Latest Articles (Page 1714)

May 15th 2012 is the release date for Diablo III. Blizzard said this: "Starting that day, gamers with a thirst for fast-paced action and adventure will be able to purchase Diablo III at retailers throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. In addition, gamers in the regions above as well as in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil will be able to buy Diablo III digitally via Blizzard’s Battle.net® website." The Russian version of the game is delayed until June 7th, that's for digital and retail.

So that is who can buy Diablo III on 15th of May. Are YOU going to buy it on release? Or not? Speak!

Rocked by mortar blasts and raked by small-arms fire, the heavily-laden Bren Gun Carrier comes barrelling down the track towards us. Any second I'm expecting it to explode like a Roman candle, or lurch, mortally wounded, into a ditch, but somehow it keeps coming. A cheer goes up as it finally bounces into our shrapnel-strewn farmyard and the driver - a dusty sergeant major from the 9th Cameronians - clambers out. “I believe you gentlemen require 6pdr ammo and PIAT bombs. Private Stone?” When I step forward, the visitor tosses me a battered canvas bag. “What's this, Sir?”. “It's your old passion for Combat Mission, laddie. Don't you recognise it?”

Electronic Arts send word that their browser-based spin-off from the C&C series, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, has entered playable beta. Phenomic, who did EA's other F2P (EA cleverly called it Play4Free) titles, BattleForge and Lords of Ultima, are behind the project, which allows players to play old school C&C action in the browser, and work together to capture territory on some kind of global map. The beta only has GDI for now, but you can still harvest some Tiberium and poke about in the game's surprisingly complicated interface.

Trailer beloooow.

Battlefield Heroes has always felt like the poor man's TF2. But it keeps on fighting on, and today has just added the option to play as a robot. Accompanying this comes a new video, explaining the story behind this. Dr. Doktor (wacky!) is determined to beat the Royals by bringing in a robotic army, after winning the gold medal for cycling at the Olympics... Huh?

It's a Kickstarter miracle! Top-down post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 2, has managed to earn its Kickstarter funding goal in 42 hours and 30 minutes. With 33 days left until the end of the world begins, Brian Fargo's dream project has scooped its $900,000 target and is closing in on that first million. Impressively it's sold out all eight of the offered $10,000 reward packages, including a donation from Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, who did so as an apology for pirating the original game.

Punk's Not Dead is the regular column that looks at the snot-nosed, blue-haired, noisy frontier of game development. You know the one: that experimental, rude one, with the games about colours and nightmares. Speaking of which...

This time: Cactus.

So you've read about John's encounter with Mechwarrior Online, but how about seeing it in action? Head below for a battle in a riverbed. An interesting contrast with Hawken, I would say. This really is the year of the Mech.

And lasers!

First-person shooter meets strategy is a confusing concept. But having seen how Heroes & Generals plays, it's one that just might work. It's World War 2, it's Axis vs. Allies, and it's going to take months to win.

Mass Effect 3 closes off Bioware's epic sci-fi series with a bang, and one of the most controversial endings of the last few years. Many fans have been clamouring for an update that outright changes it, and not simply because the war with the Reapers didn't end quite as they wanted. Bioware maintains that it just wanted to get people talking.

So let's talk a little about That Ending, shall we?

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ABOUT SPOILERS.

Just a couple of years ago saying "the graphics are a bit blocky" was a way to put down a game, but now it seems it might just as likely be an indication of indie-success. It's been almost a month since we last saw something from the cheerily blockular Cube World, but now it's back with a "Monsters" trailer. That clever title should give you some clue as to what it contains, which is some monsters. A huge blocky dino-thing gets a beating from our sword-wielding block-protagonist, and there's a strong, strong whiff of things Nintendo in there. Go take a look, this is looking really impressive.

The Ant Experiment is one of the more bizarre ideas out there: an MMO in which players will form an ant colony, which means large scale co-operative mandible-ing and ant-based problems, like "Who signed this release form saying David Attenborough was allowed to film us having sex?", and "How did we get in this person's pants?" Indie studio BlackCherry are looking for your help to Kickstart the game.

Like everyone else, I'm eager to set foot into Guild Wars 2 as early as possible. I wastched from the outside as people enjoyed the first closed beta weekend and I'm determined to not be left out again. Now I can't tell if this is manipulative or extremely nice, but ArenaNet have announced that those who pre-order the game from April 10th will be given access to the game's weekend beta events, as well as a three-day head start when the game eventually launches. That exact date is still under wraps. What's not still a secret is what you get when you pre-purchase, and now I have an expensive decision to make.

EDIT: there's a difference between pre-purchasing and pre-ordering. Pre-orders, ie: putting money down, will only get you one-day headstart. To get the three days and beta access you need to buy it outright.

The DIRT Showdown team have released some more bombastic footage of their glitzy off-road racing spin-off from the DIRT series. Showdown's latest peek shows "Massive Damage Gameplay", which, as you might imagine, shows off the destruction model. The explain: "DiRT Showdown's Knock Out mode is revealed, featuring drivers using their cars as weapons to force opponents off a raised platform in a chaotic battle for domination. Eliminated vehicles can re-enter the fray by racing up ramps and jumping back onto the platform, where points are earned for knock-outs, hits and owning the ring alone." It's pretty, and silly, and pretty silly. The game is out in May.

Is it unfashionable to be cynical about free-to-play these days?* I'm a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to this stuff. I don't like the idea that game design, balance and content are all elements of a game that can and should be fiddled with depending on how many little chunks of money a player throws at the developer. I also think that the some examples of microtransactions are at best poor value, and at worst deeply exploitative. I'm open minded though. Especially open minded when the free-to-play game in question has got very shiny graphics, and lets you shoot robots. I sat down with Crytek's Michael Krach & Michael Khaimzon at GDC to find out more about their upcoming Microtransaction based game, Warface, and it seems as though they saw me coming.

The movie Cube, the TV show Lost and, Portal are all broken down and reassembled in CUBE, a Half-Life 2: Episode Two mod about self-assembling test chambers. Unsurprisingly, I spent a lot of time stuck, but in a good way. CUBE’s an odd one: accomplished and beautifully designed in most respects, but always on the cusp of crashing. Engine errors are as ubiquitous as new puzzles. I'm still working my way through it: there's hours of content and multiple endings to complete, but it’s worth picking up and persevering if you miss Valve’s elaborately designed roomy puzzles.

It's been ten years since the last MechWarrior game. Which seems odd, since the idea of stomping around in giant robots is such a popular one. But now the license has been put in the hands of Piranha Games, and it's going online, and MechWarrior Online is going free to play. I saw it in action at GDC, so read on for my report.

Levine describes this latest "heavy hitter" character as "sort of a tragic figure." The video goes some way to explaining why: a heavily-scarred gentleman trapped in a giant, ape-like robotic suit, at the centre of which is what appears to be a heart in a glass case. Threatening, indeed, but you really wouldn't want to share his fate. There's a bit of footage, and even a few glimpses of concept art for what the handyman could have been in other, hideous incarnations.

EA send word that their game of multi-player laser-swords will soon be featuring free weekends, the page for which is here. It reports that the first free weekend is "Thursday, March 15 at 12:01AM CT through Monday, March 19 at 2:00AM CT." There are some more details just here, most notable restrictions on chat options to stop you being a big old gold spammer, restrictions to "Origin World, Capital World, the Fleet, all Warzones, and in their first Flashpoint", and a level cap of 15. Should still be enough to give you a good free taste of the thing, of course.

It was with profuse apologies that I entered the demo room for Sins Of A Dark Age. "No, I haven't, I'm sorry," I said meekly when asked if I've played Sins Of A Solar Empire. Am I familiar with RTS games then? "Er, sorry, no," with more looking at my shoes. DOTA? "Barely... Look, I'm the wrong person for this, okay. But see: I'm good at taking information and writing it in an entertaining fashion." But here's the thing - by the end of my time watching the game being played, I rather wanted a go.

I'm starting to feel like an embedded reporter in Westeros. There are too many games of Games of Thrones. Cyanide's take is an RRPG (sic) in the same vein as Dragon Age II. The combat system's tweak to that format means that instead of pausing battles to pick the best strategic outcome, things instead just run very slowly. I believe it's their criticism of how long it took George to write that last book. It's also supposed to reflect the tension of the world's fights, as well as letting you direct friendly combatants and selecting stances. I've played loads of games, and I'm not sure that's possible. I had to put one book down after a chapter, then when I returned the next chapter made me do the same. It was too awful. Hold me.

We do like a bit of balloon war, and few games do that as proficiently as the awesome Air Buccaneers HD. The game's alpha version is now available on a but-and-try basis, and the work in progress has been documented in a recently video, which you can see below. It certainly looks fine. Mysteriously, devs Ludocraft promise something special for next week, but won't say what it is. Hmm.

One of the annual highlights of GDC is the Experimental Gameplay Workshop (EGW). Although not a workshop, and featuring the nonsense word "gameplay" in its title, it's an excellent afternoon of developers showing a big crowd some of their more esoteric ideas. I've never been in a room where excellent game mechanics receive a delighted round of applause before. Below is a summary of what was shown.

When buildings are collapsing and jets are being all "newwwwwwwrhghghghggh", it's easy to forget that the Battlefield 3 engine does small things as well. Subtle explosions. Personal blowey-uppies. I'd imagine that's the reason for DICE making the Close Quarters map pack: to show off their microexplosion technology. They spent hours crafting those mini-bangs, so maps that showcase them are needed: the Close Quarters maps are a series of four infantry focused maps set in, with added destructible bits. It makes me way happier than the ten new guns it adds as all I care about is the chandeliers.

I've been visiting various cities recently, which always fill me with confusion and wonder, then Dishonored made me think about how much I miss Looking Glass. Put the two together and this happens. Join me in a meandering word-search for cohesion and theme in the use of the city across Thief, and the selected works of Rockstar and Charles Dickens. Be warned, there are spoilers for all three Thief games.

Almost a year ago, Quinns told you that it would be a wise idea to read Matul Remrit, a collaborative storytelling effort from deep within the demented and ridiculous realm of Dwarf Fortress. He wasn't wrong and now it falls to me to tell you to watch the latest installment. There are still bits of word-text on the screen occasionally so do bring your reading spectacles but this is a short film detailing the dwarves greatest battle yet, a tale of death, bravery and tragedy.

It's a wonderful glimpse behind the number-crunching and complexity that illustrates why Dwarf Fortress is such an important game - it isn't scripted, but it generates so many possible scripts. I wish I had the talent to tell my tales so well.

I wonder how Kickstarter will deliver the money that's been pledged to Double Fine to make their game? The magic number of three million dollars has just been crossed with 11 hours still to go, so the Double Fine Adventure is go. It was "go" a few hours after it launched, so now I've rendered the term meaningless. Please strike it from your dictionaries. But back to the question at hand: Kickstarter will have at least three million dollars for Tim Schafer by the end of today's countdown, and they need to give it to him to make an old school adventure. I hope he's asked to a creepy mansion and has to perform a series of baffling tasks to get to a treasure chest, and in that chest is a thing, like a giant diamond, and in that diamond is, like, a cheque. That would be pretty sweet. They've released the blooper reel from the first video, which is your reward for backing RPS. With your eyes.

Spec Ops: The Line is on a mission to prove it's not just the sand that's gritty with this new "Community Gameplay Trailer". Whoever the Spec Ops community is, they're sick puppies, as this is nothing but a catalogue of human misery: Argos filled with skulls, a Littlewoods of pain, an Innovations dedicated exclusively to a helmet that stops brain matter from staining your nice rug. Bad things might go down in the desert, but you won't have to worry about worming bits of lobe out your finest shag with the Brain Buster! Act now and get Butt Blaster, the amazing all-in-one rifle butt cleaner and clockwork radio.

You've read the interview (right?), some of you have even tried to throw money at the screen, and now the screen will actually accept your money if this is something you'd like to support. The Kickstarter page for Wasteland 2 is now live and is currently receiving about $1,000 per sentence I write, which means I should stop writing sentences and just paste in the link. The page has details of the incentives, quotes one of our readers, and also contains an informative and rather amusing video that explains why Fargo wants to make the game, and also recreates the difficulties he's had convincing publishers that the world wants a Wasteland sequel. "There was a Fallout 1 and 2?"

This could be the most important thing you read today, unless you're planning to operate dangerous machinery and haven't peeked at the instructions yet. Actually, forget that, this is still more important. That is providing you're the sort of handsome individual who enjoys survival sims, hex-based RPGs, post-apocalyptic scavenging and turn-based everything. If you like any of those delicacies, I have just the thing for you. It's called NEO Scavenger, you can try the demo in your browser here or read on to discover more.

Games backed by the collective of successful, experienced, indie developers funding game projects that they believe in, Indie Fund, have started to release to great success. What better time to catch up with one of the fund's partners, Braid designer Jonathan Blow, to find out more about where they're at, and get an insight into their process for funding games. Here he is sharing about some of what goes on behind the scenes, what it takes to get their money, and what direction the fund might be heading in the future.