S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Clear Sky will be stores in 5th September

GSC Game World, computer games developer, its publishing subdivision GSC World Publishing and Deep Silver, the games label of Koch Media, a leading producer and distributor of digital entertainment products, today announce a new release date for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. The international release date of the game has been set to the 5th September of 2008

The story of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky brings the players one year prior to the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011.

A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone – Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. An immense blowout of anomalous energy changes the Zone. There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads. The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies. Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed on the lost territories. New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map. The Zone continues to shake with blowouts. The Zone is unstable. The anomalous activity is at its maximum.

Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone. Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artifact fields and spheres of influence. There are no more old enemies or friends – now everyone is for himself. The Factions War has started between the groupings.

The protagonist is a mercenary who appeared at the edge of the opposition between stalker factions, Strelok and even the Zone itself. The main character will have to play the key role in the events, which led to creation of the Zone up to the point from which the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game begins.

What’s waiting for stalkers in the opened depths of the Zone? Which new challenges bear in the new territories? Why blowouts continue shaking the Zone? Why did the Zone change? How to remove its instability? Which faction will take the upper hand in the clan opposition? Why did Strelok end up in the death truck? What happened to Strelok prior to that? Was there any other choice to make? These and many other questions will get answered in the official prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

Game features:

* Atmosphere of the Exclusion Zone
* Research of new depths of the Zone – Red Forest, Limansk, Pripyat Undergrounds and more.
* A-Life-driven War of the Factions
* Possibility to play and lead any faction to victory
* Advanced A-Life system
* Varied behaviour of NPC stalkers in the A-Life world
* Advanced spectacular storyline scenes
* Improved AI of computer-controlled characters
* Skirting around dynamic obstacles by NPCs
* Use of grenades by NPCs
* Fast Travel
* Improved concept of detectors, artifacts and anomalies
* New system of upgrades for weapons and armor
* Weapons and armor repair
* Reworked HUD and PDA
* New version of the game engine - X-Ray 1.5.
* DirectX 10 renderer
* Improved DirectX 9 renderer - parallax bump, soft particles, depth of field, motion blur, eye adaptation effect.
* Cutting-edge and detailed game graphics (normal map)
* Inverse kinematics
* New animation engine

ATI Catalyst 8.8 released

AMD had delivered same-day Linux support when launching the Radeon HD 4800 series this summer. This was a first for AMD when launching a major product revision that there was same-day support considering for the R500 and R600 (and earlier) generations it had taken months for any level of support on Linux. This was great to see and the Radeon HD 4850/4870 performance was terrific thanks to their new OpenGL driver introduced last September. Today AMD has announced another Catalyst driver release for Linux and this is arguably the most significant driver update since last October's release when AIGLX support was added. Catalyst 8.8 delivers CrossFire support on Linux, OverDrive overclocking support, adaptive anti-aliasing support, and other improvements.
quote : phoronix.com

PC Gaming Industry Improve $10.7 Billion

The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) today unveiled the key findings from its first “Horizons” Report, an exclusive research study of the PC gaming industry worldwide. Speaking at the Games Convention Developer’s Conference in Leipzig, PCGA president Randy Stude announced that PC gaming was a $10.7 billion industry during the year of 2007, with retail sales accounting for just 30 percent of total revenues. According to the report, growth was largely driven by online revenues from Asia, the world’s largest market, which is approaching half of total worldwide sales.

Online PC gaming revenue led the way in 2007 with $4.8 billion, nearly double the worldwide retail sales numbers for PC games. Digital distribution sales approached $2 billion, while advertising revenues from websites, portals, and in-game ads accounted for $800 million. Both are expected to grow substantially as major developers and publishers begin to adopt formal strategies to take advantage of new online opportunities.
“Our analysis clearly shows incredible growth in online PC gaming, proof that this industry is far stronger than anyone has reported,” said Stude. “Today’s consumers shop where they live - online.”

According to DFC Intelligence, there is even more room for growth as the broadband market matures.

“By pioneering new business models, the PC has quietly remained the single leading platform for games, not only in terms of consumer usage, but revenue generation,” said David Cole, an analyst with DFC Intelligence. “The most fascinating thing about PC gaming is its ability to attract such a diverse audience, both demographically and geographically. The real key has been the rapid growth in penetration of broadband-connected PCs in all markets around the world. Broadband-connected PCs are the key driver of growth for PC gaming. DFC Intelligence estimated that by the end of 2007 less than one-third of households in the top 20 markets for games had a high-speed Internet connection. That clearly indicates that there is still plenty of growth to come. The initiatives of the PCGA will be a key enabler of growth as they will help the industry identify key trends and opportunities in this rapidly emerging market.”

Updated bi-annually, the full Horizons Report is available to all PCGA members. It encompasses sales from every region around the world, and from every part of the PC gaming industry compiled by the PCGA from internal resources through a third party. This includes retail, online gaming, digital distribution, and online advertising. Those interested in joining can find membership details and additional information about the PCGA and its role as the voice of the PC gaming industry at www.pcgamingalliance.org.

Anyone interested in the state of the PC gaming industry will also be able to see Randy Stude present the key findings of the Horizons report during NVISION 08 in San Jose, Calif. on August 25 in the San Jose Hilton adjacent to the convention center at 3:30 p.m. in San Carlos rooms 1 & 2. More NVISION details can be found at www.nvision2008.com.

About the PCGA
The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to drive worldwide growth of PC gaming. With high-profile members such as Microsoft, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and Dell, the PCGA provides an open forum where companies can cooperate to develop and promote solutions that drive the PC gaming industry forward. The PCGA encourages the exchange of information and views to promote PC gaming, and shares promotional activity designed to grow the PC gaming industry.

Quatation : pcgamingalliance.org/

Star Wars : The Force Unleashed Demo will release this month

Entirely new chapter in the Star Wars Saga gets a demo this August.
LucasArts has announced that a playable demo of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be released on Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network. In development for PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, PS2, DS, and Wii, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The game's expansive story is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In it, players will assist Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi - and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be available on September 16, 2008 in the United States, September 17 in Southeast Asia and Australia, and September 19 in Europe.

Quatation : gamersHell

Holiday

Need for Speed : Undercover coming ..!

To no one's surprise, EA is set to release the next installment in the Need for Speed franchise later this year in the form of Need for Speed: Undercover. In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that the title is in development from one of EA Vancouver's two NFS teams. He also hinted that its inspiration comes from movies like The Transporter, though we'll have to wait and see what he means by that.

The single previous Need for Speed team was split into two last year to allow each of the two teams more time to create yearly updates for the franchise. Rather than giving one team only 12 months to create the next installment, each team would now have a full two years, with the teams trading release years, obviously. Being that the team was only split last year, the Undercover team will only have a little over 16 months to create the title, but the extra breathing room must certainly welcome in any case.

In the interview, Riccitiello also discussed his disappointment with last year's Need for Speed ProStreet, and said that the reason for splitting the team into to two was to help insure that future titles would actually be a worthy experience.

No consoles were specified for Undercover, but given the franchise's history, we'd expect to see it hit every major system.

Maybe this game we will see murat 131 in nfs's garages ;) .


Source : ign.com

KDE 4.1 Release

KDE Community Announces The Release of KDE 4.1.0

KDE Releases Improved Desktop and Applications Dedicated to Uwe Thiem

July 29, 2008. The KDE Community today released KDE 4.1.0. This release is the second feature release of the KDE 4 series, sporting new applications and newly developed features on top of the Pillars of KDE4. KDE 4.1 is the first KDE4 release to contain the Personal Information Management suite KDE-PIM with its E-Mail client KMail, the planner KOrganizer, Akregator, the RSS feed reader, KNode, the newsgroup reader and many more components integrated into the Kontact shell. Furthermore, the new desktop shell Plasma, introduced in KDE 4.0, has matured to the point where it can replace the KDE 3 shell for most casual users. Like with our previous release much time has been devoted to improving the framework and underlying libraries on which KDE is built.
Dirk Müller, one of KDE's release managers gives numbers: "There have been 20803 commits made from KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1 along with 15432 translation checkins. Almost 35000 commits have been done in work branches, some of them also being merged into KDE 4.1, so those were not even counted." Müller also tells us that KDE's sysadmin team has created 166 new accounts for developers on KDE's SVN server

The key improvements in KDE 4.1 are:

* The KDE-PIM suite is back
* Plasma matures
* Many new and improved applications and frameworks

In memoriam: Uwe Thiem

The KDE community dedicates this release to Uwe Thiem, a long-time contributor to KDE who passed away recently after a sudden kidney failure. The death of Uwe came totally unexpected and as a shock to his fellow contributors. Uwe has, quite literally until the last days of his life contributed to KDE, not only in the form of programming. Uwe also played an important role in educating users in Africa about Free Software. With Uwe's sudden death, KDE has lost an invaluable part of its community and a friend. Our thoughts are with his family and the ones he left behind.
Past, present and future

While KDE 4.1 aims at being the first release suitable for early adopting users, some features you are used to in KDE 3.5 are not implemented yet. The KDE team is working on those and strives to make them available in one of the next releases. While there is no guarantee that every single feature from KDE 3.5 will be implemented, KDE 4.1 already provides a powerful and feature-rich working environment.
Note that some options in the UI have moved to a place in the context of the data they manipulate, so make sure you have a closer look before you report anything missing in action.
KDE 4.1 is a huge step forward in the KDE4 series and hopefully sets the pace for future development. KDE 4.2 can be expected in January 2009.

KDE PIM is back
Improvements

While stabilising the new frameworks in KDE 4.1, more emphasis has shifted towards end user visible parts. Read on for a list of improvements in KDE 4.1. More complete information can be found on the KDE 4.1 Release Goals page and in the more verbose 4.1 Feature Plan.
For users

* KDE-PIM is back with 4.1, containing the applications necessary for your personal information and communication. KMail as mail client, KOrganizer as planning component, Akregator as RSS feed reader and others are now available again in KDE 4 look.
* Dragon Player, an easy to use video player enters the stage
* Okteta is the new well-integrated and feature-rich hexeditor
* Step, the physics emulator makes learning physics fun and easy
* KSystemLog, helps you keep track of what is going on in your system
* New games such as KDiamond (a bejeweled clone), Kollision, KBreakOut and Kubrick make taking a break from your work irresistible
* Lokalize, helps translators to make KDE4 available in your language (if it's not among the 50-odd languages KDE4 already supports)
* KSCD, your desktop CD player has been resurrected

Answers to common questions have been collected in the KDE4 End User FAQ, which is also a good read if you want to learn more about KDE4.


Dolphin's new selection mechanism

* Dolphin, KDE's filemanager has a new treeview in the main view, also new is the support for tabs. A new and innovative single-click selection allows for a more consistent user experience, and copy-to and move-to context actions make those actions easier accessible. Of course Konqueror is also available as alternative to Dolphin, taking advantage of most of the above features as well.


* Konqueror, KDE's webbrowser now has support for re-opening already closed windows and tabs, it also scrolls smoothly through webpages.
* Gwenview, KDE's image viewer has gotten a new fullscreen view, a thumbnail bar for easy access to other photos, a smart Undo system and support for rating images.

* KRDC, KDE's remote desktop client now detects remote desktops on the local network automatically using the ZeroConf protocol.
* Marble, KDE's desktop globe now integrates with OpenStreetMap so you can find your way everywhere using the Free Maps.

* KSysGuard, now supports monitoring process output or running applications so there is no need to restart your apps from a terminal anymore when you want to know what's going on.

* KWin's compositing window manager features have been more stabilized and extended. New effects such as the Coverswitch window switcher and the famous "wobbly windows" have been added.
* Plasma's panel configuration has been extended. The new panel controller makes it easy to customize your panel providing direct visual feedback. You can also add panels and put them on different edges of your screen(s). The new folderview applet allows you to store files on your desktop (in fact it provides a view of a directory on your system). You can put zero, one or more folderviews onto your desktop, providing for easy and flexible access to the files you are working with.


For developers

* The Akonadi PIM storage framework provides an efficient way of storing and retrieving email and contact data across applications. Akonadi supports searching through data and notifies applications using it of changes.
* KDE applications can be written using Python and Ruby. These language bindings are considered stable, mature and suitable for application developers.
* Libksane provides easy access to image scanning applications such as the new scanning application Skanlite.
* A shared emoticons system which is used by KMail and Kopete.
* New Phonon multimedia backends for GStreamer, QuickTime and DirectShow9, improving KDE's multimedia support on Windows and Mac OS.

New platforms

* OpenSolaris support in KDE is currently straightened out. KDE mostly works on OSOL, although there are some showstopper bugs left.
* Windows developers are able to download previews of KDE applications for their platform. The libraries are relatively stable already, although not all features of kdelibs are available on Windows yet. Some applications already run quite well on Windows, others might not.
* Mac OSX is another new platform KDE is entering. KDE on Mac is not yet ready for production use. While Multimedia support through Phonon is already available, hardware and search integration is not finished yet.