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One Shots: Female fashion show
Every once in a while I issue a screenshot challenge that lights a fire under the community here, and my call to show off female armor that wasn't chainmail bikinis did exactly that. So today we're going to have a fashion show, starting with Ralph the Wonder Llama! "If battleframes were cars, I think recon battleframes would be the hot little sports coupes of the Firefall universe," Mr. Llama writes. "Here my ARES pilot shows off the sleek, bold lines of the Raptor battleframe as she gazes down upon Sunken Harbor. It gets good gas mileage too: sporty, fun to drive, and economical!"
Firefall introduces personalized missions-on-demand
With Firefall's official launch approaching, the devs are in a frenzy proclaiming the new features and systems that players will be seeing when that day arrives. In a new dev diary today, the team highlighted a personalized mission maker, called ARES. ARES Jobs allow players to create and launch dynamically generated quests during downtime. Players can choose from several story and gameplay options, and the system will pull together a mission that can be completed solo in the game world. The devs promise that ARES jobs will keep mixing it up with objectives and locations to avoid any danger of the missions growing stale. There are reportedly "hundreds" of jobs, and if a player so desires, he or she could level up exclusively through ARES. "ARES jobs also help to make the world feel more alive: in the current system, it is rare that you run into another player in the world by random chance," the devs wrote. "ARES missions take place in a number of predetermined locations, and dynamic events like tornados or crashed thumpers draw players to them in a predictable manner."
Latest Injustice footage showcases Killer Frost, Ares (with bonus Batman Beyond fashion)
NetherRealm Studios has finally gotten around to admitting that Killer Frost and Ares are part of the Injustice: Gods Among Us roster, rather than letting a tweet and some Xbox Live Marketplace items hog all the fun.As the above trailer shows, Killer Frost predictably has more than a little in common with Sub-Zero, what with the ice powers and everything, though her abilities widely seem far more interesting than ol' Subs'. In fact, Killer Frost does the sorts of things it always seemed like Sub-Zero should have been doing, what with the icicle impalement and the freezing touch and whatnot. Meanwhile, Ares sounds like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs and has the ability to summon a multitude of different weapons, as one might expect from the god of war.In related news, NetherRealm Studios also unveiled an alternate Batman costume based on Batman Beyond, which can be seen after the break. We're not saying it makes us desperately pine for a full Batman Beyond game or anything, but we are going to go watch the show on Netflix and cry for hours and hours.
Injustice: Gods Among Us character roster shows Killer Frost and Ares
A screenshot of the full Injustice: Gods Among Us character selection screen has been tweeted by Warner Bros. employee Brandon Alexander, showing the inclusion of DC supervillains Killer Frost and Ares as part of the playable roster.The screenshot (full size here) shows a segregated selection of heroes on the left and ne'er-do-wells on the right, in what appears to be a Russian build for the game. Killer Frost and Ares first showed up on the radar two days ago, when Xbox Live Marketplace Avatar items hinted at their inclusion.
Injustice: Gods Among Us Avatar costumes point to more characters
Now that the Injustice: Gods Among Us demo is live on PSN and Xbox Live, the game's associated Avatar goodies have also hit the Xbox Live Marketplace. Of the many offerings available (Wonder Woman/Superman/Batman logo shirts, etc), the costumes for Killer Frost and Ares seen above are by far the most interesting, since those characters haven't been announced for the game.Considering that every other available costume is for one of the game's many playable characters, we feel safe in assuming that Ares and Killer Frost haven't been thrown in for giggles. More likely, these two villains are either unlockable fighters, or future DLC. We've reached out to NetherRealm studios for more information and will update with anything we learn.[Thanks, Sugg3s710n!]
ASUS announces ROG Ares II video card, dual Radeon HD 7970 GPUs, 1050MHz clock speed
The original ROG ARES graphics card was a head spinner, and the just announced sequel seems to follow suit. ASUS' ARES II features two AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition GPUs, and has a slimline two-slot design. The manufacturer claims it's the fastest graphics card available, outperforming the GeForce GTX 690 reference card by some 13 percent. There's 6GB of video memory, 1,100MHz boost clock, 1,050MHz base clock and 2 x 384-bit memory interface. If this sounds like something you just gotta have, then you'd better keep them eyes peeled, as upon release (no exact details on this just yet) it'll be a limited edition. Also limited are the details on price. Spin up the source for more info. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Indie Game Music Bundle adds 4 more albums, today is the last day
Okay, maybe 17 indie game music albums for $10 – including the likes of Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Minecraft, VVVVVV, A.R.E.S. and many more – just wasn't a sweet enough deal for you. Okay, how about 21 albums for $10? The Indie Game Music Bundle is now offering just that, thanks to the addition of four new albums: Circle (soundtrack for an unreleased game), Cardboard Box Assembler, Songs for the Cure and Bite Jacker. For the pay-what-you-want price of $10 or more, you get downloads of all 21 albums from Bandcamp, including high quality FLAC files for all the audiophiles out there. You'd best snag 'em quick though – as of this post, the sale only has about 12 hours to go.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: A.R.E.S.
Being a giant, beloved video game site has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Nenin Ananbanchachai, managing director of Extend Interactive, whose Dream.Build.Play first place winner A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda launches today on Direct2Drive and Gamersgate. How did you or your company get started? Almost everyone in Extend Studio knew each other from university. We have participated and won many game contests in Thailand. After our graduation, we set up our own game company and started working on A.R.E.S. as our first title. Why did you want to make games? We'd played many games when we were young, and some of them really inspired us. We want to make something unique, fun and different in our game. %Gallery-110564%
Palm webOS 'Enyo' framework paves the way for tablets and larger phones (video)
Don't expect HP's webOS 2.0 to be tied to an HVGA screen for long -- come "early 2011," the company will introduce a number of "really interesting new form factors," including tablets and phones. That was the message driven home at Palm's Developer Day this year, according to PreCentral's Dieter Bohn, and the software that's going to make that shift possible is a little something called Enyo. Picking up where Ares left off, Enyo is a Javascript app framework with native hardware acceleration and faster app load times (they're allegedly down to one second now), but the part we think you'll be most interested in is the promise of apps that natively scale to multiple aspect ratios. HP's Scott Miles demoed it earlier this week by playing around with a tiny, single-pane portrait email application in the desktop version of Chrome... and then maximized the browser window to reveal a fully-functioning three-pane landscape layout suited for a large tablet screen. Representatives stressed that the email app was a proof of concept, but Enyo's here to stay, replacing the earlier Mojo starting in 2011 and slated to be available in early 2011 via developer SDK. Get introduced to Enyo in a video after the break, and skip ahead to that email demo at 15:55 if you're running late for your rockstar developer meetup.
NASA hopes to send ARES rocket-powered robot plane to Mars
While President Obama signs off on the future of space exploration, NASA is on the move, developing new ways to get a look at the fourth planet from the sun. We've seen our share of rovers (and one sweet hopper) in this space, and now the gang at the Langley Research Center is hard at work on a rocket-powered, robotic Mars-bound airplane. ARES, or Aerial Regional-Scale Environmental Surveyor, is 16.4 feet long, made from a lightweight polymer-carbon composite material, and has a wingspan of 21 feet. "A powered airplane flying a mile above the surface can obtain measurements over inaccessible parts of Mars and collect a whole bunch of data that no rover can collect," according to atmospheric scientist Joel Levine. Perhaps most exciting, the machine would be able to fly over the southern highlands, an area whose mountains, craters, and volcanoes have hindered exploration in the past. Sadly, all good things must come to an end -- and ARES is no exception. Although its flight would last for a mere two hours, it could cover over nine hundred miles of unexplored territory, collecting data on everything from chemicals and signs of water to the magnetic field in this region.
ASUS ARES cries havoc, lets slip the GPUs of war: a review roundup of the world's fastest graphics card
When you name your graphics card after the God of War, you'd better hope it brings some heat, but judging by early reviews, that's just what ASUS has done. The three slot monstrosity above is the ARES, a $1200 limited edition, fully custom board, sporting twin Radeon HD 5870 GPUs, four gigabytes of GDDR5 memory and practically enough raw copper to smelt a sword. We're not joking: the thing weighs nearly five pounds and requires a 750 watt power supply with three power connectors (two 8-pin, one 6-pin) to even run. Of course, you're getting a graphical behemoth for that kind of price, steamrolling every other GPU on the planet -- paired with even a 3.8GHz Core i7-930 CPU in 3DMark Vantage (on Extreme settings), Overclock 3D racked up a fairly ludicrous 15,000 score, and the card ripped past 25,000 with a Core i7-980X and a second ARES in CrossFire. The card was less impressive in actual gameplay, merely spanking the (much cheaper) Radeon 5970 and GeForce GTX 480 by a modest amount, and several reviewers complained it was fairly loud... but as the old adage goes, nobody needs a Ferrari to drive the speed limit, but we'll all drool over them anyhow. Bring on the liquid nitrogen, folks. Read - Legit Reviews Read - Overclock3D Read - Guru3D Read - PC Perspective Read - TechPowerUp Read - Hot Hardware
ASUS showcases ROG CG8490 gaming desktop: Core i7-980X, dual OC'd Radeon HD 5870s
ASUS' ARES line of gaming PCs has been kicking for a few years now, but regardless of how many iterations we see, we're still a wee bit terrified when approaching a chassis this gargantuan. Just after the outfit's press conference in Taipei, we daintily hurried over to the newest member of the family in order to snag a few shots and get the low-down on what users could expect when it ships between now and next century. Aesthetically, we're told that the CG8490 was inspired by "ancient and modern armor of both Eastern and Western cultures," likely a politically correct statement with no actual meaning. Regardless, this monster can overclock itself by as much as 20 percent without boiling over, and the six-core Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition CPU is suited for slicing up even the most complex of tasks. There's also 12GB of DDR3 memory, 2TB of hard drive space, a standard DVD burner and a pair of overclocked ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPUs to handle DirectX 11 and Eyefinity duties. Mum's the word on a price or release date, but we're going with "too much" and "not soon enough." Oh, and be sure to peek the limited edition ARES GPU as well as the company's Rampage III Extreme motherboard in the gallery below. %Gallery-93980% %Gallery-94008%
Palm's web-based Ares SDK goes gold
Four solid months after going into open beta, Palm's entirely web-based SDK for webOS -- the so-called Ares SDK -- has reached version 1.0, bringing "lots and lots" of new features along for the ride. Biggies include UI-less components that add functionality to your application, in-line help, undo and copy / paste functionality (for the SDK, that is), and a plug-and-play multitouch-enabled Google Maps widget that you can drop into your own screens. Even if you don't own a Pre and have no intention of commercializing a webOS app, it sounds like a blast to screw around with -- and considering how important the third-party ecosystem is for Palm right now, we'd say that's a good thing. Interested parties can get set up with the gold build right now.
Palm Pre plays Need for Speed, undercover (video)
While Palm's Pre is many things to many people it still can't game. Oh sure, it'll play Magic Fortune Ball like a champ but when it comes to intensive 3D action the Pre is as helpless as a would-be terrorist trying to ignite his underwear. See, webOS and the Mojo SDK currently can't exploit the GPU the way other smartphone platforms can. Rewind a few weeks, however, and we're reminded of a video showing EA's Need for Speed Undercover running impossibly smooth on a Pre. At the time, the video and claims of the device running Flash were shot down as fake largely due to the accompanying screen caps of the purportedly new App Catalog. Well guess what? Those screen caps were vindicated today with the webOS 1.3.5 update that just so happened to launch a new App Catalog matching the leaked images, exactly. That lends credence to the video then doesn't it, while hinting at future apps and games with full OpenGL graphics support. Is that the big reveal at CES alongside enhanced Pre+ and Pixi+ handsets headed to Big Red? We'll find out shortly enough -- until then check the gameplay after the break. [Thanks, Brian K.]
Palm's Ares SDK goes to public beta
After a brief private testing period, Palm's interesting Ares software development package has made its way into a public beta phase. Breaking tradition from Mojo -- Palm's other webOS SDK -- the big news with Ares is that the dev environment is fully web-based with no additional tools needed for apps to get whipped into reality. Not only does that make getting started a breeze (theoretically, anyway), but Palm thinks that this is the way to bring mobile development to a whole new category of folks who may not come from traditional dev backgrounds -- they want to pull in web geeks who've got the ideas and design experience but not necessarily the hardcore coding background that you'd normally need to take the next Air Hockey to production. Grab that sucker now and let us know what you come up with, alright? We'll split the profits 60 / 40.
Palm's Ares SDK is in testers' hands
Following its November announcement, Palm has now filled up a small pool of test spots for a "fairly advanced alpha" of its Ares SDK for webOS, the fully web-based cousin of Mojo. It sounds like this first round of testers is expected to be fairly actively involved, submitting not just bug reports but also feedback on the system to help "finish it" and "give it some polish" -- both good things for a toolkit designed to help devs build apps for a platform that could use as many as it can get right now. It sounds like this first round of invites was pretty small, but if you're interested, sign up anyway -- they'll be expanding the alpha / beta group prior to general availability, it seems. [Thanks, John]
Palm demos web-based Ares SDK for webOS
Currently, mobile entrepreneurs wishing to hawk their wares on the Pre (or Pixi, or unnamed webOS device of the future) use a software development kit from Palm called Mojo, a stack of Java-based tools that must be installed, studied, understood, loved, and respected before serious development can get underway. Palm sees that as a barrier of entry for web-oriented developers who want to make the leap to mobile apps, though, which is why they've crafted a new SDK called Ares that's based entirely on web technologies -- in fact, there's no install at all, apparently. Much of the interface is said to be drag-and-drop with enough JavaScript exposed to make your local .com designer feel right at home, potentially opening the app landscape to a whole new set of folks -- and considering that the App Catalog is tens of thousands of goodies behind the App Store and Android Market, they can use every loyal dev they get.
ASUS G50 / G71 laptops and ARES CG6155 gaming PC now available
It's been awhile (or a long while, in the case of the ARES CG6155) since we've heard about these machines, but ASUS has at long last decided to start shipping 'em to retailers. The aforesaid gaming desktop still doesn't have a publicly available price tag, but ASUS assures us that it's out there now for those who know where to look. Thankfully, it was a bit (and we stress "bit") more forthcoming with details on the G50 and G71 gaming notebooks, which are also available as we speak for $1,249.99 and take-your-best-guess, respectively.Read - ASUS ARES CG6155Read - ASUS G50 and G71
ASUS ARES CG6155 gaming PC: 4.0GHz QX9650, GeForce GTX280, bragging rights
What's that, Acer? Your vicious Predator not feel so dominant now? ASUS just dropped a bombshell with the official release of the ARES CG6150 that first surfaced at CeBIT, and for gamers who accept nothing less than cutting edge, this is your rig. From the top, we've got an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (overclockable to 4.0GHz) processor, NVIDIA's nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a 3-way SLI setup with GeForce GTX280s, up to 4TB of HDD space, a Blu-ray optical drive, twin gigabit Ethernet jacks, two power supplies and a custom liquid cooling arrangement. ASUS is being tight-lipped (as usual) with pricing / release information, but let's just assume you'll need a serious stack of Benjamins to even sniff this beast.
A.R.E.S. Telepresence Tank gets kill commands via WiFi
As if you had any reason to believe that killbots weren't multiplying by the minute, here's yet another case to strike fear in your heart. Project A.R.E.S. was designed with a few key goals in mind: to replace human soldiers and to demonstrate that a weapons system could be controlled wirelessly / remotely. The designers also set out to "provide a form of feedback so that the user could navigate the robot without actually being present," and the current version has been equipped with a semi-automatic turret and a wireless camera to give the controller a good view of the surroundings. We don't get the idea that this bugger has enlisted just yet (boot camp is a chore, you know), but be sure and check out the video of it prancing about after the jump.[Via Hacked-Gadgets]
