Deus Ex: Human Revolution Developer Is Sorry About the Boss Fights | Technology News

Eidos Montreal, the developer of last year’s impressive Deus Ex: Human Revolution role playing shooter has once again admitted that the title’s boss fights weren’t exactly up to par with the rest of the game, apologizing to fans during this week’s Game Developers Conference.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was among the best games released last year, managing to impress millions of people, both fans of the first titles in the series and new ones, with its sharp story, great gameplay, and amazing visuals.

Sadly, it wasn’t perfect, as the boss fights were quite annoying, feeling like a totally different experience than the regular game. The developer apologized for the mistake at the time and it was later revealed that the battles were made by another studio altogether.

Now, as part of his “Reimagining a Classic” GDC lecture, Francois Lapikas, the gameplay director of Human Revolution, has once again talked about the boss fights.

According to him, while the actual game allowed players all sorts of options, the boss fights were intended to restrict them to a certain degree and make them feel like they were going up against tougher opponents.

“We saw them as a thing to break up the pacing more than a way to test the player’s skill,” Lapikas said, via Game Informer. “[The boss fights] were a big part of the game, and we should have put more effort into them. I’m truly sorry about that. Next time we’re going to think about it more.”

The Eidos Montreal director also confirmed that special steps were taken to ensure players would defeat the bosses, like adding more ammo boxes or health bars, but the battles still gave players plenty of problems.

What’s more, it seems that quite a few testers spotted the problem with the boss fights, but no one actually told the development how severe it was.

Even with the clunky battles, however, Deus Ex: Human Revolution remains a great game that should be experienced by anyone on the PC, PS3 or Xbox 360.

Intel Prepares to Retire 510 Series “Elm Crest” SATA 6Gbps SSDs | Technology News

No longer than a year after the introduction of the 510 Series of SATA 6Gbps SSDs, Intel has announced that it will soon retire these drives to replace them with the much faster 520 Series built around SandForce’s SF-2281 controller.

Intel announced its decision in a recent “Product Discontinuance Notice” which states that the last orders for these SSDs can be placed on June 7, 2012.

The chip maker will continue to ship these solid state drives until September 7, 2012.

Both the 120GB and the 240GB 510 Series SSDs are affected by this decision, with customers being advised to direct their attention towards the company’s new drives based on SandForce controllers.

The 510-series of solid state drives was designed by Intel to cater to the needs of high-end users and enthusiasts and can reach a maximum sequential read speed of 470MB/s, while sequential write speed is rated at 315MB/s.

In addition, 4K random write performance has been measured to reach 20,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second), while 4K random read is rated at about 5000 IOPS.

The SSDs connect to the system via a SATA 6Gbps interface and use the regular 2.5-inch form factor.

Their replacements in the 520 Series, also known as Cherryville, utilize the same interface and form factor, but are built to deliver much greater performance.

According to Intel, these drives can achieve a maximum sequential read speed of 550MB/s, while their sequential write speed is rated at 520MB/s.

In addition, 4K random write performance has been measured to reach 80,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second), and 4K random read is rated at about 50,000 IOPS.

Contrary to most other SandForce-based SSDs out there, the 520 Series drives were also tweaked in order to deliver improved reliability.

Right now, Intel’s 120GB and 240GB 5120 Series SSDs retail for $239.99 and $584.99, respectively, while their Cherryville counterparts are listed at $199.99 and $369.99.

CeBIT 2012: Caterpillar Showcases CAT B10 Indestructible Android Phone | Technology News

Caterpillar, yes you got that right, has just announced the upcoming availability of its rugged Android phone called CAT B10. The smartphone will be released on the market at the end of May.

Potential customers who want to purchase the device would have to shell out no less than 380 EUR (about 500 USD). The folks at The Verge had the chance to play with the phone at the CEBIT 2012 exhibition, in Hannover, Germany.

According to them, CAT B10 runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system and sports a 3.2 capacitive touchscreen display that features Asahi coating, which protects it against scratches and scrapes.

It has all sorts of rugged certifications and is powered by an 800 Mhz single core processor. It also sports a 5-megapixel rear photo snapper and a VGA front-facing camera.

The good news is that it will receive an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade by the end of the year. For more pictures check out The Verge's gallery.

Samsung Confirms Android 4.0 ICS for GALAXY S II for March 10 | Technology News

Rumors on the long-awaited Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for Samsung Galaxy S II have come and gone, but the Korean handset maker did not confirm any release dates.

It was originally believed that Samsung will deploy an Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Galaxy Note on March 1, followed by an update for the Galaxy S II within the next few days.

It appears that the information wasn't that accurate, as Galaxy Note is still stuck on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. However, Samsung Galaxy S II has just been confirmed for an ICS update on March 10.

According to Samsung Philippines, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 upgrade for Galaxy S II will be available on March 10.

The update can be downloaded via Kies 2.0, but users are recommended to download and install the latest version of Samsung's desktop sync software.

Keep in mind that Samsung Kies 1.5 does not supports upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich. There's a chance that the update will be delivered FOTA in some regions, but that will require users to connect to a high-speed, reliable Wi-Fi network.


Although the information comes through official channels, it's unusual that the announcement was published solely by Samsung Philippines.

In fact, they already pulled it from their site, but the folks over at Engadget managed to get a screenshot which confirms the intel.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will bring Samsung Galaxy S II several new features, including Face Unlock and Android Beam. In addition, the Mobile Network Data usage function has been added as well.

Curiously, the update's changelog states that “because of ICS OS feature, Adobe flash and Bluetooth 3.0 HS” will not be supported (Bluetooth 3.0 will work).

The update requires at least 60MB through Kies, and 250MB if the update is made FOTA. This Ice Cream Sandwich update will only be available for Samsung GT-I9100, which means that carrier-bounded models will receive the update in the following weeks.

Max Payne 3 Will Be Supported by Huge Marketing Campaign | Technology News

Rockstar is getting ready to launch a solid marketing push for its upcoming Max Payne 3 and plans to deliver a bigger campaign it has done for L.A. Noire and for Red Dead Redemption, other middle of the year releases that managed to do well with both critics and gamers.

The actual marketing effort will start in early May and gamers can expect to see spots appear during high profile events, including the final of the Champions League, which is one of the most watched football matches in the world, especially by European fans.

Rockstar plans to use the campaign to build on the anticipation that the player base has created around Max Payne 3, which has been in development for the better part of an entire decade.

A statement from Rockstar to MCV says, “Max Payne 3 will be our biggest and boldest marketing effort thus far and we’ve looked to improve across all areas on what we did for Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire. A massive media investment has already started, but the main launch thrust will coincide with Easter all the way through to beyond the PC release on June 1st.”

The developer added, “We have very high expectations. The response from retail has been overwhelmingly positive and for that we are incredibly grateful for their trust and belief in us and Max Payne 3.”

Rockstar wants to make Max Payne relevant again and has created a game that uses the core acrobatic movements that defined the franchise while adding a cover system and a more serious tone.

Max Payne 3 will be launched on the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft on May 15 in the United States and three days later in Europe.

The PC version of the game will be introduced later, on May 29 in the United States and on June 1 in other territories.

Paradox Interactive CEO Says GAME Trouble Shows Digital Distribution Advantages | Technology News

United Kingdom based retailer GAME has been in trouble recently and the leader of one major developer and publisher believes that karma is to blame for them and that something similar could happen to other big video game chains.

Talking to GamesIndustry International at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Fredrick Wester, who is the chief executive officer at Paradox, said, “GAME has basically been bullying people around and now it comes back to bite them on the ass. It’s been abusing their situation in the UK for a long time but it always come back to you.

“Look at EA and Nintendo, they’re not even willing to help. They will take the hit just to get rid of GAME and start over. One of the biggest problems is they haven’t behaved nicely to other people, so it’s karma.”

Wester also talked about new retail channels and the rise of the Xbox Live Arcade service and the PlayStation Network, saying that both Sony and Microsoft use too many filters when it comes to allowing games to be launched on their consoles.

Wester added, “On the App Store you end up with a lot of crap, but you’re not forced to buy it. The customer decides. Angry Birds would never have made it to XBLA, Minecraft would never have made it to XBLA. There are so many games that are million sellers that would never have made it to XBLA.”

He also said that independent developers were not able to get on XBLA and the PSN and that even Paradox Interactive had trouble getting its titles on the services, despite the fact that it has the money to support the certification process.

Paradox Interactive has long bet on digital distribution and the company has recently reported that launching games via download channels has managed to drive up its revenue while expanding its audience.

Windows Phone App Devs Can Now Target Low-End Devices | Technology News

Windows Phone developers can now start building applications for lower-end devices that run under the newly launched Tango platform release.

The new OS flavor was made official at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where the first handsets to run under it went official (Nokia Lumia 610 and ZTE Orbit among them).

These devices pack lower hardware inside, including a reduced amount of RAM, but Microsoft claims that the experience they will be able to deliver will be similar to the one available via higher-end Windows Phone devices.

However, lower hardware capabilities involve limitations when it comes to running software, and Microsoft is offering some general guidelines for developers who would like to make sure their applications can run on these devices.

For example, they should ensure their applications feature fast startup times. “Minimizing code in App/Page constructors and keeping Launching/OnNavigatedTo activity minimal” are great ways of achieving that, Mike Battista explains in a blog post.

“Adding a splash screen can additionally improve startup time since this frame is drawn by the OS itself as part of the launch sequence. Furthermore, simplifying and removing unnecessary XAML from your pages will reduce the impact of XAML parsing which can prolong startup significantly,” he continues.

Moreover, he notes that apps designed for the new OS flavor should not eat more than 90MB of memory, which is a lot altogether for devices that pack only 256MB of RAM.

Developers should consider using memory profiler and memory-related API’s to profile the app’s memory usage. They should also make sure there are no memory leaks in their apps, as they might result in crashes.

Microsoft has freed up RAM for foreground processes in Windows Phone Tango by disabling generic background agents. Users can disable these agents for applications through the Settings control panel, thus freeing up even more memory.

“On 256MB devices, the app receives the same InvalidOperationException received in the maximum exceeded case above when trying to schedule a background agent (since the maximum number of supported background agents is 0),” Battista notes.

Applications that have been written to handle the maximum exceeded case will work on devices that feature 256MB of RAM unchanged.

“Make sure your apps handle this exception path and degrade gracefully when these features are unavailable. This will benefit your app experience both on today’s generation of devices as well as on new lower cost devices. The 256MB emulator introduced in the WPSDK 7.1.1 enables you to easily test this code path,” he also notes.