Bruce Wayne has finally returned to my PC, ready to swoop and scuffle his way through the prison-district that is Arkham City. It’s no secret that I used to wear Batman pajamas when I was a youngster, nor that I have been known to shed manly tears when thinking of the Caped Crusader’s tragic origins in Crime Alley. These facts make me the ideal person to tell you Wot I Think of this new crimefighting caper.>

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The lovely Cliffski has put up a new developer diary detailing the forthcoming Gratuitous Tank Battles, this time talking about what exactly Gratuitous Tank Battles is. Which appears to be a blend of the sensibilities of previous fleet commander sim Gratuitous Space Battles with the pathfinding of a tower defence game. No, quiet in the back there, settle down. It isn’t your typical tower defence game, see. Let Uncle Cliffski explain.

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Batman: Arkham City is now playable on Steam, after a week of mild confusion over its availability in various regions. However, more pressing concerns have arisen now that it’s been properly released: the DX11 support seems to be as broken as the bat after a few rounds with Bane, rendering Brucie’s latest adventure unplayable with the current DirectX package.

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Cloud gaming service OnLive is banging its drum for new members in the UK again, so they’re reactivated their remarkable £1 offer (which they’re surely making a massive loss on – they must have ton of marketing money stored up). Your first purchase after joining currently costs just 100 pennies, and that includes the likes of Batman: Arkham City, Saints Row 3, LA Noire, Lord of the Rings: War In The North and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. All PC versions, but tweaked for OnLive – which in Arkham’s case means no GFWL. Woo! OnLive has its issues, but I really rather like it – I’ve played quite a lot through it now, and while the experience differs from game to game for a lot of titles on a decent ISP the experience is pretty incredible. Especially if you have the microconsole thingy and are sat back on a sofa – with your face stuffed directly into a monitor the cracks are that much more visible.

Oh, and if you already have an OnLive UK account, that doesn’t stop you from creating a new one purely to nab a game for £1. Repeatedly, in fact – you just need a different email address every time. Snicker.

There’s been a clarification by Stanislas Mettra, creative director at Ubisoft, about contentious comments he was quoted as making regarding PC gaming and the then-unlikelihood of climbing-based survival title I Am Alive appearing on this platform. In a statement sent to IncGamers, he claims that “I would really love to see a pc build of the game and I don’t think I meant to say “the game won’t happen on PC”>, observing that it might have been a breakdown in communication as he’s not a native English speaker. (He isn’t; I met him too that day).

“We are still working to see the feasibility of it,”> he says of the PC version, “which is not necessarily simple. I gave some examples to illustrate the problem, but obviously it is not in my hands and not my part to talk about this.”> Said examples were the ones about piracy and presumed low sales, which carried more than a whiff of inadequate research. Now he’s saying he was the wrong guy to ask – which was always my personal take on the controversial quotes, to be honest. They came across as one guy coming up with a unprepared response on the fly about a question he probably wasn’t expecting, rather than endemic of company policy, and I wasn’t thrilled that his words were taken by many as an excuse to spank Ubisoft again. (more…)

Here’s an indie bundle with a difference – it doesn’t contain any games. Instead, the Indie Music Bundle it’s a collection of soundtracks from some of your favourite (assumption #1) indie games and some you have probably never heard of (assumption #2). As is swiftly becoming obligatory, the ten albums are available at a price of your choosing, although this is for one day only, being a Black Friday sale. The minimum price is $1 and if you pay at least $10 you’ll receive seven bonus items.

Of the ones that I know, the VVVVVV soundtrack is simply wonderful, and both Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, are quite enjoyable. The latter is in the $10 bonus items. Even if you opt to be stingy, for a dollar you’re sure to find something that you love (assumption #3). Everything is DRM-free and delivered as 320kbps MP3s. Take a look.

Is it Thanksgiving or Groundhog day? I could have sworn it was yesterday that news emerged of a Ubisoft title not being released on PC, with anguished claims about rampant piracy being blamed. Now it’s the turn of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and although the quotes given to PC Gamer don’t actually accuse us all of ‘bitching’, they do paint an unpleasant view of the PC gaming landscape. We’re told that Ghost Recon Online is the PC’s alternative to Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

‘Why’, you ask? Senior producer Sebastien Arnoult has the answers. Or at least, some> answers. “When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95 per cent of our consumers will pirate the game.” Sigh.

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Earlier in the year I lost my MP3 player with a bunch of untranscribed interviews on it. The most interesting of these recordings was an interview with Dan Pinchbeck, the games researcher who has turned to making games, starting with a remake of his Half-Life 2 mod, Dear Esther. The remake, which is being done with fabulous new art (above) in the Portal 2 engine, is apparently all but finished, and will appear in January or February next year. Hopefully, around that same time, I’ll be able to redo my interview with Dan and see what he’s learned from the process. Take a look through here for some more fantastic images of Pinchbeck’s spooky narrated explore ‘em up.

I’m only allowed specific provisions to make my way through the days and writing even a brief missive about the follow-up to AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome, threatens to use up every ‘a’ in the giant scrabble bag from which I construct my mendering prose. Mendering, eh? I guess tht mens I’m out. Still, it would be rude of me not to tell you tht the fntsy bse jumping gme is out, with 50% discounted from its price in the utumn Stem sle. But only for nother couple of hours. It includes remstered versions of the 82 levels in the originl !!!, long with 43 new ones tht see you leping from spce in n extrvgnt disply of ntiuthoritrin gusto.

Oh, sod it. Triler below.

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If I run an RPS Planetside 2 outfit (and I vaguely plan to) then it will be with the Vanu Sovereignty. Yes, the purple tech-worshippers are my faction, and so it’s with some delight that I feast on the neither-red-nor-blue goodness of the Vanu faction trailer, below. It’s just some rotating weapons and armour, but it promises so much! PCG also have a bunch of Vanu screenshots. Floaty! Glowy! Purpley!> (more…)