Yesterday Nintendo released Wii System Update version 4.2, and aside from annoying the modding community by automatically removing the Homebrew Channel, 4.2 seems to have patched a certain problem with the Wii’s flagship first-person shooter, The Conduit. Several Conduit players have quickly reported that the game’s now infamous spawn glitch has ceased to occur since 4.2’s introduction.
This news arrives months after a report by NintendoEverything that the game’s developer, High Voltage Studios, was working closely with Nintendo for a potential solution to a glitch in the game’s multiplayer mode.
The spawn glitch was a bug that would occur randomly when joining a match, and it would manifest itself by way of a 1/2 or 1/4 reticule in the middle of the screen. The player would then be stuck in their spawn location, unable to move or fire until the match had ended. Sometimes the spawn glitch could repeat itself two or three times, leading to much frustration since a system restart would generally be needed to bypass the flaw.
GamersFirst, a service of K2 Network, announced today the release start of closed beta for their latest free-to-play FPS title Parabellum.
The shooter begins in the year 2018 as wars have become more privatized and capitalistic. Armies are being left back as base as “private security” firms handle covert operations in time to return for a drink at the bar. This leaves plenty of employment opportunities for mercenaries while ensuring the benefit of plausible deniability for governments.
The Parabellum closed beta will feature four maps that can be played in either Team Death Match or Reinforcement mode. Beta testers will have access to two pistols, ten primary weapons and three different support weapons. GamersFirst promises plenty of character customization as well.
“We are very proud to take our relationship with GamersFirst to the next level. The entire team has worked diligently towards this goal, and everyone involved is very excited indeed,” stated Andre Herbst, marketing director/founding partner of the title’s developer, Acony. “We are extremely excited about the opportunity of hearing feedback from the gaming community during this important closed beta phase.”
The company has released a few new screenshots of the title as well as some footage at the community website where interested players can sign up for closed beta testing.
The Onion has moved into the game design business, creating a first-person shooter called Close Range, which boils down the essence of action games to their root point: shooting people in the face.
The boys over at Destructoid got a little hand-on time with America’s Army 3, the latest military shooter developed by the U.S. Army. As a fan of the first two games, I’m eagerly awaiting the third iteration, which looks like it has more of everything, including a much better engine and uber-detailed stat-tracking.
Again, everything is realistic as possible. Bullets will cut through certain objects and they’ll react accordingly when hitting objects. At one point in the demo, one of the developers turned on a feature that traced the bullet path. As one guy started shooting through the walls of a house, a rainbow of lines where left in place to show how the bullets traveled through the walls. The bullets bounced all over the place based on how they hit the wall.
Not a week goes by when an article extolling the evils of video games is published, so it’s refreshing to see a positive piece appear. In an interesting bit of research, scientists have determined that people who play action-based video games, like first-person shooters, are 58% better at perceiving fine contrast differences in real life, such as shades of grey.
From LiveScience:
“If you are driving at dusk with light fog it could make the difference between seeing the car in front of you or not seeing it,” study leader Daphne Bavelier told LiveScience.
The ability to discern slight differences in shades of gray, or contrast sensitivity, is the primary limiting factor in how well one sees, said Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester.
“Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery—somehow changing the optics of the eye,” she said. “But we’ve found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped.”
How was the research conducted?
In the new study, her team tested the contrast sensitivity function of 22 students, then divided them into two groups: One group played the action video games “Unreal Tournament 2004″ and “Call of Duty 2.” The other played “The Sims 2,” which is richly visual, but does not require as much visual-motor coordination.
The volunteers each played 50 hours during the 9-week test. Then their vision was tested again.
Those who played the action games showed an average 43 percent improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray — close to the difference Bavelier had previously observed between game players and non-game players — whereas the Sims players showed no improvement.
(Ratings Average: 4.67 out of 5)
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