UPDATE: Gamespot has a story about the new $100 cars in Need For Speed World: “…the Koenigsegg CCX “Elite” Edition, the first “premium elite” car to hit Need for Speed World, is now available in the in-game store for $100. For those who feel that’s a bit pricey, it is currently on sale for $75 through December 21.”

NFSW! I just> noticed what that abbreviation looks like. Need For Speed World. NFSW. Do you see?> Anyway, it probably says something about my lack of familiarity with modern web cleverness that I am more impressed with EA having a YouTube video in which you can choose the track and car by click on the video itself (and therefore dictating which trailer you actually get shown) than I am by Need For Speed World itself. You can choose your own trailer below. NFS World isn’t a bad racing game, of course, but it’s still far from being the racing MMO we’re all waiting for, which is a game that might never actually come along. One day, eh? (more…)

What happens when Ico, Clocktower, Silent Hill, Dead Rising 2 and Resident Evil meet in a darkened motel room, get drunk and share their genetic soup? Leading ludobiologists inform me there’s a good chance they may bring a downloadable offspring into the world by the name of Amy, whose habits include hanging out with infected children, obsessive hand-holding, a tendency to hide beneath tables and a clunky yet strangely effective technique of clobbering zombies with pieces of junk lying about the place.

Me and Jim have both written about Amy in the past, admiring the apparent emotional undercurrent that runs through its survival horror tendencies. A new video showing the combat makes me worry that we might be in for an extended escort mission interspersed with unsatisfactory combat. What do you reckon?

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Officially official: Skyrim is officially the fastest-selling title in Steam’s official history. And that’s official. Neither Valve or Bethesda are giving specific sales figures, but Bethesda have claimed that the Skyrim PC outsold any other PC game in North America three to one in its first month. It’s been a success elsewhere too: across all platforms and all territories, the dragon-bothering game has now racked up 10m in sales.

Said Valve’s boss of business dev, Jason Holtman, to Industry Gamers: “Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam’s history. Bethesda’s commitment to and understanding of the PC as a gaming platform shows in the great review scores, spectacular launch, and continued high player numbers that Skyrim has received. We are delighted that Bethesda chose to use Steamworks to support Skyrim both at retail and digitally.”> Let me, ah, just pick him up on part of that. (more…)

There’s always something a little melancholy about a game world being shut off for the last time, but this goes doubly for the ill-fated Star Wars Galaxies, which ran its last Kessel run yesterday. The MMO, which was first launched to much fanfare in 2003, was shut down as SOE’s contract with LucasArts expired, and to make way for EA’s The Old Republic, which is now imminent. Galaxies was always a troubled beast, of course, being controversially simplified and reduced in scope by 2005′s “New Game Enhancements”, an attempt to expand the appeal of the MMO which left it a shadow of its former self. I will always remember it most fondly for my time working on PC Gamer, where the guy who sat at the desk behind me became a ruthless and enormously wealthy architect, and also for having playable Ithorians, least commercial of all the alien races.

Rest in peace, brave Galaxies.

A couple of days ago, Remedy confirmed the rumour that Alan Wake would be at last be seeing a PC version. Our man Dan Griddled-octopus managed to coax a few (rather evasive) words on that subject out of Aki Järvilehto, Executive Vice President at Remedy, but before he could escape we sent Dan back with a couple of particularly burning additional questions. Specifically: that infamous “Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen” comment and on whether there’s a risk of Games For Windows Live. Did we get answers? Um. Sort of. (more…)

Last time out, Syndicate was showing off its guns and I don’t remember seeing a single flamethrower, which made me grumble in a manner befitting a madman denied the ability to burn the flesh off his enemies. The latest piece of video advertainment is all about the power of technology, which allows agents to persuade their opponents to commit suicide and attack their allies, among other ethically questionable activities. It’s certainly far more interesting than the guns. The removal of chips from peoples’ skulls to gain experience is described as a “critical mission objective”, which is something the same mad part of me that wants a flamethrower approves of heartily. Watch between the tiny gaps in your cybernetically augmented HUD below.

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They said it couldn’t be done, but they did it anyway: Valve’s free-to-play FPS, Team Fortress 2, has been updated with new items and stuff! Seasonal weapons are now available, with “naughty and nice” crate gifts appearing across levels in the game. You can learn about the new stuff in detail here, or just jump into the game and get automatically updated with Christmasness. And I have to admit, it does seem like the time of year to spend your hours blasting people into chunks with exotic weaponry, doesn’t it?

Hang on. I just need to move all this space to one side to make space for more space. X3: Albion Prelude is a just released expansion pack for X3, bridging the gap to X: Rebirth, which should be with us early next year. The storyline of clashing corporations leads into Rebirth and there are new stations and ships to play around with. That’s why I’m posting this, to be honest, to share pictures of all the glorious new stuff that’s floating about up there. X3 is a beautiful game, one that it’s easy to admire both in motion and stasis. So sit back and feast your eyes.

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It’s all space, space, space with you today, Internet. In fact I thought I’d add to that with a sort of reminder post to point to excellent multiplayer spaceship duelling game, Stellar Impact, which you can play for free up to a point (the point at which you have to pay to unlock the later character-advancement possibilities of the game.) Annoyingly, the site died the last time I linked to it, but the game is so good that I wanted to make sure you guys had a chance to take another look. This is definitely one game that could do with a few more people playing it.

Shiny new trailer below. (more…)

Gosh, has it really been over two years since I dabbled in Pirate Galaxy? The browser-based space ‘em up has been growing apace since that time and has just announced a major update. They explain: “All changes will result in the exploration of the Sirius Singularity being significantly easier, and even small clans will be able to get the most out of the game. The difficulty level has been adapted to smaller groups of players, and there are now over 750 technologies to collect. More updates are already in the planning stages.” Hmm, that probably means something to people who played Pirate Galaxy more recently than I did. Anyway, the MMO continues to offer a light snack of space combat and exploration, and is probably worth a look if you want multiplayer intergalactic adventures but can’t stomach the full Eve Online space diet.