I’m back in Los Angeles after a week of the World Cyber Games doing video production for GGL Wire, and still find myself marveling at the event. You may be surprised at what I’m really marveling at, though.
I’m speaking, of course, about the massive amount of disputing, cheating, exploiting and general all-around bitchiness during the WCG 2007 competition. If this was the Olympics of e-Sports, a few of the players and teams would have been stripped of their medals already and disqualified from further competitions. Want me to break it down? Let’s start with StarCraft.
Stork
He might be getting paid big bucks to perform Dark Templar rushes at 300 actions per minute, but Song “Stork” Byung Goo proved he’s no different than a pro boxer paid to take a fall when it comes to the World Cyber Games.
In StarCraft Group F, Korean team member Stork faced off against IP.EX (Russia), Ra (Ukraine), Thuoclao (Vietnam) and Fire (Italy). Those in the know picked Stork to advance in first place easily, but he had a different agenda. Read more »
Command & Conquer 3 community manager Apoc sent us a little message about a new show called Command School, designed to teach players the ins and outs of C&C3.
World Cyber Games 2007 attendees like gold medalist Apollooo, Xeon (silver) and Dackel (bronze) need not apply, but newbies like me (I run the “two harvester and get owned” strat) should benefit.
Check the C&C TV site Thursday for the scoop. Additionally, Apoc mentioned that patch 1.09, including some major balance changes, should be released next week. Of course, it’ll only be out when it’s done, so don’t hold your breath.
ClanBase’s DuRuS sends word of this important announcement.
It’s 6 o’clock in ClanBase offices and all is tense, waiting for the final message; the one we have all been waiting for. The ET:QW signups finished, but that didn’t concern us. We know there is going to be something special. But will it come?
We hear the chime of an email, we switch to Outlook and the sender “Activision” stares out at us. Like a child at Christmas, we frantically view the message.
It has come!
Read more »
“We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” says Gregg Barbour, youth minister of Colorado Community Church in Denver, as quoted in the New York Times. Barbour is one of a number of Christians using Halo 3 to lure teenagers into church.
From the article:
Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo. Read more »
Will you be able to handle Crysis and the hotness it will unleash upon your poor little gaming PC? See if your rig has what it takes to run this beautiful FPS:
Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP or Windows Vista
* Processor: 2.8 GHz or faster (XP) or 3.2 GHz or faster (Vista)
* Memory: 1.0 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
* Video Card: 256 MB
* Hard Drive: 12GB
* Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Real Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP / Vista
* Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
* Memory: 2.0 GB RAM
* GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or similar
Supported Processors: Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz for Vista) or faster, Intel Core 2.0 GHz (2.2 GHz for Vista) or faster, AMD Athlon 2800+ (3200+ for Vista) or faster.
Supported chipsets: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or greater. Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported. Integrated chipsets are not supported. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required.
E for All, aka “The New E3,” is next week here in Los Angeles. While the gaming world looks forward to seeing exaclty what the new show will be, here’s the list of Nintendo games you’ll be able to see at the show.
Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl will both be playable, with open tournaments for the latter.
The list: Read more »
New U.K. prime minster Gordon Brown is making noises about videogame legislation in his fourth month in office. He claims to oppose censorship, however.
At a press conference yesterday, Brown had a “message for game makers:”
Where there is pornographic or violent material any parent is going to be concerned about the impact… and any parent wants the reassurance that we are doing everything in our power. Read more »
In 2002, Gas Powered Games released Dungeon Siege, followed in 2005 by Dungeon Siege 2. The 3D fantasy RPGs, for PC and Mac, developed a loyal following and a devoted mod community.
Now the creators of Dungeon Siege are producing Space Siege, a sci-fi spin-off of their successful fantasy franchise. Read more »
More bad news for the CPL: the tournament organizer and main sponsor Sierra have canceled their Australian World Tour stop.
Tournament partner Supanova.au broke the disappointing news on its own forum, claiming that the cancellation was done without any consultation.
The cancellation of CPL Australia comes on the heels of the cancellation of CPL Brazil, suggesting that the World Tour is already in dire straits; CPL Italy was nearly deserted, and the promise of easy money wasn’t enough to get many players out for tournaments in World in Conflict and F.E.A.R Xbox 360.
Read: Supanova.au via: ESR
Epic head honcho Mark Rein announced via the Unreal Tournament 3 forums that the anticipated next step for the series will have a beta demo available for PC users as early as this week. From the post:
Folks,
Just wanted to give you a heads’ up that we’re getting pretty close to releasing the Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo for Windows. The Beta Demo will allow instant action play against bots as well as online multiplayer. The purpose of the Beta Demo is to test the game on a large variety of hardware configurations and get gameplay feedback from the community. The development team feels they’re pretty close to being ready to release this so it could come out this week but for safety sake I’d say it should be out within two weeks.
We have a few fan sites in tomorrow to play the full game and I’m sure they’ll be sharing their comments pretty soon afterward.
Stretching across the world, the 40GB has officially been announced as a retail option for Japan. The new console, which will retail for 10 percent less than its big brother, will launch on Nov. 11. The news:
Sony said on Tuesday it would lower the price of the PS3 with a 20 gigabyte (GB) hard disk drive to 44,980 yen ($384) from 49,980 yen on October 17. It will also start selling its 60 GB model at 54,980 yen. Sony has not so far suggested a price for the 60 GB model, but it currently retails for around 60,000 yen. Besides the price cuts, Sony, which competes with Microsoft Corp and Nintendo in the videogame industry, plans to launch a new PS3 with a 40 GB hard drive at 39,980 yen in Japan on November 11.
Read more »
