Ghost Recon Online beta key giveaway
The dictionary lists reconnaissance as a “a search made for useful military information in the field, especially by examining the ground,” a common pastime of ghosts, possibly, but not an advisable tactic in Ubisoft’s fierce free to play shooter, Ghost Recon Online. Staring at the floor will only get you dead.
GRO is a free to play, tactical, class-based team shooter with lots of levelling and some mad gadgets. You have to take points to earn XP and push back the enemy team, employing futuristic dome shields and microwave beams to draw enemies out of cover so you can snipe them in the head. Get a feel for the three classes in the recent Ghost Recon Online trailer and have a read of our Ghost Recon Online preview for a sense of what it’s like to play.
If you’d like to try it before it’s out, CVG have thousands of beta keys to give away. Head thataway for details on how to sign up for your chance to grab a slot. Good luck!
Max Payne 3 PC will have DirectX 11 support, new PC screenshots arrive
Tessellation is a fancy expression for a DirectX 11 technique that divides up the surfaces created by polygons, resulting in more rounded, detailed characters and craggier faces. If anyone needs a bit of facial Tesselation, it’s Max Payne. Luckily, he’ll be getting that much-needed beauty treatment in Max Payne 3. DSO gaming have spotted an interview on German site, PC Games Hardware in which Rockstar PR chief, Simon Ramsey, confirms that the PC version will come with DirectX 11 support.
Mass Effect 3 Operation Goliath multiplayer mission is over, three million Brutes brutalised
The weekend saw Mass Effect 3 multiplayer players embark on a mission to kill as many Reapers as possible. The hulking Turian/Krogan hybrid creatures, the Brutes, were the main targets, but last week Bioware also promised rewards to any team that successfully survived all Reaper waves and reached extraction on Silver difficulty and above.
A post on the Bioware blog says that players have emerged VICTORIOUS from a weekend of blasting Brutes and desperately backing away from the hideous Reaper Banshees shouting “nonononono.” “The community goal of killing one million brutes was beaten handily by participants,” say Bioware. “Through your combined efforts, over THREE MILLION brutes were destroyed!” Yaaay.
Firefall trailer shows world building and sweet vistas
Some games reward nosy players for their exploration with a pot of gold or a new sword, but a great view or an interesting place is so much more rewarding. That sensation of climbing up a gruelling mountain, coming over a ridge and seeing a gorgeous vista unfold before you is one of the things that games like Skyrim do so well. It looks as though Firefall is trying a similar trick. Mushroom rock is the perfect example of how to put a good view to good use.
Firefall will be free to play when it’s out, but the only way to strap on a jetpack right now is to sign up for a spot on the Firefall beta. For more on Firefall, check out Mark Kern’s impressive hologram powers in the last Firefall trailer, in which he also talks about Red 5′s plans for rolling out Firefall.
Resident Evil 6 marketplace listing teases six player co-op
A listing for Resident Evil 6 on the Xbox Marketplace popped up over the weekend. It’s since been removed, but Eurogamer spotted six player co-op as one of the listed features. Last week’s Resident Evil 6 debut trailer showed off three pairs of potential protagonists. A co-op mode that has all of them fighting together simultaneously could be bloody marvellous.
Do check out the Resident Evil 6 trailer, if you haven’t already. The opening scene shows lone defender of ’90s curtain haircuts and treasonous fiend Leon Kennedy shooting dead the President of the United States simply because he happened to be a zombie (they’re not zombies they’re “infected” – Zombie Ed). The madness ramps up from there. It’s set for November 20 on consoles, and an ambiguous “later” on PC. Here’s the debut trailer again in case you missed it.
Max Payne 3 trailer dives, dual wields, is quite well animated
Rockstar are pretty proud of their animation tech, to the extent that they’ve hired a man to talk about it extensively over videos of Max Payne 3. He was chatting about similar things over the last trailer for Max Payne 3 as well. Perhaps they’ve just replaced Payne’s internal monologue with an animation-obsessed new narrator. The Max Payne 3 release date was set for March, but it’s dived slowly backwards through a plate of glass out of sheer force of habit, and will now be arriving on May 29 in the US and June 1 everywhere else.
Max Payne 3 release date pushed back to May
Rockstar have announced that they’re pushing back the release date for Max Payne 3 from March to May 29 in the US and June 1 internationally. “We do not take changes to our release schedule lightly,” said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick in a statement. “This short delay will ensure that Max Payne 3 delivers the highest quality, groundbreaking entertainment experience that is expected from our Company.”
Maybe Take-Two are taking the time to polish Max Payne 3′s multiplayer mode, new territory for a series that’s so far been entirely obsessed with the life and times of its gurning protagonist. The third Max Payne looks like it’ll try to merge the shadowy film noir stylings of the first two games with the sun-baked slums of Brazil, and will be bringing some of Rockstar’s impressive animation technology to Max’s graceful dives. See some of that animation in action in this Max Payne 3 trailer. Check out our Max Payne 3 preview for more information on Max’s latest adventure.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City trailer shows new multiplayer modes and old faces
Resident Evil did a fantastic job of re-inventing itself from its sluggish survival horror roots for Resident Evil 4, even though the resulting PC port was pretty shoddy. Raccoon City features Resi 4′s familiar over-the-shoulder viewpoint, but promises a much greater multiplayer focus.
The trailer shows a lot of familiar foes, including the long-tongued Licker and those great big Tyrant blokes, and there’s a Heroes mode that will let you play as old school Resi heroes like Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine. As the name suggests, it’s set in Resident Evil 2′s Raccoon city as well, making it a bit of a nostalgia-fest for Resident Evil fans. Hopefully the constant call-backs won’t smother a series with a proven ability to evolve. A PC version of Operation Raccoon City has been confirmed, but there’s no release date yet. It’s due out on consoles at the end of March.
Max Payne 3 screenshots show multiplayer combat
The latest Max Payne 3 screenshots give us our first look at the new multiplayer mode, as season favourites MaxPayneDev3, 4 and 5 take on blue team underdogs MaxPayneDev7, 8 and 9. It’s weird to see nametags floating over people’s heads in a Max Payne game, but it looks as though we’ll be able to dive through things and over things with the same dexterity as Payne himself in multiplayer
The closest comparison I can think to how the whole thing might work is John Woo’s Stranglehold, and that was completely bonkers. You could swing from chandeliers and run up and down dinosaur spines in slow motion shooting each other. Max Payne 3 is likely to take a much more serious tone judging from the screenshots below.
Spec Ops: The Line trailer has dune traps, sandstorms, marines and madmen
Spec Ops: The Line had been lost in the sands until the appearance of last month’s trailers. Here’s another one, featuring more punching, occasional shooting and narration from a suspicious sort in a dark room with a microphone. Where do these madmen keep coming from?
The Gears of War influence is obvious. Beyond the unusual setting, it’ll be interesting to see if Spec Ops does anything new with the familiar cover-to-cover scrambling of the modern third person shooter. The treacherous dunes of an unstable desert city make Spec Ops stand out from the throng, but the early trailers are heavy with the tang of testosterone. We’ll have to wait and see if Spec Ops’ characters do anything to stretch the angry-bro-in-big-armour template. It’s due out next Spring.
Get Crimecraft gold, a deluxe membership, and some Gamer Gear armour for free!
We’ve got 1,000 codes full of digital goodies for free to play MMO/third person shooter hybrid Crimecraft to give away. Crimecraft is split into a persistent city based lobby, in which players can socialise and form gangs before heading into combat instances to shoot the hell out of each other.
If that sounds like your sort of thing, you’ll want one of our codes to try it out. Check inside to see what you get and how to get it.
Sniper Elite V2 CEO on self-publishing and moon sniping
We’ve already covered Rebellion’s decision to self-publish upcoming FPS Sniper Elite on the PC, but we recently had a chance to ask the company’s CEO and creative director Jason Kingsley about how it’s all going to work.
“I’m a great supporter of the PC as a platform, I always have been,” says Kingsley. “I’m always very disappointed when people talk about the PC dying as a platform, and then eight months later PC’s flavour of the month again.”
But, as a PC gamer and developer, Kingsley finds the current situation frustrating. Having worked with the likes of Sega on Aliens versus Predator and Bethesda on Rogue Warrior, Kingsley knows what it’s like to have a big publisher breathing down the back of your neck all the way through the development process.
Sniper Elite V2′s testicular animation detailed by dev: “sniping is such an intimate thing”
Flicking through my notebook on the way back from the Sniper Elite V2 preview event, I find a completely blank page save for the word “TESTICLES” at the top. Underlined several times. It was at this point that I stopped writing and started wincing. A wince that still occurs whenever I think about what I saw and heard at developer and publisher Rebellion’s HQ in Oxford.
You see, Sniper Elite Version 2’s first-person World War II sniping is gilded with a fully dynamic skeletal slow-motion animation system. Aim for an enemy soldier’s neck and their vertebrae will shatter. Shoot at the crown of the head and it’ll smash like an egg. Go for the heart and blood will fill their thoracic cavity. And, inevitably, you can shoot their balls off.
