http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...e-black-on-top ...

Crytek has confirmed to CVG that Crysis 2 won't use EA's Online Pass system.

"All we can say/confirm is that we aren't using Online Pass for Crysis 2," the studio said in a brief statement confirming earlier reports.




It is thought that Crytek was able to opt out of using the Online Pass because it's an independent developer working under the EA Partners program, rather than an EA owned studio.

Designed both to discourage and monetise second-hand game sales, as well as offer a way to fund the expenses of running online gaming servers, the Online Pass system requires second-hand buyers to pay for access to multiplayer features in EA games.

Thankfully there'll be no multiplayer lockout for Crysis 2 though. According to OXM, which awarded the game 9/10 in its world first review, Crysis 2's online experience boasts "some of the most exciting, angry and satisfying action you'll ever have".

Check out the upgrades and modifiers available in Crysis 2 multiplayer inthis new weapons trailer.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

Lace Mamba Global to distribute new bundle of upcoming PC strategy title

Distributor Lace Mamba Global has signs the rights to handle the special edition of Men of War: Assault Squad.
The firm will distribute the bundle in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Benelux and other territories. It is due for release alongside the standard edition of the game on April 15th.

Men of War: Assault Squad – Special Edition includes a number of extra items for fans of the series, including a t-shirt, soundtrack CD, deck of cards, and poster – as well as a full-colour printed manual and, of course, a copy of the game.
The game is the sequel to the 2009 strategy title Men of War and challenges players to lead the armed forces from five different nations to victory.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43372/Men-...tion-announced
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News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

A second release candidate of OpenTTD has been released. OpenTTD is a clone of the Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe", a popular game originally written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features.


Quote:

1.1.0-RC2 (2011-03-04)

• Fix: Following a vehicle with a very high VehicleID was impossible (r22181)
• Fix: [NewGRF] Memory leak if an industry NewGRF had more than one prop A or 15, or a station NewGRF had more than one prop 09 (r22175, r22165)
• Fix: [NewGRF] Disable a station NewGRF when it contains an unterminated spritelayout in action0 prop 08 instead of crashing (r22164)
• Fix: Building a station part adjacent to both an existing station and a rail waypoint failed [FS#4541] (r22163)
• Fix: No update of NewGRF window when unknown GRF name becomes available [FS#4533] (r22162)
• Fix: [NewGRF] Industry prop 0x11 is 4-bytes long, not 3 bytes (r22157)
• Fix: Stations/infrastructure were not properly sold on some clients during bankruptcy [FS#4529] (r22154)
• Fix: The Greek translation did not work as it breached the 200.000 bytes ´limit´ for loading language files [FS#4536] (r22153)
• Fix: Windows video driver crashed when it could not go to full screen at the resolution of the configuration file when starting OpenTTD [FS#4521] (r22149)
• Fix: Do not run savegame conversion during SlNullPointers; the pointer might not be converted or be NULL at that point (r22146)
• Fix: Some valid keycodes were ignored along with the invalid ones (r22142)
• Fix: When commands need to invalidate windows, process these events asynchronously before the next redraw. Calling window code directly from command scope uses wrong _current_company and might issue nested DoCommands() which interfer with the running command [FS#4523] (r22141, r22140, r22135, r22134)
• Fix: [NewGRF] Skipping only the invalid part of an action14 failed, the rest of the action was skipped instead (r22138)
• Fix: Spectators had crashes when closing buoy windows (r22131)
• Fix: Build-station-window showed wrong selection when reopening [FS#4530] (r22128)
• Fix: Canals would get drawn as land in the smallmap when using the owner window (r22127)
• Fix: The animation-ness of two goldmine tiles were swapped, causing the wheeltower to not work properly, and the bottom corner to show the wrong sprite [FS#4528] (r22125)
• Fix: CommandQueue::Pop() did not update ´last´; popping the last item caused the queue to disconnect unless there was only one item [FS#4522] (r22123)
• Fix: When a NOT_REACHED in saveload can be reached due to an invalid savegame, use SlErrorCorrupt instead. In other words, do not crash but show an error message (r22122)
• Fix: In case of high frame_freq one could get commands executed after a new network game was started (r22121)
• Fix: [NoAI] Prevent AIs from getting consistently over their allowed amount of operations by subtracting the amount they went over ´budget´ from the budget for the next ´tick´ (r22120)
• Fix: The refit window was not correctly updated after selecting with Ctrl+Click [FS#4525] (r22118)
• Fix: CanRemoveRoadWithStop() failed for _current_company = OWNER_TOWN, and for OWNER_NONE-owned road (r22117)

...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

Freeciv is an open source project that aims to provide a free Civilization clone (released under the GPL).


Quote:
WHAT´S CHANGED SINCE 2.2.4Edit
Server / GeneralEdit
Fix bug where a game saved while a civilization was in revolution would not save the target government correctly. GNA#17363
Fix server crash with invalid arguments to "/show" command. GNA#17672
Forbid meaningless negative values for the ´endturn´ option. GNA#17564
Fix for building with IPv6 support on OpenBSD. GNA#16458
Declare IPv6 support as no longer "work in progress". GNAPATCH#2282
Make "maintainer-clean" build target cleaner. GNA#16380
Apply latest lua-5.1.4 patches (7 and . GNAPATCH#2229
Windows: display meaningful message for winsock error #10060. GNA#16788
Stability improvements. GNA#17677 GNAPATCH#2541
ClientsEdit
Fix incomplete list of buildings in Spy sabotage dialog. GNA#17280
Better handling of the situation where multiple Settlers are selected and the "Build city" order is issued. GNA#14702
Do not save "gameseed" or "mapseed" settings in client config file (this would cause the user to get the same game/map every time they started the client). GNA#17122 GNA#17751
(Gtk) In diplomacy dialog, remove current diplomatic status from list of allowed proposals. GNA#16557
(Gtk) Allow type-to-search when picking a nation. GNAPATCH#2459
(SDL) Avoid a crash when an attempt is made to use a missing sprite. GNA#17146
Fix a few memory leaks. GNA#17716 GNA#17719
Improve alignment of fixed-width tables in some character sets. GNA#17215
Tilesets / ArtEdit
Added "Electric Age" city graphics to the Trident-based rulesets. GNAPATCH#2444
Gameplay / RulesEdit
Supplied rulesets
The effects of notradesize / fulltradesize are now calculated separately from the normal corruption calculation; this gives a more consistent effect, and prevents building Courthouses to circumvent those settings. GNA#17348
Fix bug where civil war rebels never got a capital city. GNA#17201
Remove misspelled Aztec ruler title. GNAPATCH#2549
Other rulesets
Allow non-military paradroppable units to drop into peaceful territory. GNA#17285
Make the SaveSmallWonder flag actually have an effect; previously, all small wonders would be rebuilt if lost. This didn´t matter for the default ruleset (where the Palace is the only "small wonder" and this effect is desired), but it does affect the "rewonder" ruleset. GNA#17333
gold_upkeep_style=2: when gold runs out, buildings and units are alternately sold (rather than selling all buildings before selling any units). GNA#16413
Fix trouble with technologies with a "root_req" specification. GNA#16852
AIEdit
If the server setting ´citymindist´ was changed from its default, the AI was not taking this into account when planning its cities. GNA#17745
Help / DocumentationEdit
Minor improvements to in-game text. GNA#17198 GNA#17302 GNA#17161 GNAPATCH#2240 GNA#17510
Minor improvements to comments in ruleset files. GNA#17428
Fix contact details in man pages. GNA#16922
Several invisible changes to assist with translation. GNAPATCH#2289 GNAPATCH#2300 GNA#17422 GNA#17507 GNA#17509
TranslationsEdit
Updated translations:
Complete translations: Polish, Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, French, Italian.
Incomplete translations: Danish (99.9%), Brazilian Portuguese (99.6%), Finnish (93%), Ukrainian (92%). ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

Hexen II: Hammer of Thyrion is a source port based on Hexen II and HexenWorld. Supported platforms are Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Windows.


Quote:
Version 1.5.0-rc1 of Hexen II: Hammer of Thyrion (uHexen2) is released: This release candidate is a major update since the previous 1.4.4-pre11 beta version. Major focus is on the background music handling, which is done properly along with ogg, mp3 and wave formats support, as well as sound and cdaudio updates. Changes since the previous 1.4.4-pre11 beta version:

- added support for ogg, mp3 and wav external music files to be played instead of the original midi files.
- added interface for music streams to the sound layer, dropped SDL_mixer dependency. many changes in sound and midi layer. imported libtimidity into the source tree and applied several fixes.
- unix midi: reimplemented through the new music streams interface using timidity.
- windows midi: ignore midi hardware volume adjustment capability under windows vista/7 which fixes music volume control messing with the main volume.
- software renderer (C-only): fixed a segmentation fault with Crusader´s ice mace.
- added new cvar sys_throttle in order to throttle the game loop just a little bit and run cooler on new fast systems. the default sys_throttle value is 0.02, acceptable values are between 0 and 1. changing it to 0 disables throttling.
- handled several map quirks thanks to careful works by Thomas Freundt and Keith Rozett.
- fixed trigger_crosslevel problem with spawnflag 8 (thanks Keith Rozett.)
- bumped the hexen2 engine version to 1.23, and hexenworld engine version to 0.23. bumped the gamecode version to 1.20.
- added support for external entity file loading which makes it easy to handle map quirks. ent files are accepted only if they come from the same game directory as the map itself.
- revised lit file loading. lit files are now accepted only if they come from the same game directory as the map itself or from a searchpath with a higher priority.
- tested compilation using Visual Studio 2010.
- source directory layout reworked, repository moved from cvs to svn.

Along with the full sources, we also posted win32, win64 and dos binary packages, as usual. Mac OS X packages will hopefully follow shortly. We´d appreciate any feedback. ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

VCMI is a free implementation of the Heroes of Might and Magic 3 WoG engine.


Quote:

Posted: 2008-02-10, 15:12 Changelog
0.83 -> 0.84 (Mar 01 2011)
GENERAL:
* Bonus system has been rewritten
* Partial support for running VCMI in duel mode (no adventure map, only one battle, ATM only AI-AI battles)
* New artifacts supported:
- Angellic Alliance
- Bird of Perception
- Emblem of Cognizance
- Spell Scroll
- Stoic Watchman

BATTLES:
* Better animations handling
* Defensive stance is supported

HERO:
* New secondary skills supported:
- Artillery
- Eagle Eye
- Tactics

AI PLAYER:
* new AI leading neutral creatures in combat, slightly better then previous



0.82 -> 0.83 (Nov 01 2010)
GENERAL:
* Alliances support
* Week of / Month of events
* Mostly done pregame for MP games (temporarily only for local clients)
* Support for 16bpp displays
* Campaigns:
- support for building bonus
- moving to next map after victory
* Town Portal supported
* Vial of Dragon Blood and Statue of Legion supported

HERO:
* remaining specialities have been implemented

TOWNS:
* town events supported
* Support for new town structures: Deiety of Fire and Escape Tunnel

BATTLES:
* blocked retreating from castle ...

If you'd like to play Sega's Dreamcast Collection without actually collecting any boxes, you can do that now. The four-game compilation is now available for PC download through the Steam service, for $29.99. It was released as an Xbox 360 disc on February 22.

You can also purchase the games individually, if you're only interested in one or, perhaps, have enough copies of Crazy Taxi in your house. Each of the four games is available for $8.99 each. So for the price of a pizza, you could have the wonderful Space Channel 5 Part 2. Go ahead and get that pizza too. You deserve it!

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/05/dr...on-steam-cast/ ...

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