Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:22 PM

Category: Hardware

The side fan pushes a lot of air in, but it hits the PSU heatpipe/heatsink shroud and CPU heatsink side on. It's all good for the heatpipe array and chipset cooling, but the 70mm fan and blue shroud could be done away with since the side fan shifts so much air all it needs is a shroud to direct the flow.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:37 AM

Category: Role Playing

It is dedicated to all things Two Worlds for both the PC and Xbox 360. Two Worlds is an epic RPG, set in a giant open-ended world, where your choices and decisions will greatly affect the world around you. Go out and explore, save townspeople in trouble, or be a relentless entity of evil

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:48 AM

Category: Developer

Do you work out of a cube, or do you have an office? (abe)

I asked Todd this question on my pre-interview phone call and he said "I'd just have to see it." He was right - we have cubicles, but they're built specifically for what we do. They're best described as permanent 3.5-walled drywall cubes with built-in desks. They're quite nice, actually, and give just enough privacy without compromising the communal nature of game development. So part cube, part office, actually.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:02 AM

Category: First Person

Hellgate: London is an RPG set in the immersive first-person perspective. With a completely randomized world that offers a unique experience every time you play, Hellgate: London introduces a demon-ridden place where the last survivors of the human race must meld science and magic to survive.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:35 AM

Category: Role Playing

Chosen has been out for a while now in Europe, where it's known as Frater. While it is a fantasy setting, it borrows more from old-world mysticism than it does from Tolkein-esque standards. Expect dashes of steampunk, Kaballistic magic, oriental mysteries, fraternal sects, and outright infernalism. No elves, no dwarves, no goblins.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:24 AM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:54 PM

Category: Developer

Analysts said Microsoft probably is keeping tight-lipped about what Windows 7 will look like because at this point, company engineers and executives don't even know.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:43 AM

Category: First Person

Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason is a first-person shooter, but in the spirit of horror games, the focus is more on tension and terror than taking pot-shots at your enemies. And instead of worrying about your health and scavenging conveniently located health packs, you'll have to worry about the cold. A gauge shows Nesterov's core temperature, surrounded by a ring showing the environmental temperature.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:40 PM

Category: Comic Books

The ongoing monthly series will be written by industry veteran Walter Simonson (Thor, Orion) and feature art by Ludo Lullabi and inker Sandra Hope. The first six issues of the World of Warcraft comic series will each feature two covers, one by superstar comic book artist Jim Lee and a second by Blizzard Entertainment Senior Art Director Samwise Didier.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:02 PM

Category: First Person

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:24 AM

Category: First Person

This is still Half-Life 2, but it's a slightly different sport now. It presents old enemies in a new light and forces you to deal with them using new techniques. Whether you're interested or not doesn't really matter either, as on release it will be helplessly sellotaped to the ineffably fantastic Team Fortress 2, along with Portal.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:27 AM

Category: General

• E3 07: Haze Impressions
• E3 I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
• E3 2007 PC Recap
• The Annual E3 Awards: 2007
• Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason Hands on at E3
• Hellgate London from E3
• E3 in Review: Did the show work?
• Which titles were tops at E3 2007?
• A Review of E3 2007
• E3 2007 Report - Part 1
• E3 2007 Report - Part 2
• E3 2007: Fallout 3

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:50 PM

Category: First Person

Following FarCry developer Crytek's 2004 deal with publisher EA to create a new game--which eventually would become the much-anticipated shooter Crysis--Ubisoft was left alone with the rights to the FarCry franchise. News of the company's planned sequel broke after images were accidentally included in an Ubisoft press kit.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:42 PM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

Bellevue, WA., July 17, 2007—NCsoft® and ArenaNet® announced today that the prerelease bonus pack for Guild Wars: Eye of the NorthTM is set to arrive on retailer's shelves on July 20 and will include a host of compelling features, including exclusive in-game items and access to the Guild Wars: Eye of the North Sneak Peek Weekend set for later this summer.

The Guild Wars: Eye of the North prerelease bonus pack also comes with exclusive weapons, including the Glacial Blade, the Hourglass Staff, and the Darksteel Longbow. These new weapons are based on the winning designs from the Guild Wars Design-a-Weapon Contest held earlier this year. In addition, the prerelease bonus pack includes a Guild Wars Trilogy Trial DVD that provides access to all three of the Guild Wars campaigns for a special trial promotion lasting 10 hours or 14 days, whichever comes first.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:37 AM

Category: Role Playing

We know what we're doing with making an RPG good and fun and addictive. So taking that to a first person shooter for us is a very natural step that we're able to do quite easily. Some of these other genres are really struggling with the pacing of advancement and rewards, and they don't quite know what they're doing with that. They're still trying to figure out the basic mechanics of RPG-ness. For us, this is all we do. And so, they're all trying to come closer to us is the way I look at it. And they could learn a lot, if they would just look at what we're doing.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:36 AM

Category: First Person

The demo was brief and was mainly a way to show some of the sequel's new graphics as well as a way to show that Monolith will still make the game an intense action experience with some creepy themes.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 3:05 PM

Category: Action

AM: We’ve invented a fighting mechanic in keeping with our literary theme – Words as Weapons. The player can literally pluck words like “burn,” “fly,” or “expand” from the world and throw these as weapons – with self evident effect. From mission to mission the available word weapons change – we’re taking full advantage of the small scale of each mission and the large number of possible effects all these word weapons can have. The variety in gameplay and the player’s ability to transform the world and characters in it should be huge.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:12 PM

Category: Action

As protagonist assassin Altair, I began the demo mission atop a church in the center of 12th century Jerusalem. A fairly impressive draw distance gives a view of much of the surrounding area, even outside the walls of the city--an Ubisoft rep said the demo map this year is 15 times bigger than last year's. Still, up close, building textures weren't exactly stunning, with muddled graphics detracting from most of the city's stone structures

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:12 AM

Category: Developer

As Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told us, we'll be in a mostly DirectX 9 world for a while yet. And when we finally get to games built from the ground up with DirectX 10, you might not even notice, because next-gen graphics features will only trickle in to new titles gradually for the next couple of years.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:11 AM

Category: First Person

Red dust on your boots mixes with fresh Shambler blood as you bend down to slurp from the huge neck gash and re-hydrate your abused corpus. Moisture outside of flesh is nowhere to be found on this desert domain and the temples you cleared had only wells filled with bones and spider nests.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 1:30 PM

Category: First Person

According to GSC, the Zone we stalked in Shadow of Chernobyl was one of relative peace - really? - but a year earlier when Clear Sky is set the environment is far more hostile. The developer describes the area as being "agitated", with anomalies "extremely active and the landscape is vastly different to what you've seen before."

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:30 AM

Category: General

Although smaller than in previous years the three-day event will be a showcase of the latest and greatest in the gaming world.

The focus in 2007 has shifted from hardware to games and attendees will expect to see previews and launches of some keenly-awaited titles.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 8:47 AM

Category: First Person

After your plane crashes into icy uncharted waters, you discover a rusted bathysphere and descend into Rapture, a city hidden beneath the sea. Constructed as an idealistic society for a hand picked group of scientists, artists and industrialists, the idealism is no more. Now the city is littered with corpses, wildly powerful guardians roam the corridors as little girls loot the dead, and genetically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 5:58 PM

Category: Role Playing

This new product will allow players who have never played the 2006 Game of the Year to experience Oblivion for the first time with additional content. In addition, gamers can continue their existing games of Oblivion and experience the new quests and areas offered by the expansion and downloadable content.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 12:56 PM

Category: First Person

A gameplay montage video of Epic Games' Gears Of War-specifically listed as PC footage-found its way to the internet earlier today, confirming the long-running rumors of a PC port of the million-selling Xbox 360 third-person shooter. That video was quickly pulled, with copies of the clip making their way to YouTube, Google Video and the other usual suspects.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:13 AM

Category: Role Playing

Developer Gas Powered Games plans to expand upon the dungeon-crawling action RPG gameplay it employed in its Dungeon Siege series with its upcoming Space Siege. In a partnership with publisher Sega, the Redmond-based studio will deliver Space Siege for PC in Q1 2008.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 10:45 AM

Category: Massively Multiplayer

This is one beautiful game. Highland forests are densely covered in lush trees, tall grasses and fantastical wildlife; closer to commanding snow-covered mountains the terrain changes and you encounter pine trees (with pinecones!) open spaces and wildlife that is larger than life by magnitudes.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 9:05 PM

Category: Role Playing

When we got our hands on The Witcher to feel out its combat system, we found a rather unique play mechanic hiding beneath its third-person hack 'n slash skin. It's all about timing. After you left-click to start your first attack, you'll need to watch Geralt's swing animations carefully and feel the flow of his moves. If you follow up your first strike with a well-timed click, you'll create a chain combo which - if kept up long enough - can result in some crazy kills and brutal blows.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 2:20 PM

Category: Role Playing

Losing reputation is easy. Gaining it takes more work. Earning a group's trust will require you to perform tasks and undertake quests for them. Keep on doing deeds for a guild, and pretty soon you'll be in good standing with them. It all sounds simple. Unfortunately, certain groups don't care for other groups, and earning reputation with one could lose you reputation with another. If you're clever enough, you can keep your double dealings a secret. Just be careful not to get caught and have to pay a hefty reputation cost with both groups.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 6:14 PM

Category: Role Playing

You play as Geralt of Rivia, one of the last of the witchers, or professional monster slayers. Witchers aren't normal human beings, but rather magically mutated killers with superfast reflexes, limited magic ability, extraordinary weapon skills, and a resistance to poison. But since they're basically mutants, they encounter hostility and prejudice in many human towns.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 11:45 AM

Category: Role Playing

Unlike in the original Fallout, which opens with the player being sent out of Vault 13, Fallout 3 spends a good deal of its initial gameplay within Vault 101--when the inevitable departure comes, the player will have a fuller sense of what is being left behind. The vault's insides are rendered gorgeously, with the series' trademark slick retro-future aesthetic managing to suggest a lived-in look. The overall lighting and ambiance is just right.

Posted by Darren 'Doom Dude' Finch at 6:34 PM

Category: Role Playing

So at the age of 19 your character goes off to find his or her missing father, voiced by Liam Neeson, who has apparently left the vault. And that’s Fallout 3’s main quest—the search for your father in the post-apocalyptic wastelands.