• Added new option for medigun beam to the Multiplayer-Advanced dialog. If on, the medigun beam will stay attached to the current target without the need to hold down the fire button
• Added new option for the sniper rifle to the Multiplayer-Advanced dialog. If disabled, the sniper rifle won't re-zoom after firing a zoomed shot
• Added "nextlevel" server cvar. If set to a valid map name, server will change to that map during the next changelevel
• Fixed PerfUI being used as a type of wall-hack on servers without sv_cheats set to 1
• Reduced Granary spawn advantage for capping the middle point
• Fixed players turning into "Scout" model after lagouts (and a variety of related issues, such as disappearing doors)
• Fixed obscure crash related to resolution changing
• Gave machinima creators access to "tf_testvcd" and "tf_testrr"commands for playing scenes on characters
• SDK Launcher now has a drop list of engine versions in addition to a drop list of games/mods. This eliminates the need to specify engine version as a launch option

Counter-Strike has always been the most popular mod for Half-Life, but many of us remember Team Fortress Classic, the class-based shooter that was released by Valve back in 1999. Below, we get a look at the successor, Team Fortress 2, introducing us to the game's now cel-shaded player classes (Heavy, Spy, Demo, Medic, Engineer, Sniper, Soldier, and Scout). The cartoony visuals should be a hit for first-person shooter fans looking for something different.

Download the DivX Browser Plug-In.

]]> Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:42:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/sony_gives_info_on_socom_fireteam_bravo_2 http://www.gamebump.com/go/sony_gives_info_on_socom_fireteam_bravo_2 http://www.gamebump.com/go/sony_gives_info_on_socom_fireteam_bravo_2# Sony has given up more details on their upcoming military shooter for the PSP, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALS: Fireteam Bravo 2.

The game will feature a non-linear mission progression through 14 single-player missions across various areas of the world giving gamers the option to choose where they take on battle next. Missions can also be redone in different ways allowing gamers to go back and take on new objectives and enemies. Zipper has announced that the game will feature over 40 real world weapons and you'll be able to purchase new ones by earning command equity points. These are given to players for completing missions, reaching objectives and rescuing civilians. The points can also be used to purchase air strikes, supply drops along with improved local influence giving you the option to get information from locals and purchase black market weapons.

Meanwhile, the multiplayer game will feature 16-player ad hoc and infrastructure support. The multiplayer game will include three new modes of play including tug-of-war control points, capture the flag and target.

If games define the system, then Halo made the Xbox, Final Fantasy VII made the original PlayStation, Nintendogs made the DS, and SOCOM made the PlayStation 2. It’s little wonder, then, that Zipper Interactive opted to create an entirely new SOCOM product for the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s premier handheld unit and the first portable system to challenge the GameBoy line-up in years. SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo has all the goodies formerly exclusive to the PlayStation 2 versions, and it’s just as intense and addictive on the small screen as its big brothers are on the living room TV. If you own a PSP, happen to like shooters, or really enjoy any of the SOCOM games, this one’s for you. It’s possibly the best and most fun PSP game on the market.

Fireteam Bravo wastes no time explaining overlaying plot lines, introducing the team, or putting you through a boring tutorial level. Instead, the game immediately launches you into a selection screen where you can view all the modes offered at a glance, beginning with the campaign mode, which spans the globe and involves four distinct locales: Chile, Morocco, South Asia, and Poland. Unlike the regular SOCOM (PS2) games, Fireteam Bravo’s single-player experience has you controlling Sandman (Raymond Stokes), the head of a two-man SEALs team, while reducing the franchise’s four AI teammates down to one, the dreaded Lonestar (Tate Rawlins, and yes he’s a Texan). The campaign mode features 14 missions (about 3-4 per locale) and the typical primary objectives: apprehend bad guys, rescue hostages, blow stuff up, take photos with your convenient digital camera, and gather intel without the pesky terrorists knowing it.

Before deployment, you’re presented with a mission briefing, a short list of current objectives, some minor intel (usually accompanied by some satellite imagery), and an armory to adjust your team’s load-outs. The franchise’s usual weapons – the M4A1 for the SEALs, the AK-47 for the terrorists – are present and make gamers feel instantly at home, along with sniper rifles (SR-25, M87ELR), claymores, pressure mines (only available in multiplayer), sub-machine guns (9mm sub, HK5), and grenades. Zipper included the extra trinkets from SOCOM III, too, like the magnification scopes (both low and high power) and thermal view (night vision is automatically equipped during evening missions).

Once you’ve deployed, you’ll need a few moments to familiarize yourself with the different control scheme, which is surprisingly functional considering the unit’s lack of a second analog nub. In the PS2 iterations of SOCOM, the left analog stick is used for maneuvering and the right stick targets; in Fireteam Bravo, the left maneuvers and the right shoulder button targets, or locks-on. The game also makes use of a freelock mode, which enables you to both aim and move with the left analog nub depending on whether or not the L button is held down. The lock-on feature is what makes the game playable on the PSP, but as it typically targets a foe’s body (and not his head), you can expect to score fewer head shots, which keeps the game playable online.

To help you figure out where you’re going and where your targets are, Fireteam Bravo implements a compass marked with blue allies and red enemies, NAV points (important targets shown on-screen and on the compass), and a crude yet functional map that highlights roads, buildings, NAV points, and terrain edges. Fireteam Bravo’s environs are rather large for a handheld game, but definitely smaller than most SOCOM maps, which accommodates the lesser number of terrorists/players as well as keeps you from wasting a half hour traversing an area to score a kill (an important note consider the title’s lack of a mid-mission save).

The game screen also houses a team member status box that displays team health bars, a weapon display, gun crosshairs, and – when enemies are locked on – a convenient, bright red target box. If you feel like tossing grenades or planting claymores, you can switch weapons by simply hitting the left directional button to bring up the weapon menu. From there, merely cycle through the selections via up/down, and choose a new gun by pressing X. Triangle toggles between primary and secondary weapons for quick weapon juggling, and X shoots. For easy reloading, hold down the square button. If you’ve equipped a scope (or prefer a first-person viewpoint) repeatedly press the up directional button; this sometimes passes through night vision mode if the mission is set in the evening, and if you have thermal equipped, culminates in a fuzzy blue field marked with throbbing red targets. Sometimes you’ll encounter a special action icon, which can include such options as “pick up primary/secondary weapon”, “open/close door”, “place satchel/C4 charges”, “climb”, “knife”, and – for when you’re completely out of ammo with no enemies in sight – “rifle butt”. It’s cheap, but effective.

Perhaps the most obvious signature mark of the campaign mode is the inclusion of Lonestar, who is essentially your go-to guy. You command him to move to locations, diffuse bombs, breach doorways (run inside and clear out the room), cover targets, deploy (bomb targets), regroup on you, and clear the area – which all basically saves yourself some bullets. If Lonestar dies, however, or you die (or your hostages die, or you foil some important objective) the mission is over.

If you haven’t got the time for a full campaign level, you can always start an instant action game. As missions are completed, you can play through their maps in one of five modes under the instant action selection: hostage extract, stealth extract (extract hostages without being seen), sweep and clear (kill all foes), sabotage (have Lonestar disable a device), and stealth sabotage (disable a device without being seen). To keep things fresh, you can select a difficulty level for the mission (ensign, admiral, etc.) and randomize enemies and items, which makes up for some of the modes being the same (besides the fact that you can’t be seen).

If you’re ready for some multiplayer fun and have a few friends with PSPs of their own, you can engage in ad hoc games utilizing only one copy of Fireteam Bravo. When you’re ready for real SOCOM action, however, head to the infrastructure wireless LAN option and hop online to take on the best. Fireteam Bravo perfectly mimics SOCOM III’s online mode, complete with 11 briefing rooms of 256 maximum players each. Online games include suppression (team with most players alive at the end of the match wins), free for all (terrorists against terrorists), extraction (SEALs win by extracting hostages, and terrorists win by killing the SEALs), demolition (blow up the enemy base, or defuse the bomb set at your own base), and captive, which is suppression with a revival twist. The respawn option made popular in SOCOM III is also present, along with friendly fire and similar load-out modification when you’re dead. Matches typically consist of 11 rounds of 5 minutes each, and the game keeps a tally (viewable via select) that shows scores as well as who’s alive, who’s dead, and who’s got the bomb.

Fireteam Bravo is also the first mainstream PSP game to utilize the PSP headset, which is about $20 and plugs easily into the PSP remote, improving communication effectiveness. The game uses three radio channels (all players, channel one, and channel two) and features everyone’s favorite victory dances, taunts (voice and text), team voting (kick those annoying jerks who shoot their teammates), friend invites, and all of SOCOM III’s community options: poll, leaderboards, message boards, profile information, clan joining or management, and simplified (or advanced) game searches. And no, you don’t have to verify your account as you do in SOCOM III.

The best thing about Fireteam Bravo is how Zipper Interactive adjusted it to fit the needs of portable play, and its smaller maps – which better accommodate the 16 maximum players in a match – are still significantly larger than most environments in handheld titles. They also still contain the traditional canyons, tunnels, secret passageways, cover spots, and abandoned buildings that make all the SOCOM games so much fun. Players climb over fences to ambush you, stalk you through underground passages, and snipe you from afar on top of rushing you for a nice firefight, and while the lock-on targeting gives you an early warning that opponents are near, Zipper was wise enough to limit its distance such that players have to get in close to use it.

Most of the areas are highly detailed and graphically comparable to SOCOM III’s stages, and this is echoed in the character models, bright explosions, smoke bombs, and night/thermal view, which only emphasizes the game’s polished presentation. There are even CG cutscenes, voiced and subtitled, to introduce each of the four locales in single-player mode, and the voiceovers (including Lonestar’s humorous comments) are very believable. In-game sound effects – footsteps, howling winds, grenade warnings, gunfire, and very big booms – add to the title’s wartime ambience and, paired with the game’s musical track (the same track in almost all SOCOM games), help create an epic mood.

And finally, perhaps to convince SOCOM III fans to give Fireteam Bravo a try (and vice versa), Zipper enables players to complete crosstalk objectives in either SOCOM III or Fireteam Bravo and then connect the PSP to the PS2 via a mini-b cable to synchronize the data. This unlocks new objectives, weapons, and multiplayer skins for both games.

It could fairly be said that all of Fireteam Bravo’s good aspects are borrowed from SOCOM III, and so it is with its faults. The game’s visuals, so on par with its immediate predecessor, have also inherited its problem areas, worsened by the nature of the PSP. While online play is usually quite smooth, it does get jerky at times and lags a lot when in areas of high texturing and enemy activity, especially when players are tossing grenades. The textures themselves are very repetitive and often muddy, and the game is plagued by clipping errors.

Lonestar’s AI could still use some tweaking. Sometimes he’ll wander into a wall and just keep... going. Other times he gets lost behind you and you’re forced to wait a few seconds for him to catch up. In one particular level in which I had to diffuse a certain number of bombs under a time limit, I actually lost because Lonestar got stuck in a hallway or the “diffuse bomb” command switched to “move to” after I gave the order. You’ll also spot poor Lonestar occasionally crawling from one spot to another, which makes absolutely no sense when the area is empty of all life but your own. It’s also amusing to watch him slink along a road out in the open, when there are enemies about, so be prepared to rush in and provide him some cover.

When it comes to online play, there are much fewer people online in Fireteam Bravo than in any SOCOM game for the PS2, although there are still more people online in Fireteam Bravo than in any other PSP game and most PS2 titles. You’ll typically have about two rooms stocked with 256 players and a few rooms with significantly less than that, which makes starting up or joining a game in a different map more difficult. There are also fewer people with headsets in Fireteam Bravo, although the number of players with headsets is steadily rising.

As for the idiots that flock all online titles, they’re here, and you’ll still have to contend with them (I’m actually of the belief that said idiots purchase online games simply to annoy everyone else, because they are idiots). You’ll get the same verbal abuse in-game or “u dum ppl suk” text lines in the lobby, but because of the nature of the PSP, you won’t get them as often (matches on Fireteam Bravo are a lot more quiet).

The only significant online error I spotted in Fireteam Bravo was during some instances when, in extraction matches, SEALs began the round with automatic extractions and scored some cheap victories (I’ve only witnessed this in the thin ice medley).

And just as in every SOCOM game to have ever seen the sun, you still have incidents where you’ve shot a guy a hundred times and he not only survives, but manages to turn you around and fill you with bullets. Maybe that’s what terrorists mean when they speak of “divine intervention”?

Fireteam Bravo is an excellent addition to anyone’s PSP library. If you own a PSP, you should have this game. If you like SOCOM, or just shooters, and lack a PSP, you should purchase a PSP and this game. Fireteam Bravo has all the goodies that SOCOM fans love, and they’re displayed brilliantly on the handheld’s sleek widescreen. Zipper Interactive managed to create very smooth, simple controls for a unit without a second analog nub (a minor miracle), and brought along all the SOCOM visual treats and gameplay nuances that fans of the genre crave, and the PSP enabled them to do this all in style. Don’t be surprised if you catch yourself turning off the PS2 and picking up the PSP (and Fireteam Bravo) instead.

All the gameplay of SOCOM III on the PSP’s gorgeous widescreen. Intense online play.

Great visuals, some clipping errors and repetitive texturing, though. Solid presentation.

Great sound effects and voiceovers, plus SOCOM III music for a nice epic touch.

The most fun I’ve had on the PSP. Online play is a blast and incredibly addictive.

Once you’re hooked, it’ll take months for you to put it down. Online play, ad hoc, and campaign

]]> Wed, 23 Nov 2005 20:38:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/rumor_nfs_rivals_online http://www.gamebump.com/go/rumor_nfs_rivals_online http://www.gamebump.com/go/rumor_nfs_rivals_online# Rumor is swirling on PlayStation boards that Need For Speed Underground: Rivals will feature an online mode.

This would be similar to the recently announced 989 Sports titles, ATV Offroad Fury and Twisted Metal: Head-On. Currently, this is still just a rumor, but if true it could lead to the assumption that EA Sports titles would also be online.

We'll keep you posted if and when further details come about from Electronic Arts.

The PSP version of SOCOM is finally making its way to the handheld and thankfully the basic concepts of the PlayStation 2 version are still intact. The game will include 14 single-player missions where each one you can play five different game types too. The missions are set over four different regions of the world including a PlayStation Portable exclusive environment added is Chile. There will also be 30 weapons and accessories including scopes, silencers and more. As is the case in previous SOCOM’s, the game’s graphics are very solid and impressive. You’ll see details like particle effects coming off of a smoking candle that really push the PSP to the limit.

SOCOM also adds something new to the PSP including instant action that will let players go back to parts of a mission to do them again for more replay ability and the fact that you only have yourself Sandman and one other Seal Lonestar in your team. This is different, but it will make the game a little more difficult as well.

The most important question in reference to SOCOM is the controls, especially on the one analog stick handheld. Thankfully Zipper has solved this problem by allowing you to lock on with the right trigger button and fire with X. If you lock on or stay still, in a few short seconds the target moves from the body to a headshot, thus the game still is based on the idea of stealth. The controls are comfortable, but they can be difficult to knock off enemies if you’re moving. Moving in all directions is done with the analog stick and if you don’t want to take advantage of the lock on feature, you don’t have to because you can play in free roam just by pressing right on the D-pad. Free roam works well, but it can be a little awkward as your hand may be pressed to push too many buttons at once. This is probably the only drawback to the game. Finally, the left trigger will allow you to strafe too.

Zipper promises the artificial intelligence is much more aware of their surroundings in this version also. Another nice feature to the game are visibility icons for both of the Seals, this is in the bottom right corner next to each of the player’s names. One other added feature is the ability to cross talk with SOCOM 3. By doing certain things, this will result in changing experiences in either the PSP or PlayStation 2 versions.

Finally, you can’t talk about SOCOM without talking about the multiplayer capabilities. The game will support both Ad Hoc and Infrastructure play. Zipper has yet to confirm how many players will be able to play at one time or how many multiplayer missions there will be, but they did say players will be satisfied. The company also stated that they are definitely looking into allowing players to download future maps as well. SOCOM Fireteam Bravo certainly looks to be on the right track from the demo we got to see. Add to that the amazing graphics and an incredible amount of replay value.

SOCOM definitely is going to be one of the must get games for the PSP this fall. Currently, the game is approximately 60% done, but so far the game is ready and loaded to take on Sony’s new handheld. ]]> Thu, 19 May 2005 00:16:37 -0500 Tim Grube http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_crash_tag_team_racing_xbox1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_crash_tag_team_racing_xbox1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_crash_tag_team_racing_xbox1# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

Vivendi Universal had several titles on the E3 show floor and one of them was the newly announced Crash Tag Team Racing for Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Nintendo DS. We had a chance to go hands-on with the Xbox version and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t all that impressive.

To start things off, the game is being developed by Radical Entertainment who also developed Simpson’s Hit & Run. The game has a cool concept by allowing the player to switch off between being the gunner or the driver, but it had several problems that totally confused me.

When you first start the race, you take control of the vehicle. Half the time I wanted to just drive the futuristic vehicle because it was much easier to do that than being the gunner. The technology they built is called, “Clashing”. You press a button and you can switch between the driver and the gunner that is positioned on top of the vehicle. Driving is self explanatory that resembles many games on the market. Being a gunner puts you in control of blowing your opponents into pieces. You have an arsenal of weapons to choose from, but targeting the opponents is rather difficult and tedious. You have a zoom function, but when you have the AI take control of the driving, he acts like he is drunk. Hence, why I like to drive instead of the being the gunner.

There were many slowdowns in the build, but I’m sure it will be fixed in the final product. At least, I hope. Graphics were ok, but not the best compared to other titles. You’ll be able to play multiplayer with up to eight players VIA system link. No word for online play.

I wasn’t too thrilled. I expected Crash to come out with a bang. Hopefully Vivendi Universal will tweak some of its problems and we’ll have a solid product in the end. It is due out this fall. ]]> Wed, 18 May 2005 18:29:28 -0500