While that is a video from the recent Sony show off day in London that is how it is going to look for us on the PC..as long as EA don’t screw us over!
The minimalist’ness of the game is strikingly beautiful, it looks wonderful. Just watch that video again and again!
I went off to check the Battlefield Heroes website after a tip off from a Half-Life2.net forumite about some Beta info emerging soon. What do I see but this announcement.
Hello Heroes!
As you may have noticed, you killed our website. We are not angry. We’re very pleased you want to be in the Beta.
The beta for Heroes will be divided into several stages, the first of which is all about testing out this new way of getting games to you all; by downloading and installing them from a website. We’ll also be trying out some other dull stuff to do with servers, so we are expecting the systems to be down as much as they are up.
To help us track down all the technical issues, we have asked a third party to find us some specialist Beta testers. We are doing all this because we want to be sure that when we launch Heroes, everything will work smoothly.
So hang in there! We will announce here when it’s time to sign up for the public stage of the Beta.
Per Bonomi
Community Manager
Thats pretty much it, expect some more info over the next few weeks I guess on this.
The BBC reports that Cuba has finally joined the modern world with the arrival of the first legalised home computers at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana.
The BBC reports that the PCs are selling at $800 (£400) while the average monthly wage for Cubans is only $20 (£10) a month. However many Cubans have relatives living abroad who send cash back to the island.
President Raul Castro has been making moves towards modernisation in recent weeks with mobile phones and DVD players becoming available. However those who have been fortunate enough to get hold of one of the PCs won’t be joining us playing EVE Online or Day of Defeat as internet access is limited to certain workplaces and education facilities.
This is because of the US trade embargo with Cuba that prevents the island from connecting to under-sea fibre optic cables. Instead the internet access in Cuba is limited to costyl satellite connections.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is currently laying a cable under the Carribean to Cuba, though it is not known if internet access will become common place once the new connection is laid.
Blizzard have entered the world of digital distribution via their swanky Blizzard Store.
Currently they have Warcraft III Reign of Chaos, the expansion The Frozen Throne and the Starcraft Anthology. Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne clock in at $19.95 each which is about £10 and Starcraft Anthology is $14.99 costing about £7.50. (Rock, Paper, Shotgun money changing)
Good to see more companies embracing digital distribution especially with classics such as these! Lets hope Diablo appears there soon!
But I won’t be playing it! Alas exams and a PC that I haven’t had the chance to fix yet deprives me of the chance to enjoy the thrills and spills of the Race Driver GRID demo when it lands on all ‘non-handheld platforms’ sometime this week.
The GRID Community Site reveals that sometime this week (commencing 5th May) the demo for GRID will be made available.
The demo has 3 events to compete in. The eBay Motors Muscle Cup sees you taking the wheel of a ford Mustang GT-R and the streets of San Francisco, the Advan International Trophy hands you a Nissan S15 Silvia and your playground is Yokohama Docks, and the Euro Touring Car Series provides some old-school tin-top thrills with a BMW 320si touring car and the sweeping curves and hairpins of Jarama.
Of that, well only the Euro Touring Car Series sounds fun to me, but I guess I will wait a few weeks before being able to see for myself.
Prototype, the free-ish roaming super mutant shooter from Radical Entertainment and Sierra has been pushed back to a 2009 release according to GameSpot.
An representative told GameSpot;
“Since its announcement, Prototype has been regarded by many as groundbreaking and taking the open-world genre in new directions, and in the simplest explanation possible, we need more time to deliver the game the team initially set out to create,”
Which either means that someone was not happy with the game and wants a total overhaul, or that the developers have managed to get some more time from Sierra to further develop and polish the Prototype.
Lets hope the Prototype makes it into full production.
Double Indie based updates right here, right now!
In the first half of tonights update I bring word of the ‘FM Update’ for AudioSurf. This mega update brings along last.fm audioscrobbling (Doug Lombardi’s word not mine!) the ability to use AudioSurf as a music visualizer, scoreboard comments along with loads and loads of other stuff!
In a mix of AudioSurf and World of Goo updates I bring word that Kyle Gabler, one of the men behind World of Goo has had his music thrown onto AudioSurf radio. Years ago Kyle made some techno music which has just been unleashed on the world via the AudioSurf radio.
More World of Goo and AudioSurf stuff after the jump.
Valve PR honcho Doug Lombardi spent a while talking to CVG at EAs Games Showcase event in London last week.
Doug talked about a whole load of things to CVG ranging from Left 4 Dead and Counter-Strike to Valve wanting to see a Wii game and much more. Some of his comments are really quite interesting.
Valve have announced that the Steamworks SDK has been made available for all developers wishing to use it.
Steamworks currently provides a suite of publishing and development tools for PC game developers and publishers providing them with many tools used by Valve themselves. These include product key authentication, copy protection, auto-updating and loads more.
The Steamworks SDK now includes a fully functional API for all the components available in Steamworks. The SDK also includes an multiplayer game example to show foff how to use many of the features available. The Steamworks partner website has also been updated with loads of information and options.
Obligatory press release statement:
“In working with developers on the pre-release SDK, our focus has been on making it as easy as possible for them to integrate Steamworks into their games,” said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. “They get access to these tools and services in a proven, scalable, and simple to work with package that has already been deployed to millions of gamers worldwide.”
All hail Valve and Steamworks! All hail!
Doug Lombardi has revealed to CVG that there is a desire within Valve to make a Wii game, and there is also an interest in making an MMO RPG.
“I mean, I’m not making any announcements”, he continued, “but there’s a lot of desire internally to do something for kids, do something on the Wii.”
Valve has also taken a shine to the MMO scene: “Gabe (Valve co-founder, Gabe Newell) is a huge fan of MMO RPGs and he’s always wanted to make one,” Lombardi said.
This all stems from Valve’s plans to move further out of their comfort zone and try something new. However Lombardi also reveals that if anything happens, we won’t see it for a few years.
The CVG interview with Lombardi should be arriving soon, but for now head here for the latest on the Wii issue.