Ces-2010 posts

Although this is a cinematic trailer for LEGO Universe, it's difficult to not get exciting about an MMO that would have almost no limitations. The MMO will feature a classic battle between good and evil, with destructive forces seeking to snuff out all imagination in the game world. There is no confirmed release date for the game at this time.

"Developed by The LEGO Group and NetDevil, LEGO Universe will bring the iconic brick online in the first MMOG – massively-multiplayer online game – based on the LEGO play experience. LEGO Universe will enable fans of all ages to build, create, interact with friends, battle, and explore LEGO worlds – past, present and future."

Download HD LEGO Universe Trailer (65 MB)

A few months ago, the Consumer Electronics Show was trying to promote the fact that their annual massive gadget fest was going to have a bigger PC game presesne for its 2010 edition. Now that CES 2010 is officially over the truth has come out. While there were a few interesting PC game related announcements and reveals, CES won't be replacing E3 or PAX in our minds anytime soon.

Still there were enough interesting hardware gadget announcements and PC gaming reveals this past week that we decided to go back and give our opinions on what was shown at the show. While we didn't attend ourselves our sister sites like Joystiq and Engadget did get a chance to look at a ton of stuff at CES. As you can see there were several hardware reveals, the first public look at a long awaited MMO and a product that, well, we pretty much pegged from the start as a non-starter.

Click on the image above to continue reading PC Gaming at CES 2010

While the third person action game Dark Void will be released for the PC and other platforms on Jan. 19, publisher Capcom is also offering PC gamers a chance to play something related to the Airtight Games-created title. Previously announced as a downloadable Nintendo DSi game, our sister site Joystiq learned during CES 2010 that the platormer action title Dark Void Zero will also be released for the PC "soon".

The game itself, at least for its DSi version, is being designed to look and play like a "lost" 8-bit NES game. The game itself serves as a prequel to the main Dark Void title with the player controlling Rusty who also happens to have a jetpack to fight off the game's enemies the Witchers. A price point for Dark Void Zero for the PC has yet to be announced.

Earlier this week word came from CES that Sony was going to extend their PlayStation Network content to other devices including laptops. Now comes word via Shacknews on the specifics of the deal. Starting in February any PC will be able to access the many movies that are available to download and purchase on the network (just standard definition versions, unfortunately).

If you already have a PlayStation Network account with your PlayStation 3 console you will be able to use the same account to access the network on the PC. Right now, there doesn't appear to be any plans to offer downloadable PS3 games and demos for PC owners but you have to think that this initial move into the PC space could be a Trojan Horse move by Sony to offer more of their PlayStation Network content in the future for PC owners.

That Unreal Engine 3 is everywhere. Epic Games' game development tools have become more and more popular among developers and the release last year of the free Unreal Development Kit has given anyone a chance to make games based on the tech. Now Epic is showing that even smaller PC-based device can run full Unreal Engine 3 based games.

Our sister site Engadget attended Nvidia's CES 2010 press event where they showed off their new Tegra 2 mobile graphics chip. Part of their presentation had Epic Games' head programmer Tim Sweeney showing off an Unreal Engine 3 game running on a version of the chip. The Tegra 2 is designed to be used in devices like small tablets and even media players. This likely means that UE3 game developers could soon have even more options to offer their games to consumers.

One of the cooler announcements from CES this week was word that Razer and Sixense were teaming up to develop a motion-based PC game controller. Our sister site Engadget got a chance to head to the Razer booth for a brief demo of a controller prototype playing Valve's Left 4 Dead 2.

As you can see from the above YouTube video showing off the CES demo the prototypes are long wand-like devices with a severe black color instead of the nice and friendly Wiimote controller. Again details on pricing and availability are not yet finalized but the first production models should be ready for prime time sometime later this year.

Mouse pad are usually low on the totem pole as far as purchases for gaming PCs go but SteelSeries has been releasing high end mouse pads for some time. Today as part of CES it announced their newest model, the SteelSeries NP+ which they claim is unlike any other pad they have made.

Why is it so different? While you can't really tell from the image above, SteelSeries says the NP+ uses compressed fibers in its contruction to make it more water and stain resistant. In addition the surface has been designed to be a bit rougher than normal for PC gamers that want more friction between their mouse and mouse pad. The product goes on sale in March for $24.99.

Nvidia has been letting AMD take the lead in the first DirectX11 graphics chip race, but it looks like a rival chip is almost ready to go. Legit Reviews reports that during CES, Nvidia is giving a sneak peak of its next-gen chip, known as the GeForce GF100 or by its previous code name Fermi.

The demo was shown running the Unigine DirectX 11 benchmark but official performance numbers were not being given out by Nvidia (although the article has some speculations we won't repeat here). The article also says that "several sources" have indicated an early March 2010 launch date for the GeForce GF100.

Best known for their family of gaming PC mice, Razer has just announced a plan to develop a motion sensing and gesture controller for PC games. In a press release today, Razer announced they would be teaming up with another company, Sixense, to create such a controller that will use "electromagnetic fields to track precise movements along all six axes for use in current and future generation PC games."

Razer is showing off a prototype of their controller at CES using Valve's Left 4 Dead 2. Valve's Chet Faliszek is quoted as saying, "For us and for our customers, this release represents motion-enabled gaming that's more integrated and visceral than any platform has so far achieved." The actual product is scheduled to be released sometime later this year but no price points have been announced.

We've heard rumors in the pipeline that Dell's Alienware unit was going to make a new product announcement at CES and the company didn't disappoint. During their CES press conference, Dell announced the Alienware M11x, a netbook-style laptop that's designed for PC gaming.

Our sister site Engadget reports that the Alienware M11X will have an 11.6 inch screen and run under the NVIDIA GT335M graphics chip. Dell claims the netbook can run Crysis at 60 FPS and Modern Warfare 2 in 30 FPS. Battery life is supposed to be two hours in dedicated graphic mode and 6.5 hours running under intergrated graphics. The netbook will be available later this spring and priced at under $1,000.

Dell also announced hardware refreshes for their other Alienware laptops the M17x and the M15x models. The M17x now has Intel Core i7 processors available. They also announced the 23 inch Alienware OptX AW2310 monitor which supports Nvidia's 3D Vision technology.