PC Gamer US podcast 244 – Aeronautical Authorities
This week: news! News for every genre! Evan chats about Medal of Honor’s awkward multiplayer, Civilization V has Gaelic Warriors and why aren’t you killing Caesar with them yet, and our Gold-ranked duo of Dan and Andy help us mull over the StarCraft II 1.1.2 patch with us, which deployed yesterday and totally nerfed Thors, but not High Templars, which is unfair. We also remind you to watch the MLG Pro Circuit SC2 tournament in Washington D.C., which begins in just a few hours.
Make Modern Warfare 2 run faster on your PC
In anticipation of the forthcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops, a few of us in the office have been sharpening our mad skillz with CoD: Modern Warfare 2.
Ignoring the editorially dubious airport sequence, it’s still one of the most popular online shooters going, with difficult to conquer maps that rely on both strategy and skill.
We can’t do much to speed up your reactions, but we can help to speed up your PC. If you fancy indulging this weekend, here’s a quick guide to getting the fastest frames per second possible.
Fallout: New Vegas strategy guide is bigger than War and Peace
At more than half a million words long, the strategy guide for Fallout: New Vegas will be the biggest ever released, and will dwarf famously giant literary classics like War and Peace. It’s also roughly the same size as the script for one of designer Chris Avellone’s previous games, Planescape: Torment. Trufax, and more of which below.
Gorgeous Trine 2 footage shows co-op action
Released last year, Trine was beautiful platformer with body-swapping puzzles and co-op. A sequel is in the works, and a new video released this week suggests it’s going to be more of the same, with online co-op making it even easier to play together.
Latest Starcraft 2 patch toughens up Zerg
Blizzard have been busy prodding Starcraft 2′s soft insides with the balancing stick, releasing the second patch for the game in a month. Read on for a summary of the changes.
Fan-made Duke Nukem game gets Gearbox’s blessing
Duke Nukem: Next Gen is a fan made project that aims to remake the original Duke Nukem 3D in the Unreal 3 Engine, and it’s being built with the support of the game’s publishers and developers. Read on to discover how the modders convinced Take Two to greenlight the game.
Top 10 Civilization V mods
Civlization V hasn’t been out for long, but there’s already a wealth of user made maps, mods and scenarios available. Here’s our pick of the best from the early rush of Civ V mods. Whether you want to rebalance the economy, change the pace of the game, or play on a huge, scale version of the planet Earth, there’s something for you in the selection below.
10 top tips from a Counter-Strike pro
Ever fancied yourself as a Counter-Strike master? Ever thought about going pro? There’s a lot to consider, even once you’re among the best players around. Professional gaming’s no easy gig, and there’s far more to it than simply knowing how to aim a crosshair at an opponent’s face. As such, we’ve been chatting to Elliot Welsh, aka. ‘wez’ of leading competitive gamers Team Dignitas, to find out his ten top tips for moving up the ranks in the world of professional Counter-Strike.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit to start race wars
The latest Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit video shows off some of the hyper-competitive networking features the game will game will have. Essentially, it’s going to start a four-wheeled war with everyone on your friends list. Check out the video below.
Valve announce Dota 2
After a long period of secrecy, Valve have finally revealed the new game they’ve been working on with one of the key developers of Defense of the Ancients community: it’s Dota 2. DOTA was the common abbreviation of the original game type: fan-made maps where players control and level up a single powerful hero, while lesser AI troops fight alongside them. But Valve are using it as the full title here: it’s just Dota 2. Read on for the first details.
Professional gaming is finally fun to watch
E-sports are boring, I’ve always felt. I wanted to follow them, have a favourite team or know who any of the players are, but almost every time I watched a game, I just couldn’t keep up. It looked like there was skill involved, but I couldn’t really relate it to my own experience of those games. But the scene has changed, and I’ve changed my mind. I think professional gaming has come of age.
How to be a smarter soldier in Battlefield Bad Company 2
We know Battlefield, we PC gamers. The team-based war series was born on our gaming beasts. We’re au fait with all the basic tips and tricks, the tactics tried and tested across almost a decade on the field of battle. Yes, we know you can stick C4 on a jeep and drive it into baddies while you cackle – we did that back in Battlefield 1942. What new stuff have you got for us, Bad Company 2?
10 essential Fallout 3 mods
Turn your copy of Fallout 3 into a mutant masterpiece with these 10 essential mods. Giant mutant geckos, plasma guns that dissolve your enemies, thunderstorms and bullet time are just a few of the many additions made by this collection of top updates. Used in combination, they can bring new life to the Capital Wasteland and turn your copy of Fallout 3 into a desperate fight for survival.
Before Call of Duty: Treyarch’s experimental fantasy game
I’m fascinated by what developers did before they became famous. Peter Molyneux’s first company wasn’t a games developer, and it failed, but he had so much fun running a business that his first game was a management simulator called The Entrepeneur. Before DICE hit it big as the creators of Battlefield, they made the excellent Pinball Fantasies. And before Treyarch became the keepers of Call of Duty, they made a third-person sword-fighting game where you controlled the sword directly by moving the mouse.
The game is Die By The Sword, released in 1998. It’s sort of incredible, filled with the kind of ingenuity you’d hope for from a new company. It’s also got the same lunatic flailing as Trespasser, released the same year. Since the descriptions sounded great – and Tom got all excited when I mentioned it – I’ve bought a copy and started playing. I’ve taken video of the game’s intro and my first pathetic sword-swinging attempts below.
New release of EVE Online will be a relief for rookies
Space MMO EVE Online can be a cruel place for a new player. After you’ve created your moody space rogue, complete with thousand yard stare and expression of reserved determination, it’s hard to know what to do and easy to jump into un-policed 0.0 space and get blasted by a wandering pirate. The new retail release of EVE, called the Commissioned Officer Edition, hopes to fix that. It’s created especially for players who are completely new to the game.
