The game trailer of the upcoming game GTA IV gives us an insight on what we should expect to see and experience while playing the game and also a few details about the story. While the overall "GTA concept" hasn't changed much, the new characters are meant to introduce the gamer to some mafia members as well.

Latest Game Trailer

A lot of shooter-games have been released lately and the players of such games always rely mostly on the accuracy of their mice in order to win the matches. There's a new trend as well, among gaming components, namely the gaming mice that got lately revolutionary improvements. They have become so fast, that they reach speeds up to 3200 and 4000 DPI - which results in higher speed and 200% more accuracy. One of them, who can reach the speed of 3200 DPI is Logitech G9 Laser Mouse.

As you can see in the image above, it looks more like an army or secret service vehicle than a real computer mouse. Besides the crazy specs (resolution: 200–3200 dpi - user-selectable, image processing: 6.4 megapixels/second, maximum acceleration: 20 G, maximum speed: 45–65 inches/second - depending on surface), it comes with a few customizing options that allow you to change the grips and also change the weight.

Another "traditional" and famous company for creating extremely good looking and high performance mice is Razer. Their latest addition is Razer Lachesis, a mouse that will change the odds in games like Hellgate London, but also Crysis or Gears Of War in online matches. Only by reading a few specs (4000dpi Razer Precision 3G Laser™ sensor, 32KB Razer Synapse™ onboard memory, nine independently programmable Hyperesponse™ buttons, 1000Hz Ultrapolling / 1ms response time, On-The-Fly Sensitivity™ adjustment) a hardcore gamer can tell that it is a must-have for serious players. In the image above you can see the blue-Lachesis version: the shape of the mouse is symetrical - lef-hand users and also right-hand users will enjoy it just as much.

Just like other software companies, Petroglyph Games makes no exception when it comes to Christmas gifts: the composer of the game soundtrack of the whole "Universe At War: Earth Assault" has posted the direct download link for the game music on the official forum.

Here's what the composer had to say about this:

"I hope you enjoy listening to this soundtrack as much as I enjoyed creating it for Universe At War: Earth Assault. Nothing is more gratifying to me then to see it completely integrated into the rest of team’s hard work on this title, in the name of creating a fun experience for everyone. This game is definitely the most unique rts I have worked on to date and I’m proud to be a part of it on all audio fronts. Thanks to all of the community - Keep rockin’!  - Frank Klepacki" Well, I believe that is indeed a generous offer from the developers for the fans: good timing!

The developers of Crysis are aware of the fact that their game is quite impressive but not perferct and so they are planning to release a patch that will bring some hotfixes to the overall performance and remove the irritating bugs that were experienced by many fans. The developers said that this first patch ran into some technical delays, and that is why the patch will have next month as the nearest release date.

Among the fixes, updates and tweaks that the patch is supposed to bring, there are:

Fixes
1. Damage dealt to vehicles when shot by LAW has been made consistent
2. F12 (screenshot) now works in restricted mode as well
3. When player melees during gun raise animation, their gun will not be in a permanently raised position anymore
4. Memory leaks and potential crashes

Updates
1. Improved SLI/Crossfire support and performance
2. Improved overall rendering performance (DX9 and DX10)
3. Enabled VSync functionality in D3D10

Tweaks
1. Reduced grenade explosion radius in multiplayer
2. Clamped water tessellation to avoid cheating in MP
3. Reduced LAW splash damage vs. infantry in Power Struggle mode
4. Slowed Rocket projectile speed down in MP slightly

Hellgate London has evolved exactly as I predicted in my review into a wonderful game, most of the software bugs that caused random memory leaks have been fixed on both game types, the single and multiplayer versions of the game. Since the developers wanted to attract even more fans, they have extended the period for signing up on that special subscription called Founder's Offer until the lat day of 2007, 31 of December that is.

What you will get with that offer is a one time payment of $150 for a lifetime-subscription to access the goodies from the multiplayer version. You can also get a wasp die-kit which will make all your online characters look similar to the ones in the image above. For some people the price may be a little higher than expected, but it's a good buy - you will get to enjoy all the bonus content and customized items, levels, missions and new monsters ("and by new we don't mean just changing the colour", one of the developers said).