F.E.A.R. 3 "announcement trailer"

Mostly live-action, with a few pre-rendered sequences thrown in:

You might have noticed that Monolith isn't developing this one.  They've handed the reins to Day 1 Studios, the developer that produced the console ports of the original F.E.A.R. A press release on Day 1's website might explain where the trailer came from:

To further ensure extreme terror in F.E.A.R. 3, legendary horror director John Carpenter (Halloween, Village of the Damned) and critically acclaimed horror comic and script writer Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) have provided consultation to enhance several of the game's frightening aspects. Steve Niles co-wrote the game script with the development team and John Carpenter provided his expertise in crafting the in-game cinematics.

The press release also mentions that three members of the Fiendish First Family (Alma Wade, Paxton Fettel, and the Point Man) will return, with the latter two being playable characters in both single-player and "divergent co-op." (I'm guessing they're calling it "divergent" because you'll rarely see your co-op partner on your screen.)

The information we have thus far suggests that the protagonist(s) is/are working with Alma this time around. That would, at least, improve the internal logic of the original's narrative. By the end of F.E.A.R. 1, I had been so thoroughly beaten over the head by the "Armacham are the real monsters" plot device that I had no desire to kill either Alma or Fettel; i.e.:  my mother and my brother.

I guess that means I'm F.U.B.A.R. in the head, but with all the super-psycho-apocalyptic domestic violence, that's to be expected.

Two-by-two

Gamasutra reports that lead designer Todd Alderman and lead software engineer Francesco Gigliotti have left Infinity Ward, following the highly-publicized departures of Jason West (CTO, COO) and Vince Zampella (CEO, CFO).  No word yet on whether Alderman and Gigliotti will also sign with a talent agency, sue Activision, or get a dog together.

(Pictured:  Todd Alderman)

HD 5870 vs. GTX 480. Who rules?

The PC Report provides a nice range of performance comparisons between the two cards, with the 480 holding a slight edge in terms of raw FPS.  But the story ends this way:

The ATI Radeon HD 5870, while not the faster of the two cards, is more worthy of your cash. Despite it being the lower performer, it still performs fantastically in most games – especially at higher resolutions. It also has a lower power consumption by a mile, it is a cooler card to run and is quieter (with the stock cooler). ATI’s Eyefinty technology is also a great selling point and not needing two graphics cards like Nvidia Vision Surround is certainly a bonus.

I will note though that the GTX 480 will probably end up performing slightly better after drivers are fully optimized for games; the HD 5870 has already had time for drivers to optimize the card. However no drivers will fix that crazy power consumption.

Some of you may not agree of course, but I would say that ATI certainly won the DirectX 11 graphics card race with a truly outstanding card in more ways that just performance.

TF 2 far

But it's damned impressive nonetheless:

ME2 "Kasumi" DLC trailer

Set for release tomorrow (April 6):

Shack News has a preview here.

Crysis console constraints

From CVG:  Crysis 2 faced 'creative console constraints'

Crysis 2 can be defined as a 'sandbox game with borders' - after developer Crytek faced down the limitations of Xbox 360 by ensuring it "avoided over-designing features."

The firm has explained why they chose a tighter, more metropolitan world for the second game as part of a huge exclusive in CVG sister mag Xbox World 360.

As previously reported, Crysis 2 is set in New York - a world away from its predecessor's lush, vast jungle terrain, which could only be seen on PC.

When asked if the decision to switch to Xbox 360 for the second game was limiting, Crytek executive producer Nathan Camarillo said:

"I wouldn't exactly call this generation of consoles 'limited'. However, the challenges have allowed us to avoid over-designing features, to keep the focus narrower and tight for a compelling experience on all platforms.  

There's more to the interview, but it's the same doublespeak:  to get Crysis on the consoles, Crytek had to dumb it down.  The "open world" aspect of the series was always something of a myth, but you can't get vistas like that on the Xbox, even at 720p.

Chrome un-hackable by Pwn2Own hackers

From BlogTechnical.com:

At the recently held Pwn2Own hacking convention, Google Chrome was the only major browser to stand up to the 3 days of brutal hacking attempts by professionals from across the nation. At Pwn2Own, hackers and other pros are paid prizes between $10,o00 to $15,000 along with their cracking system, to break into different web browsers listed below. Hacking into a select few mobiles phones was also on the agenda.

While Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari were cracked within minutes on Day 1, Chrome was able to stand firm for all 3 day on various platforms, especially on the the very insecure Windows XP. Definitely a good achievement for the new browser, however critics say that because only 5-11% of people use Chrome and with the fact that it’s still very new on the market, hackers have either not been able to find exploits yet or just haven’t seriously taken the time to try and crack Chrome.

PC release list for April

• Borderlands: Add-On Pack – April 6th
• Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West - April 8th
• Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City – April 13th
• Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse – April 15th
• The Whispered World - April 26th
• Jumpgate Evolution – April 27th
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction – April 27th
• Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans – April 27th
• Black Mirror 2 – April 30th
• Alien Breed Evolution – April
• Battlefield Online – April
• Rig N Roll – April
• Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter - April
• Tactical Intervention – April

Buzzkill: the GTX 480

BitTech.net has reviewed Nvidia's GeForce GTX 480, and it looks pretty disappointing.  Their conclusion:

Having waited over six months for Nvidia to deliver a DirectX 11 graphics card we can’t help but feel shocked by the GeForce GTX 480. While offering performance superior to the HD 5870 in some situations, most notably Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Dirt 2, the GTX 480 is unable to conclusively claim the title as fastest single GPU graphics card, with Crysis a dead heat and the Radeon HD 5870 cards offering much better performance in STALKER.

Even when ahead, at the high resolutions and demanding settings this kind of top-of-the-range card should target, the GTX 480's performance advantage is rarely more than ten percent. Considering the six month wait since the release of the HD 5870 this is deeply disappointing, and we certainly hoped and expected more.

It’s hard to back the GTX 480 elsewhere though as it brings with it incredibly high power consumption, high running temperatures and a noisy stock cooling solution which really spoil the party.

The bad news continues. Nvidia has chosen to launch the GTX 480 quoting a price thirty per cent higher than that of its direct competitor. While you can find a HD 5870 1GB for around £310 in stock without too much effort, the GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB will hit e-tailers shelves on April 6th at an MSRP of £420 ($450). Even if you value the Nvidia exclusive features like PhysX, 3D Vision and CUDA support, such a high price will be tough to stomach.

Yes, the GTX 480 offers great performance in our test games, especially in Dirt 2 and Bad Company 2, but compared to the competition, it doesn't make a strong enough case for itself, especially when you consider that there are just so many caveats involved with buying this card. The higher price, the 100W of extra power consumption, scorchingly hot temperatures and a much noisier stock cooler are all extremely detrimental to its desirability. The HD 5870 remains a far better choice if you're a gamer; while we've yet to see how the GTX 480 performs with CUDA apps and Folding, at this stage Fermi looks like a flop. 

Tali unmasked