Watch StarCraft II pros name the game's most overrated players
Before last year’s WCS, our Rob called on StarCraft II devs Blizzard to move beyond the “bloodless intellectual exercise” they’d created and foster some big pro personalities.
Changes made ahead of this year’s competitive season have already made the 2014 WCS more enjoyable to watch - and now Blizzard’s video squad are working to bring out some of the sport’s large characters. By, er, causing beef. Yup.
Team Fortress 2's first community-made merchandise goes on sale
Less than a month ago, Valve dissolved the boundaries of the Team Fortress 2 Workshop. Formerly the preserve of intangible weapons and menswear for the discerning in-game avatar, the Workshop now hosts designs for physical merchandise - the best of which have already been cherry-picked for production by Valve’s partners in their new venture, WeLoveFine.
Battlefield Hardline is getting another beta before launch
We’re used to the beta as pre-order incentive - the forkfull of bolognaise stolen from the pan while it’s still cooking. So it was a surprise to us, and one suspects to Visceral Games, when the Battlefield Hardline beta turned out to be entirely necessary. A bit raw.
Hardline was delayed til 2015, and Visceral set to work incorporating ideas gleaned from their not-entirely-positive feedback. They’ve now penciled in another, hopefully triumphal beta closer to the game’s release.
John Romero: "Shooters have so many places to go, but people just copy the same thing"
Who is your favourite Doom designer? I’m personally fond of the twisted spatial sense of a Tom Hall level, but John Romero has always enjoyed a considerably larger fan club. Even after Daikatana, and a decade spent alternating between handheld, social and bad games.
If you're a badge-wearing fan of his, you'll probably remember that John Romero is making a shooter. Given that he hasn’t made one of those in a while, perhaps you’d like to hear his opinion on their direction?
“There are unbelievable amounts of new stuff to do in that genre,” said Romero. “We’ve barely scratched the surface.”
EA to repeal The Sims 4's accidental ban on gay names
The Sims Studio are working on an update for The Sims 4 that will revoke its current ban on homosexual references in the game’s Gallery. At the moment, sims with names incorporating “forbidden” phrases are met with an error message when attempting to upload them to the online sharing hub.
GOG to make Hotline Miami, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and The Witcher cheap for their sixth birthday do
Everybody has a birthday, but only despots and PC games distribution websites get to take all week about it. GOG began their six-year shindig yesterday, but have every intention of making it last through the weekend. They’ll incentivise your participation with extra-cheap games.
Battlefield 4: Final Stand evokes memories of Battlefield 2142
With Final Stand, Battlefield 4’s upcoming piece of DLC, DICE is presenting their vision of the wars of tomorrow while also looking back to Battlefield 2142.
“With Final Stand, we knew from the start that we wanted to evolve the Battlefield experience and offer weapons and vehicles that behave differently than anything else on the battlefield,” write DICE’s Kristoffer Bergqvist and David Sirland. “Taking place on the arctic landscape of Russia, where the scientists of today are experimenting with technology that will define the battlefields of tomorrow.”
The next Total War game will be unveiled this month at EGX
Creative Assembly continues to work on Total War: Rome II, but the studio is already developing the next title in the historical strategy series. And we’ll be finding out what that is very, very soon.
At EGX in London, on September 25th, the studio will unveil the latest Total War project to the masses. On stage, CA will offer up insight into the ongoing production of the game and will also show the game in action.
The developer says that we should prepare for a “surprise”. Let the speculation commence!
Blackest Night: Lego Batman 3 gets day one DLC and a season pass
The Lego games are great. Fun, inclusive and accessible to kids and adults in equal measure. They are what family games should be. Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham should continue that tradition, but has unfortunately been infected with something dire - like the yellow impurity in the old Green Lantern rings.
Lego Batman 3 will launch with day one DLC and a season pass. Wonderful.
Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash snuck out early
Double Fine’s Zelda-like deconstruction, Hack ‘n’ Slash snuck up on us today. The Early Access game upgraded to 1.0, a day ahead of its release date, and you can grab the finished adventure on Steam right now.
A release date surprise that’s good, what a world we live in.
Microcraft: Microsoft might be trying to buy Mojang
Minecraft is a phenomenon. Your gran probably runs her own Minecraft server. It’s common knowledge that everyone who works at Mojang is actually made of gold - which means they can’t swim, but it’s a small price to pay. This means one thing: big companies want more than just a piece of it. Big companies like Microsoft.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is in talks, serious talks, with Mojang over the acquisition of the Swedish company.
The Heroes of the Storm alpha client is getting a 64-bit upgrade
Blizzard’s been running its Heroes of the Storm technical alpha for a while now, and both Tim and Nick took it for a spin a while back, enjoying it quite a bit. The reckoned it was "a triumph". Now a new version is in the works, planned for the next patch.
A 64-bit version of the technical alpha will be available to all players with appropriate systems as soon as maintenance finishes on patch day.
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