Hello everyone. You may remember our old logo which used to be proudly displayed on our web site? If not it doesn’t matter ‘cus we’re about to get a new one. Who’s going to design this new logo you ask? You are!

What to do:

• Anyone can enter, you just have to sign up to the forum to submit a download link to you logo (or if you want it to remain private till the logos are judged you can PM a link to drax0r or Dash
• Logo can be any size or shape and can contain ‘to’, ‘total oblivion’, optionally you can also mention that the community was established in 2003
• Multiple versions can be submitted (e.g. with just the most basic elements and basic elements plus tag line etcetera)

Prize:

The creator of the winning design will win a game for the Wii console (don’t have a Wii? We’re sure you know someone who owns one who’d be happy to swap it with you for something).

You can expect your winning design to be used prominently on this web site and also in the following places:

• Desktop backgrounds
• In game avatars (i.e. Steam)
• In game sprays (Source)
• Stickers available at i-Series LANs
• Banner displayed at LAN events
• Anything else you can think of (suggestions welcome, please comment below).

Guidelines: Consider keeping the logo as simple and effective as possible with elements which may work when viewed as small as 16 pixels wide. Bear in mind that you don’t need to use any elements from the old logo such as the square brackets ‘[]‘. If the logo works in just one or two colours then we’ll be able to make it fit wherever we need to use it.

The best entry will be selected by us, and may be developed further before use in the places mentioned above.

Closing date is yet to be decided but could be any time so get those ideas in quick! We’ll keep you up to date on the competition here so stay tuned.

Good luck and have fun!

-Dash

Hi everyone.

Total Oblivion’s most popular summer LAN the August I-Series is provisionally scheduled for 27th August for the usual 4 day weekend (5 days if you count the Thursday early arrival deal). [TO] have had a great turnout at recent summer i-series events and we want to keep up the trend by sending plenty of gamers along for a long weekend of awesome hardcore gaming fun times!

I’ve spoken to others in TO who are keen to try and take advantage of Newbury’s unique private clan boxes. The clan boxes offer space for between 11 and 44 gamers, but we’ll need to get an idea of how many people we are going to get very soon so that we can make an application to secure our clan a private box. Image how cool that would be eh?

I40 falls on the bank holiday weekend so those from the UK can save a day’s holiday too. Bonus!

Please visit the forum post here and add your name to the list. We already have plenty of people’s names down already, but the more the merrier!

-Dash

Hello, its been a while. I have been addicted to a recent best selling MMO called Star Trek Online. I have decided to put it down for a week to concentrate on other games.

Warhammer 40K and THQ

THQ have announced they are going to show alot more information about the very secret WH40K Online at this year’s E3. It also looks like Space Marine has been pushed back with a release window whispered to be the end of 2010 or start of 2011.

In other THQ news they have said they are going to bring another Red Faction and Saints Row to the table. Again THQ are not offering much details apart form the games name, though they said they will take Saints Row 3 in a new exciting direction from Saints Row 2. (Personally I enjoyed and still enjoy now, nothing quite like getting a few mates together and taking on the law enforcers with a A10-Cuba )

New Ghost Recon

Ubisoft have finally announced the full name for the new Ghost Recon and they have settled on ‘Ghost Recon Future Warrior’. A trailer was released on Xbox Live this morning I have yet to see it. Hopefully it will follow Scott Mitchell from the end of GRAW2 and find out the outcome of the cliffhanger ending, that left me wanting more.

EDIT: The mentioned trailer

Ghost Recon Future Warrior

Other News

Square Enix the new owners of Eidos have registered the name ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution’ thats all the info I have on Deus Ex3 at the moment, but if I hear anything else i’ll post it here.

EA have released their lineup for this fiscal year:

ELECTRONIC ARTS FISCAL YEAR 2011 RELEASE SCHEDULE

FYQ1 (April 1-June 30, 2010)
2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (consoles, handhelds)
Need for Speed World (PC)
Skate 3 (consoles)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (consoles, handhelds)

FYQ2 (July 1-September 30, 2010)
APB (PC)
EA Sports FIFA Online (PC)
FIFA 11 (consoles, handhelds, PC)
Madden NFL 11 (consoles, handhelds)
Medal of Honor (final title TBA – consoles, handhelds, PC)
Monopoly Title TBA (consoles)
MySims Title TBA (consoles, handhelds)
NCAA Football 11 (consoles, handhelds)

FYQ3 (October 1-December 31, 2010)
“TBA” (consoles, handhelds, PC)
Crysis 2 (consoles, PC)
DTC Game For Console Online (consoles)
EA SPORTS Active Title 1 TBA (consoles)
EA SPORTS Active Title 2 TBA (consoles)
EA SPORTS MMA (consoles, handhelds)
FIFA Manager 11 (PC)
Harry Potter Title TBA (consoles, handhelds, PC)
Hasbro Family Game Night Title TBA (consoles)
Hasbro Littlest Pet Shop Title TBA (handhelds)
NBA Jam (Wii)
NBA LIVE 11 (consoles, handhelds)
Need For Speed Title TBA (consoles, handhelds, PC)
The Sims 3 on Console Title TBA (consoles, handhelds)

FYQ4 (January 1-March 31, 2011)
Action Title TBA (”full game download” for consoles)
Dead Space 2 (consoles, handhelds)
Dragon Age Title TBA (consoles, handhelds, PC)
Fighting Title TBA (consoles)
Hasbro Title TBA (consoles)
Need For Speed Title TBA (consoles, PC)
New Sims Title TBA (PC)
Shooter from Epic TBA (consoles, PC)
Spore Title TBA (consoles, PC)

Unfortunately it looks like their will not be a PC version of Dead Space 2, which is a shame as I loved the first one and the controls suited the keyboard and mouse. But on the bright side a new Crysis and Dragon Age are coming the PC’s way.

]]> http://www.total-oblivion.nl/gaming-news-10th-february-2010/1002/feed 2 http://www.total-oblivion.nl/novint-falcon/959 http://www.total-oblivion.nl/novint-falcon/959#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:33:52 +0000 Impen http://www.total-oblivion.nl/?p=959

Buy the Novint Falcon and use “bestgamecontroller” as a coupon code for 20% off!

It’s not a secret that gaming on the PC and Mac are dominated by the mouse+keyboard combination, just as the joystick like controllers define console gaming. It’s been like this since the first video game consoles came out and computers evolved past the text based interface. Every couple of years though, someone comes along and tries to revolutionize the gaming world with some kind of unique type of controller. The latest contender to the market goes by the name of the Novint Falcon.

From the official website:

“The Novint Falcon is an entirely new type of game controller. Replacing your mouse or joystick, the Falcon is, essentially, a small robot that lets you experience true virtual touch unlike any controller in history.

The Novint Falcon lets you control a game in three dimensions, and also lets you feel high-fidelity three-dimensional force feedback. The Falcon controller moves right and left, forwards and backwards, like a mouse, but also moves up and down. When you hold the Falcon’s detachable Grip and move your cursor to interact with a virtual object, environment, or character, motors in the device turn on and are updated approximately 1000 times a second, letting you feel texture, shape, weight, dimension, and dynamics. The Falcon lets you control and interact with games in more realistic way, allowing you to develop real physical skill and muscle memory, adding a new dimension to gaming.”

Basically it’s a mouse that works in 3D space with force feedback and different types of grips. Currently there are only two types of grips available, the default one which looks like a Logitech ball webcam, and the pistol grip which is depicted in at the top of this review. Both of these grips have four digital buttons and no scroll wheel. The controller acts like a mouse when you keep it in the center area. If you pull it out to one of the sides, or up and down, you will pan around like you would on a console game using the joysticks to move. The result is better then expected even though the standard mouse still holds the record for best precision.

Unfortunately when I tried this I didn’t have a chance to try the pistol grip, only the default controller ball. I’m also a die hard PC gamer and could not play an FPS game with a console controller to save my life. I played Left 4 Dead as a test game, the number of games that support this is still pretty limited, but I think it served it’s purpose well in demonstrating the capabilities of the Novint Falcon.

I was surprised at how well this actually handled as an alternative to the mouse. It took me about 30 minutes to get used to it well enough to play the game at an acceptable level. After another hour I felt pretty confident with the new interface, despite the ball controller being extremely uncomfortable. The gun grip really is a must have if you plan on getting one of these, or if there are other custom grips by the time you read this.

The main reason as to why anyone would get this is the force feedback. The most obvious use of this in FPS games is recoil, which works fairly well. The problem is if you turn it up too high it’ll make it impossible to aim. It can also react to the player taking damage or environmental events such as bumping into walls, or in the case of Left 4 Dead when you get pinned down by a Smoker or a Hunter. In these events the machine will start dragging your arm around which is a good example of how the controller can be used to deepen immersion. The sense of losing control of your character is a lot more compelling when the game is actually fighting you back physically punching you in the face.

More often then not however, the force feedback only serves the purpose of making it harder to hit what you’re aiming at. Because of this the Falcon is not well suited for professional gaming. Even if you turn off the force completely, all you’re left with is a less accurate, awkward mouse which costs more then two or three of your regular mice combined and about as comfortable to use as a cucumber covered in sand and glass.

One of the biggest challenges facing the Falcon is getting developers to add support for their games. As all the things the controller reacts to has to be added in the code it will take time and luck for this to establish itself on the market. On the upside developers can get a lot more out of this thing if they learn how to use it in creative ways, instead of having it automatically detect events in games and try to react the best it can to them. If you plan on getting one of these there’s a list of games that supports it on the official website, be sure to check it before you buy!

If you have the money I would recommend this as long as you’re aware of the flaws. Most important is the previously mentioned short list of supported games, the fact that it’s a novelty item and probably not the next generation PC gaming controller you thought it would be. It also works out less comfortable then a mouse seeing as you don’t get the same support for your arm.

But after all this is most likely your best chance of feeling what it’s like to control one of those mechs from Avatar for the foreseeable future.

You can read more about the Novint Falcon and buy it here.

Another bit of brag from our friends in Rising Shadow, Good job – looks like you lot have things under control on that server! /Prox

Terrible news, everyone, Rotface is dead. But, good news, everyone! Rotface is dead!

Anyone who has faced the ICC 10 man wings knows that this is not a pretty fight. There is angst, there is evil, there is… really bad smelling slime. As a dedicated 10 man raiding guild this kill has made us especially proud. It took us 3 days of solidly wiping to get the mechanics of the fight down perfectly (about 70 wipes, and to put that into perspective I am usually a plate wearer and repair every 3 wipes. That is repairing 23 times at a price of 35g roughly so totals over 800g)

Rotface is mean. It involves an organised and dedicated team to be able to kite slimes, follow instructions at a seconds notice and manage to kick out solid dps and healing. I am terribly proud of what the raid team accomplished, and it is because of this that I am sharing the news

Oh, and also.. As far as research can see, we are the 4th or 5th 10 man dedicated Guild that has downed Rotface on our server! (10 man dedicated guild means that there is a low % that do and are kitted out in 25 man normals or heroics, basically we are geared from only 10 mans/crafted or token).

So, I give to you our very worthy kill, Rotface.

Present at kill: Torias (Torben), Asai, Tazzoe, Blithe, Verderon, Lorelie (Alcreadia), Parker, Ortheon, Regloth, Molosser

By: Alcreadia

In an recent update at www.tf2.com Valve announced that they are taking submissions for user created weapon and hat models. If your submission gets accepted you get to use your item right away and others have the chance to find it randomly in game.

If you’re not a 3D whiz, and you find that good ol’ 2D graphics are more your thing, then you can also create your own avatars to go on the official TF2 Steam Group, available for download by all.

Valve give guidelines on creating the content for the game and an easy to use submission form. Click the picture above and all will be explained.

You can find out how to make hats for tf2 on the steam forums.

Happy New Year everyone!

Finally the year has started and everyone’s back to work so there is some decent news to report on.

Project Natal due holiday 2010

With CES in full effect, in Mircosoft’s keynote address, they brought up the subject of Mircosoft’s motion sensor controller. Robbie Bach confirmed the details of the Natal including that it will be camera based and be able to map the movements of your complete body including your fingers and toes, it will also be able to deal with more than one person in the room at the same time. Which sounds great as you don’t have to send people away just to play games on it. Mircosoft have confirmed support from Capcom, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Activision, and Electronic Arts with many more developers look at the new control system.

So all we have to do now is wait till Christmas or E3 2010 to see if its any good.

New Motion Sensor DS on the Horizon and New Zelda

Even though the DS has gone from strength to strength and even though Apple still has a way to go to catch up with Nintendo Dominance of the hand held market. Nintendo have announced plans to release a new DS with Motion sensor controls.

In the same press conference Nintendo announced that the new and very secretive Legend of Zelda will be released around October of this year, it is to be produced by new guy Eiji Aonuma and is going to be a revolution to the series. It will also be one of the games supported by the new Wii Motion sensor that came with Wii Sports Resort last year. But yet again Nintendo are waiting till E3 to show anything off to us.

The Assassin’s Creed series is back with the sequel to 2007’s smash hit. This time the player ventures to 15th century Italy (or rather the memory of it) for some first class parkouring and assassination – renaissance style.

Just like in Assassins Creed the player takes on the role of a modern age man who has been locked in a facility by an organization calling themselves the Templars, who have discovered a way for people to relive their ancestors memories. By doing so these people learn everything their ancestors did, making them extremely valuable resources for the Templars who are doing some rather shady deeds around the world.

Assassin's Creed 2 Boxshot (X360)

Again the player takes control of Desmond, one amongst many that has been thrown into the Animus by the Templars. Instead of an introduction containing the usual ”who, what, where, when?” the player gets thrown straight into action during an escape from the Templar facility. It might be a bit overwhelming for those who didn’t play the first game, but you get the hang of the whole back-story as you go along – which is a very smart move since you get more attached to the story as a whole and it also keeps everything fresh, even for the old players.

Ubisoft has also listened to a lot of the criticism of the first game where players felt there was too little freedom. Sure you could climb just about any building, poke innocent citizens with pointy sticks and take occasional suicidal leaps from high towers, but you were still limited to the whole assassination deal. Which to me felt very very dull since they all felt the same. The process usually looked like this: Eavesdrop → Scale a building → Kill the guards → Assassinate the target → Repeat.

Assassins Creed 2 has the similar base – you still need to assassinate the evil guys – but the route to it is more interesting. Not only are there a ton of excellent side missions (assassination, beat up, courier, timed races to name a few), but there’s also quite a few more interesting things that unfold as you trot along the main plot. The good ole conspiracy theories are still there with their great historical hints, as well as some completely fresh things. There’s even something in the Animus’ menu called The Truth. Once you discover the first bit of this puzzle, you simply cannot avoid chasing after all of the pieces which will undoubtedly keep you busy for a while. There’s also a few more twists and turns beside the main storyline, I won’t spoil them here, but they most certainly add extra flavor to the main storyline. The developers have also added an economy to the game, making it feel more alive. Needless to say, this also helps you in your quest for revenge which takes you through a couple of areas, with Florence, Venice and Rome being the main sites of the plot. A few other areas are included as well which aren’t critical to the story, but they too have their secrets. Travelling in-between the hubs are really smooth with the Fast Travel Stations which are basically caravans that can take you to any area in the game, as long as you have discovered at least one of the stations in that area first. The horseback riding is still there, but you don’t have to spend tedious minutes on your steed unless you choose to, which gives us impatient bastards a chance to go straight back to the fray should we choose to.

The assassin's have now mastered the art of swimming!

Game play-wise the controls are as excellent as before, making it a breeze to scale even the tallest building and then leap from rooftop to rooftop while being chased by guards trying to kill you. Even though Ezio (Desmond’s ancestor) can do the most breathtaking stunts without blinking, you still don’t get the immortality feeling of… well being immortal – there’s still occasions where you think you’ll be able to jump across a rooftop to grab hold of a pole and then swing yourself to the next rooftop without any trouble, only to shortly thereafter lose your balance and crash down to earth like a wing-clipped bird. Admittedly the game is very forgiving when you do screw up, since you can always hold B and hope Ezio will be able to grab a ledge further down (if that fails you can always congratulate yourself for inventing the pizza).

Combat plays out similar to the ways of the first game, but thanks to the freshly implemented economy of the game, players can now take slightly different approaches. Blacksmiths offer you various pieces of equipment, including armour upgrades in the form of shoulder pads, greaves, chest pieces and so on, as well as offering an impressive amount of weaponry. This gives the player an opportunity to go on a mad dash, smashing enemies left and right with his war hammer or take a more tactical approach and swiftly take out important targets with the dagger before anyone can react. Ezio’s friend Leonardo Da Vinci (yes, that Leonardo) will also give Ezio a couple of gadgets that will aid him in combat, this includes the ability to wield two hidden blades. Not only do you get a sense of accomplishment and WOW!! factor when you shove them into two enemies at once, but it also looks absolutely fantastic. The Italian assassin also has another important trick up his sleeve – pun intended; the art of disarming. Instead of simply thrusting your blade into a guards eye, you can now wait for him to lunge at you and swiftly disarm him and beat him senseless with his own weapon! Excellent!

Federico quickly learned to have a firmer grip of his pike.

Animations are a story of themselves, they’re simply brilliantly made. Even the most outrageous acrobatic stunt has an animation attached to it, making the overall feel of them very fluent and realistic even though not even Jackie Chan could pull them off without losing a limb or two. This also includes the climbing – which you will be doing a lot of, I have yet to come across a place where Ezio places his foot or hand on an invisible ledge. Simply put: If you can’t reach it, you can’t climb it.

Graphics in this game looks even better than the first one and the level designers has really brought the good stuff to this one, every piece of the scenery seems to match the overall theme and you don’t get the sense of something being placed there for the obvious purpose of you using it to do your acrobatic stuns. The textures looks sharp and the lightning is right on the spot. This really shows in the day and night cycle– yes there is a day and night cycle, that really looks amazing when you climb to the highest points of Venice to watch the sunset in the horizon. The field of depth gives you a feeling of just how big one area is and you can’t really see where it begins and ends which adds to the overall immersion. No unexplainable fog in the distance or obvious painted scenery, it all blends perfectly to give you the illusion of a massive 15^th century metropolis. The only thing that disappointed me slightly is the look of the NPC’s in the game, they don’t look just as good as they could have up close. Surely they get the job done and you really won’t notice the odd low-texture on them unless you actually look for it, but I still feel they could have improved them a bit more. Other than that their animations looks just as good as anything and their reactions when you leap down a rooftop to assassinate a guard feels right on as you watch the masses of people first trying to figure out what the hell just happened and a second later run away in panic when they realize some guy in a black cape just brought a world of pain to poor Mr Alberto.

Overall I’m very pleased with Assassins Creed 2, it gives you all the good stuff from the first game and also vastly improves them. The new things added fits perfectly in this already polished diamond as well as improves the overall value by a ton. It feels very well planned and thought through and just keeps growing on you, even after a couple of hours you still get the feeling that there’s something new going on. The main storyline is stupidly good and feels fresh throughout the game, with the new side missions to keep you busy should you want to take a small break from the breathtaking main story. There are some glitches in the game, but they are very few and mostly restrict themselves to some cut scenes not working out the way they were meant to (usually due to player input) as well as a handful of windows being placed in the wrong place. So nothing really game-breaking.

Scores

Game play: 9/10
Graphics: 8.5/10
Value: 9/10
General (Sounds, Animations, etc.): 9/10
Total score: 9

Author’s note:

My eyes were glowing with anticipation when I first started this game and I enjoyed it throughout. Even though I kept waiting for the disappointment in the form of rinse and repeat missions, or some awkward turn of events that would put me off completely (I’m looking at you Call of Duty), it never happened. Hence I dare say that this game was without a doubt one of the top five games to be released during 2009.  The only bad thing about it would be the fact that the sequel to this game would need something… Extreme. It will be very hard for Ubisoft to top this, but I’ll patiently wait for the next release in the Assassin’s Creed series.

If you like action-games, this is a must have.

By: Jens Albonius for Total Oblivion Gaming Community, 2010

Alcreadia and her crew have been at it again. This issue of Total Coverage focus on their success in the latest WoW patch. Written by Alcreadia.

Icecrown Citadel (ICC)

So…. The new patch came out (Patch 3.3 to WoW Geeks) and it enabled us to see what we have been fighting for over the past months. It was the fabled, the majestic, the amazing, the significant and the astounding Icecrown Citadel!

After the slog of Ulduar (it became a slog, don’t you elitist guild mock me!) and the chore of the Trials of Crusader/Champion (though not Grand, we have yet to manage that), ICC came as a pleasant break from smacking really hard things on the head with what felt like a soggy tissue.

The FIrst section is open and now everyone has the chance to peek inside ICC either in 5 man instances (with a quest based start) and then through either daily quests or using the new Random Dungeon system that teams you up and instantly ports you into an instance, or face it via the ‘We are harder than that!’ and go full force in teams of 10 and 25. Yay!

We all ran through the 5 mans on heroic. Pah, normal mode. Who needs it these days? We are FAR too cool for normal mode, but thanks! Nice loot is dropped (high level gear 232 (Ulduar is 219 and also ICC 5 man normal)), though it is selective, there is a chance to get a quest item for a rather splendid weapon and you get to shout a lot at the Lich King

So what? We all thought to ourselves. WHat about that 10 man thingie going on? Alright, we will give that a go.

We. Kicked. Arse. And we are proud of it. We swooped in to face the first boss (who looked beautiful), Lord Marrowgar who is made out of bones fell first time in a frosty pile on the floor. Lady Deathwhisper soon followed. Her and her minions were no match for us.

Icecrown Gunship battle caused some stress, but after one or two wipes we got the grips on it and shot the other ship out of the sky (without anyone falling off ) and then we came across Deathbringer Saurfang.

He was a tough cookie, with blood magic regenerating his health and minions and he went in a strop after 8 minutes, but you know what? After a swift kick by him, we kicked back. Harder. He died, we had survived in our own chain smoking coffee drinking chocolate eating ways. It was fast, it was do or die, it was instant thinking judgement taking risk juggling excitement, and we can’t WAIT to do it again!

Present at kill: Torias, Writhe, Karine (Alcreadia), Blithe, Verderon, Asai, Molosser, Ratskin, Parker, Ortheon

x
Alcreadia

Thank you for sharing Alc! To all of TO – if you do something exciting in a game and think others might enjoy it too, please type it together and share it with the rest of the community!
/Prox

Hello and welcome to my first news segment for Total Oblivion.

Modern Warfare 2 developer teases mod tools

In a post on Robert Bowling’s Twitter feed, he said that whilst player run servers are still out, the thought of official Mod tools may be in the pipeline. Also IW have announced they are well aware of the many bugs and issues players have with the game and have set up a new part of the forums dedicated to know and ongoing issues.

Nice Protection

New Left 4 Dead 2 DLC ‘The Passing’

New DLC to come in early 2010 and is to feature the cast of L4D meeting with the new guys of L4D2. It will also feature new uncommon common infected, a new melee and firearm weapons as well as new single player and multi player content. No price has been given for the cost of the DLC for the Xbox 360 yet, but its safe to say the PC gamers will have it free as always.

Battlefield Heroes hits 3 Million

For the first time this year EA has some good news with BFH only in its ‘offical’ three months has hit three million users. To mark this they have released a new map centered around a hilltop church control point called Sunset Showdown. Many of you (including myself) have probably played this map and personally I like it. Its a nice open map with lots of carnage centered around the church and in the air thanks to three planes on either side.

I will follow up with more Gaming news each week, hopefully on a Monday.