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 – Republic of Gamers Announces Maximus VII Formula Z97 Motherboard
• TteSPORTS Unveils the VENTUS Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse
• New Editions of CM Storm Devastator & QuickFire Rapid-i Keyboards and Mouse Available
• Linksys adds Three New WiFi Range Extenders
• Tesoro Tizona Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Now Available in North America
• Did EVGA just Steal the Rivatuner RTSS design concept into PrecisionX 15?
• NVIDIA Maxwell Flagship GTX 880 and GTX 870 Release Date Confirmed – Coming this November
• QNAP Announces Support for HGST 6 TB Helium SAS HDDs

By Wesley Yin-Poole, Eurogamer

Earlier this month we had Mean Girls and Freaky Friday star Lindsay Lohan suing Rockstar over allegedly using her likeness in Grand Theft Auto 5. Now, we have an ex-dictator suing Activision over allegedly using his likeness in Call of Duty.

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is suing Activision over the use of his likeness in Treyarch’s first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

In the game Alex Mason and Frank Woods track Noriega, codenamed False Profit by the CIA, to the outskirts of Panama City. You can see the scene in which they find him in the video, below, taken from the level Suffer With Me.

Now, 80-year-old Noriega, who lives in Panama, is suing Activision for the “blatant misuse, unlawful exploitation and misappropriation for economic gain” of his image in Black Ops 2, which came out in 2012.

In the lawsuit, filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and reported on by the Courthouse News Service, Noriega’s lawyers claim: “In an effort to increase the popularity and revenue generated by Black Ops 2, defendants used, without authorisation or consent, the image and likeness of plaintiff in Black Ops 2.”

Read more…

Muzzy Lane Software announced today that their WWI grand strategy title Making History: The Great War will remain in development through August. The game will continue to be available to players at a discounted price as part of Steam’s Early Access program as well as here at GHQ and at Gamer’s Gate. A new release date has been scheduled for September 9th.

“We’ve been pushing very hard to meet the July 28th date for release,” says Muzzy Lane CEO Dave McCool, “But we also have committed ourselves from the start to not release the game unless we feel it’s ready to go. We feel TGW will benefit greatly from these additional weeks of polish and balancing, which are critical to getting the best player experience from a strategy title such as this.”

Muzzy Lane will continue to release regular updates throughout the extension, just as it has during the entire time the game has been in early access. The company feels confident players will support their decision. “Our community wants the same thing we do,” says McCool, “The best possible WWI strategy game. We believe this is the best choice we can make to be certain that happens.”

The current discounted price of $29.99 will remain until the time of the official release, after which the game will sell for $39.99. More information as well as community discussion of TGW is ongoing at the Steam community hub and at the game’s website.

Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth DLC Now Available for Battlefield 4 Premium Members

Electronic Arts has announced that Dragon’s Teeth, the fourth expansion pack to Battlefield 4, is out now for all Battlefield 4 Premium members. This DLC will be available to all non-Premium members on July 29th. Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth offers the following new maps that introduce unique environments: Lumphini Garden, Pearl Market, Propaganda, and Sunken Dragon.

The DLC also includes five new weapons in addition to a new unlockable gadget, the Ballistic shield. Moreover, Dragon’s Teeth introduces Chain Link, a twist on the fan-favorite Conquest mode that sees squads battle to link capture points in order to achieve victory. Fans will also get ten new assignments with unique unlocks and a new Battle pickup in the R.A.W.R., a remote controlled ground vehicle armed to the teeth.

Click here to view the Dragon’s Teeth DLC teaser trailer.

Bohemia Interactive today opened the Addon category for their €500,000 Make Arma Not War content creation contest for Arma 3. This means people can now send in their applications for each contest category. While the other categories (Singleplayer, Multiplayer, Total Modifiction) had already launched, the Addon category was delayed until Arma 3′s support for Steam Workshop addons had been implemented.

To apply, contestants should go to www.makearma.com/apply and start the application process. The deadline for applications is set on October 26th, 2014. The winners of the Make Arma Not War contest will be announced on January 15th, 2015.

More information about the contest, the rules, prizes, and categories is available on www.makearma.com.

Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio today released Res Publica, the newest expansion for Europa Universalis IV, the award-winning grand strategy game of empire-building and global domination. Res Publica provides eager emperors and dedicated dictators with new options for trading and governing their empires, and is available now for Windows, Mac, and Linux for $4.99. Players can purchase and download the expansion now at www.europauniversalis4.com.

Author: AkG @ Hardware Canucks

Despite being launched years ago, Linksys’ WRT54G is still considered one of the best wireless routers available on the market. While most of this appeal is due to very capable third party firmware, the WRT54G set a high water mark that was only recently surpassed by some of the latest AC-band products. In order to keep up with the competition Linksys is now launching a spiritual successor to their storied router. Called the WRT1900AC, it brings high performance, a user friendly design and a broad feature set to a market that’s already filled with alternatives.

Read The Review Here

By Ian Cutress @ AnandTech

The initial set of Z97 reviews demonstrated that most motherboard manufacturers were implementing at least one the new storage options offered by the chipset: SATA Express and M.2. The motherboard we are testing today, the Z97-Pro, uses both but incorporates a switching system so only one is active at the time. Similarly to the Z97-Deluxe which we have reviewed, ASUS’ new brushed metalling gold design is here on the Z97-Pro as well.

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.

• SteelSeries Unveils the Rival: Dota 2 Edition Gaming Mouse
• Palit Releases the Silent GeForce GTX 750Ti/GTX 750 KalmX Series Cards
• ASUS Unveils the Strix GTX 750 Ti OC Graphics Card
• Phanteks Releases the Enthoo Luxe Full Tower PC Case
• Spire Debuts the CoolBox F12 and F14 Mid-Tower PC Cases
• Creative Introduces the SB Inferno Gaming Headset
• ASUS Announces the Xonar U5 USB Soundcard and Headphone Amplifier
• ViewSonic Launches 28-inch VX2858Sml Desktop Monitor
• GIGABYTE’s EasyTune App Makes Overclocking a Breeze on New Intel® Pentium® Anniversary Edition CPUs
• 4K Monitor Being Made by Acer, Will Have 28-Inch Diagonal
• EK Readies New Full-Cover Water Block for Radeon R9 290X Graphics Cards
• BIOSTAR Presents Its System-On-Chip Solutions
• Club 3D Launches World’s First USB 3.0 to 4K Graphics Adapter
• Freecom Launches Three New External SSDs
• KINGMAX Unveils an M.2 SATA3 Solid State Drive
• Corsair Flash Voyager GTX USB Flash Drive Now Available
• Most Intel Broadwell CPUs to arrive in Q1 2015
• Xilence Presents Performance A Power Supply Series

HMS Campbeltown and the Raid on St Nazaire, 28 March 1942

By John Dudek @ The Wargamer

The embattled German battleship Bismarck shuddered as British 14 and 15 inch shell salvos rained down around her, sending huge, cascading waterspouts skyward. One British shell struck her up forward at the waterline near the bow, piercing a number of fuel tanks and venting her to the sea. Bismarck’s 15 inch guns thundered back at her British tormentors HMS Hood and Prince of Wales, straddling and striking both ships. Bismarck’s heavy cruiser escort Prinz Eugen fired her lighter, but still dangerous main battery 8 inch guns at the British as fast as they could be serviced. In the highly confused sea battle that followed, a German shell struck the lightly armored battle cruiser Hood amidships, causing a massive chain reaction explosion that touched off her secondary magazines and broke her back, splitting the ship in two. Hood immediately sank, taking all but three of her crew to the bottom of the Denmark Strait. German observers on both their warships momentarily froze in shock and horror as they gazed uncomprehendingly at the sight of the mighty Hood exploding and sinking. The greatest and most storied, symbolic warship of the Royal Navy had just blown up before their very eyes. The two German warship’s guns now switched targets to bring all their fire down upon the newly built HMS Prince of Wales. The new British battleship was rocked while taking a number of direct hits, tearing up her upper works and setting fires, but her armor belt prevented more serious damage. Just as Prince of Wales appeared about to undergo the same fate as the Hood, the German task force sheered off and withdrew from the action. The battered Bismarck, now trailing an oil slick and running a few degrees down at the bow, set a course for German occupied France to repair damage to her shell punctured hull. There was but one dry dock outside of Germany that could repair and accommodate so large a warship as Bismarck. The Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire, France.

Read on…