Runescape players raise $90,000 for charity
Runescape 3 players raised over $90,000 to various charities using the free-to-play MMO’s Well of Goodwill during the month of November. Jagex said “many tens of thousands” of players chipped in in-game wealth and Bonds to secure $90,838 in donations for the Willow Foundation, SpecialEffect, Action For Kids, Games Aid, Internet Watch Foundation, HART and the DEC Philippines Typhoon Appeal. The Well of Appeal will remain in game but is currently closed as Jagex plots its next charitable drive.
Saints Row 4 gets Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’ DLC pack
Saints Row 4′s latest DLC pack includes the three stars of web show Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’?
Spec Ops: The Line developer recruiting for next-gen free-to-play project
Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager is seeking new staff to work on a free-to-play, next-gen title, presumably its long-awaited new project.
World of Warplanes video schools players in equipment, consumables
World of Warplanes is trickier than it looks, and since the MMO looks like flying planes around that’s saying something. This latest video from Wargaming hopes to educate players in how to choose the best ammo belt for the task at hand – an important tactical decision limited by your choice of plane.
Battlefield 4 update: did it fix the one-hit kill bug? “yes and no,” says DICE
Battlefield 4 received a patch on PC this week that was said to eliminate a notorious one-hit kill bug that has been affecting players since the game launched. Did the update fix the issue? DICE has said, “Yes and no.”
Battlefield 4: China Rising raises multiplayer level cap, rewards for top-tier players
Battlefield 4: China Rising has – without any fanfare – raised the multiplayer level cap from 100 to 110, which is a first for the series. Once you hit level 101, something lovely happens.
Final Fantasy 8 Steam release could be gaining momentum
Final Fantasy 8 was added to the Steam registry once upon a time, but was then promptly pulled. Now, the entry has been updated by Square, suggesting something is happening.
Gamers certainly not listening to press reviews, says Curse exec, suggests sites are dwindling
Are heavyweights like IGN and Gamespot in danger of becoming irrelevant? That’s the topic discussed by Curse’s VP of sales Nathan Lindberg, who feels that gamers aren’t listening to game reviews and typical journalistic sites, but their friends, community personalities and other forms of new media.
Just Cause 3 development suggested by Avalanche’s Costa Rica dev diary
Just Cause 3 looks to be in the research phase over at Avalanche Studios, as the team has recently taken a trip to Costa Rica to, “research complex environments for future games.”
Hawken ‘Wreckage’ map gets trailer & details, festive update discussed
Hawken developer Adhesive Games has published a new trailer showcasing the shooter’s new map Wreckage, along with details surrounding its festive update and gameplay quirks.
Call of Duty: Ghosts’ critical response doesn’t mirror fan appreciation, says Activision
Call of Duty: Ghosts didn’t fare too well at review, but Activison feels that its biggest and most trusted critics are the fans themselves who, according to Eric Hirshberg, are getting along with the new shooter just fine.
Unreal Engine 4: second Inside Unreal video takes a look at VFX in the Infiltrator real-time demo
Epic has released a new video in its Inside Unreal series, and its part two of the firm’s VFX in the Infiltrator Demo for Unreal Engine 4.
Arma 3′s second campaign episode Adapt will be released in January, free content coming next week
The second campaign episode for Arma 3, Adapt, has been announced and will pick up where the first episode left off in January.
Guild Wars 2′s Wintersday event is returning December 10 along with a balance update
Guild Wars 2′s Wintersday event is returning to Tyria, as is the toy making inventor Tixx. The festival starts December 10 and lasts for six-weeks. A balance update will also be included in the content patch. A video announcement and more information is below.
Valve joins The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating Linux growth
Valve has joined the nonprofit Linux Foundation which is dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux.
Football Manager of the Dead Lexicon Pack now available for Typing of the Dead: OVERKILL
Football Manager of the Dead Lexicon Pack is now available for free for Typing of the Dead: OVERKILL players. This means that all the words and phrases have been replaced by commentary lines from the Football Manager series. Anyone who owns Typing of the Dead: OVERKILL will automatically receive the Football Manager of the Dead Lexicon Pack on a Bosman free of charge. More lexicon packs are to come over the next few months. Screenshots are below.
Shovel Knight has been delayed into early 2014
Shovel Knight from Yacht Club Games has been delayed into early 2014, the developer has announced. In development for PC, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, the game originally slated for a release in September, before being delayed into winter 2013. Thanks, Siliconera.
Teslagrad will be released next week on Linux, Mac, and PC
Teslagrad, the sidescroller puzzle-platformer with “metroidvania touches and a deep inclination towards magnetism and electricity,” from Rain Games will be released next week on Linux, Mac, and PC through Steam and other digital distribution outlets.
Starbound goes into public beta today, new trailer released
Starbound has gone into beta and will be made available on Steam later today, and you can also still pre-order the title from its official website. The beta will be released in three stages. The procedurally-generated sandbox title is expected for release on Vita and pulled in over $1 million in pre-orders. The beta trailer is below.
Broken Sword 5 – The Serpent’s Curse: Episode One is now available through GOG, Steam
Broken Sword 5 – The Serpent’s Curse: Episode One is now available on PC, Mac and Linux through Steam and for PC and Mac through GOG. It will run you $19.99/£18.99 for the moment for both episodes, not a piece, mind, but in total. After December 11 you will have to pay full price. The game sees the series return to point and click for the first time since Broken Sword 2. Episode 2 will arrive in January and is also slated for release on PS Vita, iOS and Android.
World of Warcraft patch 5.4.2 now available on Public Test Realms
World of Warcraft players can now test patch 5.4.2 through the game’s Public Test Realms. The changes coming with the update affect raids, dungeons, warriors, the Cross-Realm raid browser, mail, and more. You can head through here to glance at the patch notes if you like.
Battlefield 4: work halted on expansions, Battlefront 3 until game issues are resolved
Battlefield 4 developer DICE will cease working on expansions for the shooter until issues across all platforms are rectified, an EA spokesperson has said. This also means work on Star Wars Battlefront 3 has been put on hold, as all hands are on deck to fix BF4.
Mad Max developer to “maintain sense of mystery about what has happened in the world”
Mad Max developer Avalanche Studios wants players to feel the same “sense of mystery” when roaming about the game world, as movie goers felt when watching the films.
Dec 2, 2013 - in Reviews
Tom's Hardware's Editorial Director, Chris Angelini, sits down with DICE's Johan Andersson to talk about Battlefield 4, the Frostbite 3 engine, features he wants to see in next-gen hardware, developing for the Xbox One and PS4, and AMD's Mantle API.
Wargaming and War Child join forces to assist children affected by war
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While Wargaming.net is best known as a purveyor of addictive, skill-based tank, plane and ship combat games, it recently showed its softer side when it joined War Child UK in securing the safety of children in regions threatened by conflict through the Real War is Not a Game campaign. War Child is an international charity with teams in Afghanistan, Iraq, Uganda and other nations affected by war where they provide aid to child soldiers, homeless children, kids that have been locked up in prison and girls at risk of rape.
Back in September, Wargaming sold three charity packs to their customers, promising a quarter of the sales to War Child UK. This has amounted to €100,000, which Wargaming recently presented to the charity. This sum won't just protect children from the immediate effects of war - it will also be put towards education, helping families and giving young adults the opportunity to learn skills that will allow them to earn a sustainable income.
Housebound: The Novelist is a voyeuristic experiment in player choice from a BioShock 2 veteran
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The critical and creative bludgeoning of what eventually became The Bureau, and the eventual demise of Irrational spin-off studio 2K Marin, is one of the most depressing tales to be told of recent AAA development. But it’s already yielded enough silver linings to build an entire web of indie promise. In Gone Home and Eldritch, ex-Marin staffers have already built on BioShock’s baseline better than Infinite did - and now a third game, The Novelist, promises to react to your choices in all the ways Infinite didn’t.
Inferno Legend is an "anti-Diablo" MMO, but probably can't match Blizzard's level
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You might admire the brazenness of Inferno Legend, and its wilful, repeated self-comparison to both Diablo and World of Warcraft. But that’s because you haven’t yet seen its trailer, which plays like something out of whichever Dynasty Warriors entry I was playing in 1996.
You had my attention, Inferno Legend. Now you have my complete and utter bewilderment.
Full Steam ahead: Valve kit out their client with new download options
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If you’ve approached Steam in the last 12 hours you’ll have been asked to humour it for a couple of minutes while it turns itself inside out with a new client patch. Nothing new about that - but in doing so, you’ve ensured that it won’t update itself in quite the same way again.
Last night’s download, y’see, was all about downloads. And it’s introduced a couple of changes that ought to make life on Steam an awful lot more palatable.
Casting divination: The future of Dungeons & Dragons Online
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Turbine's going to have a busy year come 2014, with the DDO developer planning four significant updates for the aging fantasy MMO. I confess that I sometimes forget about the existence of DDO, despite thoroughly enjoying myself whenever I remember it's a thing and I pop back in to poke beholders in the eye.
In a letter to the community, the plans for the future are laid out, as well as an honest look back at the failures and successes of the last year. Major bugs and exploits are apologised for, while the inclusion of enchantments and the large adventure area of Storm Horn mountains are celebrated.
But who cares about the past? Stupid past-dwellers, that's who. Onto the future stuff!
EIDOS Montreal Talks THIEF Tech – Tessellation, FOV Slider, Multi-Core CPUs & Graphical Features
A couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure to interview EIDOS Montreal’s Jean-Normand Bucci who shared with us some new information about the PC version (as well as the console versions) of THIEF. THIEF PC will come with a FOV slider and will be based on the ‘next-gen’ version (guess we need to mention that after what EA Sports did with Fifa 14). Enjoy the interview after the jump. Continue reading
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