Your opinion on voxels may or may not be one of unbridled adoration (mine is that "voxel" is really fun to say), but now the Humble Voxatron Debut's venturing outside its voxel-centric comfort zone. Voxely.

First up, there's recent indie dungeon-crawling darling The Binding of Isaac, which combines steep difficulty with imagery that will leave your brain crying in the fetal position in the darkest corner of your face. Then there's Blocks That Matter, a puzzler with a Minecraft-inspired twist. Simply beat the average price (currently $4.73) and all three games are yours. Or, you know, wait until a better deal comes along. Which will be never.

You know what's great? Surviving. I can say - almost completely without reservation - that it's one of my favorite things to do. Sometimes, though, life feels purposeless. Bereft of meaning. Flat, one might say. Enter Nvidia's 3D Vision tech. It probably won't bring you lasting happiness and satisfaction, but it sure looks neat.

Happily, as of patch 1.2, Hard Reset now combines both of those things. Its new survival mode promises "wave after wave of robotic hell" on two new maps, and 3D Vision's now fully supported. These come in addition to a number of smaller changes, which can be viewed here. One of them apparently involves exploding gorillas, so count me in.

These are strange times we live in. "Free" no longer means free. It's simply code for "Your monetization scheme is in another castle." Thankfully, up hasn't become down yet, and left and right are still in working order - but really, it's only a matter of time at this point.

Thankfully, NCSoft's Lineage II is among the few attempting to stave off the topsy-turvy future. When its Goddess of Destruction expansion takes the game free-to-play "later this year" (via Gamasutra), it won't be plotting alternate courses right into your bank account. Free players will actually have access to, well, everything. No tiers, no red tape, no strange inability to comprehend mailboxes. Items purchasable with real money, meanwhile, will provide added convenience and cosmetic benefits.

Sword of the Stars II did not have a good launch, and its developer was quick to accept blame for what was an unplayable game for many customers.

Now the first of what is likely to be many patches has come out, this one addressing several crash issues, major bugs and gameplay problems, some compatibility problems with multiplayer, and some interface improvements.

You can read the full changelog here. This comes on the heels of another major patch on Monday. It's also worth pointing out that a number of users still report that in-game sound remains broken. Others report certain features are not working. From the looks of things, and by the developer's own admission, SotS II has a long way to go.

After a lot of excited pointing at mountains and dogs, the PC Gamer office got chatting about the sneaky hints Rockstar have dotted throughout the new GTA 5 trailer.

You've probably noticed the narrator sounds a lot like Ray Liotta, who voiced GTA Vice City's player character Tommy Vercetti. But the greying middle-aged man we see in the footage isn't the only one in player-character situations. There's also a shaven-headed youth in a car chase with the police, and a tattooed black guy running from a cop chopper. And hey, isn't that all three of them together breaking into the jewellery store? Click below for a full size image of the evidence.



Chris Thursten points out that GTA IV used a deal gone wrong to link three characters that you ultimately ended up playing: Niko in the main game, Johnny Klebitz in the Lost and the Damned DLC, and Luis Lopez in the Ballad of Gay Tony. GTA V might give us a choice of three protagonists from the off, each with their own stories, and use this robbery as the flashpoint that links them.

It'd make for a more interesting story structure, and of course it would set them up beautifully for a co-op campaign that ties into the single player.

 
So, the Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer has finally landed, and it seems my previous guesses were totally wrong. Still, the trailer itself was full of great gags, we'll have a full analysis tomorrow, but everyone saw the 'Speedophile 2000' on the jet ski, right?

Check inside for a round up of felonious west coast PC gaming news.


BluesNews has the details on the PC specific features in Saints Row: The Third.
CVG say that Battlefield 3 switched to console instead of PC lead SKU late in development.
RockPaperShotgun say Blizzard have apologised over the BlizzCon controversy.
In a post on the Steam Forums, it is revealed that the Team Fortress 2 Halloween update outfits can be worn on the full moon. Thanks to This_Guy_83 for the tip.
Reddit notes just how complicated the special editions for Assassin's Creed: Revelations have gotten.

 
Did you spot anything funny in the GTA trailer readers? What did you think?

The Guardian Cub pet has arrived in the World of Warcraft pet store, boosting WoW's cuteness levels by a solid 1.5%. The winged, purple, flaming lion cub will be able to follow you into the skies of Azeroth and is possibly the cuddliest thing ever conceived, but may also fill another important role. The Guardian Cub is World of Warcraft's first tradeable pet.

Unless fully equipped, the little $10 lion can be passed on to friends and fellow guild members as a gift, or traded for in-game gold in the auction house. In the official Guardian Cub FAQ Blizzard say that they made the Guardian Cub tradeable to give players a way to get a new pet within the game without having to visit the pet store. It also happens to give players a legitimate way to sell their pet for gold within Azeroth, effectively bypassing external gold farmer operations.

"We’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services," say Blizzard in the FAQ, adding "we also hope this change will help reduce the number of incidents of scamming via trading for invalid pet codes."

"It’s important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts," continues the statement. "While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that’s preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling “black market” and account theft."

All other World of Warcraft pets will remain untradeable for now. It'll be interesting to see if that changes if the Guardian Cub proves to be successful. While we ponder that, let's look at this image of a Guardian Cub meeting a fully grown flying lion. D'awww.

Four pieces of concept have appeared that may well be storyboard art for Thief 4. The game is being kept tightly under wraps, but is being developed by the creators of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Eidos Montreal. A storyboard artist who works for Goldtooth (who did the cutscenes for Deus Ex: Human Revolution) posted four images on his blog, which has since been taken down. Luckily for us, the internet never forgets, and they since re-appeared over on Screw Attack. They show a hooded figure that may or not be Garrett stealthing his way into a mansion to access an ominous steam powered door. See all four pages below.

It's competition time again! This week the folks at Nexon have teamed up with Cyborg Gaming are celebrating the official launch of Vindictus Europe by giving away a top of the line gaming mouse, some gaming lights and a bundle of in game cash.

Check inside for full details of how to enter and a peek at the goodies.

There's two prizes up for grabs. The winner will receive:


1 Cyborg R.A.T. 7 albino gaming mouse
1 set of Cyborg gaming lights.
10,000 NX cash to spend in the Vindictus in game shop.

 
While the runner up will get:


10,000 NX cash
 
Pictures of the prizes can be found at the bottom of this post.

To enter:

Pitch me the most over the top PC gaming peripheral you can think of.

European readers only. The winner will appear in this week's winners. If you win, make sure to contact us with your address and Vindictus username, so you can receive the appropriate items.

Good luck to everyone.

 
Grand Theft Auto 5, or GTA 5 (if you're an acronym kind of dude) trailer alert! Sit back and have a little watch.

We mentioned a few Grand Theft Auto 5 rumours earlier today but now, with the benefit of hindsight, you can either mock or bask in the awe of our incredible insight. For some spookily accurate insight, check out what PSM3's Dan Dawkins had to say a few weeks ago.

We'll have a more in-depth analysis of the first Grand Theft Auto trailer on the site as soon as possible. For now, just watch and comment.