Make your PC run quieter with one simple trick
Are your case fans giving you nightmares about ‘nam? Are they just a few RPM away from sending you into a Ridley Scott style reverie? Want to know a quick, cost free way to make your PC run more quietly than it is right now? Everything you need to stop that incessant din might be right there in your BIOS.
Download Portal 2: Songs to Test By (volume 1) for free
Move over Lady Gaga, here comes LaDY GLaDOS. While the latest Jonathan Coulton single will still cost you, Valve has posted 22 tracks – totaling more than an hour – of Portal 2′s electro-trippy ambient soundtrack for free download, complete with album art and Android/iOS-formatted ringtones. Even if you’re not a Portal fan, this is worth grabbing for tracks like Science is Fun and the hauntingly catchy Turret Wife Serenade.
Bonus: the fact that this is labeled “Volume 1″ implies more free tunes will be coming sooner or later!
New Runestone effects revealed for Diablo III
Back at Blizzcon, Blizzard announced that players will be able to customize all 20 of their character’s skills in Diablo III by applying one of five different-colored Runestones to each ability. They gave a few examples, but today they released five new skills fully customized, with video of all the different versions in action. Read on to see the many different ways you’ll be able to change how the Barbarian’s Whirlwind and the Monk’s Sweeping Wind abilities work!
Using League of Legends’ new peer-review system to judge griefers (and the ridiculous things they say)
Prepare to be judged. Yesterday morning, Riot Games released the Tribunal–a peer-reviewing system that’s supposed to help curtail bad behavior in their huge free-to-play MOBA. Our two resident LoL experts, Lucas and Josh, don their black robes and powdered wigs and jump into the judge’s chair to test-drive the new system. Can we save the innocents of League of Legends from the hatred-spewing trolls? Can we discern misunderstandings from malice? Will our eyes ever recover from reading that much profanity in a single sitting? Read on for our harrowing tale (plus some ridiculous quotes from these people being banned).
And in other PC gaming news…
It has been a good day for extremely long lists. The World of Warcraft 4.2 patch notes were about five feet long. The Witcher 2 1.1 changelist was shorter, but no less important to players hoping to get a better framerate from the game.
How would you like to help the US navy fight Somalian sea pirates? It just so happens that there’s a new MMO designed just for you. Anyhow, without further ado, read on for today’s list of intriguing PC gaming news, including portable Minecraft, a Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game, footage of Eve Online: Incarna and much, much more.
The Witcher 2 patch 1.1 incoming
The first patch for The Witcher 2 is set to go live this evening. The update contains fixes for problems some players are having with free DLC downloads, and key remapping now extends to arrow and number keys, but the most welcome improvements will be the ones made to the game’s performance.
CD Projekt say that there will be between 5% and 30% framerate improvement for most players, especially those with the retail version of the game. CD Projekt are also planning another patch for next week, which will hopefully tackle the difficulty issues encountered by many players. Get the full patch notes below.
Space Marine trailer and screenshots have so much blood, Squigs confirmed
Destructoid have raided the Eye of Terror and brought back a new Space Marine dev diary showcasing some spectacular combat footage. If you thought Orks bled green, be prepared to be proved wrong in the most splattery manner possible. Relic have released another five screenshots from the game. You’ll find them embedded below. Space Marine is shaping up very nicely, don’t you think? We look forward to seeing more of it soon at E3.
Lefties rejoice! NZXT announces ambidextrous gaming mouse
I’m not a southpaw, but I worked for many years with a particularly angry dep ed who was. As a result I feel that I understand, in some small way, the pain of seeing a beautiful Logitech G9 and not being able to use it without adopting an uncomfortable BB King playing style. Largely because I did feel real pain when the mouse came flying in my direction.
So hurrah for NZXT’s latest construction, the Avatar S. It’s a fine looking mouse designed with gaming in mind. There’s the usual three way DPI switcher on board, and all changes made to the sensitivity are stored in its built in memory for driverless use.
But most importantly, it has the increasingly rare characteristic of being an ambidextrous design, as good for left-handers as it is for right. It’s an unusual mouse that doesn’t get marked down these days in a review for failing that particular test.
Out now for $39.99 or £34.99, depending on where you live, I’ll be looking to get one in for review next issue. If it’s any good, I’ll send it to my ex-colleague as a present.
World of Warcraft patch 4.2 live on test servers, full patch notes released
Patch 4.2 has hit the World of Warcraft test servers, and Blizzard have released the full patch notes. The new patch will add The Firelands, and outdoor 10 and 25 man raid instance guarded by six unique bosses and ruled over by the fiery form of Ragnos himself. You can find out all about the Firelands in the new Encounter Journal.
Other additions include a new epic quest to complete the legendary Dragonwrath staff. Reforging the staff will let its wielder turn into a member of the Blue Dragonflight, and will grant every member of the guild involved a new non-combat pet. There are a ton of rebalancing tweaks to Cataclysm’s dungeons to make them easier. You’ll find the full patch notes below, nabbed from World of Warcraft blog.
Chris Taylor on why he couldn’t go back from free-to-play
Chris Taylor designed two of the world’s cleverest strategy games: Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. More recently, he and his company Gas Powered Games took over development of Age of Empires Online, a free-to-play version of the old classic.
But far from being a stopgap between full-priced games, Chris says that working with the free-to-play model has convinced him it’s the future of the entire real-time strategy genre, and gaming in general. He says whatever he makes next will inevitably end up using it too. I tackled him to the ground in London recently, and demanded to know why.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution trailer details Collector’s Edition
A while back we we showed you what to expect from the Deus Ex: Human Revolution Collector’s Edition boxed set, now there’s a video to illustrate it. As well as the Adam Jensen figurine, making of documentary and art book, the box comes with a number of in-game bonus items that will also be available in many of the various retailer pre-order deals.
These controversially include a number of weapons, such as the super-long range sniper rifle, the grenade launcher and remote detonated mines. There’s even an additional mission, which is set to feature the appearance of a mystery character from the original Deus Ex. Will you be buying
The Witcher 2 Tweaks Guide
The Witcher 2 is one of the most beautiful games you’ll play this year, but getting it to run well can be problematic. To switch on every graphical option and crank up the fidelity, you’ll need a beast of a computer. For everything else, follow this guide to squeezing a few more frames per second out of the action without compromising its ability to impress you.
GameTrekking interview: “I released a new notgame from Cambodia today”
Back in September 2010, TIGSource‘s founder Jordan Magnuson set off on an audacious project – travelling around South-East Asia, making indie games about his experiences along the way.
He called the project GameTrekking, and funded it with more than £3,000 of donations solicited from the web. Contributors to the fund get email updates from Magnuson and beta access to games in development, and those who contribute more get postcards from the road, links on his website, and even a credit in the games themselves, which are free, open-source and cross-platform.
PC Gamer spoke to Magnuson about doodling, genocide, and his experiences on the road.
US Navy MMO to brainstorm new anti sea-pirate strategies
A new MMO project being developed by the US Navy plans to use player behaviour to formulate new strategies for battling Somalian sea pirates, reports Gamasutra. The catchily named Massive Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet project (MMOWGLI) is set to launch on Monday, and will challenge mixture of military and civilian players to come up with innovative new strategies to combat piracy and kidnapping off the Somalian shore.
QuakeCon 2011 registration starts tomorrow
A new post on Bethblog announces that registration for QuakeCon will start start tomorrow. The free annual event celebrates all things id Software, and features an enormous Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) LAN party at its heart. QuakeCon 2011 will take place in the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas and tickets are free.
Registration will start tomorrow at 8:00PM EST / midnight GMT. To scoop a ticket, apply for entry behind this giant orange “Q” in about … one day and 14 hours, at the time of writing. You can get the latest updates on the QuakeCon Facebook page and QuakeCon’s Twitter.
