BioShock: Infinite Explores Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth's Relationship
It wouldn't be a stretch to predict that BioShock: Infinite is going to be amazing when it comes out, and Ken Levine's recent X-Play interview gives us even more insight on how awesome it's going to be. Infinite's difference between the previous BioShock games is that the former's characters have a more immediate sense of presence in the game world. Levine describes this in the form of mercenary Booker DeWitt and the beautiful Elizabeth's evolving relationship as the game progresses. The two eventually form a unique bond that you won't be seeing in a cutscene, but rather fleshes out as you play the game. How Booker and Elizabeth interact with each other is entirely dependent on the player's actions. The game's ambitious AI will also be just as dynamic, responding to the player's actions in myriad ways. So will we be able to develop a budding romance set in a gripping action title? Irrational Games just might be on to something here.
I've also stumbled upon a BioShock: Infinite cosplay of Elizabeth by Anna Ormeli and her photographer E.Satanovskiy. I don't know if you've seen it, but Ormeli's gorgeous cosplay portrayal of Elizabeth is so uncanny I can't imagine anyone else for the part.
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The Savage Coast of Turan: the Latest Age of Conan Expansion
Funcom's Game Director Craig Morrison sat down with PC Gamer to talk about its latest expansion to Age of Conan, The Savage Coast of Turan. Based partially on characters from this year's Conan movie, the expansion is set 20 years later, wherein the titular barbarian is now king. Players will be asked to lend a hand to some of Conan's companions from the movie, once they set foot in Turan.
The Savage Coast of Turan is paid content, with Funcom providing free and paid updates. Targeted for level 50 players, the adventure pack revolves around the city of Ardashir and the enormous landscape surrounding it. There's 50 quests available to players, including two solo instances, a team instance, and several raid encounters. One scenario closely follows an earlier Conan story, Shadows in the Moonlight, where players can experience the same dangers Conan faced many years ago. The dev team also highlighted the Temple of Erlik, which is described as a spectacular Persian-themed location that showcases the recent lighting technology implemented for AoC. The item shop will also be offering some cool-looking costumes taken directly from the movie.
While The Savage Coast of Turan may not offer any significant gameplay changes to the AoC formula, the new adventure pack appears to have enough compelling content to make it a worthwhile addition to Conan's brutal online universe.
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Quad-Core Tablets with NVIDIA Internals Confirmed for this Year
Earlier this year, we heard NVIDIA talk about its plans for future Tegra products, like the quad-core Tegra 3 SoC codenamed Kal-El. We've seen what Kal-El is capable of with the Glowball demo, but now it seems we may finally see what the SoC can do with real-world performance. NVIDIA president and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang confirmed to Forbes that we can expect to see quad-core tablets running NVIDIA components by the end of this year. We should even see those tablets before Christmas, which should make for some wonderful holiday gifts for the gadget lover in your family. Huang seemed to indicate that the tablets will be the only products running the Tegra 3 Kal-El chips this year, with smartphones expected to get them early next year. Both Qualcomm and Texas Instruments expect to have quad-core chips of its own available by early next year, so it will be interesting to see which company has the better performing parts. It is true that products running Tegra 3 were already supposed to have launched, but Huang says some of the delay is attributed to the design of the tablets as well as final tuning of the Kal-El SoC. At least it looks like we will have some quad-core tablet goodness to play around with later this year.
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EA's Origin to Add Third-Party Content Later this Year
Whether you like the idea or not, EA's Origin service is proving to be fairly popular. EA CFO Eric Brown said that Origin's install base is "about four million," and that third-party content will come later this year. Currently, the only games offered on Origin are EA games, be it from EA-owned studios or simply EA published titles. It appears that will soon no longer be the case, which will help to bring Origin more in line with other services, like Steam. EA did not say exactly which third-party publishers will have games on Origin, but if it wants to be competitive, it will need as many as it can get. Origin does have some benefits over Steam, like being a digital home for Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Steam does take the cake in terms of how many games you can browse and purchase, so I think it will still be some time before EA can compete with that. At any rate, it is good to hear that Origin will soon have some non-EA games being sold.
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Xbox Live Fall 2011 Dashboard Update Gets Previewed
Microsoft likes to bring an update to the look of Xbox Live each fall, and this year's upcoming update is a little different. The Xbox Live Fall 2011 update has been previewed, and it seems to be inspired by the look of Windows Phone 7. This update will be the most dramatic overhaul since the New Xbox Experience from 2008, and with it brings full Kinect integration and a tile-inspired design. That design is the cornerstone of WP7, but will also appear in what we've seen of Windows 8 so far. Each tab will be displayed on the screen by itself, with the edges of other tabs off on the sides. The dashboard will still have its familiar sections like Games, Video, Music, Apps, and Settings, but will also have a Social tab designed to bring a deeper integration with social media. You'll be able to set "Beacons" that can be seen across Xbox Live and social media sites, letting your friends know which game you want to play tonight. Achievements will also be shareable, so now you can brag to your friends on Facebook the various achievements you've received. In the future Microsoft hopes to have the achievements be shareable right away, but will be kept as a purely optional function.
As for the Kinect integration, voice commands work exceptionally well and let you navigate the dashboard pretty easily. You can switch between the controller and Kinect whenever you'd like, so this just gives you another navigation option. Microsoft is also integrating its Bing search engine into Xbox Live, so now whenever you search for a keyword you will see any games, music, videos, and apps that contain it. From there, you can narrow it down to a more specific search, though the extent of that still has not been set. Hopefully this helps to alleviate the search woes on Xbox Live, since it is currently a bit of a pain to find what you're looking for.
Microsoft is currently in talks to offer TV programming on the Xbox, something more than just having ESPN. While Microsoft did not name any names, it is safe to say that the major cable providers in the US are in discussions to offer programming. Microsoft currently offers British Sky Broadcasting on 360s in England, so perhaps something similar will be offered in the US. Currently, YouTube and UFC will be added to the dashboard at the launch of the Fall update, with more hopefully being announced later. Perhaps we'll soon get an update on when we can get cable TV through the 360, but for now that is still in the discussion stage. Price will also have to be taken into account for TV programming, though perhaps it will be similar to what AT&T U-Verse customers have to do. U-Verse customers need to get a $99 Xbox kit installed by a technician, plus a regular receiver is required, so that could be one possibility for other programming.
The Xbox Live Fall 2011 Dashboard update will be available by this coming holiday season.
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Borderlands Update Now Live on Steam
The other week, we told you of an update coming to the Steam version of Borderlands. The update would incorporate some new features to better let Gearbox Software, the developer, communicate with you and try out some new technology for the upcoming Borderlands 2. That update is now live, and is ready for you to download when you start up Steam. The update also adds Steamworks, meaning your save files are now a part of the cloud and can be accessed from any computer you log in from. The release notes say that the BTest, what Gearbox is calling the update, is a limited-time experiment to help the studio tune and improve its games. By participating in it, you will help Gearbox see what guns are used the most or least, what areas are visited more often, and a variety of other components all by playing Borderlands. You can opt in or out of it through a game menu, and can even access your characters and others around the world by visiting the Gearbox Labs website.
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AMD Says Zambezi Parts to Ship in Quarter Four
I know what you're thinking. The AMD Bulldozer parts have already shipped, but those are the Interlagos server CPUs. The Interlagos is a server-only CPU, meaning there will be no desktop version of it. For that, we are waiting on the Zambezi products to launch, but now it seems those have slipped to quarter four of this year. Do not be alarmed, since the fourth quarter starts pretty soon and we should begin to see products arriving in October. These will be the Bulldozer CPUs that many of you have been waiting for, myself included, so it should not be much longer before we can purchase one. The Zambezi products will carry the FX branding, and in fact the AMD FX website has been live for the better part of three months. That is a little unheard of considering the products aren't even out yet, but AMD will soon correct that. So, when the AMD Bulldozer desktop CPUs launch, how many of you will pick one up?
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution Ships Two Million Copies
The newest Deus Ex game launched in the middle of August, but that didn't stop it from shipping like hotcakes. I say ship and not sell because Square Enix has only announced shipment numbers, but still, the end result is mighty impressive. Deus Ex: Human Revolution has shipped over two million copies worldwide since its launch, something that Square Enix is enthused about, I am sure. How many of those were shipped back to Square Enix wasn't listed, but I am sure the publisher has picked up the slack. The game is a prequel to the classic Deus Ex game developed by Ion Storm, and puts you in the shoes of protoganist Adam Jensen as he tries to figure out why an attack was launched on the company he works for. There is even some new DLC that will launch next month, showcasing what happened during three days of missing time in the main story. Deus Ex: Human Revolution can be seen as the last game to pick up at the end of summer, or the first of what should be many great games to get this fall.
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Latest Battlefield 3 Trailer Shows Off Epic Operation Guillotine
Prepare for an ear-splitting in-game footage from Operation Guillotine, one of Battlefield 3's intense single player missions. Previous trailers were just as loud and exciting, but this is the first time we're seeing Battlefield 3's frenetic chaos at twilight, complete with a knife-fight, a high body count, and explosive rounds that light up the night sky. It's a tremendous feat packing in so much action into a trailer that's less than a minute long. This is just part one, though. The second half of the Operation Guillotine trailer will continue on 09/16/2011.
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Modern Warfare 3 to Include LAN Support
Years ago, it seemed that if a PC game did not have LAN support it was a rarity. Now, it is the exact opposite. The majority of PC games launched these days include no LAN support, instead forcing you to launch into the multiplayer servers just to play with your friends, even in the same house. One game that will include LAN support is something that may surprise you. Activision has announced that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will include LAN support for the PC version, meaning you don't need a dedicated multiplayer server just to play with some buddies. The game does also have dedicated servers, but now it will have LAN support too. This is shaping up to be a pretty PC friendly game from the folks at Activision, something that I'm sure many people will appreciate.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches on the PC, PS3, and 360 on November 8th.
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First Crysis Landing on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade
For many people, the original Crysis game is still a benchmark to determine whether or not your new computer is up to snuff. The game is still demanding, even on more recent hardware, and it is still a challenge to get a solid 60 frames per second at high resolutions and high anti-aliasing settings. The first Crysis came out several years ago, and then a sequel, Crysis 2, landed earlier this year. Unlike the first game, Crysis 2 launched simultaneously on the PC, PS3, and 360. Now, it seems that developer Crytek is bringing the first Crysis to the consoles as well, this time by way of the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. The game will be available as a download for either console, and it is described as being a heavily modified version of the PC game, but single player only. It has been remastered with CryENGINE 3 to feature all new lighting, visual effects, and optimization. Hopefully that means the PS3 and 360 will be able to run it at something resembling a smooth framerate. It will also feature stereoscopic 3D support, something that generally brings a heavier toll on performance.
Crysis for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade will launch in October for $19.99 or 1600 Microsoft Points.
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