Software requirements:
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP or Windows Vista(R) (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included & required for Windows XP & Vista)

Hardware requirements:
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3400+ processor
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(R) 6800 GT or ATI Radeon(TM) X800
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
HDD Space: 8GB (Plus an additional 800MB for Windows swap file)
Media: 100% Microsoft Windows compatible DVD-ROM drive
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer

• Read the updated (and shorter) tutorial on getting UE3 models to smooth group properly here.

Bethesda Softworks will publish the titles of id Software other than upcoming releases previously committed to other publishers.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, commented on the transaction: "This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles. In addition, we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans."

id Software will continue to operate as a studio under the direction of its founder, John Carmack. No changes will be made in the operations of id Software in the development of its games. All the principals at id Software have signed long-term employment contracts, assuring they will continue in their roles developing games at the studio.

"This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward," said John Carmack, who will continue to serve in his current role as Technical Director. "We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am."

• Rewort and Dragon's Tongue plant growning locations

If you get the following message (addressing you in one way or another as a supplier of game assets), delete it, it's what's commonly called junk, spam or more correctly a phishing attack - although, calling it an "attack" is like saying Michael Palin 'attacked' John Cleese when he slapped him with a kipper down by the canal lock, doesn't quite work that does it. Anyway...

Hello Good Day
My Name is bob ams from PA.... I will like to know whether you carry (Free textures ) in stock for sale. If yes, email me back each size and with the prices of (1) attached to it so that i will let you know the size and quantity i will be ordering.... More over I will like to know whether you do accept credit card as themethod of payment....
Hope to read from you again....Stay Blessed.
Kind regards
bob ams

And yes, as it happens I do have a lot of textures on site, you were probably looking at them when you wrote the letter. It's usually a good idea to know what you're going to buy before you try and buy it;

"I'd like to buy something".
"Oh?".
"Yes I'd like to buy something".
"OK. What exactly?".
"I'd like to buy what you have".
"But I don't have anything".
"Yes, I'll buy that please".
"Er, OK. That will be £1.5 million".
"You pay my shipping agent to collect from the £2 million I send you?".
"Sure. Send me £2 million", *cough*.

So, whilst there is a general agreement amongst politicians to ban violent games from being produced or published in Germany, it may not extend to include games imported from elsewhere in Europe.

Thanks to Shaderman who posted a bit of information about this on the forums clarifying the issue. Stay tuned for more in the coming months.

This one seriously slipped in under the radar if it's true. I don't know how accurate this is because the original source for this information are a couple of German gaming sites, so there may be translation issues, but this hasn't, as far as I can tell, been reported on mainstream gaming sites. According to GameZine, where I saw this, German ministers agreed to ban all violent video games from being produced or published in Germany; the law is yet to pass through their parliament, but the sentiment is there via the apparent tacit agreement between ministers that they may not offer opposition to such a move.

If any of our German friends can verify this get in touch as this potentially means that games like Call of Duty, Bioshock et-al would be illegal to own, sell or distribute. It additionally means a massive loss of income for the industry as the German market is one of the largest in Europe.

I should create a new category title "you what?!?"

"This new system will work alongside the robust regulation of Films and DVD's carried out by the British Board of Film Classification, to ensure that consumers have the strongest possible protection across these media. There is no intention to disturb BBFC's jurisdiction in respect of linear material."^[source]

This decision, which was based on a recommendation set out in the Byron Review, is being supported by the industry overall, in that the ELPSA, the games industries lobbying body, welcomed the decision;

Mike Rawlinson, Director General of ELSPA, the trade body which represents games publishers, said: ^[source]

"The Government has made absolutely the right decision for child safety. By choosing PEGI as the single classification system in the UK, British children will now get the best possible protection when playing videogames either on a console or on the internet. Parents can be assured that they will have access to clear, uniform ratings on games and an accurate understanding of game content.

Today’s decision will ensure that games ratings stay relevant and adapt to the changing nature of videogames for many years to come. Retailers will now have clear, legal backing to help them prevent access to unsuitable content by children."

Personally I'm in two minds about it; on one hand, yes, it means that the whole of Europe is now using a common standard so an 18 PEGI rated game in the UK will guaranty it being 18 rated in Sweden or other European member States - which isn't always the case due to cultural and legal differences. On the other hand, it now means that games and their content are going to be rated by a centralised third party that may or may not have any accountability and may or may not take into account those cultural/territorial differences - is the extreme (eventual?) extension of this to ban games Europe wide instead of, in, or by, particular member states?.

What's more likely is that this decision may just be one of the UK's Government simply recognising the presence of PEGI for UK use; traditionally the BBFC's classification system takes legal precedence - as far as I'm aware the use of the PEGI system in the UK has always been optional and at the discretion of publishers, so generally speaking, if a game was published specifically in the UK for the UK market, it had to (by law) have a BBFC classification badge. However, if a game was published in Europe for distribution in the UK it usually had a PEGI ratings badge which are accepted at face value (two things to note here, I don't know if it's a legal requirement to have a PEGI rating for games shipped in this way, and, I'm equally not sure if there were/are any instances where a game carried both a BBFC and PEGI rating, which as mentioned above, don't always correspond).

The interesting thing here is that the BBFC classifications and their use is a legal requirement in the UK for all media. So, does this mean that the adoption of PEGI is actually the recognition of a European Union Parliamentary 'directive' that must be enforced (which over-rides 'local' laws/legislation) as opposed to the UK Government making a decision to support it (this has implications with regards to the Byron Review as would that then mean the recommendation to support PEGI was simply an acquiescence to EU legislation rather than a concerted effort to facilitate 'better use' of the current BBFC classifications)?. There's a significant difference between the two.

Don't mind me though, I am as usual just thinking out loud when something like this come across the KatsBits radar; feel free to chip in on the forums.

Its a heavily modified Quake Wars engine (idTech 4), its got a completely new renderer, new multi-core architecture (a job system for NUMA (PS3) and SMP systems), a new tools framework and lots more.

Splash Damage released the first set of shots from their game in development, Brink, and a few other tip-bits. There's no confirmation what engine this is on though so speculation as to whether they're still using idtech 4 (possibly 5). Looking at the shots it looks like the artwork has taken a step towards UE3 in terms of polycount and texture sizes so it should be interesting to find out some technical details behind what Splash Damage are doing.

Founders Tower from Brink the game

There's an interesting post on MCV about Scottish developer T-Enterprise looking for publishers of it's prison break game on X-Box. What's interesting is that the game is set in Guantanamo Detention Centre (for legal reasons it's not called a 'prison' as that would imply the inmates were "prisoners" and not "enemy combatants" - the former have rights, the latter don't). Now given who the inmates are, and why they are there (I'm not going to comment on the numbers and percentages of 'false vs true' other than to highlight that), is a game written around this subject matter going too far? Is a game a legitimate form of 'expression' in this context as say compared to a film of the same? Should game developers use the platform as a means to 'educate' and not just 'entertain'?

Personally I'm in two minds over this because this is the second time the developer has (allegedly) tried to use a controversial issues as a marketing tool to sell a game - Six Days in Fallujah was their first attempt that caused a similar amount of controversy, forcing the publisher, Konami, to drop the title. Not knowing anything about the game itself and whether it tells a 'filmic' story, other than "challeng[ing] the player to break out of a corrupt Guantanamo, in which the shady Freedom Corp are conducting biological tests on inmates", what sort of conclusion can be drawn from it?. For instance, why call the authorities that run the place the "Freedom Corps" and not who they actually are? (Blackwater private security and the US/Allied military); were the Somali soldiers and evil Somali general called anything other than that in the Black Hawk Down game?

Seems that this one is a bit too close to the bone and may be being done for all the wrong reasons; it doesn't matter how much time passes, there are issues that should only be tackled when do so for less entertaining reasons. It doesn't help the perception of games, and the industry itself, as a way to entertain as well as educate the pubic about contemporary issues.