The Summer Bundle

I think I missed the last Indie Royale bundle but we have another one on the go now. This bundle is a fairly big one as well which will include 9 games and also some music if you pay over $8. As usual it has a minimum price which sits at about £3.60 at the moment. The games included are:

• Harvest: Massive Encounter (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
• The Journey Down: Chapter One (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
• Serious Sam 2 (available on Steam)
• Gundemonium Recollection (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• GundeadliGne (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• Hitogata Happa (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• Acceleration Of Suguri X-Edition (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
• Dino Run SE (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
• AirMech (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)

The bundle expires in just over 9 days 13 hours from me writing this so by my math it will end on Tuesday 10th July at 11 pm GMT or BST I can't remember which I'm in atm, it's definitely Tuesday night though I'm pretty sure it's british summer time now anyway. I am going to be getting this for Harvest: Massive Encounter as I have wanted it since last time I saw it on sale on Steam, Serious Sam 2 is also an extremely good reason to get this bundle aswell, I already have this so may just be giving my copy away.

Also check out Unfair Reviews video review (below) and also Backlog Journeys review of the bundle for more detail on each game.

Guild Wars 2 Release Date

This news has just made my day. Long awaited sequel to Guild Wars has finally got an official release date. So get the 28th of August in your diary as this is the release date of Guild Wars 2. I'm considering putting in a weeks holiday at work from then just so I can play the crap out of the game. The announcement was made on Arena Nets blog.

Humble Bundle Update

While I have already talked about Humble Bundle V in a previous post. We have an update on this frankly fantastic bundle. Now not only do you get Bastion if you beat the average purchase price which is now about $8 you also get Super Meat Boy, Braid and Lone Survivor making this bundle, I would say the greatest one that has been released so far, and I am talking out of the numerous different bundles and not just Humble. You will be essentially be paying $1 per game minimum to get all 8 games now included. Saving nearly $150 should you buy these games separately at retail price. Not to mention you will helping out a good cause with some profits going to both EFF and Childs Play charities. If you haven't already got this bundle there should be nothing stopping you getting it now. It's $8, just over £5 for 8 great games.

The future of Origin

I came across an interview with head of Origin, David Demartini on Games Industry about what the future holds for EAs digital distribution service, it's an interesting read. They want Origin to be 'the hub' for gamers and goes on to talk about cross platform though it does sound like they want to be something like Raptr which allows you to see acheivements, game collections, what you've been playing etc and rank you against friends. We seen cross platform gaming done, quite successfully may I add, with Valve and Portal 2 between PC and PS3. Hopefully this is a sign of things, I have been wanting this to happen since GFWL started (which I am still hoping will happen but I'm not holding my breath), cross platform gaming could and should have happened back then but alas Microsoft never followed through with what could have brought Xbox and PC gamers closer together, but I'm not going to get in to that rant now. EA are definitely big enough to fund this sort project, so maybe in the not to distant future we will see EA dabbling in cross platform games. I'm sure if one company sets the ground work for something like this others will follow suite. It needs to be done.

He also discusses Steam, talking about Valves raping of wallets... I mean sales and discounts and how Origin won't be going down this road. Saying how it cheapens your intellectual property. While I can see where he's coming from on the matter, I disagree with the fact it cheapens your ip, the fact of the matter is due to the fact that you are buying from a digital distributor the games shouldn't be the same price as they are if you are buying a hard copy. You have no case, instruction books or discs to make therefore no manufactor costs only those of for the upkeep of servers. I don't see how you can justify £40 for a downloadable copy of a game when it you pay the exact same amount for everything that comes with a hard copy. Then there is also the fact that we are in a recession and everyone can't afford to buy every single title that comes out at 40 quid a pop. Which is why I am yet to buy a single new AAA title this year. Purely because I can't afford to, along with the fact that if I wait a couple months it will be half the price, which points to his earlier comment about cheapening ips, but this is how businesses work. You set a price, if it doesn't sell well enough, you cut the price to increase sales, which is exactly what Valve do with Steam. Not every sale they do is ridiculously discounted they generally range from 10% and upwards, if we take the lowest discount thats only 3-4 quid off a new game. Then there is the fact these sales can rejuvinise games vastly increasing their popularity and even extending the life span of games.

Anyway I have rambled on enough for now, I am interested to see what Origin do in the future, I've never really used it so can't comment on how good or bad I think it is, however they are the new kids on the block and have to prove themselves and it would seem they are attempting to do that as it has had multiple updates during it's first year and looks like they are going to continue to do so.

Humble Bundle V

The latest Humble Bundle has a total of 5 games (4 if you don't meet the minimum which is just under $8 at the time of writing this), all of which are redeemable through Steam. The games included are:

• Limbo
• Psychonauts
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
• Bastion

All of these games are well known indie titles these days and definitely worth a buy if you haven't played them already (I can't say personally for Superbrothers as I haven't played that yet but I have heard good things about it). Bastion is the game you get if you beat the minimum and I would highly suggest doing so as it is an awesome little game.

Also this Humble Bundle is the highest grossing bundle they have done so far according to Indie Game Magazine beating it's previous record of $2,417,659 made during the Humble Bundle IV with 11 days still to go before this current bundle expires. Along with the games mentioned above you also get the soundtrack for each game included with your purchase of the bundle. Also check out Unfair Reviews 'Should I Buy?' video of the bundle for a little more info on each game.

The Graduation Bundle

So it is Indie Royale time once again. This bundle includes a total of 6 games and a music bonus if you pay over $7, you'll get Cheap Dinosaurs' acclaimed self-titled chiptune-rock album (which you can stream for free via the link above), though the minimum for just the games sits at about £3. The games included are:

• The Void
• Dead Pixels
• The Ship
• 1,000 Amps
• LaserCat
• AirMech

All of the games except Dead Pixels (an Indie Royale exclusive PC debut and LaserCat are available on Steam, and all but The Ship (which includes 2 extra giftable Steam keys) are available on Desura. Check out UnfairReviews if you want to know a little more about each game, each video is one a couple minutes long and worth checking out.

The All Charity Lightning Pack

Indie Royale have yet another bundle on the go and the profits from this one will go entirely to charity. What ever you pay is split between Amnesty International, EFF, Action Aid and Unicef. You can split your payment on Humble Bundle and Indie Gala between charity, developers, and the bundle company, only it is split between the 4 charities mentioned above instead. The games included in this bundle are:

• Osmos
• B.U.T.T.O.N
• The Shivah
• Blueberry Garden

All of these games are available as DRM free versions, or redeemable on Steam (except The Shivah) and Desura. The Minimum for the 4 games above is £2.63 as of writing this, however if you pay over $7 (about £4.30ish) you also get 3 bonus albums:

• Virt
• 6955
• Disasterpeace

So as per usual I will be buying this bundle as I do with damn near every bundle after I get paid on Friday. You have about 99 hours left to get in on this bundle so by my math it should end about 7pm GMT this Sunday. For a review of the bundle check out The Backlog Journey and also the YouTube video below, he covers all indie bundles so give him a subscribe if you want reviews of future bundles.

Blizzard and Valve Make Up

A while back there was some legal issues between Valve and Blizzard about Valve making Dota 2, Dota originally being a Warcraft mod. But this has been sorted out according to the guys at PC Gamer where I found out about this. (The italic paragraph below is quoted from the PC Gamer article about this linked above)

Valve will retain the commercial trademark to DOTA, and will not be required to change the name of their upcoming title DOTA 2, a stand-alone sequel to the Warcraft III map. Blizzard, however, will retain the right to use the DOTA name non-commercially. This includes promoting DOTA-style maps made for Blizzard games by the community. Their in-house DOTA successor, formerly known as Blizzard DOTA, will be renamed to Blizzard All-Stars while keeping the core gameplay mostly unchanged. 

The great Gaben in the sky has commented about this ordeal stating “We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” “We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

I don't like it when mum and dad fight and am glad they've kissed and made up.

Indie Gala IV

I'm a little late writing about this bundle as it went live a few days ago, can't remember exactly when but Indie Gala have a nice little bundle of 9 games (7 of which are available as Steam downloads) so long as you pay over the minimum which at the time of me writing this is $5.19 (£3.20). So paying even the minimum it works out at about 35p a game, how can you go wrong with that. The games included in this bundle are:

• Steel Storm: Burning Retribution
• A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda
• Alien Shooter
• Disciples II: Gallean's Return
• Altitude
• Really Big Sky
• Alien Shooter 2
• Wake
• Lunnye Devitsy

This bundle has just over 11 days left until it ends, so if my maths is correct it should be ending midnight GMT on Tuesday 15th of May. As I am currently skint at this moment in time that will give me plenty of time to find a few quid for this. Also If you want a review of all the games involved check out The Backlog Journey, he seems to cover just about every indie bundle in existence.

The May Hurray Bundle

Would you believe it? We have yet another Indie Royale bundle on the go. This one is obviously for the May Day holiday given the bundles name. This bundle includes the following 5 games:

• Dungeon Defenders
• Containment: The Zombie Puzzler
• Data Jammers: FastForward
• Brainpipe - A Plunge to Unhumanity
• Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

All of these games are available on Desura, and all but Weird Worlds is available as a Steam download. I would personally get this bundle purely for Dungeon Defenders, it's a multiplayer coop tower defence game, I have only played the demo but I have heard many good things from people who have played the game, this game has been on my list for a while so what's a better time to get it than during a sale like this. Anyway as with every Indie Royale bundle you can pay what you want so long as you meet the minimum which stands at just over £3 at the point of me writing this and the offer ends in just over 6 days time which is handy because I'm skint until Tuesday and I reckon I will be picking this one up. Also check out The Backlog Journey, there is a write up of all the games included in this bundle.

EA Indie Bundle?

Yes, thats right I used EA and indie in the same sentence. But according to Indie Game Magazine an EA Indie Bundle has been registered on Steam. Now I have always classed indie games and developers are those that are independent of publishers so by definition EA can not technically have an Indie Bundle as every game in here they are in fact publisher to and not developer. None the less they are apparently getting in on some indie game action as it seems to be quite the growing trend at the moment.

This bundle will consist of the following 6 games:

• Shank
• Shank 2
• Deathspank
• Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue
• Warp
• Gatling Gears

This bundle will cost you £14.38 saving you just over £30 if you were to buy these games at their usual price. You can also buy the games in this bundle individually if you happen to have some of the games in question already at a 50% discount of the usual price. This offer is running until the 9th of May and I would suggest if anything get Deathspank for cheap out of this. The other games I haven't played so I can't really say how good or bad they are, but Deathspank and it's sequels are awesome.

Should used games be abolished?

I was reading an article on Gamerant about how Crytek developers are in favour of the next generation consoles blocking of used games. While I understand why developers would want this to happen and would obviously be in favour of this: It could potentially lead to more sales of new games making them more money.

This has happened already on the PC side of gaming with the majority of PC games these days having some sort of DRM, be it Steam, Origin or Ubisofts always online DRM system which everyone loves to hate. The Point I'm getting to is that it seems that consoles may be taking a page out of the PCs side of the industry should rumours be true.

Since this has already happened over with the PC community and me primarily being a PC gamer, I am used to this anyway and it isn't as big of a deal to me as it is to a lot of console gamers. But due to the fact I can't buy used games on PC any more, places like Steam have realised this and took advantage with all there constant sales, now instead of buying used games I just wait until they go on sale and buy them cheap. My theory is if these rumours are true, consoles and developers should take a page out of Valves book and do something similar sale wise to keep customers happy.

At the end of the day though, I don't agree with this business practice. I'm all for companies trying to up sell their products it is a business after all and of course they need to make money. But to me this logic is ridiculous. Let's put this mentality into perspective shall we? Say I buy a brand new car, then after a while of using it I decide to sell it for whatever reason; to buy a better one, because I need the money or I just plain don't want it any more. Should the car manufacturer get a cut of my sale of a product which is rightfully mine now? No, of course they shouldn't, they set a price that they thought reasonable to make back the money the initially spent building it. Therefore after I paid said initial price the car would be mine to do whatever I please with. If I want to sell it on, destroy it, keep it forever and add to my collection, it is might right to have a choice in what I do with it as it now belongs to me. 

This logic is the same for the likes of books, dvds, furniture and damn near everything that you can physically buy. There are many places that have made businesses out of selling used goods, look at Gamestop, Love Film (renting by post, not the online version), used car lots, Blockbuster (not sure if they are in business anymore but you get my point), charity shops, eBay and the list goes on, that's just a few off the top of my head. But if you stop used goods from being sold you will destroy many businesses and cause job loses for even more people, which is exactly what we need right now (going to stop here or I will get in to a rant about politics and I can't be arsed with it). The fact of the matter is this does not happen in any other industry why should the gaming industry be the exception.

Theme Hospital

I recently bought this of GOG.com as it was only about $6 and I loved playing it as a kid. I dunno why but it seems a hell of a lot easier than I remember it being. I used to struggle to get past the first level with earthquakes but I've beat that one and got a fair few levels higher than that just since yesterday and I haven't even done the money cheat either, which used to get used a lot back in the day. There aren't enough games like this these days, the closest we have today is the bullshittery that are facebook games. I want a proper game not one I have to be friends with so many people to achieve the next level. Tycoon games are in quite a lul at the moment, sure we had the announcement of Sim City 5 recently but except that what have we had, Rollercoaster Tycoon was about 7 years ago, Hospital Tycoon was 5, Sim City 4 was about 9 and we haven't seen anything Bullfrog in over a decade. I want someone, I don't care who, to bring out a series of new Theme games with fancy new graphics. This was meant to be reminiscing about the awesomeness that was Theme Hospital, but I kind of went on a tangent. Long story short people should go buy Theme Hospital it's a great little game.

Shoot Many Robots - First Thoughts

A friend of mine suggested this game to me a while back and I am kinda glad he did, it's a fun little game. Shoot Many Robots is a side scrolling shooter and as you might have guessed by the name of the game the primary aim of the game is to shoot many robots (10,000 of them if you want the Shoot Many Robots achievement). There are many different types of robots starting with choppers which are small little robots with chainsaws attached to them which are normally found in large hordes, then we have Hummers which are annoying little flying robots that shoot rockets, then as levels progress you get bigger and harder robots in your path such as the hot rod, which is pretty much a gattling gun and can hurt quite a bit if you get the way of its barrage of gun fire and a number of others that I won't go into but you can read about here if you are interested.

The game is both single and multiplayer. The multiplayer is however just a coop version of the story mode. While playing by your self is quite fun and fairly challenging, but this game seems to me like one of those games that should be played with some buddies while having a couple of beers, it's fun, fast paced and quite chaotic. Perfect for those nights of drunken gaming.

Shoot Many Robots also has a leveling and weapon unlock system, which seem to becoming more and more of a trend with shooters these days which I'm not the greatest fan of, but I'll not get in to that rant right now. To get to the max level (50) doesn't take all that long, so long as you join in coop games on Hard or Insane difficulty, I went from level 1 to 45 in a matter of a couple hours, unlocking guns and gear on the other hand can take a fair while longer as they seem to just drop randomly in game (I believe it's when you kill the harder robots, but don't quote me on that) which you then have to buy at the store with nuts and bolts you pick up during your robot killing adventure, so getting everything would take awhile.

Overall it is a cool and fun little game definitely worth the £8 I spent on it on Steam (it is also available on XBLA and PSN and I would suggest it to others who are in the need of a distraction until that next big game they are wanting comes along.

The Spring Bundle

It's Indie Royale time and once again you can pay whatever you want for this little bundle of indieness so long as you meet the minimum which tends to stick around the £3 mark, give or take. This bundle includes the 6 following games:

• Unstoppable Gorg
• Depths of Peril
• Tobe's Vertical Adventure
• Inferno+
• Slydris
• Ballistic

All of these games are available on Desura to download, if you want Steam versions of the games you can get them for the first 3 in the list but the rest are currently not available on your favourite digital download service. But at a couple quid for 6 games you can't complain at all.

The April Fools Bundle

It's that time once again and the Indie Royale team are at it again this bundle as you may have guessed by the title is the April Fools Bundle. This bundle includes the following games:

• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Hack, Slash, Loot
• Alien Zombie Megadeath
• Explodemon
• Astro Tripper

Just like all the other bundles before it all these games are available as DRM free downloads, though you can redeem all of them through Desura, and all but Explodemon are available on Steam according to the Indie Royale site but doing a quick search in the steam store I couldn't find Hack, Slash, Loot. As usual I will once again be giving a few quid to get me some indie bundle goodness.

Orcs Must Die 2 Announced

Orcs Must Die! was one of my favourite games from last year. The idea of it is so simple but the outcome was such a fun little game. Now Robot Entertainment have announced that they will be making a sequel including all your favourite traps and enemies from the first game and many new ones as well. Not only will Orcs Must Die 2 will have a single player just as it's predecessor did but it will include a co-op mode so you can trap along side you buddies. This is probably one of the biggest complaints about the first one, the fact that it was purely single player. I didn't mind this as like I said before I loved this game and picked it up for a mere couple of quid on a steam sale some point last year, have to say was the best £3 I spent last year. I am looking forward to see a sequel to this game and hope it is good as the first. More information about the game can be found at the games website.

OMG OMG OMG OMG

I just loaded up steam for the first time in a few days and I noticed I had something in my inventory so I go check and low and behold I find an invite to nothing other than the CS:GO beta. So as you may have guessed by the title I am very quite excited about this. I don't know why I got a key I don't think I signed up for it at any point, but none the less I am not going to sit here and complain about it. So long story short I have CS:GO beta  and I am very very happy about it to say the least.

St Patricks Indie Bundle

So St Paddys Day is nearly upon us and not only do we get to celebrate the drunkenness of the Irish we also have another Indie Royale bundle on the go. This one is available now and we have just under 5 days left to get this bundle of goodness. The games included in this one are:

• Hard Reset
• Jolly Rover
• Vertex Dispenser
• DLC Quest
• Lair of the Evildoer
  
  The first three games are available on Steam, the last two however are not, they are available on Desura though. The minimum at the moment is round about £3, but as always it is subject to change. I would highly suggest getting this if anything purely for Hard Reset, it is a great little game I picked it up in a Steam sale a while back and love it. The other games would just be a bonus but as I said before Hard Reset is awesome and is a hell of a bargain if you pick it up for the minimum.

Just a little update.

So I've finally found myself a job, I started yesterday and due to the location, work hours and not too brilliant internet service. I won't be posting as much as I have been as I can't really spent all day reading the entire internet which was pretty my what I did most days when I was unemployed, well I could but I'm sure my boss wouldn't be too happy with me arsing about on the internet instead of doing my job. I will try and post something whenever I get the chance to so I might end up with a weekly update or something rather than trying to post something most days like I have been up until now. Also I have bought a domain name for the site finally, so you can now find my blog at playeronegaming.net or you can just keep on using the previous blogger address if you really want to.

Games That Need a Reboot

A while ago I found my self once again on the internet looking at random stuff as you do. I don't remember how I cam across it but I found but I came across a video on youtube of Brutal Sports Football. I loved this game and remember playing it back in the day on my old Amiga. Then I started thinking that someone should remake it. The nearest I can think of that has came close is Blood Bowl though that is a little too turn based for my likings. What I want is something that would combine some kind of American Football game with murder basically. That is pretty much the basis of the original game, you could win by either scoring the most within the time limit or you could just decapitate the opposing team. Someone really needs to remake this game.

This got me thinking over the next few days about other games that should get a reboot and I came up with another 4 games I would love to have a sequel. First one on my list is 'The Lost Vikings'. This game I think could do brilliantly if rebooted in to this generation of gaming. While the first two Lost Viking games where side scrolling platformers. If a sequel was to be made it would be cool to see it as a 3D platformer mixed in with Portal 2 puzzle solving co-op.

Carmageddon is next on the list that I would love to see a remake of. Next to Burnout it is probably my favourite racing game of all time. Racing around while running down zombies and trying to wipe out your opponents, what's not to love. I did find a game last year named Clutch which is pretty damn close to Carmageddon. Down the same road as Carmageddon we have Road Rash, a violent motor bike racing game which I don't think we have seen since the first playstation. My first experience of this game was Road Rash 2 on the Mega Drive which I spent many hours trying to get the best bike available, I got it a few times but that was due to me leaving the console on over night so I could continue my game the next day as we couldn't save games back then. It would be cool to see a reboot of it.

Last on the list is actually a series of game rather than one game in particular. The games I am on about are Desert Strike, Jungle Strike and Urban Strike. All of which are pretty much the same game except from the location and I reckon you could figure out what type of locations the games are set in due to the names, so I won't go in to that. The basis of the games is that you are a attack helicopter pilot and have to fly around doing missions such as destroying tanks, SCUDs, nuclear reactors and rescuing prisoners of war and hostages. It was a top down perspective game. I reckon if remade today you could make it a third person perspective, you could definitely make it a good looking game out of this. It would just be a change from the majority of games out there at the moment.

What if Nintendo and Sony got together all those years ago?

Sony and Nintendo were supposed to come together and make a CD drive attachment for the snes. Which no doubt would have been similar to the Sega CD attachment for the Genesis/Mega Drive. But as we know project never happened and we ended up with the Sony PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 instead, both of which are great consoles in their own right. The point I'm getting at it both Nintendo and Sony are two of the biggest names in gaming these days, and if they actually combined their knowledge and experience together, rather than becoming rivals, how would that have changed the gaming industry be today.

I have always wondered how things would differ if the two companies teamed up which would have lead to getting one mega console. Though this could be both a good and bad thing, on the plus side of things we would have two huge companies working together, with all the experience between them I could see some great things being created, though if they did merge back then there would have been a lot less competition with the possibility of them getting a monopoly, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

I believe the gaming industry may have been further if they did work together back then. Take in to consideration back in 2006 Nintendo released a console with motion controls and Sony released a high definition one. Today we have Move which allows both high definition and motion controls on the Sony side of things and the soon to be released Wii U from Nintendo which will be high def and will be backwards compatible with everything Wii. So if both Sony and Nintendo had been working together, we may well have ended up with a high def console with motion controls 6 years ago. Which leads to the question if that did happen where would we be now?

'Indie Face Kick' Bundle

We have yet another bundle of indie game goodness on the horizon. This one as you may have guessed from the title is the 'Indie Face Kick' bundle. Their site is pretty much a coming soon advert at the moment but does give you a chance to sign up for their newsletter and get on the waiting list that will notify you when it goes live. This bundle will appear to come with 8 games, but we do not yet know how this will be priced. I'm going to take a guess at it being another pay what you want bundle. The games which will be in this bundle (all of which are available on Steam, and no doubt will be redeemable there, just as many other indie bundles have been) are:

• Sol Survivor
• Still Life 2
• Booster Trooper
• PAM - Post Apocalyptic Mayhem
• Avencast: Rise of the Mage
• Dead Horde
• Runespell: Overture
• Greed: Black Border

Is 'Ripping Off' a Game Really That Bad?

IGN did an article named 'A History of Gaming's Most Shameless Rip-Offs'. After reading it I did the stupid thing of actually reading comments on a IGN piece. I think they have killed off a couple of brain cells, anyway that's beside the point and I should know by now that IGN comments are full of trolls. Moving swiftly on to my point, the majority of people seem to think that 'ripping off' games is a bad thing. I am not going to deny that a lot of games released have been near enough carbon copies of other games with slightly altered art work, to say that certain games are any more than that is ridiculous. Does that make whoever copied these games in the wrong? I wouldn't say so.

Say I was to start learning to develop games, I more than likely wouldn't start creating my own games straight away, I would attempt to recreate games that all ready exist, and if I did that it would be work that I actually created so is it wrong that I try to sell it? Again, I wouldn't say so. If I was to create a pong like game and attempted to sell it, I wouldn't see it as ripping off the game. Obviously I wouldn't say that the concept of the game was my idea, only that is was my recreation of the game. I can't remember who said it but 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. All these games stated in the IGN article are doing exactly that. Recreating a game that already exists shouldn't be looked down upon as a lot of people seem to do. These developers may start off replicating games but they may just move and to create that next big game you love. So at the end of the day just let developers develop. It is their job and/or hobby after all. Today they may be making a 'rip off', but the knowledge and experience they get from making them may lead to making that next big title tomorrow.

Valve are making a console?

A couple articles have popped up this morning mentioning that a new console may well be in the works from Valve would you believe. I really wasn't expecting this from the guys at Valve. I knew they must have been working on something as tweaking DOTA and CSGO won't kill all their time. While this is still only a rumour, I edge on the side of believing this as there was an interview with Penny Arcade I believe it was, where Gabe mentioned if they had to sell hardware they would. Now with the "Steam Box" rumoured, you start putting 2 and 2 together. If this is true and they are making some sort of console platform, I am going to put bets on now that it will have cross platform capabilities just as Portal 2 did between PC and Playstation. This is something that I would love to see, and not just from the "Steam Box" but all consoles. Microsoft could have been doing this for years with XBL and GFWL all they had to do would to counter the unfair skill gap between keyboard & mouse and controller, which is apparently why they never did it, would be to make the Xbox compatible with keyboard and mouse. It's not rocket science. Anyway I'm not going to get in to that rant because I've done it far too many times before and it will take to long for my likings. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this matter and I really hope they can pull it off because I could see this being the start of something awesome for gamers across the field. If they allow cross platform gaming I could easily see Sony and Microsoft doing the same at some point down the line to keep up.

Payday: The Heist Free Weekend

The Overkill guys are having a free Payday: The Heist weekend allowing you to play the game in full for free (who would have guessed) until Sunday at 1PM PST. This game is a 4 person co-op game where you have to pull off heists such as Bank Jobs, Diamond heists and escort missions. It is a awesome little game, which I haven't played for a couple months now, but I bought it on release and played so much of this. If you can get three of your buddies to play along with it is definitely a much better experience than playing with either bots or randoms on the internet. Along with it being a free weekend to try out the game, it is also available to buy at the discounted price of £7.49 or £22.49 for a four pack of the game, 50% of the usual price. I would definitely suggest picking this up, or at least give it a play over the weekend. This has also reminded me that I still have a draft write up of my thoughts of the game to finish off for this game I started a few months ago, I get distracted and forget about stuff, so I will get that done in the near-ish future (hopefully).

Games I've Been Playing

It's the end of the month again so I it's yet again time for me to do another one of these. I'll start off with a little Fallout: New Vegas. I've had this game for ages I bought it months ago in a Steam sale of some sort, but never got round to playing it, as with far too many games I own. Over the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working my way through it, and have just made it up to the Strip. I still have a way to go to finish off the game but it's definitely on it's way to the finish line and finally get off the backlog list. Next couple of games I picked up recently due to Steam realising I actually had money left in my account. They only got me for £15 this time but I got 3 decent games out of it though. Mirrors Edge, Serious Sam 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I got Serious Sam 2 to finish off my collection of Serious Sam games on Steam. Which is a little ironic as it was the first Serious Sam game I played. The story I don't really care for, but I prefer the weapons and gameplay in this game than other Serious Sam games. Next we have Mirrors Edge, it's a cool little game and I'm glad I got it. I've put a couple hours into it already and got up to Ropeburn, the first boss, though I am stuck at this part so have left the game alone for a while, this also is more than likely due to me playing a lot of Deus Ex which I picked up for a tenner. It was an absolute steal at that price. I am loving this game I think I'm about half way through now, maybe a bit further. The more augments I get as I progress the better the game gets. The augment that allows me to safely float to the ground no matter how high I drop from is by far the coolest one I've got so far. It's just the little animation and sound it makes, it is awesome.

On the multi-player side of things I haven't been playing that much this month until this past week. I've been getting back in to Nuclear Dawn which has had a couple major patches recently which included a new map and     some new items for certain classes such as the ammo kits for Engineer and hypospray for the medic, both of which are a great addition to the game, the ammo kit is especially helpful in the early portion of the map as it gives you the chance to keep your team mates supplied while the commander plays catch up. I've also been playing some Super Monday Night Combat got into the beta a few weeks ago. It has had a GUI update recently which does look a lot better than it's previous version. It's a great game. I'm really good with Assault, Karl, Support and Combat Girl, however I do need to practice with other classes, I'm currently working on getting Cheston up to scratch at the moment, he's a Gorilla with a tommy gun how can you not love it.

Steam Weekend Deals

This weekend you can pick up some pretty cool games for a fraction of the price as Deus Ex: Human Revolution and every single Serious Sam game are discounted at 66% off their full price. I have most of the Serious Sam games except Serious Sam 2 which I will be getting to finish off the collection, which is ironic as it was the first Serious Sam game I actually played. As for Deus Ex I played the start of it awhile back possibly on Playstation at a mates, I really can't remember. Seems pretty cool and I was a fan of the original as well. So for £10.19 I can't exactly say no. If you don't have any of these games now is the time.

Indie Royale - Alpha Collection #1

This little package of games only comes with three alpha games, so by buying them you will help the developers fund the development of these games. So upon buying this bundle you will not only get the current build of these games but also any future updates that happen to come available. You have just under 7 days before this offer expires.

Just like all the previous Indie Royale bundles it is a pay what you want deal so long as it is equal to or higher than the minimum which at the moment is just over 3 quid. Each game is available on Desura or as a standalone version for Windows, Mac and Linux. The games included in this bundle are:

• Towns

"Towns, a city building and management game mixed with an RPG that draws inspiration from titles spanning Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress and Majesty. Instead of playing the hero who delves deep into the dungeon, players oversee the town that houses and caters the hero's needs. Along the way, players can craft unique weapons, obtain randomized loot and build a settlement capable of holding back the forces that rise up from the active dungeon upon which the town sits." 

• 3079

"3079 is a futuristic, open-world action first-person role playing game, and an alleged lovechild ofMinecraft and Fallout, with a block-like world, futuristic action, and role-playing elements played in a first-person perspective. 3079's randomly generated areas, buildings, items, quests and characters make it an entertaining open-world experience."

• Wyv and Keep

"Wyv and Keep: the Temple of the Lost Idol is a lusciously pixelated 2D co-op puzzle platformer. Dubbed as a more fiendish version of Blizzard's classic The Lost Vikings, the game features two young treasure hunters venturing into the land of Amazonia. Take control of the duo and use teamwork to solve mind-bending puzzles, navigate challenging action sequences, and find hidden riches deep within an ancient temple. Play by yourself, with a friend locally on one keyboard, or online, dodging fiendish traps, evading cannibalistic pygmies, shopping for hats, and even exploring an active volcano. Even create and share your own puzzles with the included cartographer." 

Borderlands 2 Release Date

It has been revealed today the official release date of Borderlands 2 is September 18th in America and September 21st everywhere else. It is available for pre order and if you do you will get a number of bonus items for the games including the Golden Key (to unlock a rare item in the Sanctuary Loot Chest), the Vault Hunter's Relic (to boost your gear-hunting fortune), and the Gearbox Gunpack (to deck your characters out with unique Gearbox Golden Guns). We also get treated to a brand new trailer from the guys at Gearbox as well.

Tribes: Ascend Open Beta Starts Friday

Tribes: Ascend is an upcoming free to play multiplayer first person shooter which is being developed by Hi-Rez Studios. For the past few months it has been in a closed beta. However this coming Friday the game will be done with it's closed beta and becoming open to the public. So anyone interested in the game who have not been lucky enough to get a key of the beta will now be able to play. Along with it becoming available to the public, the game will be adding new game mode "Arena Deathmatch" as well as a number of new maps.

Nuclear Dawn Update On The Way

The guys at Interwave have another update for Nuclear Dawn heading our way. This update adds a bunch of cool new features such as giving the commander to set a default spawn area, giving the Support engineers ammo packs which will allow them to keep there team mates supplied on the front line. I can see this being especially helpful in the early goings of a match. There are a number of updates to the latest map Oilfield as well. For full details on the update you can check out the changelog.

I want some Battlefield with my Mass Effect

Back on Valentines day, EA made lonely gamers day (probably gamers that arn't lonely aswell) by not only releasing the Mass Effect 3 demo (which I happened to enjoy except for everything being bound to one key which you couldn't change but I've already had a little rant about that) they also announced that upon pre-ordering Mass Effect 3 through their Origin service they would get a free downloadable copy of Battlefield 3. This offer was supposed to last until the 5th of March, but 2 days after announcing this they decide to pull the offer without a explanation in site. As you may have guessed this has pissed off a lot of punters. The deal was frankly amazing and no doubt would have dragged a lot of new clients over to their Origin service, which if they want to catch up with Steam and for it to be successful they will need to play hard ball which they seemed to be doing with this offer. But for them to suddenly pull it as I said before will piss people off. It's a bad move on their part. What ever the reason behind, this is unacceptable really, it's bad business offering something, getting peoples hopes up then taking it away just because you can. While they obviously have a reason behind doing this, it yet to be announced to the public. If you did happen to get in on this deal during the two days it was available you will still get your code by the 8th of March. Below are a couple tweets for the Origin account pretty much saying what I just did, minus me ranting of course.

PC Version of Mass Effect 3 Will Not Support Controllers

Mass Effect 3 on PC will not have controller support. While this won't phase most pc gamers at all as they are happy enough with there keyboard and mouse to play. Despite this Biowares senior designer Manveer Heir explained why this is on twitter.

“There is a development cost in terms of time/effort to get all the graphical user interfaces so 360 buttons show up on PC. It may seem minor, but our GUI team was already stretched thin, and things were coming in at the last minute, so we couldn’t add more work.”

This seems like a pretty legit reason for it and I believe the previous games in the series didn't support gamepads on PC either (don't quote me on that though). While there are third party programs out there which will allow you to play on PC with your controller if you wish to do so, I still believe in this day and age all games should be compatible with both, regardless of platform. Of course you will get those that think playing on PC with a controller is blastphemy, you will find these morons everywhere that allows you to post a comment who say things such as "I'm glad it doesn't support gamepads. Keeps console noobs from screwing their teammates over in multiplayer. Mouse + keyboard = best shooter controls". Just because you prefer a certain type of controls doesn't give you the right to be a complete asshat.

If you are a gamer it shouldn't matter about your choice in peripheral. Everyone knows aiming with a mouse is much more accurate than thumbsticks, therefore making them better for games such as shooters and RTS games. On the other side of the coin you have fighting games, driving games and the majority of sport games which gamepad controls have the edge over keyboard and mouse. I am primarily a PC gamer and do prefer using keyboard and mouse for most games. But sometime I just want to sit back with my feet up on the desk and play a game, you can't really do that with a keyboard and mouse, at least not with my desk setup. So I occasionally break out the Xbox controller and use that instead. Due to me not wanting to sit up at my desk that makes me a 'console noob' according to the muppet who I quoted above. All this makes me is lazy. Sure it's less accurate than aiming with a mouse, does that mean I can't play game? No of course it doesn't, it just means I have to spend an extra half a second aiming.

First Thoughts of Groupees 'Be Mine' Bundle

I recently bought the Groupees 'Be Mine' bundle and thought I'd do a little write up of my first impressions of the games included in it. All of these games if bought separately would cost over £40, so getting these at the absolute minimum of $1 is quite the bargain, I would suggest paying more as you will get your moneys worth out of them. I've already gave each game at least an hour each so far, that is since earlier today when I bought this bundle, I'm definitely going to put a lot more time in to all of these games.

Xotic is a strange little game. The basis of it is to progress though levels collecting things, you do this by shooting at them which breaks them and gives you items to pick up. Running through levels destroying stuff and collecting items seems simple enough, however there are many things put in your way to slow you down though like the weird enemies in the game, such as mutant looking things and spiders seem to explode if they touch you which are really quite annoying as they keep respawning until you kill there nest. Which is something I didn't realise the first time I encountered them so I just sat killing waves of them when all I had to do was walk round the corner and blow there nest up. Then you get the likes of huge gaps you need to cross, which can be done in a number of ways depending what upgrades you have. You can sit and cross it by placing a number of platforms underneath you as you jump, this has the higher fatality rate, if you can find an upgrade in the level that gives you flight, that is the far better solution to these giant death holes. It's not so much flight but more the ability to jump after you've jumped. It seems pretty cool.

Next we have Wasteland Angel. I had heard of this game prior to getting it in this bundle, so I somewhat knew what I was getting into with this game. It is played from a top down perspective as you drive around in your car shooting stuff. The game starts you off  in your car outside a town which you have to protect from waves of enemies. While this is pretty much the game, it does change it up occasionally to stop you getting bored and gives you boss battles. I've beat the first two which are big nasty armoured trucks with a couple flamethrowers attached to the front for good measure. Took me quite a while to beat it first time round, using napalm is the key for these guys. After the boss battle you get a bonus round which puts you in first person perspective. The first bonus stage was survival based, where you had to survive as long as you could while trying to get the highest score you could by shooting things. The second bonus stage was a time trial check point type race. 

There are a couple of platformers in this bundle. I will start with BEEP, it's a cute little game where you play as a little robot called BEEP, hence the name. You begin in a spaceship with a number of planets around you this is the level select menu which is pretty cool. After choosing a level, it looks like you standard platformer, plenty of platforms to jump on and what have you but come equipped with a gravity gun which is very necessary as there are movable platforms, debris in your way which you can move and it can also grab things (ie collectables, which happen to be little gold nuggets) which are out of reach. You also have what I think is a BB gun which you will need as these levels are fairly hostile towards you. I have only played the first few levels and have came across a number of things that are a danger. You have robots that shoot at you, some weird flying electric fish, along with a shed load of lasers and of course plenty of holes to fall down. As I am on about stuff that kills you, if you do die I wouldn't worry too much about it as each level has regular checkpoints so you won't have far to go to get back to where you were. You also seem to have unlimited lives so dying isn't really an issue.

The other platformer in this bundle is named Sideway: New York. This has a slight twist on your average platform, which is the fact that you play as graffiti on the side of buildings. You aren't completely stuck to the wall though as you can use window ledges, drain pipes among other things to jump on. You can also spray paint your own platforms to jump up on, which is a nice touch, thought you can only do this in certain places, it is quite obvious where you can spray though. As with any platformer, it's not all fun, games and randomly jumping about, thought that is a major part of it. Of course you need stuff that will kill you, or at least to attempt to. The main enemy you come across are alien goo blob type things, there are other enemies as well such as flying paint blobs and other graffiti artists. The other graffiti artist was like a mini boss I beat the first one at the end of level 2 or 3, he paints more enemies to attack you. While he isn't too hard to beat and only takes a few jumps on the head to kill him, but the paint blobs can get annoying if you don't kill them quick enough and can become overwhelming. Just like BEEP you don't seem to have any lives so you can die as much as you want, it also has regular checkpoints as well so won't you have far to go when/if you die.

Lastly we have The Ball, I say lastly it's not quite you get a bonus game called Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals due to the bundle reaching their 3 grand goal. But that is a point and click adventure game and I am terrible at them. I did attempt that game but struggled to get out of the first room, so I'm not really the right person to talk about the game. Anyway onto The Ball. The game starts you off underground as you fell down a mineshaft. Your friends up top aren't helpful at all and just tell you to explore the cave. So as you have no other choice than sitting around for help which isn't coming anytime soon, you take a wander along the only path available which crosses a very unstable looking bridge which breaks as you cross it, so you fall down another level. Great start so far you've fell down 2 holes in just as many minutes. You then see a building ahead but before you get to it you pick up some ancient device. You can use this device to push special buttons the first of which allows you in to the building. Upon entering the building you find the ball. The device you picked up outside can be used to both push away and attract the ball depending whether you use the left or right mouse button. Once you have the ball you have to take it along with you as it helps you solve puzzles. Sounds strange I know, but as you progress there are a number of buttons to press to open doors and activate lifts. Some of these can be activated by you but some of them only work by being ran over by the ball.  It's a cool game and definitely seems a worthy addition to the collection and I look forward to finishing the game off.

First thoughts of Modern Warfare 3

So Activision have pulled out the stops and let folk try out the multi-player for their latest Call of Duty game. So me being bored and the type that only play CoD due to free weekends (I'm not the biggest fan but I'll play it if I don't have to pay for it. First impression of the game was good, and by good mean complete and utter wank. This is even before I entered a match. I was sat about in the menu for half an hour or so attempting to connect to necessary "online services". For the first few attempt I figured there will be a bunch of folk trying to play the game due to the free weekend. However I grew more and more impatient with the game the longer this went on. Sure there is going to be more people playing the game but surely someone up there at Activision HQ must of thought to check the servers to make sure they would be able to handle the influx of new players, it's not rocket science.

In conclusion my experience of Modern Warfare 3 consisted of:

• Mostly menus
• The game "Connecting to Online Services"
• Then error messages telling me the connection to these servers had failed.
  

I would like to thank Activision so much for wasting my bandwidth, and due to this frankly terrible service which lead to me not actually being able to play the game, I exited the game, went straight to my Steam Library and deleted the game. Half an hour of waiting to play a game is unacceptable should not happen especially from a game made by someone as big as Activision. I was willing to give the game the benefit of the doubt ignoring all the anti CoD flaming that always happens and give the game a shot, but all I got was menus. I'm still not going to say the game it self is good or bad because I don't know. The online servers however are terrible.

Groupees 'Be Mine' Bundle

The Groupees 'Be Mine' bundle is yet another pay what you want Indie game bundle. They seem to be popping up everywhere these days. The bundle includes the following games:

• Xotic
• Beep
• Wasteland Angel
• The Ball
• Sideway New York

All of these games are available on Steam and if bought separately would cost about £43. Just like other indie bundles like the Indie Royale, Indie Gala and Humble Bundle you can pay what you want for this selection of games, getting them at a severely reduced price. The site appears to be struggling with the amount of traffic heading it's way, so you will have to wait until tomorrow to get on it, you can keep up to date about what is going on over on their twitter. Anyway it's another cool little deal which I will be getting to add to the collection, thought I would share and give them some publicity as this is the first I have heard about this bundle.

Humble Bundle Mojam

This weekend the guys at Mojang will be creating a new game. You can actually vote on what Genre and Theme you want them to make over at their website. From the two polls on their site they will choose the highest and lowest result and combine them into the game some how. They will have 60 hours to make the game and it will be sold via the Humble Bundle site. I'm quite interested to see what happens with this, I can see it being quite a weird and random game considering some of the options in the polls

Mass Effect 3 Demo

I downloaded the Mass Effect 3 demo last night through Origin and played it earlier today, encountered no problems with it. It was my first experience of the Mass Effect series. I have been meaning to pick up the first 2 games but have yet to get around to buying them. First thing I noticed is the lack of advanced graphics options, which doesn't really effect me as I tend to leave graphics settings on default but I know a lot of people won't be too happy about this.

Also with the key bindings use, cover, and jump all use the same button. I'm playing on a PC I have a entire keyboard to use and don't need one button to do numerous things, I'm not limited to the amount of buttons like consoles with controllers. They need to make separate keys for each of these. It's doesn't sound like that big of a deal but I find it interrupts the flow of the gameplay. It's more annoying when your in cover and need to get up and run somewhere, there are times when I was running along with some cover in front of me and I went to jump over it but ended up ducking for cover behind it. I should be able to jump when I choose to not when the game says I can. The controls seem very console orientated and not at all optimised for PC, you know because it's a PC port of the game, the least you could expect is some decent controls. It's a shame because throughout my play through of the couple levels available in the demo I actually enjoyed the story and the gameplay, except the not so brilliant controls. If they get some decent controls implemented for the full release, I would definitely consider getting it.

On the plus side of things, the combat is pretty swift and accurate, both melee attacks and weapon combat. Also you don't have health regeneration like a number of recent games, which is a good thing, unless you play a cyborg character, have robotic implants or have some actual reasoning behind it doing so it isn't acceptable to implement into the game. It does have armour regen though which considering the game is set in the future, the concept is definitely plausible.

Overall the game seems pretty cool, but it's the consolised controls I can't get past. So I will probably give the game a miss until it turns up cheap on sale in a few months time or so. Also I feel I should play the first two games before I before I play this anyway. I know very little about the series or the characters in it so playing previous games seems like a good idea.

Free Weekend for Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer on Steam

Not sure whether you want to buy the latest Call of Duty game? Here is your chance to give the multiplayer a shot. This weekend you will be able to play Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer completely free. You can start pre loading there game now in preparation here which I am doing now. While I'm not the greatest fan of the series, I tend to play a few hours whenever one of these weekends pops up as I did with Black Ops a few months back. I'm not going to buy the game, but it will at least give me a little perspective on it. There are plenty of people on each side of the fence, some love, some hate it. I like to sit on the fence and watch them fight it out. Just thought I'd mention it in case any one was interested really. I may do first thoughts on the game after the weekend has finished as well.