Yesterday, we got the chance to take a look at Codemasters’ upcoming third-person action-shooter, Damnation. Set for release sometime in late 2008 / early 2009 on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 platforms, the game is shaping up very well and keeps with the recent Codemasters’ trend of designing games without user-interfaces (save for showing an icon of the currently selected weapon and ammo count) in order to increase the cinematic quality of the game as well as immersion. There is also no mini-map, the game relying on careful level design to give the player a ‘sense’ of where to go next.
The game is set in an alternate history where the American Civil War has spanned for 8 decades. The technology seen in the game has been designed as modern equivalents of older tech seen during the war. Damage is all shown on the screen through a visual de-saturation effect. The more damaged you are, the more the screen loses its color. The game will support 2-player drop-in/drop-out coop through the campaign as well as some as yet unannounced multi-player modes.
Gameplay has been said to be a cross between Prince of Persia and Gears of War. While the similarities seem to exist between the titles in terms of navigating the landscape and freneticism, Damnation does not feature a cover system but does allow the player to fire (when it makes sense) while climbing/scaling objects. In the demo we saw, the dev sent the protagonist hurling himself through a window in a very cool combat roll. The levels are vast, spanning many kilometers. The level we saw had the player slide down an electrical cable strewn over a vast chasm. The level of detail adjusted very well and the gameplay was smooth and without any stutters.
The player has the ability to enter a mode called ‘spirit vision’, in which they can see other character’s auras through walls and other terrain. This is said to make multiplayer matches very interesting, with the focus on constantly moving to keep your opponents off-guard. In the single-player/co-op campaign, it will help the player locate the position of enemy snipers and other hidden baddies.
We will bring you more information on this title when it becomes available (probably at Leipzig).
For those of you who ‘get it’, you know what we mean. And you will understand why we are so excited about Flight1’s Ground Environment X – USA & Canada. Normally, our reviews are very objective and give a good pro vs con argument of a product. Not so in this case. And that is primarily the fault of Flight1, who has such a great product in GEX, it is hard to find a ‘con’ to it.
Enter Flight1, and their add-on to the game, Ground Environment X. GEX replaces all those ‘frumpy’ ground textures with photo-realistic ones that cover the entirety of the US and Canada (yay Canucks!). The difference is very noticeable in FSX and amazingly noticeable in FS9, where the ground textures are considerably worse than FSX to begin with. The textures are extremely crisp and have better organized auto-gen in most areas, meaning that you shouldn’t have trees popping up on top of buildings, etc (although this still happens now and again).
For $34.95, you would be hard-pressed to find any better texture replacement for Flight Simulator 9 and X that has the quality and feature set of Flight1’s Ground Environment X – USA & Canada.
As you can see, the Noblesse K-2 Ebony is no slouch in the looks department. Everything on the front of the case is a button of some kind, and the integrated LCD panel that displays temperature and fan speed (among other things) is a blessing for those performance-minded individuals out there. The case would look equally great in an a/v cabinet or out in the open. It is not only functional but also a good conversation piece. Also included in the case is an ir remote control.
We enjoyed many hours of South Park videos, HD-DVDs (yes we are one of those), and even some streaming vids of the ‘net. The experience was very enjoyable, and the K-2 Ebony was a joy to use.
For an upper mid-level gaming system running a Radeon 4850 or 4870, the K-2 would work great and also turn heads at a LAN event to boot.
The 4850 represents the first of the ‘next-gen’ line of graphics processing units which is pinnacled with the Radeon 4870. The 4850 is the more budget-minded of the two, retailing for roughly $180 dollars. When we first heard the price, we thought that there was no way we would be happy with a GPU like that. We came to the realization that we had believed a video card needed to be expensive in order to be good. Happily, my friends, I can say that ‘axiom’ has proven false in the 4850.
Even with just one Radeon 4850, you will be able to play the latest games at varying levels of graphics detail without issue. We wish the 4850 had the DDR5 memory of its older brother but that is a very minor negative considering the 4870s are roughly $100 dollars more expensive.
The whole point in downsizing the expo was to save everyone money but all thats seemed to happen is that exhibitors are spending more than ever not only on the E3 expo, but their inhouse showings and other gaming events like Leipzig.
However it is far easier to select a game from the hot buttons where you can read the names of the available games instead of hovering over tables attempting to remember where that darn Pai Gow was.
The online aspect not only gives players a chance to meet up and play against one another, but it also gives players a location to trade gambling stories, tips, general chit chat. This community will spur alot of growth in the franchise.
We verified this using the standard Double Double Bonus payout table and it checks out. This is fairly misleading and, as previously mentioned, confusing.