GOA, EA and Mythic Studios have announced that the open beta for Warhammer Online: Age OF Reckoning will begin on 7 September. Fans of the highly anticipated MMO will be able to enter the European open beta by pre-ordering WAR and going to the GOA account centre or visiting the EA Store to sign up for a limited number of spots. GOA also announced on the official forum that they have lifted the NDA for all players in the current closed beta phase of Warhammer Online. The game will be released nearly two weeks after the open beta commences, on 18 September.

In a normal class certification hearing, the plaintiffs revealed an email between Nvidia senior VP of marketing, Dan Vivoli, and ATI’s president and COO, Dave Orton, which points to inflated prices and collusion. It reads: “I really think we should work harder together on the marketing front. As you and I have talked about, even though we are competitors, we have the common goal of making our category a well positioned, respected playing field. $5 and $8 stocks are a result of no respect.”
While Nvidia’s supremacy has been clear over the last year, this email-gone-public is a huge blow to both videocard companies. Presiding judge Aslup stated the class certification will be further investigated.
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VoodooPC, longtime hardcore gaming company renowned for high-end desktops and laptops was recently shifted by parent company HP into a more refined role. The Envy 133 laptop is thinner than the Apple Airbook at its thickest point and is meant to be elegant yet powerful, and has a wide range of features to support it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Omen is a powerful to the point of absurdity.
The radical change from simply a gaming PC manufacturer to a mixture of super-hardcore desktops and expensively capable laptops was remarkable at the time, but understandable. Compared to its competition, VoodooPC was not performing well enough. Yet merging it with HP’s current consumer PC unit seems to be the end of VoodooPC as it were, and a reintroduction to HP’s gaming PC besides the Blackbird 002.
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The PC version of GTA IV will hit the retailers’ shelves on 18 November in the US and 21 November in the UK: That’s official, it’s surprising and the date is around six months sooner than we expected. According to Rockstar founder Sam Houser, ‘The game looks and plays beautifully on the PC.’ We’re also promised a newly expanded multiplayer mode exclusive to the PC, but Rockstar hasn’t elaborated on that.

As if we weren’t banking on cramming enough into that particular issue of Total PC Gaming - yay!

One of the later adopters to gaming PC’s, Gateway has ended its brief run of customisable PC’s, gaming and otherwise. One of the first PC manufacturer’s to use online customisation, Gateway’s recent purchase by Acer, who relies heavily on selling products through resellers, will now only offer their designed platforms and will not allow for customisation.
While most users will not have a problem with this, gaming aficionados interested in Gateway’s machines may be unsatisfied with the parts given. Even the higher-end FX541XT uses the 8800GT in SLI, and there is no option to upgrade to a 9000 series card.