Elite: Dangerous footage shows off how to use heat to burn your enemies
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We’ve already covered how detailed the heat system in Elite: Dangerous is: Frontier have tied it directly to sensors, so the more active your are the more visible you become to other players.
There’s now footage showing off exactly how this all works. It’s hot stuff.
MLG planning to build world’s first eSports arena in China
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Major League Gaming has partnered with two Chinese companies to build a 15,000-person eSports arena on Hengqin Island. The facility will be the first of its kind and it will be at the centre of Lai Fung’s Creative Culture City development. A £1.7 billion project.
How do I convoy my excitement? Euro Truck Simulator 2 Multiplayer Mod hits open alpha 1 May
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Trucking can be a lonely business. Just you and miles and miles of open road. The same is true of Euro Truck Simulator, the game has been single player since launch. From the 1 May that will no longer be the case. Thanks to the Euro Truck Simulator 2 Multiplayer Mod you will soon be able to truck with your friends.
"World of Warcraft is not a flight sim": Why Blizzard banned flying for Warlords of Draenor
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Keep those pegs on the turf, mister. Flying, winged or otherwise, is strictly forbidden on the long-gone planet of Draenor - which is exactly where we’re headed for the next World of Warcraft expansion.
“I hope everyone can agree, regardless of personal opinion toward flight vs. non-flight, that flying fundamentally alters how content is approached in a world where the gameplay exists wholly on the ground,” began WoW community manager Bashiok.
From me to you: Dark Souls devs have a new owner in Killer is Dead publishers Kadokawa
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From Software have been around since 1986, but only lately discovered that you can get a star to rise by beating it with sticks. The success of Souls both Demon and Dark has attracted the attention of Tokyo manga publishers and Suda51 enablers Kadokawa, who in the next month will acquire 80% of the developers’ stock.
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare grows microtransactions ahead of PC release
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Plants vs Zombies’ third-person departure has become more like its parent series - and not by merit of a few extra jokes about squash. The new shoot(er) was planted on Xbox One two months ago - but since settling into its pot it’s grown some unexpected new appendages.
Hearthmind is Twitch Plays Pokemon for the Blizzard CCG
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Hearthmind asks a simple question: what if the ambient bustle on Hearthstone’s soundtrack weren’t the sound of watching pub-goers, but a horde of would-be players all jostling for a seat at the board?
The answer is less simple.
The 50 Things PC Games Must Stop Doing Right Now
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Oh PC games! Let us count the ways we love thee, for thou art pretty cool. And if thou hadst a shapely corporeal bod, we would cradle that bod in our arms and do that thing where we hold hands and spin around in the park while the camera switches from our perspective to yours and back again, spinning and spinning as we fall in love. You’re alright, PC games.
But you're not perfect. And while you'd be right to think that our whining about minor inconveniences in PC gaming is a disgusting abuse of the immense privilege of being born into a reality in which every one of us has ready access to incomprehensibly powerful technology, we're going to do exactly that because we are awful.
Ssshhh, here are 50 things that PC gaming needs to stop doing right now.
Brian Fargo on "the dark ages" of pre-Steam development: "They're the saviours of the PC"
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Brian Fargo, who never quite managed to successfully pitch a traditional RPG to console publishers after leaving Interplay, is understandably a bit hot on Steam. Where the Big Three console manufacturers used to “put all sorts of guns to our head”, the InXile chief says Valve are very different.
“Valve has all this power but they don’t wield it,” he explains.
Why Wildstar is like HBO: "We are probably the most fair subscription model on the market"
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Okay: this analogy works a little better in the US than the UK, where boxset culture reigns. But Wildstar producer Stephen Frost reckons that playing Wildstar is a little like subscribing to the great, cable-enabled Home Box Office.
“HBO is a great example of a subscription service that people will pay for because there is quality content,” he told PCGamesN. “I think that we have a quality enough game where people will play through it, and they don’t have to be stopped by paywalls and really unfair practices that gamers see through.”
Monochroma: I like my puzzle platformers how I like my moral spectrum
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We take colour for granted. But maybe we wouldn’t had we been around in the ‘50s. Maybe you were around in the ‘50s, though, so my first sentence does not apply to you. You already know what I’m talking about. It was a monochrome world. Ask someone back then what their favourite colour was and they’d probably say “light grey”. Colour, seen as too garish, was simply banned.
Monochroma is set in an alternate 1950s, within a dystopian, corporate state. It’s all shades of grey punctuated by occasional bursts of red. Red’s always around. Two boys witness a terrible crime and end up needing to save the world from awful things like tyranny. Ugh. Tyranny, it’s the worst. Monochroma, despite being driven by its narrative, is without cutscenes, text or dialogue. It’s all about puzzles and eye candy. Take a look at the exclusive trailer below.
Minecraft Realms spreads its blocky tendrils into North America
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With Minecraft Realms having already spread its blocky tendrils throughout Europe and the Middle East, it’s been making moves on North America. A box of chocolates here, dinner and a movie there - but the courtship phase is now over. Minecraft Realms has launched in the US.
Realms is a subscription service for folk who want to easily set up their own Minecraft server and don’t mind paying to avoid a bit of hassle. Mojang runs the service, and servers can be set up quickly, with an approved list of players getting access.
Let's investigate the first picture from the Warcraft movie
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The Warcraft movie!? Why are you writing about this tripe instead of all of these games that people seem to like, I hear you cry. Hold your horses, though. We’ve got pictures now, you see. Things become much more real and important when you’re staring right at them. Just like the way director Duncan Jones is staring at two blurry men on a small screen.
Gaze upon the first photo from (the set of) the movie. Then we’ll talk.
The Origin Overmind wants you to know that Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is out on June 24th
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The PC version of Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is due out on June 24th. I know this because it popped up at the end of an advert for Origin. In it, a zombie logs into Origin, has a chat with Origin or maybe just a zombie who works at EA, and then discovers that Garden Warfare is coming out soonish.
Presumably the zombie becomes terrified because that means he’s only got two months to live... well, remain animated. Poor wee guy.
Bungie explains why PC's not getting that Destiny love
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Bungie’s next first-person shooter, Destiny, is coming to four platforms. PC is not one of them. It would be mystifying if it wasn’t an all too common occurrence. In a chat with Eurogamer, Destiny design lead Lars Bakken laid out the main reason: it’s really bloody hard.
“It's pretty complicated,” said Backen. The team is in the unusual position of dealing with four consoles compared to the one they are familiar with. Bungie is catering to two generations. “Adding another thing on there is just crazy. It's crazy to think of right now.”
Blizzard surveys players about Diablo 3 expansion hunger
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Blizzard’s been probing interest in another Diablo III expansion through a user survey currently being sent to players.
NeoGAF user Nirolak was one such player and posted a screenshot of the question: “How interested would you be in playing a second expansion to Diablo III?” The survey covered a lot more than that, of course, such as gaming habits and satisfaction with Diablo.
Lego Minifigures Online is building up to summer open beta
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After its blood-soaked Hyborean MMO, Age of Conan, and its conspiracy-horror MMO, The Secret World, the last thing I imagined Funcom doing was a family-friendly Lego MMO. But it is. Rob played it and was charmed, but worried about the stripped down challenge.
Rob is not a child or, indeed, a family, but he reckons the game underestimates its audience. You might be able to find out if his words ring true come this June, when Lego Minifigures Online hits open beta. It does, however, sound like it’s not going to be a global beta. “Select markets” is what Funcom says.
Rad: STALKER standalone overhaul Lost Alpha launches early
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It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a new STALKER, which is a bitter pill to swallow. However, the progenitor, Shadow of Chernobyl is getting some new life thanks to Lost Alpha: a standalone mod designed to put cut content back in the game as well as overhaul other areas.
The mod, which doesn’t need STALKER to run, was developed using a 2004 build GSC released in 2009, allowing the team to recreate the version of STALKER that never saw the light of day.
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