Just Cause 2 Demo Out, Title Supports SteamWorks

                                “Oh, the demo should be about… that big.”

Today, the 4th of March, should see the release of the Just Cause 2 demo for all platforms [1] – namely Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. The demo is said by many to be huge, at 35 square miles, and major replayability for a demo.

On another note, just like some other major titles released last year and this year, like Modern Warfare 2 and Aliens vs. Predator, as well as Supreme Commander 2 and Napoleon: Total War, Just Cause 2 will support SteamWorks [2].

This won’t just mean that the game will likely only be available for download off of Steam, but also other features such as “matchmaking, automatic game updates, and downloadable content” will be handled by Steam. The console versions will no doubt be available off of Xbox Live and PSN.

It was also confirmed recently for the umpteenth time that the game will not support Windows XP, and therefore nor will it support DirectX 9. Just Cause 2 should be out later this month, on the 23rd of March.

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Sources: [1] 1up - [2] Shacknews

Just Cause 2 Demo Out, Title Supports SteamWorks

Video Games Coming out This Week (02-21 – 02-27, 2010): Heavy Rain, Napoleon: Total War

 

Well, I don’t particularly see anything here that I want, so there’s no pick of the week, but no doubt it’s surprisingly quite a stacked up week for game releases.

The major game this week is no doubt the PS3 exclusive, Heavy Rain, which some say is going to revolutionize gaming, and some say it isn’t even a video game at all. But say it’s just a collection of quick- time events however, and David Cage will hunt you down and kill you. I’ve heard from many people that it does look beautiful, though.

By the way, there are two box shots above – one is the European version, and the other for the American one. The one in the middle, the European one, is better in my opinion.

Besides that there’s Napoleon: Total War for the PC which is SteamWorks title. This was announced by Sega, so you’ve been told… or warned, depending on how you see it.

Links as usual go through to Amazon, Steam, etc., to each game’s detail page where you can see more info on the title and pick up the game of your choice.

PC

Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943 (Impulse)

Arsenal of Democracy (Direct2Drive)
Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny

Dawn of Discovery: Venice (Direct2Drive)
Legends of Norrath: Vengeful Gods
Napoleon: Total War (Steam)
Napoleon Total War Limited Edition 
Order of War: Challenge (Steam)
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (Steam)
WarBirds Dogfights

Xbox 360

Deadly Premonition
Greed Corp (XBLA)
Lazy Raiders (XBLA)
Risen
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (XBLA)

PlayStation 3

Greed Corp (PSN)
Heavy Rain
Hyperballoid HD (PSN)
Last Rebellion
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (PSN)

PSP

Age of Zombies (PSN)
Metal Slug XX

Nintendo Wii

Endless Ocean: Blue World
Mouse House (WiiWare)
Pony Friends 2
Sled Shred
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (WiiWare)
Winter Blast: Snow and Ice Games

Nintendo DS

Deca Sports
Flight Control (DSiWare)
Flipper (DSiWare)
Hello Kitty: Birthday Adventures
Lovely Lisa and Friends
Pony Friends 2
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (DSiWare)
Super Speed Machines
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2010: Reverse of Arcadia

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Sources: Shacknews - Gamespot

Video Games Coming out This Week (02-21 – 02-27, 2010): Heavy Rain, Napoleon: Total War

Metro 2033 Doesn’t Use X-ray Engine, Does Support SteamWorks

It was revealed recently in a big announcement that Metro 2033 would support DirectX 11 technology as well as 3D Vision, And several nice screenshots were there to prove it.

If you thought however that the game was too good looking to use the same engine and tech as STALKER… you’d be right. Metro 2033 developers, 4A Games, have put the rumours to rest that they used STALKER’s X-ray engine during the development of the title.

For a while, there have been rumours going around that Metro 2033 indeed used the X-ray engine, and this was even backed up by Sergey Grigorovic or GSC Game World, the STALKER developers. He claims it’s based on an early build of the X-ray engine. But some people who worked at the company and later left to join 4A Games, like Oles Shishkovtsov , say that isn’t the case, as he claims that the X-ray engine couldn’t handle the features in Metro 2033.

"There's no relationship. Back when I was working as lead programmer and technology architect on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it became clearly apparent that many architectural decisions put into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. engine were great for the time when it was designed, but they just doesn't scale to the present day.

"The major obstacles to the future of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. engine were its inherent inability to be multi-threaded, the weak and error-prone networking model, and simply awful resource and memory management which prohibited any kind of streaming or simply keeping the working set small enough for (back then) 'next-gen' consoles.

When the philosophies of the engines are so radically different it is nearly impossible to share the code, the final answer is ‘no’. We do not have shared code with X-Ray, nor would it be possible to do so.”

Comparing the two titles, Metro 2033 may well look a lot prettier in my opinion. I do sense a bit of professional rivalry there though, to say the least.

The bad news for some people: Metro 2033 is going to support SteamWorks for the PC version of the game, just like Aliens vs. Predator and Modern Warfare 2.

That’ll likely mean that the only place you’ll be able to pick it up online via digital distribution will be Steam, seeing as other companies like D2D boycott SteamWorks titles. They might have to adapt though, seeing as they’ll start losing sales as more and more games start using this feature.

Metro 2033 should be out in the middle of next month for the PC and Xbox 360.

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Sources: Eurogamer - Shacknews

Metro 2033 Doesn’t Use X-ray Engine, Does Support SteamWorks

Aliens vs. Predator to be a Steamworks Title

I dreaded this as soon as I read it, because remember the outcry when it came to Modern Warfare 2? The game in addition to the retail versions, will also be sold on Steam, but it doesn’t stop there. Like other Steamworks titles, the game’s achievements and saved games will all be stored online.

And just like with Modern Warfare 2, Direct2Drive, Impulse, and GamersGate, the main competitors of Steam in the digital distribution game, are not selling the game. They boycotted MW 2 mainly because of its use of Steamworks, which they claim is a further attempt to monopolize the digital download industry.

This explains why I haven’t seen it in D2D’s product line when doing searches. All that crops up is result after result on Aliens vs. Predator comics, which some may find cool, anyway.

Oh, by the way, another title by the name of Napoleon: Total War… yeah, that’s a Steamworks title too, right there.

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Source: Big Download

Aliens vs. Predator to be a Steamworks Title