Half-Life 2 players call in sick

Hundreds of buyers of “Half-Life 2,” the hotly anticipated shooting game released last week, are reporting in developer Valve Softwares user forums that they feel queasy and often develop a bad headache after playing the game for as little as an hour.

From the comments, here is an itneresting take on the problem:
“Most First Person Shooter games have a fov of 90 degrees. The default in Half Life 2 is 75 degrees.

…Go into options and go to keyboard, hit advanced options and enable the developer console “~” then go back into the game and press the tilde “~” key to enter the console. Type these commands:

sv_cheats 1
fov 90″

More here at CNET.

Considering I had the same problem with HL, I fear I can not play HL2 either. 🙁 – Atomm

Show 33 – Have You Heard of the Nintendo DS?

Hello boys and girls! Its that special time in our lives when we get to welcome a new gaming platform to the fold. What am I talking about you ask. Well, Im talking about the release of the Nintendo DS! Were dedicating this show to what some say will be one of the best portables of all time. Of corse, were still going to inform you about the other major news thats come out the past week as well as entertain you with our off-the-wall discussions.

We start the show off by comparing the DS to some of the other big xmas items of the past. Moving on from there, we get to the news about Half-Life 2 and Gran Turismo 4. Have you heard about the trouble between EA and some of their employees? If not, then youll definitely want to listen to the debate Hoss and Rich have about this somewhat peculiar issue.

After the guys get through discussing the situation at EA, well get to the heart of this weeks show, the Nintendo DS. Segment two starts off with a little history lesson into the world of Nintendo. After our lesson, the guys will tell us what some of the specs and capabilities of the DS are. Well also go through a list of games that you can pickup at the time of the DSs release as well as a couple to come out in the future. After the roll-call of games, well end the segment as Rich tells us about his experience with the demo of Metroid Prime: Hunters.

Now that weve gotten through the bulk of the show, its time to get to the Reviews Of The Week. This week, Hoss tells us about his all-time favorite game character, Kirby, as he reviews Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. Well follow that up with a live in-show review of Are You All That, a DVD interactive game. This weeks jam packed show ends with a bang as we read and answer your emails. Dont miss out on the info and fun!

Showtimes for the Video Games Show on our Gamers Radio Station:
Tuesday: 9pm CST

Next week, we will expand our presentation of the Video Games Show to the following:
Saturday: 1pm CST and 9pm CST
Tuesday: 9pm CST

Plenty of opportunities to check out this great program on Console and Handheld gaming! Dont miss out!

BF2 Info and Movies

Not that this hasnt been posted elsewhere, but for those of you who depend on us for your Battlefield news, here is some info on the upcoming Battlefield 2 from the guys over at the Northern Brigade Clan:

“On Thursday 18th November some of us guys in Northern Brigade went to the DICE office for a little BF2 visit. We met the BattleField 2 crew, the EA folks and of course, we got to play the game 🙂
The purpose of this little drill was for DICE to get some external feedback on the game. They also wanted us to tell the rest of the community about how BF2 is shaping up. And guess what? There´s not one, but TWO movies recorded ingame as we play. All edited up for you by mr KOiN, so enjoy.”

There is quite a bit of information in this article as well as two movies
Article and Movies

To play the movies, you will need the DIVX codec which you can get here.

World of Warcraft Launch

Unless you have been living under a rock or something, you know that World of Warcraft launched yesterday. In my thinking of “ahh, I wont have any issues buying the game” I treked out yesterday morning at 10:00 AM to the local EBGames… Well, with the massive amounts of people waiting outside for the store to open, it wasnt hard to figure out that this was not going to be an easy task…

EBGames, close to where I work, was pretty much sold out before the gate opened three feet. With that, I drove to a GameStop close by… Umm… No go…

I moved on to a Best Buy and found myself i the right place. Best Buy had a large section for the game with people grabing copies left and right. By the time I grabbed my copy their inventory out on the floor had been reduced to half.

So, with saying this, go get your copy now! A lot of us on Gamers Radio and many friends were playing it all day yesterday and will be spending many hours in there over the next, ummm, for a while…

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com

Valves success with anti-piracy measures.

With the indefinit suspension of 20,000 accounts, it would appear that Valve is on top of any attempts to pirate Half-Life 2.

In a statement, sources within the company said that, “The method used was extremely easy for Valve to trace and confirm, and so there is no question that the accounts disabled were used to try and illegally obtain Half-Life 2…Valve did not put out any kind of fake key or fake wares or hack instructions to trap people. The hack came from the community as do they all.”

Read the full article here: http://www.totalvideogames.com/pages/articles/index.php?article_id=6798

World of Warcraft Pricing

The FAQ over at worldofwarcraft.com has been updated with a few new items. One of which is the pricing of WoW.

Will there be a monthly fee to play the game?
Yes. When you purchase World of Warcraft, you will get a one-month free trial subscription to the game. At the end of that month, you will have to choose from three subscription plans to continue playing the game: a month-to-month package at $14.99 per month, a three-month plan at $13.99 per month, or a six-month plan at $12.99 per month”

Go check out the rest of the FAQ: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/

ATI X850 information

ATI is about to announce it, but someone already has info on it…

Information on the ATI X850 is about to be given out to the public and The Inquirer has some great information already.

“BEFORE ATI briefs the press tomorrow under non disclosure agreement, and in Munich, wed like to share all we know about the R480, Radeon X850 series of cards.”

Check out their article: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19813

Pricing Info: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19816

Note: As stated in their article, the new cards are PCIe only. About to time start upgrading that motherboard people!

Half-Life 3?

Well, how bout that, the Swedes have let the cat out of the bag.

Information on Half-Life 3 has been leaked! But really, people should not be suprised. Really, who would have thought that Valve would continue a popular title? Did it work for Doom, Quake, etc…? Umm… Yeah, big time!

“Swedish mag Gamereactor has broken cover (and, it appears, its non-disclosure agreement) by claiming that Valve CEO Gabe Newell revealed that Half-Life 3 is in the planning stage at the Seattle developers.”

Read the full article here: http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=29117&subsectionid=1589

Halo 2 – Best ending ever! [not]

Wired News has a good article giving general information on the SP gameplay and a pretty good smack on the MP gameplay.

“The single-player campaign for Halo 2 is like an air horn on its last gasp: It starts out bold and brassy but ends in a sad little squeak. The online component of Halo 2 is like an exclusive restaurant: It takes a while to get in, and you dont have as much say in the menu as you might like, but the results are good enough that you dont care.”

Read the full article here: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65732,00.html