It seems that Pandemic Studios, developer of Lord of the Rings: Conquest, has released the official PC requirements via the game’s official forums.
Below are said requirements:
System Requirements
===================
Lord of Lord of The Rings: Conquest™ requires at least the following:
FOR WINDOWS XP SP2 or Windows Vista
* 2.4 GHz Core Duo processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* A 256 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 3.0 – nvidia 7800 or equivelent
* The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
* A DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
* At least 6 GB of hard drive space for installation.
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If you’ve been dying for a peek at the Nintendo DS entrance of Grand Theft Auto, now’s your chance. NintendoEverything has gotten their hands on several screenshots of the upcoming game that you will not want to miss.
While the graphics are crude, it is to be expected given the DS’ power, so don’t expect this to be a damper of the playability of the game.
More screenshots like the above can be found here.
Major Nelson has recently announced via his blog that the multiplayer demo for Lord of the Rings: Conquest has hit the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Below is an exerpt from his posting:
Demo: Lord of the Rings: Conquest™ Multiplayer Demo
Content: Lord of the Rings: Conquest™ Multiplayer Demo
Price: Free
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions
Dash Text: Download The Lord of the Rings: Conquest™ online multiplayer demo and choose your side! Fight for either Good or Evil in the battle for Middle-earth!
Lord of the Rings: Conquest is currently under development by Pandemic Studios and will let players return to Middle Earth when it hits North American shelves for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Nintendo DS on January 13th.
It’s no surprise that for every RPG out there, there is going to be a slew of users who decide to run their own private servers. MapleStory is no different, but not if AsiaSoft (one of the game’s distributors) has anything to do with it.
A 16-year old named Sean Lee who runs a private server is apparently one of the reasons for the crackdown, who says he’ll cease operations if he’s given a warning.
It looks like that warning may come sooner than he may have hoped as they plan on going straight to the servers’ ISPs
‘We are currently working with developers to take action against the service providers of private servers,’ said Mr Ng Kok Khwang, marketing director of AsiaSoft Online
Read (Kotaku)
You probably remember HP’s killer Blackbird gaming rig, the one that costs all sorts of money and probably makes your power bill go up a few bucks, right? Well, HP has recently announced the price for it’s sibling the Firebird.
This rig isn’t your conventional gaming PC, instead focusing on a more environmentally friendly footprint. Starting at just $1,800 the Firebird will ship running Vista with a Intel Core 2 Quad processor clocking up to 2.83 GHz. You will also fine 4GB of RAM and a Nvidia GeForce 9800S video card complete with 1 GB of RAM under the hood.
The selling point for this PC is the fact that it uses notebook components bringing its power consumption down to just 350 watts. None too bad for $1,800.
Read (PCWorld)
Isuppli, the market researchers known for taking apart hardware and gadgets and figuring out how much it costs to manufacture them, have calculated that it costs Sony 448 dollars to manufacture one PlayStation 3 console — which would then retail at 399 dollars.
It might seem like a big loss on each console sold, but keep in mind that the original PlayStation 3 (without the new hardware) cost Sony almost $700 to manufacture.
Isuppli also notes that the newest PS3 version is a lot simpler to make, having only 2820 individual parts, as opposed to a first gen PS3 with a whopping 4048 individual parts. They expect Sony to break even on the PS3 sometime in 2009.
While the three current-gen consoles are battling it out for the hearts, minds and cash of the general public, an unexpected system is getting most of their time. US research firm Nielsen has published data that they collected between January and October of last year which shows some unexpected trends in what consoles people played the most.
It seems that no matter what camp they’re in, Xbox, Wii and PS3 fanboys are spending more time on forums blasting one another than playing as the PS2 held the #1 spot with 31.7% of the total time spent playing consoles. Current-gen consoles only had 37.9% of total playtime between them, with Xbox 360 and its bevy of excellent multiplayer offerings holding the top slot amongst their ranks with 17.2%. Wii followed with 13.4% and the PS3 lagged behind with 7.3%. The original Xbox beat out Sony’s newest console with 9.7% and even the Gamecube came close with 4.6%.
The PS2 has such a huge install base due to its longevity and since they’re still making games for the console, it’s no surprise that this system which has a huge library of games available for low prices is on top. Throw in the addicting powers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and it’s no surprise that the PS2 is getting the most play time. The least surprising factoid they published was that World of Warcraft was the top played game by PC gamers during the period.
A new book, titled “The Race for a New Game Machine”, paints an interesting story about the development of the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, in particular, the processors powering each console.
The authors, David Shippy and Mickie Phipps claim that IBM — who manufactures CPUs for both consoles — used some of the research from the Cell processor it was co-developing with Sony and Toshiba, and helped Microsoft make a CPU for it’s own console, the Xbox 360.
If it wasn’t enough that Sony’s R&D money was spent helping MS, it helped the Xbox 360 beat the PS3 to the market with a full year.
The Wall Street Journal has a full article here. A very interesting read on the early stages of the current console wars.
While your Miis are languishing in style limbo with their boring monochrome pants and tshirts, Microsoft is releasing another round of free clothing for your Xbox Live avatar. In direct contrast to December’s stylish yet somewhat stuff formal wear they’re putting out a set of more casual gear aimed at the young crowd.
Men get a pixel art hoodie, dark purple jeans, green skinny fit jeans and pink sweat bands. Ladies get a green chunky ring, red chunky ring, yellow fingerless gloves, blue fingerless gloves, a chunky beaded bracelent and day-glo zebra print pumps. Both genders get a rave baseball cap.
These clothes are free and available, with no word yet from Microsoft when they might start charging for future content, although with the current economic state they’d be best off building up a lot of good PR by releasing it all free, maybe occasionally charging for the odd piece here and there. I’m sure plenty of gamers would shell out a few bucks to kit their avatar out in Spartan armor or a Gears suit, but not many are likely to pay for red Nikes or a funky jacket.
If you celebrate the Christmas tradition of giving brightly wrapped gifts then chances are you’ve gotten a few bad ones here and there. I had a relative who never understood that at age sixteen I wasn’t terribly interested in the Power Rangers anymore. I once received a can of WD-40, probably my most surreal gift of all time. One couple from New Hampshire found their Christmas day ruined by what seems like it wouldn’t be a bad gift at all.
Randi Young purchased a brand new Nintendo Wii for her boyfriend, twenty-six year old Heath Blom. When that fateful day arrived he unwrapped it, hoping for a remote-controlled airplane. Instead of feigning excitement or simply thanking her for the generosity and then asking if she’d kept the receipt, he threw a temper tantrum. Ms. Young promptly punched him in the face and set to pack her bags. Blom attempted to block her exit and after she hit him several more times he seized her by the hair and dragged her down the stairs. The police were called and both of them were arrested when the police noticed that they were both bruised.
