General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

E3 2011: Six PC games dominating the show

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 05:27 PM PDT

It's easy for PC gamers to get disheartened at E3. As Tim mentioned to John Carmack yesterday, we don't have our own conference to look forward to. The Xbots, PS3-cool-kids, and Nint-infants/oldies each have a few hours dedicated to them each year.

And silly as the conferences are, it makes me sad that we haven't got one. Give a console gamer a live stream and they'll instantly start developing new memes based on how crap the presenters of the conference are. The presenters themselves will stroke the rounded edges of their new hardware and talk about "expanding demographics" until a montage kicks in.

Our conferences would be about our infinite storage, ludicrous resolutions, and cutting-edge tech. Our memes would be photoshopped better, and our hardware pointier and more dangerous-looking. But most of all, our conference would be about games. Here's what I'd stick in our first montage. Remember, there's still plenty of E3 we haven't written about yet.

Battlefield 3

By now you've read our preview and watched the trailer. Trust us, Battlefield 3 is a PC game through and through. Tim was surrounded by intimidated faces when we settled down for yesterday's hands on. Why? Because they'd never experienced the true sensitivity of WASD. They'd never popped a man's head with the left mouse button.

Let's talk basics – DICE are showing off the PC build because it's spectacular. No-one has seen the console versions yet. We've got eight minutes of in-game single player action. Expect a beta in September, and the full game October 25.

Fary Cry 3

This deserves your PC's power. Far Cry 3 combines the glorious jungles of the original Far Cry with the massive open world of the second game. The hint of an anti-aliased foliage with bloom edging in all over the place has already got my PC grunting. Graham has already seen the damn thing running too. Read his preview here. We've also got in-game footage to share. We'll have more on Far Cry 3 before the conference is over.

Trackmania: Canyons

Trackmania is a wonderful thing. It's easy to think of PC gamer's favourite sandbox as a budget release, but Canyons screams AAA from the start of the trailer. Click up there to see Tim interviewing one of the devs live on the show floor, here for a brand-new trailer, and here for our preview.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I know how excited you are about Skyrim. Just like us, you want news, previews, screenshots and interviews. So that's what we're giving you. Also, you may not know, but when Tom Francis looks at the trailer of an unreleased game, things go a bit Neo and the Matrix. Read his in-depth analysis of the latest footage if you don't believe me.

Hitman Absolution

The man in black is back. Eidos are so excited about Hitman that they flew Tim to an island, and made him listen to a woman singing before they'd let him write his preview. Then they showed him how Agent 47 smashes bongs over people's heads. According to Tim, Absolution is "A step above what we've come to expect from Hitman." You can check out the latest teaser trailer here and Tom's What we want from Hitman: Absolution piece here.

Rage

There's something reassuringly frank about the way Id's John Carmack spoke to us yesterday. We might not understand a lot of it, but Carmack said it. Listen. Rage is packed to the brim with "megatextures" – sounds like a PC game to us. We know it will look, and (if we're being cheeky) control better on PC. We'll have more on Rage in the next few days.

PCGamer.com is the global authority on PC games, with exclusive news, reviews, demos and updates.

Maximum PC Video: Get Your Tablet and Smartphone to Work With Your PC

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 05:06 PM PDT

We've heard predictions that we're already in a "post PC" world, but that's not always the case. Senior Editor Gordon Mah Ung walks us through two cool uses for tablets and smartphones that are definitely not post PC. Adobe's new Photoshop CS 5.5 build adds connectivity for support for the premier photo editor and the company has introduced several apps to let you get a taste for what you can do.

Meanwhile, Cyberlink's PowerDVD 11 now sports the ability to use your smartphone as a remote control device or to even stream photos and videos from your mobile device to your HTPC via Wi-Fi. Check it out in the video below!

416x234 with html5 and api support

US Senators Seek to Crackdown on Bitcoin

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 02:31 PM PDT

btcBitcoin is a new digital currency traded over p2p connections that is essentially untraceable and not connected to any bank. This has made it a favorite of the tech-literate crowd, but two US Senators are looking to crackdown on Bitcoin after reports that it is being used to buy illegal drugs online. 

Senators Charles Schumer (D, New York) and Joe Manchin (D, West Virginia) have written to Attorney General Eric Holder and the DEA asking that action be taken to crackdown on the "Silk Road". Silk Road is an online exchange that deals in drugs and Bitcoins. Since the Bitcoin transactions are anonymous, and Silk Road is accessed through Tor, authorities have no way to track down users buying drugs.

The DEA has stated that it is, "well aware of these emerging threats and… will act accordingly." The sticking point being that there may not be an avenue of attack. Many of the Bitcoin exchanges where the currency can be purchased are outside the US. Even if the currency were outlawed, it is possible that shell companies could spring up to handle the actual transactions. Since the Silk Road itself is accessed through Tor, it could move as often as needed to avoid being shut down. 

One user on a Bitcoin discussion board recently said of these actions that the government "can't stop a peer-to-peer service." Yeah, that sounds about right.

E3 2011: Mirror’s Edge 2 to be powered by Frostbite 2?

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 01:23 PM PDT

In a Game Trailers interview at E3, president of EA Games, Frank Gibeau all but confirmed that EA is planning to make Mirror's Edge 2, adding that it will likely be powered by Battlefield 3′s Frostbite 2 engine.

"We haven't killed Mirror's Edge," Gibeau told Game Trailers. "We're actively looking at how to bring it back in the right way. We love that franchise. The DICE guys really created something I think special the first time around. You've got to have a big idea to be able to do the next one and that's what we're working on."

When asked whether Mirror's Edge 2 could use Frostbite 2, Gibeau said "you'll see that combination, I'm sure."

Gibeau has spoken publicly before about the possibilities of a Mirror's Edge sequel. He's previously said that a lack of multiplayer and problems with pace and difficulty held the first game back. On the matter of lessons learned from the first game, he had this to say:

"If you're going to be bold with that kind of concept, you need to take it as far as it can go in development. You have to execute, you have to spend more time on a game to ensure it's polished, and you need to have the depth and persistence of an online game."

Talk of Mirror's Edge 2 will be music to the ears of fans of the first game. Mirror's Edge's startling cityscapes are still some of the most memorable locations in gaming. The idea of seeing them reincarnated in the Frostbite 2 engine lights up a huge neon "YES" sign deep in my soul.

PCGamer.com is the global authority on PC games, with exclusive news, reviews, demos and updates.

E3 2011: Battlefield 3 hands on preview

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 01:04 PM PDT

Battlefield 3 is the best looking game on the showfloor, I think. But the good news is that it plays well; it's familiar enough to instantly make you fall into some of the same routines: shoot, spot, move to cover. But it has improvements to the feel of the game that make it a significant step up from Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

First, some facts and changes.

All four classes are back, but there are slight modifications to what they can do, The assault class has been given some of the medic abilities (although there was no clarification on what they were are). Support class now has a bipod on which they can mount their machine guns. And there's a suppression mechanic for support gunners which means that if a machine gunner lets rip even on a player behind cover, their combat effectiveness will be diminished. Engineers now have a flashlight. Sucks to be an engineer.

The multiplayer demo is a Rush mode – taking place in the middle of Paris. It opens in a park where the enemy have installed anti-air rockets. If the attackers take them down, they'll move on through a subway, and then out into the Paris streets. What impressed me was the variation in each level. Whereas Bad Company 2 levels can feel very one-note, here, the progression was clear, and it made it more fun.

In play, I had a ridiculous amount of fun, first tooling around in an APC lobbing shells at the defending enemy, then switching to a support gunner. The weight and heft of the machine gun is really, really exciting; and spraying bullets down a crowded corridor is extremely satisfying. Particularly when it pops up with 100XP – ENEMY KILL each time someone walks into your rain of fire.

There were a couple of interesting tweaks to movement in the game, too. Now, players can slide and mantle ledges, seeing their legs jump over the obstacle. It reminds me of how Faith would jump over a crate or box in Mirror's Edge. Really nice. Second, the knife has been tamed everso slightly – now you can only grab dogtags from back kills with knife, but it's also a flick knife, rather than the wall wreaking monster from Bad Company 2.

Also confirmed but not shown: Team Deathmatch, and Conquest from launch. And it will come with a new feature called Battlelog, which will track stats and kills and interesting facts about your play all the time. You'll also be able to customize your dog-tag, a la Call Of Duty.

Oh, and jets are back. Wheeee!

It looks great. And it plays great. And it was playing on PC. Much to the chagrin of the various retail buyers I crushed. Sorry about that, retail buyers.

PCGamer.com is the global authority on PC games, with exclusive news, reviews, demos and updates.

How to Use Dexpot for Free, Windows 7–Integrated Virtual Desktops

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 01:03 PM PDT

The next best thing to an extra display

In a previous how-to, we discussed multiple monitors as a great tool for increased efficiency. However, sometimes multiple displays just don't work in a certain environment. Fortunately, there's still a way to get some of the efficiency benefits of having multiple desktops without needing two displays: virtual desktops.

Dexpot, a free program that lets you set up multiple virtual desktops, integrates with the Windows 7 taskbar, offering live previews of your desktops and jump-list support.

1. Set up Dexpot

Dexpot's installation procedure is about as easy as it gets. Just download the installer from www.dexpot.de and run it, making sure not to install the toolbar that it tries to bring with it.

Once it's installed, run Dexpot, and check out your new virtual desktops. You can switch between desktops by clicking the Dexpot icon in the taskbar and selecting one of the other virtual desktops (above). If you want more or less than four virtual desktops, you can change that and other basic options in the Settings menu, which you access by right-clicking the Dexpot taskbar icon.

2. Navigate Your Desktops

There are several ways to navigate between your virtual desktops. The easiest is what you've been doing already—clicking the Dexpot icon and choosing a different desktop. To move a program from one desktop to another, you can right-click the program window, and then use the Dexpot context-menu item to send it to whichever window you want
(below).

Unfortunately, both of those procedures are on the slow slide, negating some of the efficiency benefits you gain from multiple desktops. To get the most out of Dexpot, you need to learn to use one of the other methods for navigating desktops. Here are three different ways to navigate:

Hotkeys:

The fastest way to change desktops is with hotkeys. By default, use Alt + the number keys to switch between desktops, and Alt + Shift + the number keys to transfer the currently active window. You can rebind those actions, and find even more in the Controls section of the settings menu.

Mouse Control:

If you want to be able to switch between desktops without using the keyboard, you can turn on Mouse Switch in the Controls section of the Settings menu. This allows you to switch between desktops by moving your mouse to the far edge of the screen.

Full-Screen Preview:

A function of Dexpot allows you to see all of your desktops on screen at once, arranged in a Brady Bunch-esque grid (above). If you've forgotten where a window is, this is the fastest way to find it. You can launch it quickly using the hotkey Win + F3.

3. Keep Your Desktops Organized With Rules

One of the hard things about using multiple desktops is keeping your applications sorted properly. Dexpot makes this a little easier by allowing you to set up rules that define which desktop certain applications live on. For instance, here's how to make it so that Outlook always stays on Desktop 2:

1. Right-click the Dexpot icon and choose Desktop Rules.

2. Click the button marked Assistant.

3. Give the rule a name, and click OK.

4. Under Condition 1, click the drop-down menu to select "Executable is," then click and drag the crosshairs icon onto the Outlook application. This should automatically enter outlook.exe into the final input field. Click Next.

5. For the Action 1 drop-down field, select Move, and then choose which desktop you want Outlook to move to. Click next, and then Done.

By learning to use the rules system, you can give your virtual desktops structure, which keeps them tidier and you more productive.

E3 2011: 8 Skyrim Shots & Initial Thoughts

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 12:40 PM PDT

E3 started properly just yesterday, and the first game I saw was probably the one I'm most looking forward to: Skyrim. The presentation Bethesda is showing behind closed doors is similar to the seven-minute video they released yesterday, and to the one we wrote about in PC Gamer last month.

What we hadn't seen in action before, though, was horsies. Riding horsies.

When I spoke to Todd Howard in April, he had said that Bethesda weren't yet sure that our equine friends were going to make it into the game. Horsies in games had come along way since Oblivion, and they wanted to make sure they weren't just hovering motorcycles with legs.

I can confirm: they are not. The new horsies look great. They have the same new animation system as the player, obviously, which means that in third-person they shift from a trot to a gallop smoothly and beautifully. Also, the one we saw looked oddly chubby.

In Tom's analysis of that trailer, he rightly questioned Todd Howard's comment about not scripting the dragon fights. Case in point: the demo began its climax with the same double dragon battle, and even with the same giant-kidnapping. At least some of this must be scripted.

On the other hand, the second frosty dragon fight didn't end nearly as quickly. In the presentation, he kept swooping further away from the player, and even with Storm Call causing rain and lightning to swirl around it, it took a little longer than planned to hit it and bring it down. It was the kind of brilliantly awkward moment you want the developers to experience when they're demoing a open-world, unscripted game. On the other hand, awwwwkward.

Overall though, what I saw was the same as what you've already seen, and my thoughts are the same as Tom's: SKYRIM.

 

PCGamepcgr.com is the global authority on PC games, with exclusive news, reviews, demos and updates.

E3 2011: What could Dust 514 mean for EVE Online’s PC gamers?

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 12:23 PM PDT

I have to admit I was a little hesitant about how much CCP would have to talk about the PC-side of EVE Online at my E3 appointment. Their big news at the show is the launch of their big PS3-exclusive shooter, which ties into the EVE Online universe, Dust 514.

So when I sat down with a group of devs from CCP, including Senior Technical Director Torfi Frans Olafsson, Producer Thomas Farrer, and CTO Halldor Fannar, I didn't expect a lot of convincing answers – but what I found was a pack of contemplative, exciting developers dedicated to the classic EVE Online PC experience.

Dust isn't just a console game, it's changing how EVE Online players will interact with each other in the universe in a major way. Dust players will share the same chat channels, will be able to join the same corporations and be involved in the same rivalry and backstabbing shenigans that grabs gaming headline news every month or so. The update will obvisouly change how soverignty works over planets and over systems. Dust players will be able to duke it out on the ground to help corporations resolve their rivalries over owning a specific planet. PC players won't be micromanaging their console shooter counterparts, but they will be able to buy mercenaries at top dollar, or train their own ground troops within their corporation to control their planets on the ground.

Farrer told me that while playing EVE Online on the server where DUST was being tested, he saw some activity on a planet as he was flying by it in space. He got close to the planet and looked close, and he see the combat raging below, and got a sudden message in his chat box: "Hello!" It was the Dust player on the surface of the planet who had seen his ship above him in the sky and sent a message of greeting. Let me state that in simple terms: a PC EVE Online player flying a space ship could see and communicate with a PS3 player shooting on the ground of the planet.

But PC players won't be sitting idly by as the grunts on the ground duke it out for control. Spaceships will be able to bombard the battlefield from orbit, but they'll have to duke it out with the other ships that will be looking to bombard from orbit as well. But the ground grunts don't have to take it lying down. They'll be able to fire back at orbitting ships with massive anti-ship turrets on the battlefield. EVE players already have some amazingly epic-sized space battles (in the past, they broke the servers when they had over 15,000 player-controlled ships in one sector fighting)–I can only imagine how much more exciting and massive they'll be when they're happening in tandem with a ground assault on multiple planets' surfaces in the region.

It'll be tempting for EVE players to feel like they've been cheated out of an expansion because of Dust's PS3-exclusivity (at least for now), but they shouldn't. There's a whole lot to look forward to as an EVE Online player, with expanding corporations, increasingly complex economic and military battlefields evolving for you to duke it out over supremacy. Plus, if all else fails, you can just try a classic EVE move: bribe the enemy's ground mercenaries into throwing their match in your favor!

PCGamer.com is the global authority on PC games, with exclusive news, reviews, demos and updates.

E3 2011: New Smash Bros Coming! Um, Someday. Need a Job?

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 11:30 AM PDT

It's hard finding good work with the economy in the toilet, but we hear Nintendo's looking for a few good men (or women) to help Mario punch Link in the face. The way the company's drumming up interest in the opening is a little unconventional, though. After Nintendo head Satoru Iwata announced that Smash Bros is coming to the Wii U and 3DS during the company's E3 press event, reporters asked when the game would be released. The answer? Um, we haven't actually started on it yet. Know anybody looking for work?

"Honestly, at this point, we shouldn't be announcing these games to the general public," Kotaku reports Masahiro Sakurai, the designer of Smash Bros, as saying, "But since we need to assemble developers for the game, we made them public."

Sakurai flat-out said that nobody's even working on the game yet, then hinted that the game might not even hit store shelves at all – it depended entirely on whether or not they could get capable staff to toss their hats into the Smash Bros ring.

HP Pavilion dm1z Review

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 11:09 AM PDT

What netbooks were meant to be

We're not living so close to the cutting edge here at Maximum PC that we can't see the utility of a no-frills, budget portable that's capable of performing all the common day-to-day computing tasks. Whether it serves as a secondary machine for work on-the-go or as a primary PC for a school-age kid, we get it. It's the same need that netbooks were meant to fulfill, if only they hadn't fallen short of the mark. What netbooks taught us is that today's common computing tasks—which include things like gaming and high-def video playback—require more power than an Atom processor and integrated graphics can muster.

AMD's Fusion offers a more viable option, as evidenced by HP's Pavilion dm1z—an 11.6-inch portable that starts at $450. The notebook's E-350 chip comprises a 1.6GHz dual-core processor and a Radeon HD DX11-capable graphics part on the same die. Compared to the 1.6GHz N270 Atom in our standard zero-point netbook (a Lenovo IdeaPad S12)—well, there is no comparison, only horrific carnage. The N270 gets slaughtered by more than 50 percent in content-creation chores and three-digit margins too embarrassing to repeat in our gaming tests. Instead, we measured the Pavilion dm1z against the very best Atom-based netbook we've tested to date, the Asus 1215N (reviewed December 2010). The 1215N is an outlier in the category with a 1.8GHz Atom D525 (a dual-core with Hyper-Threading) and Nvidia's Ion discrete graphics chip. At the time of its review, it was priced similarly to the dm1z config reviewed here.

Given the typical audience for this type of notebook, it's not too surprising that access to the RAM and drive compartments is not easy or obvious.

The dm1z doesn't run away with the win, but it does surpass the 1215N in the majority of the benchmarks, most notably by nearly 45 percent in 3DMark03 and 50 percent in Quake III. Before you start objecting that Quake III hardly counts as a game these days, we'll point out that the dm1z's score of 38.5fps in Quake 4 isn't too shabby for a notebook of this size and price. What's more, Call of Duty 4 was playable at the notebook's 1366x768 native res.

The only benchmarks that the dm1z ceded to the 1215N were MainConcept, where the latter's four processing threads gave it the advantage, and in battery life, where the 1215N's Optimus technology was able to disable the discrete graphics and eke out an additional hour of juice in our video rundown test.

While Fusion will never be as power efficient as an Atom chip, we'd still happily exchange some battery life for greater performance versatility. That versatility also includes HD video playback, both online and via a Blu-ray player. The dm1z doesn't come with an internal optical drive, but an external BD combo drive is an option for $130.

What does come stock are a glossy screen, a full-size island keyboard, VGA, HDMI, three USB 2.0 ports, a media reader, and 802.11n Wi-Fi. Build quality feels fairly solid and the screen reclines a full 180 degrees on a seemingly sturdy hinge.

All and all, it's a well-rounded value package, although we're surprised it's not actually a bit cheaper considering that there's no overhead for a discrete graphics chip. Nevertheless, if you want a small, inexpensive, versatile notebook, this is it.

$480, www.hp.com
Posted by Shri Krishna

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