Sep 20, 2012

Announcement - Valve

Pre-Purchase Company of Heroes 2 now and get Beta access when it is available on Steam as well as the German Rotbraun and Russian Leningrad Pattern Bundle. In addition, help unlock additional rewards as more Steam users pre-purchase. Possible rewards include Exclusive Company of Heroes 2 TF2 Items, A Free copy of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution, and the Company of Heroes 2 Commissar Chest! Check out the store page for more details.

In the world’s darkest hour you are a commander of the Soviet Red Army, entrenched in brutal frontline warfare to free Mother Russia from the Enemy invaders.

It is 1941 and the beginning of what will become the bloodiest conflict of World War II resulting in more than 14 million military casualties.

Witness the struggles of the Red Army from near defeat through their incredible triumph over Germany in the most challenging and costly theatre of the war, the Eastern Front.

Your military tactics hold the power to tip the very balance of this conflict. Engage in tactical combat that will define you as a military leader and wield the might of the Soviet Empire as you smash your way to Berlin.

The Motherland is Calling!

Sep 19, 2012

Saints Row: The Third free weekend incoming

PC Gamer

It looks as though we'll all get to play Saints Row: The Third for free this weekend. If you like the idea of blasting through an open city in a VTOL jet that shoots lasers, or calling in a gang of pink ninjas to start a turf war with an army of luchadores then you should certainly check it out, especially if you have a friend to jump in with. Saints Row: The Third is quite excellent in co-op.

As Gamespy note, the free trial is currently only visible in your Steam purchase history. A proper pre-load icon will surely hit Steam libraries later this week.

Sep 16, 2012

Metro 2033 movie rights nabbed by MGM

Shacknews - Alice O'Connor

Dmitry Glukhovsky's post-apocalyptic novel Metro 2033, which was introduced to most of us by 4A Games' pleasing video game adaptation, is headed to the silver screen. MGM has picked up the movie rights, and it's a fair bet that it'll follow the game's lead and be light on philosophy and politics, but heavy on action, given Hollywood's penchant for the bombastic.

Fledgling screenwriter F. Scott Frazier is penning Metro 2033's script, the Hollywood Reporter reports. Mark John is producing the movie, who's made his name with talkies including Donnie Brasco, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Good Morning, Vietnam.

Metro 2033's set in the subways of a post-apocalyptic Moscow, where each station has become a different town, sheltering from the cold and horrors above. Of course, mutants are a problem.

Of course, it's still early days and countless adaptations fall by the wayside.

4A is currently working on sequel Metro: Last Light, previously known as Metro 2034 but quite different to the original novel of the same name. It's due on PC, 360 and PS3 in Q1 2013.

Sep 14, 2012

Metro 2033, Already a Book And a Video Game, Will Soon Be a Movie Too

Kotaku

Metro 2033 is getting adapted into a movie, it looks like.

The game features a bleak, post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game itself, though, isn't technically getting the adaptation. The book it was based on—also called Metro 2033—is.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that the movie will be produced by MArk Johnson, who worked on Galaxy Quest and the Chronicles of Narnia films. The film will be written by F. Scott Frazier, who doesn't have that many writing credits to his name just yet.

The sequel to Metro 2033 the game, Metro: Last Light, is due in 2013. No word if the film and games will attempt to tie in to each other, but I'm going to just go ahead and assume and hope not.

MGM, 'Narnia' Producer Pick Up Rights to Russian Sci-Fi Novel 'Metro 2033' (Exclusive) [The Hollywood Reporter]

Aug 30, 2012

Hooray, Darksiders II's Janky PC Version Is Now Substantially Less Janky

Kotaku

Hooray, Darksiders II's Janky PC Version Is Now Substantially Less Janky Good news: true to their word, Vigil has issued the first update for the PC version of Darksiders II, addressing a number of problems players have had with that version of the game. Among the fixes: easier key-mapping, in-game crashes, and crucially, the broken v-sync, which resulted in unfixable screen-tearing for some (but not all) players.

The full list of fixes:

In this Update your key mappings will revert to defaults.
Added Key Bindings option to the Pause Menu. (Previous location on the Moves List still there)
The V-sync graphics option is now functional.
Reaper Form now triggers correctly when using a Keyboard.
Video Settings save to the Steam Cloud correctly.
You can now sacrifice items below the 3rd row in the Possessed Weapon menu.
Target Reticules align properly at all screen resolutions.
Addressed crashes in Blackstone, including at the 2nd lever and during the Lilith cut-scene.
Various gameplay progressions fixes.
Vigil says that they are still working to address other problems they're hearing about, so if you've still got an issue with the game, let them know in the bug reporting section of their forums.

As one who was affected by the v-syncing bug (And I should point out, since I saw several commenters suggest it: No, there was no way to fix it by forcing V-sync in the catalyst control center), I was happy to boot the game up and see it running in 1080p with no screen-tearing. A game this vibrant and loaded with art shouldn't be hamstrung by tearing, you know? I'm looking forward to finally playing it.

DARKSIDERS II PC PATCH UPDATE #2 [Darksiders Forums]

Aug 29, 2012

Dear Videogames, Stop Telling Me Everything

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nathan Grayson)

When I beat the absolutely wonderful Thirty Flights Of Loving over the weekend, I had precisely one immediate reaction: “Wait, what just happened?” I cannot even begin to tell you how much that excites me. But then I decided to write an article about it, largely because one of my greatest passions in life is defying nonsencial figures of speech. At any rate, Thirty Flights Of Loving packs loads of information into not-even-30-minutes with hardly any dialog or exposition. But, in some ways, it’s even more of a supposed “un-game” than, say, Modern Warfare 3. I mean, all> agency is illusory. Without spoiling anything (note: that’ll happen a little bit after the break), you’re along for the ride – and that’s it. In a couple bits, it doesn’t even matter where you walk. The game will just jump-cut you to your intended location.

So why is it one of my absolute favorite games – and yes, I one hundred percent believe it’s a game – of the year? Because it made me think about what happened. No, scratch that. It required> me to think.

(more…)

Aug 23, 2012

Vigil Promises Fixes For Janky PC Darksiders II In 'The Weeks To Come'

Kotaku

Sad but true: The PC version of Darksiders II is bare-bones and has some serious graphical problems. Non-functional vertical-sync, strange controls, minimal options for graphical tweaking; it's a drag.

I've been cooling my heels after playing about an hour of the game, waiting on its developer, Vigil, to release some patches. I've been waiting for them to fix the terrible screen-tearing that results from the dysfunctional Vsync, but that's just me.

Today, a THQ representative sent Kotaku the following statement from Vigil:

Darksiders PC owners,

Your feedback is incredibly important to us, so we have been working around the clock to address issues that some of you have been having, as well as adding features you have requested. The team is prioritizing finding solutions to these issues.

We are working on fixes for a number of bugs which can potentially block progression that have come to our attention, while also exploring adding additional features you have been asking for. This work includes vsync updates, improved shadow map resolution, X-axis options and additional keyboard mapping options (amongst other community requests). We hope to roll out a number of patches to address these issues in the weeks to come.

Keep your eyes peeled on Darksiders.com for updates on patch timing and content.

The Vigil Team

It is indeed good to hear that Vigil is working on fixing the game, though I have to say that "exploring adding additional features" doesn't seem quite as urgent as "getting the damned V-sync to work on my graphics card" should. But okay, hopefully that exploration will end with the discovery of a way to make the PC version work better. I would love to play this game, after all.

Aug 17, 2012

Server Work This Weekend

Community Announcements - Kedhrin

We will be performing some server tweaks to help eliviate the 'Nexuiz Service currently not availalbe' error message.

this is caused by our Database being beaten down. From the Free weekend, we had a massive surge of Data hit our database that we never had test data for. This has been causing overwhelming stress on the servers. We'll be doing some tweaks that should hopefully greatly help how your client talks to the Database... making this error hopefully go away.

if you are recieving this error, just keep trying to get in the playonline menu. if the option should grey out, just wait a minute, when you see it come back, you can probably connect.

thanks and we appreciate your patience.