SimCentral

by Dan Adams from IGN

The demo itself is a pretty solid amount of gameplay as far as demos go. Those of you that choose to download the thing will have the opportunity to play through one tutorial mission, two campaign missions, and one skirmish map on four difficulty settings. Depending on the difficulty you play the game at, it could take an hour or more to get through the tutorial and game missions. Skirmish adds quite a bit of life to the party as well. There's only one map, but it'll help you all get to know the game.

The 50 Greatest Female Characters in Video Game History

There have been plenty of memorable female video game characters throughout the history of gaming. With Valentine's Day in mind, it's time to pay tribute to the greatest heroines, damsels in distress and femmes fatales in video and PC game history.

A quick note about this list: it's for the greatest female characters, which means it's not a list of the "hottest video game chicks" or "top video game vixens." Sure, looks count. But these female characters have to make an impact beyond their appearance. To measure greatness, I looked at how each character made a significant impression on the game play or narrative, whether they are central characters, playable characters or supporting characters. How would the game have turned out if the character had been eliminated? Was the character distinguished as being a "first" such as Princess Daphne in Dragon's Lair? How many appearances has a particular character made in games as well as other media, such as movies? Do the character's story, narrative and voice acting elevate the game?

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Jalopnik has a nice little feature on how shiny drivable boxes are digitally scanned for the final release of Gran Turismo HD. The binary reproduction process includes two men in jumpsuits dimming the lights and unloading a bunch of lasers on a given car. Not sharks with lasers, but lasers none-the-less.

"It was bizarre. A red line swept across the interior. It was sort of a spacey type of a deal. The room was somewhat dimly lit, and you would see this red line sweep across - bzzzzzzzzt. As soon as it finished it was producing a 3d wireframe model to scale on the screen."

After wireframing is complete, four more nerds take comprehensive photos and videos to fill in the gaps, like turning wheels, braking, opening the hood, and every other type of human-to-car interaction imaginable. Better driving games through technology.

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The highly styled Panoram PV230 DSK is the first visualization display aimed at the "professional consumer" market and provides 2.4 Megapixels of working real-estate featuring a fully articulated swing arm and Digital Direct DVI inputs. The three image-panels feature a separation of only 7/16" (11 mm), making it easy to expand information like spreadsheets, schedules, or images across any or all three screens without any detrimental visual breaks.

For working flexibility in a multimedia world, the Panoram PV230 DSK accommodates RGB and DVI computer sources as well as Composite and S-video inputs.

The adjustable and ergonomically tuned swing arm allows the user to set the display at just the right working angle. Users can configure the display so that they can look over the unit to co-workers while still immersed in their information, or they might put it straight up in front of them to isolate themselves in concentration.

This is ideal for multi-user environments such as control, command or operation centers. In all cases, the crystal sharp and bright image provides an extremely rich environment to lay out the most demanding work tasks.
 

By Niero: Valve has released a motherload of media today for both games bundled in its upcoming Half-Life 2 episode 2: Black Box. While the adventures of Gordon are always great, the screenshots of most interest to me were from the bundled game Team Fortress 2; shown in the gallery below. True to the concept art and trailer revealed last year, this game looks like a cross between an FPS and a Roger Rabbit cartoon (or Pixar for you chilluns). Words cannot express what a refreshing approach this is, as I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I have a stack of realistic Army sims collecting dust on the shelf. I'm giddy, even.

The previews illustrate a glimpse of each character's special abilities as you pan through the screens, such as the spy's cloaking effect. The original Team Fortress consumed a greater part of my early adulthood and I look forward to surrendering another chunk of it shortly as soon as this hits. 

Source: Destructoid