ToC Gaming News Blog : All The Latest PC Gaming News

The new Jumpgate site is live, and there is a limited number of places open for the Beta Sign Up. BETA SIGN UP.

Nothing can prepare you for the journey that is unfolding... The Galaxy is in a fragile state, balancing on the brink of War and Peace. New threats are emerging from the untouched regions of space that threaten with an iron grip to bring the known inhabitants to their knees.
Will you aid your faction when duty calls? Or will you serve your own needs?
Will you fight side by side with your comrades in an epic struggle against a hardened, blood-thirsty foe or will you go it alone, facing the imperil dangers as they approach?
Do you long for the thrill of combat or do you prefer the call of merchant - always on the look out for a quick, opportune trade.

Your decisions are your own, and the rewards are yours for the taking.
Jumpgate Evolution is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game set in the open expanse of space. With breath-taking visuals and an innovative twitch-based space combat, Jumpgate is the definitive space combat MMO, putting you at the heart of the action as you embark on your mission to explore the galaxy and progress from space rookie to elite commander.

Engage in Dog-Fights

Engage in Dog-Fights 

Jumpgate Evolution offers a unique twitch-based combat system which allows you to challenge thousands of foes with your own skill and determination, offering the most exhilarating, jaw-dropping experience in online gaming to date.

Explore a huge and varied universe

Explore a huge and varied universe 

Each jump will take you to exotic new locations with exciting new adventures. The universe is a vast and dangerous place and as old threats never die you’d be wise to remember this. Pirates, brigands, and opposing faction members are just some of the dangers present in the Jumpgate universe.

Highly Accessible

Highly Accessible 

Although graphically stunning, Jumpgate is highly scaleable, allowing the game to run flawlessly on low end PCs. Jumpgate also offers joystick and peripheral support, adding to the immersive online experience.

Huge Space Battles

Huge Space Battles 

Fight against thousands of players online in epic large-scale player vs. player real-time battles.

Three Playable Nations

Three Playable Nations 

Become a pilot for any of the three playable nations. Join the corrupt, power-hungry Solrain Commonwealth, the disciplined, combat ready Octavian Empire or the spiritually-led Quantar Paths.

Advanced Gameplay Systems

Advanced Gameplay Systems 

Jumpgate Evolution offers limitless game play and content with a unique mission generator capable of generating thousands of fresh and immersive missions for players to embark on.

Player driven world

Player driven world 

Players are given ultimate power as Jumpgate offers a fully immersive player driven economy. Protect a merchant vessel on its trade route by intercepting enemy players or answer a battle stations call for help by delivering them much needed supplies.

"Expectations were so high for Grand Theft Auto IV that one of the biggest surprises is that it’s managed to meet them. That it’s also gone on to confound these is truly a marvel, and the game’s Liberty City is nothing less than one of the greatest videogame worlds yet conceived. With this game, Rockstar has set out to free itself from the excesses of the series past to emphasise the character of its world, and in doing so has created a high watermark in the relationship between narrative and play. It’s no less than the definitive open world game, and by that measure the definitive interactive experience of this generation to date."

10/10 !!!!

Click here for full review.

Developer Charles Beauchemin answers questions on the PC version of Assassin's Creed.

Assassin's Creed was one of our personal favourites here at PALGN when it was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 late last year, now the game has been confirmed for the PC and Ubisoft has been kind enough to send through a Q&A on the game with one of the developers of the game on the PC, Charles Beauchemin. So, without delay, let's get into it.

PALGN: The game is being released four months after the console versions. How did you use this extra development time?
Charles Beauchemin: Based on the feedback we got after the release of the console versions, we decided to add even more variety by developing a total of 4 new investigation types (Archer assassination, rooftop race challenge, merchant stand destruction challenge and escort challenge). The archer assassination requires the player to assassinate the archers in a dedicated zone without being seen. In the rooftop race challenge, the player will meet an informer and will have a set amount of time to reach a second informer. In the merchant stand destruction, some merchants have ties to the assassination target and their activities must be stopped by Altaïr. Finally, in the escort challenge, the player needs to securely escort a fellow Assassin from point A to point B.

Is your PC crying yet?

PALGN: Will the game exploit DX 9 and DX10?
CB: The game comes with both DX9 and DX10 executables. If you own a DX10 card running on a Vista system, the game will use the full capabilities of the board to optimize the performances of the 3D graphics. You'll be able to play the game at high resolutions with minimal impact on your framerate.
PALGN: In your opinion, what is the average machine needed to play the game ?
CB: Any dual-core machine running at 2.2GHz and over with a decent graphic card (such as a ATi HD2600 or a NVidia 8600) will give great performances.
Our minimum requirement is a Pentium D 2.4GHz or a AMD X2 Athlon 3800+, equipped with a Shader Model 3.0 card (ATi X1300 and better, NVidia 6600 and better).

What about now?

PALGN: AC has been perceived as a new milestone on consoles but pretty repetitive at times – did you try to tune this on the PC version ?
CB: As mentioned in the first question, we included 4 new investigation missions to increase the variety so in total, we now have a total of 9 investigation missions. Also, you can now skip from one city to another without going through the kingdom once you visited every city.
PALGN: How did you manage to adapt the gameplay to the PC and to the PC controls in particular?
CB: Even though we support the Xbox 360 controller just like the console version, the user can choose to play with the keyboard and mouse for a more direct control over the camera and access to the menus. There are 4 default keyboard and mouse configurations that can all be customized to the player's needs.

Good old Altair..

PALGN: It’s been said quite a few times that the AI on guards and on the crowd was not always as “ideal” as promised, have you managed to, improve this on the PC version?
CB: We modified the reaction of guards in certain occasions. Blending when close to a dead body doesn’t work anymore; guards will spot you if you stay too close. Also, the reaction of the guards to stealth assassination is now based on the number of NPC's around you making it more realistic. If there is no one around you, guards will spot you much faster and if the crowd is bigger, you won’t be spotted that fast.
PALGN: How are the Xbox 360 achievements translated to the PC version?
CB: You can still collect flags and templars but there are no achievements in the PC version.
PALGN: When is the game due to be released?
CB: The game will ship in the early days of April.

Assassin's Creed PC Q&A - PC Gaming Interview - Australia's PAL Gaming Network

Take back the night as The Dark Knight – one block at a time.

Gamers can order online now for delivery on the April 29th

Consumers can now pre-order Grand Theft Auto IV online for £37.99 on both PS3 and 360 from PC World.
Customers can also reserve their copy in store for £5, with midnight openings planned for the game’s release.
"The team here at PC World are hugely excited about the forthcoming release,” said René Wright, senior category manager - console and games at DSGi.

GTA IV pre-orders go live at PC World - www.mcvuk.com

Click image for full size (large image)

To celebrate Lara Croft's 12th anniversary as the heroine hottie who raids tombs, video game publisher Eidos and TrialPlay, an alternative online payment company, have temed up to deliver the Tomb Raider Anniversary PC game for free.

Using TrialPay, players get a free subscription to the game for signing up and trying an email offer from blue-chip advertisers such as eBay, Gap, McAfee, American Express, and others.

Tomb Raider Anniversary is an updated version of the celebrated 1996 adventure featuring the well-endowed Lara Croft (later to be realized on the silver screen by Angelina Jolie). This newly made-over game returns players back to Egypt, Peru and other locations as our heroine jumps, climbs and fights her way through treacherous caves and alongside cliffs in search of rare artifacts. A few extra features were thrown in, too, including new areas and enemies. Some nagging camera issues still remain, but overall this puzzle-filled action title won’t disappoint – especially for those with a sentimental tie to the original.

Click here to get Tomb Raider Anniversary for free through TrialPay.

sync: Play 'Tomb Raider Anniversary' for free

Vista users may have a performance advantage

In an interview with Ubisoft's Charles Beauchemin, Technical Lead, Assassin's Creed PC, PCGH got the confirmation that Assassin's Creed will use Direct X 10 features.

Assassin's Creed PC: DX10-Version is confirmed now

Now it's confirmed: Assassin's Creed will support Direct X 10 in the PC variant. But you won't see any visual difference between DX9 and DX10. Assassin's Creed solely uses the shader model 4 so that performance gains are realistic.

The DX10 version of Assassin's Creed für PC is supposed to be faster under Vista than the DX9 variant.

Here is a snippet from a lenghty interview with Charles Beauchemin, Technical Lead, Assassin's Creed PC.
PCGH: When porting for the PC have you thought about integrating support for DirectX 10 into the engine? Will there be a version of Assassin's Creed that will utilize the new Vista API?
Charles Beauchemin: Yes, Assassin's Creed supports DX10 as well as DX9.
PCGH: What are the technical advantages of that API?
Charles Beauchemin: DirectX 10 enables us to make fewer calls to the API to perform the same actions. Therefore, it will be possible for the drivers to make optimizations making the game faster without any change to the game engine. Since most of the DX10 drivers are still young, we can expect a lot of gain to come from the optimization of these drivers.
PCGH: Do you use advanced features of Direct X 10/Shader Model 4 like Geometry Shader, Virtual Texture Management etc.? Can you please give examples how they are utilized? In what way do these features improve or simplify the rendering process?

Charles Beauchemin: No. Most of the porting to DX10 involves optimizations of the existing calls, without any new content.
PCGH: Will the DX 10 visualization differ substantially from the graphics that are rendered with DX 9 hardware? What are the visuals that can only be rendered with shader model 4 hardware? Can you supply us with a visual proof via screenshot too?
Charles Beauchemin: No new content has been added to the DX10 version.
PCGH: How much of a performance hit will the improved optics of DX 10 incur? With all details maxed out is a typical first gen DX 10 card already running at its limits?
Charles Beauchemin: No performance hit occurs, since no improved optics are implemented. However, when running on Vista, DirectX 10 version speed will be much faster than its DirectX 9 counterpart (also running on Vista).

PCGH - News: Assassin's Creed: DX10 confirmed, faster than DX9

Here sharky sharky…What better way to stop players from going out of bounds and meeting game walls than getting them eaten by a shark. Crysis takes an engaging game world a step further with impressive animation and A.I.

 

Perhaps Crysis doesn’t even have game walls, instead being an endless labyrinth of possibilities where you can play with Sharky the friendly shark (but not too friendly).

Crysis Shark Attack | ripten