High Def buffs will love 1.1 as it allows the use of 1.1 enabled Blu-ray discs that feature all sort of exciting things, including picture in picture. At the risk of making this sound far less exciting, this is basically one for people who lurve those directors commentary features on DVDs and have ever wondered ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be great if we could SEE the director as he yammers over the top of the film? Eh? Eh?’. So that’s all seven of you then.

Those who are less addicted to disc extras and more about getting the free movies and TV series off of naughty places on the interwebs that film studios would rather you didn’t visit are in for much more of a treat. DivX support means support for nearly every piece of pirated goodness you can wish for. It’ll run just about anything –most importantly XviD files – currently topping the illegal charts.

I’ve also run a couple of comparisons with the Xbox 360’s rival DivX support to see if there was any difference. Unfortunately there is. Before I go on, let me stress that I am not very clued up on different codecs and file compression techniques, so this is merely going to be anecdotal evidence. Basically, I have found that the Xbox was able to play a couple more files than the PS3. Don’t worry – the only ones that either console struggled with are pretty damned old now downloads now and all the latest stuff I have downloaded (purely for research purpose, no need to send the goons round).

The PS3 has apparently been limited from playing DivX files over 2GB in size. None that I tried were that big, however, the ones that didn’t work each used the OpenDML AVI file format which is ( I believe) designed to support file sizes larger than 2GB. The Xbox 360, not having the same limitation, is capable of running these files just fine.

I’d be interested to hear opinions from anyone who has a better working knowledge of file types and codecs to see if we can narrow it down what can and can’t be played on the PS3 – please write in or drop me an email (on the right hand sidebar). For the most part though, the PS3 is now officially an amazing centre for piracy. If there was ever a time to upgrade your hard drive, that time is now.

If you wondering which of the PS3 and Xbox 360 is the better choice for scurvy practises, the 360 benefits from a better file organisation when you’re using external storage devices, but the PS3 wins for not sounding like a jet taking off.

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The best thing about this most ass kicking kind of DivX support, is that not only does it turn the PS3 into a powerhouse of unrestrained copyright infringement – judging from the amount of content we’ve successfully thrown at the 360, it is nothing to be sniffed at – but developers will be able to encode their in-game cut-scenes using the efficient compression format. That means, alongside the huge amounts of space already on Blu-ray format discs, developers could have even more space to work with in future. Quite how well it works out with HD content remains to be seen though.

It’s lovely to see these companies bending over backwards to give us access to a gold mine of stolen digital content and, err, putting more tools at developers' disposal, of course. Yeah, right. Next thing you know, there’ll be an Azureus client...

Source
TECH.BLORGE, Max Console

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Just to summarise it – there are a huge number of changes being made to the multiplayer playlists, with maps being dropped into and out of different categories and some regulation of how and when clans / groups can team up to pwn innocent ungrouped bystanders. There aren’t any new maps, although there will be more spawn points added to existing maps. Bug fixes include one to resolve an issue of players sprinting too far when holding certain weapons.

So far, so geeky; hopefully the numerous changes to the map playlists will mean less chance of a few maps repeatedly getting left out of games. Probably the most noticeable change though will be the tweaking of the sniper rifles and ACOG scope accuracy which should mean better chance of some headshotting action.

There's no concrete time frame on when this patch will be out. It is expected to be this month - but we'll have to see how much the Infinity Ward's productivity is impacted by the sudden influx of large platefuls mince pies and candy canes before finding out for certain.

What’s interesting is that Rockstar has managed to put enough game content together to receive an age rating, meaning that the game must be very much on track for its early 2008 release. Presumably Rockstar would be unwilling to rush this sort of thing, given the controversy caused by the infamous Hot Coffee mod, which resulted in it receiving reclassification in various territories, including the US and Australia and the lingering rumour of imminent bans that always characterise Rockstar Games launches.

Anyway, that leaves us looking longingly at the February side of GTA IV’s anticipated February-April launch. That’s totally on seven weeks away. Or 49 days. Or 1176 hours. Or... oh I’ll shut up now.

Source
CVG

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What I did find particularly interesting is that the person chosen to represent the PlayStation 3 is God of War star, Kratos (albeit in a horribly animated, poorly voiced form). Kratos, of course has yet to make his PS3 debut and won’t be doing so for over a year. A bit of an oversight on Greenpeace’s behalf, but I can understand why he was used; Kratos is by far the most recognisable of the PS2’s game characters. The PS3 doesn’t really have anything / anyone that really compares. There are some good characters – Heavenly Sword’s Nariko, R&C’s Ratchet, maybe even R:FOM’s Nathan Hale, etc – but for whatever reasons these don’t manage to stand out from the crowd.

Maybe it doesn’t make an ounce of difference, but it is a shame that the PS3 lacks a truly iconic character to rally behind – Masterchief and Mario, who represent their respective consoles in the same video, do a great job of symbolising the different strength of the two rivals. Given time (and a sequel or two) maybe Uncharted’s Nathan Drake will fill those shoes, but I wonder if perhaps his intentional every-man design preclude this. So who would you chose to be the iconic ambassador of the PS3? Or will we just have to wait for Kratos’ PS3 outing before the console will get the same kind of symbolic representation?

Source
Joystiq

Anywho, this secret was unearthed when the eagle-eyed chaps at CVG noticed a discrepancy between two versions of a recent teaser trailer. In it, the ballot box had the year 2027 marked on it, while in the other this was removed. The original game took place some time in the 2050s, with the sequel set some twenty years later still. So a prequel seems to be pretty plausible. It’s not clear why that fact would need to be kept secret though, unless Eidos hasn’t finished deciding on the plot details yet, which is pretty likely at this extremely early stage.

Given the debacle that was Invisible War, a prequel would be a truly excellent way from getting more from the Deus Ex world, without risking treading back over some of those painful memories.

And while we’re speculating, wouldn’t it be great to find out more about Paul Denton, clone brother of J.C. – the star of the original game – who was also the original nano augmented agent for UNATCO. Could be that you’ll be taking up his reigns in the next game. There’s at least a thirteen year age difference to account for somewhere in there, but, given that precise ages of the two brothers wasn’t explicitly mentioned, there’s some seriously good potential for plot exploitation.

Source
Gaming Today

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Otherwise, if you have an Xbox 360, you can download it, if you have a PS3 and live in the US, you can download it, but if you live in Europe, have a PS3 and have not yet squirreled yourself a fake US account then, well, you’d better get one! Clever system we’ve got going here.

Some impressions: it’s looking a lot more detailed than any of its predecessor (no surprises there) but also more than most of the games we’re seeing at the moment. Clearly Rockstar is on track for fulfilling its bold promises of late. There’s also a bit of a glimpse of the new cover system, which has the potential to transform GTA’s traditional arcadey and somewhat cack-handed combat into something just a little more thoughtful (although hopefully not too much so).

For me, the highlight has to be those couple of shots of the new car physics, which looks authentic enough to keep the game immersive, but also making it look like it will be a lot of fun to drive. No matter how much the plot and narrative get amplified with each successive game, the core of GTA remains in its driving – from what little we can see, it looks like Rockstar hasn’t forgotten that.

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GTA IV box art unveiled

In this first pic we can see that something is badly wrong with our protagonist’s fingers. I’m no orthopaedic surgeon but I’ve hung around obnoxious medical students long enough to know what ain’t normal. And normal that ain’t. Niko Bellic is presumably returning from a long day of providing bloody beatings to rival gang members and has incurred some kind of work related injury. And being an immigrant (possibly illegal) to the fair city of Liberty, he probably doesn’t have health insurance either.

Apparently there’s a lesson in motorcycle safety here too, as Bellic is sensibly sporting protective head gear. Strapping on your helmet and leathers before leaping on your motorbike is going to put a dampener on those adrenaline fuelled car chases though surely?

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With a choice use of phrases like “Army of Shit” and “a juvenile swear-fest with clumsy controls”, it’s clear that all isn’t right with EA’s upcoming co-op shooter. Other issues highlighted reveal that what was once hoped as a decent filler between Gears of War and, well, more Gears of War. These include “a story apparently penned by a seven year old who hates them ay-rabs, laughable level design that tosses you into a cut-scene every thirty seconds, sub Perfect Dark Zero graphics and the two least likable characters in gaming history.” Worse than Kane & Lynch then, eh? Wowzer.

This insight comes on the back of a relatively recent delay to the game that pushed it back from the pre-Xmas launch window, right into 2008. At the time, we suspected this might have a lot to do with the lucrative period already being stuffed with a plethora of great, potentially and not so great titles. There seemed little sense in gunning for Xmas just for the sake of it.

So of course the suspicion now is that EA pushed the release back to address what clearly amounts to extremely serious, fundamental issues with the game tone and content. It seems that was sorely needed. At this late stage, there’s little hope that the game will magically transform into a mature, cerebral affair, but if EA can temper the more incendiary aspects and sort out the controls sufficiently to at least make it a play-worthy title, there may still be hope. Either way, such an impassioned outburst has put a dampener on our expectations.

Source
GamesRadar

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Why should we be excited? Well firstly because Burnout rocks and although I personally haven’t been quite as thrilled by the last few versions, Criterion staff have previously stated that this was the Burnout they always wanted to make. Then there’s the fact that other street racing games like Need for Speed have gone all namby-pamby and eschewed actual, y’know, street racing, potentially making Burnout the best place for a high-adrenaline racing fix. Finally, our hands-on time seemed to indicate that the PS3 version was actually the better option; development was led on the Sony platform for a change – a design decision that could prove to work well for both ports.

We’re assuming that for the moment, any demo downloads will be confined to the US store, so get your fake accounts ready.

Source
Ripten

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