Compared to the eternal wait between Half-Life and it's sequel, the quick appearance of Episode One to continue the saga of Gordon Freeman has been welcomed from most quarters. But how does the game shape up? Elite Bastards take a look.

EliteBastards

Bethesda Softworks have released the promised English non-beta patches for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, advancing the US and UK/Australian editions of their acclaimed first-person role-playing sequel to version 1.1.511. This release includes a few additional crash fixes and other improvements along with all the quest corrections, plugin tweaks and bug fixes from the beta update.

Before entering the real workforce, some of us hide away at Universities for longer than we need to; some of us back pack around Europe; some of us go and teach English in Asia; and just a very few of us end up in an eSports training facility honing PC gaming skills for the professional league. But is this more than just a post-teen diversion? How long can someone, a female someone, live the life of the corporate sponsored professional gamer - and what is that lifestyle like. With these questions in mind I emailed the four girlz from the Home of CHROME training house in Sweden.

Last Thursday saw the release of the first piece of Half-Life 2's episodic content from Valve, Episode One, which carries directly on from where Half-Life 2 itself left off. So, how does the game perform on a variety of different graphics hardware? Elite Bastards take a look.

EliteBastards

A new interview, possibly showing just how playable Halo 3 really is.

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StarForce team informed us they have released a special driver update for Microsoft Beta Testers who want to play StarForce protected games under Microsoft Windows Vista Beta.

Valve' Doug Lombardi tells us at FiringSquad why their first chapter in their episodic first person shooter will be worth the $20.

So check out this forum post from a [H]ardOCP reader (lowrider007) who owns a Ageia PhysX card. It seems that the "Cell Factor" game which is supposed to not run at all without a Ageia PhysX card can run just fine without it.

Sierra has released new retail patches for F.E.A.R. to bring the US and all European editions of the supernatural first-person shooter by Monolith Productions to version 1.05. This release adds two multiplayer modes, called Control and Capture All, and as usual it's accompanied by the corresponding Win32 and Linux dedicated servers and an updated public tools kit.

Updates to the Source Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Ubi Soft Entertainment has released new patches for Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter to advance the retail and downloadable editions of the squad-based tactical shooter sequel by GRIN to version 1.10. This release applies several interface improvements, a handful of AGEIA updates, and over a dozen bug fixes and other changes.

Electronic Arts has released new retail patches and servers for Battlefield 2, upgrading 3D multiplayer action game by Digital Illusions to version 1.3. You can update from the previous v1.22 or any older version, and this release adds airdropped vehicles, a single-player co-op mode, a default kit selection feature, and more than two dozen gameplay tweaks, bug and crash fixes, and other improvements.

Crytek announced the development of Crysis, their new first person shooter, on the 23rd January, 2006. With incredible life like visuals, higher AI IQ than Stephen Hawkins, superb environmental effects and more atmosphere than a Hollywood blockbuster, MaXit drools over this upcoming game.

The E3 movie trailer for Unreal Tournament 2007 is now online, offering the first moving imagery of this futuristic multiplayer first-person shooter sequel in production at Epic Games. This clip comes in low and medium sizes to outline the game's features in a bit over a minute of action-packed in-game sequences.

John Blade is back, and he's not alone. We check out the first part to this Episodic adventure, with Blade continuing his journey of defending Freeport City. Elexis is still evil, but at least JC and Jessica are by our side. Let's see if Emergence lives up to the original.

Crysis is a next-generation project by CryTek, makers of the dazzling FPS Far Cry. This game is running on the new CryENGINE 2 technology. The game is one of the the first announced to run on the advanced DirectX 10 architecture.

The E3 movie trailer for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is now online, showing the upcoming sci-fi team-based multiplayer action game by Splash Damage in motion. This trailer comes in medium and HD resolutions to depict two minutes of intensely action-packed in-game footage from the side of the human EDF forces.

I think we should let these speak for themselves.

BeyondUnreal

Armed Assault looks and feels like OFP. It should, since the title's is built from an upgraded and improved version of the same game engine. In fact, Armed Assault is essentially a public entertainment-ized version of the "Virtual Battle Space 2" military tactical simulator currently in use by the USMC and Australian Army, among others.

SimHQ

We got tossed into a hands-on multiplayer match on Epic's Gears of War for the Xbox 360. Man, that was fun!

ExtremeTech