hypnosec writes "The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released OpenArena – a multiplayer first person shooter game based on Quake III — for the Raspberry Pi. Available as a free download, the game has been rated 'Adults Only' because of the blood and guns. The open-source game is powered by the 'ioquake3' fork of the engine that Quake III runs on id's Tech 3 engine. Modifications have been made to the gameplay by removing the copyrighted material and adding new free content."

CowboyNeal writes: "Last week I wrote about the fluid nature of modern game development and how that often impacts both game reviews and purchases. Given the recent announcement of the release of Alien Arena: Reloaded, I decided it warranted a fresh look, to see how the free shooter has aged. Read on for the rest of my review of Alien Arena: Reloaded."

An anonymous reader writes "Computer scientists at the University of Colorado and the Stevens Institute of Technology have shown that gamers that play with friends play better. The study used the blockbuster FPS Halo: Reach as a testbed, and combined ground truth data on friendships from an anonymous survey with data about the multiplayer competitions extracted using the Reach Stats API. They found that the more friends you have on your team, the more assists, the fewer betrayals, the more you score, and the greater the probability your team wins, and that this 'friends for the win' effect goes above and beyond the benefits of playing with skilled strangers. (They also show that older gamers are statistically better than younger players, contrary to popular opinion.) Study lead Prof. Aaron Clauset, writing on his blog, says that friends 'may be able to effectively anticipate or adapt to each others' actions or strategies without an explicit need for verbal (and thus time consuming) communication or coordination,' and 'these effects may be fairly universal, and not merely limited to the traditional domains like sports and war, where practicing together has a long tradition.'"

BioWare has announced that Mass Effect 3, planned for March of next year, will be the first game in the series to include co-operative multiplayer. In a post on their forums, they provided details about the new mode of play: "Success in multi-player will have a direct impact on the outcome of the single player campaign, giving players an alternative method of achieving ultimate victory ... In multiplayer, players will create custom characters to fight on different and unique fronts in the war. This will include the ability to play as favorites like Turians, Krogans, Asari and more each with their own unique set of abilities." They also took pains to point out that while the co-op missions could affect the outcome of the main story, multiplayer is entirely optional.

The third installment of Gears of War was released yesterday, ending the story arc that began almost five years ago. Early response to the game has been favorable, and most reviews agree that it's the best of the series. The Guardian's write-up says the story and the voice-acting got some needed attention this time around. Eurogamer praised the improvements to multiplayer and highlighted the intensity of the action sequences, but also mentioned the "annoyance" of being rather rigidly limited when it came to exploring and deviating from scripted events. The Digital Foundry blog examined the tech underpinning Gears of War 3, finding all the advances you'd expect out of a big-budget title, and a few spots where it bumps up against the hardware limitations of the aging Xbox 360.

blanners writes "James Bond fans jonesing for some suave British espionage will be getting a (sort of) brand new GoldenEye this fall. Mashable got some hands-on time with an alpha build of GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Activision's new first-person shooter video game based on the historic franchise. Quoting: 'Perhaps the most fun to be had with Reloaded is its obvious nods to nostalgia. Although the distinctive file folder menu screens are gone, the game has a series of modifiers, both silly and useful, which can be applied to some multiplayer or Mi6 games. You can edit your weapons load-out as easily as you can give characters big heads, paint ball guns or make every enemy the same joke character.'"

donniebaseball23 writes "As the PlayStation Network outage continues, developers are feeling the economic pinch. There's been no word from Sony on whether they'll compensate companies who produce games for PSN, but Capcom has already said it's losing potentially 'millions' from the downtime. Worse yet, developers who rely on PSN revenues may jump ship if they aren't compensated, warns Dylan Cuthbert, creator of popular PSN game PixelJunk. 'I have a feeling they [Sony] are thinking about doing something or they will lose developers, which of course is pretty bad for them,' he said." While a major shift away from the PS3 is unlikely — downtime or not, developers don't want to lock themselves out of such a big piece of the market — it does have undeniable negative effects on some companies. For example, Bethesda's FPS Brink, which focuses heavily on multiplayer, launched without that capability for PS3 users. You can bet Microsoft will use this outage as a selling point for exclusivity or Xbox-first arrangements.

Gearbox Software has released some information about the multiplayer modes for Duke Nukem Forever, which is due out May 3rd (for real this time). In addition to standard deathmatch (called Dukematch), team deathmatch and a king-of-the-hill mode, there is "Capture the Babe," in which a typical CTF flag is replaced by a woman. Eurogamer explains it thus: "... when you grab the other team's babe, she sometimes 'freaks out.' The solution? Give her a gentle smack." Gearbox's Randy Pitchford, clearly understanding how politically incorrect this sounds, said, "You can get some things across in screenshots but not really. So we're kinda struggling with how we expose it so people understand what's there. The proof is in the pudding so to speak, so I don't want to talk about it too much."

iviv66 writes with this excerpt from Rock, Paper, Shotgun: "According to a thread on the Facepunch forums, a developer build of Crysis 2 containing the full game, multiplayer and the master key for the online authentication has been leaked, and is currently freely available from all sorts of astonishingly illegal websites. This sounds like it might be a serious tragedy for Crytek. Crysis 2 was scheduled for release on the 22nd of March, so the leaked build could be dangerously close to finished." EA and Crytek have responded to the leak, saying that the illicit copy is incomplete and unfinished, and that "Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community."

An anonymous reader writes "Thom 'SSGTRAN' Tran, seen in the Call of Duty: Black Ops live action trailer and in the game as the NVA multiplayer character, gets interviewed and talks about Medal of Honor's Taliban drama. '... to me, it's a non-issue. This is Hollywood. This is entertainment. There has to be a bad guy if there's going to be a good guy. It's that simple. Regardless of whether you call them — "Taliban" or "Op For" — you're looking at the same thing. They're the bad guys.'" Gamasutra published a related story about military simulation games from the perspective of black ops veteran and awesome-name-contest winner Wolfgang Hammersmith. "In his view, all gunfights are a series of ordered and logical decisions; when he explains it to me, I can sense him performing mental math, brain exercise, the kind that appeals to gamers and game designers. Precise skill, calculated reaction. Combat operations and pistolcraft are the man's life's work."

kube00 writes "With the release and successful sales of Goldeneye 007 on the Wii, this opens the doors for other 90s FPS game remakes. Games like Jedi Knight, Red Rampage and Tribes could all use remakes and would look great with next-generation graphics. Nothing would be more satisfying than a remake of Jedi Knight that lets gamers slice Jar Jar to bits in multiplayer."

The launch of Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001 vaulted Bungie to the top of the game development industry and helped provide a stable foundation for the success of the original Xbox. Nine years later, having completed a trilogy and a standalone expansion for the Halo universe, Bungie has returned to the IP one last time for a prequel called Halo: Reach. They clearly wanted to do right by the fans and the franchise with their final sendoff, and the effort they put into the game reflects that. Read on for the rest of my thoughts.

A couple weeks ago, we discussed news that some dedicated Halo 2 fans were keeping the game's multiplayer alive after support for online play was dropped. Now, a few days shy of a month after support ended, the last users have been knocked off the server. "[A user named] Apache N4SIR outlasted everyone. 'May 11th @ 0158hrs I was FORCEFULLY REMOVED!!' he wrote on the forums at Bungie.net. 'I thought I'd be the one turning off the lights but that was done for me. Good night everyone, my Elite needs a rest.' His last comrade in arms, Agent Windex, was still signed on, as spotted by Kotaku at 4 p.m. US Pacific Time on May 10, but their adventure, which began on April 15, ended after Windex announced 21 minutes later that he had been removed from play and Apache N4SIR suffered a similar fate hours later, as he described in his post."

On April 15th, Microsoft terminated Xbox Live support for the original Xbox console, marking the end of online multiplayer for many older games. However, a group of Halo 2 players have refused to give up online play by leaving their consoles on and connected since then. Overheating consoles and dropped connections have taken their toll, but at present, 13 players are still going strong.

An anonymous reader writes with this quote from 1Up: "Trouble is brewing in Rapture. The recently released Sinclair Solutions multiplayer pack for BioShock 2 is facing upset players over the revelation that the content is already on the disc, and the $5 premium is an unlock code. It started when users on the 2K Forums noticed that the content is incredibly small: 24KB on the PC, 103KB on the PlayStation 3, and 108KB on the Xbox 360. 2K Games responded with a post explaining that the decision was made in order to keep the player base intact, without splitting it between the haves and have-nots."

andylim writes "Several mobile gaming companies are developing cross-platform multiplayer games allowing Android and iPhone users, for example, to play games against each other. Last month touchArcade reported on a cross-platform baseball game developed by Com2Us called Homerun Battle 3D. Unlike turn-based multiplayer mobile games, Homerun Battle 3D allows players to compete against each other instantly, but you don't see the other player — instead you only get to see your competitor's score being updated. Pushing cross-platform multiplayer games even further, a company called Bulky Pix has created a table-football-style game that displays the action as it happens — both players see the ball moving around. This hopefully suggests that cross-platform, multiplayer mobile shooters aren't far behind."

Apple just finished their latest press event, and they revealed a number of new services and features for their products. They kicked things off by saying that iPhone OS 3.1 is now available. It will add the Genius recommendation technology to the App store, giving users suggestions on which apps they might find useful based on what others with similar needs use. They're also adding 30,000 ringtones that users can purchase. Next, they announced iTunes 9, which will use Genius to make mixes by analyzing songs in your library to see which go well together. iTunes is also seeing UI improvements for things like app management, and syncing utilities. You'll be able to easily transfer apps, music, and videos from one of your local devices to another, and there is integrated support for Twitter and Facebook if you want to send music as a gift. Another big new feature: iTunes LPs. These LPs will be a digital album with cover art, lyrics, videos, and other customized content created by the artists themselves. Moving on, they showed off a few new games: an Assassin's Creed sequel, an FPS called Nova that had impressive graphics and multiplayer capability, Riddim Ribbon, a futuristic driving/music game that lets you remix your songs by how you navigate the course, and Madden NFL 2010. Next, Apple announced a price cut for the 8GB iPod Touch and a doubling of available storage for the other models. It's also getting OpenGL 2.0. The iPod Classic is getting a storage upgrade from 120GB to 160GB. In addition, there are headphones that have a controller for the Shuffle. Finally, Jobs got down to his "one more thing": Apple will now be building a video camera into the back of every iPod Nano. Apparently it will be a simple matter to sync videos to your computer or put them up on YouTube, and they're building in an FM radio as well. A detailed liveblog of the event with a ton of screenshots is available at Engadget.

Resident Evil 5 will be getting a new multiplayer mode later today that allows players to square off against each other. It will be available on the Playstation Network and Xbox Live for a fee of $5. Two different game types will be available, according to Capcom. In one, Slayer's Rule, you'll compete against other players to kill the most enemies. The other mode, Survivor's Rule, pits you directly against other players, either one-on-one or two-on-two.

Attendees of this year's GDC were given an early look at Wolfenstein, the new shooter in development by id and Raven. We've previously discussed the "Veil" ability that protagonist BJ Blazkowicz uses to hide himself, and much of the coverage relates to how it affects gameplay. "Early on, Blazkowicz stumbles upon an experiment and manages to blow it up, releasing waves of ethereal blue material. The Veil seems to turn gravity on and off as Blazkowicz tries to escape the area, making for some very original gunplay. ... The folks on hand told me that the Veil would be incorporated into game's multiplayer, but wouldn't go into details." A trailer for the game is available at Joystiq, and they had this to say: "Wolfenstein's look and gameplay is dated — and not in a retro chic way. Without the Veil, the game could be mistaken for a last-gen title, so the game's success rests on how compelling this feature will be throughout an entire playthrough."

First-person shooters comprise one of the most well-developed video game genres in existence. The number of high-quality games and franchises practically demands that any new entry must have an interesting concept and a rock-solid engine. Otherwise, it will quickly get buried under an avalanche of award-winning titles. When the original F.E.A.R. came out in 2005, a well-crafted horror theme, the AI, and a few gameplay innovations allowed it to succeed despite direct competition from established franchises, such as Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2, among others. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin draws on the strengths of its predecessor and adds a few improvements. The question that now remains is whether or not the additions make up for the fact that the game's concept is no longer new and unique. Read on for the rest of my thoughts.