Gear Live | High tech gadget and consumer electronics news, opinions, and trends.

STICKY POST

Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!

If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It’s free!

New Oblivion Content Coming Soon

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PC, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,

Bethesda recently announced a new mod for Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, “Mehrunes’ Razor.” In addition to adding the magical item for which the downloadable content is named, there will be a new dungeon and several new items for gamers to discover. Mehrunes’ Razor could be found in the previous game, Morrowind, through an included quest, but the description Bethesda gives here hints that the incarnation in Oblivion may be a bit more powerful. This sounds to be one of the more involved downloadable content expansions, and the price reflects it; for PC users the mod will cost $2.99, and no pricing is currently available for Xbox 360 owners, but expect it to cost between 200 and 250 Marketplace points. According to the Oblivion download site, the new content features:

A fully-featured quest takes you deep into the fringes of the Niben.
Earn the fearsome Mehrunes Razor, with the ability to kill foes instantly.
17 new magic items to discover!
Conquer the largest dungeon in all Cyrodiil.
Thwart a plot to overthrow Imperial rule in Tamriel.
12 new books, notes, and journals to help you unravel the mystery.
Hidden treasures await!

Thieves Den for Oblivion Available Online

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PC, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,

PC and Xbox 360 Oblivion owners can download the Thieves Den module now, for $1.89 or 150 Marketplace Points respectively. According to Bethesda’s site, the new content features:

A fully detailed environment for your character to own and explore
Free sleeping space: never pay for an inn again!
Five upgrades for your lair
Hire vendors designed especially for thieves, rogues, and assassins
As you upgrade your lair new pirates will join your crew and provide you with income
Over 45 new items
15 new spells

The content does seem to offer a great deal more than previous offerings, and so far has gotten a fair amount of praise in the Oblivion forums. Apparently the mod is inspired by the Goonies, so maybe gamers will be teaming up with Chunk and Sloth to take on Ma Fratelli and her boys.

Final Fantasy XIII Scans

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Role Playing Games, Screenshots,

Some new Final Fantasy XIII scans have surfaced over at The Magic Box, and it looks like at least some of the images have been pulled from the E3 trailer, but some of them may be new. The higher-resolution scans show off some of the environment of the new Final Fantasy game, and some of the action sequences as well. As Square-Enix continues to make graphical improvements to the in-game segments of the game, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the interactive sequences from the pre-rendered narrative sections, but given the power of the PS3, this definitely will be the best looking Final Fantasy game to date. No release date has been announced for either Japan or the United States, but the new game will definitely be a strong draw for the PS3.

Latest Gear Live Videos

Subscribe:

YouTube

iTunes High Definition

iTunes Standard Version

RSS

First Impressions of Mass Effect

Posted by Jake Ludington Categories: Adventure, E3, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360,

After being completely blown away by Gears of War early in the day, I was admittedly jaded by the time I got the chance to look at Mass Effect. Space games just aren’t my thing and the endless pitch of “we’ve got the new new thing” from each product demo starts to wear thin. So when the BioWare team launched into a demo of Mass Effect, I had my guard up. Turns out Mass Effect is exactly the kind of space game I might get into. I’m a huge fan of Bethesda’s Oblivion, with open-ended questing, divergent storylines and interaction with non-player characters throughout the world. Think of the Oblivion concept as the jumping off point for Mass Effect.

The game ratchets things up a notch in several key areas. Interaction and realism in interactions with NPC entities inside the Mass Effect galaxy are at the forefront of the non-combat experience. Where Oblivion occasionally gives you a couple of approaches for talking to a character, with different outcomes depending on whether you’re a jerk, polite or manipulative; Mass Effect takes this to the next level, offering multiple conversation options for each stage of the conversation, offering more ways to succeed or fail in getting the information you need out of a conversation. Combat scenarios offer a range of complex options as well. Instead of flying solo on every mission, you’ve got two NPC teammates who either focus on whatever target you aren’t currently aiming for or can be positioned for strategic strikes on target objectives.

We’ll see how the story plays out once the game finally hits retail. The foundation synthetic beings returning every 50,000 years to purge all humanoids from the galaxy. Part of your job is to figure out why. It seems like many RPGs borrow the Tolkien end-of-days approach where the monumental quest of a few will rescue the many from the brink of eternal darkness, but it often comes off feeling contrived. The 30 minutes I spent looking at Mass Effect leave me feeling like the story line works, but you never know until you actually play.

Shadowrun Teaser Online

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, E3, Role Playing Games, Rumors, Xbox 360,

TeamXbox.com points out a new teaser image online at Shadowrun.com. The guys at TeamXbox.com have been tracking the game’s release for a while now, trying to put together the pieces, and this seems to be the final confirmation that a Shadowrun game will be appearing soon, possibly at E3. Shadowrun is one of FASA Corporation’s original pen-and-paper RPG properties, and the game made appearances on both the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, with the Genesis version gaining a fairly large cult following since it more closely approximates the original role playing game. While the pen-and-paper version has gone through some revisions (and passed hands from FASA to Fantasy Productions when the former went out of business) the game concept has stayed the same: a futuristic world, where technology and magic mix. Microsoft’s rendition of the game will almost certainly be more action-oriented than previous releases, possibly as either a first-person or a third-person shooter.

Oblivion CPU Benchmarks

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PC, Role Playing Games,

Those gamers wondering if they should upgrade their CPU, or their GPU to more effectively play Oblivion, can look to Anandtech for their answer. The short answer, is both, if you can afford it. Anandtech benchmarks a series of CPUs against the current GPU leader in Oblivion performance, the ATI Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire, and then cross-examines their results by running the same CPU at different speeds against four ATI configurations to give an idea of how well the CPU scales in mid-range to high-end performance scenarios. Clearly, there are a couple of takeaways from this test. First, if gamers have a Radeon X1900XT CrossFire rig, their gameplay is likely to be CPU bound. Second, if gamers want to make the most of a top-end GPU, then they will want an AMD CPU. Very few of the Intel chips made a showing, and the AMD dual-core chips were the clear winner. As always, the middle ground is a lot less clear. There are clearly sections of Oblivion that are going to be highly CPU bound, like the towns in game, and to some extent, the dungeons. Gamers with mid-range CPUs probably aren’t going to see the benefit of a high-end graphics card in Oblivion because of this. Since Oblivion will take advantage of dual-core chips, it might make sense to upgrade to a dual-core first, and approach the GPU later.

Oldblivion Allows Old Graphics Cards To Run Elder Scrolls IV

Posted by John Goulden Categories: Mods/Hacks, PC, Role Playing Games,

So you’re itching to find out what’s so hot about Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion but you’re stuck with a computer running an older, unsupported graphics card? Fear not, for Oldblivion not only does a nice play on words, but allows you to run Oblivion on pre-DirectX9 graphics cards. A description from Oldblivion’s website: “Oldblivion attaches to Oblivion and applies certain patches to it. Some of these patches are for making sure that Oblivion doesn’t crash when run on hardware which lacks certain new functionality. It also changes the shaders used by Oblivion from pixel shader 2.0 and vertex shader 2.0 into pixel shader 1.1 and vertex shader 1.1.”

There are still a number of bugs present, but temporary fixes are abundant as are new releases of the software. The current list of supported cards is as follows:
• Geforce 3 series
• Geforce 4 series
• Geforce FX 5200 series
• Geforce PCX 5300
• Geforce FX 5500
• Geforce FX 5700 series
• Radeon 9550
• Radeon 9200 series
• Radeon 9000 series
• Radeon 8500 series

So if you’re jonesin’ for an Oblivion fix, head on over and grab a copy of Oldblivion and let ‘er rip.

New Oblivion Content Available

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Adventure, Internet, PC, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,

Bethesda today made available the latest Elder Scrolls: Oblivion downloadable content, the Wizard’s Tower. Like previous releases, the content is available for the PC for $1.89, and for the Xbox 360 for 200 Live Marketplace points. Updates include:

A fully detailed tower for you to explore
A breathtaking view of Cyrodiil from the highest point in the land
Simple furnishings including a bed for leveling up
An indoor botanical garden with over 130 specimens… including Oblivion-native herbs!
Summon Atronach Familiars that obey your commands
Instant teleports to every Mages Guild in Cyrodiil
New Spell and Recharge vendor in the Imperial City
Fully upgrade the furnishings in your lair to suit your needs
Upgrade to a fully functional Enchanting and Spellmaking station with no need to join Mages Guild
Upgrade to a laboratory that buffs your Alchemy skill

No real quest related additions seem to be present for the new content, so there might be further disappointment with this add-on. Still, Bethesda appears to be committed to regularly releasing new items and areas for the game, extending its play life, little by little.

Oblivion Quest Orrery Available on Xbox Live

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,

Major Nelson recently posted that the Orrery quest for Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is now available on Xbox Live for a low 150 points. The backlash has already started over in the official Oblivion forums for the game; people that have downloaded the additional quest complain that this add-on is less valuable than the previous horse armor premium content. Gamers impatient for the gameplay patch from Bethesda are also questioning the priorities of the developers.

Read More | MajorNelson.com
Read More | Official Oblivion Forums

Final Fantasy III: DS vs Original

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo DS, Retro, Role Playing Games, Screenshots,

An enterprising poster in the Dreamwiz forums has put up a image detailing the differences between Final Fantasy III on the DS and the NES release. The differences are quite striking when one can compare the two directly, and despite the relatively low quality of the scans, the game appears to be close to its next generation counterparts in graphical quality.

While previous re-releases in the series have been straight ports, the DS version of the game will be an upgrade, with everything moving to 3-D. There have also been rumors that the touch screen interface will be used in the game as well, signifying a possibly gameplay update, and other rumors suggest some kind of wireless play.

Squaresoft is targeting a Summer 2006 release for the game in Japan. No US release has been announced, but it is hard to imagine a modern Final Fantasy release not making its way to North America.

Welcome, Guest