Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

[JEMC]

The Tuesday news, all in one long post:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG has two new Deal of the Day and two new sales:

• The first DotD is Last Call BBS, 30% off during 24 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/last_call_bbs
• The other DotD is while True: learn(), 34% off until tomorrow: https://www.gog.com/en/game/while_true_learn
• While it appears later than on the other stores, here's the Fallout 25th Anniversary Sale, with up to 75% discounts until October 13th: https://www.gog.com/promo/20221007_special_sale_bethesda
• And, believe it or not, today is the Ada Lovelace Day and to celebrate it there's a Programming Games Sale, featuring up to 75% discounts until October 17: https://www.gog.com/partner/ada_lovelace_day

Steam has several sales and weeklong deals:

• The daily deal is Edge Of Eternity, 60% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/269190/Edge_Of_Eternity/
• Publisher Lightning Games puts its games up to 75% off until Monday 17: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/lightninggamespubsale
• THQ Nordic puts the ELEX franchise (also Gothic, Risen and more) on Sale with up to 80% discounts until October 17: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/THQNordic/sale/ELEXFranchiseSale
• Team 17 puts the Overcooked franchise on sale, between 50 and 80% discounts until the 17th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/overcookedfranchisesale
• Deep Silver puts the Metro franchise on sale with up to 82% discounts until the 17th of October: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/metrofranchise
• And here's a small sample of the weeklong deals:
  • Placid Plastic Duck Simulator is 20% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1999360/Placid_Plastic_Duck_Simulator/
  • Blade: The Edge of Darkness, that has a demo, gets a 40% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1710170/Blade_The_Edge_of_Darkness/
  • Arise: A Simple Story is 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/866140/Arise_A_Simple_Story/
  • Monster Sanctuary gets a 66% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/814370/Monster_Sanctuary/
  • Bridge Constructor Portal is 75% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/684410/Bridge_Constructor_Portal/
  • And the last of the bunch, My Brother Rabbit, gets a 90% discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/855640/My_Brother_Rabbit/

The Humble Store has a couple of new sales:

• The Valor & Victory Sale comes with up to 80% discounts during 6 days. There are keys for Steam and UPlay: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/valor-and-victory-sale/
• The WB Games Publisher Sale features up to 90% discounts during 6 days. All the keys are for Steam: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/wb-games-publisher-sale/

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

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MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Half-Life 2: Episode Three Minimalist Mod available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/half-life-2-episode-three-minimalist-mod-available-for-download/
Modder ‘sciencedude’ has released the first mod based on Marc Laidlaw’s Epistle Three. The plot of Epistle Three is basically what Half-Life 2: Episode Three was meant to be, so this is something that some Half-Life 2 fans may find interesting.
The story of “Epistle 3” details the journey of Gertrude Fremont and Alex Vaunt to the Antarctic to find the mysterious ship known as the Hyperborea.
Do note that this mod is not related to the other Half-Life 2: Episode Three mods we shared in the past. Moreover, this is a minimalist mod, meaning that it has numerous placeholder graphics.

You can now order Domino's in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, thanks to a mod
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-now-order-dominos-in-the-elder-scrolls-4-oblivion-thanks-to-a-mod/
Things used to be better, you know. The sun was brighter, the winters shorter, all the world had a new car smell and you could, if you were so inclined, order a pizza to your home by typing /pizza into the text chat of Everquest 2. What a time it was to be alive. But some ideas are too good to leave in the dustbin of history, which is presumably why you can now order Domino's pizza delivery by chatting to an NPC in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It's the work of a mod called Nickies' Pizzablivion, and if I close my eyes, I can just about imagine it's 2005 again.

GAMING NEWS

Windows 95 had dedicated code to nix an OG Sim City bug
https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-95-had-dedicated-code-to-nix-an-og-sim-city-bug/
(...)
"Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere."
On a different operating system, however, this bug could stop the game working altogether: and SimCity was a very popular game indeed.
"Here’s the amazing part," writes Spolsky. "On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn’t working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn’t free memory right away. That’s the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95."

Fight a monstrous spider-train when Choo-Choo Charles releases this December
https://www.pcgamer.com/fight-a-monstrous-spider-train-when-choo-choo-charles-releases-this-december/
Remember this nightmare fuel? Well, it's finally coming out. Train-based open world survival horror game Choo-Choo Charles will make its debut on December 9th, 2022, via Steam. It'll come to consoles at a later date.
>> The article has a trailer, in case you don't remember this game.

Persona 3 Portable hits Steam and Game Pass in January 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/persona-3-portable-hits-steam-and-game-pass-in-january-2023/
The PC version of Persona 3 Portable will hit Steam and Game Pass early next year on January 19th, 2023. That's alongside the release of Persona 4 Golden on Game Pass, though its very well-received PC port surprise released on Steam back in 2020.

Square Enix Montreal is now called Studio Onoma
https://www.pcgamer.com/square-enix-montreal-is-now-called-studio-onoma/
Elongated letters and a colorful palette herald the rebrand of the studio formerly known as Square Enix Montréal, now Studio Onoma. The studio has rebranded, a name change necessitated because it is no longer owned by Square Enix.
The studio was behind innovative mobile-PC crossovers like the Hitman, Lara Croft, and Deus Ex GO games, brilliant minimalist puzzles that worked both as part of their own franchise and within the broader brand they were made from. Studio Onoma has since worked on the Hitman Sniper spinoff series.

Darktide class spotlight looks down the sights of the Veteran Sharpshooter
https://www.pcgamer.com/darktide-class-spotlight-looks-down-the-sights-of-the-veteran-sharpshooter/
Fatshark has released another video and developer update about the Veteran, a class in the upcoming cooperative horde shooter Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. Specifically, we got a look at the Veteran's Sharpshooter class. This is one of the classes, Sharpshooter, inside the broader Veteran archetype.

New Blood's Fallout homage will have first-person combat
https://www.pcgamer.com/new-bloods-fallout-homage-will-have-first-person-combat/
New Blood teased a new CRPG back in June that's very deliberately taking cues from the original isometric Fallout games. Not only does the project boast two veterans of the Fallout modding scene, but original composer Mark Morgan will provide the soundtrack.

Overwatch 2 temporarily loses Bastion and Torbjörn
https://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-2-temporarily-loses-bastion-and-torbjorn/
Two Overwatch 2 heroes have been temporarily pulled from the game as Blizzard works to fix some major bugs. Both Bastion and Torbjörn are "taking a quick trip to the workshop", with Bastion suspended from all modes, and Torbjörn absent from all but quick play.