Activision have resurrected the Sierra name. But what for?
There is a website. It says Sierra in the url, plays a short Sierra splash video when you visit, and defaults thereafter to a version of the mountainous Sierra On-Line logo of old.
The thing is, Sierra Entertainment was subsumed by parent company Activion six years ago - and hadn’t really done anything of note for at least 10. So who’s this?
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive mapper rebuilds Tomb Raider's Croft Manor
Solo CS modder llVeXXll has “lovingly recreated” Lara’s manor from the original Tomb Raider in the Source engine. The Global Offensive map is remarkably faithful to the 1996 stately home built by Core Design - but it does have a few more bombsites than you might remember.
The 100 best Skyrim mods
Skyrim mods. Gosh, there’s a lot of them, isn’t there? More than 22,000 on the Steam Workshop, and countless more on Skyrim Nexus. They’re the work of a thriving and diverse scene; an army of fans and bedroom coders determined to make the game a photorealistic fantasy utopia. Or just transforming farmyard animals into deadly explosives. But when you’re looking for Skyrim mods, just where do you start?
Here, actually. That’s where we come in. These are the 100 mods we think are essential to improving Skyrim above and beyond the out-the-box experience.
Civilization: Beyond Earth - don't call aliens "barbarians"
Aliens are not barbarians, Firaxis is quick to point out in this hour-long playthrough of Civilization: Beyond Earth. While aliens are a separate AI faction, just like the barbarians in regular Civ games, there are a number of things that set them apart from their beardy, fur-wearing human cousins.
The developer walkthrough is actually two games, one where the aliens are treated with extreme prejudice, like barbarians, and another where they are left alone to expand just like a normal faction.
Acting out: Eugen Systems teases Act of Aggression RTS
These days, Eugen Systems are most known for their deliciously complex wargame RTS hybrid series, the latest of which was Wargame: Red Dragon. But before that, they built slightly more traditional strategy games, like Act of War, with base building and resource management.
Now the studio is going back, working on Act of Aggression, a successor to Act of War. Turtling away, building stalwart bases, obsessing over resource management and production - it’s all back. Eugen wants to “bring about a return to the 90’s Golden Era of real time strategy games,” and if anyone can do it, my money is on them.
Check out the very aggressive teaser below.
Vigil Games is reborn in the form of Gunfire Games; Darksiders a possibility
Vigil Games was one of the many victims of THQ’s bankruptcy, left unable to make Darksiders 3, forced to watch as others bid on the series they had created. The core team ended up at Crytek, forming Crytek US, but that wouldn’t last either. Last month, Vigil founder David Adams resigned, and he’s taken Crytek USA devs with him.
Adams told Polygon that money troubles at Crytek and a lack of communication spurred his desire to resign and form an independent studio. He had the idea and followed through all in one day. Gunfire Games was the result of this.
Weekend breaks: Kingdoms of Amalur is free on Origin for two days
Kingdoms of Amalur was a big thing right up until it launched; then it just faded away, unlike 38 Studios' legal troubles. That’s a bit of a shame, really, because it was a solid action RPG with a number of genuinely great moments.
If you never got round to taking it for a spin, then now is your chance. Alongside Battlefield 4, Origin is offering a free two day trial of Kingdoms of Amalur as well as a 50 percent discount. It’s definitely worth checking out for free, and a pretty good deal for less than a tenner.
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