PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

After months of waiting, it seems SimCity could finally be available offline before too long.

I was skeptical at first, but Alien: Isolation is shaping up to be quite the thing. Or at least, the idea of it is. It’s just you and this perfect embodiment of predatory hunger, all mouth, claw, and other mouth. Some, say the game’s developers, will try and confront it, but most will quickly learn that most life-expectancy-enhancing of all emotions: white-hot terror. So you’ll run and hide and escape and evade. Survive. But how will all of this work? How do you design an alien that thinks for itself and slinks around in your shadow at just the right time? Go below for a video demonstration from Creative Assembly.

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New Autobots and Decepticons revealed, plus access to a closed beta this weekend.

Due to the explosive nature of this post’s contents, we’re working to a tight schedule here. I’m going to cut straight to the chase and I suggest you read as fast as you possibly can. The mighty Klei Entertainment sent an encrypted message to my neural inbox to let me know that their turn-based tactical espionage game, Invisible, Inc., is now available in alpha form. You can pre-purchase from the official website, which will give you immediate access to the game’s current build by means of a redeemable Steam key. The game will be available to buy directly through Steam Early Access in the near(ish) future. A new trailer, below, shows a spot of isometric infiltration and contains music that would fit happily in a new No One Lives Forever game.

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Petroglyph Games continues its focus on the real-time strategy subgenre with the announcement of Grey Goo, a new real-time strategy game that promises to focus on combat instead of micromanagement.

Little is known of the game's plot (beyond the title's reference to the theoretical apocalypse scenario brought about by endlessly replicating nanomachines), but Grey Goo will feature three unique factions as well as "epic" units for each. Additionally, the game features adaptive AI "based on real-world Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) concepts," which the developer claims should give the game "near-infinite replay value."

Grey Goo is slated for release on Steam this Fall. More details can be found on the game's website, though what's currently available is scant. [Image: Petroglyph Games]

Papers, Please, the game in which you bureaucratically decide the fate of hopeful immigrants, has surpassed 500,000 copies sold, according to the BBC. Created by former Naughty Dog developer Lucas Pope, Papers, Please was a 2013 favorite among many members of the Joystiq staff.

In a delightful bit of serendipity, Pope and Papers, Please shared the stage with Naughty Dog during yesterday's BAFTA award ceremony. Papers, Please took home the BAFTA for Strategy and Simulation, while Naughty Dog's The Last of Us was crowned Best Game.

Papers, Please is available now on PC, Mac and Linux. Pope is also considering a port for PlayStation Vita. [Image: 3909]

Use the Oculus Rift to ascend the Wall in Westeros, relive Paperboy, and cheat off of dolphins underwater.

Don't sleep on Hearthstone - it gets almost everything right. It's fun, flashy, and totally playable for free.

11 Bit Studios, creator of the multiplatform strategy game Anomaly: Warzone Earth, announced that its next project is This War of Mine, a survival game that explores the brutal reality of civilian life during wartime.

This War of Mine challenges players to keep a group of civilians alive as armed soldiers lay siege to their city. Gameplay is split between day and night sequences; players scavenge the surrounding area for supplies at night, while shelter upgrades, item crafting, and other strategic options are available while survivors hide from patrolling snipers during the day.

This War of Mine is due to launch this year for PC platforms and mobile devices.

[Image: 11 Bit Studios]

Mirror of Fate's high-definition re-release is finally coming to PC, in a saga that spans four platforms.

Here’s a novel puzzle game, with a deeply peculiar name. Dynetzzlle – seemingly crafted in a special laboratory to be the most forgettable, irrelevant, and impossible to remember how to spell game name of all time – is based around unfolded dice. Nets of cubes, combined with the magical fact that all opposite sides of a dice add up to 7. Combine those two elements, and you get a rather nice idea for a little puzzle game. One that is, apparently, soon to become a bigger puzzle game. But you can play the 10-level version for free, right now.

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The indie studio is comprised of ex-Telltale, Klei, Double Fine, and 2K Marin developers.

Klei Entertainment's turn-based espionage game Invisible, Inc remains in alpha testing, but to whet players' appetites, the developer has cobbled together the above trailer to demonstrate the additions found in the game's latest update.

Highlights of the update include a new 360-degree field of vision for agents, stronger guards and the addition of "augments." These special upgrades enhance an agent's abilities beyond normal human levels, but each occupies a permanent space in a player's augment cache, forcing tough decisions about which skills are most crucial for a virtual spy. On the other hand, this update also adds a tutorial to Invisible, Inc, which should make the spy game a bit less confusing.

Full details on the update can be found on the Klei forums. Or, if you're totally sold on Invisible, Inc, you can join the game's ongoing alpha test by forking over $20. For that money, you'll be granted alpha access, the game's soundtrack and two copies of the final version of Invisible, Inc. [Image: Klei Entertainment]

The still-growing bundle will help an ailing member of the gaming industry, plus SEGA is packaging great games.

PixelJunk creators Q-Games seem to be slowly realising their love for the PC. After a while of the PJ games dragging their heels to reach Freedom, their latest is appearing on PC before anything else. Well done – this is Correct. And that latest is Nom Nom Galaxy – a very Terraria-looking platform bizarreness, about making soup. Yes Cara, soup. It’s on Steam Early Access from today.

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Petroglyph Games announces new RTS that stays true to the genre's roots while modernizing it.

The second campaign expansion lets players fight in the Second Punic War, including a new map focused on the geopolitical situation.

From afar we watched Ouya owners, rapt with pleasure as they bounced around the beautiful pixel caverns of TowerFall, hitting each other in the face with arrows over and over again. We, too, wanted to fall through the floor only to re-emerge from the ceiling, poised to strike down our foes with the vicious efficiency of a peregrine falcon.

Ouya owners' grip on Matt Thorson's game has loosened, though! Now we're rocking that business on PC and PlayStation 4 on the regular. That's precisely what we'll be doing on Joystiq Streams today, with Mr. Thorson himself on hand to walk us through the ins and outs of his game.

Come 4PM EST on Thursday, March 13, Joystiq's own Jess Conditt (@JessConditt) will be streaming TowerFall: Ascension on the Joystiq Twitch channel. Creator Matt Thorson (@MattThorson) will join us to talk about the game. Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello) will, as always, be hanging in the chat, referring your questions straight to the people. Join us for all the succulent archery.

Joystiq Streams broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4PM EST. [Images: Matt Makes Games, Inc.]

$5 earns pledgers access to the beta for a game the developer expects to be the next big thing.

“In war, not everyone is a soldier.” That’s This War of Mine‘s tagline, and while you wouldn’t know it from playing videogames, it’s definitely true. 11 Bit Studios is designing a game around that idea, with a core focus not on mowing down every gun-toting, evil-mustache-twirling ultra-terrorist in your way but instead on simple survival. You control a group of a civilians in a wartorn town, and the rest, well, that’s up to you.

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Today’s investigation into the hopes and dreams of the IGF Award finalists takes us deep into the cold war caper of Jazzpunk. We settled onto a whoopee cushion and called Luis Hernandez (graphics/sound) and Jess Brouse (programmer/animator) to discuss comedy, lounge music and pizza.

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TowerFall might be a fast-paced arena game with dash-jumping and high speed arrows, but it's also a tactical affair. Yeah, alongside of all that arrow slinging you'll actually need to think from time to time, and there are a few secrets you can use to become the pride of your local group of friends.

First things first, master the dash, as it's core to your success as an archer. Start off in a "break the target" level in solo play to really get a feel for movement, as you're going to need a bit of practice. Each level will teach you something new about the game, both in terms of core concepts and power-up use, so think of them as a tutorial. While you're breaking targets, note that dashing while aiming towards the ground will result in a slide, allowing you to slip underneath low ceilings. You can also jump on targets to break them and save an arrow.

Sometimes when mosquitoes or gnats or eaglets who are on their first hunt and mistake my hair for a mid-sized rodent won’t stop swarming my face/neck/back, I feel like I’m playing some sort of tower defense game. Burden is kinda like that, except with a larger-than-life sprinkle of Shadow of the Colossus mixed in for good measure. You juggle multiple mini tower defense battlefronts on single lumbering giant, bouncing back and forth to stave off tiny armies of all shapes and sizes. It’s a bit of a strange idea, but it looks great. Trailer in the shadow of this colossus of a post.

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TowerFall: Ascension is deceiving. It appears to be cute, pixelated and friendly, and it looks like something you would have played between rounds of Contra and Super Mario Bros on the NES as a kid.

In reality, TowerFall is a brutal bow-and-arrow brawler with vicious enemies that materialize from the ether in droves, heedless of whether you have backup or the skills to defeat them. You have a set number of lives, limited ammo, power-ups that disappear the moment you're hit, and hordes of enemies that demonstrate increasingly complex powers as the levels progress. It's also local co-op only.

So, yeah - it's basically the reincarnated amalgamation of classic NES shoot-em-ups and platformers, bred for a more technologically powerful world.

Ubisoft has clarified confusion over whether it's planned the end of Assassin's Creed, and promised not to abandon Xbox 360 and PS3 players.

Turn-based games are the best games. With that fact established, let us acknowledge how unfortunate it is that so many turn-based games focus on a small set of activities, mostly involving military squads, or rapidly expanding kingdoms and galactic federations. Conquest and combat. Qvadriga is different. It is, as far as I know, the first turn-based game about chariot racing in the circuses of the Roman Empire. By breaking a complex and unusual scenario down into a series of tense decisions can Qvadriga find the game at the heart of The Games?

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There are times when I wonder if I’ve had enough of point and click adventure games. They were the most important games of my youth, and represent many spots in my top ten, but perhaps I’m after something new these days? Except, then I play a good one and I realise it’s just because there’s so much dross. From a place of no expectations at all, I found that “Oh yeah,” reaction being elicited by the (horribly named) Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today – it’s a properly interesting, traditional point-n-click, and that the advanced build I played is only the first half hour has made me really rather disposed to want to carry on. Which means I should probably contribute to the just-launched Kickstarter.

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The last mention of Galactic Command on RPS was so long ago that I thought the special edition that appeared on Steam at the beginning of the week was a new game with a cumbersome name. Not so. It is, in fact, a remastered release of 3000AD’s 2009 space combat sim and a demo is available for those seeking an alternative to Elite. Any mention of 3000AD president and lead developer Derek Smart risks diverting attention away from the company’s games – he is to the online spat what Molyneux is to the overblown promise – but the re-emergence of Galactic Command is timely and makes Kieron’s 2009 interview with Smart a fascinating piece to revisit. Details on the game and interview follow.

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Coming to Australia and NZ in April, UK distribution and release info yet to be confirmed.

French indie team Cubical Drift announced the upcoming release of Planets³, an open-world, voxel-based role-playing game due to launch next year for Windows PC platforms.

Planets³ finds players stranded on a cube-shaped alien world, where they'll craft items and construct vehicles in order to explore their surroundings. Players can team up with native Job Masters, who teach essential skills like cooking, blacksmithing, and engineering. The end goal is to build a starship and explore the surrounding universe, where further secrets lie.

Cubical Drift seeks funding for the project via Kickstarter, where it has currently earned over $50,000 toward its initial goal of $250,000. Planets³ is also up for vote at Steam Greenlight.

[Image: Cubical Drift]