The PC Centric Extravaganza 3.11.08

Posted by Chris Evans on 03.11.2008

Valve and Lombardi talk shop, Kane's Wrath soon to land and piracy!

The PC Centric Extravaganza 11th March 2008

Howdy all! It has been a busy week for me I must say! I have written an extended article on piracy on the PC, I have completed one review and started two others, I have done a university essay, went to a great gig last night and I must say 4ft Fingers rule! (linky) Also my team, Cardiff City won in the FA Cup (British soccer tournament for those who don't know) against Middlesbrough and are through to the Semi-Final at Wembley! Wahoooo! News wise it has been pretty slow from what I remember….so on with the news!

Kane's Wrath video and now Gold!



Wahoo! Kane! Feck yeah!

*disengages hype chip*

Kane's Wrath is landing later this month with a lovely Red Alert 3 beta opportunity. Story seems a bit better than that of C&C3, fleshing everything out and more in depth. Gameplay seems to be a bit improved with all the new units and sub-factions.

And following on from that piece of media…Kane's Wrath has now gone gold!

GameSpot is reporting that Kane's Wrath had gone gold! The upcoming expansion to C&C3 is due to land on March 26th for the PC and in the summer for the 360.

A bit more of a take on Kane's Wrath – this will sell bucket-loads for the simple reason that everyone is going to want to get themselves into the Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 BETA! I should be getting a copy from the C&C Community Manager which I will be reviewing (for somewhere, I don't know yet!) and of course, getting into the Beta is just an added bonus.

This is a great marketing scheme that EA are pulling off, while many people may have been so-so about C&C3, and thusly unsure about purchasing Kane's Wrath, the inclusion of a RA3 Beta key is going to make people absolutely go wild and buy the expansion. The fact that the expansion is looking darn good in and of itself is just an added bonus, I expect this to do pretty well when it is released at the end of the month!

Call of Duty – MOG*?

MOG – Multiplayer Online Game – A better more inclusive term that MMO and frankly sounds much better! Anyway the news regarding a MOG CoD!

Have you ever wondered what a Massively Multiplayer version of Call of Duty would be like? Well it is possible that you should all start pondering. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has talked about the possibility.

"When you think about other properties that we own and control like Call of Duty, and what would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively multiplayer environment...how do you monetize that?"

I wonder what this means, does it mean that Activision are making realistic plans for a MOG (Multiplayer Online Game) Call of Duty or is he just pondering the future?

I don't think he would have mentioned it if there weren't any plans for a MOG CoD, so one has to wonder what kind of approach they would take? My early thinking points towards either a WoW or a Battlefield Heroes esque type. My money would be on the latter, just without the cartoon graphics and what-not. CoD4 introduced perks and lots of customization so I expect that would be a probable area to pick up the money while offering free or very cheap regular required payments.

Then again I am probably putting my thinking cap on for no reason!

Valve and Steam Updates!

(Yes, Valve are back being featured on the PC Centric Extravaganza! Booyeah! While the first piece of news isn't really PC related, I thought it was interesting enough!)

Valve and 360 Charges

In a recent chat with Eurogamer Doug Lombardi talked about how Valve would like new content for Team Fortress 2 to be free on consoles. The interview can be found here.

Asked whether that still meant for free, Lombardi said: "Oh, for free, definitely, as much as we can. You know, we don't have full say over that, but we have some say over how that works."So, for us, for free is the way to go. The gamers play the game, they want to keep playing the game, so we've collected their fifty bucks at the start, and once they're in the park, they can ride any ride they want in the park. So, for us that's been the philosophy."

This obviously won't go down well with Microsoft who generally require all content to be paid for regardless of developer plans. Time will tell what happens with this, but for now read the rest of the interview here.

This is why I love Valve, they are making a stand that they are willing to fight against the stupid as shit policy that Microsoft have of charging for almost everything made available on Xbox Live. Valve have always been big supporters of paying for the product and getting updates and maps for free. Fighting against Microsoft which ensure anything like this has to be paid before it can be used is a very good move. Epic are fighting a similar battle with regards to UT3 mods, if these two companies can put enough pressure on Microsoft we may see some changes.

Audiosurf owns on Steam

We all love Audiosurf, but it is only now becoming apparent how much we love it! In a press statement from Doug Lombardi:

Audiosurf, the innovative and award-winning title that allows gamers to "ride their music," topped the February sales charts for dollars and units sold via Steam, a leading online platform for the distribution and management of PC games with over 15 million accounts worldwide.

This is truly great news for Audiosurf and Dylan Fitterer the man behind the game. Audiosurf was only released on Steam halfway through February, so to see it top the Steam sales charts shows how big it has become. I have the utmost respect for what Dylan has done and he fully deserves what he has achieved with Audiosurf.

Left 4 Dead

A whole load of other Valve related news can be found on Half-Life2.net including information on Left 4 Dead, game updates and much more! By the by, a preview of Left 4 Dead, written by me, will be appearing on halflife2.net later this month. Watch out for it, with any luck some exclusive information will appear…we will wait and see!

Steam Games

Finally the newest expansion for Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War has been released on Steam, Soulstorm is now available in the US and in all other territories tomorrow. Cost $39.95. This is a game that I have just started to review, my initial impressions are that while it is good, it does nothing more to expand on the Dawn of War series as it is after the other expansion packs. Worth buying if you enjoy the game though.

Lombardi on Consoles and PC

In a very frank interview with Gamasutra Valve's Doug Lombardi takes the time to talk about the success of AudioSurf, continued indie game support, Steamworks and on how he views the PC market as overtaking the console market.

Recalls Lombardi, "I can remember this story coming around in the mid '90s... and then 3D accelerator came out, and Carmack released that patch for GL Quake, and everybody shut up, because all of a sudden PlayStation looked like crap. There's a big shift about to come in the post-GPU space... all of a sudden PC will leapfrog what's going on on the consoles, in many other ways besides graphics."In fact, continues Lombardi, the question mark might be floating squarely in the console's future, as their prices continue climbing and more post-purchase purchases are becoming necessary. "How much longer will that story still have credibility?" He posits."Somebody go back and look at next-gen console install base numbers since launch time, and compare it to PSone and PS2. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw these guys stuttering out at 25,000 -- nobody's going to get to 100 million, which we saw from Sony on the last 2 [console generations]. I don't think anybody's even thinking of this."

This is a very in-depth interview and it presents a fantastic insight into how Doug views the PC gaming market and the future of the console industry. Check it out here.

What can I say? I love Doug!

Wrapping up on Valve!

Couple stories just recently appeared on halflife2.net:

New Steam Beta Client – latest Beta Client for Steam is available and includes fixes to downloading of games, specifically Frontlines Fuel of War.

New publishers coming to Steam – yeah…just that!

PC and Piracy

As I mentioned in the introduction I have recently written a mighty piece on piracy, specifically in relation to the PC. I am really pleased with it, it was written in semi-response to a Eurogamer article and a Chris Taylor interview. I'll hopefully get it posted here sometime, but for now check it out.

Closing Thoughts

Oh, I took part in the Soccer Fact or Fiction (thanks Sean!) right here

As ever check out all the great articles here on 411, Angry Gaming (linky) and the Select and Start News (linky) amongst all the others!

Finally, check out my blog here.