Was this the biggest week of the year for PC gaming? Between the release of both XCOM and Dishonored, the League of Legends World Championship this weekend, and the fact this weekly roundup is coming to you on Monday (but it’s still Sunday somewhere!), it certainly seems like it was an amazing week for PC gaming. It wasn’t just the big releases and events that made it special, either. Read on to see what other great stories you may have missed here at PCGamesN in the last week.
Out this week:
We absolutely did not review Dishonored.
Nor did we review XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
You can now enjoy the Mechromancer class in Borderlands 2.
This is an interesting bundle of Steam Greenlight candidates.
Big reads and hands-on
The excellent Tripwire Interactive’s vice president, Alan Wilson, talked to us about how to win the Making Something Unreal contest. This is something Wilson and Tripwire know a thing or two about, since Tripwire and their terrific World War 2 tactical shooter, Red Orchestra, began life as a contest-winning entrant. Wilson was also baffled by companies that block mod tools.
We looked back at the making of Doom and the early days of id.
Here’s everything we know about Blizzard All-stars.
Chris Roberts has returned to us! Better still, he has come bearing spaceships and a lot of big ideas in the form of Star Citizen. Roberts himself is very excited about the possibilities of modern game development. He has good reason to be: Star Citizen got off to a tremendous start with its crowdfunding.
We spent more time with Far Cry 3, and learned more about the story it is trying to tell.
The we managed the hell out of some football clubs in Football Manager 2013.
eSports and MOBAs
The League of Legends World Championship was a stunning event with a season’s worth of drama crammed into its final week prior to the championship. Riot were on the defensive after their playoffs went awry and accusations of cheating were leveled against Korea’s Azubu Frost. Then they had to reschedule their playoffs and find an entirely new venue. Then they had to deal with the fallout from last weekend’s cheating, handing down a stiff fine to Azubu Frost.. At long last, however, they completed the semifinals.
It was a hard week for Riot, but they consoled themselves by releasing figures and infographics demonstrating just how phenomenally successful League of Legends has been. Then they had an absolutely tremendous World Championship match between Taipei Assassins and Azubu Frost, and we were in the audience! Look for more coverage from our visit with Riot this week.
Meanwhile, the GSL Code S StarCraft 2 tournament had its semifinals, and the stage is set for a great battle between a living legend and an uncanny youngster.
Ilyes “Stephano” Satouri made a joke about having sex with a child and immediately found himself suspended by his Evil Geniuses team management. It’s not the first time Evil Geniuses have dropped the hammer on team personnel for inappropriate comments, having fired a caster associated with the team, Orb, for using a racial slur during ladder matches. EG deserve a lot of credit for the way they do not simply shrug-off inappropriate behavior as being somehow endemic to gamer culture, and therefore harmless. It’s good to see that even a star like Stephano doesn’t get a free pass for ugly jokes.
Interestingly, ArenaNet are talking about taking an eSports approach to PvP in Guild Wars 2.
Valve have launched a contest for users to create a new item set for a Dota 2 hero.
And more…
Blizzard had a bit of trouble with hackers going Old Testament on the cities of Azeroth.
We learned lots about the new Hearts of Iron expansion, East vs. West.
Hitman: Absolution is not kidding about its hardcore (“Purist”) difficulty settings.
The EVE store is closing at the end of this month, EVERYTHING MUST GO, but it will be back.
That latest TF2 Mann vs Machine update added quite a bit, including difficulty levels!
GameMaker: Studio’s latest patch will let you make Windows 8-compatible games, and you can export them directly to the marketplace. Just don’t try to put anything 18-rated up there!
Look at this crazily intricate Easter Egg in Battlefield 3.
CCP promise Dust 514 will outlive the PS3, due to a deep reserve of “crazy ideas”. Servers will almost certainly be offline come the heat-death of the universe, however.
At last, DICE have given players the option to do away with the Battlefield 3 minimap.
Here’s some need-to-know information about the “monster power” option that’s going to be available in the Diablo 3 1.0.5 patch.
Worlds collide as Dishonored’s art directors redesign London’s’ Shard skyscraper.
Another Spotlight on Greenlight.
Kickstarter is coming to the UK.