Valve’s current completion estimate for Half-Life 2, which will ship for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 along with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, is late September or early October.

TAGS: Forza 2, X360, XBOX 360, Drift, Demo Drifting

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

TAGS: GTA IV Trailer, Grand Theft Auto, PS3, Xbox 360, Liberty City, NY, New York, ten things

It’s Liberty City!

Despite internet reports claiming otherwise, GTA IV is indeed set (at least partially) in Liberty City - or more likely Liberty State, the area beyond Liberty City. If you’re still not convinced, you can see the words ‘Liberty City’ plastered on a docked tanker in the trailer, a ferry and of course there’s also a glimpse of the ‘LCPD’ patrolling the GTA IV streets.

As you can see from the comparison screenshots at the bottom of the page, the layout of GTA IV’s Liberty City seems to resemble we remember from the PS2 - though obviously there’s a whole lot of extra detail washed onto the streets.

As for what’s beyond the walls of the famous GTA III locale, the trailer confirms GTA versions of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and a fun park including rollercoaster, which were all missing from the PS2 instalment.

The time setting

While there’s already plenty of debate over what time setting the next game takes place in, there are plenty of cues in the trailer to suggest a modern day setting for GTA IV.

The vehicles in the trailer all look pretty 2007 to us - including a BMW look-a-like and a sports car that has a very post-2000 design. There are also plenty of advertisements plastered around Liberty City that also cropped-up in the 90s-set GTA III, including Burger Shot and Cluckin’ Bell.

Is that really the main Character?

The narrator in the trailer is a Russian character whose background seems to revolve around murder, smuggling and erm, selling people. The internet is already shouting from the electronic rooftops that this Eastern European chap will be the main protagonist in GTA IV, but really the trailer confirms nothing of the sort.

What it does confirms is that the story will somehow bring Eastern Europeans into the equations, which leads us to wonder what’s happened to the Leone kingpins from GTA III.

Hit the water

Multiple-viewings make the GTA IV trailer’s emphasis on water-based travel even more apparent; there are shots of bridges, ferry ports, a dock and some of the prettiest water effects we’ve seen to date in a sandbox game.

A realistically floating buoy 16 seconds in seems to suggest dynamic water physics for the fourth instalment, and of course you can see the gorgeous refraction effects later on in the trailer. A spot of boating for GTA IV seems a near-cert then, but - for as much as we hope - we just can’t see jet-skiing going down in the Liberty City harbour.

Cast Your RAGE

As has always been heavily assumed, the next GTA ditches Renderware to make use of the graphically-spectacular Table Tennis RAGE engine (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine).

The confirmation comes from a Rockstar representative who told Gamespot: “We can confirm that all footage in the trailer was captured directly from 720p gameplay running real time in our Rage engine on a next-gen gaming console.”

And the engine seems to be working well for the series - as you can see from the trailer tech-wise GTA IV is looking very impressive.

Super Pedestrian

We’re expecting lots of advancements in how realistically the inhabitants of Liberty City live and work, but already there are a number of improvements on show in the short teaser.

At the beginning of the video you can see that the driver of the blue sports car is adjusting his rear-view mirror - a very nice touch indeed that we would never have seen working on the PS2. The pedestrians on the streets also have fully-modelled faces and carry groceries and books, which certainly adds a more realistic vibe to surroundings that the aimlessly-walking residents in GTA III.

The funny is back!

Oldschool movie buffs will recognize the spoof reference in the GTA IV trailer straight away; the music is from Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, a dialogue-less documentary film from the early eighties that mixed landscape footage with a rolling soundtrack. The music, in case your wondering, is a piece from minimalist composer Philip Glass, who created the music for Koyaanisqatsi.

Further proving that GTA hasn’t lost it’s trademark humour are the plethora of fake adverts available for glimpse in the video, including upcoming TV show “America’s Next Top Hooker” and “Sprunk”, a beverage we probably won’t picking up on the next trip round Tesco.

You can checkout the Koyaanisqatsi trailer here. Anyone for a cool glass of “Piswasser”?

Visit Vice City!

Keen-eyed viewers with seriously-ninja Photoshop skills will notice an interesting in-game ad five seconds into the trailer. On the top left of the shot just above the wall is a sign that says “Visit Vice City - $300″, leading many internet forums to explode with messages of “OMG!!11 MULTIPLE CITIEZ IN GTAIV!1″

So yeah, we might be getting a tiny bit ahead of ourselves taking this tiniest of glimpses as evidence that GTA IV will contain multiple, country-wide locals, but what would be more next-gen than a trip to all three cities that we’ve explored so vigorously on PS2? Having said that, would Vice City even look like Vice City in a modern day setting?

Doc Oc attacks!

Another one for the eagle-eyed among us is the brief glimpse of a cable car travelling behind a bridge 30 seconds in to the trailer, leading us to fantasise over the Spider-Man-style mischief we could have jumping around fighting an imaginary Doctor Octopus.

Having said that, we’re hoping Spidey’s influence stretches all over GTA IV; we just can’t look at that massive Crysler building without planning a Crackdown-style route up to the top, and it would be an absolute crime if we can’t base-jump from one of those skyscrapers.

Clever birds

Going from the trailer, we can see that the birds and pigeons in GTA IV are detailed and have some sort of behaviour system going on - which should please virtual game hunters everywhere.

In one scene you can see a seagull flying underneath a bridge, and in another we get a glimpse of two pigeons sitting on a statue. Will we be able to chase those dirty flying-rats through the streets? Pick them out of the skies with high-calibre rifles? At this point we’d bet money on it. (CVG doesn’t condone the harming of pigeons).

Watch it again

SOURCE: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=161126

TAGS: Xbox, 360, X260, Elite

The $480 Xbox 360 Elite, which comes dressed in matte black with metallic details, has several improvements over its predecessor. It packs a roomy 120GB hard disk (up from 20GB), a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), and a wireless controller. Like the previous version of the Xbox, the Xbox 360 Elite plays regular DVDs, stores music ripped from audio CDs or digital photos, and connects to a PC to enable digital content streaming.

Black Wireless Controller
The Elite’s wireless controller is the same as that of the Xbox 360 Pro, except that it comes in black, to match the Elite console. Microsoft rates the controller’s wireless range at up to 30 feet. It claims battery life of up to 30 hours on two AA batteries.

HDMI Port
The High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is new to the Xbox. The HDMI 1.2 port allows you to pump high-def video at up to 1080p. You can also bring multichannel surround sound from your Xbox to your TV set or audio-video receiver via a single cable connection.

HDMI Cable
The included HDMI cable connects through the unit’s HDMI 1.2 port.

Hard Drive
The Elite expands the Xbox’s hard drive capacity from 20GB to 120GB. The hard drive is removable. The big drive gives you more room for gaming content, as well as for all of the content you can purchase and download at the Xbox LIVE marketplace, including high-definition movies, TV episodes, and music.

Audio Adapter
This cable provides composite audio inputs and an optical audio input. The best (and default) digital audio output option is Dolby Digital 5.1.

Gaming Microphone
The Elite includes a standard gaming headset with microphone. At the base of the headset’s connector is a microphone on/off switch and a built-in volume dial.

Component HD AV Cable
The Component HD AV cable has component video, S-Video, and composite audio inputs.

Hard Drive Transfer Cable
The hard drive transfer cable is not included in the $480 price. But you’ll want one if you plan to transfer your downloaded content from your existing Xbox to your shiny new Elite. A few catches: You can move data from only one 20GB Xbox to one 120GB Xbox; you can move data only once; and some data may not play due to digital-rights-management issues.

Xbox 360 Elite complete set
Like all Xbox 360 systems, the Elite has three powerful core processors. It creates a video image with a 16:9 cinematic aspect ratio and anti-aliasing for smooth textures, and produces full 5.1-channel Dolby Digital surround sound. The Xbox HD DVD Player remains a separate peripheral, though; that’s an extra $200.

Source: PCWorld

TAGS: XBOX 360, X360, Forza Motorsport 2

Joel Robinson, Turn 10’s Audio Test Lead, recently got his own triple-screen setup going at home and has decided to do a quick show and tell for FM.net:

Now that the game is getting close to done and I’ve actually got time when I get home to do something besides sleep, I started putting together a new cockpit. I have big plans to make this cockpit better in every way than the last one but while I work on the all-new version, I had to get something up and running quick to play & test the game on.

The most notable new features are 40″ 720p LCD screens vs. the 21″ CRT’s on the V1. I’ve grown to love the Sparco seat I have on the cockpit in my office so I swapped out the vinyl-covered buggy seat for a blue Torino I found on Craigslist. The VRX cockpits we have at work have an integrated Buttkicker bass/tactile transducer that I think is really cool so I bought the Buttkicker LFE kit on Ebay complete with an amp. Mounting the Sparco to the old cockpit frame required a custom adapter plate which I made out of plywood. The pedals kept sliding around despite my best efforts with some zip ties so I built a quick and dirty platform out of a 2×4 & some plywood. I stapled some grippy rubber mesh stuff to the bottom to keep it from sliding and zip tied the pedals to the board. Like I said, quick & dirty but it works.

Now that’s up and running, let me say that you haven’t played Forza 2 until you’ve played it on a 3-screen setup! With a 180 degree view (vs 90 on a single screen) you can look into the corners and plan your lines SO much better! The sense of speed is heightened as is your awareness of other cars in your peripheral vision. It’s incredibly immersive! With the Buttkicker hooked up to the LFE channel, you can feel every rumble strip; without looking, you know whether you’re on your line or not. With the addition of a center speaker (Forza1 didn’t send sound to the center channel), the sound coming out of each speaker is more targeted (e.g. right front = mainly right front tire). Last but not least, the force-feedback wheel feels incredible, allows for finer steering inputs than the gamepad and gives you a lot of useful information about your car and how best to push it to 10/10ths.

Current features:

* 40″ Olevia 540i 720p HDTV screens (x3) (cheap, refurbished ones @ $750 ea. )

* Sparco Torino racing seat (I have 1 for sale if anyone is interested - $450, $599-$650 regular price)

* Yamaha 5.1 surround sound w/JBL speakers & 10″ subwoofer

* Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel & Pedals

* Buttkicker

* Interactive I/O Virtual Vehicle cockpit frame

With the pressure off to get something working so I can enjoy the game right now, I can continue to work on the list of improvements I have planned which include:

* Wall-mounts or a custom stand for the screens

* A new custom-built cockpit frame

* Rocking mechanism in the seat (like the VRX cockpit)

* New speaker mounts (no, the tripod isn’t permanent

* Clean up the junk, tools and old (Forza 1) cockpit remnants .

So… let’s see a show of hands. How many of you plan to set up a triple-screen like this back at your house?

Published Tuesday, April 24, 2007 11:55 PM by chespace

Source: http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/blogs/turn_10s_forza_motorsport_blog/archive/2007/04/24/100176.aspx

Related: http://www.moderngamers.com/2007/06/04/forza-motorsport-2-triple-screen-rearview-mirror/