Here’s a quick bit of news from the past few days. Splinter Cell Conviction has been delayed to the fiscal year of 2008/2009. Which probably means it’ll be coming out somewhere around the holidays in 2008. How did this happen, I thought it was originaly set for November 2007. What the fuck?! Moving on. Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is coming, I hope to God that’s not what they’re going to call it by the time it gets released but whatever, even if they do I’ll still get it. I haven’t been able to play ANY of the fucking games that came out this November which is really fucked up, I also can’t do any 3D modeling on this PC and 2D animation is too time consuming to do behind the whole family’s PC. Goddamn it!! What else… Oh yeah! There’s a new trailer for 1-18-08 out on Apple.com.

If I have to buy a new videocard I’ll just get the 8800GT. Yes, it’s a mid-range card that performes better than the 8800GTS that I previously had prior to it’s death. So what will it be? 400 buck for a new GTS or 250 bucks for a card that runs a lot faster? Uuuuuh, let me think about that for a few weeks and I’ll get back to you…. I’ll be keeping it short like this for the next few weeks since I’m hardly “plugged in” myself these days.

I just got back from messing with the Crysis demo. I can see why they delayed the demo for one full month but now I’m really concerned about this game. The demo is so fucked up that even my rig can’t run this game properly. I get decent frame rates when playing on VERY HIGH settings in DX10 mode, however my mouse and keyboard seem to be having some really awful problems. It’s almost like the frame rate of the game is sucking up the “frame rate” of my mouse and keyboard. They respond so shitty it makes the game unplayable! After looking around on the internet I found out the so-called Crysis driver update from Nvidia is causing this problem. Rather than to just rollback my driver, I decided to lower the post-processing effects, twice. And yes it makes the mouse and keyboard problem a lot less bad, but it’s still sorta there. So now I’ll just try to rollback my Nvidia drivers and see if it fixes anything. I’ll keep you guys updated!

Update: Well, I have officially given up on trying to run the demo. Rolling back the drivers only made it completely impossible to run the game. So I guess that BETA driver was doing something right… But screw this I’ll wait for a WHQL certified Nvidia driver for Crysis, and for Crytek to release some sort of patch for Crysis. This blows…

So I’ve been having CRC errors in the RAR self-extractor that the demo is being packaged in. All this time it never occurred to me that since I had WinRAR I might as well just extract the EXE file without the self-extractor, and instead do it threw WinRAR by right clicking on the installer EXE and extracting the file elsewhere. Now I’ve just installed the demo and I’ll be writing about it somewhere tonight! Hopefully this helps a few people because there were a lot of people with the same problem as me.

First off, I’m very sorry for the very long delays in updates lately. I’ve been having problems with all kinds of hardware and for a few days I couldn’t even use my computer. Luckily I’ve been able to patch it up for now. Tuesday I’ll have it all worked out. I’ve also been trying to change the way news is brought to you and I want to start doing that soon. Just small posts every 2 or 3 days containing all the latest highlights and other random stuff. It’s time to start using KTB more as a blog than some small news websites which I never intended it to be but somehow it turned out to be this way, don’t ask how ’cause I don’t have a clue. I’m currently downloading the Crysis DEMO from FileFront and I’ll be writing a little bit about that tomorrow along with a few screen shots which will be awesome considering my quad-core monster rig, which Crysis fully supports. Crysis is the only reason I currently have a quad-core CPU since all the other games have been promised to support it but thus far none of ‘em have.

I haven’t really talked about this but in a few months I might be posting my gaming news on an actual gaming news website, it’s currently in it’s early phases and right now it’d be pointless to show you the forums since that’s all we have. There’s a lot of posting going on though, so I have a lot of faith in the potential of this would-be community. Since gaming news can be found pretty much everywhere I’ve decided to focus more on movie news which is really hard to find if you don’t know where to look. That’s all I have to bitch about for today, see ya’ll later!

More demos! Not a lot to say about this since I haven’t really been following this game but I’ll check it out later this week. The graphics are surprisingly crappy after all the pre-rendered stuff they showed us. I can’t even believe the texture resolutions! They’re so fucking horrible. Meh, as long as the gameplay compensates for that. Also, be ready for a big gaming news summary very soon.

Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and action of first-person titles, while offering infinite playability with randomly created levels, items and events. The player creates a heroic character, completes quests and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.

This Hellgate: London demo includes the Blademaster and Marksman classes, and part of Act 1 of the game.

System Requirements:

Below are the minimum recommended system specs for the Hellgate: London Beta. Please keep in mind that these specs are not finalized in any way, and only apply to the Alpha that you are participating in. Over time, as optimizations are made and the game nears completion, revised specs will be released. Thanks, and have a great time with the game!

* OS: Windows XP with SP2 or Windows Vista
* Processor: 1 .8GHz or faster (2.4GHz for Vista)
* RAM: 1GB or more (2GB for Vista)
* Video: DirectX 9.0c/10 compatible device w/ 128MB RAM or better and Pixel Shader 2.0 support; requires NVIDIA GeForce 6200/ATI Radeon 9000 chipset or greater
* Audio: DirectX 9.0c compatible device
* Disc drive: 8x DVD or faster
* Hard drive: 6 GB or more free space
* Input: Keyboard and mouse
* Internet: Connection required for multiplayer

Mirrors:

• WorthPlaying
• Fileshack
• FileFront

Oh my God it’s that time of the… Whatever, it’s time to make a kick-ass review about a kick-ass game pack with a shit load of games including three new games that pwn so hard, you won’t be able to remove yourself from your PC for days on end. Yes I said “pwn” and I intend to use a lot more gamertalk in the following game reviews to come! And that’s a lot of ‘em. Game Cam v2 is out in a few days, so maybe I can finally record games on Vista? Guess we’ll have to find out, and if so… My God I’m going to rip out my heart, pinch it, and put it back into my chest just to be sure it’s not a dream.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two
It’s here! The second installment of the HL2 episodes with one more to go at a currently unknown date. Ep2 (Episode Two) continues where Ep1 ended. The Citadel just blew up and all hell broke lose. The Combine are trying to open up some sort of super portal that would make the Seven Hour War happen all over again, only it won’t last seven hours this time. Of course there’s no real rush since this is a linear scripted FPS and so you really have all the time in the world! But as always, the scripted events always immerse the player right into the game and before you know it you’re running your ass off trying to save the Earth. What else? Remember that data that Alyx stole from the Citadel in Ep1? Well the Combine isn’t too happy about that since it contains data that is kinda confidential and for Combine eye’s only. So you’re racing against time and you’re trying to fend off the Combine who are desperately trying to get that data from Alyx’s cold dead body. You start out with no weapons at all ‘cept the gravity gun. I guess that’s because the HL2 episodes are stand-alone games and thus Valve can’t be more than 99,99% sure that the players of Ep2 have already played HL2 and/or HL2: Ep1. What sucks is how they teach you how actually play an FPS all over again. Oh really? I have to jump over that obstacle? You don’t say… Luckily nothing in Gordon Freeman’s (the main character that you play) life is ever boring or peaceful and quickly the game throws a large number of Ant Lions and zombies in your face before you even have a decent gun. Which is cool because it adds to the tension and the intensity of the initial fights.

You start the game inside of the train you used to escape City 17 in Ep1. You’re quickly taught how to play the game and from there you see how the Citadel starts to create this super portal that is comperable to the portal to hell from Doom 3, only this will be way worse. So you and Alyx advance slowly but surely while fighting zombies and other weak opponents. Once you get to a certain place Alyx is critically injured by a Hunter, a new enemy that will make your (half-)life hell later on in the game. AVortigaun comes to the rescue and what follows is a classic Half-Life moment. The Vortigaun tells you you and him have to get from one place to the other, simple right? All you have to do is walk a few hundred meters and you’re there. Piece of cake! NOT! Because the game inevitably traps you and then you’re screwed and you have to take a small and very dangerous detour. Classic. I won’t spoil anything beyond this point but what follows is an awesome “king of the hill” part where you, two turrets, a few mines and two NPC’s have to fight off waves of Ant Lions. You’ll also get to face a special Ant Guard that you’re not allowed to kill, so instead of using one of the many guns you have already aquired you’ll have to just sprint your ass off dodging the Ant Guard while hiding in small tunnels and stuff like that. Very intense stuff, no kidding.

What’s good about this game? Well, the Half-Life story is continued of course. New enemies, a cool new Strider Mine which is loads of fun to use, a few VERY interesting plot twists and revelations and more. What’s not so good about this game? The usual entrapments that lead to longer roads to get from one point to another, Hunters are a pain in the ass when they come in packs of three and there’s really no way you can play this game the first run without dying because of them, it’s an episode but it’s still too short despite the fact that it took me 1,7 hours longer to complete than Episode One. Conclusion? Get this game, don’t ask questions just get it and play it.

The Orange Box
With HL2: Ep2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 (as well as the original HL2 and HL2: Ep1) this game box is the best value for your money ever! Do not wait another second and just rush to your local game store and get the Orange Box NOW!

Another awesome demo today, and I have yet to play the CoD4 demo! Todat it’s UT3’s turn to show us all what the next installment of Unreal Tournament is gonna be like. I honestly never liked UT and it won’t be any different this time around. But I’m gonna buy this game regardless, why? Because of the awesome engine and the editor they’ll include in the retail release. I’ve been dying to fuck around with normal maps and parallax maps without going through a heap of trouble on other engines. The Unreal Engine is simply the easiest and best modifiable engine out there. Sure the CryEngine has Sandbox, which makes mapping a piece of cake. But it’s ease is also it’s greatest weakness since it makes the creative possibilities very limited whilst Unreal Engine has a brush-based map editor and on top of that pretty much everything else you can put into the game is managed from within the same editor.

The Necris invasion has begun, and your clan was one of the first to be slaughtered. Head to the front lines and join this Epic battle to defend humanity while taking your revenge. Unreal Tournament 3 marks the return of the premiere tournament-style first-person shooter. Unreal Tournament 3 unleashes the full power of Unreal Engine 3, taking graphics, gameplay, and challenge to a whole new level. Players engage in intense and hyper-real battles with other human players online or against incredibly realistic Unreal artificial intelligence. Over two dozen weapons and vehicles have been upgraded and enhanced for maximum killing potential. Take on all comers in a variety of game modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, an all-new Warfare mode and more.

The demo contains the following maps and game modes:

HeatRay (Deathmatch):
This battle takes place in a night-time urban setting. Players battle over who gets to use a Dark Walker super weapon after it is spawned by a passing drop-ship. If you manage to get it, be sure to rack up the kills quickly since everyone will be gunning for you. The Dark Walker is like a giant piñata — when it dies it drops a U-Damage and a Berzerk power-up. If you want to stay hidden from the Dark Walker keep an eye out for the Invisibility power-up.

ShangriLa (Deathmatch):
A stark contrast to HeatRay’s moody setting, ShangriLa is a sunny, tranquil map set high in the Izanagi Mountains. This map is designed in the traditional style of big Team Deathmatch maps, so it should please the most hardcore UT Deathmatch players. Fight over the U-damage in the central courtyard, or try to control the Shield-belt alley. You can find jumpboots in a vulnerable spot at the end of a dock, but the risk is worth the reward as they will go a long way toward helping you control the map.

Suspense (Vehicle Capture the Flag):
Set on a massive suspension bridge deep in Axon territory, this map is a playground of gameplay possibilities. It’s a favorite in Epic office playtests because you can find almost all the Axon vehicles, as well as the Redeemer super-weapon. Whether you are sniping from the bridge towers, camping with the tank, towing hover-boarding flag-runners from your Raptor, controlling the redeemer from underneath the bridge, bombarding from afar with Hellfire SPMA artillery, or doing fast attacks with Manta’s and Scorpions, everyone will find something they love doing in Suspense.

Mirrors:
Gamer’s Hell
FileShack
FileFront

The singleplayer demo for CoD4 is out now on Yahoo! Games. Unfortunately you’ll need a Yahoo! account, which I don’t have and to be quite honest I’m not really willing to get one just for this demo… Oh who the hell am I kidding I’m gonna register right now! W00t w00000t!!!

War rages on in the fourth edition of Activision’s acclaimed war game. For the first time in the series, Call of Duty moves away from WWII to the modern battlefield. Armed with an arsenal of advanced and powerful modern day firepower, players are transported to treacherous hotspots around the globe to take on a rogue enemy group threatening the world. As both a U.S Marine and British S.A.S. soldier fighting through an unfolding story full of twists and turns, players use sophisticated technology, superior firepower and coordinated land and air strikes on a battlefield where speed, accuracy and communication are essential to victory. The epic title also delivers an added depth of multiplayer action providing online fans an all-new community of persistence, addictive and customizable gameplay.

Required (minimum) Specs:
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 2.4 GHz or AMD(R) Athlon(TM) 64 2800+ processor or any 1.8Ghz Dual Core Processor or better supported
RAM: 512MB RAM (768MB for Windows Vista)
Hard Drive: 8GB of free space
Video card: NVIDIA(R) Geforce(TM) 6600 or better or ATI(R) Radeon(R) 9800 Pro or better

Recommended Specs:
CPU: 2.4 GHz dual core or better
RAM: 1G for XP; 2G for Vista
Hard Drive: 8GB of free space
Video card: 3.0 Shader Support recommended. Nvidia Geforce 7800 or better or ATI Radeon X1800 or better

Mirrors: (Thanks Martin from RLSLOG)
Yahoo! Games
Fileshack
Fragland
Fileplanet
Filefront
Ovh.net
Uni Twente

A new Soldier of Fortune! Of course it was inevitable but this still managed to surprise me. Once again SoF is going to try and be “special” with blood and gore that goes above and beyond any psychotic serial killer’s most perverse and disturbed wetdream. In the end it’s just a mediocre shooter… But I’m still gonna play it. ‘Cause of the gore, obviously.

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Not a lot of interesting news the entire week, so I’ll just post whatever bit of news I had in this small post. First off Kane and Lynch is set for a release on the 20th of November. At least now we have an exact date for this awesome game in the making. There’s also been sort of an update on the minimum requirements for Crysis:

CPU:	Intel P4 2.8Ghz or AMD equivalent
RAM:	1GB
Video Card:	6800GT (256mb) or ATI/AMD Radeon 9800 Pro (256mb)
HDD Space:	16GB
OS:	Microsoft Windows [XP and Vista I imagine]
Sound Card:	DirectX 9.0c Compatible

Still… Not too bad for such a great game. In other news, there a small update on the format war’s progress and a potential end to it might be closer than you think.

A stand alone Blu-ray player sells for about $500, while HD DVD players cost about $400, and prices are expected to drop further as the holiday shopping season nears.

Gownder said Blu-ray’s content advantages are somewhat diminished since the recent decision by Viacom Inc’s (VIAb.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Paramount studio to commit exclusively to HD DVD. HD DVD hardware prices have also dropped into consumers’ preferred price range, he said.

“Weakened by these developments, Blu-ray needs to offer a viable hardware model at the $250 price point by Christmas 2007,” he said in the report. “The Blu-ray camp must also stave off further studio defections, and employ more aggressive promotional tactics to counter HD DVD’s recent momentum.”

You can read the rest of the article right here. And that was about it. Of course with the upcoming holiday season we’re going to be washed away by games, movies and nextgen hardware so next time I’m sure there’ll be a lot more interesting stuff to read about.