CoD (insert # here) casting call

VG247 reports that Activision has issued a casting call for motion capture and voice over work for an unnamed Viet Nam-era video game. The four main characters described are:

• Roland Frank Barnes, an "Old War Horse" type" and a "solid leader, possessed with an excellent ability to assess and respond to any situation quickly and decisively"  
• Brick Joseph Lewis, a "very physically fit" black man in his 20s who occasionally sports a creole accent  
• Mordecai Jason Hudson, a white man in his 30s who, "given his strategic role ... rarely gets the opportunity to get up close and personal with the enemy"  
• Lilith Kristina Ivanova, a Russian-born martial arts expert and CIA operative who is "calm to the point of being cold and detached"

The casting call does, as yet, include any moaning, mumbling, and howling voice over work for Viet Cong zombies.

ZP reviews Mass Effect 2

L4D2 patch

One fix is huge:

Updates to Left 4 Dead 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. XBOX 360 users will see these changes in an upcoming title update. The major changes include:

• Fixed all bot teams not leaving the starting area if sb_all_bot_team 1 was set
• Fixed a case where survivor bots would fail to rescue a friend from charger attacks
• Updated Thai translations
• Fixed an issue where servers wouldn't relist after the master server was bounced
• Fixed Charger jumping exploit
• Fixed Spitter bug where spit could emit from a location several inches from the head, causing the spit to unexpectedly strike nearby objects and fall

UPDATE - this is the Charger jump exploit:

Wish I had known.

Medal of Honor news

Atomic MPC scored an interview with Greg Goodrich, the Executive Producer on Medal of Honor. For the good of our readers, IUN summarizes the substantive bits:

□ MoH's narrative style is inspired by Saving Private Ryan, in the way that movie told the story of the larger war from the perspective of a small group of soldiers.

□ Players will take on the roles of both the specialist "Tier 1 Operator" and the generalist Army Ranger.

□ The technical framework of the game is complete, but there's a lot of fine tuning left to do, especially on the artistic side. So expect graphical improvements over what you've seen so far.

□ There is a lean mechanic.

□ Both the SP and the MP will feature vehicles.

□ There will be dedicated servers.  Per Mr. Goodrich, lobbies and host migration would cripple the MP experience.

□ DICE is handling the MP.

□ The AI will not be garden variety Unreal engine cannon fodder.

□ The lighting engine should be impressive (think beams of light streaming through bullet holes), and if they can't make it work on consoles, the PC will get it anyway.

□ The development teams thinks they can make MoH better than MW2 on every front, and that's exactly what they're going for.

BC2 RC3 beta patch released

From EA's UK BC2 forum:

So QA found out a debug setting we used for logging errors was causing the CTD's after DICE left last night. As such the patch is good to be released and is going live within the hour.

Steam is now running the update as well for all Steam users.

You can update automatically when loading BFBC2 or you can manually run the updater from your install directory (run as Administrator if you experience update issues or errors)

As promised here is the Changelog for R3 as provided by Kalms.

This update is about performance and stability again. We are not doing any changes to the game's datafiles.

□ Reduced input "lag"

On machines where the CPU would out-run the GPU, sometimes the GPU would queue up several frames' worth of rendering commands.

This could lead to the game having a high framerate, but input still feeling very sluggish. Now there's a limiter on how many frames the CPU is allowed to be "ahead" of the GPU. Control this setting via Settings.ini. Default setting: RenderAheadLimit=2

□ Performance optimizations with biggest improvements on dual-core machines

□ Fixed black "masks"

The soot on buildings with holes in them had a bugged renderpath. We switched that over to a more well-tested renderpath.

□ Improved hit-detection

We've gone through the hit detection logic, and client+server will now give more consistent results.

□ Fix for some "rubberbanding" issues

C4 should stay attached to vehicles and not rubberband around

□ Reduced spikes/dips in framerate

□ Various fixes for alt+tab related CTD on Dx9

□ More fixes for random CTD on Dx9

□ Fix for crash when you're in a vehicle that gets destroyed

There was a race condition in the code;

System 1 thought "oh hey, you're leaving vehicle X"

System 2 thought "the vehicle got destroyed, let's remove it"

If system 2 ran before system 1, chaos would ensue. This was actually fixed in the retail version since a month, but it was only when we got detailed crash reports from the community that we understood *why* the Beta was crashing.

□ Likely bugs in this build

I wouldn't be surprised if it (still) has trouble remembering your settings between rounds. It would be nice to have that fixed too, but it's better to get a patch out now, and look at the settings issues afterward.

Webcast stream fixed

You may listen now.

IUN webcast - February 13, 2010 - SHOW NOTES

□ METRO 2033

Developer interview and gameplay videos 

□ CRYSIS 2

Gamereactor interview with Cevat Yerli, and PCgames.de interview with Nathan Camarillo (includes screenshots)

□ BIOSHOCK 2

First patch changelog - but no widescreen support yet; a legacy carried over from the original game 

Also: laggy mouse control, and the hacking mini-game is difficult - if not impossible - for colorblind gamers ... (simulated colorblind views at negative gamer)

□ SECRET WORLD

Interview with Funcom's Ragnar Tornquist

□ BAD COMPANY 2 DEMO

Press release touting 2.5 million downloads

□ LEFT 4 DEAD 2

L4D blog post noting that almost 29 billion zombies were massacred in two months  

"The Passing" screenshots

The M60 light machine gun

□ MASS EFFECT 2

Another "we rock!" press release, and yet another

□ SEX SQUAD

Penises for arms!

BFBC2: Patrick Bach interview

Translated from the German, available at Bash and Slash.  Most significantly, Mr. Bach discusses the potential for (1) mod tools, (2) FOV settings, (3) LAN play - all in the "maybe" category for now - and describes the "hardcore" mode:

The interesting about the hardcore mode is that is refers to all game modes. Firepower damage is doubled and HUD displays are deactivated. As there is no cross-hair one needs to look down the sights of your weapon to shoot accurately. Also, the (self) healing function is deactivated too, so you have to find a medic in case you get hit. Friendly fire can't get deactivated and the killcam of the normal mode is not available, so it is going to be more realistic and more difficult.

Whether you've bought the game or you're still thinking about it, the interview is a must-read.

Starcraft 2 multiplayer beta launched

Details at Shack News.  Pay attention to the section entitled "Known Issues."

"Best of CryEngine" screenshots

316 of them, at PCgames.de.

Metro 2033 DX11 screenshots

Hi-res shots on Flickr; full-size shots in the slideshow.

How not to be a noob at BC2

A console guy made this video, but his advice is nevertheless worth heeding:

BFBC2: day one DLC

From 1UP:

Bad Company 2 will include a code to download content that consumers who buy used won't have free access to. Specifically, the new customers will gain entry to an in-game store, which -- much like Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network -- will feature both free and paid DLC. On launch day, that content will include a handful of free multiplayer maps.

NB: buy it used, and you're out of luck. No longer a trend, it's a fact of life.

12 core AMD server CPU's in March

That's the rumor, as reported by Anton Shilov at Xbit:

Advanced Micro Devices will launch its twelve-core AMD Opteron “Magny-Cours” central processing units (CPUs) for high-end servers in March, 2010, sources close to the company revealed. AMD plans to unveil a broad family of twelve- and eight-core chips for multi-processor machines with different performance and thermal design power points.

The mainstream line of twelve-core AMD Opteron 6000-series processors will consist of three chips operating at 1.90GHz, 2.10GHz and 2.20GHz. Besides, AMD will also release highly efficient (HE) and special edition (SE) AMD Opteron 6000 microprocessors with twelve processing engines functioning at 1.70GHz and 2.30GHz, respectively. In addition, AMD plans to launch three standard-voltage eight-core chips at 2.0GHz, 2.30GHz and 2.40GHz frequencies along with two HE eight-core processors at 1.80GHz and 2.0GHz clock-speeds. In order to ensure maximum stability, all AMD’s twelve-core processors will come with reduced clock-speed of integrated memory controller and L3 cache (1.80GHz) compared to six-core and quad-core products.

PCgameshardware.com reports these beasts are already on Ebay:

On Ebay the first offers for Magny Cours processors on Ebay have also been found already – a package of four CPUs for 6000 USD. There also is an offer for a full system with 48 cores including a Tyan motherboard and 64 GByte DDR3-1333 RAM – the price is 20000 USD.

AvP: early impressions

From Ben Kuchera at ArsTechnica. If you're thinking about getting the game, the piece is worth reading.

It seems the full game is has some noticeable graphical improvements over the demo, but all-in-all, Aliens vs. Predator still looks like a mixed bag at best.

Legit buyers take it in the ass again

This is over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

We barely need to say anything here (but we will), as where we’re going we don’t need words. We only need righteous fury. PC Gamer have experienced the controversial new Ubisoft DRM first-hand, in the PC build of Assassin’s Creed 2. We already thought the paranoid new copy protection was pretty bad, requiring as it did an online check everytime you played and giving you a hard time if you tried to launch it offline.

What we didn’t think – what we didn’t believe they’d be mad enough to do – was that it’d kick you out of the game if your net connection dropped for any reason.

Or, as PCG’s Tom Francis rightly observes, even if Ubi’s servers happen to have a funny turn. (A troubling precedent for which has already been set by EA – Alec experienced something similar yesterday, when Bioware/EA’s servers suffering extended maintenance meant all his Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 DLC was deemed unauthorised, which in turn prevented him from loading any savegames which used that DLC. The point being: don’t punish your customers because you’ve screwed up).

I'm well past believing this has anything to do with piracy anymore. No rational human being believes that problem is solvable.  

This is about sticking it to the used game market. You cannot resell your game - or rather, the buyer will not be able to play it - and you cannot sell your Ubisoft account. It's all right there in Ubi's "online services platform" FAQ.

Sadly, Ubi is likely to implement the same DRM with Splinter Cell: Conviction and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. I've said this a million times: if you buy these games, you're supporting this nonsense. Full stop.

IUN webcast - February 13, 2010

Thanks to IT( )E Moto'freak, we can stream the webcasts again.  Show notes will be posted tomorrow. 

BioShock 2 image quality comparison

TechSpot has an article on BioShock 2 that provides performance specs for a number of graphics cards at different resolutions. The most interesting part, however, is the set of screenshot comparisons between the stock low, medium, and high graphics settings. The difference is remarkable:

These are the full 2560 x 1600 res screenies if the side-by-side shots above:  [continue]

NZXT CoD 4 Tournament Grand Finals

Sponsor: CEVO

Mod: Promodlive v2.6 (no red dot)

Teams: Loaded! vs. Finesse 

[Watch video]

C&C: Tiberian Sun, free

It's an old game, but was fun to play back in the day.

[fileshack download]

CoD: pay-to-play on the horizon

I'd guess that nothing's settled yet, but this article at ArsTechnica confirms that Activision has a subscription model in the works for a future version of Call of Duty:

Activision pointed out that Modern Warfare 2 was the third game in its stable to crack the $1 billion mark in sales, but everyone on the [earnings] call also seemed to realize that lightning may not strike twice... at least not in these numbers. We know that the series will continue to be released on a yearly basis, but Bobby Kotick also dropped a bomb near the end of the call.

'If you think about the success we've had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise,' he said, answering a question near the end of the call.

IWnet isn't just a form of DRM. It's the first step in bringing the MMO uber-monetization model to the online FPS. 

itoeunited.com is down

IT( )E's main page, forums and FTP are all down at the moment, so the webcast links will not work until we get it sorted.