Page 5946 – Capsule Computers

Happy half-birthday to Rift, happy half-birthday to you!

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August 25, 2011

Today marks the beginning of Rift’s half birthday party, a weeklong celebration thrown by developers Trion Worlds to mark the MMORPG’s first hugely successful six months on the planet. Subscribers and newcomers alike are all entitled to a slice of the cake, and in order to make sure there’s cake for everybody, Trion are even asking you to bake your own! That’s right people, there’s a baking contest.

If your icing skills are a bit lacking these days have no fear, there are two other contests out there this week, Ace of Achievements and Screenshot Savant. All three are described by Trion as follows:

• Ace of Achievements – Accomplish as many achievements as possible August 25-31 for the chance to win big!
• Birthday Bakeoff – Dust off that cake tin and get cracking on an epic confectionary creation! Submit pictures via facebook and the official forums of your most Rift-acular birthday cake.
• Screenshot Savant – Submit a screenshot of your character celebrating Rift’s half-birthday in the least appropriate spot (or fashion) for a party in Telara. He or she who parties the hardest wins the prize!

In return for your gaming/baking/partying skills, you have the chance to win one of three desktop gaming rigs for the grand prize (an HP PC, i7 3.2 GHz Quad-Core, Nvidia GTX580, 9GB RAM, 160GB SSD,& 1TB HDD), with runners up recieving NVIDIA GTX460 video cards, and all winners getting six months of game time.

In addition to the contests subscribers will receive extra XP, more PvP Prestige and Favor, plus a special surprise birthday gift (more cake?) . For full details of those bonuses, check out Capsule Computer’s previous coverage of the party.

Rift’s half birthday week runs from 25 – 31 August, and full contest rules and details can be found here .

One more thing. Trion Worlds do not want you to click here. Seriously. Never.

Football Manager ’12 Preview Shows Off Goalkeepers

Jonno Weiss

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August 25, 2011

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SEGA have released some new footage of the updated match engine for Football Manager ’12 with a particular focus on the goalkeepers.

From what we can see the match engine seems to run a fair bit smoother than the previous edition and goalkeepers have definitely got a bit smarter, acting more like a Casillas rather than a Gomes. This will certainly help take some frustration away from watching the opposition getting a goal out of nothing, however could be more frustrating watching some could-of-been-amazing goals getting saved by a chump.

It will be great to see how consistently smooth the engine runs and from what they’ve shown the engine seems to look quite a bit better.

FM12 will be out at the end of the year, apparently before Christmas available on PC, Mac and also confirmed for PSP.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Trailer Released

Matthew Vella

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August 25, 2011

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This week Marvel Studios has released the first trailer for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The sequel is set several years after the original 2007 Ghost Rider film, Spirit of Vengeance takes a darker approach to takes franchise, and features the Marvel Comic’s villain Blackout as the main antagonist. While the original wasn’t exactly critically acclaimed, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance appears to fix a lot of the issues of the first film, providing a much more demonic presence to the character played by Nicholas Cage, who reports that the film will include a newly filmed origin sequence. There is one eyebrow raising point of the trailer though-Ghost Rider pees fire. Why? Who knows! Chances are somebody at Marvel Studios thought it was a lot more bad ass than it really is. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is set to ride into theatres on February 12, 2012. Get ready and watch out for his Penance Stare!

Dishonored screenshots show off a bit of combat and plague

Travis Bruno

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August 25, 2011

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We’ve seen plenty of screenshots from Arkane Studios’ Dishonored. We’ve seen sneaking ones, environmental ones and even those about to enter combat, but no actual images of combat in progress. That is until now as you can see both above and below. In the latest batch of screenshots released by Bethesda, we see roughly what combat may end up looking like as you play the role of a supernatural assassin.

Besides that screenshot we are also shown a house full of poor people that have died from the plague, only to be wrapped up and left to rot in their homes, as well as rats clustered at the edge of a street light. You can see all of the images below, or you could also visit Dishonored’s website which just launched here.

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Steve Jobs quits as Apple CEO, names Tim Cook as successor

Darren Resnekov

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August 25, 2011

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Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and the brilliant mind behind some of our generations most popular and successful electronic products has resigned as CEO of the company. Citing an inability to perform his duties as the primary reason Jobs has called for Tim Cook to be his replacement. The market has reacted as well with Apple shares that were suspended now diving by seven percent.

Jobs has recently survived a battle with pancreatic cancer and has been on medical leave from Apple from the 17th of January. Of the company he has nothing but praise and best wishes saying “I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

Jobs will remain on with the company as Chairman of the board, director and employee, and hopefully will remain in good enough health to continue his incredible innovation. He was responsible for bringing an almost bankrupt firm to the second most valuable in the country.

Hamilton’s Greatest Adventure Released on PSN

Joshua Spudic

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August 25, 2011

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If you love exploring ancient tombs, solving puzzles and playing with a friend, then Fatshark have the game for you. Being released today on the Playstation Network worlwide is Hamilton’s Greatest Adventure. You control retired explorer Ernest Hamilton and, with your trusty bird Sasha, try to solve challenging puzzles in various environments. I should note that the game has been out for quite some time on the PC, but this is the first console release of the game.

There are other characters besides Ernest and Sasha. Ernest has a granddaughter called Amy, who is described as “bright and inquisitive”, Professor Philemon van Winkle, who is Ernest’s mentor but also an accomplished scientist and Cecil Tremaine, a “self made man”.

Why not check out some screenshots of the Playstation 3 version below?

Rugby Challenge Has A Release Date

Joshua Spudic

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August 25, 2011

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Rugby Challenge, the second of two rugby union games to be released this year (the first being Rugby World Cup 2011), has a release date. Tru Blu Entertainment has revealed that the game, both for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, will be released on the 2nd of September in New Zealand and the 8th of September for Australia and South Africa. There was no mention of any other countries, especially the European countries where rugby union is massive. In Australia, the game will be released with the name Wallabies Rugby Challenge, the New Zealand version will be named All Blacks Rugby Challenge and the mane for the rest of the world is Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge.

“The anticipation for Rugby Challenge has reached fever pitch, and we are excited to finally announce a release date” said Sebastian Giompaolo, Managing Director for Tru Blu Entertainment. “We look forward to delivering the game into the hands of eager fans across all major markets”.

Just as a reminder, here are a list of features of the game:

· Play in Single Match Mode, Competition Mode, and multi year Career Mode as well as extensive help and Tutorial Mode options available for players new to the sport.
· 96 teams and 31 stadia featured including official team and competition licenses for the All Blacks, the Qantas Wallabies, the USA Eagles, Bledisloe Cup, AU/NZ Super Rugby, Aviva Premiership Rugby, TOP 14 Orange, RaboDirect PRO12, ITM Cup, and Ranfurly Shield.
· Enjoy the game with groups of friends locally, or compete in online multiplayer with support up to 4v4 via PlayStation®Network, Xbox LIVE®, or Steam.
· Create or customise players, teams, and competitions using the extensive customisation tools to shape the game to your own preferences and keep the game fresh season after season.
· Dynamic presentation delivers a true on-field rugby experience with enhanced replay angles, lifelike cut-scenes, rich sound, and real-time commentary from seasoned rugby commentator Grant Nisbett and former All Blacks halfback Justin Marshall.

Rugby Challenge will also see a release on the Playstation Vita, allowing you to play rugby union on the go. No release date has been set, but it would probably be close to the launch of the handheld.

Take a look at 20 preset faces for every playable race in Skyrim

Travis Bruno

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August 25, 2011

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What face will you be wearing when you take on the dragons of Skyrim? Well we’ve already seen what the characters themselves can look like when they are all put together, but those are all just singular faces placed on top of bodies. How about seeing an entire galleries worth of faces for each class that is playable in Skyrim? Well my friends we are in luck, because today Bethesda released the below compilation images.

These compilation images show off twenty different preset faces for each playable race which will be used in the full The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim title when it is released in November. There are two hundred different faces to see here, which means that if you aren’t currently scanning through your favorite race to see what type of customization will be available then shame on you. Personally I’m going to have to vote for Khajiit. What do you think?

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Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny lands on North American shores September 27th

Travis Bruno

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August 25, 2011

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Those girls up there sure look happy, and they have and good reason to be, because Natsume has announced that the game they are in, Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny has officially received its release date. The even better news is that it won’t even be that long until the game comes out, as the release date in North America is September 27th.

This announcement did much more than just reveal a release date however, it also released some new information about the English localization. Aden and Sonja are the official names of the playable characters, though you can re-name them if you wish. The game will have 30 different islands that can be explored and each has different seasons apart from one another, and players will traverse between islands with by riding on a giant rock monster named Ymir. Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume says that the “ocean setting will have players adventuring for hours, and the great characters will really help pull them into the world” which sounds exactly like what fans of the Rune Factory series are looking for.

Also released alongside this announcement was a whole slew of new gameplay screenshots for the game which you can see below. The first half of the screenshots are for the PlayStation 3 version of the title and the second half are for the Wii version.

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EA’s Origin service similar to Spyware in many regards?

Travis Bruno

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August 25, 2011

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So, EA, how much more anger can you wring out of the PC gaming crowd? Well apparently a lot more, because Electronic Arts’ Origin service may actually be just as bad as Spyware because of a number of features that are included without much choice to the user. Originally discovered by Reddit, Destructoid reports that the EULA (End User License Agreement) which you must agree to to install the service, allows EA to snoop around your hard drive and spy on your files.

The terms of service agreement says that EA can not only identify what your computer is, the operating system your using as well your installed/uninstalled software/hardware, but also use this information to pass along to their third party companies for advertising and anything else they see fit. There is no way to avoid this intrusion without completely ignoring Origin, though without it, you will be unable to play Battlefield 3 on PC…

The exact wording in the EULA can be read below:

2. Consent to Collection and Use of Data.
You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION. This and all other data provided to EA and/or collected by EA in connection with your installation and use of this Application is collected, used, stored and transmitted in accordance with EA’s Privacy Policy located at www.ea.com. To the extent that anything in this section conflicts with the terms of EA’s Privacy Policy, the terms of the Privacy Policy shall control.