Games Toaster

World Cyber Games Ireland ends toady

The Sunday Tribune reports on the World Cyber Games Ireland...

Kicking off at midday yesterday, the crowd of predominantly male competitors were preparing for a long day (and night) of non-stop gaming. "It's more of a social gathering, " explained Eric Mooney from website room101. org, who helped organise the event, as we walked into the warm-up room...

Paddy 'Spaceman' Conway from Dundalk was there to play Quake 3. "We'll play all day and all night until they throw us out." Where does he get his energy? He gestures towards a can of Coke and a Snickers bar.

Comment: Irish journalists to battle in Cyber

In a bizarre turn of events, Irish tech site ENN are reporting that in a fight of “old media vs new media” an Irish Times columnist will square it off with one of the tech site’s journalists. Roisin Ingle, known for her column in the Irish Times on Saturdays, will be challenged by ENN’s Jonathan McCrea.

It is interesting that the old media sits up. Could it be just because the “World Cyber Games” is mentioned? One of the Irish Times’ marketing slogans goes along the lines of “you live life, we report it” (not a quote). It's a pity the paper of record does not usually reflect a large proportion of the population’s use or love of computer games. Outside of the odd feature or the tech pages buried in the business section – little or nothing. 

As Games Toaster reported before, the Irish leg of the World Cyber Games is set for in September 23 – 24 at the state-sponsored Digital Exchange on Crane Street (off Thomas Street, near the Guinness Storehouse). Registration to the competition is now closed, spectators however are welcome.

Wii price and dates for US & Japan

Ubisoft's Red Steel, for the Nintendo Wii.

Nintendo has revealed their launch dates and price for their Wii (pronounced ‘we’) console for North America and Japan. European launch details are expected tomorrow (Friday 15).

It will sell at $249.99 and 25,000 yen (RRP), launching in America on November 19, followed by Japan on December 2. The move is the second Japanese console maker to give a greater focus on the North America. The territory includes the United States, the strongest Xbox market, although among the only market in which the Xbox is doing exceptionally well.

Around 30 titles are expected before the end of the year. The company says their own games will be set at a RRP of $49.99.

Nintendo says that in the US the one wireless remote control-shaped controller, along with one “Nunchuk” controller (both pictured), and what the company terms as the “groundbreaking collection of five different Wii Sports games on one disc”. Wii Sports includes tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing.

Nintendo today also named their menu system as the “Wii Channel Menu”. The firm claims it will make the console “approachable and customizable for everyone”. Besides games the interface will feature the ability to look at news and weather, or to upload and send photos, in a release the company stops short of saying full internet access. The sensors in the PlayStation 3 controllers are more limited, for example can not aim and act more like real aeroplane controllers.

In technical terms the Wii is said to be relatively close to the GameCube. It is not next generation in comparable hardware terms to the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3, leaving less of a graphical “jump”; however the central change is the normal controller with built-in sensors, allowing games to be controlled with swings, swipes, aiming, punches, and slices.   

The console will have 512 megabytes of internal flash memory, two 2.0 USB ports, built-in Wi-Fi, an SD memory card port, four ports for GameCube controllers, GameCube memory cards slots, and an AV Multi-output port for component, composite or S-video.

Dublin LAN with Battlefield 2142 focus

GameCon 10, the Dublin based gaming event is to feature Battlefield 2142 (pictured), before the game officially launches.

The event is to host a “huge 5 Man Battlefield competition”, in which Battlefield 2 will be used but prizes will be copies of the 2142 game. The organisers also say that real-time strategy (RTS) competitions are to make a comeback, along with the normal console and PC events.

Entry has dropped to 10 euro on the door, or 5 euro pre-pay, and there are 200 places. It is set to 36 hours at the Tyrrelstown Park Plaza Hotel run, from October 20 – 22.

GameCon is sponsored by Battlefield publisher EA Games, as well as Xbox, PlayStation, Creative Labs, GameStop, Ubisoft, Logitech, and Alienware. “We use GameCon to analyse the market, otherwise gamers are very hard to find… We run show reels and conduct questionnaires to get feedback on particular games” organiser Jermain Williams (aka Jazz) told the Sunday Business Post.

Ireland Online servers to go

Free Ireland-based PC games servers provided by Ireland Online (BT Ireland) are soon to be dropped. Last week an administrator, "Rev Hellfire", stated on darkkeep.com "[It’s] been a fun ride but all good things must come to an end. And the end in this case is that the Ireland Online servers will most likely be pulled by the end of this month", adding "I'd start looking for a new home now if I was you".

The servers were sometimes marked by their Irish linked names, or references to the Irish gaming community. Currently listed servers include "Driving miss kdjac" (Games1.iol.ie) a GTA:San Andreas mod server; "Pirates of Portlaoise" (Games2.iol.ie) for the Battlefield 1942 pirates mod,  "Viet-Navan" (Games4.iol.ie) a Battlefield Vietnam server, and an old server for the Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat (pictured) was named ‘Cavan Combat’. Servers for Counter Strike, Battlefield, and Quake line of games have featured throughout the years.