Latest Articles (Page 1713)

Here is a poorly-kept secret: I'm not a very tall man. Here is another one: Crysis 3 is happening. Even before evidence turned up last week, a fourth nanosuited adventure seemed something of a given, but it's taken the EA-Crytek announcengine this long to formally confirm the next game. I've just played Press Release Bingo and I've got a "stunning", a "state of the art", an "unparalleled visuals", an "ultimate", a "leveraging the latest technology" and enough pre-order unlocks to kill a small horse.

Confirmed: we'll play as angry baldy man Prophet (those who've finished Crysis 2 can probably work out why that's the case), that bow and arrow is legit, it's due next Spring, it's using CryEngine 3, it's going to have "sandbox gameplay" and it's set in a New York trapped inside an Nanodome which has caused it to transform into an 'urban rainforest.'

In almost a month on the dot, Diablo III will finally, honestly, truly launch. This is not a test. Opinions on the beta have been mixed, but still, it is the third entry in a positively massive franchise about everyone's favorite spicy Latin brand of Satan. We've been waiting for more than a decade. All eyes are rightfully on Blizzard's loot lusting opus. Which is a bit odd, if you think about it. What other genre is so completely indebted to one game? Moreover, is that the slowly festering mark of a stagnant game type? After the curious news that Runic seemingly intends to release Torchlight II a month outside the shadow of Blizzard's behemoth, I got in touch with Runic CEO Max Schaefer to clarify that comment and chat a bit about the future of the genre he helped pioneer.

Happiness is a cold, dank dungeon filled with traps, giant poisonous spiders and not enough food. Legend of Grimrock has proved to be a welcome and surprisingly modern-feeling bearhug from dungeoneering's past, and as well as being such a source of joy for old men like me it's also proven profitable for devs Almost Human. "The development costs of the game have now been covered many times over so the future of the company seems pretty secure," they claim happily in a new bloggington, which hopefully also bodes well for the future of the game. It's the sort of thing that could potentially make the very best of a big fat synringe full of extra content. First things first though, a new patch for some of the issues in the launch version is incoming. Hidden somewhere in this post is a switch you must find and activate in order to continue reading.

Well done, you! You're the best. Your reward is a blessing from Horace which gives you +3 defence against bear attacks* and the following additional words about Legend of Grimrock.

Here's what's promised for version 1.1.4 of the game, which will land later this week all being well:

- vsync is enabled by default - borderless windows are no longer topmost - pressing ESC closes character sheet - fixed unlimited frost arrow exploit - bug fix: topmost menu item don’t work reliably in 2560×1440 resolution - bug fix: wall text translations are not dismissed when right-clicking - bug fix: inanimate objects can be backstabbed - bug fix: projectiles go through doors in some very rare cases - improved display resolution auto-detection at first launch - fixed a couple of typos - removed check that disables high texture resolution setting when running low on video memory (some graphics drivers seem to report available video memory incorrectly)

What with Jim being dead, John imprisoned for stalking Kim Kardashian, Adam suffering another one of his 'Nam flashbacks and Nathan turning out to be just a figment of our imagination, I find myself manning the controls of the dread ship RPS alone today, and thus unable to actually play videogames. Hence, I can only inform you about games' existence, not attest to their quality first-hand.

Yesterday I was playing a game by Almost Human, this morning I posted about a game by Human Head and now I'm writing one about a game by Only Human. THERE ARE TOO MANY HUMANS. At least Only Human's game doesn't, unlike the other two, involve bothering monsters in dungeons. Ensign-1 is an indie space combat game with a sort of FPS sub-game wherein "players leave their ships on foot to commandeer turrets, and other starships." It's just released a paid alpha version, which you can pick up from Desura to help fund the game's ongoing development.

With official confirmation still lacking as to whether Prey 2 is currently bleeding out by the bins out the back of Bethesda HQ or if the great hunt will yet continue, one of the many additional questions is what might become of developer Human Head. Sounds like they're pondering a resurrection of their first game, viking-based brawler Rune. The 2000 Unreal-powered stabbing'n'jumping title is, apparently, a "cult hit classic", and its official Facebook page has raised the possibility of it getting the sequel treatment.

You heard it here first, and now it's definitely happening. Space Quest developers Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy have announced they will be working on a new project, and there's a video to go with it. It's a peculiar one. A very peculiar one, seemingly recorded by Skype and animated from photographs. And most surprisingly, Mark Crowe is involved, having previously ruled himself out. Replay Games had talked about trying to restart the franchise, by combining Scott Murphy with Space Quest VI developer Josh Mandel, already working at the studio. However, there's no immediate implication that this is to do with Replay, rather being announced as a project by the Two Guys From Andromeda. Oh, and most strange of all? So far there's no mention of a KickStarter.

So this is interesting. After we've hounded EA for over a year about their bans preventing players from accessing single-player games, and after a year of receiving peculiarly ambiguous statements, and promises to fix things in time periods that now gather dust, EA has finally (a full year since we first raised the issue with them) partly fixed this issue. Partly. Being banned multiplayer violations will no longer lock you out of your single-player games, and their DLC. Because, it seems, they've fixed their Offline mode. But there's no word on whether forum violations can still affect gaming access.

Sunday! It's the day of the week when your latent super-powers are at their most useful. Let's see if we can use those innate abilities to find interesting reading material. Hmm, it's somewhere around here.

• Games and the making of ominous architecture: "Regardless of what monstrosities we face, digital environments must capture our attention and establish a grim atmosphere. Yet for the most part, the architectures of horror games draw on symbols that we commonly associate with fear and revulsion. From Castle Wolfenstein to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the stonework, mildew ridden basements, dark hallways, and cobwebbed attics of gothic mansions remain established horror locales. Many games, including the two above, use their environments remarkably well. Regardless, the frequency of candlelit masonry tests my patience." (I wrote something similar a few years ago.)

Or perhaps "greetings" followed by a bow, a graceful flourish, and a knowing air of superiority. Something suitably elfish. I don't really know what they say, but - thanks to a new trailer - I've seen them do their pointy eared thing, and I can safely say that they are, in fact, elves. You know the drill: fleet-footed battle prancing, slow-mo flips and twists, and female attire that'd prove woefully inadequate in any battle involving ordinances more powerful than bath foam. It all looks nicely fast-paced and heavy hitting, though. Check out the trailer in this post's southern reaches, where mortal men fear to tread.

So EA made a bit of boo-boo. The publishing behemoth recently came under fire for seemingly commandeering and conquering tank designs from Warhammer 40K for use in bite-sized browser-based disaster C&C: Tiberium Alliances. The resemblance was pretty much unmistakable. Every turret, tread, and grindy, mashy thing was replicated almost 1:1. So, EA, it all looks pretty incriminating, and I've heard prison is a rough place for giant multi-national conglomerates like yourself. What say you in your own defense?

If I'm reading Prototype 2 correctly, it's actually an extremely subtle environmental message. I mean, just look at the evidence: main character James Heller goes out of his way time and time again to slice, dice, and skewer vehicles of all shapes and sizes. No car is safe from his bladed assault, and when helicopters try to lend their wheeled pollution-spewing compatriots a helping spritz of machine gun fire, Heller makes sky sushi out of them as well. He also sort of, you know, carves up a few people, but I'm sure it was a simple mistake. From the right angle, people do bear a striking resemblance to helicopters. Honestly, it can be kind of awkward. "Hey, Boeing AH-64 Apache," people will call out to me on the street. "Oh, wait, I thought you were someone else. Never mind." Now watch a very angry man slice a... wait, is that me?! No, no, just a helicopter. Phew. It's after the break.

Valve doesn't like to say things. Where's Half-Life 2: Episode Three? Silence. Why has Left 4 Dead 2's Cold Stream DLC taken nearly a year? Silence. What does Gordon Freeman's voice sound like? Silence. Yesterday, though, a Valve job listing seeking out new hardware tech wizards for its shadowy developer coven got the whole Internet talking. And, somewhat shockingly, Valve's decided to talk back.

You there! Do you want to know when in the calendar year Square Enix's open-world police drama Sleeping Dogs will be with us? If not, please disregard the next few lines. Here's something to distract you while the rest of us discuss the nexus of time and a game about a man running around Hong Kong punching people in the face. For the rest of us, it's time to talk. Me, you, August 17th, Sleeping Dogs. And to the surprise of nobody, you can pre-order and receive a few special bonuses. One of those is a flying punch. If you want to know more, and want to see eight minutes of footage of the game, just stick £10'000 in my Paypal account and click the pre-order link below. Don't click it first, as I have no way of denying anyone access. Prove to me the honour system works.

So, yeah: when you pre-order in stores you can get the "George St. Pierre content", which is a flying punch, more powerful grapples and throwing damage, and an outfit. George is an MMA start who'd been advising the team on their in-game grapples. You'll also get the "Police Protection content", which includes a new mission, a SWAT uniform, gun, and car. Anyway, here's some off-screen footage of the game from PAX. Eight minutes long, but starts with about four minutes of running. The rest is slightly awkward violence.

We mentioned earlier in the week how impressed we are with Wargame: European Escalation, and it is about to get better - for free! This weekend's DLC, which already has a Steam page here, adds new skirmish AI which allows up to seven players to take on an AI-driven opponent - meaning you can play out the kind of epic co-op that made the Men Of War games so special. Then there are seven fresh multiplayer maps, of which two are "asymmetric battlefields for Attack/Defense games". Finally there are some new tools to enhance team coordination on the battle map. And that overhaul will cost you nothing. (The game is on sale, too.) Splendid.

I'm writing this in one tab as a tractor is idling away in another, and it's not even a webgame: right now I have Farming Simulator 2011 running on Facebook, via Gaikai. That's kind of neat. The cloud-streaming service is hosting seven demos of PC games, with five available in Europe and (Magicka, Sniper - Ghost Warrior, The Witcher 2 - Assassins of Kings, Orcs Must Die!, Farming Simulator 2011) the US, and two (Saints Row - The Third, Dead Rising 2 - Off the Record) only playable to US Facebookers. You get 30 minutes of gametime to test out potential buys, before you need to return to update your status as "Farmboy".

I should have called this Jim's Secret Robot Diary, shouldn't I? Oh well. Anyway.

We captured an island.

Kickstarter is feeling like this quote from Blues Brothers. No, not the God part. The "we're putting the band back together" bit. Jordan Weismen has already managed to set-up a triumphant stadium gig for Shadowrun, and he's told ShackNews that if it's a success it'll have a major impact on the potential for the return of the sky-pirate alternate history flight thing, Crimson Skies.

I don't want to bite off more than we can chew right now. First comes Shadowrun, and we want to make that great, and then we'll figure out where to go after that.

I am making a hopeful face. (What kind of face is that?)

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending San Francisco's parody-Twitter-account-inspired Molyjam and pestering roughly a million developers with my inane questions. In between digging for such crucial details as the number of weapons in a game about invisible guns and whether there'd a happier DLC ending for a tale primarily focused on hurling oneself off a cliff, I watched countless off-the-wall ideas blossom into playable games. Truly amazing, however, was the amount of mileage different people – some of them not even professional game developers – got out of a single idea: romantic free-running.

While the Flare Path Network's minuscule viewing figures did seem to suggest the world wasn't ready for a TV channel devoted to military gaming, philately, and Edwardian erotica, I still believe the rebranding and reorientation was a dreadful mistake. The accountants are far happier now we're SHiT TV (Sharks, Hitler, and Titanic TV) but Frank, Becky, and the rest of the old guard go around with a look of defeat in their eyes that's painful to behold. Sometimes I yearn for the days before FP diversified. The days when I could just sit down on a Friday morning and tap out stories about obscure sims and obscurer wargames.

In a classic case of me not noticing what's right in front of me, it took me at least three minutes to realise that there were bees all over the Oddworld Hand of Odd logo on the new teaser site, encasing whatever the hell that thing is in delicious honeycomb. I've no idea what the game will be, but it's from Just Add Water, who ported Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath to the PC (and it ran like a flatulent donkey after a bowl of chili). The game did exist in a previous, albeit unreleased, form as an RTS on the PS2. We have footage of that below, via the documentarian device known as Youtube.

I never play MMOs enough to receive awards. Actually, I do play them, but don't play, so while everyone's grinding and high-fiving over getting level quad-squlllion, I'm jumping up a mountain the wrong way, attempting to find a stray polygon to land on to climb higher and higher. It's important research. So I'm physically shrugging at Bioware's gift of 30 free days of game time to every SWTOR player that's reached level 50. It doesn't affect me in the slightest that my pioneering playstyle goes unrewarded. It might affect you, though, and for that I'm happy and seething with envy for you. It's to drag everyone back into the game to experience the delights of the massive Legacy update. As an extra incentive, they're throwing in a cute little baby Tauntaun.

Enough about the freebies. Here's what the update looks like.

The unblinking internet eye of Engadget has spotted a new job placement ad at Valve, appealing for an electronics engineer. It reads: "For years, Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences. Now we’re developing hardware to enhance those experiences, and you can be a key part of making that happen. Join our highly motivated team that’s doing hardware design, prototyping, testing, and production across a wide range of platforms. We’re not talking about me-too mice and gamepads here – help us invent whole new gaming experiences." Valve previously denied a "Steam Box" gaming platform, and the wording of this new ad suggests this might be something else entirely. But what? To the Speculatotron! See below for some video-clues.

Generally, it's pretty cringe-inducing to watch publishers get ahead of themselves. "Annual sequels, comic book tie-ins, and a movie deal that will pass across the desk of at least one noteworthy director before getting indefinitely shelved," they excitedly proclaim. Then things inevitably don't go as planned, and everyone has a good, long sob. I want to believe Beamdog when it says Baldur's Gate 3 is more than just a Kickstarter-fueled delusion of grandeur, though. And what's this about Icewind Dale?  I mean, what's even left to be looted from Black Isle's naked corpse? Planescape? Lionheart? OK, maybe we can just not take Lionheart.

I think they should have had a go at explaining it in semaphore, but instead they've gone for the fashionable route of a glitzy video which shows off the space-time rip story that serves as a backdrop to Firefall's territory-conquest alien-world crossover activities. Go take a look at that, below, and then at my preview, which is the most handsome preview you will read all day.

That is not, of course, to say that Risen 2: Dark Waters snatches away your hard-won victories or pits you against a giant, 20-story-tall physical manifestation of the public's waning interest in pirates. Rather, the patch-eyed, peg-legged sea scoundrels have been known to use any means necessary to win a fight. Kicking below the belt, bringing guns to a swordfight, being Orlando Bloom, etc. But can such a varied arsenal stand up against seemingly unprovoked jaguar attacks? Risen 2's latest dev diary aims to answer that burning question and many more. Also, it strongly hints at attack parrots, which is something I didn't know I wanted until it turned out that I wanted it more than anything in this sad mortal world.

Oh to be a bullet. To exist in a momentary, frequently black-and-white world free of complications or petty concerns. Point A to point B. That'd be my entire lightning-quick existence, but I'd get to savor ever slow-mo second - probably while shouting "wheeeeeeeeeeeee!" Max Payne 3, at least, offers a glimpse into this hot leaden utopia, but at what cost? Pretty much none, as it turns out. The gore-spattered kill cam, especially, looks like a barrel of kitten giggles - which is to say, it's a mix between Fallout 3's VATS meets Arkham City's end-of-brawl slobber-knockers, except you have full control over speed. Those are the things I think of when kittens giggle. Is that weird? Anyway, the excruciatingly painful wonderful trailer is after the break.

Joe Martin is not a farmer. Not even a simulation of a farmer. But that didn't stop him from becoming one with Farming Simulator. Here's what happened.

Farming Simulator 2011 is, on the face of it, not a very interesting game - but if you look deeper you'll find that it's actually very badly made too. It's boring, even to those who resign themselves to tedium in advance, as pointless as a chocolate covered cat turd and built on physics so unnatural I genuinely suspect it to be haunted. So, you can imagine my excitement at sitting down to write a modding guide for it. Even after I'd grabbed ten of the weirdest mods I could find, from deployable crates to driveable corpses, it was still drearier than a car-load of wet Mondays and utterly unable to hold my attention. Eventually however, using one of the smaller mods I'd downloaded, I found a mission that imbued the game with much-needed purpose. The mod was called Bottle Finder.

For some reason I was sure this was already in the venerable GoG library, but evidently not: Bullfrog's timeless hospital management sim Theme Hospital is now available to be played on your modern machines. I can see how my evening is going to run now: Water those plants! Turn up the radiators! Hire more nurses! Buy more chairs! Oh, no, Earthquake! Fix the Slack Tongue machine! Build more windows! Shoot all the rats! Overprice the Kit Kat drinks machine! 24328 Shift+C! Completed level objectives, Shift-Y, Shift-Y!

Fair warning: if you click this link, you'll have no choice but to buy it.

Like me, you may have become a little confused about what Ghost Recon games are coming to PC, and which aren't. Let me explain. Ghost Recon Online is, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier wasn't, but is now. Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars was for the DS. Ghost Recon: Have We Found The Ghosts yet won't be, but then will, but then won't be again. Ghost Recon: Elizabethan Attack definitely will be for the first three months. And Ghost Recon: Ghostly Reckoning will only be on PC if you install it on PS3 first, and play via your 360. Glad to have cleared that up. Below you can see the latest trailer for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which is coming out on the 15th June for PC, rather than 25th May for consoles, because Ubisoft just cannot help themselves.