Left 4 Dead 2 finally released uncensored in Australia
Left 4 Dead 2 has become a gently-rotting poster child for Australian game censorship in the past five years. Oz’s famously conservative ratings board rendered one of the best PC first-person shooters almost completely bloodless, and spirited away the bodies of the dead often before they had time to hit the Georgian dirt.
Valve appealed the board’s refusal to classify Left 4 Dead 2’s original version in 2009 - but only now, half a decade on, has it been approved for distribution in the region.
Absorb this Mighty No. 9 footage like the energy of a rocket-drone
Mighty No. 9’s dramatically overfunded Kickstarter campaign has given way to fan unease. Early footage didn’t match up to the offbeat anime concept art the game was sold on, and developers Comcept returned to crowdfunding before we’d seen anything substantial of the Mega Men successor.
But this is more like it. A convincing two-minute trailer, followed by a demo of Mighty No. 9’s hectic Online Race mode from the mega man himself: Keiji Inafune.
Mojang release 10 months' work in Minecraft 1.8: The Bountiful Update
What have you done in the last 300 days? Probably lots of different little things. The Minecraft dev team at Mojang have done one, big thing: put together the Bountiful Update.
Minecraft 1.8 was published to the Minecraft launcher today. It’s taken longer than any other update in the game’s history, and incorporates a full-scale rebuild of its infrastructure. That’s the equivalent of umpteen creative mode cathedrals.
From Software call Dark Souls II's message system a success: "The majority are helpful"
I’m all for cutting the threads of unnecessary authentication servers, but if you play Dark Souls II offline you really are missing half the game. Its daylight horrorscapes are scarred with text missives from would-be friends on the internet. Most of them relay invaluable warnings about the game’s tricks and traps. Some of them are tricks and traps.
First incorporated in Demon’s Souls on the consoles, From reckon the system is now more effective than ever.
“The majority are helpful messages or messages reflecting on the game,” said game director Yui Tanimura. “The overall trend is for users to be helpful to one another and to share their thoughts and reflections. Only a handful of messages are left to make other players slip-up.”
Payday 2 DLC finds Overkill "tipping our hats" to Battlefield and DICE
Much has been made of the shared thematic ground in Battlefield Hardline and Payday 2, but evidently Overkill aren’t worried about associating too closely with the DICE series.
Their Gage Assault Pack is a collection of weapons, mods, masks and materials for Payday, and comes swathed in a familiar orange and grey-blue aesthetic.
Tanks for the memories: Obsidian offers up a first look at Armored Warfare's cooperative PvE
Armored Warfare is a dramatic departure for Obsidian. The developer most known for its elaborate, story-driven RPGs, so a multiplayer tank game doesn’t seem like a natural fit. But executive producer Rich Taylor thinks it makes sense.
“When the opportunity to develop Armored Warfare came up, we really jumped as this chance to apply what we know about progression systems and complex mechanics and bring it to a new genre that we enjoy playing every bit as much as we enjoy working on it.”
Taylor was at PAX on the weekend to show off the first look at Armored Warfare’s pre-alpha PvE content, where armored vehicles cooperate, blasting enemies to smithereens while attempting to complete primary and secondary objectives.
Stronghold Crusader 2 introduces the Sultana, the series' first female opponent
A sultana isn’t just a dried grape, it’s also Stronghold Crusader 2’s new AI opponent. She’s based on a historical figure, but Firefly’s put their own spin on her, transforming her into a world-weary freedom fighter and leader of assassins.
Firefly’s latest dev diary takes a look at the Sultana, and the tactics you’ll need to master if you hope to defeat her.
"Modern Transport Tycoon" Train Fever launches this week, with 150 years worth of trains
While Train Fever sounds like a sickness that makes you think you’re a locomotive, it’s actually a crowd-funded transport sim inspired by Transport Tycoon. That’s probably a relief, if you were worried about being struck by a new and bewildering illness.
Instead of getting you cooped up in bed, making train noises, Train Fever gives you a transport empire to manage, either in the Industrial Age or the modern day. It’s due to launch on Steam on Friday.
The Sims 4 launch day patch stops the Grim Reaper from finding love
The Sims 4 launched in North America today, though in Europe we’ll need to wait until Thursday, because reasons. The most exciting thing about any launch day is, of course, the launch day patch.
In the case of The Sims 4, the problems that the patch solves seem more amusing, like trying to date the Grim Reaper, than disastrous, but there might be many more to deal with now that players have gotten their mitts on it.
Dino Crisis: The Stomping Land removed from Steam
When The Stomping Land was Kickstarted a year ago, its prehistoric survival pitch garnered enough goodwill to fund nearly six times its target. But that goodwill has since dissipated in Early Access. Initial plans for weekly updates gave way to radio silence, and eventually the news that the game was moving to a new engine.
Despite that recent reassurance, The Stomping Land has now been removed from sale.
The four-month Borderlands DLC drought is over: the Pre-Sequel has a season pass
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel has the whiff of expanded DLC about it. But like some sort of self-replicating moon, this standalone adventure in the Borderlands 2 engine will spawn yet more zany-shooter adventures.
The Pre-Sequel season pass is good for four pieces of post-launch DLC at a discount, 2K have announced.
The man responsible for Starbucks' "fruit juice revolution" now does marketing for EA
EA’s first move in their drive to put Players First was capitalisation. Satisfied they’d conveyed the appropriate sense of import and urgency, their next was to hire on Chris Bruzzo as chief marketing officer.
Bruzzo is credited as the man who planted Starbucks' hooks in social media - but when asked to list his greatest achievements, recalls “leading the cold-pressed vegetable and fruit juice revolution”. For which he will one day be tried at the Hague, obviously.
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