In a post on his Major Nelson blog, Xbox Live's Larry Hyrb announced that Inside Xbox—the internally-produced video show that delivered game news and previews directly to Xbox 360 owners over Xbox Live—will be ceasing production in the United States. That means that other English-speaking territories like Canada, Australia and New Zealand will no longer get the show as well. More details here.
The wind and haze
I'm bound for better days.
It's my life and my dream,
Nothing's gonna stop me now!
You hear that, world? Nothing's gonna stop me now!
I think that Perfect Strangers' theme song embodies so many of the best things about people, a celebration of can-do spirit and optimism. It's the kind of energy we could use more of in video games!
Thanks to a designer named Jason Oda, the world of video games just got a little bit more Balki.
You start the game by telling it your personal dream. What dream? Any dream. My dream is to build an island fashioned out of airplane bits, so I put that. With your deram entered, Balki takes over and urges you on to achieve it.
Which… you do by running down a fairly hilarious pathway, gathering stars while the Perfect Strangers theme plays and its lyrics fly past. (At one point, you fly.)
Look... it's a Perfect Strangers video game. Do you need to know more than that? Go play it.
Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now [Official site]
Most games concerned with keeping their heroes undetected create a reliance on a few familiar mechanics. Sticking to shadows, staying out of sight and keeping quiet have staple stealth mechanics for as long as the genre's been around. And Dynamite Jack uses all of those. But, given that the only weapon that the titular hero can wield is dynamite, maintaining silence gets very tricky..
This PC/Mac action game comes from Phil Hassey, the game designer behind the hit multiplayer strategy mobile game Galcon. Players control Jack, a human space marine who's being held prisoner but hostile aliens. He managed to break free from his captors and now needs to escape the subterranean caverns where he's been forced to mine valuable minerals.
Luckily, Jack has access to the loads of explosives left lying around underground. Along with a flashlight to illuminate the darkness, you'll use bombs to create paths, eliminate obstacles and kill guards. Jack needs to find the glowing portal exit on each level to proceed and will be able to pick up chunks of ore to add to their score. Each level is timed and you can earn achievements for feats like clearing a level without killing.
I've spent a good chunk of time with Dynamite Jack and have come to really appreciate how it generates a nice tension between the necessity to explore very loudly with explosives and remain unseen. It can be easy enough to track patrol patterns and weave around guards' fields of vision. But when you need to blow out a cave wall to get a key card, they'll hear it and come running to investigate. If you get spotted, you get shot death on the spot and need to restart the level. Best of all, there's a frightening unpredictability to the guards' investigative rambles. I rarely felt safe while hiding in the aftermath of an explosion. And in a stealth game, that's a great thing.
Puzzle elements show up in DJ, too. Some level will have you blowing up technological barriers to access interiors. These moments can result in beautiful cascades of destruction that are both fun and useful. There's a mini-map for a little help but it only shows the pathways that you've already discovered or made, so it never becomes too much of a crutch.
Dynamite Jack sports an undeniably retro aesthetic but combines the top-down look with smart, challenging modern-day design elements. If it were a coin-op arcade game, Dynamite Jack would keep players pumping quarters into it until they'd mastered its challenges. As it is, you'll be able to grab it on Steam when it releases on May 10th.
"Skyrim Steam Workshop downloads are over 13.6 million," Bethesda said on Twitter today. "PC mods FTW." Wondering which are the best to download? We've got you covered. [Bethesda]
What, it's a ridiculously powerful graphics card. When the news first dropped this weekend, Nvidia compared the power of the GTX 690 to that of two GTX 680s slung together in SLI. If we read between the lines we can assume they mean the performance Nvidia likes to think that configuration has and not the actual performance of SLI'd cards, which isn't nearly as impressive. If this one card can delivery that sort of dreamy power, than I'd like two of them please. And a new motherboard. And a case.
Tell you what, I'll unplug my speakers, and you can just slip an entirely new machine in.
I like how Huang says that no design was included unless it enhanced the performance of the GPU, and then points out that this is the first graphics card with its name imprinted on the card itself. How does that aid performance? Shut up, it's cool.
The game, recently launched on PSN and Xbox Live, will be available for digital purchase later in 2012. The PC version includes several game updates, which will be added to the console versions in free downloads later this year. [Gamasutra]
Bristling with switches and hoses, swathed in neon green, and fitted with a pair of Gullwing-style spring-loaded side panels, the imposing "Apocalypse" mod is a prime example of the sort of amazing art that comes into existence when two masters of the modding craft combine their talents.
Check out the video for a candid peek at the creation of this beast, or hit up the link below to find a detailed log of the PC you could have created if you just applied yourself.
ANTEC "LANBOY APOCALYPSE" PC CASE MOD! [Mnpctech]
A perilous trek through a gothic cathedral leads players to a teleportal that warps them into a gorgeous floating dungeon, populated with hordes of nightmarish creatures and three regular bosses. None of these hold a candle to the massive Argon, Bhaozurbas.
He looks like a Final Fantasy summons. That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I first saw him. Well, after "Holy shit, we're fighting that?"
He's not just pretty, he's pretty tough as well. He teleports, he creates duplicates, he has the power to kill a pretty pink-haired sorceror in one or two blows if said sorceror is not careful.
Luckily I didn't die during this run, though he failed to drop any of the coveted and rare gold caster gear I was hoping for. That's okay. I've always got time to visit an old friend. The game's dynamic combat means that almost every encounter plays out differently according to the player and class makeup. The other day we even managed to take him down without a tank character. We're that good.
Hell, I almost regret that I'm about to level past the dungeon. I'll just have to level some alts for a visit or two.
The official release calls it "The best weapon to cut down hordes of monsters crawling out from the depths of evil", so Razer's intentions for this recolored version of its popular MOBA-centric gaming mouse are as clear as a crystal jammed into your forehead. Ready to raise hell at a rate of 250 clicks per minute, the Naga Hex Wraith edition is $79.99 worth of action RPG power.
I've been hearing a lot about the Razer Naga and Naga Hex lately. Many of the Tera players I've run into over the past couple of weeks swear by the 12 side button Naga, and I've got my original Hex on standby for Diablo III's May 15 release. Perhaps I'll get a chance to see how well it goes click-for-click with SteelSeries' official mouse.
Razer Naga Hex [Razer]
Considered a successor to Tribes 2, Tribes: Ascend embraces its heritage by incorporating the same fast-paced combat, tons of maps, weapons, vehicles and unique traversal mechanics. At the same time, it adds a new class-based system. There are nine classes spread across three armor tiers (light, medium and heavy) with switchable load-outs that have different gear and deployables. Players can either unlock weapons and such through in-game experience, or by purchasing them outright with real money.
Despite its freemium additions, reviews from both users and critics seem to be overwhelmingly positive — glowing, even. The title has straight positive feedback on Metacritic and our own Product Finder. We imagine nostalgia-enamored old school gamers wrote some of the reviews, but they can't all be wrong. Feel free to share your opinions in the comments, but we'll focus on the game's performance from here on.
Tribes: Ascend is built on a modified Unreal Engine 3 and interestingly, it shares some similarities with UT3. For instance, it lacks built-in voice communication though it lets players issue audible commands to each other. Anyhow, back on topic: the game only supports DirectX 9 graphics but the recommended specs are relatively high, calling for a GeForce GTX 560 or Radeon HD 6950 with a quad-core processor. Considering those requirements, we're hoping the game gives our test hardware a nice workout...
We'll spare you the trouble of counting the list below: we're testing 24 AMD and Nvidia graphics cards across all price ranges. The latest official drivers were used for each. We installed an overclocked Intel Core i7-2600K in our testbed to remove any CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end GPU scores.
We used Fraps to measure frame rates during a minute of gameplay from Tribes: Ascend Training, Target Practice mode. This ensured easily reproducible results versus testing in an actual multiplayer game, which wouldn't remain the same over testing two dozen graphics cards at three resolutions.
Test System Specs
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Tribes: Ascend is very customizable if you're into turning knobs and flipping switches, but there are also five quality presets: minimal, low, medium, high and very high. We ran all tests using very high quality settings. Finally, we tested at three common resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.
Compared to Mass Effect 3 (another Unreal Engine 3 game), Tribes: Ascend is considerably more demanding. Whereas the Radeon HD 6670 averaged 42fps in ME3, it managed only 22fps in Tribes. The HD 6950 or greater is required to achieve 60fps or better, though the HD 6850 averaged 59fps.
The GTX 460 and 550 Ti also fared well with 54fps while the HD 6870 and GTX 560 averaged 63fps and 64fps, respectively, making them ideal choices at this resolution. The new HD 7850 was a fraction slower than the old HD 5870 — disappointing for 7850 owners, but at 70fps+ it doesn't matter here.
1920x1200 - Gaming Performance
2560x1600 - Gaming Performance
CPU Performance
Final Thoughts
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Steven Walton is a writer at TechSpot. TechSpot is a computer technology publication serving PC enthusiasts, gamers and IT pros since 1998.