Constant net connection no longer required for Ubisoft games
It looks like DRM checks on games such as Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction have been changed for the better. The controversial DRM system was launched earlier this year with Settlers 7, and required players to be permanently connected to the internet in order to play. Now the games will no longer pause instantly if a connection is lost, but will still require an internet connection to validate the install every time the game is booted up.
Minecraft – PC Gamer UK’s Game Of The Year
Can you dig it? Yes you can. Twelve months of getting square eyes with Minecraft.
When we each made up our personal list of favourite games this year, Minecraft was on nearly all of them. It’s a first-person fantasy game made of cubes. There are cubes of grassy soil stacked in contours to form mountains, smooth cliff faces that you can dig square tunnels into with your voxellated pickaxe, and cubic trees sprouting cubic leaves. Your head is a cube. The sun is a cube. In all probability, the world of Minecraft is a cube. You should also mentally cube the length of time you expect to spend in it, because it’s so stimulating and relaxing, so hypnotically compulsive, that you’ll never escape its grip.
The Minecraft Rube Goldberg machine
There are few things more satisfying than a massive chain reaction ending in an explosion. A creation by Minecraft player called Daniel looks to have taken the crown of best Rube Goldberg machine away from the one hidden in Fallout 3. This construction is the size of a small town and harnesses the forces of gravity, water, lava and chickens to create an epic chain reaction that culminates in the death of a twenty foot tall Creeper. You’ll find the video below.
STALKER: Call of Pripyat mod tools released
As a special New Year’s Eve present, STALKER developers CDC have decided to release the full Software Development Kit for the X-ray 1.6 engine, the force behind the most recent STALKER game, Call of Pripyat. This is the first time fans have had access to fully featured mod tools for the latest STALKER game, and the new tools will give players the power to create whole single player and multiplayer missions. Check out the official STALKER site to get your hands on the new tools.
15 things we want to see in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
I love Oblivion, but not because it was perfect. That and the previous Elder Scrolls game Morrowind were great because they tried more than they could do flawlessly – that’s what made them so liberating compared to a lot of other RPGs. Now that we know Skyrim is coming, though, it’s time to take a harder look at what the Elder Scrolls games could be doing better. This is what we want from The Elder Scrolls V.
Wings of Prey – PC Gamer UK’s Simulation Of The Year
With its breathtaking terrain and heart-stopping battles, this air combat sim is flying high. We waggle our wingtips at Wings Of Prey.
A much-loved PC combat flight sim is ported to consoles and gets utterly trashed in the process. PC favourite IL2 was converted to console-focused Wings of Prey. The script was written the second the game was announced, but rather splendidly, Gaijin (the port-ers) failed to read it. Rather than hammering flat all of IL-2’s subtleties, the Russian team preserved them, producing a game that’s stronger than its prototype in several areas. Even better, they flew their new title back to PC simmers.
PC gamers are winning the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam platform war
When DICE launched the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam expansion they also pulled the trigger on a race to unlock a hidden fifth map. The challenge was for players on each platform to perform 69 million team actions. DICE have thrown up the tally so far, and PC gamers have performed more team actions than the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined.
Maximum kersplode: Five ridiculous Crysis explosions
Crysis may be a few years old, but it’s still one of the most graphically powerful games you can play. Normally that power is used to render huge islands, armies of panicky Korean soldiers and invading alien forces, but what if you took all of that power, and used it to create the biggest explosions you possibly could? Five brave gamers have done just that. Below you’ll find videos of some of the biggest bangs in gaming. One man drops a fleet of helicopters out of the sky, another belly-flops onto a huge tower of exploding fuel trucks, and another man spawns a pile of 3,000 barrels and causes an explosion so ridiculous that he can’t look directly into it for more than two seconds without it crashing his PC. You’ll find videos of the five most insane Crysis explosions embedded below.
Free Super Meat Boy update to add level editor and online sharing portal
Super Meat Boy is set to receive a huge free update in the middle of January, adding editing tools that will let players create and share their own levels. A new area called Super Meat World will also be added, acting as a hub to which Team Meat can add further leves in future, and even offer up areas for guest developers to step in and create their own challenges. Read on for details.
The Minecraft Experiment, day 18: The Red Sea
When I first started playing Minecraft a few months ago, I played with a rule: if I die, I have to delete the entire world. Now I’m trying to get to hell and back. The diary starts here, and over Christmas new entries will go up weekly on Wednesdays.
Neptune’s Pride – PC Gamer UK’s Webgame Of The Year
Five weeks of plotting, bluffing and double-crossing with Neptune’s Pride, the most duplicitous strategy game of the year.
The icon next to his name turned grey, signalling that he’d just signed out of MSN Messenger. That meant he was away from his computer. It was time. I opened up the other window, selected my fleets and sent them all towards his worlds. By the time he came home that night to see what I’d done, it would be too late. And by the next morning, I’d have won the entire match. All hail the space slug! Doom to the space squid! That’ll teach them to make an alliance with me.
Neptune’s Pride isn’t real-time strategy, it’s long-time strategy. Each day, you login, upgrade some of your planets, direct your fleets around the galaxy, and then… you wait. A long time. Moving that one fleet between those two planets? That’s going to take four hours. Between the next two planets? Another ten. To reach the enemy planet you’ve ultimately sent it to attack? About 22 hours total.
Blizzard reveal plans for next World of Warcraft patch
With so many players already at the level 85 cap, Blizzard are looking ahead and sketching out changes for the next major patch for World of Warcraft. In their latest blog post they concentrate on some of the class changes they’re planning to make, listing a long series of planned tweaks for many of the skills in the game. Read on for details
Doctor Who episode 4 is out in UK and on sale in US
The fourth outing for the digital doctor has just been released for free in the UK. It starts with Amy and the Doctor trapped in an underwater base being menaced by a giant space shark, and gets more crazy from there. There’s good news for Doctor Who fans across the pond, because this episode will also be sold as a digital download on Direct2Drive. Read on for details.
Incredible speed run beats Quake in 48 minutes
A team of Quake fans have combined their talents to beat id’s 1994 classic Quake in 48 minutes. It’s a 100% completion, which means every secret is discovered and every monster in the game killed in less than an hour. The pixel perfect efficiency on show in each level is simply mind boggling. You’ll find the video embedded below.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – PC Gamer UK’s Shooter Of The Year
DICE brought out the big guns this year with Battlefield: Bad Company 2
They don’t teach you proper military tactics in the army. It’s all about climbing six-foot walls and cleaning guns, and useless junk like that.
Bad Company 2 shows you the way real soldiers fight: leaping full-pelt towards windows, tucking themselves into a tiny ball, then unfurling like an umbrella made of guns on the other side. War is all about standing far away from buildings and firing endless streams of grenades that appear in mystical green packets that grow just above your arse. It’s about performing little feats of individual skill so brilliant that you stop and stare at your own fingers, believing for a second that they’ve got tiny brains of their own.
In comparison with the 64-player murderfests of Battlefield 2, Bad Company 2’s slimmed-down servers and four-man squad seem reductive. But in limiting the mental scale of the conflict and making it so easy to signpost your intentions to your squad-mates, BC2 gains a constant and tangible sense of teamwork. Unless you’re lumped with ten sniping morons, anyway.
