Remember back when Surfer Girl predicted that Far Cry 2 (PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360) would become the best shooter of 2008? Well, judging from what's streaming - nay, outright overflowing! - from Ubisoft's Ubidays event, there will probably be no first person shooter videogame title like it. EVER. Hands on demonstrations, interviews with dev leads, and trailers all outline pretty ambitious new features. Get those that captivated audiences, updated with a new video, at the full story.

As projected yesterday by Stardock and Ironclad Games, patch 1.04 of the Sins of a Solar Empire is already out this week. What are the new improvements for the latest build? More details over at the full article.

It's hard not to like Ironclad Games and Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire. Considering this will be my last post for these beta diaries, I decided to talk about my personal experiences playing the game as well as what we hope to see when the full version is released.

So head on over to the full article to check out Sins of a Solar Empire Beta Diaries Eight: experiences and expectations.

 

Been aching to flex your PC's muscles (or mouse reflexes)? You're in luck, because Splash Damage has released a demo for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PlayStation 3, Windows PC over DVD, Xbox 360) just for the PC community, with a chock full of goodies for the multiplayer goon and single-player soloist in everybody. As promised, the finalized version of Valley is now ready to be re-experienced.

Because if you've participated in the Beta phase for Enemy Territory, you've already scurried (or driven) across the map's landscapes to beat back the Strogg, and kept your glass of water poison-free. But if tackling with FPS hustlers was never your style, you could ease down the pressure notch a bit with a more cooperative single-player mode.

And if hordes of other players keep flooding the various dedicated servers provided, you can always opt for the classic LAN fest for local, high-speed gaming. Get a feel of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars before it hits shelves on October 2 in North America and September 28 in Europe. Oh and yes, it is also coming for Linux and Mac gamers worldwide.

In the plus side, however, a recent interview conducted by GameSpot AU has revealed that the console versions won't be different from the leading PC version. Nerve Software's Brian Matt did confirm several things coming to the Xbox 360 version, the major ones every bit as identical to Splash Damage's version.

• Single-player mode with up to 15 bots (player makes 16), check.
• Same bot artificial intelligence as PC version, check.
• Multi-player mode with ability to turn consoles into servers, check.
• Multi-player mode with console friendly matchup service, check.
• Proficiencies leveling up in single-player and multi-player (reset after campaigns are completed), check.
• Subtle aiming aid, plus other helpful controller features, check.
• Cross-platform multiplayer, dropped.

No word yet on Z-Axis, who are busy at work on the Sony PlayStation 3 version. More on Splash Damage and id Software's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars as they drop in.

Lighthouse Interactive remains silent about Avencast: Rise of the Mage, a breakthrough title by Austrian developer ClockStone. We know little about this action RPG, so we're definitely glad that the latest trailer we found sheds some light on the game.

Taking the role of a young mage, Avencast promises the excitement of crafting a powerful character, but also requires the player's skill to unlock the hero's full potential.

The key features of the game include many hours of exciting gameplay set in diverse worlds, over 30 fantasy based monsters with advanced artificial intelligence, strong player personification, state-of-the-art 3D engine that allows for a fluid combat system, generates special lighting and shadowing effects for a fully engaging experience, and a lot more.

Sounds good? Expect the game to hit the shelves come September 2007. For now, enjoy the trailer.

Ubisoft officially announced the successor to the original FarCry on PC, Far Cry 2, just a little earlier today after a surprising appearance of the game's teaser web site was whispered in the PC gaming community's hot topics of the day. Earlier at the E3 Media & Business Summit, leakage of various assets from Ubisoft Montreal clued Far Cry 2 into the studio's projects, which probably spun the Far Cry 2 rumor mill faster among avid PC gamers.

John Parkes, EMEA marketing director of Ubisoft, reciprocated the fanbase's excitement, stating, "Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era of gorgeous graphics and of advanced artificial intelligence. We are confident that Far Cry 2 will have the same impact again on the FPS genre landscape."

To be developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the publisher's largest development studio and responsible for Assassin's Creed (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3), Far Cry 2 is being hailed as another highly anticipated game on the PC platform. But other than a tentative Spring 2008 release date, any other details on the game was scarce.

According to moderator kimi_ of the Ubisoft forums, questions not already covered by the announcement cannot be answered at present. Word has spread quickly, however, that the game may take place in Africa when images of what appears to be a baobab tree, sparse, dry grass, and a searing sunset lead speculators to believe that the new story may not take place in tropical Madagascar - the island the predecessor's story was set in.

And while Electronic Arts has Crytek under its protective wing, the question of whether Ubisoft will use the original CryEngine - technology that the publisher may continue using after Crytek sold all rights to Far Cry - or license the use of CryEngine 2 has yet to be addressed. But if an early tech demo of the game is any indication, it appears Ubisoft already has an answer to that. More on Far Cry 2 as we get them.

Yesterday wasn't a great day for multi-platformers, or at least for Shadowrun. It was reported that the game's beta testing was delayed because of the unexpected Xbox Live downtime the other day. Anyway, as they say, past is past and today is a new today. And as for the other multiplatform game Two Worlds (X360, PC), the sunshine is turning out to be just fine.

We can actually point out a number of reasons why Two Worlds is doing perfectly okay. In fact, it will take us a good long time before we finished with that kind of stuff. But for you, just for you, we made a summary of the game's different exciting features. All the game's goodness packed into just one article, isn't that great? Also, the accompanying ten new screenshots will surely brighten up your day as well.

Two Worlds was developed by SouthPeak Interactive and in collaboration with Topware Interactive. It will be available in retail stores on March 7, 2007.

Features:

• Offering a freedom of choice unseen in other Role Playing Games. The world literally comes to life as it immediately reacts to the player's actions and changes accordingly -offering new and exciting challenges.
• Strong, non-linear storyline. Players can shape their own story by choosing the path of conducting the main conflict and resolving meaningful side-quests.
• Spectacular and dynamically choreographed fights. The combat system combines intuitive steering, tactical challenges and movie-like visual experiences.

The rest of the features and the screens after the jump!

PC gamers everywhere will finally get some more zombie-shooting action as Valve and Counter-Strike AI">Turtle Rock Studios join forces. Turtle Rock's previous foray into shooters was the widely-popular Counter-Strike games' artificial intelligence set-ups. With Valve's help, they're making Left 4 Dead.

Left 4 Dead is planned as a cooperative FPS. Based on the latest build of Valve's Source Engine, Left 4 Dead will also be the debut of Turtle Rock's latest A.I. tech. While they didn't explain why zombies wanted to eat people, there's now a good chance that we'll see zombies with actual brains this time around.

Of course, since Left 4 Dead doesn't have a lot of details out yet, we can be somewhat free to speculate on how it'll play. Will it have Counter-Strike elements such as sprawling game maps and a zombies versus humans deal? Will it act like the Resident Evil: Outbreak games where there would be puzzles you had to get past by working as a coordinated team? More importantly: can we whack zombies with crowbars and get skins to make us look like Gordon Freeman?

Such important questions about a rather intriguing new title. Expect us to get more details as they arrive, and watch out for the PC version to come out sometime in 2007.

Paradox Interactive is dubbing their latest entry into the gaming market a "Grand Strategy" game. We're not entirely sure what being grand has to do with being a good strategy game, but Europa Universalis III surely makes it a point to remind you that it's a long way to the top of the world's pecking order.

Europa Universalis III takes a nod from the well-known Civilization series and makes some tweaks of its own into the gameplay. You can actually choose to begin as a historically accurate representation of one of 250 different countries. While the idea of having to contend with 249 other AI countries seems daunting, the game is meant to be suited for the task of letting novices play without feeling overwhelmed.

In your quest to make your nation known, you can also mix and match micromanagement and overall decision making to help you out. For instance, the game will allow you to pick and choose important people in history to become your advisors as well as the kinds of troops you want to use for your army. At the same time, you can also lessen some of the micromanagement involved and control aspects of production and government, among others, by adjusting specific sliders to change your nation's overall AI.

While the game's still due for release in early part of 2007, there's a lot of potential for this strategy game to be a very accessible strategy sim. Perhaps we should call it a Grand Strategy sim, instead, eh?

  

See more screenshots after the jump!

Publisher and distributor Tri Synergy together with developer Chaos Concepts regretfully announce that their 3D tactical/strategy title UFO Extraterrestrials is delayed until February of 2007. The game, which was supposed to come out before the year ends, is said to undergo further improvements in play balance and other aspects.

While the PC gaming genre wouldn't be actually so lonely with this delay, the storyline of UFO is rather compelling and closer to heart as it is actually viable and believable. It is set on two planets, Earth and Esperanza (Spanish word for Hope). Accordingly, it is the year 2025 and the new planet had just been colonized. Spacecrafts that were sent first encountered hostile alien life-forms and reinforcements are needed.

While soldiers, light and heavy support combat vehicles, robots, and air units are focused on Esperanza, Earth becomes defenseless and vulnerable to alien attacks. Dilemma lies between winning the battle on Esperanza or saving our own Earth. Sounds Starcraft fun, huh? Other UFO Extraterrestrials features include:

• Advanced Artificial Intelligence
• Free Movement Standard – Can't get into a building? Use a heavy weapon to make your own entrance
• Weapon and Technology Advancement accomplished by Global Research and Base building
• Hire and allocate scientists for various research projects
• Examine aliens, develops better weapons, armor, grenades, med-kits, stim-packs, cannons, vehicles - tanks, hovercrafts, energetic shields and interceptors
• Instruct technicians to build the various items that have been researched
• Prepare and properly equip your team and base to handle the various alien threats and incursions
• Build/sell hangars, medical sections, detection systems, labs, workshops, stores and SAM sites
• Intercept and eliminate the alien fighters and transports before they enter the planets air space and reinforce their troops
• UFOPEDIA provides detailed information on: weapons, vehicles, carriers, robots, interceptors, aliens, base facilities, technologies, ammunition also provides usable on which ammo is effective versus which alien, damage capabilities, speed, cost and usage