News

Have you visited True PC Gaming? If not, you should. They are a great indie PC gaming site, and are friends of the WSGF. It's been almost a month since we did a round-up, so the list is quite long.

Podcast Episodes:Episode 25 w/ skipclarke from the WSGF!!!; Episode 26, the TPG Best of 2012

Game Reviews:Cognition: Episode 1; Black Ops II Multiplayer; To The Moon; Tales of Another Galaxy; Captain Sim 767; Grimind; Reality Show: Fatal Shot; Drop Operative; Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Click through for the full article which also includes the list of interviews, software reviews and hardware reviews.

Now that the holidays are over, we're back into the full swing of things. And that includes bringing you this week at TFT Central. The last two weeks bring a few news updates, and a very in-depth review of the Dell U2713H.

News:
More info on the upcoming Dell U3014
Two new panels from Samsung - SB971 27" 2560x1440 & SC770 10-point multi-touch monitor for Win8
ASUS PA249Q ProArt monitor with Wide Gamut LED

Reviews:
Insanely detailed review of the Dell U2713H monitor. This shows how a proper review is done.

I should have mentioned this much earlier, but I wanted to share with everyone the Pathfinder MMO Kickstarter. The game is being developed by Goblinworks, based on the Pathfinder rule set and game world. Pathfinder was created by Paizo publishing, and is considered by many to be "D&D 3.75e".

I'm a big fan of Paizo, and the Pathfinder rules. In addition to this great foundation, Goblinworks announced that Pathfinder MMO will be built on the Unity 3D engine. Based on our experience, the Unity 3D engine has excellent support for AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround.

If you're into "old school" roleplpaying, indie devs, MMOs, sandbox games, Eyefinity or Surround, then give the Kickstarter a look.

Now that CES has wrapped up, here are a few more articles and announcements that should be of interest to gamers.

More Oculus Rift - Engadget had an interview with the folks behind the upcoming VR headset. There was also additional news on playable demos and showcases, particularly the Epic Citadel.

More 4k Displays - Intel and the VESA DisplayPort group showed a new take on 4k displays - the "Collage". Shown off a Gigabyte motherboard, four 1080p displays were driven by two Thunderbolt ports, or a single DisplayPort 1.2 and MST hub. Panasonic showed off a prototype 4k tablet. The 20" device may never make it to production, but it does show that 4k resolutions can already be squeezed down to monitor sizes. TechGage also put out an article showcasing the different 4k resolutions and the need for a standard.

PC Hardware - InWin showed off some great new PC cases, the D-Frame and H-Frame. And famed art/tech house Art Lebedev Studio showed off their latest keyboard, the Optimus Popularis. The keyboard is fully customizable, with small screens for each key - think the Razer Blade for a full keyboard. The $1k price tag will keep it out of the mass market, but is hopefully a sign of what the "keyboard of tomorrow" will look like.

Monitors - BenQ announced a 1ms "professional gaming monitor". ASUS also announced a 144Hz monitor aimed at gamers.

So, the first couple of days are behind us for CES 2013. A few things have been announced/showcased that are relevant to gaming.

Razer Edge: Razer has come out with the Razer Edge, which is the production model of Project Fiona shown last year at CES 2012. Engadget has also posted a comparison of the Edge versus of tablet options.

Valve Steambox: Valve's hardware move is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. However, a number of unique prototypes were shown at CES. While a number of them seem to be just PCs in HTPC form factors, the Piston from Xi3 is certainly unique. in addition to be very small and light, it offers modular and easily updates to hardware.

Oculus Rift: The folks at Engadget have an updated take on the hardware. PC World and TechHive say it's so good, "it's scary". I'm more excited to have one coming for the WSGF.

4k Displays: Big news is 4k displays. There are lots of them being announced, along with a few new (regular HD) monitors being released by HP.

I had the great fortune to sit down with the fine folks from True PC Gaming and talk about the origins and future of the WSGF. I also sound like an old man, and believe I actually said, "Get off my lawn". Also, after the second mention of using Macs at home, they threatened to throw me off the show and shut it down. If you can handle listening to me talk for the better part of an hour, then please give it a listen.

On a serious note, we do talk about creating a mature and welcoming community. We talk about how reputations are built, how they can precede you, and how they've helped us build the WSGF. Of particular note is how Paddy the Wak's (one of our first Moderators/Editors) reputation helped secure our relationships with both Matrox and scan.co.uk.

I just wanted to take a few moments out from the Steam Sales and Christmas Coma to thank our entire volunteer staff here at the WSGF. Our Editors do a great job of policing content on the site, and moderating the forums. Thank you all.

The three folks that make up our admin staff (AussieTimmeh, CrackerJackMack and Delphium), volunteer with the never-ending task of not only keeping the WSGF up and running, but also continuing to make it better. Thanks guys for all you do. The cheques are in the mail, or more appropriately - the codes.

Have you visited True PC Gaming? If not, you should. They are a great indie PC gaming site, and are friends of the WSGF. They've been pestering me to be on their podcast, and that has indeed happened. My episode will be up on Monday.

TPG has a great focus on indie games, and continually score interviews with indie devs. In fact I'm jealous of this, and I have to learn to do better at reaching out to devs. So, I thought I'd share with you a weekly set of highlights from their site. They have other content highlighting news from indie game devs, so there is even more to check out.

Interviews:Charlie Jackson, developer of When Asteroids Attack!, Raffaele Mele, founder of Hybris Studios
Podcast Episodes:Episode 24 w/ YouTube Commenter, The Pixel Pirate
Game Reviews:Mystery Case Files: Shadow Lake, Hotline Miami

In our recent site survey, one thing that users wanted was monitor reviews. Unfortunately, the WSGF isn't set up to review monitors (we simply don't have the equipment). So, to help spread the word on monitor news and reviews, I thought we'd start sharing a weekly news round-up from TFT Central.

To get things kicked off, I thought I'd go ahead and share their major news from the last month:

News:
Philips launches 27" monitor with AmiGlow
Official specs for the Dell U2413, U2713H, U3014. Also, some additional info on the U2713H and U2413.
BenQ GW2760HS with ultra-slim bezel.

Reviews:
No reviews so far in December. The most recent one was the HP ZR2740w v2. This review is an excellent example of what it takes to do a thorough review, and the testing equipment you would need.

In a recent news post, we told you that a call had gone out to release the source code to SoftTH as open source. We are pleased to announce that the code has indeed been released under GNU GPL v3.