New Left4Dead content

It looks like valve just released a new mini campaign called Crash Course

And heres a summary:

Left 4 Dead's latest DLC delivers an all-new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay experience, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale.

At the finale of No Mercy, our four Survivors fought their way to the rooftop of Mercy Hospital, where they were flown away to safety in a helicopter. Crash Course continues the story moments later, taking our heroes from a fiery helicopter crash in the outskirts of Riverside to the escape vehicle that will lead them to the events in Death Toll.

While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, one of the primary goal of Crash Course is Versus mode. Crash delivers a complete, streamlined Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, so you can better coordinate your attacks. Item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay.

Homeworld 10 year anniversary

Interesting that this just popped up. I was playing Homeworld 2 days ago. Still a great game.

Via Relicnews:

The 10th anniversary of the release of Relic Entertainment’s first game, Homeworld, is right around the corner. That’s right, it’s been ten full years! Some long time fans of Homeworld have been dusting off their copies of the game, reinstalling, and firing it up to play once again. Not only that, but they’ve been organizing multiplayer matches. If you would like to get involved in these games, the team at RELICNEWS has some helpful links and information to get you going.

Announcing the Homeworld Multiplayer Revival:
HTTP://RELICNEWS.COM/ARCHIVES/2009/09/HOMEWORLD-MULTIPLAYER-REVIVAL/

The essentials on getting running:
HTTP://RELICNEWS.COM/KIT/

It is humbling to see players still playing a ten year old game, especially the first one that put your company of the map as a game developer. Our thanks to Homeworld fans everywhere who have supported us over these ten great years.

This is also good news because there are rumors that Relic is looking at making a new Homeworld game.

That would be sweet

A moment for something different

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jH0YjpygDi5_ckf0EOh5tBGbOnMAD9AR5R581

I think this is my next blog post

Lately in politics rhetoric has gotten so out of control that I mostly abstain from discussing it, but every once in awhile something comes up that gets me so irritated that I just need to let off a little steam. One of those topics, though it may seem odd, is missile defense. In his last year in office, President Bush began construction of 10 interceptor missiles place in Poland for the purpose of defending Europe from Iran should it launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. In response, Russia started building short range missiles in Kaliningrad to respond it what it interpreted as the United States trying to gain a strategic advantage should the need to attack Russia ever appear. In addition, they bought the lease out on an American airbase that is key in getting supplies to Afghanistan.

This week President Obama announced that this plan is being scrapped in favor of a missile-defense plan relying on a network of sensors and interceptor missiles based at sea, on land and in the air that are designed to destroy medium range missiles. Obama says that adapts to the most pressing threat from Iran to U.S. troops and allies in Europe, potential attacks by short- and medium-range missiles.

In response South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham released the following statement:

"This is going to be seen as a capitulation to the Russians, who had no real basis to object to what we were doing. And at the end of the day you empowered the Russians, you made Iran happy and you made the people in Eastern Europe wonder who we are as Americans."

Now why does this tick me off? Well to kick off a two part answer, the old system that was to be put in place, and let me state this clearly so as not to cause confusion, DOES NOT WORK. It has in truth never worked, almost every test to date has failed to actually intercept a ballistic missile. For part two, which gets even better, is the fact that Iran does not possess and is nowhere near creating the type of ICBM that the old system was designed to shoot down.

The benefit of the current system is that it actually works, I know this because the U.S. Navy has been using it for years. If you don't believe me you can look it up, its called A.B.M.D. or Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Using this technology, any U.S. or allied ship equipped with this system can use the radar and targeting capabilities of any other ship, essentially creating one unified defense platform. In a test last year, a Japanese destroyed intercepted a short range missile that an American destroyer 5 miles away had targeted.

Now setting that whole issue aside, lets take a second look at that statement. What Lindsey fails to realize is that what he considers capitulation has another word used to describe it, diplomacy. In diplomacy, as I understand it, two sides often agree to compromise. He's right about empowering the Russians however, as they are currently empowered. So much so that they empowered themselves to disassemble a missile battery that was pointing right at Europe (which we could not have shot down using the old system). Perhaps when Eastern Europe asks who we are as Americans, we can tell them were the people who got that taken apart. I'm not sure why Iran would be happy about this, as the new system could actually stop a missile should they make the fateful decision to fire one.

So in short, this man would rather keep an ineffective defense against a threat that doesn't exist, rather than switch to a functional system that can protect against threats we are facing right now just so he can try and score points with an uniformed public. Nice job man.

Left 4 Dead 2

Valve has released the official list of melee weapons that will be available in the upcoming Left4Dead 2. They are as follows:

Baseball Bat
Cricket Bat
Crowbar
Electric Guitar
Fire Axe
Frying Pan
Katana
Machete
Tonfa (police baton)
Chainsaw

Zombieland

for anyone that has not seen it, this is definitely on my must see list for movies coming out.

Screw you Harmony Gold

via Bigdownloads:

PC gamers all over were happy to hear about a revival of the MechWarrior sci-fi action sim franchise earlier this year but now comes word that all may not be all wine and roses with this new version of the series. According to IGN Harmony Gold, the owner of the Robotech franchise, have asked IGN to remove the trailer that was used to introduce the new game series. That trailer has since been released out in the open and has been hosted on a number of sites including Big Download. As of the posting of this article, Big Download has yet to receive such an request to pull the trailer.

According to the story, Harmony Gold claims that there was content used in the trailer that are trademarked by them as part of the Robotech franchise. It's currenty unknown what specific content Harmony Gold objects to in the trailer and there's been no response from developer Piranha Games about this new development.

Here is a perfect example of a company abusing it's right to protect intellectual property. Even though the games are completely different, and no one in their right mind would mistake one for the other, one company has to seek out another because their product is "similar" This reminds me of when Wizards of the coast attempted to say that because the owned the Magic: The Gathering copyright they should have the rights to any combat based card game, like Lunch Money. Which by the way, is awesome.

Thanks a lot to both of you. Jerks

In case your wondering why I'm ticked off, watch this trailer

Stardock nvidia version

Via Bigdownloads:

Stardock will release an Nvidia edition of their Impulse game download client later this month. It will be designed to check which version of Nvidia's drivers are installed on your PC. It will then go and see if any updated drivers are available to download from Nvidia's web site. Impulse can then automatically download and install those drivers.

This is a clever idea. As simple as downloading drivers may seem, the public at large often forgets to updates theirs. Oftentimes this will lead to problems with various games. Automating that process through steam or impluse would be a good way to address it. Especially if it meant that you would be notified the moment your drivers were updated.