Latest News

25/01/10

We're a ways into the new year now so I though I'd write a bit about what's coming soon on the PC. Mass Effect 2 comes out in the next couple of days and having now watched the trailer for it I can say it does look amazing, if the gameplay is as dramatic as the vid then it will be well worth a look. Bioshock 2 and Assassins Creed 2 are also on their way quite soon, the PS3 version of AC2 is good from what I've played and if Bioshock 2 follows even slightly in the footsteps of its predecessor it will be mind blowing. Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2 are currently available for pre-order on Steam with a discount/in-game goodies.

The game I really want to talk about here is Battlefield: Bad Company 2. After the obvious outrage Infinity Ward and Activision stirred up from the meagre support of the PC platform in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Dice and EA were quick on the ball to announce that Battlefield would indeed have dedicated server support. Now what does this mean? It means that BC2 will have: moderators/admins (and thus the ability to kick cheaters, ban lists so cheaters never come back, the ability to host custom maps and of course a dedicated server means you aren't relying on someones home connection so you get much better ping and a much higher number of players.

Enough about that however, the game itself is looking to be something quite special, a quick view of the vids demonstrates some of the interesting game mechanics, one of which is destruction. See that wall? Fire your grenade launcher at it and punch a hole through to the other side creating a quick and easy firepoint to surprise your enemies. Like previous Battlefield games, there looks to be the ability to form squads and earn on the fly unlocks for that match as well as the rank system/unlocks. I've not seen any details on if the Commander is still included nor what the gameplay is like for it.

The special edition is currently up for pre-order on steam and getting it means you get a few multiplayer unlocks form the word go, as well as access to the beta which starts this Thursday (28/01/10). That's about all I have to say for now so I'll leave you with a vid, not proper in game footage but it shows some of the mechanics nicely.

30/12/09

Well the new year is just around the corner and with it some serious work is going to be taking place with the site. There will be one more visual overhaul of the site and then I think it will finally be of a standard I am happy with. I will also be working on implementing a membership scheme into the main site and hopefully incorporating the forums rather than having them hosted seperately. This will allow me to do a lot more with them and make them much more focused to the community. The other thing that will be worked upon is adding some detailed content about games, for example some work has already been started on "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" Which will include:

Tips

A section full of all the information we can think of for getting the edge, including the morally grey.

Maps

Maps showing good hiding places for stealth classes, pathways to help you remain unseen, and sniper spots with fields of view marked.

Guns

Stats and tactics for each of the weapons in the game

This sort of thing will be done for a variety of games, next on the list will probably be "Left 4 Dead 2". As you can probably tell there's a fair bit of work involved here and it is probably a bit much for me alone to do. As such anything you think is useful, such as your favourite spots on Modern Warfare 2, or your favourite loadout, please feel free to tell me and I'll see about putting it into the MW2 section. Thats all from me for now, until next time, happy fragging.

01/09/09

Updates on the site are a bit slow for the moment, a lot of my time is being taken up by a new project I've embarked upon. Needless to say in doing so I'm improving my skills tenfold and a lot of what I'm learning will come to be implemented here.

In other more on topic sorts of news, Batman Arkham Asylum is on its way soon and though the consoles already have it released there is a silver lining. PC gamers get to hear fairly relevant reviews from other gamers en mass, both the good and the bad so we know much more what's in store. Plus of course, those of us with Nvidia gpu's get the rather fantastic addition of Physx and 3D Stereo. Admittedly I for one hav not forked out the rather extreme amount of cash for Nvidia's stereoscope shutter glasses and a compatible monitor. This brings me to my final point for today.

I've ordered myself some rather low tech anaglyph glasses, the cardboard variety, having discovered that Nvidia's 3dStereo driver now has something called Discover. As the name no doubt tells you this is Nvidias way of getting a glimpse of their 3d capabilities to the masses, it simply uses red/cyan glasses. Now of course this messes up the colour a bit, but in comparison to spending around £400 on the right monitor and the shutter glasses its a small sacrifice. I'll post up what I think of the 3d effect given with the anaglyph glasses, in honesty I'm tempted to grab some less flimsy plastic ones if it's half decent, at least until I can safely afford the proper kit.

Well that's enough from me for now, updates that are likely to crop up soonish are as follows:

• New site graphics.
• More interesting menu, possibly using javascript.
• Lightbox effect added to the galleries.
• The opening of the forums(finally).

Batman is of course being released on the 18th so go ahead and pre-order it from Amazon, from the look of reviews you certainly wont be disappointed.

13/08/09

Nvidia have just announced in their press release section that the upcoming Batman Arkham Asylum will be supporting Nvidia Physx in the Games for Windows Live version of the game. Needless to say this adds a lot of immersion into the game with some of the noted features being volumetric fog, tiles chipping, cobwebs tearing and paper being sent flying during fights. There have of course been other notable Physx games, the most high profile of which is probably "Mirror's Edge" which was in my opinion a decent game, and Physx added another level of immersion to the experience, let's hope Batman Arkham Asylum shows us even more of what Physx can do.

If you do have an Nvidia GPU capable of Physx(so thats 8 series and above I believe) I highly recommend grabbing the rigth drivers and downloading the Physx demos from Nvidia's website, it doesn't take much to realise there is real potential in this technology.

If you've spotted a mistake I've made, and especially if you have some more current information on release dates, please don't hesitate to email at domusdementia@gmail.com