Episode 5 presents an oddly sombre finale to the season as a whole. It’s funny, a comedy first and foremost, and a wonderfully imaginative finale – but one that packs several stings in the tale, and more than a couple of dead bodies. It feels like an epilogue as much as an episode, not just to this specific story, but potentially to Telltale’s stint as Sam and Max’s storytellers.

Right from the start, this episode has a different feel – a new title sequence, bigger set-pieces, and most notably, no Max as Sam’s partner. He’s still a major player, but as a snarky enemy, appearing mostly as an army of flaming heads using the now familiar psychic powers to sabotage your progress.



He’s not desperately effective at this though. The limited number of rooms and objects makes this the easiest episode of the series by far, but that’s fine – it keeps the story bubbling along admirably. The superb Narrator remains the unquestionable highlight, and even if a couple of the big story reveals do fall oddly flat after all the build-up, his Twilight Zone style commentary papers over the cracks with great style. Such a shame he probably won’t be back now that his chosen story is told.

As for the series as a whole, ignoring a few wobbly moments here and there, especially in Episodes 2 and 4, it’s been an excellent year for the Freelance Police. The Devil’s Playhouse hasn’t been a deep story, but it’s been a fun one, letting Telltale stretch their creative fingers and try some much needed new twists on its formula. It would be a shame for the series to end here, but a fitting send-off if it does.

This penultimate episode offers a fantastic opening and ending to Sam & Max Season 3, linked by an oddly unfulfilling middle. The action starts with psychopathic toy-hunting clones of Sam rampaging through the city, and the series’ main players holed up and defending themselves. As for the ending, it's one of Telltale’s best set-pieces so far.

Between those points, there’s something missing. This episode isn’t bad, but it’s patchy, and feels rushed. Aside from the ending location, the new settings – a warehouse and a mysterious cloning plant – are visually dull and unsatisfying to explore. The script is workmanlike, with few memorable gags or lines, but lots of very, very long conversations with the usual cast. The puzzles don’t impress either. It’s not the first time Telltale have had to bend over backwards to find reasons for Sam and Max to not simply gun their way through trouble, but it’s much more noticeable when you’ve got the Stinky clan effortlessly holding their own against the exact same foes that send our supposedly psychotic heroes running for their lives.



More disappointingly, nothing interesting is done with the psychic powers. You need a cake, a guy draws a picture of it for no real reason, you use the turn-into-a-drawing power. You need to distract some goons, you use the throw-voice power. And then you do it again, and again. Only at the end do you see a new spin on these abilities in the form of a shapeshifting battle, which is fun but short. On the plus side, the episode does wrap up plenty of the series' plot points, and sets up the final episode in suitably surreal style.

King’s Bounty: Crossworlds is an expansion for King’s Bounty: Armoured Princess, making it an expansion for an expandalone for the 2008 remake of the 1990 turnbased tactical RPG King’s Bounty. Much as in all of those, your job in Crossworlds is to heroically steer a horse around a medieval fantasy world, bump into evil generals, and fight their armies on a hex grid. Afterwards: XP and gold for all.

Unlike any of the previous games, Crossworlds comes with two discrete mini-campaigns to garnish the main expanded content. The first, Champion of the Arena, is about Arthur, a generic wanderer mercenary type who’s been drugged and taken to an underground city to complete a series of boss fights.



It’s easy. There are a bunch of race-themed guilds – Royal Academy of Shouty Men With Swords, Horrible Lizard Swamp, Dwarven Booze-O-Mine, etc. Fight various insta-battles for them and they’ll reward you with ludicrous amounts of cash to buy thousands of fairies with.

Look, I didn’t mean to start hanging out with fairies. I’ve got dryads and druids and shit like that, but it’s really just to boost the morale of my miniature murderous mistresses. Fairies are malice incarnate. Each turn, my dainty legions do horrible things to swarms of demons and undead. After each battle, I go up about five levels without breaking a sweat. It’s brief, silly fun, and I was done with it in about four hours.
Square one
If you prefer a challenge, there’s always the second mini-campaign. Defender of the Crown is set directly after the events of Princess. Princess Amelie has just defeated the Uberlord Demonpants guy, and returned as a battle hardened, triumphant... level one wimp? What? She’s also got to prove that she’s a bad enough dude to defend the crown, despite that whole freezing-time-and-voyaging-to-another-dimension thing she did.

Your resources are tight, the encounters so carefully built that you need to have a plan, and the rewards piled just high enough to make it seem worth it. It’s a frustrating gauntlet if you don’t know what you’re doing, but if you’re itching for a King’s Bounty style scrap that forces you to think, this is it.



The bulk of the expansion is less interesting. Orcs on the March is Armoured Princess again, but with some sloppy dialogue tree cock-ups, slightly more complicated Orc combat, and some more challenge-dungeons around the world. Loads of expensive magical items (which you can’t afford) lie around in shops from the off, and there’s a new Orc-centric quest chain, but it’s still the same old world from last time.

Although Crossworlds won’t rekindle your romance with the original Armoured Princess campaign, it offers enough content for veterans to justify the £15 purchase.

I got an interesting question on my Formspring profile that seemed like it'd be fun to answer here, where the rest of PC Gamerdom can weigh in in the comments. Go nuts!

Q: Do you think we sometimes rely too much on autosave?

A: How can you rely too much on autosave? Yes, it’s a modern convenience to not be forced to replay a section of a game after an unforeseen death as punishment for neglecting to manually save every couple of minutes by habitually hitting the F5 key like a lab monkey earning his food pellets. Perhaps playing the same area of a game multiple times built character, in the same way that losing a limb to gangrene built character before the discovery of antibiotics. Kids today just don’t understand the fun they missed back in the old days.

I’ve already got plenty of character, though, and personally I don’t like being forced to replay parts of a game I didn’t necessarily enjoy the first time. Any tool or system that can be put in place to help me avoid that and concentrate instead on speeding me to better parts of a game is fine by me.

In my mind there’s no such thing as too much autosave—if I could have a system that saved 60 times per second and allowed me to jump back to any point in my game without making it run like a slideshow, I’d sign up in a second. PC gaming may never fully eradicate the scourge of the occasional game crash, but if you always had a save file from seconds before any crash could hit, they’d go from huge hassle to minor inconvenience (in single-player games, anyway). It’s true that being able to jump back in time to before you made a crucial mistake would reduce the stakes of game death to the point of non-existence and basically turn every game into Prince of Persia, but as an optional feature it'd be great.

The only real downside I can see to becoming accustomed to frequent autosave is if you go from a game that supports that functionality to one that has inconsiderately left out a reasonable autosave functionality—which describes what happened to me when I was playing Serious Sam HD. Then there’s a period of painful adjustment when you realize, during your death throes, that you haven’t hit the quicksave in the better part of an hour.



That said, checkpoint-only save systems, or systems that require the player to go to a specific location to save, are the devil. If I want to save in a specific location at a specific time, I should be able to, dammit, and I should be able to jump back to that exact point in time as often as I please. Developers should be flattered by this: I'm saving it because I liked it enough to want to come back to it.

What do you guys think? Is autosave a boon or bane to gaming?

It's been tough to wrangle enough players to get a full game of Blizzard's new DOTA map going on the show floor so far, but we've had plenty of time to get familiar with the character selection screen. We've taken down the full list of the abilities of half of them so far. the game plays very similar to Warcraft III's DOTA AllStars map. Read on to see Blizzard's own take on the competitive genre birthed inside their RTS games.

Each hero has one passive aura that they don't need to train, which is listed first on their bullet point list of abilities. They also have an ultimate ability, which is listed last.

Raynor - The iconic Marine specializes in abilities and movement speed
- Command aura, nearby units +10% damage aura
- Piercing shot, lined shot that goes through multiple units
- Mark Target, it takes 10-50% more damage
- Flare area, enemy units deal less damage andhave less armor
- Rally, nearby units have increased movement and attack speed temporarily
- Call reinforcements, marine backups are dropped in (9-12 at a time)

Muradin - Dwarf that specializes in health and abilities
- Basic attacks can stun and deal bonus damage
- Storm Bolt, to stun and deal damage
- Thunderclap, damage and slows movement and attack speed of nearby enemies
- Adamantium Plating, passive armor and spell defense
- War Cry, buffs attack damage of friendlies, reduces of enemies
- Avatar, makes you uber powerful temporarily

Zeratul - Protoss Dark Zealot that specializes in attack, abilities, and speed
- passive: 20% miss on all attacks
- Phase Strike, teleports and damages all enemies he touches on the way
- Phase Blades, passive armor pen and stun chance
- Blink, teleport
- Astral Projection, blinking creates clones and stealths hero
- Illusion Device, rapid fire hits on single target

Za'Muro - Orc swordmaster specializes in life and speed
- 15% chance to autohit anyone that melees him
- Lotus Strike, cone attack that slows and damages
- Cosmic Blossom, all attacks have a chance to deal aoe damage
- Chakra Waves, nearby heroes healed every time he attacks
- Asura's Call, all units attack you, attack faster, but for less damage
- Bladestorm, spin of death

Grunty - Space marine murloc specializes in attack, abilities and speed
- Vigor, nearby friendly units +10% movement speed
- Lunar Tide, life regen on friendly unit
- Aqua Shot, 10% chance attack will do aoe and slow attack speed of enemies
- Ensnare, immobilize enemies in a net
- Haste, buff movement and attack speed
- Rapid Fire, 300% attack for 2 seconds

Stitches - Space marine abomination specializes on life
- Disease Cloud, damages all nearby enemies for 0.5% of max health/second
- Slam, damage and stun aoe
- Hook, damage and pull enemy unit behind him
- Devour, kills and gains life equal to its max health
- Passive increase to armor, life and regen
- Putrid Bite, circle of debuff on the ground that damages and slows.

The remaining six heroes playable on the show floor are: Kerrigan, Sylvannas, a hydralisk, a terran ghost, an ultralisk, and a tauren space marine (L80ETC).

Come play dress-up with the PC Gamer US editors in Global Agenda on Wednesday, October 27, at 4PM PST and be one of the first to run through the new Halloween themed mission, Oasis Checkpoint of Doom.

Oasis Checkpoint is a Defense Raid mission where 10 players defend a facility from waves of NPC attackers. It's decorated with “tricks” and “treats” for the holiday event, lasting from October 27 through October 31. Learn more about Raid Defense in this developer video blog.

Players must be level 30 to be able to join in the raid.






Thirteen new Halloween-themed masks will be available as random drops in the Halloween mission, and the items range in rarity from Uncommon to Epic. Players who defeat the final boss will score an additional mask on top of the normal mission rewards.

Raid timers will be reduced from 80 minutes to 30 minutes during the event in order to allow more players a chance to do a mission with PC Gamer. All the seasonal items received during the event will be wearable until the end of November.

Register for your free trial account here. Trial accounts are only able to reach level 12, though, and a one-time purchase of Global Agenda($30) will be required to advance beyond the level cap.

We'll see you in game!

Kerrigan versus an angry Murloc. The Blademaster versus Sylvanas. All of this is now possible with the forthcoming Blizzard DOTA, that's been revealed and is playable, at Blizzcon. It follows the same template as traditional DOTA games, with teams of five heroes hiding behind hordes of automated armies, beating up towers. Heroes then level up, and buy new abilities and items.

They've also revealed Left 2 Die - a co-op version of the zombie defense mission in the Starcraft II single player campaign.


Blizzard have described Blizzard DOTA as "like Super Smash Brothers for Blizzard games", a fun place that can provide "a fun change of place".

Both maps were created entirely in the Starcraft II editor, and will be available to download, for free, soon.

We'll be posting full impressions of both maps shortly.

"Kicking Ass in High Heels" is how the Diablo 3 team summarized the final playable character class, the Demon Hunter, in their presentation slide when it was announced this morning at Blizzcon. Other words tossed around to describe her were dark, mysterious and medieval, but what you really need to know is that this stiletto-wearing assassin dual wields crossbows and can headshot demons with a grenade bola from 20 yards away.


Designed to round out the archetypes already in the game (Barbarian, Monk, Witch Doctor, and Wizard), the Demon Hunter is the only character who is not born into their role--they come from varied backgrounds, united only by the fact that at some point, they were the sole survivor of demons slaying everyone in their family and neighborhood. More than any other character, Demon Hunters understand the threat that demons pose to their world and are hell-bent on destroying them at any cost--often relying on dark magic to gain the upperhand. They seek and prey upon demons in order to make the demons feel the same fear that they inspire in their victims.

And they do so with all manner of crazy attacks. Here are the ones we know so far:
Bola Shot

Launches at target and explodes
It's not instakill - but does area-of-effect damage
The explosion is delayed slightly, so you can hit, run, and wait

Vault

Movement skill that lets you quickly pass through or around hordes and hazards without getting hurt
Instant action roll
Shadow fog effect

Spike Trap

It follows "ordinary trap mechanics". If a monster walks over it, it gets skewed.
Shadow visuals
Laying traps is part of the gadgeteer design of the Demon Hunter. It's the 'hunting' part of the hunter.

Grenades

Bounce individually based on physics - so you can bounce them off walls and around corners
Each bounced differently down a single staircase
3 at a time

Multishot

100+ bolts in a ¬90 degree arc. It's a spammable aoe attack
Not insta-kill, in the demo the player fired a few times a crowd of zombies. Some died, but not all

At Blizzcon, at the Anaheim Convention Centre, Blizzard today revealed the final class in the Diablo 3 roster: the demon hunter, alongside new PvP  and character customisation features.

The Demon Hunter is Diablo 3's more traditional ranged archetype, dual wielding crossbows and using traps and dark magic to pew pew monsters from afar. The class is fast, violent and sleek - featuring skills like Bola shot (shoot an explosive rope around a monsters neck: BANG), spike traps, and a super-efficient multi-shot.

Also featured, rated arenas in which PvE players can bring their character to fight, kill, and splat in rounds of three or five. Rewards will include vanity items and achievements.

PC Gamer is at Blizzcon in force: we'll bring you more video, more news, and more impressions as soon as possible.

Microsoft are set to completely reboot the Games for Windows Marketplace. The service will relaunch next month with a new website, pre-order deals and over a hundred games available to buy at launch. Could this be the service to rival Steam?

The new service will go live on November 15th, and Microsoft have drafted in Peter Orullian, one of the brains behind XBox Live, to manage the launch. Speaking to Joystiq, Orullian said "The store is really going to be a destination for games for PC gamers, Sure, we're going to have Live-enabled titles, and we love those, but that's not all you'll find here."

Unlike Steam's reliance on a downloadable client, Games for Windows Marketplace will have you buying games directly from their website. There will still be a separate client, but it will exist "to manage really really large files that aren't maybe so easily managed through the web, and it'll be your transaction history; so if you need to re-download a game, you can go and do that."

Microsoft hope to incorporate game ratings and many more features into the system over time, but will be offering pre-order deals through the service from the get go. Orullian mentions that "you should show up on day one, because we're going to have a great pre-order on a title you may care about."

There will also be themed weekly deals, an idea that XBox Live users will already have seen in action. The service will also have a degree of cross compatibility. You'll be able to sign into the new service using an existing Xbox Live account and spend MS points on the new service.

Not long ago General Manager of Microsoft game Studios, Dave Luehmann said "it's our job to lead the way on PC", adding that Microsoft needed to "step up." Could this be the start of Microsoft's PC comeback?