Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's Operation Vanguard acquaints players with 'campaigns'
Operation Vanguard is the latest in a lengthy line of community initiatives Valve have run for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive over the last year and a half. In now-established fashion, players can pay for temporary access to six of the game’s best community maps on Valve’s dedicated servers - and the mappers will receive a cut of the profits.
New this time are operation campaigns: a progression system that strings together mission objectives in one of the best first-person shooters on PC and rewards players with extra cases or weapon drops.
Guild Wars 2 is going on an egg hunt with Tangled Paths from November 18
You know how people get about eggs. They’ll scour supermarket shelves for duck dumpings to turn into extra-creamy omelettes. So you can imagine the fuss over dragon eggs, which are not only larger but far rarer - the two traits yolkonauts prize above all else.
The situation’s much the same in Tyria, where rumours of a wyrm zygote have given every faction in Guild Wars 2 a reason to bash each other in once again. That's the premise of Tangled Paths, the latest episode in ArenaNet’s Living World Season 2.
Final Stand DLC will bring bows to Battlefield 4 with explosive and sniper bolts, say dataminers
With another Hunger Games on the horizon and no new Crysis sequel in sight, it’s up to DICE to cater to our primeval bow-and-arrow needs. A recent Battlelog update suggests they’ve obliged with a brand new compound bow for Battlefield 4. Named in the code as the ‘Spyder’, the weapon comes with a range of colourful ammunition for exploding, illuminating or making small holes in your prey.
How StarCraft II's Legacy of the Void Archon mode is going to work
Legacy of the Void will make your Protoss fantasies come true, so long as you’re not responsible for some of the odder space-elf fan art available on Google Images. But it’ll also introduce something potentially more exciting to the world’s biggest RTS: shared-base co-op played out on one-versus-one maps.
Blizzard have dubbed the idea Archon Mode. And since BlizzCon 2014 wrapped, they've been busy explaining its ins and outs.
SkySaga: Infinite Isles is a free to play Minecraft with quests
Radiant Worlds, the studio that rose like a phoenix from the ashes of Blitz Games, have just announced SkySaga: Infinite Isles, a disgustingly colourful, voxel-based and procedurally generated adventure game. It's... well, it looks a whole lot like Minecraft, obviously. I don't think we can continue having a grown up conversation about SkySaga until we address that particularly blocky elephant in the room.
But wait, don't go! Here's a bunch of unique things SkySaga is doing that make it a little less like Minecraft, and a little more like a cool thing worth being interested in.
Pool Nation FX will be the best pool game on PC
When I saw Pool Nation FX at EGX there was a crowd of people round the monitor, muttering advice to the player at the keyboard, and holding their breath each time the ball rolled towards the pocket. If it weren’t for the lack of pints, the giant Call of Duty booth below, and the people walking around in cosplay you could mistake it for a scene at the pub.
That’s exactly what CherryPop are aiming for: a pool table at your desktop. One you can play with friends the way you would at the pub. It also offers more than your local, you can play in tournaments, shoot frames at tables in settings all over the world, and sign up to Fifa-style leagues with both friends and strangers.
It’s easily going to be the best pool game on our platform.
Are Traveller's Tales building a LEGO Jurassic Park? (Yeah, probably)
LEGO Batman 3 has been out for a day. That’s physically enough time to squeeze in the 14 hours required to play the thing, so of course somebody has done it.
At the end of LEGO Batman 3, there’s a fun credit sequence in which LEGO Adam West and LEGO Burt Ward scale an endless building. They’re subject to a long stream of gags and cameos - one of which has got tongues speculatively wagging about a tie-in Jurassic Park game.
Wildstar gets its "biggest patch yet": Mystery of the Genesis Prime
After years of cutting, development and self-improvement, Wildstar is content. Happy. That’s good to hear, isn’t it? Oh nope, hang on, there’s more. Message reads: ‘Wildstar is content patched’.
That’s something for its players, at least, who now have access to another zone, The Defile, and a new solo story: Journey into OmniCore-1.
GOG's Big Fall Sale begins: get Mount & Blade and The Witcher 2 for free
GOG is attempting to alleviate the misery left by naked trees, cold weather and rain by putting on its Big Fall Sale. Over 700 discounted games are up for grabs, some up to 90 percent off, and GOG’s throwing gifts around too, both games and films.
The sale kicked off just an hour ago, and you can already get yourself a freebie. Mount & Blade can be yours for absolutely nothing, or you could buy the whole series for £6.37. And remember to keep an eye out for the daily deals and flash sales.
Swot up on Far Cry 4 with the 8 minute launch trailer
Far Cry 4 is out in less than a week, and just in case you missed the barrage of trailers detailing every single aspect of this rather large game, Ubisoft has put together yet another, teaching you everything you need to know about the open world shooter.
It’s eight minutes long, which is quite long for a trailer, but not very long for a class.
Smite's European teams duke it out this weekend for a spot in the World Championships
Smite’s still building up to the MOBA’s World Championship event in January next year, and this week will see European teams clash in Cologne, Germany. It’s the final hurdle for the Europeans, and the top two teams will secure a spot in the World Championships.
The European Championships kicks off on November 15th, at 5pm CET.
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