Here’s a 2011 trend I’d hoped had wound down by now: the hacking of games, game services and game websites. Seems Trion Worlds, makers of Rift, suffered an incursion lately, with hackers finding their way into a database containing “user names, encrypted passwords, dates of birth, email addresses, billing addresses, and the first and last four digits and expiration dates of customer credit cards.” Aieee!

However, Trion have declared that “There is no evidence, and we have no reason to believe, that full credit card information was accessed or compromised in any way.” Phew? (more…)

I don’t have the foggiest how many game-making tools litter the internet these days so forgive me if it seems bewildering to highlight this one specifically. Oh My Game is a browser-based application aimed at people who can’t program but do want to make videogames, so it focuses on stuff like level design, importing art assets and using something called ‘logic blocks’ to achieve the effects of coding without the coding itself. (more…)

Ever since I became the Bastard Of The Old Republic, I’ve found it an awful lot easier to delve into the crueller side of gaming choices. So it is that I’ve chosen to spend my time with Star Wars: The Old Republic as a Sith. And not some stupid do-gooding Sith who just happened to be born on the wrong side of the galaxy. I mean a Sith, cruel for the sake of being cruel, delighting in mindlessly murdering innocents and needlessly upsetting everyone I meet. And in the game. And in doing so, I’m discovering that making an entire race of baddies is a pretty tricky challenge.

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The great thing about the aftermath of Ludum Dare is that there are so many games out in the wild, just waiting to be tracked down. While carting my blunderbuss around the steaming jungle that today’s expedition of Colonel Freekirk’s IndieToy Hunting Party chose to visit, I became aware of a rustling in the mulchy remains of a collapsed banana grove. Nudging a cluster of razor-sharp yet brittle fronds aside with the butt of my gun, I was startled to see Abandoned, a gravity-flipping box-and-button puzzler, feasting on a strange purple fruit. It ran as only an indie game can but I gave chase, bagged it and present its trophied face for your appreciation.

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Riot Games have had a bumper year, with millions of people signing up to play their MOBA, League Of Legends. Part of the reason for this success, they believe, is that the team adds a new playable character to the game every two weeks. It’s a relentless stream of magic-flinging dudes that requires some steely focus by their designers, designers who I got to chat to earlier on the week. Fresh from the creation of Viktor (handsome fellow pictured above), the next champion scheduled to step up to the roster, were associate producer Paul Belleza and champion designer Joe Ziegler. Check out what they had to say, below.> (more…)

You might just recollect my rantings about my favourite Quake III map, Q3WCP9, back in the mists of time. I had sort of resigned myself to the idea that it would never appear on Quake Live. Until now! The Quake Live Christmas premium update has it! Depressingly this means that the maps were only available to free players for a week, a week which ends today. I am sad. It is, however, just enough to push me into taking out a premium account for the hols. Man, I hope I can get some decent CP9 games. I’ll report back.

As the Advent door creaks open, a pungent smell pours out, causing eyes to water for miles around and entire species of flower to wither into extinction. Sorry about that. Something has clearly gone horribly wrong but we’ll just have to try and put it all back together again, step by step, and hope the reaction isn’t one of total disappointment.

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If you’ve used Direct2Drive to get any games, then you might want to pay attention to this. The service is being merged into GameFly, and that means that not everything you bought will necessarily survive the transition. They warn:

1. Download your favorite game purchases from Direct2Drive. We plan to have as many game files as possible available on GameFly. Just to be sure, please download your old game files before the transition.2. Download all of your non-game files (like Prima Guides). These will not be available on GameFly after the transition.

More details here. Thanks, Lewie!

Edit: Turns out you can’t redeem codes anyway, as that’s broken at the moment. A lot of players are a touch upset that their 30 days free with the game aren’t actually accessible until you enter payment details to pay for the next month.

Aaaand now my patience has run out. As if the extensive hours-long queues to get in to play Star Wars: The Old Republic weren’t frustrating enough (that’s if the game’s online to let you play, of course), now BioWare/EA’s infrastructure can’t cope with people trying to visit their website>. I have never, in my life, ever seen a queue to visit a website before. Yet that’s the position I’m in, trying to enter a code so I can carry on playing the bloody game. A queue I can’t seem to win at.

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The guys over at PCG noticed that the US Army’s CryEngine-powered “Dismounted Soldier Training System” has two trailers out. Do military training technologies need trailers? Hard to say, unless they are angling to become the third contender for the military manshoots arms race? These trailers are perhaps a little austere to complete with the big boys boombox bombast, but it’s nice and simulatory, as you can see below, so perhaps they could square off with Arma 3. (more…)