PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Mojang has revealed that it has three new games currently in development. In a new interview, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh discussed the projects, noting that Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson is working on one of them himself...

One of the saddest things in all the world (of retro videogames) is the beautiful, bittersweet Grim Fandango’s odd resistance to being spit’n'polished into a shinier, more modern form for shinier, more modern graphics cards. I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you, at least not yet, but what I do have is a video demonstrating what a widescreen, upscaled GF might look like were it to ever happen, plus news on a group who are trying their bestest to make this happen.(more…)

Diablo 3 continues its sprint march stroll shuffle toward release, with new evidence suggesting that the game is at least near completion: it's been rated in South Korea. Today, the Korean Game Rating Board issued a rating suggesting the dungeon crawler is suitable only for ages 18 and above.

Previously, the in-game auction house was holding up the game, as the GRB was deliberating about whether or not it constituted gambling. The explanation of the rating decision mentions only blood and violence, and not gambling, suggesting the GRB decided the auction house does not constitute gambling.

And now Korea is the first nation to issue a rating, which means everyone else on Earth is more of a holdup.

Hello there. Once a year (except not last year, for some reason) we must ask you to help us with knowing stuff about who reads RPS. Hence, the quite important survey. This vital data is fed into the vast computer which controls the internet and the monster is thus soothed, stopping it from rising up in a frenzy of electronic tentacles and destroying the Earth for another year. Also, it helps with our hard-working gentleman being able to secure advertising and therefore keep operating the site! For both these incredible reasons it is quite important that you fill out the survey below, please. It’s so important that I am asking you do it immediately, no matter how important whatever else you might be doing on the internet actually is. Doing so will also secure our love. And that’s what’s really important about PC gaming, isn’t it?

I thought so.

It’s dawn and it’s raining cats and dogs. You are barrelling down the M3 in your uninsured Vauxhall Inquisitor when you see a huddled figure, arm outstretched, standing by the roadside. The figure is holding a scrap of cardboard scrawled with the words EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR 2, RIGS OF RODS, and BATTLE OF BRITAIN 2. You can stop and pick-up this drenched wayfarer (Click where it says ‘Read the rest of this entry’) knowing that his conversation might turn out to be as soggy as his sign, or you can speed past, purposely averting your gaze from those pleading puppy-dog eyes. Which is it to be? (more…)

iOS physics puzzler Cut The Rope is a game about feeding candy to a little monster called Om Nom that people kept describing to me as ‘cute’ and ‘charming’. Naturally, this caused me to sneer and make a noise that sounded very much like ‘pfneurr’ while wafting their words away as if they were a lingering odour. When I actually played it during a long train journey I was, just as naturally, charmed and delighted, so it’s only right that I now tell other people how lovely it is, especially since it has been ported from iOS and a cut-down version can be played via a web browser. More info below.

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Runic Games, developer of the Torchlight series, has come out against the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and "PROTECT IP Act" (PIPA).

"It is clear that the scope of the proposed legislation would give unnecessarily broaden power to large corporations while reducing the rights of individual citizens -- and it won't even stop software piracy," the company stated on its forums. "We at Runic Games oppose the SOPA/PIPA legislation and we encourage you to do the same."

Runic then listed several resources for use in opposing the legislation, noting: "We can still make a difference."

Yesterday, League of Legends studio Riot Games came out against the legislation. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the political arm of the video game industry, which represents most major publishers, is in support of SOPA.

[Thanks, Jashua B]

My default position when old-ish tech dies is to assume it’s too much hassle to deal with the company, and that something that lasts 3+ years needs to be replaced properly. It might just be me, but I don’t think it is. I hear a lot of people asking for suggestions to replace dead technology: it seems more people check Amazon before checking warranties. But December and January were disastrous months for technology for me. In order: my monitors died a week apart and my mouse squeaked its last. I’m still getting teary-eyed just thinking about it.

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Absolutely fantastic news. In December, the usually admired CD Projekt RED came under considerable fire for employing a law firm to pursue alleged pirates and demand large sums of money. The practice, which is designed to scare people into paying a considerable sum (around €750) to avoid having to go to court and potentially pay tens of thousands plus, has been viewed extremely dimly by many. Compared to blackmail, seemingly avoiding a legal process requiring proof of guilt, and with obvious huge potential for targeting the wrong individuals, it’s a practice RPS is strongly against, as we pleaded to CDP last month. We’re absolutely delighted to report that the company is to cease all such actions.

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I’d usually Google for information on a game I knew nothing about, but that’s proving impossible about this Google Maps based game from Google. Googling for Google Maps kind of only takes you to one place. So what do we know?(more…)

If there’s an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” focussing on games, you can expect to see a crying Peggle (in this scenario portrayed by actor James Ellis, if you can’t get your head around the concept of a game weeping on camera) wailing over black and white screenshots of Breakout, talking about how it never knew where it came from. There there, Peggle, we have just the thing to help you understand. Bashi Blocks is Breakout with a bit more oomph, and it’s now free.(more…)

It’s been a good while since Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw released a game of his own, although he’s hardly been idle in that time, with Zero Punctuation and other projects continuing to devour his time. Now, through the magic of moving images, his newest game has been revealed to the world. It’s called Poacher and its star is a stoical Yorkshireman (tautology intended) who finds himself caught in a battle between giant faces and killer bunnies. That’s what I reckon anyway. Take a look for yourself.

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Help an indie out. Miner Wars MMO, the promising looking space-based sandbox mining sim, has decided to go for the pre-order dollar. Twenty of them, to be precise. That down payment will help them kickstart the multiplayer version of their rock grinder, and pay for two years of access to the game.(more…)

We often kid about the grim future we all know is humanity's destiny, when the robots rise up and take the planet from us. We never try to think about what it's like to be them; what it's like to be in their chrome feet.

A new mod for GTA IV on the PC from William Peddell brings us closer to understanding our future nemesis, replacing protagonist Niko Bellic with an eerily accurate Terminator. Peddell is quite adept at custom skins, having produced a number of mods celebrating Resident Evil, Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted and many more. His mod profile page showcases hours of hard work.

But in the end we're partial to his "Terminator T-1" mod, since it's such a strong teaching aid -- especially in the video above. When the robots rebel, we'll know that standing directly in front of their guns isn't a viable course to victory.

EA has announced a crossover between Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Mass Effect 3. Playing the demo for Kingdoms of Amalur will unlock two Reckoning-inspired in-game items in Mass Effect 3, while playing the Mass Effect 3 demo will unlock armor and a weapon in Kingdoms of Amalur. Playing Ma...

If you were attempting to find casual gaming gold, you might well think about trying to create a game at the midpoint of Plants Vs. Zombies and Diner Dash. That’s pretty much what Black Market Games (created by a group formerly from Dark Water Games, they of Dogfighter) have done, with Dead Hungry Diner. A game in which two canny orphan twins realise the best way to thwart the zombie apocalypse is to feed them. In a restaurant. In a graveyard. You can check out the first eleven levels to see if that works for you via the demo.

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Razer's "Project Fiona," a tablet with an Intel Core i7 processor and the ability to play "current-generation PC games," is on display this week at CES. The crew at Engadget got to spend some time with the device, and made a moving-picture document of the experience.

This is wonderful, and as fine an example there is of how videogames exist as something far beyond pixels on a screen. Mapstalgia is TUmblr a blog consisting of videogame level maps drawn (mostly) by hand – from memory alone. Digital worlds recreated solely from the echoes they left in brain-flesh. Obviously there’s a lot of Zelda and Sonic and that lot, but you’ll also find Vampire Bloodlines, Morrowind, Team Fortress 2, Battlefield 1942 and even King’s Quest II in there. Marvel at how they evoke places you know well, how they get it wrong and that these layouts continue to exist in human brains long after they were last seen in the digital flesh.

I’m going to have a go at drawing Quake III DM17 from my addled memory alone in a bit – I’ll add it to the post once done, if it’s at all legible. Via @liquidindian.

Daedalic, the German adventure developers who gave us the almost great The Whispered World, have another title in development. Deponia is a comedy adventure, inspired by the likes of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. There’s a teaser for it below.

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You might be aware of Evolve, which has quietly been developing in closed beta up until today. It’s a fairly neat piece of software for gamers: an open gaming platform with various functionality such as chat, VOIP, partying systems with integrated VPN, stats and achievement tracking, and so on. With the big companies trying to corner their bit of the PC market with their own digital download system and accompanying social doohickeys – Steam, Origin, Battle.net etc – this is one way to centralise your social gaming stuff while remaining independent of a publisher’s platform. I mean, hell, I only use one IM chat client, and this serves much the same purpose. Evolve’s mandate is to offer a system that exists alongside the diversity of PC games and digital distribution systems, offering the various systems you might want and it’s a pretty good attempt at doing that. It even has screenshot and video recording in there. As an overlay it already offers a bit more functionality than Steam, especially with older games that can use VPN setups. It still needs a lot of work, but it’s worth taking a look at the open beta, is what I am saying. Evolve have created a special RPS group sign up page here.

Razer have taken the lid off the simmering mystery that was ‘Project Fiona’, and everyone who said mouse/keyboard/gamepad or whatever was wrong. So wrong that they should run into the street, take off all their clothes and scream “I AM WRONG IN EVERY POSSIBLE SENSE.”

The truth about Fiona? It’s an Intel Core i7-powered gaming PC built to be a tablet, with a pair of gamepad-y handles affixed to the sides.(more…)

I’ve been having a bit of a play of Big Block Games’ (previously made Super Goblin War Machine) 2D space trader, Black Market HD. Why HD? Well because you can play an “SD” Flash version in your browser just here, or get the full executable. It’s a neat little game, with a storyline and a free-play mode, as well as all the things that make freeform space adventures interesting: trading, upgrading ships, fighting off pirates, bounty-hunting, and so on. Definitely take a look if the spaceship lark tickles your interest. Trailer below.(more…)

Gunpoint looks very good indeed, good enough to be nominated in the best design category at the IGF in fact. Its clever infiltration and security rewiring combine wonderfully with slapstick violence and trouser-propelled window-diving. Yes, it looks good, but how will it sound? Designer/wordsmith Tom Francis sent out a call for musical submissions and two new videos are here to pleasure your ears with the choices that have been made. Best listened to while in a dark bar with a haze of smoke around the ceiling and a shot of bourbon in your hand. If I were you, I’d probably think about the one that got away the whole while as well.

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Aaaaand hot off the presses is the rather long list of exciting finalists for this year’s exciting Independent Games Festival. A truly corking selection of indie games here, and a chance to take bets, guesstimations and wild speculations on what might go home with a gong or two. They haven’t nominated my game, I note. Maybe I should have actually made one.(more…)

I think you may want to play Dustforce a lot too, after you watch the trailer below.

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Coo, some simple arcade charging around. BustNRush is a Unity-made pseudo-3D smashing stuff game from Techtonic Games, in which you run very, very fast through a stone corridor of obstacles (in the first set of levels, at least). You need to be sprinting to smash through the blue blocks, jumping or dodging to avoid the red blocks, and leaping over ravines. At what eventually becomes great speed. If you fancy trying the demo, be warned that the tutorial levels build up slowly, until you’re dodging, jumping and sprinting so frantically that your brain will finally announce, “Ah, I get it!”

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There’s always something unexpectedly brilliant brewing in the indie community and when an event like Ludum Dare actually challenges all the talented designers out there to produce playable snacks at a rapid pace there’s an overwhelming amount to keep up with. That’s my excuse for missing the two winners of Ludum Dare 22 during my two previous pieces on the competition. Didn’t play them, didn’t notice them. But now I have, because they have been crowned and even I am not shortsighted enough to miss a coronation. If you are utterly myopic, however, you may not have played Frostbite or Midas yet. Read on!

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Deeply disturbing news: regardless of whether there’s any truth to these accusations, the idea that developing a game could lead to a human being’s death is simply horrific. One of the developers of the infamous and oft-criticised Kuma/War series – which regularly releases game recreations of real-life, contemporary military conflicts, most recently the last stand of Gaddafi – has been sentenced to death in Iran, on charges of being paid by the CIA to create pro-US propaganda in the guise of games.(more…)

I seem to have a thing for thrusting at the moment, which probably isn’t entirely healthy or appropriate. As long as I make sure not to go outside and mingle with the public until this troubling phase passes I’m sure no harm will come of it. Eight Days In Convoke pops you in the cockpit of a UFO, hovering about and abducting people. They just stand there, sedately awaiting a chance to contribute to alien science, but various sorts of missile defense system make plucking them off the ground rather difficult. I’ve only played the demo and while it’s not the smoothest craft I’ve piloted, it’s quite attractive and scratches a certain itch. My thrusting itch. The full thing, with 40 levels, is £2.99 on Desura. Thoughts on fuel follow.

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Last year there were a couple of games that brought up the question of what actually counts as a game. One of them shouldn’t have, because it is – Modern Warfare 3 (the nuance of “un-game” is lost on the world, sadly). The other was To The Moon, which occasionally teetered on the edge of that which people were willing to tolerate. The debate is mostly unhelpful – it generally comes down to a person’s expectations of the game, and those not being met. I found MW3 to fall far short of what I would expect of an FPS, and not fill that absence with anything new, meaningful or worthwhile, thus my condemnation. To The Moon replaced a perception of choice with wonderfully vivid narrative, deep characters, and an exploration of subjects poorly explored by any medium, let alone gaming. So where does that leave Katawa Shoujo?

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