Here is another GT countdown for all of you. This one was done a while ago, but I think they did a pretty good job. While I don’t agree with every single pick, I feel that they did a much better job with this countdown then they did with their scariest games countdown. There were quite a few weapons from id Software games on the list which was nice to see, but I was expecting at least a few weapons from the Turok series. If you ask me, those games had some of the most creative weapons of any first person shooter, but at least one of them made it in the list. Anyway, here are the top 10 weapons:
Category: Games
Check out this year’s list of scary game demos. Remember, lights are for sissies:
Condemned Demo: Utilize brutal and gruesome weaponry to dispatch sociopaths who lurk on the periphery of humanity in First-Person Shooter Condemned!
F.E.A.R. Single-player Demo: Along with its F.E.A.R. Expansion Demo, expect to be crying for your mother when you meet creepy little freakshow Alma face-to-face.
Silent Hill 4: The Room Demo: How about a little visit to Silent Hill, the creepiest place on earth. Also play our Silent Hill 3 Demo – a psychologically disturbing experience.
DOOM 3 Demo: Demonic forces from hell? Check. Spooky demented research facility on Mars? Check. DOOM 3 a horrifying experience? Double check.
Resident Evil 3 Demo: The faceless evil of the Umbrella Corporation is loose on the streets in the form of mutated undead. Kick their ass in this Resident Evil 3 demo!
Undying Demo: As Magnus Wolfram, master of the occult, discover a dying family whose degeneration threatens the fabric of reality in Clive Barker’s Undying.
System Shock 2 Demo: After waking up from cryogenic sleep aboard a spaceship filled with dead people, fight your way for survival among “The Many” in System Shock 2.
Aliens Vs. Predator 2 Single-Player Demo: Three diverse and bloodthirsty species battle for survival in Aliens vs. Predator 2. Beeping of your equipment may be the last thing you hear.
Sanitarium Demo: Spiraling upwards out of the void, you open your eyes and struggle to comprehend your environment. Welcome to Sanitarium.
American McGee’s Alice Demo: The Wonderland that you knew from childhood has gone horribly wrong. Demented cats, disgruntled playing cards and little girls with knives – Oh my!
If you missed last year’s list you can find it here. And don’t forget to check out GT’s Top 10 Scariest Games.
Yup, the new dash update is almost here. Here are some of the big changes:
Expanded HD Display and Video Playback Options
- With 1080p resolution, you now have the ability to enjoy both game and video content in the best high-definition resolution currently available.
- Expanded video playback options increase the ways you can enjoy video content on Xbox 360. It is now possible to stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11 or Windows Media Connect.
- You can now play video files from data CDs and DVDs, as well as from storage devices like USB 2.0 flash drives and Xbox 360 Memory Units.
- Xbox 360 will support 50hz HDTV display modes, providing a much greater choice in how you watch DVD and HD DVD content.
Xbox Live Arcade Enhancements
- Keeping up to date on Xbox Live Arcade games is now even more convenient with the ability to automatically download newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games. This eliminates the need to manually search for new downloads on Xbox Live Marketplace each time a new game trial is released.
- With the fast enumeration of games, see the games in your Xbox Live Arcade collection appear almost instantly. Get in and play right away.
- With so many games to choose from, Xbox Live Arcade added new sorting options such as “Recently Played” and “By Category.” These enhancements make managing Xbox Live Arcade collections faster and easier than ever.
- A new expanded friends leaderboard within Xbox Live Arcade lets you compare yourself directly against friends and view leaderboard details of your top 10 friends.
- A new expanded Achievements View within Xbox Live Arcade lets you view your full Achievement details for your Arcade games including descriptions, icons, allotted Gamerscore, and more, right from the Xbox Live Arcade dashboard interface.
- The “Play Now” launch feature has been streamlined. Selecting “Play Now” after downloading a game in Xbox Live Marketplace now bypasses Arcade and takes you directly to the game.
- Xbox Live Arcade now offers a “Tell a Friend” feature. Select this from the game info screen to send any friend on your friends list a message telling them about the Arcade game.
XNA Support
- Amateur game designers will be able to test and play the games they create using XNA Game Studio Express on Xbox 360 systems when it launches later this year (separate download and subscription required).
These features are just some of the enhancements gamers and developers can expect as part of the fall update.
Check out the complete list of updates here.
There is some pretty cool stuff on that list, but I love that they added the ability to stream WMV videos. Also, the ability to play video files from data CDs and DVDs is just awesome. Now I can watch RvB episodes (among other things) on my TV without having to burn them to a disc.
I am also pretty happy that they are updating the Xbox Live arcade area of the dashboard. That section definitely needed some updating, especially when you have multiple arcade games.
The update will head your way after 0200 PT Tuesday morning. If this whole ‘update’ thing is new to you, don’t worry…it’s quick, free and painless. Next time you login into Xbox Live you’ll get prompted to receive the update…it’s that easy. There is no way to force the update (and, regardless of what you have heard, it’s not geographical based.) So sit back and relax and it get ready for the update sometime after 0200 PT Tuesday morning, October 31st.
With Halloween fast approaching, many gaming sites are busy writing their Halloween features. Gametrailers just came out with their list of the top 10 scariest games of all time. While their list is far from perfect, I do agree with a few of their picks. I was happy to see that System Shock 2 made the list, though I would have given it first place. I am also happy to see that F.E.A.R. didn’t make the list. While the combat in that game was cool at times, it wasn’t scary in the slightest. Anyway, if you are looking for some scary games to play this Halloween, check out GT’s list and then head over here to check out last years list of scary game demos.
1up.com has a pretty good article up that looks at different methods of anti-piracy (mainly StarForce) and whether or not they are effective. I have been boycotting any game that is using StarForce for quite a while now, which is why I was extremely happy when Heroes of Might and Magic V dropped it. The article does a pretty good job of pointing out reason why everyone should boycott it, and gives arguments against using copy protection at all. I don’t advocate piracy, I believe it severely hurts the game industry, but anti-consumer products like Starforce are unacceptable as well. Here is a small excerpt taken from the article:
Space Rangers II is a fun game that integrates old-fashioned gameplay with a well-designed and cool setting. But is it worth the risk of your having to reformat your hard drive, your DVD drive failing to function, or your system just not recovering from the uninstall when you’re done with the game? Your friendly local videogame store — which is probably only one or two of those things — isn’t likely to mention that you can buy the game entirely online and avoid all those risks, without even having to leave home to pick it up or waiting for a delivery. Copy protection and digital distribution are changing the contours of gaming’s landscape, but what’s actually going on?
Lock it all down!
Copy protection’s specific methods are kept secret by necessity in order for the manufacturers to have a product to sell, but the majority of games’ copy protection schemes revolve around requiring that the game’s disc be in the drive when the game is played. While considering how outrageous it would be to require the disc of Photoshop or Word to be physically present to run those pieces of software, let’s look at the three main venues of hacking a protected piece of software that need to be guarded against for software protection to work. One-to-one copying, emulation of the protection software, and straight hacking are the key things a copy protection manufacturer needs to guard against. If someone can copy the game disc freely, easily generate the code necessary to gain the program’s trust, or run the game without the disc in the drive, then the copy protection software has failed.
The goal isn’t to encourage people to be honest, or to drive innovation in the hacker community, or to be an irritant because you’ve lost your CD and want to play. The goal of a publisher in picking a copy protection service is to make more money by selling more copies. The logic is that if it’s impossible to pirate the game, then people have to buy it if they want it. Why doesn’t that work?
If your copy protection is StarForce, then it doesn’t work because people are boycotting your copy protection. StarForce, which installs a hard-to-remove driver onto your computer, has an unproven but generally accepted track record of causing computers to slow down — at best. Some reports have complained of permanently damaged physical drives or hard drives. The company’s $10,000 prize contest required a user to travel to their offices in Russia and demonstrate StarForce’s causing damage to a computer to claim the prize, and the official site mostly used the contest to help sell related products.
StarForce is merely the worst example of the impact copy protection has on the consumer and the publisher, where it actually drives people to not purchase a piece of software they might buy otherwise. When Ubisoft put out its public beta of Heroes of Might & Magic V, the inclusion of StarForce sent the fan community into as big a fit as the gameplay issues. Add in such general class act behavior as posting links to pirated copies of unprotected programs to demonstrate the necessity of copy protection, and it’s easy to see why Ubisoft, Aspyr Media, and CDV Software have replaced StarForce with programs like SecuROM and TAGES. What’s hard to understand is how why the argument for the necessity of copy protection wasn’t addressed instead — the argument that led to the infamous StarForce company post that linked to the pirated file torrents.
– 1up.com: Pirates vs. Publishers
For the rest of the article click here. For more reasons to boycott StarForce, visit here.