GDC: Death is Quick in Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

As anyone who played the original Red Orchestra will tell you, this is not a simple first-person shooter. The sequel, the World War II-themed Heroes of Stalingrad will be no different. Get hit by a bullet in a critical part of your body and you're dead. Get tagged in an extremity and you'll start to bleed out and have a chance to bandage, but it's still entirely possible for the screen to fade to black just before you keel over for good. It's a style of gameplay where blindly charging into combat is about as good an idea as taking a nap in a deep fryer.

Thankfully Heroes of Stalingrad has a few mechanics built in to help you stay alive. There's a first-person cover system that lets you shuffle up close to structures then quickly pop up to fire off a few shots. In a nice touch, the cover mechanic doesn't lock you to pieces of the environment in a restrictive way, so it's easy to back off and move around again if you need to change locations. While in cover it's also possible to blind fire at enemies. This doesn't mean you're slightly less accurate with your weapon as you shoot over the top of cover, it's a true blind fire system – you can't actually see where you're shooting because of the first-person perspective. It could be useful in corridors and enclosed spaces, but out in the open blind fire probably isn't a good idea.

While on the battlefield, if you're functioning as the squad leader it's possible to order around assault and machine gun squads to different positions and to attack enemies. If you interact with a radio on a map, you'll also be able to call up a map to order in artillery strikes, surveillance aircraft and rocket barrages. The surveillance plane identifies targets on a map through line of sight, so it is possible for the other team to hide from it, as well as shoot it down. When the other team is spotted, a follow-up with artillery can blow them or pulverize the structures in which they're hiding. Buildings in Heroes of Stalingrad are destructible, and while you can't level them entirely, you can reduce walls and roofs to puffs of splinters and debris.
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Video Gamers are Dangerous Drivers

People who play driving video games in their spare time prove to be more terrible drivers when they are put behind the wheel of real cars, says a UK study.

The research was carried out by British tire manufacturer Continental Tyres, based in West Drayton in Middlesex, southeast England, according to IGN.

Researchers said that players of driving games like "Gran Turismo" or "Grand Theft Auto" are liable to take their onscreen tactics with them into the real world, suffering from a higher tendency to run red lights and attempt risky overtaking moves. Ultimately, they are more likely to crash.

"Gamers take more risks than non-gamers, possibly due to the lack of real consequences in the game," Fox News quoted Tim Bailey, safety expert at Continental Tyres, as saying.

The study also noted that players of driving games would rate their real-world driving skills higher but would still make more insurance claims than others.

For more info- http://www.medindia.net/news/Video-Gamers-are-Dangerous-Drivers-80288-1.htm