Chris, Tom Senior and Martin discover headphones and subsequently blow their own minds. Also featuring discussion of Company of Heroes 2, Warface, and Far Cry 3 co-op - plus your questions from Twitter.

This weeks episode was recorded while a record number of podcast-contradicting news stories occurred, such as THQ's bankruptcy and the Dota 2 Christmas switcheroo. Also, the world does not appear to have ended.

Oh well. Merry Christmas anyway, I suppose.

Show notes
The Penny Arcade Report's interview with Far Cry 3 writer Jeffrey Yohalem.
Craig Lager's preview of Company of Heroes 2.
Nasa's Mayan apocalypse video (via The Guardian).

It might be a good idea to check that you're running the latest batch of Nvidia drivers. The full version of the GeForce 310.70 WHQL set are available now, and it sounds like they'll add a fair few extra frames per second to some of this year's biggest games. Nvidia say they'll boost Far Cry 3 by 37%, Black Ops 2 by 26% at max settings, add an extra 17% to Assassin's Creed 3 performance (compared to a pre-release version, mind) and deliver smaller increases to Battlefield 3 and Skyrim.

"In October's GeForce 310.33 beta driver we improved performance by up to 15% in nine games, and this time we’re improving performance by up to 37% in twenty-one games," they say.

If you're running a GTX6 series you can experiment with TXAA antialiasing, which promises to do a better job of de-jaggifying edges than traditional anti-aliasing techniques. Also, because there are some letters of the alphabet we haven't capitalised yet, there's a new SGSSAA tool that'll make it easier to implement this top-tier form of luxury line-smoothing on high-end systems more easily.

The new drivers are a nice follow up on the recent release of the GeForce Experience system, designed to recommend optimal game settings based on your system requirements. Does it work? Dave gave it a try, find out what he thinks here. For more on the latest driver release, read all about it at the Nvidia site.

Far Cry 3's included level editor provides all the tools and textures necessary for crafting unique multiplayer maps, but one tinkerer has instead taken to recreating some very familiar locales with uncanny accuracy. As reported by MP1st, user ShadowZack has shared a series of maps fashioned after popular arenas from Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Counter-Strike.

You can nab ShadowZack's works through Far Cry 3's in-game multiplayer map search simply by typing his name. You'll find Battlefield 3's Noshahr Canals and Wake Island, Counter-Strike's Dust and Aztec, and Call of Duty's Nuketown all carefully recreated right down to the placement of crates and convenient slabs of concrete cover. ShadowZack also released some flyby and progress videos for the maps as they were constructed, which you can watch below.

Far Cry 3 itself has two gigantic jungle island environments. We got lost. We shot animals. We drank weird potions. We wrote a review, so have a look.

Speaking to The PA Report, Far Cry 3's lead writer Jeffrey Yohalem has talked about his frustration at the critical and public reaction to the game's story. In fairness to his position, my own reaction was "oh yeah, there's a story." I've been distracted by all the outpost clearing and tiger bothering.

One of the key areas Yohalem highlighted as a misunderstood criticism was the game's apparent following of a white colonialism trope (careful: TV Tropes link). He said that not only was its inclusion intentional, but also meant to be a subversive comment on other games and pop culture.

"It’s a first-person game and Jason is a 25-year old white guy from Los Angeles. From Hollywood," Yohalem said. "So his view of what’s going on on this island is his own view, and you happen to be looking through his eyes, so you’re seeing his view."

"It’s set on an island in the South Pacific, so immediately the thing that comes to mind is the white colonial trope, the Avatar trope. I started with that, and it’s like, ‘Here’s what pop culture thinks about traveling to a new place,’ and the funny thing is, that’s an exaggeration of most games, they just don’t expose it."

He points to games like Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed as colonisation games, and says that, "to take that to its extreme, exaggerating those tropes is how you reveal them. The exaggeration of that trope is what happens in Far Cry 3."

The full interview explores the ways Yohalem was commenting on these genre tropes, referencing events at the game's ending that, he says, reveal the game's true intention.

So, does the subversion work? Is it problematic that the majority of players won't ever see the wool-over-the-eyes reveal, especially if it's not made explicit until the end of a large game? Does one of pop-culture's most persistent and obvious tropes really need highlighting, and if most people miss the point is that not a sign that this particular approach has failed? I'll leave these questions for you to ponder. As I said earlier, I've been too busy mucking about with tigers.

Lambent Stew's free, web-based Steam Time Analysis tool laid bare my backlog of shame by breaking down time spent (or not spent) on each of my library's games like some sort of cold, ruthless PowerPoint presentation. The breadth of information provided is quite impressive. Over email, Stew told us the new build includes a few new features that further visualize users' habits.

You're now be able to compare your profile with those on your friends list for games owned, how many were played, and total hours played. (Our own Executive Editor Evan Lahti only played around 16 percent of his over 1300-game stable, the lazy bum.)

Similar to another homebrewed utility, a new worth calculator also provides combined figures for minimum, maximum, and current game prices in your library. Locating your own profile should be easier with improved search: just type in your Steam profile ID, and the tool should easily zero in on your data.

Check out the tool for yourself on Lambent Stew's website. How do you rank against your friends? What's your most-played game?

At the end of each year we hand out awards to honor the experiences that live in our best memories of the preceding months—the games that moved us with their ambition, quality, and pioneering spirit. None of the decisions are ever easy, and there's no secret formula: we pit opinion against opinion with straightforward, old-fashioned arguing until one winner is left standing in the GOTY battle cage. Look below for the first landmark of that exciting week-long debate: a list of our eligible winners in 11 categories, including Game of the Year.

Beyond recognizing what games we loved most this year, though, it’s crucial to call attention to a truth that connects them all: PC gaming is exploding. Our hobby is many-tentacled and unbridled—practically every niche, genre, and business model mutated in a meaningful way this year. Two shooters built on new, PC-only technology released (PlanetSide 2 and Natural Selection 2). Dota 2 grew into its adolescence. League of Legends’ Season 2 Championship drew an audience of 8.2 million—the most ever for an eSports event. Modders resurrected content that was thought to be lost. So many remakes and spiritual successors to old school PC games got crowdfunded that we're sure we’d miss some if we tried to list them all.

That said, the following list marks the peaks of this mountainous year, and you'll find out which games won in the next issue of PC Gamer, and here on the web soon.



Dota 2
Dishonored
Mass Effect 3
PlanetSide 2
The Walking Dead
Tribes: Ascend
XCOM: Enemy Unknown



Crusader Kings II
FTL: Faster Than Light
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
XCOM: Enemy Unknown



Guild Wars 2
PlanetSide 2
Rift: Storm Legion
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria



Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition
Diablo III
Mass Effect 3
Torchlight II



Borderlands 2
Dishonored
Far Cry 3
Max Payne 3
Spec Ops: The Line



Hawken
Natural Selection 2
PlanetSide 2
Tribes: Ascend



Dota 2
League of Legends
StarCraft II




Black Mesa: Source
Crusader Kings II: A Game of Thrones
DayZ
The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod



Lone Survivor
The Walking Dead
Thirty Flights of Loving
Resonance




FTL: Faster Than Light
Hotline Miami
Legend of Grimrock
Thirty Flights of Loving



Euro Truck Simulator 2
aeroflyFS
XPlane
Football Manager 2013

Threequels Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed III have been mysteriously absent from the UK version of Steam for a few weeks now, possibly because of the impending apocalypse, possibly because Ubisoft hate Christmas, possibly because they were pushing their awful Uplay service. Whatever the reason, it's thankfully now moot, because both games have suddenly popped up on Steam. You won't find them under New Releases, but both Assassin's Creed III and Wallet-Crafting Simulator 2012 can now be bought with Steam money. And just in time for Christmas, too.

In related news, Ubisoft have revealed that there's a Far Cry 3 patch in the works that will allow us to customise that intrusive HUD until it's to our liking. In a statement to Kotaku, Ubi had this to say:

"Based on feedback from both press and fans, the Far Cry 3 production team is working on a patch that will allow you to toggle most HUD/UI elements based on player preference. The patch will also avoid issues encountered in the .dll hack that might create a mission walkthrough break (missing QTE prompts, critical information, etc)."

A double-dose of jolly good news, then. There's no word on a release date for that patch yet, but hopefully it will arrive before Christmas.

Lock, load, and roll out with T.J., Logan, Evan, and Tyler as we share our experiences on the war-torn battlefields of PlanetSide 2, and bring you news from every wavelength of the PC gaming spectrum. Far Cry 3? XCOM? Ron Gilbert? We've got it all. Plus, is talking about whether or not games are art, in itself, art? Were we too hard on Telltale's The Walking Dead? Why am I still typing when there's science to do? Just hurry up and listen to...

PC Gamer Podcast 339: Designated Marksman

Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Leave a voicemail: 1-877-404-1337 ext. 724 or email the MP3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com.

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@logandecker (Logan Decker)
@ELahti (Evan Lahti)
@tyler_wilde (Tyler Wilde)
@AsaTJ (T.J. Hafer)
@belsaas (Erik Belsaas, podcast producer)

Look up in the sky! Is it a toucan? Is it Vaas' ever-expanding mohawk? Neither: It's a tattooed tourist evoking the animal spirit of the flying squirrel by strapping on a wingsuit and hurling himself off one of the highest peaks dotting Far Cry 3's Rook Islands. Why? Because the squirrels commanded it. Other animals show up during BillerKee's lengthy descent such as an amazing glimpse of a tiger ambushing a boar pack and the startled barks of guard dogs. Alerted pirates are left in the...er, air, and I challenge you to not white-knuckle your chair at least once as you see how close Jason Brody skims the dirt.

Chris, Marsh and Tom Senior discuss Darksiders 2, Little Inferno, Long Live the Queen, Super Hexagon, Far Cry 3 and much more. Features at least two rants, the Steam charts, and your questions from Twitter.

Show notes:

Marsh's Darksiders II review.
Tom F's Far Cry 3 review.
Super Hexagon.
Long Live the Queen (borderline NSFW, or at the very least you'll get a funny look).
Little Inferno.
Jenn Frank's Allow Natural Death.
The #1reasonwhy and #1reasontobe hashtags.


Awful if true answers:

Darksiders II developers Vigil have not been closed.