Blizzard cut more features from Diablo 3
And in other PC gaming news…
Creatures may be disappearing from Diablo 3, but there are more soon to be added to Minecraft. The video above shows the three new varieties of Ocelot. They can be found in the new jungle biomes, and tamed with fresh fish. D’aww.
Elsewhere, Aliens: Colonial Marines gained a few months of development time. Hopefully Gearbox can get those shiny alien heads all polished up before Autumn rolls around. Bioware lost their dictionary but found a way to make us excited about Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer in the latest trailer and CD Projekt Red made us smile the smile of someone about to get lots of free stuff when they unveiled their plans for The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition. Hooray!
But what else has been happening? Monaco, Portal, Battlefield 3 and the Binding of Isaac all feature in the following list of links for the day, presented for your perusal in no special order.
Diablo 3 loses companion pets and scrolls of reforging
Typically, developers reveal more features the closer a game gets to release. The wizards at Blizzard are taking the opposite approach with Diabo 3. They’re zapping any anything that isn’t quite perfect so they can concentrate on polishing everything else to a mirror sheen.
The latest victims of their feature cull are companion scrolls and scrolls of reforging. The first ability would summon a critter to run around looting gold for you, but that’s now gone. Blizzard community manager, Nethaera, explains why on the Blizzard forums. “The companion pets felt like they were mandatory to maximize play efficiency and some of the pets were too cutesy for the gritty, dark world of Sanctuary.” In a way, he’s right. The little rats were adorable.
Dirt Showdown trailer shows 8 Ball arena
Dirt Showdown bears the Dirt name associated with Colin McRae and, once upon a time, serious rally racing, but is really more of an arcade spin-off. This new trailer shows off an “8 Ball” course. It’s like those Hot Wheels toys where you’d launch cars down convoluted tracks towards a central crash site, where they’d collide and fly off to hit your dog in the eye. This time, you’re inside those cars, and some of them are spouting fire.
Showdown’s focus is on Destruction Derbies and “full contact” racing, with lots of ramps and choke points, and will apparently make use of “gaming’s most advanced damage engine.” Move aside, Frostbite 2! It’s due out in May and was announced with an announcement trailer a few weeks ago which looked a little bit like this.
Mass Effect 3 trailer has gernade throwing sentinals
I was just explaining this to our Production Ed, Tony. Basically, we’re just going to have to accept that in the far future things will be spelled and pronounced slightly differently. Sometimes, grenades will be “gernades.” Sentinels will not always be sentinels. Sometimes they will be “sentinals.” That’s just what happens and we should just accept it now. “NEVER!” Tony screamed, “NEVAAAARGH!” Then he beat his Mac to death with a dictionary.
These are without a doubt the best gaming typos made since … earlier today, when Capcom faced uncomfortable revelations regarding the release of their latest game, “Resident Evil: Revalaitons.” In other news, Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer mode actually looks quite punchy and exciting. Now I’m off to make some tee and write more wards for our wobsite.
The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition to add free areas, quests and characters in April
Do you own the Witcher 2? Good news! On April 17 your copy of the Witcher 2 will be upgraded to the Enhanced Edition free. That’ll add new quests, new places to quest in and new “major characters” to meet.
There will also be a new CGI cutscene depicting the assassination of King Demavend. According to the news post on Good Old Games “BAFTA Award winner and Academy Award nominee Tomasz Baginski brings this key historical event to life (not actually historical – Historical Ed)” You’ll also get a game map, game guide, manual, soundtrack and Witcher comic free.
EU Giveaway: win Access to the Aion free-to-play beta
Aion is a CryEngine powered MMO in which you play as a winged, angelic warrior tasked with defending the gorgeous realm of Atreia against invading forces. Constant updates since launch have added new zones, flighty PvP, cute pets, afros and more. The once-ponderous levelling speed has been boosted time and time again to give players the chance to see more of Aion’s beautiful zones. It’s going free to play in Europe in the coming months and we’re giving you a chance to spread your wings early.
We’ve got 500 keys to give away for the Aion free to play beta. If you get into the beta, you’ll automatically be granted ‘Veteran’ status when Aion free to play goes live. This will give you a few extra features over starter players, like the ability to open up your own shop.
All you need to do to enter is put your name and email address into the Aion beta key competition page, which you can discover through this link right here.
I want in on the Aion beta. Give me wings, PC Gamer!
And that’s all there is to it. If you win a key, you can redeem it on the Aion Free to Play site. They’ll be sent out once we all 500 have been snapped up, so tell your friends if you want in quicker. The Aion client is available to pre-load here. Good luck!
The Secret World trailer has spiky dogs, evil swamps, haunted houses
There’s a lesson in this trailer somewhere, I can feel it. Something to do with not digging up ancient Indian burial grounds? Perhaps. Maybe it’s more to do with not building giant creepy houses and leaving them unattended for decades near an swamps full of tentacle monsters? No, I’ve got it. The lesson is: don’t go to Blue Mountain under ANY circumstances. Even if a man with a giant floating “!” mark over his head asks you to because it’s full of ghosts and spiky dogs.
The Secret World’s mix of mad monsters and modern guns is a pretty appealing and genuinely different place to set an MMO. There will also be lots of proper puzzles in it, some of which will require players to do some research outside of the game. Owen found it intriguing, but a little frustrating when he got his hands on it for our Secret World preview. We’ll have more on The Secret World soon.
Xbox 720 to feature Radeon HD6670?
There’s a rumour going round (started by IGN) that the graphics core for the next generation Xbox – possibly known as the Xbox 720 – has gone into production, ready for a release date believed to be some time in 2013.
The GPU in question, says IGN, is based on the Radeon HD6670, a graphics processor that would only have been considered cutting edge in PC terms five or six years ago – around the time of the Xbox 360′s launch.
Aliens: Colonial Marines delayed until Autumn
Aliens: Colonial Marines has been delayed from Spring this year, to Autumn. The darker months of late 2012 will better suit the co-op shooter, which was announced several millennia ago, shortly after the birth of the universe.
SEGA explain the delay over on Edge, saying that the process of making a game about shooting aliens in the face is “a process of creativity and invention” that doesn’t “necessarily follow the structure of an assembly line.”
Steam app coming to iOS and Android
Valve have just announced that a Steam app is incoming for iOS and Android. It’ll support chat, groups and screenshots. You’ll even be able to purchase games when on the move.
Lord of Valve, Gabe Newell seems keen: “Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale – these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone.”
And in other PC gaming news…
There’s only six weeks to go until Mass Effect 3 comes out, and our growing excitement is affecting us in different ways. Tom Senior refused to come to lunch today, claiming to be in the middle of some calibrations. An avowed fan of the first game, I took to standing stock still in the middle of the lift, staring directly forwards and insisting that any other riders formed a triangle behind me. Everyone else in the office seems to be getting on with their lives as normal.
All this was triggered by the promise of replaying Mass Effect 2 with these awesome texture packs, spotted by Duncan Harris. We also discovered some impressive discounts on BioWare points, allowing you to pick up any Dragon Age or Mass Effect DLC you might have missed on the cheap.
Elsewhere in the world of PC gaming, the New York planetarium is thrusting 200 people into (virtual) space and Square Enix have trademarked yet another Hitman game. We suspect that they’re just messing with us at this point. Clickable hyperwords to follow after the jump.
Batman: Arkham City review
We’ve seen a wide range of Batflavours over the years: campy Batman, angsty Batman and, thanks to writer Frank Miller’s increasing mental derailment, batshit Batman.
Here we get straight-down-theline Batman. Arkham City captures his technique, but lets some of his character slip away into the night. For a hi-tech super-ninja spandex vigilante, he is peculiarly bland.
Luckily, the Dark Knight is not a man of words, but of deeds – and this game, like its predecessor, has them nailed. Batman zip-lines, grapnels and swoops between the moonlit rooftops of this open-world city, emerging from the shadows to hammer clusters of goons. He even finds time for a spot of light puzzling and the odd platforming challenge.
Rayman Origins coming to PC on March 30
I hold no affection for Rayman either, but Ubisoft’s latest platformer is rumoured to be extremely pretty, and pretty damn awesome. And we’re getting it on PC!
It’ll support four players locally and will be available to download from Ubisoft’s Ubishop on March 30. While you’re waiting why not read Edge’s review? They say “Origins feels like stepping into an alternate reality in which the 16 bit era evolved by increasing in fidelity, not dimensions.” Sounds a bit like a holodeck episode of Star Trek The Next Generation to us.
Mass Effect texture mod makes massive improvements to main characters
A couple of us in the office are going back through Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to prepare ourselves for the finale when the third game comes out in March. The first game is four and a bit years old now and the textures are starting to look a little runny. Thankfully, Duncan Harris presents a solution via the excellent Dead End Thrills with a link to a massive texture pack that adds masses of detail to all of the main characters of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.
King Arthur 2 demo offers one hour of fantasy conquest
The new King Arthur 2 demo offers a hefty 1.7 gigs of magi-war. Paradox reckons it’ll take about an hour to complete the demo, which will let you play through the tutorial and the first campaign mission. That means you’ll get to quest, build armies and take cities on the turn-based strategy map, and fight some knights in the quite beautiful real-time battles.
You can get hold of the demo now from Fileplanet ahead of the game’s release tomorrow. If you were to pause the demo mid-battle, zoom your face right up to your soldiers and take a few pictures, they could well look similar to the new screenshots below. They show men being exploded by magic, fighting through a forest of ice spikes, and doing battle in a dark forest.
