Razer pulls out a Switchblade
You may have noticed these new fangled tablet things that appear to be quite popular in some circles. Mouse and keyboard makers Razer has been experimenting with the miniature charms of these ultraportables for some time now, first unveiling its concept gaming tablet, the Switchblade, back at CES in January.
The Switchblade is a clamshell design with a seven inch screen at the top and a tactile keyboard that adapts to whatever game you’re playing with icons replacing the key symbols. Inside, there’s WiFi and 3G connectivity, a discrete graphics card and an Intel Atom processor.
Saturday Crapshoot: Zork: Grand Inquisitor
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, prepare to enter a world of adventure where life is cheap, only cheaters prosper, and a few familiar faces are looking forward to saying hello.
When I say that I hate the Myst series, I’m not being entirely fair. Oh, they are dreadful, don’t get me wrong – the most fun I ever had with them was imagining that their backstories were a lie, and really the inhabitants of these pretty-but-boring worlds died out because some idiot locked their only toilet with a stupid puzzle that required them to demonstrate knowledge of local celestial movements before they got to take a bowel one. If you put me on a desert island with a computer and the entire series, I would snap one of the discs in half and use it to slice my own wrists open. Probably Riven.
Really though, what I hate about them is what they did to adventures – convince people that no, we didn’t want characters or plotting (and please, spare me the links to a wiki about the intricate backstory of the Stoneship Age) or puzzles with an actual reason to get in our way. Now, if you could render a vaguely pretty world and put some unmarked levers and dials on it, your job was done. In the entire history of Myst-type games, I can list maybe five I genuinely consider worth having given a chance.
So when I now say that Zork: Grand Inquisitor was a wonderful surprise, I really mean it.
FREE STUFF ALERT! Our friends at Good Old Games have given us 10 copies of Zork: Grand Inquisitor to give away. Check out the competition details at the end of this post.
This week’s best free PC games
There’s some fairly substantial free gaming goodness to discuss this week. Most notable is Dead Cyborg, a fully-fledged 3D adventure game with an oppressive atmosphere to rival the darkest professional releases. Elsewhere, you can manage a sweatshop, shout the word ‘balls’ at an MP with the name ‘Balls’, and change the adventure genre from the inside out. Read on for this week’s freebie picks.
And in other PC gaming news…
Endermen; a scary name for a terrifying creature. Notch talked about his ongoing attempts to frighten the PC gaming community to death earlier, explaining that that… oh God, I just saw one. He was carefully re-arranging Owen’s desk but now he’s stopped and is just staring at me. I can’t look away, I can’t break eye contact and I absolutely can’t blink or he’ll get me.
What I can do though is give you a round up of today’s PC gaming news.
Brink Agents of Change DLC release date set
The first slice of Brink DLC is out next Wednesday August 3. If you download it within two weeks, you’ll get it free, and it will stay free forever. It will add two new maps, new player abilities and gadgets (including napalm grenades), new weapon attachments (including a bayonet) and some new outfits. It’ll also raise the level cap from 20 to 24. You can read the full overview here.
Splash Damage have sent over 11 screens of the new maps. See them below.
Watch it live: MLG Anaheim StarCraft 2 tournament kicks off tonight
In about eight hours time, MLG Anaheim will bring the world’s best StarCraft 2 players together to compete in front of a global audience. The first match, Naniwa vs. Huk, is set to kick off at 5:30 PM PDT / 1:30 AM GMT. You can find the full schedule on the MLG site, and watch matches live, for free, on MLG TV. Gold and Silver subscribers will be able to watch HD streams of every match.
If you’re new to e-sports and want an introductory taste of the StarCraft 2 competitive scene, we rounded up videos of ten of our favourite matches. For more on pro-gaming, Rich recently wrote about why he loves watching StarCraft 2.
World of Tanks devs to announce new project at Gamescom
Wargaming.net announce that they will be revealing a brand new project at Gamescom next month. It’s surprising news given that they only recently unveiled World of Warplanes at this year’s E3 conference. It’s not clear yet whether the “project” will be a new game, or have anything to do with World of Tanks, all we know is that it’s something wargaming.net “recently started to develop.”
We got a chance to catch up with Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi recently at a tank festival. In the shadow of a looming Churchill we discussed the future of the wargaming.net and the World of… series. Kislyi said “we are thinking about Battleships.”
Gaming laptop UK giveaway. Win this Medion Erazer X6813!
We may have just lost our minds. For today’s massive competition; Medion have given us a killer gaming laptop. A whole Medion Erazer X6813 Laptop worth over £1,000 to give away to one lucky reader. It comes with a built in 80GB solid state drive on top it’s regular 750GB hard drive and Blu Ray player. Quite frankly it puts most of our home desktops to shame. And it could be yours. To keep forever. Someone in the UK is going to win this.
Read inside to see how you could win this fantastic prize.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution review scores 94 and an Editor’s Choice award in PC Gamer
We deliver our verdict on Deus Ex: Human Revolution in the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, which will hit news stands next Wednesday August 3. We awarded it a score of 94 and an Editor’s Choice award.
In the huge, eight-page review Tom befriends turrets, throws vending machines off buildings, hacks into security terminals, resolves hostage situations and dismembers foes with augmented fist-chisels to conclude that Human Revolution “is absolutely the Deus Ex of our age, a genuinely worthy prequel, and a game that puts almost everything else in the genre to shame.”
The latest issue will be available to buy online next Wednesday, and should be sliding through subscribers’ letterboxes this very second. Subscribers get every issue before they hit the stores, and come in special subscriber covers. You can subscribe for a year right now at 45% off the cover price. If you live outside of the UK, you can pick up our Zinio digital edition. This month’s subscriber cover comes in black and shining gold. See it below.
Mythos update to add Dungeon Master mode, PvP arenas and more levels
A mammoth update for free to play MMO Mythos is set to add new player vs. player arenas and a Dungeon Master mode that challenges you to wipe out dungeons as fast as possible for bonus loot. The patch, spotted by Massively, will also hike the level cap from 50 to 51, giving top tier players room to become even more powerful and opening up impressive new armour sets. You’ll find the extensive patch notes below, taken from the Mythos site, where you can also sign up to download and play the game for free.
Carbine to reveal new MMO at Gamescom, exclusive details in next issue of PC Gamer UK
Carbine Studios announce that they will be unveiling their new MMO at this year’s Gamescom. We’ve seen it, and will bring you exclusive details in issue 231 of PC Gamer UK, which will hit shelves on August 31.
The team behind the new game make this one to watch. Turbine founder and lead designer on Asheron’s Call, Jeremy Gaffney is executive producer on the project. Producer Eric DeMilt worked on Fallout 2, and other members of the team helped make World of Warcraft, Everquest 1 and 2, City of Heroes and Diablo 2. Their mission statement is “to make the Next Great MMO.”
Firefall trailer battles titans, takes to the skies
Firefall looks more exciting every time a new video is released. The latest trailer on IGN shows how players’ gargantuan jetpacks can spawn glowing wings of energy that let them soar over the MMO’s vast redstone landscapes. It’s easy to forget Firefall will be free to play when you watch a team launch themselves off a cliff and dive bomb a battlefield. Find out more about Firefall in our preview.
The devs have also recorded a new diary on Firefall’s sound design. Many of the sounds they create have unusual origins. Check out the video below for footage of a man breaking a hammer over a pumpkin.
Heroes of Newerth goes Free-to-Play
The headline says it all: S2′s Heroes of Newerth is going free-to-play, and we couldn’t be happier. Since the game’s official release on May 12th of last year, there’s been a barrier of entry to players who wanted to try out HoN’s intense hero-vs-hero battles, but weren’t willing to pay the game’s one-time fee. Now that the cost of access has been completely lifted, HoN’s popularity is bound to explode as more and more people get their friends to give it a try. Come check out what’s changing, what’s not, and what S2 plans to do with HoN next.
Meet the Endermen, Minecraft’s terrifying, teleporting new enemies
A new post on Notch’s blog introduces the Endermen, the shadowy, long-limbed creatures shown in the recent screenshot Notch released. They are terrifying.
The ghoulish creatures are three metres tall, and spend their time slowly moving blocks around the landscape. They will continue to do this until you rest your cursor on one. At that point the creature you’re looking at will freeze, swivel to face you and wait for you to look away. When, inevitably, you do, it will charge, teleporting across the landscape once a second to attack you.
From Dust “will not require a permanent online connection” say Ubisoft
Ubisoft have confirmed to VG247 that their recently delayed god game, From Dust “will not require a permanent online connection to play in single-player mode.”
This week, we learned that Driver: San Francisco will have Ubisoft’s always-online DRM system. The From Dust Steam entry does list the Ubisoft Online Service as third party DRM, but it looks as though it’s a less stringent version.
Ubisoft told us yesterday that they see their DRM system as “a success,” saying that it’s led to “a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection.”
