The Half-Life series of games has a pretty complex storyline. If you find yourself confused by what has been happening in the game, you might want to know that the certain members of the Half-Life community have created an online story guide. This website has been recently updated to include the events in Valve Corporation's Half-Life Episode 2 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC).

More information on this can be found in the full article.

Having trouble playing through Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 3 (PC, PS3, PC)? Or do you simply want to compare strategy notes with other players? Either way, Chris Mielke, art production manager at Epic Games, has shared his personal strategies regarding weapons and the Vehicle Capture the Flag Suspense map.

Absorb Mr. Mielke's strategies after the jump!

 

Crysis fans running Windows XP should give this sweet configuration tweak that we came across on the Crysis forums. It basically gives XP users the chance to play the Crysis demo at Very High settings, which is normally disabled when the game is run under XP instead of Vista.

According to forums member LennyRhys, you can enable the Very High settings by copying and pasting the Very High settings found in the first paragraph in place of the High settings in the last paragraph in the configuration files in CVarGroups. The difference is reportedly quite noticeable. Check out the comparison pics above courtesy of Crysis forums member swebarb.

Mail4youtoo goes more in depth into the tweaking process, so check it out. Those interested can read the post by clicking on the Read link below. Crytek's Crysis will hit retail stores in North America and Europe on November 16.

Now we all know the real issue over multiplayer on your "homebrewed" Quake is that there's usually no one to play against. The pre-defined servers are usually empty. The only way to get around that hassle was if you had the opportunity to create your own server and connect to it. Passa91 from YouTube has sent us an email saying that he has figured out a way to do just that, and he's even documented a how-to into a video. View it below:

Cross platform multiplayer, homebrew style! Of course, the big hurdle is that you have to have a wireless network installed locally for it to work. A wireless LAN card or a wireless access point wired to the PC server is bare minimum. Server and network settings might be a problem, too. The PSP homebrew game used in the video is a continuation of Peter Mackay and Chris Swindle's work on Quake for PSP. And it reached version 2, complete with infrastructure mode for connecting to servers.

On the other hand, the DS would require its own version of the open-sourced Quake (the one by Simon Hall), and of course, a homebrew enabled DS. Both releases provided below will have the ability to connect to servers via infrastructure mode, thus allowing you to connect to the server.

And just in case you don't have a copy of GLQuake, WinQuake or a retail version of Quake, you can attempt the procedure with the shareware version (available at any Quake fan site or major download site). Just don't forget to run a dedicated server - listen servers seem to have serious lag issues. And do not forget to go through the Readmes of the homebrew versions for complete installation procedures and proper warnings.

Download: Quake for PSP v2.0
Download: Quake DS pre-release 2

 

Yes, that's right: up on Microsoft Developer Network is a managed library (for all you .NET Framework coders out there) that will allow you to interface with the wireless Wiimote and handle the data sent to and received from the device. Brought to you by MSDN contributor Brian Peek, the library allows you to code your own applications (and games) to handle Bluetooth wireless input from the Wiimote.

Unfortunately, not everyone may be able to interface correctly with the Wii Remote because not all Bluetooth adapters work with the Wiimote. Plus, the adapters must also come with compatible stacks. Still, enterprises have been successful with integrating the Wiimote into their own applications, so chances are you could have a compatible adapter with you already.

Even if you don't have the Visual Studio 2005 suite, you can still opt for educational (and, as long as you don't program commercial apps, free!) editions of Visual C# and Visual Basic .NET, although SharpDevelop is also a good choice. The tutorial provided by Peek will guide you through a step by step process of setting up your tweaking efforts, including being able to test out API calls through the library's Wiimote Test application.

Inside the source code of the app, you'll find a treasure's worth of information that the Wiimote could send, including button states and battery power remaining. Sweet. Now you can build your own robot arm and control it with your trusty Wii. If you've suddenly dived into the coding mood, click on the "Read" link below to hop onto the MSDN site by .NET programming vet Brian Peek.

Electronic Arts' official support forums for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars has yielded a temporary workaround for the auido/video sync issues that players have encountered in the demo. Please note that this is only temporary and may not work with all system configurations.

IMPORTANT -- We highly recommend not setting the process priority any higher than "AboveNormal."

1. Run the Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars Demo.
2. Press Alt + Tab to minimize the demo and switch back to Windows.
3. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to bring up the security prompt and click on "Task Manager".
4. Select the "Processes" tab and look for DemoGame.dat in the list.
5. Right-click on DemoGame.dat, select "Set Priority", and then select "AboveNormal" from the submenu -- this option is one step up from the default "Normal" setting.
6. Windows will prompt you with a similar warning. Select "Yes".
7. Switch back to the game by clicking on the button in the Windows task bar.
   

This workaround should resolve the syncing issue the next time you watch a video in the game. You'll have to repeat the above steps everytime you run the demo, though.

EA currently has a permanent fix planned for the full retail version of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, so hopefully the game will be bug free when it hits stores. Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is set for a March 28 release.

A few enterprising gamers have figured out a way to play as The Brotherhood of Nod in Electronic Arts' recently-released Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars demo. Here's Evil Avatar forum member captainstrombosis' on how to do it:

Well you can easily play as Nod, without modding the game in any way. However Scrin are still not playable. This was something posted on the Gamespot forums so I don't take credit for it. Just passing it on to you guys.

Goto Skirmish:
Click the race selection tab, but do not select any. Move your mouse over the Nod selection and at the same time press N and click the mouse. It may take a few tries but it does work! Can also make the enemy GDI.(G + Mouse Click)

You can also use this trick to select the AI traits. Just use the first letter and click the mouse while it is highlighted.

Voila! Simple and easy. Sadly, the Scrin are not playable. While you can choose to play as the Scrin, reports say that you start off with no units whatsoever, which means you get your ass kicked pretty hard without getting a chance to fight back. Apparently, the Scrin data is not included in the demo since it only contains a GDI vs Nod scenario.

The first-person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has been through quite a few ups and downs through the years. It's been praised, delayed, anticipated... it even got a vaporware award. Things have changed though, and now that developer GSC Game World has THQ's backing, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is finally running on all engines for its planned March 23 release.

As a Zone bounty hunter in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., you'll be scavenging the irradiated land in search of artifacts to sell off. Just because the landscape's a bit uninviting doesn't mean you're all alone, so it would be a very good idea to be familiar with the other, uh, people that roam the Zone.

Read on for a quick look at the different factions that you'll be coming across in your travels, courtesy of GSC Game World and CVG.

Stalkers. These are the Zone bounty hunters, brave souls who risk facing severe radiation and a lot of other deadly threats in the Zone to scavenge and scour the area for artifacts to sell. A dangerous job, but hey, everybody's gotta make a buck. Survival is the name of the game for stalkers, and those who have been able to survive find their own way - either stay a lone wolf or join a community of other stalkers sharing similar values as their own.

The full article awaits after the jump!

 

Reading through IGN's tips section on Eidos Interactive's Battlestations: Midway, not to mention spending a couple of hours in the demo, we've come to understand why the game's definitely not for everyone. It is as much a team-oriented game like the more high-profile Halo and Gears of War, but it demands a different, strategic mindset as well as a trigger finger.

Some of you may have already tried the demo out and decided it's not your thing. But for those who liked it, for those who can waste an entire day playing the Axis and Allies board game, you should find the rest of this stuff useful.

Unfortunately the demo did not ship with a single-player tutorial, so unless you're a veteran of countless World War II strategy games, it's too easy to get lost in the middle of battle (handy guides are provided via the Pause menu, nonetheless). Hence, IGN decided to condense a bit of battle experience into a short field manual of sorts.

Here are the important stuff to remember before going to war (and since there's a PC version of the game, we're putting this up in the Games for Windows section, too):

• Rock-scissors-paper. Destroyer pwn Sub, Sub pwn Cruisers and Battleships, and Battleships pretty much pwn everything else on the water or on land - except subs. The aircraft should be easy: fighters pwn other fighters and attack planes, and attack planes pwn ships.
• In the demo's case, IGN advices concentrating on battleships and subs. Cruisers don't enjoy the battlewagon's firepower, and dive bombers can be used to take out subs. We take that with a grain of salt, however - nothing beats a dedicated destroyer escort, and sometimes you need to use the bombers elsewhere.
• Important controls to remember: the LB is your friend, slowly repairing damage to the ship. In a sub, since you can only fire torpedoes at periscope depth, Y raises the periscope, and the D-pad controls depth. (Obviously this applies to the 360 game; PC owners will have their own keyboard assignments to remember.)
  
• Learn how to multitask, jumping between units to take control and swing the fight in your favor. Don't forget your teammates, either.
• When your attack planes have dropped their load (bombs or torpedos), use them to strafe ground positions (dive bombers) or tangle with other fighters (torpedo bombers). As an alternative to IGN's suggestion, you could just probably swarm them over an enemy fleet or installation, draw fire, and make life heck for antiaircraft artillery there.

For you to be more prepared once the Paradox Interactive-published PC game, Europa Universalis III comes out on Q1 2007, we'll now be talking about the game's 1700 provinces. No, the article isn't gonna bore you to death with detailed analyses and descriptions of each territory, instead we'll dish out some important details about them provinces.

There are 250 playable countries with 1,700 provinces at your disposal. And for you to lead your country to success, you have to harness the potentials of its provinces because after all, major triumphs are almost always made up of little victories. Here are some aspects that you should take note of:

Population - It all boils down to income taxes. The bigger the population, the more tax income it will generate for its owner. But then again, following the law of supply and demand, more people means more demands which could mean lesser supplies. This will now bring us to the next factor you should consider.

More about the provinces after the jump!