Rid yourself of troublesome Catalyst drivers
If you’ve recently bought yourself a new AMD Radeon graphics card, or updated the drivers for an existing one, you might be familiar with this problem: when you try to install a new version of the Catalyst driver suite, the progress bar hangs about a quarter of the way through for anything up to 15 minutes or so and then presents you with an error stating that the installation has failed.
I’ve had this problem present itself itself on several different systems in recent months – I thought it was as a result of doing lots of driver upgrades/card swaps for various features, but it turns out to be pretty common. Especially with any of the drivers from the 11 series.
PCG US Podcast #281: Indie Invasion
This week, Lucas takes the helm of the PCG Podcasting Pinnace with crew-mates Chris, Tyler, Evan, and Josh, as they discuss a week’s worth of tantalizing news stories. You’ll find out which indie games we’re lovin’ right now, what constitutes a worthwhile Collector’s Edition, the verdict in co-op versus competitive multiplayer, Chris’ physical dependencies to Civilization V, and many more amusing anecdotes. Message of the week: drink booze to regain mana!
Exclusive first look at Battlestar Galactica Online’s massive carrier-class ship coming this Fall
If you’re not already in the market for a slick new war machine to take down toasters or meatbags in Battlestar Galactica Online, this should help convince you that you should be. Today, the gods are on the side of those who say that the already-large ships of BSGO aren’t big enough. BigPoint’s upcoming addition, scheduled to release this fall, is an even-bigger hornet’s nest crawling with strike craft you can launch at your enemies. My life for the swarm!
And in other PC gaming news…
Rich nudged me earlier and sent me this for the round up. It is one the strangest things I’ve ever seen. The video shows the producers of Tekken and Street Fighter facing off in a game of… something. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what they’re doing here, it’s possible it loses something the translation. Rich is getting inspired though, he’s already considering challenging Owen to a tights on head tug of war.
See inside for less demented PC gaming news.
Supreme Ruler: Cold War demo out now
If you fancy a spot of in-depth warmongering over the weekend, you might want to check out the new Supreme Ruler: Cold War demo, spotted by RPS. The demo is available to download from the Supreme Ruler site now and the Paradox Youtube channel has a selection of tutorial videos to get you started. The full game will let you take control of the Russians or the Americans in campaign mode, or almost any European country in sandbox mode.
Whichever side you choose to take, you’ll have to use espionage, trade, research and lots of tanks to expand your influence. The full game is out now, and available to buy on GamersGate, Direct2Drive and Impulse. Read our Supreme Ruler preview for more.
This week’s best free PC games
In this week’s collection of free PC games, we explain how you can play Super Meat Boy for free! Well, sort of – and in a way that’s well worth checking out. Elsewhere, we’ve got snakes, robots, werewolves and disgusting, lazy students. Computer games are awesome…
APB Reloaded open beta 2 live now
The APB Reloaded blog has news that the second open beta has launched alongside the 1.5.2 update that makes “the biggest changes to Missions, Matchmaking, Skill Rating and District Recommendation to date.” The patch was delayed for several weeks while the changes were tested, but is ready to go. It’s set to improve matchmaking within districts and improve network speeds. Check out the 1.5.2 update on the APB blog for more information. You can sign up, grab the client and dive into the open beta right here.
League of Legends champion showcase: Wukong the Monkey King
Riot Games have revealed the next champion for League of Legends. Wukong the Monkey King will tear up the lanes with a tricky fighting style that will see him do battle alongside clones of himself, and use his whacking stick to deal fast damage at medium range. The video above details his skills and gives a quick overview of Wukong’s role on the battlefield. You’ll find a summary of the Monkey King’s abilities, some concept art and three screenshots below.
Far Cry 3 lead dev: consoles lack the “grandeur” of PCs
Jamie Keen, lead developer on Far Cry 3 has been speaking exclusively to PC gamer about the evolution of the series since Far Cry 2 and the difficulties of developing for multiple platforms.
I saw Jamie play through the same demo we saw running at E3. It seems that, despite the on-screen controller-prompts, the demo was running on a meaty PC. We guessed that from the framerate and anti aliasing too, but thought it was worth mentioning.
Minecraft could get Terraria-style bosses, says Notch
We’ve already reported on how Notch is planning on evolving Minecraft by including XP, levelling, and permadeath-style features. But there’s more…
Notch has also been talking to PC Gamer about how Minecraft has been inspired by roguelikes and other indies, describing Terraria as “really, really good.” We liked the Minecraft-inspired dig ‘em up too, saying it “offers dozens and dozens of hours of rewarding exploration.”
Read on for the details.
Star Wars: The Old Republic release date set for this year, beta tests in September
Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released later this year, report Eurogamer, but not before the conclusion of a series of weekend beta tests set to take place in September. The news follows yesterday’s announcement detailing the pricey Old Republic special editions and pre-order deals. It may be few months yet until game is out, but you can join the PC Gamer guilds right now. Europeans can sign up with the 250-strong force of the mighty Mint Imperials, while US players can join the 400-strong Coconut Monkeys.
Eve is Real site offers prizes for community created stories, images and videos
One thing that is often said about Eve Online is “I’d never play it, but I really like reading about it.” To that end, the Eve is Real site aims to gather the most memorable community created stories, images and videos into one unified “memory museum.”
To encourage people to share stories, developers CCP are offering a top of the range PC and a GeForce GTX 460 graphics card for the best films and pictures submitted. When the number of shares on the site hits certain milestones, the community will be rewarded with Aurum, the new Incarna currency that can be used to buy vanity items in The Noble Exchange.
Saints Row: The Third trailer robs a bank, jumps out of a plane, is insane in the membrane
The Saints decide to activate big head mode and rob a bank wearing oversized masks of themselves. Saints Row: The Third continues its quest to become the most crazy and bombastic game ever made with a selection of brutal, gonad crushing highlights. Can it live up to the madness we’ve seen in the trailers so far? Read our Saints Row: The Third preview for more. It’s out on November 15.
Batman: Arkham City trailer introduces Penguin and Solomon Grundy
The latest Batman: Arkham City trailer has landed on Gamespot, giving us our first look at The Penguin. Rocksteady’s vision of Cobblepot pegs him as a squat cockney chap. It’s hard to judge whether this makes him more or less threatening, so to tip the scales he keeps undead hulk-thing Solomon Grundy chained up in the basement.
Grundy is an almost-impossible-to-kill zombie villain who appeared in an old Batman story called The Long Halloween, which was a heavy influence on the recent Christopher Nolan Batman films. Hopefully fighting him will be less monotonous than the boss battle with Bane in Arkham Asylum. We’ll find out when Arkham City is released on October 18 in the US, and October 21 internationally.
European PC sales down nearly a third
Market analysts at IDC released its quarterly report on the state of PC sales in Europe last night, and the results make bleak reading for manufacturers. Total shipments of PCs across the Europe, the Middle East and Africa were down by 8.9% compared to last year.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, that figure was held high by lots of PCs sold in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East. In Western Europe shipments were down by more than a fifth overall, and by 32.2% in the consumer sector.
IDC highlighted the rather booming trade in smartphones and tablets as the cause of the decline, along with the ongoing debt crisis in Southern Europe and ‘high inventory’ at the start of the quarter.
