There are several possible reasons to go Alt-Tabbing for your internet browser during a simple gaming session.
You might need a walkthrough, because even the best gamers can miss things. And missing even the tiniest things can get you stuck in a lot of games.
You might also want to kill some time while waiting for your friends to finally sign on. Or perhaps you forgot to write down or copy the server IP address. Or even search for game cheat codes.
There are tons of reasons to do it, but even more reasons not to.
In online gaming sessions, a simple Alt-Tab often got my ping levels through the roof. You might also miss out on crucial things while your game is minimized, finding yourself dead upon return.
Luckily for all the gamers among us, GotGame has developed Rogue, a full featured in game web browser.
GotGame Rogue
Rogue is based on the Adobe AIR platform, and is a complete in game internet browser. You can use it to check up on your mail, browse through walkthroughs and even watch movies online, without ever having to leave your gaming session.
At the moment, Rogue is solely available on Windows systems, though Mac and Linux support is on the way. People who want to be notified upon release can sign up to the Rogue’s mailing list.
Features
When you want to browse the web in game, you’ll need to take some distance from the standards of the nowadays internet browsers. However, Rogue hosts a lot of great features, which makes it a more than decent surfing alternative.
Normal Navigation and Bookmarks
Rogue works with a standard navigation system, and also allows you to set bookmarks and a startpage. You’ll notice that Rogue does not use any exterior option panels or dropdown menus – everything is operated directly within the browser through a simple WYSIWYG system.
Like all browsers these days, Rogue uses tabbed browsing. Though this was ‘new’ and ‘innovating’ at first, tabbed browsing has become a browsing standard these days, and Rogue doesn’t miss out.
Performance Modes and Transparancy
By default, the more memory your browser uses, the less memory there’ll be left for your game.
The optimization bar, located at the bottom of the screen, allows you to optimize the memory allocation for the browser, depending on the usage.
Select Video if you want to watch movies in your web browser. This is probably as memory-extensive as your browsing will be. The Web mode should be used for regular, mainly text based browsing. Choose the Game mode if you want to locate as much memory as possible to the game itself.
You can also adjust the browser’s transparency, so you don’t miss too much of what’s happening on your screen.
Using Rogue
Make sure you’ve got Rogue running before you start one of the supported games. To use the browser properly, you’ll also need to teach yourself a few shortcuts.
F12 ““ Shows/Hides Rogue in game
F11 ““ Transfers mouse/keyboard control from Rogue to the game and vice versa
F10 ““ Decreases Rogue’s transparency
F9 ““ Increases Rogue’s transparency
Supported Games
Not all games are supported. The games below are tested by the Rogue staff and reported working.
“¢ Age of Conan
“¢ Battlefield 2
“¢ Call of Duty
“¢ Call of Duty 2 (not on menu screens)
“¢ Civilization IV
“¢ Counter-Strike: Source
“¢ Gears of War
“¢ Guild Wars
“¢ Half-Life 2
“¢ Halo: Combat Evolved
“¢ Portal
“¢ Unreal Tournament III
“¢ Warhammer 40,000
“¢ Warhammer: Dawn of War
“¢ World of Warcraft
Currently, Rogue’s overlay technology does not support the following games:
“¢ Call of Duty 4
“¢ Diablo 2
“¢ Doom 3
“¢ Quake 4
“¢ Starcraft
“¢ Warcraft III
“¢ Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Games that aren’t included might or might not work. You can report your personal experiences at the New Games Forum.
The Rogue staff are already working on the reported games and expects them to become supported over the next few months.
Tagged: browsers • gaming tips • gaming tools
