Entropy

As the days count down to the biggest gaming release of the year (imho), the GTA IV previews and features are piling up. 1UP.com has a new information, with some nice screenshots on the maturity on the gaming franchise and what we can expect.

If — for the purposes of the standard preview preamble — we were to liken the Grand Theft Auto series to the U.S. primary education system, it breaks down quite conveniently. So what the heck, let’s do it. [Continue at 1UP.com]…

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Wii Fit has finally been dated for South Africa, due for release on the 5th of May. Yes, before America (high five).

“Wii Fit, the latest innovative game for the Wii, looks set to revolutionise the gaming community. Core Group today confirmed with El33tonline that Wii Fit will be flexing its muscles across South Africa on the 5th of May.”

The game combines fitness with fun as the whole family can participate in daily exercises. Wii Fit comes bundled with the Wii Balance Board, a new accessory developed exclusively for the Wii. The Wii Balance Board is a pressure sensitive, wireless boards that gets placed on the floor in front of the TV. It senses a players weight as well as shift in balance in every direction so when you step on to it during activities, you can imitate on-screen movements. The Wii Balance Board will also be compatible with other titles in the future including Namco Bandai’s Family Ski.

Read more at EL33TONLINE.

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In easily the most interesting GTA  IV article I’ve read recently; Games Radar debates 12 potential flaws in the new GTA. From the removal of customization, the loss of humour, the smaller world etc; Games Radar discusses the potential problems with Rockstar’s decisions and then the positive side of it.

You’ve heard the hype. Grand Theft Auto IV is going to be amazing… monumental… revolutionary… life changing… world altering… universe shifting… the best game of the year, if not the best thing in the history of EVER.

Or is it…?!

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From a nude Lara Croft to Playstation 2’s guiding missles; the top 7 gaming myths are a laugh. I personally remember hearing of some of them and am convinced you can get over the flag in Mario. Seriously.

We all have heard of them, swore to have done them or know someone whose cousin has. That’s right, I’m talking about Video Game Urban Legends (VGUL). No, I’m not going to talk about the munchkin in the back of “Wizard of Oz” who supposedly hangs himself from the tree. Not also talking about how their is a ghost in the window in “3 Men and a Baby” who died in that house. Not Bigfoot or Loch Ness. I’m talking Video Games…. I’m talking Urban Legends in Video Games. Continued at kezins.com…

Have anything else that should be on the list? I know I can think of a few…

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has officially entered closed alpha testing according to Slashdot and WoW Insider. When will you get a go ? Wow Insider explains the release cycle a bit more –

Alpha is part of the software release life cycle — a software product in development goes from alpha status to beta status (sometimes including a “closed beta,” where a limited few are invited to preview and test the software, and an “open beta,”, where anyone can download and try out the beta), to “release candidates” and then “gold” (the final version, used to print the media to be available for sale).

The main features in Wrath of the Lich King will include raising the level cap from 70 to 80, and introduce a new class: Death Knights.

Everybody knows pills are awesome. Everyone also knows gaming is awesome. Game Suppli is the gaming supplement (to be taken orally, not buttockally as Gizmodo has let us know) for the ultimate gamer.

Tripletags –

There’s a new Japanese pill out called ‘Game Suppli’ that geared specifically towards gamers. Do you have tired eyes? Can’t focus on where the hell you’re going and everything’s turning to mush? Then you need ‘Game Suppli’.

Gizmodo –

These Japanese Game Suppli vitamins come in two varieties, “Blue Berry”, which refreshes you after a gaming session, and DHA, which boosts your attention during a session.

Ubergizmo –

Now this is taking things a bit too far - supplement pills for gamers known as “Game Suppli”. I wonder whether taking these will actually allow you to beat those crazy Japanese Tetris players on Tetris DS, or will it allow me to compose faster text messages on my BlackBerry?

Image via Wikipedia

HardOCP has a full review/test of Crysis on identical machines running DX9 and DX10; with full numbers; FPS and all other changes graphed, documented and more - its a great article comparing the two.

“Crysis, 5 months later. No excuses about immature drivers or API issues. We look at how Crysis DX9 compares to Crysis DX10 and what GPU is best for it. We analyze real gameplay and IQ. Did DX10 deliver on its promises? Should we stick with it?”

Through the several pages they compare various numerics, screenshots, quality and more; finally to arrive at the conclusion –

“NVIDIA GPU based video cards have no real-world gameplay differences between DX9 and DX10, so there is no reason not to run in DX10. AMD ATI GPU based video cards do suffer a performance penalty for using DX10. If you are running an NVIDA GPU based video card, continue to run in DX10, but if you are running an AMD ATI GPU based video card you might want to consider running in DX9 for the best Crysis experience.

We feel that HardOCP should not let AMD’s poor DX10 performance retard our testing. DX10 is the future whether we like it or not, and we want to encourage game developers to continue to push the envelope and provide a good gaming experience. We also want to encourage NVIDIA and AMD to continue to develop and mature their DX10 drivers in both single and multi-GPU configurations for games.”

See their full review at HardOCP.

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nihilogic has published a free, online Super Mario clone (1 level); only its 14kb in size and written completely in javascript! On his blog, he talks about some of the goals of the script and how it was made –

Here’s an experiment in keepings things small and confined to one Javascript file. There are no external image files or anything, everything is rendered with Javascript using either canvas elements or old fashioned div-making tactics (for IE). The sprites are stored in custom encoded strings in a format that only allows 4 colors for each sprite but in turn only takes up around 40-60 bytes per sprite.

We also have MIDI music embedded as base64-encoded data: URI’s. No music for IE, though, and it seems all the other browsers each have different, minor problems with it, but it sort of works.

If all you’re interested in is hitting up the game then here you go (note that music only works in non-IE browsers) –

Regular version: no music or with music
Double size: no music or with music

Image from Wikipedia

The PlayStation Blog says the new PSP Firmware update is on its way, with the following changes –

• While playing PSone games on your PSP, you can now customize how the buttons are assigned by going to [Controller Settings] > [Assign Buttons] and select [Custom].
• You can now quit Remote Play and choose to turn off your PS3 or leave it on after quitting. This is useful if you are performing a download and want to quit Remote Play, but still want your download to continue on the PS3. Select [Quit and Turn Off the PS3 System] or [Quit Without Turning Off the PS3 System] from [Quit Remote Play] when you press the HOME button on the PSP system.

I’m reasonably certain that the drop is not due to the release of games; but this does illustrate an interesting point that surely games can’t be making things dramatically worse. Besides; I’m sure that if I didn’t get my gaming full I’d be a much more unhappy person..