Recently, Intel has acquired Havok, a company that has developed physics rendering technology for video games. What’s the obvious conclusion is that Intel might have more complex plans for developing more productive applications.

The price of acquisition is unknown, but the smaller unit of Havok will run independently in order to keep the game developers happy. And how exactly are the game developers using this technology? Well, the Havok physics-game-engine give the ability to send very complex calculations to the graphics chip of the video cards hosed into the computer in order to produce a more realistic display in movement and rendering (for example in explosions), because such tasks cannot simply handled by a CPU as good as a GPU - the code of Havok is tightly linked to functions in the GPUs made by AMD and Nvidia.

The capabilities can be extended even more, to advanced scientific applications (like the ones in engineering) – and the GPUs from AMD and Nvidia could very well take the charge, offloading the main CPU. At this moment, Intel creates graphics cores only for its chipsets but with the acquisition of Havok we should expect something more – maybe even some Intel graphics cards that would compete with the already existing cards that have graphics processing units from  AMD and Nvidia.

Hungry for some horror action?
Prepare yourself for the release of You Are Empty, a Mature-rated FPS which promises to attract the player in a fascinating, unusual world.
Involve in this parallel approach of the facts that took place in the Soviet Union, in the 1950’s, when the Russian nation was wrapped in communism.



<-125x125 Button - left->On this imaginary side of the history, the Soviet scientists are building some super humans with supernatural powers, able to spread the communism around the globe.
At some point, something happens and they lose the control of these monsters.
People die one by one and a new rase evolves: the mutants.
Your role will be to find a way to save the humanity.



After waking-up in a hospital in ruins, the game will carry you through a dark and obscure ambient where you’ll have to fight to stay alive.
Encountering with the mutants will take place in arias with lots of monuments, Stalin architecture, plants and factories.

Main features of the game include authentic weapons like Mauser pistol, Maxim chain gun, PPSh, Mosin Rifle, and futuristic electrical gun prototype.
The enemies are unique, very distinctive and vivid and there is a very high level of details and realism created by the DS2 Engine.



Developed by Digital Spray Studios and Mandel ArtPlains studios, and published by Atari, You Are Empty will be released in October 2007 in US.

<-120x240 Vertical Banner - right->This is one of the games that you will often see as a testing tool (HL2 and HL2 Episode 1) in order to discover the processing power of new generations of video cards due to visual effects like HDR (high dynamic range imaging) or the shader lighting that gives a realistic look. The Original Half-Life shooter-game introduces us to a world where we see Gordon Freeman (as one of the PH. D. assistants at the Black Mesa Research Facility – they did everything but pure research there – but we will get to that later on). Even the name is interesting – it gives you the idea that somehow when you’re always in the middle of a shooting you will end up to have the health-bar at half of its length most of the times – which is not entirely far from the truth – it can get very “hot”, especially when you’re running out of bullets and a silly zombie or monster refuses to drop dead. From the point of view of the recommended hardware requirements, you would need a 2.4 GHz CPU, Windows 2000/XP/Vista, a DirectX 9 video card, 512 RAM (or more) and 4.5GB hard drive space.

The Story in the Game:
An experiment gone wrong (another typical insertion in the story with the purpose to make the transition to the SF-area) sends Gordon in the middle of a cosmic battle – angry aliens are killing Black Mesa members of the staff or they turn them into zombies. The (good old) government forces arrive to swipe them off, but they also intended to “reduce to silence” any witnesses as well. Gordon survives due to an experimental hazard suite that protects him. In the end of the first story, he kills what he thinks to be the source of infestation but the victory moment is spoiled by the mysterious G-Man, an “interdimensional bureaucrat, who seals Gordon into a stasis, away from Earth and time itself.

In the second story (Half-Life 2), the G-Man awakens Flash Gordon, but not exactly with good intentions. Gordon gets back on a destroyed Earth where he feels he is just a powerless citizen of City 17, a grim city. He becomes the center of resistance led by the former Black Mesa rebel scientists – Dr. Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance. Gordon finds his hazard suite and with the help of Alyx (Vance’s daughter) and her pet robot, Dog, goes against the Combine Alien war lords, their machines and the modified humans that represent the force of the Combine. When he reaches the Citadel, Gordon finds the big human traitor – Dr. Wallace Breen. Our hero escapes, with Alyx, but the G-Man shows up again and throws Flash into the timeless dimension again. This character reminds me of the “smoker” character from the X-Files TV show.

After a while, Gordon and Alyx come back to reality and discover they have escaped the big explosion of the reactor. They are also out of G-Man’s reach now as well. This is where the third part of the story begins and where the Episode One takes place. The City 17 had come back to life somehow only to initiate a self-destruct sequence – and so Alyx with Gordon must escape. This is what gives the game an always-on-the-go feeling because you have to run or walk fast in most cases – it’s how the action script has been written – you’re not supposed to jump over a hole and stay a little to rest or admire the surroundings.

The Levels:
This “continuation” of Gordon’s adventures, named “Episode One”, is divided into 5 big chapters that do not have loading times only between them, but also when you leave an area and reach the point of entry of another. The “commentary mode” is also very interesting as you will not receive damage while you move around with this option that can be set from the game start panel.

In the first chapter, “Undue Alarm”, Alyx will be happy as soon as Dog takes you out of some scrapes of metal, and after some more chit-chat – and the recovery of the Gravity Gun you will reach an area with no bridge towards the next stop. You jump in a car with Alyx and Dog literally throws the vehicle onto the point of entry where you wanted to arrive. But hold on buster, this isn’t where the ride ends – hold tight – you about to slide down with the car through a lot of holes and passages before you actually can jump out of it. It’s the on-the-go and the highly unstable shaking grounds that make you move from one corner to another with a fast speed.

“Direct Intervention” is what you have been prepared for in the previous area and this is where you actually use your suit to reach the highly protected reactor core. As you might have gotten used to taking energy balls and throwing them around, it’s what you will have to do again (with the temporarily enhanced Gravity Gun). When you reach the top of the core, you will have to destroy it after you activate all the pillars. You will end up boarding a train that will crash, making you to crawl out along Alyx to the next room.

“Lowlife” – yes, that’s what you will feel like when you will have no real gun and Alyx has to do all the work as her ammo is unlimited (!). So obviously she will shoot the zombies while there is nothing much you can do but throw boxes at them. Eventually, you will find a Pistol, oh yeah, a “normal” gun, after such a long ride. On the way, you will meet some more zombies and some Antlions (the name is pretty suggestive). The elevator area is where you will have to start the shoot-out frenzy with the help of the Shotgun and the flashlight (just make sure you got the keyboard mapped out correctly from the game settings).

It’s time for some “Urban Fight” now – it’s just that in order to reach the urban surface – you will have to find a wheel to mount it in the switch and rotate it to open slightly the mechanical door. Yes, this game gives an “industrial” feeling as well – all you get to see most of the times is pipes, and tight areas with loads or devices, machines and mechanisms working in an apparently “perfect” simulation of reality physics and movement. Get your guns loaded and head out to do some heavy damage. You will meet some human allies on the street, members of the resistance.

You will think that time flies by as soon as you reach the “Exit 17”, the final chapter – obviously the level where most of the guns will be found and put to intensive use. First you will have to take a few squads of resistance members (citizens as Alyx calls them) from the starting area to a train station. Damn those stupid squad members who like to jump in the way and sometimes in the front of Gordon’s gun! Like I said earlier on – you just have to move along all the time, there’s not even a second left for taking photos! After you bring all those silly people to the required place, you will go on to the next area where you will have to fight against four big 3-legged and ugly metal beasts. Try using the “rocket-launcher” as often as you can and aim strait to their heads. After you blow them up in smoke, you will go with Alyx onto the train to get out of the station. There is a very nice cinematic movie after this sequence where you can get some insight on what is about to happen in the “Episode Two” of the series.

The Sound in the game:
I was very pleased to notice the extremely realistic sounds of the gun-shots – I even gave the impression to a friend of mine outside the room that there was actually a shooting! It is so precise that you even hear the bullet shells falling down on the floor from the heated machine-gun. The music is pretty much absent from the game (!), but the fast-paced intense actions do have some, and it is quite fitting.



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Digitainment Mark: 8 out of 10
Developer/Publisher: Valve Software
Buy: for as little as $9 from the Steam Store