Well we just had a raft of announcements on the future of Half-Life from Valve. It includes the return of Team Fortress 2 and the simultaneous release of Episode 2 on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. It’s interesting for such a PC focused developer to suddenly bring their next gen console ports into the same release schedule as their main platform. Also, the episodic nature of the series means that it is best delivered on Steam or Xbox Live but as of yet the PS3 does not have a firm infrastructure to do this.
With this as the case I highly doubt we will be seeing a downloadable version of Episode 2 on the PS3 on launch day due to the untested and unproven nature of Sony’s online service. Instead we would only see a retail release at a budget price (ala Episode 1) making it the cheapest PS3 game around.
With the extension of support to these other platforms and the addition of TF2 and Portal (crazy Prey style game) to Valve’s development schedule I can definitely see Episode 2 slipping into 2007. I hope they prove me wrong but as it has been proven in the past Valve will keep working till it’s done and all this extra work can’t help. Wish I could start preloading now.
A few weeks ago I found out about this article that claims a Pentium D 805 can be overclocked to 4.1GHz (3.6GHz realistically). This is a really attractive proposition for me as I am about to upgrade (what Oblivion needs, Oblivion gets) so it would be damn cheap if I could get the performance I need this way.
I’ll find out if its workable pretty soon as we have the components needed sitting in the flat waiting to be built for someone else’s system. If all goes well I will be seriously considering it over the new AM2 chips that are out on Tuesday which I had originally planned on going for. Either way I’ll write it up here once I know how far we can push this chip.
Potentially great news for the industry if true. Forum posts here and here (French).
[via Digg]
UPDATE: It’s official.
… but can’t due to exams and a certain disertation. All these are out or will be during my uni crunch time. Dammit!
- Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion - Holy moly I need to play this, collectors edition on its way
- Civilization IV - Was out last year but I still don’t think I have spent enough time with it.
- Ghost Recon: AWF - Looks fantastico
- The Movies - Still waiting on that one
- Galactic Civilizations 2 - Civ in space!
- Half Life 2: Episode 1 - Nuff said
- Sin Episodes: Emergence - More episodic source engine goodness
- Space Rangers - because Kieron Gillen keeps banging on about it
That’s a big pile to get through. Unfortunately they are going to have to wait till mid May when my final year wraps up. I just hope nothing else huge comes out between now and then.
Props to Nintendo for getting Sega on board with their virtual console feature on the Revolution.
Props to Sony for including the hard drive and online service as standard in the PS3.
Props to Microsoft for expanding PC and Xbox 360 compatibility.
It should be a fun year!
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