Here they are:

Minimum System Requirements

* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
* 2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
* 512 Mbytes of System RAM
* NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
* 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended System Requirements

* 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
* 1 GBytes of System RAM
* NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
* 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

I know it’s been quiet around here but I’ll post a few news summaries ASAP as I’m kinda busy this week.

I’ve been waiting for this game for a little while now but I’m not sure just how good it is. I liked the pre-rendered stuff, but now it would seem that despite the awesome atmosphere and story the gameplay might fuck everything up. I’ll have to try it out tomorrow or later this weekend to actually see if this is the case but so far I’ve only seen some really crappy casual FPS gameplay with controllable bullets and magical powers. But who knows, maybe the story will carry this game like it has in so many other games such as Max Payne! I love Max Payne but if it wasn’t for the incredibly cinematic and good storyline that game would’ve sucked big time since the gameplay does tend to get repetitive after a while.

Codemasters has released a demo allowing you to try out Clive Barker’s Jericho. It contains the game’s Sewers level.

A supernatural horror action game with a story devised by the master mythmaker, novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker. Mingling the darkest elements of Barker’s horror fiction and films, Jericho deals with the mysterious reappearance of a lost city in a remote desert. When a form of evil that goes right back to the dawn of days resurfaces from there, a Special Forces squad, trained in both conventional warfare and the arcane arts, is sent in. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the evil that lurks at the heart of the city before it destroys humanity.

Tell me what you think if and when you get the time!

Mirrors:

• FileFront
• FilePlanet (NOOOOO!!!)

You can’t read this!

I’ve been reading about BiA: HH being delayed along with Assassin’s Creed but I have yet to find an actual source for this. If this is true then this year’s gaming month is now officially a failure as there’s hardly anything left for November now. We’ve still got Crysis and CoD4 and that’s about it. Oh wait, here’s the source from GameSpot.

Shortly after press time, Ubisoft circulated an updated release calendar confirming that Hell’s Highway would indeed miss its previously announced holiday 2007 launch window. The game will now ship in Ubisoft’s fiscal fourth quarter, which runs from January to March. Despite the delay, fans of the series won’t be entirely at a loss this year; a Wii version of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is set for a December release.

The delay will frustrate fans eager to play the game, but one piece of news that will be universally welcomed is that work on the game–which drew praise for its detailed graphics and intense gameplay at the 2007 E3 Media & Business Summit–is nearing a crucial phase. “We’re rapidly approaching Beta status on Hell’s Highway,” promised the rep, raising the prospect of a Call-of-Duty-4-style test before year’s end.

YES!! A Wii version of Road to Hill 30! Now I can die happy.

For fuck sake this is delay day! First the Crysis DEMO but now it’s the entire PC version of Assassin’s Creed! Yes that is right, only the PC version is delayed. Not the 360 or PS3 versions, just the PC version. Ok ok, I’m cool. I’m still totally cool about all of this. Crysis is still on track for as far as we know. No more Splinter Cell, no more Assassin’s Creed and for whoever cares, no more Haze. But the rest is still on track for November! Yeah! What’s left anyway? Kane and Lynch, BiA: Hell’s Highway, Crysis and I thought CoD4 as well but I’m not sure. I’m still completely hyped for all these games but it sucks to see every one of them slowly being delayed or completely cancelled on PC only!

Ubisoft sends along an updated release schedule, including a new early 2008 release date for the PC edition of Assassin’s Creed, which was announced with a 2007 release date (story). Though no reasons are offers, word is the console editions will not suffer this delay: “One of the most anticipated video games of the year comes to the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system in November, and to PC in early 2008.”

Why? Is it so hard to make a game for PC that isn’t riddled with bugs?! I think not.

The first trailer for the true sequel to F.E.A.R. is here! Forget all about that shitty expansion pack for F.E.A.R. as it was not only a shitty game but it totally messed up the storyline. Monolith doesn’t have the right to the original title, so they named the sequel Project Origin after the game’s plot device. They do have the rights to the character names and all of that stuff, so they can still make a worthy sequel. Here’s the game’s first trailer!

The HD version of the trailer can be found here.

Why didn’t I see this coming? Crytek never failed us on their release date! But I guess there’s a first time for everything. Lets just hope they don’t delay Crysis.

Hi everyone,

We have some news to announce.

First, I am sorry for the bad news - the Crysis single player demo will now be available everywhere on October 26th, 2007.
We are taking some extra time to make sure you that you have an amazing experience but also we did not want to risk the release date of Crysis at this stage. To get the game into your hands by November the 16th, we had to make this call.

Now the good news - the big surprise. The SP demo will be released with our CryEngine 2 - Sandbox 2 game editor, giving the community the opportunity to get familiar with the vast amount of tools they will have at their disposal four weeks before we ship, something we have always wanted to do.

This is an exciting time for us at the studio as the development of Crysis comes to an end and we are only a few weeks from Gold Master.
We appreciate your patience and are looking forward to getting Crysis into your hands on November 16th.

Thanks

Cevat Yerli
CEO & Crytek

The Sandbox editor makes everything a lot more bearable but still…

Initially I didn’t want to even try out the demo, but since it was already installed on my PC anyway I thought “Why not?” so I tried it out. So I started this motherfucker up and was like “This’d better be an improvement over Pacific Assault or I’m going to do something crazy.” and fortunately it was! But it didn’t stop there, it was actually loads better than any other MoH prior to this one, and not because of the new “Drop your ass anywhere you want even though there’s only 2 real choices to choose from” feature either! Yes that is right, that whole feature is a crock of shit but we’ll get into that later on.

Breaking the habit
Unlike all the previous MoH games, the developers didn’t promise us the dawn of a new age in gaming and then having none of the features they promised in-game. Like in Pacific Assault, they promised us all sorts of amazing stuff like destructible environments and super intelligent squad AI but only gave us a few towers that we could blow up and a squad AI that made me want to kill myself. Your squad is the most intelligent one featured in any game, you say? More like all they do is hide behind objects when the enemy is firing at them from the direction they are NOT hiding from. That’s just fucking genius.

No, this time they said land anywhere and start your mission from there! But in reality you can choose to land on one of the safe spots that are marked by green smoke, OR you can choose to land on top of a random building and be surrounded by hundreds of enemies with no support from your squad that basically just lands ANYWHERE… Where there is green smoke. Yes that’s right! All those parachute misdrops? Not in Airborne! No, everyone can basically land their WWII parachute anywhere they want! How? Well since this is physically impossible I’d have to say either BioShock plasmids, or… Ancestral ghosts. Duh…

What else sucks total monkey dick about this game? Your squad is not all that smart. Yes, now they hide behind an object that can actually shield them from the enemy rain of bullets, but then that’s all they ever really do. They just hide and shoot from their cover. Only once all the enemies are dead, or there is nothing to take cover behind, will they get their asses up and advance towards the next objective. I know this isn’t Brothers in Arms, but can’t they at least TRY to flank the enemy and vice versa? No, just dig in and shoot away all your ammo and see if there’s anyone left on the other side. Great.

Graphics
The graphics are pretty nextgen, so that’s a good thing. There’s even a nice motion blur post-processing effect that, unlike Rainbow Six: Vegas‘ motion blur, does not cause hitches in the FPS despite of the fact that you’ve got a rig that could run the game twice. Overall the FPS was actually very steady and I was actually surprised when it would hitch every 2 hours or so. There’s a lot of well-placed HDR. No Lost Coast HDR with the entire world seeming to blind you wherever you look. As I’ve said countless times, put motion blur and HDR in a game and you’ve already got a pretty damn good looking game regardless of the poly count on the 3D objects in the game or the resolution of the textures. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things in this game! The game is obviously running on the Unreal Engine 3 which allows for some pretty amazing graphics. Fire looks AMAZING in this game and so does smoke, though it’s not as good as Call of Duty 2’s smoke. The 3D skybox is also very good looking with all kinds of things going on all around you, it would almost make you forget that each map is incredibly small and there are actual invisible walls! INVISIBLE WALLS!!! EA takes us back a decade by placing invisible walls around the map, oh how nostalgic.

Sound
The good ol’ Medal of Honor soundtrack is back with some changes that still give the game it’s own unique feel. There’s not a whole lot to say about the music since pretty much everyone knows what I’m talking about. The sound effects are amazing. There, that’s one thing this game excels in. Some sound effects are just so realistic you’d almost think you’re actually in the game hearing all of those sounds. I never knew SFX were that important! All the weapons sound right, though they could have used a bit more punch to ‘em and the voice acting is good but nothing special.

Gameplay
What’s there to say? You land, you regroup with your squad and you start to complete your objectives one at a time. The order in which you complete them is up to the player to decide, but usually it’s just smarter to do ‘em all in one particular order since it’s the only smart thing to do. Of course you could fuck with the game and see if you can complete the objectives in a different order, but there’s usually a shitload of enemies waiting to stop you from doing so and even if you manage to do everything backward and still live to make it to the next map, it’s going to be even more impossible to do so there since the enemies keep getting tougher and tougher, not because that’s what happened in real life but because this is a game that was designed by people who think “traditional gameplay” equals “Fuck smart AI, just make the enemies stronger and faster and better at aiming but give them different colors so every level is harder for the player to complete!”. If you’re the genius behind this decision then I have one thing to say: FUCK YOU. This could have been a great game if the difficulty of the levels wasn’t raised by the good ol’ “same enemies, just a lot harder to kill” principle. Now the game is just mediocre and enjoyable, but not amazing and memorable.

Conclusion
Despite all of my criticism, this is the best MoH ever. Which is pretty sad when you think about it, but it’s still an enjoyable game that’ll keep you playing for a few hours. I didn’t count but I believe I read somewhere there were 6 maps? I thought it was just 1 map with different art assets here and there. Every time you’ll complete all of the objectives, and you’ll be ordered to go to some other place where you’ll be introduced to the new enemy units you’ll be facing from now on. It’s like a freaking 1980’s game! But regardless, it’s good fun so I’ll give it a 7/10 for enjoyable gameplay and good graphics combined with surprisingly good sound! What had the potential to be an amazing WWII shooter was simply killed by certain game elements that were copied from some old SNES game. I hope you’re proud of yourself EA. But fuck it, I’m still waiting for Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway to show me what a real WWII shooter is capable of.

EDIT:  Fucking typos and grammar errors everywhere! It’s too damn late to be typing this type of shit anyway… I think I fixed most of ‘em if not all.

No DX10 in ID Tech5. A weird choice for a nextgen engine with cheap DX10 cards becoming available and the inevitable switch to Vista that awaits every Windows user.

GI: Will this engine support any DX10 features? Carmack: No, not currently. We’re not expecting to. We’re not sure if we’re going to be a Vista title or not. There will be some support benefits by being Vista only. It depends when we get the game done what the adoption has been. But it’s a OpenGL title on the PC and Mac right now, obviously D3D on the 360, and the PS3 it’s kind of an in between where it’s Open GLES but we do a lot of direct command buffer writing there. If necessary we can move the PC version over to DX10, but there’s not much strong pull for us to do that. All of the toolset is in OpenGL, I wouldn’t want to convert everything over.

GI: You didn’t seem to hot on DX10 or Vista at CES.

Carmack: Microsoft has done a great job with all this stuff. I mean, I honestly think that DX9 with how it’s implemented on the 360 is a clearer and more open API than OpenGL is. It doesn’t hide the state.

That’s sort of the Microsoft way. They start off with a piece of crap, and then over a number of versions taking a lot of people with them over the painful route they eventually get to something that’s better than what they are competing against. It’s a valid strategic direction. I think they’ve come out at the end with a good platform and a good product. Some of the DX10 stuff I don’t think there’s going to be huge draws for the features there, but a lot of what they’ve done with the structuring of the API I think are still positive things to do there. I think they have a good team with solid engineering there.

Carmack is always very resistant to new technologies for some reason. But fuck him, just because he was one of those basement programmers back in the old days doesn’t mean he knows everything, in fact I think his arrogance is the main cause for his quick jumpy conclusions that everything new sucks. Every time I talk about Carmack I just think: This was the guy that said true 3D was just a temporary fad. Hah, what an idiot… Here’s the entire interview.

How PR shapes gaming journalism. Now here’s an interesting article!

You’ve probably heard the term thrown around, but what, exactly, does a PR rep do? “I work to educate and inform the media about our new product offerings and services,” says Michael Wolf, the PR manager for Games for Windows (the initiative, not the magazine). “The job of the media, in turn, is to carry their opinions about what I’ve told them to the public. The ultimate goal being to get coverage through online outlets, print publications, broadcast media, podcasts, etc.”

Wolf’s diplomatic description of PR represents the ideal relationship between game industry journalists and the products they cover. But more often publicists seek not just to drum up press coverage, but to deliver positive coverage, preferably framed by certain points the game’s marketers have deemed important to get across to the public (Spore is about evolution. Crysis is pretty, etc.). In short, they try to influence what the game press tell their readers, and how they say it.

As a simple fact of life, game writers and editors work with publicists on a daily basis, gathering the stories that populate their publications. But does PR really influence coverage? Do publicists really affect what you read in gaming publications across the web and on the newsstands? The very existence of the profession would seem to imply so. The real question is: How and to what extent? To find out, we spoke to several current and former game industry publicists—though many representing top-tier publishers refused (or were not allowed) to be interviewed—about their methods.

It’s 5 pages long but it’s totally worth it. It’s kinda like those hippie conspiracy theories ‘cept this one’s real. Read the full article here!

SC: Conviction too good for PS3. Not my words but I’m loving this. Yes that’s right I’m a total Sony bashing whore and every bit of bad news for Sony brings endless joy to my entire week.

So, Conviction is confirmed for PC and Xbox 360. But what about the other consoles? Double Agent was a 360 exclusive for a whole week. On this issue, Danny could give us a firm answer. “It’s NEVER gonna come out on the PS3 or the Wii.” It’s a logical decision. Nintendo’s console simply doesn’t have the graphical horsepower, and he candidly told us how the PS3 can’t handle AI nearly as well as the 360.

So there’s that. It says that the 360 is better at handling the AI and not that the PS3 can’t handle it at all, but that’s obvious with the 360’s tradition CPU and the PS3’s weird experimental Cell processor. Here’s the whole thing.

A CryEngine 2 MMO is on the way!

Seoul, South Korea-based XLGames was founded in 2003 by Lineage creator Jake Song, former executive VP of NCsoft.

It’s not the first time Song has used Crytek’s technology. He used the CryEngine 1 technology for NCsoft’s MMO Aion, which is yet to be released.

Crytek managing director Faruk Yerli said in a statement, “Jake Song is a true pioneer and legend in the world of massively multiplayer games, having almost single handedly created the original market for them in Asia. To now have his own company select the CryENGINE 2 as their middleware, and Crytek as their primary technology provider, demonstrates a high level of confidence in our tools and technology

In July, Swedish developer MindArk signed a licensing agreement with Crytek that will bring CryEngine 2 to the virtual world, Entropia Universe.

Well that is interesting, I mean a CryEngine 1 MMO isn’t that hard to imagine but I’m having some serious problems with a CryEngine 2 MMO mainly because hardly anyone can run Crysis in DX10 mode at maxed out graphics, so now you won’t just get DX10 graphics but you’ll also get a huge world with thousands of gorgeous player models walking around doing their thing? Expect this title to be released in stores near you somewhere around 2023. Source

No more online activation for BioShock in the future? Quoted from EvilAvatar, here’s something that might confuse you…

Given the internets and what they are — with their tubes and all — I want to sort of talk about the concerns people have. We take the concerns people have very seriously. There’s been some concern like, “What happens if it’s three years from now, or ten years from now, when I want to play this game. And, you know, Irrational Games has been hit by a meteor?” We will unset the online activation at some point in the future — we’re not talking about when. If people have concern about that they shouldn’t be worried about that. This activation is for the early period of the game when it’s really hot and there are people really trying to find ways to play the game without buying it. Of course, there are a lot of people who are legitimately trying to play it. We’re not trying to be Draconian, we’re trying to find a balance.

Yes, that makes perfect sense! Wait until no one wants your game anymore and then remove the copy protection. Why not? Well how about it being a totally pointless gesture that will yield zero results?! Yeah that’s why.

New Valve IP’s? Oh my God…

You know, if you get two Valve people together, they’re inventing new games. We’re just sort of looking to find out how much we can design. God, I would love to work on a turn-based strategy game, personally. Maybe we’ll get around to it, but not a lot of people would agree. But our ambitions have stripped our ability to ship by a couple of orders of packaging. But I’m sure there will be some doing new worlds, doing new game types. Hopefully, the flexibility we get by going for smaller projects will let us be more experimental rather than spending half a decade to come up with a whole project.

I love you Valve. Source (Not their engine, the article’s source.)

BioShock easter egg. Not really the best easter egg ever but it’s worth mentioning anyway.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Free C&C!! Yay! I still have the original CD’s but for those of you who lost those, you can now download the very first Command and Conquer for free! No not by means of P2P networks, straight from EA!

In order to give back to the fans for over 12 years of devotion we are putting together a 12th Anniversary celebration during the month of September. However, as any Command & Conquer fan knows, the true party starts today, August 31st, which marks 12 years since Command & Conquer Gold launched way back in 1995.

To kick the celebration off, today we have a special surprise which we are certain new and old Command & Conquer fans will enjoy. We are providing the original Command & Conquer Gold as a free download, compatible for Windows XP! This is the same version included with the collectors pack Command and Conquer: The First Decade, and is now available for you to download for free!

You can download it here.

More free games! You probably won’t want these but just in case, here they are. FilePlanet is giving away Tom Clancy’s, Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Far Cry and Rayman Raving Rabbids! I think Far Cry is the only one worth mentioning here. Also, these games are all ad supported! I don’t know how but they just are. Here are the links:

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Far Cry
Rayman Raving Rabbids

Have fun… Or something.

F.E.A.R. sequel is now officially titled Project Origin. After the game’s plot device. How original.

Lara Croft to move to France? Ubisoft seems very interested in the Tomb Raider franchise, which is a good thing because they rock and everything they touch turns to freaking gold.

Ah, corporate takeovers, they make the business world go round. SCI Entertainment, owner of Eidos, has confirmed to The Guardian that they’ve received a bid for their company, the second instance in just two years. It’s believed the bid came from the French company Ubisoft, possibly looking to add Tomb Raider to its portfolio. Though a bid approach would mean Ubisoft is interested, SCi attributes their dropping stock to the PlayStation 3 launch delay and that Ubisoft’s rumored bid could simply be an opportunistic move — to them, if the option’s there, why not?

Here’s the source.

Master Chief’s wax model finished! I posted the unfinished wax model on KTB some time ago and now it’s finished.

It looks like GamerTagRadio definitely had the scoop on this story, the statue was created in London and flown to Vegas for the big reveal. In the end the Master Chief statue is 7′2″ tall and weighs 275 lbs, he required ten artists who worked 892 man-hours. And he’s not made out of wax like we would think, it actually took 1,000 pounds of clay to put him together. Madame Tussauds tells us that there will be an event at the Vegas location for the Halo 3 launch, but details are still being worked out with Microsoft. The statue is currently on display with plenty of Halo related merchandising, merchandising — where the real money from the game is made.

The full article can be found right here.

The UT3 OST is available for free and can be found right here! Thanks Epic.

Guitar Hero 3 is coming to PC and Mac! Unfortunately the source I have is Dutch but I’ll give you the summary. There’s going to be a USB guitar but you can also utilize your good ol’ mouse and keyboard. There will be no changes done to the game’s graphics and they’re aiming for a simultaneous PC and Mac release. This is not a rumor people. Here’s the source for all those who want to throw it through a translator.

Fortress Forever is released! The long awaited HL2 mod is finally out, but now it’s too late cause no one will give a crap by Monday when the Team Fortress 2 BETA starts. Oops.

Fortress Forever is a Team Fortress mod for Half-life 2’s Source Engine. Our independent team is creating this mod entirely from scratch.

Fortress Forever should please those who have stuck with or been a part Half-life: TFC over the years while at the same time doing more for new TF players than any prior Fortress attempt.

Fortress Forever will be free to those who purchase Half-life 2.

Here’s the official website where you’ll find plenty of mirrors and info.

Crysis DX9 vs DX10 in multiplayer. Now I’m glad I have a nice GeForce 8800…

To shed some light into one of the most discussed topics regarding Crysis multiplayer I would like to explain you the differences between Crysis MP DX9 and DX10.

As for the DX9 version we won’t have physics and day and night cycle in-game. That means you won’t be able to shoot down trees and/or alter any other objects than vehicles on the map. Additionally the time of day setting doesn’t change dynamically. This is caused due to the tremendous server load such physics might cause on crowded gaming servers. Still you will be able to experience maps with different time of day settings since the maps can be altered in the Sandbox2 Editor.

Rather than providing the community partially working features we limit this for the DX10 version only. Due to the strong hardware available with DX10, server load is less and performance is increased. This ensures the pure physics and day and night cycle experience without any limitation.

Gamers with a DX10 card are able to play on DX9 servers, but with the limitation of the respective server. Vice versa it is not possible for gamers with DX9 cards to play on DX10 servers due to the limited features.

Multiplayer is gonna be awesome! If you have a DX10 card that is. Here’s the full article.

More demo’s of awesome games! Here’s Stranglehold! And here’s a pie with a face on it but I don’t know why you’d want to see that when you could be playing this awesome demo first! Yes that is right, facepie’s aren’t the only thing worth watching in this world. Why the weird bullshit? I’m bored that’s why.. Now go play the Stranglehold demo before I say some really weird shit.

Chow Yun–Fat reprises the role of Inspector Tequila from John Woo’s influential action film, “Hard Boiled” in this hyperkinetic shooting game. Run into danger with both fists full of lead and take down the organized crime bosses who stepped over the line when they took your family. Stop at nothing as you destroy the entire world around you to get them back. You are a desperate man following your own rules; honor thy family; do what’s right; fear no man. Stranglehold features much of the hyperkinetic, choreographed action and freeze framed sequences that Woo is known for.

Mirrors:
Filefront

That’s right, it’s here. Initially I was really looking forward to this game but since 99% of the beta testers thought the game sucked ass I suddenly got a lot less excited…for some reason. I’m sorry about the late post but as I was posting last nigh, my provider just started doing some maintenance which causes my internet connection to stop working for a few hours. But here are some mirrors provided by EvilAvatar.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars pits the armies of Earth against the invading alien Strogg in an online strategic shooter. Players choose to battle as one of five unique classes in either the EDF (Earth Defense Force — humans) or the barbaric alien Strogg armies.

Mirrors:
3D Gamers
FilePlanet
FileShack
Official Site