PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Say what you like about the dangers and problems of Steam’s digital distribution hegemony. Grumble about the lack of Half-Life 3. Point out that Valve are currently just making remakes. But interviews like this one remind us why Valve are where they are: “Premature monetization is the root of all evil,” says Gabe. “I think not sucking is way more of an important thing to pay attention to first.” That Valve business plan? Apparently just an enthusiasm for games: “Dota 2 is really a result of Erik and a couple other guys being huge fans of IceFrog. So that’s not like this incredibly, deeply reasoned business strategy.”

Lot’s more gems through the link, such as how Portal 2 sold more on PC than on the consoles, or how they love to talk “enemy design or user generated content” with Doug Church, but totally haven’t said what the Looking Glass veteran is working on… (Although he got a credit on Portal 2.)

Have you ever bought the soundtrack to a Flash game before? You might want to now. The "Double Fine Action Arcade Soundtrack" contains 40 tracks from the developer's Flash games, including Tasha's Game, My Game About Me, and Host Master and the Conquest of Humor., composed by Bert Chang and Razmig Mavlian. The $9.99 download also throws in several bonus tracks from the two Double Fine musicians.

If you'd like to hear the soundtrack before buying, you can preview the soundtrack on iTunes, or you can, you know, just go play those Flash games with your speakers on.

[Thanks, Shawn!]

Zynga was all revved up to release the initial public offering of its stock, but has had to delay that plan due to market instability and to answer questions from the SEC, according to The New York Post. The IPO was planned for next month, but the SEC is looking into how the social games company is reporting both its user numbers and revenue, two factors which would obviously greatly influence a stock's performance. Zynga's also citing "the rocky stock markets" as a factor in the delay, which means the IPO will be pushed back to sometime later this year, possibly in November.

Zynga also needed some time to post its performance numbers on all of its friends' walls on Facebook, as well as send out Free Mystery Gifts to everyone on the SEC's ruling board.

How long was Razer waiting to use that product name? Today, with its "PC Gaming Is Not Dead" countdown elapsed, the company unveiled its "Blade" laptop, billed as "the world's first true gaming laptop." What must Alienware think about that?

The "Blade" uses the UI from Razer's "Switchblade" concept -- a set of ten adaptive keys and an LCD touchscreen built into the keyboard, which can be used either as a touchpad or to display in-game information.

What it doesn't use from the Switchblade is the compact form factor. This laptop has a 17" LED-lit screen and weighs around 7 pounds. That's light for a gaming laptop, but heavy for a thing you're carrying around. It packs a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive.

All those big numbers bring another one: the Blade will retail for $2799.99 when it launches in North America in Q4 of this year.

Paradox are totally making a new game! There’s no stopping those crazy Swedes as they announce that Warlock will be a “turn-based strategy game set in the fantastical land of Ardania, popularized in Majesty franchise.” It seems like it’s going to be a game of empire-building and army-gathering, with players battling against rival wizards for (turn-based) control of the land.

The game is scheduled for “Q2 2012″, but there are no real images or details other than the fact that it will contain units, races, and spells. Vague teaser-type trailer below!(more…)

Following on from our reveal of Paradox’s “team-based multiplayer melee combat experience” medieval horse-and-sword game, War Of The Roses, roving reporter Dan Griliopoulos interviewed the developers of War of the Roses at GamesCom; when he wrote this, he was stuck in an open-top car on a motorway somewhere in Italy in 40 degree heat, transcribing furiously and dying of exposure. The interviewees are Martin Wahlund of developer Fatshark and Gordon Van Dyke of Paradox.(more…)

I had a fun weekend blowing the minds of distant relatives by showing them that the PC can actually run games better than the Xbox. They were pretty sceptical, but a brief trip through hi-resolution land later and they were nodding along amiably. I tried to show my teenage cousin the stealthy, choice-rich excitements of DXHR, too, but he wasn’t convinced. “I just use my laptop for Facebook games,” he said. Sigh. But that reminded me that that I wanted to ask you lot if there are actually any good Facebook games now. Stuart has been insisting that gaudy retro-remakes of games like Pacman-S and New Rally-XS are actually worth visiting Facebook for, and he’s probably right, but I suspect there’s probably some more RPSy games out there.

I mean there has to be, right? Anyone?

Huh, I could have sworn we already mentioned UFO 2 as one of the upcoming “spirit of X-Com” games, but I can only find stories about Xenonauts. Anyway! Blue notes that the game has now been dated for March 2012. Chaos Concept, the team behind UFO: Extraterrestrials, have stated that they intend to be the team that creates games “where the original XCOM:UFO Defense left off”. So this could be one to keep an eye on. There’s a whole bunch of details about plans for the game over here.

Time to slip out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini because it's the latest 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. Episode 26 Includes: We introduce th...

Sundays are for hoping that everything is going to turn out okay. I mean, it probably will, but sometimes signs aren’t all that promising. Ah well, perhaps there’s some optimism to be found in the endless pages of that internet thing. It certainly has a lot to say for itself.

• Ben Kuchera tries to defend DXHR’s boss battles. He’s wrong, of course, but it’s fun to watch him try: “The world of Human Revolution is violent, and you play the head of security for a very large and controversial corporation. You find yourself going against powerful enemies who would very much like you dead, and while you may be able to slide around most scenes of violence, the way the first boss battle is set up makes it hard to justify a stealthy approach. Imagine the scene in The Phantom Menace when Obi Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn finally face Darth Maul directly. There will be no conversation. There will be no sneaking into a heating duct. They can not go around the Sith Lord, they must go through him. No matter how often a Jedi practices his meditation, there may come a time when the lightsaber has to be his method of communication with an enemy.”

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The three-person team at Escapement Studios wanted to bring its indie puzzle-platformer, In the Dark: Puzzles Past Bedtime, into the light for gamers everywhere this summer, but first it needed money. Kickstarter has helped generate funds for plenty of indie devs, and Escapement thought it would work for them, too -- with a goal of $10,000, they put In the Dark's future in the hands of the Kickstarter public, and they waited. One month later, they had generated $7,440, but they failed to meet their goal, meaning they earned nothing. Today, Escapement is using PayPal to pick up where they left off from Kickstarter, with a fresh insight on independently raising money online.

"Kickstarter's all-or-nothing funding is really meant for projects that can not be finished without reaching that goal amount," Escapement dev Mark Thompson said. "Using something like PayPal gets you your money right away; with Kickstarter you won't get anything until a week or two after your deadline. If your project is under way, this is a long period of uncertainty."

Hello youse.

Today I am going to write a column purely from memory. It will be riddled with mistakes, and there will be places where you say “He’s wrong on that. We got him. We got the sumbitch.” I ask your forgiveness in these places, and ask you to just go with it. I also beg your patience, because I have my reasons for writing this today.

I’ve been thinking a lot about games lately, and why they matter to us. Why, specifically, they matter to men and women in their thirties and older. I’ve been thinking that it isn’t just about the experience of “play” for us – it’s also about making a connection with our past. I’m not suggesting games are a nostalgia trip – it’s nothing as simple as that. I’m saying that games open a door to that unique place we all existed in when we were young. That memory palace with the Long Summer Days Wing and the Secret Place Where No-One Can Find Us attic space.

Today I’ll remember a few of the board games of our youth inaccurately. Come with me.(more…)

Right, I do believe Lewie and his henchmen are all away this weekend, so we’re all going to have to come up with our own deals! I know, what a mess. But we can probably muddle through. Right so how does this work… Well, GamersGate Summer Sale is on, and Precursors is only £5.99. Open-world sci-fi thing. I wrote about it here. That’s probably my deal of the week or suchlike. Oh, Dungeon Keeper 2 popped up on GoG – that is a minor classic for cheap. Borderlands GOTY edition is 75% off on Steam…

Anyone got any other suggestions? Gosh, I bet you are all playing DXHR this weekend, anyway.

Uh, hmm. So I completely forgot to post this on RPS yesterday despite spending time reading and commenting about it on other sites. Well, we don’t really cover hardware at the moment. I mean we probably should, but we don’t do it routinely. That’s my excuse. Anyway, Razer’s big announcement was a gaming laptop, the cleverly named “Razer Blade“, which they somehow believe is the world’s first gaming laptop (as evidenced in their reveal video, below). The specs are ok, I suppose – 2.8GHz i7, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT555M – but the real appeal of it is the weight and size: 125mm thick, and 3.2kg. Which means it is pretty portable. It also has an outrageously snazzy touchpad/screen thing and LCD hotkeys. Lovely. Sadly it costs $2,800. Eep.(more…)

With Steam occupying the top spot in the PC digital distribution business, the way Valve decides to develop its service over the coming years will have a significant effect on how we purchase and play PC games. One competitor, OnLive, offers a different distribution method than Valve. Instead of do...

Hero's Adventure is a new mini-RPG from developer Terry Cavanaugh, maker of the popular VVVVVV and the art game Don't Look Back. The game's only about three minutes long, but it'll make you rethink everything you know about RPGs from the old-school era. Just go play it - we won't ruin it for you ahead of time.

The game was created for Klik of the Month 50, a monthly game jam using the free Klik & Play game engine. The merciless genre deconstruction, however, is all Cavanaugh's own work.

In a week when the misguided lexicographers behind Collins Dictionary announced that ‘obsolete’ terms such as ‘aerodrome’, ‘charabanc’, and ‘cyclogryo‘ would not appear in the 2011 edition of their word guide, the obvious focus for Flare Path is inter-war flight sim Pavilioned In Splendour and 1920s bus-driving/matchmaking game Bognor or Bust!

Unfortunately, both of these titles are being developed by notorious vapourware merchants My Over-Active Imagination Soft, so it’s probably best we make do instead with talk of Berlin bus opus OMSI, fast-approaching Falklands jet sim Jet Thunder, and John Tiller’s fresh-off-the-LCU Squad Battles: Falklands.

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Torchlight 2, the cooperation-friendly sequel to the million-selling dungeon crawler, has been officially priced at $20 by Runic Games. That's the same price as the original Torchlight. which had a far lower profile.

"Everyone who wants to play Torchlight 2 will be able to comfortably afford to do so, and they'll be able to play with their friend online or via a LAN, or play single player offline, all with no further purchase," said Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic Games.

Runic also revealed the fourth and final class in the game, the Embermage, who will join the Berserker, Outlander and Engineer on an obsessive quest for better loot. We're sure they'll save the world along the way or whatever, but it's the loot that's important.

Torchlight 2 is still targeting a 2011 launch.

Charlie Knight got in touch to let us know he’d created a demo version of his game, a rather splendid-looking arena shooter called Scoregasm, specifically for RPS. He explains: “The demo contains the first 5 sets of levels in the main part of the game, which should take most people about 30 mins to an hour to see all of, and get a taste of how the game plays.” You can get it here: Windows / Mac / Linux. Video of the game in action below.(more…)

If you’d asked me three days ago, “how many bars in America do you think screen live games of Starcraft II?”, I would have said “none of them”. Then the Wall Street Journal ran a story about Starcraft II matches being shown in sports bars “across the country”. That makes it sound bigger than it is, like some sort of craze sweeping the nation. In reality, as the article later makes clear, there are “more than a dozen” bars screening live games. More than a dozen probably means thirteen but it’s still a lot more than “none of them”. I don’t think this sort of thing happens on these British Isles yet but it did make me think about the different ways we enjoy this grand old hobby.(more…)

Capcom's games have been entertaining gamers for over three decades. Through that period, the company innovated, gambled, sometimes lost its way, but always returned to form. IGN chronicles the rise of Capcom through the ten most significant moments in its storied history...

OnLive has announced a tasty little scheme for PAX. Anybody who heads over to the site and signs up for a PlayerTag can snag a free OnLive console. All you have to do is show up at the OnLive booth during the Seattle show this weekend and tell them your PlayerTag. Simple.

Recently, OnLive added a slew of social features to its games streaming service, including Facebook achievement posting and group chat and also found itself dominating headlines all over the web when game retail giant GameStop pulled OnLive tokens from sealed copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on PC.

Shanghai, CHINA - YooGames, an international publisher of online web titles, today announced the launch of a new game called, Rich$tate. A business simulation, players will need to be creative in this fast-paced time-management where players will race to the top in more ways than one. In addition ...

LOS ANGELES - TAITO Corporation (TAITO), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., and NEOWIZ GAMES CORP., (NEOWIZ GAMES) today announced the debut in Korea of PUZZLE BOBBLE ONLINE, a multiplayer online PC game service based on TAITO's classic PUZZLE BOBBLE (BUST-A-MOVE) series. The service officially launched Tuesday, August 23...

Hillside, N.J. and Cary, N.C. - Leading licensed collectibles maker and game creator, National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA)/WizKids along with North Carolina-based game developer, Icarus Studios today released the first State of the Game address for HeroClix Online, a digital transl...

Super Monday Night Combat, launching sometime in the "next several months," is a freemium pseudo-sequel to Uber Entertainment's class-based shooter. Speaking with Kotaku, Uber says that the gameplay will essentially remain the same, with teams escorting their robotic minions to destroy the Moneyball for cash and glory.

Super MNC will wander off the established expectations of the first game with all-new arenas that don't look like futuristic arenas and will avoid the propensity for one-hit kills found in the original. "People tend to live a little bit longer [in the new game.] There's a lot more tactical battles, so the gameplay is a little bit more intense," said Creative Director John Comes. The company is also shifting the way turrets and bots operate to encourage more teamwork.

The original Monday Night Combat was a fantastic game, which suffered from a severe case launch hiccups on XBLA but eventually found its footing as a PC title. A freemium version of MNC sounds like a great idea, especially if Uber supports it with the type of solid updates and robust systems we've seen it deliver to the original version.

Hamburg, Germany - Fishlabs, the international leading developer and publisher of high-quality 3D games for smartphones and tablets, invested over five person-years in the development of Galaxy on Fire 2, the standard for outer space games on mobile end devices in order to bring the epic trade-shoot...

Sometimes people just aren’t willing to take the necessary steps to ensure their good cause is appreciated by the masses. That’s something the stare of free indie pixel action game, Fear Is Vigilance, doesn’t misunderstand. When her attempts to give out free personal alarms to students, to protect them when walking through the park at night, she finds people just aren’t interested. So she strikes upon a brilliant scheme: Beat people up in the park at night!

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Good Old Games has announced some new (old) additions to its Electronic Arts library today. First, the service is rounding out the Dungeon Keeper series with Dungeon Keeper 2. The second addition perhaps deserves a bit more fanfare, as classic series (and occasional quiz show fodder) Wing Commander makes its way onto GOG.

GOG is bundling both Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2: Vengeance of the Kilrathi. In other words, you won't be able to get your Mark Hamill fix ... yet. GOG promises six more EA titles are "coming soon."

The Wing Commander 1+2 bundle and Dungeon Keeper 2 are available now for $5.99 apiece.

Oh my goodness, I’m having Dungeon Master flashbacks of purest/purist happiness. Thank you to reader Mikko-Pentti for pointing us toward Finnish indie project, Legend Of Grimrock. Developers Almost Human Ltd. have just released their first in-game video (below), and it has me clawing at the screen. Tile-based, first-person Dungeon Master-style gaming, but with gorgeous shiny graphics. I want it. I want it now.

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