No new Championship Manager planned for PC
The Championship Manager games are “on hold” as far as PC gamers are concerned. Beautiful Game Studios’ general manager Roy Meredith said he “really, really couldn’t say” when the franchise would return to PC.
Interview: Gabe on Valve’s big surprises
Valve are surprising. Half-Life itself was surprising enough, but then they surprisingly scooped up Counter-Strike, sprung Steam on us surprisingly, turned Half-Life 2 surprisingly episodic, then took surprisingly long on the episodes. When I flew out to visit them last month, I half expected to find they’d moved to the moon and turned themselves into a yacht manufacturer. And since they hadn’t, I was, again, surprised.
I was there to play Portal 2 co-op for the preview feature you can read in the current issue of PC Gamer in the UK, and interview seven of their key staff for a profile on Valve themselves to go with it. But they told me so much cool stuff that we’re going to be putting up an interview a day for the next week. Today’s is from a marathon chat with MD Gabe Newell, project manager Erik Johnson, and marketing director Doug Lombardi, and I start by asking them the question I’ve wanted to ask them for about three years.
New experimentals for Supreme Commander 2
Supreme Commander 2 is getting the first game’s mighty Monkeylord experimental spiderbot as a DLC unit. But that’s not all. Gas Powered say there’ll be other experimentals in the DLC, and if you dig around in the game files, you’ll find references to not only the Monkeylord, but 13 other new units and 8 new maps – including two 8 player ones. Some of the new units sound fun, like the Experimental Shield Destroyer, while others are just weird at this point. Experimental Unpacking Cannon? Here’s the full list.
World of Tanks: Heavy Tanks trailer
Remember the medium tanks in World of Tanks? Those were pretty big tanks. They had great big guns and everything. These tanks are way bigger than those tanks. These are heavy tanks (well, heavier tanks). Here is some tank porn to prove it:
The Cataclysm starts today: liberation for trolls, gnomes
If you’re a WoW player, you should probably log in today. You’ll have received a note in the mail from a troll or gnome recruiting you to the retaking of either the Echo Isles, or Gnomeregan. Each will send you on a quest chain that lasts about half-an-hour. The new quests mark the start of the Cataclysm storyline. And they’re superb fun.
VVVVVV is on Steam for cheaps
Terry Cavanagh’s gravity abusing platformer VVVVVV is now available on Steam for £3.59/$4.49. I gave it 86% in PCG UK 211. If you have any love of platforming puzzlers at all, you’d be a fool to pass it up for pocket change like this.
The Five Wonders of PC Gaming – PAX panel
Still bummed out that you weren’t able to make it up to PAX this year to participate in the PC Gamer panel? Be bummed out no longer, faithful readers! We’ve uploaded the audio of the entire shindig onto our website for all to enjoy.* In the panel, titled “The Five Wonders of PC Gaming”, we talk about everything that makes gaming on the PC a uniquely awesome experience, including the recent indie blowup Minecraft, StarCraft II, the classic Chex Quest, and flight sim enthusiasts.
*For maximum enjoyment, shout out your own questions during the Q&A segment and pretend that we’re responding directly to you!
Trailer, 29 screens for Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad
Last weekend’s Penny Arcade Expo had more PC games than any previous year. I liked a lot of them. Torchlight 2 had goggled ferrets. Portal 2 had a hilarious co-op trailer and revealed that you can hug your puzzle-solving partner. Duke Nukem Forever had…existence. But Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad was the best thing I saw at PAX.
The Old Republic trailer hints at the return of Revan. And HK-47!
Darth Revan is so coming back in The Old Republic. In the original KOTOR, Revan somewhat of a big bad guy – using illegal superweapons to massacre the Mandalorians, hunting ancient, even more illegal super weapons, and manipulating stern-yet-compassionate Jedi women. Depending on your actions in the game, Revan can either pose a major threat to the galaxy or be turned into a force for good. It looks like he’s back – but is he good Revan, or not-so-good Revan? And more importantly, is that HK-47?
Braid creator’s new game sneaks into PAX
The Witness, a first person puzzle game coming from the creator of Braid, was secretly on display at PAX. It sat running on a machine without banners, leaflets, or reps, and anyone who felt compelled to play it could sit there for hours at a time. Many did. One was journalist Stephen Totilo, and he had his camera with him.
Jetpack stomp attack: Firefall makes astonishing debut
The ex-team lead for World of Warcraft and the lead designer for Tribes, among other bright sparks, are behind this jetpack-fuelled third person, first person shooter. This Firefall trailer does funny things to Rich. He starts jumping up and down whenever we play this trailer. It shows a gruff desert dude and his friend heading out to a “crystite” deposit, calling down a big mining thing from orbit, and defending it from bug things. It switches from first person to third person on the fly, and there are rocket launchers, and a big dropship that they fly around. It looks better than the zoo.
Oilfurnace: an illustrated Dwarf Fortress tale
Do you guys remember Bronzemurdered? It was one man’s story of the terrible fall and heroic rise of his Dwarf Fortress. Oilfurnace is a similar thing by the same guy, Tim Denee. It’s better.
Symon: the procedural adventure game
Adventure game logic can be terrible, because the worst puzzles in adventure games aren’t logic. They can be traced back to whatever unchallenged assumptions were sloshing around in the designer’s head. The Gambit game lab knows this, and that’s why they’ve written a game that generates puzzles based on their study of bullshit dream logic and unchallenged assumptions. Each time you play Symon, you’re playing a new set of puzzles with a new cast of characters.
Stardock promise updates for Total Annihilation
Stardock have re-released Total Annihilation on Impulse, their digital distribution platform. Interestingly, they’ve has promised “ongoing updates” for it. Brad Wardell said, “We’re treating Total Annihilation similarly to a newly released title with ongoing updates wherever possible.”
Atari “thinking hard” about Rollercoaster Tycoon 4
An administrator on the official Atari forums has posted asking fans what they’d like to see in Rollercoaster Tycoon 4. They say that they’re “thinking hard about the next Rollercoaster Tycoon game on PC.”
