What if I told you that Ubisoft had decided to expedite the release of their Far Cry compilation? Haha! Actually, we’ve no reason to suspect that The Wild Expedition was ever intended for anyhing other than a February 21 UK release. We mustn't allow humour to cloud the facts, in this, The News.
It’s a grudgingly great deal: all four Far Crys to date, including a prettier version of the Crytek one, for £24.99. That’s a fiver less than on the consoles.
Read and Comment
One of the longstanding joys of playing games about historical fighting machines has been hopping into the impossible prototypes - the experimental designs that were only made once or twice because they exploded a lot, or a war ended.
That spirit runs through World of Tanks like a squishy person from a tracked vehicle, and now extends to the structure of the game itself. Wargaming.net have introduced Confrontation - a dangerous, exciting, experimental combat mode so new that it hasn’t been balanced yet.
Read and Comment
Evolve is a four-versus-one multiplayer hunting game set on an alien planet teeming with carnivorous plants, carnivorous animals and one absolutely massive carnivorous boss monster. Four fifths of the time you’ll be cast as one of the four human hunters whose job it is to track, trap and kill the free roaming gargant in first-person. On the fifth-sized wedge of a game that’s left, you’ll be playing in third-person as the boss creature itself, an animal who must at first evade detection, feeding on wildlife until such time as you can evolve, grow stronger and take on the human task force bent on your destruction.
Imagine something like Cabela’s Big Game Hunter, except one lucky player gets to control the deer, and he’s an angry, giant deer with the ability to leap over buildings, jump out of trees and crush hunters under its massive hoof. That’s essentially what Evolve is all about. It’s a lot of fun.
Read and Comment
Empty cells. That’s not exactly what the unoccupied rooms at Daedalic look like. But open a door off the square of corridors that makes up their Hamburg HQ, and there’s a good chance you’ll be met by nothing but whitewashed walls and the memories of projects like Goodbye Deponia and The Whispered World.
The men and women of Germany’s premier adventure game developer are not numerous enough to fill every room of their offices - instead rotating between projects, filling fresh spaces with PCs and Doctor Who posters. But eventually they’ll return to those empty rooms, covering their walls with ideas and carpeting their floors with noise.
They’ve done the same to San Francisco's famous prison - refilling its whitewashed cells with convicts, its visitor’s room with shrill family drama, and its lunch hall with the low murmur of illicit conversation. They’ve restored it to the way we might imagine it was 60 years ago, and planted the player behind the eyes of an inmate intent on pointing and clicking and puzzling his way off The Rock.
It’s probably the most traditional of the adventure games Daedalic currently have in development - but for a mechanical conceit that allows it beyond the walls of its no-chance security prison and onto the streets of ‘50s ‘Frisco.
Read and Comment
Uh oh, fellow Februarians - looks like we’re in for some unsavoury topsy-turvy business in Guild Wars 2’s next living story update. The name alone reveals enough: Lion’s Arch is the outwardly beautiful, slightly empty player capital of Tyria, where all the goodies live.
So the question is: why would we be wanting to escape from it? And do you think there might be some baddies involved?
The answers: impending death, and yes.
Read and Comment
Beyond Good & Evil is more than a little bit special, managing to be funny without being stupid, sweet without being saccharine and clever without being obstinate. So it’s with good reason that people have been clamouring for a sequel for years. A teaser appeared in 2008, but nothing more. Development appeared to stop so Michel Ancel and his Ubisoft Montpellier team could work on Rayman. That done, Beyond Good & Evil 2 should be getting most of the team’s attention.
Ancel spoke to Edge about trying to create a title with memorable moments and strong consequences, and though he doesn’t name it, it’s hard to imagine he isn’t talking about Beyond Good & Evil 2.
Read and Comment
Reading between the lines of an interview with Galactic Civilizations designer Paul Boyer and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, they seem a little anxious about maintaining the values that made Galactic Civilizations II the best game Stardock ever developed. They return a lot to the theme of their own naivete in the mid-2000s, the fact that they did some things with GalCiv 2 because they didn’t know any better, and stumbled into some magic.
Stardock have changed a lot in the last few years, and while they’re a more professional and knowledgeable group of developers now, they don’t want to lose the freedom they brought to Galactic Civilizations 2. As Boyer puts it, “You can kind of tell that there's a labor of love in there, and that causes people to get much more attached to it.... Nowadays everything’s just so polished down to the bare essentials. Players like to have something where they can feel like — I don’t know — like it's alive. Like there's stuff there to discover.”
Read and Comment
Out of the void comes Vel’Koz, a hideous, tentacled creature created to absorb knowledge by destroying things. He's the stuff of nightmares and the newest champion in League of Legends. Doesn’t he sound absolutely adorable?
The squirming fellow is a ranged mage, capable of dealing massive amounts of damage in sustained fights. He starts off with a long-ranged harass, making him a threat in the early game, despite his fragility. He’ll need a little help from some friends to defend against attackers until he can unleash his full power in the late game, though.
Read and Comment
Goats deserve their time in the sun, so often hidden in the shadow of more popular farm animals like pigs and sheep. Goat Simulator made the world sit up and recognise the importance of goats and their unusual, physics-defying abilities. But it was only a prototype, a tease, and the world had to search for real goats to entertain themselves with.
But no more! Put down that goat! Because Goat Simulator is getting a full release on Steam. And it’s probably going to be the best game about goats you’ve ever played.
Read and Comment
Today sees the free-to-play mech-smashing Hawken begin its transition onto Steam. It won’t appear in the Steam Store straight away, but existing players have been sent out a Steam code which allows them to play early.
From now on, every Hawken pilot will need a Steam account to play, and publisher Meteor Games recommends players uninstall the previous version before they dive into this new steamy future.
Read and Comment
I’m in two minds about this wave of psychological horror adventures that strip players of their ability to fight or defend themselves. I adore them conceptually, but when I try to play them, I just become a shrieking, sweating ball of tension.
Countless Rooms of Death looks more like my speed, as it’s absent any horrific enemies hunting players down, attempting to consume their soul. Instead, the horrors are less tangible. Whispers that need to be investigated, labyrinthine mazes, unusual shapes and lights.
Read and Comment
Team NINJA released today the second episode of the Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z developer diary series exploring the creation process of the franchise’s first cyber ninja, Yaiba Kamikaze, from conception to execution. Continue reading →
Hooray PC gamers. Although Techland did not release a demo for Dying Light, Konami is here with a special treat. The Japanese publisher has just released the PC demo of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, so waste no time and download it from Steam. Continue reading →
EIDOS Montreal’s THIEF is almost upon us, so how about giving the original title a go until this remake hits shelves? Oh, what was that? It’s too dated for your taste? Well lucky you as today we’re presenting you a new texture pack for it. Created by Bentraxx Productions, this texture pack got recently updated to its 0.9.2 version. Continue reading →
Respawn Entertainment claimed a couple of hours ago that players will be able to sign up for the beta phase of TitanFall at 6:00PM PST. Well, good news everyone as you can already sign up. All you have to do is follow our guide below. Continue reading →
Lennard Fonteijn, Lead Programmer of Project Stealth, commented on our previous story about it, hinting at a image that is from the game’s Unreal Engine 4 build. And… well… you can view it below. Continue reading →
Electronic Arts and Respawn have just announced that the beta phase of TitanFall will launch on February 14th. The beta will feature two maps and three game modes (one of which will be Last Titan Standing). In addition, EA has shared a new video for TitanFall that can be viewed below. Enjoy! Continue reading →
Essay Pro