PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Sundays are for contemplation of stupidity. Can it be defeated? Possibly, but we rely on the clever people remaining steadfast for year after year as the waves of stupid crash in like a tsunami. One day, perhaps, the clever shall be able to rest. But not today. Today they must write, and write they do. Here is some of what they offer us.

• Troy has finished up his Nations As Characters series. It’s one of the most interesting long pieces (if you like the history and the strategy) to have emerged this year: “Historical strategy games owe a debt to science fiction games, because there is an assumption that two races that evolved on different planets will have different talents or cultures. Master of Orion, Starcraft, and maybe some fantasy games, too, showed how differentiating factions made gameplay more interesting and varied. Playing the Civ 1 French wasn’t that much different from the Civ 1 Egyptians. Klackons and Psilons, though…”

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Hello youse,

Today I want to talk a little bit about the greatest roleplaying game on the market. It’s a game that has seen very few changes since its inception 30 years ago, because it was pretty much perfect right out of the gate. It’s a game that has inspired countless roleplaying and board games with its take on HP Lovecraft’s horror fiction. It’s Call of Cthulhu.

And I’ll also be taking a look at a new Call of Cthulhu sourcebook. I’ll be looking at it from a pretty unique perspective.

I’m living inside it.(more…)

Everything’s gone a bit indie this week, with all the best deals being from those little developers we love the most. Way to go, guys. Not one of the games will set you back more than a fiver each, so there’s something for every wallet. Have a look and see if the bargain bucket is holding anything for you this weekend. You can always find more gaming cheapness over at SavyGamer. (more…)

Electronic Arts has been hurling insults at Activision for months, as it seeks to sell copies of forthcoming shooter Battlefield 3 and take share from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3...

Foster City, Calif. - Perfect World Entertainment Inc., a wholly owned US subsidiary of Perfect World Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: PWRD), has unveiled the roster for Team Tri-Force, which will compete for the global title of Perfect World International Champions (PWIC), $9,000 worth of gaming products, as wel...

Bristol based indie dev Draknek has got a new game in the pipeline, which he’s pitching as a “Narrative-driven abstract puzzle game”. It’s simple, but efficient and minimalistic use of words, pixels and sounds result in a fairly atmospheric little game. It’s still a work in progress, obviously, but is currently playable here. As part of this time-limited beta testing, why not give him some feedback over twitter too? You’ve got until about 1am UK time tonight to try it.

There’s a trailer, but it contains solutions to all the early puzzles, so I’d suggest just playing it yourself.

Greetings from Germany, frauleins. I’m out here at Gamescom, in theory in the historic city of Cologne but in practice spending my days intermittently staggering and sprinting across a labyrinthine convention centre the size of a small moon.

I’m here to see games: a lot of games. My laptop’s hard drive is littered with half-incomprehensible Word documents written as I watched demos of exhaustingly noisy big-budget shooters, intriguingly odd Euro-strategy games, and an aerial combat/RPG/turn-based strategy/boardgame hybrid in which you can marry a lipstick-wearing skeleton.(more…)

BOSTON - In response to growing consumer interest in mobile browser based gaming, MocoSpace is today announcing the addition of another $1 million to fund HTML5 development of mobile games...

Shanghai, CHINA - YooGames, an international publisher of online web titles, today that due to the heavy traffic their fast-paced PVP MMO, DDTank has been receiving they have launched a new server for the game. With no downloads or additional software required, players can leap into their own tank ...

Here’s some news. Mojang, the creators of Minecraft, are expanding from being developers, to also being third-party publishers. And the first to appear through the company is action game Cobalt, by indies Oxeye Game Studios. What is it? We’ve tracked down the team and asked them all about the game, and how the deal came about. And how they might put teabagging in the game.

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Here’s some news. Mojang, the creators of Minecraft, are expanding from being developers, to also being third-party publishers. And the first to appear through the company is action game Cobalt, by indies Oxeye Game Studios. What is it? We’ve tracked down the team and asked them all about the game, and how the deal came about. And how they might put teabagging in the game.

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CryEngine 3 is now free to use, as long as you’re not making any money from your creations. Crytek explain: “You can use CryENGINE 3 for free in educational facilities, even if you are charging tuition. We have always offered our engine for free to educators, but now individual students can also freely download the engine and use it to learn about real-time 3D development. CryENGINE 3 is also free for non-commercial use; if you are distributing your game or application for free (and not charging for your work in producing it, whether directly or indirectly), no additional license is required.” There’s also apparently an indie license agreement for small projects, but you need to get in touch with Crytek for details.

If you haven't noticed, it's Gamescom and IGN is flooded with content. It seems that every 10 minutes, list of stories on the front page is drastically altered as news, previews and videos roll in. That's awesome for gamers slaving at their computers, but for everyone else, it makes getting a handle...

There’s some game called Fallen City. It looks SHIT/AMAZING. It’s by some idiot/genius called Jim Rossignol and so on and so on. Indeed, what is a Rock, Paper, Shotgun to do when one of its own accidentally plops out a game? Should we not cover it out of modesty and propriety? Should we aim to be “objective”, as if that’s a thing? Should we overly promote it at a cost to informing our readers about other games we haven’t made? Yes. We should do all three. But today instead I’m going to show off some of the screenshots from Big Robot’s lovely urban-renewal-em-up, a Channel 4 game that’s inspired by the Broken Windows theory.

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Apparently, Paradox CEO Fred Wester’s dream game is set…in Staffordshire, England. Or so you’d think from the very limited CGI trailer we’ve just been shown at GamesCom, which intones “Staffordshire, 1471″ at its beginning and shows a Very Serious armour-clad Lord scowling as his horse climbs through a wood, scowling when he sees a castle under siege, and scowling as he raises his sword and rides away. He probably scowled when his first child was born. Formerly “Project Postman”, this is Paradox’s big mystery game: a roaming medieval melee combat game, now revealed as War Of The Roses.(more…)

Toxic Games are getting ready to show the world what they’ve been working on, as they prepare to let the public get their hands on the latest build of Q.U.B.E. at PAX next week. I caught up with Technical Director, Dave Hall, to see how the development is going, and get a better idea of what to expect. (more…)

NCsoft's long in development MMO by Carbine Studios has finally been revealed: WildStar. Being shown for the first time during Gamescom, the cartoony yet stylish MMO features grand vistas and tight spaces with humorous moments. We get a total Firefly vibe, with that type of grand adventure meets Whedon humor.

The game is currently pre-alpha with no release announcement available. If NCsoft keeps with current tradition, it won't announce a date until "it's ready." However, the game is playable on the Gamescom show floor. More details to follow.

There’s the preview of NCsoft/Carbine’s ambitious new sci-fantasy MMO Wildstar, and here’s the first scene-setting video. Pre-rendered intro vid kinda stuff rather than in-game footage, but sets the scene, the tone and introduces the three playable races and some of the classes… Take a look. Now, I must run off to a giant German convention centre to go see many, many games.(more…)

(Note – more screenshots to come, in about 5 minutes. Refreshy-do then!)

“Cool story, Gaffney.” So Wildstar lead Jeremy Gaffney, co-creator of Turbine and now heading up NCSoft’s MMO dev supergroup Carbine Studios, repeatedly mock-chastises himself when unveiling their first game to the media. He’s making promises we’ve heard so many times, about so many massively multiplayer games that ultimately didn’t live up to their wild hype: this is “the deepest, richest MMO ever,” it “lets players play how they want to play”, “this is something new.” You know how that song goes. Cool story, Gaffney. This guy though, right here and now, aims to back up his grandiose claims, right here and now. Carbine are finally ready to show off fantasy/sci-fi hybrid MMO Wildstar. It goes a little something like this.(more…)

Roubaix, France - AnkaBox is a messaging service available to all the owner of an Ankama account, is available since today. This new internal mailbox has been designed for private communication between members as well as in-game gifts management. AnkaBox is a messaging service designed for DOFUS, WAKFU, Arena, Gobbowl players and all Ankama fans. Available in beta version for the DOFUS Premium members since July 20th, AnkaBox is now available for every owner of an Ankama account...

Freshly announced at Gamescom from EA comes Warhammer Online: Wrath Of Heroes. It’s an attempt by Mythic to take their MMO tech and reinvent it as a three-way, 6 v 6 v 6 battle game. The graphics are changed, with a more cel-shaded theme, which you can see in the trailer below.

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It is, as you may have noticed, Gamescom this week. There probably won’t be many truly breath-taking surprise announcements, not least because the unblinking eye of the internet usually spots these things before they officially happen, but one or two things of great might just get revealed… We should not tease, though, because what this post is about is asking you what you’d like to be announced this week. It could be anything, but it must be a surprise. Don’t say Half-Life 3, and don’t be boring. Is it a new IP? A sequel to a turn-based RPG from 1986? If anything at all could be announced this week, what would you have it be?

I even have a special prize for the most entertaining suggestion, so get fantasizing! (The title image was Gillen’s suggestion. Not bad.)

Those cheeky chaps at Wargaming.net first announced that World Of Tanks would be followed up by World Of Warplanes, and today they’re saying it will also see a free-to-play sequel in World of Battleships. Wargaming.net’s disembodied PR voice explained: “The large assortment of available warships will give various tactical opportunities, as all the machines have a unique combination of firepower, speed, armor, and endurance. Various naval maps with changing weather conditions will enrich the gameplay, and the realistic graphics will transport players into the epic battles that changed the course of human history.” This apparently “completes” the World Of trilogy, although there’s no clear indication of when it will arrive.

During an Epic Games culture-heavy talk this morning at GDC Europe, company president Mike Capps briefly noted several projects that are currently in some form of development at his company. According to a slide entitled "So what's our next story," there are currently "five new games at various stages of prototyping and development" at Epic Games. "We didn't multiply our team size by five, so you can assume they're smaller games," Capps said.

While he's "not ready to announce anything" just yet in terms of consoles or what studios are working on said prototypes (People Can Fly? Chair? Internal?), he said that the PC is now the company's target platform, rather than a recipient of ported console games.

I followed up with Capps after his talk, where he added that both People Can Fly and Chair are part of Epic's "big happy family," though wouldn't put any of the projects to one particular label. He also confirmed that the recent job listing on Epic's website is relevant to these five unannounced projects in development at the studio. The "Samaritan" tech demo, however, is not one of them.

Eurogamer have a brief and mysterious news story sourced from Mike Capps of Epic Games who was speaking at Gamescom today. Epic are apparently working on five new games, none of them Gears Of War related. Could one of them by Samaritan? Anyway, here’s the important bit:

“It’s nice to target the PC as a primary platform again,” teased Capps, “not just for ports.”

2D space shooter with RPG bits, Space Pirates And Zombies, has now emerged from its beta, blinking into the atomic light of day. You might recall that perfidious Mr Smith wrote about the game rather favourably, but you don’t have to take his words as representative because there’s also a v1.0 demo for you to play.

Speaking at GDCE yesterday, IGF chairman Brandon Boyer has described what he feels is a “responsibility” on the part of people who play games. He suggested that games which expand upon the possibilities of what gaming experiences should be need be financially supported by gamers, and also suggested that games are now reaching for deeper meaning: “People value music more because it adds an emotional pitch and rhythm and color to life, it speaks to something more essential, it reminds them of a place and time, it reminds them of where they were when they first experienced it and who they experienced it with… And there’s no reason that we shouldn’t also be aspiring to that same exact sort of resonance.”

“All of us with a vested interest in games, no matter on what level, have the responsibility to talk about games in these terms,” says Boyer in some notes posted on Gamasutra “in the same way we talk about the creation and the emotion of other arts: to make them feel less like black magic delivered on discs, and more a process and a result attainable and achievable by all, especially as we move into the decades and generations ahead.”

Back in 1937, a man called Andy Davidson came up with an idea. That idea was to copy a game called Artillery, but to put worms in it. He took that idea to the visionaries at Team 17, and from then on the world would never be the same again.

Since that day there have been over three hundred thousand games based on the Worms license, because when an idea is as fresh and original as Worms, it is imperative that it be repeated as close to infinitely as is humanly possible. And when you’ve got an idea as good as that in your locker, you never need think a new thought again. But that’s not enough for some. Some strive to go further, to take perfection and refine it, reshape it, reinvent it. And so it is that Team 17 have announced Worms: Crazy Golf.

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You foot-to-ball chaps sure don’t get bored easily. I’d get fed up of any game after 2012 years – why, I’d even be willing to bet my ardour for X-COM would have cooled by just the 819th sequel. There’s no stopping plucky Brit studio Sports Interactive though: they’ve just announced Foot-to-Ball Manager 2012, which as is the custom contains a raft of new features, improved graphicsability, a whole lot more foot, and much more ball.

In the years to come, 50% of men will only buy one game each year – whatever the new Call of Duty is. The other 50% will only buy Football Manager. By 2018, the two will combine into Weapon Unlock Manager, and no other game will ever be required.(more…)