Month: July 2009

Resident Evil 5 PC Release Date Announced, Benchmark Tool Released

Nabeel Burney 1 Comment

Capcom have finally announced the release date for the PC version of Resident Evil 5: September 14 in North America and September 18 in Europe. Additional features in the port of the console game include compatibility with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision technology, new costumes, and an improved mercenaries mode with “three times as many enemies”.

resident-evil-5-logo

As expected, Capcom have also provided a benchmarking tool that allows gamers to witness the game’s performance on their PC systems. The unplayable demo clocks in at almost 600MB and includes the 3D stereoscopic render mode for people with the required hardware. Note that if you don’t have any 3D Vision-compatible hardware the demo runs just as fine normally. Two benchmark modes are available, Variable and Fixed. Fixed mode plays a short sequence in a single outdoor scene, panning the camera around the environment for a while before giving a performance analysis. Variable mode is more representative of the experience, with an actual demonstration of gameplay through a number of areas in the game.

Read More

BioShock 2 Delayed ‘Til “Fiscal 2010”

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

It seems like it’s not enough that four studios are working on BioShock 2, the game will not be ready for its previously set launch date of November. Take-Two announced today that it would be moving the release of the game past quarter 4 of ’09 to “fiscal 2010”, in order to devote additional development time to the title.
Bioshock 2
Meanwhile, the ARG-lite viral site Something in the Sea has continued to receive updates, unravelling the story of Mark Meltzer and his search for the missing girls, and involving the community as well by sending out puzzle items. The Cult of Rapture community site has been posting concept art and sound clips of the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, providing more insight into their creation. In related news, 2K Boston’s Ken Levine has contributed to Rock Paper Shotgun’s Gaming Made Me series with a post about his gaming education.

Read More

Dyson

Nabeel Burney 1 Comment

I’m not a big strategy gamer, in general, but I’m fascinated by both turn-based and real-time strategy games. I like the idea of a world simulated on a macro level, in which units and vehicles and structures all interact in the tens, hundreds, thousands. So even though I don’t quite have the tactical mind required to keep control of the vast numbers of entities, I still am intrigued by seeing the results of my strategizing and planning unfolding before me, complex and unpredictable.

But I also like the simple, the minimal. I love small indie games, with the most rudimentary visuals and focused purely on gameplay. The more successful ones often employ clever techniques to produce appealing graphics to overcome the lack of manpower and budget.

header1

Dyson is described by its developers Rudolf Kremers and Alex May as an “ambient real-time strategy game with abstract visuals”. Originally created in one month for submission to a procedural generation competition at TIGSource a couple of years back, the game quickly caught the attention of the community and soon was nominated for awards at the Independent Games Festival. The team have expressed plans to expand on the game and so continue to update the build on their site – the current version available being the one they showcased at IGF.

(more…)

Read More

New WoW-Themed Peggle Levels

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

PopCap have released 10 new levels for Peggle for free on their site. The 10 brand new levels all carry a World of Warcraft theme, and comprise a standalone fully playable version of Peggle. PopCap have done this before with Peggle Extreme, which was an Orange Box-themed pack originally included in the Orange Box and then later released for free on Steam. More recently, two 5-level season-themed packs have been made available for Peggle Nights on the site.

bg_header2

Read More