Fallout: New Vegas PC Pre-Order Bonuses

Bethesda announced today that four different bonus packs will be available exclusively when pre-ordering Fallout: New Vegas PC from five different retailer

(Steam shares an offer with Wal-Mart). Each consist of exclusive in-game items (armor, weapons, etc) that will become available when the game is released this fall.

The Classic Pack, from GameStop:

* Armored Vault 13 Suit – Extensively patched up and dotted with piecemeal armor, this outfit is an homage to the classic ending of the original Fallout.

* Vault 13 Canteen – This handy device is useful for staving off dehydration and providing a small amount of healing in the Mojave Wasteland.

* Weathered 10mm Pistol – A well-worn 10mm pistol that packs an extra punch despite its modest size.

* 5 Stimpaks – Food and water are good for long-term healing, but when the fighting is fierce, Stimpaks help keep Wastelanders upright.

The Tribal Pack, from Amazon:

* Tribal Raiding Armor – Pieced together from scraps of armor, this outfit provides protection without impacting mobility.

* Broad Machete – This heavy-bladed melee weapon does high damage against limbs and can quickly deal out a flurry of attacks.

* 5 Bleak Venom doses – Useful on any Melee Weapon, Bleak Venom makes short of work of most living targets.

* 10 Throwing Spears – If you would like to silently pin an enemy’s head to a wall, Throwing Spears are the way to do it.

The Caravan Pack, from Steam or Wal-Mart:

* Lightweight Leather Armor – This hand-modified suit of leather armor reduces its overall weight without impacting its ability to protect.

* Sturdy Caravan Shotgun – Despite its rough appearance, this Caravan Shotgun will reliably fire 20 gauge shells until the Brahmin come home.

* 4 Repair Kits – Useful for repairing any outfit or weapon, Repair Kits are a valuable tool for any caravaner.

* Binoculars – The Mojave Wasteland is a dangerous place, but with these trusty Binoculars you’ll be able to spot trouble coming.

The Mercenary Pack, from Best Buy:

* Lightweight Metal Armor – Modified for long-range travel, this Metal Armor sacrifices some protection for mobility and overall weight.

* Mercenary’s Grenade Rifle – Though similar to other 40mm Grenade Rifles in the Mojave Wasteland, this model has a faster reload cycle.

* 3 Super Stimpaks – When you absolutely, positively, need to keep your blood inside your body, Super Stimpaks fix you up in no time.

* 3 Doctors Bags – Mercenaries and broken limbs go together like Iguana-on-a-Stick and Nuka Cola. Thankfully, these Doctors Bags take a bit of sting out of the inevitable crushed skull.

Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, Fallout: New Vegas is scheduled for release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this fall, with the PC edition using Steamworks DRM. An $80 Collector’s Edition is on offer, packing a variety of physical goodies.

Supreme Commander 2 ** Patch V1.10 **

Download: available at  Steam

New Features

– Ranked 1v1 System! (see below for a detailed explanation of this new system)
– Ranked Challenge System (see below for a detailed explanation of this new system)
– Unranked Quickmatch (see below for a detailed explanation of this new system)
– Map Pings – Added three different kinds of map pings for team play. F5 issues a generic alert to your teammate at a specific location, and it appears as a yellow arrow when zoomed in and a yellow animated ping indicator in strategic mode. F6 is a Move ping, and it uses a blue indicator. F7 is Attack ping, and it uses a red indicator. Color coded arrows will appear on each edge of the screen where your teammate has placed one of these for you to view
– Multi-player lobby ready-up checkboxes will now “uncheck” any time a host changes the settings
– Changes to multi-player lobby exclusions, game-type, etc. will show up in the multi-player lobby chat box when the host makes changes
– Voice icons display next to each player in the multi-player lobby allowing the user to mute individual players
– Menu version number: The game now displays a version number on the Main Menu. The versioning has been adjusted at this update to 1.10 to accommodate future updates
– AI now starts as a random faction

Fixes

– Cheating fix: Closed a loophole in the code that allowed some players to enable limited cheats
– Fixed rare crash if player gets kicked out of the lobby and submits chat text
– Fixed rare crash when player hits the enter key in the Skirmish menu
– Fixed replacing ready kicked player with AI causes the AI options to be locked
– Fixed inability to join DLC map games if you don’t have the pack as a client

Tuning and Balance

– UEF Assault Bot Research cost decreased from 4 to 3.
– Cybran Battleship Range reduced from 128 to 115.
– Cybran Destroyer Energy cost increased from 500 to 650.
– ACU Training bonus reduced to +25% per level.
– Soul Ripper II Anti-Air Damage reduced by 50%.
– King Kripter, Colossus and Cybranasaurus-Rex Health and Damage increased by 35%.
– Cybranasaurus-Rex Range increased from 22 to 32.
– Wilfindja Speed increased from 3.6 to 4.6.
– Gantry build time reduced from 120 to 100 seconds.
– Pulinsmash weapon range increased from 50 to 100.
– Darkenoid Health increased from 20,000 to 27,500.
– AC-1000 primary weapon damage blast radius increased from 1.5 to 3.
– Cybran Air Rate of Fire boost Research cost increased from 3 to 5.
– Bodaboom Health boost increased from +20% to +30%. Aura radius increased from 20 to 30. Added a +200% regeneration bonus.
– ACUs are now repaired 150% slower.
– Increasing ACU storage size to 15.
– UEF Submarine weapon range increased by 50%. Movement speed reduced from 6 to 5.25.
– Structure bubble shields now take twice as long to come back online.
– Anti-Air Tower damage increased by 25%.
– ACUs and Engineers now get a Sonar range equivalent to their Radar range.
– ACU/Escape Pod Experience value increased to 7500.
– Gantry Experience value decreased to 1250.
– UEF/Illuminate Mass Convertor Experience value increased to 750.
– UEF/Illuminate Mobile Anti-Air Experience value decreased to 100.
– Fighter/Bomber Experience value decreased to 250.
– Transport Experience value increased to 750.
– UEF Fighter & Bomber Experience value decreased to 200.
– UEF/Cybran Battleship Experience value increased to 1500.
– Cybran Destroyer Experience value increased to 750.
– UEF Submarine Experience value decreased to 150.
– King Kriptor, Universal Colossus, Cybranasaurus Rex and Pulinsmash Experience value reduced to 3000.
– Cybran Intel Add-on Vision radius is now correctly set to 75.
– Fixed an issue with Cybran tactical missiles that prevented them from hitting a target if it was really far away.
– Illuminate ACU Teleport time reduced from 10 to 6 seconds

Known Issues

Translation for the Ranked Games Interface in European languages will be in our next update

Aliens Vs Predator Patch #3

Rebelion has issued another large patch for Aliens Vs Predator, their most recent first person shooter. While there’s no new maps in this update it does have quite a few small features and bug fixes.

Via Steam

New Features:
* In multiplayer damage from the Predator Smart Disc has been reduced, unless it’s a headshot.
* In multiplayer minor hits from the Predator Plasma Caster bolts will no longer knock down enemies.
* When joining a dedicated server on which a round is in-progress you now have a limited time to choose your species/team and skin before entering the game, if the game mode and server settings allow this.

Bug Fixes:
– Fixed clients not always being correctly notified that the game had ended.
– Improvements to the networking code used in dedicated server games to increase stability and reduce pings.
– DX11 optimisation when using tessellation
– Fixed DX11 gamma controls on NVIDIA boards
– Return to the server browsing screen instead of top-level menu when you fail to join a server
– Fixed the lobby timer not always displaying correctly on clients.
– Improved ‘SayTeam’ console command
– Improvements to ranked matchmaking
– Fixed occasional problems with peer-to-peer games after playing on a dedicated server
– Fixed rare multiplayer bug where all players would be disconnected during level load if just one of them had a network problem during the load.
– Fixed a cause of clients sometimes getting disconnected when pressing ALT+TAB or ALT+ENTER on the end-game scoreboard.
– Fixed predators being able to cancel other players Plasma Caster Lock-on.

*Update* Supreme Commander 2 Patch#2

Download Available on via Steam

Bug Fixes and Improvements
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Private games have been replaced with Friends Only games. This means that you can mark a game as “Friends Only” and it will only be seen in your friends’ “Friends” tab

The game browser has two new filters: Show Passworded games, and Show All Regions (both off by default)

Added “Test Ping” to the Skirmish menu, which will simulate in game traffic volume (based on number of players) for 5 seconds. This will help players find problematic network connections before getting into a game

Color coding on pings in skirmish lobby. When a ping is greater than 400 it will be yellow, and when greater than 500 it will be red

Games list in the games browser can now be sorted on each column

Cybran and Illuminate air factory veterancy fix: factories now calculate veterancy rate correctly

Fix to ACU not firing after activating its reclaim beam, while issuing a move order

ACUs can now be attacked while under water

Air units are no longer damaged if they fly over an activated Magnetron
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Balance and Tuning

UEF P-Shield shield Health increased by 25%

Universal Colossus can now also be unlocked by researching the Urchinow

Overcharge cooldown increased to 35 seconds. Was 25

Transport build costs increased by 50%. Reduced Health to 4000. Was 4500

Darkenoid primary beam weapon Damage increased by 50%

Cybran Air Radar, Cybran Air Vision, Illuminate Land Vision, UEF Air Vision, UEF Land Radar, UEF Naval Radar and UEF Naval Sonar research all reduced by 1 Research Point

Illuminate ACU Radar boost increased to +175%. Was +100%

UEF ACU Radar and Vision boosts increased to +150%. Was +100%

UEF Fighter & Bomber shield Health decreased to 175. Was 200

Gunship Speed reduced to 6. Was 8. Shield Health decreased to 150. Was 600. Build Time increased to 27. Was 24

UEF ACU Artillery research cost increased to 6. Was 4. Damage Radius reduced to 5. Was 6

Cybran mobile artillery Movement Speed reduced to 2.8. Was 3.2

Cybran Carrier build cost reduction of 33% added

All factions’ ACU AA upgrade Damage increased by 25%

Airnomo cost decreased 10%. Health increased to 13,000. Was 10,000. AA damage increased 50%. Direct Fire damage decreased 50%

Cybran Battleship AA Damage reduced by 40%

Supreme Commander 2 PC Demo Now on *Steam*

Supreme Commander 2 single-player PC demo is now available to download through Steam!

The demo allows you to play two levels of the tutorial and two missions for the United Earth Federation, one of the game’s three factions. Here are the details on the two UEF missions:

Strike While Cold
* The Cybran invasion force is on the run. Sensors have picked up a number of operational Cybran Mass Extractors off the coast of the Weddell Strait.

Players will need to explore the islands in the strait and successfully destroy the extractors.
* Features: Naval Battle, Kraken Experimental.

Titans of Industry
* After refusing orders and refusing to surrender their Armored Command Unit, players are now public enemy #1 in the UEF.

Colonel Rodgers has targeted New Cathedral, a colony where the players’ wife and child reside – they will need to take the most direct route to defend the colony. Unfortunately, that means traveling through the ruins of the Boolon Industrial Complex.
* Features: Air and Land Battle, Fatboy 2 Experimental.

PC System Requirements

o OS: Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7
o Processor: 3.0 GHz or better, AMD or Intel CPU
o Memory: 1GB RAM (XP) 1.5GB RAM (Vista / Win 7)
o Graphics: 256 MB VRAM with Pixel Shader 3.0
o DirectX®: DirectX 9.0
o Hard Drive: 4-5 GB for full install & DirectX
o Sound: No accelerated sound hardware required
o Other requirements: Internet Connection with Cable / Broadband

o OS: Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7
o Processor: 2.6 GHz or better, Dual Core AMD or Intel CPU
o Memory: 2GB RAM (XP) 2GB RAM (Vista / Win 7)
o Graphics: 256 MB VRAM DX9 compliant with Pixel Shader 3.0
o DirectX®: DirectX 9.0
o Hard Drive: 4-5 GB for full install & DirectX
o Sound: No accelerated sound hardware required

Survey Says: 47% of PC Game Sales Are Digital

Semi-official survey of PC gamers’ buying habits. The result? RPS discovered  that, of the 2000 keyboard warriors interrogated, 93% have digitally purchased at least one PC game in the past 12 months, 71% bought more than four games digitally, and, through some flashy mathematics, that 47% of all PC purchases in 2008 were digital.

Full Story at Maximum PC

Holiday Sale at Steam Up to 75% Off!

Huge sale on every title going on right now at the Steam game store. Yes, everything is on sale. Savings range from 10% off of the regular price, up to 75% on some titles.

Through January 2, 2009, every game on Steam is available at 10% to 75% off the regular price. Select publisher catalogs such as Ubisoft, THQ, and 2K Games are 25% off. Award-winning titles such as Bioshock and Portal are available for 75% off the regular price.

Portal : $4.99, Bioshock : $4.99 (Reg.: $19.99), Fallout 3 : $39.99 (Reg.: $49.99), Left 4 Dead : $37.49 (Reg.: $49.99), Dawn of War – Everything Pack : $29.99. Remember, this sale is only from now until January 2, 2009.

Grand Theft Auto IV PC Release Full of Bugs

According to Steam‘s fuming masses, as well as gaming site Shacknews, GTA IV’s creepy crawlies are all over the place. Topping players’ lists of things not to be thankful for, however, are missing textures (apparently caused by corrupt graphics drivers) and the ever-popular crashing bug, which can potentially keep you from even loading the game at all.

Full Story At Maximum PC

Grand Theft Auto 4 PC Coming to Steam, Vice City Pre-order Bonus Announced

Valve has announced that the PC port of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 4 is now available for pre-order on the Steam digital distribution service.

Those who buy the game ahead of time on Steam will receive the full PC version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as a pre-order bonus.

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV hits stores December 2.

Left 4 Dead Review

The Guys and Girls at Wired have a very nice Review on the great Left 4Dead game