Cultivate surreal stories in the Grow series
Grow games are browser puzzle games with a unique set up: you’re looking at a cartoon scene, and there are some buttons along the edges. Each button can only be pressed once. Press one, and it’ll add that element to the world, and possibly cause it to react with whats already there, developing the scene based on what you picked. When all that is finished happening, you press another one. The trick is to work out the best order so that the world gets fully developed.
AMD scrap the ATI name
AMD have scrubbed off the ATI letters on future products (which is a pretty amazing temporal feat). Instead, their brand of graphics cards will just be called Radeon.
The reason: AMD was a stronger, more recognisable name than ATI. I think it’s also so they don’t have two acronyms on there, because that would be confusing to people. Hardware companies hate confusing people – that’s why their products are so easy to understand and compare to each other.
ATI AMD are also moving into “Fusion chips” – hybrid cards that integrate video processing and other specialist functions as well as the general computing power of a CPU. Are you looking forward to the day when your graphics card is also handling AI and game logic? Or does it, frankly, scare you?
[via The Register]
Gigasploding dragon meteors in Final Fantasy XIV
This trailer definitely has some game in there. I saw it. It was hard to see it, because I was pretty busy laughing at the word “surcease”, but it’s there towards the end. Here’s the trailer:
Hobo shaman puppeteers in The Secret World
Imagine your Sims had secret powers and battled horrors in the subway station. Imagine an MMO without levels or classes – instead, you get to pick a handful of cards from a hundreds-strong deck of powers and spells. Imagine it was as gorgeous as this:
Crap Shoot: Traffic Department 2192
Richard Cobbett digs into the archives to bring obscure, interesting and forgotten games back into the light, starting with a shareware shooter about drawing double yellow lines in the sand.
August’s best free PC games
I type this with icy white fingers. It’s August – normally king of the summer months – and yet here I am, very seriously considering digging out some gloves. Serves me right for living in the north of England, I suspect. But all is well, for in these disappointingly chilly times I’ve managed to locate six more fabulous free games. Read on for the best of the bunch from August.
Look at this model of the Force a’ Nature
Harrison Krix is a force a’ nature. Oh hang on, I’ve got that wrong. He’s made a Force a’ Nature.
Elemental now works, old savegames now don’t
Elemental: War of Magic was updated to version 1.06 this morning (UK time), and I’m happy to say the game is finally stable. I haven’t encountered any crashes to desktop since the patch Tuesday night, and the last major issue with the game on our systems is finally fixed. But finish your current game before patching. Unlike the other patches thus far, this one invalidates your existing savegames, including all your progress through the campaign.
Meet the commanders of Company of Heroes: Online
Look, tanks! I mean, here is a Company of Heroes Online trailer with tanks in it. I mean, it details the three classes of commander and their areas of specialty: Infantry, tanks, and tanks. I mean, air force.
PC Gamer US podcast 237 – Consolidate the Dakotas
At PC Gamer, we hate redundancy. We hate redundancy so much that we won’t even tell you how much we hate redundancy. But we hate it. That’s why during this weeks podcast, we decree that the two Dakotas shall be consolidated into one. And in between our political proclamations, we discuss all manner of PC gaming news, including:
- Elemental’s disappointing launch and Stardock’s responsible reaction to it
- Cryptic announces upcoming co-op Neverwinter RPG
- Final Fantasy XIV’s decision to limit weekly XP gain ( Josh’s FFXIV musings )
- Portal 2′s latest videos show off some complex puzzles and mind-bending solutions
- Guild Wars 2 announces Necromancers, and they look as nasty as ever
- A new Steam survey reveals our deepest, darkest secrets
Valve want to make the Half-Life movie themselves
Valve’s CEO and co-founder, Gabe Newell, has told PC Gamer that the only way there’d be a Half-Life movie would be if Valve made it themselves. He also said they’ve been experimenting with doing just that.
Valve were making a fairy RPG before Left 4 Dead
Speaking to us in an interview earlier this month, Valve MD Gabe Newell described an action fantasy RPG Valve were once making – about fairies. The next issue of PC Gamer in the UK is a Valve spectacular, and part of that is a huge interview feature on why the company keeps making such surprising decisions. I sat down with Gabe, project manager Erik Johnson and director of marketing Doug Lombardi and asked: “Are there things you think you’ve failed at?” Their response was long, and that’s how they got onto the fairy game.
Blizzard are hiring for two secret games
Job opportunities are beautiful things. Someone, somewhere gets to work on the project of their dreams. A company gets the staff to produce the game of their dreams. And we get to speculate on what they might be hiring for. Blizzard’s Global Careers site is hiring right now. There are plenty of jobs going on their next generation MMO. But there’s a further unannounced game that needs staff, too. Hello hello hello.
Final Fantasy XIV to limit how quickly you can level
Final Fantasy XIV will ship with a system that will see avid players earning less experience the more they play.
Guild Wars 2: Necromancer class announced
ArenaNet have announced the fourth profession for Guild Wars 2, and it’s the classic maestro of the dark arts, the necromancer. They’ve also released a video showing off a few of his evil, evil skills.
