Before it officially launches on 20 June, Cryptic’s MMO conversion of Bioware’s Neverwinter games will be receiving a huge patch and content update. The free content release is aimed at players who have managed through to level 60 already and are looking for PvE and PvP to entertain themselves. The patch is addressing the multitude of bugs and balance issues that have been highlighted since Neverwinter entered open beta at the beginning of May.
Read and Comment
Not one for small iterations but still a fan of the decimal point, Maxis have released SimCity 5.0, the latest in a long line of patches fixing the many bugs present in the game at release. This latest patch addresses things like the fire advisor telling you “that neighbors are sending fire trucks when your neighbor has no fire stations." Those tricksy fire advistors.
It also adds some new features, like historic price charts, overhauling the chat system, and letting you filter friends in server menus.
Read and Comment
Ubisoft have posted a picture of Beyond Good & Evil’s Pey’J to their Facebook page along with the message “We’re a bit busy prepping for E3. Time to call in some reinforcements.” Strongly suggesting that we’ll finally hear something about the sequel to fantastic action game from Rayman creator Michel Ancel.
Of course, it could be a Ubi employee having a bit of fun with the community. If that’s the case we need to track down this comedian and make sure they’re the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Read and Comment
Welcome once again to PCGamesN’s Spotlight on Greenlight, our regular Saturday feature where we look at the best and the most interesting Greenlight games that are hoping to make their way onto Steam. We’ve already looked at dozens of other titles in weeks past, so do take a look at our back catalogue.
Paranautical Activity is a cruel game, like all good roguelikes are. It wears you down with room after room of monsters - stripping your health, armour, and ammo until you’re left a hair’s breadth from death - and then it offers you a choice: fight the boss and leave this hellish floor or explore one more room. After all, maybe that next room will contain a health drop, a new shield, enough gold for you to buy that upgrade in the shop.
It’s all a tease, though. You walk into the room, the doors lock, and you’re surrounded by spiders. Exploding spiders. And it was all your own stupid fault for not choosing to fight the boss.
Failure stings all the more when you had a choice.
Read and Comment
Potentially excellent news: Epic have officially added support for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to their Unreal Engine 4 technology. Considering it is Epic’s engines that power a whole slew of each year’s major releases, and their Unreal Developers Kit sits underneath a great many indie games, this could mean the majority of future games running on this tech will come with Oculus Rift support.
Read and Comment
Procedurally generated scare’em’up Daylight will be ready to make your pants wet (from fear, not the other kind of damp) in early 2014. Developer Zombie managed to get the attention of publisher Atlas with their Unreal Engine 4-powered game and with that acquired the funds to turn their prototype into a fully-fledged game.
Read and Comment
Since Jay Wilson transferred to another project within Blizzard in January Diablo 3 has been without a game director. The publisher has finally announced that they’ve found a replacement, Josh Mosqueira. Previously in charge of development of Diablo 3’s console release, Mosqueira has moved up to direct the future of the entire game.
In his open letter to the fans of Diablo 3, Mosqueira details his plans for the game’s future: “We want items to feel more meaningful, and we want players to be excited about the next loot drop.”
Read and Comment
With the launch of custom arenas and spectator mode, PvP in Guild Wars 2 is becoming progressively more eSports-y. Sprouting up around the newly enabled arena bouts are a group of shoutcasters, acting as commentators for this virtual violence.
Arenanet are now reaching out to that burgeoning community, “authorising” some of the more vocal members, and granting them privileged access to broadcast bouts between highly rated teams.
Read and Comment
Fans of Richard Garriott’s MMO Tabula Rasa are massing in an attempt to gain the attention of publisher NCSoft. The fans want their game switched back on and they’re willing to do anything to get it (so long as ‘anything’ is signing an online petition).
Closing in on their first 1,000 signatures, the plan is to hit 10,000 and prove to the publisher that there’s a fan base calling for the game’s revival.
Read and Comment
Spotlight
?Our Spotlight units plug content our journalists have made, that our advertisers want to promote. Sometimes the promotion is paid for, but the content they go to is always independent with no client oversight or approval.
Techland’s recently announced parkour-infused zombie/plague victim game Dying Light has got itself a debut trailer. It’s a pre-rendered affair but hints at the tone of the final game, as well as just how it will differentiate itself from their last game, Dead Island.
Read and Comment
Metal Gear and the PC have been uncomfortable bedfellows for years; beyond a port of Metal Gear Solid many yonks ago none of Kojima’s famed stealth series have graced our platform of choice. Aiming to remedy some of that ill, Kojima Productions and PlatinumGames’ slice’n’dice heavy Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is soon to come to the PC and with added goodies to reward our patience (it was originally released on consoles back in February).
Though, those goodies do suggest the developers aren’t up to scratch with what our machines are capable of.
Read and Comment
Telltale’s teasing continues with a fourth The Walking Dead character reveal. Adding more meat to the shambling bones, a Steam database listing reveals The Walking Dead: 400 Days DLC. The jigsaw puzzle is ever closer to completion.
Read and Comment
Online FPS Tactical Intervention will cease all action on 10th June after a difficult struggle to maintain an active player base. The game, developed by original Counter-Strike co-creator Minh ‘Gooseman’ Le, has been published and maintained by OGPlanet since last year, but despite positive press and beta testing, OGPlanet have decided to part ways with the game.
Read and Comment
The developer behind Champions Online has set up a new studio in Seattle. Publisher Perfect World Entertainment and developer Cryptic Studios have opened the new studio, called Cryptic North, to work on the continued development of their most popular game Champions Online, as well as supporting Star Trek Online and Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter.
Read and Comment
WildStar developer Carbine Studios is on a mission to provide a new home for the 1.3 million subscribers that have abandoned World of WarCraft between February and April this year.
Read and Comment
ArenaNet have been detailing their plans for the future of their World vs. World mode in Guild Wars 2. WvW designer Devon Carver explains that he wants to push the mode towards a future where play is more balanced and fair; a future where victory doesn’t hinge on who has more siege weapons or the biggest zerg mob.
Read and Comment
Publisher Interplay have activated their tractor beams and pulled in the abandoned space vessel once known as Freespace for a mere $7,500. The classic PC series is known to be the last of the ‘Space Combat Game’ design, before almost all traces of the model were wiped out during the invasion of the World War II Shooters.
Read and Comment
In the evening, after a day of multiplayer warfare in EU IV, we’re taken on a tour of Sweden’s Royal Armory. It’s a fascinating place, with history so close you can almost touch it. It is also a mausoleum to an unlikely empire that briefly rode the tide of history to preeminence in northern Europe. In one corner under soft lights stands a dashing uniform of dark blue wool, with a long night-colored cloak, and tall, narrow boots. Charles XII died in that uniform on a cold night in Norway in 1718, inspecting some of his siege lines during his doomed effort to stave off the end of the Swedish Empire. It remains exactly as it was at the moment of his death, spattered with the mud of the trenches.
There’s a romanticism to this place, and it’s one that Europa Universalis and many games about history share. They tell stories of how nations rise to power, how they struggle with their neighbors and conquer new, unknown lands. It’s right there in the name: the Europa Universalis series is the story of how the West conquered the world and came to dominate the modern era.
That story can be glorious, but it is just as often squalid and vicious, and sometimes I wonder at what our love of these games says about those of us who play them.
Read and Comment
Kickstarter success story Planetary Annihilation has started its quest for galactic conquest by opening the gates to its alpha stage. Backers and pre-purchasers of the game’s Galactic and Cosmic editions should all have received their alpha key codes by the end of today.
Read and Comment
Spotlight
?Our Spotlight units plug content our journalists have made, that our advertisers want to promote. Sometimes the promotion is paid for, but the content they go to is always independent with no client oversight or approval.
Seth Sivak was a lead game designer at social games monolith Zynga before the fall, responsible for Indiana Jones Adventure World. Now he’s CEO of Proletariat Inc., a studio which makes iOS games with names like Letter Rush.
But before all that, in a game design class at grad school, he made Portal: The Board Game.
Read and Comment
Pages
