Καλή χρονιά!

Δεδομένου ότι αντικαθιστάμε [γεμισμένη εορταστική κούπα] το s μας με [κενή εορταστική κούπα] το s, το προσωπικό του περιοδικού PTD θα επιθυμούσε να ευχηθεί σε κάθε αναγνώστη ένα ευτυχές και ασφαλές νέο έτος. Ελπίζουμε ότι οι διακοπές είναι ευχάριστες για σας και σας, και σας προσκαλούμε για να προσχωρήσουμε στο προσωπικό του περιοδικού PTD στο χτύπημα στο νέο έτος!

Να είστε ασφαλής, και θυμηθείτε να μην πιείτε και MMOG! Θα σας δούμε αφότου φρονιμεύουμε επάνω.

Τα παιχνίδια Rockstar παίρνουν άμεσα, μεταφόρτωσαν

Direct2Download (μια ιδιοκτησία IGN) ανήγγειλε αυτής η ολόκληρη βιβλιοθήκη Rockstar είναι τώρα διαθέσιμος για μεταφορτώνει σε το είναι πελάτες PC. Οι τίτλοι περιλαμβάνουν τον πλήρη Μεγάλο αυτοκίνητο κλοπής σειρά, καθώς επίσης και Manhunt και μερικοί άλλοι τίτλοι randomish.

Είμαστε όλοι γιατί ποτέ πρέπει να πάρει από τις καρέκλες μας να παίξει ένα νέο παιχνίδι, έτσι είναι καλό να δουν μερικά από το άλμα καλλιτεχνών «τριπλός-α» στη μόδα. Ίσως μια ημέρα EA θα εξαγοράσει όλο τον ανταγωνισμό και μπορούμε να αγοράσουμε όλο μίζερό μας Ζωή Sim επεκτάσεις από μια θέση. We can only hope.

Capcom releases more Street Fighter IV Details, Repeats Itself

Capcom announced a new iteration of Street Fighter earlier this month, although the details were scant at the time. Yesterday, Capcom did us a favor or releasing a second press release that appeared to be copy and pasted from the first. We now doubly know that the title will continue to be a 2D fighter (with 3D “flourishes”) including the likes of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Dhalsim.

We also know that you can catch the teaser trailer online, although we’re not 100% sure if we’re pumped for the art direction. Here’s a grab or two for you to gander.

Hail to the Chief: Halo 3

A letter from the Managing Editor:

Dear Readers,

I wish to extend to you my most sincere apology for the amount of time it took to get this review to you. Because of my gross violation of one of the Gamer’s Commandments (”Thou shalt save a lot, save often”), I was forced to replay approximately six hours of Halo 3. It was an innocent mistake; I had paused the game and went downstairs, when my oldest daughter decided that it would be okay for her to take the game out of the Xbox 360 to play Guitar Hero II. My scream could be heard in three counties.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, on with the review.

I don’t consider Halo 3 to be the world’s greatest first-person shooter. As an FPS it’s excellent, but arguably there’s a dozen others that can top it, especially on a PC. One of the reasons that Halo 3 series is great, however, is its well written back story. You find yourself set immediately after the events of Halo 2. Master Chief and the remains of Earth’s forces along with your new allies, the Elites lead by the Arbiter, head out to stop the Covenant from activating the remaining Halos. I won’t go into any more details about the story. It’s definitely worth the effort of playing the game in order to get closure on many of the questions you may have had from the previous two games.

All of the basic game mechanics have remained the same with some excellent new additions. First, there’s the introduction of some great new weapons, such as the Spiker. They’re the Covenant equivalent of the sub-machine guns, and if you can dual-wield them, they’re devastating. Another new weapon is the Spartan Laser Cannon. You can also literally take weapons that are normally mounted and use them as handhelds, such as mini-guns, flame throwers, or plasma cannons. There’s also a host of new vehicles such as the Mongoose, which is basically a fast moving ATV that you can either drive or sit in back to shoot, and the Hornet, a Human version of the Covenant Banshee. There’s a bunch of vehicles that you’ll get to experience as you play, many of which are not documented in the game manual. Halo 3 also introduces the concept of deployable equipment. By pressing the X button, you can deploy items such as the Bubble Shield, which will stop weapons and explosives but can be walked through. Others include Power Drain, Regenerators, Trip Mines, and Deployable Cover.

One of Halo’s strong points has always been its multi-player modes. One of the major updates in Halo 3 is the new co-op mode. With Halo 2, you could play the entire game with another player, but in Halo 3, you can now have up to four players. To top it off, your teammates can play with you over Xbox Live, so you don’t have to crowd three other guys on the couch for split screen mode. I also enjoyed the level of customization available now. You can change which weapons you start with, which weapons you can pick up on the map, the speed of the game, or how much gravity can be on the map (I love low-grav maps!).

One of the most interesting modes is Forge, which essentially allows you and other players to manipulate certain aspects of existing multi-player maps on the fly, mainly moving objects and changing their characteristics. Each map has a “credit” limit, with each object having a set credit amount, so you won’t be able to put sixteen tanks on a single map (though that would be really fun). On top of all that, you can save your Forge creations and share them via Bungie’s new file sharing system. Players can now send files to other players that are online via Xbox Live, or you can send them to Bungie’s central file storage server where you can share them with the entire Halo 3 community if you wish. You can also upload screen shots and saved films as well. Each Xbox Live Gold member gets 25 MBs of diskspace across 6 save slots, with additional space and slots available if you choose to use your Microsoft Points.

Sound and graphic-wise, Halo 3 is impressive. Frame rates are smooth, with lots of nice dynamic lighting and effects you’ve come to expect from the Xbox 360. The soundtrack is also very familiar, but nonetheless appropriate, for each of the environments you’ll experience. You’ll also get the usual good voice cast making their return, from Cortana to Sergeant Major Johnson. The funnest things to listen to are the exchanges you’ll hear between other characters, such as an exchange between one Marine behind a blast door pleading with another marine who insists on asking for the password. It’s worth an extra minute or so to listen to the hilarity that ensues.

Bungie and Microsoft have scored another home run with Halo 3. With the enhancements to its multi-player features and the community it’s building with the new file sharing capabilities, packaged together with its great story and gameplay, it will leave you no doubt why some consider the Halo series one of the most successful game franchises in history. You’ll now have to spend the next couple of years wondering when the Master Chief will be back, and what threat to humanity he’ll have to save us from next. In the mean time, Halo 3 will be able to fill that void for quite a while.

Give a Little Back: Child’s Play 2007

I was born with severe hemophilia A, which is a complicated way of saying that my blood has problems clotting.  As a result of this, I’d have to make pretty regular trips (once or twice a year) to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where Dr. Allen would draw some blood and tell me that, no, not much had changed since the last time they saw me.  Then I’d get a lollipop and convince my dad that instead of going in to school late we should go to a Phillies game or see a movie, but I digress.

While waiting for my turn in the back room, I’d inevitably have one of three options - watch the TV (which was usually tuned to a morning talk show or soap opera, for the sake of entertaining the moms who had brought their kids), read a book (which, being a kid, I wouldn’t always remember to bring), or the Game Castle.  The Game Castle was a marvelous little thing - literally, shaped like a generic fairytale castle, it held a monitor as well as a Sega Genesis with one or two controllers.  I remember passing the time with Echo the Dolphin, Sonic, and Comix Zone, and for those 10-15 minutes (or half an hour if I was lucky and there weren’t any other kids who wanted to play), life was as good as it could get.

I tell this story not because I’m feeling nostalgic, but because last week the guys at Penny Arcade announced that Child’s Play has started up for 2007.  Child’s Play is an outstanding charity which has brought the joy of gaming to upwards of hundreds of thousands of children’s hospitals worldwide in the last four years.  There are two ways to donate - either send money to a general PayPal fund that will be distributed to all of the hospitals, or click through to a specific hospital’s Amazon wishlist and pick and choose.  Whether buying something as simple as a sticker book or as extravagant as a 360, you will be making a difference for patients of children’s hospitals across the world - 45 hospitals from six different countries are participating already, with more surely to be added as the holidays approach.

Last year, when I found out that my old stomping grounds at CHOP had been added to the list, I immediately logged onto Amazon and paid for a black DS and Final Fantasy III cartridge.  This year, maybe I’ll add a PS2 or two to the cart, or perhaps show some love to one of the hospitals in Australia or the UK.  Whether through donations big or small, I hope you’ll join me in supporting this wonderful cause.

Your Weighted Companion Cube is Ready

That’s right, people. The much acclaimed, non-sentient, weighted companion cube is now on sale at the Valve Store for your holiday purchasing. The shopping cart claims that orders ship in 2 or 3 days, so you might still be able snag this little number before the jolly fat man waddles into town.

The Valve store also has a number of Portal and Team Fortress 2 items available, including coffee mugs, posters, liths, and t-shirts. Your filthy room demands decorations, citizen!

NVIDIA Loves You, Gives 8800 GTS For the Holidays.

Our favorite video card manufacturer just released the 8800 GTS card today, pumping polygons and shaders like nobody’s business. Like it’s 8800 siblings, the GTS card supports DX 9 and 10 games, and comes standard with 512 Mb of freakin’ fast DDR3 RAM.

The press release mentions something about Crysis, so go buy one or whatever. The box will cost you between $299–$349 clams, double if you want to get all SLI on us.

Pokémon Goes Virtual, Gets Jolly

Continuing the trend of adding “features” that makes “barrels of sweet American currency,” Nintendo announced a new gifting feature to the Wii shop in addition to it’s usual weekly addition to the Virtual Console lineup. Start today, gamers and the people that love them can make gift purchases on the Wii Shop to be delivered electronically via the Internet. As we don’t have any friends handy, we’ll poke on this feature for a few days before spilling the exquisite details.

This week’s Virtual Console additions include Pokémon Snap (originally for the N64), Ghosts’n Goblins, and BASEBALL STARS 2 available for download. Although we gave the Pokémons the headline, it’s important to note that Ghosts’n Goblins is a NES (not to mention C64, Amiga and WonderSwan) classic. Check ‘em out, or be a pal and gift it to us.

LOTRO to Cross Misty Mountains, Travel to Korea

Turbine announced today that Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar will be localized for fellow gamers in South Korea sometime next year. With the help of NHN, a large ISP in Korea, gamers will be able to suit up and fight evil in the mystical land of Middle Earth.

Tubine may find themselves fighting an Overhill (rather than Underhill, get it?) battle in SK, since Blizzard beat them to the MMORPG punch by a fair margin. Either way, we’re sure the friendly gamers in Korea appreciate a little fantasy competition.

Ghostbusters Cast Reunite, Make Video Game

Sierra Entertainment announced (last week) that they have begun development (last week) on the sure to be a blockbuster hit, Ghostbuster the Video Game. “Sierra Entertainment is extremely excited to not only deliver fans, old and new, this next chapter in the Ghostbusters universe, but to allow them inside the universe for the first time,” said Martin Tremblay, prez of Worldwide Studios.

“As long as we get to play Slimer and slime people, we’re pumped,” says Lorien Faulkner, executive editor of PTD Magazine. “Else wise, this is last week’s news.”

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