Section 8

Publisher picks up new first-person shooter from F.E.A.R. Extraction Point developer Timegate Studios.

Section 8 concept art.

In the past, a Section 8 was a military discharge for psychiatric reasons. In the future, Section 8 will be a sci-fi first-person shooter from Texas-based Timegate Studios, the developer announced today.

While Timegate is known for its work on real-time strategy games like 2004's Axis & Allies and the Kohan series, it has some experience with first-person shooters as well, having developed the F.E.A.R. Extraction Point expansion for Sierra's supernatural PC shooter. Helping bring Section 8 to store shelves will be the recently established Gamecock Media Group, the publisher behind forthcoming projects from independent developers like Wideload Games, Crackpot Entertainment, Auran, and more.

Details of Section 8 (including its story and the reason for its title) are being kept quiet for now, but the game has been assigned a scheduled release date sometime in 2009. According to Timegate, the "next-gen" shooter is currently scheduled for multiple platforms.

Scout update #2 - epic sugar buzz and achievements

From the Scout hub:

Runnin’ rings around all them molasses-slow dummies out there on the battle- field is thirsty frickin’ work. But when it comes to quenchin’ that thirst, only one thermonuclear thirst detonator packs all the “Atomic Punch” you’ll ever need. Bonk! is fulla radiation, which as we all know is pretty great for givin’ people superpowers. Just one can’ll blast ya into a few-second rush of radioactive energy so powerful you’ll be dodgin’ bullets like they ain’t even there!

Note: Bonk! contains several hundred times the daily recommended allowance of sugar. After the beneficial effects of the radiation wear off, drinkers have reported experiencing feelings of lethargy that can last several seconds. Reading this sentence absolves Bonk! of any liability for killing sprees inspired by or deaths resulting from the ingestion of Bonk! Enjoy Bonk! responsibly… Or by the case!

It's all here.

Tom Clancy 2 for 1

Steam News has a nice little offer with the outbreak of Tom Clancy's Endwar on the Steam platform. If you pre-order the game, you'll immediately get a free download of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter while you wait.

For those unfamiliar with Endwar, the Game Trailers review (which is quite good) is below.

Crysis: Warhead hotfix

General Fixes/tweaks

* Windows Vista: Mouse cursor should no longer have an offset in the menu.
* Windows Vista: Unrequested launches in windowed mode should occur less often now.
* Timedemo can now be started from the command line.
* Better dynamic texture support for enthusiast mode.
* This fixes a known issue with changing resolution in Windows Vista
* Other Minor Bug Fixes


New Features

* Added 64-bit executables for Windows XP x64 and Windows Vista 64-bit version. In Windows XP x64 a new shortcut will be placed under the Crysis Warhead program group. In Windows Vista right-click the Crysis Warhead icon in Game Explorer and choose to run the game in 64-bit mode.

MYCRYSIS.COM

2009: mo' sequels, mo' money

Gamesindustry.biz has polled it's network of industry insiders to come up with a top-ten list of "games expected to sell and score highly with consumers, retail, and amongst games professionals." The list:

* 01 Resident Evil 5
* 02 Killzone 2
* 03 Street Fighter IV
* 04 StarCraft 2
* 05 Heavy Rain
* 06 Diablo 3
* 07 Empire: Total War
* 08 Final Fantasy XIII
* =09 Uncharted 2
* =09 BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams
* =09 Alan Wake

Nota bene: although it's not on the "most anticipated" list, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is expected to be the top seller this year.

Unreal Tournament 3 to get way more unreal

Following on the announcement of a truly massive patch, Epic has provided some details on the new "Titan Pack" DLC:

[T]he free Titan Pack will add 11 new maps for Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes. An additional 8 maps come from the first Bonus Pack and Xbox 360 version of the game.

The Titan Pack will also add two new game modes: Greed, a "tug of war"-style mode, and Betrayal, a mode where alliances and teams change throughout a match.

Players will be able to use the Axon Stealthbender unit as well, along with X-Ray field and Link Station repair unit deployables.

Also expect to see new characters, turrets and a Titan mutator where, upon hitting a certain amount of frags, you become a 15-foot tall Titan, enhanced by every power-up in the game.

A content update on this scale is fairly remarkable, given UT3's disappointing sales immediately after the game's November 2007 release. The move seems consistent with Valve's "games as entertainment services" ethos, which paints a very encouraging picture of Epic.

If nothing else, UT3 has earned a second look.

SOURCE: SHACK NEWS

Blizzard reveals ... something ... for WoW

Via Shack News, the 3.1 patch for World of Warcraft will content additional stuff that should make the WoW-tards all gooey:

Available to those players with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Ulduar is described as the game's "most ambitious raid to date." It kicks off with players utilizing a fleet of siege vehicles to face off against a "massive iron army" before encountering the Flame Leviathan tank, a boss that requires combatants to rely on those siege vehicles.

Nvidia Forceware 182.06 driver released

And we're out of beta. The sole difference between the WHQL certified 182.06 driver and the 182.05 beta driver appears to be a bug fix for the GeForce 9 and 8 series GPU's for 32 bit versions of Windows.

DOWNLOAD LINK

Combat Arms hits 2 million users in the US

From gamesindustry.biz:

Nexon America has announced that its first-person shooter MMO, Combat Arms, has passed the 2 million user mark, just three months after hitting 1 million users and four months after the game launched.

The free-to-play title allows gamers to update their characters by purchasing items from the in-game Black Market item shop using micro-transactions, with new maps and modes in the pipeline.

WEBSITE: COMBAT ARMS

Legal Briefs: piracy and hardware dust-ups

As reported on gameslaw.net, the founders of the Swedish torrent site, The Pirate Bay, began their criminal trials Monday, on charges of "promoting violations by other people of laws protecting royalties."

Back in the US, Intel has filed suit against Nvidia. From Shack News:

The lawsuit stems from 2004 license agreement between the two companies. Nvidia believes the agreement allows it to produce nForce motherboards that support the latest Intel hardware, such as Nehalem processors. Intel, quite obviously, disagrees.

'At the heart of this issue is that the CPU has run its course and the soul of the PC is shifting quickly to the GPU," stated Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. "This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business.'

TF2 Scout update: advancing the runner

The intrepid reporters at Steam News have been busy the last two days. Most importantly, the countdown has begun for the release of the Scout update, which has it's own dedicated web page. Leading off is a new melee weapon: the Sandman. The mechanic is a bit goofy (making it entirely consistent with everything else about the game), but it has the potential to be very useful ... especially against the dreaded ubers.

That's right: screw you damage-sponging mini-gun whores!

More details will emerge on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.

SNL: whackin' the Wii