PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Remember Command & Conquer: Renegade, the first-person shooter set in the C&C universe that came out back in 2002? One group of fans apparently remembers it so fondly that they're remaking the title as a game called Renegade X, going so far as to not only recreate settings and levels from the title in a more modern graphics engine, but also create new content for the mix of real-time strategy and FPS action gameplay.

The fanmade game actually looks like it's coming along well, and there's a version available for download right now (though it requires an updated copy of Unreal Tournament 3 to play). The full final game won't be out until "when its [sic] done" according to the video above, but hopefully that will be right on schedule. We wouldn't want these guys to have to remake the infamous "Havoc takes on Westwood" video, too, for releasing as late as the original team.

[Thanks, Daniel]Fan remake of Command & Conquer: Renegade nearing completion

Rage might be all the news today, but I would also like to point out that World Space Week – which is like RPS Space Week, only more downbeat – is also a disappointment. I suppose one could blame the lack of panache in this United Nations-sponsored initiative’s website, but I blame the lack of private enterprise capitalising on Space Week. Only one single F2P company has sent us a press release regarding their space game’s celebration of World Space Week, and that’s Black Prophecy, who are doing some XP event or whatever. That’s pretty weak, Space Game Community. Hell, even Cliffski, designer of Gratuitous Space Battles said: “I have no deals to announce.” Cliff’s shocking disregard for World Space Week is emblematic of the attitude space game producers have to this fine, upstanding event, and I don’t like it one bit. So what we do about it? Not much, but if you have got a space game you could put on sale or do some other Space Week themed event with it, I suppose. Maybe I’ll even post about it. Not that I expect any of you to, because you all hate World Space Week, you monsters. I am going to have to make a nice cup of tea and commiserate by look at pictures of spaceships.

[Disclaimer: Actually, I had no idea it was World Space Week until the Black Prophecy thing turned up, but now that I know I am ALL OVER IT.]

Okay then! My rambling foray into PC hardware continues. Later in the week I am going to do another PC-build post with a better, clearer version of what we discussed here. That’ll also contain some suggestions about cheaper builds and also some suggestions for what to do if you can’t/won’t build your own machine. In the meantime, however, I want to hear some opinions on the topic of gaming laptops. I tend to cart around various categories of netbook these days, with no real intention of gaming on them, even if they can actually muster a fair bit of PC gaming’s history. But I am aware than many people do having laptops with considerable more oomph. What I want to hear about is your feedback on laptops that you use for gaming. What are the specs? What was the cost? How happy are you with it? Any niggles? Would you recommend it?

Speak!

WarCo took us by surprise; a first-person game from a new studio where you play a journalist filming a civil war in a third-world dictatorship. We spoke to Morgan Jaffit from Defiant Development about the game and what message the team were trying to convey. (more…)

Hello! A polite notice for you: while we’re very proud of the community on RPS (which is most certainly smarter than the average bear), one of the reasons for it is that we regularly assassinate certain kinds of comment. Sometimes, people are baffled and/or outraged that this has happened. So, for the record: we do that, we always have done, we always will and you can’t talk us out of it. No mercy. However, if you follow these three simple rules your words shall most likely be safe:

1) Don’t insult anyone, whether they’re an RPS writer, reader or anyone else. If you can’t make your argument without insults, it simply isn’t worth making. So the comment will be deleted. 2) Don’t say meh/boring/yawn or any kind of words to that effect (this also includes ‘old!’ and related). If you don’t care about the subject of a post, it’s openly absurd that you’ve made the effort to comment on it instead of just moving on to a story you are interested in. So the comment will be deleted. 3) Don’t reply to spam messages, no matter how hilarious you think you’re being. When something slips through the net, we usually clean it up pretty quickly, so any replies to it are left floating and leave you looking like a mad’un. So the comment will be deleted.

That’s all! Thanks for your time, and for your many interesting and entertaining comments past and future.

Pixelprospector points the way to where Retro Souls have released a demo (bottom of the page) of their moderately cute conceptual platformer, 8-Bit Night. The concept is pretty simple: the 2D level can be flipped around to be played by your “mirror” character. This character moves in a mirror image of your own movements, allowing for some impossible access to bits of the map and a way of creating/sidestepping ingenious puzzles. But which one is the “real” character!? It’s all so confusing. There’s a video of the game below for those who have no inclination to play the thing.(more…)

I do not wish to spoil any of this game’s mystery – or, indeed, frustration – so I will simply observe that Jak Locke’s vintage Atari-aping indie Twin Peaks game Black Lodge 2600 does a damn fine job of being as haunting, bewildering and maddening as its legendary source material. I shall also quote from the manual (which you must read if you are to have any hope of figuring the game out).

“A day in the FBI was never like this before! You are Special Agent Dale Cooper and you’ve found yourself trapped inside of the Black Lodge, a surreal and dangerous place between worlds. Try as you might, you can’t seem to find anything but the same room and hallway no matter which way you turn. Worse yet, your doppelganger is in hot pursuit!”

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Well slap my tail and call me a dolphin, it's time for another episode of the IGN AU Pubcast! - our distinctly Aussie take on the traditional podcast, blending our love of gaming with beer and toilet humour - and a liberal dose of intelligent debate. Many of our loyal listeners felt that our las...

Activison's indie games competition was such a rousing success last time -- from its announcement to the year-and-a-half of silence that followed to the reveal of winners -- that the publisher's doing it again, offering up another $250,000 to two indie developers.

Activision's doing it differently this time. For one thing, right there in the press release, it notes that "Ownership of submission remains with the creator." Last time, the competition had a caveat that if Activision decided to publish the winning entry, it would own the IP. The announcement of this contest mentions nothing about an Activision publishing deal being on the table.

Additionally, Activision is working with Indiecade to run this contest. Submissions are open now through December 31. Winners will be announced sometime in the next couple of years or whatever.

While knickers are being busily twisted about whether referring to the Binding of Isaac as in any way qualifying as a roguelike is right up there with the purest, most horrifying, most unforgivable evil of calling a real-time tactics game a real-time strategy game, let’s also look at something that does fit that genre without outrage. This one’s turn-based and everything!

http://cardinalquest.com/, which impressed our Mr Smith just over a month ago, is spending 24 hours in the happy land of no-pennies. To qualify for this most absolute of discounts, you’ll need to read this tweet from CQ’s creator, Ido Yehieli and apply the code wherein when you go as if to purchase the game. That’s it! Trailer below if you’re having a dither.(more…)

Some days it’s hard to coax a smile out of me, usually because I’ve inadvertently pondered the state of the world rather than concentrating on my cocoon of make-believe. There were moments this morning when I thought this might be one such day and that I’d end up typing furious screeds about every terrible piece of news I could find. But the I saw the new trailer for Voxatron, which made everything seem just fine. Better than fine. We’ve had our eyes on this for a while but this is the first new footage since April and it comes with the announcement that the alpha will be available soon for anyone willing to preorder. Take a look.

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Alright kiddies, there's enough fuel in our rampant speculation engine to last a while, so let's get to it: On September 26, EA filed a trademark for "Style Empire," which is classified in the documentation as "Computer game software; Downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices."

A second filing also registers the trademark for "Entertainment services, namely, providing an on-line computer game; Provision of information relating to electronic computer games provided via the Internet." No further information is available at the moment, which is to be expected this early in the game, but it sure sounds like a casual and/or social game at this point. We could be wrong, though; maybe Style Empire is EA's new massive multiplayer rhythm dress-up motion game for arcades and the Wonderswan.

As Rab mentioned between Manifestoing last time, he’s away on holiday at the mo. Now, I could have done a post about my attempt to paint and assemble 70-odd Mantic Elves via industrial dipping techniques, except that’d i) take away time which I’d rather use to paint and assemble the 70-odd elves and ii) it’s a lot of work, and I’m retired, don’t you know. Instead, let’s the board-game coverage a-coverage-ing by linking to the latest Quinns & Paul’s Shut Up And Sit Down, which you’ll find below. They cover Dominion, 7 Wonders and Nightfall. Hurrah!(more…)

Sundays are for nervously reading the Sunday Papers, and thinking about what might appear in them. Oh well, worse things happen at sea. Let’s have a look at all the things that can only happen in videogames.

• It’s a big one to start: Eurogamer ask the question “How Bad is PC Piracy Really?” The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that no-one really knows. Here’s Capcom’s Christian Svensson: “We looked at quantifying what the real losses are,” says Christian Svensson of the PC Gaming Alliance and Capcom, “and it’s incredibly hard to do, because you end up having to do a set of cascading assumptions that you have no real ability to validate in any meaningful away.” There are a lot of good points made about how and why companies choose to use DRM, but I think it’s Guillaume Rambourg from GoG who sums my feels up best: “”Piracy is some kind of ghost enemy, and chasing a ghost enemy is a pure waste of time and resources. The only way really is to make the whole gaming experience easy, convenient and rewarding for the users – this is the only way to fight against piracy.”

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I’m a little late in posting this Bargain Bucket today. It’s actually Ed McMillen’s fault, I was up past my bedtime last night, playing none other than The Binding of Isaac (as featured in this week’s Bargain Bucket). I might sneak some more in now, actually. There’s plenty of other games on offer this weekend, you won’t want to miss some of these deals. You can always find even more cheap games, on all formats, over at SavyGamer.co.uk. Here’s this week’s download roundup: (more…)

Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Peter Willington makes the transition from game critic to developer with Soldiers are Dreamers. What's your game called, and what's it about?

The title of my game is Soldiers Are Dreamers, taken from the poem "Dreamers" by Siegfried Sassoon, a celebrated World War I poet. It's inspired by war but I've tried to be as ambiguous as possible when it comes to the actual message and meaning. I really want those that experience it to make their own interpretations on what the narrative itself is.

After disappearing for a little over two years, Mark Jacobs is back with casual game company City State Entertainment. The studio, located in Fairfax, Virginia, quietly opened in March and is working on an iOS and Android title for Q4 2011.

"I'm tired of strings and being told what to do by other people," Jacobs told Forbes.com. "[At City State], we're a very collaborative group where we talk about everything, and that's what you need if you really want to be successful."

The last time Jacobs was really heard from was back in 2009, when he departed MMO company Mythic, a company he founded, following hostile executive politics between Electronic Arts, BioWare and Mythic. BioWare Mythic is currently developing freemium title Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes.

There’s almost too much to play! I probably should be hammering noobs on the Battlefield 3 beta, but it really could be anything. Hell, I have that epic game of Supreme Commander to get done, new Minecraft to explore, Dead Island to continue, Stalker mods to work on, and some secret things to preview. But what do you think I should play? What are you going to play? Suggest me do!

And yes, I probably will just end up being paralysed by choice and end up laying down in the sun…

Though the port engine of the Flare Path C-47 is sheathed in flame, and most of the starboard aileron is shot away, I reckon I should be able to keep the old bird in the air long enough to reach the DZ and jettison this week’s cannisters of simulation and wargame news. In the sim cannister you’ll find some choice machinima, analysis of a beastly armour sim, and the frank confessions of a bruised speedwayist. In the wargame one there’s three-dozen red berets, a… Hang on. That’s not good. That’s definitely not good. Mayday! Mayday! This is B for Beswick. We are going down. I repeat, we are going down! (more…)

Ah, I had become a bit lost on the King Arthur release timeline. I thought Fallen Champions was King Arthur II, but not so. It’s actually a standalone expansion for the first game which bridges the storyline between Arthur I and Arthur II, and it came out earlier this month! Sorry, I missed that entirely. It has its own timeline, map, quests, heroes and so on. You can see all that in action in the gameplay trailer below.

I have to say that I rather like the King Arthur games. They are a sort of Total War-lite with more RPG stuff for your heroes and a good dose of fantasy nonsense. Honestly, I don’t know how Neocore are churning out all these games.(more…)

Zombies, girls with long, dark haircuts, things that vanish when you try to approach them, flickering lights, mutants: horror games seem less and less interested in doing anything else. The tropes of the genre are wearing desperately thin – which is why Amnesia was so warmly-received. Despite indulging itself in a fair few horror staples, it worked hard on the overall unsettling feel, and less on fairground ride jumps. Another indie project, Tower22, appears to exploring similarly ways of roundly convincing us that everything is terribly, terribly wrong – take a look at the 10 month old but extremely impressive and increasingly terrifying trailer below, and then cross your gnarled fingers that its creator will finish and release this tale of dread and monstrosity inside a Russian towerblock (as designed by a German dev). But what starts looking a lot like City 17 ends up as something else entirely…(more…)

The confusingly title-inverted Might and Magic Heroes VI will be with us very soon – I have review code right here, in fact – but also and already added to the endless and deathless M&M ranks is Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, a resolution-embiggened port of the turn-based strategy/RPG/match 3 oddity that first showed up on Nintendo’s DS pocket-toy. It’s on sale now, and there’s also a demo. I took some crazed/amazed/irritated/bemused notes as I played through the demo, which I’ve now removed all (or most, anyway) of the grammatical abuse and typos from for you below.(more…)

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has spoken out about EA's digital distribution service, Origin...

This doesn’t require a great deal of thought. If you don’t already own the Director’s Cut of Broken Sword, I’d recommend dashing over to Good Old Games in your internet vehicle of choice, for there you can download it for free. GOG are celebrating their six millionth download and this is their way of partying. How jolly nice of them. If you haven’t already played it and have even a passing interest in point and click games, conspiracy theories or gorgeous hand-drawn graphics, this really is your lucky day. The offer ends October 1st, 7.59 AM EDT so you’ve got plenty of time, but don’t dally. Onward!

Pineapple Smash Crew was our favourite of the excellent games on show at the Eurogamer Expo Indie Arcade. It’s a top-down, squad-based arcade style shoot ‘em up with retro appeal in abundance. To find out more about the design process, influences and what we can expect from the release, we spoke to designer Rich Edwards. With inspirations ranging from all things Team 17 to Space Hulk, alongside a dash of oft-forgotten Sega oddity Gain Ground, Pineapple Smash Crew is a heap of good things on top of a stack of more good things. As well as covering the game, we chatted about the indie scene, funding and what comes next.

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Okay, more hardware, I think. There are loads of “How To Build A PC” features out there, but it strikes me that, given the amount of experience, expertise and opinion that there is in the RPS comment threads, we can probably come to a rough sort of consensus on a recommended gaming hardware setup for a modern PC. I’ll make some inexpert suggestions below, then you lot can comment, and we’ll perhaps even come up with a few builds at different prices? Everyone up for that?

I’ll edit this article as we go along, so we can try and come up with something roughly definitive. Okay – GO!(more…)

This is entirely anecdotal, of course, and entirely unscientific, but 2011 has been the first year since we started RPS that I’ve really noticed a rise in the number of you guys talking about upgrading PCs, or building entirely new PCs. The main reason for this seems to be Battlefield 3, but it’s also been true to a lesser extent for The Witcher 2, and to some extent just for the general upward trend in PC gaming performance.

So then: hands up if you bought a graphics card in the past year! (So since September 2010.) And also let me know how much you spent.

o/ (£148)

Blizzard continues its tradition of closing the doors on Blizzcon with a big concert. Two years ago it was Ozzy Osbourne, and Tenacious D followed -- this year it'll be the Foo Fighters' chance for post-gaming convention immortality.

Blizzcon takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center on October 21 and 22. If you were unable to score yourself a ticket, Blizzard is offering a pass to take part in the festivities virtually for $39.99, either via the internet or through DirecTV. For more info on live streaming, check out the Blizzcon site.

Blimey, I just thought I’d have an idle gander at the Signal Ops announcement trailer (below), and I was quite taken aback. You see, well, if any of you remember Hired Guns, it’s a bit like that but with real-time stealth espionage. There’s shades of a bunch of stuff in there, actually, like a caricatured take on the old squad-infiltration games. The indie team behind the game, who are trying to raise funds for its development, have said: “Signal Ops draws inspiration from classic games such as Commandos, Syndicate, and Deus Ex. We like to call it a multi-perspective shooter. While playing you are able to simultaneously see what your entire squad of agents see.” The game is all about sabotage and suchlike, therefore demanding planning and cunning, and all those other things that we are all the hell over.

Really, this looks promising. I mean it. Go watch the trailer. Fascinating stuff.(more…)

Squids, a colorful RPG in which you get to fling cephalopods, will arrive on the iOS App Store on October 13. Developed by The Game Bakers, a pair of Ubisoft veterans, Squids already appeared polished when we got some time to check it out at Gamescom.

In Squids, you recruit a team of the titular creatures to discover and stop the source of an ooze spreading throughout the sea, with each member of the team holding a different power. The turn-based combat occurs on vibrant, richly detailed maps, with players stretching the squids back and flinging them into creatures infected by ooze, like in a game of pool or bocce. And yes, there are giant enemy crabs.

The game was previously announced for PC and Mac as well, but there's no update on those launch dates. Check out several Squids character trailers after the break.