PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

According to sources, Facebook is currently in talks to purchase Titan Aerospace and its solar-powered satellite drones.

This is how you send your game out into the public sphere. From the Crawl Steam Greenlight page, I can tell you that it’s a “competitive multiplayer dungeon crawler where your friends control the monsters.” From its detailed three-minute trailer, embedded below, I can tell you that it has beautifully animated pixel art, fast hack-and-slash combat, and lots of hot pink fonts. Crawl is about to get your attention.

… [visit site to read more]

It hasn’t exactly been “business as usual” for Interceptor lately. First the Rise of the Triad necromancer stealthily didn’t quite reveal a new Duke Nukem game, and then Gearbox *did* entirely sue them for it. But while the Borderlands creator is flinging around 87 bazillion pieces of supposed evidence to the contrary, Interceptor believes it’s in the clear – especially in light of the fact that it now owns original Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms. What does all of this madness mean for Interceptor’s future, though? Is owning 3D Realms even a good thing these days, what with the stinking stain of Duke Nukem Forever still fresh on its name? And what happens to series like Shadow Warrior, which have been lent out (to great results) to other developers?

Also, Blood. Will there be Blood? Can there be Blood? All that and more below from CEO Frederik Schreiber and new 3DR head Mike Nielsen below.

… [visit site to read more]

So, a clever thing happened before I’d even started playing the game which has me on Spoiler Protection Alert, and thus rather ill-placed to say useful things about Extrasolar. Added to that is that this planetary exploration game itself plays in real-time, which means I need to wait several hours for my interstellar rover to trek across miles of alien terrain before I can usefully report back on the unfolding adventure. Which does, of course, mean I’ve spent far too much of today starting a timer in a browser window, desperate to see what’s going to happen when it reaches zero.

Extrasolar is free, though optional paid upgrades are available. You should sign up while you wait for me to file a longer report. Though I do believe there are limited spaces. Perhaps you’ll find a way to get in anyway. … [visit site to read more]

Eventually everything you loved will be reborn, not as an expensive and confused studio reboot, but as a block-building or procedurally generated indie game. It’s a future in which communities and computers will be re-building your memories in perpetuity. In Gunscape, it’s the late-’90s FPS which is getting the block treatment, as it offers a construction kit for building Quake 1-3 style singleplayer and deathmatch levels, with texture and prop packs intended to allow you to theme those maps as you please.

There’s a Kickstarter campaign ongoing, which currently has $4,237 AUD of its $27,500 goal, though there’s plenty of footage of the game and editor already in action in the pitch video. There’s even a pre-alpha demo. I’ve had a quick play of it, but here’s the elevator sales pitch: “You could for example take the blocks and props from the Halo-inspired set, and the enemies from the Turok-inspired set, and build yourself a deathmatch map in space where you can hit a button and release velociraptors on the other players.” … [visit site to read more]

It looks like a retailer leaked the new Batman game's name, as well as details and target consoles. Come learn more!

Blizzard has released a detailed walkthrough of a fast-paced match in the Dragon Shire arena.

One of the world’s most popular RPGs just added Gibraltar for free! Wow, a whole new landmass to explore. I wonder if it’ll be set during the War of Spanish Succession, allowing keen commanders to invade and cede the territory to the British Empire in perpetuity.

Oh wait it’s the Gibraltarian football league added as part of Football Manager‘s mid-season update… Even better! The patch also contains a “potential fix for odd throw ins”, and a hundred other small tweaks, improvements, and thousands of database updates. … [visit site to read more]

I don’t entirely know what Cube & Star is about, but that’s OK because a) it looks relaxing and b) it’s a game which is actually out, which puts it head and shoulders above 97.4% of the other games in the RPS inbox today.

It appears to involve transforming a monochrome world into one of colour and life, like a clown visiting a local government office. … [visit site to read more]

In case you weren’t aware, Vlambeer makes games. Other developers make games, but they don’t make games. This is an important distinction, because it involves letters being slanted and slanted letters are sacred. For real, though, the two-headed fire bear of a developer churns out chunkily satisfying experiences at an almost alarming rate, so it’s kind of surprising that arcade-y airplaner Luftrausers isn’t already dive-bombing our machines. The bigger, better, even more a-rauser-ing edition was announced nearly two years ago, for goodness’ sake. That’s, like, three or three-and-a-half years in Vlambeer time (see: Nuclear Throne, Ridiculous Fishing, multiple free games, etc)! But now, finally, mercifully, Luftrausers is on the horizon.

… [visit site to read more]

Trion's MMORTS-turned-MOBA is as good as cancelled.

Top-down images of Titanfall’s maps emerge, highlighting several key landmarks on each.

Jerry’s Place VR brings the iconic set to life with Oculus Rift.

New owners of 3D Realms “not too worried” about Gearbox lawsuit.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that it has sold 2.5 million Raspberry Pi Model B units since the device's initial launch in February of 2012.

Built to encourage the teaching of computer science in schools, the Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized computer that offers a range of features and open-source software support for hobbyist programmers. Indie developer Mojang released a free version of Minecraft for the device last year, and next month's launch of Code Club Pro will deliver curriculum training and online resources to primary school teachers worldwide.

[Image: Raspberry Pi Foundation]

Oh gaming industry, even during the early year release doldrums, you never pull punches on good old fashioned drama. In the red corner, we have Rise of the Triad developer Interceptor, whose burgeoning brand roster now includes the smoldering remains of original Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms, and in the blue corner we have Borderlands developer and current Duke owner Gearbox. Gearbox, of course, is suing Interceptor because of Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, a gum-assing, kick-chewing ARPG it doesn’t believe Interceptor has the rights to develop. But, in the wake of its 3D Realms purchase, Interceptor has told RPS that it thinks it’s completely in the right.

… [visit site to read more]

Each Monday, Chris Livingston visits an early access game and reports back with stories about whatever he finds inside. This week, island survival in Under the Ocean.

Where tropical trees once stood, only stumps remain. Beaches are covered with the corpses of crabs, caves littered with the shattered remnants of boulders. An accidental fire burns, warming no one, near a crate stuffed with forgotten items. This island was once beautiful, serene, a paradise. Then I arrived, bringing the apocalypse with me. The apocalypse called crafting. And it all began because I wanted to eat a chicken. … [visit site to read more]

My excuse for not spotting the latest video of Infinite Space 3: Sea of Stars is a worthy one. I’ve been too busy playing Out There on my Android CleverPhone. Like the Infinite Space series, it’s a mysterious RPG that drops the player in space, surrounded by the unknown. You should try it and I shall try to find out if it’s still coming to PC, as was originally planned. Enough of that for now though because the new video for Sea Of Stars contains plenty of information to drool over, including diplomacy, alien life and homeworld shipyards. The beta release is planned for the end of March.

… [visit site to read more]

The new virtual reality headset may be priced at $300

Strike Vector‘s eye-catching trailers meant that it was destined for my hard-drive. I have a long, over-document fondness for that genre of game that straddles all types of non-simulatory flight combat, and although it’s taken me a while to catch up with Strike Vector, I’m glad I did. Back in the times of Forsaken and Descent, I would sink lifetimes into these kinds of games, and Strike Vector – a multiplayer take on the idea – feels very much like a cry from that distant and beautifully three-dimensional past.

But does that invocation of the classics lead to greatness? Here’s Wot I Think.

… [visit site to read more]

Opt in now for your chance to be among the first to play Blizzard's new free-to-play game.

Toby’s Island is currently seeking $20,000 CAD on Kickstarter and has managed to raise a tenth of that total in a couple of days. It’s easy to see why early pledges have been forthcoming because the pitch suggests that this is a game that includes fishing and farming. Toby is a boy who collects monsters so that those monsters can fight other monsters. That sounds a little bit like a game by Uncle Nintendo. But there’s more. Toby also grows food and assists in the construction and expansion of a small settlement. That sounds like another one of Uncle Nintendo’s favourite riffs. The two-person development team hope to build on the concepts that have inspired them, with random events, minigames and a ‘multi evolution path’.

… [visit site to read more]

Bohemia Interactive is adding new people to the DayZ development team, "effectively doubling the whole project," the studio writes in an update on Tumblr.

Bohemia is currently focused on fixing key bugs and starting work on new features, and last week it began developing a cooking system inspired by The Indie Stone's Project Zomboid. Players place food in a stove or fireplace, where it cooks or turns into edible things such as soup, and the items can become overcooked or cold. March signals a focus on survival mechanics, Bohemia says.

DayZ creator and project leader, Dean Hall, plans to leave Bohemia Interactive by the end of the year to start his own studio in New Zealand. The team expansion and Hall's departure announcement are unrealated, Bohemia tells Polygon.

"I have a specific use," Hall said in last week's announcement. "I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life. But eventually, that's the bad person to have. Eventually, you don't want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I'll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role."

Dan Pearce won a BAFTA for his work with The Tall Trees on Castle In The Sky, a pastel-coloured platforming picture book about a young boy adrift in the clouds. It only makes sense that his solo project 10 Second Ninja, then, is about a ninja hacking his way through legions of inert machines under the command of Robot Hitler. It’s a swastika-laden game about mastery: you chain together shuriken throws and sword slashes to rid of a level of all its enemies within a ten second time limit, and then do it again to shave more seconds off your time.

Faster times equal more stars, more stars equal unlocked boss fights and new worlds, and new levels with slight twists like enemies which require two strikes, or portals which you and your shuriken can travel through. And that’s wot I think.

FAIL. Ah, wait, yeah. I left enemies on the field, and forgot to offer any critical judgement of the game I’m writing about. Let me try that again. … [visit site to read more]

During an average weekday, I play approximately 14 prototypes or demos, found while casting my Monocle of Sauron across Twitter, or searching IndieDB and the TIGforums. Most days, I end up bookmarking one or two projects and check back on them at a later date. Every now and then, faced with a deluge of AAA press releases for BB games, I decide to share a prototype instead, no matter how early in development it might be.

The Nightmare Cooperative caught my eye because it has the second best name for a game ever, being a description of this place on a Friday night when I want to make dinner and they’re all out of fresh veg. It’s also a single player team-based roguelike puzzler that shows great promise.

… [visit site to read more]

We live in topsy-turvy times. In the recent past, it was illegal to call something a ‘game’ unless it included at least one dungeon and seven dragons. Then Skyrim contained infinite dragons and the entire gaming market almost crashed because of reptilian boss creature oversaturation. Thankfully, the industry was saved when audiences realised that they didn’t need dragons in their games and might, in fact, prefer chickens. Let’s face it, you never see a Dixie Dragon or a KFD.

Kickstarter success Unrest does contain Naga, which are a bit like dragons, but it’s also a tale of ordinary people, set in an Indian city undergoing a revolution. It’ll be playable at Rezzed and it sounds fascinating.

… [visit site to read more]

Prison Architect is forever trapped between two political poles: the side that says that prisoners should be locked up, punished, and left to rot; and the side that thinks they should be reformed, educated, and made better able to return to society and not re-offend. Introversion want both methods to have value within their management game, and alpha 18 takes the first steps towards enabling the liberal half by adding therapists.

Also tazers. New update video below.

… [visit site to read more]

A more hysterical headline would have suggested that Bohemia have doubled the size of DayZ’s team in anticipation of the loss of Dean Hall, the creator of the multiplayer survival game. That’s not the case – I have it on good authority* that Bohemia are actively gathering strands of Hall’s hair and traces of saliva from his favourite coffee mug in order to create a functional clone. The team is expanding though and will be focusing on survival mechanics. Which makes sense, given that DayZ is a survival game.

… [visit site to read more]

I didn’t see this coming. Interceptor, the Danish company that recently announced a Duke Nukem ARPG and released the Rise of the Triad remake last year, have bought Apogee Software Ltd (aka the legal name of 3D Realms). This surprises me because I didn’t think I’d be writing any stories about 3D Realms in 2014, except perhaps when they licensed Shadow Warrior out for a sequel to the splendid remake. But the senescent studio has already been making headlines in this, the 27th year of its existence. They’re not exactly the kind of headlines that would ordinarily lead to a buy-out though.

… [visit site to read more]

I haven’t played enough of new Thief to judge it fully one way or the other, but I can’t imagine many people disagreeing with the sentiment that The City has seen better days. With the creative guidance of Looking Glass, The City was one of the weirdest and most distinct environments in fiction, embroidered with lore that gave it spiritual, social and political character. The new Thief’s City is predictable and comparatively barren.

While Garrett makes a new home in steampunk Gotham, the latest screenshots of immersive stealth sim Tangiers show evidence of a greater visual imagination than the hours of Thief that I’ve played. These are astonishing landscapes and I insist that you click on every single one to see the full size versions.

… [visit site to read more]