PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

You may remember that snuck into EA’s Gamescom presentation was the news that there was to be a spin-off from their MMO, Warhammer Online, called Wrath Of Heroes. Focusing on three-sided arena battles, it’s a free-to-play idea with its own look and feel. Needing to know more, we sent raving reporter, Dan Gril, to go take a look.

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As a new week begins and the frivolity of the weekend draws to a close, it is normal to look back at the week before and think: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and say huzzah”. It’s certainly how I prepare for the horrors of every Monday, and I suggest everyone do the same. But I’m no doctor and that’s no prescription for joy. Instead, perhaps take a look through the best of Wot We Wrote last week. It’s stirring stuff.

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It’s been almost a year since we heard about Bunch Of Heroes. It’s a top-down cooperative zombie shooter, and it’s coming out on the 21st Sept via Steam and Gamers Gate. There’s also a new trailer to celebrate this, which you can see below.

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Well sheeeeeeeeit, if it aint a new 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. Episode 27 Includes: The Pubcast joining the 27 club! Let's hope we al...

The Discworld novels are quite the divider. Everyone I know seems to love them, from my dad to my about-to-be-wife, while I’m pretty indifferent. But I do remember really enjoying Discworld Noir back in their 90s. Going back to it, I was surprised not only by how well written it is, but also how little game there actually is within all the writing. I consolidated those thoughts on Eurogamer, including bits like:

“The witch novels – that’s safer territory. Gone is the “this is a bit like that”, replaced with instead just fun storytelling and embellished fairytale. There he has me. And there’s more common ground – we can all agree that the first two Discworld games were bloody awful.”

You can read the whole piece here.

When I was kid, racing games were in their infancy. The road was a seizure-inducing conveyor belt of light and dark grey strips, cars were represented by their pixellated rear ends, and tyre squeal sounded like a glissando on a two-tone glockenspiel. My joystick had one button for "Go" (in fact, one...

Information uncovered at a Swedish forum, via NeoGAF and reportedly put up early on EA's own Origin store, has revealed the first glimpse of Starbreeze Studio's long-rumored Syndicate game. The information appears to be a press release and a series of screenshots. The original Syndicate, release...

Sunday is for sitting somewhere in the Somerset countryside, reading a giant book of philosophy. If that’s gets boring there’s always a tenuous data signal out here for reading the many philosophies of the internet. Here’s a few of those.

• So, thanks to commenter Kad, I am leading with a podcast this week. It’s an “Irrational Interviews” piece, which sounds like it should consist in entirely random and unpleasant questioning, but is actually Ken Levine vs the doctors of Bioware. “We were having lunch one day after having made some medical education software,” recalls Ray, “then we realized what we’re really passionate about is video games. Why don’t we just make some video games? Take everything we own, and everything we make as doctors on weekends, to fund the company. …That was the extent of the conversation.” And so on.

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Hello youse.

I’ve been hitting you with epic 2000 word monstrosities over the past month or so, so I’ll keep this one nice and brief. I’ll tell you about a recent game that’s already been on the table more than most games in my collection. It’s a game by Richard Garfield, the designer of the fantastic Magic: The Gathering, and I put it to you that you should have it in your house, in case I visit.

It’s KIIIIIIIIIING OF TOOOOOOOOOKYOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!(more…)

Time to engage your value-subroutines, make sure your fiscal-cortex is online, and it’s probably best if you have your payment method of choice to hand too. It’s the bargain bucket: Your handy receptacle for collecting the best download deals in every weekend. If your thirst for cheap games isn’t satiated by this bountiful selection, why not take a visit to SavyGamer.co.uk for more of the same. Here’s the deals: (more…)

Battlefield 1942 first hit the scene in 2002. Through the series' evolution, we've seen a lot of odd and entertaining glitches pop up. Here's a look back at some great glitches people have discovered along the way and a few clever (cheap?) tactics people use to turn the tides of warfare. Some are critical errors while others just hilarious, but they're all entertaining...

The fountain of splendiferousness that is Ludum Dare spurts up another mini-gem: spooky platformer Hollow. Retroesque indie platformers are ten a penny, but the vital trick in Connor Ullmann’s free browser game, created for Ludum Dare 21, is to make you afraid of the dark. For in it, monsters lurk. Many of these monsters can be defeated, with a consistently joyous flying headbutt move, but that’s not the point. You can’t quite see where they are and when they’re coming for you until they’re basically about to eat your tiny, pixel-art, spelunking face.

Therefore, scary. Only a little, but enough, and with a wide range of impressive grotesques lurking in the all-too-near shadows. Beneath the spooks, it’s an artful and rapidly fiendish wee platformer in its own right. Play!

Via Indiegames.

I’d been meaning to write a reply to Ben Kuchera’s “In gaming, everything is amazing, but no one is happy” all week, and I’ve finally had enough tea and enough of break to think about what he said. Go and have a read of it, please, and then come back. I’ll be here, typing away. Read it? So you can see why it didn’t sit quite right with me. Yes, games are pretty amazing, and yes we complain a lot. And the implication of Ben’s piece is that… we probably shouldn’t complain? That things are much better than we imagine? That we are too fussy? You know, in this age of fear and fundamentalism, when the media does little to promote satisfaction or optimism, it’s hard to disagree with anyone who says that we should just take a look at what we do have. It is pretty amazing.

The flipside is, well, it could always be better. If people didn’t strive for better then we wouldn’t have all that amazing stuff in the first place. And the first step in striving for better is often the complaint. “This isn’t good enough. Something has to change.” And that is why gamers complain: they are smart, imaginative people, who can quite easily imagine how things could be better. Whether those imaginings are right (or even feasible) is another matter, but no one should say that they are unacceptable.(more…)

Solid release dates for Blizzard games are rare. Just look at how long it took to get a launch date for StarCraft II (announced in 2007, released in 2010), and we still haven't heard about a definite release date for Diablo III. As reported by Gamespot, Activision Blizzard COO Thomas Tippl said that over the next three years, we should expect six "proven property" releases...

What does an up and coming sophomore basketball player do in the downtime of the NBA player lockout? If you're Gordon Hayward, you travel to Atlantic City and compete in one of the biggest video game tournaments in the country...

It’s interesting to see how much one man can do with an engine like UDK. Rob Hale has taken a while to get his twin-stick shooter Waves into a shape that he’s happy with, but the end of the road is close now, and I think it’s actually one of the more interesting UDK projects out there. You can see it in action below. It’ll also be making an appearance at the Eurogamer Expo later this month. The game should be out later this year.(more…)

To be honest, I don’t know all that much about Wurm Online, other than some people of my acquaintance are obsessed with it. One of the things the obsessed said was that really it needed more non-PvP support, and that seems to be what’s happening. The Wurm team have sent word that they are launching “a second server in its Non-PvP Freedom series. This new land, called Deliverance, is smaller than Independence, and is a gentler land ideal for the new explorer.”

Sounds ideal. However it is still the intention of Rolf, Wurm’s creator-overlord, to make the game about combat, as they explain: “Wurm Online will be launching a new combative server strain called Epic, probably in October. Rolf, Wurm’s creator, is keeping the details of the new servers close to his chest, but he has been working for a long time to make these a very special game.” Epic wars will, apparently, be another option alongside the hefty crafting and landscaping options. There’s a trailer of some of the latest stuff below.(more…)

It’s becoming increasingly common for ambitious indie projects to invite people into their unfinished worlds, for a price, so that developers can gather feedback and funding. The latest title I’ve spotted that’s hoping to take this approach is Kenshi, “a free-roaming squad based RPG” that plonks the player into the sandals of an everyman samurai. It’s at a very early stage but Lo-Fi Games are hoping to release a playable version next month so that people can have immediate access while helping with development. Reading the planned feature list was actually more enjoyable than playing some games and I’d strongly recommend taking a peek at the trailer below. It’s probably not the most cinematic video you’ll see today but it makes its point well.

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Call of Duty Elite has improved the behaviour of players, says Activision...

Would you like a Christian game for free?! No, based on all that have existed so far, me neither. And I’m one of the God-botherers. But that’s the deal being offered by Left Behind Games – the gaming wing of the giant media empire born of the books based on what would appear to be a woeful misinterpretation of Matthew’s Gospel, ignorance of the events of AD 70, and a complete lack of awareness of the fall of Babylon. But we’re not here to argue eschatology – we’re here to further evidence the claims by the Left Behind people that there’s a secular media conspiracy to denounce them despite the brilliance of their games. A brilliance you can discover for yourself if you’ll only “like” them on Facebook. Because, as they explain in the trailer below, these games are THE MOST IMPORTANT games ever produced.

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IGF chair and former Offworld editor Brandon Boyer wants to start a new website called Venus Patrol. To raise capital for this effort, he's instituted a Kickstarter campaign -- one with bonuses that rival the Humble Indie Bundle. Even if you never read another website in your life, you'll probably want to throw some money over.

Everyone who donates gets an exclusive wallpaper by Katamari Damacy/Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi and a set of Minecraft character skins by Pen Ward of Adventure Time. Pay more than $25 and you get exclusive new games from Adam Atomic (famous for Canabalt), Vlambeer (known for Super Crate Box), and Superbrothers (as in Sword & Sworcery EP). You also get the first release of Johann Sebastian Joust, a PlayStation Move-enabled PC game in which players annoy each other in slow motion, in an attempt to goad each other into moving their controllers.

$75 gets you that stuff, plus a record of Sworcery remixes and hidden tracks by Scientific American, a copy of Mathew Kumar's exp. -3, a deck of "Monster Mii" trading cards designed by comic artist James Kochalka, and a patch of a Venus Patrol emblem. $200 throws a set of five "Great Showdowns" prints by Double Fine's Scott C. onto the pile ($300 gets you ten, plus everything else above).

After the break, Boyer explains the concept of the website.

It’s true! Vic Davis says: “I’ve been working on a free mini expansion pack for Solium Infernum. It’s in pretty good shape at this point and I hope to have it available in a beta form by the end of the month for adventurous players who would like to give it a go for a few weeks to find bugs and give me some game play feedback for tweaking the new mechanics.” There’s a full list of what’s included here.

And you want to remember why this game is so great, go here with your reading. Yeah, I went there.

The list of crimes committed by videogames is a long and dark one. Our hobby causes ordinary citizens to turn into crazed sociopaths, rapists, murders, environmentalists and thugs. Wait, hang on a second, go back one? It appears that the latest charge levelled at gaming by those arbiters of decency at FOX News is one of spreading leftie-pinko liberal thinking, and by golly it’s got to stop.

This is being perpetrated by “the green police”, who apparently are breaking into people’s homes and installing Sim City Societies on children’s PCs. We’re alerted to this horror by legendary videogaming and environmental science expect, radio presenter T.J. McCormack, who observes that people are “profiting of an environmental cause.” Because that’s now his argument?

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I’m going to talk about an indie game called Reprisal, but first some theology. In the recent past, From Dust came out and it wasn’t Populous. It wasn’t even Populous with iffy controls, it steadfastly refused to be Populous at all despite being based around Godlike powers and terrain manipulation. Before that, Black and White came out and flirted with the idea of being Populous but then decided it would just be a bit like Populous with a lot more lobbing of poo and caressing of cows. Cardinal sins. Earlier still, Magic Carpet came into being and was actually incredibly similar to Populous, despite the fact the player controlled a wizard riding some flying fabric rather than an actual god of any sort. Heretical. Odd that despite its massive influence, much of Populous’ core remains its own. Now, electrolyte* have delivered unto us a mini-Populous for the browser. It’s in a pre-beta state but it’s playable for two short levels and, by God, it’s all rather lovely and nostalgic.

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Cyanide’s A Game Of Thrones: Genesis finally has a release date. The RTS set in George R. R. R. R. R. Martin’s grumpy world will be with us this very month, on the 29th. Being a strategy game, clearly I’d have to receive an odd number of bumps to the head to play it, but were I to I would insist on only ever making honourable decisions, no matter how frequently this led to my entire family getting enslaved and murdered and my head getting chopped off. Because Boromir says that’s how it should be. Which interestingly is almost something the game offers. You can see some new screenshots below, too.

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The past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about game environments that do something a bit different, or game environments that I really love spending time in because they are singular and unique (Hello, The Zone!).I wanted to ask you guys, too. So what game environments do you keep coming back to? Which ones took your breath away with their cleverness? What are the most interesting game environments, and why?

Speak!

What's that? You say you want to see more than just some static screens of the Diablo 3 beta? You hunger for actual video? Though we find your use of the word "hunger" a little excessive - really, tone it down a bit - we're not about to deny such understandable urges.

Force Strategy has compiled nearly four minutes of delicious footage and screenshots, all pulled directly from the beta's character creation tool. Watch it yourself and see what all the hubbub is about.

Steam Users may be interested to know that the item trading system housed in funny-hat-simulator Team Fortress 2 has officially launched into two other games. "Steam Trading" (which isn't a euphemism) has launched in Spiral Knights and Portal 2, and marks the official launch of the trading system wh...

There’s a grim danger with multiplayer shooters. The danger is that if they’re any good, I’ll lose a year’s worth of productivity. This is becoming a genuine concern as I played through more rounds of Red Orchestra 2, Tripwire’s shiny sequel to the super-bleak World War II shooter. It’s a little less brutal and minimal than its parent, of course, because it’s a more friendly commercial release. But the horror remains. And it is brilliant.(more…)

A new trailer for the wonderful The Dream Machine has appeared, which rather nonchalantly includes lots of new footage from the forthcoming chapter 3. Which looks… intriguing. The Dream Machine is one of the best written and most interesting adventure games in years, built entirely out of clay and cardboard, and glacially released in chapters. However, the new footage also contains the surprise at the end that the game will be appearing on Steam toward the end of this year.

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