In BioShock you will walk and dive through the remains of a hidden under water city called Rapture. BioShock will be released in late August of this year for the PC and Xbox 360 and the developers now revealed spectacular footage of the water effects in the game. You will find a mid-quality video online as well as a 65MB 1280x720 HD video which does BioShock's great visual effects much more justice.
If you want to dive into the technical and gameplay aspects of the water features you will find a Question and Answer article over at 2K Games which goes into all the details.

Will there be a difference in the water effects if you are using DX9 or DX10?

JJ: Depending on the performance gain on DX10 hardware, there will potentially be some additional details and effects enabled on these cards.

For over three years, dedicated Halo fans have been waiting for the next installment of the Halo series to finally hit the PC. Whether or not it is an ugly port like the last one was, here are the official system requirements for Halo 2 on the PC.

• Windows Vista
• 2 Ghz Pentium 4 class processor
• 1GB RAM
• 7GB hard disk space
• DX9 graphics card: WDDM driver, PS 2.0/32BPP, At least nVidia 6000 or ATI x700 or above
• DVD-ROM drive
• Internet connection for online play

Community team coordinator on the European MotorStorm forums, "Lestrade" writes that an update for the game will be coming "in the next couple of weeks." The update will be free and is required to play the game online.

The patch, which bumps up the game to version 1.2, will address several issues, including a bug that allowed racers to exploit the boost, an increase in the size of the buddy list, better online performance, audio issues, and more.

Burnout Paradise is the title of the next installment in EA's destructive racing series, which will mark its PlayStation 3 debut. Burnout Paradise will come to the Xbox 360 and PS3 "this winter," which typically means a December or January release.

"We have been working towards Burnout Paradise for quite some time," said game's executive producer, Pete Hawley. He continued: "Next generation consoles have opened up a raft of new gameplay opportunities and the Criterion team has leapt at the chance to innovate."

The success of Nintendo's two newest consoles, the Wii and the Nintendo DS, has led to Nintendo reporting record profits for the year ending 31st March. The Japanese based company managed revenue of 966.6 billion Yen (about $8 billion US) and operating profits of 266 billion Yen (about $1.9 billion). These figures show a 90% rise in revenue and 150% rise in profits compared to the same period a year ago. Nintendo sold 23 million Nintendo DS units with 123 million DS games during the year (that makes 40 million units since they started selling the handheld), whilst the Wii managed to sell 5.84 million consoles and 29 million games in the five months after its launch. Read on for Nintendo's press release.

The sequel to the very popular racing game Forza was up and running at a local cart tournament. The current build runs on a debug XBox 360, which means the game itself runs from the hard drive instead of a DVD. The game needs to be started by hand every time the console is turned on. Below you will find a few images of the launcher and of the game itself. Please remember, the product is not yet finished by a long shot. The current build has reproducable freezes when choosing certain cars and the graphics are not finished yet.

The trailer for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been released - you can download the 720p version via FilePlanet. It looks quite impressive and is definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the series. The download is a 35.3MB Quick Time Movie, with FilePlanet requiring free registration before you can download it (there may be queues). Apparently the footage is taken straight from the single player campaign so shows what gamers will actually be able to play - the game is also rumored to be PC only.

Infinity Ward, the driving force behind the development of the Call of Duty series (with Activision), did not do any work on the third Call of Duty installment. This is because they were too busy working on the fourth installment. Anyone who wants to see an in-depth look at Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare had better be watching ESPN 10 A.M. PDT / 1 P.M. EDT on Saturday, the 28th.

StarCraft was by far the most popular game in Korea and the korean website thisisgame.com has some juicy information about the sequel. Apparently Blizzard will be announcing StarCraft 2 at the Blizzards World Wide Invitational which is held from May 19th to May 25th in Seoul. There will be developers of the game at the event and pictures of the 3D sequel will be shown. A new race has been added to the mix and the original units have gotten new upgrades. Teamliquid.net has a translation of the korean text here If you are able to read the language, follow the source link below for the original.

Today Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announced that it is creating Tom Clancy's EndWar, a new brand in the Tom Clancy series of video games. Led by strategy veteran and Ubisoft creative director Michael de Plater, Tom Clancy's EndWar is being developed by a world-class team at Ubisoft's Shanghai studio whose members have experience developing Ubisoft's hit franchises including Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Tom Clancy's EndWar is scheduled for release on next-generation consoles in fiscal year 2007/2008.

Fans of the Fallout series, which was recently purchased by Bethesda, will be pleased to know that Fallout 3 development has been coming along quite nicely. There is now an official Fallout 3 'teaser website', as well as official Fallout 3 forums. While things haven't really taken off with this site or the forums just yet, with Bethesda working hard on making Fallout 3 amazing, we can be sure that the final product will be well worth the wait.

It's been eleven years since the original Tomb Raider was released. And so, the original makes of Tomb Raider have felt it necessary to make an anniversary edition. Of course, the actual production wasn't done by the original producers. A lot of franchise ownership transfer has been going on, and now Eidos Interactive is responsible for Tomb Raider: Anniversary. On June 5th, you will be able to get this game for the PS2, PC, and "shortly thereafter", the PSP.

The latest instalment in EA's highly successful World War 2 shooter - Medal of Honor: Airborne will be available on August 28, 2007. Developed by EA Los Angeles the game will feature the major allied airborne operations of the war, including Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943; Operation Avalanche, the invasion of mainland Italy in September 1943; Operation Neptune, the airborne element of Operation Overlord in June 1944; Operation Market Garden, the famously ill-fated attempt to cross the Rhine into Germany through Holland in September 1944; and Operation Varsity, the largest airborne operation ever undertaken, to cross the Rhine in March 1945. The game will be released on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Are you a fan of superhero video games? If so, I've got some good news for you! The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor are all coming to various consoles. This is because Sega and Marvel have agreed to partner up to help milk the franchises to their limit make the best video games possible. With the comic genius of Marvel, and the programming prowess of Sega, we should see some seriously impressive games coming from Sega studios soon. Unfortunately, we're not going to see these games for a while. We're only at the "agree to hand over licenses of characters" stage. Actual programming of the games will happen over the course of the year, and we should start seeing new games by June 2008.

NEW YORK - April 18, 2007 - Microsoft Corp. and NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. today made video game history by announcing the first-ever Xbox 360 "Pac-Man" World Championship, presented by Quiznos. From April 25 to May 9, fans of one of the world's most beloved video games of all time will compete on the classic arcade game via Xbox LIVE Arcade on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, evolving "Pac-Man" gameplay from the local pizza parlors and arcades of the '80s to the Xbox 360 and its online gaming community with more than 6 million members. The top finalists from participating countries around the world will be flown to New York City for the finals on June 5, with the winner being crowned the Xbox 360 "Pac-Man" World Champion by Toru Iwatani, the creator of "Pac-Man."

Since launching in 1980 in Japan and in 1981 around the world, "Pac-Man," its host of ghosts and the famous "wakka wakka wakka" sound have become global pop culture icons. This arcade game played an instrumental role in establishing the video game industry in the '80s, while the launch of Xbox LIVE in 2002 was a key factor behind the rapid growth in popularity of online gaming. Today, Xbox LIVE Arcade is the premier online destination for digitally distributed, high-definition games - with more than 25 million downloads - offering fans of "Pac-Man" across the globe a great opportunity to connect, compete and enjoy the fun through the Xbox 360 "Pac-Man" World Championship.

Have you ever played 'Ground Control', the game made by Massive Entertainment from Sweden? I didn't but the interview with Massive's lead game designer Magnus Jansén over at Shacknews immediately made me drool over the upcoming sequel 'World in Conflict'. This real time strategy game won't take place in the science-fictional past-third-world-war setting as the former Ground Control games, instead the cold war in the 1980's is the battleground now.

"If you have war where tanks roll over white picket fences and BMX bikes, it's not just some desert town that's getting destroyed that you can't relate to. You say, 'That's a swing set on fire, I fully grasp the power of this event.' Putting it in the middle of familiar environments immediately gives people a sense of the power and the horror of the war."

Massive adds a lot of really cool features to enhance the visual storytelling effects, for instance if you zoom in on a map really close to your troops you will suddenly pick up the radio transmissions between the units.
The game itself is comprised of three parts, one taking place in the US, the second in the European region and the third place wasn't disclosed yet.
As Jansén says the relationship to the publisher Vivendi is exceptionally good, the funding is there and even patience, it sounds like 'World in Conflict' could easily be one of the best games released in 2007 (this fall, for PC only). Just take a look at the screens and of course the rest of the interview and you will realize it yourself.

This is a brand new Crytek CryENGINE 2 trailer seen at Game Developers Conference 2007. The resolution is 1280x720 pixels and has no watermarks. It's another stunning trailer that really shows what CryENGINE 2 is capable of. Download the 126MB archived file from here.

A few days ago we reported about a demo that shows the special DirectX 10 effects the R600 will support. Now I came across a forums entry at Beyond 3D which says this demo would look like Call of Juarez, a Western-themed first-person shooter from the Polish game developer Techland. Just out of pure curiosity I looked for some reference material and it turns out to be a correct statement. Just look at the attached screenshots from IGN PC the wooden hut in Fudzillas shot (first picture) looks exactly like the one in the IGN PC shot (second picture). The fence in the tech demo looks exactly like the fence in the other IGN PC screeny. Though the lighting and the details on the stones in front and the steep hill on the far side look different because these are the enhancements made in order to show the beef-up using the DX10 routines. After all, if this is a tech demo it's made of content out of Call of Juarez.

IGN PC got the opportunity to play a few rounds of Team Fortress 2 in between two interviews with Valve's Engineer Robin Walker, Project Lead Charlie Brown, and Marketing Director Doug Lombardi. While the the interviews start with why they made substantial changes to the classes and map designs, the more interesting answers follow later. Technical things like why they used Phong Shading and the PS3 and Xbox network interaction and of course the debate about the release date (which is probably in September).

IGN: So you're actually playing now on Xbox 360s connected to PCs?
Doug Lombardi: Technically it's done.
...
Chances are the PS3 version will only play other PS3s. There's zero chance of them talking to 360s.

THQ has announced that the sequel to last year's Company of Heroes will be DirectX 10 ready. The proprietary Essence Engine of the original Company of Heroes series, developed in-house by Relic, will be upgraded in COH2 to support a dynamic weather system and more realistic physics, as well as the graphical joys of Shader Model 4.0. Since the game will be DirectX 10 ready, it will be playable only with Windows Vista OS. The game will be out in Q3 2007, until then enjoy the newly released Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts expansion pack.

The Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany will be held from the 23rd of August until the 26th this year. The available floor will be raised by a whooping 28 percent to 115.000m². In addition, the exterior between buildings will be used as well. Visitors will also have two additional hours to take a look at everything, as the it will be open until 8 pm on Friday the 24th of August.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs for short) have recently gained a lot of momentum. Games such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars continue to suck in subscribers, who enjoy the games so much they sometimes lose almost all traces of a social life to play these games. The maker of Guild Wars has shown interest in getting their MMORPG onto consoles, which would greatly expand their market. However, one of the makers of Guild Wars also says that their current focus is for the PC platform, and they currently have no plans on getting the original Guild Wars onto a console. Perhaps the sequel will find it's way onto Microsoft and Sony gaming consoles.

Regardless of whether or not Guild Wars actually follows through, they do show a market trend of moving games towards consoles to tap their rather large market share.

Harmonix, known for it's adventures in making the Guitar Hero game, is making a new game. This game, called "Rock Band" hopes to cash in on people's want to become superstars, and lack of ability to. Instead of limiting the band-members to lead guitar, the members of the rock band can play drums, sing, or play the guitar (maybe just like Guitar Hero?). The "Rock Band" game is officially in development, but that's about all we know. Harmonix has recently shot down rumored prices of this new game, which you can look at here. We'll post more news on this game as it becomes more complete, but until then, it sure sounds like fun.

New information regarding the formerly named Unreal Tournament 2007 multiplayer game are next to inexistent these days. Midway, the publisher of UT 3 which ought to come this year to PCs and consoles, revealed a single 'screenshot' this week. Rumor has it the pictures are rendered and not actual in-game shots so keep that in mind when judging on the very detailed characters and surroundings.

It took nearly ages to get finished but on this past April Fools Day the standalone version of 'World of Padman' was released at last and it's all but a lousy joke! What originally started as a series of comic strips with Padman being the main actor turned into a map project for Quake 3 Arena (that I stumbled on around six years ago) with a very rich, unique color set. As this wouldn't be enough work the team behind decided to go a step further and develop a whole modification around the Batman-like, gnomish character. And after that was done they worked hard on a standalone version in order to get away from the antique, rusty Quake 3 image. So what awaits you with 'World of Padman'?

A cool fun shooter, in liliput style, that including 12 maps, along with new crazy weapons, colourful player models, and new game types. ... The "World of Padman" is a multiplayer game, in which you can fight your opponent online or have some fun at home playing with some friends and bots.

If you want to take a look at the game without wanting to install it take a look at the 'World of Padman' Trailer @ YouTube. Or, if you want a high resolution version get yourself the 95MB file over here or here.

In order to download the game head directly to the 'World of Padman' Website