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IGN's here to point you to some cool people making fun and / or inspired Call of Duty related video content.

Been hoping for a sequel to the indie tower defense darling Defense Grid? Now is your chance to directly contribute to the possibility, as funding is now open for Defense Grid 2 on Kickstarter. "But wait," you say, "wasn't the original Defense Grid super popular?" According to developer Hidden Path's CEO Jeff Pobst, Defense Grid: The Awakening was definitely a "success, even beyond what we had hoped." That said, Pobst adds that a Defense Grid sequel is just "too small" for publishers to care, hence the Kickstarter.

It's important to note, however, that the project's goal of $250,000 will not fully fund Defense Grid 2, but rather an expansion to the original game, featuring the first part of the Defense Grid 2 story. At $500,000 the original Defense Grid will be "remastered" in the Defense Grid 2 engine and will receive a multiplayer mode. At $750,000 will fund a level editor for Defense Grid along with Mac and Linux versions. In order to fully fund the sequel on PC, Hidden Path is looking for a cool $1 million.

Of course, there are lots of rewards up for grabs, notably those offered by some rather high-level partners, Razer and AMD. Razer is offering its Naga Hex mice while AMD is putting up some Radeon HD 6770 graphics cards (not exactly AMD's high-end solution). Both companies are "helping out" on the project and will be "supporting" it throughout. Whether this is limited to technical support or includes financial support as well is unclear. We've contacted Hidden Path to learn more.

As of this writing, the project has passed $130,000.

Just when I think I’ve seen everything the day has to offer, a first-person puzzle game sidles into view, its levels resembling a series of tests. Perhaps there will be a novel method of interacting with the environment? Yes, there is! The clue is in the title, SWAP, for the player has the ability to take a thing and replace it with another thing that is somewhere else. One day there will be a game called WALK in which the player has technologically advanced boots that allow ambulation in any direction and are voiced by Morgan Freeman. SWAP reminds me of Q.U.B.E., superficially at least, and is available now for a penny short of seven pounds. There’s a trailer below.

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Anthony's out, but Destin and his friend Jared go into the world together. Watch them kill a lamb, zombies, and hang out at hospitals together.

Starbound looks less like Terraria in space and more like just a heck of a lot of awesome stuff in space, with the randomly generated aliens a particular highlight of the features shown so far. Perhaps you would like to throw money at the developers, as is so often the case with internet people, although rarely if ever the action of a person in the real world. Well, you can’t. There’s no Kickstarter or alpha funding here. However, Yeti Trunk, creators of mad co-op RPG Wanderlust: Rebirth are supporting Starbound by offering a percentage of Steam earnings to help with development costs. Chucklefish are bringing Wanderlust to Steam on July 27th.

More details have appeared about the Final Fantasy anniversary event where the future of Final Fantasy XIII will be discussed.

If I was a game I’d want to be set in a cave, hanging out in the dark with Spelunky, Cave Story, La Mulana and maybe even Ron Gilbert and his Cave. Cavenaut could be there too, being all gray, moody and oddly threatening. It’s another in the ever-expanding genre of Excellent Games Set In Caves and unless you have a pressing engagement with a barman or the third part of a popular film trilogy (Paranormal Total Lack Of Activity perhaps) you must spend your Friday night attempting to discover the truth behind the Peruvian mystery. Terry Cavanagh tipped me onto this, although chances are he didn’t even know I was listening. The trailer, below, actually makes me feel quite nervous.

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Ether is an indie adventure game set in an alternate history where “mental disease and illness can be cured by individuals who possess the unique gift of ethereal projection”. Sounding a little like a first-person To The Moon, the game plants the player character in the mind of a client, traps him, and asks him to explore, solve puzzles and delve into memories. The trailer has made me as curious as a doomed cat, with a stylish aesthetic and a bit of Inception BWAAAAARing, which is yesterday’s dubstep. It’s also the only game I can think of that proudly lists “cornish culture” as an inspiration, which I can only assume means it’s based on the works of Aphex Twin.

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RPS likes to give the impression that it’s one big happy family, but believe me, behind the scenes you can’t move without tripping over a feud, a grudge, or a hefty hunk of personal enmity. Just this morning I pulled into the office car park and found the ‘the team’ bickering like battlefield vultures. It seems Mr. Grayson had parked his Ferdinand in the spot where Mr. Meer usually parks his KV-2 and when Mr. Rossignol intervened, Alec said something disparaging about Jim’s Tsar Tank. When the arriving Mr. Smith’s Tortoise ’accidentally’ crushed Mr. Walker’s T-27 tankette for the third time this month the dispute really turned nasty. (more…)

The universe is weird sometimes. See, The War Z is not – nor, based on development time, could it be – entirely a Day Z clone. Yes, it’s an MMO with (optional) permadeath set in a  ”post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world where other players can prove to be a greater threat than the undead hordes that populate the land,” but it began development last year and is set to launch this fall. So while I imagine there’s some inspiration, it seems to have overlapped with one of those strange situations where a bunch of people in different parts of the world had many of the same ideas at once. And, encouragingly, The War Z looks to set itself apart with a very strong Fallout-ish RPG streak as well.

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EA's latest free-to-play title, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, has gone live in a browser near you. Aeria Games has turned the popular RTS franchise into a browser-based game, which means you can grow your base, play PvP and PvE scenarios, and even build social alliances and partnerships with other players, playing as the Global Defense Initiative or the Nod factions in any browser you happen to have handy.

This is just the latest online, free-to-play title that Aeria Games is launching for EA, after the success of Battlefield Heroes and Need for Speed World. Like those other games, it's supported with microtransactions and freemium items, and is probably destined to be profitable.Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances now playable in your browser

An indie title that combines first-person shooter and real-time strategy gameplay into a bizarre and fun amalgamation.

SOE and Acony’s free-to-play shooter sets you in a realty TV-style arena and asks you to not only kill the enemy but taunt them while you do it.

Jace tries to clear the air with Felicia, Jace's epic 'I Play WoW Redux' music video, Jace visits Comic-Con, and more. So much more.

As Kickstarter has taken off like - well, a popular Kickstarter project - over the past year, especially in the gaming sector, backers have noticed a few inconsistencies with the platform. For one, projects aren't vetted for plausibility or quality outside of a standard registration form; your grandmother could accidentally promise the world 500 pounds of brownies if she raises $5, and there's nothing holding her to following through or using that money for brownie-related purposes.

For another, Kickstarter is US only. Creative ventures outside of the US can't begin a crowd-funded project, though anyone with a major credit card can donate to a project and watch its success with yearning in their hearts. Also, Kickstarter caters to a wide range of products and ideas, making its reach broad but its expertise in handling any one industry dim.

Gamesplanet Lab is a new crowd-funding platform that handles only gaming projects, has a strict vetting and follow-through contract, and is based in Europe but is able to host projects from around the world. Yes, that does sound like everything you ever wanted in Kickstarter. The only thing Gamesplanet Lab needs now is proof that it can work - it needs a breakout crowd-funding success.

Sometimes RPS gets accused of being too grumpy. We like to think of it as standing up for gamers’ rights, and campaigning against what we see as wrong or unfair in our fair industry. Potatoes, portaloos. But the reality is we’re actually very cheerful and enthusiastic. It’s why it matters to us so much when that happiness gets pooped on by evil corporations like Big Poop. But right now, right this moment, it’s time for unbridled positivity. We want to know: what about gaming have you thought is just great recently?

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Blizzard's Mike Morhaime covers launch issues, Diablo III's online-only requirement and future patches.

Whenever I see the phrase “twin-stick shooter” I can be sure of two things. One – I want to play it. Two – I will suck so badly at it that if anyone I knew saw me playing I’d throw the controller in their face and then just run and run until I was in a different country where I’d hide in a hole with a bin lid on top. That’s why I work alone. In my underpants. And so it was that seeing BatCat Games’ P-3 Biotic has come from consoles to PC, via IndieCity and IndieVania for $4/£2.50, I once again demonstrated my own trouserless uselessness to myself and no one else.

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Starting tomorrow, all 107 heroes in Heroes of Newerth will be available at no cost to all players.

Runic Games' Torchlight 2 is still planned for launch at some point this summer, Runic president Travis Baldree tells us. "The end of summer is September 25th or something like that, right?" he asked. "We're still trying to get it done for summer. It's a big game and we've still got some polish to go."

A recent blog post from Baldree on his company's site was meant to allay the concerns of fans who pre-ordered the game many months ago - fans who have yet to get a solid release date from Runic. "People asked us to make pre-orders available. So, people were just interested in what was going on. There was some concern in the forums that we had gone off and were just twiddling our thumbs," he said. "We have a point in development where we'll say, 'Okay, we're ready to announce a date,' but we're just not there yet."

As of today, that gives Runic approximately two months to announce a release date and, uh, actually release its game. Fingers crossed!

Hosted by Polygon, an absolutely extraordinary video manages to portray a (very US-centric) history of PC gaming, in a really stupendous way. Meticulously edited together, Reverse Enginears (you may know them from their exquisite Alice remix) have created an elaborate mashup, crafting its music entirely out of the clips of games it features. It’s pretty special. You can see it below.

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I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Endless Space pre-release and I’ve been dabbling and preparing to tell you wot I think of the launch version. In the meantime, I fired up my interstellar communicator and beamed some messages to the development team. Across the infinite void I fired these queries and across the infinite void, answers came. Peruse them below.

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From the same stable as Choice of the Dragon, which gobbled up a swathe of Alec’s free time back in 2010, comes Heroes Rise: The Prodigy. It’s a textual choose your own adventure game with character stats, customisation and combat, taking place in a world of advanced technology and celebrity superheroes. You can play a great deal for free but the full version will set you back the half pint price of £1.99. But did it distract me from listening to imaginary Bane and Batman voices having a gruff-off?

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The 2.1 update for GTA 4 graphics mod iCEnhancer will be the final one issued. Developer Hayssam Keilany (Ice La Glace) said as much before releasing the video above, showcasing some of the visual improvements to the 2008 Rockstar game.

The progress made with 2.1 includes better framerate, a new lens flare and an improved color palette. Maybe now that the pedestrians look so lifelike, you'll think twice before driving on the sidewalk.

Set to be the largest eSports event Blizzard has ever hosted in the region.

Level 4 is not the hardest level of Dennaton’s neon-hued orgy of sado-masochistic violence, Hotline Miami. Oh, not by a long shot. It’s just the one that, once I finally beat it, made me feel like a god. I had a plan. I made that plan work. Every single action I took, every single movement I made, was with surgical precision. A dozen men died, and their little dog too. I never knew their names. I never cared to know their names. I didn’t even know why they had to die. I just knew they had to die.

They died. I didn’t. That’s my story. The greatest story ever told. I will tell it to you with pictures and swearing.(more…)

I’m so glad I don’t review books for a living. When discussing a game, you have to be careful to avoid both narrative and mechanical spoilers as best you can, but generally there’s a great deal to talk about around these. But I’m not sure the editors of the Times Literary Supplement would take kindly to my describing how easy it is to turn a book’s pages, as I desperately find ways to avoid ruining the story for anyone who might want to read it. I often feel in a similar situation when reviewing adventure games, and never more so than when talking about interactive fiction. Yes, there are mechanics to discuss, of course. But really, with text on a screen, it’s tougher. And when that game has a crucial twist in the opening hour, er, you’re screwed. So it’s with this in mind that I suggest you go play Adam Cadre‘s Endless, Nameless before you read beyond the point I’ll clearly mark below. I’ll not ruin the entire game, of course. But, well, play it first.

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Rezzed the other week was lovely, wasn’t it? I know you think so, because I’ve seen the audience exit polls and almost everyone was happy. And the tiny few who weren’t are habitual miseries who will soon slump into an endless coma of gloom anyway, so let’s not worry about them.

Who cares about people, though? Let’s talk games. RPS has a Game Of The Show, and so does Rezzed’s audience. They are not one and the same, but you can find out what both were below.(more…)

The Wall Street Journal (sub required) is reporting that Vivendi is starting to turn more gears to see Activision-Blizzard get sold. As we mentioned in June, the French telecom giant hasn’t had a great couple of years, while ActiBliz has been storming it. Selling off the publisher/developer could see a huge injection of cash go into the share-troubled megacorp. Holding 61% of the company, Vivendi has apparently been struggling to find a buyer, with rumours of Microsoft and Disney turning up their noses. Poor Activision – no one wants them. Now Vivendi have enlisted the help of some investment banks, says the WSJ, to help shift the business. And what lovely banks, too.

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Here’s what I find interesting about an average puzzle-game/RPG: I spent all morning playing one. An awful lot of games pass over my screen of a week, and many don’t really grab my attention. I’m really not sure that CodeDaedmons‘ Rune Masters should have, but I can’t deny that I played it from 9am to 12am without stopping. And in the end, it proves itself a very useful measure of what this peculiar sub-genre can get so right and so wrong.

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