It's Codemasters turn to flaunt their goods on Humble's digital sale shelf. Seven games, including various DiRTs, Overlords and Operation Flashpoints, have been bundled together, in a genre mash-up that has tiny imps erratically driving rally cars away from hyper-efficient snipers. Okay, so it's not that - it's the more traditional bundle of games collected for a pay-what-you-want price.

It's a good package, specifically for the quirky Overlord series, the excellent DiRT 3, and the kinda-fun DiRT Showdown. Unfortunately, the bundle does still necessitate a warning. With GfW Live's rumoured July 1st shutdown, both Operation Flashpoint: Red River and DiRT 3 could potentially stop working. While Codemasters have confirmed that DiRT 3 will be getting the Steamworks treatment, they've made no comment on their plans for Red River.

As always it's a two-tiered deal, with people who pay under $6 getting Overlord, the Raising Hell DLC, Operation Flashpoint: Red River, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Rise of the Argonauts. Pay over $6, and you'll also be given DiRT Showdown, DiRT 3 and Overlord 2.

The deal will run until February 6th.

News arrives from GamesIndustry.biz that Codemasters is closing down its Guildford studio, which has previously worked on the recent Operation Flashpoint games, and the poorly received console shooter, Bodycount.

Codemaster's official statement says that the publisher will be concentrating on growing the teams based at their Warwickshire and Birmingham studios, responsible for racing titles like DiRT, GRID, F1 Online and F1 2011. The closure of the Guildford studio means we're not likely to see any more shooters from Codemasters in the foreseeable future.

The studio closure has affected 66 members of staff, who "are now involved in a consultation period." The Codemasters statement says that employees at Guildford "will be encouraged to apply for suitable positions on campus and in the Birmingham studio," where Codemasters plan to form another team to start work on a new racing title.

"As Codemasters looks to take greater leadership in the racing category, the company is proposing a studio structure that adds resource and strengthens our best-in-class racing teams." reads the statement. "The output from the studios on the Warwickshire campus and in Birmingham is on the increase."

Dirt 3 was the last racer Codemasters released on PC. We gave it a score of 88 in our Dirt 3 review. F1 2011 is out later this month.

Daily deals are now set to appear on Steam every 24 hours. We love deals at PC Gamer.

Yesterday, you could pick up Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising with a massive 75% off. Today's offer will be revealed in about seven hours time. The discounts will be highlighted on Steam's homepage, Facebook, twitter feed, and in PC Gamer's And in other PC gaming news posts.

Do you buy the majority of your games in Steam's sales or are you more of a pre-order/pre-load kind of gamer?

Josh, Dan, Evan, Anthony, and Lucas believe they're recording just another podcast in just another average recording studio. But in reality, Aperture Science is bathing the room in radiation to test out their new Superhero mutation program! Will it work? Will Dan grow a third arm to battle crime as The Arm of the Law? Will Evan finally get the built-in, mind-controlled jetpack he's always dreamed of, and rightly deserves? At the very least, the radiation seems to have affected some of their judgments (Josh, we're looking at you and your opinion of Super Meat Boy). Join us as we talk about all the big news swirling around Portal 2, Battlefield 3 pre-order incentives, your listener questions and more!

PC Gamer US Podcast 269: Portals Party

Have a question, comment, complaint or observation? Leave a voicemail: 1-877-404-1337 ext 724 or email the mp3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com. If we play your question on the next podcast you will receive a code good for a copy of Operation Flashpoint: Red River when its released! Don't forget to include an email in your message, otherwise we can't send you the code.

In addition, don't forget to enter the Intel trailer editing contest that we discuss at the end of the podcast here.


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

Josh, Dan, Evan, Anthony, and Lucas believe they're recording just another podcast in just another average recording studio. But in reality, Aperture Science is bathing the room in radiation to test out their new Superhero mutation program! Will it work? Will Dan grow a third arm to battle crime as The Arm of the Law? Will Evan finally get the built-in, mind-controlled jetpack he's always dreamed of, and rightly deserves? At the very least, the radiation seems to have affected some of their judgments (Josh, we're looking at you and your opinion of Super Meat Boy). Join us as we talk about all the big news swirling around Portal 2, Battlefield 3 pre-order incentives, your listener questions and more!

PC Gamer US Podcast 269: Portals Party

Have a question, comment, complaint or observation? Leave a voicemail: 1-877-404-1337 ext 724 or email the mp3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com. If we play your question on the next podcast you will receive a code good for a copy of Operation Flashpoint: Red River when its released! Don't forget to include an email in your message, otherwise we can't send you the code.

In addition, don't forget to enter the Intel trailer editing contest that we discuss at the end of the podcast here.


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

Operation Flashpoint: Red River's creative director, Sion Lenton, thinks military simulations are “immersive” and “realistic” but not necessarily “fun.”

Speaking to PC Gamer, Sion directed gamers yearning for an accurately simulated warzone towards Bohemia Interactive's ArmA series, and claimed that PC is “Not the market to be in.”

Ooo-rah indeed.


Sion Lenton was Executive Producer on Codemaster's Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, released in 2009. PC Gamer described it as “An attractive and powerful sim that spoils itself by trying too hard to be a straightforward military shooter.”

We asked Sion about that decision to move even further away from the series roots with the follow-up: “We want to steer away from the idea that it’s a simulation; we’ve banned the word in the studio. Authentic is fine, as it gives you some leeway to be creative, and that’s what we are. We’re creative, we’re making an entertainment product, and it should be fun. I don’t really get much fun out of military simulations. They’re immersive, they’re realistic, but I wouldn’t call them fun.

“If you want simulation, then it’s out there; go play ArmA. We wanted to do something different, in our own space, and we don’t want the Op Flash brand tied down to simulation.”



I'd argue that it is possible to have fun in ArmA, even though it's an unforgiving beast. Evan has video proof. What's even more odd about the comments is that ArmA developers Bohemia Interactive are responsible for the first game in the OpFlash series, Cold War Crisis. By 2001's standards, it provided unparalleled scale and extensive realism. The developer left the Operation Flashpoint name behind at Codemasters when it switched publisher.

Sion also didn't seem enthused by our platform of choice either, despite some high profile developers considering it to be one of their strongest assets: “As great as PCs are, from a sales point of view, it’s not the market. There’s a bigger market out there and if you get success you can start to experiment more. You need to get the sales under your belt, and then that gives you the freedom to do other things.”

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is due for release on April 21 in Europe and April 26 in the US. For more information read our Operation Flashpoint: Red River preview, or watch the latest trailer. What do you think of Sion's comments? Ever managed to have fun in a simulation?

Codemasters have released the first in a series of developer's video diaries from the Operation Flashpoint: Red River team. Read on for details of the game and the video.

Red River is the upcoming sequel to 2009's Dragon Rising. Executive Producer Adam Parsons explains, “As far as I’m concerned, Red River gets you as close as you can to being in the boots of a Marine.”

The game will feature drop-in/drop-out co-operative gameplay with four classes of soldier available to choose from; Grenadier, Scout, Rifleman and Automatic Rifleman, which are “four distinct and complimentary classes in a USMC fireteam.”

The games predecessor Dragon Rising received solid but not spectacular reviews, and the team are using feedback from the community to make Red River a stronger product. Parsons said: “We’ve addressed a lot of the criticisms from the community within Red River by putting in new features.”.

You can learn more about the game, which is due Q2 2011, in the Developer Diary below.