PC

Team Fortress 2's "classless" update dropped recently, adding the new King of the Hill game mode, several new maps and some pretty significant class changes (despite being classless), the most prominent of which are the return of the Scout's double jump while using the Sandman (at the expense of 30 health) and allowing the Engineer to repair one end of a teleporter (including removing Spy sappers) by repairing the other.

I think we were all pretty excited by the idea of Gore Verbinski directing the cinematic adaptation of 2K Games' BioShock. Unfortunately, though, the global economy and other issues killed that dream and cast the future of the project into doubt—at least it did until last night.

Variety is reporting that director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is currently in negotiations to take over the project.

While Fresnadillo isn't a household name, he did direct 28 Weeks Later—which was nice piece of apocalyptic zombie cinema. The style he displayed behind the camera in that film certainly gives me hope for BioShock.

This isn't official yet, but I'll keep you posted as details emerge.

Today I downloaded the PC demo for the upcoming shooter Darkest of Days, which is a game that attempts to accurately re-create historical battles while taking minor liberties with the details, such as allowing you to carry an AR-55 assault rifle into the battle of Antietam. I couldn't figure out how seriously this game wanted me to take it, but upon completion of the demo, I can only say that I strongly support this slightly enhanced version of history being taught in our public schools.

Nevermind, Scotty... Don't bother beaming me up.

HIGH Thawing out the anachronous survivors.

LOW The repetitive, needlessly bloated mission design.

WTF The amount of wasted potential on display here.

For a little change of pace, I invited my good friend and super-author An Aguirre to sound off on games from a female perspective. As you can see from her gameography, she’s no newbie to RPGs and has definite opinions on a few topics… I gave her free rein to jot down whatever she felt like, and here’s what she came up with. I think you’ll agree that there’s some interesting stuff here:

I'm not a level grinder or a number cruncher or a loot monkey. It will probably come as no surprise that I love the stories these games tell. I'm in it from start to finish because I want to know how it ends. That's the same reason I read a book. Sadly, many games seem to have rushed endings; it's 100% awesome until you get to the wrap-up and it's like the designers said, "Ok, good enough, the end," and you're left wondering why you spent $50 on this. My affinity for story is also why it irritates me to no end to pick up an awesome-looking game and realize I have to play Captain Jack Dawson, and screw me if I don't like it.

Bustin' makes me feel really, really good

HIGH It feels exactly like playing a never-released Ghostbusters movie.

LOW Bill Murray has a few good lines, but mostly phones in his performance.

WTF The last level is the weakest, most trite in the entire game.

Won't anyone think of the monkeys?

HIGH Pink Pajama Pierre...say that three times fast.

LOW Wandering the jungle in circles, trying to figure out the map when you're not good with maps.

WTF Voodoo root-beer.

When I was active on the now-defunct Tweakguides.com forums, I debated the apparent decline in cutting-edge PC technology with PC gamers many times over. It is inarguable that in many respects, it has never been easier on the wallet to be a PC gamer. Many games do indeed perform exceptionally well across a large variety of cards; the high-end configurations seem more suited to those who want to run very high levels of anti-aliasing and/or ultra-high resolutions. My own video card configuration, a pair of nVidia GTX 260s—a reasonably high-end setup—allows me to run even the most demanding games with extremely high image quality on my 22" monitor. While ATI and nVidia are preparing to release their next-generation DirectX 11 cards this fall, I truly see no need for an upgrade, particularly since it will likely be at least a couple of years before DirectX 11 is widely used.

But I think the reasons for this lessened pressure to buy expensive upgrades are more complex than the proliferation of multiplatform development. And I think that, despite the historical performance-per-dollar ratio we see in the video card market, games are continuing to push technological boundaries.