Like Section 7, But Better! Section 8!

An article over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun caught my eye; mostly for vague references to "Tribes" and "Planetside", two games I rather enjoyed back in the day. The new game being compared to the latter is Sector 8.

I want to say up front that I’m having great deal of fun with this. It’s the kind of game I go into for five minutes to take a screenshot, and emerge from two hours later. Read onwards for why.

When people were throwing the “Tribes” word around to explain where Section 8 sat in the big scheme of things, I was unconcerned and not particularly inspired. I assumed it would be another vague sci-fi squib that wouldn’t really satisfy anyone. Tribes-alikes have a habit of not quite hitting the best things about multiplayer gun-violence on the head. As much as I respect the original games, their weapons, physics and environments never quite grabbed me in the way they did so many other people. So you can imagine that I was pleased to find that despite some similarities in the sci-fi, jetpacks and vehicles sense, Section 8 is very much its own game.

Just running down my "What makes a good FPS" checklist:

1. It looks good, both UI and atmosphere.
2. It has classes, not just guys with guns that they shoot people with.
3. The maps look BIG.

Now, does that make it worth the price-tag? Probably not. It is an Xbox360 release, which always makes me leery (For example: Halo was great on Xbox, but sucked on PC). Also, without any apparent digital distribution via Steam or another platform, it doesn't appear that the PC is their primary market. I'm not the only one with the digital distribution question either.

I'd be interested to know if Section 8 will be downloadable at launch on Steam - and if so if there will be a preload offer?

*coughs*I won't mind a free weekend and if you offer one you are bound to sell more copies. But yeah, you'll never do that.*coughs*

+1

So where is the response to this post? Purchasing this game on steam would really motivate me to purchase this game. Direct2Drive and all of the other content systems are a joke.

I would consider purchasing this game in store, but lately I have made it a hobby to secure all of my games with steam so that there is no worry of losing cd-keys and such.

I'll be keeping my eye on the game in the meantime.

Google Library's Book Recommendation Gadget = Genius

Logging onto the Internet this morning, I checked my iGoogle homepage and saw a new recommendation topping my Google Library gadget.


Don't get me wrong; I love to read and I've spent some time with the Air Force, but... nevermind. Google, who the hell would want to read a phone book? Google wasn't kidding when they stated the wanted to scan the entirety of the written word onto the Internet.

Aion Is Pretty

Aion has another gorgeous update out:

The Sorcerer is a Daeva who follows the Star of Magic. They are able to freely wield the destructive power if the natural elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. A sorcerer is a scholar at heart, evident by the books and orbs they normally carry with them. However, these items can be dangerous weapons in their hands as they help to increase a Sorcerer's power.

The Rubber Meets the Road at PAX 2009

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be demonstrated live, in public, at GameCom and PAX '09.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be will be bringing the power of the Force to two more conventions this year, GamesCom (Cologne, Germany; August 19-24 ) and Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) (Seattle, Washington; September 4 – 6). During the conventions, the team we will be showcasing the first public gameplay demo as well as giving away Star Wars™ goodies to attendees. Stop by the community cantina and hang out with some of the members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team.

Here's a quick list of what needs to happen in order to impress me.

1. Combat must look fluid and engaging. The game play we've seen so far leaves a lot to be desired.

2. The demonstration can not be dominated by pre-canned cut scenes. If it is, then I am terrified for what the actual game will be like. I have nightmares about games that start and end with conversation trees.

3. A sense of epic scale. If they don't show off an epic Jedi vs Sith fight followed by the victor jumping into a ship and taking off and then landing in a giant space ship orbiting the planet, I won't be impressed.

To put it plainly, SW:ToR has NOT impressed me. I'm still excited for the game, but my optimism is firmly in check.

The Future, Now! Firefox 3.7 Theme

Firefox 3.5 just launched, but the Mozilla folks are hard at work showing off 3.7. I love the Firefox web browser and get a little giddy anytime there are future updates in the works. Thanks to Boneyardbrew, we have a mock-up of FIrefox 3.7 available for download. However, there are some extra steps involved:

Installing this theme isn't quite as simple as you are probably used to—you'll need to first enable the All-Glass Firefox extension for the Aero effects, the Personal Menu extension to hide the menubar and add the Tools button, the Stylish extension for a tweak that fixes the text, and then drag the mockup theme's *.jar file into the add-ons window to install it.

Once you've successfully completed all of the steps—which are detailed on the download page—you should have an impressive browser style that looks very similar to the screenshot.

Personally, I just downloaded the theme from Boneyardbrew's page and it looks fine to me, minus the tweaks that the other add-ons provide.

Enjoy.