Crysis 3 screenshots show ruined cityscapes
Diablo 3 livestream starts in five minutes (11 PDT) — come win prizes!
Update: The livestream has ended and the prizes are being shipped out! Thanks for tuning in!
The PCG Action News team will be live on the scene in Diablo 3 in just 10 short minutes! Head on over to our livestream page to follow our exploits in the world of Sanctuary and join the chatroom. We have four of each Diablo-branded SteelSeries headsets, mice and mousepads. We’ll be giving away one every 15 minutes for 3 hours to a random person in the chatroom (U.S. residents only, sorry). So stay tuned for your chance to win!
Tribes: Ascend downloaded 1.2 million times, Hi-Rez’s MOBA entering closed beta May 31
This doesn’t mean that Tribes has 1.2 million unique players, mind you, but it’s still a heartening stat. I still can’t quite believe that a small group of independent developers in Georgia dug up the license to a hardcore, classic PC game, made it free without compromising its spirit or nuances, and are doing this well.
Why is Diablo 3 so satisfying to play? We ask Blizzard for their secrets
Diablo 3 was released on Tuesday. I got to attend the launch and interview Blizzard developers, Julian Love and Leonard Boyarsky, about the secrets of their development process. It seems that Blizzard’s priority is in focussing on “the awesome” – a sentiment I endorse. Click up there to watch the devs spill the beans.
For more on Diablo 3, read Tom’s Diablo 3 review as it happens, or read the rest of our Diablo 3 news. There’s a lot of it about.
Crysis 3 screenshots break out the flamethrower
Man, it’s tough being Prophet. Today I fought an alien with a flamethrower built into his face. He was trying to kill a tree. It’s weird, ever since we built a giant dome over New York and accelerated the plant growth the alien population have gotten really serious about gardening. I took a picture of myself using the remote nano cam and waited for them to pass. You’re my only friend now, nano cam.
Blizzard honour Diablo 3 pre-orders as Game Australia enters administration
It’s been a turbulent early 2012 GAME with news that the Australian arm of the retailer has also called in the administrators.
The embattled retailer has confirmed that it is unable to fulfill its Diablo III pre-orders for Australian customers.
However, a white knight comes in the form of Blizzard which today revealed on its official Diablo III forum they will honour the pre-orders instead.
Star Wars: The Old Republic free trial starts tomorrow
If you’re looking for something new to play this weekend, why not waggle a lightsaber in Star Wars: The Old Republic? A four day free trial kicks off tomorrow for those who haven’t sampled one of the other free trial events that Bioware have been running recently.
As with those previous free weekend events, you won’t need to feed your credit card details to Bioware’s hungry Treasury Rancor (Bankor?) to get in, and you’ll be able to get to level 15 and participate in PvP and flashpoints. Full details on the Star Wars: The Old Republic site.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion beta live for pre-order players
The Rebellion expansion for the splendid Sins of a Solar Empire is due out in a few weeks, but first there’s another beta phase to go first. As the above trailer mentions, it’s live now for pre-order customers on Steam, which will give fans an early look at Rebellion’s visual updates, new factions and Titan class battleships. It’s due out on June 12, find out more on the official Sins of a Solar Empire site and see those Titans tearing it up in deep space in these Rebellion screenshots.
The Secret World beta weekend key giveaway
The Secret World is going to be a lot less secret for those invited into the super secret beta test this weekend. Uh oh. I’ve said too much. The Illuminati are almost certainly on the way, but I think I just have enough time to give away TEN THOUSAND beta keys before they get here. Read on for your chance to grab a key. Quick! This tin foil hat will only hold off the forces of evil for so long.
SilverStone launches a mini Fortress
I’m a sucker for a small case, and I also happen to really like a lot of SilverStone’s function-defining-from simple chassis. The Fortress FT-03, for example, uniquely flipped the motherboard through 90 degrees so you can reach all those ports on the back of your PC without crawling under the table. Genius.
It was, however, a hulking giant cube of metal which wouldn’t look out of place if a boatload of monkeys were running around it shaking their shinbones.
The latest version is half the size and, as a result, much more interesting.
The best mice for Diablo 3
We joke about all the clicking in Diablo III, but broken mice and swollen wrists are no joke. They’re bad things which make us sad. A good mouse is an important part of a balanced click-fest, so we’ve tested a selection of mice we think are best suited for Hell, as well as a few we don’t recommend.
Note: If you’re tired of Diablo III coverage, simply mentally replace any mention of it with “Torchlight II.”
Day Z interview — how zombies + Arma 2 created gaming’s best story machine
Day Z will be one of important things to happen in gaming this year. It’s an open-world, persistent, PvP and PvE zombie survival mod built atop a hardcore military simulator. And despite its harsh mechanics, permadeath, and absence of instruction, it’s spreading like wildfire. More than 48,000 unique players are in the alpha, and the thing you need to play it, Arma 2: Combined Operations, hovered at the top of Steam top sellers this week.
I spoke the mod’s creator, Dean “Rocket” Hall, over Skype. We chatted for an hour about player emotions, AI programming, Minecraft, and what features to expect next in Day Z—like dog companions. Hall joined Bohemia Interactive in January as a Game Designer on Arma 3.
Max Payne 3 classic skins are hilarious, Captain Baseball Bat Boy cartoon is awesome
We still have a couple weeks to wait before Max Payne 3 is spilling whiskey all over our keyboards, but while we’re busy fighting a demonic horde of server errors, analog stick soldiers are getting drunk on bullet time right now. Making us even more jealous, our friends over at GamesRadar have sliced together a video showcasing a couple of great throwback Easter eggs: Max Payne 1 and 2 skins, and a complete Captain Baseball Bat Boy cartoon. See the magic above.
Default is for suckers: How to unlock full skill tree customization in Diablo 3
Diablo 3 has a secret. It won’t tell you, but you don’t actually have to select one skill from each of the categories (Primary, Defensive, etc.) that it forces on you. You can pick any seven skills in your entire arsenal for your active set, but that capability is disabled by default. We show you how to enable it in 10 seconds flat.
Think you’ve been waiting long for Diablo 3?
I was lucky enough to attend the UK launch of Diablo 3 on London’s Oxford Street last night. And it was pretty damn exciting. I saw demons, Diablo fans, and an orderly queue stretching all the way to Hell (not really).
The queue was really long though.
For more on Diablo 3, read Tom’s Diablo 3 review as it happens or check out the rest of our Diablo 3 news.
AMD launches new Trinity processor
AMD’s last processor launch, the FX chip, turned out to be a bit of a damp squib for desktops. But the company is hoping that the CPU architecture behind it will be more of a success on laptops. Today it’s launching an updated version of its hybrid GPU/CPU A-series processor, codenamed Trinity, which uses a revamped Bulldozer core to offer twice the performance per watt of its predecessor, Llano. Or that’s what AMD says, anyway.
Further claims include the ability to build thinner laptops with longer battery life than their Intel equivalents, and that the integrated Northern Isles GPU has three times the graphics performance of the Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU in Sandy Bridge. Trinity’s launch was accompanied by a bold claim by the firm’s Sasa Marinkovic:
“I don’t want you too see Trinity as competing against Ivy Bridge, I want you to see how we’re leading.”
