How Windows Gets Infected With Malware

October 5th, 2011, 23:51 Posted By: wraggster

Since Up to 85 % of all virus infections occur as a result of drive-by attacks automated via commercial exploit kits, CSIS has actively collected real time data from them for a period of three months. The purpose of their study is to reveal precisely how Microsoft Windows machines are infected with malware and which browsers, versions of Windows and third party software that are at risk. They monitored more than 50 different exploit kits on 44 unique servers / IP addresses. The statistical material covers all in all more than half a million user exposures out of which as many as 31.3 % were infected with the virus/malware due to missing security updates.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10...d-with-malware

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Game Of Thrones RPG out in 2012

October 5th, 2011, 00:42 Posted By: wraggster

Cyanide, developer of A Game Of Thrones: Genesis, the PC strategy game released last month, has confirmed that its console and PC RPG based on George R R Martin's novels that will be released next year.
Kotaku reports that the game's story will pick up from whereGenesis left off, will follow the first season of HBO's TV show and star two new characters, though familiar faces will feature during the course of the game.
Studio director Yves Bordeleau said that Cyanide had secured a licensing deal with HBO that will allow it to use some assets and character designs from the TV show, with some actors to provide the game's dialogue. "We entered the agreement late in the day, unfortunately," he said, "but we managed to have a lot of characters and locations modelled [after the series]."
Bordeleau compared the game's battle system to BioWare'sKnights Of The Old Republic, using what he calls an "active pause system. You pause the game to give orders, but it doesn't really pause, it slows time down. You can see something coming and react to it."
Cyanide clearly knows and loves the source material: it was working on A Game Of Thrones: Genesis long before the HBO series, and this RPG has been in the works long enough to dispel any fears of it being a quick cash-in on the TV show's success. The developer is aiming for an early 2012 release for the game, with the second season of the HBO show due to start next spring.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/game-thrones-rpg-out-2012

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Unreal Development Kit passes a million installs

October 5th, 2011, 00:36 Posted By: wraggster

The Unreal Development Kit has been installed more than a million times, Epic Games co-founder Mark Rein has revealed.
"This isn’t a download count nor does it count users who installed a new version of UDK over an old version, or reinstalls," Rein clarifies in a post on Unreal Insider.
"This means there are more than one million different computers onto which the UDK has been installed. With this massive installed base there are countless stories to tell about what these developers are doing with the technology."

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/unreal-...llion-installs

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id Software Releases RAGE

October 5th, 2011, 00:30 Posted By: wraggster

Today marks the launch of RAGE, id Software's post-apocalyptic first-person shooter that's been in development for at least four years. Early response to the game is mixed, but mostly positive. Eurogamer wrote, "This certainly isn't a video game like the ones we're used to playing in 2011, smothered in celebrity voice actors and shoulder-grabbingly intense expository cut-scenes, and varnished by psychologists so we never look in the wrong direction when we're sprinting away from a set-piece. Instead it's something simpler and more old-fashioned. Judged on game design and content, then, it's slightly anachronistic, but as a toy box full of things you can only do in games, RAGE is warm-hearted and refreshing." The review at Opposable Thumbs was much more critical, saying, "None of the game's ideas are thought out or fully explored, so the game feels like a series of dead ends in a world that is hard to care about, in which you play a bland character doing boring things against stock enemies using weak guns." If you'd like to see a look at the actual gameplay, Giant Bomb has a lengthy video with commentary.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/1...-releases-rage

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Microsoft Killed the Start Menu Because No One Uses It

October 5th, 2011, 00:25 Posted By: wraggster

Microsoft recently killed the Start Menu, and their explanation for it seems fairly straightforward: no one used it. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but Microsoft explains that use of the Start menu dipped by 11 percentbetween Windows Vista and Windows 7, with many specialized Start functions — such as exploring pictures — declining as much as 61 percent.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10...no-one-uses-it

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PC CHART: A Game of Thrones: Genesis shifts FM 2011

October 3rd, 2011, 23:28 Posted By: wraggster

FIFA 12 is No.1 on this week's UK PC sales chart, mirroring its performance on the Xbox 360, PS3, PSP and 3DS charts.

The Sims are out in full force as usual, with The Sims 3 at No.2, The Sims 3: Generations at No.3, The Sims: Medieval at No.7 and The Sims 3: Late Night at No.10.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine and new entry A Game of Thrones: Genesis take No.4, No.5 and No.6 respectively, with Football Manager 2011 slipping two places to No.8 and F1 2011 down eight spots to No.9.



Here's how the top ten for the week of ending October 1 reads:

01. FIFA 12 (EA)
02. The Sims 3 (EA)
03. The Sims 3: Generations (EA)
04. Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Square Enix)
05. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (THQ)
06. A Game of Thrones: Genesis (Ubisoft)
07. The Sims: Medieval (EA)
08. Football Manager 2011 (Sega)
09. F1 2011 (Codemasters)
10. The Sims 3: Late Night (EA)

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...hifts-fm-2011/

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Free Portal 2 DLC coming this week

October 3rd, 2011, 23:03 Posted By: wraggster

Fan favourite developer Valve is once again above and beyond to please its huge fanbase with the release of free DLC for hit title Portal 2 tomorrow (October 4^th).
Called Portal 2: Peer Review, the download will appear on Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network and Steam.
It continues the narrative explored in in the game’s co-op campaign but will also include a leader board based single player and co-op Challenge Mode.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/free-...is-week/085737

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ANALYSIS: (On)Live and Kicking

October 3rd, 2011, 22:46 Posted By: wraggster

Pundits will have you believe the next generation of games hardware won’t arrive until 2013 or later. However last week, at 12.01am on September 22nd, a fifth home gaming format was activated: cloud gaming service OnLive.
At its most basic form this one needs no hardware, no discs, no physical retail element. That alone is enough to prove the potential revolution OnLive can herald. But OnLive is more than just being a clever innovation for today. OnLive is posing questions about the future of the games business – about the way it sells content, distributes content, promotes content… even how content is created and owned.
IT’S A LIVE
The launch feature set of OnLive available today and in the near future is certainly impressive. Built around a bespoke video streaming technology, OnLive runs all games from dedicated data centres. At its simplest, you can log on from a PC or Mac and play games with a click of a button. The dedicated ‘microconsole’ (a cheap but polished box smaller than a 3DS containing a handful of memory chips, video processor, plus ethernet, USB and HDMI ports) is available for piping it straight into your TV. Soon, an app will launch letting you stream games to iPad or Android tablets. It’s even being built into TVs and Blu-ray players.
The games themselves are games in the ‘traditional’ sense to most of us – expensive-to-make stuff from big boys such as THQ, Ubisoft and 2K, down to mid-tier publishers and smaller developers. A mix of the triple-A, glossy family and indie titles.
But OnLive’s video-centric approach adds unique features including an Arena mode so you can spectate and watch people play, while gamers can save Brag Clips (the last 10 seconds of play) with a press of a button to show off to other users.
PRICE IS RIGHT
OnLive is wrapped in a fairly flexible pricing structure, too. Actually signing up and browsing the library of games is free, as are 30-minute demos of most titles, plus multiplayer for those supporting it. In the UK, an inaugural offer means first time customers get any game for £1.
The RRP for most games on the service is in-line with retail RRPs, at £34.99. Older titles are £19.99, and some games can be rented starting at £3.99 for three days.
However, a special PlayPack, available at £6.99 a month provides unlimited access to over 100 games on the service. This doesn’t include new ones – but new games are 30 per cent cheaper to PlayPack subscribers, bringing prices closer to the bargains on the High Street.
BT, which bought a stake in OnLive last year, is hoping to make the service even more attractive – its customers get the PlayPack free for three months, no contract. BT is promoting the service alongside its others such as high-speed Infinity broadband and Vision video on-demand. Over here, OnLive is very much a BT product: it’s using the brand to sponsor consumer events and more. It’s an added push that something like Xbox Live and PSN have never really had.
READY TO SERVE
But the immediate innovation of the cloud isn’t OnLive’s real talking point.
Cloud gaming is an inevitable part of games’ future, and it has been for ages. Most of us are used to having data or digital possessions stored on a remote server somewhere. Email, music, video; these mediums have had cloud counterparts for ages. Gmail, Spotify, YouTube. Amazon has been selling cloud storage to businesses for years; Social networks are based in the cloud; PSN and Steam are just two games services already offering cloud storage for save files.
For OnLive the obvious next step is widening out the service to include music and movies. That’s a given, and only a matter of time, either through partnerships with things like Netflix or LoveFilm, or simple viable alternatives.
But think about the foundation OnLive’s growing network of servers is laying. The collective might of them servers can run content much more detailed than that on a ‘normal’ home console. Technology from sister firm Mova, which helped animate CG faces in movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Incredible Hulk, is already built into OnLive, promising ‘a level of realism that is indistinguishable from live action’.
In that sense OnLive is building up, in plain sight, what could amount to the next-generation of gaming – high-end visuals rendered in real time, but created on data centres. No console needed, except maybe a cheap box to stream the data to, or a pre-existing device. Who needs 2013’s next-generation when it arguably already exists, and won’t require the manufacture of expensive consoles?
RIGHTS & OWNERSHIP
Another issue OnLive is challenging isn’t technical – it is emotional and conceptual: the issue of ownership. When you buy a cloud game, what do you own? Nothing physical, not even the centimetre of space the gigabytes are etched onto. But you are buying the right to access them.
In the US, OnLive and Square Enix tested this with free codes for the OnLive version of Deus Ex in the boxed PC game. It famously upset GameStop, but conceptually was a turning point. Here was the biggest games retail release of August, but when you bought it you got more than the disc.
While common in movies, where ‘triple-play’ packs of Blu-ray, DVD and iTunes code are commin, this is an issue not even that readily applied to music (where it’s easy to rip a physical purchase into something digital). It’s even rarer in the games industry, which is plagued by paranoia about piracy and enforces IP protection at times to a preachy extreme.
Yet these are issues our industry – an industry built digitally, not originated in analogue like vinyl, film, or print – needs to face. By acting as advocate OnLive makes us address these thorny conundrums. Because you can bet Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft aren’t yet brave enough to do it themselves.
LIVE FOREVER
So far reactions to OnLive can be split into three very specific and opposing camps.
There’s the cynics, who since the technology’s surprise unveiling at GDC 2009 have said that this just can’t work as well as claimed. Poor internet latency, they say, will cause lag between controller inputs and the video relay. They also purport that video compression can’t render at decent HD resolution.
Then there’s the sceptics. They buy into the technology, but not the commercial element. They don’t see how the business model works with a catalogue of games that are already available elsewhere – often cheaper – and with no physical component.
Lastly, there’s believers. They’re impressed with the tech and have signed up and paid for a game. They tolerate the valid criticisms from cynics and sceptics (one specific point being that there is clear visible video artefacting at times).
The people in charge of rival cloud services – Gaikai, or the GameStop-owned Spawn – will be watching how people discuss and dissect the service. How the reaction settles down, and the debate over whether consumers will themselves settle for what OnLive has to offer, signals the next step not just for OnLive, but its competition, and anything else that might spring up from Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft or an unknown format-holder in the making.
For the rest of us, the real issues to watch are those technical and philosophical ones. Many say OnLive’s introduction signalled a revolution. But chances are the biggest changes it heralds are yet to be realised, and could run deeper than the introduction of a ‘fifth console’.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/opini...kicking/085744

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Zynga targets 'die-hard gamers' with Mafia Wars 2

October 3rd, 2011, 22:44 Posted By: wraggster

Facebook games giant Zynga believes it can win over the core gamer with its upcoming release Mafia Wars 2.
The game is the first true sequel from a company best known for its casual hits like FarmVille and CityVille, and serves as a further indication of how social network games are growing to be increasingly reliant on recognised brands.
When asked if the 'hardcore social' demographic was becoming more important, Zynga general manager Erik Bethke told MCV the firm "likes to surprise the cynical die-hard gamer, the 'seen it all played it all' gamer".
However, he emphasised that Mafia Wars 2 will not intentionally isolate one particular market, adding: "We think we should bring the Mafia Wars 2 experience to as many people as possible."
Bethke also commented on the recent success of rival Facebook game The Sims Social by EA. The publishing behemoth recently grabbed headlines when its social network instalment in the best-selling Sims series amassed 65m monthly active users.
Reaching this milestone made The Sims Social the second most popular game in Facebook history – second only to Zynga's CityVille.
"From a personal perspective, I am really excited to see EA doing so well," said Bethke. "Its success shows how much opportunity there is in social games, and it shows you we're at the beginning stages of all of this."

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/zynga...-wars-2/085745

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DICE threatens bans to players on modded Battlefield 3 servers

October 3rd, 2011, 22:42 Posted By: wraggster

DICE, Swedish developer of Battlefield 3, has told PC gamers they face Origin account bans should they play the game on unofficial servers - resulting in any other EA games linked to their profile being rendered unplayable.
Battlefield 3's server files were leaked last week, allowing users to create their own unofficial game servers with different properties to those in the beta. One, for example, increases the maximum player count on Operation Métro, the beta's sole multiplayer map, from 32 to over 100.
In a post on the Battlelog forums, user Bazajaytee - an associate producer at DICE according to his EA profile - warns that those that play on unofficial servers are at risk of having their Origin accounts banned.
"We are aware that a number of servers have appeared and are running game modes and player counts that have not currently been seen," he writes. "Please try to remain on official servers.
"Please avoid temptation and remain on these official servers while we work to have these servers dealt with. Playing on those servers can cause your account to become compromised, stats to be altered or other issues to arise which may lead to having your account banned by EA.
"If your account gets banned it does mean any EA game you have on your account would also be unavailable."

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/dice-th...ield-3-servers

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Why Linux Is Good For Low-End Smartphones

October 3rd, 2011, 20:55 Posted By: wraggster

Nokia's announcement that it was developing a Linux distro for low-end smartphones, shortly after abandoning the Linux-based Meego OS for Windows Phone 7, was a little puzzling. But it actually makes good business sense in the smartphone world. While WP7 aims for the high end, there's a market for cheaper and less complex phones that still beat boring old feature phones, especially in emerging economies. And, unlike Symbian and the heavily tweaked Meego, Linux can be quickly and cheaply brought to market as a low-end smartphone OS

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/...nd-smartphones

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Facebook Files For a Patent To Track Its Users On Other Sites

October 3rd, 2011, 20:53 Posted By: wraggster

suraj.sun sends word that a recent Facebook patent application details specific methods for tracking its users while they're using other websites. Michael Arrington pointed out over the weekend that this follows explicit statements from Facebook employees that the social networking giant has "no interest in tracking people." Quoting the Patent Application:"In one embodiment, a method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain. The method includes maintaining a profile for each of one or more users of the social networking system, each profile identifying a connection to one or more other users of the social networking system and including information about the user. The method additionally includes receiving one or more communications from a third-party website having a different domain than the social network system, each message communicating an action taken by a user of the social networking system on the third-party website. The method additionally includes logging the actions taken on the third-party website in the social networking system, each logged action including information about the action."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/...on-other-sites

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Piracy "ruining" PC, "forcing" it online

October 2nd, 2011, 00:38 Posted By: wraggster

Piracy is "ruining" PC games and "forcing" them online, Michael Pacther has told Eurogamer.
The same thing happened to a piracy-riddled Asia which, in response, invented free-to-play gaming.
"Yes, piracy is ruining PC gameplay, and yes, it is forcing PC games online," Pachter told Eurogamer, as part of a wider investigation into PC piracy and DRM. "This happened in China 15 years ago, and in Korea in the last decade, and it's happening in the West now."
Matt Ployhar, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, explained: "Free-to-play really got momentum quickly in Asia for several reasons, chief of which was that the only way local games ISVs [independent software vendors] could make money was to 'give the game away', then hope for a micro-transaction on the back-end (e.g. pets, weapons, clothes, etc.). This proved to be so effective that it pretty much replaced older (off the shelf) business models.
"Piracy persists primarily in those markets that persist in shipping a retail boxed good; namely Western game devs heavily focused on shipping games into the console markets."
Piracy on today's biggest PC titles can be as high as 80 per cent, Eurogamer learned. That means only one in five copies of a game being played are bought. But to claim that, through DRM, those product-pinchers can be converted to buyers would be misleading.
"There's a huge chunk of people that no matter what you do, no matter what measures you put in place, even if you deny them access to the content - they will never be a paying customer."

Christian Svensson, Capcom and the PCGA

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Crimson: Steam Pirates was made in 12 weeks

October 2nd, 2011, 00:34 Posted By: wraggster

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Phantasy Star Online 2 delayed into 2012

October 2nd, 2011, 00:26 Posted By: wraggster

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A Game of Thrones RTS Game Released, RPG On the Way

October 2nd, 2011, 00:13 Posted By: wraggster

Game development studio Cyanide launched their real-time strategy interpretation of George R. R. Martin's acclaimed fantasy series A Game of Thrones yesterday. You can see a trailer and a few screenshots if you're so inclined. Cyanide also confirmed one of their other offices is working on a completely different RPG based on the series as well. It's still a ways out, but they say it will be "Mass Effect-style," and will pick up at the start of the first book. "True to the style of Martin's books, it will tell the story of two different characters, switching back and forth between them as their tales move alongside the events of the first book (and occasionally intersect with one another). None of the characters from the book will be playable, though the game's protagonists will cross paths with plenty of familiar faces over the course of the game.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/0...rpg-on-the-way

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Mozilla Develops Gladius 3D Game Engine

October 2nd, 2011, 00:06 Posted By: wraggster

Mozilla is developing its own 3D engine called Gladius as part of a wider Paladin project whose aim it is to bring 3D to the web. As all programmers know, the best way to learn is to experiment, and that's exactly what Mozilla is doing. In order to develop Gladius the team decided to create a game called RescueFox (best played in Firefox). It's a very basic prototype, and Mozilla has no interest in taking it further, but the purpose it served was to highlight what still needs to be done to make Gladius a solid web browser 3D engine solution.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/1...3d-game-engine

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Side-scrolling Team Fortress 2 demake released

September 30th, 2011, 23:38 Posted By: wraggster

Eric Ruth, creator of 8bit-style demakes of the likes of Halo, Left4Dead and DJ Hero, has released Team Fortress Arcade, which reimagines Valve's FPS as a side-scrolling brawler with guns.
The game features the nine character classes from the original, is a free download from the source link below, and features local fourplayer co-op.
Ruth told Pikigeek: "One of my favourite genres of the bygone arcade era is the side-scrolling beat-em-up. So, naturally, I tried combining two things I love together and in the end came up with the concept that you can now play on your computer for free."
Asked whether Team Fortress Arcade would adhere even closer to Valve's original by adding hats, Ruth said: "I would have to draw hats directly on to sprites, which means that there would be a lot of room and a lot of extra programming just to add a functioning hat system that, ultimately, has no place in a side-scroller anyway." Spoilsport.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/side-sc...emake-released

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Games at risk as HTTPS becomes Facebook standard

September 30th, 2011, 23:33 Posted By: wraggster

Facebook apps and games will be disabled tomorrow unless their developers convert them to support HTTPS, as the social network makes secure data transfer mandatory.
The social network announced its move to HTTPS in May, part of its bid to make the platform more secure for developers and users. It's much the same as standard HTTP, but with data passed over an encrypted system using SSL.
Concerned developers should follow Facebook's guide to upgrading at the source link below before it disables apps that fail to make the switch before the October 1 deadline.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/games-r...ebook-standard

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Microsoft Security Products Flag Google Chrome As a Virus

September 30th, 2011, 23:22 Posted By: wraggster

Reports poured in this morning that Microsoft's security products, namely Microsoft Security Essentials and Forefront Client Security, were flagging Google Chrome as a virus (PWS:Win32/Zbot) and removing the browser if users chose to clean and reboot their machines. Users reported that the only way to mitigate the problem was to set MSE and Forefront to 'always allow' Zbot, which is generally considered to be a bad idea."A Google employee in the above support thread notes that Microsoft has now pushed another update to resolve the issue. "On September 30th, 2011, an incorrect detection for PWS:Win32/Zbot was identified. On September 30th, 2011, Microsoft released an update that addresses the issue. Signature versions 1.113.672.0 and higher include this update."

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/09...ome-as-a-virus

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