It was a lengthy, arduous duel but, when that last squeeze of nitrous cannoned my Porsche 911 GT3 RS police cruiser into the back of the fugitive Nissan 370Z Coupe, I got my reward. The hapless Nissan flipped skyward, smashing into a nearside guardrail in a cinematic slow-motion spasm of broken glass and crumpled metal.

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit delivers moments of vehicular conflict and channeled road-rage for engrossing cops-vs-speeders combative driving (for the first time since 2005’s NFS: Most Wanted), but hits some potholes along the way.

The single-player features full career modes for both cops and scofflaw street racers, and allows you to alternate between them at will as you compete to generate bounty points to increase your Wanted Level (or Police Rank) and unlock new cars, events and weapons.



But between the spike strips, EMPs, and roadblocks it’s a challenge to keep your high-speed ride moving forward. These momentum-killers can be a pain at times—especially unanticipated spike strip deployments—but they do reinforce the chaotic nature of illegal street racing. It’s all part of a structured and surprisingly addictive adversarial system where you push your chosen ride to its limits in a flat-out effort to win races or stop speeders from endangering public safety (ironically by smashing into them at high speed).

Not so hot

With full licensing from such manufacturers as Audi, Aston Martin and Koenigsegg, developers Criterion (of Burnout fame) have assembled an impressive real-world stable—it’s the prime draw of the game. Sadly, none of these machines feature a proper cockpit view (an unconscionable downgrade from last year’s NFS: Shift) and the simplistic, tail-happy physics modeling only delivers a token challenge. Hot Pursuit is a poor partner for that pricey force-feedback steering wheel—your on-screen Alfa or Mercedes will respond just as well to a basic Xbox 360 Windows gamepad.



Despite the lack in hardcore driving depth, Hot Pursuit’s fictional Seacrest County scenery offers a postcard-pretty if exclusively rural backdrop, and the dynamic lighting and wet-weather effects inject welcome atmosphere. You may not believe you’re driving a real McLaren F1 or Maserati GranCabrio, but you’ll have a nice time faking it.

Hot Pursuit’s revamped interface puts a lot of its energy into helping you brag to your friends. The Autolog GUI immerses you in a Facebook-style suite of connected features where you can navigate to your single-player career map; post photos and comments on your “Wall” or connect directly through to your friends’ games to compare stats, exchange pictures and perform other social networking activities. You can also connect with up to eight players (friends and/or strangers) for a hiccup-free online multiplayer contest—including Race, Hot Pursuit or 1v1 Interceptor modes. EA might be using these features as a way of keeping second-hand sales down, but they're smart additions that keep the multiplayer interesting.



As a long-time NfS player I’m not wild about some of Criterion’s shortcuts—specifically reduced handling fidelity and MIA features like cockpit artwork and replays—but there is still considerable substance beneath Hot Pursuit’s pearlescent paint job. Once you chase down your first errant speeder with a 200-mph Lamborghini Gallardo police interceptor (or lose that cop with a well-timed shortcut), you’ll likely feel the love too.

The Humble Indie Bundle 2 went on sale last week, and has already raised more than $1.3 million for the developers, Child's Play and The Electric Frontier Foundation. Now, in a final push, they're also throwing in all of the games from last year's Humble Indie Bundle for those who pay more than $7.39. That adds six extra games, including World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD Penumbra Overture and Samarost 2.

The extra games have been given automatically to all those who have already bought the Humble Indie Bundle 2, irrespective of the amount donated, but all future purchases will have to be above $7.39 to unlock the six extra games. To buy the collection, head on over to the Humble Indie Bundle 2 site. Here's an overview of the great games that were part of the original Humble Indie Bundle.

World of Goo
2D boy's adorable physics-based puzzler asks you to help out the goo balls to safety by joining them together, forming wobbly structures across the abstract and dangerous landscapes, bridging chasms, dodging spinning razor blades and, in one level, even building your way out of the belly of a giant beast.

Aquaria
Aquaria is set in a huge underwater world. The emphasis is on exploration, and your mermaid-like character, Naija, can use different songs to change her environments and her own form, turning her from a peaceful sea nymph to a fireball throwing water demon.

Gish
Gish is a sticky platformer in which you play a ball of tar. Your gelatinous body is just sticky enough to blue to certain surfaces, and given enough of a run up you can crush meddling enemies. You'll have to learn how best to use your tar ball's momentum if you want to survive Gish's punishing levels.

Lugaru HD
Lugaru is a fighting game about rabbits with samurai swords locked in an eternal battle with a race of bipedal wolves. The physics based procedural fighting system encourages organic fights, so you won't be relying on long combo chains to take your opponents down. The developers, Wolfire games, are now working on Overgrowth, which also features some top class rabbit vs. wolf violence.

Penumbra Overture
The incredibly creepy Penumbra Overture asks to explore an abandoned underground base in the arctic. It's not entirely abandoned, though, as you can quickly tell from the strange roaring behind the walls and the scratching sounds coming from every shadowy corner. It's almost as scary as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which incidentally is made by the same people.

Samarost 2
Samarost 2 is a surreal adventure game set on a series of organic worlds floating through space. You play as a small gnome on a quest to find his dog, and must navigate the strange environments by manipulating the various contraptions and characters that inhabit each screen.

CCP's chief technical officer has directly compared PC technology to its console equivalents.

Talking to PC Gamer, Halldor Fannar said: "We're in a great position on PCs. The hardware just keeps getting better. The consoles, the computers inside them, are getting a little long in the tooth. The basic graphics chip in PlayStation 3 is equivalent to a 7 series card from Nvidia. Meanwhile we're many, many generations beyond that with PC hardware."

CCP are responsible for sci-fi MMORPG EVE Online, which currently has over 350, 000 subscribers. Check the most recent issue of PC Gamer for the full story of Rich's visit to their Iceland and see examples of the new technology here.

Hah - we win!

Are the two weeks between now and January 11th just too long of a time to wait to get your superhero action on? Jump into the DCUO beta right now as a hero prancing about Metropolis or a villain scheming in the dark recesses of Gotham's Ace Chemical plant! Details inside.



Featuring iconic heroes such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and infamous villains such as the Joker, Poison Ivy, and Mr. Freeze, DCUO lets players create their own characters to help their evil idols in dastardly deeds or foil the villains' mischief. With a heavy emphasis on action combat, you can expect plenty of fisticuffs as heroes and villains use their powers to freeze, shock, burn, and kick their opponents away.

Read more about DC Universe in the PC Gamer February issue (US) hitting newsstands January 4th.

Contest: Tell us what hero or villain you plan to create in DC Universe Online and list what powers they'll have. The first 100 valid entries will receive a beta key. The beta keys will only work in North America.

Update: Keep posting those replies! We've received more than 100 comments, but only those that included powers with their hero/villain concept (per instructions) are eligible, so we still have more to give!
Update #2: Thanks for all of your entries! The winners have been noted and the codes will be emailed out first thing tomorrow morning!

When I first started playing Minecraft a few months ago, I played with a rule: if I die, I have to delete the entire world. Now I'm trying to get to hell and back. The diary starts here, and over Christmas new entries will go up weekly on Wednesdays.


< Day 16

 
World 10, deaths 9



Minecraft is loading the Nether, which is its version of hell. I'm usually impatient with loading screens, but this is one I wouldn't mind lasting indefinitely. If it'd just crash and dump me back in the real world, that'd be fine too.

But no, it's cruelly quick, and now I'm in hell. I step out of the portal in a vast cavern, thin lavafalls pouring out of the impossibly high ceiling in the distance, and a handful of zombie pigmen shuffling around in the dark in front of me. They're harmless, so long as you don't attack them, and actually a rather good source of grilled pork if give them a friendly nudge into a bonfire.



It is, in other words, the last thing I expected it to be: quiet. No immediate danger, nothing scary in the distance, lots of open space to get my bearings. Exactly what I need, because now I've got to pummel the bejesus out of this portal with a diamond pickaxe, so I can take all the blocks with me on my journey across hell. Without them, I'll have no way back home - only obsidian can be used to make a portal between worlds, and it doesn't occur naturally anywhere in hell.

It takes a long time. Every block has to be hit dozens and dozens of times before it breaks off and can be picked up, and there are 14 of them. I've just chipped off my eighth when there's an ungodly screech.

Ghasts.

They sound like a kitten with chalkboard teeth trying to eat a hyena made of razorblades. They're giant jellyfish that float, unreachably high, and spit fireballs down at everything on the ground.

Most of the time, they're not a huge problem - they fly high enough that you can avoid their projectiles in time so long as you keep moving.

And most of the time, mining obsidian is not a problem - it takes a while, but you'll get it eventually so long as you don't move at all.

This presents a dilemma, and it's the kind of dilemma you have to solve with a fireball on its way to your face. I chose move.



This is when I discover the rock beneath me is not in fact rock, but a sea of screaming faces that stick to my feet in such a way that I can barely move. Shit like this is going in my TripAdvisor review, Nether. Two stars MAX.

I wade through the face-mud with fireballs slamming into it behind me, then finally drop off a ledge onto normal, non-screaming land. I scramble underneath it and consider my lack of options.

There are many - all kinds of lacks, really. I can't go back to the portal - there's no hope of chipping any more obsidian off with the Ghast there. I can't wait it out - more Ghasts are as likely to come as this one is to leave. I can't go on without the obsidian - you can cut corners to make a portal with 10 blocks instead of 14, but it leaves you exactly as boned if you only have 8.

The only way to get back to the portal without getting torched is under ground. I can dig through the screaming face-mud until I tunnel underneath the last few chunks of the portal, and chip it out from below.

It's a good idea, but one which very quickly leads to me bursting up through the mud in the worst possible place: directly beneath the Ghast, and nowhere near my portal.

I bolt back down as the fireball hits above. OK, I saw it. It's about three blocks this way, then five that way, then a couple up and whunk! I've struck obsidian. Congratulations, Tom, you've discovered the thing you just came out of.



Once I've mined it all out - I get all 14 blocks just in case I screw something up later - I'm ready to set off. My quest is to just walk in one direction, as far as my tools will take me, then portal back to the real world. Distances travelled in the Nether take you 8 times further in the real world, so when I get back I should be absolutely miles away from home. I'll then trek all the way back, with a compass to guide me.

The only thing I have to decide now is which direction to head. I don't want to have any risk of getting confused and doubling back on myself, so I orient myself with the only constant in this world: screaming facemud. If I look directly down at a block of it, and move so the faces are the right way up, the direction my portal was facing when I came through is left. That's where I'll head.



Oh.

Next Wednesday: Crossing the lava sea.

The recently released Oddboxx, a pack containing the first four Oddworld games, has been experiencing some serious technical issues. Players booting up Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath, both ports of original Xbox releases, are experiencing crashes, control issues, resolution problems and more. Oddworld Inhabitants have announced that they are working on a patch to fix the issues. Read on for details.

The problems listed on the Oddworld Inhabitants site and on the Steam forums so far include graphical corruption, poor framerates, control bugs and an inability to change resolution.

Oddworld Inhabitants have responded on their official site saying "We’ve heard there are some technical issues being encountered, specifically within Munch’s Oddysee and Stranger’s Wrath. We had these games extensively tested and they both came back clean, so this has come as quite the shock to us."

"We ARE working on solving these problems THIS VERY SECOND, and hope to have a patch out to nail all these problems as soon as possible."

Stewart Gilray, CEO of Just Add Water productions, the developers currently working on fixing problems with Stranger's Wrath has posted on the Steam forums with a list of planned updates:

What we can do and will do:

We will be doing what we can to fix performance issues.
We will be fixing the corrupted font issues (we have repeated this now).
We will fix ingame rendering issues, such as corruption etc.
We will add customizable controls.

What we cannot do:

We cannot add Mouse interaction for the UI.
We cannot add graphics settings options, such as disable/enable shadows etc.

For now Gilray recommends that players with ATI cards disable the "Catalyst A.I." mode under the Advanced Settings in the Catalyst Control Panel tool to fix problems with graphical corruption. A guide to changing the game's resolution has also been put up on Steam. Updates and fixes are also on the way for Munch's Oddysee. Did you buy the Oddboxx? Have you been experiencing any problems?

Welcome to day nine of the PC Gamer UK Christmas bonanza. Given the freezing weather we've devoted today's competition to keeping your ears warm. We have two headsets to give away, both of which will keep your ears nice and toasty for the winter. As an added bonus these cutting edge cans also come packed with technology that will make your games sound amazing. A Razer Carcharias gaming headset and a set of Razer Orca gaming and music headphones are both for grabs, so read on for your chance to win.

Here's an overview of today's terrific prizes, provided by Razer.
Razer Carcharias gaming headset


The Razer Carcharias gaming headset is designed to bring the best out of the audio in your games, while also letting you communicate seamlessly with your team mates. The pumped up bass will bring extra crunch to every round fired and the noise cancelling microphone will help you deliver crystal clear orders to your teammates in the midst of the fiercest battles. The circumaural padding is designed to surround your ears in comfort for better sound and reduced sibling/spouse distractions.

Headphones

Frequency Response: 20 - 20,000 Hz
Impedance: 32 Ω at 1kHz
Sensitivity (@1kHz, 1V/Pa): 102 dB ± 4dB at 1 kHzMax
Input Power: 200 mW
Drivers: 40 mm, with neodymium Magnets

Microphone

Frequency Response: 50 - 16,000 Hz
Sensitivity( @1kHz, 1V/Pa): -37 dB ± 4dB
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 50 dB
Pick-up pattern: Unidirectional
Cable: 3 meters, Braided Fiber Sheath
Connector: 3.5 mm jack (headphone and mic)

Razer Orca Gaming and Music headphones


If there's one drawback to the Razer Carcharias gaming headset, it's that it's nowhere near bright green enough. Thankfully, we've got fans of flourescent lime well and truly covered with a set of Razer Orca gaming and music headphones. They sound even better than they look, with tones designed to bring out the best from your gaming collection and your music library. A plug and switch extension makes it easy for you to switch your 'phones between your PC and your music player. The super comfortable cushioning will ensure comfort over long listening sessions.

Frequency Response: 15 - 21,000 Hz
Impedance: 32 O at 1kHz
Input Power: 200 mW
Drivers: 40 mm, with neodymium magnets
Cable: 1.2m braided fiber + 2 meter braided extension cable
Connector: 3.5 mm headphone jack

The snow just isn't stopping. We don't know where it's coming from, only Jack Frost, Santa Clause and select members of the Illuminati know that. There's an increasing risk that we'll be snowed into the office forever, and be forced to eat our keyboards to survive. We'd rather that didn't happen, so we need your help. To win, post in the comments below with a plan to help us escape the ice covered building. You must live in the UK to enter. We've got one of each headset to give away. The weirdest and most wonderful ideas will win. We'll decide the winners, and which headphones go to who, tomorrow.

There'll be another competition tomorrow as well, and on each day leading up to Christmas. Stay tuned for a chance to win our special Christmas day prize, a 240GB Corsair solid state drive worth £375.


And the winners are:

Illuria – Green
TexMex93 – Black

I’ll get in touch via PM, guys, but you’ll get the gifts after New Year

EA's general manager of free-to-play gaming has said that in-game advertising is in decline and microtransactions are proving to be much more lucrative. Ben Cousins was talking of Battlefield4Free when he suggested the days of advertising billboards in games may be over.

Speaking to Edge about Battlefield: Heroes, EA's Ben Cousins said that "We hedged our bets. We thought we’d do in-game advertising and virtual goods sales, and one of those took off really fast and the other hasn’t really taken off at all,” adding that "We actually aren’t getting much from ad revenue at all. The in-game advertising business hasn’t grown as fast as people expected it to."

Cousins said that the in-game advertising model isn't dead, but that the tactic of throwing real ads onto billboards and posters in game worlds may be dead, and that in depth product tie ins were more likely in future. “I think it’s more about specific deals where you can tie the content in. We did a deal with Dr Pepper for Battlefield Heroes, where if you buy a bottle and scan in the code you get an exclusive outfit. That kind of deep integration will work, I think, but I’m not convinced that we’ll have billboards in games and things like that. Maybe those days are over.”

For more information on Battlefield Play4Free, check out our preview, or head over to the official Battlefield Play4Free site. Would you be happy to see in-game advertising disappear?

CCP's giving every EVE Online player a free facelift in January, courtesy of the game's new character creation tool slated for release with the third part of the Incursion expansion on January 18th. We've got four exclusive before-and-after shots of player avatars that highlight the huge graphical update, and a brief Q&A with the brains behind its development.

Amarr male


PCG: What was your biggest goal that you had in mind when you set about remaking the character creation tool?

Craig Scott, Senior Game Designer: We wanted to push the boundaries with what a character creation system could be, both in terms of fidelity of the characters and the user interface. The characters had to look amazing. It’s that simple--we wanted to make them look as good and then better than what is out there now. As for the interface, we knew there had to be a better, more immersive way of customizing a character than a wall of sliders. Sculpting the characters face directly seemed like the most personal and artistic way of doing so.

Sveinbjörn Magnússon, Art Producer: It had to be the best….. Nothing more. Nothing less.

PCG: Was there anything in the process that proved to be particularly more difficult than anticipated?

Magnússon: Often it is what you think of as the simple things. Tying all the small elements together and taking that extra step from great to perfect.

Scott: I agree. The devil’s in the details. We nailed down the big stuff pretty quickly but the details they took a bit longer. It was a case of taking all the elements we had and making them fit together into one cohesive and useable whole. When making anything new, we were thrown a few curve balls during development features that we thought would be really easy. Those easy additions came back to bite us pretty hard, but even they were worth the pain--they made us step back from what we were doing and re-evaluate things in a way that lead to a better solution .

Caldari female


PCG: What existing character creation tools did you look towards as good examples of what could be done when redesigning your own?

Magnússon: I would say that we were set on making it unique and more immersive than other games and based on the original ideas from the old character creation system.

Scott: Playing with Mario’s face at the beginning of Mario 64 was the first time I saw the potential for using the character itself as an way of manipulating how it looked. I would be lying if I didn’t say we didn’t look at APB as the pinnacle of character customization systems when we first started, yet we didn’t quite take direct inspiration from it. It became more the benchmark we’d use to determine our success, if that makes sense.

PCG: Is there a way to calculate exactly how many different variations a player could possibly build in the new tool? If so, what’s the number?

Scott: It makes my head hurt thinking about this the variety of characters we are getting out of the system , but to give you an idea we have over 10,000 NPC agents in EVE. We are using the new character customization system to create them and they all look unique and they are just scratching the surface of the amount of variation available.

Magnússon: I would say no. You can do so many different things that the permutations are staggering.

Gallente male


PCG: Are you 100% content with the tool as it stands now? Is there anything you have in mind that you want to update in the future?

Magnússon: You can never be 100% content with how it stands, always wanting more time for polishing and perfection. For future updates we will have to see. There are of course a lot of thing that we want to-do, but only time will tell.

Scott:Yep. No matter how good it is just now we would love more time to polish it, so we won’t ever be 100% content. There are a number of thing swirling rounds in our head about how we can make it better and what additions it deserves but I can’t say too much other than it will make it even better.

Minmatar female


Update: See the character creation tool in action with these two player-made videos.

We love Christmas at PC Gamer. Well, that's not entirely true. We love playing PC Games, and we end up doing a lot of that at Christmas. We love Christmas by association.

To celebrate, we've created three bespoke Christmassy wallpapers for you to download. Unless you've got three monitors (as discussed in the most recent PC Gamer US podcast) you'll only be able to use one at a time. Set your wallpapers to rotate if you can't decide. Don't know how to do that? Just use the first one.
Disregard Relatives

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Deck The Halls

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Happy Steam Sale Season


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