Your time in the nuclear wasteland will increase thanks to plans that Bethesda Softworks has to raise the level cap in Fallout 3, its acclaimed post-apocalyptic role-playing game. Lead producer Jeff Gardiner told Eurogamer in an interview that the company will boost the level cap from 20 to 30 in the upcoming Broken Steel downloadable content pack, which is due out in March.

Broken Steel is the third DLC pack for the game. The first, Operation: Anchorage, is due out this month, and it will let players experience the liberation of Alaska from Chinese forces. The second DLC pack, the Pitt, is due out in February and will let players explore the remains of Pittsburgh. Due to an exclusivity deal, the DLC will only be offered for the Xbox 360 and Windows versions of the game. Operation: Anchorage will cost 800 Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

In addition, Broken Steel will also remove the game's ending, meaning that once you finish the storyline you will be able to continue to adventure around the wasteland. Currently, once you finish the game the credits roll and that's it. By removing the ending, Bethesda will let you work your way toward building a level 30 character.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/943/943469p1.html

This brand new v1.11 demo showcases both the basic Shock Force game as well as the Marines Module, sold separately from the basic game. The Combat Mission: Shock Force Demo will require approximately 1 Gigabyte of free space on your hard drive in order to install.

DEMO LIMITATIONS:



Includes three scenarios which can be played as either US or Syrian

Includes a fourth scenario, "Demo Training" which was designed to only be played from the US perspective

All multiplayer modes are active (TCP-IP, PBEM, Hotseat)

You can access the full Game Editor, but the save function is disabled.

The original full game manual is included as a pdf file

The demo scenarios are only in English. See Game Language Info below for more details on how to play these battles in other languages.


DEMO SCENARIO INFO:


Demo Training, a small training scenario designed to familiarize new players to Combat Mission before engaging in "real" combat. (Blue play only)

Smashing Steel: A Syrian mechanized force heads south as an American Stryker and tank force heads north. (Battle begins before dawn in the dark, but as time progresses and the sun rises, visibility and lighting will increase)

Going to Town: Stryker infantry mix it up with the Syrian forces as they enter a small town.

USMC Going to Town: Marines combined arms force fights it out with a Syrian force in a small town. The battlefield is the same as the Stryker based Going to Town scenario in order to highlight the differences between the units in each.


Find out more about the demo as well as a list or mirrors at the official site.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/943/943406p1.html

Being torn over which character design to pick for the Dark Templar class in the multiplayer portion of StarCraft 2, Blizzard Entertainment is allowing fans to decide. Over the next month, fans can choose between the Lenessa or Zer'atai designs. Blizzard is even allowing fans to choose a third option, which spawns a mixture of both. Official descriptions and pics are posted below:

"The first option represents the Lenassa tribe of dark templar, which made its debut in the original StarCraft. This unit carries a single warp blade, and a cloth shroud covers its face."

"The second option represents the Zer'atai tribe of dark templar, who wield dual scythes and wear an ensemble of heavy armor and the bones of slain zerg."

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/943/943208p1.html

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A new patch for GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is out. Patch 1.5.08 improves both the download and retail version of the first-person shooter. Patch notes, taken from the game's official web site, are posted below:

1.5.04 - 1.5.07 saved games will be compatible with patch 1.5.08.

Changes:
- Added the possibility for admins to take screenshots of a player's screen (as an anti-wallhack-cheats measure) by console commands (make_screenshot, screenshot_all).
- Fixed bug with banning the players.
- Fixed bug with saving the rank and money amount of the player upon the round restart (if the player deliberately closed the game process in the task manager, and then reconnected).
- Increased the stability of the network play.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/943/943253p1.html

Frogster America today announced that in less than a month, the population of its highly anticipated free-to-play MMORPG Runes of Magic, has already surpassed 300,000 players. The steady population growth will enable Frogster to continuously update and polish the game during the run up to its formal launch in March 2009.

"Frogster would like to thank our dedicated community for their constructive feedback since the beginning of the open beta," said Daniel Ullrich, Director of Product Management at Frogster Interactive. "With the development of the launch content almost complete, it's now up to the community to do their part in giving us feedback to make the game great. Runes of Magic is their game and we want to make sure the new content and features we are creating continually add to the excitement and fun in the world."

During the festive break, Runes of Magic convinced critics and won several prestigious awards from the games media. After declaring Runes of Magic as the best free-to-play game of Show at the Games Convention 2008 in August, TenTonHammer.com named Runes of Magic "Surprise Hit 2008". The editors of Mmorpg-planet.com selected Runes of Magic as the "Best Free MMORPG of 2008" and it was the only free-to-play title to be nominated for MMORPG.com's upcoming "Most anticipated Game of 2009" Readers Choice award.

Runes of Magic began its open beta in December with an English and German version. All interested players can now set up an account and download the client for free at www.runesofmagic.com.

Runes of Magic – a world full of wizardry and adventure

With an extensive range of features Runes of Magic prepares to redefine the standard of free-to-play MMO games. Right from the launch Runes of Magic will convey its absorbing story through more than 1.000 quests embedded in an atmospheric world. Players can choose between six main classes. Combined with a secondary class they dispose of 36 individual combinations of character classes over all. All characters possess unique skills with impressive combo attacks and can use mounts. A particularly attractive feature for guilds and players is the possibility to arrange their own virtual homes with individual furnishing. Thanks to an extensive crafting and reputation system, thrilling PVP as well as demanding dungeons and boss-monsters, no wishes remain unsatisfied. The Taiwanese developer Runewaker has developed Runes of Magic according to western MMO standards within a time frame of three years. The studio will provide new challenges for players every three to four months with free add-ons and updates. MMO fans can find more information, pictures and videos on the official website www.runesofmagic.com.

Runes of Magic features



Free-to-play: no monthly fees, free download

Extensive dual class system (six primary and secondary classes)

Versatile spell and attack combinations

Engaging background story

More than 1,000 quests and quest series at launch

No zone boundaries thanks to a seamless architecture

A mix of instanced, tile based, and persistent dungeons to explore

Individually developable skills and spells

Armor sets with special bonuses

Dynamic item system with hundreds of upgradeable runes

Optional PvP system with arena battles and guild wars

Ranking system with player-ranking lists

Unique mounts including horses, tigers, striders and more

Epic crafting system with the ability to improve existing items

Personalization of player houses through individual furnishing

Reputation system

Customizable user interface with the ability to use Add-Ons

Map and radar system to easily find item dealers, resources and quests

In-game auction houses for trading items

Teleport-Runes for instant travel

Mouse and keyboard controls for movement

Regular updates with new content

Cross-server fights through three-server-battles (in development)

Guild houses in special zones (in development)


About Runewaker Entertainment Ltd.
Runewaker Entertainment was founded in August of 2004, with the headquarters located in Taichung, Taiwan. The founding members are all very experienced in the field and decided to come together to pursue their own dream. Currently Runewaker employs over 40 highly skilled programmers, designers and artists and is constantly expanding. Runewaker specializes in making massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). The company has built their own engine from scratch that rivals some of the best that is available out on the market. Their first product, Radiant Arcana (Runes of Magic), is already completed and currently in Open Beta Phase in China. Runewaker is currently producing more content for Runes of Magic. Webpage: http://www.runewaker.com/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/01/pirates.600.2.jpg" width="804" height="379" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2"/The Saudi oil tanker that has been held by Somali pirates since November was apparently freed up after a bundle of $3 million was airdropped by parachute to the ship. An expert drop. [a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/world/africa/10somalia.html?ref=world"NYT/a]/p br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/ br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=62aec797523f92a6d950be060403e7afp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=62aec797523f92a6d950be060403e7afp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=62aec797523f92a6d950be060403e7af" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=AvtXz5Wf"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=ynD72Hmc"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=Ox3geUjt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=Ox3geUjt" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=8ySDvqXO"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=8ySDvqXO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/wPVSn7HBufs" height="1" width="1"/

The Saudi oil tanker that has been held by Somali pirates since November was apparently freed up after a bundle of $3 million was airdropped by parachute to the ship. An expert drop. [NYT]

BioWare has announced that it will showcase Mass Effect 2, the sequel to its critically-acclaimed RPG, at this year's upcoming Game Developers Conference. The developer revealed on the gaming event's web site that it would discuss what it learned from the first game's level design and how the second game would improve upon the formula.

GDC will once again take place at San Francisco's Moscone Center. This year's event will be held from March 23 - 27. BioWare Project Manager Corey Andruko and BioWare Lead Technical Designer Dusty Everman will lead the 60-minute lecture. The session's official description is posted below:

"Session Description
This session examines the BioWare Mass Effect team's new level-creation process, which is focused on maximizing iteration for quality while minimizing rework and cost. This approach to building levels strives to integrate the Design, Art, and Production teams such that the highest-risk level-creation issues are addressed early in the development cycle. Lessons learned from Mass Effect lead to a detailed description of the new level-creation process, and graphical examples of a level illustrate its progression through the necessary phases. The discussion also examines how BioWare is currently implementing this process using elements of Scrum and Lean Development.

Takeaway
Attendees will: - Gain insight into some of the major issues the development team encountered while building Mass Effect at BioWare; - Get a detailed look at the Mass Effect team's new approach to creating levels while avoiding these issues; - Find out how this new process is working for the Mass Effect team; - Learn about new pitfalls the team discovered that can potentially be avoided on future game projects.

Intended Audience and Prerequisites
This lecture is intended for producers, designers, or any game developer involved in planning, specification, or content creation for game levels. An understanding of modern video game development workflows is recommended."

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/942/942902p1.html

THQ Inc. today announced plans to release a multiplayer beta for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, the award winning Real-time strategy game from Relic Entertainment.

The beta will be hosted via Steam and offered exclusively to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm owners on January 21, followed by a worldwide public release on January 28. The beta will feature all four playable races, five multiplayer maps, and Microsoft's Games for Windows - LIVE TrueSkill Matchmaking.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, developed by THQ's internal studio, Relic Entertainment, is a Real-time strategy game set in the grim, war-ravaged world of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 science fiction universe. Featuring vicious front-line combat, destructible environments, a fully cooperative multiplayer mode, four unique playable races, and a non-linear single player campaign with branching storylines, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II delivers the ultimate sci-fi fantasy RTS experience. The game is scheduled for release on February 23, 2009 for Windows PC, and will be available through worldwide retail and online outlets. For more information on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, please visit www.dawnofwar2.com.

For once, Apple doesn't steal the Consumer Electronics Show's thunder.

Before the first statue is handed out and the fifth-grade drama teacher thanked, Hollywood is handing out prizes.

Tycoon John Catsimatidis' New York City supermarket chain gets accused of ripping off Trader Joe's look.

Microsoft delayed the release of Windows 7 beta today in order to deal with a huge influx of traffic that at least temporarily brought down the company's web servers. a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx" target="_blank"Microsoft's Windows 7 web site/a currently features the following note:br / br / i"The volume has been phenomenal—we're in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We're sorry for the delay and we'll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience."/ibr / br / There are rumors that Microsoft will finally open the flood gates at 6pm PST tonight. The company also posted a quick note about the delay a href="http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/01/09/update-on-windows-7-beta-availability.aspx" target="_blank"on its Windows 7 blog/a, which prompted the following reply from a disappointed reader:br / br / i"Why? Logistically speaking, bit torrent would have been a life saver here."/ibr / br / The commenter apparently wasn't the only one having this thought. Someone has uploaded a torrent of the official a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/" target="_blank"Microsoft Technet/a iso to the Pirate Bay, and the file currently has almost 200 seeders. Now let's just hope that Microsoft will start handing out those 2.5 million beta keys soon ...br / br / (via a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/01/08/official-msdn-technet-windows-7-beta-iso-appears-on-pirate-bay/" target="_blank"Downloadsquad/a)br / br/div class="tagblock"small class="ttags"Tags: a href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag"microsoft/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tag/windows7" rel="tag"windows7/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tag/technet" rel="tag"technet/a/smalldiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?a=eAg704.P"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?i=eAg704.P" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?a=zjV7CG.P"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?i=zjV7CG.P" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?a=GlsCVC.p"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?i=GlsCVC.p" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?a=cPZc7S.p"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?i=cPZc7S.p" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?a=mYx6g9.P"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/p2pblog?i=mYx6g9.P" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/p2pblog/~4/507645691" height="1" width="1"/

San Francisco chiropractor and his former patient settle defamation lawsuit over a negative review on the community reviews site.

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/01/hunterfan.jpg" width="800" height="492" style="display:block;float:none;" /I just experienced the a href="http://i.gizmodo.com/5125665/the-hunter-concert-breeze-ceiling-fan-has-a-speaker-in-it"Hunter Concert Breeze/amdash;the ceiling fan with a speaker in itmdash;and it's the one thing I would definitely buy out of all of CES./p pHere are some extra details. It's going to be $449 in June, and will come with the speaker fan, a transmitter and the remote, which controls not just volume, but the brightness of the lights./p pIt's pretty damn good. Even though it only has one channel playing out of one speaker, shit, it's still a speaker IN YOUR CEILING FAN. You can sync it up to the other Soundolier speaker lamps (Hunter's fan is also using the same technology) for a more well-rounded speaker setup. But supposedly the sound gets blasted in a 360-degree spread so the entire room gets covered in that single channel of sound./p pAs a fan, it's got Hunter's fan experience, so although they didn't turn it up full blast, there was a decent amount of breeze. But, again, it's a fan with a speaker, so how could you not like it? emThis/em IS Gizmodo./p br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/ br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=1fa85b4366d62853c6a764013070fb5fp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=1fa85b4366d62853c6a764013070fb5fp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=1fa85b4366d62853c6a764013070fb5f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=ysPtCl0A"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=1pvXfaGF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=QzeXWG55"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=QzeXWG55" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=XCgG5gzk"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=XCgG5gzk" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/PfNvwJD7kwQ" height="1" width="1"/

I just experienced the Hunter Concert Breezemdash;the ceiling fan with a speaker in itmdash;and it's the one thing I would definitely buy out of all of CES. Here are some extra details. It's going...

The awesome, free Slacker Radio app for BlackBerry does what it promises, and then some. For non-U.S. songsters, theres only one catch.

While many still consider the Vaio P as a netbook, with the exception of its ultra-compact size and Intel Atom processor, it basically doesn’t resemble your typical netbook.

The new Sony Vaio P comes with an Intel Atom Z530 1.33GHz processor, 8-inch 1600×768 pixel resolution display, 2GB RAM, Bluetooth, WiFi 802.11n, 3G (EV-DO). GPS, Webcam, SD/Memory Stick support, Windows Vista, and 60GB HDD, 64GB SSD and 128GBSSD storage options. Measuring it at 9.6×4.7x.78 inches in size, this has got to be one of the smallest and probably one of the most awkward things to use. As you can see, they done away with the usual trackpad to save up on space and used a trackpoint joystick instead. Starting price for the Sony Vaio P is at $899.99 and climbs to as high as $1499. With such an odd form factor and an insane price tag, it makes you wonder; who, in their right mind, would consider the Vaio P as a netbook? For that amount, I’d rather get two HP Mini 2140 netbooks instead.

[via yugatech; picture courtesy of engadget]

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/sedans/" rel="tag"Sedans/Saloons/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/acura/" rel="tag"Acura/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/rumormill/" rel="tag"Rumormill/a/pa href="http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=808157"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/01/acura_grille.jpg" //abr /br /Earlier this week, emAutocar/em reported that future a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/06/honda-kills-s2000-replacement-v8-program-rwd-acuras/"high-end Acura models had been canceled/a. As it turns out, those rumors were more than a bit premature, as Jeff Conrad, Vice President of Acura, has informed his dealers via email that the long-awaited "Tier 1" program is moving forward on schedule. It's believed that the program is based around the large a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/13/spy-shots-2011-acura-rl/"rear-wheel drive Acura/a that would go up against the best Germany has to offer. Also back on the table is a a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/28/honda-v8-coming-in-2015/"V8 engine/a to power this range-topping sedan from Honda. But it's not all good news for auto enthusiasts. Still dead, sadly, is the NSX revival. We're also unaware of a planned replacement for the soul-stirring S2000 roadster or a drop-top version of the upcoming CR-Z hatchback. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. emThanks for the tip, Nick/em!br /br /[Source: a href="http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=808157"Temple of VTEC/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/09/who-to-believe-internal-email-claims-acura-rwd-v8-program-still/"Who to believe? Internal email claims Acura RWD V8 program still alive/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:27:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=808157Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/09/who-to-believe-internal-email-claims-acura-rwd-v8-program-still/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1424550/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/09/who-to-believe-internal-email-claims-acura-rwd-v8-program-still/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4ptBQY7_reJNSjLx7nATeuOjV4Y/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4ptBQY7_reJNSjLx7nATeuOjV4Y/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=UsAZW333"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=UsAZW333" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=FeHUplm4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=FeHUplm4" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/JDSa7scal3w" height="1" width="1"/

Should you follow everyone who follows you on Twitter? Don Reisinger makes the case that you should -- for the good of all of us.

Should you follow everyone who follows you on Twitter? Don Reisinger makes the case that you should -- for the good of all of us.

The calling service application will still use mobile minutes, but it could reduce international calling charges.