Battlefield 3 trailer has tank battle and base jumping
Most of the new Battlefield 3 trailer is a mash-up of the best bits of the Fault Line series of videos that DICE have been releasing over the last few weeks. The final moments do show some new footage, though, including images of a city being bombed at night, a tank battle in a desert and a shot of a squad base jumping off a precipice. The campaign to unlock the full 12 minute trailer with developer commentary is still going. The new video will unlock once the Battlefield 3 Facebook page gets a million Facebook “likes.”
The games that made Portal 2
Ready for another tour around the glorious world of Aperture Science? With good cause! But no game is ever built in a vacuum. Here’s a look at some of the games that directly and indirectly gave us one of the greatest sleeper hits in gaming history, and the most exciting sequel of 2011.
Blizzard hiring software engineer for unannounced game
As reported by Gamespot, Blizzard are hiring staff for an “Unannounced Game Title”. Even more unannounced than the kind-of unannounced Project Titan. They’re looking for software engineers to work on the new project.
The job application points out that the game is “a new and exciting project”, but you knew that already right? This is Blizzard we’re talking about.
Are you reaching for the CV? You could end up on a future PC Gamer infographic, you lucky devil.
TF2 gets hatless update. Features KOTH Badlands, coaching tools and performance tweaks instead
In a bold move, Valve have released a Team Fortress 2 update that doesn’t contain any hats. Not even a little one.
It’s got loads of other cool stuff though, including coaching and training tools, an improved voting system, better performance, and a dedicated King of the Hill version of Badlands. Badass.
Click more for the details.
Countdown appears on Aperture Science site. World initiates preload
A countdown has appeared on www.aperturescience.com, along with a message from the ever-enchanting GLaDOS.
She seems pretty happy with humankind’s progress through the Valve Arg over the past few days, but what could the countdown actually be leading up to?
Office speculation is rife: the early release of Portal 2? The early release of a bit of Portal 2? A mini Portal 2 mini-game thing? Companion Cube plushies for everyone? Some Half-Life 2: Episode 3 info? More potatoes?
Initiate speculation and mild panic… NOW.
Full video of the thirty-minute chessboxing bout at EVE Fanfest
In late March, CCP held their annual EVE Fanfest where EVE Online fans could meet, drink and participate in all sorts of crazy activities with their favorite game’s devs in Iceland. For those of us that weren’t able to make the trip out, CCP has put up the full 30-minute video of the ridiculous, absurd and therefore awesome chessboxing match that went down between two CCP developers: Björn “Left Rook” Jónsson, who claims to be CCP’s resident chess expert, and Daniel “Pretty Boy” Þórarinsson, who was Iceland’s 2009 boxing champion.
And in other PC gaming news…
There’s an occupational hazard that comes with working at PC Gamer, and that’s the chance that the first link you click on each day might just be an incredibly addictive web game that threatens to ruin your productivity for the rest of time. Today, that happened with World’s Biggest Pac-Man, with its simple but epic twist on a classic formula.
We struggled past the urge to spend the rest of the day dodging ghosts and eating millions of blobs, and moved onto the news of the day, including a video of the next Minecraft update, news of incoming mod tools for Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the latest sinister twists and turns in Valve’s potato ARG.
But what else has been going on in the world of PC gaming? Read on to find out, and to stand a chance of winning a copy of the original Portal.
The 100 Game Giveaway, Day 4 (US only)
It can’t be stopped! The hits keep on coming with PC Gamer’s epic 100 Game Giveaway! Today, we turn the giveaway ray on roleplaying games.
First up: you asked for it, and we’re delivering The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings! It’s not out yet, you say? Well, when it does come out on May 17, you can be among the first to play it if you’re one of the 10 lucky winners to snag codes provided by our friends at GoG.com. (And yes, that’s the DRM-free version!) But that’s not all! We’re also offering up 10 copies of the excellent Two Worlds 2 from TopWare. Click Read More to find out how to enter in today’s giveaway.
Glados hacking ARG player accounts, ominous messages emerge
The potato fools day ARG has taken a sinister turn. Key solvers of some of the ARG’s puzzles have had their Steam accounts changed. ARG players have tried communicating with these players via Steam chat, and have been receiving deeply suspicious messages in return.
To add to this, players created a spectrogram of the latest Steamcast, and found a message from Glados within. You’ll find the image below, along with a steam chat window showing an exchange with one of the hacked ARG players. You can keep up with the latest Valve ARG news on the Valve ARG wiki.
Risen 2: Dark Waters trailer has pirates and voodoo
The first Risen 2 trailer is full of the moody atmosphere of the first game. Grim men have serious and ambiguous words about something, then step outside to do some dirty fighting in the streets. The atmosphere may be familiar, but there are a few new series additions on show. Firstly: eye patches. Secondly: guns. Thirdly: giant sea monsters! Fourthly: voodoo?
Previous details and concept art of Risen 2 suggest that the game itself will be much brighter than this trailer suggests. The sequel will be set across an group of islands occupied by pirates and guarded by aquatic beasts. You’ll find more artwork on the official Risen 2 site.
Rift trailer shows assassin classes
The latest Rift trailer does a good job of showing how flexible its soul system is. Three souls can be combined to make up your class, and each soul can be levelled up individually, unlocking more skills on each tree. Here we get a good look at the Rogue classes, including the devastating “teleporting sniper.” It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for those enemies. Almost. For more on the game check out our Rift review, or head over to the official Rift site.
Fable 3 will be tougher and less buggy on PC
Fable 3 will finally be getting a PC release soon. Lionhead have been talking about the changes they’ve been making to the game to get the PC port of Fable 3 just right. We can expect proper mouse support, increased difficulty, and less item gathering for collection quests. Many of the bugs that were found in the console versions of the game have also been squashed ahead of the game’s release next month.
Speaking to RPS, Fable 3 lead designer Josh Atkins admits that the game was designed to be easy for a console audience. “On Fable from the beginning I can remember sitting in a room with Peter [Molyneux] and him being very explicit with me that… I believe the direct quote, if I remember correctly, was, ‘I want a blind child to be able to win this game with their feet.”
Anno 2070 trailer offers a choice of futures
Futuristic city building sim, Anno 2070, offers you a choice. Will you go for ecological technology, or industrial standard factory complexes? Will you choose sustainability and sunshine, or mass consumption and dark shanty towns? Would you like to nurture this bunny, or strangle it with the factory fumes of capitalism? Whichever option you choose, it’ll look really nice. Find out more on the official Anno 2070 site.
World’s Biggest Pac-Man is now free to play in your browser
A free-to-play, browser based version of Pac-Man has been released by Namco-Bandai. The blob-gobbling mechanics are as familiar and addictive as ever, but as Gamasutra report, there’s an interesting twist. Logging in on Facebook will let you create your own mazes. Once complete, they’ get added to the gigantic meta level. Every maze has gaps that will let you escape into other people’s levels, creating one vast mega-maze.
At the time of writing, World’s Biggest Pac-Man consists of more than 1300 maps. More than 180,000 ghosts have been killed, and more than 17 million Pac-dots have been eaten. You don’t have to login to Facebook to play, simply head over to The World’s Biggest Pac-Man site and say goodbye to all that working and eating you were planning to do today.
Battlefield 3 trailer will unlock with one million Facebook likes
DICE announce they they will release a brand new, full length Battlefield 3 trailer once their Facebook page receives one million “likes”. They’ll also put out a producer’s commentary to guide us through the 12 minutes of in-game mayhem in the video. To help unlock the trailer, drop a “like” on the Battlefield 3 Facebook page. While you’re at it, why not throw a “like” our way? Granted, liking the PC Gamer Facebook page won’t get the Battlefield 3 trailer released, but it will make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
