AusGamers :: News

First GTA 4 Downloadable Episode Announced

AusGamers Pty Ltd

Rockstar Australia have given us the nod we'll be seeing the first in the promised Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable episodic content for Grand Theft Auto IV, next February 17.

"Making these episodes has enabled us to expand the narrative and the experience of interacting with a game world in really innovative ways,"said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "We hope fans of the game enjoy the new way of experiencing life in Liberty City contained in this first episode."

The first episode is titled The Lost And The Damned and will feature an all-new main character with a plot that actually intersects with that of GTA IV's. We'll also see new music, vehicles, weapons and missions as well as new multiplayer modes in addition to the main story.

We have a few more screens up for the episode on our freshly made GTA IV: The Lost and the Damned game page

aria2c v1.0.0 Released - Command Line Downloader

AusGamers Pty Ltd

Every now and then we come across a piece of free, open source software that is so cool or handy that it must be shared. Today I noticed that aria2c, a command line utility for downloading files (like wget) has hit version 1.0.0 after a long, careful development process.

For those that are familiar with wget and/or downloading from the command line, aria2c basically does the exact same thing, but offers a few other bells and whistles - including BitTorrent support and (most importantly for me), multi-threaded downloading - meaning you can download much, much faster.

If you're interested in checking it out, you can nab it from the it's official SourceForge site or get it locally from AusGamers in Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X flavours.

Tomb Raider Underworld Review

AusGamers Pty Ltd

They just keep on coming, and we hope (but don't condone) you've robbed a bank and are therefore rich enough to keep up with the stock of games that are piling game store shelves across the country.

Today Dan took Ms Lara Croft out on a date, and came back with a smile on his face. To know why, you're going to have to read this excerpt from his diary (he keeps it under his bed, so we stole it and posted it here). Tomb Raider Underworld really does look pretty snazzy though, and if you're not at all sided on whether to pick it up from our review, make sure you have a look at our local game page which has all the media and info you could want.

PS How Purple Rain is our accompanying screenshot!

Call of Duty: World At War Review

AusGamers Pty Ltd

Still not sure where your holiday gaming money should be spent? We have yet another big year-end release in our review sights for you today with Call of Duty: World At War from Treyarch and Activision.

In the past Treyarch have been under fire for delivering lesser than their big studio brothers, Infinity Ward, but with their latest Call of Duty offering they've really upped the ante.

This is by no means as big a leap for the franchise as Modern Warfare was, but it's very solid gameplay experience. Check out our full review for the in-depth skinny, and be sure visit our CoD: WAW game page for all related info and media.

Google's Lively to Shut Down in December

AusGamers Pty Ltd

Back in July we posted about Google's Lively, an attempt to try to bring people into a 3d world for their online social interactions. It was sort of neat for a few minutes, but certainly didn't grab the attention of any gamer types, and Google have just announced it will be discontinued at the end of the year so they can "focus more on our core search, ads and apps business".

It'd be nice to think that they'd open source the platform so someone can at least pick it up where it has left off, but no word about that just yet.

Half-Life 10 Years Old Today

AusGamers Pty Ltd

Our Valve contact has reminded us that today sparks the 10th birthday of everyone's favourite sci-fi first-person shooter series, Half-Life. The mute every-day-man, Gordon Freeman, first dealt with the Black Mesa Incident back in 1998 as the protagonist in Valve's debut product as a development studio.

Launched 10 years ago today, Half-Life was greeted with overwhelming review scores (Metacritic of 96%), earned over 50 Game of the Year Awards, and birthed a franchise with over 20 million units sold to date.

Clearly Freeman's success throughout the last 10 years resonates now as Valve is one of the most respected games developers/publishers/distributors in the industry.

Can you remember when you first played Half-Life?

DirecTV's Championship Gaming Series Finished

AusGamers Pty Ltd

Competitive gaming was shaken today with the collapse of one of its major organisation, the Championship Gaming Series. The series was a joint venture between satellite TV operators BSkyB, STAR TV and DirecTV and was the first 'esports' enterprise with television coverage. With the CGS's demise and the end of the Cyberathletic Professional League (CPL) in 2007, the console-only Major League Gaming is left as the only important gaming league in the United States.

While the concept was ahead of its time and we are extremely proud of what we�ve accomplished, it became increasingly clear as this ambitious project evolved, that profitability was too far in the future for us to sustain operations in the interim.

Controversial in the tournament gaming scene, CGS began by raiding the US Counter-Strike 1.6 scene for many of its players. It then contracted its new talent to league owned franchises based on the American pro sports model. This created a two year competition freeze between the CGS dominated North America and the independent club/clans based in Europe and Asia as represented by the Group of 7.

The end of the CGS also affects a number of Australian based players under contract for Sydney Underground, a franchise that competed in the CGS' 2008 Pan Asia and World tournaments. The high point for the team came this year with their top two finish at the Pan Asia championships.

The CGS was the first gaming league to broadcast onto television and was one of the first leagues to feature matches played across multiple games - in its last season teams had players for CounterStrike Source, Dead or Alive 4, Forza Motorsport 2 and Fifa 08. Previous tournaments had also included included World of Warcraft battleground competitions.

New Xbox Experience Just Hours Away

AusGamers Pty Ltd

While Microsoft Australia's PR Agency have sent us a Press Release suggesting the New Xbox Experience is already here, we're waiting for the download option to kick off when it turns November 19 Northern Hemisphere side, which is still really only hours away.

The free update will apparently start automatically, transforming some "25 million Xbox 360 consoles sold worldwide" (by the end of November, that is) into fully updated new machines.

"Xbox 360 is getting a whole new look," said Andrew Jenkins, Xbox 360 Product Marketing Manager for games and LIVE. "From today Xbox owners are able to download a new user interface for their consoles, effectively updating their Xbox through Xbox LIVE. Xbox 360 now boasts a more user-friendly look and allows users to create online parties, chat with friends, share pictures, create avatars of themselves and much more," added Jenkins.

I have my machine on right now, so as soon as the update is available, we'll let you know.

Yahoo Emails Not Working on AusGamers

AusGamers Pty Ltd

We've just been notified by a user about a potential problem with Yahoo email accounts - if you're trying to sign up with a Yahoo account or wondering why you're not getting any other email notifications, it appears emails sent to that provider are mysteriously vanishing after reaching the Yahoo mail servers.

We've hit their contact page to try and chase this up and will see what happens (past experience trying to contact mega-companies for support has not exactly been positive).

National Geographic Enters Videogame Kingdom

AusGamers Pty Ltd

I've always thought National Geographic, Animal Planet or the like should enter the games market. How cool would it be to have a Great White Shark simulator where you rely on the animal's amazing senses and just work to survive. No points or power-ups, just an endless ocean of seals to breach waters for in a fantastic, dizzying display of power and prowess.

Ah well, I guess National Geographic Panda from Namco Bandai will have to do, though (not that Pandas aren't scary in their own right, the title just sounds like it will be a cutesy DS game). According to a statement, there's also National Geographic Africa in the works for Sony's PlayStation 3 platform.

National Geographic Games will be both creating games in-house (the first of which, Herod's Lost Tomb, has already been completed and will be made available as a free download for PC, Mac and the iPhone), as well as through partnerships with the likes of Namco Bandai, Sony and more. More titles are in the works for the PS3, Nintendo Wii and handheld devices such as the DS.