The Godfather II ‘Debut’ Teaser Trailer

Electronic Art’s upcoming third-person action sequel The Godfather II, goes beyond the film’s story by setting players in the world of organized crime in 1960’s Florida, Cuba and New York.

According to the game’s storyline:

“After being promoted by Michael Corleone to Don of New York, players expand to new cities, as they build up their families through extorting businesses, monopolizing illegal crime rings and defeating new families in an effort to become the most powerful mob family in America.

To help players manage their empire, The Godfather II introduces “The Don’s View” which is a strategy meta-game that allows players to oversee the entire world as they grow the family business. Using the Don’s View, players will be able to build, defend and expand their crime rings, while keeping an eye on the movements and plans of the rival families. Players will also learn to master the business of organized crime by building a family of “Made Men”, hiring crew, handing out orders, and promoting their best men up the ranks.”

GTA IV Coming to the PC in November

Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto IV will be arriving on the PC on November 18 and November 21 in North America and Europe, respectively.

“We are very excited to be releasing the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “The whole team is dedicated to bringing an amazing gaming experience to the PC. The game looks and plays beautifully on PC and we can’t wait for people to play it.”

Developed by series creator Rockstar North and set in Liberty City, the latest installment in the enormously successful Grand Theft Auto series features a painstakingly detailed and life-like city for players to explore; a rich, immersive narrative experience; an original soundtrack highlighting the cultural eclecticism of Liberty City; and newly expanded multiplayer just for the PC.

PC Specs for Far Cry 2

Ubisoft has released the actual PC specs for Far Cry 2 and while gamers were crying foul over how over the top the “leaked” specs were – the official ones are not that different in some respects. You will still have to have a decent system to run the game, but not a “super duper” gaming system like what was previously suggested.

Minimum Requirements:

CPU: Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, Pentium D 2.66 Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or better

RAM: 1 GB

Video card: NVidia 6800 or ATI X1650 or better; Shader Model 3 required; 256 Mb of graphic memory

Media reader: DVD-ROM

Hard drive space: ~12 Gig of HD space. (TBD)

RECOMMENDED:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Family, AMD 64 X2 5200+, AMD Phenom or better

RAM: 2 GB

Video card: NVidia 8600 GTS or better, ATI X1900 or better; 512 Mb of graphic memory

Sound: 5.1 sound card recommended

SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS: NVidia 6800, NVidia 7000 series, 8000 series, 9000 series, 200 series. 8800M and 8700M supported for laptops.
ATI X1650 – 1950 series, HD2000 series, HD3000 series, HD4000 series.

GTA 4 PC this October?

French site Jeuxpo reports that Grand Theft Auto IV will be released on PC in Europe this October. Though they do not offer any specific sources, they do cite retail plans. Neither Rockstar, nor Take Two has confirmed this to be true, but as one can expect, the PC version should be out within six to eight months of the game’s console release.

release of The Godfather II ?

Electronic Arts’ yet to be determined release of The Godfather II — for the PS3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, and PC — may still be undetermined with the recent news of a lawsuit filed by Mario Puzo’s (author of The Godfather series) son. That is, if Paramount doesn’t make him an offer he can’t refuse.

EA is not involved in the lawsuit.

Mass Effect 2 Will Be Released On PC and Xbox at the Same Time ?

 

Since Mass Effect was announced for the PC, people have been wondering whether the upcoming sequel would also be a timed exclusive for the Xbox 360 or if it would just be released at the same time. Senior manager with BioWare, Matt Atwood, responded to these inquiries in recent interview:

“We haven’t announced plans for timing on Mass Effect 2, period, so at this point we’re not really ready to talk about it, but because we’ve got a really great PC fan base we think it’s really important to deliver the PC experience as quickly as possible. Look for more news on that soon.”

From that and the fact that EA is now holding the reins, I’d say PC gamers can expect to see the sequel at about the same time as Xbox owners. At the very least, they might not have to wait around for months to find out what happens in the latest adventures of Shepard and Co.

Rail Simulator

Publisher: EA Games

Developer: Kuju Entertainment

Category: Simulation

Release Dates

Intl – 10/15/2007

N Amer – 01/16/2008

Official Game Website

Rail Simulator will offer the opportunity for players to take charge of steam, diesel and electric trains on real routes in the UK and Germany. Challenging and fun gameplay will even enable players to design their own ideal journey routes. Rail Simulator will become the gold standard rail simulation title and will fully support the creation of add-on third party content.

Rail Simulator is the next step in railway simulation. It allows the player to take on the role of a train driver and guide a number of contemporary and historical trains through several meticulously recreated routes in the UK, Germany and United States.

The player is made responsible for everything involved in getting an electric, diesel or steam train started and to keep it rolling; from observing the track signals and keeping within the speed limits, to keeping an eye on the steam pressure and making sure to remain on track through treacherous winding routes.

The game offers unprecedented graphics and attention to detail for the genre, with the trains realistically modeled down to individual, fully functional, gauges, buttons and levers. Rail Simulator also incorporates a full physics simulation, as well as having accurate signaling systems throughout all the routes.

PC video game releases: ‘Painkiller Overdose’

A look at a some recent video game releases:

“Sega Rally Revo”: Rev up your engines and get ready to rip up the track – literally.

“Sega Rally Revo” introduces a racing simulation with “geodeformation,” where your car actually gouges out grooves in the roadway as you race against real or computer-controlled opponents. This makes each successive lap that much more treacherous.

The game, published by Sega and developed by Sega Racing Studio, offers several ways to play, including championship mode where you can win points in a series of rallies to become the top racer. In multiplayer online matches you compete against other gamers over the Internet.

Gamers rip up the road on tracks ranging from dusty desert speedways to alpine villages complete with photo-snapping fans. Plus you can unlock all kinds of nifty goodies like new cars and paint jobs.

“Sega Rally Revo” may not be the most realistic racing simulation ever made and gets a bit repetitive after a while, but it definitely delivers some quick adrenalin-fuelled racing action to the PC.

The game is also available for Xbox 360, PS3 and PSP.

“Next Life”: An evening ride turns horrific when the character you play, Adam Raichl, is killed in a car accident then suddenly wakes up in a purgatory-like world inhabited by bizarre people and puzzles to figure out.

But the anemic gameplay in the point-and-click adventure PC title, published by Toronto’s the Adventure Company and developed by Future Games, bogs down any fun despite the interesting storyline.

The pace of the game is slow, even by adventure game yardsticks.

There’s the standard selection of puzzles, including set pieces and typical “collect and combine items” tasks to further your journey through the game, but everything feels way too spread out and slow.

Throw in some bizarre stilted voiceovers which are sub-par for the genre along with text that contains spelling errors and it all adds up to a dud. Unless you’re a real adventure game fanatic, you’d best steer clear.

“Painkiller Overdose”: Gamers get the chance to revisit an old-school-style first-person shooter with this fast-paced PC game in the guise of the demon Belial, the wisecracking son of heaven and hell.

There’s not much high-tech wizardry in this game, published by Toronto’s Dreamcatcher Interactive and developed by Mindware Studios, but that’s not to say “Painkiller Overdose” doesn’t have loads of fun. This is a straightforward “clear out rooms as fast and as frenzied as your demonic self can manage” game.

Frequent saves after each room and fun new levels maintain the compulsion to play just a little bit longer.

If you enjoy hacking apart other demons, slaughtering stuff left and right with body parts flying around, and drinking their souls for bonus health, this game is for you.

Bottom line: hellish action – with a sarcastic edge as your character spouts some classic lines such as “tastes like chicken” when consuming souls or “another one bites the dust” with a kill.

There’s also a rudimentary card-collecting game – you can earn a card on each level which gives you a special power. Not that it matters much because you’ll still find yourself hacking enemies to pieces with your hell cube or blasting them apart with the cannon.

Throw in a fast-paced online multiplayer mode and this game offers pretty good value.

Hellgate: London PC game

Portals to hell are opening all over the place, and demons are roaming free in such numbers that the land teeters on the edge of the abyss. Sound familiar? It should – it’s the same basic premise that set the amazing Diablo series rolling.

What’s unfortunate about Hellgate is that it’s neither as fun nor as memorable as its spiritual predecessor.

Dark pedigree

Hellgate starts off well, with a character-creation system that offers six unique classes, but once you actually hop into the game, the faults become immediately apparent. For instance, once you make a decision in the skill tree, you’re stuck with that choice forever, which is an anachronistic design decision that effectively kills the possibility of experimentation. The available quests are boring, unimaginative and, worst of all, repetitive. Having an NPC require you to kill ten – and only ten – demons in a specific area doesn’t make any sense, even in a virtual world.

It’s a (pre)fabulous life

The game also suffers from a lack of tension and atmosphere; unlike the two Diablo games, Hellgate has no personality. The world looks sterile and prefabricated, probably because it is prefabricated, with environments slapped together literally at random. While in theory this might imbue a game with infinite replayability, in practice – at least as presented here – it leads to worlds that lack the cunning creativity that a human designer might have come up with. Think of it this way: a cat walking across a piano might compose something new each time, but would you rather listen to that or a piece of Beethoven?

The banality of evil

Working in Hellgate’s favour, however, is the fact that the six classes complement each other so well in multiplayer. Gathering five friends, permanent or temporary, into a single band of brothers is definitely the way to go, leading as it does to a fast-paced stomp through any environment and an unrelenting display of trippy pyrotechnics.

It also incorporates some interesting ideas – loot that drops separately for every player in a party, a weapon modification and upgrade system that turns even useless items into collectible trinkets and a context-sensitive shift button that puts active skills within easy reach – but every single play session, regardless of whether it’s solo or with friends, will invariably boil down to holding the attack button and heading off on yet another “kill x to get y” quest.

PROS: Class variety is interesting. Loot drops will keep obsessive gamers occupied.

CONS: Randomised levels, endless combat and quest repetition, locked progression choices, lack of atmosphere.

Verdict

Hellgate: London does offer some simple-minded entertainment, but it falls well short of its lofty goals, a fact that is made all the more galling when you consider the fact that the developer, Flagship Studios, was founded by two of Diablo’s creators. You might get sucked into the online world of competing slayers and level grinding for a while, but the tedium will kill you far quicker than any member of Hell’s vast army.

The Crysis Challenge

With the imminent arrival of Crysis, PC gamers all over the world gearing up for some high quality FPS goodness by uninstalling old games, defragging drives, double checking connections, and stocking up on caffeine and sugar treats for a couple (or more) 24 hour days to frag it up.

Of course, Crysis is also being hotly anticipated because of its kick ass graphics that will surely set a new bar for developers and gamers alike. Crysis will surely be a true test for gaming systems. I myself am not sure if my PC has the muscle to handle Crysis. I have an AMD X2 3800+, 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM, and an HD2600XT graphics card. A few of my friends told me that it will be enough but having seen the screnshots of Crysis I am not going to get my hopes up. Crysis looks like it’s going to eat up my computer. It’s that gorgeous.