A PC case that’s also an aquarium
Reddit user sirleechalot has build a PC in a fish tank full of mineral oil, with a Big Daddy and bubbles and gravel and everything. It’s just a media PC that probably couldn’t actually run Bioshock (it might be able to hand Aquaria), but it’s still gorgeous.
Duke Nukem Forever includes real-time peeing
Duke Nukem Forever looks goddamn hilarious. This video is the first inkling I’ve had that I want to actually play the thing. It starts with a first person view of Duke peeing, with the prompt “press X to exit.” The guy presses X, and Duke stops peeing, then starts again. Alright, I didn’t say I was a sophisticate. More hilarity embedded below:
There’s a Minecraft campaign coming for Left 4 Dead 2
Michael Louisseize has made a Minecraft map. Nothing amazing there though, right? I see more Minecraft maps than I see exploding people in computerised entertainment devices. BUT WAIT.
Onlive nukes its paid subscription plans
Before today, OnLive—a cloud-based game-streaming service—required a monthly subscription fee before you could even think about buying any games. Steve Perlman, OnLive’s CEO, has actively sought ways to avoid a paid monthly plan, including waiving this year’s annual subscription dues for early adopters. But now, Perlman’s confirmed it: the service itself is free-to-access from now until eternity, so you can explore and prod all its features—such as spectating live gameplay footage or trying out new demos—without forking over personal credit card info (much like Steam and other digital distribution platforms).
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood lets you drive a tank
The latest trailer for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is a narrated walkthrough that shows super stealthy assassin Ezio sneaking into a guarded facility. It looks like a standard infiltration mission, right up to the point where Ezio climbs into an armoured tank. Watch the full trailer below.
How to update Dwarf Fortress (without losing your saves)
Dwarf Fortress has just been updated to version 31.15. That’s good news! But maybe you want to get your saves over to the new version, or maybe you use the Mayday Green tileset to add intelligible graphics to the game but its creator hasn’t updated his pre-packaged release yet. Thankfully, manually updating the game and porting these things over isn’t that hard. It’s just a bit fiddly. Read on to be illuminated.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm release date announced
Azeroth is all set to get tore up from the floor up. Blizzard have just announced the official launch date for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and it’ll be hitting the world’s shop shelves on the 7th of December (and swiftly leaving again in hundreds of little plastic bags). The latest expansion to Blizzards king-of-MMOs features an exhaustive redesign of the old world – the boring old level 1-60 areas that we’ve all levelled through a million times.
Update: Red Orchestra’s Darkest Hour
My 30 second guide to gaining a WWII education through gaming: for insights into the airman’s war, choose Battle of Britain II or IL-2: 1946. For a taste of the tanker’s experience, your best bet is Steel Fury. Interested in the challenges that generals faced? Grab anything by Panther Games. Wonder what it was like to be a WWII grunt? No title will get you closer to the muck and bullets than Red Orchestra.
Tripwire’s multiplayer time machine may be a little long in the tooth now, but thanks to mods like the recently refreshed Darkest Hour, it remains unmatched as a 1939-45 infantry simulator. DH shifts the high drama, high bodycount aggro from Ost Front to West Front. Out are the Ivans with their bulky greatcoats and chattering PPSh-41s. In are the Yanks with their BARs and bazookas, and the Brits and Canucks with their Sten guns and stiff upper lips.
Crap Shoot: Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis
Richard Cobbett looks back at one of Lucasarts’ worst ever games, and one of Indy’s most unfortunate misadventures this side of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Shudder.
Where to begin? Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a godawful mess of a game by anyone’s standards. It’s ugly. It’s boring. It’s barely playable. What little plot there is gets buried instantly under the bad controls and embarrassingly poor puzzles. The interesting idea of being able to control two characters at once is utterly squandered by the fact that you won’t want to spend a single second more than you have to in their company. And yet despite all this, when you mention Fate of Atlantis, you’ll struggle to find anyone who doesn’t have warm memories of it. They’ll tell you it’s one of Lucasarts’ best adventures, with a great story and characters that deserved to be immortalised in an actual movie.
So what’s going on? Simple. We’re not thinking of that Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, which is indeed fantastic. No, we’re playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game.
Release disparity anguish
Instant gratification is one of the great pleasures of the digital distribution age. The moment I declare this blog post finished and push the appropriate button, all y’all out there can read it. Unlike the olden days, you don’t have to wait for the mailman to deliver your issue or go to the store to pick up a copy off the newsstand. It’s all kinds of awesome.
But this instantaneous satisfaction hasn’t quite proliferated into game releases—at least, not from major publishers. Case in point: Bethesda’s blog reported today that Fallout: New Vegas has gone gold. “It’s done!” the post proclaims, presenting as proof a photo of an awesome-looking and technically edible (because really, who actually eats fondant?) Fallout-themed cake that celebrated both the game’s completion and the birthday of Obsidian designer Robert Lee. They’re eating cake! It’s official! The game is ready to be played at last! Point me to the download button, and pass me some cake!
Fallen Earth Mobile Companion App updated
Fallen Earth recently launched a new version of its companion mobile app for Blackberry, Android, and Apple devices. The update added a lot of premium features, while making all of the previously paid-for features of the free-to-download app available at no cost. Staying in touch with your guildies, and maintaining production lines and social connections inside your favorite MMO while out and about is invaluable, and mobile apps like this are reason enough for any hardcore MMO gamer to have a smart phone or iPod touch. So far we’ve been impressed with this particular app’s functionality. Expect a full diagnosis in the magazine and online soon, but for now, here’s a breakdown of the features for potential buyers.
PC Gamer US podcast 242 – Craftastic
The week can’t end without a PC Gamer podcast, so we rounded up the staff, threw them in a tiny room, and made them talk about games until they passed the one hour mark by a long margin. As the saying goes, the internet done explode itself this week over Valve’s announcement and immediately launching of a -items-for-cash system in Team Fortress 2. Thankfully our TF2 point-man, Evan Lahti, is on hand to guide you through the exact changes and the whole staff weighs in on what it means for the future of the game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops customisation trailer has a horse with a gun
This is pretty cool. Lots of you seem pretty wary of Treyarch’s upcoming shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops, and not without reason, but if nothing else, it’ll have a wicked customisation system that’ll let you paint your character’s face and guns, fashion a personalised logo for your stuff, pick different clothes/bushes to wear, and spend fake cash on in-game weapons and gun attachments.
Call of Duty: Black Ops achievements (contains spoilers)
Never tell your terrible secrets to Treyarch – they’re leakier than a chainmail umbrella. An achievements list for Black Ops has dribbled out all over the floor of the internet, and Treyarch community manager Josh Olin more or less confirmed that they were legit.
It’s utter rubbish, but you should play Critical Path now
It made it into our list of the 15 worst games of all time, but is it really that bad? The whole game is online now as a choose-your-own adventure style Youtube game, so you can discover for yourself that yes, it really is that bad, but it’s also hilarious. Play it below.
