Richard Cobbett heads out in search of some Halloween chills by breathing new life into one of the quirkiest horror games that almost nobody played, and a ghost story that's out of this world.

As a self-proclaimed wuss, horror's never really been my genre. I don't like jump-scares. I'm squeamish about gore effects. I don't get any enjoyment from watching people being sliced open. I don't understand why the world needs so many Saw films, or how the villains have managed to avoid suffering from psychopath's block. After so many sadistic puzzles, even the cleverest serial killer would be forgiven for just wheeling out a bear-trap and slapping on a Post-It reading "Stick Face Here".

Despite this, when I think back to the games that deserved a better reception, Realms of the Haunting is one of the first that jumps into my mind. It was amazing. It was terrible. It was clever. It was insane. It merged adventuring and shooting in a way that no other game has ever really tried - including its semi-spiritual sequel Clive Barker's Undying. It was an exquisitely crafted experience, and one of the sloppiest games ever, all at once. It was beautiful in its chaos, and I loved it, pustular warts and all.



At first glance, Realms of the Haunting is the most cliched kind of horror story. You play Adam Randall, a young man drawn a a big spooky mansion by nightmares, the death of his father, and a box of broken seals. As soon as you get inside, the doors slam behind you, revealing doors locked by magic sigils, typewriters rattling off spooky messages, and carefully planted books with names like 'Look Homeward Angel' hammering home the dark atmosphere. It's all very generic, but oddly effective considering the Doom level engine (that was at least two years out of date when ROTH hit the shelves in 1996), largely due to phenomenal audio direction on everything from dead rats being crunched underfoot to the satisfying 'kachunk' of picking up a box of ammo. It's never a particularly pretty game, although it does some clever things with contrast that mean certain areas still impress, but it still has its charms.

What really makes it work however is that even at this stage, ROTH is a very smart game, especially when it comes to its characters. Adam for instance is one of the best everymen in gaming history, which starts right in the intro when we see that he's not entering the situation blind. He doesn't know he's about to set foot in a house full of angry demons, but he's done what research he could, and at least tried to prepare himself. Where other characters would take the words of a spooky priest on faith, Adam's called around and confirmed that he said was a complete lie. He's grabbed some textbooks and tried to find out about the broken seals, even if he's come up blank. Throughout the long taxi journey that makes up most of the opening, his expression says it all - a mix of determination, confusion, and understandable trepidation. He's no Gabriel Knight, but he's competent enough company for a trip into the unknown.



As simple as the engine is, the mansion its creators built with it is fantastic. It's a huge, sprawling place, with no loading screens or level boundaries getting in the way. It feels like almost every room had a purpose, from the dormitories to the creaking laboratories, underground caverns, and huge Satanic temple in the basement which runs with molten lava. It's a place of buried secrets, a focal point in the war between Good and Evil, and one with a genuine sense of history. Books, letters, maps and other documents fill in many of the gaps, from what happened, to bigger truths, like the fact that the house is filled with portals to other realms of existence. The more you explore and learn, the more the game evolves away from its haunted house origins and into something much more fantastical - a huge-scale race to prevent an ancient French sorcerer ushering in Armageddon, and worse, being insufferably smug about it.

Cleverly, the evolution takes place everywhere. While the haunted house remains the game's hub, and the dark atmosphere remains effective throughout, ROTH knows better than to keep trying cheap scares. Even Adam gets used to them. When you first see the demons jump out of the floor to gut you, he swears and reacts to them. After the first couple, both of you start taking them in stride. Instead, ROTH constantly finds new ways to keep you off balance, from stepping into new worlds, to developments in the plot, and the addition of new characters to help or hinder your progress. You never know what's coming next, where you're going, or which bits of mythology you've gleaned from exploring will be relevant. The army of flying bat monsters in the basement for instance: part of the big plan, or just one of the villain's old demonic contacts still hanging around? You're never entirely sure.

It helps that the characters themselves are more than you'd expect - sometimes a little dull and earnest, especially the goodies, but most with a clever twist or unexpected spark of humanity. One of the first you meet is called the Gnarl, a cranky hooded figure in a small pocket dimension. He challenges Adam to take a test to prove his worthiness to travel to other realms. Adam reluctantly agrees. The Gnarl just snaps "Done. I tire of triviality..." and invites you to get out of his face.

Even better is when you find yourself in the presence of Raysiel, the universe's jailor, who sternly tells you that you can only have what you need from his castle if you can make it through in silence. Fail (and that's quite likely since his castle is room after room of gongs, sirens, nightingale floors and other traps) and the punishment is to be locked away until the end of time. He'll do it too... but he's not without a heart. If you screw up - just once, mind - he'll let you off with a "Someone treads my hall. It is the son of Adam. Be warned, boy. The need of your realm is great; tread softer. So be the gift of the Master Jailer."

What a nice guy. Almost makes you want to forgive him for his sadistic garden maze.



By far ROTH's best twist on horror gaming is that you're rarely alone. Relatively early on, you bump into a young woman in the mansion - psychic Rebecca Trevisard - who joins up with Adam, and makes exploring a far less lonely affair. You don't actually see her in the gameworld, even if you look in a mirror, but she's meant to be standing behind you. The two banter constantly, sharing thoughts on the developing story, on the characters you meet, and anything else of interest. ROTH's mansion is packed with detail, from paintings to decorations, machines and ancient shrines, and you can chat about all of them with a click. Not only that, you can open up your inventory and swap notes on everyone you've met, every weird occurrence, every bit of backstory or key document you've found, and the conversations develop throughout the game as you uncover the truth. This really boosts the adventuring element, letting the weak shooting feel like a little spice. For all that the backstory is nonsense about Templar knights and magic spirit crystals, lots of work clearly went into making it feel coherent, and Rebecca is always on hand to explain the details. Unsurprisingly, this helpful lady standing around in the middle of a demon-filled house ends up knowing far more than she's letting on, but the friendship between the two characters is genuine, and makes exploring both the mansion and its attached worlds so much more enjoyable than if it was just Adam charging around going "What the hell?" at all the weirdness.

The second best addition is Belial, a demon lord played by David Learner. If you're a certain age from the UK, you may or may not know the name, but you'll instantly recognise him as Pickle, Treguard of Dunshelm's elf assistant from Knightmare. Realms of the Haunting makes Pickle scary.

I shall repeat that. This game makes Pickle scary.

Belial gets one of the best villain introductions in the history of gaming. He appears in the darkness of a huge underground shrine, stone-faced, bespectacled and wearing a pristine lab coat. As he approaches, shoes clicking against the stone temple floor, you see him purposefully slide on dusty gloves of branded human skin - the only way he can touch a holy relic you spend most of the game carting around. With his opening lines, he sneers at Adam and Rebecca, telling them flat-out that he has no interest in winning their trust, unlike previous characters. Then we get this utterly delicious exchange:
"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I am... Belial. As to what I want... well, that can wait a little longer, while we have some fun. Humans do still bleed, don't they? Splendid..."
Suddenly, you wouldn't want to be in Majida's shoes. Or presence. But no change there. Belial is a fantastic villain, even though he's only the real baddie's lieutenant. His boss... is less impressive, not least because it's hard to be scared of a guy named Claude. Pity. So sad.



As an actual game, Realms of the Haunting is severely flawed. The monster AI is so bad that enemies can't generally follow you through doors. If you run straight past, they'll never catch you. It has more than a few outright cruel moments, where something will just crush or blast you without warning, and not much in the way of health potions. It loves its mazes, and some of them are quite literally hell to get through. One of the last takes place in a realm called Sheol, in a huge sprawling maze designed to look like a brain. Your task is to find sixteen brains scattered around its monster filled halls and drop them into a big brain machine, which opens the door to the next level. It's exactly as much fun as it doesn't sound.

The great thing is that even when ROTH is bad, it's bad in mindblowingly strange ways. It's a game where a whole world is devoted to... no word of a lie... making a mystical bong. It's a game which quickly gets bored of guns with ammo and just gives you recharging weapons, except for the most powerful, which can never, ever be reloaded. Whether or not you have shots left is the difference between the final boss going down in a couple of hits, and tearing your face off with a couple of blows. Most bizarre of all though is the bit where you apparently fall through reality and land in a hellish version of The Crystal Maze. The third level of Sheol is a hub surrounded by challenge rooms, which you have to complete to reach the boss fight with Belial (in which he goes down in seconds due to not actually being able to move). These challenges include machine puzzles, platforming, mirror mazes and... a coconut shy. You're right on the edge of saving the world, and ROTH forces you to play a coconut shy before fighting the Lord of Lies!

That's the problem with a game that constantly evolves: sometimes it grows a penis where its face is meant to be. Still, as late-game insanities go, it's not one you're likely to have seen elsewhere...



The thing is that at the time, none of this mattered. If you were playing 'properly', you wouldn't notice the AI not working, and for every stupid bit, there was something great and memorable just round the next corner. Realms of the Haunting had many problems, but it also had soul, and it's that soul that stuck in players' memories after the horrors of brain mazes and incompetent monsters finally faded. If ever a PC game deserved to be remembered as a diamond in its own rough, it's this one. Toast it, remember it, and if you don't mind dirtying your fingers on an Xbox, maybe play a little Deadly Premonition in its honour.

Alternatively, just enjoy the entire game courtesy of Kikoskia's fine Let's Play:



(Honestly, a ****ing coconut shy. What the hell were they thinking?!)

You know what time of year it is, right? It's almost Halloween. That means it's almost time for those snotty-nosed little blighters to turn up on our doorsteps, identities disguised, demanding confectionery in exchange for not being squirted in the eye with a water pistol, or something. I think we all know what we need to do: close the curtains, disconnect the doorbell, and settle down to have a blast on the best free games October's had to offer.

Super Crate Box
Vlambeer. Grab it from the official website.



For one, it's called Super Crate Box. Super Crate Box! It wins for the title alone. But there's more to it than just an absolutely tremendous name. See, Super Crate Box is also one of the most delightfully silly, hilarious, brutally challenging freeware platformers around.

The aim of the game is to collect as many crates as possible: collecting one changes your weapon, and spawns the next crate. But standing in your way are several nasties who bounce around at an alarming rate. Fast-paced death comes frequently - it took me about five attempts to clear the bloody tutorial - but it never stops being a gargantuan lump of ridiculous fun.

In case the tutorial doesn't make it clear to you: every enemy that reaches the fire at the bottom is reincarnated as a fast enemy at the top. Kill them all before they get to it to make life easier for yourself.
Gretel & Hansel Part 2
Markopudding. Play it on Newgrounds.



The first part of this curious indie adventure game was released last year, and now part two is upon us. It's a rather unusual retelling of the Hansel and Gretel story, painted in delightful watercolour and combining quaint with sinister in a hugely satisfying way.

It's occasionally a little fiddly, and not always brilliant at communicating what it wants you to do. Nevertheless, it's an artful and interesting adventure game, small but delightfully formed, and often genuinely surprising.
Technobabylon - Part 1
Technocrat. Get it from Big Blue Cup.


Room escape games sometimes get a bit of a bad rap, or at least buried away in their own little communities. That's a shame, because some are absolutely lovely, like this one: a short one-room adventure game built in Adventure Game Studio.
Its systems are nothing out of the ordinary, but the writing is strong, and the scene-setting delightful. This is a world in which many inhabitants are addicted to Trancing - delving head first into virtual worlds that strip away the horrors of this future reality. Quietly melancholy but always intriguing, it's a fascinating little game.

Pirates of New Horizons
Exit Strategy Entertainment. Download it from the official website.




This is a nice idea. Exit Strategy Entertainment would quite like to make a game called Pirates of New Horizons. They've drawn up plans for a full-length singleplayer action adventure, but they're wary of taking risks. So they've put together a prototype to demo their core mechanics and art style to their potential player base. If people think it has potential, they'll find a way of getting the thing made. If not, they'll move onto something else.
While the prototype is fairly insubstantial, I'm writing about it here because I would love to see a full game built upon these foundations. It's a swordy-slashy action adventure from the Zelda school of combat design: Zelda with pirates, if you will. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but it's the luscious art style that really swings it, complete with Mini Ninjas-esque puffs of smoke when enemies are quashed. It seems to be lovely. Write to Exit to tell them how much you'd like to see a full game.

Siamese Enemies
Krimelo. Get it from the developer's blog.





Absolutely mental, Krimelo's new game Siamese Enemies sees you and a friend working first with each other, then subsequently against each other, to win your mother's love. After all, she did not ask for two babies.

Against a barmy backdrop of primary colour (the exact hue decided by your decision of which nation your mother is from), you'll first race across a level with your conjoined bro, collecting organs on the way. Then comes surgery, at which point everything changes, and the whole thing becomes a mad dash to get all your body parts in the right place before legging it home to mummy.

It's ludicrous, monumentally stupid, and just a little bit perfect.
White
Enjemin. Get it from the official website.



Built by students at French design school Enjemin, White is a thing of muddled sadism and hysterical cuteness. It's a first-person shooter in which you blast away at colourful critters, who bumble and bounce around a huge white square. Shoot them in their adorable little faces and they'll splatter across the blank canvas, creating a pretty piece of modern art.

But different weapons create different splatter effects, giving you added control over your eventual masterpiece. Weaker guns send them running for their little lives while bleeding colour all over the level, while heavier boomstick explode the poor blighters in a glorious rainbow shower. There's even a big magnet gun with which to pick them up and hurl them to where you want them before commencing with your killer artwork.

Most wonderfully, your finished piece is saved to your hard drive as an image file, which can then be submitted to a gallery on the game's website. Here are some of the best so far. I guarantee you'll have hours of fun trying to better them.

This week, on a very special episode of the PC Gamer Podcast...Josh returns from BlizzCon to tell us about Diablo III's Demon Hunter class. We share our spoiler-free experiences in Fallout: New Vegas (also, how is Dan already on his third playthrough). Evan tells us why Tribes deserves to be remade, and Logan describes the unique anatomical advantages of a civet vis-à-vis coffee.

Download, and hear us say words about games.

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Push OK, and that’s it! The podcast will now auto-download whenever an episode is released.

The latest trailer for Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is all about Rome, and how you won't just be assassinating targets when you visit the Italian capital. You'll also be leading a revolution, rebuilding the city and bringing justice to its cruel leaders.

Altair was always a a bit of a pawn in the first Assassins Creed game. Your grumpy old master would tell you do go somewhere, kill someone and that'd be it. Ezio is a more ambitious brand of super-assassin. He's a one man renaissance with knives up his sleeves.

In this video, he's recruiting an army of assassins to bring down the oppressive rulers of Rome. There's also talk of rebuilding parts of the city to get the populace on side. Assassin's Creed 2 players will notice a similarity between this and Ezio's home town in the previous game, where you would use your money to renovate areas for better armour and weapons from its inhabitants. It looks as though the same system applies to Rome in the sequel, but on a much larger scale. The video gives the console release date of November 19th, but the PC version isn't due out until next year.

More than 1.5 million people have voted in this year's Golden Joysticks, now it's finally time for the winners to be announced. The Golden Joystick awards 2010 are happening right now in London. Read on for the full list of categories and shortlisted games, and keep your finger near the refresh button, we'll be updating each category with the winners live as they're announced.

Action
Winner: Assassin’s Creed 2
Second place: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Third place: Red Dead Redemption

Assassin’s Creed 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Bayonetta
God of War III
Heavy Rain
Just Cause 2
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Red Dead Redemption
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

Fighting
Winner: Super Street Fighter IV
Second place: Tekken 6
Third place: Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
Dragon Ball: Raging Blast
Fight Night Round 4
Punch Out!!
Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny
Super Street Fighter IV
Tatsunoko vs Capcom Ultimate All Stars
Tekken 6
UFC 2009 Undisputed
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010.Music

Downloadable
Winner: Plants vs Zombies
Second place: Battlefield 1943
Third place: Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies

‘splosion Man
Assassin’s Creed 2: Bonfire of the Vanities
Battlefield 1943
Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies
FIFA 10
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Little Big Planet
Plants vs. Zombies
Shadow Complex
Trials HD.Fighting

Music
Winner: Guitar Hero 5
Second place: DJ Hero
Third place: The Beatles Rock Band

Band Hero
DJ Hero
Guitar Hero 5
Guitar Hero on Tour: Modern Hits
Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits
Guitar Hero: Metallica
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Just Dance
Lego Rock Band
The Beatles Rock Band

Portable
Winner: Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
Second place: Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines
Third place: Plants vs Zombies

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines
Assassin’s Creed: Discovery
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – Mobilised
Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Little Big Planet
Plants vs Zombies
Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
Professor Layton
Pandora
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit TracksPuzzle

Racing
Winner: Forza Motorsport 3
Second place: Need for Speed: Shift
Third place: Colin McRae: Dirt 2

Need for Speed: Shift
Forza Motorsport 3
Colin McRae: Dirt 2
Gran Turismo PSP
ModNation Racers
Need for Speed: Nitro
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
Split/Second
Wipeout HD Fury
Zombie Driver

Soundtrack
Winner: Final Fantasy XIII
Second place: Brutal Legend
Third place: Assassin’s Creed 2

Assassin’s Creed 2
Brutal Legend
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Final Fantasy XIII
GTA IV: Episodes From Liberty City
Halo 3: ODST
Heavy Rain
Mass Effect 2
Metro 2033
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

RPG
Winner: Mass Effect 2
Second place: Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
Third place: Final Fantasy XIII

3D Dot Game Heroes
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
Final Fantasy XIII
Mass Effect 2
Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
Risen
Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Torchlight

Puzzle
Winner: World of Goo
Second place: Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box
Third place: Scribblenauts

3D Pictocross
Ace Attorney Inverstigations: Miles Edgeworth
Arkanoid Plus!
Brain Exercises with Dr Kawashima, Katamari Forever
LUXOR: Mah Jong
Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box
Scribblenauts
Super Monkey Ball: Step and Roll
World of Goo

Sports
Winner: FIFA 10
Second place: Wii Sports Resort
Third place: Skate 3

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa
Blood Bowl
FIFA 10
Football Manager 2010
Madden NFL 10
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
Skate 3
Wii Fit Plus
Wii Sports Resort

Online
Winner: League of Legends
Second place: Aion: The Tower Of Eternity
Third place: Farmville

2029 Online
Aion: The Tower Of Eternity
Allods Onlin
Bejeweled Blitz
Champions Online
Dragonica
Fallen Earth
Farmville
Gangster City
Global Agenda
League of Legends
Need for Speed: World
Star Trek Online
Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood
Tiger Woods PGA Tour OnlinePortable

Strategy
Winner: Plants vs. Zombies
Second place: The Sims 3
Third place: Age of Empires III: Complete Collection

Age of Empires III
Anno 1404
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising
Napoleon: Total War
Plants vs. Zombies
Supreme Commander 2
The Sims 3
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising
Worms iPhone

Shooter
Winner: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Second place: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Third place: Left 4 Dead 2

Aliens vs. Predator
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Bioshock 2
Borderlands
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Halo 3: ODST
Left 4 Dead 2
Metro 2033
Metriod Prime Trilogy
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat

Best UK Developer
Winner: Jagex
Second place: Rockstar North
Third place: Codemasters

Codemasters
EA Bright Light
Jagex
Lionhead
Media Molecule
Rare
Rockstar North
Rocksteady Studios
Sony Computer Entertainment London Studios
Team 17

One to Watch
Winner: Call of Duty: Black Ops
Second place: Fallout: New Vegas
Third place: Star Wars: The Old Republic

Brink
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Crysis 2
Dead Space 2
F1 2010
Fable III
Fallout: New Vegas
Final Fantasy XIV
Gears of War 3
Halo: Reach
Mafia 2
Medal of Honour
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Super Mario Galaxy 2
The Legend of Zelda Wii.Online

Ultimate Game Award
Winner: Mass Effect 2
Second place: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Third place: Assassin's Creed 2

Aion: Tower of Eternity
Assassin's Creed 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Dragon Age: Origins
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
Final Fantasy XIII
Football Manager 2010
God of War 3
Heavy Rain
Left 4 Dead 2
Mass Effect 2
Metro: 2033
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Plants vs Zombies
Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
Red Dead Redemption
STALKER: Call of Prityat
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

The first in a big series of updates to DICE's frantic team shooter, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, will be landing soon. As well as a couple of minor fixes, DICE are making other alterations based on their experience developing the multiplayer component of Medal of Honor.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're completely replacing the world's most awful server browser. Here's the list of the changes announced so far as posted on the EA Forums. The servers will go down for a bit while the update is being applied.


One of the Insignias requiring an unobtainable Bronze star for the tracer dart – requirement removed.
Hit registration changes brought over from MOH to BC2; several bugfixes, the client<->server send rates have been increased, some of the hitboxes themselves have been changed. This will increase the accuracy of guns, but will not make much of a difference to the knife.
Removed the blue box behind the chat window.
The 2-second immunity when spawning/being revived can will now be immediately removed either by firing, zooming, or any movement (move, crouch, jump). Merely looking around will not remove the invulnerability. In essence: If a person moves, he is never invulnerable.
3D vision fixed.


It's good news that DICE are continuing to update the game after a period of silence, but the hitbox changes could significantly alter the feel of the weapons in the game, and might prove a controversial decision for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 fans who aren't too fond of the Medal of Honor multiplayer. We'll see how the update feels when it hits soon.

Cryptic Studios, creators of City of Heroes and Champions Online, are gearing up to release the Foundry toolset to players of space borne MMO Star Trek Online. The toolset will allow players to create their own missions, and then submit them to a database for the community to rate.

Players will be able to create entire star systems and planets from scratch, or edit pre-made versions created by Cryptic. Objectives, objects and characters can then be placed to create missions that span entire sectors of space. Cryptic are also putting aside some open world areas to allow for community made quests. In these areas, characters and objects associated with the community made mission will only be visible to those who are playing the episode.



Players won't be able to add extra models or artwork to the game, simply create missions using pre-existing content. Once an episode is created, others will be able to rate it using a five star system, and Cryptic are going to let members of the community sign up to be reviewers.

Superhero MMO City of Heroes received a similar editor called the Mission Architect. On the day it was released, users created more quests in one day than the development team had in five years. This could be a great way to give a flagging MMO a new lease of life. The toolset is currently in open beta for Star Trek Online players. For more information, check out the Foundry Q&A.

We've just got a preview version of the massive update that Minecraft is getting this Halloween, including portals to the hellish Slip dimension, worlds with different climate regions, weird new materials, flying cuboid jellyfish, and horrible pigman zombies with half their flesh falling off. Here's what it's like to play, as well as lots of shots and a video of how you enter the Slip.



When you start a new world in Minecraft now, there'll be something slightly unfamiliar about it. Even if you can't see a snowy stretch or desert ahead, there are subtler climate types, and the grass is just a duller, more realistic shade of green in most areas. As you approach a snowy region, it loses even more colour, and the leaves of the trees are less vibrant too. There are eleven different biomes - region types - but the ones you really notice are grass, desert, snow and forest.



These regions also feel a lot bigger on foot than they looked in the video. There are some smaller patchy bits of snow or sand, but creator Notch says he's going to be making biomes bigger in general too. It's not like every world is a patchwork variety pack of terrain types right now - in some worlds I've created I've never found any snow or desert regions, just different types of forest, water and grassy terrain. There's still a lot of variety between worlds as well as within them.

Notch also sent us a map of how Minecraft generates biomes and where it puts them. This is one full world:



The upshot is that exploring is twice as exciting now, because what's over the next ridge could be completely unlike what you've seen of this world so far. I feel like I've seen weirder quirks, too, like a lake of isolated trees on tiny islands. And then there's the other place to explore: hell.

Hell is now called The Slip, presumably a nod to slipgates. You build them by making a frame of obsidian four blocks wide and five blocks high, leaving a 2x3 hole, then setting fire to it. As you'll see from the video, it does need to be a full loop of the rare rock, so you have to dig out the floor as well.



Yeah, so going through slipgates didn't work quite how I thought.

At this particular spot in the Slip, I don't run into any of its inhabitants. But later, I met my first Ghast: floating jellyfish that shoot fireballs at you. They're much, much bigger than I realised: several metres across by the looks of it. But they keep their distance and they're almost always floating in the air, so it's hard to judge. Sometimes it feels like they've changed size.

It's pretty much impossible to get close enough to hit one with a sword, and I think in most cases you're better off avoiding them than fighting anyway. Their fireballs hurt if they hit, and make the world trickier to navigate by setting fire to chunks of it, but they're actually a lot easier to avoid than I'd feared. They don't seem to predict your movement when aiming, so you can usually run away.

That's when I bumped into the other inhabitants of the Slip, the ones we hadn't seen before. You hear zombie gurglings and turn to see this:



It's a Zombie Pigman. They're horrible to look at, but actually not hostile: you can run right up to them and they'll just stare emptily at you. Of course, I did that with three Ghasts on my tail, so shortly after the poor guy was hit with a fireball, set alight and killed. Fact: they drop pork chops when they die. They also oink like a pig occasionally.

I quite like them, so I wouldn't normally do this, but for the sake of experimentation I had to try attacking one.

Don't attack one.



Admittedly I didn't have a lot of health when I did it, but the result was a flash of pain and an instant 'Game Over' screen. In the background, the thing's head was just gibbering on me, apparently biting me over and over.

Then a Ghast shot him with a fireball and he oinked. Hell is a strange place.



The Slip is fascinating: we just haven't seen randomly generated caverns this big before. It's full of weird vistas of vast lava seas, rippling cascades of the stuff spilling down rocky slopes, and strange overhanging chunks of rock. It's pretty dark when you're not next to lava or on fire, and unlike the natural world it's not all gently rolling hills. Any time you're going down a slope, you have to be very careful that there is actually land beneath you: at any time it might drop off into a massive cavern below.

The standard rock in the Slip pops with a single strike of a diamond pick, and its special property is that it never goes out if you set it alight. I managed to get up to some of the weird gold deposits we've seen in screenshots of this world: they shatter like glass when mined, but they do drop a block you can collect. And I've also found a third type of Slip rock, one that slows you down when you walk on it, as if it's some kind of sticky mud.

There are three more I haven't encountered yet, and I haven't tried smelting or crafting the ones I have discovered - I'll update here when I find out what if anything they do.

Update! Took some proper videos of the Slip. In both, I die in an incredibly lame way trying something that doesn't work anyway.

President of Irrational Games and lead designer on Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite spoke out in a recent interview about the virtues of the PC, saying that "the PC will always be the place that drives innovation."

Speaking to Kotaku, Levine outlined his thoughts on the strengths of PC gaming: "The PC is the place where great game developers are born, even—and maybe especially—where great console game developers are born. Halo, Mass Effect, Call of Duty…PC developers first."

Levine attributes the success of the PC to the low barrier of entry for new ideas. "You can have an idea that goes like this: "Hey, I've got an idea!" "Cool! Who do we need to approve this idea?" "Umm…nobody?" And then the idea gets done. Because magic can happen when there are no middle men, no marketers, and no naysayers."

Steam, modding and Minecraft are some of the examples Levine highlights of innovation on the PC. He finishes with "here's something you can take the bank: If you want to know the future of gaming, buy a PC. And pay attention. Because above all, that thing on your desk is a crystal ball."

Runic's excellent fantasy hack 'em up is having a sale to celebrate being one year old. That's one year and thousands and thousands of exploded imps, immolated spiders and defeated dragons. If you've missed out on the carnage so far, Torchlight's anniversary sale makes this the perfect time to get involved.



You can buy the game directly from the Torchlight site for just $9.99, which is a brilliant price for the best dungeon crawler we've seen in years. You start out as one of three classes, Destroyer (wide as a bus, likes chopping things), the Alchemist (slightly creepy man, summons things) and the Vanquisher (firebrand mistress of ranged weapons), then you descend from floor to floor, exploring the randomly generated dungeons, killing everything, leveling up and fishing.

Yes, fishing, a weirdly addictive side game that has you catching magical trout and feeding them to your loyal pet to turn them into something else, so you can feed a fish to your dog to turn them into a tree. This makes perfect sense when you're playing. The whole system is indicative of the game's oddness and charm. It's dead pretty, too, and it'll run on almost anything. Perfect if you're looking for something to tide you over until Diablo 3 arrives at some point next year. For more information, check out our huge feature on the Making of Torchlight.