As many of you gamers know, Manhunt 2 was censored heavily to earn it’s Mature 17+ rating. However, hackers have managed to tamper with the code of the PlayStation 2 and PalyStation Portable versions of Manhunt 2 to remove the censors of the violent executions thought to have been removed from the game, and all these was done in less than 24 hours since the game was officially released in North America.

Previously, a beta PAL version of the PlayStation 2 version of the game had already been distributed across the internet via torrent sites, a move that Rockstar has blamed on Sony Computer Entertainment. Apparently, it seems that a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe employee has leaked the beta version of Manhunt 2 on the internet.

The illegal exploit of the original PSP code indicates that the scenes that were cut in order to secure an M rating were not removed from the full game, rather disabled, much like the Hot Coffee mod in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Many guides have already been written to explain the use of the exploit. The PSP version of the game can be easily edited by editing a ISO/CSO image of the game. However, it requires quite a bit of work to do so.

The game has been censored in the US in order for it to receive an Mature 17+ rating, rather than the original Adults-Only rating originally given by the ESRB. However, the ESRB has responded to this, and it was said that Manhunt 2 will still keep it’s Mature 17+ rating. The reason given was because it was not easy to hack the game’s code, unlike the Grand Theft Auto San Andreas’ Hot Coffee incident in 2005. Also, ESRB said that besides the execution censors, there were other things put in place to lower Manhunt 2’s original Adults-Only rating.

The ESRB has decided to stand by Manhunt 2’s Mature 17+ rating, and Rockstar Games have already responded and acknowledged this “Hot Man Coffee Hunt” exploit, which was named as such by it’s creator. Now, the electronic gaming community is currently wating for Jack Thomson’s reaction to this incident.

On December 13th, Deep Red coloured PSP systems will invade Japan and Europe and is expected to come bundled with a 1Seg TV Tuner in some versions. Pre-orders have already started for these flashy Deep Red PSP systems. It was announced alongside the new extra-slim PS2.

Coming in two different SKUs, the Deep Red Value pack will go on sale for JPY 22,800 (EUR 136) with the Deep Red Seg Pack retailing for JPY 29,800 (EUR 178). The Value Pack includes the PSP, a pouch, hand strap, cloth and 32MB Memory Stick Duo, while the Seg pack will include the PSP, Seg TV tuner, strap, cloth, stand and 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo.

Honestly, why does Japan often get consoles in colours that never see the light of day over in any other country? Perhaps the red PSP and silver PS3 would come out over in other countries, but it most probably won’t be until one year later. However, you can order one or buy an imported version of this lovely, flash little portable machine.

From now till 28th November, please be informed that -=}{oT~dEv1L 666=-’s HQ will be undergoing some upgrading works for Version 3.0 and we might be offline for some time. As you have noticed, we are already Version 2.9. Currently, we are experiencing some problems with our Theme’s coding, and has decided to make the move to Version 3.0.

During this period of upgrading, certain posts, comments and ShoutBox messages might be lost. We have already salvaged the posts up till this date. However, any other comments, statistic logs, user profile updates, ShoutBox comments and other miscellaneous data which were saved after 31st October will be lost.

Also, throughout this period when we’re upgrading, some files will be taken offline and you might not be able to access -=}{oT~dEv1L 666=-’s HQ from the URL http://hotdvl.kilu.de. In that case, we will use these URLs to contact you and update you on the upgrading process: http://hotdvl666.awesomewebspace.com/ and the universal URL http://www.hotdvl.co.nr.

During this updrading process, unfortunately, we have decided to remove the “Now Listening” function from our sidebar and the “Music Gallery” from our blog for the time being. This is only temporary and will soon be resolved. Version 3.0 is almost finished except for the theme, which we have decided to use a modified version of the current theme. We hope to see you back soon.

Halloween! it’s here! say hello to my little friend, Leo Kasper. Some lucky dudes. have already got their hands on the PSP and PS2 version of Manhunt 2. What a prick! It’s supposed to be out already, but we all know that some stores haven’t got their copies yet. I’ve already got my hands on it.

The picture see on the right is a screenshot of Manhunt 2’s first mission, Awakening. In the game, you start with no weapons. Later, you will be given a syringe and pen in the form of pickups. You can also replenish your health with medicine, just like in the original Manhunt. In the second mission, Ghosts, you will be given weapons of other classes such as crowbars, plastic bags and bricks, all of which were present in the original Manhunt. Later in the game, firearms will be available.

The story of Manhunt 2 is pretty much different from the original Manhunt. Basically, Manhunt 2 starts with Danny Lamb (previously called Daniel Lamb in the AO version), your untypical main character who, amazingly, is afraid of killing people. He was part of the failed “Pickman Project” which left him in serious mental illness.

Danny lived in San Fierro, San Andreas and worked as a research associate in McKenzie Druchner, Inc. Later, he was admitted to Dixmor Hospital, an asylum. One night, a thunderstorm caused Dixmor Hospital’s security system to break down and as a result, Danny and his associate Leo Kasper managed to escape from the hospital premise. A manhunt was later ordered on both Leo and Danny, and they have to fight to survive.

The PSP game controls for Manhunt 2 are easy to operate, although certain buttons are repeated. For example, the right d-pad button, the right analog stick button and the R trigger all cause Danny to strafe right if he is hugging a wall. Besides that, the controls are relatively well-planned out, compared to other PSP games.

The game is not as scary as the original Manhunt, but it sticks closely to the original idea of a survival horror/stealth game. GameSpot mentioned that It’s not as shocking as you’d expect, but Manhunt 2 still satisfies your primal instincts. Also, Manhut 2 features compelling stealth mechanics that require real skill, like the original Manhunt.

Manhunt 2 is quite addictive, I admit. Although, it isn’t as addictive as Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories or Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. Besides, Manhunt 2 only got a 7.5 score on GameSpot. Maybe it’s because the game was reworked on as a result of the “Adults Only” rating by the ESRB initially? I don’t know, but you should play Manhunt 2 if you’re a big fan of Horror, Violence or Rockstar Games.

Yes, you heard right - it’s Manhunt 2 and it will be released only two days from now in North America. It will be released concurrently for the Sony PlayStation Portable, Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii. As a sequel to the 2003 instant hit Manhunt, Manhunt 2 will again give Saw a run for its money.

Coincidentally, the Survival Horror themed movie Saw IV will also be released around the Halloween period. So, what’s so great about it that makes some people willing to buy a Wii instead of a pair of movie tickets? Is it the violence? The guns? The established name of Rockstar Games? I don’t think it’s either of those. Perhaps it is the freedom to choose how you’re going to torture your victims? I don’t know, we’ll soon see.

“With Manhunt 2 we have tried to create a game that stays close to the original concept of chilling suspense and stealth, whilst pushing the game design and storytelling forward,” said Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games. “We are also excited to have our newest development team, Rockstar London, working on the title alongside our two established UK studios, Rockstar North and Leeds.”

Manhunt 2 will have a totally different storyline compared to the original Manhunt, although it is a full sequel. It is no longer James Earl Cash. This time round, the story revolves around Daniel Lamb, Dr. Laura Whyte, Dr. Pickman and the “The Pickman Project”. You will still get to finish off people violently and savagely, though.

I’ve already got my PSP ready for Manhunt 2. What about you? Do you want to miss out on such a great video game? I guess not. Unless you want to keep on playing non-1337 games like MapleStory, RuneScape or Naruto, if not you should start now by buying yourself a PSP, PS2 or Wii just to play this great game, Manhunt 2.

A new major update to Mac OS X, Leopard, which has just been released, contains 300 new features, according to Apple. Leopard is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger’s succesor, with lots of Vista-killer features. Leopard has also made a major alteration to the Mac interface with a serious attempt to improve Mac OS security.

With this new operating system, Apple has introduced into Leopard a significantly revised desktop, with a redesigned Dock, Stacks, a semitransparent menu bar, and an updated Finder that integrates the Cover Flow interface seen in iTunes. There are also other features, such as support for writing 64-bit graphical user interface applications, an automated backup utility called Time Machine, support for Spotlight searches across multiple machines, and the inclusion of Front Row and Photo Booth.

After years of experimenting with different looks for windows, sidebars, and other interface elements, Apple has seemed to settle on a consistent desktop interface. The color scheme is much like Tiger’s shades of gray with slight gradients. However, Apple has improved the contrast between the frontmost window and the rest. The Leopard Finder’s new sidebar is also better organized and more usable than its Tiger counterpart.

As with any operating system out there, including Windows Vista, some of the changes in Leopard were not as successful as expected. Leopard’s menu bar, which resides at the top of the screen, has been made semi-transparent which causes it to be visually striking when the desktop background is set to display an image with both light and dark areas. As a result, the areas behind the menu bar can severely decrease the readability of menu items. Apple should have took a leaf from Microsoft, which has used semi-transparency on its taskbar, but with a slight blur so it wouldn’t affect the readability of items and wording.

Apple has also modified the Dock, so that the Dock icons appear to sit on a reflective glass tray when the Dock is positioned on the bottom of the screen. A pleasant glowing light appears next to the icons of currently-running programs, although the light is a bit too subtle when the Dock is positioned at the bottom of the screen.

The Dock also introduces a new Stacks feature, which replaces the need to stash folders in the Dock, with a snazzy look. It genarally features a less useful pop-up window featuring a stack or grid of icons. There was also a feature which gave users the ability to drag an arbitrary collection of items into the dock to make a temporary stack in earlier builds of Leopard. These feature, however, did not make it into the final version of Mac OS X Leopard.

The most important new feature added in Leopard, is not the redesigned dock or finder, but Time Machine. It is Apple’s attempt to encourage the vast majority of Mac users who do not routinely back up their data to change their ways by automatically backing up a Mac’s files to a separate hard drive or a network volume being shared by another Mac running Leopard.

Another added feature in Leopard was Boot Camp, Apple’s method of allowing Intel-based Macs to boot into Windows. Boot Camp provides basic Windows compatibility and the ability to run Windows programs at native speeds. However, people who want to run Windows software on their Macs will usually opt for tools such as VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, which allow Windows and Mac OS X to operate simultaneously.

Spaces, another new concept, has been integrated smartly into OS X’s existing Expose feature, another tool for organizing a large number of windows. The concept of Spaces allows the Mac’s interface to transform into a series of workspaces, located adjacent to one another on a grid. To drag a window out of a cluttered workspace and into a pristine one, you just drag the window to the edge of the screen and the existing space will disappear and the window will appear by itself.

There’s also Quick Look, a Vista-killer feature which appears throughout Leopard, is a technology that lets users preview the contents of documents without opening the program that was used to create them. Click on a Microsoft Word file in the Finder and press space, and the entire file will appear before you, ready to be read. Select a movie and press space, and the movie will expand and begin to play without the need to open up QuickTime. It also allows Finder views to display live previews of documents.

In addition to the new features introduced in Leopard, this operating system release includes major updates to numerous existing programs that are included with Mac OS X, including iCal, Spotlight, iChat, Apple Mail, Safari, Dictionary, iTunes, QuickTime, Automator and numerous other utilities.

In addition, Leopard has shown much of a improvement when it comes to handling networking issues. Leopard has also better security with the fact that several Leopard applications are “sandboxed” with restricted access privileges that make them less likely to be used as tools in a hacker attack, much like Windows Vista.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard might have shown quite a lot of improvement compared to it’s predecessor, Tiger, and might have included many Vista-killer applications, utilities and features. However, there are still some kinks that can be ironed out. For example, the new redesigned dock and its newly introduced Stacks. There’s also the problem of the semi-transparent finder. If not for all these, Leopard would have been a real Vista-killer.

The single-player demo for Crysis, the upcoming first-person shooter from Crytek, has been pushed back a month, the Frankfurt, Germany-based developer and publisher EA said Friday.

The Crysis demo was originally slated for a September 25 release. However, the demo is now set for an October 26 release and will come bundled with the CryEngine 2 - Sandbox 2 game editor, Crytek said. The game will be released in November and is published by EA games.

“We are taking some extra time to make sure you that you have an amazing experience but also we did not want to risk the release date of Crysis at this stage. To get the game into your hands by November the 16th, we had to make this call,” said Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli. “This is an exciting time for us at the studio as the development of Crysis comes to an end and we are only a few weeks from Gold Master.”

Set in 2019 after an asteroid crashes to Earth, Crysis takes place during a tense military standoff between the North Korean and United States governments for control of the impact zone. The grahpics are great and it uses DirectX 10. According to Crytek, you will need at least a graphics card with 256MB of video memory and 1GB of RAM on your PC.

This highly anticipated game demo, to be released on 25th September, will certainately have an impact on the PC gaming crowd out there. Being the first game to fully utilize DirectX 10, it will certainately be well-recieved, but that still remains to be seen. For more coverage of the upcoming Crysis demo, stay tuned to -=}{oT~dEv1L 666=-’s HQ.

Microsoft improved on the “Luna” skin it created for Windows XP, however, it does not allow end-users to create personalized themes for their computer without using a patch or a hack, Vista included. This is great news for Stardock, which has been helping users personalize their Windows experience since the release on Windows 98.

Recently, Stardock has upgraded their most popular Windows skinning application, WindowBlinds. The new WindowsBlinds version 6.0 adds full skinning support to Vista, which does not affect performance when a modern video card is used, claims Stardock. WindowBlinds 6.0 also fully supports skinning Internet Explorer 7, and relies on Vista’s built-in hardware graphics acceleration to allow for maximum performance.

Skins can now contain advanced animation, and a updated configuration utility is included for customizing skins such as fonts and colors. Although WindowBlinds themes are often seen as merely eye-candy, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell argues that by making Windows more fun, productivity can be boosted as well.

For those who are still on Windows XP, fret not. WindowBlinds 6.0 now offers some Vista-like features on Windows XP. Users can turn on “blurred glass” window borders, and skin capabilities will allow designers to make XP look virtually identical to Vista. Because Microsoft owns the graphical designs in Vista, it was not impossible for Stardock to build in such an option.

WindowBlinds 6.0, although it doesn’t support WindowBlinds skins made for previous versions, is great as it finally adds full compatibility for Windows Vista and adds some of Windows Vista capabilities to Windows XP. Finally, Windows XP can look like Windows Vista, 10 degrees more than before. WindowBlinds 6.0 can be downloaded below.

Stardock WindowBlinds 6.00 Enhanced release 3.0 (988)

Enjoy the download, and comment! Wait… before you go, don’t forget to share this with your friends! If you’re looking for the full tutorial to make Windows XP into Vista look-alike, click here.

First, it was Halo: Combat Evolved which was ported to the PC. Later on, many Xbox and Xbox 360 games seemed to have followed suit, including Test Drive Unlimited, Halo 2, Lost Planet and many other games. It seems like a trend nowadays that successful Xbox 360 games would most probably get a PC or a PlayStation 3 port. It doesn’t apply to PlayStation 3 games, however, which always had a PSP port of its successful titles.

This time round, having sold more than 4 million copies worldwide and being the recipient of numerous awards, Gears of War would finally be ported over to the PC. Besides that, Microsoft has also announced that the PC version has gone gold and will be released worldwide on November 6.

Gears of War on the PC, like its Xbox 360 counterpart, features Marcus Fenix and a group of brutes saving Earth, taking out one Locust at a time. The PC version, however, adds five new levels to the original game’s campaign, as well as three exclusive multiplayer maps and a game editor for creating user-generated levels.

The PC version also includes the seven multiplayer maps and annex game mode previously released as downloadable content over Xbox Live for the Xbox 360 version. As a Games for Windows - LIVE title, it will also feature achievement points and online matchmaking for Gold subscribers, as like in Halo 2. Unlike other Games for Windows - LIVE games, it will be able to run on both the Windows XP and Vista operating systems. Finally, loyal Windows XP fans! Here’s one for you!

Now, Gears Of War has finally been ported over to the PC. What about you, Halo 3? Come on Microsoft, announce something! Gears of War is bound to be successful on the PC, since it will be released for both Windows XP and Vista, unlike Halo 2. Finally, this is something I’ve been waiting for! Cheers, guys!

Recently, an Unreal Tournament 3 demo was released onto the internet on 12th October. If you have not downloaded it, you might want to do so. You would not want to miss out on some serious fun, would you? Honestly, Unreal Tournament 3 is times better than Halo 3.

The demo includes three maps ans four game types. They are namely deathmatch, team deathmatch, vehicle capture-the-flag, and duel mode. The deathmatch and dueling modes offer two maps. There is the neon-lit Heat Ray urban battleground map and Shangri La, an Asian-themed courtyard map. The vehicle capture-the-flag games all take place on a large suspension bridge called Suspense, as you guess it.

Basically, Unreal Tournament is much like Gears of War, Halo 3 or BioShock but bigger, faster, and without any huggable cover. It also packs more power than any other First-Person Shooter games. Apparently, the world detail, weapon rendering, shadow effects, blur effects and higher resolution textures were also great.

Yes, the game is only in beta, but it’s so far a great game. It’s been three years since the last Unreal Tournament game, this one better be great… The demo’s fun, but it can’t beat playing Halo 3 or BioShock. I’ll admit it - I’m still hooked on to Bioshock. Perhaps the full version of Unreal Tournament 3 would cure that?

Anyway, if you have not downloaded the demo, here is the download link to get it and start playing it right away: Download from GameSpot! Yeah, it’s slow, but it’s worth waiting, you will soon see. Happy playing, guys!