Dead Island trailer and first details revealed
I suppose if you’re going to facing the zombie apocalypse you may as well do it in a sunny location, say the Royal Palms Resort on the island of Banoi in Papua New Guinea? That’s right, as the trailer that’s sent everyone corpse crazy suggests, Polish developer Techland’s open world, zombie adventure does just that.
We got an exclusive look at the brutal first person title at Techland’s studio, where it revealed the holiday from hell will feature four player co-op, Left 4 Dead style, and RPG elements. Guns? Um, the odd one or two. Thanks to the game’s location you’ll mostly be relying on items you can find around the ruined hotels and corpse filled swimming pools, which should make for some interesting weapon choices. We also got to see one of the playable characters on offer. Not an ex soldier or bland faced bodybuilder, but hip hop star Sam B. We’ll reveal more about him, and the game’s other exciting features, in the next issue of PC Gamer.
What do you think of the trailer? Does it live up to the hype? Our interns debate to the death in this week’s Intern Arena column on that very topic! Jump over and chime in in the post’s comments to decide which side wins!
Rumour: Bungie’s next game will be “WoW in space”
Rumour has it that Bungie are working on a massively multiplayer online shooter called Destiny. The game is said to be being built in a new engine created by Bungie, and has been called “WoW in space.”
Giveaway: 150 Mythos beta keys up for grabs
Mythos started out as an action RPG, created by the lead developers of Diablo and Torchlight. It was created to test the network technology for Hellgate: London, and ended up being more fun than the game it was built to test. After a long hiatus, Mythos is set to return as an MMO. A closed beta is about to start, and we’ve got 150 keys to give away. Read on for your chance to win.
New Rage trailer shows ruined wastelands, mutants and explosive RC cars
The new Rage trailer shows off the huge environments the id Tech 5 engine is capable of, as well as some of the mutant creatures that populate the ruined wasteland. There’s some exciting blasting too, with automated turrets, armed RC cars and spidery assault robots on show.
Lord of the Rings: War in the North trailer shows unseen areas of Middle Earth
A new video has appeared for Lord of the Rings: War in the North, the upcoming co-op hack and slash adventure from Snowblind. A new developer diary has been released, showing off some of the new locations from Tolkien’s writing that went unexplored in the films, including the huge steel sanctuary of Carn Dum, home of the Witch King.
Valve releasing Left 4 Dead 2 DLC after Portal 2
Valve have announced that they will be releasing a set of maps for Left 4 Dead 2 once Portal 2 is done and dusted. The three remaining maps from the first Left 4 Dead will be ported over to Left 4 Dead 2 as part of the pack, and there will be a fourth map from modder Matthew Lourdelet, who made the excellent 2 Evil Eyes campaign. Instead of quietly finishing work on the new map, Valve are throwing its development open to the community, asking for ideas and feedback to help them develop the campaign.
The Minecraft Experiment, final entry: Cake or Death
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. After a lot of false starts and a lot of lost worlds, I managed to build a portal to hell and get back alive. Now I’m home, and the experiment is about to end – all that’s left is to die.
The diary starts here, and this is the final entry.
Playing this way has been an interesting look at how stakes change the way you feel in a game, and how you play. Since I started, Minecraft creator Notch has said this will actually be a formal mode in the game eventually, one that forcibly deletes your world on death.
I found that each death gave me a new phobia, something I’d be disproportionately terrified of in every subsequent life. By the tenth, I’m so afraid of everything that I’ve actually become pretty safe – that’s why it’ll be my last life in this experiment.
That said, I’m currently looking through my inventory and I’ve just heard a Creeper hissing behind me.
Interview: planeswalking the walk in Magic: The Gathering – Tactics
If you’ve ever played the Magic: The Gathering customizable card game, you’ve no doubt wondered what it would look like if the creatures you cast duked it out on the table in front of you. SOE’s free-to-play Magic: The Gathering – Tactics, a turn-based strategy game based on the CCG universe, renders your summoned creatures in 3D, fighting in formation on a tactical grid. We got the chance to talk about the game with Mark Tuttle, executive producer at SOE Denver, about the launch. Read on and see what it took to turn the classic tabletop card game into a grid-based battle of wits.
Crysis 2 PC multiplayer demo coming March 1
Better late than never, EA and Crytek plan to make good on the promise to deliver a PC demo of Crysis 2 on March 1. The demo will include two 6v6 multiplayer maps, entitled Skyline and Pier 17, both set in alien-ravaged Manhattan, and will be playable in team death match and “Crash Site,” aka capture point modes.
Having seen the demo on Xbox, I’m eager to see how it looks on the PC – multiplayer footage that EA showed at a preview event was clearly taken at a higher rez than the Xbox could’ve put out, and it looked amazing.
A March 1 demo will give us about three weeks to mull it over before the game launches on March 22 in the US and March 25 in Europe. Or, you could wait for our review…
Could Call of Duty go the same way as Guitar Hero?
Last week Activision canned their long running Guitar Hero series on consoles. Releasing a new version of the game every year had worn customers out, and it was decided that nobody would want yet another entry in the series. With Activision committed to releasing a new Call of Duty game every year, could the same thing happen to the shooter series?
And in other PC gaming news…
Do you agree with our Top 100 PC games of all time? No, not all of it but most of it? Read it then let us know what you think in the comments. Try not to swear or get too angry, OK?
But those games are already out. They’re old news. Today’s content also includes Tom’s Mass Effect 3 wishlist. He loves the series so much that he’s already scared it might not live up to expectations. Reassure him in the comments, and post your own suggestions for Bioware’s perusal.
But, for now, grasp your new issue of PC Gamer UK tight. You might need to use it as a shield from the incoming onslaught of PC gaming news that’ll hit when you click more.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood system specs revealed
There’s now a Steam page for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood containing the full system specs for the game. The game is also available to pre-purchase on Steam. Want to know if you’ll be able to keep up a good framerate as you murderise? Read on for the full system requirements.
Batman: Arkham City screens show Joker’s fun house
Four fantastic new Batman: Arkham City screens have been released, showing the variety of Arkham City’s locations. There’s a dilapidated fun house, a towering factory and some shots of the city rooftops populated by snipers. Poor goons, they never look up, do they?
The 100 best PC games of all time
This gets harder every year. Every year new games are released, old favourites are replayed, obscure indies capture our hearts, and games that we once knew are updated until they’re unrecognisable. We’re fickle, argumentative people in love with the most dynamic gaming platform on the planet, and we’re only allowed to pick 100 games?
It should be the top 1,000, the top 10,000, to fit every single game we all love. But it’s not. As much as the games change, our task remains the same. Boil down decades of sims and shooters, roleplaying games and real-time strategies, into the top 100. The best games on PC. Those that you must play, now.
PC Gamer UK March Issue – Total War: Shogun 2
March is the month of war. The latest issue of PC Gamer UK hits store shelves today with the force of an army of samurai. Within, we’ve got the first huge reviews of Total War: Shogun 2 and Dragon Age 2, a massive feature on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and much, much more.
