Hasta La Gadget!

Welcome to Thursday evening everyone – just one more work day to go and we’ll be at the weekend once again. This afternoon started with a bang, with Spotify holding a press conference to announce a number of things. Perhaps most importantly, the service has 1 million paying subscribers in the US, with 5 million worldwide. The company also launched Spotify Collections and the Spotify Music Graph today, announcing a new web app for all users too. Finally, we found out that Metallica’s full catalog of music has been added to Spotify, so all of you metal fans have a reason to celebrate this evening.

T-Mobile’s CEO announced today that it will have Apple products in the US next year, while we learned that Facebook may buy Microsoft’s Atlus ad program. Crysis 3 will be launching in North America on February 19 and in Europe later that week, so if you need to upgrade any of your PC hardware, do it before then. The Archos GamePad launched in Europe today, but it won’t be arriving in the US until 2013, and NVIDIA has launched GeForce Experience, which can automatically optimize your graphics settings.

Samsung has maintained its number one position in the Chinese smartphone market with Apple falling to number six, and the makers of MediaMonkey have launched a new Android app beta. Google is funding drones to watch over endangered animals in Africa and Asia, while we learned some new information about drones here in the US today. YouTube will be rolling out a new layout tonight, T-Mobile announced that it will be ending subsidies on phones next year, and new content has been added to the Humble THQ Bundle.

Finally tonight, we have a number of original articles for you to read. Chris Burns has reviews of the both the 10terra iPhone 5 case and the iRecycle app for iOS and Android. He also examines Google’s stock issues with the incredibly popular Nexus 4. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: December 6, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I think the video game I am most looking forward to in the foreseeable future it is Crysis 3. Not long ago I played through the original Crysis again and the graphics still look good to this day, despite that game coming out years ago.

Crytek has announced that it has teamed up with filmmaker Albert Hughes for a new cinematic video series called “The 7 Wonders of Crysis 3.” If you’re unfamiliar with Albert Hughes, you may recognize some of the films he’s been involved with. Along with his brother, Allen, he co-directed Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, From Hell, and Book of Eli, among other films.

The cinematic video series focusing on Crysis 3 will be used to introduce players to its stunning visuals, dynamic environments, and adaptive warfare to be expected in the game when it launches early next year. The videos will offer glimpses at all seven different environments that the game will put players in. Watch the teaser video for yourself and see what you think.

For years now, we’ve used the Crysis series to determine how good a PC is at a glance, with enthusiasts today still asking “But can it run Crysis?” when you bring up your PC’s technical specifications. It looks like Crysis 3 will continue the series’ trend of demanding a lot of power, as Electronic Arts has released the PC requirements for the incoming game. Luckily, EA has share the requirements two months before Crysis 3 launches, which is good since it sounds like some of us will have to spend some time upgrading.

Electronic Arts has shared three sets of requirements: minimum, recommended, and high-performance. We imagine a lot of users will be able to meet the minimum system requirements, but if you want to go for high-performance, you’ll need the latest and greatest. You’ll also need a machine running DirectX 11 regardless of your hardware, so you Windows XP users are being left out in the cold with Crysis 3, sorry to say. Here’s the full list of requirements straight from EA:

Minimum system operating requirements:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Dual core CPU
• 2GB Memory (3GB on Vista)
• Example 1 (NVIDIA/Intel): NVIDIA GTS 450, Intel Core2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600)
• Example 2 (AMD): AMD Radeon HD5770, AMD Athlon64 X2 2.7 Ghz (5200+)

Recommended system operating requirements:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Quad core GPU
• 4GB Memory
• Example 1 (NVIDIA/Intel): NVIDIA GTX 560, Intel Core i3-530
• Example 2 (AMD): AMD Radeon HD5870, AMD Phenom II X2 565

High-performance system operation requirements:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• Latest DirectX 11 graphics card
• Latest quad core CPU
• 8GB Memory
• Example 1 (NVIDIA/Intel): NVIDIA GTX 680, Intel Core i7-2600k
• Example 2 (AMD): AMD Radeon HD7970, AMD Bulldozer FX4150

So Crysis 3 is going to be one power hungry game, but did we really expect otherwise? The footage we’ve seen of the game has looked great so far, and if you’ve got the hardware to crank everything up to maximum settings, then you’ve got some beautiful visuals to look forward to. Of course, Crysis 3 requires some really expensive hardware to look its best, so beautiful visuals may not be worth it in this case.

Crysis 3 was accidentally revealed by Electronic Arts earlier this year and is built on CryEngine 3. It’ll be available on Xbox 360 and PS3 as well as PC, but aside from a rather vague February 2013 window, we don’t have a solid release date for the game yet. We’ll let you know when a release date is announced, but in the meantime, let us know if your rig is beefy enough to run Crysis 3 at max settings.

Crysis 3 PC requirements land, get ready to upgrade is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When the original Crysis video game launched on November 13, 2007, it was epic. The visuals and graphics that the game generated brought even high-end gaming PCs of the day to their knees and spurred gamers around the world to upgrade. The game also spawned one of the best-known Internet memes of the day when it seemed everyone was asking, “But will it play Crysis?”

It’s interesting that we’re celebrating the fifth birthday of Crysis. I played through the game again not long ago, and the game still has visuals good enough to look like a much newer game. Since the original game launched in 2007 there have been two other games released in the franchise.

The fourth game, Crysis 3 is scheduled to launch in February of 2013. Earlier this year, Crytek started offering the original Crysis as a digital download on the PlayStation Network, and Xbox LIVE. EA and Crytek are also offering the original Crysis as a free bonus to those who pre-order Crysis 3.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve heard about the Crysis franchise in years also surfaced this week. The head of Crytek studios announced this week that the entire franchise was just now nearing break even. I can only imagine that creating a video game that still looks new and impressive today, five years ago, must have cost a fortune.

Crytek celebrates fifth anniversary of original Crysis game is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Crysis 1 was one of those games back in the day that required a pretty decent gaming rig in order to enjoy the experience to the fullest extent, and with computer parts getting cheaper and more affordable these days, building a decent gaming platform is cheaper than what it used to be. That being said if you never had the chance to play the original Crysis 1 due to your computer not being good enough, it looks like you will be able to get your chance as EA has announced that for those who pre-order Crysis 3, they will be receiving a voucher code that lets you redeem Crysis 1 for free. This is of course assuming your computer is decent enough to handle Crysis 3, which means that running Crysis 1shouldn’t be an issue. Depending on which platform you ordered Crysis 3 for, the offer will be valid for either the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 or the PC.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Crytek promises to “melt down PCs” with Crysis 3, Crytek reiterates that they are not working on Crysis 3 for the Wii U,