Recently I had the opportunity to play a co-op mission in Ubisoft’s upcoming game Splinter Cell: Conviction at a local Gamestop store. I fail on some level because I have never played any of the previous Splinter Cell games, but some of my buddies have told me how much fun they are to play.

I arrived a little before the event started and queued up with the other eager gamers. We were given a free Splinter Cell: Conviction winter hat when the doors opened; it’s always nice to get something for free. A crowd of gamers gathered around the center of the store. Giant screens were set up for people to watch while they waited their turns. A friendly Ubisoft representative was there to help the noobs with the controls, explain the game and talk gaming in general. Gamestop offered prize raffles, free pizza, and of course the friendly environment of fellow gamers. I waited in line and chatted with other players until it was my turn.

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In case you missed part 1.

It’s been roughly 30 days since I first wrote about Starcraft II. During the course of this month, I played many matches, improved my tactics, settled on a favorite faction, and even found some problems with the game. Also, so far there have been five patches, two surveys, a second wave of incoming beta participants and so on. A few days ago Blizzard announced that they are going to wipe the beta database, thus destroying any rankings, friends lists, account profiles and other items. This is to test battle.net’s capacity to handle a mini launch, when everyone is going to be simultaneously creating accounts, etc. So let’s talk about these things in more detail.

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Although every year many computer gamers complacently think that their hardware accessories are more than adequate, technology marches on and superior peripherals are emerging that would make their lives easier or provide crucial features they lack. Many gamers regularly shell out lots of money for new graphics boards, but are relative skinflints when it comes to such basic necessities such as better keyboards, mice or headphones. This article identifies in a nontechnical way my personal preferences about some of the very best new gaming accessories out there, without regard to price. The selections are certainly not inexpensive, but in my mind they represent the best products available. While the descriptions here are relatively short, in each case I have evaluated numerous other offerings in each competitive category to reach these conclusions. Without doubt, because of insatiable gamer demand for top performance, much more innovation is likely to appear and mature in the future—including 3D monitors and solid-state hard drives—but in the meantime, opportunity beckons.

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Throughout my gaming career I’ve taken part in 20 different beta tests. Many have been of the open sort, quite a few were closed, and none were for a Blizzard game. I don’t know if it was simply bad luck or if I failed to meet some sort of arcane requirement, but I could never get into any of the World of Warcraft betas. I also didn’t get invited to the beta test of Starcraft II, which started a few days ago. That is, until a member of our Avault community contacted me and offered me his spot. Because of the generosity of a man known as OmegaBob on our forums, I am now participating in my 21st beta test. This is the first of a series of articles in which I intend to share my impressions as the beta progresses forward and we get close to retail release.

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Recently we reviewed an independent game called Devil’s Tuning Fork by DePaul Game Elites, a group of students who study game development in Chicago’s DePaul University. We then schemed, conspired and used all of our clout to get an interview with two of the developers, Jason Pecho and Matt Lazar, to further discuss the game.

Avault: Thank you for agreeing to talk to us!

Jason Pecho (Jay): Not a problem at all.

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Despite the explosion of blockbuster AAA retail releases this holiday season, the casual computer games market continues to flourish. Although more temptations than ever seduce game developers away from the PC platform, what with Xbox Live Arcade and the iPhone becoming primary casual-game outlets, the personal computer—because it is so open and everyone owns one—remains a primary development platform. So while many other game sites focus their attention on conventional retail offerings, I unearth for your playing pleasure the very best hidden computer treasures that casual gaming has to offer. To select the dozen 2009 award winners from an increasingly competitive field, I spent many hours scouring hundreds of full, registered versions developed all over the world to discern their overall value. Because of increasingly intrusive and annoying copy-protection schemes and the presence in many homes of multiple computers, some of which lack online access, I tested only the single-player modes of offerings that can be registered and played on a non-Internet-connected machine.

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There’s only about one week left before Alganon launches on December 1 (rescheduled from an earlier expected Halloween release), and beta players may have noticed that they have been taking the servers down more frequently to implement features and fixes in preparation for the official launch. Anyone playing over the last week has probably noticed combat lag and enemies not respawning as they should, but the company reports that the most recent patch has taken a large stride towards correcting them (if not fixed them altogether). The servers should now be smooth and you can again aim your weapons in confidence (or terror).

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Ever since the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) moved back to Los Angeles from Atlanta in 1999, east-coast gamers have been pretty much shut out of major industry events. But the producers of the GameX Industry Summit have changed all of that by bringing their event to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in suburban Oaks, Pa. The festival, held from October 23 to 25, 2009, was a combination of the media-centric nature of E3 and the fan-friendly character of the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), held annually in Seattle (with a repeat performance scheduled for Boston in the spring of 2010). The event featured something for almost everybody: a show floor offering the public hands-on time with some major future releases, vendors with all manner of gaming items to buy and sell, forums and panel discussions led by some of the leading lights of the industry, and a contest giving participants a chance to showcase their design talents to the pros.

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Many diehard PC gamers I know are obsessed with the “next big thing” coming down the pike and couldn’t care less about the past. The moment these folks finish playing a game to the end, they uninstall it permanently from their computers; they consider even last year’s releases “ancient history.” But others, including myself, form deep emotional bonds with PC games we love and want to keep them around for future replay possibility. Given the increasing speed of computers, the changing operating systems, the continuing need to upgrade one’s gaming rig and annoying machine-specific copy protection schemes, it has become quite difficult to keep favorite PC offerings available and running successfully for long periods of time.

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Scriptwriter Kevin Schortt offers some details on the upcoming Ubisoft game James Cameron’s Avatar:

Storyline: Does the storyline follow that of the movie?

Kevin Schortt: The game story and the film story are two completely different adventures. The game timeline is two years before the movie, covering a story that happens on a different part of the moon, Pandora. Our goal was to expand on the universe that James Cameron has created. We didn’t want a repeat of the movie adventure in a game format. Instead, we wanted an opportunity for fans to learn more about this beautiful world and the growing conflict between the RDA and the Na’vi.

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Written by: OmegaBob

Saturday 8/22 – Day Four

Today was mainly filled with panels that I wanted to attend. Discussion about the various changes they are finalizing that stood out to me included: changing most of the stats, the new guild leveling/achievement system, new dungeons & battlegrounds and finally an overhaul of the Warlock’s soul shard system (YES!).

Although there seemed to be less people initially, I soon realized why the lines for the various metagames were as long as the lines for the BlizzCon/Jinx stores were last year. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to wait in a three-hour line to basically play carnival games when your chance at winning is extremely low, but I guess that a lot of them just didn’t have better things to do. Then again, my buddy waited for two and a half hours to get a 25 second chance to grab a WoW Upper Deck loot card in one of those booths with the swirling confetti, and he won one!

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Written by: OmegaBob

Friday, August 21 – Day Three (Opening Day)

Having once again learned from past experience, I decided to not head over to the convention center until 30 minutes after they opened. My decision was wise as the line we ended up in moved extremely quickly, and we didn’t experience the four hour wait of last year. Since Blizzard had a 48-hour pre-sale for the majority of the items in their store a month before the con, I’d picked up everything I wanted already, so again, I avoided the crowds. Another thing different about this year was that there were more food choices. Granted, the food still sucked (except for the ice cream) and was way too expensive, but at least there was more of a selection.

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Written by: OmegaBob

Thursday 8/20

We spent the early part of the day at Venice Beach, and then later explored LA and Hollywood. I joined the paparazzi for a few minutes by staking out Ciara and later saw the cameraman from ‘Jackass’ at a farmers market (his female companion was hot but looked like a word that rhymes with witch).

After a very exciting day of fun and festivities, we drove back to the hotel in the evening to pick up the BlizzCon badges and goodie bags. We passed numerous potential attendees as we continued our drive and I had the urge to scream, “Nerds!” or “EverQuest rules!”, at them as we drove by. Why, because 80% of the fools were wearing their badges as well as their BlizzCon T-Shirts -note: the con starts on Friday, so there was no reason for them to wear their badges or con shirts the day before. Nerds!

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Written by: OmegaBob

Wednesday 8/19

Today was mostly uneventful, as we spent the entire day at Disneyland, but I managed to experience much more of the park than I did during my previous trip to Anaheim for BlizzCon 2008. I really wanted to check out the “It’s a Small World” ride as it was closed for renovations last October. I wanted to see if the ride is as insanity causing as everyone says it is; however, I didn’t want to become a brainwashed Disney stooge (especially since Steve Jobs and Disney formed their evil Empire). Much riding, much shopping and mucho eating were accomplished by the end of the day.

Leisure time aside, I had two quests to complete today: 1) sunglasses and 2) stealth convention center pics.

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Written by: OmegaBob

When the news broke that BlizzCon would be coming back to Anaheim, in August (less than a year after the previous con), I was all ready to pack. Of course getting the ticket was the least of my concerns (I knew in my heart that I would be going no matter what) as I was more worried about my seating on the flight as my experience last year was anything but fun, and I’d sworn off ever flying economy again unless I was forced to! As fate would have it, I was able to get BlizzCon tix during the second sale and I solved the problem of ‘economy class’ by purchasing discounted first class tickets. Yay me!

Tuesday, 8/18

Since I had never flown first class, I had no idea what to expect, so I researched the heck out of domestic first class seating in order to prep, and I was a little eager beaver when they announced first class boarding. I bolted ahead of everyone else – Ahh, the luxury of being me. I ended up slightly disappointed with the seats themselves as they looked really old, but while aging, they did supply an extreme amount of leg room. Later, I discovered the hide-away tray in the seat’s armrest and I was in heaven. I didn’t have to use my lap for my netbook as I played Peggle or Zombies Ate My Neighbors (oh the little joys in life!). I ended up mimicking the people around me as we were handed out warm wash cloths, and only semi-embarrassed myself by wringing it out all over me. Though, I should have washed “after” eating, as my salad dressing proceeded to explode in my lap (possibly from the effects air pressure). During my stopover, I fell in love with the Skyway at Deluders Worth airport and I was secretly wishing that my flight was delayed so that I could ride it all day/night backwards!

After arriving in CA and getting to the hotel, we took on an expedition to the surrounding areas and ended up making a straight beeline to the convention center. A peek inside revealed that nothing had been assembled (other than the sign on the outside). How disappointing, especially after experiencing such exciting adventures enroute. Let’s hope tomorrow brings some WoW surprises or at least reveals the geeks, whom I will mock!

OmegaBob is a long time Avault reader and forums contributor that has volunteered to cover all things BlizzCon for us this week. We encourage all of our readers to submit any news or blog info on current events in the gaming industry. While we can’t promise to publish EVERYTHING, we do our best to make this site one where everyone is welcome to contribute. Send submissions (preferably in MS Word format) to Michele White.