Well Konami also published Lords of Shadow on PC recently so they do seem to be picking up support. Plus Kojima said that they were considering a PC release for MGS V tho it aparently wasn't a priority at the time.

Oculus take down Developer Center systems to tackle potential hacking problem

The great, glass eye that sits unnervingly on the roof of Oculus’ Irvine headquarters is capable of seeing all - but it’s been occupied lately, trawling reactions to the company’s planned Facebook acquisition on Reddit. No small, hairy-footed intruders have managed to slip by unnoticed, to Oculus’ knowledge - but a potential security issue with the company’s Developer Center went undiscovered until the weekend. It was serious enough that the VR specialists temporarily took down their systems until it was resolved.

Read and Comment

The City is corrupt: Square Enix investigate Thief save file disappearances on PC

Something’s happened to this City. Corruption rules with an iron fist, bent on achieving its twisted deletion of progress. A sickness spreads throughout the streets. Save files have disappeared without a trace - only to be returned a day later with holes in their memories.

Yet as disease and suffering spread, so too does a demand for a reasonable level of customer service. This is a City on the brink of chaos, with no saviour to be found. Oh, nope, hang on - here’s a statement from Square Enix.

Read and Comment

Sine Mora and so much more: Kalypso Bundle offers Tropico 3 and turn-based tactics galore

I dunno about you, but I sometimes forget about Kalypso because they sound a bit like those bright orange lollies that come in cardboard tubes. But beyond their place in the splash screens of the best SimCity of recent times, Tropico, the German publisher is also home to a venerable PC strategy series or two.

Bundle Stars’ $3.99 Kalypso bundle is testament to that. Within lie 10 Steam keys and 14 DLC codes for games from Kalypso’s back catalogue: some I haven’t heard of, and others well-known to you and me both.

Read and Comment

The Joy of Hex: a truly brilliant computer CCG

Read and Comment

UK minister hopes game dev will become "poster industry" to inspire science students

Fly away, taxman! He’s not allowed anywhere near UK games developers anymore. Or rather he is, but a 25% tax break means he’ll only be there in three-quarters official capacity - perhaps complementing his grey suit with a jovial hat or inappropriate set of sneakers.

The European Commission okayed UK games industry tax relief on Tuesday, after a year of umming and ahhing. And now culture minister Ed Vaizey says he wants the resulting “home-grown growth” to inspire a new generation to enter the games industry - and get a “pretty great job”.

Read and Comment

DICE "unhappy" with Battlefield 4 server performance; "Reducing lag is a top priority"

Rubber bands: confusingly flexible when it comes to metaphor. In Mario Kart, rubber banding means getting the blue shell when you’re in last place; in Battlefield 4, it’s losing your last few steps and shots thanks to an unfortunate tussle with lag.

It’s particularly prevalent in 64-player matches, and it’s not just affected players who are miserable about it.

Read and Comment

Guild Wars 2 megaservers will fill underpopulated maps with players from April 15

For all the talk of social systems you’ll hear from designers these days, Guild Wars 2 is already the most social MMO - simply because it’ll re-level your character on the fly to suit the challenge at hand.

It’s about to get a little friend-friendlier, thanks to a new megaserver system that’s willing to partially disregard homeworlds and plonk you in the same instance as the people you’d like to be playing with.

Read and Comment

Death in Candlewood is a Poe-inspired first-person shooter and twisted romance

Doctor Ray Dune’s having a rough night. Blamed for the death of a madman’s wife - a man who was once his friend - and his adopted son now missing, he finds himself navigating the ominous Candlewood Mountains, trying to survive stalking monsters.

Death in Candlewood is the first game from Rosebud Games, a studio made up from industry vets who have worked on Silent Hill, F.E.A.R, The Witcher and BioShock. It’s an open-world horror first-person shooter set in the ‘40s and just went up on Kickstarter. 

I had a chat with Rosebud co-founder Toni Sanchez in attempt to unravel the mystery of this Edgar Allan Poe-inspired game. 

Read and Comment

Daylight delayed until April 29th to make it scarier

First-person procedural horror game Daylight has been delayed by several weeks, developer Zombie Studios announced today. Its new release date is April 29th. 

Why the delay? Zombie Studios says that it needs to make it scarier.

Read and Comment

Tropico 5 arrives on May 23rd, so start saving up to buy your first election now

El Presidente’s reign over the banana republic of Tropico is about to begin, again. Tropico 5, which adds a dynasty, 200 years of dictatorship shenanigans and multiplayer to the tried and tested formula, is due out on May 23rd. 

On top of the standard PC and Mac versions, Kalypso is also working on a Steam OS edition which will release when Steam Machines appear. 

Read and Comment

By Zeus! Age of Mythology: Extended Edition coming to Steam in May

After an alpaca puppet sneakily revealed the existence of Age of Mythology: Extended Edition during a stream of Age of Empires II HD, I’ve been trying to contain my excitement, but mostly failing. 

Thankfully, we now know how long we’ll have to wait until we can get our grubby little mitts on this new edition of one of the best strategy games the ancients ever devised. May, people. It’s out in a month. 

Read and Comment

Tentacles: Enter the Mind is the adorable tale of a ravenous monster that eats eyeballs

Tentacles freak me out. I don’t like the way they move - like they are not to be trusted - and I’m not a fan of the beasties they are typically attached to. So I guess it is odd, then, that - when I’m not writing for PCGN - I write for a site with a cephalopod mascot, and count Day of the Tentacle as one of my all time favourite games. I’m a complicated man. 

So I’m not sure how I should feel about Tentacles: Enter the Mind. I’m conflicted. It’s from the creators of Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, and tasks you, controlling a tentacled creature called Lemmy, with cleaning out the brain of Doctor Phluff. The esteemed doctor is, as it happens, a man with the head of a dolphin and wants to make the world “cuter”. Unfortunately his brain has become infested with his cute creations. Isn't that always the case? 

Read and Comment

The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3 gets a release date now that we've been confused by the launch trailer

It was a little bit confusing when, yesterday, Telltale Games released the launch trailer for The Wolf Among Us’ third episode, A Crooked Mile, entirely absent an actual release date. 

The oversight has been rectified now however. On April 8th, that’s next Tuesday, The Wolf Among Us: A Crooked Mile will launch worldwide. Nice and soon, then.

Read and Comment

Building blocks — LEGO Minifigures Online

Funcom’s LEGO Minifigures Online has a design challenge that’s about as awkward as its name: it has to be a child-friendly MMO, but it also needs to keep the interest of older kids and parents.

LEGO toys and the spin-off videogames make this trick look effortess, but I’m not entirely sure Minifigures Online wil manage it. While it definitely seems like a whimsical and approachable LEGO game for five and six year-olds, it’s so simple and harmless that it seems like it would wear thin. Based on a thirty minute hands-on demo, I’m a little worried that Minifigures Online makes the one mistake that LEGO toys never did. It seems to underestimate its audience.

Read and Comment

Shroud of the Avatar raised $333,000 last month, so it now has hot tubs and coconuts

Richard “Lord British” Garriott and Portalarium’s fantasy MMO, Shroud of the Avatar, raised an extra $333,000 last month, making March the highest crowd-funding month since the successful Kickstarter. The total funds raised now stands at an impressive $3,707,100.

This boost has allowed the team to expand, growing to 31 members, and more content and features can be added as a result. While the studio wanted to add mounts, the budget isn’t quite enough, apparently, so it’s just done what poor, impoverished King Arthur did: use coconuts. 

Read and Comment

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor gets an October release date and an extremely gloomy trailer

My name is Talion. Ranger of the Black Gate. Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. 

So Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’s protagonist Talion has a proper Russell Crowe thing going on. But with wraiths and orcs and not a Roman in sight. He’s a bit miffed because the Black Captains of Sauron carved up his family, and now he’s bonded with a spirit of vengeance. So he’s got to kill loads of orcs - which he is meant to be rather good at. 

Monolith and Warner Bros. have announced that Shadow of Mordor will be darkening our screens in October. In the mean time, take a look at the story trailer below. 

Read and Comment

New Unreal Engine 4 Video Shows Incredible Lighting & Reflections

News

Quantum Rush – Futuristic Online Racing Inspired By WipeOut – Gets A Steam Greenlight Campaign

April 2, 2014 John Papadopoulos 2 Comments

GameArt Studio has announced the launch of a Steam Greenlight campaign for its upcoming futuristic online racing title, Quantum Rush. Quantum Rush seeks to revive the genre of futuristic racing games, and aims to offer an exciting mix of both racing and combat elements as well as extensive research and customisation functionality. Continue reading →

 

 

News

Unreal Engine 4-powered Caffeine Will Be DRM-Free

April 2, 2014 John Papadopoulos 0 Comments

Great news for all those that were looking forward to Caffeine as Dylan Browne of Incandescent Imaging announced today that his Sci-Fi Horror Adventure game will release DRM free when completed. Continue reading →

 

 

News

Death in Candlewood – Open-world Psychological FPS From Former Silent Hill, F.E.A.R. and The Witcher Devs – Gets A Kickstarter

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 1 Comment

Rosebud Games announced today the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for its upcoming open-world psychological FPS, Death in Candlewood. Rosebud is a new studio made up of award-winners from the teams who worked on Silent Hill, F.E.A.R. and The Witcher and also consulted with designers from BioShock, and this is its debut title. Continue reading →

 

 

News

The Breakout – Point-and-click Adventure Inspired by LucasArts Titles – Gets a Kickstarter Campaign

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 0 Comments

Pixel Trip Studios announced today the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for its upcoming point-and-click graphical adventure that dares players to escape a max security POW camp, The Breakout. The Breakout pays homage to The Great Escape and LucasArts classics like The Secret of the Monkey Island to deliver a brand new adventure game to nostalgic Kickstarter backers. Continue reading →

Anyone want a Sine Mora key?

There's a modder, Logithx that has recreated Half Life's City 17 using Unreal Engine 3.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/half-life-2-s-iconic-city-17-looks-incredible-in-the-unreal-engine/1100-6418741/

And now he wants to do it again with UE4.

Let me say that it looks just beautiful... but it also shows why we still don't have Half Life 3. The Source engine is too old.

Also, today Microsoft has been unveiled new things about Windows, and one of the things that have been said and shown is a preview of "the next iteration of Windows (no word if it's Win 8.2 or Win 9) with a proper Start menu!

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2014/04/02/thoughts-on-day-1-of-build-2014.aspx

Woo hoo!

Riot rejig League of Legends champion Twitch: they've had their sights set on him "for years"

Riot have updated a champion left untouched for five years. In that time, League of Legends has become a stadium-filling eSport - and we’ve come to expect something entirely different from a ‘Twitch update’. Today, though, we’re not talking streaming channels, but a plague rat reconfigured to define the smell of “contemporary pestilence”.

Read and Comment

Lone Star Clash 3 wafts $35,000 prize pool for StarCraft 2 and League of Legends invitationals

Lone Star Clash is a deeply Texan gaming event - one which crowns its winners with cowboy hats and fills its quiet moments with chicken wing eating contests.

Started up in 2011 by a group of Austin students, the Clash has since become known for its decidedly non-amateur production values and prize pool. This summer, it promises a piece of $35,000 for top players in League of Legends and StarCraft 2 - including first invitee Choi 'Polt' Hun.

Read and Comment

Why EverQuest's dev director thinks we should want all MMOs to be free-to-play

The imminent release of The Elder Scrolls Online - not to mention Wildstar, that other, underdog hope for the post-WoW MMO - has dredged up that argument for the ages (and ages, and ages): will free-to-play really replace the subscription?

EverQuest development director David Georgeson has helped shift his series over to the former, but won’t speak ill of the subscription model. Instead, he’ll tell us why he thinks free-to-play is better for players.

Read and Comment

Too many mandibles: Infinity Ward preview Ghosts Devastation DLC's new Extinction map

May Day gets a bad rap: once the pole-rappelling celebration of Springtime, it’s now associated with nautical distress and, here, the swarming of a research ship in the South Pacific ocean by angular aliens with saliva so nasty as to suggest glandular meltdown.

That’s thanks to Call of Duty: Ghosts’ Devastation DLC - and specifically Mayday, the second episode in their series of nest-bothering Extinction mode maps.

Read and Comment

What you sow: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls sells 2.7 million copies in first week

Blizzard took a risk with Diablo III’s first ever expansion: they separated Loot 2.0 out into a free update, and let Reaper of Souls stand by itself. And it worked: a new campaign, Crusader class and adventure mode proved enough meat to pull in current and relapsed players alike, to the tune of 1.5 million thwarted Malthaels - and 2.7 million copies in the first week.

Read and Comment

that is a steep drop off from 12 million

Age of Wonders 3's first patch is about to be cast and Triumph promises DLC and expansions

Age of Wonders III launched a few days ago, and I liked it quite a bit. It feeds my need for aggressive 4X games and raising armies of fundamentalist goblins. Triumph Studios are already preparing to roll out the first patch, and it’s set to be the first update of many, the developer says.

“We’ve spent 39 months developing Age of Wonders III, and we’re planning on supporting the game for a long period of time. We’ll release patches, free new features and dlc/expansion packs and we’re looking forward to implementing lots of feedback from the community.”

Hands on with Child of Light

Child of Light is a side-scrolling RPG from a talented team of people that includes two of the men who helped create Far Cry 3. In it you play Aurora, the spirit of an Austrian princess trapped inside (something like) the memory of a dream of an afterlife of a whisper of a cloud. Child of Light is very lovely, a soothing soundscape of gentle piano tinkling and drawn out string quartets set against a hand-drawn and pastel coloured backdrop.

You're on a quest to retrieve the sun and the moon and the stars. You can fly, everybody speaks in rhyming couplets, your best friend is a teardrop and you collect forgotten wishes. The only way Child of Light could be any more ethereal is if it appeared hovering at the foot of your bed.

Read and Comment

Divinity: Original Sin enters beta, adds witches, possibly cackling, and 400 improvements

Divinity: Original Sin has just moved into beta. That means there’s a bounty of new things to play with, from proper character customisation to a plethora of new skills, even a brand-spanking new skill tree: witchcraft. Will players have to lug around cauldrons and practice cackling? Maybe. 

Larian boasts that it’s added a not insignificant 400 improvements to the game. The studio’s put together a video to show some of them off, so direct your eyes below. 

Read and Comment

Jagged Alliance: Flashback enters alpha, with Steam Early Access hot on its heels

It’s been almost a year since Space Hulk developer Full Control successfully Kickstarted a faithful sequel to the Jagged Alliance tactics series. Since then, Space Hulk was released, and it wasn’t great, but here’s hoping that this particular resurrection fairs betters. Backers will find out soon enough, as Jagged Alliance: Flashback enters closed alpha. 

Flashback will also be hitting Steam Early Access soon, in Q2. The Danish studio wants to reset the franchise, bringing it back to its roots, unlike 2010’s uneven Back in Action reboot. 

Read and Comment

Star Conflict gets Oculus Rift support, chucking your eyeballs into space

Star Conflict, the free-to-play space combat MMO, just got a big update. If you’ve already got your hands on an Oculus Rift, you’ll be able to flit around the stars, getting in high speed chases, all without the distractions of the real world. 

Gaijin Entertainment and Star Gem Inc. have also added Linux support on top of the Oculus Rift update, which means it now supports Windows, Mac and Linux. 

Read and Comment

Anomaly Defenders turns the series on its head, with aliens protecting their home from villainous humans

11 bit has announced the next game in the Anomaly series: Anomaly Defenders. No more will you play as the desperate human defenders of Earth, fighting off a hostile alien invasion. 

In Anomaly Defenders, the tables have turned, with the humans invading the alien homeworld to put an end to the conflict once and for all. And this time, players will be commanding the alien forces. 11 bit is calling it a “reverse tower offence” game, which basically just means it’s a tower defence game instead of Anomaly’s usual brand of tower offence. 

Read and Comment

Taking sides: 2D multiplayer shooter Warside pits future-men against each other in a resource war

At times, my spatial awareness is not on top form. Maybe I’ve had a long day, or I’ve run out of whisky, or some other very good reason. It’s at times like these that I prefer my shooting to take place in a 2D space. So Warside might be right up my alley. 

It’s multiplayer 2(.5)D sci-fi shooter with little chaps - who happen to be an elite squad of soldiers - peppering the screen with brightly-coloured laser fire. There’s flying and big, glowing shields and people dying all over the place. All that good stuff.

Read and Comment

Twitch announces Group Chat, a way for you to create secret clubs and avoid the unwashed masses

Chatting with thousands of people can get a bit messy. Words appear and disappear in seconds; deep, thoughtful conversations on Starcraft 2 Terran strategies get interupted by memes; and there was Twitch Plays Pokemon. 

Now Twitch has announced Group Chat, where broadcasters can create invite-only chat channels separate from the main chat feed. 

Read and Comment

Unreal Engine 4 now has support for Linux with the update to 4.1

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/41-update-preview

Folks have been asking about our early Linux efforts and support for Valve’s SteamOS and Steam Machines. We have good news for you! The 4.1 source code has initial support for running and packaging games for Linux and SteamOS. We love Linux!

So, we have the Cryengine, Valve's Source (and unless they go crazy, Source2 too) and now UE4. maybe Valve will fail with its Steam Machines, but Linux users sure will benefit from their effort!

Now they need a major push of publishers actually porting their games. Tho I think most will probably wait until Linux starts actually picking up marketshare before they do, if ever.

Indeed.

They'll probably wait until the Steam Machines are launched and how they do, to actually developing for it.

Tagging for later, lots of catching up to do in this thread!

Uncharted director Amy Hennig joins Visceral to make a Star Wars game

Comments2

When Drake-wrangler Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog in early March, her destination was undecided. It seems reasonable to assume that countless top developers courted her in the following weeks, but something drew her to Dead Space types Visceral - and not just her former working relationship with VP Steve Papoutsis. Can you guess what it was?

“We happen to be making a Star Wars game,” said Papoutsis.

Read and Comment

Meet the Aimpad: the prototype peripheral bringing analog control to WASD

Comment

You are a PC gamer. When the subject comes up, you’ll argue mouse and keyboard over analog controller to the death, and mean it.

But then there’s that thing you do in Project Cars when the 360 pad’s plugged in, squeezing the right trigger just so to come to a perfect, unscreeching halt. And during Assassin’s Creed loading screens, you’ll try your utmost to cycle through Kenway’s run animations as smoothly as possible.

It’s okay to say it: analog control is nice. Aimpad’s promise is that you won’t have to leave behind the keyboard to enjoy it.

Read and Comment

Slower healing and "squished" character stats: WoW is changing for Warlords of Draenor

Comments1

Where Mists of Pandaria was a step forward into a previously uncharted territory inhabited by furry priests, Warlords of Draenor is a step back in time. Not just in its plotting, which involves a dose of interstellar time travel, but in its RTS-style garrisons that recalls ‘90s Blizzard.

If these preliminary patch notes are anything to go by, the change has meant a pruning of some decade-old systems, and a simplication of some of those big numbers. Here's what we've gleaned so far.

Read and Comment

The Elder Scrolls Online is out today. Guess how many mudcrabs you'll need to shoot to top level 50?

Comment

Remember when every so often, somebody would ask Todd Howard if Bethesda would ever do an MMO? And he’d say, ‘Meh, probably not. Who owns Fallout these days?’.

Well: there’s a game named The Elder Scrolls Online out on PC today. It’s not made by Howard and co, and maybe looks a little more like WoW than the interconnected Oblivion we’d anticipated all those years ago. But our Nick’s enjoying it, and you might too.

Read and Comment

World of Tanks now has 80 million accounts - and its eSports scene is real

Comment

Tracked vehicles have rarely entered into eSports since Counter-Strike practically invented the idea in the late ‘90s. That’s possibly because nothing about mile-long lines of stationary armour says ‘fast-paced teamwork’.

World of Tanks might be changing that. Less a historical sim than an approachable competitive shooter, the game has merited a $10m investment in eSports from its creators, Wargaming. And their community have answered.

Read and Comment

Frictional Games’ SOMA Gets A New In-Engine Trailer

News

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II Slightly Delayed, Will Hit Steam On May 22nd

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 0 Comments

Neocore Games announced today that The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II will be slightly delayed in order to get further polished. The game was planned for an April release but according to its development team, it will now hit Steam on May 22nd. Continue reading →

 

Video-News

New Nvidia Flameworks Tech Demo Shows The Most Realistic Fire & Smoke Effects

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 15 Comments

During GTC 2014, Nvidia has showcased tha latest version of Flameworks; a system for generating fire, smoke and explosion effects for games. Flameworks combines a state-of-the-art grid-based fluid simulator with an efficient volume rendering engine, and this latest tech demo is impressive (to say the least). This is by far the best ‘fire and smoke’ tech demo, surpassing even the one for Deep Down that Capcom introduced a while back. According to Nvidia, this is real-time volumetric fire simulation running on GeForce Titan Z and packs 32 million voxels. Enjoy! Continue reading →

 

Screen-News

Dragon Age: Inquisition – New In-Engine Screenshot Unveiled

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 19 Comments

Electronic Arts and Bioware have released a new screenshot for Dragon Age: Inquisition, showing off Dales: Exalted Plains. In addition, the companies revealed that more news regarding this third part of the Dragon Age series will be unveiled next week. Enjoy the screenshot and stay tuned for more! Continue reading →

 

Video-News

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure – Launch Trailer

April 4, 2014 John Papadopoulos 2 Comments

Big Finish Games has released the launch trailer for Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure (also known as Tex Murphy: Tesla Effect). This new Tex Murphy title is currently available on Steam and GOG for pre-ordering, and will be available on April 22nd. Continue reading →

 

News

Deep Silver Partners With GOG.com, Will Be Releasing DRM-Free Titles, First Is Risen

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 2 Comments

GOG.com announced today a partnership with Deep Silver thanks to which the big publisher will be releasing DRM-Free games via this digital distributor. The first title will be “Risen” – the first installment of the renowned RPG franchise – that comes with 60% off for the first 48 hours. Continue reading →

News

Get Even Will Support VR Devices, Gets A New “Behind The Scenes” Trailer

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 1 Comment

The Farm 51 has released a new ‘behind the scenes’ trailer for Get Even that features some gameplay scenes from the actual game. Get Even will support 3D scanning tech, and promises to blend SP and MP together. When players embark on a single-player mission, others on the network can join the quest as enemies, so players never know whether their opponents are human or CPU-based. The game looks promising, and will support VR devices (such as the Oculus Rift). Enjoy! Continue reading →

News

Divinity: Original Sin Enters Beta Phase

April 3, 2014 John Papadopoulos 1 Comment

Larian Studios has unleashed a massive update for Divinity: Original Sin on Steam Early Access, taking the game into beta while adding loads of new talents and skills; brand new areas to explore and a whole load of other improvements. Continue reading →

Linden Lab acquires distribution service Desura

In a surprise move, this morning Second Life developer Linden Lab announced that it is acquiring Desura, a digital distribution service used by indies and larger publishers.

"Desura's talented team, thriving business and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab," CEO Rod Humble said in a statement announcing the acquisition, the second that the company has made this year. It previously acquired Blocksworld, an iPad brick-building game.

"Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world," Humble continued.

Linden Lab's flagship title Second Life has reportedly been performing much better than is widely believed. With the Desura acquisition, Linden Lab appears to be gearing itself toward bigger things in the future.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/195975/Linden_Lab_acquires_distribution_service_Desura.php