PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Poleriders is from Bennet Foddy, the delightful academic who has you thrashing your limbs to run 100m in QWOP. It’s an intersting take on the traditional and noble art of the pole vault, adding a ball and an opponent. I personally think “Pole-Lolting” is a more accurate title, because it’s one of the funniest things I’ve played in a while.(more…)

Before Quantic Dream drenched us in Heavy Rain, it gave us the ambitious, story-driven Fahrenheit, now available on GOG.com for $6. Fahrenheit, known as Indigo Prophecy in North America, experimented with many of the techniques (and story elements) that ended up being refined in Quantic Dream's interactive novella on the PS3.

Fahrenheit on GOG is the "uncut and uncensored version" of the game, not originally released in the States, which includes some interactive sex scenes. The real reason to play this game, however, is to watch an interesting, compelling premise go off the rails like a child star after an 18th birthday. A must-experience moment (of disappointment) for any future game writers.

My favourite smell in the world is the smell of my ex-cat. You’ve probably heard of Dexter, but you’ve almost certainly never had a whiff of his glorious bouquet: it’s redolent of stupid cat, obviously, but I miss it. Now I’ve moved away from him I might get an Olly, a little box that puffs out odours from your PC’s actions.(more…)

Have you played DarkEden? It is, I’m told by this email, the first vampire-based MMO. Can that be true? By 2008, no one else had churned out a similarly themed online-em-up? It’s only been available in Korea and surrounding nations until now, but it’s just begun its closed beta for a N. American release. Why am I telling you about the 90 billionth Korean MMO to be latterly translated? Because I’ve seen the trailer below, and you haven’t. Let’s put that right.

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No. No she is not. But Baroness Greenfield recently came under some considerable fire for making inaccurate and unevidenced claims about gaming’s effects on the brain. The once highly respected scientist has now become a go-to for the worst sorts of anti-scientific scaremongering. It’s one thing when a Melanie Phillips type writes any old rubbish that falls out of her face, but when it’s the former director of the Royal Institute, it’s especially sad and frustrating. So how did the member of the House of Lords, and professor of synaptic pharmacology at Oxford, respond to the widespread criticism debunking her claims? She produced more of the same, this time in the form of an edited extract from a forthcoming book, published in the Times (requires subscription) on Saturday.

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Earlier this week I had a chance to talk to Introversion lead programmer, Chris Delay. He explained a bit about what was going on with the British indie, talking about how the suspended Subversion project had changed their outlook, and how they’re returning to their original approach of being bedroom programmers.

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Metal Gear Solid HD Collection offers a new look at three stealth classics this week. Meanwhile, Explodemon!/Fluidity dev Curve Studio gives us a new look at the concept of stealth, with its high-speed, side-scrolling stealth game Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole.

Stealth Bastard offers a sort of Super Meat Boy-style action game full of small, self-contained rooms featuring platforming challenges and deadly traps -- with stealth as a new wrinkle. Not only do you have to run and jump, you have to stay in shadows or you'll end up juiced.

Stealth Bastard is free to download for PC right this second, and even includes a level editor. As a nice bonus, it's called Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole.

My international travel plans, which lurch into action tomorrow afternoon, only solidified 12 hours ago. This week marks my second trip to Korea and my second time attending G-Star -- the largest video game expo in the country. G-Star echoes the trends of the entire games industry in Korea, which me...

I didn’t realise I was making music. The collection of ships I was controlling on the screen were interacting, plucking at invisible instruments as they fought for dominance, creating odd, realaxing new-age plinks. At the end of the game I was given the option to save the abstract sound the little battle created, to listen to later on. Neat!

You’re an id, looking to exert your Influence over the rest of the dart shaped ships. You do this by dragging your mouse cursor around, looking for uncoloured thoughts to control. You harrass them with your little ship, until they absorb your colour. The goal is to grow the swarm, taking over all other colours.

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In a prior age, a game called Telepath Psy Arena 2 was released and generations before that, when mixtape didn’t mean Spotify playlist perhaps, there was a game simply called Telepath Psy Arena. Soon, there shall be Telepath RPG: Servants of God, or Brain-Bending Bishops as I’m calling it. Turn-based strategic combat is the order of the day, like that found in The Battle for Wesnoth. With this being an RPG though, as it says in the title, there’s lots of talking and wandering as well. I should be loving this and the sizable demo is eventually entertaining, but it does take a while to get going.

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If you know me, you’ll know I’m an adrenalin junkie. I can’t just sit still at a desk all day. I have to get up, leave the house, and do something death-defying, something all-out crazy. Like parallel park. But now perhaps I can combine both sitting at a desk and the raw octane thrill of neatly putting a car into an empty parking space, via Offroad Parking. A game I am absolutely delighted to report, is only but one of a series of parking games from Car Titans.

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I don’t know about you, but I like shiny colours. The way they’re all shiny. And all colourful. And when they move! My goodness me, it’s all I can do to stare vacantly as the saliva wettens my bottom lip. So it is that I instantly decided I liked Nitronic Rush, a new game emerging from the electronic folds of DigiPen. It’s described as “an experimental survival driving game”, citing the 1990s (in which there is no apostrophe, planet Earth) as its inspiration. But my oh my, the 1990s never offered shining colours like these.

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Apparently it’s a Monday, which means Garfield is probably absolutely hating his coddled life somewhere, the comical ingrate. I’ll never get tired of his feline japes. To alleviate the start of another working week I bring you a browser game that is far more intense than it first appears. It goes by the name of Focus and is a Flash version of a downloadable game made by Jesse Venbrux, creator of the Karoshi series. Although it rapidly becomes rather difficult, death is a minor inconvenience, if you can abide the textual mockery that follows. Play here now.

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One of the many things about indie gaming that makes me feel and warm and fuzzy, and like maybe the world isn’t about to end in war and poverty and climate change and giant ant invasion after all, is that even established names in the field can’t resist getting involved in gamejams. Take Knytt Stories creator Nifflas, for instance, who’s co-developed a rather impressive, Unity-powered Marble Madness-esque game in just 48 hours for the recent Exile Game Jam. True, it’s hardly busting that micro-genre wide-open, but it’s pretty, it’s tight and it’s the kind of thing someone would charge £2 for on iPhone – a deft example of rapid development talent, and yours for no-pennies. Take a look at it below, or play it in your browser here.

Oh, and there’s a second new Nifflas game, concerning the embroidered cowboys you can see above, which you should really take a look at…(more…)

Remember the completely splendid Pirates-like The Wager? Well, it’s just gotten bigger again, and developers Surprised Man are calling it complete. Which means they’re ready to announce their next game, The Archive. You can find out more about both below.

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Skyrim? Pssh, forget that noise, November 11 is all about Nitronic Rush now. A "survival driving" game for the PC, Nitronic Rush has been developed by the aptly named Team Nitronic, a group of students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, the same school responsible for Narbacular Drop. As you can tell from the release trailer above, the game looks flippin' gorgeous (see what we did there?), and we can't wait to see if the gameplay ends up being just as stellar.

Dragons are so old hat, you guys; glowing mystical daredevil highways are the new hotness.

Sundays are for repair. The battles of the days and nights before can be forgotten with a cup of tea and some time with a friendly, glowing screen. Let’s see where that takes us.

• “Things I Ate In Skyrim”: “I found myself at a crossroads. I could follow the stony trail toward Riverwood, the game’s first village, or I could take the road less traveled. That’s when I noticed the lovely insect floating above my head. The butterfly lit upon a large rock, then took to the air. I looked up, plucked the creature out of the air, and checked my inventory. I’d already plucked its wings from its body—presumably to be mixed into a potion. Rather than waiting to find a use for this strange reagent, I ate the wings.”

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Hello youse.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago I said “I played an amazing game. I can’t tell you about it right now. Heeheeeheeeeeeee!” And some of you speculated about what it might be – “Perhaps it’s a new Knizia game?” *crag*ing UNLIKELY. “Perhaps it’s something about trading corn in 16th Century Humbergurgenstein?” *crag*ing UNLIKELY, mate.

Today is when I can tell you about it.

As Captain James T.J. Kirk would say: “ENGAGE!”(more…)

Brony up, boys and girls -- Twilight Sparkle has been studying some sick moves for Fighting is Magic, the fanmade My Little Pony fighter. Developer Mane6 has released a character video showing off Twilight Sparkle's pre-alpha move set, which includes book-reading, energy blasts from her horn and an impressive special that releases a blinding explosion of what we assume are sparkles. Deadly sparkles.

The first release of Fighting is Magic will feature Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, so rest assured there are plenty more guilty-pleasure ponies coming our way. We know Our Little Bronies were worried.

[Thanks, Darkdrium!]

Indie Games for Good is smack in the middle of its weekend marathon, raising money for Child's Play Charity. Its schedule is packed full of entertaining indie titles, which they're playing on a live stream right here and on justin.tv. Alongside play time, Indie Games for Good is hosting interviews with developers, including Kayin of I Wanna Be The Guy, Nigel Kilmer of Beret and Tim Ambrogi of Jamestown.

The indie warriors have raised more than $3,000 so far, and if you're interested you can donate to an individual game to ensure they play it to your satisfaction. No one can lose in this scenario, except for the player when it's time to start I Wanna Be The Guy. Because that's how that one works.

Saturday’s are for spending slightly less on digitally distributed electronic games than what they might normally cost. To that end, here’s my roundup of this weekends best offers, with something for everyone. Especially you. If this lot is just not enough for your appetite for gaming discounts, SavyGamer.co.uk is a web site with cheap games listed on it all the time, you should totally check it out when you get a chance. Here’s this week’s bucket: (more…)

In pre-RPS days The Flare Path came in leaflet form and was distributed by a fleet of low-flying Whitley bombers. It was a horribly wasteful and expensive business. It could be dangerous too. Several planes were lost in accidents and on one dreadful occasion in 1939 a Cornish district nurse went over a cliff edge on her bike after being blinded by a sheet of windblown sim and wargame news. Spare a thought for the unfortunate Miss Ivy Tregowan as you sit safe and sound perusing this week’s selection of winged and warry stories. Beyond the jump: Black Shark 2 disquiet, a new simulation periodical, and a quick shufti at one of the finest free tactics titles around. (more…)

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts doesn’t just hand out awards these days, it’s also about trying to inspire people to be excellent in the first place. (It is very much the austere British charity version of Bill & Ted’s philosophy.) To help do this they’ve created BAFTA Guru, which gets successful arts types to talk about their work. Most recently the focus on videogames has been turned up, and BAFTA now send word that their games-focused mini-site now hosts videos from Will Wright, David Braben, Peter Molyneux, and others, all talking about things that interest and inspire them in their work. BAFTA says all this is set to expand, and report that “in the New Year users will be able to upload their own content to the site to discuss with others.”

To celebrate this BAFTA have released a (very) brief clip of Will Wright talking about videogame addiction, which you can see below.(more…)

Been waiting on information about Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Alan Wake, and a new Bioware game from a new studio? Well, the wait is almost over. Geoff Keighley -- host of Spike TV's GTTV -- Tweeted today that information on those games will be a part of December 10's Spike TV Video Game Awards. Other than that, no new info was revealed, but we'll have all the news here on IGN as it breaks...

User-generated tracks and cars fighting or something: Ridge Racer Unbounded! I didn’t realise this about the new Ridge Racer game, but fortunately Namco’s press release guy was standing right here in the internet: “With the new sophisticated City Creator, fans can easily create an unlimited number of tracks and share them with their friends for limitless replay value,” he says. Thanks, Namco guy! Anything else? “Domination Race encourages players to destroy everything in sight including rival cars, the environment and other traffic on the road.” Cars destroying the environment, eh? A lesson there for us all. Mm.

Strange promotional video below!(more…)

Kan Gao’s To The Moon first came to our attention thanks to Laura “Plants Vs. Zombies theme” Shigihara. (I do hope for her sake she can lose the moniker soon.) Her involvement with the game’s music got us to take a look at early footage, and then it became something I desperately wanted to play. I was right to. No surprises here – this is an incredible game, and I’m going to tell you Wot I Think it is that makes it so.

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Space Marine’s recently added co-op horde mode already has additional content on the way. Latin-Dalek-impersonating Exterminatus mode originally added two scenarios for free, but THQ are preparing to release another chunk of content called Chaos Unleashed. Keeping Chaos on a leash is like keeping a cat on a leash so this is a sensible move but what does it add to the game? For the price of “800 Microsoft Points or equivalent”, them being the world’s major currency apparently, Chaos Unleashed let’s you fight swarms of Orks and Imperial Guard as a ruddy great Chaos Marine.

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