Unreal Engine 4 screenshots emerge
Saturday Crapshoot: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. In the third part of Star Trek Month, it’s time for a trip to the Federation’s darkest corner – the hub of politics and intrigue that is Deep Space Nine.
Deep Space Nine is almost the anti-Star Trek. Where the others were fervently optimistic, it was realistic. Its Captain lied and cheated and did back-room deals to get the job done. Its crew included a former terrorist, a genetic outlaw, a thief, and a lost member of the baddies with a tendency to forget his loyalties. It showed that the Federation had dirty-tricks divisions, that even Paradise isn’t perfect, and that there is no more horrible sight in the universe than a greedy Ferengi in drag.
Weekend Game Deals – ARMAzing stories!
Our favorite deal this week is ARMA2: Combined Operations for $14.99 at Amazon. A sale on a two year old release wouldn’t normally be exciting, but the amazing Day Z zombie mod has us so fascinated that it’s biting into our Diablo III time. Also on Amazon, get Borderlands for $7.49 and Metro 2033 for $4.99.
Meanwhile, GameFly has Torchlight for $3.75, Steam has 33% off Ubisoft games, and GOG is selling EA classics such as Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri for $2.99. See all of this week’s game deals inside!
Origin waives 90 days of distribution fees for crowdfunded games
EA wants to be your pal, indie developers — it’s even buying the first round of drinks. The publisher announced today that it will distribute games funded by Kickstarter and Indiegogo on Origin for 90 days without fees. When they’re done, crowdfunded projects such as Wasteland 2 will have the opportunity to reach Origin’s 12 million customers (a.k.a. people who own Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, or The Old Republic) and keep EA’s share during the launch.
Age of Empires Online interview: Becoming “really” free to play instead of “free to try”
We sat down with some of the guys at Gas Powered Games to discuss some big changes coming to in Age of Empires Online’s summer update. In the first part of the interview, they discussed moving from a “Free to Play with paid DLC” model, to a more “true Free to Play” model where anything you could unlock faster with real money will be earnable by playing the game.
Watch our Day Z livestream today, 3 PM PST
After rambling on about the mod in our podcast this week and in our Day Z interview, we’ve gotten a lot of requests for a live demo of the game.
Hop onto twitch.tv/pcgamer to watch me try and survive in the brutal-but-beautiful landscape of Chernarus. I plan to stream for about three hours, beginning at 3 PM Pacific, 5 PM Central, 6 PM Eastern, and 11 PM GMT.
Call of Duty creators’ claim against Activision grows to $1bn
Earlier this week, as reported by Bloomberg, EA settled with Activision over accusations that EA attempted to poach Call of Duty creators, West and Zampella before Activision fired the pair for breach of contract and insubordination in 2010. The West/Zampella vs. Activision case is still alive and kicking, however. Now Develop note that their damages claim for unfair dismissal has grown to ONE BILLION dollars.
Diablo 3 secret level uncovered
Update: We’ve moved the screenshot of the level below the fold. Click through to see it!
Players have discovered the rumoured Diablo 3 secret level only a few days after the game’s release. It’s called Whimsyshire, and it’s a playful poke in the ribs for anyone who accused the game of being too colourful back when its art style was originally unveiled. Whimsyshire is a neon-green children’s cartoon complete with rainbows and playful little happy clouds. Hooray!
XCOM: Enemy Unknown dev diary discusses modernising a classic, has spooky music
With a backing track that makes Firaxis studios feel a bit like that hotel from The Shining, lead programmer Casey O’Toole talks about the joys and difficulties of birthing a new XCOM game into the world. The combat will still be entirely turn based, but with some actions your soldiers will still exchange fire with the alien invaders between turns to keep the battlefield feeling lively. You can get a sense of what that’ll look like in this XCOM: Enemy Unknown trailer. Firaxis will be out on consoles and PC, but Firaxis have assured us that the PC will get a standalone tactical UI and be moddable.
Steam sale targets Ubisoft this weekend
Ubisoft are having a sale on Steam this weekend, with 33% off the vast majority of games in their catalogue. There are also daily deals – until 6pm GMT tonight you can get the Ghost Recon Complete Pack, including every game up to GRAW 2, for £6.24/$7.49.
See below for other highlights and links to our reviews.
Carrier Command: Gaea Mission release date announced
Bohemia Interactive have announced that Carrier Command: Gaea Mission will be out on the 27th of September. It’s an action/strategy hybrid that blends real-time unit control and top-down tactical decision making. As in the 1988 original, your base is a massive futuristic aircraft carrier that deploys fighters and tanks and you can assume direct control your units at any time.
“I and my brother Ondrej were addicted to playing Carrier Command on our Atari ST” says Bohemia CEO Marek Španěl. “In fact, it was what inspired us to develop games ourselves.”
“It feels very, very cool” said Tom Francis of the game in his preview last year.
Torchlight 2 beta stress test this weekend
If you’ve been wrestling with error 37 in Diablo 3 this week and want to help a different company stress test their servers, there’s a Torchlight 2 test session happening this weekend. It could be a good opportunity to get in on the last leg of the beta if you haven’t received an invite yet. You can sign up for a chance of grabbing a slot on the Torchlight 2 site.
Before Diablo 3 arrived, Tom had the chance to jump into the beta and take some videos of Torchlight 2′s. The Embermage is above, but you might want to check out the Outlander, the Engineer and the Beserker as well. They look insanely powerful. It’s available to pre-purchase now on Steam for £14.99 / $19.99, and comes with a bonus copy of Torchlight 1, which was quite excellent.
Valve “have management” says Portal 1 lead designer
Speaking to Eurogamer, Portal 1 lead designer Kim Swift has explained that there are a couple of bumps in Valve’s otherwise-flat management structure.
“They have management, there’s the board of directors of the company, there’s Gabe Newell” she explains. “Those guys at the top of the company definitely have opinions on how things should be run.”
Call of Duty: Modern Wafare 3 Face Off trailer has pistols at spawn
Infinity Ward have released more footage of the new Face Off mode that’ll be added in content collection 2. Sadly, it doesn’t have Nic Cage and John Travolta swapping faces and trying to out-ham each other to death in tribute to John Woo’s 1997 flick, it’s a fast 1v1/2v2 mode set in a series of tight arenas.
It looks perfect for a bit of split screen on the consoles, but the more focused approach could also fix that feeling of constantly being caught with your pants down on those busier CoD maps. Content collection 2 will arrive imminently on the Xbox, but will arrive quite a bit late on PC. There’s not solid date just yet. The pack will also contain three multiplayer maps, two co-op spec ops maps and two new Face Off arenas.
How to preserve your Guild Wars character name in Guild Wars 2
Reserving your Guild Wars character name for use in Guild Wars 2 is easy: just log in to Guild Wars. Any “active” Guild Wars player — meaning you’ve logged in since Jan 1, 2012 — will have his or her name added to a list which will be active during GW2′s Headstart Access period and launch day. During those periods, new players will not be able to claim your name.
PC Gamer US Podcast #316 — Diablo 3, Day Z
Diablo 3 happened this week. We gathered to talk about the server frustrations, our characters (Josh’s Witch Doctor build is best described as “throwing animals at people”), our favorite abilities, and what we aren’t liking. We also brainstorm what new character class we’d like to see in a Diablo 3 expansion.
After that, Evan gushes about Day Z, the open-world zombie survival mod for Arma 2.
