Ultimate Christmas Giveaway: Win Men of War Assault Squad and more
This competition is now closed, check out our PNY graphics card giveaway instead.
Welcome to the PC Gamer Ultimate Christmas Giveaway! This is the biggest competition we’ve ever done: packed with peripherals, games, and exclusive items signed by some very important people. Why are we doing this? Because it’s Christmas! And we love you.
The Ultimate Christmas giveaway will run until Christmas Eve. Every day we’ll be posting about a new prize that’s up for grabs, and you’ll have 24 hours after the time of publishing to enter. Sadly, we’re only able to open this competition to UK residents.
Merry Christmas readers! Why not sit down, have fun and pull on a PCG cracker. Wait, what’s this? It seems there was a gift inside, four copies of Men of War: Assault squad! That’s right, we’re offering four special editions of this RTS to you lucky readers.
Check inside for details of what’s on offer and how to win:
US Army Dismounted Soldier Training System is the greatest game you’ll never play
We first looked a the US Army’s Dismounted Soldier Training System back in May, but two new trailers have just been recruited onto the internet. Or something. It’s all powered by the CryEngine 3, which isn’t just a pretty games engine, but a complete environment simulator.
The first trailer, above, is billed as an in-game “cinematic”. It features all your usual manshoot elements, but it does look rather gorgeous. You need to remember that the engine’s rendering huge areas, too, rather than Battlefield 3 or CoD’s comparatively constrained maps.
Syndicate reboot banned in Australia, BBFC yet to make a decision
Updated: Now including comments from the BBFC
EA and Starbreeze’s upcoming reboot of classic top-down tactical strategy game has effectively been banned in Australia – and EA won’t be censoring the game to ensure it gets a release in the antipodean country.
The decision came from the Australian Classification Board (ACB), who refused to classify the game. According to Kotaku Australia, the reason for the banning is the game’s violent scenes, which include dismemberment, decapitation, bisection, exposure of flesh and bone and arterial sprays of blood. Which all sound awesome.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 DLC to include new Spec Ops missions and “things that players have never seen before”
After years of pricey map packs, Call of Duty fans can look forward to some more varied DLC next year. Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling has been talking about plans for new Spec Ops missions and “a variety of things that players have never seen before.” Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer and Raven will all be working on producing regular updates throughout 2012.
“The way we’re doing downloadable content this year is unlike we’ve never done before,” he said, speaking in a Call of Duty Elite video spotted by CVG. “Not only in how you can get it – in content drops or choose for the collection – but also the type of content you’re getting.”
Alan Wake devs talk self-publishing and dodgy console ports
2012 looks like it’s going to be the year of the bigger studios self-publishing games on the PC. Rebellion Studios have already told us their plans to omit a publisher for the PC edition of Sniper Elite V2. Now Alan Wake developers Remedy have discussed the intricacies of their self-publishing arrangement for the PC version of the much-vaunted episodic Xbox 360 thriller.
Alan Wake was published on the Xbox 360 by Microsoft, so it seems a little odd that Remedy are publishing it themselves on the PC. We assumed that Microsoft’s vested interest in PC gaming (after all, they make that Windows thing) would put them at the forefront of publishing it, just as they have with Fable 3.
Left 4 Dead fan film features some surprising cameos
This is the full length version of the Left 4 Dead fan film that was teased two weeks ago. With Bill’s tragic demise, the Left 4 Dead crew are a member short. On the way to a safe room three blocks away they find a replacement. And then another one. And then another, until everything’s gone a bit mad. Which one would you pick to become the crew’s new fourth member?
Battlefield 3 Physical Warfare Pack released for everyone
If you pre-ordered Battlefield 3, you’ll already have the extra guns added by the Physical Warfare Pack. DICE announce on the Battlefield blog that have now unlocked them for all players. The flash suppressor for the SKS rifle isn’t a huge addition, but Support players will jump at the Type 88 LMG. The pack also unlocks the great big semi-automatic DAO-12 shotgun early with some bonus flechette ammunition, which will deal increased damage and armour penetration at range. All we need now is an Emotional Warfare Pack to add loudspeakers to everyone’s helmets for more devastating smack talk.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim patch adds support for extra RAM
One of the most popular mods on The Skyrim Nexus is the Large Address Aware patch, which lets Skyrim use more than 2GB RAM. Last night a quick patch was applied through Steam, adding official “support for 4-Gigabyte Tuning.”
“About time!” cry thousands of Skyrim fans. It’s been a long time coming, but 64 bit system users can finally make use of their extra juice, so to speak. Skyrim became the best selling game this Christmas in the UK this week, and it’s still the most played game on Steam. You can use the extra RAM to run some of the fancier post-processing overhauls in our round-up of the 20 best Skyrim mods, or to power the promising work-in-progress ENBSeries graphical mod. Bethesda are currently working on official mod tools for Skyrim, which should arrive early next year.
Humble Indie Bundle 4 adds five more games, soundtracks
OK, this is just getting silly. As if Humble Indie Bundle 4 wasn’t star-studded enough to begin with, it’s now added another nearly nuclear helping of bang for your buck. Specifically, the pot’s been sweetened with five games from Humble Indie Bundle 3: Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVVVV, And Yet It Moves, and Hammerfight.
BioWare: Next Dragon Age to have a more “open-world feel,” draw from Skyrim
Compared to Dragon Age: Origins, DA II was a bit… constrained. Kirkwall was nice and all, but the game’s wide-ranging adventure spanning a cave, a beach, and then the same cave again didn’t exactly make Alistair, Morrigan, and friends go green with epicness envy. It wasn’t terrible by any means, but it certainly left many fans clamoring for more. A lot more. And, happily, it sounds like BioWare listened.
How to enable anti-aliasing in Star Wars: The Old Republic
Don’t get us wrong: SWTOR is most definitely a pretty game. But, unbeknownst to most players, you can make it even prettier by tweaking a few files with barely any hassle. Want to crank up the game’s anti-aliasing to a whopping 12x, obliterating any jaggy edges and making full use of your graphics card? All you have to do is follow these absurdly-easy steps.
Left 4 Dead 2 custom campaign critique: Questionable Ethics
Of the pile of custom L4D2 campaigns I’ve played, Questionable Ethics has stuck with me most. It’s filled with surprise; a white-walled gauntlet of mystery and torture that you must, must, must download. I introduced Tyler and Chris to the four-stage campaign, then we sat down to talk about it.
And in other PC gaming news…
It’s Christmas soon, and everybody’s getting into the spirit, some more than others. CoasterBP certainly took it to extremes when he covered his house with 7,000 computer controlled Christmas lights, but we’re glad he did, because otherwise he wouldn’t have spent his time carefully synchronising them to the Battlefield 3 theme song. Best BABA BA BABAABA ever.
Check inside for a festively lit selection of PC gaming news:
Ultimate Christmas Giveaway: Win a R.A.T. 7 gaming mouse
This competition is now closed to new entries, check out today’s Men of War giveaway instead.
Welcome to the PC Gamer Ultimate Christmas Giveaway! This is the biggest competition we’ve ever done: packed with peripherals, games, and exclusive items signed by some very important people. Why are we doing this? Because it’s Christmas! And we love you.
The Ultimate Christmas giveaway will run until Christmas Eve. Every day we’ll be posting about a new prize that’s up for grabs, and you’ll have 24 hours after the time of publishing to enter. Sadly, we’re only able to open this competition to UK residents.
Look at your mouse, now look at yours. Does your mouse fully adjust to your hand size? Can your mouse add and remove weights till it feels just right? In today’s Christmas competition, we’re giving away two Cyborg R.A.T. 7 gaming mice, awarded 85% in PC Gamer UK 224, plus some Cyborg amBX gaming lights and a G.L.I.D.E. 7 mousemat to go with them, courtesy of Mad Katz.
Check inside for details of how to win this wondrous frankenmouse.
Ladies, brace yourselves. Secret wedding ring item added to Team Fortress 2
A sly Team Fortress 2 update yesterday added a secret wedding ring as a craftable item. It’s called “Something Special for Someone Special” and is described as being a “level 100 ring.” The item wasn’t revealed in the patch notes. Players posted their discovery on the Team Fortress 2 wiki after digging through the file changes made by the update.
