Heads up, guys! We've just learned that patch 1.2 for the Unreal Tournament 3 was recently released, and there are a LOT of changes.

Interested in knowing what they are? Well, head on over to the full article for a full listing of the patch notes.

Quite a number of announcements were made by Sony in this year's Game Developers Conference. While most are probably talking about the fact that there are 2.8 million PSN gamers, developers have been going crazy at the new PhyreEngine from Sony Computer Entertainment. For more on this, be sure to check out the full article.

If you're conscious about in-game dynamics, namely the physics behind games, then this update is definitely good news. Nvidia, a visual computing technologies company, has just signed an agreement to acquire Ageia Technologies, Inc., a company known for the PhysX software that is widely adopted by games spanning different platforms. Details in the full article.

Frozenbyte's Shadowgrounds tickled the gaming underground's fancies when it released almost two years ago, and now that Shadowgrounds: Survivor's retail pack is now up and about, there's much hope for another coochy-coo or two. Publisher Meridian4 happily provided the game over Steam in advance, and once again we fished for extra gamepads for another co-op romp in alien-infested Ganymede. What we unearthed comes at you at the full article!

Unreal Tournament III's launch was celebrated in Omega Sektor's Birmingham gaming center recently, and Epic Games' vice president Mark Rein was on board to get the party started. While special tournaments and hands-on demonstrations of the PlayStation 3 version of the game ensued around, the VP and spokesperson for Unreal Tournament III (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, Windows PC) sat down for an interview and spilled beans on additional features unique to the PC and PS3 versions of the game.

More at the full article.

Shadowground veterans, the wait is almost over. Shadowgrounds: Survivor has just gone gold, says publisher Meridian4, and it's just a matter of time before it hits retail outlets near you. And it's about time too, because Frozenbyte promised it would be out in the remaining months of 2007.

So prep up your gaming rigs, and perhaps that AGEIA PhysX card you've been waiting to flex, because it's going to be another alien-thriller ride back in Jupiter's colonized moon. Pricing details and street date await at the full article.

This article was originally posted on October 16, 2007 in 12:31 p.m.

Epic Games recently released a beta demo of Unreal Tournament 3 (PlayStation 3, Windows PC, Xbox 360) for capable PCs, and our short weekend immersion with it was a UT3-filled excursion like no other. There's plenty of reason to be excited about gaming history's biggest arena shooting franchise, and Unreal Tournament 3 definitely brought out the old UT kid huddled inside.

Sporting a different look and feel, the Unreal Tournament 3 demo touted what was Unreal Engine 3's crowning moment - improved graphics and rendering for a new generation of games. Unreal Tournament 3, for its namesake, was the flagship title for UE3 technology, and the game did have more of its share of visual appeal.

Despite a few exceptions specific to the core community, the beta demo's graphics stood out, almost imposing itself visually beyond former installments UT2004 and UT99.

Gameplay was fluid enough to keep in pace with UT3's predecessors (though they would feel much faster than UT3), and bot skills were heightened to mad levels even on lower settings. We can still survive on Adept skills, but not long enough to run a decent killing spree. That's even saying how talkative the the AI is this time around. Enemy locations, enemy vehicle locations, and the a freelancing bot's destination - they're all confirmed via radio message. UT99 bots Loque, Malakai, Visse, and Kragoth are back, though hints of a sultry, femme-fatale Lauren have also risen from content.

We were also treated with rhythmic beats to Unreal Tournament's original theme, enhanced with deeper, dynamic bass and remixed with a sinister feel. Audio was impressionably dabbed with vengeful malice, because the announcers voices were deeper, more serious and with a hint of bloodlust. There was also only one bot voice-pack included in the game - the husky voice and the angered tone reinforced our beliefs that a serious UT was coming up.

Find out what else is coming up when you read our impressions at the full article!

Let's face it: Shadowgrounds was one of few titles to draw in hardcore gamers back into top-down shooting action. It was arguably considered a smash hit in the PC gaming underground (the heart of it being Germany), and so when Frozenbyte announced the series' new sequel, Shadowgrounds: Survivor, it was expected to be nothing less than amazing. 

Shadowgrounds was the only game to combine classic, alternative shooter action from the iconic Take No Prisoners from Raven Software, while sinking in the plot void that Sierra's Alien vs. Predator series was supposed to fill. The game's first story took gamers through an action-packed, alien-thriller ride across the human colonies of Ganymede in the shoes of Wesley Tyler, a former member of the IGTO security force.

Developed by Frozenbyte and initially published by Reef Entertainment, Shadowgrounds touted insanely breath-taking graphics for an independently-developed game. It was accompanied by an adrenaline pumping soundtrack from the Finnish tracker demoscene, which soon also characterized what the Shadowgrounds experience truly was.

And when Meridian4 finally picked up the game to distribute to other territories in Europe and to North America, it was received with mixed results. Shadowgrounds: Survivor would probably be Frozenbyte's attempt to correct that confusion and establish the game as a successful independently-developed franchise.

Late last year, Finnish developer Frozenbyte clued fans in on a new installment to the original game and promised that it would make landfall by 2007. It looks like the developers are making good on their word, because recent developments to the game were unveiled in the later half of 2007 and were reinforced with talk of gameplay improvements and additions.

And as if to underline the game's steady progress, Meridian4 gave QJ.NET the opportunity to preview Shadowgrounds: Survivors. We're not sure how nice we've been to deserve an early Christmas gift from Santa, but we were more than excited to unwrap our tasty present!

We've spent hours on end blasting the Ganymede menace back to the primordial pool they crawled out of, but we couldn't get enough of that even in four-player coop mode, and we wanted more. So much more.

And we definitely got more. Check out the full preview at the full article!

The PC version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 is getting some enhancements thanks to AGEIA's proprietary game physics engine PhysX. Not only does the accelerator make jobs for devs easier, it also enhances the overall gameplay experience of the action title.

PhysX makes efforts easier for the developers because with it on board, they don't have to use their own code to do the game's physics. In the case of GRAW 2 for the PC, the time cut away from coding the physics was used instead to create an additional level called "AGEIA Island" which demonstrates the full capacity of the engine by giving players a vibrant, fully destructible environment that looks, moves and feels like never before.

Bo Andersson, chief executive officer of GRIN says "with PhysX, we are able to bring gamers a realistic combat experience they will crave to play over and over again because it's never the same twice."

"When something explodes, the physics engine kicks in to create superb explosions, emitting debris which affects gameplay," adds Anderson as he explains how everything in the game is built on to the engine to make characters and onscreen objects behave the way they would in real life.

 

Or that's what The Wall's Vladimir Mamontov has mentioned in an interview with PlayStation Universe. In fact, the first-person shooter by Burut Software and Play Ten Interactive is no longer just coming to the PlayStation 3 and the PC. When it's coming out, however, wasn't mentioned. Not even a little clue.

But since our last coverage on The Wall, there seems to be little that has been developed through the months up to today. Aside from the usual game concepts that the game will be touting - you know, 20 vehicles and 15 weapons currently in design to date - Mamontov couldn't reveal much about the game because it seems to still be in the early stages of development.

Or that's what we believe he means. Non-disclosure agreements and SIXAXIS aside, there are no specifics on technical aspects of the game, such as frame rates and resolutions. But previous preview screenshots of the game's sceneries were telling that the game may probably be more polished now than it was before E3 2006.

  

Beauty leads to power, and power begs the question: how will the game perform on each platform? Mamontov explained Burut's current treatment, saying, "Each platform has its own peculiarities, which we thoroughly consider while working on the project." Digging around further, we've found that the game will be designed as a totally destructible environment, and the PC version will be able to support AGEIA's PhysX physics solution. PlayStation 3 fans, take a hint and rejoice.

He did reveal that the game was using the same engine for Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Sid Meier's Pirates! called GameBryo. Weapon customization may have been originally planned for the game, but it is currently being looked at following Burut's interpretation of THQ's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl as a "flawed example of a good idea."