PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Here’s how it works: the website shows you a phrase to draw or a picture to describe in a limited number of characters. Your response becomes part of a chain and when 12 people have drawn or described, the chain is complete and you can see where your contribution sits and just how much it deviated from the originator’s intentions. Simple, creative and frequently hilarious. Drawception shall now accompany you through every working day. Some examples below.

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Legend Of Grimrock is out in a couple of weeks, via Steam and GOG.com, and anticipation is building. A game that harks back to the glory days of FTL’s Dungeon Master is something many would like to get their hands on. Get my hands on it I have, and after spending a little time with some pre-release code, I’m excited to confirm it really does seem to be capturing that era, with tile-based movement, a quartet of characters, and the terrifying moments when you’re trying to mix a potion in the middle of a fight. Below you can read the top 11 things that I think make it a game worth taking an interest in. (I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone who didn’t play Dungeon Master is going to find this post a touch confusing.)

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Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages does not sound like a space game, but then I’m often fooled by games that sound like am awesome space zap then turn out to be point and click adventure set inside a bin. Bins are my least favourite gaming environment. Space is my favourite. Ring Runner is set in space, so I’m drawn to it like matter to a black hole. It’s a mix of influences, from DotA to MMOs, with RPG archetypes battling in space under Newtonmian movement rules. Top-down as well. I am space-intrigued.(more…)

Assembling for the second ever Shotcast are these reprobates:

Alec Meer (mumbly), Adam Smith (Northern), Jim Rossignol (bored), Kieron Gillen (not Northern).

Discussed: tea, Mass Effect 3′s bugs, Half-Life, the problem with bosses, Perpetuum Online, Darksiders 2, games journalists singing Metallica, tower defence, Notch’s space game and Assassin’s Creed III.

Audio quality: Still wonky. We’re working on it. We need to get hold of some expensive microphones, soundcards, headphones and replacement larynxes, basically.

Download/streaming links: below.(more…)

Good news for iPad owners with iPad-owning friends, as Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will support multiplayer on Apple's tablet. Even better news, the enhanced port won't cost more than $10, Beamdog COO Cameron Tofer told Kotaku. While he didn't confirm the final price, he noted that a price "past ten dollars doesn't make sense." Furthermore, the previously revealed Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate 2 will be available on iPad as well.

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is slated to hit PC and iPad later this year.

Previously on Gateways coverage: “I’m going to call it Super Metrortal Braidlevania and I hope you’ll join me in doing the same.” That was Adam, talking about what he thought the complex shenanigans of Gateway’s mad scientist would end up like. From that list you can tell it’s a side-scrolling 2D platformer. It’s heavily influenced by Portal, with the professor holding a complicated version of the handheld portal device. In addition to the usual Portal tricks, it’ll create shrinking portals, time manipulating portals, and gravity flipping portals. That’s a lot of portals. Does this science experiment warrant your attention? You can find out with the demo.(more…)

Lone Survivor is a superb one-man horror show that has a lovely cat sub-plot, the best soundtrack I’ve heard so far this year and an entirely unexpected sense of humour. It’s not the kind of scary that will frighten the toupée off you, but it’s the kind that might just make you think, reflect and then shudder a little. It might even make you all misty-eyed and forlorn. Here’s wot I think.

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Turn-based indie puzzler Terraform is about doing a job to the specifications of an employer. Now, if that job involved being an obsessive-compulsive lady dashing around a diner I wouldn’t be particularly excited but the clue is in the title; Terraform is about reconfiguring planets, whether by growing forests and forming oceans or setting off meteorological chain reactions that can alter everything in a single turn. It’s essentially a tile-flipping game but the theme is strong and the eventual complexity of the components, particularly the weather effects. There’s a demo available to download, an older version to play online and the full game is due next month.

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Let’s face it, there are going to be casualties in this Kickstarter-fought battle for a post-publisher age. The game formerly and rather boringly known as Crowdsourced Hardcore Tactical Shooter does not want to be one of those. With not too long left on the clock, it’s been relaunched as Takedown, with lead dev Christian Allen (of GRAW fame) admitting that the initial promotion pulled a punch or seven. He writes on Kotaku that, in addition to not being a celebrityface like Tim Fargo or Brian Schafer, “our video was not exciting enough and the quality wasn’t up to the standard it should have been. Lastly, we were too vague about the details of the project, lacked assets to show, and didn’t properly differentiate our concept from other shooters on the market today. Oh, and the name SUCKED.”

That is true. So now it is the bland but far less off-putting Takedown, it’s billed as a ‘squad-based tactical shooter’ and, as you’ll see in the below video, it’s found itself both a sense of humour and a clearer sense of purpose.(more…)

Cheerfully described as a “roguelike platofrmer”, TowerClimb is like Spelunky in reverse, although that’s not to imply it’s a copycat. It’s a compliment, and also the quickest way I can think of to describe TowerClimb’s abundance of style and the smartness of its execution. Currently in beta, the game throws the amusingly named stalwarts (Walter is my greatest climber) at the bottom of a randomly generated tower, filled with dangers ranging from the disjointed architecture itself to giant rats and bats. Jumping, climbing, hanging, fleeing – all are integral but the main thing to be done is to die. Paying $5 now provides immediate beta access and a copy of the game once it’s deemed ready for a full release. A trailer and more thoughts lie broken on the cold, hard floor below.

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The Game: SkiFree Genre: Abominable Snowman Outrunner Platform: PC (Windows) The Scoop: Oh SkiFree. All kids of a certain age remember playing this very low-fi downhill skiing game, as it came free with most copies of Windows. Or if they don't remember actually playing it, they remember t...

I am sad. The updated version of space-faring roguelike FTL the developers are showing off in their beta video series is a few steps beyond the IGF version I have on my PC. So, yeah, you might like what you’re seeing and want to play it, but take a moment to think about what it’s like to be me? To see a better version of a game I own, but can’t have yet. I will accept your pity. I’m about to throw a massive, over-entitled strop. Hnng. HNNG. No, I can’t stay mad at them. Not after this video shows what they’re adding to the game: new ship designs, stealth elements, and NPCs to fix fires. Also: fire beams to start fires.(more…)

In my experience there’s only one way to assess a corridor-bound RTS. You place it at one end of a winding word-road, line that road with all manner of critical gun turrets, then push the muzzle of a Webley service revolver into the small of the game’s back and bark “Get moving!”.

Gratuitous Tank Battles…“Get moving!”

A stone’s throw from its start line, our £19 test subject trundles into range of an MG Turret of Visual Vilification. Expecting an easy kill (Positech aren’t big enough to have anything as grand as an art department) the turret spits twin streams of 7.92mm disdain at the indie intruder. The rounds might as well be dried peas for all the damage they cause.(more…)

Less challenge, more weird and wonderful environments to discover. That was the message I took from our interview with Amanita Design’s Jakub Dvorský, at least as far as Samorost 3 is concerned. The previous games, which you can and should play right now (Samorost 1, Samorost 2) are tranquil and inventive, politely requesting that your brain pays attention to the beauty and strangeness of the environments rather than troubling itself too much with complex puzzles. The third game will be much larger and here are the first pictures showing a few of the places the space gnome will be visiting.

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Syndicate and Riddick developer Starbreeze's next project will be a free-to-play title. GI.biz reports the title will be called Cold Mercury, but any further details would require Syndicate-style deep extraction on Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark. The exec also noted the title does not mean the company is moving away from AAA development.

"We are discussing with several leading game publisher on publisher financed games, but we will broaden our product portfolio of games in the new business models and segments that have arisen in the games industry," said Nermark. "I am convinced that Starbreeze will be successful with the new games."

The company is also currently seeking a distribution deal for P13, the project announced late last year in collaboration with Swedish film director Josef Fares.

Adam fell a little bit in love with Treasure Adventure Game, which is now no longer in beta and still as free as a stolen piano. But while it’s worth my time to reaffirm how enjoyable it is, that’s not why I’m here. The developer, the excellently name, Stephen Orlando is doing a playthrough post-mortem of the the cutesy hybrid adventure platformer on the Youest of Tubes, and so far has 45 minutes of footage up with his insights over it. Part one is 15 minutes long and embedded below.(more…)

"Huh, Angry Birds Space is out," I thought last week, and then I bought it without really thinking. It's that kind of casual, absentminded purchase that has propelled the game to an astounding ten million downloads.

Rovio announced through the Angry Birds Twitter account that its new game hit that milestone "in less than three days." As of last year, the other three Angry Birds games had been downloaded half a million times.

We're sure the takeaway from all this for some of you will be "Huh, Angry Birds Space is out." And thus the cycle continues.

Remember when advertising used to just be up front about stuff? Languid shots of fields with Orson Welles waxing lyrical about the taste of peas, and then “BUY PEAS!!!” in big letters flashing for 12 minutes as the William Tell Overture played. You knew where you stood with adverts like that: to buy or not to buy (peas). But now adverts are teases, advertising that something might be happening in the future. It’s a cruel psychological trick, to make you think you could miss out. GoG.com are advertising in such a fashion right now. They released three in a series of four over the weekend, bigging up various parts of their service, attacking DRM, regional pricing, and sparse freebies on offer at other online stores. All they’ll say is a ‘”Newer, Fresher, Bigger” GOG.com lands Tuesday at 09:00 AM GMT!’(more…)

“Everybody at the office is totally jazzed up and we really can’t keep in our pants much longer.” Almost Human, you sicken me. Surely there’s a less sexy way of declaring that much-anticipated indie first-person dungeoneering RPG Legend of Grimrock has gone gold? Gold as in ‘finished.’ I do share their excitement, however, even if it’s evidenced by my brain rather than my under-trouser parts. Almost everything we’ve seen of this Dungeon Master-like looks exceptionally promising, and it’s all been done without Almost Human having to kick any starts whatsoever.

We’ll find out full launch details later this week, but all being well we can expect it in April. Someone else on RPS already has Grimrock review code, and they’re not sharing. I’m going to go and burn their house down to teach them an important lesson.(more…)

Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World’s Samuel Lingle.

It’s been a long time coming, but Jung-Hoon “MarineKing” Lee deserves his crown. The man famed for his uncanny ability to be the first loser quelled all talk of second place curses by following his MLG Winter Arena victory with an MLG Winter Championship itself, earning $25,000.

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It appears to be the end of days for troubled UK high street games retailer GAME and its sadly homogenised subsidiary Gamestation. While the chain has long been guilty of multiple heinous disservices to gaming (the aforementioned homogenisation, unwillingness to promote lesser-known titles, excessive reliance on pre-orders and trade-ins, refusal to stock almost any PC games and unproven allegations that it was getting publishers to delay Steam releases in the UK), do remember that is not the fault of its general workforce. Plus despite its sins, it has been a monetary backbone to the UK games industry. The gaming landscape without it is an uncertain one.(more…)

Once upon a time, Audiosurf was briefly RPS’ favourite game ever (although not in the case of John, who only likes beat-free music featuring men with nasal American accents*. Or Jim, who doesn’t like emotions). We put in our songs, we turned them into blissfully surreal racetracks/match-3 puzzles, we fought endlessly for higher scores to prove we knew our most beloved songs better than anyone else did. And then we stopped. Why? Oh, there’s probably an essay in that, but the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, basically.

I earnestly hope that newly-announced sequel Audiosurf Air will bring about a new fever for digital synesthesia, though: I have almost a half-year of new music that was never Audiosurfed, all manner of new colour-explosions, rollercoaster drops and giddy undulations potentially awaiting me.(more…)

Slambrechts returns! Er... And is promptly farewelled again in Episode 41 of the IGN AU Pubcast. This week debate rages amongst the team over the backlash against BioWare from disgruntled fans - should the Mass Effect 3* developer release an ending purely to please the vocal minority? What's next? A...

Sunday mornings are for waking up under a stream of sunlight and realising you need to get out of bed and compile a list of interesting reading for the internet’s unblinking gaze. Yes, the ‘Papers are more important than sleep – Up, Rossignol, and to the coalface!

Actually, I will sit in the garden for a bit with a cup of tea and it’ll be late. Sorry about that.

• You should start today by reading Richard Cobbett’s retrospective of Wasteland. What with the big Kickstarter and everything, it’s worth remembering what it was all about: “When combat starts, I yawn. That might seem strange, and yes, RPGs have always been combat heavy. For me though, fighting things and looting their corpses has never been the point. Instead, when I buy one, it’s for the joy of entering and exploring a new world, poking around a new culture, and ideally savouring the journey like a tourist instead of feeling trapped on a rail.” Oh, if only RPG designers remembered that…

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The second day of Major League Gaming’s Winter Championship culled a field of nearly two hundred competitors to a lean twenty-four. The Columbus Convention Center was packed for the meat of the Starcraft 2 tournament, with fans cramming into MLG’s massive seating area while cheering, dancing with MLG commentator Sean “Day[9]” Plott, watching some great Starcraft 2, and generally having a good time.

The story of the day had to be Complexity’s newest player, the Korean Terran “Heart”. When Complexity recently announced the acquisition of a trio of Korean players, including aging superstar Yoon-Yeol “NaDa” Lee, a Beckham-to-LA type pickup for the American based esports franchise, the addition of Heart was an afterthought. Now, it’s looking like the smartest deal of the three.(more…)

Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World’s Samuel Lingle

Spring is here! Flowers are blooming, the grass is greening, the birds are back from their migrations, and the nerds are flocking to the Columbus Convention Center. It’s time for Major League Gaming’s Winter Championship. Yea. Winter Championship.

So MLG may not be good at naming things, but that’s not what they do. They throw video game tournaments, and their first big one of 2012 is this weekend in Columbus, Ohio.(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, Furkan Gözükara, the Turkish developer of free-to-play Monster MMORPG, explains how he made a game based on Pokemon better than Pokemon. You heard it here first, folks.
What's your game called and what's it about?

My game is called Monster MMORPG. The game is all about catching, training, and battling with monsters.

You start out as a simple trainer with a starter monster, fresh to a world full of action and discovery. You must venture out into the vast lands and search for monsters both common and extremely rare.

The community of Monster MMORPG is also very important. Trainers are what make the game, and the relationships built between trainers creates rivalries and friendships. A trainer could be out helping another trainer find a monster one minute, and turning his monster team into shambles the next.

How do you reply to those who might say Monster MMORPG is too similar to Pokemon?

Monster MMORPG is the same in that respect as any other online MMO. You can't traverse the Internet stream without hearing, "That's just like...."

We all loved Pokemon, so why wouldn't you want a game that is very similar, but much better? Games like Empire Earth and Age of Empires 2, or Torchlight and Diablo 2 are very similar, much like Monster MMORPG and Pokemon. They were all still very successful.

The Game: Rebuild Genre: Zombie Strategy Platform: Browser (Flash) The Scoop: Rebuild is a different kind of zombie game. Instead of focusing on action and zombie headshots, the title instead focuses on the strategic side of surviving a zombie apocalypse. Rebuild's gameplay is turn-based. ...

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson has discussed potential plans for a new space game with PC Gamer. He isn't necessarily developing it, but instead is exploring his options since he's handed over Minecraft development to other members of his team...

Five minutes into Jonas Kyratzes new browser game, Traitor, I thought I’d seen everything I needed to see and was ready to move on to something else. I’m glad I didn’t because what seemed to be a basic space-based shoot ‘em up that’s making a fairly obvious comment on a player’s readiness to obey commands (“Shoot these unarmed ships immediately!” “I’d rather not.” GASP) turns out to be something more complicated and far more entertaining. Once what I now think of as the prologue missions are done, Traitor opens up and provides choices which lead to a series of complex little stories.

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