New Bethesda game to use id Tech 5
Bethesda’s owners, Zenimax, have announced their purchase of European studio MachineGames. The Swedish studio are now working on a new title for Bethesda, using id Tech 5.
Super Meat Boy PC achievements too hard for Xbox Live
Super Meat Boy is out soon on PC, and Team Meat have been teasing some of the Steam achievements and special characters that will come with the game. Eight images have been revealed of the new achievements, which Team Meat say were “rejected by MS for their difficulty”. Gulp. There will also be plenty of special guests to unlock in the game, consisting of a variety of new indie game heroes, two of which have already been announced, and are revealed below.
Shogun 2: Total War release date announced
The Creative Assembly have just announced the release date for Shogun 2: Total War: March 15th 2011. So there’s only four month to wait until we can take control of armies of samurai and run riot through feudal Japan. Can’t wait that long? Have a look at the latest Shogun 2 screens, and the latest trailer. Alternatively, check out our campaign preview. It all looks pretty damn exciting.
APB finds buyer, could be up and running by end of the year
Realtime World’s struggling cops vs. crooks MMO APB has found a buyer in the form of the K2 network, who has purchased the game for $1.5 million. K2 owns the GamersFirst service, which runs a series of free-to-play MMOs including War Rock and 9 Dragons. There’s no news yet on whether or not APB will be part of this service, but K2 mention that the game could be back up and running by the end of the year. We’ll know more later this week when the official announcement is made.
Call of Duty: Black Ops’ first ridiculous kill
This absurd shot in CoD: Black Ops multiplayer teaches us two things about Tomahawks. One: they can fly absolutely miles. Two: they bounce. Pity the poor fool immortalised in this kill video, embedded below.
Retailers say Steam is “killing the PC market”, threaten Steam ban
UK Retailers are claiming that Steam’s online dominance is killing competition, saying that Steam’s integration into major games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops freezes out other digital distributors, and encourages gamers to buy through Valve instead of returning to stores. Some UK retailers are even threatening to stop selling products that use Steam, demanding that publishers release Steam-free versions of their games.
LOVE creator gives away full animation tool for free
Eskil Steenberg not only built the gorgeous MMO LOVE by himself, he built all of the tools that he used to build the game as well. And now he’s giving those tools away to anyone and everyone, for absolutely nothing. Last Friday, he released the animator program he built to ease the process of designing animations for his game. Source code is included and there’s absolutely no restrictions on how you modify the code or use the tool. We sat down with Eskil to find out more about the tool, how indie developers can use it to easily improve their game’s animations, and why he decided to give it away.
Perpetuum gets launch date and new trailer
Perpetuum is a giant robot MMO set on a series of islands inhabited by a race of robo-beings determined to stop humanity from getting its hands on their valuable resources. In an effort to best these indigenous robots, humanity builds even bigger robots, and, well, you can see where things go from there. Delving beyond the giant robots, there’s a player driven economy, and a time based experience and skill system, giving it a lot in common with space MMO Eve Online. A launch trailer has just been released, and the game’s currently in open beta, so anyone can give it a try. Read on for details.
Baldur’s Gate competition winners
A few weeks back, we launched a competition to give away 50 copies of Baldur’s Gate on GOG.com. We asked you to create your own magical familiar, a faithful pet with a special ability that could defend you against the Kobolds and Dragons of the Sword Coast. The response was amazing, so amazing that it took us a while to sift through the hundreds and hundreds of entries. We’ve finally picked our 50 winners, and you’ll find them listed below, along with a few of our favourite answers.
Fallout: New Vegas patch fixes unconscious people’s limbs
Fallout: New Vegas has just received a massive patch, hopefully fixing many of the problems players have been having with the game since launch. Most notable among the changes are improvements to the game’s performance and fixes for save game corruption. Read on for the full patch notes.
STALKER TV series revealed
The grim survival horror series, STALKER is getting its very own TV series. It’s set in the Zone, and will feature many of the things that made STALKER great, like dark radioactive tunnels, deadly anomolies, and lots of angry men shouting at each other in Russian. You’ll find the trailer embedded below.
World of Warcraft charity pets unveiled
Back at Blizzcon, some new World of Warcraft pets were announced, but not shown. Now Blizzard have put up a sneak peak of the new creatures, which include the tiny, owl-like Moonkin Hatchlings and the tiny flame demon, Li’l Ragnaros. Images are contained below. Prepare yourself for a cuteness overload.
New Dead Space 2 multiplayer footage features evil babies
Dead Space did a great job of throwing its wrong-place-wrong-time hero, Isaac Clark, through a terrifying ordeal in which the silence and isolation of the infested space ship provided as many scares as the monsters themselves. Dead Space 2 is introducing a new kind of fear with its multiplayer mode. It’s less: “it’s quiet … too quiet”, and more: “get this freaking baby thing off my face!” Check out the new footage of the multiplayer mode, embedded below, and you’ll know what I mean.
Indie game charity sock sale
An Ebay seller has hand knitted a series of socks based on famous indie game characters, and has started a charity auction to sell them off, with all profits going to Childs Play. For one pair of socks, featuring VVVVVV’s heroic Captain Veridian, the game’s creator is offering a free giftable Steam copy of the game to anyone who places a bid. Read on for more details.
GeForce GTX 580: hot benchmarks, cooler temps
Our allies over at Maximum PC have posted an exhaustive lab test of Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 580 monster. Read the full story here.
TL;DR?
“Fermi – the real Fermi – has arrived. It’s still pricey and power hungry, but quieter and performs much better. We’re looking forward to checking out retail cards, but for now, the fully operational GTX 580 should delight gamers with deep pockets.”
