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Microsoft has announced its plans to reveal the next-generation of its PC, console, and mobile graphics API, DirectX.

It's been nearly a decade since the final Powerpuff Girls episode aired on Cartoon Network, but the trio of plucky, color-coded heroes will return in Powerpuff Girls: Defenders of Townsville.

Details are relatively scant, but developer Radian Games describes Defenders of Townsville as "a metroidvania with flying superheroes and a heavy dose of action." Bubbles, Buttercup and Blossom all feature as playable characters in the game, oiced by the actresses who lent their vocal talents to the cartoon. As you can see from the above trailer, the game features colorful, minimalist graphics designed to ape the original cartoon, but those who prefer the nostalgic joy of naked pixels will be happy to learn that the game also offers "classic-style visuals."

Powerpuff Girls: Defenders of Townsville makes its Steam debut on March 14 and will be available on Linux, Mac and PC platforms. No price point has been established for the platforming action game, but the developer claims that this information and a proper Steam page are coming soon. [Image: Radian Games]

To celebrate The Stick of Truth, we present South Park's best celebrity skewerings, from deep sea-diving directors to stars trapped in closets.

Get all "planned" content when it's released, for one discounted price.

This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills.

It’s not every day you find yourself nodding to every comment under a news story, to the point of trolling yourself. But if we pretend for a minute that my buddy’s mother does indeed make $68 an hour on ‘the internet’, that’s precisely what happened when Adam raved about the latest screenshots of Tangiers on Monday. Much as it does look like a stealth game dialed into the furious dystopian frequencies of Lynch, Burroughs, and Cabaret Voltaire, it also kinda looks like a bunch of Dutch angles and Instagram filters slapped on a load of warehouses. Then again, what else should the videogame Videodrome look like?

Maybe Tangiers will be this year’s answer to The Void. Maybe [twirls moustache] it’ll be this year’s answer to Thief, eh?? And maybe you’ll grow a controller-shaped tumour about two months after you’ve finished it that unlocks the DLC. For answers to none of these questions and more, here’s Andalusian lead Alex Harvey. … [visit site to read more]

The series' creator wants to return to his PC roots, if fans want it too.

The team behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is making an massively multiplayer online shooter.

Seems like only yesterday that we were posting about Crawl’s spiffy new hot-pink-emblazoned Steam Greenlight page, and that’s because it was. In what has to be some kind of record, it’s already emerged from Valve’s crowd-run dungeon with keys to the Steam kingdom in hand. Why, before you know it, Crawl will probably be learning to drive, graduating from college, and serving minimal time for its first white collar crime. They grow up so fast. Other standouts from this week’s 50-strong Greenlight selection include NIKO: Through The Dream and open-world horror-thon Memories of A Fisherman.

… [visit site to read more]

Frictional Games' Soma, the sci-fi horror fest from the developers behind Amnesia: The Dark Descent, has a new environmental trailer out today featuring some ominous voiceover work. The suspense still has plenty of time to build. Soma won't launch on PC and PS4 until 2015.

Back from the brink, streaming gaming pioneer OnLive debuts CloudLift service that allows you to access your existing games library from the cloud.

Divinity: Original Sin is looking positively divine. Honestly, in the sheer heat of the moment, I might be more excited about it than Pillars of Eternity or Wasteland 2. I already spoke at length with Larian head Swen Vincke during a massive video play session, but that wasn’t enough. Afterward, we chatted about everything from the studio’s rocky, too-close-to-closure-for-comfort history to the possibility of using Divinity’s engine on a non-fantasy RPG to the chances that Larian goes back to Kickstarter. On top of all that, Vincke told me why having gender parity (one male, one female) on his writing team turned out to be the “best decision ever.”

Vincke’s admirably frank answers to roughly a million questions are below. 

… [visit site to read more]

Frictional have updated the SOMA blog with some information regarding the progress they’re making on the sci-fi horror game. There’s a short trailer as well, with voice acting that dismisses some of the doubts about the quality in the first in-game video, but the text contains the bulk of the information. As they say, ‘words paint a thousand pictures’. There are a few paragraphs copied below, including more on world-building:

When creating Amnesia our setting was basically just “Old castle where supernatural stuff happens”. This allowed us to get away with just about anything and explain it with “because, magic”. But in SOMA we are building a world that is supposed to be tied into the real world and to make sense.

Because, science?

… [visit site to read more]

Tower Of Guns takes place in a tower containing all of the guns you could ever hope to see. Unfortunately, many of those guns are attached to murderbots and you’re going to have to fight through them all to get to the top. Why? Who knows. Who cares! I’ve been playing this single player FPS since last weekend and despite including some of that fancy modern randomisation that’s all the rage, TOG is as old-school as Hanley Castle High. Here’s wot I think.

… [visit site to read more]

Is it already time for more Star Citizen news here on Rock Citizen Stargun? My my, what a total and completely unexpected shock. For real, though, Chris Roberts has lifted his company’s space-age, radiation-proof hood to reveal some rather interesting info, so let’s talk about Wing Commander’s $40 million little brother again, shall we? Today we have two orders of business: Star Citizen’s dev team size (PREDICTABLY QUITE LARGE) and the long-awaited dogfighting module’s release window. Hm, this article’s headline already tells you both those things. I guess you can leave now.

Or go below for a bit more detail. Your call.

… [visit site to read more]

A couple of new screenshots for Ubisoft's hotly-anticipated shooter show a rooftop firefight and how the HUD overlay will work.

When you watch the first-look video for Cadence, a self-described “zen-like audio-generative puzzle game”, you’re going to stare blankly for the first 40 seconds, unsure why this black and grey thing should be of interest. Then at 41 seconds you’ll go, “Ooooh.” If you don’t, it means you’re rubbish, so you’d best not admit to it.

… [visit site to read more]

We're reliving the glory days of adventure games. So far we've covered the first three King's Quest games and the first two Space Quest titles.

Coffee Stain Studios, the indie developers behind bizarre Joystiq fixation Goat Simulator, have revealed a release date for the odd little game: April 1 - appropriately, April Fool's Day.

Alongside the release date, the developers have also revealed a bit of additional information on Goat Simulator. Thanks to the game's website we now know that Goat Simulator will only appear on PC, and that it will not feature any multiplayer functionality. While Coffee Stain Studios plans to keep the core gameplay in Goat Simulator "small and silly," the developer is working on adding Steam Workshop support so that players can create new levels for their four-legged avatars to ruin in a flurry of barnyard hijinks.

Goat Simulator has yet to appear on Steam, but Coffee Stain Studios is still allowing prospective virtual goats to pre-order the game via its website. The asking price is $10, but includes access to a beta test for those who can't wait to live out their inexplicable dreams of being antisocial livestock. [Image: Coffee Stain Studios]

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? She's currently lurking at The Strong museum in Rochester, New York. Broderbund Software founder Doug Carlston has donated company records, design documents and games for permanent archival at the The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG).

The Strong's Broderbund Software Collection includes material documenting the creation of Lode Runner, Prince of Persia, Myst, SimCity, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and other landmark PC releases. The collection spans Broderbund's founding in 1979 up until 1997, when the developer was acquired by The Learning Company.

The new collection supplements a previous donation of archival materials from SimCity creator Will Wright. Featured material is available for research purposes on request.

[Image: ICHEG]

How does the Batmobile work, what can it do, and how many enemies can fit on screen at once? New details on the next-gen Batman game are here.

To prepare humanity for the March 25 arrival of the Reaper of Souls expansion, Blizzard has decreed that anyone playing Diablo 3 before March 24 will receive an additional 50 percent experience for each demon slain.

Along with readying players for the expansion, this promotion highlights the recent 2.0.1 patch. As we recently reported, the patch drastically alters the way Diablo 3 functions. Not only is there now a new loot scheme in place, but the game also features a Paragon Leveling System that allows players who have otherwise maxed out a character's potential to expand their abilities even further. Those hoping to get a jump on those Paragon Levels should find the experience point boost very helpful.

The sole caveat here is that the bonus experience points are only available to those playing Diablo 3 on either PC or Mac. Those battling the infernal legions on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are out of luck. [Image: Activision Blizzard]

Joker's psychotic girlfriend will make her first playable appearance for those who pre-order Arkham Knight.

How one of the world's best fighting game players uprooted his life and landed a pro sponsorship.

After releasing its long-in-development game Thief, Eidos Montreal has suffered through an unfortunate round of layoffs.

Hello youse.

If you like board games and you know my column, then you’ll know that it’s been a long time since I went into one of my weird–

SLIPS INTO TRANCE

–stream of consciousness type of columns I say uh oh uh oh here we go! … [visit site to read more]

The world's dumbest game now has a release date.

Strategy games are seductive time sinks. Who has the time to possibly tinker with all those units? Who can spare the hours to toil in turn-based combat only to finally lose in a crushing, humiliating defeat? Start up one little game of XCOM, get a squad going, and eight hours can disappear out from under you faster than you can say, "Overwatch!"

Julian Gollop (@Julian_Gollop) is one of the men behind all those lost hours. The creator of XCOM, Laser Squad, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars and many, many others, Gollop has spent thirty years designing tactics games that test both wits and nerve. Chaos Reborn, his latest game, brings Gollop back to his roots; it's a reimagining of his 1985 ZX Spectrum game Chaos: The Battle of Wizards. Unlike XCOM and Shadow Wars, Chaos Reborn pits player against player in tactical standoffs that are downright swift. The designer joins Alexander Sliwinski (@Sliwinski) and Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello) on Joystiq Streams for a few friendly matches in the prototype version of the game.

Joystiq Streams goes live on the Joystiq Twitch channel at 4PM EST so come down and bring your questions to Mr. Gollop himself. The stream archive will be available after 5PM EST and you can always catch Joystiq Streams at 4PM EST every Tuesday and Thursday. A Kickstarter campaign to fund Chaos Reborn will begin on March 14. [Images: Julian Gollop]

What is the story with the Jerry’s Place virtual reality project? That’s not the lead-in to a Jerry Seinfeld-style joke, but an opportunity to explain that Greg Miller has re-created Jerry’s apartment from the sitcom Seinfeld for the Oculus Rift. It’s your opportunity to sit at home, alone at your desk, and take part in The Contest. I lose every time. … [visit site to read more]

I wanted to know what state Space Engineers was in, because it’s been a few months since I last tried it out and it was already pretty impressive back then. How much could a game about building space ships and flying them change in a few months?

Well, on my first playthrough I was slinging ships across the void, watching as they met and crumpled and cooing at the damage model and simple building tools. Since then they’ve added multiplayer and Steam Workshop support, which was how I ended I ended up flying a spaceship the form of a shark into the crotch of a monolithic Homer Simpson. I apologise in advance. … [visit site to read more]

"A House Divided" may be one of the best episodes Telltale has made -- in any of its series -- as the main story comes into clear focus.