Firaxis have announced the first two items of DLC for Civilization V, they're coming out next Monday and one of them will completely free. Read on for details.

The Mongol Civilization and Scenario Pack will be free to download next Monday 25th October for free. The update will let you become Genghis Khan and take charge of the barbarous Mongols and their famously terrifying armies of horseback warriors. The new scenario charges you with conquering four major civilizations in one hundred turns, but competent cavalry and the massive bonuses when attacking City-states should help Mongol players get a strong foothold quickly.

The second slice of DLC was originally released as part of the Civilization V: Digital Deluxe edition, but will now be made available to everyone else next Monday at the price of $4.99. the Babylonian Civilization pack puts you in the shoes of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon and gives you access to elite Babylonion bowmen. For more information, check out Civ V's official site.

Continuing our five-part Guild Wars 2 preview (yesterday's post), today we'll plumb the depths of the first dungeons ever revealed for Guild Wars 2--how they work, what kind of loot you'll be getting, and even the familiar faces returning from Guild Wars that you'll have to battle with. ArenaNet's vault demons were kind enough to give us a peek at everything in store for us in these subterranean death-traps, as well as introduce us to the famed adventurers who'll lead the way.



The first time you enter a dungeon (a new dungeon will be available roughly every 10 levels, with additional ones at end-game), you’ll enter into its Story Mode, which focuses around one or more members of the famous adventuring guild Destiny’s Edge (featured in-depth in tomorrow's post), composed of Caithe, a nature-aligned Sylvari seeking truth, Rytlock, a ruthless and cunning commander of the Charr, Logan, a righteous, loyal defender of the Seraph throne, Eir, a wandering Norn tactician that relies on getting inside the minds of her enemies, and Zojja, a loud-mouthed, cocky inventor. They’re a very odd combination, but their varied strengths and backgrounds ensured that they always had the tools and experience to conquer anything that came their way. For some unknown reason this legendary team has broken up, and your job is to get the band back together.

Thankfully, you won’t have to sit them all down and talk about their feelings— dungeons are all about fighting (even one that starts out as a party in a mansion quickly turns to combat). The first time you play a dungeon, you’ll play through its Story Mode, where one or two members of Destiny’s Edge show up as friendly NPCs to drive the story forward. These stories will be distinct from your character’s own personal story, although you play as your character in both.

Beating a dungeon’s Story Mode will unlock its Explorable Mode, which tells varied follow-up stories in that same area, unrelated to Destiny’s Edge. This mode is designed to be extremely repeatable, and while not random, will have multiple paths that cause different scenarios and enemies to appear. Lead Content Designer Johanson tells me “ don’t want players to get into a pattern where they can easily predict what’s coming up next. We want it to be a surprise to keep it lively and fresh for players.” To that end, there will be a lot of secret events hidden within the dungeons for players to discover.
Let’s get specific


That’s fine in theory, but how does it work in practice? Let’s look at Sorrow’s Embrace, a level 60-70 dungeon revealed here for the first time. Sorrow’s Embrace is a hideout for the Dredge, a mole-like race that used to be enslaved by the Dwarves, but is now free. In Story Mode, you uncover that the Dredge leaders have betrayed their people and sold them to slavery to the Seraph, and fight off the enslavers. In Explorable Mode, you aid the Dredge workers who are now planning a revolt against their corrupt leaders. We love how this setup makes your actions in Story Mode feel consequential. That big bad boss you drove out isn’t here the second time around—you’re dealing with the fallout of the actions you took in Story Mode.

You’re on your own in Explorable Mode, though—the Destiny’s Edge heroes only play key roles in the Story Mode and the hirable henchmen NPCs from Guild Wars’ dungeons will not be returning in the sequel. However, the developers assured me that it would be easier than ever to find players to group with.
Who you gonna call?


One dungeon will have some familiar faces for hardcore Guild Wars players. Around level 30, you’ll be able to enter the Ascalon Catacombs. The spirits there are restless, so Charr (beast-man) commander and Destiny’s Edge member Rytlock leads your party in to make them restful again via the medium of hitting. But you might recognize some of the more powerful spirits within as the ghosts of profession trainers in the first game. Master Ranger Nente can teleport and shoot waves of arrows that cover part of the room, forcing you to hide behind objects in the environment. Warmaster Grast smashes players and the environment with his oversized, half-ghost hammer, and you can grab the chunks of rubble he knocks out to throw them back at him. Finally, there’s Necromancer Munne and the boss of the dungeon, King Adelmen.
Something for the effort


ArenaNet is once again going against the flow when it comes to dungeon rewards: every time you run a dungeon, you are guaranteed to get a piece of armor meant for your class via a token system. The devs don’t want to force players to do dungeons if they don’t want to (they’re designed for players who want the thrill of “overcoming difficult content with teamwork,” according to Johanson). So while the dungeon sets will look awesome—since each dungeon offers a matching set of gear for each armor type that’s themed to that particular dungeon—the stats will be equivalent of those on equal-level gear earned via other methods in the game, such as world events, personal story, PvP and mini-games.

During my playthrough, I found that a healthy balance of all the different types of content came naturally. A personal story quest sent me to a castle in the open world, which I found under siege by Centaurs as a part of a world event. So a few other players around the area and I got to know each other over some horsemen-slaughtering before grouping up and adventuring together for awhile. I love how easy and rewarding it was to group up with other players and make friends, but you don’t have to—Guild Wars 2 looks like it has rewarding and refreshing gameplay for all the different types of players, from lone wolf to compulsive raider.


Exactly how that open world event went down: 1. I protect the civilians in the keep. 2. The Centaurs are chased out of the keep back to their camp. 3. They regroup and fight back, but myself and a few passerbys keep pressing in on them. 4. They summon a giant elemental god. 5. We wet our pants.

We tried, we really did, but there was simply too much info to fit into just two posts. Tomorrow will continue this three part series with all the information we couldn't fit into this cover story, followed by a post containing all of the art that didn't make it in and one surprise announcement you didn't see coming.

Not only did Good Old Games recently come back from the fake-dead, they dragged Baldur's Gate back with them. GOG aren't the only masters of the dark arts around here: we've managed to conjure up 50 keys for BioWare's RPG classic. All you have to do to win one is post in the comments below. Read on for details.

Baldur's Gate is an epic fantasy RPG tale in which you and a party of warriors set out to explore the Sword Coast, seeking the cause of a local iron shortage. This soon spirals into an epic plot involving secret societies, conspiracies and the God of Murder. He's a bit of a bastard. The complex levelling systems are based on an old version of D&D, and keeping your party happy is half the battle. Each character has their own concept of right and wrong. and your every action will affect their opinion of you. Do something outrageous and you can end up fighting your own friends.

Let's set one thing straight, though. The hero of Baldur's Gate isn't you, or your powerful, wizardy mentor, Gorion. The hero is a seven foot tall mentally ill Ranger called Minsc, who takes advice from a "miniature giant space hamster" called Boo. Once you've witnessed Minsc charging into battle, commanding his beloved rodent to "go for the eyes, Boo!" it's hard to leave him out of the party. It's never clear whether or not Minsc is mad or Boo is, in fact, a giant miniature space hamster with powers beyond our mortal understanding.

This is where you come in. We want you to come up with your own Boo. Invent a faithful familiar you'd take with you on your adventures. To win a copy of Baldur's Gate post in the comments below with your animal's name, what type of creature it is and one special ability. Make us laugh and you could find yourself the proud owner of a brand new copy of Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga, which includes the expansion Tales of the Sword Coast, and a host of other digital goodies including the soundtrack and a ton of art from the game.

Good luck!

Ever since there have been Total War games, there have been Total War modders. As soon as the Creative Assembly release a new Total War game, an army of enthusiasts pounce, retexturing units, overhauling the AI and crafting new campaigns. We've sifted through the hundreds of Total War mods out there and found ten of the best. These mods give us whole new areas of history to explore, fantasy worlds to conquer and challenging new campaigns to play. From Rome through to Napoleon: Total War, we've got you covered.


1. Rome: Europa Barbarorum


Fans of historical accuracy will be delighted with Europa Barbarorum, easily the most well researched of the mods on this list. Five new factions have been added to diversify the barbarian forces, and all of the vanilla factions have been rigorously reworked to bring them closer to what modern scholars know of the era. This is an essential download for history buffs, or for anyone looking to get a more detailed and challenging experience from their copy of Rome: Total War.
2. Rome: SPQR

SPQR is another realism mod that offers a different experience to Europa Barborum's intensely researched overhaul. There are new units and hundreds of balance tweaks to the core game, but the most important changes have been made to the battles. Reduced upkeep costs mean that there are more armies on the campaign map and more troops on the battlefield. Warriors break far less often and some units, like the Spartans will fittingly never flee, preferring death to dishonour. The rewards are greater should you manage to outmanoeuvre the enemy as well, with added damage bonuses for flank attacks. Rome's battles are bigger, brainier and more brutal with SPQR installed.
3. Rome: Roma Surrectum


Roma Surrectum is a great mod for anyone who loves playing as the Romans. It adds four new factions and 35 new Roman legions, supported by a detailed new recruitment system that will only let you train certain warriors in certain regions, adding an extra layer of strategy to army management. The new models and textures give every legion a unique look and the campaign map has been tweaked to accommodate the new forces. Check out the video below for footage of the new Romans in action.


4. Medieval 2: Broken Crescent 2.0


This remarkable mod moves Medieval 2 to the Middle East. It's an extensive and incredibly polished package that introduces 30 new factions and over 250 new units, with expert reskins from the team's dedicated pair of artists. Religion has been overhauled to reflect the tensions in the region at the time, and leaders can now gain specific titles based on their experience and the lands they've captured. On top of all this, the area of recruitment system added by the most recent release adds even more strategic depth to an already excellent campaign.


5. Medieval 2: The Third Age

It was only a matter of time before someone realised that the Total War format would be perfect for a Lord of the Rings conversion. The Third Age is the result, a lovingly crafted mod that brings Middle Earth to Medieval 2. Every race is represented in the twelve new factions, including Orcs, High Elves, Dwarves and the forces of Mordor. The fantastic new skins and models provide a detailed take on Tolkien's fantasy universe, with designs heavily inspired by the films. Even now, the mod's creators are working hard on creating new campaign to bring the story of the Fellowship of the Ring to your copy of Medieval 2. Not convinced? Here's the trailer. It has Oliphants in it!


6. Medieval 2: Lands to Conquer

If you're tired of the Medieval 2 campaign, check out the alternatives provided by Lands to Conquer. The early, high and late era custom campaigns offer varying experiences from the short, action packed expansionist feel of the early campaign to the long, settled, diplomatic style of the late era. Lands to Conquer also makes a few general changes, incorporating a few aspects of other mods to improve battle AI and slow down the pace of empire expansion to a more realistic rate.
7. Empire: Darthmod Ultimate Commander

Many grizzled Total War veterans have fallen to Darthmod's cunning AI over the years. There's been an edition of Dathmod for almost every iteration of Total War, but Ultimate Commander for Empire: Total War is the best, bundling Dathmod's traditional swathe of AI updates and difficulty tweaks with a series of smaller mods that improve almost every aspect of the game. Most notable of these submods is the excellent Blood and Smoke update, which does a brilliant job of making Empire's gorgeous battles even more brutal and satisfying.


8. Empire: The American Revolution

The American Revolution doesn't exactly revolutionise Empire, but it certainly expands it, adding four new campaigns, new units and beautiful, carefully researched new skins and uniforms for many of the existing units in the game. It's an ideal mod for Empire players looking for a bigger and better version of the original game, who don't particularly relish the crushing difficulty of Darthmod. The 24-bit skins are another fantastic addition if you have the machine to support them.
9. Empire: Period Music Mod

Empire requires you to spend an ungodly number of hours on the campaign map, and it's only a matter of time before the eternally looping music begins to grate. Avoid a slow descent into psychosis with the Period Music Mod, which adds 50 period accurate pieces to the mix. It's a quick and easy install process so you'll plotting massacres to the jaunty sounds of Mozart in no time.


10. Napoleon: All In One


Napoleon: Total War has been out for less than a year, but the Total War modding community has already released hundreds of mods, tweaks and additions for the game. There are almost too many, which is why the super helpful Napoleon: All In One mod is so useful. It incorporates over 50 mods into one big package. Most of the updates focus on retexturing many units to help differentiate them on the battlefield and, where possible, bring them more closely in line with their historical counterparts. More sweeping changes include an increase in unit size to ensure even bigger battles and some alterations to unit AI that should see them stay in a fight for longer. Have a look at the trailer below for an overview of the changes.



That's just ten of the hundreds of mods out there for the Total War series. If these ten aren't enough then you'll find many, many more over at the excellent Total War Centre.

Fuck George. He’s the gambler standing at the entrance to Nellis Air Force Base. Behind him: nothing but craters and bombed-out houses. The Boomers control this area, a community that protects itself by shelling anyone who gets in range, but I need to get in and George knows how to get past the bombs. He wants 200 bottlecaps for his services.

This is the world of Fallout: New Vegas. It’s harsh. Hell, I only have 200 caps because I killed the doctor who saved my life and scooped a bullet out my brain. So when George demands these caps for doing little more than standing on a path, while I’ve had to slam pool cues into the skulls of helpful medics, it upsets me.



I hand them over, as I can’t see any other way in. After a terrifying bolt through a barrage of bombs, following George’s instructions, I make it to the compound. The Boomers are surprisingly cool, if a bit overprotective. They agree to not shell me any more, which is nice of them. I find it difficult to blow up people I’ve met socially, too. I head back to George. It’s not just his opportunism that angers me. He offered to repay me double the amount of caps if I survived. I’m his dirty little gambling fix!

I grab my spiked knuckles and start whaling on him. Every punch makes me feel a little bit better. He runs off into Nellis and I run after him. The Boomers promised to leave me alone, but George? He’s fair game.

As is anything in his radius. Bombs are indiscriminate jerks. I only realise my huge mistake when he reels at one of my uppercuts and I explode a second later.



I should have known better. New Vegas might be cleaner than Fallout 3’s Washington wasteland, the Mojave desert having got off relatively lightly during the nuclear apocalypse, but it’s still a game about survival. Shot in the head, buried and presumed dead, you’re caught up in a revenge tale that turns into a battle for control of the region, with you in the Clint Eastwood role. Do you track down the man who put you in the ground, explore the desert, beat up some nearby gang members, or look for a faction to join?
Crafty Buck
What would Clint do? Or, in my game, an athletic, red-headed lady I named ‘Buck’. Lady Buck, I decided, was simply going to be an extension of me. If I found the people I was dealing with personally repugnant, I’d give them Wasteland justice. I plumbed for my usual mix of lockpicking and stealth skills, eventually regretting my Thief-centric approach to character creation. My advice: New Vegas is so skewed towards dialogue that, for the first run-through at least, you should put as much as you can in Speechcraft and Barter skills. Even the final bosses can be chatted into submission if your stats are high enough. You can’t lockpick a mouth. Oh, and you should probably avoid Hardcore mode for that first runthrough. It’s the triathlon of New Vegas, a gruelling slog designed to sap your strength as you play. It’s not for the ill-prepared.

Wandering the wasteland now, two years on from Fallout 3, I’m both happy and disappointed. I’ve long wanted more of the same from Bethesda, and this is the hand that New Vegas deals. But while it’s good to be back, the leap from one game to the other isn’t nearly as large as it should have been. New areas, characters and factions, but the same clunky inventory and character models. Two years to stay exactly where you were.



Fallout’s world of cracked asphalt and rolling deserts can still impress. Whacking the view distance up to max is chilling: futuro-’50s buildings poke into the air, a giant wireframe cross stands on a hill, and at night Vegas glows on the horizon.



The world goes about its business, delivering some amazing random encounters. After a save, I stumbled across two small gangs fighting it out. I leapt into the fray – mostly to try out my newly acquired rebar club: a lump of concrete on the end of twisted metal rods. Combat is still lightweight: swinging kilos of concrete at someone’s head only feels powerful when they explode in a shower of gristle at the end, or in VATS where you’re given choices of where to hit with different chances of success. My rebar broke the face of the Powder Ganger’s leader, leaving a ragged red lump where her smile used to be. I reloaded, and this time sat back, watching the battle play out. At one point, a Ganger limped off to safety and pulled out a Stimpack, healing himself.

The central story is a big improvement on the dad-quest of Fallout 3. You’re following the trail of the man who shot you, as it snakes across the Mojave through the major urban areas, drip-feeding you tasks that vary from sorting out a town’s escaped prisoner problem to a ghoul infestation with a brilliantly overthe- top ending. Scenarios and characters that I’m loath to go into detail over, as their tricky little problems should be experienced first-hand. Twisty moral conundrums are laid at your feet as you pick and choose who to piss off (and you’ll always piss someone off). When a game asks you to lead someone into a sniper’s line of fire, but doesn’t specify who, you definitely have to confront your id.



It’s not overtly encouraged by the game, but you can just head for Vegas. Giant Rad Scorpions and Deathclaws stand between you and The Strip, and you’ll end up aggroing every one of them, but you’re given impressive leeway to just stumble across points of the story as you wander. But eventually, all roads lead to New Vegas.

It’s here that a surprising second act kicks off. Structurally things get messy: you’re used as an emissary from Vegas to talk to the factions. While there you can take up more missions, or simply report back to Vegas without having much to do with them at all – pretty much invalidating the entire endeavour. Don’t do that. The factions are interesting, particularly the Caesars: a vast army with nasty predilections, based on the Roman Empire. They crucify people, for Jupiter’s sake. Even the lesser factions, like the Elvis-impersonating Kings or the mafia-inspired Omerta, have been teased out of Vegas tropes.
King Rex
There’s something for everyone, different personalities and points of view to empathise with or despise, depending on how you’re playing. So the Romans felt my wrath, and I helped the leader of the Kings fix his robot dog (by bashing in another dog’s head to replace the brain). My reward was having the dog as a companion. There are eight companions to pick from, six human and two not, and you can have one of each if you find them. They back you up in fights, and you can set their state via a control wheel, but the most important addition is they bring a perk to your character sheet. Rex’s perk will find and mark nearby items for you to collect. I could have swapped him for ED-E, a floating robot who’s good for spotting people and fighting from afar, but Rex, with his glowing skullcap, was too cute. I was on a ‘nice’ playthrough.



But I could so easily have played nasty, and aligned with the Romans. Or ambivalent and aligned with the NCR – the other main faction and strangely likeable people, just doing what they can to survive. Those choices, and the wonderful way the game accepts and adapts when you make them, make New Vegas worth your time and money. I had a lot of fun, but I never uncovered anything as wonderful as Fallout 3’s Oasis or Little Lamplight.

There are things to see, sure, but the rewards aren’t nearly as interesting in New Vegas. I didn’t get as much out of heading for intriguing things on the horizon as I did in the previous game. With some new technology and the ambition to create a full world as compelling as the previous game’s, it could have been wonderful.

For further reading: CVG's Fallout: New Vegas review, and a guide to finding all of the collectible snow-globes in Fallout: New Vegas on GamesRadar.

Imagine yourself not as the dashing hero that rushes in to save the day in every game you've played, but as a skeleton, or ogre, or disembodied head. Forced to live underground, work in hazard areas such as lava flows and dank caves, and perform menial tasks like standing in anticipation. Most monsters are just trying to get by, and it's hard enough without adventurers busting into your space all the time to smash your vases and open your chests, "What the hell?" Unmitigated invasion of privacy is what it is, and I won't stand for it. Lower your weapons and earn loot the right way for a change, by entering our Guild Wars 2 loot giveaway.



All you have to do to earn one of our coveted jewels is answer a simple question in the comments section of this post: If you were a monster in the Guild Wars universe, say a troll or one of the afflicted, how would you get back at the adventurers for wrecking your cozy dungeon? Remember, GW2 lets you utilize environmental weapons as well as combine various powers for unique effects, so go crazy with your ideas!

On the prize table are:

2 huge, canvas concept art posters
1 “The Art of Guild Wars 2” concept art book
1 Guild Wars “Ghosts of Ascalon book”
3 Guild Wars 2 hats
2 copies of Guild Wars Trilogy

The contest ends Thursday, October 21 and winners will be selected shortly thereafter. Contest is restricted to US Residents only.

Nothing is sacred. The developers at ArenaNet are tossing out ye olde MMO rules to make it easier than ever to team up with friends and succeed together, thanks to Guild Wars 2's groundbreaking world events and mind-blowing class design. Witness ArenaNet's coup on tradition and the hands-on action in this first of a five-part preview. The first two posts contain the info revealed in the PCG US December 2010 issue, and the following three are jam-packed with brand new, never-before-seen info and art! Stay tuned all week for all the Guild Wars 2 knowledge your brain can handle!



In 2005, Guild Wars busted into the MMO scene with a heretical proposition: that players could have a quality, triple-A online experience without paying a monthly subscription fee. But what seemed absurd then appears brilliant in retrospect--ArenaNet’s bold, beautifully realized and susbcriptionless MMO attracted hardcores and curious outsiders alike and has sold over six and a half million copies to date. And five years later, Guild Wars 2 looks ready to shake up the genre once again. But this time around, instead of upending business models (GW2 will also be a boxed game with no subscription), ArenaNet wants to revolutionize the way players work and adventure together.
Haves and have-nots


The traditional model for grouping in MMOs relies on three roles for players to fill: healer, tank, and DPS (damage dealers). Players design their characters to fulfill one of these roles and rarely deviate from it while in a group. If you’re the healer, for example, you wouldn’t expect to stop healing until the dungeon is cleared. This model has been in place since the birth of grouping in MMOs, and very few games have seen success when they attempt to break away from it. Would ArenaNet dare desecrate this holy trinity—the most sacred relic of MMO-land? You bet your Charr they would.

Now, before defenders of the status quo begin screaming blasphemy and rioting in the streets, let me reassure you—ArenaNet isn’t on a crusade to destroy the healer-tank-DPS tradition entirely. Instead, it intends to transform it into something even more accessible and enjoyable. As Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum explains it, “We don’t want players to take on strict roles, but there are still roles that need to be fulfilled in combat… Every character is versatile, so it’s up to you to recognize what other players are doing, what the situation is, and react to it.” The developers still want players to tank enemies, restore health to their friends and tear through enemy flesh like tissue paper as they always have in MMOs. The big change is that they want each player to do all of those things, as the situation warrants.
Think on your toes


It’s all about flexibility. Groups will still want someone to run into the thick of things and take the brunt of enemy aggression, but why should that player be locked into that role at all times? Why can’t a gun toting Charr pull out a mace and shield when he sees his friends in trouble and protect them? Why can’t a magic-blasting Sylvari use her powers to heal her friends when that’s what’s needed most? In Guild Wars 2, they can.

But it’s not all loosey-goosey--players still choose a definitive class when they create their character. The four announced classes so far are Warrior, Elementalist, Ranger and Necromancer--a healthy balance of the usual class archetypes (only Monk and Mesmer haven’t been confirmed from the first game to return).
Choose your weapon


Unlike the original game—where players could cherry-pick skills from a massive pool of options—the skills that you have on your bar in GW2 are now determined by your class and the weapons you have equipped.

A warrior who equips a shield will see two tanking skills appear on his bar, for example, and if he equips a mace in his main hand, he’ll be given three additional skills to stun and attack his opponents. Each player will have 10 skills on their bar: the first three determined by what’s in their main hand, the next two determined by what’s in their off hand (a two-handed weapon will determine all five), and the last five skills will be chosen by the player within categories—one self-healing skill, three utility skills, and one elite skill, which is very powerful but has a long cooldown.

Weapon restrictions will follow common sense logic—Elementalists won’t be able to equip shields (although Flannum told me that he ran a five-man group filled with Elementalists that fared pretty well in dungeons, such as the two revealed in tomorrow's feature), and different classes will utilize the same type of weapon differently. For example, both the Warrior and the Ranger can equip a longbow, but the Warrior will use it for spray-and-pray AoE attacks while the Ranger will utilize it more elegantly as a long-range, single-target sniping weapon.

Out of combat, players can mix and match weapon sets to their heart’s content, but before going into battle, they’ll need to pick two sets of weapons that they’ll be able to switch between freely during combat. The one exception is the Elementalist, who can’t swap weapons during combat, but accomplishes the same thing by swapping between his or her four attunements (fire, earth, water, and air).
Controlled chaos


Flannum describes his vision for the game’s combat as “controlled chaos fun,” adding that “in MMOs, combat gets really fun when things go wrong. When the tank goes down and you have to yell at the off-tank to grab the boss’s attention—that’s when things get exciting. Our combat makes that the constant state of things, so you’re always in an exciting situation… but we try to over-communicate visually what’s happening around you, so you always know what’s going on and it’s not just mass chaos.” It sounds good to us, but can they pull it off effectively?
Embracing the madness


I got to experience this “controlled chaos” firsthand during my playtime at ArenaNet’s HQ near Seattle, Washington. I was an Elementalist teamed up with an assortment of the four available classes as my allies. We ventured into a dark, foreboding swamp to take on The Shadow Behemoth, and let me assure you, the 12 story-tall demon certainly lived up to its name. Its health was split between its head and two massive, shadowy hands capable of rocking the earth beneath us, knocking us down.

We knew this boss would take coordination, and although none of us had chosen to be a “tank” or “healer” when making our character, it didn’t take long for the familiar shouts of “OK, I’ll tank him” and “I’ve got your back; I’ll heal you!” were shouted across the room as the warriors pulled out shields and the Elementalists switched to their water attunement, granting them healing abilities.

But I’m not the healing type, so I stuck with my dual-dagger fire setup which gave me powerful AoE skills. I had a ton of fun swapping between my attunements to fill different roles: I’d jump to my water attunement to freeze a lesser demon harassing our healers, then throw down a firewall in front of our Rangers so that their arrows caught fire en route to the boss (player abilities can combine together in hundreds of different, logical ways to produce new, unique effects), and blasted the boss’s face with a few fireballs of my own whenever I had some spare time.
What now?


It was going well—and then our healer died. In almost any other MMO, this would be a wipe; we’d all be dead. But we’re not so helpless in GW2. Our fallen healer is still casting spells at nearby enemies, Left 4 Dead-style.

Her Grasping Earth spell attacks and slows a nearby enemy. If she can kill someone within 30 seconds, she’ll pop back up to her feet and keep fighting (the time limit is drastically reduced if she’s downed repeatedly or continues to take damage).



We all pitch in to help our healer kill the nearby swamp demon and she’s revived; but now the tank has fallen. No worries—I pop Mist Form, which makes me temporarily invulnerable, sprint to the tank and revive him. He jumps to his feet, the healer caps off his health, and we’re back in business.

In GW2, anyone is able to revive another player as an innate interaction (“We wanted lots of opportunity for things to not only go wrong, but for players to reverse what went wrong,” explains Flannum), which led to some pretty miraculous daisy-chaining of resurrections that brought our team back from the brink of disaster to finally defeating the giant swamp boss after 10 minutes of intense, fast-paced action that kept us thinking on our toes the entire time.

Environmental weapons offer another great way to mix things up mid-combat: pick up a big rock on the ground and your skills are replaced with ones that let you hurl the boulder at enemies or bash them with it up close.

Unlike some MMOs, there’s no way that successful raiders in GW2 will be spamming one attack over and over—the controlled chaos keeps combat dynamic and exciting and generates great stories to brag and laugh about afterwards.

Check back tomorrow for the second part of the preview where we'll reveal two new dungeons and lots nitty-gritty dungeon/open world mechanics.

The kindest thing that can be said about the Final Fantasy MMO is that it has a good intro movie. That movie doesn’t take ten minutes to load, it maintains a constant framerate and you don’t have to traverse a labyrinth of menu screens to play it. In short, it’s everything the game isn’t.

The game itself is an online RPG in which you pick from a variety of elfin races, choose a class (warrior, mage or crafter), and head out into the world of Eorzea to make your fortune. In other words: beat up the local wildlife or craft goods. As you level up and travel from place to place, you slowly unravel the story.



Yet not even an interesting XP system and the few rare cutscene-driven story missions can redeem this, buried as they are behind one of the most heinous interfaces ever devised, and strangled by lag issues, framerate dips and a nightmarish control scheme that goes out of its way to make even basic actions like checking your inventory a long and irritating exercise in menu-faffing. PvP, keyboard shortcuts, an auction house, a sensible group chat system, a fast travel system that doesn’t break your bank, a map that actually shows you where things are... all these are missing presumed forgotten. Take the hardest quest in the game as an example. It’s called: ‘buying a sword’.
Finally, fantasy
The useless world map fails to show anything other than a vague sketch of the local geography. No indication of quest givers, traders or markets so I’m forced to wander aimlessly around the large, seemingly barren town. But it isn’t barren. If I stand still for a minute NPCs lag into existence around me. If I wait another minute player characters start appearing as well. I eventually find the bazaar, a place where players can sell their crafted wares through NPC employees. There is no way of telling who is selling what. The only solution is to speak to every single one of them until I get lucky. Two hours after starting my mission, I still don’t have a sword. I give up and buy some leggings instead.

Taking quests is similarly laborious. Hard-to-find quest-givers dish out clusters of boring rat hunts activated at giant crystals in the field. Once I’ve completed my small allotment I inexplicably have to wait 36 hours until I’m allowed more. The only option is to grind the local wildlife and join hourly Behests: small group monster hunts (the closest thing to a dungeon). Or I could get crafting, itself a lengthy series of protracted minigames with a frustratingly high failure rate.



That interesting XP system? Buried somewhere under the rubble there’s a dual experience setup that lets you level up separately on different weapons, and then mix and match unlocked skills to create a truly unique character. But the grind of levelling, and an interface that demands 12 clicks to change your weapon, robs this of any potential.

FFXIV demands incredible patience for almost no reward. Even players loyal enough to endure its many flaws may find themselves punished by the experience-limiting system. After eight hours levelling on a weapon, the amount of experience you can earn from quests and kills decreases. As more time passes, eventually you can’t progress at all. Final Fantasy XIV is so deeply flawed that I can’t even see how future updates could redeem it.

If you've bought a copy of Final Fantasy XIV you'll have received 30 days free subscription. Because of the many problems that the game has experienced on launch, that 30 day subscription is set to be extended by a further month. A list of changes  planned for the next big patch has also been released, read on for the details.



Square Enix announced the trial period extension on their site saying, "considering the nature of much of the feedback we received, and the current state of the game, we have decided to extend the free trial period for all users."

In a separate post the details of the next version update are outlined. Improvements listed include interface alterations, and a claim that the lag problems many players have experienced will be fixed. The update is due in late November. Check out the announcement from game director, Nabbuaki Komoto, for more information on the planned changes, which also include game rebalances to encourage group play, an increase in monster population and improved chat features.

The creators of the space-ship horror game and limb amputation sim, Dead Space, have revealed that they're working on a Command & Conquer game.

General Manager, Nick Earl revealed the fact during an interview with Gamasutra. No specifics have been announced just yet, but Earl has confirmed that the game will be "pretty far out". The Command and Conquer strategy games have been in steady decline over the past few years and EA's last attempt at a C&C action game, Tiberium, was canned a couple of years ago. Given Visceral previous game, Dead Space, it seems likely that this will be an action game in a similar vein. Perhaps Visceral's take on the series can give C&C the reboot it sorely needs if it's ever to become a great PC gaming series again.

I'm trying to picture what this game could possibly be like, and all I can think off is Kane stalking some dark corridors with a Plasma Cutter. What do you think? Can an action game set in the Command & Conquer universe work? What would you like to see from a Visceral C&C game?