Well I've just searched the PC Gamer archives for any mention of La Mulana, and found diddly squat, so the news that it's been added to Desura seems like a good a time as any to talk about this forgotten indie gem. Based on the freeware game from a million years ago, La Mulana is an exploratory platformer set in and around an ancient temple. The world design and difficulty remind of Dark Souls, while whip-cracking hero Lemeza's range of gadgets recall Metroid or Zelda. However, the game has a character and atmosphere all of its own.

This gorgeous remake adds a new art style, and tinkers about with the mechanics just a little bit so that it's not quite as punishing at the start. As someone who bounced off the original due to its sheer difficulty wall, I'd say that's a very good thing. If you've finally conquered Dark Souls, or you're jonesing for a new Metroidvania to sink your teeth into, it's worth giving La Mulana a go. The game originally launched back in July along with the new digital distribution site Playism, and it's also lurking in the bowels of Steam Greenlight, if you're looking to give your thumb something to do. There's a rather lovely 'History of La Mulana' trailer below.

Rift's Storm Legion expansion pack will add two vast new continents that triple the size of the game world. It includes seven new dungeons, three raids, a new chronicle, new souls to equip and another ten levels to earn. Basically, it's so big you'll need a bit of a head start to see it all. We have 500 keys to the this weekend's beta event sitting right here. Fancy one? Waltz this way to find out how to apply.

All you have to do is click on the following link and fill in the form. The first 500 entries will receive a beta key via email when the competition closes on Friday.

Let me into the Rift: Storm Legion beta!

The beta is set to run from Friday through to nexy Wednesday. You can find out more about Storm Legion's quests, zones and monsters in our hands-on, or check out the official Rift site for more details. Storm Legion will give players a bit of personal space in which to construct houses. Take a look at a variety of abodes in the latest trailer:

Launch trailers usually go up at a game's launch. Not so in the case of Black Ops 2, which has boldly put this video out a whole month early. Unless this isn't a trailer to celebrate the launch of the game but a trailer for the launch event itself, in which case the arrival of Black Ops 2 on shelves will herald no small amount of flaming, screaming death, destruction, gunfire, horses and humourless-looking men throwing themselves off cliffs and out of planes. Most companies settle for free drinks and a tombola, but not Activision.



Well, gosh. The promise of more tactical play in the Strikeforce missions certainly doesn't take a back-seat to simple bombastic destruction. But will the focus on rogue robots remove some of the guilty visceral thrill of gunning down hordes of squishy, jam-filled men?

Star Citizen, the new space game from Wing Commander-creator Chris Roberts, has released a new FAQ which reveals the estimated system specs for the game, clarifies how modding will work - it is, in fact, highly encouraged - and what sort of things may be purchasable via microtransaction. Many of the other questions within the FAQ have already been covered in our substantial Star Citizen preview of the game, but it's good to hear Chris Roberts clarify the fine print on a few points.

The game is two years away, and is underpinned by CryEngine 3, so needless to say the minimum system requirements are far from puny, with only cutting edge tech being able to make the game soar:

Minimum:
Dual core CPU
GTX 460
4GB of system memory

Recommended:
i7 2500, 2600, 2700
GTX 670 or better

When it comes to mods, the FAQ stresses how open to modding the game will be:

"Players will be given full control of their game! When operating private servers, players will be able and encouraged to mod the game. It doesn’t stop there, though: we hope to institute a ‘mod approval’ process that will allow the best of the best player created ships and other additions to be integrated into the central persistent world as well."

The FAQ also clarifies payment: a single, one-off purchase of the initial game will suffice. There will be no monthly fee. "Some in-game items may be available as microtransactions," the FAQ goes on to say, "but we will NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay."

Reassuring. So reassuring in fact, that players are throwing money at the project in huge numbers. In the last five days Star Citizen has scooped up an additional $500,000 in funding, taking it half way to its target of $2,000,000 with 23 days left to go. 9,961 prospective pilots have pledged at the time of writing.

Head over to the Roberts Space Industries website for more details, or take a look at our Star Citizen screenshot gallery to examine the imagination fuelling the project.

Sad news today, folks. Mike Singleton, one of the pioneers of game development, died last Wednesday at the age of 61. He was responsible for many classics of the 8-bit and 16-bit era, including the likes of Shadowfax, Dark Sceptre (pictured above), Doomdark's Revenge, Carrier Command and the Midwinter Games. More recently he was involved in Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows and GRID.

You should head over to Mike Singleton's Wikipedia entry to see the full list of his achievements during the three decades in which he worked in the game industry. A former English teacher, Singleton retired from the Merseyside Education Authority to pursue a life in games way back in 1982, and was one of the few big name developers from the Spectrum era to remain at the industry's coal-face post-millennium. Singleton's long career saw him pass between a huge number of revered studios, from The Collective Inc. to Melbourne House, Simon & Schuster Interactive, Mirage, Microprose and Codemasters. His games, meanwhile, have influenced the imaginations of many other devs and gamers.

After a year long struggle with cancer, which saw the removal of his jaw, he died of natural causes in Switzerland last week.

Slender's Forest is a Minecraft map inspired by Slender: The Eight Pages. Minecraft's Endermen are an affectionate nod to the skinny monster birthed on the Something Awful forums, this is a perfect fit. That doesn't mean that Slender's Forest is a parody, or any less scary for Minecraft's boxy setting. You must pick your way through a dark forest at a slow pace, picking up pages without catching the eye of the monster and trying not to fall off your chair when you do.

The mod slows down your walk speed to draw out the tension, but offers a few difficulty options if it all becomes too much. You can play the map in daytime mode, which robs the map of some of its mystery, but you still get the creepy crunching noises as the Enderman flits around and tries to catch you out. You can download the map now from the Minecraft forums. Thanks to Wordpuncher for the heads up.

If you can't get enough of the Slender sensation, keep an eye on Slender: The Arrival, a prettier follow up to The Eight Pages. You may also be interested in the Slender Source mod that's in development. If you just want to find out how easily scared we are, check out our Slender Now Playing.

Getting bested by bots always grinds the gears, but it's especially frustrating when the computer's shell of choice is a knife-wielding, anthropomorphic rabbit with a kick powerful enough to send you flying like a dazed potato sack. Of course, you'll eventually win by sheer brainpower, but that's why Overgrowth developer Wolfire Games implemented an adaptive learning curve for the AI opponents in its upcoming fur-and-fists fighter.

The latest alpha progress video shows how you'll have to vary your attacks to keep the AI from totally adapting to your flailings, and because computers process information far faster than the squishy pile of glop inside our heads, Wolfire reduced the responsiveness to a level approximating human reaction times. So, the next time you snap your neck after crumpling from a roundhouse kick to the face muzzle, you'll know it was on the level.

Pre-ordering Overgrowth for $30 provides access to all alpha releases, so head over to the official website if you feel like punching some rabbits really hard.

Autumn is all about change. The trees dance with color as the dried leaves crunch underfoot. We lose daylight. Heaters switch on. And your empty hard drive space has the opportunity to fill with the five games on offer from the Indie Royale Fall Bundle, a collection of potent, pumpkin-flavored titles for a current cost of $5.

Matching the minimum nets you the heart-tugger To the Moon, the visual-icious Oil Rush, the psychic sleuther Blackwell Chronicles, the "22 tredecillion" permutations of AVSEQ, and the shamanistic Reprisal. Cranking up the cash contribution bestows a bonus Makeup And Vanity Set album for your ears, of which a synth-fused sample plays in the trailer above. The minimum price increases as more purchases come in, but it also takes a cut whenever a kind soul pays above it.

Head on over to the bundle's page for more info on each of the offerings.

Like war's penchant for fluidity, PlanetSide 2's numerous touch-ups to its membership benefits and its eternal struggle with gameplay balances make for some interesting developer forum posts. In a new report from the front, Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley revealed a few changes in the scorch-marked pipeline, including the removal of the Auraxium currency and the announcement of a specific release date during the upcoming SOE Live keynote on Thursday.

"After listening to feedback on the forums, this will mean the end of Auraxium as a resource," Smedley wrote. "Keep in mind when we do this (with this next patch), we will be dramatically increasing the speed at which you gain certifications. Something like 4X. Again, folks, we play the game on non-admin accounts. We see the data. We see the issues. We're fixing them."

Smedley also said "large plans" are in store for ensuring the availability of all three continents -- Indar, Esamir, and Amerish -- right at launch. "Also, keep in mind this will involve stuff like base benefits and what happens when people 'lock down' continents," he hinted. We presume this involves enough party hats for everyone back at base.

Check out the rest of Smedley's post for more info, including future optimizations of PlanetSide 2's CPU-intensive load and the formation of a new mini-tutorial for beginners.

A role commonly found in most League of Legends teams is the stalwart jungler, a hero bravely venturing into the underbrush that borders lanes in pursuit of sacks of gold masquerading as hostile creatures. In comparison to normal lane-play, jungling can be somewhat lackluster and inefficient, as nerfed creature camps and gold per 10 items diminish challenge and increase the pressure on lanes. Yesterday, Assistant Game Designer "Statikk" said current jungling tactics seem "stagnant" and that changes are on Riot's scope for Season 3 tournament play and beyond.

"The current dominant jungle strategy is fairly stagnant, and the overall current jungle playstyle in many cases severely limits potential strategy and choices in other lanes/roles as well," he wrote. "One large problem is that efficient farming of the jungle has very little payoff compared to constantly applying lane pressure by camping/ganking. Overall, junglers severely lack in gold unless they successfully gank and snowball the game from the get-go and/or opt for a gold per 10 strategy."

Season 2 of League of Legends' $2 million world tournament wrapped up earlier this week with a victory by Taiwan's Taipei Assassins after Riot issued a $30,000 fine to team Azubu Frost for unsportsmanlike peeking at the spectator screen.

"The approach we're currently taking is to significantly increase the rewards of jungle camps over time (junglers already have a huge impact on the early game)," Statikk continued. "To go along with this, though, we are buffing jungle camps back up to actually be more threatening while simultaneously offering new and improved item paths for players to specialize in the jungle. Overall, we want junglers to be rewarded for building combat stats rather than always being forced to build gold generation items."