nVidia announced the GoForce 3D 4800, the Company's newest wireless media processor (WMP), which the company claims will give home consoles as well as handheld games devices a run for their money as far as visual quality in games is concerned. This new WMP integrates highly realistic 3D graphics, multi-megapixel still imaging, high-quality video capture and playback that rivals home console gaming systems, digital cameras and video camcorders.

To capture high quality photos, the GoForce 3D 4800 processor includes a JPEG hardware encoder capable of capturing images with up to 3 MegaPixel (2048 x 1536) resolution. The unique nVidia FotoPack technology automatically optimises JPEG compression to allow users to store up to three times more photos in the limited memory space on a mobile phone, allowing consumers to capture, store and share more pictures.

Current wireless platforms cannot deliver the multimedia performance users have come to expect from single purpose systems, said Glenn Schuster, general manager, nVidia wireless media processor business. Consumers want a portable multimedia device that lets them experience great gaming, superb imaging capabilities and lengthy talk time. With stunning 3D gaming performance, 3 Megapixel digital photos, TV-quality video capture, and nPower technology, the GoForce 3D 4800 WMP will offer in a single device a mobile experience that rivals any home entertainment device on the market. Imagine a full-fledged game console in your pocket that is also a phone.

The GoForce 3D 4800 media processor enables players to enjoy one of the most intense gaming experiences delivered on a mobile device by boosting 3D performance by 40 per cent over the previous generation of mobile processors. GoForce 3D 4800 WMP's ground-breaking pixel-shader architecture with support for up to six simultaneous textures enables the GoForce 3D 4800 WMP to deliver spectacular image quality for 3D applications.

An embedded hardware MPEG-4 codec allows OEMs using the GoForce 3D 4800 WMP to add high-quality camcorder-like video capability never before available in a wireless handset. The high-powered codec captures VGA resolution MPEG-4 video at up to 30 frames per second (fps). Moreover, it allows users to playback VGA resolution video, such as television programmes or movies stored on an SD card, at rates up to 30 fps, turning their mobile phone into a convenient video entertainment device. The new media processor even supports real-time, full-duplex, two-way video conferencing at CIF (352 x 288) resolution at 30 fps.

Long battery life is a key yardstick of handset quality. Using proprietary nVidia nPower technology, the GoForce 3D 4800 processor consumes half the power across all media applications compared to software solutions running on application processors alone.

Phones based on the nVidia GoForce 3D 4800 WMP are expected to be released by the end of 2005.

¶ 6:23 PM //

¶ 5:33 PM //

¶ 5:32 PM //

David De Martini is no stranger to big names and big franchises - the last game he served as executive producer on was Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf, and he's formerly worked with other licensed brands and celeb-studded games including NASCAR, NCAA and Knockout Kings. Taking on The Godfather, however, involves working with one of cinema's most enduring classics - and some of its greatest legends, in the form of actors Marlon Brando, James Caan and Robert Duvall, and director Francis Ford Coppola.

Sitting only a few minutes drive away from the Little Italy district of New York, we asked De Martini about working with one of the most closely guarded properties in the business, some of the most talented actors in the world, and how The Godfather fits in with EA's largely family-friendly image.

Eurogamer: You're working quite closely with the original creators of the film - how receptive have they been to the changes that you're making to the content?

David De Martini: Let me just be specific there - we're working very closely with Viacom and Paramount. They're the owners of the property, and they obviously treat it with much care, as we do. They've been incredible partners. From the very beginning - obviously, since they haven't put out a game in the thirty years - they've moved very cautiously with regard to the gaming space and this property.

I think, as we were able to get to some very core, specific creative concepts, we were able to have a real meeting of the minds with regards to how the property would be treated - and as long as we stay within the boundaries of how we had agreed the property would be treated, we have quite a bit of leeway with regards to moving the game forward.

Francis Ford Coppola, who obviously was the director of the film, we've met with him on one occasion and we shared with him what our vision was for the game, and where we were going to go. He wasn't choosing to participate in the project, and isn't choosing to participate in the project, but he did invite us up to the Coppola winery where he has his own private library, which he opens to the public.

He's got a lot of materials from the original Godfather production, and all three of the Godfather productions - so a lot of sketch designs for the sets, for the costumes, a lot of notes that he's taken in the original screenplay as well as in the book, as well as some original ideas that he wanted in and cross-outs that he wanted out. I think he invited us up there to take a look around, and we sent like four or five people for a week - so maybe we overstayed our welcome! But it was such a rich experience to go up there and see it, that it was well worth the time.

Eurogamer: Do you think that the current gaming demographic are aware of The Godfather? Will they have sat through the whole three hours?

David De Martini: You know, the interesting thing is - it almost doesn't matter. Strange answer, but I'll tell you why - they'll have heard of it. This became very clear to us, because we do a lot of tours where we go out and listen to the media and to focus groups - we call them "listen and learn" tours with the media, with regards to trends and things like that.

So I did one, and I was in the Scandinavian countries, and we had like fifteen or eighteen journalists - they're a little bit younger there, so some were seventeen and eighteen years old. We were talking about gaming trends and stuff like that, and they were saying 'well, you know, GoldenEye on N64 was one of the greatest games ever'. I kind of pressed them on it, and I asked how many of them had an N64. No hands go up. 'So how many of you have really played GoldenEye on N64?' Half of them raise their hands, and the other half meekly keep their hands down.

It doesn't matter if they experienced it themselves, when something has a reputation like this. I think The Godfather is another one of those properties where it'll be better if they experience it themselves, but if the first time they experience it is with the videogame, knowing that it's a property to be reckoned with, that'll be good fun.

Eurogamer: So you think people will discover the universe through the videogames?

David De Martini: And then I think they'll be going back to the film, and saying 'oh, that was really cool as a videogame, I gotta go check out what these stories are about' - because there are very few people who haven't seen any scenes from the Godfather. I mean, typically it's on US television so frequently that you catch glimpses of it, and you kind of get immediately mesmerised by it - but it's a longer experience, it's two hours and 45 minutes of film. You kinda have to buy a big bag of popcorn and buy into it, and say "I'm going to sit through this whole film."

They're memorable films though, and you kind of look at that and say, there are about five or six sequences that I can see how they would easily translate into gaming - but how do you do it for 20 hours in a videogame? I think that's part of the reason that Paramount allowed us to move forward with our project, and part of the reason why we moved to the central concept that you create yourself as a person within this world, and then you cut your own path.

So what we're doing is we're not so much delivering The Godfather The Movie as a game, we're delivering The Godfather universe, and we're allowing you to play in that sandbox.

Eurogamer: Releasing an M-Rated game is a bit of a departure for EA as a whole - is that indicative of a change in thinking within the company about mature products in general?

David De Martini: I think it's an opportunity that arose, and hopefully it'll be too good to miss. The game is obviously not rated yet, but it deals with mature subject matter - the movies were rated R in the USA and whatever that translates to in the UK, 18 Plus or whatever. The interesting thing about the films, though, is that they're not violent all the time. It's not Scarface. When they're violent, they're very violent - I mean not gross violent, I mean just kind of.... You know, the knife going into Luca's hand, every time I see it I just go 'oh, god!' It still hurts! And, you know, the whole choking and stuff like that...

But their world wasn't just about violence, and I think we're going to be true to that story, in that you need to be a balanced player to move most optimally through our gaming experience. It wasn't the Sonny path that got him anything but killed. Tom's path was too slow and he never moved up the family ranks. It's that balanced path that is the ideal way to move through the family - and much like in that era, 1945 to 55, if it was bad for business, the family and the other families were very much against it.

So, for the most part I don't think that these people were so tremendously moral that they were trying to make 'I'll kill you or not kill you' kind of decisions by saying 'well, I don't think I'll do that' - if killing you is bad for business, then it wasn't done. If keeping you alive and bleeding money out of you for a period of time was good for business, then that's the path that was taken.

The game will follow that path of, quote unquote, morality. If you're being gratuitously violent against innocent people, your own family and the other families will turn against you way before the police systems do.

Eurogamer: The Godfather is very much about the family aspects, as a film - from an emotional side as much as anything else. How have you brought that into the game?

David De Martini: It's one of our core creative centres for the product, trying to create an emotional experience that matches that of the film. Now, I mean, of all the goals, that's an incredibly lofty goal. We're talking about videogames. But between that goal, and living world - and I'm not talking about what many people who have sat in my chair and said 'oh, we're going to create a living world here, it'll be life as we know it!' meant... I'm not even going to begin to go down that path and say that we're going to do that.

But we're going to make more strides and focus more attention on creating a living world - a world where you feel the consequences of your decision, so before you just press the button and pull the trigger, you have to think about whether there are ramifications to pulling this trigger. Are there going to be consequences to me pulling this trigger?

And then also, the other big thing that's frequently missing is that these worlds have no memory. We all have a memory, unless we got hit in the head and have amnesia, and it's just frustrating as a game creator that you walk down the street, you might beat up a character, you walk two feet that way, come back this way and here that same character comes walking right towards you again. There's no living to that world - that kind of stuff can't happen.

I'm not saying we won't have our own flaws with regards to our direction down that path, but we're going to move farther down the path than anybody else has.

Eurogamer: Have you actually taken the step of modelling New York of that era for the game environments?

David De Martini: Not the entire geographic space, but we've accurately modelled the space that we're intending to put within the game space. We've got kind of a scaled version of New York - there are fewer blocks. The game is not so much about gross amounts of territory, where we're trying to create miles and miles and miles of territory.

Our ratio is probably 10 to 20 per cent driving, to 80 to 90 per cent on foot, and we're trying to create a world that's so interesting that I'd rather walk through it than drive through it quickly. That's one of our core tenets.

We're focusing the gameplay objectives more on that kind of moment-to-moment on-foot gameplay than on a whole bunch of stealing of cars and driving around. Few people know that in that era, 1945, there was still gas rationing that was going on - and a lot of the reason why there wasn't so much traffic in the streets is because you were on the tail end of World War II, and there still wasn't gasoline readily available to everybody. There was still an element of rationing, and gas was a commodity that was disseminated - effectively stolen, and kept on the family compounds.

Eurogamer: The key concept, then, is about gaining power and money; is there a financial element?

David De Martini: Respect, I'd say. Respect, monetary currency, and then also gaining physical territory on the map. The core premise is that you create yourself as an Italian American in 1945; you go out into your territory, you earn respect based on your day-to-day interaction with the characters within your game space. You add to the family's wealth, you add to the family's territory which they control, and then you move through the ranks of the family until you ultimately become the Godfather.

The ultimate aim for the hardest core gamer is... I think the term is 'tutti de tutti cappi', which is the Godfather of all Godfathers. There were five families in New York outside of the Corleone family, and the ultimate gaming objective is to take over the entire map - all the businesses, all the other family compounds - until you become the Godfather of all Godfathers.

The shorter term objective for fans of the fiction or the more casual gamer would be to become the Godfather of their own family, to become the Godfather of the Corleone family.

Eurogamer: Are the other families the only rivals you face in the game, or are there other criminal and law enforcement elements?

David De Martini: No other criminal elements, although they existed at the time - there was a small Chinese mafia, as well as Irish mafia. Phil is the expert on this...

Philip Campbell: We have all the families, we have all the stars, we have the actors signed - dead or alive - for those roles. We have all the traders, we have all the key players on the enemy side. Then we have thugs - there's a lot of street crime, that sort of stuff.

We don't necessarily go into all the different ethnic groups - we're not making Gangs of New York, this is a different phase. We're concentrating mostly on the Italian experience - Italian neighbourhoods, the ebb and flow of taking over Italian neighbourhoods like Little Italy.

David De Martini: But then, also there were other levels of corruption. You had the police, you had the FBI, you had the judicial branch... And that era was kind of a free floating era, and a lot of times people were kind of enterprising, and whether it was the police that were out for themselves or the gangsters.... I think there are a couple of memorable quotes along the lines of, 'I don't know who the crooks are, the police or the mafia'. I think they had their own objectives.

Philip Campbell: We didn't want the police to just be this generic force that just went to five stars, you know. It's not that kind of game. We wanted them to have a personality, want to have them crack down - like when Michael left for Sicily, and the police chief was killed, we wanted to make sure that the police cracked down.

So you'll find that they just raid through an area - you'll get some warning, you'll hear rumours on the street, but they're just as living as everything else. To us, living world is not just the buildings and the change in the buildings, it's the people.

You can read more about The Godfather in our first impressions and our interview with the game's creative team. You can also find new screenshots and trailers elsewhere on the website today.

¶ 5:30 PM //

Five years after the events from the award winning Knights of the Old Republic, the Sith Lords have hunted the Jedi to the edge of extinction and are on the verge of crushing the Old Republic. The Republic no longer has the strength to protect its worlds. Sith Assassins are hunting the one they believe to be the last of the Jedi, the one who holds the fate of the galaxy - you. Yes, you are the last known Jedi left and it is up to you to decide a future for yourself and the Jedi order. Bringing a new chapter to the Star Wars series, this sequel to the blockbuster RPG again delves into the saga's founding lore that was explored in the original.

If you've played KOTOR (and you really should!), then this KOTOR2 offers much of the same in terms of gameplay, plus a little more. /Ed.note - If you haven't played the original won't necessarily feel lost here but the new story does build on events and characters from the previous game/. You will still be selecting gender and class, and you will have the option to assign all your attribute/skill points and select your feats, or you can use recommended numbers. Since you start out as a Jedi, you will have different class selections at the beginning of the game, but you won't even need to select Force powers, because you earn your early powers through play. The skills system is also much improved, whereas there was really no need to develop a range of skills in KOTOR, the player is now rewarded for developing skills in that they open new dialogue options in conversation with.

There are several new planets in the game - Peragus Station (A mining faculty), Telos (Carth's homeworld), Nar Shadda (Once was a place of luxury but turns into a criminal haven), Korriban (Sith home world), Onderon/Dxun (Jungle like planet), Dantoine (Remains of the Jedi academy) ,some of them were seen or mentioned in the original game. In addition to the quests that are pertinent to the story line, there are still numerous side quests on each world to keep you occupied and gaining experience.

And what is a Star Wars game without Force Powers? All of the powers that fans of the original loved (and used extensively) are still there. Some new powers have been added as well, mostly on the Dark Side. New powers include the malevolent Force Crush, a crueler version of Force Choke that lifts an enemy off the ground as it painfully crushes and contorts his body. Force Scream damages and stuns all enemies in a radius around you, and Force Sight shows you another character's Force alignment and allows you to see through walls. The abilities are class-specific, although you have the freedom to assign the points in whatever way you want. The constraint is that abilities foreign to your character's class "cost" double.

Like its predecessor, The Sith Lords uses a mix of real-time and turn-based combat. Basically, the combat will play out in real-time, but you can pause ([space] key) at any time to give orders to your party members about what they should do next. Although you start the game as a Jedi, it's a while before you receive a lightsaber. They are somewhat scarce in the game, probably because they can be made very powerful indeed. As with the original KOTOR, double-bladed lightsabers work as double weapons and are similar to fighting with a weapon in each hand. Therefore, the double-bladed lightsaber is most effective if you have few, but very powerful lightsaber upgrades because it makes the most of them. You can learn up to several Jedi Lightsaber Forms. These are fighting techniques whose effectiveness depends upon the tactical situation. Each form shines in certain conditions, but also has weaknesses. Learning the characteristics of the Lightsaber Forms, and switching between them as the combat situation changes, can allow a Jedi to prevail in what would otherwise be a fatal encounter.

In spite of how great the game is, there are many, many bugs. Sadly, they do affect your enjoyment of a game. I never had the problems with movement and combat A.I. in the first KOTOR that I had with this one. It's the same engine, and it reuses a lot of the same material. How could this have gotten screwed up? Heh, hard to say. Ask developers. I hope they will fix all these bugs as soon as possible.

Despite some unsightly bugs, if you're an RPG or Star Wars fan, you should not miss out on this game. The role playing and combat are just plain fun. And there is almost limitless replay value for playing the different alignments. So, if you are excited in going through another KOTOR adventure, you will be very pleased.

related links: homepage, walktrough, cheats, trainer +7

System requirements:
Minimum: Pentium III or Athlon class 1 GHz or faster CPU, 256MB RAM, at least 32MB OpenGL 1.4 compatible AGP or PCX 3D Graphics card with Hardware T&L, DirectX 9.0c compatible Audio Device, 4x Speed CD-ROM drive
Recommended: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP class 1.6 GHz or faster CPU, 512MB RAM, 128MB 3D Graphics card with Hardware Vertex and Pixel Shader (VS/PS) Capability, DirectX 9.0c compatible Audio Device, 16x Speed CD-ROM drive
* Gamepads and joysticks are not supported

¶ 5:28 PM //

This is no ordinary game launch.

For a start, we're in a bar in New York's Little Italy district. That's pretty different, in itself, but it's not what makes this unique. What's unique is that James Caan and Robert Duvall are chatting about videogames on a small stage about four feet in front of me. I could, in fact, shuffle forward, reach out, and tap Colonel Kilgore himself on the leg, although cosy atmosphere notwithstanding, I'm sure that security would materialise out of nowhere to drag me away should I attempt such a thing.

Nonetheless, it's an unusual spectacle; one compounded by the somewhat reverential silence a few moments earlier when a short recording of the late, great Marlon Brando was played. He was talking about videogames too; about how in games, "the audience is doing the acting". Brando, Duvall and Caan? All talking about games? Yes, this is definitely out of the ordinary.

The reason we're all here is because Hollywood - Paramount Pictures, to be precise - has decided to open the locked box which contains one of its most precious possessions. Electronic Arts describes it as "an opportunity"; many suspect that the games industry's own corporate equivalent of the Corleone family opened their pocketbooks and made the film company an offer they couldn't refuse, but either way, Francis Ford Coppola's classic movie trilogy The Godfather is on its way to videogames platforms.

In general, making a movie-licensed game is a relatively straightforward task. It comes with its own special pitfalls, of course, but the source material is laid out for you, art assets and actors are available and, best of all, you have a ready-made market in terms of fans of the film. Only very rare movie titles - The Chronicles of Riddick springs to mind - break out past formulaic retellings of the events of the film. Production values are higher, but the overall thinking hasn't changed that much since the days when Ocean seemed to be pumping out six Arnie or Sly movie tie-ins a week.

The Godfather is different. It has to be different, for so many reasons. For a start, it's thirty years old. Some of the actors are dead, others are older, many are far more famous and in demand than they were at the time that the movie appeared. None of them are under contract any more, of course. Videogames barely even existed when The Godfather first appeared. Consoles had yet to be imagined; home PCs were the territory of science fiction.

That's why it's amazing to see James Caan and Robert Duvall on stage in New York, and Marlon Brando's disembodied voice revealing a surprising understanding of the videogames medium as it echoes around the room in Little Italy. Sonny, Tom and Vito himself have all come back to record new material for The Godfather for the first time in three decades, fleshing out storylines which Coppola considered but ultimately dropped, adding a new backstory and new perspectives to one of the most loved cinema classics of all time. Before even considering how the game itself turns out, that's an astonishing prospect. You can understand Riddick being able to flesh out the backstory of the film, since it was created in close collaboration with the film's creators and alongside the Hollywood production. Returning to The Godfather and being able to do the same thing is incredible, even if it's an immensely daunting creative challenge.

It's a challenge that had to be overcome, though, and it's reassuring to note that EA seems to understand that - understand why The Godfather is so tricky. Put simply, it's not a movie that translates easily into a videogame. It's light on action, heavy on dialogue and emotion. There is little gunplay or driving, and a lot of manipulation and character development. Creating a third-person shoot 'em up based on the film would be a travesty; even building a 1950's Grand Theft Auto clone would be an outrageous abuse. To make The Godfather work as a game, you need to invent new ways of playing games - and to be brutally honest, I had major questions in my mind regarding EA's ability to do just that, and I doubt that I was the only film fan, game fan or even journalist who shuddered a little at the worst-case prospect of what the company might do to Mario Puzo's epic creation.

It would be dishonest to say that all of my misgivings have been dispelled. This isn't just a franchise that needs to be treated with kid gloves, it's one that needs an injection of pure genius to make it work in interactive form - and the few scant minutes of in-game footage which I've seen, promising though they may have been, weren't enough to judge whether that genius has touched this game. However, perhaps even more than seeing Caan, Duvall and Brando return to their roles, talking to the team at EA has shown that the developers understand what they need to do - and that they're determined to get it right.

You can read our extensive interviews with both the creative team and the project's executive producer on the site today. They talk about the need to create a world where there are consequences for your actions; a model of New York in the 1950s where people remember you and your deeds, where killing your adversaries isn't always the right decision - and sometimes it's drastically the wrong decision - and where respect and fear are more powerful currencies than bullets and fists, even if the two sometimes go hand in hand.

How that translates into an actual videogame is a little sketchier. I was shown footage of a number of encounters where your options ranged from intimidation to negotiation to outright physical violence, and even within that there were further options - dish out too little and you won't get what you want, dish out too much and you could end up killing someone, or frightening even a coward into fighting back. These encounters seem to form a fairly major part of the game, which sees you joining the Corleone family as a new recruit and gradually attempting to work your way to the top by extending your influence, respect and business across New York City.

What's not clear, though, is to what extent that progress is free-form - moving around the city, keeping businesses and lieutenants in line, expanding your territory and so on - and to what extent it's scripted. The game weaves and bobs in and around the Godfather storyline, so you'll interact with characters from the film and get to see - or even participate in - key events from the movie. Beyond that, a vast amount of new material has been created for the game, and the hints are that you'll be able to interact with much of it in a freeform, open ended way (with the possibility of even defeating the other families of New York and becoming the Godfather of the whole city, not just of the Corleone family), but just how that'll work hasn't yet been revealed.

What's certain is that in terms of atmosphere, the team at EA Redwood Shores have the right idea. Manhattan is just as you'd imagine it in the 1945-55 era; the streets are populated, steam rises from gratings in the roads, old black cars glide by occasionally as you walk down the pavements. In the background, Nino Rota's classic score trills. Envisaging walking down that street with the respect of the Corleone name on my shoulders isn't difficult, and frankly, I want to believe. Even if my lingering doubts about the difficulty of turning The Godfather into a game haven't been entirely assuaged, the team have done enough to make me hope fervently that the game we see towards the end of this year lives up to this promise.

Back in that bar in Little Italy, we're getting some insight into why it's EA that's got The Godfather in its hands, rather than any other company in the industry. Caan and Duvall have just been asked why they decided to work on the game, given how busy they must both be. While Caan answers more reasonably, Duvall, with an impish grin, reaches his hand out and rubs his fingers together in the globally recognised sign for "lots of money". The audience laughs; on stage with the acting legends, EA corporate communications boss Jeff Brown laughs with them. Having deep pockets has lots of advantages, and sometimes one of those advantages is being able to afford to do things right.

¶ 5:27 PM //

EuroGamer has posted its impressions of The Godfather game, based on a press "junket" at a bar in New York's Little Italy district. Here's a taster:

The Godfather is different. It has to be different, for so many reasons. For a start, it's thirty years old. Some of the actors are dead, others are older, many are far more famous and in demand than they were at the time that the movie appeared. None of them are under contract any more, of course. Videogames barely even existed when The Godfather first appeared. Consoles had yet to be imagined; home PCs were the territory of science fiction.

Eurogamer: Is the game, then, going to be much more action-focused than the film was?

Hunter Smith: We look at it, and think about it in terms of, whether you're talking to somebody or shooting or driving or just moving through the world, you're always feeling very fluid and action-oriented in your controller. However, you're conscious about the consequences and the effects of what you're doing in each one-on-one interaction, and how that's affecting your growing reputation through the course of the game, because your ultimate goal is to become a Don.

Philip Campbell: People are going to step into this, I think, with the same preconceptions - you know, they're going to go in with their guns blazing. We call it the Jimmy Cagney, 'Top of the World Ma!'. They're probably going to go out in flames, and then they'll start realising that often in our game it's going to be about not killing someone - until you've extracted the secrets that they hold. It's about getting them to break, getting them to give you what they have - because if you just kill them, you're not going to get anywhere. You can kill them at the end of that, you know - we're not putting any bar on that - but it's like juggling. It's dealing with people to earn their respect, or realising that you're never going to get that respect.

Hunter Smith: You know, if you think about most shooters, it's about shooting that opponent before it shoots you - but there's no value you're getting out other than mowing them down and getting to the next set of NPCs to shoot at you. In our world, they're alive - they have roles and they do things. So you're trying to control this world, control this territory, have the businesses out there running money in to you. You want them to stay alive - you want to get power and figure out how you can take over more of the world than the opposing families.

¶ 5:26 PM //

Lost in the desert and dying of thirst, the Bone cousins are separated by an angry swarm of locusts. Now Fone Bone, armed only with a mysterious map and his well-loved copy of Moby Dick, searches a strange valley to try and find his lost relatives. Along the way he will come face to face with its unusual denizens and begin to be drawn into the greater intrigues that surround the valley.

Telltale Games brings you all the humor, charm and mystery of Jeff Smith's acclaimed comic book series Bone. Fans of the comic and adventure gamers alike will find a new home in the valley, as they explore familiar locations and interact with its residents in this character driven adventure.

¶ 5:25 PM //

Computer Games Magazine has posted an interview (in unusual article format) with id Software's Matt Hooper and Marty Stratton talking about Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, the upcoming expansion pack to 2004's first person shooter. Here's an excerpt:

Hooper says that, in terms of gameplay, Resurrection of Evil is perhaps a little more intense than its predecessor, which had equal amounts of action, and slow but scary horror themes. Part of the reason for this is that the expansion will be much shorter. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't a lot to do and see. Fans of Doom II will be happy to note the return of the powerful double barrel shotgun. In fact, Hooper tells us that you find the weapon while checking out the office of Sarge, one of the more memorable characters in Doom 3. Another new item is the grabber, which makes better use of the physics system. While this item may sound similar to Half-Life 2's gravity gun, the grabber will be able to do some different things, including deflecting projectiles like rockets. It will even be able to throw around some of the smaller creatures.

¶ 5:25 PM //

¶ 5:21 PM //

THE LINK(s): http://esports.ampednews.com/?page=downloads&id=3482 Patch

1. The 'Rapid-fire 203 round' exploit
2. The 'CPU Speed' exploit
3. The 'Name Change' exploit
4. The 'HONOR Hack'
5. The 'Unofficial Honor Gaining Server' exploit
...and many more.

However, I was able to talk to a couple people who got the leaked version of this patch, and they were on a server with an infamous hacker. He was able to change his name with breeze, so it seems that the exploit is not, in fact fixed. Either that or it is a hack not an exploit.

- Woodland Outpost:

Enemy forces have established a remote woodland outpost
from which to launch reconnaissance patrols and
conduct ambushes. This guerrilla outpost rests in a valley
surrounded by rocky woodland terrain. The enemy command
tent is centrally located within the camp. A squad
from the 75th Ranger Regiment must perform reconnaissance
of the area in order to identify the location of the
guerrilla command tent. Once identified, they must then
assault the command post to prep and destroy the enemy
weapons depot.

- Urban Assault:

A coalition convoy was raided and the cargo was stolen.
It has been confirmed that the insurgents and the cargo
are based in a residential area of the city. Due to the
dense urban nature of the area it will be necessary to
do a house by house assault on foot. A squad from the
172nd Sep. Infantry BDE must conduct an assault to take
and hold objectives cargo ALPHA and BRAVO. Once
objectives are captured wait for arrival of friendly
reinforcements to transport cargo.

Some Screen shots of The New Maps:

Urban Assault

Woodland Outpost

Hopefully this next patch will end all the recent old school long time players from leaving. It has released a couple cool, old school type maps. So far, so good.

¶ 5:20 PM //

de_cpl_mill is not widely used as it should be. It is a fairly even map (a bit CT stacked) but still has the room for some nice strategies. There are some nice awping spots and places for people to show off their rifle skills. In this article I hope to show you some spots to camp, some nade tricks and where to look if rushing or stuck in a bad situation.

BOMBSITE 1 (BOMBSITE A)

The bombsites in this map are numbered, so if I refer to something as Bombsite A, I mean 1, and Bombsite B is 2. This picture is an overview of Bombsite 1. Notice the array of boxes in this bombsite. Boosts onto these boxes can catch the rushing terrorists off guard. Also, if you play 2 people in this site, you can have 1 boosted onto a box and one on the ground. When the T's are all looking up to get the boosted CT, the one on the ground can easily peek out and should be able to pick up a few kills.

Leading into Bombsite 1 is Storage Area 1. When the terrorists are delaying you can usually find them in one of the storage areas. I would highly recommend NOT rushing this as a CT, as it is basically suicide.

To get from Storage Area 1 to Bombsite 1, you have 2 options. The first is commonly referred to as "Kitty" which can be easily justified by the screenshots.

The other entrance can be from middle. Now, most teams probably wont like sending 5 kitty, and will try a split. Sewers is tricky getting out of and I havent seen many people use it, they mainly go for middle. A split can be lethal but beware: middle is AWP heaven. I would also recommend smoking the top of middle to prevent awpers and rotaters from getting you quickly. This requires a bit of practice to accomodate for the ramp.

This is a really cool spam spot. If spammed properly, you can hit people waiting in Storage Area 1.
Editor's Note (Josh 'inshead' Stringer): I would not recommend peforming this spam many times, if at all. It has many weaknesses such as making noise, telling the T's where you are exactly. This would also let your defense down if any T got by and into "kitty".

BOMBSITE 2 (BOMBSIE B)

Bombsite 2 is pretty hard to take as Terrorists. However, once you have control of it, it's pretty easy to keep control of. It also has many boxes and the site will need to be cleared. Again, you'll start in Storage Area 2. Storage Area 2, along with Storage Area 1, has easy access to middle if you'd like to rotate over to the other site. But as I said, crossing middle is quite hard without a few smokes down.

When you are entering Bombsite 2, there are a few places to watch out for. You can almost always expect a person to be sitting right beside the ladder, or on the other side of the catwalk.
Editor's Note: This is generally where a teams AWPer will be placed with a rotater in mid. If you are able to pick this player off, you will be very well on your way to taking over Bombsite 2, as long as you watch for rotations for Bombsite 1.

Sometime you will see people sitting through this fence here. Bullets go through easily, but nades have to be thrown perfectly so that they go through the open space. I would always leave 1 person here as he can take out, or atleast hurt a few of the rotaters from A.

This is site 2. The long alleyway would be a good place for an awper if he wishes to catch a few of the rotaters. One thing I like doing in a 1v1 is finding the right spot to plant, then going into the sewers from squeaky. Once I hear the CT to start defusing I spam through the door, and if I get lucky enough I can kill they guy! =)

As you can see, the sewers lead to each bombsite. My team doesnt use them that much, but when we do, we usually use them as a flank or a distract. DO NOT send your whole team down here or you will easily lose the round. If anyone wants an example of this (demo) just ask me and I'll show you.

¶ 5:19 PM //

The role-playing genre is tough to conquer. It's so easy to take the simple, turn-based or real-time formula and screw it up. If they play too slowly, real-time RPGs run the risk of boring the player. If the gameplay is too quick, they could be labeled as a generic hack-n-slash with RPG elements.

It is for those reasons that most console RPGs fail to captivate an audience outside of the most hardcore players. It is also for those reasons that I, a once diehard RPG player, have lost interest in the genre over the past three years.

In the midst of all the repetition and disappointment is a game that provides neither. It's a game that proves you can take well-known license and create a game that people will actually love. And it has restored my interest in a genre that was beginning to be consumed by a few great developers - Namco, Working Designs and Nippon Ichi – while everyone else turned to other genres (on the consoles, the PC market is a whole other story).

What is this marvelous game I speak of? X-Men Legends. Even more surprising: I'm talking about the N-Gage version.

Played from the classic, isometric view, X-Men Legends should be a breath of fresh air for most console players. While some of the elements have been found in PC RPGs for years, most of what X-Men Legends has to offer is new (or at least newer) to the console market.

Battles are fought in real-time, giving the player the kind of freedom that's found in an action/RPG. There are turn-based elements though. Menu selection plays a big part of the game. Everything from health and energy items ("energy" constitutes your mutant powers) to special attacks and character selection is done through a menu. The game freezes when you open one of the menus, all of which look like this:

By pressing up, down, left or right, the desired option will be selected. This might seem tedious at first. Certainly it's not something you're used to doing if turn-based RPGs take up the majority of your time. But it will become easier over time, and eventually feels like a natural, seamless motion. You'll start to wish that other action-oriented RPGs used this setup.

The gameplay is a tad slower than an action/RPG, but it's still pretty quick. I'm tempted to call it a cross between the Genesis version of X-Men that Sega designed and the classic (but long forgotten) Final Fight series. You'll use your fists to beat up bad guys most of the time, but when your energy is full it can be used to unleash a powerful mutant attack. X-Men can have up to four of these attacks, each of which must be selected from the abilities menu before it can be used. Only one can be selected at a time, but you can change them very quickly.

Wolverine can slash his foes multiple times. Iceman can dish out a burst of ice. Cyclops opens his deadly eyes to unleash a blast his enemies won't soon forget. Those are just a few of the abilities that are at your disposal.

As you can tell by the screens, this game lets you control more than just a few of your favorite X-Men. Several of 'em haven't even appeared in the movie yet! X-Men Legends has no connection to the films, though I still can't help but think of the movies whenever I play an X-Men game. It's a shame we may never see X3…

Four X-Men are able to battle simultaneously, but since you only have two hands (and one brain), only one can be controlled by you. The rest must be controlled by the computer, which at times is excellent at keeping them safe. At times the computer-controlled mutants will save your life. Other times they'll make it worse. If a comrade falls unconscious, you can't switch to him/her and take control. They can only be controlled while conscious. It's vital that all your teammates are functional at all times. This is one of the greatest strategic elements of the game. I'd want to keep my teammates alive just so I could get equal game time with each X-Men, but in Legends, you really have to utilize each one's strengths.

Musically and graphically X-Men Legends is surprising, but not shocking. I was surprised and extremely pleased that the developers were able to make the game play so closely to the console versions. Most of the characters look like detailed, fully-rendered sprites (as opposed to 3D models loaded with polygons), but the game is still pretty darn good looking. You're not going to be too amazed if you've played Mario 64 DS or any imports for the PSP. But considering that N-Gage was the first out the door, and considering how long ago it made its debut, X-Men Legends deserves no visual complaints.

¶ 4:22 PM //

The Adventure Company is known for releasing “adventure” games (hence the name The Adventure Company). What I’m referring to are point-and-click style games similar to the ultra popular Myst series. The goal in most of the games released by The Adventure Company is to figure out the mystery involved in the game by solving a series of puzzles in the game. The interface in the games is similar to each other; you simply point and click on an item or person to interact with them. The newest title, The Moment of Silence, looks to continue the tradition of challenging and engaging adventure games released by The Adventure Company.

The Moment of Silence revolves around Peter Wright, an advertising executive working on a government campaign for the Freedom of Speech. One sleepless night Peter witnesses SWAT teams storm into his neighbor’s apartment and take the husband of the family captive. It’s up to Peter (you/the player) to find out why the SWAT team took the man and what other mysteries surround his capture. The preview copy of the game had me talking to the wife and son of the captured man to find out why he was taken away. The wife doesn’t understand why he was arrested and Peter comforts the wife by reassuring her that he will find out what happened to her husband. The son is just as confused and doesn’t understand why anyone would want to hurt his father.

The plot thickens when I called the police department to find out what happened. The police have no records of any activity in the area and claim the last incident they have on file for Peter’s address was some time ago. So why was the man arrested/captured? What could he have done that been so dangerous or upsetting? Why doesn’t the police have any records of the incident happening, especially when the SWAT team damaged the door during the arrest? Why did it have to happen to Peter, what type of connection does he have to all of these events?

In case you couldn’t tell, all of these questions are why the game is called an adventure game. The controls of this game were very easy to pick up and play, since the game is controlled with a user-friendly point and click system. The same layout of previous point-and-click games is used in The Moment of Silence. During the game all I had to do was move the mouse around the screen until the cursor changed, which indicated that I was able to interact with the item. The interaction would usually be specific to the event, item or character you’re dealing with. For example, when I moved the move to a person I could then click on the person to speak with them. When I moved the mouse to an item I could click on the item to either exam it or pick up the item. If I were able to keep an item my inventory would automatically include the item. Simply moving the mouse cursor near the bottom of the screen would access the inventory screen. Anyone that has played Myst, or at least has some comfort using a mouse, shouldn’t have a problem playing this game.

The graphics in the preview copy were commendable. The detail of the buildings and surrounding were well done with some nice attention to detail. I noticed some reflections of the characters and other objects on the ground and on some of the walls. The character models were adequate but didn’t have the same polish and detail as the rest of the graphics. The voice acting in the game was decent as well but left me a little puzzled. The game is set in New York City in 2044, but it seems some of the characters have a British accent. The voice acting of the main character Peter worked well and wasn’t over the top. The dialogue in the game was well written with only a few repetitive statements (which were usually triggered by a mistake I would make). The one area with the voice acting and the graphics that could use some work was the lip-synching. The lip movements of the characters in the game never seemed to match what the actors were delivering.

It seems that The Moment of Silence is shaping up to be a solid title when it’s released later this month. The interesting story line, good graphics and easy controls are more than enough to please fans of the point-and-click genre. However, the point-and-click genre is not for everyone because some people feel as if they’re removed from the game. In fact, during parts of the game I was unable to move Peter to different areas for no particular reason except that the area wasn’t part of the game. These “blocked off” areas were clearly visible but still off limits during the game. But this is something that point-and-click adventure fans can surely overlook since the mystery and adventures are what keep them coming back.

¶ 4:20 PM //