My strangest PC gaming problem yet: I’ve lost Games for Windows Live
The year is 2012, and yet somehow Games for Windows Live is still a thing. It’s a dark future, to be sure, but even so I never imagined I’d have a problem as weird as this: I need it. And I can’t get it. It’s hard to stay angry when you’re laughing.
I’m trying to play Batman: Arkham City on PC, an excellent game that was unfortunately developed in 1408 AD, the last time anyone alive didn’t know Games for Windows Live was universally hated. And it’s working – in fact, it’s working better than usual. It’s working without Games for Windows Live. That part of the game simply never starts – I’m not asked to log in, the Home key won’t summon it, the main menu option does nothing, and the game seems to function smoothly without it.
Ken Levine interview
This interview first appeared in PC Gamer UK issue 233.
BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter like its predecessors, but a less lonely one. You play Booker DeWitt, who is trying to escape the flying city of Columbia with a girl named Elizabeth before a terrifying steampunk robot called Songbird catches her. The city is a spectacular airborne flotilla of districts suspended by vast balloons – a testament to America’s cultural might, and its fondness for things that are big but not terribly useful. Our last good look at the game was a spectacular 15-minute demonstration at E3.
I spoke to creative director Ken Levine about why Elizabeth is the centrepiece not just of the story, but of the technology that drives it.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – PC Gamer’s game of the year
We didn’t see this coming. Stupid, I know. But when we got our hands on an early build of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I was certain it would be the game of 2011. Skyrim would be great, but it would just be Oblivion with a bit more snow. So now that it’s here, why does it feel like so much more than that?
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – PC Gamer UK’s action game of the year
Deus Ex: a game so good it gave us actual neuroses about its sequels. Invisible War, a shonky but interesting and sometimes hilarious shooter, became reviled as a crime against gaming for declaring itself to be Deus Ex 2. And when Human Revolution started looking seriously, seriously good, none of us could quite believe it.
The Humble Bundle guys – PC Gamer’s community heroes of the year
To give you some idea of how indie Wolfire games are, the rabbit-based kung fu game they’re making is not the first rabbit-based kung fu game they’ve made. It’s called Overgrowth, and it looks great, but it probably won’t change the indie scene forever. Their other project has already done that.
They launched the first Humble Indie Bundle last year, to enormous success: it’s just a bunch of great indie games, you pay what you want for them, and a cut of the money goes to charity. At first it doesn’t exactly sound like commercial genius – people generally pay about $5 for games worth at least $20 – but the good cause, slick presentation and friendly attitude created a perfect storm of goodwill.
Steam to host Skyrim mods via Steam Workshop
Bethesda have just announced that the Skyrim mod tools, the Creation Kit, will let players upload their mods to Steam’s Workshop service. That’s a slick, Valve-hosted database of user-made content that’s already being used for Team Fortress 2 models.
Players will be able to choose the mods they want on the Steam Workshops website, even via mobile devices, and they’ll be downloaded and installed automatically the next time you play. More details and the release date below.
Video: Skyrim’s pickpocketing gets sort of ridiculous
I’m a level 40 stealth character in Skyrim, and I’ve now honed my pickpocketing skill to the point that I can steal weapon from your hand and the the shirt off your back. In the Imperial castle at Solitude, where guards are using their weapons to practice and their armour to not be naked, this is funny. So I made a video.
Actually, it wasn’t quite that easy. Here’s why.
Dungeon Defenders review
The real heroes of the realm have gone off on a crusade, and only their young pupils are left behind to defend the Eternia Crystals from monsters. That’s the premise of Dungeon Defenders, a tower defence game where you place turrets to stop streams of AI-controlled enemies as they work their way around a maze to attack your base.
So instead of a Knight, there’s a tiny Squire in an oversized helmet and no trousers, and Huntress, who expresses her character by turning around and wiggling her buttocks. The intro warns that “these heroes-in- training will have to grow up quickly” – this might be too quickly.
Skyrim: A tourist’s guide
Skyrim is vast, and while there’s interesting stuff everywhere, there are some sights you can’t miss. When you’re done with the next leg of your current quest, or fancy a break from the frantic bandit murder, look up one or two of these and sigh in happy appreciation.
No plot spoilers here, but there are shots of the lovely scenes.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Todd Howard Interview
This interview originally appeared in PC Gamer UK issue 232. Alongside our Skyrim preview.
Playing Skyrim made me realise just how huge, fresh and exciting it really is. I asked game director Todd Howard how far it’s come from Oblivion, and what some of his favourite discoveries have been.
If Sony’s “Michael” ad was about a PC gamer
Sony’s new PlayStation ad – “Michael” – shows live-action versions of game characters sharing stories about the things they’ve done. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil more than that – it’s embedded above.
The costumes are impressive, but I can’t help feeling this isn’t how the characters I play in PC games would talk about me – or most PC gamers, for that matter. Saving the world, facing the gods, finding the good in a conflicted hero – we’ll get to it, but we’ve usually got something else we want to try first. I don’t have Sony’s voice-acting budget, so I’ve written the PC gaming version of their ad as a screenplay.
This is what Portal 3 should be
If the portals in Portal could take you back in time, a) your mind would break, and b) it would look like this.
It’s a video of a prototype made by game designer Arthur Lee, in which you can create portals by taking screenshots. Whatever you snapped is what you’ll see through the portal. Where it gets braintingling, though, is that the portal will take you back to the time when you took that screenshot. In other words, the portals don’t just fold space, they fold time as well. So that’s nice.
As Mike Rose over at IndieGames.com points out, there’s your Portal 3 right there.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution augmentation guide
Usually the modern sequel to a classic PC game ends up simplifying it. Human Revolution, however, doubles the number of different augmentations you could give yourself in Deus Ex.
It also puts more of the burden of choice on you: you can install any augmentations you have the points for, rather than just the ones you’ve found the right canister for.
So until you know how they all work, it’s not easy to plan your character. You earn Praxis points, the level-up currency, quite slowly at first, and there are no refunds for choices you regret. So I’ll talk you through the best augs, what they do, and what kind of playing styles they suit.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution has in-game advertising
Our of Deus Ex: Human Revolution review is now online – it’s awesome. But there’s one aspect of it that’ll change when the game launches this week (tomorrow in the US, Friday in Europe). Dotted around Human Revolution’s city hubs are large billboards, which currently advertise the game’s developer, Eidos Montreal. When it launches, these will be populated with ads for real-world products.
Eidos say they’ll be filtering them to make sure they make sense for the game world, and these billboards are in bright, commercial, inner-city areas – I didn’t see any where it didn’t make sense for a billboard to be. In a previous build of the game they showed placeholder Coca-Cola and Subway ads, and I have to say I didn’t notice them at all.
I think it’s a dick move to milk more money out of gamers who’ve already paid full price, but I also think a new Deus Ex game, one actually worthy of the name, is too important to boycott.
Which version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution should you get?
Deus Ex: Human Revolution comes out next week, and it’s incredibly, ridiculously good. Unfortunately, Square Enix have given retailers a confusing array of different versions of the game that come with different amounts of bonus content. To add to the confusion, Valve just released a huge batch of Deus Ex themed Team Fortress 2 items that you get for pre-ordering the game on Steam. And the ‘Augmented Edition’ means different things depending on where you buy it.
I hate this stuff. Apart from the confusion, it’s annoying to be made to feel like you’re not getting the complete experience when you just buy the game itself. But they’ve done it, so we might as well sort through the mess and figure out where you get the best deal.
