PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Hello youse,

It’s 2012. A new start. So I’ve decided that I’m going to change how I do things here. Instead of doing a FEATURED REVIEW each week like I have in the past, I think it might be more fun and more honest to have a more conversational column where I talk about what I’ve been playing. You see, the truth is that board games are different almost every time you play them. A three player game of something can disappoint, and then a four player game can totally fly. Your opinions change from session to session, a constant adjustment of your expectations and levels of satisfaction. I think it would be good for you to see those opinions change and develop, and I think it’s probably a more honest way to appraise these games.(more…)

Sundays are for magnetically aligning ferrous particles and awaiting the release of the new Pye Corner Audio transmission on Monday. Perhaps we can find something to do in the meantime, eh?

• Killscreen continue to produce some worthy reviews. Mr Zacny just about nails Need For Speed: The Run, like this: “The mission is scripted to make most of this lengthy race utterly pointless. You cannot pull ahead, and you cannot fall behind. I tested my theory by driving across the bridge like Miss Daisy was napping in the back seat. I calmly sidestepped the oncoming cars while the overwrought soundtrack gave itself a heart attack. Nor did I push too hard through the subway tunnels. No matter what you do, Jack and the wise guy will end up side-by-side in Brooklyn, and Jack will be forced to escape into the subway. And no matter how quickly or slowly you go through the subway tunnels, Jack will always come flying off the tracks to land a few car-lengths behind his opponent. Nothing you do makes a difference.”

(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, Lars Doucet and Level Up Labs make a beautiful RPG/tower-defense baby with Defender's Quest. During the rest of January, Defender's Quest is $1 off for Joystiq readers; just enter the coupon code "JOYSTIQ" to right here!
What's your game called and what's it about?

It's called Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. It's a hybrid tower defense/RPG about a young woman who's dumped unceremoniously into a plague colony who then sets off to escape by gathering survivors to fight off the minions of a crazed necromancer hot on her trail.

How important was a compelling story to you while developing Defender's Quest?

Three of us previously worked on CellCraft, an educational biology game, which had a fun and silly story to help tie it together. While people like the characters, the story and dialogue was written by us programmers. For Defender's Quest, we wanted a proper story, so we deliberately sought out a writer.

We wanted a narrative that matched our mechanics. Why do you have "defenders," and why are they defending this person? Why can't everyone just run away? So our setting was created to explain all that. You can't escape -- you're trapped in a plague colony. People want to help defend you because you're the only ticket out of there. We gave our characters real motivations for what they do in the story and in the mechanics.

Behold! A trailer for the Air Buccaneers HD remake has just floated into view. Blast it from the skies of perception by engaging it with your eyes, or something. It shows the scale of the new game, and also how faithful it seems to be to the original mod. I am genuinely excited about this – we’ll have to organise some more RPS games as the development progresses. It’s not quite clear how far along things are, as they’re still describing it as an alpha, but hopefully they’ll hit beta soon.(more…)

Games! Not those pricey, expensive ones though. Fabulous cheap ones, all conveniently listed in a big list for your appraisal. When you’re done contemplating these potential purchases, there’s more discounted digital fun to be had over at SavyGamer.co.uk, where I keep an always updated record of all the best gaming deals across all format. Here’s you’re Bargain Bucket, have at: (more…)

We mentioned Paradox’s upcoming dwarf-management game, A Game Of Dwarves, earlier in the week, but there was also an announcement trailer, which you can see below. I had a quick chat with the team when I was at Paradox’s event in Sweden this week, so I’ll post that as soon as I’ve got it written up. I should say though that they were super-keen to stress that all the stuff we’ve seen of the game so far is super-earlier, and that it is not yet feature-complete.(more…)

Microsoft has turned coding into an online competitive game with Visual Studio Achievements, a plug-in that offers badges, leaderboards and the ability to share programming progress on Twitter and Facebook. Visual Studio Achievements is in open beta right now and offers 32 achievements in six categories: Customizing Visual Studio, Don't Try This At Home, Good Housekeeping, Just For Fun, Power Coder and Unleashing Visual Studio.

Some of the badges are aimed at getting coders to discover more elements of Microsoft's Visual Studio, while others are general programming milestones, such as Regional Manager -- have more than 10 regions in a single class -- and Interrupting Cow -- have 10 breakpoints (Moo) in a file.

With the grace of a recently dumped loser shouting, “Well… I never loved you anyway!” as he starts crying, the Entertainment Software Association have announced they’re no longer supporting SOPA. Which is a bit like announcing you no longer support England in the 1994 World Cup.

We contacted the ESA two weeks ago to ask them about their position, and whether they would consider changing it at least until the bills were rewritten. We were ignored. We also contacted every member of the ESA, and were ignored by the vast majority of them. As were Joystiq. Not exactly impressive. But now both bills are on hiatus and looking pretty wounded, at this point, as reported by Giant Bomb, they’ve crept out from behind their upturned table and issued the statement below.

(more…)

Hello there. It really sucks to be posting this, but this week the RPS forums were hacked. The hackers found a way into the server on the 14th Jan, and had access for five days. We found out last night; that hole is now closed, and they’re gone.

However, it’s not entirely clear what they did when they were there. There is no evidence that they managed to get at user details, which are well hidden, but simultaneously there’s no absolute evidence that they didn’t. So at this point we have to assume the worst.(more…)

Look, it’s my day off, and yet here I am. That’s how flipping excited I am to tell you what an INCREDIBLE difference the SOPA/PIPA protest on Wednesday made. One Wednesday the US Congress had 80 members in favour of the bills, with just 31 against. As of yesterday, those figures had changed to 65 in favour, and 101 against. Yes, those numbers don’t add up – a lot more Congresspersons made their minds up. Because of you people, exercising your right to protest and speak out.

And even more exciting (!), Joystiq have just reported that PIPA is now on hold, no longer to be debated in the Senate next Tuesday as planned, because of the “legitimate issues” that were raised by “many”. We made a difference.

(more…)

Another day, another games bundle? Yes… but more importantly, also no. The AGS Bake Sale is a collection of 14 mostly point-and-clicky games that even the most hardcore adventurer won’t have played yet, because all of them were written specifically for it. In addition, every last penny earned will be going straight to Child’s Play, possibly in a big blue collection plate. The developers are taking nothing. Not even chocolate money. That is how much they care!

The games are an eclectic selection, including 9 Months In, about a pregnant, wrongly accused prison inmate out to prove her innocence, the somewhat Bastion-resembling Falling Skyward, and even a platform game written in the AGS engine because why not called Indiana Rodent and the Raiders of the Lost Cheese. Check them all out right here. As ever, you get to pick your own donation, from a minimum of $1.50 to whatever your heart deems appropriate. The more you give, the happier you’ll make a lot of sick kids. And of course, the better your soul will feel.

If only you could talk to the monsters. Now that would be something. So, why not ask our resident agony aunt-monster Ian Cacodemon for advice and tips on anything you need help with? Ian awaits your queries on Twitter here or via email here, and will post selected replies on RPS on a regular basis. He can’t reply to everything, as his wife Mrs Sharon Cacodemon often forgets to print out all the tweets in the size 142 font Ian requires in order for words to be legible to his middle-aged monocular vision, but he’ll do his best to be useful.

Here are a few examples of Ian’s advice so far. He’s a very nice cacodemon as cacodemons go, but get on the wrong side of him and he’ll devour your immortal soul. Also, he’s very busy on Thursdays because Sharon likes a hand with the housework then.(more…)

The Flare Path has a bust of Napoleon on his mantelpiece, and a bust of Wellington on his piano. Sometimes, when he comes into the room unexpectedly, he finds these busts side-by-side on the sofa puffing on clay pipes, or stretched-out on the carpet poring over old maps. Last night he came downstairs in the small hours and discovered the pair riding around the room on the back of the cat. The cat looked pleadingly at FP. FP looked disapprovingly at the busts. The busts dismounted. FP went back upstairs to finish his reports on The Paradoxification of AGEOD, 2′s 2011-12, and L’ Aurore, an amazing Vehicle Simulator add-on. (more…)

We asked long-time Friend of RPS and tech know-it-all Jeremy Laird to write us a series of columns that would make hardware-buying the simplest of matters for even the most technophobic of our readers. A mere three months later, he got around to starting. So, here is his breakdown of what’s going on in the world of processors right now, ultimately boiling down to the only three CPUs you need to consider buying if you’re upgrading or building a new PC. Take it away, Lord Laird…

Greetings hallowed RPS’ers. I’m Jeremy. I’ve been a PC hardware hack for the best part of a decade. And I’m the go-to guy the shameless RPS crew hit up when they’re on the scrounge for a new CPU or simply can’t sort their SSD controllers from their SATA ports. That’s about as friendly as it’s going to get. It’s my job over the next few months to knock the sorry RPS collective into shape when it comes to PC hardware with a gaming slant.(more…)

Shh? SHH! Hear that? It sounds like… ? No it can’t be. It must be a baby giraffe or – no, there it is again. It’s definitely the sound of someone embedding a Youtube link of the Resident Evil 6. Run! Save yourselves!(more…)

Next up in our series of chats with this year’s Independent Games Festival finalists is Doug Wilson of Die Gute Fabrik, creator of Mac-based, screen-free party game Johann Sebastian Joust, which quite rightly has a bit of a Zeitgeist thing going on right now. It’s up for the Nuovo award and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize. Here, Doug talks about graphics-free gaming, deliberately broken games, his disappointment that there isn’t a writing/story category at the IGF, and tackles the most important question of all.(more…)

Finnish developer Rovio, creator of global mega-hit Angry Birds, isn't planning to go public this year. Reuters reports marketing chief Peter Vesterbacka confirmed the company, which has moved over 600 million copies of the avian slingshot game and has been valued at up to $9 billion, won't slam into New York or Hong Kong stock exchanges in 2012.

"We are not in a rush. This year is way too early for an IPO, there are too many open things, and we are in a very early stage of the Angry Birds lifecycle," said Vesterbacka. "Hong Kong is very interesting, absolutely, but again it is totally dependent on how markets develop. Asia is where all the people are, and future growth."

Analysts have been skeptical of Rovio's IPO, particularly since the company continues to only have one hit franchise.

For a game that isn't even out yet, Diablo 3 has undergone many, many system changes. Today, game director Jay Wilson has posted a load of upcoming system adjustments, mostly made to systems that have already been changed. A few prime examples include the complete removal of "identify item" scrolls -- characters handle that with a universal spell now -- a dedicated potion button, and Blizzard deciding to rename the Stone of Recall and "just call it what it is," namely "Town Portal."

Another big change, the Nephalem Cube and Cauldron of Jordan (both integral to the crafting system), have been removed from the game outright. According to Blizzard, the two items "detracted from the benefits of returning to town to sell items, salvage, craft, and interact with the townsfolk." It's a lot to take in, especially given how long fans have waited for Diablo 3 but, in Wilson's words, "no one will remember if the game is late, only if it's great."

Head over to the Diablo 3 site to read about these changes (and many others) in more detail.

Hello! I’m supposed to be away today (don’t envy me – I was doing my tax return, weeping, screaming, not having any fun), but I just wanted to stop in and share this level walkthrough of Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine with you. Even now, some sixteen years on from its original announcement, Andy Schatz and Pocketwatch Games’ long in the making, IGF winning co-op heist is one of the games I’m most looking forward to right now. Here’s a little taste of why I think that, as well as a bit of hot monkey action and some top mad piano noodling.(more…)

Lost Alpha is an ambitious mod for Shadow of Chernobyl that aims to recreate all the content that was cut from the game between alpha and release. New (old) areas and new (old) mutants are the main additions, with the bulk of the mod being recreations of the cut locations. The team are aiming to stick as close to the original versions of the cut content as they can based on known info and it’s all looking mighty impressive. After a long time in development, release is closer than ever, which has of course been true every minute since it was first announced. We should have a date in February. In the meantime, here’s a trailer and a FAQ.

(more…)

Whenever my eye spies a new hack-n-slash dungeon crawler, it immediately commands my hands to contact the developers. Having seen Nyrthos the very same happened, and so it is I got in touch with developer BeerDeer Games’ Martin Jelinek. Planned to be an online, somewhat cooperative Action RPG, it’s intriguingly being developed to be playable on both PC and smartphone – as in, you should be able to continue playing your game on either. About this, and more, they explain:

(more…)

Turbine (now part of Warner Bros, so essentially run by Bugs Bunny) has just announced the long overdue first expansion to Dungeons & Dragons: Online, Menace of the Underdark, six years after the game was first released. We’ve got more details below, excerpted from the coming Sunday’s MMOnitor, but here’s the stuff really worth noting: they’re introducing a new class, new epic classes and moving the setting to The Forgotten Realms – where nearly all of the D&D books have been set, and which is richer in fiction than Craig’s lovelife. More details and an interview after the jump.

(more…)

Trying to make every penny count is hard, particularly when those pennies must be earned in time-consuming and will-sapping retail tasks conducted on the sidewalks of an unloving and monochromatic cityscape. Cart Life is a story about people in just such a situation, people who have responsibilities, weaknesses and histories. It’s a simulation of life without glitz, glamour or much in the way of good tidings. It’s one of my favourite games of recent times. Here’s wot I think.

(more…)

Way back in the year 2000 I had a very brief stint on Dreamcast magazine, DC-UK. I won’t bore you with the details of my quick departure: just imagine the most dramatic escape scene you can, then double it. But while I was there I happened across a preview disc with Half-Life on it. I say preview, the damn thing was nearly complete and I played a tonne of it on that bizarre controller. It was cancelled. As is the way of these things, the code found it’s way onto The Google and now someone’s ported it to the PC. (more…)

The fancy-dan version of Source-based island adventure Dear Esther causes ripples of excitement whenever it raises its haunted head, nowhere more so in recent times than at the IGF where it has received four nominations. However, there are important matters to take care of before its Valentine’s Day release. To that end, I have prepared several boxes so that we can put our heads together and decide which one Dear Esther belongs in. Perhaps a trailer will help us to choose?

(more…)

What did you do during the great battle of SOPA? What will you be able to tell your grandkids about the stand you took? The stand you took for our freedom to say “bottom” to a librarian? Me? I joined in the great blackout by playing a game without any graphics. In defiance of SOPA, I played the old but thoroughly delightful Half-Life 2 mod The Blind Monk’s Society. (more…)

So yesterday was quiet, right? What came of it? With major sites blacking out, and others giving peculiar nods toward blacking out, there was a great deal of discussion, worldwide. In terms of raising awareness to the frightening dangers of SOPA and PIPA, it was an enormous success, a number of sponsors of the bill rapidly backing out. And this was the internet defending itself, without the help of the wider media. With these bills sponsored and desired by the owners of the television media who own the news outlets, this was always going to be a tough fight. But fight people did, and there have been tangible results. Here’s a few things that changed since the day before yesterday.

(more…)

After a lot of pestering since the SOPA/PIPA news began to boil over, TIGA – the UK’s trade association that represents the UK games industry – has come out against SOPA (and presumably in turn, PIPA). This is good news, as the developer-representing body is one of the UK equivalents to the US Entertainment Software Association, who Kotaku revealed yesterday are not only supporters of the bill, but had heavily invested in it to the tune of $190,000. And that’s just in the second and third quarters of last year. They’re refusing to say what they’ve spent more recently. But TIGA, who are clearly a far smaller body with an awful lot less money, are not going along with this. In fact, they describe the bills as “inhibiting innovation” and “a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.

(more…)

Zynga's two latest games, Hidden Chronicles and the iOS-only Scramble With Friends, have failed to accumulate the same daily active user (DAU) totals as two of the social giant's previous releases, Castleville or Empires and Allies. This spells big trouble for the company's trading value and future growth, at least according to a report released by financial analysis group Cowen and Company.

Hidden Chronicles' 12 day post-launch DAU total of 710,000 is well below the over 5 million DAU figure reached by Empires and Allies and Castleville during their first 12 days of existence; similarly, Scramble With Friends has failed to penetrate the Top 20 barrier on the App Store. Historically, Zynga's DAU totals peak 3 months after a game has been released (according to the report), and while it's possible that both Hidden Chronicles and Scramble With Friends could slowly acquire a larger user base, there's nothing in Zynga's statistical history to make that extremely plausible.

Now, 710,000 daily users sounds like a ton of people, but Zynga has set the bar so high that it's not enough to keep the company's overall growth even: "The quarterly rate of DAU decline for Zynga's titles that are at least three months old has averaged 18.4 percent per quarter for the last two years," explained Doug Creutz of Cowen and Company. "Assuming Zynga averages a 20 percent quarterly rate of decline for titles beyond their launch windows in 2012, the company must add 9-10 million DAUs per quarter from new games just to keep total DAUs constant."

So basically, any game Zynga releases in 2012 has to achieve at least 5 million daily users in order for the company's user base to break even. In other news, Zynga has constructed a super-sonic ultra-high-altitude aircraft to recover the bar it's accidentally set for itself in the exosphere.

George Lucas has been notorious for promising dedicated Star Wars fans their high definition dreams for years now, only to muck up each film's rerelease with unnecessary plot changes, poorly implemented special effects and blinking Ewoks? However, when it comes to the video game side of the Star...