Gaming 28 - Revisiting the Village

The Old Republic: All I Want is the Cutscenes

The Old Republic: All I Want is the Cutscenes

Posted on 13th Jun 2011 at 07:29 by Clive Webster with 22 comments

The latest trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been released and it?s freaking awesome. This follows previous cut-scene and video releases that have been similarly impressive, engaging and enjoyable. However, with the game looking a bit duff, I?m wondering if Electronic Arts, Bioware and LucasArts could be persuaded into releasing a cut-scene-only version? I?d happily pay to watch a short film made from them.



If you?re not sure what I?m on about, have a look at the Star Wars: The Old Republic intro cinematic (watch it in fullscreen mode) above, then the other trailers (not the gameplay videos) and come back.

See what I mean? They?re much more reminiscent of the original trilogy than the rubbish prequel films. There?s a focus on people that you readily recognise and empathise with overcoming obstacles; the classic setup for injecting drama and interest into a scene or story. Furthermore, there?s absolutely no mention of trade disputes, midi-sodding-chlorians or annoying lizard-rabbits.

In fact, some of the intros' cinematic characters are really close to those of Episodes IV to VI. There?s a dependable droid that happily receives rushed instructions, and it?s on a ship with dingy, circular corridors and laser-cannon pods. Then there?s the pilot of this ship ? he?s instantly introduced as a likeable yet roguish smuggler, and his attire hardly suggests otherwise. He even seems to steal Han?s dialogue: his is the fastest ship in the fleet, even though it might not look like much. All we need is a co-pilot with a shaving phobia and we?re done.

But who cares if Bioware is borrowing heavily from the source material to produce something this fun? Arguably, the mistake that George Lucas made with his prequels was refusing to follow his own conventions. We wanted a bit more of the same please, not some confused reinterpretation of the Universe we?d spent the last however many years discussing in detail.

So when the ?trader? ship blasts through the Imperial turbo laser, rushes through its guts, and then hits its hyperdrive, we?re cheering on the crew. When the Jedi master Force-pulls the second lightsaber to him, we?re given a moment to consider the great duel that?s about to ensue.

Even the cutting and pacing between the personal fight between Jedi and Sith and the action on the not-Millenium Falcon is so reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back that it can?t fail to make Star Wars fans happy. The trailer even conveys emotion brilliantly ? Malcus exudes rage as he stalks towards the Jedi master and bats away his defence, while you can read the thoughts of his Padawan perfectly well after his death.

So please, can we just have the cinematics to watch, and leave the MMO to WoW deserters? Please?

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Crysis 2 DirectX 11 patch coming Monday, comparison inside

Making good on its promise, Crytek has announced that it will finally add DirectX 11 graphics to Crysis 2. The developer plans to release three separate downloadable add-ons that improve the game's visual quality alongside patch 1.9 next Monday, June 27. To be clear, although patch 1.9 will enable DirectX 11 support, you'll have to individually download and install the "DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade," "DX11 Tessellation Pack," and "High Res Textures."

The DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade will deliver a host of graphical improvements and performance optimizations for both DX9 and DX11 APIs. After installing the update, folks running Crysis 2 in DX9 will gain real-time local reflections and contacts shadows. In addition to those effects, DX11 platforms will enjoy hardware tessellation, parallax occlusion mapping along with various shadow, water, particle, depth of field, and motion blur enhancements.

To enable hardware tessellation, however, DX11 players will have to download the DX11 Tessellation Pack, which contains pre-tessellated geometries. As its name indicates, the third optional download simply contains high-resolution textures for a variety of assets. Both DX9 and DX11 versions of Crysis 2 will support the snazzier textures, but it's worth noting that you'll need a graphics card with at least 1GB of VRAM and a 64-bit OS.

Patch 1.9 will also deliver nearly a dozen gameplay tweaks, including a handful multiplayer bug fixes for issues that caused incorrect stat logging and authentication problems. Another glitch prevented JAW rockets from firing through windows with broken glass. The update will also improve anti-cheat measurements as Crytek has fixed an exploit that allowed players to become immune to vote kicking. We've included the full release notes below.

Although they haven't been officially released yet, a few lucky players managed to download the updates from Crytek's test environment before the company removed the files from public view. You'll have to wait until Monday to experience the higher-quality graphics in all their splendor, but you can whet your appetite with six animated GIFs that compare the before and after effects of DX11 Tessellation courtesy of a NeoGaf forum member.

Unfortunately, for every PC gamer that is ecstatic about the DX11 update, we imagine there are two who will shrug it off with a chip on their shoulder. Many PC gamers were disappointed by Crysis 2's console-biased launch, giving the game an average Metacritic user score of 6.4 out of 10. For those of you who dismissed Crysis 2 as a console port: is the DX11 patch enough to forgive and forget, or is Crytek simply putting tinsel on a dead Christmas tree?

Crysis 2 Patch 1.9

? Added Contact Shadows
? Added DX11 benchmark level
? Added DX11 support for Crysis 2 (the following features only work when downloading the optional DX11 package here):
? - Tessellation + Displacement Mapping
? - High Quality HDR Motion Blur
? - Realistic Shadows with Variable Penumbra
? - Sprite Based Bokeh Depth of Field
? - Parallax Occlusion Mapping
? - Particles Motion Blur, Shadows and Art Updates
? - Water Rendering improvements and using Tessellation + Displacement Mapping
? Added Realtime Local Reflections
? Added support for Higher Res Textures Package
? Added various new console variables to whitelist
? Fixed bullet penetration, which had been broken by a bug introduced with the DLC 2 patch
? Fixed issue in MP where player stats weren't always saved at the end of a game
? Fixed issue in MP where player stats would sometimes randomly reset
? Fixed issue with MP time played statistic, which would sometimes be too low on leaderboards and in stats
? Fixed issue with JAW rocket not firing through window's containing broken glass
? Fixed rare issue where a user could not access MP with a valid CD key if they had previously used an invalid CD key
? Improved advanced graphics options menu
? Improved anti-cheat measurements: fixed exploit which could prevent vote kicking working against a user
? Improved multi-GPU support
? Improved Tone Mapping
? Re-added possibility to enable r_StereoSupportAMD via config file (unsupported)

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44375-crysis-2-directx-11-patch-coming-monday-comparison-inside.html

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Crysis 2 DirectX 11 patch coming Monday, comparison inside

Making good on its promise, Crytek has announced that it will finally add DirectX 11 graphics to Crysis 2. The developer plans to release three separate downloadable add-ons that improve the game's visual quality alongside patch 1.9 next Monday, June 27. To be clear, although patch 1.9 will enable DirectX 11 support, you'll have to individually download and install the "DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade," "DX11 Tessellation Pack," and "High Res Textures."

The DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade will deliver a host of graphical improvements and performance optimizations for both DX9 and DX11 APIs. After installing the update, folks running Crysis 2 in DX9 will gain real-time local reflections and contacts shadows. In addition to those effects, DX11 platforms will enjoy hardware tessellation, parallax occlusion mapping along with various shadow, water, particle, depth of field, and motion blur enhancements.

To enable hardware tessellation, however, DX11 players will have to download the DX11 Tessellation Pack, which contains pre-tessellated geometries. As its name indicates, the third optional download simply contains high-resolution textures for a variety of assets. Both DX9 and DX11 versions of Crysis 2 will support the snazzier textures, but it's worth noting that you'll need a graphics card with at least 1GB of VRAM and a 64-bit OS.

Patch 1.9 will also deliver nearly a dozen gameplay tweaks, including a handful multiplayer bug fixes for issues that caused incorrect stat logging and authentication problems. Another glitch prevented JAW rockets from firing through windows with broken glass. The update will also improve anti-cheat measurements as Crytek has fixed an exploit that allowed players to become immune to vote kicking. We've included the full release notes below.

Although they haven't been officially released yet, a few lucky players managed to download the updates from Crytek's test environment before the company removed the files from public view. You'll have to wait until Monday to experience the higher-quality graphics in all their splendor, but you can whet your appetite with six animated GIFs that compare the before and after effects of DX11 Tessellation courtesy of a NeoGaf forum member.

Unfortunately, for every PC gamer that is ecstatic about the DX11 update, we imagine there are two who will shrug it off with a chip on their shoulder. Many PC gamers were disappointed by Crysis 2's console-biased launch, giving the game an average Metacritic user score of 6.4 out of 10. For those of you who dismissed Crysis 2 as a console port: is the DX11 patch enough to forgive and forget, or is Crytek simply putting tinsel on a dead Christmas tree?

Crysis 2 Patch 1.9

? Added Contact Shadows
? Added DX11 benchmark level
? Added DX11 support for Crysis 2 (the following features only work when downloading the optional DX11 package here):
? - Tessellation + Displacement Mapping
? - High Quality HDR Motion Blur
? - Realistic Shadows with Variable Penumbra
? - Sprite Based Bokeh Depth of Field
? - Parallax Occlusion Mapping
? - Particles Motion Blur, Shadows and Art Updates
? - Water Rendering improvements and using Tessellation + Displacement Mapping
? Added Realtime Local Reflections
? Added support for Higher Res Textures Package
? Added various new console variables to whitelist
? Fixed bullet penetration, which had been broken by a bug introduced with the DLC 2 patch
? Fixed issue in MP where player stats weren't always saved at the end of a game
? Fixed issue in MP where player stats would sometimes randomly reset
? Fixed issue with MP time played statistic, which would sometimes be too low on leaderboards and in stats
? Fixed issue with JAW rocket not firing through window's containing broken glass
? Fixed rare issue where a user could not access MP with a valid CD key if they had previously used an invalid CD key
? Improved advanced graphics options menu
? Improved anti-cheat measurements: fixed exploit which could prevent vote kicking working against a user
? Improved multi-GPU support
? Improved Tone Mapping
? Re-added possibility to enable r_StereoSupportAMD via config file (unsupported)

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44375-crysis-2-directx-11-patch-coming-monday-comparison-inside.html

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Obama Will Speed Pullout From War in Afghanistan

Asserting that the country that served as a base for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States, Mr. Obama declared that the ?tide of war is receding.? And in a blunt recognition of domestic economic strains, he said, ?America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.?

Mr. Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. The remaining 20,000 troops from the 2009 ?surge? of forces would leave by next summer, amounting to about a third of the 100,000 troops now in the country. He said the drawdown would continue ?at a steady pace? until the United States handed over security to the Afghan authorities in 2014.

The troop reductions, which were decided after a short but fierce internal debate, will be both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama?s military commanders, and they will come as the president faces relentless budget pressures, an increasingly restive American public and a re-election campaign next year.

Mr. Obama, speaking in businesslike tones during a 15-minute address from the East Room of the White House, talked of ending America?s longest war and of the painful lessons he thought could be taken from it. While justifying the nation?s decade-long commitment, he talked of ?ending the war responsibly? and warned of the perils of overextending the military by sending large numbers of soldiers into combat. He acknowledged that huge challenges remained before an end to the conflict that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and 1,500 American lives.

The withdrawals would begin winding down the military?s counterinsurgency strategy, which Mr. Obama adopted 18 months ago. Administration officials indicated that they now planned to place more emphasis on focused clandestine counterterrorism operations of the kind that killed Osama bin Laden, which the president cited as Exhibit A in the case for a substantial American troop reduction.

?We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength,? Mr. Obama said. ?Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11.? He said that an intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan had crippled Al Qaeda?s original network in the region, leaving its leaders either dead or pinned down in the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Of 30 top Qaeda leaders identified by American intelligence, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, administration officials said.

But the withdrawal of the entire surge force by the end of next summer will significantly change the way that the United States wages war in Afghanistan, analysts said, suggesting that the administration may have concluded it can no longer achieve its loftiest ambitions there.

Mr. Obama acknowledged as much in his remarks. ?We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,? he said. ?We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government.?

Mr. Obama?s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the military operation in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama indicated a willingness to move toward more focused covert operations of the type that the United States is conducting in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. ?When threatened, we must respond with force,? he said. ?But when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.?

Thom Shanker and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f97a21a5607b1f7c217ab772b19326dd

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Obama Opts for Faster Afghan Pullout

Asserting that the country that served as a launching pad for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States, Mr. Obama, in remarks prepared for delivery at 8 p.m. from the East Room of the White House, announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. The remaining 20,000 troops from the 2009 ?surge? of forces would leave by next summer, amounting to about a third of the 100,000 troops now in the country.

The troop reductions, which came after a short but fierce internal debate, are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama?s military commanders, and they come as the president faces relentless budget pressures, an increasingly restive Congress and American public and a re-election campaign next year.

The withdrawals would mark the start of a winddown of the military?s troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy, which Mr. Obama signed on to 18 months ago after a painstaking review. Most American forces are expected to leave Afghanistan by 2014. Administration officials indicated that they now planned to place more emphasis on smaller, focused counterterrorism operations of the kind that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last month, which the president cited as Exhibit A for a substantial American troop reduction.

Administration officials have said an intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan have crippled Al Qaeda?s original network in the region, leaving its leaders either dead or pinned down in the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Of 30 top Qaeda leaders indentified by American intelligence, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, the officials said.

But the withdrawal of the entire surge force by the end of next summer will significantly change the way that the United States wages war in Afghanistan, analysts said, suggesting that the administration may have concluded it can no longer achieve its loftiest ambitions for the nearly decade-long military campaign there.

Senior administration officials acknowledged as much during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.

?We?re not trying to make Afghanistan a perfect place,? a senior administration official said. ?We?re not trying to pacify the entire country, or destroy every last vestige of the Taliban.?

Mr. Obama?s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the military engagement in Afghanistan. But it is a setback for his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has been named director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

General Petraeus, who helped write the Army?s field manual on counterinsurgency policy, did not endorse the decision, said another official, though both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton both accepted it, albeit with reservations. General Petraeus had recommended limiting withdrawals to 5,000 troops this year and another 5,000 over the winter, deferring the drawdown of the rest of the surge force through next year?s fighting season.

He and other military commanders argued that the 18 months since Mr. Obama announced the troop increase did not allow for enough time for the Americans to consolidate the fragile gains that they had made in Helmand and other provinces. Troops have succeeded in clearing many towns and cities of insurgents, and then keeping them safe so that markets reopened and girls were able to go to school, for example.

But the effort to transfer responsibility for security to Afghan forces remains elusive because the Afghan troops are proving unprepared for the job.

While senior administration officials said Wednesday that the military campaign had made Afghans better able to govern themselves, they cited few specific initiatives that showed the Afghan government taking more responsibility for its citizens? security. Corruption in the government of President Hamid Karzai continues to be rampant, sapping the confidence of many Afghans.

Still, the growing disenchantment at home with the war, particularly given the ballooning national debt, the country?s slow economic recovery, and the whopping $120 billion price tag of the Afghan war this year alone, were all considerations weighed by the president in deciding it was time to begin disentangling the United States from its broad commitments in Afghanistan.

Even Republicans have been getting on the get-out-of-Afghanistan bandwagon. Republican presidential hopefuls like Mitt Romney and Jon M. Huntsman are demanding a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Democrats on Capitol Hill and elsewhere complain that the cost of the war is siphoning money away from efforts to build roads and create jobs in the United States.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher , Republican of California, called on Mr. Obama to speed up the withdrawal on Wednesday. ?If we?re going to leave, we should leave,? he said in a statement. ?The centralized system of government foisted upon the Afghan people is not going to hold after we leave. So let?s quit prolonging the agony and the inevitable.?

The decision reflected a partial pivot by Mr. Obama himself, who campaigned for president on the argument that American resources were better spent in Afghanistan, from where the Sept. 11 attacks were planned, than in Iraq, a war he continues to characterize as one of choice.

Since then, Mr. Obama, pressed forcefully by Mr. Biden, has come to view Afghanistan as the far lesser threat to America than its neighbor next door, Pakistan.

Shanker contributed reporting

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Gaming 28 - Revisiting the Village

Gaming 28 - Revisiting the Village

Cost of Wars a Rising Issue as Obama Weighs Troop Levels

As Mr. Obama begins trying to untangle the country from its military and civilian promises in Afghanistan, his critics and allies alike are drawing a direct line between what is not being spent to bolster the sagging economy in America to what is being spent in Afghanistan ? $120 billion this year alone.

On Monday, the United States Conference of Mayors made that connection explicitly, saying that American taxes should be paying for bridges in Baltimore and Kansas City, not in Baghdad and Kandahar.

The mayors? group approved a resolution calling for an early end to the American military role in Afghanistan and Iraq, asking Congress to redirect the billions now being spent on war and reconstruction costs toward urgent domestic needs. The resolution, which noted that local governments cut 28,000 jobs in May alone, was the group?s first venture into foreign policy since it passed a resolution four decades ago calling for an end to the Vietnam War.

And in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said: ?We can no longer, in good conscience, cut services and programs at home, raise taxes or ? and this is very important ? lift the debt ceiling in order to fund nation-building in Afghanistan. The question the president faces ? we all face ? is quite simple: Will we choose to rebuild America or Afghanistan? In light of our nation?s fiscal peril, we cannot do both.?

Demonstrators describing themselves as ?angry jobless citizens? said they would picket the Capitol on Wednesday to urge members of Congress to use any savings from Mr. Obama?s troop reductions to create more jobs. The group sponsoring the demonstration, the Prayer Without Ceasing Party, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was ?urging the masses to call their congressmen and the president to ensure that jobs receive a top priority when the troops start returning to America.?

Spending on the war in Afghanistan has skyrocketed since Mr. Obama took office, to $118.6 billion in 2011. It was $14.7 billion in 2003, when President George W. Bush turned his attention and American resources to the war in Iraq.

The increase is easy to explain. When Mr. Obama took office, he vowed to aggressively pursue what he termed America?s ?war of necessity? (Afghanistan) and to withdraw from America?s ?war of choice? (Iraq). He has done so; the lines on Iraq and Afghanistan war spending crossed in 2010, when the United States spent $93.8 billion in Afghanistan versus $71.3 billion in Iraq, according to the Congressional Research Service.

But the White House is keenly aware that the president is heading into a re-election campaign; with the country?s jobless rate remaining high, topping 9 percent, his poll numbers on his handling of the domestic economy have plummeted.

?Do we really need to be spending $120 billion in a country with a G.D.P. that?s one-sixth that size?? asked Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress, a policy group with close ties to the Obama administration. ?Most Americans would be shocked to know that we?re spending that kind of money for jobs programs for former Taliban, and would wonder where are our jobs programs for Detroit and Cleveland??

In 2010, Congress ? at the Obama administration?s request ? set aside $100 million to support programs in Afghanistan aimed at moving former insurgents off the battlefields and into the country?s mainstream economy. Those efforts ? similar to what the Bush administration did in Iraq ? have yet to bear much fruit; the 1,700 fighters who have enrolled in the reintegration program represent only a fraction of the estimated 20,000 to 40,000 Taliban insurgents, The New York Times reported Monday.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

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Gaming 27 - The PlayStation Ryvita