Cargo! demo! Out now!
Here’s a wonderful slice of free insanity for a Friday. Ice-Pick Lodge’s vibrant entertain-’em-up has you building bizarre contraptions to amuse a race of naked baby-men. The new demo throws you onto a small island to learn the ways of the weird new world, in which you must collect and sacrifice objects to the gods to unlock new items. These can then be put together in the editor mode to create new vehicles or strange machines to inspire the island’s inhabitants, generating “fun” that can be used to buy more impressive stuff, like steamships. The 800MB demo is available to download from the Cargo! site now. There’s nothing quite like it.
Dragon Age 3 confirmed, Bioware recruiting now
A tweet from senior creative director Alistair McNally confirms that Bioware are working on Dragon Age 3. According to McNally’s message, spotted by Eurogamer, Bioware are recruiting for the sequel now: “I’m looking for exceptional environment artists to join me at #BioWare Edmonton, Canada to work on #DragonAge3 #gamejobs #jobs #3D #artists.”
It’s hardly a surprise that Bioware are making a third Dragon Age game, but knowing that it’s in development suddenly raises a lot of questions. Will it follow on from Dragon Age 2, or be a separate adventure set in a different part of Ferelden? Will we get to meet up with the Champion of Kirkwall again, and what about that sneaky witch/dragon lady, Flemeth? What’s her game?
Transformers MMO to get first press showing in June
Back in March, Jagex announced that they are working on a Transformers MMO. The game’s set to be shown for the first time to the gaming press in LA in two weeks time.
Jagex are best known for the enormously successful browser-based MMO, Runescape, and specialise in making accessible, free-to-play massively multiplayer games. There’s no information yet on whether Transformers will follow the same pattern as the rest of their recent releases, but if we were to hazard a guess based on everything Jagex have ever done, it seems likely Transformers will follow suit. We’ll find out come early June. As long as it has Dinobots, we’ll be happy.
PC Gamer US Podcast #273: Tell us some tales, Chuck Jordan
This week, Evan leads fellow PCGites Chris, Josh and Lucas as they welcome special guest Chuck Jordan (writer/programmer on Sam and Max, Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, and other great games) to the podcasting booth. We talk with Jordan about his history with LucasArts and Telltale and ask him all of our adventure-game questions. He also helps us tackle the week’s big news stories, like ArmA III being announced and Guild Wars 2′s new profession!
And in other PC gaming news…
Today on PCGamer.com we reviewed The Witcher 2, found out why Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard is a MONSTER and saw the first images of the Minecraft sky dimension. On top of all that, we discovered that Arma 3 is on the way! The first screenshots of the new military man-shoot already look extremely impressive.
What more can we learn today from the world of PC gaming? Find out in our latest linky list of news.
Arma 3 system requirements revealed
Arma 3 is coming! In between all ofthe new Arma 3 info and shiny, shiny screenshots, Bohemia also released the system requirements for the game. Be warned, they’re pretty high. It looks like some of us are going to have to upgrade if we’re going to run the military sim when it’s released in summer 2012.
Hellgate: London to return as a free-to-play MMO
Hanabitsoft have announced that they’re bringing back Flagship Studio’s 2009 MMO Hellgate: London as a free-to-play title later this year. A short closed beta test is set to run from June 3 to June 5 ahead of a full release in North America. There’s no mention of a European release just yet.
Shacknews say that more details are expected soon, but it’s almost certain that the free to play MMO will be supported by micro-transactions. Hellgate: London was set in a grim post-apocalyptic vision of London overrun by demons. Players took the role of techno-magical knights fighting back against the invasion. Hanabitsoft also bought up Flagship’s test project, Mythos, and re-released it recently as its own free to play MMO.
Take one for the team with the latest addition to the Heroes of Newerth roster: Martyr
Let’s face it: death is a part of any MOBA. Be you pro or nub, making a worthwhile contribution to your team means at some point, your HP is bound to drop to 0, and you’ll have to wait patiently back in the base. S2 Games knows all too well how much dying can affect a match—but what if dying for the good of the team was part of a hero’s strategy? Say hello to Martyr, a support hero in the truest sense who puts teammates before his Kill/Death ratio. Check out the Spotlight video above, then check out his ability list, complete with actual numbers!
Arma 3 announced, releasing Summer 2012, first screenshots
After weeks of puzzles and hinting, Czech developer Bohemia Interactive has confirmed that a follow-up to its landmark military simulation game, Arma 3, is in development. It’s still a PC exclusive, it’s set somewhere in the Mediterranean, and it’ll retain the fine, sandboxy, multiplayer-friendly, emergent warplay that we expect from the franchise with some key improvements. Within: I dissect every detail of the announcement, play Where In The World Is Arma Sandiego?, and change my pants.
Battlefield 3 Wake Island concept art is epic
DICE have posted a gorgeous new piece of concept art on the Battlefield 3 Facebook page. It shows the moody re-imagining of the Wake Island air strip, one of the four maps included in the Back to Karkand map pack. Back to Karkand comes free with Battlefield 3 pre-orders, and will be available to buy as separate DLC on release. You’ll find the artwork below, be sure to click on it to see it full size.
New Guilds Wars 2 profession revealed: the tinkering Engineer!
Mad scientists, rejoice! The latest profession announced for Guild Wars 2, the Engineer, will let you mix chemicals, create robot monstrosities, and otherwise wreak general mechanical havoc on the world around you to your heart’s content! Described as a “master of mechanical mayhem,” the Engineer looks to be a mind-blowing mash-up of multiple Team Fortress 2 classes and Belle’s dad from Beauty and the Beast with a thirst for war. These tinkerers have a wide array of weapons and tools at their disposal to help allies and control enemies, along with some crazy mechanics that let them swap out their skill bars and use temporary weapons on the fly.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to get “exceptional post-launch support”
Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling says that post-release support “major focus” for the team once Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is released on November 8. Gamerzines spotted Bowling’s comments on Twitter, where he said that players can expect “exceptional post-launch support” and “constant patches” for Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer.
Bowling says that fan feedback on Modern Warfare 2′s multiplayer has motivated the team to provide better support for the sequel. Modern Warfare 2′s multiplayer suffered numerous hacks and cheats when it came out in 2009, and Infinity Ward were criticised for taking too long to patch up new exploits. Hopefully Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer will be more secure. For more on the next Call of Duty game, check out last week’s huge Modern Warfare 3 info-leak. There’s also a shiny new Modern Warfare 3 site, which contains the four teaser trailers Activision released over the weekend.
APB: Reloaded open beta delayed
The APB: Reloaded open beta was set to kick off later today, but has been pushed back because of connection issues that have cropped up in the last 48 hours. In a message on the APB: Reloaded blog, GamersFirst said “we are clearly disappointed that this afternoon’s public launch has been put temporarily on hold, but in the end we strongly believe that first addressing this issue is the most critical and important step we can take as a development team.”
GamersFirst haven’t given an estimate for the length of the delay, but you can always have a read of our APB: Reloaded preview while you’re waiting for the servers to go live. The devs say “as soon as we have more data we will update the community on Facebook, Blogs and through Twitter.”
Valve not showing any games at E3 2011
Anyone hoping for a glimpse of Dota 2, or even Half Life 2: Episode 3 at this year’s E3 will be sad to hear that Valve aren’t planning to show any games at all at the conference. It looks like we’ll have to make do with the IceFrog Q&A, or the slim details on the Dota 2 site for now.
The good news is, we can look forward to some new Portal 2 levels at some point in the next few months. According to Gabe Newell, Valve are moving towards shorter and shorter development cycles for their games, which means we can look forward to more and more updates for Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2 in the future, too.
Minecraft screenshots reveal new “sky dimension”
Notch has tweeted six new images of the new dimension he’s working on for Minecraft. The images show a series of enormous floating islands. It’s hard to say whether it will work in a similar way to the underworld dimension, which required you to build a portal to hell out of obsidian and fire. Perhaps all you’ll need to reach this one is a huge staircase. You’ll find the six images below.
