Archive for June, 2011

Team Fortress 2 Meet the Medic video teased by dove invasion

Anyone visiting the Team Fortress 2 site recently will have noticed that a flock of birds have taken roost and started redecorating the place. Clicking on these birds takes you through to a series of images showing a hospital, a waiting room and a doctor’s surgery, all of which suggests the Meet the Medic video may finally be ready for release. Doves have started appearing in Team Fortress 2 maps as well.

This week’s best free PC games

Another week, another collection of glorious free PC games from around the web. This week’s picks are pleasingly varied, from the simple ambience of Revolutions to the silliness of Dinosaur Zookeeper. Read on for five great free games to play right now.

The best of video from E3 2011

E3 is a reason to get excited every summer. It’s not like GDC where we get to hear the insiders story on game development, or the day to day coverage of the industry. E3 is all about seeing. That’s why E3 is the event where developers and publishers show off the most spectacular trailers and offer extensive demo footage of the next big titles you’re going to be playing. E3 2011 was packed with video footage of some of the most exciting upcoming titles, from those just around the corner like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, to those still a long way off, such as Tomb Raider. Read on to find a round-up of the most impressive videos from this year’s event.

Saturday Crapshoot: Deus

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week… what? No, it’s nothing to do with Deus Ex.

When I first started playing Deus a few minutes ago, I played with a rule: steal Tom Francis’ gimmick. If I die, I have to start from scratch, or secretly load a save and hope nobody notices. This is the first and only part of this diary, in which cries for realism in games are finally heard. Meet Deus. It’s the FPS where you can get a lethal sore throat, die of insect bites, and sometimes have to amputate your own limbs. Oh, health kits. We never knew how important you were to us until you were gone…

Giveaway: Strut your stuff with Aion’s Wonder Girls and Disco costumes!

There’s no shame in it: sometimes you’ve just gotta get a little fabulous. And why shouldn’t that apply to your favorite MMOs? Aion recently debuted its premium item sets modeled after, of all people, the South Korean pop girl group the Wonder Girls. It’s not enough to have wings and fly around killing stuff—you have to look good doing it. Read on to find out how to enter and see the costumes (and exceptional dance animations!) in action.

And in other PC gaming news…

EA have certainly had the headlines this week. First people get angry at their pre-order plans, then their games start going missing from Steam. But all is not as it seems, a blog post placates the fans on the pre-orders and the missing games were not their decision. Even US TV was talking about it.

Look inside for news that is not about EA…

Surprise! Alice: Madness Returns shows up on Steam after all

What the heck is up with EA and Steam? First they’re buddy-buddy, then EA launches Origin (at this point little more than a new coat of paint on the EA Download Store) and games start disappearing off of Steam. EA blames Steam and Valve, Valve says not a lot about anything.

Today, a couple of days after launch, Alice: Madness Returns has popped up on Steam without notice – so apparently whatever breech of agreement that resulted in the removal of Crysis 2 from Steam has not prevented EA from putting up new games. EA PR Director Amanda Taggart sent over this not-very-revealing statement:

“EA Partners and Spicy Horse Games appreciate Steam’s decision to sell Alice: Madness Returns.   The game is also available on several other download services including Amazon, Gamestop and Origin.com.”

My personal pet theory is that EA simply wants to own all of the pre-orders on its games, without splitting that sweet, sweet cash with Valve. I expect to see most EA games – including Battlefield 3 – pop up on Steam after launch.

This week’s winners…

We just can’t stop running competitions! There’s a least one a week, which is why it’s time for another exciting instalment of This week’s winners.

Once again, strong>If you do not respond within three weeks of your name appearing in This week’s winners we will give your prize to someone else. Those who appeared in the first version are out of time. If you haven’t claimed your prize from the second week you have seven days to get in touch.

If you’ve entered a competition on PC Gamer.com, please take a look inside.

Terraria sells 432,000 in one month, hardcore mode revealed

It’s Friday afternoon, statistically the best time of the week to discover shocking new statistics. Today we learn that the 2D mining and exploration game, Terraria, released just a month ago, has sold more than 432,000 copies.

Don’t pick your jaw up just yet. Terraria has been in the top ten most played list on Steam for 32 days of the last month. Between 14-32 thousand people play it every day, the game’s two trailers have amassed almost two million hits between them.

Valve attending Gamescom 2011, will we see Dota 2?

Valve were conspicuously absent from E3 this year. With Portal 2 already out, they decided to skip the show and focus on Gamescom instead. Eurogamer report that Valve will be attending the event in Germany, scheduled to run from August 17 to August 21. It could give us our first look at Dota 2 in action, and we might get to see some of the upcoming Portal 2 DLC. Capcom and Sega have also confirmed that they will be attending the show.