PC Gaming Roundup - The Weekend Edition
Just to keep you busy throughout the weekend, here are a few gaming nuggets to chew on. But because this is the "Weekend Edition," expect to see this article updated during the next few days. The last Weekend Edition did rather well, so lets see if that can happen again.
Mirror's Edge Map Pack Now Available
As the heading states, the Pure Time Trials Map Pack is now live on the EA Store, available for direct download at $9.99. According to the site, the map pack focuses on the time trial gameplay mode: "Time Trial is a popular mode in Mirror's Edge that challenges players to find the fastest route across various maps. Players can upload their best time to the Mirror's Edge leaderboards for their friends to download and compete against. Players can see their friend's "ghost" run as they race their way through the course to the top of the leaderboards."
New Overlord titles in June
Last night Codemasters sent over an impressive media package packed with screens and videos, however amongst the multimedia glory was a passive revelation of three new Overlord titles in June. First and foremost, Overlord II is headed to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Games for Windows, offering a new Overlord and a more powerful army of Minions to take on the Glorious Empire, and an advanced Romanesque nation. Additionally, Overlord Dark Legend is in development for the Nintendo Wii as well as Overlord Minions for the DS.
More Codemasters Dates Set - DiRT 2
Along with the Overlord info game the revelation of additional release dates, beginning with DiRT 2, the sequel to the off-road racer. According to the company, the game will hit the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Games for Windows, Wii, DS and PSP this September. "In addition to Utah, Malaysia and London, DiRT 2’s World Tour of off-road events will take racers to a massive, spectator-packed Los Angeles sports stadium for an exhilarating rally cross event: the Stadium King Shootout."
More Codemasters Dates Set - FUEL
The company also aid that FUEL will hit the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Games for Windows this May, the multi-terrain, multi-vehicle action racing title from Asobo Studios. "With the largest environment ever created in race gaming. FUEL will have players competing across wildly different terrain, created from the most compelling, diverse and striking areas of America using satellite data."
More Codemasters Dates Set: Jumpgate Evolution
The action-based PC Massively Multiplayer Online game Jumpgate Evolution is slated to go live this June, promising "exhilarating" space combat on a vast scale. Fans can head to the official website and check out a video sporting the game's "breath-taking visuals and an innovative twitch-based space combat."
More Codemasters Dates Set - Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is scheduled to hit the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Games for Windows this summer. The upcoming military conflict title is set to be "the most accessible, engaging, and visceral sandbox shooter of the year."
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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Updated, Get Blazing Angels Free
Steam News is reporting that there are new updates to Dan of War II, applied to the retail version of the client once the Steam client restarts. The changes include fixing a bug that caused missions to stop populating. Valve says that regular save games should not be affected, and "stalled" games should not work properly after the update. Additionally, Valve also reports that consumers can receive a free "copy" of Blazing Angels when they pre-purchase the multiplayer air-combat action game, Tom Clancy's HAWX.
Valve Shares Hardware Specs
Ever wonder what developers are using on the hardware site? Recently Valve included its system specs in the January Steam Hardware Survey announcement (within the Steam client(, reporting that most rigs have a life span of 18 months before replaced with an improved machine. Here is the list of components for their base configuration:
- EVGA 780i SLI FTW Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz Quad-Core Processor
- 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 1066MHz ram (Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
- 1 x NVidia GTX280 1GB - OR - ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
- 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD
- (Seagate, Western Digital)
- 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
- Antec Sonata III desktop case
- Zalman CPU Cooler
- 850W Antec power supply
- 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30" LCD - OR - 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1" LCD monitors
- Windows XP 32bit
Now here is the system configuration for the next set of PCs once the current ones become obsolete:
- EVGA X58 3X SLI Intel Motherboard
- Intel Corei7 940 2.93GHz Quad-Core Processor
- 12GB PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz ram (Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
- 1 x NVidia GTX285 1GB - OR - ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
- 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
- 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD (Seagate, Western Digital)
- Lian Li P60-F Case
- Intel CPU Cooler
- 850W Antec power supply
- 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30" LCD - OR - 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1" LCD monitors
- Windows Vista 64bit
Leisure Suit Larry Returns
The Codemasters website is now offering information and media on the upcoming game, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. The game will use the talented (cough) voices of Carman Electra and Shannon Elizabeth and also feature a new Director's Mode. "The original Larry is now a movie mogul, but he’s got a problem…the studio across the road always seem to know what he’s making: there must be a mole in the studio! Uncle Larry turns to you, his nephew, Larry Lovage - to solve the mystery, after all, no-one would suspect a guy working in the mail room right? You must uncover the identity of the mole… the very existence of the studio depends upon it! What could possibly go wrong?" The brief details also say that the game offers an open world and plenty of mini-games.
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Tindytim How many seconds did you have to slave over a search engine to get this inconclusive information?Reply -
JeanLuc I hope Colin McRae's surviving family get the royalties due to Colins name still being used to promote the Dirt series.Reply -
hairycat101 JeanLucI hope Colin McRae's surviving family get the royalties due to Colins name still being used to promote the Dirt series.I got to second that. He died in '07. That is long enough for them to re-work the title to just Dirt 2. It's not like he died last week and they had all of the boxes printed up for a few months. Mostly sad about the young boys, though.Reply
On a side note, I have to agree with someone that this really is just a small snipit of stuff that Codemasters and EA would put out in their e-mail lists. Tom's is so far gone now. I used to love this site and I hate to see what they have done to it laterly. -
Dekasav I very much enjoy these PC Gaming Roundup articles. Keeps my email clean and free from tons of developers/publishers sending me an email every 2 days and informs me of new games coming out so I can check them out. Thanks Tom's!Reply -
exfileme I took off the Coin McRae name because the PR didn't have it and it's not listed on the USA site. However, the main Dirt 2 site DOES show McRae's name. Secondly, these were the only Codemasters games announced in Friday's PR. If there' more, by all means send it to me and I'll post it (kparrish@bestofmedia.com).Reply
I also understand the disappointment in regards to the present state of Tom's Games. I totally get it. But negative comments will not help convince Bestofmedia otherwise. The "Roundups" are a way of rebooting the machine so to speak, to show -by actual numbers- that there's still an interest in gaming at Tom's. I wish we had a full blown site to throw the news on, but -for the moment- we don't, so this is the best I can offer until things change. -
hairycat101 exfilemeI took off the Coin McRae name because the PR didn't have it and it's not listed on the USA site. However, the main Dirt 2 site DOES show McRae's name. Secondly, these were the only Codemasters games announced in Friday's PR. If there' more, by all means send it to me and I'll post it (kparrish@bestofmedia.com).I also understand the disappointment in regards to the present state of Tom's Games. I totally get it. But negative comments will not help convince Bestofmedia otherwise. The "Roundups" are a way of rebooting the machine so to speak, to show -by actual numbers- that there's still an interest in gaming at Tom's. I wish we had a full blown site to throw the news on, but -for the moment- we don't, so this is the best I can offer until things change.Reply
First, if you are representing the site or bestofmedia, you should have that listed near the top so that your comments about how you post things makes since.
Second, posting comments about what we do and don't like are how we get our opinions known. I trust you "get it". Its hard to look at the site right now and compare it to what it was a few months back. It's not just that I liked "second take" more then this, it's that the WHOLE site seems defunct in some way. A lot of the news articles that appear to the right of the articles I read are from YEARS past. The "hot questions" instead of pulling from the most recent forum posts are annoying because they take forever to change. Even the amount of replies does not update like it should. I could go on, but I think the direction the site is headed in isn't good.
Keep the game updates coming; they don't, often, contain any substaintial insight, but it is nice to see updates on things that I haven't been tracking elsewhere.