Playing games can desensitize you to the fact that they’re really an amalgamation of number and letter strings, each of which was painstakingly placed in the proper order. This Matrix-like wizardry isn’t often seen in full, but Daniel Tabár of Data Realms has done us the kindness of offering a window into the intricate labor that goes into coding a game.

In a series of three videos spanning nearly five hours in total (!), Tabár walks us through his process for adding the Techs feature to the indie sidescrolling shooter Cortex Command. You might recognize the game from 2010′s Humble Indie Bundle 2—now see a fraction of all the work that went into making it.

For aspiring game programmers, watching Tabár fly through source code making tweaks here and there should be a treat. Even if you can’t discern a line of data from the lucky numbers in a fortune cookie, it’s fascinating to watch Tabár work while he thinks aloud in a calm and informative tone.

Nestled deep within the brain, slightly above the singulate cortex and just in front of the Parietal lobe, there lies a small section of grey matter that the scientific community refer to as the “OMG spaceships” part of the brain. Shaped like a tiny Millennium Falcon, this region is entirely responsible for the feelings of awe and love that many humans experience when shown images of interstellar craft flying gracefully in front of planets, or in front of other, larger spaceships.

The wizards at CCP are especially good at creating trailers that reach right in through our eyes to tickle our tiny pleasure centres. Wait, what did I just write? Basically, we love spaceships and want to marry them. Eve Online doesn’t let us marry spaceships yet, but it does let us BE spaceships, which is why we quite like it. If you’re inspired to try it, you can download a 14 day free trial from the Eve Online site.

A little while ago we threw a spotlight on this gorgeous model of a Minecraft village, ported from Minecraft into a CAD program, and then built with a 3D printer. Now, there’s a video. A well-placed coin shows just how tiny the model is. It’s total dimensions are just 360 x 250 x 60 mm. D’aww.

If only 3D printing wasn’t so expensive, we’d find a way to carve a model of the glorious constructions on the PC Gamer server. We could stick some cogs in it, add some tilt-shift and shoot a pretty good reconstruction of the Game of Thrones intro, only with more Nyan cats. The model above was created with the Zprinter 650.

You can find plenty more images of tiny Minecraft worlds on the post apocalyptic research institute flickr account. Here are a few more choice picks from the recently uploaded sets.

Codemasters stopped by earlier with a preview build of Dirt: Showdown. It’s living up to its billing as a more accessible, rough and tumble take on the carefully simulated physics of Dirt 3. You won’t find any serious Rallying here, it’s all about going wheel to wheel with your competitors, ploughing them into barriers and boosting past them to steal the win with brute force.

We’ll have some more detailed impressions for you in a bit. Meanwhile, here’s three new videos of three of the different modes available in Dirt 3, including your racing, demolition derby and more of the 8 ball circuit shown in the last Dirt: Showdown trailer. Click ‘Read and Comment’ for more VRRRRRM-SMASH.

The Celts are coming to Age of Empires Online, and they’re bringing some mean weather with them. Snowy tundra that slowly saps your units strength will be a key part of the new missions that the pack will add, and there will be a wealth of new units, of course. Celtic priests will be able to sacrifice deer to help out your forces, and their new hero is capable of infiltrating enemy villages.

The Celts will be available as an army pack that can be bought separately as an add on for the core game, which is free to play. You can sign up for an account and download the client from the Age of Empires Online site if you fancy checking it out. You can read our verdict on launch in our Age of Empires Online review.

Every two weeks, we give you our verdict on whether or not the latest League of Legends champion is worth buying. Take a seat at the table with Josh, Lucas, and Hollander Cooper as they wax poetic on the joys of blowing people up with magical bombs as a maniacal Yordle. Could Ziggs be the diminutive demolitions expert you’ve been looking for?

The latest trailer introduces us to the co-op team we’ll get to play as in Operation Raccoon City. This is a different game entirely to Resident Evil 6, which is due out later this year, and both are separate from Resident Evil: Revelations game Capcom released for the 3DS. Operation Raccoon City will have you playing as a squad of promiscuous raccoons seeking to populate a city decimated by zombie outbreak.

No, my mistake, misread the press release there. It’s actually another story about stopping the Umbrella Corporation from unleashing a new virus on the world. It’s the G-virus this time. One day, the Umbrella Corporation will run out of alphabet and transition to selling garden storage solutions, setting up the next entry in the series, Shedisent Evil.

Riverspring is the setting for the latest Game of Thrones trailer. It’s the home town of Red Priest, Alester Sarwyck, one of the RPG’s two playable characters. The other is Mors, a member of the hardened, reclusive order of the Black Watch. The threads of their separate stories are sure to tangle in a campaign that promises “a twisting plot filled with betrayal and violence.” A typical day in Westeros, then

Cyanide have taken the dark fantasy label a little too literally in the eight new screenshots they’ve released, but if you squint, you can make out some scowling warriors and the worn stone of Riverspring’s great halls. The release date is set for “early 2012.” Wait, that’s pretty much now! The RPG could bridge the gap until April 1, when the second series starts on HBO. You’ll find the screenshots below, but you’ll probably want to click on this first to set the mood.

The SuperMes is a Channel 4 reality TV show about virtual housemates. The series has been created using the Sims 3, with plotlines based on the unchoreographed actions of the house’s four inhabitants. Gamasutra mention that the first episode is online now, and you’ll find it embedded above.

It’s interesting to see a major broadcasting house using taking advantage of procedural storytelling. Anyone who loves the Sims games already knows how good they are at generating ridiculous tales, and the SuperMes feels like a professionally produced after-action report. Chief creative Paul Brennun describes it as “a true collaboration between humans and robots” over on Televisual, adding “this is one of the most exciting projects we have made yet and points to the future of interactive storytelling.” What do you reckon?

Here’s a video Bethesda just sent over showing off the Creation Kit for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The video mentions extensive wiki documentation written by Bethesda staff and shows how Skyrim mods will integrate with the Steam Workshop. It’s exciting to contemplate the astonishing things that modders will make with the kit in the coming months. They’ve already been hard at work making massive changes to the game, as you can see in our round-up of the top 25 Skyrim mods.

But what’s this at 1:12, on the left of the centre row? Mudcrab armour? A familiar sight for readers who reached the back page of PC Gamer UK issue 232, drawn by the lovely Marsh Davies. The mod tools are due to arrive soon, which isn’t soon enough.

Freddy Prinze Jr will be playing new squadmate, Vega, in Mass Effect 3, triggering panic attacks among those who remember his role in the Wing Commander movie. It’s okay, he’s been in Frazier, Friends, Boston Legal and 24 since then. He joins second newcomer, Jessica Chobot, who plays reporter Diana Allers.

The voice cast video above is worth watching to see how closely the cast resemble their in-game counterparts. Vega is essentially Freddy Prinze’s face transpanted onto a hulking frame, Joker looks as close to Seth Green as ever and The Illusive Man is like a young, bionic Martin Sheen, or “Mr. President” to West Wing fans.

The cast will feature a few more familiar voices. Tricia Helfer returns as the Normandy’s AI, Yvonne Strahovski reprises her role as Miranda. Carrie-Anne Moss is Aria T’Loak and Lance Henriksen is Admiral Steve Hackett. See Mass Effect 3 characters old and new in the fresh batch of screenshots below.

Here are ten TF2 kill clips to make you go “whaaaat,” courtesy of CommFT. They’ve taken the best of all the kill replays submitted to the Extelevision site during December and ordered them according to their awesomeness. The list features some blinding kill streaks, a jammy but spectacular reflected grenade triple-kill, a remarkable string of headshots and a stunning three-rocket juggle kill. The list demonstrates how TF2′s calamitous physics can result in some baffling mid-air encounters. Only the very best players can exploit these to earn game-winning ubers and vital kills. It’s fantastic to watch.

I confess to almost writing Colon Marines here by accident. In a way, it makes sense when you consider that the tunnels that make up the Alien lair look a bit like a poorly lit long intestine. Time to file that in “best not thought about too much” parts of my brain and leave the CGI intro video above as a distraction while I make my escape.

If the rest of the game manages to capture the look of the film as well as this intro, then Gearbox’ latest shooter could provide a reassuringly authentic take on the classic franchise. Aliens: Colon Marines is, like the most uncomfortable bowel movements, very late. It was due to arrive in Spring, it’ll now hatch in Autumn. Our chests are bursting with anticipation. It could be awesome.

Main quests are overrated. You’ll probably get to save the world, perhaps fight a dragon or two along the way and all that jazz. We’ve done that all before. The real treasure lies off the beaten path, in all the extra quests and characters you discover for yourself.

Rubbish sidequests can feel like padding, which makes the whole game world feel insubstantial. Conversely, good sidequests can make a game world feel vast and interesting. We’ll have to wait and see which camp Kingdom’s of Amalur falls into. Will we be killing giant rats in cellars for meagre coin, or vanquishing sky-demons for magical plate-mail? US players will find out on February 7. It’s out on February 10 in Europe.

On Friday CD Projekt announced that everyone’s copy of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will be upgraded to the Enhanced Edition on April 17. This will add extra areas, like “an underground system of chambers beneath Loc Muine” and “a temperate coniferous forest in the Loc Muine mountains.” There will be new characters to meet, quests to complete and foes to freeze-bomb, and CD Projekt will release a bonus digital map, soundtrack, game guide and manual for good measure.

The trailer above is the new cinematic created for the Enhanced Edition. You only see King Demavend’s severed head in The Witcher 2, but you don’t know that he lost it during an awesome slow-mo action sequence on board a shattering, ice-bombed boat. Good stuff. The Witcher 2 is on sale on GOG for the next week or so.

Dirt Showdown bears the Dirt name associated with Colin McRae and, once upon a time, serious rally racing, but is really more of an arcade spin-off. This new trailer shows off an “8 Ball” course. It’s like those Hot Wheels toys where you’d launch cars down convoluted tracks towards a central crash site, where they’d collide and fly off to hit your dog in the eye. This time, you’re inside those cars, and some of them are spouting fire.

Showdown’s focus is on Destruction Derbies and “full contact” racing, with lots of ramps and choke points, and will apparently make use of “gaming’s most advanced damage engine.” Move aside, Frostbite 2! It’s due out in May and was announced with an announcement trailer a few weeks ago which looked a little bit like this.

I was just explaining this to our Production Ed, Tony. Basically, we’re just going to have to accept that in the far future things will be spelled and pronounced slightly differently. Sometimes, grenades will be “gernades.” Sentinels will not always be sentinels. Sometimes they will be “sentinals.” That’s just what happens and we should just accept it now. “NEVER!” Tony screamed, “NEVAAAARGH!” Then he beat his Mac to death with a dictionary.

These are without a doubt the best gaming typos made since … earlier today, when Capcom faced uncomfortable revelations regarding the release of their latest game, “Resident Evil: Revalaitons.” In other news, Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer mode actually looks quite punchy and exciting. Now I’m off to make some tee and write more wards for our wobsite.

There’s a lesson in this trailer somewhere, I can feel it. Something to do with not digging up ancient Indian burial grounds? Perhaps. Maybe it’s more to do with not building giant creepy houses and leaving them unattended for decades near an swamps full of tentacle monsters? No, I’ve got it. The lesson is: don’t go to Blue Mountain under ANY circumstances. Even if a man with a giant floating “!” mark over his head asks you to because it’s full of ghosts and spiky dogs.

The Secret World’s mix of mad monsters and modern guns is a pretty appealing and genuinely different place to set an MMO. There will also be lots of proper puzzles in it, some of which will require players to do some research outside of the game. Owen found it intriguing, but a little frustrating when he got his hands on it for our Secret World preview. We’ll have more on The Secret World soon.

Quantum Conundrum is being developed by Portal creator Kim Swift. It’s a first person puzzler in which you play a twelve your old boy lost in his mad scientist uncle’s underground laboratory. It’s full of safes, switches, lava and vast gaps with no bridges. This would be a serious problem but for the fact that you can switch between five dimensions, each of which affects matter differently. By switching between world on the fly, otherwise immovable objects like safes can be tossed, stacked and even surfed to make it past the mad machines and laserbeams that every mad scientist installs in their homes as standard. It’s all demonstrated perfectly in the walkthrough video above from Gametrailers, spotted on RPS. It’s out early this year, and looks rather good, don’t you think?

Kingdoms of Amalur will have a complex, chromatic score played by huge orchestras of 90+ people, but no farting Gorillas, sadly. See the orchestra doing its thing over shots of Amalur’s massive locations, and hear audio director, Grant Kirkhope describe what it’s like to write big music for a big game. You can step into the Kingdom of Amalur to absorb the musical ambience and hit things in the demo, available now on Steam. It’s out on February 7 in the US and February 10 in Europe.

It looks like the new Doctor Who game from Supermassive Games will only use two of the four dimensions the Doctor is accustomed to. There are plenty of villainous cameos from Who foes old and new, and it looks like there’ll be some stealth bits with the latest series’ creepiest monsters, The Silence. It’ll be out in March. No word yet on a price. You can follow The Eternity Clock on Twitter for the latest Doctor Who game announcements and you can follow The Talking Clock for the very latest news on what time it is in London.

I’ve heard talk that vanilla Skyrim isn’t pretty. Balderdash! Sure, it’s got a few muddy textures, but I think it deserves a ton of recognition for the scale and artistry of its environments. To that end, I’ve created a video featuring my favorite places in the game, which I’ve dubbed “Koyaaniskyrim.”

The only modifications I made were a few config edits to increase level of detail at distance, and console commands to free up the camera and mess with the passage of time. The tweak guide over at Dead End Thrills explains the config changes, and most of the console commands I used can be found at The Elder Scrolls Wiki. Here’s a list of the basics, in case you’re bitten by the Skyrim filmmakin’ bug:

coc [cell ID] – Teleport to a given cell ID (e.g. “BlackreachCity”). A complete list can be found at http://www.skyrimsearch.com/cells.php.
sgtm [x] – The “set global time modifier” command can be used to slow down and speed up time.
set timescale to [x] – Modify the speed of the night/day cycle.
tfc – Toggle the free camera.
tcl – Toggle collision.

A Game of Dwarves (or “Dwarrrrrves!”) is suddenly looking a lot like Dungeon Keeper. The trailer above presents the first moving pictures of Paradox’ new management sim (the first screens landed last week). Your role as invisible floaty god-force is to lead your clan of dwarves to prosperity, instructing them to build labyrinthine mines to safely progress through each randomised section of the underworld.

Each dwarf in your crew can be specialised differently. Master craftsmen can build your leader a glorious throne room and warriors can protect them. There are monsters underground, of course, and the deeper you dig the more your risk unearthing the really nasty ones. More details are sure to arrive soon, but for now you can check out the new Game of Dwarves section of the Paradox site.

If Wargaming.net can make World of Warplanes as addictive and accessible as World of Tanks, we may slightly doomed. The new trailer above gives us an idea of the number of customisation options that each plane will have, even if there’s no actual in-game footage just yet.

A batch of new screenshots have been released, though, showing a selection of planes in action. They’ll come in three classes, single engine light jets, heavy fighters and strafing aircraft designed to dominate ground forces. Check them out below. You can find out more on the World of Warplanes site.

Some Darksider 2 developers gather on THE PLAINS OF LIMBO to chat about the sequel’s new hero, Death. Compared to his brother, War, he’s more agile, more serious and more purple. He has access to niftier weaponry as well, including his “Swiss Army Scythe,” a pair of vicious sickles that can combine into a mighty scythe at Death’s will. The first Darksiders had some decent demon-bashing. A speedier, more exotic hero should liven up the formula a bit.

We’re not sure exactly what this is, but it we like it. It looks like a highlight reel designed to show off the skills of the ENSO team of stunt designers and performers, but it includes lots of shots of scenes involving Deus Ex: Human Revolution characters. There’s a convincing likeness of Jensen at 1:55 and Human Revolution boss Yelena Fedorova appears at 00:23. It’s not hard to imagine the big guy in the car park as Barrett.

There’s evidently a bit of a budget behind it. It may well be part of an official ad campaign or upcoming short film licensed by Square Enix. It could even be a fan project. Either way, we want to see more.

Rockstar are pretty proud of their animation tech, to the extent that they’ve hired a man to talk about it extensively over videos of Max Payne 3. He was chatting about similar things over the last trailer for Max Payne 3 as well. Perhaps they’ve just replaced Payne’s internal monologue with an animation-obsessed new narrator. The Max Payne 3 release date was set for March, but it’s dived slowly backwards through a plate of glass out of sheer force of habit, and will now be arriving on May 29 in the US and June 1 everywhere else.

In this Protip, Josh explains how to snag three WoW achievements with the help of furry little nature friends. How you proceed just depends on how thirsty you are for the blood of the innocent…so, how many critters do you want to kill?

Kill a few critters…

KILL ALL OF THE CRITTERS!

But I love the critters… :(

The first official Dear Esther trailer has appeared on the Dear Esther site, celebrating its four IGF award nominations and upcoming release on Steam on February 14. It offers a short but haunting glimpse of the island that you explore for the duration of the game. As you move over its hills and through its caves, you’ll uncover scraps of narration that resonate with the environment, resulting in an interactive letter of “love, loss, guilt and redemption.” It also looks as though it’s going to be the most beautiful thing ever made with the Source Engine.

Shack Tactical is a particularly wonderful Arma 2 hardcore community. Its guide-manual is probably the best resource for Armaers that want to play seriously. Above, I’m sharing Shack’s nine-minute distillation of a year’s worth of Arma: ambushes, missions-gone-FUBAR, heroism, and concentrated realism. Even if Arma or mil sims offend you, watch the hell out of this and delight in what PC gaming lets us do.

God, that Carl Gustav shot at 1:50 is nuts.

In this edition of PC Gamer Plays, we’ve harnessed the mystical powers of moving pictures to showcase one of our favorite mods: GoldenEye: Source. Check out the introduction above to set the stage, then find out why the remake comes so highly recommended in the following videos, which include a black tie duel against the mod’s developers (spoiler: they’re really good).

What is GoldenEye: Source?

Practice Round – The Man with the Golden Gun

PC Gamer vs. The Developers

It’s going to be a bumper year for racing sims. The ongoing progress of rFactor 2 reminded me of Project CARS, a fascinating racer from Shift 2 creators, Slightly Mad Studios, who are living up to their name perfectly with their unique development strategy. With no publisher to fund development, Slightly Mad have invited community members to invest in, advise on and write code for CARS in return for a share of its revenue on release. They released a new trailer yesterday showcasing their lovely engine. It’s looking veeery pretty.

In the blog post accompanying the new trailer, the team mention that they’re currently working on implementing night lighting, dynamic weather, tyre deformation, multiplayer and pit-to-car radio features. Find out more about the project, including the ways that you can contribute to its development, on the Project CARS site.

In an bold move, the worlds most secret society has released a trailer revealing itself to the world. In the latest trailer for The Secret World, spotted on Evil Avatar, the washed up, whisky swilling narrator describes the Illuminati with a nihilism and lust for secrets shared only by high level conspiracy members and ex News of the World journalists. That lust for knowledge will lead them into confrontations with The Secret World’s army of otherworldly foes, like concrete golems and knife wielding maniacs who explode into a storm of ravens on death.

Beyond The Secret World’s weirdness and hyper-paranoid premise, there promises to be some intriguing ARG style puzzles, which will tie in with real world clues. You can hear more in our interview with The Secret World developer Ragnar Tørnquist, and sign up for the beta via The Secret World site.

Opinions! We have a lot of ‘em, but we’ve somehow managed to distill our complex views on the big subject of classic shooters into a list of just five of our favorites. Note that our choices aren’t based on some all-encompassing algorithm which weighs historical context, impact on the industry, and public consensus—these are the much-debated personal opinions of each editor, and we’ve focused on choosing titles which we still want to (and do) play today.

Resident Evil did a fantastic job of re-inventing itself from its sluggish survival horror roots for Resident Evil 4, even though the resulting PC port was pretty shoddy. Raccoon City features Resi 4′s familiar over-the-shoulder viewpoint, but promises a much greater multiplayer focus.

The trailer shows a lot of familiar foes, including the long-tongued Licker and those great big Tyrant blokes, and there’s a Heroes mode that will let you play as old school Resi heroes like Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine. As the name suggests, it’s set in Resident Evil 2′s Raccoon city as well, making it a bit of a nostalgia-fest for Resident Evil fans. Hopefully the constant call-backs won’t smother a series with a proven ability to evolve. A PC version of Operation Raccoon City has been confirmed, but there’s no release date yet. It’s due out on consoles at the end of March.

In our recurring Three-Way video segment, three editors go head-to-head-to-head as they take on the same section of the same game with unique strategies and play styles. Once they’ve put their methods to the test, the editors convene to survey their colleagues’ trials and exercise their inalienable right to copious wisecrackin’. In this edition, Josh, Chris and Tyler tackle a round of World of Warcraft capture-the-flag PvP in Warsong Gulch. Josh takes the role of bodyguard while Chris heals and Tyler focuses on running the flag. Check out the introduction above, and see how the team fared in the following videos…

The Bodyguard

The Healer

The Flag-Carrier

Age of Empires Online is getting a skirmish booster pack. These paid-for bolt-ons normally add new races and missions, but this one will introduce a new mode that will let you and your friends fight a team of tailored AI opponents to gain XP and upgrades. The greater the odds you face, the more loot you’ll get.

The skirmish mode will also unlock all of Age of Empires Online’s units for you to play with, even if you’re at level one. It should be a good way to road test powerful units that you wouldn’t otherwise see for hours. It’s an interesting add-on to the intriguing free to play online RTS. If you’d like to try it, you can download the client from the Age of Empires Online site and start playing now.

In this edition of PC Gamer Plays, Evan and Chris spread the randomly-generated joy of one of our favorite games of 2011: Dungeons of Dredmor. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, watch the video above to find out what it is and why Chris still won’t stop talking about it, then spy on the duo’s misadventures in the videos that follow…

Evan’s Playthrough

Chris’ Playthrough

The perfect conditions for voice acting have the actors face to face, feeding off each other’s performance, establishing a degree of chemistry sorely lacking from many game performances. The latest episode of Bioware pulse goes inside Bioware’s sound studios to explain why that simply isn’t possible. With so many characters and so many voice actors in different locations, it’s a logistical nightmare. The video above explains how the devs get around this using long distance calls and lots of organisation. Skip to the two minute mark to get straight to the interesting bit.

It’s interesting to see how different devs approach voice acting performances. Bioshock Infinite has the luxury of having just two main characters, so they can afford to get their stars in the same room. You can see one of those sessions in this Bioshock Infinite developer diary. Bioware are no strangers to the voice acting game, they just took a Guinness world record for the staggering amount of voice work in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

There’s a strange fear that comes with picking up a flag in CTF. One moment you’re the hero, you’ve broken through enemy lines and snatched the one thing they were supposed to protect, then as a reward all your guns are taken away and every member of the enemy team wants you dead. Tribes Ascend’s jetpacks and speedy skiing techniques will let you get away from the enemy base faster, but if you find yourself in the sights of one of the assassins in the trailer above, there’s no escape.

It’s going to be a great year for free to play shooters, with Firefall and Planetside 2 on the horizon, but Tribes Ascend is a real contender. From what we’ve played of the beta so far, it already feels smooth, fast, and satisfying. You can register for the ongoing Tribes Ascend beta on the Tribes Ascend page.

Are your Zerg rushes constantly being hampered by filthy buildings? Stupid industrious capitalist jerks—always getting in the way with their “progress.” Stick it to Ayn Rand with this Protip, in which Josh teaches us how to clear a path with a StarCraft II tactic that’s as explosive as it is gooey: the Baneling Bust. Watch the introduction above, and see the strategy play out versus both Protoss and Terran bases in the following videos.

Baneling Bust vs. Protoss

Baneling Bust vs. Terran

We’ve dug into Valve’s sorta-sequel Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to try and gather some data on the only question we (and probably you, too) care about—what’s different? Within, we compare map segments, weapon animations and audio, smoke grenade opacity, bomb planting time, and other elements from all PC versions of Counter-Strike.

Tell us what other aspects of CS you’d like to see scrutinized, and we’ll get crackin’ on them.

Screenshots have been released, men have been slowly rotated, now it’s finally time to find out what Planetside 2 will really look like. The video above, from VG247, contains the first few blips of proper in-game footage (with a UI and everything), with men moving and shooting each other, tanks battling across a desert and even a bit of sky war, showing off some especially snazzy rocket lighting.

We’ll be able to do battle across Planetside’s vast levels for free when it’s eventually released. Planetside 2′s scale and ambition makes it one of our games of 2012. You can sign up for the Planetside 2 beta now.

In this recurring video segment, three editors go head-to-head-to-head as they take on the same section of the same game with dramatically different strategies and play styles. Once they’ve put their methods to the test, the editors reconvene to survey their colleagues’ trials and exercise their inalienable right to copious wisecrackin’.

In this edition, Evan, Logan, and Dan “Former Reviews Editor” Stapleton attack Deus Ex: Human Revolution as a stealthy vent-crawler, a persuasive chatterbox, and a gun-slinging murder machine, respectively. Check out the introduction above, and watch the team’s attempts in the videos that follow!

Dan: The Psycho Killer (qu’est-ce que c’est?)

Evan: The Vent Crawler

Logan: The Chatty-Pants

Syndicate’s co-op mode should provide the closest experience to the Bullfrog original. Sort of. The four player mode will put you in the shoes of the squad of agents you controlled in the old games. The trailer mentions nine missions based on the original campaign, as well as 12 “breach applications.” These are special abilities that let you hack into enemy equipment (including the chips in their brains) and revive downed allies. Like the weapons, you’ll be able to customise these with upgrades earned as you progress. Find out more in our Syndicate preview.

Too fashion-forward to allow your League of Legends champions to get caught wearing the same ‘ol attire day after day? Start the new year with a fresh look! In this Protip, Josh demonstrates how to find and install custom League of Legends skins to make your champions the best-dressed little warriors on the block. Check out the introduction above, and watch Josh’s complete instructions in the consecutive videos, as well as a rundown of the PC Gamer US office favorites…

Update: We contacted Riot Games to clarify their stance on using custom skins in League of Legends, and were informed that while there is language in League of Legend’s EULA designed to stop players from hacking or botting the game that could technically be stretched to apply to using custom skins, Riot does not actively enforce against installing custom skins, and doubts that they will ever need to. They simply want to reserve the right for extreme circumstances. Additionally, individual developers at Riot have, on multiple occasions, expressed their admiration of the modding community and the work that they’ve done. So you can install these custom skins with confidence, and we’ll make sure to keep you up-to-date if Riot’s policy changes.

How to find League of Legends skins

How to install League of Legends skins

PC Gamer’s favorite League of Legends skins

Nothing says large-scale futuristic warfare quite like footage of slowly rotating men. It looks like we’ll have to wait until the new year to see any videos of Planetside 2 in-action, but the latest faction vignette gives us an idea of how the three factions differ. You can choose to play as the sturdy, well drilled Terran Republic, the slick, high-tech Vanu or the desperate, under-resourced New Conglomerate. The Vanu’s love of purple alien weaponry put them ahead in my book. Which is your favourite?

Did Piranha Bytes decide to set Risen 2 on a series of pirate island so they could turn their studios into a pretend jungle? Possibly. The latest developer diary reveals more about Risen 2′s factions and creatures and gives the devs the opportunity to squat in the middle of their cardboard forests like real adventurers. The inquisition return from the first Risen game, and it looks like we’ll be choosing to side with them or the island natives over the course of the sequel. The RPG will come out in April. It looks interesting, but will we have tired by Skyrim by then?

Spec Ops: The Line had been lost in the sands until the appearance of last month’s trailers. Here’s another one, featuring more punching, occasional shooting and narration from a suspicious sort in a dark room with a microphone. Where do these madmen keep coming from?

The Gears of War influence is obvious. Beyond the unusual setting, it’ll be interesting to see if Spec Ops does anything new with the familiar cover-to-cover scrambling of the modern third person shooter. The treacherous dunes of an unstable desert city make Spec Ops stand out from the throng, but the early trailers are heavy with the tang of testosterone. We’ll have to wait and see if Spec Ops’ characters do anything to stretch the angry-bro-in-big-armour template. It’s due out next Spring.

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?

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.

Battlefield 3 publishers EA have commissioned internet video guy Freddie Wong to create a trailer for their uber-popular manshoot. Wong and his crew were given just 10 days to make the video, according to Kotaku.

And it’s OK. It’s the kind of gameophilic effects-filled extravaganza Wong is very good at making, but bear in mind that Wong is one of those people who probably thinks Michael Bay is good at directing films. According to this making-of video, it also had a proper budget, with real explosions and tanks and $300,000 lenses and everything.

Question is, is it better than CoD’s tongue-in-cheek but similarly Hollywood take on virtual warfare?

It’s time for the Smuggler and the Sith Warrior to battle it out in the final class vs. class video for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s Han Solo vs. Darth Vader. Who will prevail? The Sith Warrior, surely. The Smuggler can only run backwards so far before the Warrior’s leap abilities close the gap. For all the groin kicks and grenades, there’s not much an unarmoured man can do against a lightsaber … apart from call in an orbital strike from his own personal attack ship. Okay, perhaps it’s not so clear cut after all.

Players who pre-ordered the Old Republic are already past the starter zones. The Old Republic will go live tomorrow. If you’re based in Europe, you’ll find us on the Nightmare Lands server, if you’re in the US, you can join us on The Crucible Pits.

Do you fancy yourself a born leader? What if you could prove it, without the fake photo smiles, baby-kissing, or mud-slinging of real world politics? With TERA’s upcoming political system, you can set out on a campaign for control from the comfort of your butt-contoured chair. In this exclusive video, hear from TERA producer Chris Hager as he explains the ins-and-outs of taking office in an MMO. Whether you attain leadership through brute force or popularity, you’ll have a heck of a time working to please the people and get the server population on your side. But hey—isn’t that what politics are all about?

In our Prototype 2 preview yesterday, we mentioned that the sequel’s new star, Heller, seemed nigh on invincible. In the new trailer we actually get to see bullets bouncing off him as he uses his “bulletproof” mutation. Darwinism is badass when it’s sped up several hundred million times by an experimental virus. Prototype 2 is due out in April next year, and looks like it’s going to be at least as mad as the first one. Find out more on the official Prototype site.

Who could have possibly predicted that putting electronic chips in everyone’s brains would one day backfire? The Syndicate trailers are looking pretty flashy, but it’s still hard to tell how much choice you’ll really have when confronting your corporate enemies. Will it be possible to stride through the whole game wielding nothing but a biro, hacking into the brains of everyone who stands in your way and doing away with them using a range of inventive cybernetic Jedi mind tricks? Hopefully yes. You can check out the Agent’s less subtle armoury of heavy weapons in the previous Syndicate trailer.

Half leveling machine, half Sith Agent, all gentleman, Josh Augustine hit level 12 in Star Wars: The Old Republic yesterday. Tag along and see the semi-ethical adventures of his Sith Agent as we continue to livestream Josh’s review progress in SWTOR today beginning at 11 AM PST. Josh will also answer your questions about the game live as he plays; join the chat!

Watch Part 1 of yesterday’s stream here.

Watch live video from pcgamer’s channel on Justin.tv

Watch Part 2 of yesterday’s stream here.

Watch live video from pcgamer’s channel on Justin.tv

Battlefield 3 players have been going back to Karkand since the expansion pack went live yesterday. Those who pre-ordered the limited edition will be enjoying the new weapons, vehicles and “enhanced destructability” of Back to Karkand for free. For everyone else, it’s available on Origin for £11.99 / $15. That seems pretty steep at first glance, the same price as a Call of Duty map pack. Will the extra vehicles and weapons make the expense worthwhile?

PopCap are going head to head with the X-Factor this Christmas. Crazy Dave aka. Cray-Z is the talent behind Wabby Wabbo. It’s available to buy through iTunes now. Purchases registered between December 18 and December 24 will count towards Wabby Wabbo’s Christmas chart rankings. PopCap mention that “approximately 55p of each 79p purchase” will go to the Concern Worldwide charity.

PopCap point out that Wabby Wabbo “is believed to be the first hip-hop single ever released to feature a yodelling solo by a Yeti zombie.” It may also be the first hip-hop single ever released to contain just five real words (“heeey, gonna eat your braains”), and is probably the first to be performed by an animated character wearing a saucepan on his head. The official music video is above, which means you’ve probably heard it by now. What do you think?

Star Wars: The Old Republic’s early-access went live today, and we’d love to show it to you. Join our very own MMO mastermind Josh Augustine as he starts from scratch, streaming character creation and gameplay on the PC Gamer’s Twitch.tv page from 2 to 5 PM PST today. Watch as he opens his corrupt heart to the powers of the Dark Side and rolls an Imperial Agent. Or, channel your inner Jar Jar and troll the stream—either way, we invite you to check out TOR’s early game with us!

Epic announced a new game over the weekend called Fortnite. It’ll have a Team Fortress 2-esque art style and, according to Epic, is directly inspired by Notch’s indie block builder, Minecraft.

Fortnite appears to revolve around building forts to hold off waves of creatures that attack during the night, or rather ‘nite’. Whether the action takes place over two weeks is yet to be seen, but it looks as though there will be some creative building involved. In a tweet spotted by Eurogamer, Lead Designer Lee Perry says: “Minecraft was an inspiration for sure.”

Perry also says that chances are high that “weapon crafting/traps, lvl system, underground exploration, Boss fights, team survival mode,” and “rare loot” will be part of the game. He also tweets to say that Fortnite’s building system is “not scripted or just boarding up existing structures,” but won’t be completely free form. “Minecraft let’s you build ANYTHING, we are focusing on constructing ‘buildings’ specifically” he says.

Epic apparently haven’t yet decided a release window or platforms for the game, waiting for a publisher to get involved before deciding how to proceed. We certainly hope the Minecraft inspiration will nudge them into releasing it on PC, as it looks like an intriguing new direction for a company that has a reputation for mostly making games about very burly men in power armour.

From the trailer, it looks as though Fortnite might follow Minecraft’s ‘build by day, cower in a corner by night’ philosophy, with players looting a destroyed city for building materials. What do you think?

With a vaguely zeitgeisty spiel about home foreclosures and bailouts, domestic terrorist organisation, The Patriots, vigorously wave the “we’re evil” flag by throwing a bomb-laden man out of a window to be detonated among the civilians far below. Judging from this bit of CGI and the previous trailer, throwing innocent people from a great height and then exploding them is going to be a recurring theme in Rainbow Six: Patriots. Edgy!

Though there’s still no in-game footage, few solid details, and it’s due out in 2013, Rainbow 6: Patriots is already available to Pre-order on the Ubisoft shop.

Uh oh. Agent 47 has taken the drastic step of scratching off the barcode on the back of his head, thus removing any chance Hitman’s famously unobservant guards ever had of identifying him. There’s some confusion about what’s happening with the woman Agent 47′s trying to save here. First she’s in bed, then she’s in the shower (dead?), then she’s alive and being kidnapped, then Agent 47 goes all Leon with empty elevator and a lights-out killing spree.

I love the Hitman series, but I stopped paying attention to the story as soon as someone said the word “clone.” Who is the woman, is she a clone, and why do the bad guys leave two men to guard an empty room?

There’s one thing that the Reapers didn’t count on: giant indigenous sand worms. The big evil alien race that’s threatening to overwhelm the galaxy will be very familiar with Shepard after the end of the second game, but the big evil baddies have never read Frank Herbert’s Dune. Perhaps that is the weakness the allied races will use to defeat the Reaper threat. It looks like the third game will have set pieces on a scale that could rival the spectacular final acts of the first two games. Roll on March 6 2012.

Update: Commenter Crossngen correctly identifies the “giant worm thing” as a Thresher Maw, which I now remember fighting alongside Grunt in Mass Effect 2, though I don’t remember it being quite that huge, or especially hard to defeat. Maybe those Reapers aren’t so hard after all, eh?

With a new champion released every two weeks in League of Legends, it can be hard to figure out where your money (RP) and time (IP) are best spent. That’s why we’ve devised the Champion Roundtable, where we examine the latest champion’s mechanics and talk about what we liked or what left us unsatisfied. Join Lucas and Gavin as they discuss their best moments with Volibear, the armored polar bear champion, and whether or not they think you should pick him up.

Skip to the 1:30 mark to get to the punchy bits. The latest episode of Bioware pulse focuses on the animation tweaks the dev team are making to Mass Effect 3. Most of them are geared towards making Shepard’s punches the punchiest punches in the galaxy. The animation system will sync up Shepard and his victim, to ensure the following attack always hits the foe right in the gut. Pity the voice actors who have to act countless variations of “oof! Argh! Urk!” and “no not the face!” to ensure that Shepard’s enemies never sound repetitive. Pity even more the hordes of aliens that’ll be lining up to try and stop Shepard in March.

This is just a sneak peak of a longer fan film that creators Airsoft GI are planning to release soon, spotted on RPS. It’s been a great year for classy fan films, from the Fallout 3 film, Nuka Break, to Beyond Black Mesa and Infectious Designer’s recent Half-Life inspired short, Origins. From the looks of the trailer, this Left 4 Dead film could top them all. Look, Zoey’s even clutching Bill’s discarded beret. Poor Bill :(

Rift’s new Instant Action feature lets high level players form a group and embark on dynamically generated quests. Each task will scale in difficulty depending on the size and strength of the group. Form one large enough and you’ll be staving off hordes of enemies and wading through oceans of shiny new loot. It’s an interesting way to use the tech behind Rift’s dynamically generated portal invasions, and is just the latest in a huge rush of new monsters and zones that the devs have recently added.

Starting an Instant Action campaign will immediately teleport your party to Stillmoor or Shimmersand where the fighting begins. It’s a feature that Trion have been planning to add for a while, but they wanted to let the dust settle after the launch of the huge 1.6 update recently that added the Ember Isle zone. The developers seem determined to keep on throwing out massive updates and continual improvements on a regular basis, which is why Rift is one of the few MMOs left still charging a monthly subscription fee.

The video above shows off Croteam’s ingenious DRM solution for Serious Sam 3: BFE. It’s got nothing to do with secure-ROM, or product codes, or online validation. Instead, those who boot a pirated version of the game will find themselves hounded forever by a gigantic pink scorpion that can never be killed. The video above comes from RPS, who scooped it from DSO, and shows the terrifying thing in action. It might well be the most inventive DRM trick since Rocksteady coded Batman to forget how to glide in pirated versions of Arkham Asylum.

Freeze the video at 50 seconds in. What the forklift is that vehicle? Is it really a forklift truck, is it some sort of small digger? It got a subliminal cameo in the Gulf of Oman trailer, but we get a much clearer picture of it running over men in the new Wake Island trailer. What is it for, and why is someone driving it through a warzone?

The footage is from the PS3 version of the map, because Back to Karkand was just released on PS3. It’s hitting PC next Tuesday December 13. It’ll cost $14.99 / £11.99, unless you pre-ordered Battlefield 3, in which case you should get it for free. It adds four classic Battlefield 2 maps Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Wake Island and Sharqi Peninsula as well as a host of new weapons and new vehicles, including a high speed buggy, a VTOL jet and the strange little yellow digger forklift truck thing. Give us your best theory as to what it is in the comments below.

If you’re not sure if you’re going to splash the cash for the DLC, check out ourDC Universe Online Lightning Strikes preview to see what you get.

Tyler and Lucas sat down in our podcast studio to chat about an indie gem that’s temporarily silenced the orphan-like cries that usually rise from the PC Gamer Intern Pit. The Haunted: Hells Reach falls roughly into the same group of gory, cooperative, survival shooters occupied by Left 4 Dead, Killing Floor, Dead Island, and Serious Sam, but with a bit more kung-fu, from what I can tell.

Man, check that back-to-back headshot at 1:21. Nice one, Lucas.

Members of the PC Gamer team have been known to shout FUS RO DAH when activating dragon shouts out of instinct alone, making for a noisy office at lunch times. This man’s suite of Kinect controls actually use the dragontongue shout as a vocal cue, letting you blow enemies away with the power of your voice. You also get to attack by flinging your arms at the screen and draw your sword by shouting “LONGSWORD!” See all of this in action in the impressive demonstration video above, spotted by Destructoid. It’s easier to see how Kinect interprets his movements and turns them into game actions in KinectFAAST’s Morrowind video. If you want to mess with Skyrim’s inner workings yourself, check out CVG’s Skyrim guide and tips.

Do not adjust your monitor; it’s perfectly normal for complex calculus to flash before your eyes when waging war in Tribes’ high-speed battlefield. Today Hi-Rez publishes a video that expresses the unique, blackboard-like brains of skilled players in Tribes: Ascend. The game is due next year, though it’s sort of soft-launched already—you can access the beta immediately by pre-ordering or by finding yourself a key.

See some of our own skill shots in Gavin’s Juggernaut video from last Friday.

With only 15 days to go until The Old Republic goes live, it’s time to start thinking about which class to play. The latest video from Bioware tries to whittle down your options using the classic “who would win in a fight” criteria. For this round, they’ve told a Jedi Consular that an Imperial Agent thinks his dress looks silly, and then put them both in an arena to fight to the death for our amusement, earning 500 dark side points in the process.

The Imperial Agent is all about long range sniping and snide remarks, but hasn’t really considered the fact that the Consular can throw huge rocks great distances and do considerable damage with his lightsaber at close range. The Agent will have to use his cheatiest gadgets to get the edge on the Jedi Master, but he gets extra style points for the James-Bond-in-space demeanour. We’ve spent 17 hours with the Imperial Agent, so we know what he’s like, the scoundrel. Which one would you pick?

Associate Editor Chris Antista and I sit down to talk about the beefiest force in Tribes, the mighty Juggernaut. This powerhouse of a class touts Super AP grenades and the Spinfusor MKD. The real demolition starts when I wield the fear-inducing Fusion Mortar, the Jugger’s bread and butter of destruction. Watch as I delve into the action and illustrate why the Juggernaut is the thinking player’s tool of carnage.

One and a half minutes into the latest episode of Bioware’s regular web TV series, they give us a look at some of the improvements they’re making to combat in Mass Effect 3. New powers are being introduced to try and make each combat class feel powerful and unique. For classes like the Vanguard, upgraded versions of the super-satisfying charge move do the trick, but it’s support classes like Engineers that will benefit most from new toys, including deployable turrets and hacking tools that will let you turn enemy turrets against their owners.

That’s not to say the Vanguard has been left out. He’ll get a nova ground punch that will send enemies flying backwards. Bioware say that every class will get a different heavy melee move. The Adept can propel a single enemy across the room with a psychic attack, while the Engineer can set fire to foes, obliterating their armour. Mass Effect 2′s combat was a big improvements on the original. What would you like to see Bioware change for Mass Effect 3?

The trailer above shows how many of those guns will work, and the rapid fire shotgun looks especially cruel. There are also eleven new screenshots below, in which the player stands in the middle of Syndicate’s futuristic cityscapes, peering through the lens flare at the side of each weapon. Look ahead, there are men over there trying to kill you!

Yesterday we mentioned that the Eve has just received its massive winter update. Crucible adds new ships and visual lovelies like neon ship trails, updated ship shaders and new Captain’s Quarters interiors.

It’s a good trailer. If there was a big red button on my desk marked “resubscribe to Eve,” I’d probably have flopped bodily onto it screaming “TAKE ME TO SPACE!” at about the one minute mark. According to the opening message, all the footage above is torn from real battles between Eve players, as though CCP were camped out on a nearby moon with a camera filming the best nature documentary in the universe.

Watch the video above, and then read on for how you can easily do it yourself in an instant and without mods.

The game’s character creator is tremendously powerful, letting you play the entire game as the hideous chubby manbaby of your dreams. To help people share their best creations with the world, there’s a Saints Row 3 community site where you can upload and download those creations. There are a ton on there, with all the inevitable copyright infringement and naked people you’d expect. But there’s also the toilet.

The toilet wasn’t created by another player, but is one of the rewards you get for completing the game. Why wait till then? As the video above shows, there is no better way to experience Saints Row 3′s cutscenes for the first time than as a feisty hispanic toilet.

To get the character for yourself, simply sign up at the Saints Row 3 community site, visit the Toilet character page, and click “Add to queue”. Then, when creating a new character at the start of the game or via one of the city’s cosmetic surgery shops, select the option to connect to saintsrow3.com. It’ll hook up with your account on that site, and a short while after you added it to your queue, the toilet will be available to select. Enjoy!

The Introversion treasure hunt is over! By combining the secret numbers and adding them to the end of the url on the Introversion site, the debut trailer for their new IGF entry, Prison Architect was revealed.

It brings back fond memories of Theme Hospital. The most dangerous thing your patients could do in Bullfrog’s game was vomit, or explode a little bit. Prison Architect’s inmates will be smuggling in poison and shivs, on the look out for an opportunity to start a riot and escape. It wouldn’t be Introversion without a hint of darkness, and Prison Architect’s first mission certainly delivers. Read our Prison Architect preview to find out how.

Half-Life: Origins comes from the same team behind the excellent Beyond Black Mesa short film released earlier this year. It’s a short but evocative take on those famous first moments of the original Half-Life, the peaceful train journey before all that nastiness with the interdimensional portal, and the aliens, and the crowbar. It captures the workmanlike atmosphere of Black Mesa quite nicely, though the chap playing Gordon keeps reminding me how perfect Hugh Laurie would be for the role. Infectious Designer should ask him to do their next film, I’m sure he’s not busy.

The VTOL jets should also prove more effective against infantry targets than their speedier brothers, bringing air and ground combat closer together. All the more reason to get excited about the upcoming Back to Karkand expansion for Battlefield 3. It’s out next month.

This is the Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer, recreated in Grand Theft Auto 4, as spotted on CVG. The GTA 5 trailer didn’t strike us as a huge visual leap forward for the series when we first watched it, but it makes GTA 4 look positively dreary. I wonder what it would look like if someone did a similar recreation with a few GTA 4 mods installed. You’ll find the debut GTA 5 trailer below for comparison.

Rockstar say that GTA 5 will be their “largest and most ambitious game.” Hopefully it’ll hit the PC alongside the consoles. There’s no release date yet.

Class balance is the subject of the new Firefall developer diary, but it’s hard to listen to the disembodied voices of the devs when jetpacks and explosions are happening all over the screen. It’s not just the giant laser beams and group battles against invading alien vessels that makes Firefall so attractive, or even that it’s going to be free to play. It’s just refreshing to see a game that’s so damn colourful. Less post-apocalyptic wastelands and more mushroom forests, please! You can sign up for the Firefall beta now on the Firefall site.

As you can see in the video, I get about a dozen dragons in the air at once, all while maintaining a decent framerate (the stutters only appear on the video). Check inside for how I did it.

First up, BEWARE. Messing with the console can disable your Skyrim Steam achievements (though mine still work fine after trying this). If you like seeing those achievement messages pop up, don’t try this.

If you don’t care about achievements, the process is simple, activate the console by pressing the ` or ¬ key in the top left corner of your keyboard and type in:

player.placeatme 000FEA9B

Then hit enter, exit the console and a dragon should appear. If you want more than one you can simply hit the up key in the console to copy the last command, be sure to run around a bit when you’re doing it though, summoning multiple dragons in exactly the same place tends to crash the game.

Don’t forget to check out our other Skyrim console commands, I used god mode (tgm) here to make sure I survived long enough to get you this video. Thanks to Duncan Harris for letting me know the right commands.

Given the sheer number of people who have died in warfare in the course of human history, it’s fairly probable that soldiers have passed on in wildly random ways. Take this clip from Modern Warfare 3, pointed out to us by CVG. A knife is lobbed across a level, lands on a helicopter and then drops onto some unfortunate grunt below, like a particularly violent game of MouseTrap. Thing is, that’s probably happened at least once during an actual war (minus the part where the knife phases through the steel wing of the chopper), which turns this clip from hilariously jammy to faintly disturbing.

Here’s a true fact: if the Knights Templar got royalties for each time their cabal was used in a book, film or computer game, they’d have at least £100. According to some conspiracy theories, the Knights Templar already have that £100 in their underground lair, and they’re planning to spend it on some Henri Wintermans and a bottle of Bells to celebrate the fact that they actually control the world.

ANYWAY, VG24/7 have pointed us in the direction of a new trailer for FunCom’s upcoming MMO The Secret World, and it features one of the Knights Templar’s new recruits – Rose. She likes: “Long walks in the dark, Spilling the blood of evil and Fuzzy sweaters.” She shoots a monster with a shotgun. That hardly seems fair.

The Secret World will be out in April next year.

Notch pulled a giant ACTIVATE MINECRAFT lever on stage at Minecon this weekend, finally releasing Minecraft 1.0 into the wild. See that moment in Gamespot’s video of the Minecon keynote event. It also features Hat Films’ video retrospective, which takes a charming jaunt through Minecraft’s journey from a game about placing blocks into the phenomenon it is today full of netherworlds, villages, dragons and amazing multiplayer mega-builds.

The closing ceremony was also filmed by IGN, featuring a great big cheque for the Make a Wish foundation, and a man proposes on-stage 15 minutes in with the words “will you be my pork chop?” Does she say yes? Find out in the video below.

Poor Duke of Winchester. I know I’ve often started wars because I’ve gotten bored with a peaceful victory before, how about you readers?

Most intriguing is the promise of a bonus character and mission, presumably similar to Zaeed in Mass Effect 2, details for that one are being kept under wraps however. Check inside for the full list of bonus material.

Included in the special edition will be:

Physical goodies:

• Metal case featuring both male and female Commander Shepard
• 70-page art book
• Mass Effect comic by Dark Horse Comics
• N7 fabric patch.
• 4×6 lithographic print of the SR-2 Alliance Normandy

In Game content:

• N7 Arsenal Pack – Bring the firepower with the N7 Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, SMG, and Pistol.
• Squad alternate appearance pack
• Robotic Dog for on board the Normandy
• Mass Effect 3 digital soundtrack.

Click through for full details:

The update includes:

• The Ember Isle was once the home of Rift’s Kelari Elves, and has only recently been rediscovered. A volcanic Island full of ruined, ancient cities. It’s designed for level 50 players and features new monsters, colossi and zone events.
• New Raid – The ten player raid ‘Rise of the Phoenix can be found in Stonefield
• New Warfront Mode – Black Garden now includes the ‘Stockpile’ mode.
• A second tier of ‘Planar Attunement’, Rift’s post level cap advancement system.

 
More details can be found at the Rift site.

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.

Before you reach Pickpocketing 100, you get access to a perk that lets you steal people’s weapons. I did this, to all the guards in Solitude, and laughed quite a lot. Then I moved on, and kept stealing everything from everyone I ever met.

At 100, you get access to the perk that lets you steal what people are wearing. This is when it gets insane. I wanted a video of it, but I also wanted a video of stealing someone’s bow while they’re practising with it. And I couldn’t find anyone left who was still practising with a bow – just those few rubes in Castle Dour looking empty handedly at their straw targets.

I didn’t have a recent save before I stole those bows, and I couldn’t find any working cheats that would let me level an old save up to the point where I could do it. So there was really only one thing I could do. I had to break into Castle Dour, get into the dungeons, find the evidence chest, and steal back the bows I’d stolen from everyone. Then I’d have to go around the courtyard slipping them back into the guards’ inventories, just so I could steal them back on camera.

It worked. So the bows you see me stealing here do belong to the guards, but they’ve only recently discovered them back in their inventories, after being missing for about two months.

Rock Paper Shotgun have spotted a trailer for Magikca’s new expansion, The Stars Are Left. It promises, in typical Magicka style, the chance to ‘kick Lovecraftian butt’ in a new campaign. Time to get those ARSE mines ready, they are the only thing cosmic horrors truly fear.

Along with the paid expansion, there’ll also be a massive free patch that addresses a number of issues with the game, improves the visuals and makes the whole thing far more user friendly. Full patch notes inside.

• Fairy familiar added, revives characters after death occurs in solo campaign
• Checkpoints now save progress even if game is quit
• Chapter select added to replay previously played chapters
• Several improvements to the server browser
• Physics and collision detection improved – less falling through the floor
• Frame rate stuttering – should be less noticeable for some users
• Extended particle system with particle lights
• Improved light performance
• Several minor bug fixes, game balance, and tweaks

 
Will you be picking up Magicka again for the new expansion?