One german store said: GTA IV PC version will released 30 november. Rockstar not confirmed it, but like previous with versions PC release was after 6-8 month after colsole version.
We wait PC version. PC GTA IV must contain better quality textures and maybe many fixed bugs…
editedMore news. One gamer from russian site: playground.ru sent email to Take2 get answer from..
Dear gamers from Russia.
We, developers from Rockstar North read your petition and understood, that we was wrong about PC-release. And didn’t avoided attention this version of game too much. Please sorry for that. GTA4 for PC will released at June 30.
With best regards, Rockstar North and Take 2 interactive.
Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon is currently in development by Kheops Studios and was - of course- inspired by the world of Bram Stoker and will be continuing the adventures gamers encountered during the other Dracula titles Resurrection and The Last Sanctuary. While Dracula 3 is considered a continuation of said series, this time instead of filling the shoes of Jonathan Harker, players will assume the role of the Catholic Priest Monsignor Arno Moriano.
As the “devil’s advocate”, Moriano is carrying out a canonization process, investigating in the interwar years a potential candidate for beatification in Transylvania. His investigation is quickly wrapped up as he finds that the strange stigmata on a woman’s corpse are not the hallmark of some divine power; in fact, the villagers see it as the “mark” of Count Dracula. The bishop decides to carry out his own investigation to determine once and for all whether the vampire truly exists.
You can expect Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon to be made available for the PC sometime this Spring.
Koch Media confirmed today that the game will be released in August. No exact date is given but for fans of Shadow of Chernobyl wanting to get their hands on the prequel can release a sigh of relief now that they have an actual window to base their lives upon. Be thankful that the release window of “sometime this year” has been narrowed down at least.
STALKER was remarkable in many ways, but it was far from the revolutionary freeform vision originally conjured for us. Now developer GSC is making a game a little closer to that original dream. Our second journey into the Chernobyl exclusion zone promises great things.
As a prequel, Clear Sky will include a storyline which explains a little more about Strelok’s past, and how he ended up in the back of that truck with a gaping hole in his memory. This time, however, you are in a somewhat different world. Blowouts from the reactor keep the Zone in flux, as project lead Anton Bolshakov explains: “The blowout in the story changed certain areas of the Zone, so the anomalous activity in certain areas faded, and increased in other areas. Paths to the known locations have disappeared, while others have opened up. Part of the old areas will be preserved, while there will also be new ones too. Right now Pripyat will not be part of Clear Sky, but we’ll see how things go.” While the exclusion of the abandoned city might be a disappointment for the STALKER hardcore who wanted to see it made explorable, the allure of new tracts of Zone and new weird dereliction to explore are powerful. The open-ended possibilities for poking about in old ruins was one of the most appealing aspects of STALKER, and Clear Sky will provide plenty more of that.
Indeed, as those who followed the STALKER story will recall, the game was always touted as being a little more freeform than the final release proved to be. Clear Sky, it seems, will be returning to the more open-ended inspirations. “Most of the features in Clear Sky were from the original concept that we were working on but were not included in STALKER,” says Bolshakov. “We picked some and we’re now integrating them into this new game. What we’re making is more complete and polished.”
Central to that is what GSC are doing with the various factions that inhabit the zone. While there were a large number of factions in the original game (Freedom, Duty, the military, the mercenaries, the scientists, the neutral STALKERs and the servants of the monolith) you were only really able to follow three paths: Neutrality, Freedom, or Duty. In Clear Sky you’ll be able to join up with seven different factions, work with them, fight them, and ultimately lead your chosen side to victory.
“It’s a global war of factions within the zone,” says Bolshakov. “Now each faction has a fully fledged main camp with a number of key characters in there, like a trader, a mechanic, a leader, a barman, and all of those perform specific roles.” Where the original game only had a couple of traders and mission-hub characters, you’ll now be able to pick up tasks all over the map, and work far more closely with the other STALKERs in the zone to perform them. “You’ll see STALKERs from a faction going on specific tasks, so you have an understanding of what is going on with a faction. Each faction has a specific rival and they fight for artifacts, territory, resources and so on. You can see the conflict develop in front of you. A faction in need of certain resources will go on missions for them. Factions go to grab artifacts if there is a rare one somewhere around. You can join a faction and lead them and they can benefit for your help. As opposed to the original, where NPCs were just moving around, the factions now have specific goals to accomplish. STALKERs within a faction go on smaller missions and you can join up and help them accomplish them.”
All this expands on one of the most significant elements of STALKER: A-Life, the system that enables dynamic events to take place within the Zone. Artificial intelligence routines govern the appearance and movement of groups of STALKERs, packs of dogs, mutants, and the various faction gangs. In A-Life governed areas, you’ll be seeing battles between the various factions, as well as random events taking place. A fight you have in one run through of the game might be completely different a second time because of the appearance of bandits, or because friendly STALKERs are passing through the area and were able to help out. Anyone who has played STALKER has saved, or been saved by, an AI character in the game world. This dynamic complexity will only become more varied and accomplished in Clear Sky.
“There’s more diverse behaviour with STALKERs in the game,” explained Bolshakov. “We’re expanding the concept of searching for artifacts and anomalies, just to name a few things.” Whereas in the original game the artifacts were little more than a saleable power-up system, they’re going to be providing motivation for your actions in Clear Sky. The concept of the Zone as an alien, anomalous place is coming to the forefront. As a result your interest in the artifacts, and the areas of weirdness that generate them, will be hugely increased.
The interest of other Zone parties in the artifacts will be increased too: they will be after the artifacts and will fight to keep them. In Clear Sky you’ll be facing a world with far more going on than ever before. With each of the seven factions vying for power you’ll find yourself caught up in the opposing missions of faction STALKERs, and helping to manipulate a game world which will never be the same from one moment to the next, from one gamer’s session to another. This could be a major step on the road towards an ideal of open-ended game world.
Of all the reasons to be excited about Clear Sky, one of the most significant is that, to a great extent, GSC are going it alone. While they have signed up Koch to publish the game upon its planned release this spring, and it’ll be sold via Steam online, it’s a far cry from THQ’s integral involvement in the original game’s completion. With this bold move, GSC could rapidly become one of the most important PC-focused studios in the world.
Whether these shiny, new gameplay elements make it into a STALKER sequel or not is hardly relevant. What matters is that an independent developer based in the former Soviet Union, with an office in a converted munitions factory and with a team whose childhoods were overshadowed by nuclear disaster, is one of the most imaginative and creatively ambitious video game developers in the world today. If GSC accomplish half of what they have dreamed, then their work will become legendary.
In this newest developers diary for Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the team behind the game talks about the most important thing to me with this game: the multiplayer and co-op modes. New changes to the gameplay include the ability to create a custom character and gain experience in the single-player campaign, friends can now jump into a game already in progress, and the host of the co-op game can control two AI partners. There are also a couple new multiplayer modes and a few changes to existing modes, along with the expected new maps and such. Sure, the gameplay looks almost exactly like the last game, but that’s definitely a good thing in my book.
The prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl titled S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be launching simultaneously in retail outlets and as a digital exclusive on Steam and you can expect this to happen, well, sometime this year possibly. Release dates have ranged from Q1 2008 to January 2, 2009 depending on the source - so check back with us as more information on the release is forthcoming.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky brings the players one year prior to the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011. A group of stalkers has, for the first time, reached the very heart of the Zone-Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant-and brings about a cataclysm. Through narratives and combat action, players uncover new challenges and insights in the Exclusion Zone, along with a new version of the game engine, X-Ray 1.5, which promises to deliver superior graphical details to the game along with realistic and non-scripted combat AI.
For more information on Steam, visit the official site.
After being in BETA for several years and without a publisher, Paradox Interactive have announced today that not only is Mount & Blade close to completion and scheduled for a worldwide release during Q2, 2008; but that they will be the publisher for TaleWorlds’ new third-person RPG. This single-player game focuses mainly on medieval combat with realistic horseback mechanics and sandbox gameplay. The latter enables players to roam the map freely in a medieval world that offers options ranging from hunting down bandits, trading for profit in the game’s economical system and becoming a commander and taking part in the wars ultimately becoming a great lord of the realm.
“We believe Mount & Blade could be a genre defining title and we are thrilled to be working with TaleWorlds Entertainment to bring the game to a worldwide audience, said Fredrik Wester, Executive Vice President of Paradox Interactive. “In BETA, the title has already garnered much deserved attention and excitement in the gaming community and this will be a release to look forward to.”
“Paradox Interactive has reached great success because they know their market and understand gamers, which is the main reason we chose to partner with them for this significant release, said Armagan Yavuz, Co- Founder and lead programmer of TaleWorlds Entertainment. “Our vision for Mount & Blade has been an ambitious one and now that we are so close to completion, we can’t wait to invite gamers into the world we have created”.
When playing Mount & Blade, you will venture through a world filled with enemies as well as friendly groups that will come to your aid or who are in need of yours. In a land torn by constant danger, raids and skirmishes, you will raise and lead your own war band, commanding dozens of soldiers. You will hunt down your enemies following the tracks they leave behind and you will fight epic battles where arrows, axes, and swords are the weapons of choice while horses and men clash into melee combat.
NPC groups in Mount & Blade are continuously active, journeying, looking for enemies and engaging in battles with each other, whether you are there to see them or not. It is, in a way, a very real world where events unfold and some quests are resolved through the world’s own dynamics. Battles are something that you need to play close attention to because a few powerful blows can take you down, and since there is no such thing as a “healing potion” you will have to stay alert at all times to parry or dodge each blow with your name on it.
For more information and some extra assets related to Mount & Blade for the PC, visit the official website.
Last week’s “Making of” video for Turok had the development team discussing how they first approached creating a brand new game for the franchise. This new video delves more into the details of the game, like story and the conceptual design. Apparently Turok is an outsider with his new squad and isn’t trusted by them initially, which might explain how he ends up doing a lot of solo missions throughout the game. The video also shows some of the initial concept designs that eventually became the game. Next week’s behind-the-scenes video is supposed to explore the AI in the game and the dinosaurs, which is really the main thing this game has going for it.
