aliens while trying to run down an icy hill in a suit with lots of fancy features) or is the fact that developers are trying to make the games look more realistic without thinking too much about the actual gameplay?

Who knows, but what we do know, is the banana bomb can be extremely deadly…

You can download the new updated version from the ePSXe website and clicking Downloads on the left.

It has been long time since the previous ePSXe status update. During this time the ePSXe development has been on hold and our lives have changed a lot, probably just like yours. In summer 2007 we decided to continue working in ePSXe encouraged by the users support even after 4 years without updates. ePSXe is currently in final testing and we hope to release a new version very soon. We wanted to thank you for your support and show you some screenshots from games that should work better in the next release.

I have played it on PC and Xbox 360 and I would personally say PC is better.

Gameplay

The style of game is arcade, which surprised me as I was expecting a game to compete a bit more against GT5.  But that wasn’t too much of a problem as I prefer arcade driving games such as Need for Speed, although ProStreet was rather annoying.

I find the game is similar to Project Gotham Racing but only better looking.

A very nice feature of the game is something called flashback.  If you crash and write off your car you can use the flashback feature to rewind through the race and pick up from a certain point in which you can avoid the accident.  Not only is it a useful feature for when you crash but it is actually pretty good to use, it acts like replays do in any other game then you press the designated flashback button (F12 for PC, X for 360) and the game will carry on from that point.

Damage is also a very good feature which is a lot better than I thought it was going to be, which by itself puts it ahead of NFS:PS.

Another positive about the game which I haven’t seen used in any other game is in the profile system you can chose your firstname from a list so the computer can actually speak out your name rather than you having a set name like in NFS:PS or having name spoken out like in PGR.  All you do is type your firstname and surname in to the create profile screen and you are then given a list of names to chose from which will automatically select your firstname ready for confirmation if it is in the list.  The game contains male and female names as well as a list of nicknames.

Controls

I played both using the Xbox 360 controller and the controls just seemed a bit more responsive with the PC.  The plus side on the 360 is the fact that all the controls are on the controller.  Even if you use a controller on the PC you have to use the keyboard for some functions such as the flashbacks.

Graphics

Running on an E6750, 3GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB at 1920×1200 with AA set to MSAAx2 the fps stayed above 35fps at all times, staying around 40fps most of the time and graphically at this settings was better than the 360.  The 360 did look a lot better on the loading screens and menus though, I can only assume the PC version had a slightly degraded graphics for the menus and loading screens to make the game work on lower spec PCs.

The smoke from the tyres is very good though, a lot more impressive than NFS.

Conclusion

All in all I think GRID is a very good game.  Not a great game, but a good game. If you are tired of GTA IV or you don’t like GTA IV and no new good games come out then it is worth a purchase.

If you have a good PC with a wired 360 controller I would get the PC version, otherwise get the 360 version or if you don’t have a 360 and a shit PC, but have a PS3, get it for PS3. If you have none, don’t buy it…..

EDIT: I have found out that GameTrailers have done a side by side HD video of the GRID; PS3 vs Xbox 360.  From the video the graphics are almost identical, the only visible difference is that the PS3 colours seem to be a bit washed out in comparison to the 360 version.  You can watch the video here.

Gametrailers HD

Gametrailers SD

Keep an eye out at stores for a prereleased copy.

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn’t talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and writes the back page column for PC Gamer, who are too important to mention us. His personal site is www.fullyramblomatic.com

Source of image: Far Cry 2 Headquaters

Far Cry 2 is set in the savannah of Africa.  The Far Cry team has moved away from the jungle environment which we basically saw again in Crysis.  The weather is humid and green vegetation is rare in this vast openness.

At the demo we were told that the whole games playable area was 50x50km.  We supposingly only saw less than 1x1km in the demo.

The demo started off showing off some of the basics.  You are in the savannah, you carry 4 weapons, a primary weapon which is a shotgun/rifle or submachine gun, a secondary weapon such as a pistol, the 3rd weapon is a grenade launcher type weapon but we didn’t really see much of that.  The 4th weapon is a trusty machete.

Next we were shown how the wind affects a lot of the game.  You can pick up flame throwers and use them to burn vegetation and buildings, which will spread along vegetation in the direction of the wind.  You can see the direction of the wind by looking at the trees and vegetation and your compass that you have also shows you the wind direction.

At this point the game got in to a bit of action.  AI seemed a bit like the Crysis AI.  We were told they weren’t scripted and would do whatever they want, and that they did.  They didn’t really seem to care that the enemy was around until you started shooting them.

Another interesting point of this game was the way you get health.  You can pick up morphene from around villages etc which you need to inject yourself with when you get low on health.  If you die, you don’t really die.

In the game there are NPC that you can become friends with.  Once you befriend them, all you have to do is talk to them, they will come and assist you in a fight if you die.  Well you don’t really die.  The NPC will drag you away from the firing line and heal you.  You are now in a reasonably safe situation with no weapons apart from a machete and I think you get a pistol too.  If these friends die though, they don’t come back.  So it is best not to use them for fighting as they can be used to get equipment from them.

It was at this point that the guy playing actually did die.  So they had to restart the demo.  On the restart the game was flickering so they had to stop the demo there.

We went on to a short Q&A which revealed a few things.

The game will be released around August/September 2008.  The release will be on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC at the same time.

The level is designed to be seamless and should have no loading screens at all once in game.  Unlike Oblivion on the consoles which had loading screens.

At this point we were asked to leave while they reset all their equipment and to let the 200 waiting people in to view the demo to.

…those 200 people were actually around 30 or 40 max.

The first of many lie’s from the developers I am sure.

Far Cry 2 homepage

If you do get this error, the first thing to do is to download and install the latest graphics drivers for your graphics card. I am assuming that you have checked the minimum specification of the game and your computer to make sure your PC can handle it.

To find out what graphics card you have, press Start > Run. Type in dxdiag.

Click Yes on the message that appears.

On the Display tab, make note of the name at the top left.

There are 3 likely manufactures that you will be using. Nvidia, ATi (now called AMD) or Intel.

The first 2 are the most likely.

Go to the website of your graphics card manufacture and download the lastest drivers for your series of graphics card and operating system.

Once downloaded. Go to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. Remove your old graphics card drivers, and only your graphics card drivers. If you have an Nvidia graphics card and an nForce motherboard, only remove the display drivers.

Once the uninstallation has completed, restart. Once restarted, install the drivers that you just downloaded beforehand.

Once the installation has finished, restart. Set up your screen resolution again if it isn’t detected properly.

Now try to run Unreal Tournament 3. If it still doesn’t work, you can try reinstalling the game. If that doesn’t work, head over to the Epic forums.

Note: There are 2 patches out for Unreal Tournament 3. 1.1 and 1.2. I don’t think you need 1.1 installed to install 1.2.

Download 1.1

Download 1.2 (Latest)

32 Bit DX10 Windows Vista x64

64 Bit DX10 Windows Vista x64

As you can see from the figures look very similar between the 2 and no correlation seems to appear from any of the results. I could look further in to this and come up with some shitty reason why which no one would care to read or understand, but I would say that they just run around the same as each other and they both have standard variance that you will get everytime you play it.

A Direct Comparison

The following graph shows the performance of 32 bit Crysis over the 64 bit Crysis. 64 bit Crysis is set to 100% on each setting. The resuts take in to account the average FPS throughout the whole of the benchmark, not the min or max.

Conclusion

Well there isn’t one. They look identical in game, performance is roughly the same. The game isn’t made any more playable at any setting with either modes so use which ever one you want.

If you have problems with 64 bit Crysis running, you shouldn’t find any performance problems dropping to the 32 bit client. If anything you may see a slight increase in performance, but nothing to write home about.

I won’t do a comparison of DX9 vs DX10, because I think virtually every other website already has.

The stats can be found on the Valve website. The stats are between the 18th November and 18th December and show which classes were the most deadly, how many wins per team on the maps and also more interesting. The locations of where people die the most on each map, which can be found at the very bottom of the page.

With these maps you do have to ask yourself how some people died on cp_well on the very far left where there is no actual playable area?

Similar stats can also be found for Half Life 2: Episode 2.

The PC in question is the following specification:

• Intel Core2Duo E6750 overclocked to 3.2GHz
• 4GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM
• 250GB SATA 7200RPM HDD
• Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB overclocked to 560MHz core, 850MHz memory

This including case and PSU etc, excluding monitor and speakers can be bought for around £700-£750, which isn’t really a lot, bringing it around £1000-£1200 with speakers and 22″ widescreen monitor.

The benchmark was carried out on Windows Vista 64-bit edition in DirectX 10 mode.

The benchmark tool used was the Crysis Benchmark Tool made by the team at Crymod and can be downloaded from Crymod or Guru3D.

I ran the benchmark using the 4 different quality settings; low, medium, high and very high.

And at 5 different resolutions; 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1680×1050 and 1900×1200.

All tests were run in 64-bit mode and Vsync was disabled. No AA was set and the time of day was set to 15:00 (3:00PM).

Screenshots:

Low

800×600

1024×768

1280×960

1680×1050

1900×1200

Medium

800×600

1024×768

1280×960

1680×1050

1900×1200

High

800×600

1024×768

1280×960

1680×1050

1900×1200

Very High

800×600

1024×768

1280×960

1680×1050

1900×1200

I don’t know what happened to this one. For some reason the tool didn’t make a screenshot. I imagine it was because it was so slow.

Benchmarks:

Conclusion:

You are going to have to spend more than £1000 for your whole computer to be able to play this game on High at anything above 800×600. If you are going to spending that much on a computer you won’t be playing at 800×600 anyway. If you were playing on a computer only capable of low settings you are likely to be playing at a low resolution so it doesn’t really matter than it drops in performance a lot when the settings are changed to 1900×1200 on very high.

If you have a similar system or are looking for a similar system then you will be fine for playing on Medium settings and that is all you should look at playing. High will need an SLi or Crossfire setup and even then you have to hope it scales properly.

At the moment Nvidia and ATi (AMD) have brought out new graphics cards on to the market which offer better value then the 8800GTS 320MB. If you are looking for a new graphics card, I would point you in the direction of 3 cards:

• ATi HD 3870 512MB or 1024MB
• Nvidia 8800GT 512MB
• Nvidia 8800GTS 512MB

Note: The second Nvidia 8800GTS I have put down is the new 512MB version not the old 320MB or 640MB versions.

Graphics

With the release of the full game we are now able to crank the settings up although I still notice the lack of AA which Epic seems to have forgotten or kept out of the Unreal 3 engine. Although saying that, the game really doesn’t need it if it hasn’t got any but that would surprise me. I can only assume that it has some AA perhaps 2x or 4x turned on permanently and cannot be turned off.

With the demo we were restricted to only the low to medium textures but are now graced by the high textures with the full retail game hiding in the 7.87GB of game data.

Gameplay

Gameplay for me is pretty much identical to Unreal Tournament 2004 but with a little difference that I am unable to put my finger on.

Multiplayer of course is the main focus of the game with the following game types:

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Duel Deathmatch
• Capture the Flag
• Vehicle Capture the Flag
• Warfare

Deathmatch - Free-for-all deathmatch.

Team Deathmatch – Team-based deathmatch

Duel Deathmatch – A one-versus-one test of Deathmatch skill. Whoever wins the round will take on the next spectator watching the carnage.

Capture the Flag – Team-based capture the flag. Invade the opposing team’s base, grab their flag and bring it back to your own to obtain glory.

Vehicle Capture the Flag – Team-based capture the flag with vehicles. Invade the opposing team’s base, grab their flag and bring it back to your own to obtain glory.

Warfare – Link togetherNodes and destroy the enemy Core in this team based mode.

Warfare of course is the old Conquest game mode but has been renamed with a few changes. Warfare is basically Conquest and Assault mixed together, word is some of the maps are 3 times bigger than the old UT2K4 Onslaught maps. There is also an orb which can be used to instantly capture the enemy nodes.

Single Player Story

UT3 introduces a story in to the campaign mode that I quickly tried out. The story is started off with a pre rendered video which is basically a human town getting attacked by the Krall who are the Skaarj from 2K4 which involves the main character, Reaper (you), to get badly injured. You are then healed by another race and aim to fight back but the race that healed you wants to do some jobs for them, which then puts you in a ladder sort of system with battles against AI with your teammates Jester (Repear’s sister), Othello and Bishop.

Other Stuff

A nifty little extra that I wasn’t aware of was the ability to customize your character. You had the option in UT2K4 but it was pretty much limited to set models and gave you the ability to change the colour of it.

You are first asked to chose your faction then you have a choice to edit certain features of your character to adjust it’s physical look by changing the items from the categories which are facemask, helmet, goggles, torso, shoulder pads, arms, thighs and boots.

This is rendered in real time using the game engine which is cool as well as useful.

More extra’s can be unlocked through progression of the game so you can customize your character even further.

Conclusion

UT3 seems like a good buy on my early thoughts and can only hope that the multiplayer is as good as the single player and I am sure will tempt over the Unreal Tournament 2004 players if they have the hardware required to run the game at least at it’s medium settings.

Of course some games are getting stark reviews for their graphics by reviewers. Most people will realise that I am refering to games such as Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3, Timeshift and of course Crysis.  Yes, these games are graphically stunning especially Crysis, but what I haven’t seen in the vast majority of reviews of these games is that they do take very high end equipment to run at a respectable speed the graphics options turned up.  The most I see usually is a comment in the Cons section of the review which usually states ‘high end PC required for top graphics settings’.  That is fair enough to a degree, but hardware from a year ago should be able to play games with a highish degree of playability with high settings, not max, but high.

Crysis which I will pick out on is the worst of the group I have listed. It is good looking, on high to very high settings.  Now play Crysis on a 6-series or a 7-series Nvidia card and all of a sudden you are playing Crysis on medium settings with stuttering performance with a game that doesn’t really look all that much better than the current Source engine that Half Life 2 Episode 2 is running on.

How many of the current first person shooters have had you wanting to play more because of the gameplay?  I have to say none of the above.  Perhaps my taste in fps games is changing but the last game that I felt compelled to finish was Portal.  It was genuinely interesting and humourous.

Crysis

Graphically stunning, but doesn’t have a lot over any other first person shooter except for the suit.  The suit gives an actual reason for not dying from more than 2 shots from an enemy AK-47, although they are called something different in the game as it is from the future, yet the cars and boats seem to have been taken out of a 1998 catalogue.  From what I have played of Crysis you don’t have a whole lot of freedom with the game.  It is still linear like all other FPS’s but it has to be.  Even Postal was linear with the jobs you had to do, but like Crysis you could go around and do other things inbetween.

Gears of War

On the Unreal 3 engine it does look good, but the feel just isn’t right for the PC.  I played it on the 360 when it was first released and didn’t really like it, mainly due to the controls.  But I find myself wishing I was using the 360 controller again as the game was somewhat easier to play.

The only thing that seperates Gears of War with any other FPS seems to be that it isn’t an FPS, but has similarities with all other FPS’s.  Over the shoulder camera angle makes this game a nuisance and I would recommend it to be avoided unless you can rent it for the 360.

Unreal Tournament 3

A game that I have been looking forward to for years.  But alas after playing the “beta demo” I was moderately impressed, but also dissappointed.  The demo was released with only the low-medium textures, but even so the game did look incredible and one can only hope that AA is included in the graphics options for the full game which I should be recieving my copy very very soon, so yes that does mean I bought it.  The game felt like 2004 with some nice shiney paint and polished to give that better look.  The action is still fast paced and full of action, but it does seem darker, more evil… that is not to say that Unreal Tournament 2004 wasn’t a good game.  Far from it. It was an excellent game and still has a huge fan base but Unreal Tournament 3 gives no extras except for graphics in my eyes.

TimeShift

Well the timeshifting ability seemed good at the start but after a while got very boring and  was the only difference from all other games.  The graphics were good and it ran OK, but was very linear and didn’t even give a feel of any freedom.  Although saying that it ran very well on max settings with a medium-high end PC.

Call of Duty 4

A game I am genuinely interested in.  I am now pretty much addicted to the multiplayer part of the game and have found the single player shortcut not being used.  I have done the first couple of missions and the game seems to be what GRAW should have been but better and faster.

It seems Infinity Ward listened to the people that actually play the game rather than telling the gamers what they “want”.  It was also good to see them release 2 patches with a couple of days within each other to try to make the game as fair as possible fixing a glitch in the game.  Fair play to them, I believe it is a first I have said anything nice about IW.

I tried, and that’s that.  The game is not accurate at all and is inconsistent to say the least. The game seems to randomly decide whether players run through each other or tackle the other play, and when they do tackle the player there are only 2 outcomes.  One being the player tackling falls over leaving the attacking player with the ball through on goal, the other being the playing tackling wins the ball but doesn’t control the ball because it would be too much to ask for him not to be a complete twat with 2 left feet.

Free kicks continue to plague me.  I have had 1 free kick on target out of around 50 free kicks in the game.  The whole problem is not being able to direct the ball where you want it.  Fifa 2008 is supposed to put you in the place of the professionals who have more control over the placement of free kicks than you do in game.  The same can also be said for penalties.  If you put maximum power behind the ball, it will go wide or over the bar. Control over the goal keeper is also extremely annoying or better put the lack of control.  Pressing the left stick seemingly has little affect on the what the goal keeper does.  Sometimes the goal keeper will do what you tell him to, but on the vast majority of occasions the keeper stands still in the centre of the goal wondering whether he left the kettle on.

On to shooting.  I don’t know what decides the direction of the shot.  There seems to be no way to do a low power shot which is seen a lot in the current football leagues.  The obvious choice would be to hold down the shoot button to add more power and for the shot to go closely on target.  But no.  The ball ends up in row Z after the player hoofs the ball in to the sky.  The other types of shot that never work for me are acute angles.  I have played on Xbox Live and people have scored goals from pretty much 180degrees from the goal.  It is nothing but annoying, it is about time I played PES 2008 to see how bad Fifa really is, but I don’t really want to spend any more money on an unrealistic piece of shit.  If you promise realistic action then you should deliver, but like all EA published games it fails, and it really does fail.

Controlling the players is also limited to the 8 angles.  I think it is about time that the movement is actually made analogue.  I have seen it done on some NBA game so I don’t see why they can’t do the same for Fifa.

I hate this game and will never play it again.  It is pure shit, I would rather play tetris instead of Fifa 2008, as such I recommend no one else waste their time on it and get some friends and go outside and play, you will get exercise and you can improve your social skills.

If you really really want to play a football game on the computer then go and download a Commodore Amiga emulator and a SWOS rom.  Don’t get the new SWOS, it is worse than Fifa.

Timeshift is not completely revolutionary but it is somewhat different to a lot of the generic FPS’s that have been coming out recently.

The Story

Source: Wikipedia

The start of the game opens up with a news report about the collapse of a building, with an underground establishment underneath it. A woman who was summoned by Aiden Krone is violently knocked unconscious after she sees him in the Alpha Suit (the original suit). The news report continues but a timeshift causes the building to rebuild itself. The anonymous protagonist is seen running through a number of corridors. Meanwhile Krone activates a bomb, and then using SSAM, disappears into time. The protagonist has reached his goal, the Beta Suit, which pierces his spine, injecting his blood with machines. While his colleague tells him that it is not ready, the bomb goes off. The suit activates as it reaches the room he is in, the resulting explosion sends him hurling though time, first flying erratically through the sky of a city then through a building.

What has been revealed of the Timeshift story is that modern-age scientists have begun to work on time travel. The antagonist Aiden Krone goes back in time using the alpha suit (the suit from the original build of TimeShift) and does not return. When he reaches the past, he remakes the world in his image, creating a dystopia where Krone rules. The anonymous protagonist uses the Beta time travel suit to travel back in time to see how Krone changed time and stop him.

The Graphics

Timeshift was set for a mid-late 2006 release under Atari but the game was taken over by Sierra. The game had dated graphics that wouldn’t compare to Crysis, Bioshock or Unreal Tournament 3. This made a large delay inevitable. But a delay that was completely worth it.

Click for larger version

Gameplay

From my short time of playing the retail game I have to say it is a good game. Nothing outstanding but good. Point and shoot like all other FPS’s, the only difference being the suit you wear which is capable of time travel. It also has a health boost feature similar to that of the Crysis Nano Suit on armour mode. But don’t think that you can just run around getting shot and healing. The AI are good shots and your suit does take a few seconds before it starts to regenerate your health.

The suit has 3 different types of time travel; slow, stop and reverse. Each of which can be very helpful but unfortunately you can not bring yourself back from the dead like the Price of Persia series. With the suit in stop mode you can run up to the enemy and steal there weapons. At this point they are unarmed and will surrender. All 3 modes are only available for a limited time which you get a small display on your HUD. This means you can’t just run round the whole game in slow motion, which is good, although I am sure some trainers will come out to let you do it.

Links

Official Site

Demo Download Link

1.1 Patch

PC

After downloading the demo which was over 100MB bigger than the Xbox 360 counter part, it installed fairly quickly although it had to be extracted from a WinRAR archive which meant that the install time was greatly increased but file size was smaller than it would of been without it.

The game launches with the absolute minimum settings. Resolution is set to 640×480, all graphics settings are either off or on low. The audio setting is set to low rather than high. This also caused a problem with having the settings this low, the game started up extremely slowly and it wasn’t until I put all the settings to maximum that the game ran smoothly so I could actually race.

I first did the Speed Challenge, which is basically going as fast as you can through checkpoints every so often. This is situated on a rough road with cracks surrounded by dust and lots of metal poles (the poles play an important role on PC, I will explain later on).

Graphically the game looks very good, equal to it’s Xbox 360 counterpart at top settings. The 1 thing I did notice was that out of the 4 races that I did, only 1 race smoke came from my wheels. On the Xbox 360 every race started with a screen full of smoke with the brake lights just appearing through.

My first attempt at the Speed Challenge was actually on the Xbox 360, so this is more or less the problems with the PC over the Xbox 360.

First off, I tried with the keyboard. Not too bad, I finished the race and the car pretty much did what I told it to. So I plugged in my Xbox 360 controller to my PC, installed the latest drivers and the problems started.

I will state this first, I have never had a problem with any games on PC and the Xbox 360 controller. The first problem came from the menu system. Pressing up, resulted in going down, pressing down resulted in no response. I pressed every button on the controller only to find none of the buttons were assigned the button to select, so I wasn’t actually able to progress to the race from the menu without resorting the keyboard.

Once getting in to the race, I pressed A which is normally the button to continue, but turns out to be the back or escape button. To which I had to use my keyboard to get back to the race and actually start the race.

I was now at the race screen and reving up the car using the RT button like usual. Finally something worked. It wasn’t until I got to the first slight bend where I found a problem. The sensitivity was off the scale with no visible way to change it (although I didn’t look too hard, because I was already pretty pissed off with EA’s shitty development again). The handling felt arcady all of a sudden. A slight nudge on the analogue stick sent the car going across the road and I ended up drifing most of the race banging in to the metal poles (see I told you) that border the road more or less all the way. I eventually finished the race with my smashed up BMW M3 E92.

Before people start suggesting that it is in fact me that is a bad driver, I disagree. I finished the Speed Challenge without a scratch on the 360 on King level and got 1st place.

The second race that appears on the demo is the Grip Race. A lapped race around an inner city circuit. First across the line wins. Here you are driving the Nissan GT-R, nice car, but makes the race a bit too easy as it is much faster than the other cars in the race.

I didn’t finish a lap on Grip Race on the PC, I just couldn’t use the 360 controller on it. I haven’t got any other controllers to try on NFS ProStreet but I assume they may all suffer the same problem. The popularity of the 360 controller for PC should make it a priority for games developers especially ones that are doing driving games. Who on earth plays driving games with a keyboard?

EA need to pull their finger out and get cracking on the PC version of the game. I have pre-ordered Pro Street, but I have preordered for the Xbox 360 instead, and a wise investment it looks.

Xbox 360

Perfection. Well compared to the PC demo it is anyway. Zero slow downs on 1080p, graphics look the same as max on the PC demo with what looks like only 2xAA, but I may be wrong.  The handling is a lot more realistic and you don’t end up drifting round the tracks.

Conclusion

If you liked the PC one then I advise you to get the 360 version if you have a 360 of course. You will enjoy the game a lot more and there is nothing extra that you will achieve by getting the PC version whereas with the 360 version you will get achievements to make you feel better about yourself while your gamer score increases.

For those who haven’t played the demo yet, you can download it from GamersHell.

Mirrors:

• NFSUnlimited.net FTP 1
• NFSUnlimited.net FTP 2
• FileFront
• FilePlanet

The list pretty much grows everytime I play it, and I guess I should stop playing it but I played for it so I should play it and enjoy not that that has ever happened in my 5 hours or so of playing FIFA 08 since receiving the game.

I will start off with actual in game problems that I have constantly. 

Number 1 being the passing.  It is absolutely atrocious.  It doesn’t matter where you tell it to the pass the ball it will pass the ball where it deems it necessary.  Then when you lose the ball you have to get it back.  Simply running in to the player has 3 outcomes.  The first being the other player runs straight through you with the ball at his feet.  The second when you get the ball at your feet and the other player gets the ball right back again and your player falls to the ground like he has been shot by a sniper.  The third being that the opposition player falls to the ground like he has been shot by a sniper and gets a free kick for his acting efforts.

Then when we go in to slide tackles the problems even worse.  Free kicks aren’t given where the player goes down but more where the original slide tackle started from.  So if you tackle the opponent with a slide tackle outside the 18 yard box from inside the area you will give away a penalty for your tackle.  Which with all due respect is a lot of bullshit.

The third problem with the game is the players positioning, they stand still like idle fucks not knowing what on earth they are doing.  Being a Crystal Palace fan this is realistic in game but not when you are playing with Barcelona.

Number 4, free kicks.  The last FIFA game I played was FIFA 2002 or 2003, I can’t really remember but it was a while ago and you could tell the game where you wanted the free kick add whatever spin you wanted and shoot.  Not anymore you can’t.  You now have to take a rough estimate where you want the ball to land then somehow judge how much power is needed to get in to row Z, because quite frankly there is no point aiming for the goal because it won’t go near the goal.  You are supposed to be able to add spin to the ball once you have released the shoot button but that does about as much as a Polish immigrant.  Shooting also suffers problems similar to the free kicks but I have always had this problem, perhaps it is because I am shit, but I prefer the old days of SWOS where if you got in to a certain position you would have a 100% chance of scoring.

Number 6 may be a problem that many people won’t come across.  But I played with a guest as the second player on my team.  Players constantly ran in to each other even though each player was telling the player in game to go opposite ways.  I can only assume the players had a deep love for each other and couldn’t stay away.  The end result of these situations was normally humour as it often ended with one of your players slide tackling your own team to the floor leaving the opposition with a one on one opportunity at goal.

Point 7 takes me in to the manager league mode thing.  Why is it that only your team suffers from fatigue.  The opponents are always have full stamina at the beginning of the game even though they have played the same if not more games than you.

8.  Xbox Live.  I have to say this wasn’t too bad except for the same problems as single player with the passing, the tackling and the shooting….yeah the basics of Football (Soccer for Americans).  But the problem was with lag in the game, I can only assume these people were on slow connections or far away or were downloading a lot of porn while playing the Xbox.  This resulted in pressing shoot then watching a slow motion version of your player shooting before finally losing connection with the other player because they started to download another video of a woman getting shagged by a goat.

The game is sought with problems and should be fixed.  I haven’t played a single game that has realistically immitated any sport at all.  So I don’t see why developers even try to anymore.  SWOS was an arcade game and was a good fun game to play, although saying that, the remake of the game was worse than FIFA 08, but I won’t go in to that.

If you are considering getting FIFA 08 I would advise you not to.  Even though I have no idea what PES is like I am sure it is better than this lump of crap.

Graphics

First off, the graphics. Crysis has been hyped so much purely due to it’s graphics, and after playing the demo I can see why.

This screenshot is taken on the High setting at 1920×1200 with 0xAA.

The game itself recommends Medium settings for my PC and I can see why. High settings definitely are not playable. Medium suffers slight slowdowns at points but it never seemed to do it through fire fights so my life wasn’t in danger.

My specifiations are so:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 3.2GHz
• 2GB PC6400 DDR2 @ 400MHz
• Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB
• Dell 2407WFP @ 1920×1200

Given the budget of just the PC itself excluding monitor you are looking around £700-800 new which isn’t bad considering it runs Crysis pretty smoothly at such a high resolution.

Gameplay

Well the gameplay is similar to most FPS in that you point your gun and shoot. You have the same sort of layout as Far Cry in the way you have small chapters with checkpoints in it. Although you are told to do certain objectives you can go about them your own way which gives you a little individuality about the game. In my opinion it is still very linear, but linear works so why not have a linear game?

Crysis does offer some neat little tricks that makes it differ from your standard FPS.

Nano Suit

The nano suit is with you from the start although it isn’t mentioned until a slight accident happens in the air when you parachute fails to deploy.

The nano suit is basically a high tech full body suit that integrates itself with the person wearing it and allows them to have special abilities.

• Armour
• Speed
• Strength
• Cloak

Armour is the default setting on the suit and I imagine like myself you will leave it on armour most of the time. Armour gives the suit some extra strength making your defenses against bullets higher. With armour set you also gain health.

Speed gives you insane speed. I haven’t actually used this in the game as a tactical advantage, the few times I did use it was because my car got shot at and the tyres burst so I had to run to the next checkpoint.

Strength increases your strength which means you punch extra hard and also allows you to make higher jumps. This is very useful and has to be used in the rocky environment to get past some large boulders and fallen trees.

Cloak hides your character for a short period of time so your enemies can’t see you. I found this ability the most useful out of the 3 non-default ones as I was able to more or less plant frag grenades at the enemies feet although once the grenade is down they can see the grenade and you are most likely visible as the cloak runs out very quickly.

Weapon Customization

You have the ability to customize weapons on the go such as adding tactical sight, flashlight and silencer etc which is very helpful at times although I don’t like the way the game sort of pauses to allow you time to do it, it isn’t as realistic as it could be.

Breakable Trees

What you saw in the trailers and developer videos is true, you can shoot down trees. After a while you can use it to your advantage to make trees land on the enemy and get some good kills.

Story

Well the story starts off with you in an airplane getting a quick briefing from the regulatory black guy. A science team has gone missing on an Island belonging to North Korea and you are to get the team back. Unfortunately no one has heard from them except for a distress beacon from their boat which isn’t to be seen.

It is at this point that you are to parachute down to the Island with your team to rescue the team with your teammates. At this stage your parachute fails to deploy and you end up hurtling to the ground and in to the water.

You are then instructed to meet up with your team which seems to be scattered across the Island.

You soon find yourself in action against some North Koreans and this pretty much continues with different scenery around you until the story starts to unfold a bit more.

It appears the Koreans issued a complete evacuation of the Island and have locked it down.

Upon further investigation of the Island you find the boat of the science team up in the mountains which is frozen although the Island is nice and sunny…..

End of demo.

Final Thoughts

Overall I am impressed. The game can pause a little bit but that is to be expected with a demo release and early drivers which I am sure will be optimized as time goes on, we all know how good Nvidia are at delivering good driver packages. I am also sure the game will have it’s own patches too not soon after release to fix any problems that people may have, I don’t think EA will have much say patches wise, so I don’t think we should have the usual EA problems.

I think it is well worth the purchase. The demo has done what it should of, show what the game can do and to give you a taste of the story to want more.

I am eagerly waiting the release of the full game in November.

The long awaited demo for Crysis was set to be released today with no information saying otherwise.

Many are aware that the demo was due out on the 26th September but was held back a month, with no reason given.  There were beta releases through EA and FilePlanet during that time, so they were either trying to get the game up to demo standard as they were still running behind or they wanted to squeeze money out of gamers by using hype to get them to sign up to FilePlanet.

But that was a month ago.  EA announced that gamers would see the Crysis demo on the 26th October.  It turns out that this was purely for those that pre-ordered the game through the EA Store.  If you bought the game through the EA Store you get to play the demo 24 hours before everyone else.  The price in the EA Store in the UK is £34.99.

This seems a bit pricey given the fact that most PC games retail for £34.99 in the high street. So I can only assume, the people that pre-ordered are paying for the demo and a small amount for the unlocked vehicle in the multiplayer. Does this mean that only people that pre-order the game through EA can go on servers that have a map with this vehicle on?  Who knows….

As for the price of the game, it can be bought cheaper from elsewhere:

I am not sure how CDWoW are able to offer it so cheap, but after previous experience with their shipping, I would rather pay a little more elsewhere at Play or DVD.co.uk.

The demo should be released worldwide and appear on good old GamersHell at some point mid-afternoon Saturday, although I wouldn’t hold your breathe.

The full game is slated for release on the 14th November but that will not be definite until the demo feedback has come back clear.

The game was surprisingly short but I guess you could say it was expected as I thought it was going to end a lot sooner than it did.

The main highlight of the game for me was not the actual gameplay itself but GLADDoS. The hilarious comments throughout the game made Portal something special that seperated it from all other games. Every gamer who has played Portal will be walking around saying “The cake is a lie…..” while hugging their companion cube.

For those that haven’t played Portal yet, play it, if you haven’t bought it yet, buy it.

The whole Orange Box itself is worth the price. The box includes:

• Half Life 2
• Half Life 2: Episode 1
• Half Life 2: Episode 2
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

If that isn’t a good package I don’t know what is.

Here is a review from Yahtzee:

The Escapist