Cryostasis Vista Tech Demo

A tech demo for Cryostasis, an atmospheric shooter set on a nuclear ice-breaker and released by 1C Company, can be found from NVIDIA’s Graphics Plus Power Pack #2 . Though the requirements indicate otherwise, the tech demo only works with Vista, on a Shader Model 4.0 DirectX10 card.

Coolness
Coolness.

Since Valve’s Hardware Survey already revealed how only 21.43% of us are Vista-equipped 1)http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/, it would seem, then, that the company simply wants to illustrate the engine’s raw ability. Fortunately for us philistines, reports from Russia – where Cryostasis is already out! – confirm that the game works even with mid-range graphic cards (including those equipped with SM2.0, 3.0 and 4.0) as well as on good ol’ Windows XP.

The game is slated for a February 2009 release date in the English-speaking world, which also leads us to recall Hydrophobia, which is scheduled for a March 2009 release. Does this mean the top one cause for our most recent watery nightmares will be slugged out in a clash of titans?

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At the Fountain of Youth

WIP Screenshot
WIP Screenshot

If we were to gauge general goodwill and public appreciation with freeware indie game projects, one of the candidates for the top spot would have to be Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth. The well-liked and respected team have surprisingly managed to duck the guns of the ruthless LucasArts legal team and managed to release a succesful demo of considerable length some years ago, to illustrate the breadth and quality of their project.

What separates the project from its most immediate fan game peers is the impeccable taste applied to the artwork of the game, combined with the developers’ pursuit to maintain a closeness to their source material (The team hopes to tap the original actor that played Indy, Doug Lee, for a fully voiced demo) all the while offering an all-new scenario and setting.

The FOY Cast
The FOY Cast

Hopefully this is not too bawdy of me to reveal that the team does post exclusive sneak peek material in the game’s forums. One of the more recent posts includes a fantastic example of the various characters that appear in the game. The all-new character art maintains a lively, organic quality that was almost missing from The Fate of Atlantis.

Can you recognize any of the real-life “cast” counterparts?

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Reforged Broken Sword 1 for Wii, DS

Ubisoft has just announced a special edition version of Revolution Software’s Shadow of the Templars for Nintendo Wii and DS. According to their press release, this “Director’s Cut” comes packaged with new puzzles, a fleshed-out narrative and will take into account the unique control set of both consoles. According to Charles Cecil, the new plot elements will explain “…what happened prior to the start of the original game, and how it ties to later games in the series.” 1)http://www.revolution.co.uk/_display.php?id=87

The full press release can be read here. For adventure gaming enthusiasts, the most intriguing bit with this new edition is all-new character portraiture by Dave Gibbons – best known for collaborating with Alan Moore on the seminal graphic novel, Watchmen – who is to us better known for collaborating with Revolution Software on Beneath a Steel Sky.

Now, the question is, should we perchance read into this renewed Cecil/Gibbons collaboration as a veiled confirmation of BASS2 (long hinted at by Cecil, and the company even registered a domain for the project back in 2004), especially since GOG.com curiously just released free, repackaged versions of both BASS and Lure of the Temptress?

Though the company released both games as freeware years ago, GOG.com have repackaged the games with wallpapers, a proper manual and even the comic book that originally came with Beneath a Steel Sky. It never hurts to shed more light on “good old games”, and not everyone is familiar with ScummVM either.

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