Valve

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title="Permanent Link to Year Walk coming to Steam in early 2014">






Simogo has announced that it's developing Year Walk for the PC and expects to release it on Steam in early 2014. Year Walk is a first person adventure currently available only on iOS it received much critical praise for creating a mysterious, creepy vibe loosely inspired by the folklore of Simogo's native Sweden.



If the name Simogo sounds familiar, but you've never heard of Year Walk, you've probably heard the developer's name in relation to another game it released this year, Device 6, which has been making it into a few 2013 game of the year award lists. If Year Walk sells well on Steam, we hope it motivates Simogo to bring Device 6 over as well.



But it's not as easy as flipping a switch. Rather than a straight port, Simogo says Year Walk for PC is going to be something between a port and a remake. The developer is adding new animations and visual effects, as well as overhauling the controls. It'll be WASD and mouse instead of touch gestures (much like when Superbrothers brought its iOS game, Sword and Sworcery, to PC).



The puzzles in Year Walk that relied on the iPhone's tilt and multitouch features have been either redesigned or wholly exchanged for new puzzles Simogo says it even had to create one entirely new location in the game to accommodate one of these new puzzles. If you've played Year Walk, you also know that its companion app plays a big role in the its story, and it's been integrated into the game with a visual overhaul. Other additions are a map you'll be able to pull up at any time and a hint system.

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title="Permanent Link to 2013 in PC gaming: What games did we play the most?">






Before running away for a few days of holiday revelry and hardcore gaming, Evan, Cory, and Tyler gathered to reflect on the games they put the most time into in 2013. Watch the whole five-video series on the PC Gamer YouTube channel, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more regular content, gameplay footage, and conversations.

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title="Permanent Link to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance now available to pre-purchase on Steam">






You probably noticed that the Steam Holiday Sale is on and that all your money is quickly disappearing. But your shopping frenzy may have distracted you from the news that Metal Gear Rising: Revengence was also made available to pre-purchase for a 33 percent discount, bringing it to $20. It will unlock and be available to play on January 9.



You can also get the game from Amazon for the same price, but still need a Steam account to play it.



The PC version of the game includes all three DLC missions (Blade Wolf, Jetstream, and VR mission) as well as all the customized body upgrades for Raiden, including the White Armor, Inferno Armor, Commando Armor, Raiden's MGS4 body, and the obligatory Cyborg Ninja.



Other minute additions made to the PC version include the ability to play the game's cutscenes and codecs conversations from the main menu, the ability to jump directly into the boss battles of your choosing, and basic graphics configuration.



Minimum and recommended system requirements are as follows:



Minimum:

OS: XP or Vista or 7 or 8

Processor: Intel Core i5 2400

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTS 450

DirectX: Version 9.0c

Hard Drive: 25 GB available space

Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card



Recommended:

OS: XP or Vista or 7 or 8

Processor: Intel Core i7 3770

Memory: 4 GB RAM

Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650

DirectX: Version 9.0c

Hard Drive: 25 GB available space

Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card



We haven't seen a Metal Gear game on the PC since the first Metal Gear Solid, way back in 1998. It's good to have it back! Hopefully this is another sign that we'll get to play Metal Gear Solid 5 on PC as well.

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title="Permanent Link to DayZ diary: My first life">

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title="Permanent Link to EA faces class action investor lawsuit over quality of Battlefield 4">






Did you ever crash to desktop and wish you could sue Electronic Arts over the buggy, unstable quality of Battlefield 4? Well, if you bought stock in the company between the dates of July 24, 2013 and December 4, 2013, you can! Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is seeking to file a class action lawsuit against EA and "certain of its officers and directors," with the claim that EA knowingly misrepresented the quality of Battlefield 4 and how it expected it to preform financially. This is on top of a similar investigation led by Holzer Holzer & Fistel, LLC.



Let's take a look at some of the alternately mind-numbing and hilarious legal speak in Robbins Geller's press release:



"The complaint alleges that during the Class Period , defendants issued materially false and misleading statements highlighting the purported strength of the Company s rollout of version 4 of its all-important Battlefield video game series, which had provided approximately 11% of its revenues in fiscal 2012. Based on the purported strength of the Battlefield 4 rollout then underway, defendants issued strong fiscal 2014 financial guidance for the Company and actually increased that guidance on October 29, 2013 . The price of Electronic Arts stock steadily climbed on these statements, reaching a Class Period high of $28.13 per share by August 23, 2013 and allowing certain of Electronic Arts senior executives to sell their Electronic Arts stock at artificially inflated prices."



The complaint goes on to describe how players and investors alike discovered that BF4 at launch was "riddled&nbspwith bugs," after which EA's stock value declined by as much as seven percent. As a result, the lawsuit alleges that "Electronic Arts would not achieve a successful holiday season 2013 rollout of Battlefield 4." Robbins Geller also calls out the news that DICE halted development on all future projects until it sorted out the Battlefield 4 issues, further hurting stock value. Basically, the lawsuit asserts that EA was aware of all the issues, that it knew BF4 would have a troubled launch, and that it talked it up anyway to sell stock at an inflated price.



"We believe these claims are meritless," EA Senior Director of Corporate Communications John Reseburg told Gamasutra "We intend to aggressively defend ourselves, and we re confident the court will dismiss the complaint in due course."



I feel for people who bought BF4 and aren't able to enjoy it as advertised, and messy, buggy launches are a serious industry-wide problem, especially with multiplayer games. It's clearly not fair to the consumer, but say what you will about EA, I find it hard to believe that DICE expected BF4 to be this unstable. The sale of senior executives' stock at its high point looks bad, but stock fraud may turn out to be too hefty an accusation to hold up.



We think BF4 is a conceptually and creatively great game, but it is suffering from serious technical issues, which I hope will be sorted out sooner than later. Most likely, I think we're seeing a worse repeat of the Battlefield 3 launch, not the world's most inefficient con.



However, if you bought EA stock in the aforementioned dates, you could serve as lead plaintiff if you contact Robbin's Geller within 60 days.

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title="Permanent Link to GhostControl is not a Ghostbusters game, but looks like a great Ghostbusters game">






GhostControl is not a licensed Ghostbusters game, but it looks dangerously close to one. It also looks like the only Ghostbusters game I have ever wanted to play. It evokes XCOM, which developer Bumblebee calls out specifically as an influence, along with FTL and Theme Hospital.



Set in a London rendered with pixel art, GhostControl's gameplay is divided into two familiar phases. There's the managerial phase, in which you hire hunters, invest in research, and buy equipment and cars, including one that looks like just like the Ecto-1 Cadillac. Then there's the tactical phase, in which you clear out the haunted locations with your team in turn-based combat.



One cool little touch that makes it different from XCOM is that any damage you incur on the house will actually be deducted from your pay, so there's a incentive to play carefully. Mess the place up really bad and you might even end up losing money on the contract. It seems like GhostControl is full of these small, Ghostbus I mean, ghost hunting specific touches, which is a really good fit for the genre.



GhostControl was successfully funded on Kickstarter back in July for around $20,000. You can buy it now for $18 ( 11) for Windows 8 on the Windows store. I know, I don't want to buy it from the Windows store either, so let's all go ahead and vote for the game on Steam Greenlight.

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title="Permanent Link to Obsidian considering a second Kickstarter campaign after Pillars of Eternity">






The upcoming Pillars of Eternity remains mostly a twinkle in the mind's eye of RPG fans, but that hasn't stopped Obsidian Entertainment from peering into its own future. The studio's CEO Feargus Urquhart told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that it's his "hope" to have something more concrete to share by March or April about a second Kickstarter campaign.



Urquhart drops a few hints as to what Obsidian's next Kickstarter might focus on which may or may not be a licensed setting that we've heard of already but in the process also outlines a potentially ambitious new use of the tech that was built to run the studio's current project.



What I m trying to figure out is, how could we make something that is more like a Skyrim for PC forget console for now with the engine we made in Unity for Eternity?" Urquhart says. "Where we are with our conversation, quest, data editors, and all of that. If we were careful about scope and let Chris Avellone go wild with creating a new world, more of an open world, what could we do?



I would say you could do a lot! Still, Pillars of Eternity only just got a name and a trailer and it's obvious from Urquhart's interview that whatever new Kickstarter project Obsidian is pondering, I'm sure there are plenty of people who are simply looking forward to what it's working on right now.



We re very grateful for what people have given us, and I don t want to go back to the well before we ve proven anything, Urquhart says. That would be really lame of us. But I think we have a good idea and we ve kind of proven things with Eternity to a point. Obviously we have a larger studio, so we actually have people to work on stuff . But I don t want people to feel like we re taking advantage of them.



For a bit more on where Pillars of Eternity is at these days, check out our own very recent and extensive interview with the game's project director Josh Sawyer.

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title="Permanent Link to World of Warplanes’ first update brings new planes, arenas, achievements">


Wargaming today announced that the first update to its newly launched World of Warplanes will release later this week. It will include 14 new planes, two new battle arenas, and new epic and tiered achievements. If you log into the game between December 23 and January 16 you'll also get a free premium plane to celebrate the update, the Curtiss Model 68C Hawk III.



In addition to small bug fixes and balance issues, the update also adds a new training mission, which focuses on attacking ground targets. This, along with the rebalancing of low-altitude planes and a greater emphasis on destroying ground targets could change the game for the better. So far I've started every match climbing up as far as I can, and descended only to attack or dodge. Wargaming is well aware of this "boom and zoom," strategy, as the community calls it. "To rebalance this," World of Warplanes Sr. Producer Garth Luke told us, "we addressed stalling in general, low altitude handling and gunfire dispersion." The update could make it more worthwhile to stay low, use the terrain to your advantage, and give World of Warplanes some much needed variety in viable strategies.



Sadly, if you own a really fancy flight stick and finding that it doesn't work so well with the game, the patch only addresses issues with the mouse and keyboard controls, which continues to be Wargaming's preferred input. Garth told us that he believes that some fine tuning of buttons and sensitivity could yield really good result, but that, "yes, we are currently developing better support for all control devices across the board, heavily based on player feedback."



The two new maps are Adriatic, set over a naval battle and available for tier V-X planes, and Fortress, set above countryside and available for tier II-VII planes. You can find more detailed patch notes here. If you're titillated by aviation history you'll probably want to know that German tech tree is getting nine new Focke-Wulf warplanes, and that the update also adds five new Tier V premium aircraft, including the Russian Curtiss P-40 M-106, the UK Miles. 20, the US Grumman XF4U-1, and the German Messerscmitt Me 209V.



Read our World of Warplanes review.

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title="Permanent Link to The Steam Holiday Sale has begun! Here are some survival tips for your wallet">






It's happening! It's alive! It's Steeeeeeeeeeeeeam Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaale! Valve have launched their annual assault on financial sense, ensuring we'll be showered in cheap games between now and the euphoric come-down on January 3rd. Are you ready? THEN GO!



This year's weird gimmick: snow globes. We'll be collecting and crafting them, apparently. They can be grabbed by buying games, voting on community choices, crafting badges, trading, and can also be purchased through the marketplace. Rather than the usual profile page gubbins, they'll give you in-game items for free-to-play games, including Dota 2. Grab all the details here.



Planning to roll around those store pages, adding games to your cart all hither and thither? Stop, and heed my quick guide on how to Steam sale:





If it's not in a Daily Deal or Flash Sale, don't buy it until the final day of the sale. Anything not listed as a front page special offer has the potential of getting a further price drop in the future. Keep a list of the games you want, and if by the final day they haven't had that extra reduction, that's when it's safe to grab them.

If you miss a Daily Deal or Flash Sale, don't panic. Flash Sales can be re-run, Daily Deals can show up as Flash Sales, and Steam tends to do a couple of Encore Sales throughout the full event. Good deals get repeated.

If, like me, you've been looking at a big list of 75% reduced Crusader Kings 2 DLC, unsure of which you already own, know that Enhanced Steam is your friend. It has other features, too, like a price history for each game.

Consider buying games as gifts, then storing them in your inventory. If, in three months, you realise you're never going to play ShootyMans XI, you can gift or trade it instead. If, after a couple of hours, you're desperate to try RaceyCars III, you can just add it to your library from the inventory page.

Like, seriously, there's a big Steam sale a few times every year. If you're not sure if you particularly want a game - either because it's too pricey, or too mediocre - don't let that countdown timer pressure you into buying it. Chillax, there'll be other chances.





If you've got any more essential pointers, pop 'em in the comments.



Happy Salemas Everybody!

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title="Permanent Link to Battlestation showcase: show us your PC">






With the right arrangement and enough glowing bits you can turn an ordinary desktop PC set-up into a glorious gaming throne, complete with surround sound speakers, sparkling keyboards, multiple flatscreen panels, thunderous bass nodes, retractable wine rack, mechanical butler - the list goes on. You may not have something as ridiculously powerful as the Large Pixel Collider under your desk, but you might have an awesome case mod, or a set-up that you're proud of. This is your chance to show it off to the world.



It's simple: got an awesome setup? Show us a picture. Post a link to an image in the comments below, or email them to me at tom.senior@futurenet.com with the subject header: Battlestations!. We'll put the best in a big round-up post, giving your gorgeous battlestations the limelight they deserve.



If you built the PC, let us know the specs, and let us know why you've chosen your peripherals. We like a good mechanical keyboard in the office, and mouse-wise, I'm particularly partial to a big comfy Logitech mouse, but how about you? Is anyone out there still rocking a CRT monitor? Did you build your PC into a suitcase like this chap?



I'll get the ball rolling with a picture of my current setup.







Yes, it's rubbish. Yes, I've draped tinsel over it to make it seem more exciting than it is. Yes, I have two phones. No, one of them is not a bat-phone. In fact, I don't know what that line is for, all I know is that your PC setup is certainly better than this. Go on, prove me right.