The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
Strike three - I'm out!
Guess what : After months of delay, Valve has finally released Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast via Steam. The free add-on offers a new singleplayer level showcasing the Source Engine's High-Dynamic Range lighting. Wish I could get it! Here's the press release:
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Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, a single-player level custom-created to showcase High-Dynamic Range lighting (HDR) in the Source engine, is available now to all owners of HL2. As a technology showcase, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast's system requirements are very high. During installation, Steam will prompt you if your system does not meet the recommended configuration. We hope you enjoy it.
Also, the original (!) Half-Life 2 has now been released on X-Box. And on that sunject, Microsoft has filed lawsuits against 13 unnamed senders of spam e-mail who used botnets to distribute their messages. The actual charges were filed in August, but Microsoft only now unveiled details about the case. A botnet is a collection of hacked computers (referred to as zombie PCs) that are at the disposal of the botnet operator. They rent the machines out to send spam, host illegal Websites, such as child pornography, or launch distributed denial-of-service attacks.
The software developer earlier this year intentionally infected a computer with an Internet worm which resulted in it being made part of a botnet. The operation then quarantined the machine and monitored it over a period of 20 days. During this time the zombie was contacted 5 million times by spammers and was instructed to send out a total of 18 million spam messages, advertising 13,000 individual Web sites. No spam was actually sent and the computer worm too was contained, Microsoft said. The data collected in this probe resulted in the 13 lawsuits. Spammers are increasingly moving to zombie networks as internet providers and enterprises have cracked down on open relays. An open relay is a mail server that is configured to allow computers outside of its network to send e-mail messages.
Microsoft unveiled the legal assault at the kick-off of an international campaign to promote consumers action in protecting their PCs and stop the spreading of zombie PCs. The initiative includes the UK's Get Safe online program. Microsoft in the past has filed lawsuits against senders of spam emails, but never before went after spammers using botnets. The legal assault comes weeks after authorities in The Netherlands arrested three individuals who are accused of operating a botnet of more than 1.5 million hacked PCs.
Moving away from Microsoft, Blizzard has opened the official website for World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, officially announcing the first commercial expansion pack for the company's hugely successful fantasy MMORPG. The MMORPG expansion will increase the level cap to 70, add two new playable races one of which will be the Blood Elves, a new continent, new high-level dungeons, new flying mounts and much more. Blurb follows:
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World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is the exciting new expansion to Blizzard's award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It expands the game by tremendous bounds, adding new races, lands, Battlegrounds, professions and items, and more. Here is just a partial list of what you can expect from the World of Warcraft expansion:
- An increase in the level cap to 70
- Two new playable races, including the magical Blood Elves
- New starting zones in Quel'Thalas and beyond
- The entire new continent of Outland, reachable through the
- Dark Portal
- Many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth,
- Outland, and elsewhere
- New flying mounts in Outland
- Many new and dangerous monsters, including epic world bosses
- Hundreds of new quests
- Hundreds of new items
- A new profession: Jewelcrafting
- Socketed items
- And much, much more...
Empire Interactive sent out a press release announcing that Starship Troopers, the first person shooter based on the definitive blockbuster film, has gone gold and is scheduled for release on October 28th. "Do you want to know more?"
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Starship Troopers introduces a terrifying assortment of enemy bugs for you to destroy, with an impressive range of weapons at your disposal, from the classic M2 Morita Rifle through to the infamous nuke launcher. Over 300 of your arachnid foe's can be tackled on screen at any given time. This has to be played to be believed! Become totally immersed in immense bug-blasting battles in both famous action-packed scenes from the movie and never-before-experienced settings and stories from the Starship Troopers universe.
Starship Troopers is the first opportunity to fully experience and expand on the events and storylines developed in Paul Verhoeven's classic movie. The game boasts a whole host of exclusive features including voice-over commentary by Casper van Dien (aka Johnny Rico from the movie) with numerous and varied combat environments, indoor and outdoor levels, wide-open battlefields, a secret laboratory, claustrophobic bug nests, abandoned mines and lonely outposts.
Recommended system specs: 3.0ghz CPU, 1Gb RAM, GeForce 6800 or Radeon X800 (1024x768 with shadows), DirectX 9.0c, 600mb free hard drive space, Windows XP ONLY, DirectX compatible PCI soundcard.
The other big game to go Gold this week is Peter Jackson's King Kong, and apparently the film is way over-budget and is over three hours long. Here's the lowdown:
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The New York Times reports that the film - due for release at the end of the year - is more than three hours long and has cost $207m (£116m). But studio executives are delighted with the final film, the paper says. It's unclear who will foot the extra costs, with Universal and Jackson both reportedly happy to cover the bigger budget for the re-make.
"This is a three-hour feast of an event," Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, told the New York Times. He described the film as a tragic love story between the ape and Naomi Watts, who plays Ann Darrow, an actress. "I've never come close to seeing an artist working at this level," he said. Jackson was given complete creative control over the film, following his enormous success as director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which broke box office records and swept the board at the Oscars for the final film. "I anticipated it would be long, but not this long," Universal chairwoman Stacey Snider said. On Wednesday she said she was delighted with the film. "This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to unveil it."
She told the New York Times that the studio and Mr Jackson, who was paid a reported $20m to make the film, would split the extra costs. But in an e-mail to the paper Mr Jackson said he would pay for the costs. Referring to his partner Ms Walsh, he said: "Since Fran and I believed in the three-hour cut and wanted to take responsibility for the extra length, we offered to pay for these extra shots ourselves. That's what we're doing." But a spokesman for Universal later told the newspaper: "We are working together to cover overages."
Yes, I know it's not really gaming news, but bleh.
That's pretty much it - unless you count Eurogamer claiming to have the first Neverwinter Nights 2 screensohts. Or Driver 4 : Parellel Lines being announced and looking rather spiffy. How about the Postal movie that's going ahead? Or the news that Pac-Man is getting a voice - oh yeah. I'm sharp. Sharp as a fox!
EDIT: Also brought to my attention are a couple of other big releases. Resident Evil 4 for the PS2 and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corner's of the Earth for the Xbox. Still sharp, but it's more of a beaver then a fox now.
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
Also, Resident Evil 4 is now out for the PS2. Discuss.
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
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Originally Posted by Darth Marsden
Strike three - I'm [b][size=3][color=RoyalBlue]out!
Don't tell me you're done already! :(
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
You forgot to mention that Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corner's of the Earth finally comes out on Xbox. After how many years in development? Its gotten decent reviews. If you're into the Lovecraft world of Innsmouth, you might want to check this one out.
The bad news is that I was wanting it for the computer. And I have no idea why it's taking even longer. The suggested release date is supposedly in May 2006. Speaking of which, I've had this game reserved for 2 and a half years, May 1st, 2003 would date I reserved it. *sigh*
Between that and S.T.A.L.K.E.R, I'm wondering if they'll ever come out.
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
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Originally Posted by zoraking
Don't tell me you're done already! :(
Nah. It's just my third time at doing this, so...
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Originally Posted by vegeta1215
Also, Resident Evil 4 is now out for the PS2. Discuss.
What's to discuss? We already know it kicks ass, since we've all played it on the Gamecube... :p
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Originally Posted by Grasshopper
You forgot to mention that Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corner's of the Earth finally comes out on Xbox. After how many years in development? Its gotten decent reviews. If you're into the Lovecraft world of Innsmouth, you might want to check this one out.
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but I'll add it to my main post anyway. Surprised at how much I've apparently missed...
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
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Originally Posted by Darth Marsden
What's to discuss? We already know it kicks ass, since we've all played it on the Gamecube... :p
You be surprised how many arguments there are going around the internet about which version is better now that the PS2 version is out. :shrug:
My friend bought it and I'd like to play it to see the differences for myself, since the comparison pictures dont look very good in my opinion. Also, I'd like to play the new Ada mission, "Separate Ways". If anyone here has played both the Gamecube and PS2 version, I'd be curious to hear their opinions.
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
A Starship Troopers FPS? Robert Heinlein is spinning in his grave. Star Troopers the movie was a bastardized, unfaithful interpretation of the novel by Heinlein, and the game sounds like it finishes what the movie started by completely gutting any sort of commentary or substantial content and turning it into a shoot em' up.
The entertainment industry sucks.
Re: The Week in News (24th - 30th October)
Actually, the game kicks some serious ass, Bel. Try the demo - if you can.
