To celebrate the release of Rockstar’s new open world gunslinger. Midlife Gamer are giving away a copy of the much anticipated forthcoming title Red Dead Redemption.

America, early 1900′s. The era of the cowboy is coming to an end.

When federal agents threaten his family, former outlaw John Marston is sent across the American frontier to help bring the rule of law. Experience intense gun battles, dramatic train robberies, bounty hunting and duels during a time of violent change.

Red Dead Redemption is an epic battle for survival in a beautiful open world as John Marston struggles to bury his blood-stained past, one man at a time.

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption is coming for Xbox 360® and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system on May 21, 2010 in Europe.

To enter the competition all you have to do is post your Cowboy or Cowgirl picture HERE . The person who posts the best picture will receive a copy of the game in the format of their choice.

Rules of the competition.

The competition is free to enter and forum registration is required with a valid email address in order to post an entry. The winner will  be contacted through theit registration email address and officially announced here at via an update of this post during the weekend of the 22nd / 23rd of May. Midlife Gamer will only use the winners registered user name to announce the winner. Midlife Gamer do not allow any third party access to registered users email addresses.

The Judges of the competition with be the hosts of the Midlife Gamer podcast and their decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into. There is no alternative or cash equivalent prize. All images will become the property of Midlife Gamer. Any images posted judged to be offensive will be removed without explanation. The winner will receive a copy of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption for either the xbox 360 OR the Sony PS3 version. The game will be provided in the European/UK format only. The competition will remain open until the UK launch of the game on the 21st May 2010.

The Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn has caught an interesting new view of the tiny moon Mimas.

The probe measured temperature differences across the object’s surface and produced a map that looks just like the 1980s Pac-Man video games icon.

Scientists are unsure why Mimas should display such variations but say it is probably related to the diversity of textures in the surface materials.

Some textures may retain heat better than others, they explain.

Mimas is about 400km (250 miles) across. It has a distinctive scar called Herschel Crater which has led many to draw comparisons with the “Death Star” from the Star Wars movies.

The Cassini team says the creation of the crater itself might have played a key role in changing conditions across extensive regions of the moon’s surface.

Cassini is a joint venture between the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

Its mission was recently extended through to 2017.

Source: BBC News – Science & Environmental

GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE, San Francisco, March 10, 2010 – Intel Corporation today previewed platforms featuring the latest Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme Edition processor and announced the latest release of Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA) that will aid developers in optimizing game performance. In addition, Intel introduced a number of initiatives designed to spur innovation in the PC game developer community, and in support of the company’s Visual Adrenaline and Intel® Atom™ Developer programs.

Intel® Core™ i7 980X Processor Extreme Edition Preview
Intel is previewing its latest PC platform the Intel® Core™ i7-980X Extreme Edition processor, codenamed “Gulftown,” the first 32nm, six-core processor with 12 computing threads. In addition, Game Developers Conference (GDC) attendees can see and experience applications enhanced for this new platform – including newly released Sega Napoleon Total War, the soon-to-be-released Ubisoft RUSE, Geomerics Enlighten and Cakewalk Sonar – all by visiting the Intel booth and Intel lounge area during the event.

Intel® GPA v3.0
Intel® GPA helps PC game developers analyze and optimize game performance on Intel® Architecture-based platforms. Intel GPA provides in-depth application analysis and customization that allows developers to easily pinpoint performance bottlenecks and optimize games for desktop PCs and laptops using Intel processors, chipsets and Intel® HD Graphics.

With Intel GPA v3.0, developers can ensure their titles run on the full spectrum of Intel® Core™ processors (e.g., Intel® Core™ i3, Intel® CoreTM i5 with Intel® HD Graphics, Intel® CoreTM i7, and Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme Edition) and chipsets with a new platform-focused toolset. The platform view for task-based multi-core optimizations and a simplified automated game launch workflow help developers save valuable time. The updated toolkit now includes support for DirectX 10.1 and 64-bit game executables.

Attendees can see and experience games enhanced using Intel® GPA and running on Intel® HD Graphics, including such titles as Atari Star Trek Online, Electronic Arts Tiger Woods Golf, and more in the Intel booth at GDC. Developers can download the new Intel GPA suite of software tools at www.intel.com/software/gpa.

Game Developer Contests and Initiatives
Level Up 2010
In its fifth year, the Level Up 2010 game demo contest is a worldwide competition focusing on the major areas of game development with prizes worth thousands of dollars. As part of the competition, developers have access to development resources that take advantage of Intel processing power and a chance to gain recognition in the industry.

All game entries will be judged in one of three categories: “Best Game for a Desktop,” “Best Game for a Laptop,” and “Best Game for a Netbook.” Finalists are also eligible to win prizes for “Best Sound Design,” “Best Art Design,” “Best Character Design” and “Best Graphics Performance.” Participants will have access to development kits and software tools to help them along the way. Judges for this year’s contest include industry notables Rick Raymo, Vic Davis, American McGee and Ralph Koster. Entries for the contest will be accepted through June 15, and developers can enter to win at www.intel.com/software/levelup2010.

Intel® Atom™ Developer Challenge Winners, Next Round Announced
Launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Intel AppUp Center beta, an application storefront for netbooks, has been met with excitement by developers. More than 5,000 developers have already joined the Intel® Atom™ Developer Program. Intel AppUp Center offers game developers access to the growing market opportunity for innovation on mobile devices, which has sparked the trend of “light gaming.” In line with this trend, about half of the applications submitted to Intel AppUp Center are games. The Intel Atom Developer Challenge was created to further engage with and recognize developers who submit the most innovative and elegant apps.

The first Intel Atom Developer Challenge has come to a close, and the grand prize winners have been named. Music app GURU won “Most Innovative App” and puzzle game SMILES took “Most Elegant Application Design.” Application developers Angus Hewlett and Michael Kasprzak each were awarded an all-expense-paid VIP trip to GDC 2010. The next round of the Intel Atom Developer Challenge has more categories with such prizes as tens of thousands of dollars, a 2011 Chevy Volt and a complete application marketing campaign. To participate, developers can download the Intel Atom Developer Program software development kit at appdeveloper.intel.com and enter the contest at appdeveloper.intel.com/challenge through Aug. 16, 2010.

StarCraft II Open Game Play
Intel will showcase Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty at its booth, giving conference attendees a chance to play the game on a wide variety of Intel-based systems, from high-end Intel® Core™ i7 to mainstream Intel® Core™ i5 platforms, before it launches later this year.

Source: Intel Press Division

Midlife Gamer spoke exclusively to an industry insider who confirmed that the new chip codenamed ‘Gulftown’ has yet to be given a definitive launch date but is certain to ship in the next few weeks. While other sources speculate that the first glimpses of the chip running 3D-intensive games such as Napoleon: Total War could happen at the 2010 Game Developer’s Conference next week.  The official roll-out of Intel’s 6-core “Westmere” processors, however, is expected later this month.

The Core i7-980X is distinguished primarily by being Intel’s first 6-core “Extreme Edition” processor based on the chipmaker’s cutting-edge 32-nanometer process technology. Generally, the smaller the manufacturing process, the more circuitry can be packed onto the chip, increasing performance. Most Intel processors still use “fatter” 45-nanometer technology.

Like other Core i series processors, it features Hyper-Threading, which can double the number of tasks–or threads–a processor can execute. So, a 6-core processor can handle 12 threads. This technology is not offered on prior-generation Core 2 chips.

But it looks as if that’s about to change.

Doug Lombardi, Valve‘s VP of developer marketing, confirmed to MacNewsNetwork that the company is planning to port some of its most popular games to the Mac. And while details remain thin, most in the gaming community view this as a positive step.

One of the teaser images released by Valve makes reference to Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. Standing in the place of PC and Mac are the turrets from Portal and Team Fortress 2, suggesting that there are good things to come for the Mac.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGvYFAYqRRw

Baldurs Gate

When Bioware started to deliver RPG titles back in the day people could only wonder if things could get any better. For a table top gamer to have an RPG available at their fingertips without the pain of rolling characters and finding the all too elusive decent DM to run for them, this was as good as it gets. You’d be hard pressed to find an RPG gamer who didn’t get something from these titles. And so to some extent Bioware found their niche. Gamers that wanted depth, that knew their THACO from their Dex Bonus and were all too willing to be become emersed in these well written and engaging games.

And if someone would like to tell me how to get the text to wrap, they win my prized tiger striped D20!