World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria trailer shows new lands and Pandaren race
Here’s the debut trailer for the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria which was shown about half an hour ago during the opening ceremony of Blizzcon 2011. The 90 minute Mists of Panderia panel is kicking off RIGHT NOW, so I’ll be bringing you more info from there momentarily. Meanwhile, look! Pandas! In World of Warcraft!
PC Gamer US Podcast #291: A TORrent of Star Wars news
The embargo has (partially) lifted, and its time to open the floodgates on a ton of Star Wars: The Old Republic news. Josh and Dan share their hands-on experiences with interns Greg and Lucas, who grill them for info on lightsabers, aliens, enemies, story, and what makes this a great Star Wars game. Then we field listener questions on Battlefield and sound design, plus all the games we’re playing this week.
Official list of unit changes in Starcraft II’s Heart of the Swarm expansion
New units, changed units, retired units: a ton of changes are coming for StarCraft II with the next expansion. Just revealed today at the opening ceremony for Blizzcon in Anaheim, CA, we have the full official list of changes. Read on to see what’s happening to your favorite race!
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria announced. Adds new playable race, new class, new zones, level cap raised to 90
The Pandaren are coming to World of Warcraft! The expansion will add the Pandaren race and their homeland, Pandaria. We’re also getting a new class, the monk, and the level cap will be raised to 90. The Pandaren will be both playable and a neutral race, unaligned with Horde or Alliance.
Mists of Pandaria will also add new PVE scenarios, a pet battle system and a new talent system.
In the new expansion, Alliance and Horde will take their conflict to Pandaria, a “land of balance and harmony and beauty, and hope.” Previous World of Warcraft expansions have added colossal evil forces, in Mists of Pandaria “the true enemy of the franchise is going to be war itself.”
New zones in Panderia include “the lush Jade Forest, treacherous Kun-Lai Summit, and other exotic areas of Pandaria designed for high-level characters.”
This is mad. But amazing. The Pandaren were initially created as an April fools joke for Warcraft 3, but have since taken on a life of their own. A pandaren pet has previously appeared in WoW, and the lore has plenty of occasional references to the brewmaster. Chris Metzen just told the Blizzcon interviewers that Blizzard considered putting the the pandas into the Burning Crusade expansion, but never quite made it in. Now seems like a much more sensible time, especially considering WoW’s launch in China.
The World of Warcraft panel will be kicking off shortly, we’ll hear more very soon.
World of Warcraft Annual Pass announced, subscribers get Diablo 3 free
The World of Warcraft Annual pass has been announced at the Blizzcon opening ceremony. The annual pass will cost €12.99 / £8.99 a month. For a limited time, those who sign up will be able to download the full, digital version of Diablo 3 for free when it’s released. Subscribers will also get Tyrael’s Charger WoW Flying Mount, which will arrive with the launch of patch 4.3, and access to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta when that goes live. The annual pass is available to buy know on the Blizzard site.
The Diablo 3 Collector’s edition was also announced during the opening ceremony. The big boxed edition will contain an art book, a collector’s edition soundtrack, behind the scenes DVD documentary a DIABLO SKULL and a 4 GB USB stick. There’s still no release date for Diablo 3.
How to tell a true virtual war story
At Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera tells the searing story of a young medic who joins an assault team charged with storming enemy positions. The only problem is, the assault team is composed entirely of snipers, and refuses to move out. He asks his CO about it:
“The squad leader grinned coldly before bringing the binoculars up to his eyes. ‘Of course we’re the attacking force. That’s why it’s so important for every man under my command to pick up a sniper rifle and wait here, at our base.’
He nodded to himself, sure of his strategy. ‘Snipers as far as the eye can see. Sooner or later… they’ll come to us.’”
This and other anecdotes are hilarious gags at the expense of the way games like Battlefield work, and gamers’ seemingly bottomless appetite for killing things through long-range sights, and driving vehicles they don’t know how to use.
Batman: Arkham City system requirements revealed, new PC screenshots out
Batman: Arkham City is still weeks away on PC. Those of us with consoles have had to face a tough dilemma. Buy it now and save Gotham before Battlefield 3 and Skyrim come out, or hold fast until it’s finally released on November 18. Stand fast! Improved physics make for much moodier cape-whooshing, and the extra layer of heavy Gotham fog will hopefully make it a more atmospheric experience on PC. Find out how your machine will handle Arkham City with these system specs, spotted over on Eurogamer. There are also three new screenshots showing the Bat at his best.
StarCraft 2: new Zerg, Terran and Protoss units spotted at Blizzcon
The show hasn’t even started yet, but someone on Reddit has been busy taking snaps of the cardboard cut-outs at Blizzcon 2011. They reveal two new units for StarCraft 2. The first is a new flyer, The Viper. It’s described as a “flying unit with support abilities. It can grant detection to units, create a cloud to hinder ranged attacks and abilities, and quickly pull units to safety (friendly) or their doom (enemy).”
The second Zerg unit is called the Swarm Host. “This Zerg host can gradually spawn endless waves of attackers while burrowed to overwhelm your enemy.” Eek.
Another two images show three new Protoss units, including the Protoss Replicator, which can copy enemy units and their abilities. The Tempest is a devastating new capital ship and the Oracle can see what enemy buildings are constructing, and distrupt the enemy mineral line.
Three new Terran units are also shown. The Warhound is “a versatile factory unit.” The Battle Hellion is, as many guessed, a Hellion that can transform into a more durable walking bot. Finally, there’s the Shredder that can “deploy a whirlwind of death around it.” See the images and descriptions of all these units below. Exciting news for StarCraft fans, but which of the new units is more OP?
Inversion trailer reliart noisrevnI
A new trailer for Namco’s upcoming shooter, Inversion debuted at The Golden Joysticks awards ceremony in London earlier this afternoon. The enemy are an alien race who have gained mastery of Earth’s gravity, letting them turn the world on its head, dizzying Earth’s defenders and triggering a nasty episode for anyone who happens to be caught in a portaloo at the time. The third person cover-to-cover combat can be thrown into the air at any time by mad gravity fluctuations, and a series of gadgets and grenades essentially weaponise weight, letting you throw them into the air for easy face-plugging. The console versions are due out in February. A note on the Inversion Facebook page suggests that it will be coming to PC, though there’s no release date yet. There’s plenty more on the official Inversion site.
Sword of the Stars 2 screenshots show glorious space war
Space-borne strategy, Sword of the Stars 2 is out next week, and the new screenshots hosted over at Blue’s News are just beautiful. Sword of the Stars occupies the strangely empty 4X space strategy genre. With only the likes of Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations for company, the Paradox published follow up should be welcomed with open arms by fans of glorious laser space war. See some of those very lasers tearing up the cosmos in the ten screenshots below and check out our Sword of the Stars 2 preview for more on the new race that will be invading everyone for the sequel.
PC cleans up at the Golden Joystick Awards
Whoa. When did PC gaming become so damn… award-winning?
PC has cleaned up at the Golden Joystick awards with a wealth of exclusives. And the non PC exclusive games that took an award? We get to play most of those too, only more anti aliased, and in a better resolution.
The best bit? Gamers voted for these. Real-life gamers with strong opinons. A record-breaking 2.06 million of them in fact. Well done PC gaming community – you rose to the challenge and pwned.
Click through for the full results. Don’t agree with some of the winners? It’s time for a furious debate. See you in the comments.
Dead Island patch boosts level cap, nerfs zombies, adds new weapon mod blueprints
Techland have been tackling the hectic task of getting Dead Island up to scratch head on with a series of post-launch patches. In recent weeks crashes and major bugs have been the focus. The latest patch marks a change of tack, and sees the devs rebalancing Dead Island’s undead hordes, adding extra stuff in the form of new weapon blueprints, levels, and crate rewards, and boosting the XP rewards for those on a second playthrough. It’s looking as though Techland made the right decision in delaying the upcoming Bloodbath Arena DLC pack, but how long will it be before we can finally play a polished, bug free version of Dead Island? Get the full patch notes below, via Eurogamer.
Welcome to the Golden Joysticks. Will PC dominate?
The Golden Joysticks are happing in London right now. The prestigious award ceremony celebrates the best games of the past year. I predict PC will do extremely well.
Check out the video up there for the latest footage of the event, all thanks to Official Xbox 360 Magazine‘s Mike Channel.
We’ll get the results online as soon as possible. The suits have just finished their lunch, so it shouldn’t be too long now. Click here for the full shortlist.
UPDATE: We’ve embedded some predictions from the pros below. Click through and enjoy!
Battlefield 3 trailer shows single player campaign, tanks, jets, shouting and WAR
The launch trailer for Battlefield 3 is here. It’s got everything you’d want from a military shooter campaign. Important men in shirts shouting about MARINES and INSURGENTS, shots of tanks rolling through dusty streets, jets blasting away from an aircraft carrier. Then all out war. My hopes for Battlefield 3′s single player campaign just sprang up a notch.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 trailer reveals revamped kill streak system, IW talk PC features
Jut a few weeks before Modern Warfare 3 comes out, Infinity Ward reveal some major and encouraging changes to the way Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer works. In his opening comments executive producer Mark Rubins says that Infinity Ward took a hard look at Modern Warfare 2, and realised that they’d “made a game for one type of player, the high kill-count, low death,” recognising that “that was really the only type of player that was getting rewarded.”
Their solution for Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer includes a healthy reshuffle of the way that kill streak rewards are earned. Points, not kills, are the key to accessing Modern Warfare 3′s most powerful abilities. The reliance on points instead of kills is an interesting switch, because they can be earned by capturing points and helping out team mates as well as lining up the perfect headshot.
