Bunch of Nerds now has a family! Well, we always have had family, but, now our blog officially does. Playthrough.net used to be one of the crucial community sites for those involved in the games industry quality assurance field before a tragic, tragic database crash mid-Summer 2006. Shortly after Bunch of Nerds’ quite successful launch (less than 3 months ago WOO!), the decision was made to break off our nerdy posting about the games industry gossip that rolled across our tables daily and turn Playthrough into our outlet for all things gamey. So it’s here, kind of. We are still cleaning up some small bugs here and there, but, you get the gist. So all those interested in lots of gamer-centric jibba jabba from a couple of nerds, feel free to give a visit to Playthrough and give them a virtual wedgie for us.

Read more: Playthrough - Games industry gossip, news, yada yada and more

When I was younger, I always loved heading to my local bookshop every week to look at the newest shareware games that would pour in from bedroom developers around the world. Sadly, those days are over, but, thanks to the magic powers of the internet, I and many others can re-live those days thanks to the DOS Games Archive. The Archive offers hundreds of old DOS-based games, from freeware hobby projects, to the middle-range shareware greats, to the then-mainstream classics in playable demo forms. Every game I remember loving on DOS is up there, including old playable demos from many of the absolute classics from the day, such as SimCity, Doom, Lemmings, Worms, Warcraft 1 and 2 and Ugh!

Read more: The DOS games archive

Tuesday, August 22nd, players of the hit MMORPG title EVE Online can expect quite a bit of server downtime and quite some technical changes as CCP deploys their updated code base, “Dragon” in anticipation of the upcoming Kali expansion. The patch will include numerous enhancements to security and encryption, as well as small improvements and optimizations, one of which includes the multiple-language framework, as localized version of EVE are beginning to be released. The trade off to these enhancements will be the dropping of OS support for Microsoft’s Windows 98 and ME operating systems, as Microsoft itself begins dropping extended support for the same out-dated systems. This basically means that after Tuesday, the minimum OS requirement in order to play EVE Online will be Windows 2000 SP2 (sorry SP1 fans) due to the encryption changes being implemented during the patch. Now where’s that OS X version CCP!?

CCP’s announcement after the jump:

Read more of ”EVE Online will no longer support Windows 98 / 98SE / ME after Tuesday patch“

The creator of Grid Wars, an excellent Geometry Wars clone has spoken with Eurogamer about Bizarre’s request he take down his clone and gives us a little insight into some of his design choices. It appears that public opinion swayed him into making the game actually more of a Geometry Wars clone than he really anticipated, proving once again that the customer isn’t always right.

Read more: Grid Wars creator reflects | Grid Wars creator asked to remove clone

As a follow up to our previous post regarding Bizarre Creations asking that bedroom-developer Mark Incitti cease development and distribution of his freeware Geometry Wars clone, Grid Wars, Bizarre has released a very thorough statement clarifying their position.

As it’s quite long, check the whole statement after the jump..

Read more of ”Bizarre Creations clarifies position on Geometry Wars clones“

American McGee is one of gamings absolute rock stars. Not only is his name unique enough to stick in the hearts and minds of gamers all over the world, but McGee has created some of gamings most unique titles, from his early work at id, to Alice with EA and most recently Scrapland. Turns out, in an upcoming interview, McGee is quoted as saying, “The only truly next-gen console out there is the Wii. Everything else is just a video card and processor upgrade”, taking a pretty rough swipe at the XBox 360 and upcoming PS3. Being the Nintendo fans we are, we can’t help but agree. Could it be possible that McGee’s new development studio he’s opening in China will be working on a Wii title? McGee’s next game, Bad Day LA, will be released later this year for the XBox 360, ironically enough. American McWii anyone?

Read more: American McGee slags off PS3, 360 @ Eurogamer | American McGee @ Wikipedia

Artist Aram Bartholl is obviously a fan of Valve’s first-person shooter Counter-Strike. Back in 2004, he created several life-size replica crates from the Counter-Strike map “de_dust”, complete with pixelated textures to match the legendary in-game cliché of including crates throughout a games level design. He then placed these crates throughout the city of Berlin, transforming an object whose original use was to complicate space into a fully functional part of the city landscape, giving Berlin not only a little bit of game-related variety, but also taking German gamers one step closer to living out their ego-shooter fantasies on the streets of Berlin.

Read more: Counter-Strike crates on the streets of Berlin | Video game clichés @ Wikipedia

The creator of the excellent Geometry Wars clone, Grid Wars, has been asked by Geometry Wars creator Bizarre Creations to remove all links for downloading Grid Wars from the creator’s site (whew, say that 3 times quickly). Although I admit, the clone DID hit a little too close to Bizarre’s home, it is a bit sad that a freeware tribute to an excellent game which isn’t even being sold commercially or sold on the same system has been shot down without an official version to replace it. Best wishes to the developer and here’s to hoping he comes out with some new shooters to replace Grid Wars, or at least get a job offer from Bizarre to help with the next version of Geometry Wars.

Sorry folks… I’ve had to remove the link to the download.

Email from BizarreCreations:
“We’re beginning to feel the effects of the Geometry Wars clones on our sales via Microsoft now and are beginning a process to begin to more robustly protect our copyright and intellectual property. Therefore, I’d like to ask you in an amicable fashion to stop infringing our IP and pull the game ‘Grid Wars’ from the internet for download. I hope you understand and are able to do this without us having to take further steps.”

Read more: Mark Incitti’s Blitz creations | Grid Wars review

In a very interesting move, Linden Labs are starting a service-wide shutdown of their external user-forums, in order to transition communication and sharing of information in-world, through the use of in-world blogs, forums, and new communication channels being developed. Forums were already set to members-only, however, Linden Labs admitted that significant resources go into the maintenance of external forums and rightfully state that those resources should focus on the Second Life world, rather than external gossip and drama. The closures will occur over the coming months, so forum junkies won’t all be cut-off from their stuff at once.

Read more: Linden Labs starting shutdown of Second Life forums

Taking time off from closing development studios, (reportadly) bleeding talent from their various studios and throwing wild hipster parties in New York lofts, Rockstar Games have released the debut trailer for their upcoming school days meets GTA meets negative press magnet, Bully. The trailer plays more like an animated after-school special, but the quality of the voice acting and art are refreshing as always. Even though half the gaming world hasn’t seen a lick of gameplay from the title, the ‘normals’ are already all up in arms, naturally being lead by our lord and saviour Jack Thompson, with calls for banning the game from stores in order to keep kids from playing a game which is probably tamer than their everyday school lives to begin with (dear parents, most kids in school today are horrible people, go browse YouTube and MySpace for a little while for more information). So, uhmm, yeah whatever, when’s the next GTA coming out again?

Watch the video premiere of Bully after the jump..

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