According to various Gaming news portals Valve's Gabe have said that we can expect three big surprises from them within next 12 months.
It has brought up lot of speculation and so on, but in the end the big question is - does this include HL2 - ep3?
One one had everyone expects them to release it in near future anyway so when they announce it it more likely be a sigh of relieve then surprise.
On other hand the fact that they announce the game will be surprise, as I am starting to give up hope that it will get released.
Personally I would like to see them update the engine. It has served well over the years and is a scalable engine, but it is still DX9 and DX11 looks like something that might stick or at least have brought enough to the table to warrant an update.
On some sick level I have a feeling that one of the surprises will be HL3. Essentially that the EP3 has taken so long because it have actually turned into HL3.
I would really like to see them announce another big new IP. Portal was great, L4D is good, but I still want more.. :D But we should not forget that adding another IP to the mix will mean that it will take even longer till next HL. It is a tough world we live in!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
DLC vs episodic gaming
It has been a long long time.. Even too long.
Either way, I was thinking about the DLC as that seems the fad of the year or even the last couple of years. All the big games need to have one. At some point people were talking that episodic gaming might be it and only Valve really ended up doing it and burning bad doing so. I am not going to repeat the old news, but 4 years on and we are still waiting for just ep3. Sure Valve puts in the effort and delivers great experience at the end, but this is time frame I would like to wait for a full retail game.
Now looking at DLC I see all the unfulfilled expectations from episodic content realized in these DLC packs. Or at times just lazy developing (or eager publisher). Borderlands seams to be a good example to the former, as the game was one would expect out of a retail game and some of the first DLC packs improved and extended it to some lengths, while the best is that we see a pack year after the game launched. And let's not forget that all the newcomers to the game will have to buy the full retail game which should be cheaper by now so this is a great way to stimulate the second sales wave of the game.
On the other hand something that really gets in my pants are modern multiplayer FPS games. While the games are great and so forth, they come with choice of 3 weapons, and 3 maps. A week or month later, whenever you get tired of the choices, you get a DLC that gives you that little extra to keep you playing and paying. I miss the day when games came with multitude of options. Also, I do not want to say that the mod community has died down, but the developers really should embrace this by offering more community maps in these updates.
Either way, I was thinking about the DLC as that seems the fad of the year or even the last couple of years. All the big games need to have one. At some point people were talking that episodic gaming might be it and only Valve really ended up doing it and burning bad doing so. I am not going to repeat the old news, but 4 years on and we are still waiting for just ep3. Sure Valve puts in the effort and delivers great experience at the end, but this is time frame I would like to wait for a full retail game.
Now looking at DLC I see all the unfulfilled expectations from episodic content realized in these DLC packs. Or at times just lazy developing (or eager publisher). Borderlands seams to be a good example to the former, as the game was one would expect out of a retail game and some of the first DLC packs improved and extended it to some lengths, while the best is that we see a pack year after the game launched. And let's not forget that all the newcomers to the game will have to buy the full retail game which should be cheaper by now so this is a great way to stimulate the second sales wave of the game.
On the other hand something that really gets in my pants are modern multiplayer FPS games. While the games are great and so forth, they come with choice of 3 weapons, and 3 maps. A week or month later, whenever you get tired of the choices, you get a DLC that gives you that little extra to keep you playing and paying. I miss the day when games came with multitude of options. Also, I do not want to say that the mod community has died down, but the developers really should embrace this by offering more community maps in these updates.
Monday, June 9, 2008
computex '08 girls
Cause I wasn't there, there are no pics from me, therefore here or some links to girls of Comutex:
Tech ARP - have multiple galleries
VR-Zone - 1, 2, 3
Expreview
The Tech Zone, 2
ZOL
TweakTown
Future Looks
MadSrhimps
Tech ARP - have multiple galleries
VR-Zone - 1, 2, 3
Expreview
The Tech Zone, 2
ZOL
TweakTown
Future Looks
MadSrhimps
Thursday, June 5, 2008
External laptop graphics
Today I wanted to reflect a bit on not a new concept but a concept that soon should be come a real product and has working prototypes available. Product at hand is external graphics solutions for portable - laptop computers. As you should know, laptops are not know for their graphical capabilities and most outstanding gaming performance.
While there are gaming laptops out there they do not match the performance of todays higher end graphics cards for desktop PCs. While CPUs are also not on same performance they do seem to be closer to their desktop counterparts.
To solve this problem and bring more joy of gaming to laptop owners 2 solutions are expected to be on the shop floors by end of summer.
ASUS XG Station. The concept and the prototype has been around for some time, but it seems that is finally reached the point where it is ready to be launched soon. It is to use Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT card as the power behind it. While 8600 GT is not the beastliest of things out there ASUS had to work around the limitations of existing ports on laptops.
Other solution comes from AMD -> ATi XGP, which means that it should bring more power behind it. From what I can see they use a new port that offers PCIe 2.0 8x speed with it and therefore should allow more powerful solutions then 8600GT. Fujitsu already have a box out there which uses mobility Radeon HD3870. Since there have no benchmarks out there it is hard to say what is the performance. I can see this becoming the dominant solution, as long as the newly developed port is not AMD laptop only port. PCIe 2.0 8x port should be enough to bring really high end graphics to laptops in near future.
The biggest problems about these solutions (not usre about ASUS one) is that they will require an external screen. What this means is that if you wanted a LAN gaming system, then you should get a desktop or hold out for a while longer. As Fudzilla reports (including picture) ATi in their solution plans to have it some time next year.
I would say that what we need now is to wait and see how these things stack up with each other... I can see this being a future as long it will allow to use laptops screen for gaming :)
While there are gaming laptops out there they do not match the performance of todays higher end graphics cards for desktop PCs. While CPUs are also not on same performance they do seem to be closer to their desktop counterparts.
To solve this problem and bring more joy of gaming to laptop owners 2 solutions are expected to be on the shop floors by end of summer.
ASUS XG Station. The concept and the prototype has been around for some time, but it seems that is finally reached the point where it is ready to be launched soon. It is to use Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT card as the power behind it. While 8600 GT is not the beastliest of things out there ASUS had to work around the limitations of existing ports on laptops.
Other solution comes from AMD -> ATi XGP, which means that it should bring more power behind it. From what I can see they use a new port that offers PCIe 2.0 8x speed with it and therefore should allow more powerful solutions then 8600GT. Fujitsu already have a box out there which uses mobility Radeon HD3870. Since there have no benchmarks out there it is hard to say what is the performance. I can see this becoming the dominant solution, as long as the newly developed port is not AMD laptop only port. PCIe 2.0 8x port should be enough to bring really high end graphics to laptops in near future.
The biggest problems about these solutions (not usre about ASUS one) is that they will require an external screen. What this means is that if you wanted a LAN gaming system, then you should get a desktop or hold out for a while longer. As Fudzilla reports (including picture) ATi in their solution plans to have it some time next year.
I would say that what we need now is to wait and see how these things stack up with each other... I can see this being a future as long it will allow to use laptops screen for gaming :)
Friday, April 4, 2008
British piss-take trilogy
For those of you how have seen Shaun of the dead and Hot fuzz and liked it..
It has been reported that creators of those two movies are working on third installment. One thing that brings all these movies together is apparently ice cream.. :)
me likes ice cream....
More here
It has been reported that creators of those two movies are working on third installment. One thing that brings all these movies together is apparently ice cream.. :)
me likes ice cream....
More here
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Nvidia and VIA joning forces
The rumors of Nvidia buying VIA are turning out to be false, however have some ground to them. It turns out that Nvidia is going to be producing chipsets for VIA chips. A move that should be beneficial to both sides and possibly bring a third condender in desktop CPU market... One can only hope! ;)
Soure - the Inquirer
Soure - the Inquirer
Triple ATi HD3850 in one card setup!
Nordichardware is exclusively reporting that ASUS have prepared a custom design HD3850 card called: ASUS EAH3850 Trinity, which in fact as name suggest feature 3 graphics cores on a single card!
To see couple of pics and read more about it, head on over to Nordichardware.com
To see couple of pics and read more about it, head on over to Nordichardware.com
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