Gametrailers reviews F.E.A.R. 2

Give a three year-old game a face lift, and here's what you get:

Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising

Codemasters is a developer with an enormous resume, going all the way back to the Commodore 64. That said, I've only played one of their games - Clive Barker's Jericho - and I didn't play that one for very long. OF2, however, has piqued my interest with its wide-open battlefields and Crysis-level graphics (if the "cinematic trailer" below is a fair representation). IGN has a words-based preview of the game here.

HL2: live action

Not "live" as in "in-game footage." I mean "live" as in real people in real places, with all kinds of home-made and Source engine assets thrown into the mix. A group of amateur filmmakers calling themselves the "Purchase Brothers" do it surprisingly well with Escape from City 17 - Part One.

It's really worth watching in HD. Start the video, click the up arrow in the bottom corner of the player, click the HD button, and maximize the player.

Left 4 Dead 50% off this weekend

Valve loves weekend sales, and if you're at all interested in buying L4D, you're going to love this weekend. The game is available for $24.99 now through Sunday. It's right on the front page of the STORE tab on your Steam client.

Top 20 games for January

Via Shack News, the top 20 PC games for January:

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
4. Spore
5. World Of Warcraft
6. Left 4 Dead
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack
8. Fallout 3
9. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
10. Call Of Duty: World At War
11. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
12. Civilization IV
13. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp.
14. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack
15. IGT Slots: Little Green Men
16. The Sims 2 Pets Exp.
17. StarCraft Battle Chest
18. Bejeweled Twist
19. Reel Deal Slots BlackBeard's Revenge
20. The Sims 2 FreeTime Exp.

December results are here.

A masterpiece, unfinished

Jim Rossignol has an excellent post over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun about Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. I can't think of another game that was so flawed in so many respects that was still so worthwhile.

The third-person combat system was shallow and overused. The game crashed so often that you had to bind quick save to the third mouse button. But - and this is a huge, sublime "BUT" - the good parts were so damned good that it was worth not just playing, but replaying, and replaying again.

The dialogue and the voice acting are, to this day, in a completely different league from most games. (As vast as Fallout 3 is, there's far less quality or diversity in its dialogue system.) VTMB's characters show a depth of personality that makes conversations engaging and memorable in their own right, quite apart from merely activating quests or providing backstory. Playing as a member of the utterly insane Malkavian clan, in particular, gives you dialogue options that are pure gold. Everything about it was unabashedly made for adult brains.

Left 4 Dead DLC will be free

Following up on an earlier post, Valve have announced that the upcoming DLC package will not deplete your lap dance fund.

SOURCE: STEAM NEWS

More F.E.A.R. 2 reviews on Metacritic

The current metascore, based on five reviews, stands at 78 ("generally favorable reviews"). But Eurogamer doesn't like it much. Money quote:

The hyper-violence and the psychology make odd bedfellows, but in practice both are executed so solidly that the whole thing just about holds together.

They gave it a 5 out of 10.

CoD5 map pack details

While Treyarch has devoted up to a half-dozen man-hours over the last three months to patch a handful of the game's many problems (and, it seems, to create new ones), the rest of the team has busied themselves with four new maps. The pack, due sometime in March, will include three maps for multiplayer, and one for nazi zombie co-op. There's no word yet on whether Activision will (attempt to) charge PC players for the DLC.

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. trailer

Ghost Recon goes skyward:

Nvidia releases (beta) Forceware 182.05 driver

For GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9 and 200 series graphics cards, the driver should improve performance for F.E.A.R. 2, Fallout 3, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead and GRID. The package includes updated (9.09.0203) PhysX drivers.

DOWNLOAD LINK

WoW 3.0.8a patch

The patch includes updates for a couple of character types and general bug fixes, including this one:

Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

Note that this does not constitute a +40 sobriety modifier.

DOWNLOAD MIRRORS

Necrovision demo released

From Gameguru:

In the beginning of the demo you will have to battle your way through the German lines, dispatching the Kaiser's soldier's as they fight from their trenches. Players will be able to use traditional Allied weapons, such as the Colt 1911 and the Lee Enfield or select from the German Luger and Gewehr rifles once they have been taken from the battlefield. There are also sharp bayonets, heavy machine-guns, trench guns and if truly desperate, a shovel to batter the enemy's spiked helmets flat.

Skipping past the story's tongue-in-cheek twists, players are abandoned in the midst of an underworld war that has gone on for centuries. Demons battle the Undead in a never ending conflict paralleling the war above the soil. As players plough through the hordes of the seven pits they will be using special Vampiric versions of familiar weapons such as SMGs and shotguns, as well as their secret weapon The Shadowhand.

Filefront mirror

F.E.A.R. 2 ships today

I hope the game isn't as riddled with cliches as the press release:

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin is a blend of advanced visceral combat mixed with seamless game pacing set inside a sinister and paranormal universe that begins shortly before the ending of F.E.A.R. A Special Forces squad is on a routine mission when the city of Auburn is rocked by a supernatural explosion. Alma, a girl with immense power and a thirst for revenge, has unleashed her wrath upon the city and thrown it into chaos. Tension builds as the squad must combat enemy forces and the supernatural as they struggle to find a way to stop Alma and uncover the mysterious forces arrayed against them before it’s too late.

Far Cry 2: "hardcore" multiplayer on the way

It's not often that a developer will release additional, unplanned, and free features in response to community requests, but Ubisoft is game:

The hardcore mode has been designed as an answer to a community request. When designing the multiplayer game our team wanted to provide a balanced experience for most gamers. However some players were seeking and expecting a more realistic experience.

The addition of a “hardcore” setting, available in every game mode, will have many consequences:

A new damage model will be applied with increased damage for all weapons.

All weapons have been rebalanced on normal mode, and on hardcore mode.

Enemy names will disappear after the spawning invincibility period is over (A shield is displayed above a player’s head for a few second to show that he is invincible).

A new option will allow you to tweak spawning time (but not spawning rate).

A new search option will be available in multiplayer to allow you to find games that are playing on hardcore mode.

It's worth stressing that Far Cry 2's MP already works as intended. This "patch" is gravy.

SOURCE: UBI.COM'S FC2 FORUM

Relentless chaos = Prototype

I don't know the back story, and I'm not sure it matters. The premise seems to be "kill everything that doesn't get out of the way." And there's a lot of stuff in the way:

Developer walkthrough, part 1



Developer walkthrough, part 2

Left 4 Dead in 3D?

Apparently, Nvidia makes stereoscopic drivers for Vista and XP that, with a little registry hack, allow you to play L4D (and many other games) with any kind of 3D glasses you still have from the Superbowl, or Epcot Center, or whatever.

The guy who figured out how to do this also provides a .reg file to undo the changes.

SOURCE: GAMERSLASTWILL.COM