Gaming News Archives

Gas Powered Games hopes to take its next project to new gaming heights. Demigod actually represents the developer's ambition to create a game that's engaging to strategy fans, as well as gamers who prefer action-oriented gameplay. All of that, of course, with a few inevitable RPG elements neatly tucked in.

Find out what Demigod is all about.

Gary Gygax, born July 27, 1938, died today at the age of 69. Gary was best known for co-creating Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) -- the mother of all role-playing games -- with Dave Arneson.

A short reminder: Dungeons & Dragons practically provided the groundwork for all those things that we now experience in modern-day role-playing games (such as, leveling, character classes, hit points, etc.).

Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva.

He was 69. He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

Gary we will miss you.

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Ah, yes, the well-known Bourne-style dunk. Apparently, Jason doesn't like people who don't wash their own teeth. Anyhow, we've seen the trailer, now we take a look at the first few images from High Moon Studios' upcoming action game, The Bourne Conspiracy.

The game's presentation and fast-paced action is, evidently, inspired by aggressive filmmaking and dynamic action scenes similar to those we've seen in the movie trilogy (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum).

The game is in development for PS3 and Xbox 360 (no PC version) and is expected to hit store shelves on June 3, 2008.

According to a research, which is to be published in US journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior, a majority of male and female gamers prefer swapping genders when playing MMOGs.

The study is called Gender Swapping and Socialising in Cyberspace. The results showed that over 70% of women and 54% of men switch gender when playing online games.

Supposedly, there are plenty of reasons why female gamers do this. One of the highlighted reasons was that they get treated better during the game if they keep their real gender a secret. Contrary to that, men, as it happens, do the in-game gender swapping thing because they "could flirt with male characters to gain game perks like extra money or weapons."

I'm sure a majority of gamers does this. Who'll be the first to admit it, I wonder... (I don't know, Vader... or should I call you... Electra, huntress of the Silverpine Forest! - 2Lions)

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The latest issue of UK magazine PSW is running a small piece on a possible Crysis PS3 hybrid-port that's going to mix elements from the popular PC shooter with elements from the game's sequel to make for an "almost 50% new game" - Crysis 1.5, if you will.

So far, this is in the major rumor category, since neither Crytek nor EA confirmed it officially. However, it's well known that Crytek recently talked about a Cross Platform CryEngine 2, uncovering that the game technology, used to power Crysis, will also be running on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

Another rumor, back in January, pointed to the possibility of Crysis making its way to the PS3, but not the Xbox 360.

Whatever they plan to do, if it turns out you can play the game on a console, it sort of makes the whole DX10 Vista-only crap even harder to bear.

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Sabotage now gets a new name - Velvet Assassin. Developed by Replay Studios and published by Game Cock Media, Velvet Assassin represents a stealth action game, set during the times of World War II.

"Rather than a trite, overused, and generic working title like 'Sabotage,' 'Velvet Assassin' captures the heart of what we're trying to accomplish," said Sascha Jungnickel, Creative Director at Replay Studios. "From the start we've wanted a game with a strong female lead that stays true to the history of Violette Szabo while pulling players into a world of dark intrigue."

Well, at least from now on, the game won't be confused with Pandemic's Saboteur; another WWII stealth game.

So, Velvet Ass. Doesn't sound too bad. Expect the game to arrive during Fall 2008 for PC and next-generation consoles.

You can check out the screenshots right here.

We've also received a Behind the Scenes Trailer for the game:

Showtime Networks and Marc Ecko Entertainment are joining forces to create a new video game based on the American award-winning TV series, Dexter. The full announcement will be revealed later today.

"Dexter is the extremely rare TV show with enough layers of action and tension to translate perfectly into a compelling videogame," said Marc Fernandez, Vice President of Marc Ecko Entertainment. "Our game designers, writers, and artists are going to give Dexter's morally complex world the kind of interactivity that gamers will love."

Now, just so you know, Dexter is no ordinary dumb-ass show about cops. It's actually a drama, following the life of one Dexter Morgan, who happens to be a serial killer working for the Miami Metro PD as a blood pattern analyst.

The setting, obviously, has great potential for a Hitman-like action game, but nobody had better tell Jack Thompson about this.

Last week, Iron Lore Entertainment (developers of games like Titan Quest) announced it has closed its doors due to "several unrelated events" and the fact that the company failed to secure funding for its next project. THQ creative director Michael Fitch further explains why he thinks the closure took place. Brace yourselves now: it's piracy!

Fitch says piracy affected not just game sales, but the public's reaction to the game. The reason being that the game was poorly cracked by the pirates, and, therefore, the security checks that were left to linger would crash the game when quests were started. This in turn had an impact on the overall impression of the game as many folks on the forums listened to the guys using pirated copies and thought this would happen to them if they bought TQ at retail.

"The research I've seen pegs the piracy rate at between 70-85% on PC in the US, 90%+ in Europe, off the charts in Asia," Fitch wrote in a forum post. "I didn't believe it at first. It seemed way too high. Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1."

Fitch continues to bash nearly everyone (but himself). The rest of the blame fell on complaints about hardware vendors creating compatibility issues, stupid users and bad reviewers.

The PC edition of Team Fortress 2 received its update via Steam recently. Now, Xbox 360 owners may apply the patch as well, using Xbox LIVE. Here are some of the included fixes:

• Fixed a medic invuln exploit.
• Fixed grenades going through players or buildings.
• Fixed exploit with rockets causing damage through thin walls.
• Fixed exploit allowing snipers to fire faster than intended.
• Fixed exploit allowing players to teleport with the intelligence.
• Fixed exploit attaching sappers to buildings through walls.
• Fixed spy backstab exploit. Fixed spy being able to attack without dropping his disguise.

Unlike the PC version, however, the TF 2 360 doesn't include any balance changes to the classes.

So far, no info about a PS3 patch, yet.

Former President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison, has officially stepped in as new President of Atari parent company, Infogrames. Harrison is also now a member of the Board of Directors at Infogrames and will, apparently, report directly to David Gardner, recently appointed CEO of Infogrames.

France-based Infogrames revealed that Harrison and Gardner will team-up to "form the basis of a transformational leadership team at Infogrames that will grow the Atari brand into a leading online game company."

"This is the perfect time to join Infogrames and help shape the future of Atari - one of the industry's legendary brands," Harrison explains optimistically. "As the game business moves rapidly online I believe we have an outstanding opportunity to create amazing network game and community experiences for players the world over."

With Atari's rotten financial situation, which has grown worse over the past several months, the company could use a push in the right direction, assuming there's anything left to salvage.

Atari is a brand that dates back to the dawn of gaming and it would be a shame to see it go down the tubes (although it's practically half way there).

This is just one of those days when time doesn't fly. In fact, time does not fly period. There are a number of things that fly: birds, airplanes and shurikens. Time is not one of them.

Neither do keyboards, apparently. If you don't count the time it took my previous one to land from the third floor.