Actually, not all of the PAX swag this year was completely “free”. To net the majority of the T-shirts, PAX-goers were asked to wait in lines to sit through demos. Only then were they able to walk away with a shirt. This is the reason why I don’t have as big a haul as in years past (hey, those lines got long!), and sadly I missed out on the Star Wars shirts because of a mismanaged time schedule.

The Good
I like the All Points Bulletin shirts, the C.O.P. The Recruit magnet that I mistook for a bumper sticker and the inflatable Dragon Age: Origins swords. The NOS energy drink contains scary ingredients, but it was useful during the 3pm hour when lunch had worn off and there was still a ways to go before the 5pm panels started. And all the comic books and magazine really came in handy for those long waits in line when I wasn’t willing to bust out my DS. Pro Tip: Mouse pads and assorted video game buttons make excellent stocking-stuffers.

The Bad
I’m not as fond of the orange shirt that came standard with the default PAX swag bag because I find it insulting. The Intel shirt also gets poor marks because of the process I had to endure to get it: An Intel rep handed out big blue buttons to people in line. She told us to walk around PAX with them on and “someone” would find us and give us a little card with a barcode on it. Then we had to take the card to a booth and a teller would trade it for a prize. I imagine I would have been less annoyed at being a free billboard for Intel if I’d won a laptop—but since all I got was a shirt crammed into a plastic mould in the shape of a shirt, I say bah.

The WTF
The funny thing about that Brink shirt is that the game was probably one of the most interesting on the show floor, but it’s easily the least interesting design for a video game shirt. Not as funny, but twice as clever was the Assassin’s Creed II advertisement where you sever a guy’s head by opening up a booklet. Too bad you only get one use out of that one, though.

Ten points to those who can spot the hidden cat toys in the picture below:

Resident Evil 5 PC will have a big presence at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo, and fans that stop by Capcom’s booth (#670) to check out the game on Friday have a chance at attending Saturday night’s launch party at the Showbox at the Market in downtown Seattle. Each day, Capcom will be giving out 250 wristbands that grant access to the venue. What can 500 Resident Evil fans expect at the event?

“Tri-Cell Corporation and Intel celebrate the launch of RE5 PC. As the exclusive guest of CEO Excella Gionne you will be treated to a night of games, fun and horror. Make sure to pick up your Tri-Cell employee badge at the event and don’t forget your RE5 snow globe when you leave. As a show of appreciation Tri-Cell and Intel will be raffling off 5 Core i7 CPU’s and copies of RE5 PC. Let’s make this Tri-Cell’s best year EVER!!”

Of course Tricell Corporation is the fiction pharmaceutical firm featured in the game, so aside from food, drinks, and a raffle, expect plenty of LARPing.

Now, I don’t have the first clue how you’d predict these winners. But if you do, or if you get lucky, you get two of aforesaid laptops – 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 320GB drive, 15.6-inch screen, 4 gigs of RAM and an NVIDIA 9800M GS graphics card.

Right now, the site has the fields set for just two tournaments – Warcraft III and Warcraft Arena. When they get the field set for Starcraft they’ll do another survey. Here’s the contestants, first for the Warcraft III championship.

• Phil Crawford, aka Long Walk. Night Elf, United States, Winner, 2009 North American WarCraft Regional Final

• Deokman Yoon, aka PhoeNix_Soccer, Night Elf, Korea, Winner, 2007-08 AWL Season1; 2008 AMD Challenge Black

• Chulwoo Park, aka Shy, Night Elf, Korea, Winner, Leadtek WarCraft III; KODE5 Korea, WGT 2007 Tournament

• Pedro Moreno Durán, aka LucifroN, ORC, Spain, Second Place, 2008 BlizzCon Global Final; Winner, 2009 European WarCraft Regional Final

• Nikita Pomadov, aka Nicker, Night Elf, Russia, Third Place, 2009 European WarCraft Regional Final

• Nikolaus Cassidy, aka Sonkie, Human, United States, Winner, 2008 North American WarCraft Regional Final

• June Park, aka Lyn, Orc, Korea, Winner, 2008 BlizzCon Global Final; 2009 Korean WarCraft Regional Final

• Manuel Schenkhuizen, aka Grubby, Orc, Netherlands, Winner, WCG 2008; Second Place, 2009 European WarCraft Regional Final

And here is the field for the WarCraft Arena championship.

• Woah (Second Place, 2009 European WarCraft Regional Final) Members: Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez Santiago, Spain, Warrior , Patrick “Inflame” Costales, Germany, Warlock , Hugo “Kae” Gonzalez, Spain, Druid

• DKP (Winner, 2009 Taiwan WarCraft Regional Final) Members: Ming “Kita” Lee, Taiwan, Priest , Po-Jui “Ray” Lee, Taiwan, Death Knight , Yu-liang “KH” Huseh, Taiwan, Rogue

• SK Gaming (Winner, 2009 North American WarCraft Regional Final) Members: Joseph “Enforcer” Morrone, Canada, Rogue , Mark “Pookz” Rendon, United States, Mage , Ryan “Realz” Masterson, United States, Priest

• x6tence (Winner, 2008 and 2009 European WarCraft Regional Finals) Members: Nestor “Souler” Garcia Trabazo, Spain, Paladin , Javier “Siler” Dobon, Spain, Hunter, Victor Manuel “Falcon” Sanchez Lopez, Spain, Death Knight

• Shipit (Winner, 2009 Korean WarCraft Regional Final) Members: Soonjae “Coilmaster” Cha, Korea, Death Knight , Jaemin “Tsukiyomi” Lee, Korea, Hunter , Janghwan “Kamiu” Bae, Korea, Paladin

•TSG (Second Place, 2009 North American WarCraft Regional Final) Members: David “Valrath” Kovacs, Canada, Death Knight , Bennett “Veex” Lynch, United States, Warrior , Fabian “Zilea” Siffredi, United States, Paladin

• Button Bashers (Winner, 2008 Korean WarCraft Regional Final) Members: Naehyun “Orangemarmalade” Kang, Korea, Mage , Seoungouk “Numberone” Oh, Korea, Priest , Woojin “Hannival” Kim, Korea, Rogue

• All Pass (Second Place, 2009 Taiwan WarCraft Regional Final) Members: Yen-Fu “BA” Chen, Taiwan, Priest , Ming-Wei “Seven” Ho, Taiwan, Mage , Te-Chen “Tank” Liu, Taiwan, Rogue

Choose a Champion with Intel at BlizzCon 2009 [site]

Whhooaahh, Project Offset! Been a while. The fantasy epic, which may we remind you has been in development for a long time, reared its head this week and let us know it’s still kicking.

Not only is there a new website, with the promise of announcements to come, but there’s a couple of trailers as well. One shows the team building a hut, and is kinda boring, but the other shows a meteor storm blowing shit up. Thus, it is interesting, and you can see it to your left there.

Looks great! But, uh…it’s been four years. What’s with the tech demo? Has the game gone back to the drawing board since we last saw it?

[Project Offset]

In keeping with today’s theme, Intel – manufacturers of processors that are probably in the machine you’re reading this on and maybe also in a machine you game on – announced some job cuts.

The company are to close four of their manufacturing plants: two in Malaysia, one in the Philippines and one in the US. Another facility, in Santa Clara, will also be closed.

All up, that will directly affect 5000-6000 Intel employees. As in, most of those 5000-6000 will soon be out of a job, as Intel say only some of them will be offered work at other locations.

Intel Shutting Down Five Plants [Edge]

The Moroccan takes you to an abandoned Foreign Legion fort in Leboa-Sako territory, where you may find an old man with information on The Jackal (presumably not crucial information, or he would be in the main game… but, hey) while The American sees you tracking your predecessor to a Dogon village in the hope of finding an informant.

Both missions can be unlocked by downloading a patch from the Game On site, although The American is only available once you have completed The Moroccan.

Far Cry 2 Receives Free Bonus Missions [IGN]

We keep in touch with companies all over the world – I dare say that in two to three years time we will see something. There already are some individual approaches, especially in the science sector, which show that Raytracing algorithms are scaling very well with the numbers of cores. But the migration to a new programming technology takes years; Raytracing is still in an early stage

We’ve already seen crude attempts at raytracing Quake 4, with pretty spectacular results. Those of you wondering where graphics could go from here now have your answer.

Raytraced games in 2 to 3 years, says Intel [PCGH]

Intel Cuts Quad-, Dual-Core CPU Prices [TrustedReviews]

Titles such as Crysis have raised awareness of Direct3D 10, while Supreme Commander proved that dual and quad core processors have a place in the motherboard of the average gamer.

It’s a shame then that it’s become progressively harder to identify which graphics cards or processors are better, thanks to the irrelevancy of megahertz and esoteric product names packed with hyperbole. Is an Intel E6600 better than a Q6600, because E comes first in the alphabet? Shouldn’t a GeForce 9600GT be faster than an 8800GT by the difference of 800 “whatevers” in its name? The answer would be “no” in both cases.

I recently made a few purchases for my brother, whose AMD-based system finally decided that being a working PC wasn’t hip any more. As part of the process, I had to put together a few parts that would serve him for the next few years, but wouldn’t leave him scrounging his pocket lint for food money.

Anyway, hit the jump for my recommendations.Note: For this guide, I’m going to assume no overclocking (running components faster than they’re rated for), and a preference for future-proofing.

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz
Cheapest price: $199
Paired with: GA-X38-DS4 ($216, Crossfire), EVGA 750i ($241, SLI) or GA-P31-DS3 ($86, single card).

It’s difficult to find single core CPU these days. But then, why would you want one? The benefits of a dual core processor for games and day-to-day tasks are hard to ignore. Even World of Warcraft, arguably the most popular game played today with minimal hardware demands, was recently optimised for multi-core processors.

The E8400 provides a good compromise between price and performance. For $200, you get 3GHz, two cores and a 45nm architecture. In simple terms, it runs cool and fast. By comparison the next CPU up, the E8500, is $100 more, yet provides only a few frames per second extra in most benchmarks.

Alternatives
Intel Core 2 Duo E4600: You should only pick this up if you really have no money to spend on hardware. At its cheapest, it retails for around $125, but, at 2.4GHz and with only 2MB of cache, it’s not going to future-proof your PC at all. At best, it’ll run current games decently, when paired with a powerful graphics card.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600: If two cores are not enough, you could always go with four. Intel’s Q6600 is not only cheap at $200, but it’ll make rendering videos and encoding audio a breeze – if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s getting long in the tooth these days, with the Q9300 looking to take its place as the discount quad core chip. Overclockers, make sure you get the SLACR or G0-stepping, as it runs cooler than the B3.

Why no AMD processors?: Before you say it, no, I’m not an Intel fan boy. The Q6600 CPU I run in my current machine is the first Intel chip I’ve had. Ever. Before that, it was Athlon all the way. Sadly, while AMD has improved its position with its latest round of Phenom CPUs, it still has some ground to cover before it can compete with Intel on both price and performance. I’d recommend keeping your ear to the ground if you’re particularly keen on AMD.

A note on motherboards: If you don’t plan to overclock or use dual-graphics cards, then you don’t need to speed more than $100 on a motherboard. However, if you do plan to run things hotter or have an SLI/Crossfire setup, you’ll have to spend around $200 – you cannot go past quality parts.

Video card
AMD Radeon HD 4850
Cheapest price: $212

AMD came out of nowhere with the 4000-series – in particular, the Radeon 4850. In both Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock the 4850 stays close to the high-end cards. Its price fluctuates greatly from store to store, but the intelligent buyer should be able to scoop one up for less than $230. It’s successfully displaced NVIDIA’s 8800GT as the price/performance king, and looks to stay there until NVIDIA can retaliate.

Alternatives
NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT: At $140, the 9600 is a powerful little card for gamers with modest demands. It competes well with NVIDIA’s 8800, and if titles such as Crysis and Assassin’s Creed don’t see regular play on your PC, then it’ll do fine. Just don’t expect it to cope with shader-heavy releases – basically, any game coming out in the next 12 months.

If you have a piece of hardware you’d like to recommend, post about it here!

Looks like I wasn’t the only one. Over at Intel’s software developer forum, user 7oby created a detailed thread describing the symptoms of the bug, and the driver versions it affected. The post includes a link to the release notes for the driver where the problem may have been introduced, though going over the list of changes, anything could be the cause.

The bug has also been identified by Blizzard’s tech support for World of Warcraft, where it was shown to crash the MMO on Macbooks.

Fortunately, the problem seems isolated to certain models of Dell and Macbook laptops running the GM965 chipset. Apparently Intel has a new driver with a fix in the pipeline, and will be releasing it shortly.