Introversion’s Chris Delay on shifting from Subversion to Prison Architect: “I wanted to build Alcatraz”
One week ago, Introversion dramatically announced that they have shifted development away from their procedural bank-heist sim, Subversion to work a completely new game for submission to the Independent Games Festival. Their new game is called Prison Architect. It lets players construct and maintain high security prisons. We got in touch with Introversion’s Chris Delay to find out why the team decided to put Subversion on hold, how they made the decision to drop a game that they’ve been working on for years, and what inspired them to make Prison Architect instead.
Take on Helicopters launch trailer takes off
Helicopters are brilliant. Unlike boring old planes, they’re not confined to just going forwards and tilting a bit. That makes them perfect for plopping SWAT teams on rooftops, sneaking through thick jungles, rescuing people from listing boats and all that other exciting stuff that planes miss out on because they’re going too damn fast.
Complete all the tasks mentioned above and more in Bohemia Interactive’s Take On Helicopters, out today. The launch trailer not only shows off the wide variety of missions, but also the enormous cityscapes Bohemia’s excellent Arma tech generates so well. Find out more in our Take On Helicopters interview with Bohemia Interactive creative lead, Jay Crowe. You’ll find a list of physical and digital retailers at which to purchase Take On Helicopters on the Take On Helicopters site.
Gemini Rue woos Steam
We were utterly impressed with 16-bit-style point-and-clicker Gemini Rue, which combines a beautifully scummy atmosphere with proper adult sci-fi storytelling. It’s already shown up in the Indie Royale bundle, but it’s also been added to Steam’s growing catalogue of point and click adventure titles. The Steam version adds a couple of new features – cloud saving, and 15 in-game achievements.
Fallout MMO legal wrangles fall in favour of Interplay – for now
Interplay’s Fallout MMO has scored another small victory against Bethesda, who are trying to stop the post-apocalyptic multiplayer title getting off the ground, according to CVG.
Bethesda wanted a preliminary injunction against the MMO, which would stop Interplay’s continuing development of the title. However, the United States Court of Appeals has denied the move.
Howard’s End: Skyrim game director catches man in bedroom with in-game wife
On top of Fallout 3 influences and crime-reporting chickens, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim introduces a new concept: infidelity. Game director Todd Howard spilled all the dark secrets from his bedroom when he spoke to us about the intentional but unexpected events that Skyrim’s procedural Radiant quest system can turn up.
“I had decided to marry this one woman who was my friend,” Howard begins. “I forgot that I had done this Radiant quest for this other guy, who turns out he had liked her…”
All hands on desk! PCG plays the best Star Trek game you’ve never heard of: Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator
This feature originally ran in PC Gamer UK issue 232. Check out our Video Blog about the photoshoot for behind the scenes footage.
Artemis isn’t an official Star Trek game, but it is the Star Trek game you’ve always dreamed of. It’s a bridge simulator, in which multiple players take on the roles of starship crew. There are six slots in a bridge crew: a captain, a helmsman, a weapons master, an engineer, a science officer and comms. The captain hosts a server. Everyone else logs into the server to play their role. Everyone but the captain gets their own screen and their own jobs. To succeed, crew members must communicate and work together. Science officers need to provide bearings and scan readings to helmsmen and weapons officers. Engineers need to divert power between the warp drive and weapons. Everyone needs to listen to the captain’s orders.
Artemis is an exciting new take on asymmetric cooperative multiplayer.
Whisper it, but it’s basically liveaction roleplaying with viewscreens. Without pausing to read any instructions or forum posts, the PC Gamer team flung itself into a randomly generated mission. What could possibly go… oh.
Panda-ing to the hardcore: Blizzard’s Greg Street on Mists of Pandaria’s difficulty levels
In World of Warcraft, balance is king. With such a huge userbase, it’s essential to ensure noobs are able to play the game without feeling frustrated. At the same time hardcore players need a tooth-grindingly tough experience.
We caught up with World of Warcraft’s lead systems designer, Greg Street at Blizzcon. He admits that most recent expansion Cataclysm got it a bit wrong. “In Wrath of the Lich King we heard from our players that the PvE content was too easy,” says Street. “So we were like okay, clearly what we need to do is make the PvE content harder, which we did for Cataclysm and then players told us ‘it’s too hard, I can’t handle it!’”
Battlelog is a bit mad, isn’t it?
Battlelog, EA’s service for tracking player statistics in Battlefield 3, is a really cool service. It’s great to be able to see your progress, compare your score and accuracy against your friends, and look at the player leaderboards for the entire world.
The problem is that Battlelog isn’t used solely to track stats; it’s also Battlefield 3′s server browser and menu. I have an unlocked copy of the game, but when I tried to log in to the service this morning, I was told that Battlelog was currently closed and that I should come back later. That meant that I couldn’t play online.
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria trailers show new dungeons
Blizzard have released videos of three of Mists of Pandaria‘s nine new dungeons. The word ‘dungeon’ is slightly misleading. These take place in huge jade palaces nestles among swathes of cherry-blossom. The fly-throughs give us a good idea of what Pandaria itself will be like, heavily influenced by far-eastern architecture and geography, but all shiny and WoWed up.
These dungeons are set on the new continent, which has been hidden beneath a mystical mist for centuries. The once peaceful isle is about to be torn apart. When the mists lift, the Alliance land on the Northern shore, the Horde land on the Southern shore, and they’ll presumably have a great big fight in the middle. See more of the new continent in the other two videos, embedded below.
Star Wars: The Old Republic screenshots blast starships, levitate goons, face off with Grand Moff
Bioware has ejected seven new Old Republic screenshots in a special escape pod, which landed on PC Gamer’s Tatooine outpost earlier. Many Bothans died retrieving this new intel, to the extent that we’re finally starting to run out of Bothans, but it’s worth it. These new screenshots could perhaps lead us on a great adventure, in which one screenshot turns out to be our evil father, but he’s actually good. And then someone will make some prequel screenshots which will RUIN EVERYTHING. The screenshots show droid combat, a starship being pounded by a planet-side artillery facility and a lizard with a spear wondering how he ended up in the future, and how he’s supposed to fight lasers with a stick. Use the Force, lizard man!
Planetside 2 dev: Modern Warfare and Battlefield are “like Checkers where we’re sort of like Risk”
In the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, we took a look at the vast new free to play sequel, Planetside 2. Developers, Sony Online Entertainment told us its battles will rage across “eight-by-eight kilometre continents” and take place on a different scale to the shooters we’re used to.
“I always like to say that Planetside and Planetside 2 are sort of like, they’re to Battlefield and Modern Warfare and those FPS games – and don’t take this as a denigration at all, I love those games, I play those games – but those games are sort of like Checkers where we’re sort of like Risk,” says creative director Matt Higby.
Minecraft trailer competition could bring your character skin to Minecon
The Hat Films chaps have popped up to offer their subscribers the opportunity to have their Minecraft skin appear in the official trailer for Minecon, which will celebrate bowler hats and all things cuboid when it kicks off in Las Vegas on November 18. If you win the competition you’ll get to see your character appear alongside the Hat Films guys, and maybe even blocky versions of team Mojang.
As the walrus says in the video, “We will randomly be selecting subscribers from our Youtube channel and messaging the winners for their Minecraft user names, so that we may tear the skin from your virtual blocky bodies and thrust them upon NPCs in game.”
Now all you have to do is immediately change your character skin to Commander Riker, thus ensuring that the Minecon trailer is entirely populated by hordes of Rikers bouncing around the landscape.
Why Blizzard invited the world’s best StarCraft: Brood War players to Blizzcon 2011
Jaedong, Fantasy, Bisu, and Jangbi are some of the world’s premier StarCraft: Brood War players. This year, these four StarCrafting superstars were invited to Blizzcon.
But why were they there? Sites like Teamliquid swirled with rumours prior to the event: they were there to perform show matches, playing 1998′s Brood War on the big screen to foreign fans. They were there to test out the next StarCraft II expansion, Heart of the Swarm. They were there to mark their transition from professional Brood War – still the majority esports share in Korean viewing schedules – to StarCraft II. But Blizzcon came and went, and the four players were absent from headlines outside of citizen-papparazzi snaps and videos. Why were they there, flown out to Anaheim from their Korean home? The answer is simpler than you might expect. Read on to find out why.
Indie Royale offering majestic indie game deals
This is a website that is going to get your wallet into trouble. But not too much trouble, and that’s the genius of it. Indieroyale.com is currently offering an indie bundle that includes ARES, Gemini Rue (easily worth the price of 10 of these bundles), Sanctum (a great tower-defense FPS), and Nimbus.
PC Gamer Digital Episode 5 now available!
PC Gamer Digital Episode 5 is now available for download on Steam, and it’s all about some of the most beloved PC classics ever made: Diablo, Tribes, and Counter-Strike. But we’re not just slurping up a big bowl of nostalgia soup – all of these landmark PC series are charging back to the front lines of gaming, and Episode 5 is full of exclusive interactive content (and a bit of nostalgia soup) on each, including a tour of every character class in the Diablo III beta, an exclusive 360-degree tour of one of Tribes: Ascend’s expansive landscapes, and an interactive comparison of the famous de_dust in Counter-Strike: Source and the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
And Episode 5 doesn’t end there – it may be our biggest yet, so now is an especially superb time to find out how PC Gamer itself has built on its classic roots by downloading the free PC Gamer Digital base application and checking it out. We’ll see you there!
Here’s more on what you’ll find in Episode 5…
