For many PC gamers, the recent trend toward always-connected games – sometimes referred to by the name of its top-hat-wearing, mustachioed alter ego, “always-on DRM” – is an oncoming black cloud. Developers, however, insist that there's a silver lining. The likes of Blizzard and id, for instance, argue that they'll make up for a tiny loss of control with a heaping helping of convenience. "In the end, it's better for everybody," id's Tim Willits told Eurogamer. "Imagine picking up a game and it's automatically updated. Or there's something new you didn't know about, and you didn't have to click away. It's all automatically there.”

And then Darkspore's dark days happened. As originally discovered by RPS, Darkspore is an absolutely chilling example of what could possibly go wrong. For nine days, new players were completely unable to access the game they'd purchased. Nine days. Nine days of pleas on the game's official forums. Nine days of moderators saying, “Please, be patient.” When your system's supposed to keep you connected to players like never before, that level of distance is absolutely unacceptable.

But let's face it: Darkspore is nowhere near as big as, say, Diablo III. Unless something goes horribly, catastrophically wrong, Blizzard won't neglect its hell-borne hack 'n' slash until the actual End of Days. And so, truth be told, I'm not all that concerned about Blizzard's games, given the level of support we've seen for WoW and and the always-on DRM of StarCraft II.



Darkspore, though, doesn't have the kind of popularity or public visibility needed to make it a worthwhile long-term investment for its publisher. So – while depressing – it's not entirely surprising that EA didn't have some sort of giant red “Break glass in case of Darkspore emergency” button lying around. And therein lies the problem: What happens to these smaller games without huge followings as time takes its toll? EA, especially, has been known to shut down multiplayer servers altogether – sometimes for games as little as two-years-old.

Gamers, of course, have feared this kind of slow degradation for a while now, but imagining the big, bad boogieman and having him actually chase you down the hall, cleaver in hand, are two entirely different things. Now, it's always possible for a game to pull a From Dust and patch out authentication requirements after launch. If server upkeep becomes a strain on bank accounts, then severing the server is an option (at least is some cases). But that takes work – especially when games are increasingly designed around the online requirement, and some games can't survive a server-ectomy procedure.

So that's the dilemma. Granted, Darkspore's not quite at the point where it needs to make the call between either shutting down or cutting the cord – or at least, it shouldn't be, having only released earlier this year – but the uncertainty makes its players' plight all the more upsetting. As always, gamers and the press will speak up in favor of keeping games we paid for playable. The question remains, though: Will developers and publishers listen?

An ever-fearless leader, Dan does not hesitate when faced with the infinite amount of news we could potentially discuss on this week's podcast. Evan, Josh, Chris and Anthony help him wade through it all: Skyrim, Prey 2, Darkspore, the latest WoW patch, your listener questions and more!

PC Gamer US Podcast 267: Skyrim - Heart of the Darkspore

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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@Ljrepresent (Lucas)

An ever-fearless leader, Dan does not hesitate when faced with the infinite amount of news we could potentially discuss on this week's podcast. Evan, Josh, Chris and Anthony help him wade through it all: Skyrim, Prey 2, Darkspore, the latest WoW patch, your listener questions and more!

PC Gamer US Podcast 267: Skyrim - Heart of the Darkspore

Have a question, comment, complaint or observation? Leave a voicemail: 1-877-404-1337 ext 724 or email the mp3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com.

Subscribe the podcast RSS feed.

Follow us on Twitter:
@PCGamer
@logandecker (Logan)
@Havoc06 (Chris)
@DanStapleton (Dan)
@ELahti (Evan)
@jaugustine (Josh)
@PlanetValva (Anthony)
@Ljrepresent (Lucas)

Why won’t Maxis let me play with its best toy? The awesome, Play-Doh-like Creature Creator that powered the wacky player-made monsters of Spore is a shadow of its former self in Darkspore, a loosely-affiliated hack-and-slash action RPG spin-off of Will Wright’s evolution game.

The modification you can do to your characters at the loot-equipping screen (which is essentially a crippled version of the Creature Creator) is limited to G.I. Joe-like functionality that only allows manipulation of accessories on 25 playable “hero” monsters that someone else already enjoyed the fun of creating. Being locked out of its creative power baffles me. Let’s pretend that we don’t know what we’re missing, though, and critique Darkspore’s colorful hack-and-slash gameplay for what it is: mildly entertaining with a lot of good ideas, most of which go awry.



The big idea is its best: instead of controlling a single hero, you can instantly swap between a team of three cartoony-looking heroes, each with its own set of powers and distinct health and energy pools, and each contributing one power that any team member can use. I quickly assembled a team of heroes with powers I liked, led by Arborus, the self-healing, plant-based tank who grows to several times his size as long as I maintained a steady stream of kills with his club. I even customized his accessories as best I could to make him my own.



Chain gang

Darkspore then goes out of its way to sabotage this by treating Arborus like a piece of walking loot, encouraging me to swap him out by unlocking new heroes as I leveled up. I wasn’t forced to, but it’s the only way to get new powers. Disposable heroes make customization feel futile, and I soon stopped bothering to learn their names—they were just Robot Guy or Plasma Dog-Thing to me.

Four-player co-op is definitely the best way to play—you’re constantly wading through waist-deep swarms of bizarre enemies with interesting abilities, and there’s always someone there to come to your rescue. There’s a very clever system for “chaining” levels together, letting you risk the loot you’ve earned in a mission for the chance to win much better loot by taking on increasingly difficult levels without dying. Long chains are only practical to attempt in co-op, so it’s a strong incentive to be social, and it gives you a reason to replay the non-randomized map layouts. The lobby system and friends list make it easy to team up, too, but I’m annoyed there’s no offline mode for solo play. Server delays make jumping in and out of the character editor tedious, and you can’t pause even in single-player.



PvP is in there too, but it’s rudimentary—1v1 or 2v2 matches are just slug-fests in a small arena. The triple-hero system gives it an extra dimension, but unless you save your best hero for last you’re unlikely to come back from losing a hero first.

Darkspore just leaves me asking questions. Why can’t I build my own hero? Why can’t I trade loot with other players? Why are heroes vulnerable to extra damage from enemies of the same type (e.g. robots) but enemies aren’t vulnerable to damage from heroes of their type? Why does this cartoonish game take itself so seriously, telling a downer story about an ancient race that was wiped out by its own creations? Can Maxis fix the glitches? And what were they thinking?

Why won’t Maxis let me play with its best toy? The awesome, Play-Doh-like Creature Creator that powered the wacky player-made monsters of Spore is a shadow of its former self in Darkspore, a loosely-affiliated hack-and-slash action RPG spin-off of Will Wright’s evolution game.

The modification you can do to your characters at the loot-equipping screen (which is essentially a crippled version of the Creature Creator) is limited to G.I. Joe-like functionality that only allows manipulation of accessories on 25 playable “hero” monsters that someone else already enjoyed the fun of creating. Being locked out of its creative power baffles me. Let’s pretend that we don’t know what we’re missing, though, and critique Darkspore’s colorful hack-and-slash gameplay for what it is: mildly entertaining with a lot of good ideas, most of which go awry.



The big idea is its best: instead of controlling a single hero, you can instantly swap between a team of three cartoony-looking heroes, each with its own set of powers and distinct health and energy pools, and each contributing one power that any team member can use. I quickly assembled a team of heroes with powers I liked, led by Arborus, the self-healing, plant-based tank who grows to several times his size as long as I maintained a steady stream of kills with his club. I even customized his accessories as best I could to make him my own.



Chain gang

Darkspore then goes out of its way to sabotage this by treating Arborus like a piece of walking loot, encouraging me to swap him out by unlocking new heroes as I leveled up. I wasn’t forced to, but it’s the only way to get new powers. Disposable heroes make customization feel futile, and I soon stopped bothering to learn their names—they were just Robot Guy or Plasma Dog-Thing to me.

Four-player co-op is definitely the best way to play—you’re constantly wading through waist-deep swarms of bizarre enemies with interesting abilities, and there’s always someone there to come to your rescue. There’s a very clever system for “chaining” levels together, letting you risk the loot you’ve earned in a mission for the chance to win much better loot by taking on increasingly difficult levels without dying. Long chains are only practical to attempt in co-op, so it’s a strong incentive to be social, and it gives you a reason to replay the non-randomized map layouts. The lobby system and friends list make it easy to team up, too, but I’m annoyed there’s no offline mode for solo play. Server delays make jumping in and out of the character editor tedious, and you can’t pause even in single-player.



PvP is in there too, but it’s rudimentary—1v1 or 2v2 matches are just slug-fests in a small arena. The triple-hero system gives it an extra dimension, but unless you save your best hero for last you’re unlikely to come back from losing a hero first.

Darkspore just leaves me asking questions. Why can’t I build my own hero? Why can’t I trade loot with other players? Why are heroes vulnerable to extra damage from enemies of the same type (e.g. robots) but enemies aren’t vulnerable to damage from heroes of their type? Why does this cartoonish game take itself so seriously, telling a downer story about an ancient race that was wiped out by its own creations? Can Maxis fix the glitches? And what were they thinking?

The best thing about being a PC gamer is the vast amount of original ideas we get access to. Consoles rarely get to experience the joys of a game that's truly original. The likes of World of Goo, Machinarium and Minecraft are experiences that really can only be provided by the PC and its low barrier of entry, allowing riskier IP creation. As such, as PC gamers we can play such insanity as Cargo! - a game involving a severe lack of gravity, numerous geographical landmarks and a race of naked midgets. Just take a look at the trailer; it's as if LSD fumes are being sprayed out of your screen right into your prefrontal cortex. Mental as it appears, it also seems to be packing some fun gameplay, with a Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts style vehicle creation feature. Interested? Grab it from Steam.

Thinking of neat creation features, I found this dragon created in Spore over on Reddit. It's videos like these that remind me just how good Spore was in its own little way. Granted, it was a huge miss-step as an actual strategy game, but as a creative tool it was sublime. Since Spore was released we've seen a ton of different creatures, but this dragon is one heck of an impressive beast. We can only hope that Spore's creature creator feature will be put to good use in Darkspore, which is set to combine the creative side of Spore with some much improved action combat mechanics.

In trailers this week, we've got another Duke Nukem Forever one as the launch date draws ever closer. This one is somewhat of a highlights reel of everything to do with the Duke, featuring blood, pigs, strippers, toilets and remote control cars. It's also completely uncensored, so if you're viewing this on Monday morning at work, be warned: NSFW!

Dead Mage Studio have their first game almost ready to ship. Garshasp: The Monster Slayer is a hack-n-slash in the vein of God of War, but opts for the lesser explored setting of Iranian mythology. Naturally for the genre, plenty of big ugly guys are going to take a sword to the face in elaborate, acrobatic combat. It doesn't appear to break the mould by any means, but the PC doesn't see that many hack-n-slash titles these days so for fans of the genre this may be worth keeping an eye on.



Arma 2 is a favourite at the PCG office, and a new expansion pack is on its way. Good thing too, since Operation Flashpoint: Red River is a bit rubbish, so we need some fresh blood in the military sim genre to keep up occupied. Arma 2: Reinforcements seems to have everything you'd want from an army simulator, including the our British boys and their beaten up Land Rovers. Huzzah!

In other military shooter news, DICE have finally accumulated all the Facebook 'likes' they demanded, and released the commentary to accompany that twelve minute gameplay trailer.

Some new footage has cropped up for the latest Dungeons & Dragons game: Daggerdale. In this trailer the focus is more on the plot rather than the action, confirming the game actually does have a story. The video would mislead you by not displaying PC as a format, but should this D&D adventure take your fancy, we can confirm that it definitely is headed to the PC.

And finally, in the week where Valve's latest masterpiece has been released, we couldn't finish the Pwn without including some Portal 2 videos. First up, a handy tutorial showing you how to do local splitscreen co-op in Portal 2, enabling you to play the co-op campaign with two players in the same room on the same computer. Genius! Secondly, have you ever wanted all of Cave Johnson's wisdom downloaded straight into your brain? Unfortunately PC Gamer's lab isn't as advanced as Aperture's, but we can provide a video with every Cave quote ever.

The best thing about being a PC gamer is the vast amount of original ideas we get access to. Consoles rarely get to experience the joys of a game that's truly original. The likes of World of Goo, Machinarium and Minecraft are experiences that really can only be provided by the PC and its low barrier of entry, allowing riskier IP creation. As such, as PC gamers we can play such insanity as Cargo! - a game involving a severe lack of gravity, numerous geographical landmarks and a race of naked midgets. Just take a look at the trailer; it's as if LSD fumes are being sprayed out of your screen right into your prefrontal cortex. Mental as it appears, it also seems to be packing some fun gameplay, with a Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts style vehicle creation feature. Interested? Grab it from Steam.

Thinking of neat creation features, I found this dragon created in Spore over on Reddit. It's videos like these that remind me just how good Spore was in its own little way. Granted, it was a huge miss-step as an actual strategy game, but as a creative tool it was sublime. Since Spore was released we've seen a ton of different creatures, but this dragon is one heck of an impressive beast. We can only hope that Spore's creature creator feature will be put to good use in Darkspore, which is set to combine the creative side of Spore with some much improved action combat mechanics.

In trailers this week, we've got another Duke Nukem Forever one as the launch date draws ever closer. This one is somewhat of a highlights reel of everything to do with the Duke, featuring blood, pigs, strippers, toilets and remote control cars. It's also completely uncensored, so if you're viewing this on Monday morning at work, be warned: NSFW!

Dead Mage Studio have their first game almost ready to ship. Garshasp: The Monster Slayer is a hack-n-slash in the vein of God of War, but opts for the lesser explored setting of Iranian mythology. Naturally for the genre, plenty of big ugly guys are going to take a sword to the face in elaborate, acrobatic combat. It doesn't appear to break the mould by any means, but the PC doesn't see that many hack-n-slash titles these days so for fans of the genre this may be worth keeping an eye on.



Arma 2 is a favourite at the PCG office, and a new expansion pack is on its way. Good thing too, since Operation Flashpoint: Red River is a bit rubbish, so we need some fresh blood in the military sim genre to keep up occupied. Arma 2: Reinforcements seems to have everything you'd want from an army simulator, including the our British boys and their beaten up Land Rovers. Huzzah!

In other military shooter news, DICE have finally accumulated all the Facebook 'likes' they demanded, and released the commentary to accompany that twelve minute gameplay trailer.

Some new footage has cropped up for the latest Dungeons & Dragons game: Daggerdale. In this trailer the focus is more on the plot rather than the action, confirming the game actually does have a story. The video would mislead you by not displaying PC as a format, but should this D&D adventure take your fancy, we can confirm that it definitely is headed to the PC.

And finally, in the week where Valve's latest masterpiece has been released, we couldn't finish the Pwn without including some Portal 2 videos. First up, a handy tutorial showing you how to do local splitscreen co-op in Portal 2, enabling you to play the co-op campaign with two players in the same room on the same computer. Genius! Secondly, have you ever wanted all of Cave Johnson's wisdom downloaded straight into your brain? Unfortunately PC Gamer's lab isn't as advanced as Aperture's, but we can provide a video with every Cave quote ever.