Month: December 2014

The Battle and Siege, 8-23 December, 1941

By John Dudek @ The Wargamer

Amidst the bursting, flashing Japanese shell fire explosions of the pre-invasion naval bombardment impacting around Wake island that late December 1941 night, Second Lieutenant Robert M. Hanna, commander of the antiaircraft machine-guns of the beach defense, could hear the ever growing sound of many approaching ship and boat engines offshore. Two of Wake Island’s huge 8-million candle arc 60-inch search lights snapped on, their brilliant lights turning darkness into day while clearly showing two destroyers headed at high speed directly towards the island’s coral reef shore. In addition, other landing craft filled with men were heading towards nearby Wilkes Island. This confirmed all of Hanna’s worst fears and suspicions. He now knew what was about to occur and shouted to his men. “I need four volunteers! You, you, you and you! Come with me!” Corporal Ralph Holewinski and three civilians ran alongside their officer towards a nearby unmanned 3-inch anti-aircraft gun that had been recently emplaced there to cover the beach. Hanna intended to use it in a direct fire role upon the destroyers that were now noisily running themselves hard aground upon Wake’s coral reef. There were no sights on the cannon, so after prying open a box of ammunition, Hanna sighted in on the nearby ex-destroyer by looking down his gun’s bore as he aimed at the ship’s superstructure up forward. The closest ship was well less than 200 yards away, but clearly defined in the searchlight’s brutally brilliant glare. The gun spoke and his first round was high, but he corrected his aim and the second ripped into the ship’s bridge, badly wounding its captain and navigation officer. Hanna went on to score more direct hits on the grounded ship’s superstructure followed by dozens more along its entire length, turning it into a slaughterhouse.

Read on…

A teaser for Sledgehammer’s take on CoD Zombies

Source: CVG

Sledgehammer Games has released a new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Exo Zombies trailer.

The video’s official description also offers a little more info on the story behind the zippy zombie breakout: “Untrained and unprepared, four Atlas employees must survive a horror unlike any other. John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Rose McGowan, and Jon Bernthal star in Exo Zombies, coming to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare DLC in 2015.”

The first chapter of Exo Zombies will be included with the Havoc DLC pack in January, or as part of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Season Pass, it was announced in November.

Sledgehammer has promised a completely new take on the CoD Zombies formula. “As things were wrapping up around launch, we started playing around with the idea of what happens when zombies were thrown into the mix with exoskeleton gameplay,” said Sledgehammer in a statement accompanying the announcement trailer.

“What we came up with is Exo Zombies – an entirely new breed of zombies and an entirely new co-op experience that is truly unique to Advanced Warfare.”

A deeper look into Army Management systems in development for Total War: Attila

Source: Gamer’s Hell

SEGA offers a new video for Total War: Attila, the follow-up title to Total War: Rome II scheduled to be available on February 17th, 2015, across all territories on both physical and digital formats. Developed by Creative Assembly, the next installment in the multi award-winning Total War series of strategy games will include some features that fans have been asking for, such as family trees and skill trees. It also features advanced street-fighting, civilians, complete settlement destruction and dynamic fire that can rage across a city as armies clash.

For more information about Total War: Attila, log on to www.totalwar.com.

By Kenny @ PureOC

Today we have the chance to take a look at the HyperX Predator series DDR4 memory line. DDR4 memory launched with Intel’s recent X99 Chipset featuring lower voltage with higher native frequencies. It features a native speed of 2133MHz, which is really nothing to WOW about as we have seen these speeds with DDR3. However, with its newer JEDEC Culmination and Density, DDR4 memory components now provide better speeds and faster response while being more power efficient at the same time.

The HyperX Predator memory we are going to be looking at today not only offers fast speeds of 3000MHz out of the box, but also offers the efficiency of lower voltage; we can see some great potential with additional performance once overclocked. We will be comparing results from Kingston’s (HyperX) previous line up from its DDR3 series to see if these claims line up.

Read The Review Here

By Stuart Davidson @ Hardware Heaven  

A couple of months ago we reviewed a high end X99 board from MSI in the form of the X99S Gaming 9 AC. It was packed with performance and features which is great, but it would be fair to say that not everyone has the need (or budget) for extras such as bundled Wi-Fi and the like. To cater for those consumers MSI has a product stack below the Gaming 9 and today in our MSI X99S Gaming 7 Review we look at one of those.

Read The Review Here

Source: TechPowerUp!

Close to X’mas eve, NVIDIA posted what could be it’s final GeForce WHQL driver release for the year, with the GeForce 347.09 WHQL. These “Game Ready” drivers are essentially last week’s GeForce 347.09 Beta, with a WHQL certification. Version 347.09 WHQL comes with optimizations for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Elite: Dangerous, along with the usual load of GeForce Experience profiles, SLI profiles, and 3D Vision Surround compatibility test recommendations.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Game Ready GeForce 347.09 WHQL drivers can be downloaded from GeForce.com or through GeForce Experience.

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• FSP Announces 80 PLUS Titanium Power Supplies
• MSI Z97I GAMING ACK Mini-ITX Motherboard Released
• EVGA Announces Supernova 1600 T2 Power Supply
• BIOSTAR Introducing Built-In LAN Surge Protection For Motherboards
• Samsung Introduces SE790C Curved Monitor
• Lian Li Launches O Series Wall-Mountable Chassis – VIDEO
• Thermalright Introduces Macho 90 and Silver Arrow ITX CPU Coolers
• EVGA X99 Motherboards and G.Skill Memory Offer Top Compatibility
• BenQ Announces New Product Lineup for the 2015 International CES
• Corsair HX1200i Power Supply Coming Soon
• SilverStone Readies SX500-LG PSU in the SFX-L Form-Factor
• ASUS Announces Xonar U3 Plus External DAC with Headphones Amp
• GIGABYTE Introduces FORCE K7 Wireless Keyboard

Following the successful launch of Gary Grigsby’s War in the West earlier this month, we are happy to announce that the first update is now available, bringing the game to version 1.00.08. This patch contains a number of significant rule changes for campaign logic, as well as for the air model and various other parts of the game. In addition, the update provides you with several interface improvements and of course the priority issues have been fixed. 2by3 Games has put in some hard work to get this first update out before the holidays and we hope you will enjoy the changes as much as we do!

Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.

The full changelog can be found here.

Click here to download the patch, or use the automatic update tool.

Click here to find out more about War in the West.

New tanks, maps and Personal Missions roll out in Update 9.5

Wargaming today announced that Update 9.5 for World of Tanks has been released in Europe and North America, and will be available to players in Asia on Dec. 23, and Korea Dec. 30. This update brings a wealth of new content by adding 10 new British vehicles along with 3 original battlegrounds: the ruined settlement of Mittengard, the desolate Ghost Town and the snow-covered Winterberg. In addition to the content update, a new Mission system, Personal Missions will become available Jan. 15, 2015.

The newest update to World of Tanks brings a new force of British vehicles rolling out onto the battlefield with a line of impressive British Tank Destroyers. Beginning at Tier 5, the line includes the very distinct Archer with its backward facing gun, the powerful and agile Charioteer, and the FV4005 Stage II. In addition to the Tank Destroyer line, the British tech tree receives 3 new Medium vehicles including the iconic and highly anticipated Sherman Firefly, Sherman II and Grant, along with 2 Light Tanks, the M2 and Stuart I-IV.

Beginning Jan. 15, 2015 tankers will be able to put their skills to the test in new missions called Personal Missions. Unlike the current Mission system, Personal Missions allow players to select the mission they want to complete and missions will not have a time limit. Upon completion of these missions, players will receive a variety of great rewards including unique high-tier vehicles, medals and female crew members.

Click Here for more information about World of Tanks.

Live out your cops and criminal fantasy in Battlefield Hardline, the fastest Battlefield ever. Watch the new Battlefield Hardline: Karma Gameplay Trailer here.

Inspired by great TV crime dramas, Battlefield Hardline gives you a great single player and multiplayer game that allows you to be the law or break the law on foot and on wheels.

Battlefield Hardline will be available in the United Kingdom on March 20, 2015 for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One®, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, PC via Origin™, the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft.

More game information is available at the official Battlefield Hardline website.