Speaking at Gamescom last month, Riot’s CEO Brandon Beck told us that it’s not just bigger cash prizes and larger competitions that will attract more fans to e-sports, but also the ability of e-commentators to help spectators understand and relate to the game.
Announced at Gamescom, League of Legend’s next champion, Syndra, is now available to take for a spin on the public test servers. She’s a pretty big departure from the normal style of champion that Riot put out, focusing a huge amount of placement and skillshots rather than directed abilities, so it’s going to be pretty interesting to see how she fares when she goes live, probably with next week’s patch.
Battlefield 3: Armored Kill is a month away and we've still only had the barest of glimpses of the new maps in action. Maps which are larger than any other Battlefield release so far; maps which will push us back into the driver's seat of some of the meatiest machines on the PC; and maps which are looking so very pretty.
So a seven minute video of the game in action should be something to get excited about, right? Well yes, if all we needed were shapes and colours (man, I love shapes and colours) but we need words too, and the darn thing's in French. Never fear, according to my university elective in Beginner's French, I speak it at a 2:1 level. Even if I did get through my speaking exam without using any verbs.
In his first ever appearance at the IEM, Mvp, a 21 year old Korean and veteran of the original Starcraft, has taken the win over Nerchio, nabbing himself the pot and demonstrating once more that Korea really does have a monopoly on high end Starcraft 2 play. 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.
The Intel Extreme Masters took place in Cologne during last week’s Gamescom, with eight teams duking it out to see who’ll take home the big prize and also secure themselves a slot in the grand finals of the League of Legends Season 2 Championships, which have a prize pool of over 2 million dollars. Moscow 5 managed the feat, securing their dominance over the League of Legends competitive scene, and also protecting their IEM title, after winning it in Hanover last year.
Did you hear what happened at Gamescom today? Everything. In addition to all that, Ubisoft have launched the open beta for Ghost Recon Online with a new trailer, and you can download the game for free whenever you like.
After days spent piecing a trailer together in preparation for Gamescom, it’s understandable that SOE might begin to feel a certain attachment - so much so, in this case, that they’ve given it a name: POWER. It’s capitalised, making it a surefire hit among schoolyard bullies, but a sweet parting touch nonetheless. And blimey, would you just look at the scale of the thing.
At Gamescom, Planetside 2 is squirrelled away at the back of the one of Koelnmesse's vast halls, kind of tiny and unassuming. It was, after a brief chat with DayZ designer Dean "Rocket" Hall, my first port of call. In the booth, SOE are letting players come and go on banks of PCs. But it's just running. Planetside 2. Just there, open to the public to come and go.
It works.
Be sure to turn off your data Roman (roaming) because these centurions are charging. You can have that one for free, Creative Assembly, perhaps as a snappy tagline to these exciting new Total War: Rome 2 screenshots from Gamescom.
Isaac Clark knows innards. With two Dead Spaces under his belt, the spaceship engineer has practically waded through guts, limbs, and capillaries. The point EA have tried to convey in the latest trailer is a subtle one, not easy to put into words. I'll endeavour to capture something of its colouring though: GIZZARDS AHOY.
Capcom's newest IP draws inspiration from science fiction stalwarts Blade Runner and Total Recall to create a tale of memory augmentation, corporations, and kicking men in the face. As the reveal trailer shows, blending Arnie and Harrison has unexpected results.
EA's press conference has just ended, and while it wasn't necessarily packed with announcements, it did point to EA's continued commitment to the PC. Here's what we learned.
Today at GamesCom, Io revealed what they described as “the final piece of the puzzle" for Hitman players - a new mode titled ‘Contracts’ that allows players to pick and choose assassination targets from within all the levels in the game, and challenge friends and other players to complete the kill according to the challenger’s terms. ![Half-Life 3 to be revealed at Gamescom? Errr... [UPDATE ANSWER: No, it isn't.]](http://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/halflife3.jpg "Half-Life 3 to be revealed at Gamescom? Errr... [UPDATE ANSWER: No, it isn't.]")
UPDATE: And, as expected, it's looking more and more improbable that Valve are going to be announcing anything game related at Gamescom. The organisers of the convention themselves have called the listing a mistake, along with the Dragon Age 3 mention, and Valve's Doug Lombardi, VP of Marketing, has told Lambdageneration that 'We will have the Steam team there to meet with developers and publishers. No game showing planned." And while some die-hard optimists might take that to mean that we might have a spontaneous, unplanned announcement, I think it's safe to say we can put all of our celebratory headcrab hats back in their boxes.
Top-down violence-em-up Hotline Miami will be released on Steam for players to shoot, slice, and punch to the hearts content. We just can't say when.
As PC players there are no two words that make our mouths water quite like 'Wine Gums'. And when do we most like to eat wine gums? When using mod tools. You better start stocking up on the the gelatinous alcohol because CD Projekt RED are showing The Witcher 2's mod tools at next weeks Gamescom.
Perfect World's free-to-play MMO Neverwinter will be strutting its stuff at Gamescom next week by allowing people to play the 'Storming the Keep' public event.Article submitted by: Tess
Blizzard have been quietly, modestly honing and perfecting their movie making skills over the last decade. They're now quite good at doing CGI sequences where a woman looks confusedly at her hands, and her hands start glowing with some nice wispy particle effects, and then she points her hands at a baddie and lots of magic comes out while both the baddie and the woman look surprised about it. So you should be excited that the opening cinematic of upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria will be shown on day one of Gamescom - that's August 16. It might feature a panda with magic hands.
