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We are irrationally excited about Hardware: Shipbreakers. Insanely excited. And it’s not often that a strategy game gives us reason to be able to say that this early in development. With the gameplay reveal still lurking over the horizon (set for around June) we’re not even able to show you exactly how this RTS will work, and yet the excitement bubbles to even higher levels. Why is that? Well, there’s the amazing concept art, and a founder of Relic, and art-lead from Homeworld, Rob Cunningham, telling us that it’s “The ultimate vehicle fantasy,” but he would say that, wouldn’t he? And concept art for games always looks pretty good these days. Why, then, should we so giddy with hyperbole?

I’ll tell you. Oh, and there’s a brand new trailer down there, too.(more…)

Something about today’s sunny countenance has left me longing to spend some time in DayZ‘s threat-filled bleakness. I have an almost overwhelming need to get back there and indulge in tension and horror. I’ll wait for the standalone, though, as it sounds like something from another planet, or a parallel world where dream-games are forged.

What am I wittering about? Well, Team DayZee have been talking to PAX, and you can see that below.(more…)

Apart from a recent trailer for Ride to Hell: Redemption that failed to put the ‘grin’ in grindhouse, I hadn’t seen any information at all about the Ride To Hell games, so imagine my surprise when downloadable spin-off title Route 666 turned out to be a real-time game of tactical motorbike combat. I didn’t even know motorbikes were capable of such things. As they travel down the highways and byways, the gangs of Route 666 arrange themselves, almost like tiny thundering fleets, so as best to counter the attacks of rival gangs. The formations can be switched to use each class to the best of their ability, protecting medics (apparently ‘sultry’) with burly chain-wielding brutes riding the chunkiest hogs in the land. That sort of thing.

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Goscurry is kind of weird. It’s merciless – ruthless, even, sometimes – but bizarrely relaxing. Think Audiosurf, only it pretends to hate you in an attempt to mask an un-abiding desire to tell you all its secrets. And of course, it expresses those nuanced feelings through the medium of deliciously smooth beats. Oh, and also the tops of buildings. I am not explaining this well. Basically, you pilot a ship down a track so thin that it inspires this sick sense of dread in the pit of your stomach, but it’s all automatic and you only make turns (using the arrow keys) at right angles. In addition, gaps, barriers, and different barriers pop up, forcing you to rapidly jump, dodge, and shift direction – also via the arrow keys. If you fail (and you will, a lot), the game just randomly generates a new track. And while the action doesn’t sync up one-to-one with the music, the act of playing is exceedingly rhythmic. It just feels really, really, really good. If you need more convincing, there’s a trailer after the break, but oh jeez play this now. It is happiness in a tiny rocketship.

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Here’s a trailer for Telltale’s Poker Night 2, which has been loaded into the release cannon and launches today. I still hadn’t processed the fact that the announcement wasn’t an Early April Lie so this is the first time I’ve properly acknowledged its existence. The inclusion of Brock Samson is most pleasing, although it has mostly led me to crave a H.Jon Benjamin character. Archer vs Brock would be great no matter what the context. Heck, I’d gladly take John McGuirk. Claptrap’s voice is like a cheese grater ravaging my ears but Sam is soothing and dry, so perhaps they’ll counter each other. But Ash could be the real disappointment. Look and listen.

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Soluto claims the 13" MacBook Pro is the best option for running Windows on a laptop.

Lumber Island is clearly the name of a strategic resource management game about constructing a timber export company, so imagine my surprise when I loaded it up, having decided to flex my management muscles, and found myself in a sinking rowboat, viewing a darkening world from a first-person perspective. I’ve been duped, I thought, there’s no way I can begin my ascent to the top of the lumber industry without access to 57 pie charts and an isometric map. A few minutes later, a lumberjack with a curtain of flesh where his face should be was pursuing me through a forest, his axe ready to chop me in twain. MY BLOOD IS THE RESOURCE THAT HE CRAVES. Lumber Island is a free horror game and you can play the first chapter now.

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Death Inc. had a great deal of style but it may never be substantiated. Ambient Studios, formed by by former Media Molecule, Criterion, and Lionhead employees, has confirmed that it will close its doors. Following the failure of the Kickstarter for the plague-ridden strategy game, Ambient offered alphas to paying customers in order to bring in development funding. That tactic hasn’t provided enough cash to keep the studio open though. All alpha backers will receive a full refund and, hopefully, the team will find new projects to work on soon.

As I mentioned a few days ago, a popular technique from publishers who want bad news stories to go away is to employ silence. Just pull down the shutters, switch off the lights, and sit on the floor below the window until everybody goes away. And RPS has had enough of that nonsense, so we’re taking silence to be a response worth reporting. Such is the case for Deep Silver, who as Adam revealed the other day are still selling their dismembered, bikinied torso statuette version of Dead Island: Riptide, despite having previously apologised for even considering doing so.

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Banished is an independently developed settlement simulation, with a survivalist backbone. It’s about heading into the wild and building to live rather than sitting on top of a casino and living to build. If memory serves, I haven’t actually played a Settlers game since the second but Banished looks like it may well tap into the same part of my brain, absorbing hours of my time in peaceful construction and careful management of tiny people. The latest video suggests that access to and movement of resources will be significant, even in relatively compact colonies, which should put a pleasing emphasis on layout and individual needs. I am keen to see more.

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Equitable though Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland may largely be, a few isolated injustices still stalk the land. That I have to work for a living hardly seems fair, for instance. But even more odious is the fact that consumerist tat like smartphones, ultrabooks and tablets now have better screens by many metrics than our hallowed PC monitors. What gives? A recent interview I did with monitor maker Iiyama for ye olde PC Format mag dug up some answers. I also discovered why things aren’t likely to dramatically improve any time soon. Meanwhile, the roller coaster ride for AMD’s fortunes continues. This week, I predict survival! (more…)

Tis the season for narrated platformers, shalalalalalala. Wait, was that enough las? Or too many? Writing is hard. Anyway! First Thomas Was Alone did the whole narration-while-jumping thing, and now we’ve got Concerned Joe using a similar concept but with more open humour and in which you, the player-as-character, are addressed/mocked directly, in GlaDOS stylee. No, actually, I am allowed to write ‘stylee’ as I was an honest-to-God teenager in the 1990s.

Anyway, again. Concerned Joe already exists as a free webgame, but, as was the case with Meat Boy evolving into Super Meat Boy, a well flashy new version is en route. Cue Immediately Engaging Footage:(more…)

Here’s an indie morsel: Bret Airborne. It’s a match-3 RPG (which is possibly the most bizarre genre to be so over-used) with some genuinely original ideas. Well, at least I’ve not encountered them before. Airship combat (in the loosest sense of the phrase) as you explore islands and fight enemy ships by matching three things at them to death.

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Every day, in addition to The Daily Fix, we list off the day's biggest stories in this simple and easy to read format.

Social game publisher Zynga has revealed financial results for the first quarter of 2013. The company posted revenue of $263.5 million, a significant decline from the $320.9 million posted during the first quarter last year. Zynga saw its user numbers decline as well. Daily active, monthly active and monthly unique users fell across the board.

Despite these losses, Zynga recorded a net income of $4.1 million, as compared to a $85.3 million loss during the same period last year. The company identified FarmVille 2 as "a breakout hit with daily audience engagement and bookings exceeding the company's expectations." For the second quarter, the publisher is predicting a net loss of $36.5 million to $26.5 million.

Zynga posted a huge loss of over $200 million for 2012, and today's results follow a string of rocky news for the company, including high-profile departures, game shutdowns and multiple studio closures or consolidations. Earlier this year, J.P. Morgan sold the majority of its stock in the company. At the very least, Zynga is looking to keep its current stable of executives on board with the promise of larger salaries.

Alongside its financials, Zynga announced that Draw Something 2 is launching today. Dan Porter, former CEO of Draw Something studio OMGPOP, left Zynga earlier this month.

DigiPen Ball-Stars has a lot of DigiPen in it.

DigiPen Institute of Technology students Corey Kay, Curtis McCoy, Jason Meisel, and Sean Reilly have banded together to release Barry's Magical Escape: DigiPen Ball-Stars Edition, a freeware indie crossover title for PC inspired by Mario Party's Bumper Balls minigame. (Unfortunately, Luigi isn't a playable character here, so you can't win by doing nothing.)

Barry's Magical Escape offers a motley collection of characters and backdrops from many DigiPen standouts, including the survival racer Nitronic Rush, stealth-action game Deity and Portal's predecessor, Narbacular Drop. As in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, random items drop throughout each battle, and each successful strike increases an enemy's bounce recoil, leading to some wildly chaotic possibilities. Be prepared to lose friendships over this one.

Barry's Magical Escape supports up to eight simultaneous players in local and online multiplayer matches.

The big SimCity 2.0 update dropped on Monday and even though it fixes its fair share of bugs, the update seems to have introduced new issues. Players have taken to Reddit and the EA forums, complaining of increased sewage levels and spontaneous pollution.

Taxis are crowding cities and some SimCity players have found their production rates slowed when in Cheetah Mode. Others are complaining of impotent firetrucks, unable to combat fires across the city, while others are reporting their cities are reverting to older saves. For some, buildings are endlessly mired in construction and never finish.

EA has yet to comment, so we've contacted the company to find out how it plans to address these complaints. SimCity currently has over 1.1 million players and is slated to launch on Mac in June.

The new graphics card trumps Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690 cards.

As far as near-universally applicable life advice goes, Don’t Starve is up there with “do breathe” and “do not play in high-speed traffic unless you are an RPS spambot programmer or a car.” Klei’s survival sim designed around that concept, however, is anything but simple. Instead, it’s a methodical, almost insanely hostile thing, requiring brains to triumph over a sickly lack of brawn, the ever-ticking clock of mortality, and  that most universal specter of them all: steroid-infused pig men. Wisely, then, Klei opted to put its delicate ramshackle shelter of cards through various phases of testing for quite some time, but now it’s finally and fully out in the wild. There’s a new trailer outlining the launch update after the break.

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We first spotted CraftStudio last year – a collaborative game making game, inspired by, but only loosely related to, Minecraft. Players share the tool by which games are designed and created, allowing people to work in teams as they develop, or even collaborate with strangers, creating games in all manner of genres. Blocks are pretty central, the nostrils on the game’s face, but the variation is offers is damned impressive – see below. And now, the beta lives.

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Warner Bros. has announced the fifth expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep, due out in autumn.

Monaco won the IGF in 2010 with a compelling prototype and a handsome smile. In 2013 it’s being released as a sprawling, brilliantly-composed heist game that is poised, like a ludological cat-burglar, to steal our imaginations. The years of polish show in layers of features and detail, while the core idea that won the IGF – of single or multiplayer replayable heists – continues to produce gold on every playthrough.

This is one of the most important independent games this year, and might well end up being one of the best-loved games of the decade.

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Listen, we’re all angry about something. Right now I’m angry that my cat knocked over a wooden minimalist gorilla statuette I keep on my bedside table, which bashed me on the head and woke me up at 3am, leaving me feeling terrible all day. (I still love my cat, though. She can’t help being a moron). Maybe you’re angry about something more important, or less important – the important thing is that it made you angry. Put it to one side, just for a bit. Sit down, sit down, breathe the air slowly, calmly, gently through those stressed nostrils of yours, and spend awhile with 40 Seeds, a charming, ambient browswer game about wind, life, propagation and nothing.

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Now that everyone who isn’t mad has roundly agreed that Windows 8 is a whole bucketful of stupid, even Microsoft are acknowledging that trying to bruteforce people into using their computers completely differently was a silly move. Yes, Windows 8 basically has cheerful old Windows 7 lurking underneath its disruptive, tablet-orientated Metro skin, but the wasted seconds spent getting it to it every time, or inefficiently trying to get to your program or option of choice, really stack up as the months wear on, and the frustration that the OS keeps insisting on doing its own thing doesn’t go away. Now multiple reports are coming in that the forthcoming 8.1 update will allow booting to the traditional desktop, and might even reinstate the Start button.(more…)

Laika Believes, Minicore Studios' alternate history action-RPG (starring a robot dog), will feature at least one massive cybernetic battle whale if the above speed-drawing video is any indication. Watch artist Devin Lawson will a whale into existence, Green Lantern-style, over the chiptune strings of the game's soundtrack.

Now that we know how good this zombie killfest is, it's time to take a closer look at the options and features in the PC version.

Indie-friendly localization studio and publishing partner Nyu Media has launched a Kickstarter project to fund the English-language release of a trio of titles from Japanese shoot-'em-up developer SITER SKAIN.

The Tale of ALLTYNEX includes the Windows shooters ALLTYNEX Second, RefleX, and KAMUI. Each chapter in the series offers unique gameplay mechanics, in addition to a central lock-on gimmick inspired by Taito's RayStorm series.

Previously, Nyu Media tackled Steam releases for games like Cherry Tree High Comedy Club and The eXceed Collection. The Tale of ALLTYNEX will follow suit if it drums up support through Steam Greenlight.

Nyu Media seeks $4,999 to cover the cost of a digital release, and a boxed physical edition will be produced if the group can collect more than $28,000. Backer rewards include downloadable copies of all featured games, t-shirts, and ... yes, body pillows.

Survival game Don't Starve from Klei Entertainment (Shank, Mark of the Ninja), is available now for PC, Mac and Linux through Steam. Though it's a single-player experience, Don't Starve is available in both a solo pack for $13.49 and a twofer (send a code to a fellow survivalist) for $22.49.

Klei previously announced Don't Starve will receive at least six months of free updates, and a representative for the developer told us this afternoon to think of them as "expansions." The first update is expected in a month, during the week of May 21.

ShootMania officially went live on Wednesday, April 10th, but just a few days before that there was one heck of a launch celebration in San Francisco.

Richard Perrin’s atmospheric puzzle explorer Kairo reaches Steam tomorrow, so now seemed a good moment to give it a proper Wot I Think. So, er, here’s wot I think:

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