Looks like the e3 is being cancelled. Lots of sites have links to a news story originating in nextgen
Apparently the industry big boys (that means EA) have decided they’d rather not spend so much each year on a big show to one up each other.
Here’s hoping it gets replaced by an event thats not press only. =)
Tags: games
ok i have to make an enormous back track on that french copyright law i blogged about a few posts back.
The original article i read stated that france was enacting new laws forcing companies like Apple to open up their DRM to competitors. Sounds great. Unfortunately, that article didn’t include all the other shit they’ve pulled.
according to this:
Its now illegal in france to write P2P software, even for non-copyright infringing use, like say, the system Warner Brothers is creating with bittorrent.
Fines for downloading stuff illegally were to be set at a maximum of €75, thats been scrapped by this law, bringing them up to max of €500,000 and 5 years in jail.
Worse still, the original interoperability clause to force companies like apple to open up has now been scrapped.
As they rightly point out in that post, this law is the harshest anti-piracy law ever passed anywhere in the world.
Tags: copyright
I was excited before at the prospect of a game that basically combines the best elements of FarCry, Mercenaries and GTA, but having seen the trailer i can say that my enthusiasm is at an all time low.
I’m prepared to suspend disbelief a certain amount for these games.
In mercenaries its possible to take an RPG round to the face and be ok.
In GTA you can jump from a helicopter at about 1000 ft and hit the ground with a tuck and roll.
But both of these seemed like inescapable necessities. They were things that had to be done, so to speak, to allow the game to work.
In Mercs, all the north Koreans fire RPGs all the time, so getting killed by every one would seriously spoil a gamer’s fun.
In GTA, gravity is a constant speed, and so one receives the same injury jumping from a skyscraper as jumping from the top of a bus. I imagine that changing that would have required a major overhaul of the entire game-world physics.
My problem is that judging from the trailer I just saw, the makers of this game clearly don’t give a flying fuck about realism. In the space of a minute I saw the main character do the following:
1. Sky-dive without any kind of air resistance or wind in his face
2. Open a parachute 10 feet from the ground and have it work
3. Worse, open a parachute on the ground and have it magically whisk him up into the air
4. Float around on said parachute as if it were a balloon
5. Jump from the roof of one moving vehicle to another, launching almost 5 feet in the air and floating down on to the target.
6. Ride on the roof of a speeding vehicle without any kind of air drag
7. Parachute up the way (again) through trees and a bridge
8. Jump from a falling bike, and have it fall away exponentially faster than him
9. Last but certainly not least, jump from the tail of a jet fighter to the cockpit. Yes, JUMP. Like through the AIR.
On top of all that blatant anti-realism, the voice acting was off the scale of awful.
This one is coming off my hot projects.
Tags: games
Nvidia boss Jen-Hsun Huang has stated that Sony’s PS3 delays to incorporate blu-ray are ‘a masterstroke’.
He also says the ATI/AMD merger is a ‘gift’ because it leaves nvidia as the only standalone GFX company out there.
That guy is just full of shit.
–
Rory
Tags: games
Regarding the comments I made yesterday about the AMD/ATI merger being a good thing for all of us, I’ve been thinking about it all again. And while I still think it has major potential to be a good thing, I also recognise that it could be a bad thing. Here’s why:
On one side we have ATI graphics, AMD architecture, Microsoft Support and HD-DVD as a platform.
On the other, we have nVidia graphics, Intel architecture, Sony Support and BluRay as a platform.
Now I have no doubt that the whole PS3/BluRay venture will fall flat on its face, comically, probably into mud. But such a division of companies has never been seen in the games hardware market, with only IBM straddling both sides.
I fear we might be heading towards the emergence of two not entirely compatible PC standards. One would be AMD/ATI/MS supported, the other INTEL/NVIDIA/? who knows. I think if windows had a serious competitor we might be looking at a full divergence, with different operating systems on both sides. But at the moment there is only linux, and neither side is willing to trade MS support for that.
For Now.
–
Rory
Tags: games
virtualdub.sourceforge.net
VirtualDub is a video editing tool that succeeds where most others fail. It can perform a myriad of brain meltingly complex tasks, but most noteably it can cut, join, and recompress AVI video files using VFW codecs. If you don’t understand what this does, you probably don’t need it. And if you do, you probably have it already. But nevertheless, it is free, it is essential, and it deserves a mention in a blog about freeware. PS: It also comes included in GordianKnot
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Rory
Bit-tech has a good article on the now confirmed ATI/AMD merger and what it means for the future.
I’m excited about this. It’s something else to shove in the faces of PC detractors. With AMD and ATI merging, we’re likely to see the emergence of a more unified PC platform, where components talk to each other a lot faster. This is essentially what has always given consoles that theoretical* edge over the PC platform.
And it won’t stop with Amdati (my new name for AMD/ATI). We’ll also likely see increased cooperation between the other two, nvidia and intel. Maybe intel’s shitty onboard graphics will finally disappear, and be replaced by an integrated 6600GT. We can only hope.
*I say theoretical, because I don’t really believe that any console can ever have the edge over the platform on which it and its titles were designed and built. Every generation (and i’ve been here for at least, ooh, five) people start talking about the death of the PC, and yet it fails to die. Why? Well, lots of reasons.
1. Backwards compatibility. PS2 can play most PS1 games. Xbox360 can play most xbox games. But the PC can play any PC game since the 80s.
Also it can play most PS1 games, some Xbox games, all games for the Megadrive, SNES, N64, NES, C64, Gameboy, Gamegear, Amiga, AtariST, 2600, coleco vision….. etc etc.
2. FORWARDS compatibility. This is something no console is ever likely to have – your existing PC can likely have a stab at playing next gen PC games. Try putting a 360 game in your original Xbox and see what happens. Nada.
3. The Internet. Xbox Live is great and all, but no matter how good it gets, it’s a stripped down version of the internet which can never compare to the actual internet. Which requires no subscription. Which you cannot be banned from. Which allows you to download whatever the hell you want.
4. Upgradability. Sony tried to boost confidence in the ever failing P(o)S3 project by claiming that it will be hardware upgradable. Well big whoop. PCs have always been upgradable, that’s what makes them so flexible.
There. You’ll notice i steered clear of the ‘PCs can do lots of office stuff’ argument. This is a games argument, not a multifuncionality argument. There are downsides to PCs over consoles, such as the price, complexity and differing platform levels. But a lot of these bugs are being slowly ironed out. Component prices are low enough that you could build yourself a bitchin games rig for less than the price of a PS3. Operating systems and games installation are becoming (slowly) more user friendly. And with Vista, theres a big push to standardise ‘levels’ of PC performance, and unify the whole thing. This AMD/ATI merger will surely help that along.
–
Rory
Tags: games
Toms Hardware Guide (UK & Ireland) has this article on Aegia’s Phys X processor and how it actually makes bugger all difference whether its activated or not….
This thing always smelt like snake oil to me. I much prefer the havok/ati/nvidia dealio of using a spare GFX for physics, for two reasons.
The only problem now lies with games using Meqon, since Aegia bought them out.
Tags: games
CVG has the scoop on Clive Barkers new foray into games, entitled Jericho.
From that article:
the game, a first-person squad-based shooter from what we can gather, follows a Special Forces squad trained in conventional warfare and arcane arts as they attempt to track down and eliminate an age-old source of evil stemming from a mysteriously reappeared lost city in a remote desert.
Tags: games
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