Change is coming…well, there’s always something new and different at Big Download, anyway. Let’s look at all of the news, features and downloads on the site in the past week:
Exclusive features
PC games that need a comeback: We’ve seen classic titles get revived and more are on the way, but there’s a host of other games titles we want to see come back. Check out our picks in part one, part two, part three and part four of our series.
PC games that didn’t live up to the hype: Some games are heavily promoted beforehand but fall short of their hype. We rate the top 10 games that didn’t live up to expectations.
Sketchy rumor Sunday, people — Chinese site Apple.pro is saying there’s a 15-inch MacBook Air in the works. That would certainly be an interesting compromise between portability and screen real estate, especially since the Air’s new NVIDIA-based internals are actually somewhat capable, but we wouldn’t bank on big brother making an appearance just yet — although Apple.pro was right on the money with leaked unibody MacBook pictures, it’s also been way off in the past. Anyone else mildly intrigued by the idea of a thin’n'light with big screen? Comments await.
For the past few years, the IRL has kept things simple, using just one engine supplier. Toyota, Chevrolet and Nissan (under the Infiniti moniker) bowed out of the engine game to give Honda its exclusivity in 2006. The single powerplant was supposed to make the series more of a driver’s competition, and one could argue that the engine limitations did even playing field somewhat. At the same time, however, they also made the series significantly more boring.
Now with the defection of Champ Car and stubborn leadership in F1, IRL is looking to increase its relevance in open wheel racing. IRL’s contract with Honda ends after 2010, and rumors indicate that the party most interested in getting a foot in the door for 2011 is the Volkswagen Group. The draw for them is the rumored return to the use of turbochargers, as well as heads-up competition between a variety of cylinder configurations. The Volkswagen group is looking to use the series to market high performance low-displacement forced induction engines that are currently under development. Since Audi gets its racing due at LeMans, perhaps any deal with the IRL will look towards increasing VW’s performance stock.
Last year D3 Publisher released Dark Sector, a game from developer Digital Extremes that began life as a space based MMO, then turned into a sci-fi action game and finally morphed into a third person near-future super hero-like title. At the time the game was a console exclusive but there is evidence now that the game is being ported over to the PC for the European market.
The evidence comes from a message board threat where a supposed screenshot of the game (with Russian fonts) was posted that has PC-like graphics options. There’s also a YouTube video floating around that is labeled as “Dark Sector PC” (although the visual evidence doesn’t really prove it came from a PC version). We will contact both D3 and Digital Extremes to find out if this is indeed the real deal.
Pidgin is a great multi-protocol IM client. Out of the box it provides support for 15 different protocols, including most of the important ones: MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ, and XMPP to name a few. Two glaring omissions include Facebook IM and Twitter – both of which are built-in to Digsby by default.
Thanks to the developers of two plugins, a couple quick downloads and some simple instructions can remedy the situation with minimal effort. To top it off, the finished product only uses about 20mb of memory – under half what Digsby consumed on my machine.
Clarification: Ping.fm does not do this.Yes, it will update multiple statuses for you via IM, but it won’t let you chat with Facebook friends or send you Twitter updates for people you follow.
Let’s start with Twitter.
If you don’t have a Gmail account, go sign up for one so you can add a gtalk buddy later on. You’ll also need to go to Twitter and follow twitter@twitter.com.
The Wii, in a continuing effort to catch up to the online functionality of its fellow home consoles, will be getting its first streaming video service later this month when the Minna No Theater Wii channel hits the Japanese WiiWare market. The service will offer animated programs (such as Transformers and Astro Boy) on a rental basis, in which Wii Points can be spent to purchase a title for a certain amount of time.
Fujisoft, the creator of the service, made an appearance at CES to confirm that they’re hoping to bring Minna No Theater to the States within the year, provided that negotiations with Nintendo of America (who are reportedly introducing their own video streaming service, albeit for original content, sometime this year) go smoothly and expediently. While we’d find it difficult to spend Wii Points on things that aren’t Clu Clu Land, we’re interested to see what they’ll have to offer.
We’re not exactly sure why burnouts are fun to watch, but boy are they ever. In the hands of an expert, the smell of the burning tires and the roar of the engine are a thing of beauty. For the amateur, burning prolonged rubber can lead to more than some ruined radials. Hit the jump to view one of the saddest burnouts we’ve ever seen. For some reason, the man behind the wheel of this BMW thought it would be a good idea to lay rubber on a cement embankment. The resulting video ought to be enough to make sure an insurance claim isn’t approved. We’re just happy nobody appeared to be hurt; as this one could have ended even more badly.
If you think things have been tough for General Motors in America, you should see how bad it’s going for them in Japan. Forget pulling out of the Tokyo Motor Show, we’re talking a steady sales decline over the past decade that has brought volume to just 2,000 units a year from a high of 50,000 in 1996. That really sucks, so GM wants to try and change things ASAP. They have announced a modest goal of doubling sales in Japan over the next three years.
Part of the problem with Japanese sales is image, but product selection and a shrinking dealer network are also to blame. Rick Brown, president of GM Japan, says they plan to address those issues by adding a couple of dealerships a year, and by shaking up the product mix. They plan to start selling the Chevy Aveo, the new 2010 Camaro, and despite the struggling economy, some new luxury cars and SUVs like the Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon, Saab 9-3X, 9-4X and 9-5.
Even though those products might help, it might be a case of too little too late. Japanese buyers might be even more hesitant than usual to buy cars from the Detroit 3 because of bankruptcy fears. It’s not like Ford and Chrysler are doing any better in Japan either, with similar sales declines over the pact ten years. Heck, they aren’t even buying as many domestic cars these days.
Iceland-based CCP has been growing its space based MMOEVE Online for several years now but they have also been developing another MMO, World of Darkness, for some time. The supernatural themed game is based on the series of pen-and-paper RPGs from White Wolf that CCP bought in late 2006.
Now the fan site World of Darkness Online has discovered an PDF file that appears to be a leaked business document from CCP. The document gives some info into the company’s inner finances. More importantly the document has a little concrete info on World of Darkness which the document states is due out in 2010 (it’s dated July 2008 so things may have changed since then).
You can check out the info revealed about the game after the jump:
Google may be busy shuttering services like Google Notebook and Google Video, but Gmail isn’t going anywhere. In fact, CNet caught up with Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson and found out that the Gmail team has a couple of new things planned for the company’s web mail offering.
First up, Google is reportedly working on a way to allow users to send files that are larger than 20MB. It’s not clear at the moment whether this means you’ll be able to attach 30MB or 50MB files directly to an email or if Google is going to allocate some of its massive storage space to file hosting allowing users to send download links for files a la YouSendIt.
The company is also planning to to allow higher resolution, 640 x 480 pixel video chat in Gmail. And a better contact manager is on its way which will make it easier to detect and remove duplicate entries.
Finally, Google plans to offer additional themes for Gmail, including themes designed by users.
Of course, there’s no information on when we can expect any of these changes. But at least we know that Google won’t be closing its ad-supported email service anytime soon.
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