Games News: Video Games News & Fun Online Games // Current

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1 year ago

World Series of Poker Europe 1

With three events over 11 days, it is the first tournament beyond Las Vegas to award prestigious WSOP bracelets. High end... more

xbbtv
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Obama Reaches Out To Gamers!

Drive through the virtual streets of Burnout Paradise this week and you might find, among the usual mix of deodorant and fast food... more

bonemachine
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HMV introduces Gamerbase

HMV has been running a trial multiplayer gaming centre in its HMV Trocadero store in London and it's gone down so well that... more

Paulio5
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Void in life filled by Mario toys

This is quite an incredible grotto of everything Nintendo, and whoever squirreled all this away over the last few years must have... more

purplefox
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A Virtual Forbidden City?

It has been over three years in the making and cost over...

mashdata
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The world’s most beautiful CG characters?

How real can we get?

mashdata
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Red Bull Air Race 2007 - Race 9 "San Diego"

Watch as the 9th race of this Red Bull Air Race World Series 2008 comes to America's finest city, San Diego, featuring the... more

xbbtv
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Portal: Prelude Has Been Launched

Portal has been a huge hit and quickly became a cult favorite with the large gaming community. Its simple gameplay and often difficult puzzles made us rethink the way games are played. With the game having only two characters, the player and the computer AI, dubbed GlaDOS, it really brought a touch of simplicity to the way games are designed. It sparked the birth of popular slogans like “The cake is a lie” or the addictive song “Still Alive”.

With such a strong movement supporting the game, an independent modder decided to create a new map pack in order to complement the relatively short single player campaign and the absence of a multiplayer one. Thus, the modder decided to create a story behind these maps which would act like a prequel to the action in the original game. Although Valve have announced that an official prequel is currently under development, the community didn't back down and now, it is finally done.

Portal: Prelude, as it is entitled, will take us into the well known Aperture Science test rooms where the subjects are being examined by real people before the GlaDOS system was put in place. After nine months of hard work, the results are finally here, a complete game with 19 test chambers and a final level which is sure to test players to their limits.

A year after the launch of The Orange Box, the package which included the original Portal game along with Half Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2, Portal: Prelude is released. You can check out the game at its official site and can download it from there.

All you need in order to play this game is to have Valve's digital content distribution service, Steam, installed and have a copy of the original Portal game also installed on your PC. It's really nice that the community can develop such good games and not let Valve do all the work; after all, the more versions on the prequel of Portal, the better.

Valve's leading digital content distribution network, would start hosting mods developed by the community. These are modifications made to games, which use the
engine of the title to create new gameplay modes with the same or different characters. Such was the case with Counter Strike, one of the most popular FPS (first person shooter) games out there, developed as a mod to the very popular Half Life. Now, as an even greater token of appreciation, Valve will be offering five free mods to the customers who already own a Source-based game.

The five mods are: Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. All great mods, which just goes to show that this is the reason Valve is so popular in the gaming community. As another special offer, the publisher is selling Half Life 2: Episode 1 for the extremely low price of 5 dollars.

“Valve has been supporting the MOD community since the company's inception, offering updates to the SDK, holding MOD Expos and being the first to bring a MOD to retail with Counter-Strike in November 2000," said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. "The debut of these MODs on Steam marks the beginning of a new level of support for the MOD community by putting the leading MODs at the finger tips of over 15 million targeted gamers.”

Such initiatives should really be embraced by other game developers and publishers. I'm sure that a lot of talented modders can express their creativity by modifying a game to suit their ideas, and who knows, might just get the attention of a big company. Such was the case with the guys behind Counter Strike who were employed by Valve to develop the retail version of the game.Portal has been a huge hit and quickly became a cult favorite with the large gaming community. Its simple gameplay and often... more

Sons_Of_Liberty
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1 year ago

Xbox 360 gaming console is set for a major face-lift.

Microsoft said Wednesday that it is planning to launch a major overhaul of its Xbox interface on Nov. 19.

"On that day, millions of Xbox 360 owners worldwide will experience a completely new Xbox 360 that is fun, social, and simple to use -- and puts more entertainment at their fingertips than any other device connected to the TV," the company said in a statement.

New Xbox Experience, as the revamp is called, will feature a revised user interface that, among other things, allows users to cycle through options as they would if they were using Windows Vista's Aero interface. Available games, movies, and TV shows will be presented side by side and will be easier to find and access, Microsoft said.

A new feature called Xbox Live Party will let parties of up to seven people chat and share pictures over a television screen while simultaneously playing games. The Personality Plus tool will let users create customized avatars that will represent them throughout the Xbox world.

"When the New Xbox Experience launches in just six weeks, we will be inviting the whole world to play," said John Schappert, Microsoft's corporate VP for Interactive Entertainment, in a statement from the Tokyo Game Show 2008.

Microsoft is looking to maintain recent Xbox sales momentum in the face of stiff competition from Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii unit. The company last month slashed the price of its Xbox 360 video game console by almost 30% for some models.

The cuts saw the price of the entry-level Xbox 360 Arcade system fall from $279 to $199. The basic Xbox 360 model, which features a 60-GB hard drive, dropped to $299 from $349. The high-end Xbox 360 Elite, which includes a 120-GB hard drive, now sells for $399 -- down from $449.

In its most recent quarter, Microsoft reported that Xbox 360 total console sales surpassed 19 million units during the period, up 74% from the previous year.

Recent releases of hot-selling game titles, including Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV, have helped spur Xbox 360 sales. Halo 3, an Xbox 360 exclusive, smashed game industry records when it debuted late last year -- including the record for most launch-day sales.Microsoft said Wednesday that it is planning to launch a major overhaul of its Xbox interface on Nov. 19. "On that day,... more