Month: July 2014

The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, 18 April 1942

By John Dudek @ The Wargamer

The English speaking Japanese propaganda radio broadcaster stood atop the radio station building in downtown Tokyo speaking into his microphone on a sunny mid April spring day. He spoke of the warm sunny weather and about the city’s social events planned for that day, ranging from a cherry blossom parade to the two baseball games scheduled for that afternoon. He happily rhapsodized philosophically about the invincible strength of Imperial Japan and how of all the many nations now at war in the Pacific, only Japan was free from any fear of aerial bombing because the skies above were filled with iron defenses. Suddenly, the ear shattering wail of an air raid siren was heard, followed by an unbroken string of Japanese curses ending with “Bakayro!!” (Bastards!) Several hundred miles away, aboard an American aircraft carrier task force Admiral William Halsey listened to the static filled Japanese radio broadcast before smiling an evil grin. The B-25 medium bombers he so recently launched from the carrier USS Hornet were now bombing Tokyo. Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the mission’s leader had done the seemingly impossible.

Read on…

Source: Blue’s News

Steam News announces the release of six new commanders for Company of Heroes 2, the World War II RTS sequel. There are three new US commanders and three new German commanders, and for the next week they are all being offered for 25% off.

The new commanders are:

• US Forces Commander: Recon Support Company
• US Forces Commander: Mechanized Company
• US Forces Commander: Rifle Company
• OKW Commander: Elite Armor Doctrine
• OKW Commander: Scavenge Doctrine
• OKW Commander: Fortifications Doctrine

Wargame managed to attract a large player base, by offering radically different gameplay from other RTS games, featuring original mechanics, spectacular visuals, and a gaming experience of extreme realism and unprecedented tactical depth, with the series becoming richer and more ambitious with every new game. Today, the Wargame franchise reaches a major milestone with its millionth copy sold!

Faithful to their principles of consistent post-launch game support – notably with free additional content – Eugen Systems celebrates this event by offering to all Wargame: Red Dragon players its first free DLC, fittingly named The Millionth Mile!

Focusing on the Eastern Bloc coalition, The Millionth Mile features more than 60 new units for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East-Germany, bringing them into the 90′s and on an equal footing with Red Dragon’s main nations. The entire range of units are represented in the DLC: Infantry, tanks, planes, troop transports, and of course helicopters.

But The Millionth Mile also introduces a brand new kind of unit, in the form of an AShM (anti-ship missile!) truck carrier. These units, whose main function is to engage ships over long distances from the land, increase the tactical depth of the game while redefining Wargame’s naval warfare!

Wargame: Red Dragon players will find their game has been automatically updated with the DLC The Millionth Mile next time they launch the game. Reinforcements have arrived, the battle continues!

Get more game information at the official Wargame: Red Dragon Website.

Acclaimed by the press and rewarded by the community with the Digital Strategic Game of the Year 2012 title attributed by the Grogheads readers, Commander: the Great War is reduced in price, and is finally reaching new platforms with its releases on both the iPad App Store and Steam today.

In the iPad version of the game you will find all the elements that contributed to the success of the PC version, giving you a unique wargaming experience on your tablet. Creating such a complex wargame on a tablet device was a huge challenge and The Lordz Games Studio has been optimizing this gem for months so as not to sacrifice any feature from the game on PC. The huge campaign map, 5 grand campaigns, unit customization, research and technology panels, realistic combat model, cross platform multiplayer and gameplay adapted to the touchscreen platform turns Commander: The Great War into the deepest World War I simulation on iPad.

And we should not forget our PC community! We are glad to announce that the game is releasing on Steam as well (later today). Faithful to our habits, we are also going to offer a free Steam key to anyone who has a copy of the PC game, wherever they bought it from, once the game is available on this digital platform!All they have to do is register their serial here and they will be able to redeem a free key to add the game to their Steam library!

Developed by The Lordz Games Studio, Commander The Great War is a turn-based strategy game that captures this time of war with unprecedented realism and accuracy. A huge-hex based campaign map that stretches from the USA in the west, Africa and Arabia to the south, Scandinavia to the north and the Urals to the east, is the setting for 5 grand campaigns, each starting in a different year of the war.

Click here for the official Steam product page.

Click here to get Commander: The Great War on iPad.

By Vinny Petronio @ PureOC

AIO (all in one) liquid cooling units continue to gain popularity due mostly to the cheaper cost to performance ratio, as well as their leak-proof and low maintenance design. If we look back a mere 2 years ago, liquid AIO cooling units were few and far between, and only a few manufacturers offered this type of cooling solution. Today we find a lot of AIO units flooding the market, and as you may already know, selecting the right one can be a hard choice with so many different styles and types readily available. I am very excited today, because I will be putting three new units on my test bench from NZXT. The NZXT KRAKEN X31, X41 and, Kraken X61 AIO coolers. These three closed-loop liquid coolers are follow-up products to the Kraken X30 X40 and Kraken X60 that were reviewed last year. The NZXT X31 X41 and X61 have kept their same 120mm, 140mm, & 280mm respective CLC design; however, they now come with some new additions in the form of variable pump speed control, increased radiator thickness, and Cam software.

Read The Review Here

By Steven Kean @ Legit Reviews

The AMD Radeon R9 2xx series has been out since October 2013, and we are continuing to see new versions of the R9 200 series. The R9 280 series is basically a rebranded Radeon HD 7950 with a few tweaks. Powered by a single 28nm Tahiti XTL GPU, it features 1792 Stream processors running at 850MHz with a boost to 940Mhz. Compared to the reference R9 280 of 827MHz and 933MHz boost. It’s memory consists of 3GB GDDR clocked at 5000Mhz. To keep the card cool, Sapphire has switched from their Tri-X Cooling technology to Dual-X cooling, which has two fans. This overclocked edition is currently available as part 11230-00-40G for $239.99 shipped which includes Sapphires 2 year warranty.

Read The Review Here

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• ASUS Announces Strix DSP, Strix Claw, Strix Tactic Pro and Strix Glide Series
• Thermaltake Debuts the Water 3.0 Ultimate All-In-One Liquid Cooling System
• BIOSTAR Unveils the Hi-Fi B85S2G LGA1150 Motherboard
• ASUS Republic of Gamers Launches Swift PG278Q Gaming Monitor
• Adesso Launches SlimTouch 1200 Wireless Stainless Steel Keyboard-Mouse Combo
• ADATA Launches the UV130 USB Flash Drive
• KINGMAX M.2 SATA3 SSD High Compatibility Interface Released
• Western Digital Intros its 12 TB MyBook Duo External HDD
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880 Arrives at Gamescom?
• AMD to Drag Socket FM2+ On Till 2016
• Nanoxia Unveils the Deep Silence 3 Mid-Tower PC Case

Source: Kotaku

The next Battlefield game will no longer be out this fall—EA announced today that they’ve delayed Hardline to next year.

Developed by Visceral Games, the studio best known for Dead Space, Battlefield: Hardline is centered around police warfare. It was originally scheduled to be out this fall for PC and current- and last-gen consoles (minus Wii U).

This delay comes in the wake of the disastrous Battlefield 4, which ran into all sorts of bugs and technical issues when it was released last fall. Since then, EA has promised better things for the series, with EA boss Andrew Wilson mentioning to Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo the company’s newfound willingness to delay games that they believe need more polish.

Read more…

Addresses the rapidly changing market where the PC is just one of many form factors

As the market for digital games grows on a variety of mobile platforms and as the PC is no longer the most dominant gaming form factor, the PC Gaming Alliance, (PCGA), a nonprofit corporation dedicated to driving the worldwide growth gaming, is pleased to announce the name of the organization has been changed to Open Gaming Alliance, or OGA.

The Open Gaming Alliance will continue on the mission set out by the PCGA: to provide a unified voice for the industry and help members provide a superior gaming experience to their customers on a variety of platforms.

Matt Ployhar, OGA president and Intel analyst, says, “Now, more than ever, the gaming industry continues to experience huge inflection points. Most of the current and future members of the OGA will design their products to be increasingly cross platform, and the definition of ‘Personal Computer’ also continues to evolve. The OGA reflects these changes in our charter to ensure that we address emerging and salient markets. OGA strives to keep the gaming ecosystem open, and to be a cradle for innovation for our members and partners.”

PRESS RELEASE

My.com has revealed new information for the Port location in Armored Warfare.

The vehicles in Armored Warfare are the focus for everyone playing the game, whether you’re a casual fan of armored vehicles or a former driver yourself. However, to make these vehicles believable in the game world, it’s necessary to create a world where it makes sense for these kinds of vehicles to be present.

For us, this means creating locations where it makes sense for a modern conflict, with modern armored vehicles, to take place. Economic centers, production facilities, transportation hubs; these are all places where a modern conflict could focus, and for us, the Port map is a perfect example of this kind of environment.

In this strip of land, sandwiched between a mighty ocean and the burning heat of the desert, two armored divisions will clash, with armored vehicles stalking and hunting each other amongst enormous cranes, shipping containers, office buildings and loading facilities.

All of these objects are modeled on their real-life counterparts. This helps the entire facility feel alive, but it doesn’t stop there. Many things on the map are dynamic: cranes move containers around, and the battle begins with a massive explosion caused by a derailing train, creating even more obstacles that you can use as cover from enemy fire.

Teams will be able to choose from a variety of tactics on their path to victory. The variety in terrain, ranging from paved streets to rolling sands, will force players to adapt to the environment and use strategy in order to destroy the enemy base. These distinct areas allow each role to play to its strengths. Artillery can position themselves strategically, Recon have lots of cover and short stretches of open territory, and Main Battle Tanks will be able to take advantage of the information provided by their teammates to fight with maximum efficacy.

Click here to view screens and get more information about the new Port map.