Doom 3 BFG edition is out this week, which makes it the perfect week for a Doom 3 BFG launch trailer. The repackaged, updated version of Doom 3 comes with 3D vision support and a new seven-level segment called The Lost Mission. The Resurrection of Evil expansion pack is included, along with Doom and Doom 2. The whole package is available at a budget £20 / €30 price point.

it sounds like Doom 3 has been significantly polished up with "improved rendering and lighting," more sensibly placed checkpoints and, countering one of the biggest points of contention, an armour-mounted flashlight. That should stop you from having to constantly choose between being able to see and being able to defend yourself. You can absorb some of that information in visual form with bonus demons in the launch trailer below.

The expansion of real-time indie 4X strategy, AI War, continues with the release of version 6.0 and the Ancient Shadows expansion tomorrow. AI War's spritely graphics seem impervious to ageing, thanks largely to the massive volume of lasers and sparkly explosions that embellish its massive space showdowns. Beyond the spectacle of the thing, AI War remains as complex and nerve-wracking as ever. The Ancient Shadows expansion will up the ante with bloody enormous capital ships can be improved with modular upgrades.

Ancient Shadows also adds extra alien races to barter with and laser in the face. Nine new ship classes, new map types and new music rounds off the package. Get the full details from the AI War: Ancient Shadows site and check out the new trailer below.

I was going to copy over the patch notes covering the updates from version AI War version 5.0 to AI War version 6.0, but then I noticed that they're SEVENTY THOUSAND WORDS LONG. You'll find them preserved on the AI War wiki if you fancy some light reading over the weekend. If you fancy trying AI War, you can download a trial version from the AI War site. TRAILER ALERT.

You might know Alientrap Games for their extra-terrestrial platformer Capsized, which we liked 86% of last year. But did you know that their current project is the ambitious Apotheon, a sidescrolling action RPG set in a "massive open world Mount Olympus", and with plans afoot for multiplayer modes? Oh, you did? Well, thanks for keeping it to yourself. Thankfully, Alientrap have released a new video showing a good chunk of the game in action - and it looks like Greek pottery art come to life.

Due for release next year, Apotheon puts you in the sandals of "humanity's last champion", brought in to mediate a bitter dispute between the gods. You're basically Jeremy Kyle, but with a spear. Or, as the website rather beautifully puts it, "With sword, spear, and shield in hand, you will sneak, conspire, loot, and battle your way through majestic palaces and chthonic depths as you climb towards godhood." That sounds right up our street.

Also right up our street is the art style, which perfectly captures the intricate scenes the Ancient Greeks liked to plaster all over their tupperware. Apotheon's stunning enough in still shots, but now we can finally see that gorgeous art in motion:

The latest trailer for Zeal Game Studio's strategy-management title A Game of Dwarves takes an anthropological look at the its hirsute half-pint heroes, detailing the various roles a dwarf might fill within his sprawling underground kingdom. It doesn't get into the sticky issue of how you produce more dwarves, though. There don't seem to be any lady dwarves knocking about, so I assume they breed by asexual cell division, like giant bearded amoebas. Hot.

The trailer also provides some rather nice swooping shots of the grand halls and complexes you can carve as the master of this hardy people. It all looks rather appealing: a blend of Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress given a friendly WYSIWYG gloss. A Game of Dwarves can be pre-ordered from Steam right now for £7.99, and releases worldwide on October 23. See the trailer for yourself after the jump.

Each chunk of Battlefield 3 DLC has had its own flavour, so far. Back to Karkand was a dusty payload of retro maps reforged in a cutting edge engine, Close Quarters focused on tight maps that delivered fast, accessible scraps. Armoured Kill was expansive and full of tanks. What will Aftermath be?

After the debut trailer, it's hard to say. It's set in ruined, post-quake Iran, but the prospect of more maps set in crumbling yellow streets doesn't especially sell it. There are scoped crossbows, though, which could deliver a quieter, deadlier alternative to a silenced pistol at medium range. The interesting moment comes just before the logo break, which suggests that we might have to contend with mid-match earthquakes. Now that sounds interesting.

Aftermath will hit PC on December 4 for Premium players and December 18 for everyone else. It'll cost $15 / £11 and will add new vehicles, four maps and extra multiplayer modes. One of those, called Scavenger, throws players into a ruined city map with a knife, a grenade and a sidearm. Better weapons are scattered throughout the broken environment. You'll have to scrap for them, Mad Max style to secure an edge and take the win.

The Iconclasts is an explorative adventure platformer from indie developer Joakim Sandberg (a.k.a. Konjak). It's a gorgeous update on Ivory Springs, which was released unfinished back in '09. The Iconclasts isn't finished yet either, but there is a playable alpha that you can download for free right now from Konjak's site.

You should, because beneath that beautiful artwork you'll find a snappy shooter set in a world rich with a level of detail you only see in games that have taken aeons to make. Go on, give it a download. It's only 20MB. Do it. DO IT.

The 2016 release date listed under the new trailer is a joke, but The Iconclasts is "still pretty far from done." It may well be complete enough to scoop an award, though. Konjak tweeted yesterday to say that he's submitted The Iconclasts to the IGF. "Hug me" he adds.

Here's the latest trailer, packed full of boss monsters, laser zip lines and some fantastic character art.



And here's a video of Ivory Springs, so you can see how far the project's come in the past few years.

Article by Dave James

Graphics card and motherboard manufacturer, EVGA, is offering the chance to upgrade any product you buy in Europe from it for up to six months after purchase. As part of its standard Step-Up program, folk that register their new EVGA graphics card, or mobo, have the option to trade in for a better model and just pay the difference.

Normally you’re only able to take advantage of the service for 90 days after purchase and only if you’ve bought into the extended warranty, but EVGA is upping the ante and doubling that to 180 days and waiving the warranty shenanigans. The offer is only running until the end of December, but that does mean you’re looking at being able to swap out your graphics card anytime up until June.

Now I know that’s got to seem a little decadent, buying one card now and spending more in six months time, but it does kind of take some of the worry out of buying an expensive graphics card right now. There’s always a concern when you drop a hefty chunk of cash on a component and most of that is the knowledge that inevitably something will rapidly turn up to supersede your latest purchase. Such is the fickle finger of technology consumerism.



With the next raft of graphics card releases set to arrive sometime around April or May next year you can bet that if you’re buying a GPU now something better will be released around then. And the way graphics card pricing goes with generational upgrades means that prices of like-for-like cards will generally remain pretty consistent.

So if you buy a second-tier GPU now, if the next generation of second-tier cards comes out before the end of June, you’re going to be able to upgrade to the newer tech for a relatively negligible price. Now that’s got to be a good reason to upgrade now.

And that’s obviously what EVGA is hedging its bets on - trying to get people to make the upgrade now before the holidays. It’s got a bit of a recent history of going the extra mile with its aftercare, really trying to make sure people stick with the brand. After all, brand loyalty isn’t something that’s necessarily always considered in buying a reference-design graphics card. Well, generally not beyond the usual AMD vs. Nvidia bunfight anyways. So if you can start fostering some good feeling as a board partner that’s got to be good for the company.

And hell, if it means good things for us folk looking for blistering frame rates in the latest games, then I’m all behind more of this sort of stuff.

Check out the EVGA website for more deets.

Yellow-bellies beware! Valve are cracking down on the cowards who flee games prematurely, leaving their team-mates in the lurch just to avoid an X in their ledger. The changes affect Mann vs Machine mode only, at the moment, and have been designed so as not to penalise people who get booted by the odd connection issue.

The Mann vs. Machine FAQ breaks the changes down. You are only ever punished for abandoning a game. This is different from leaving a game. Abandoning happens when:

You leave a game while playing a Mann Up game on an official server; and
You have not played through a single wave to completion or failure; and
There are 5 or more players currently connected to the server (including you).

Otherwise, you are cool to quit. In fact, even if you do satisfy the abandonment criteria, you will not be punished - at first. The punishments only kick in for repeat offences, though it's not specified exactly how many or often. Luckily, if you leave the game by pressing the disconnect button, you will be informed if you're at risk of punishment.

Said punishment means being placed in low-priority matchmaking pools, making it longer to get into a game.

If you just crash out, or your connection drops, your spot will be reserved for three minutes, allowing you to rejoin without incurring any penalty. Getting kicked for idling is considered the same as quitting intentionally, so you can be penalised. However, being vote-kicked does not count, and you won't be penalised for leaving. Though you may still be an asshole, which is a kind of punishment in itself.



So, quitters, cowards and wheyfaced weaklings - you have been warned. In the words of Saxton Hale, the not-actually-real-though-I-wish-he-was President and CEO of Mann Co:

"I gave you mercs one simple thing to do: Defend Mann Co. from an unstoppable robot horde. Now Bidwell's telling me some of you are abandoning the fight in the middle of attacks. Firstly: What am I even paying you in found money that falls out of robots for?

Secondly — actually, put this first, it's more important — I am coming for you."

I'm going to be reinstalling Age of Empires Online after the next update. If you know me, you probably just rolled your eyes and said, "They must have added vikings." You would be right! And also, I'm going to hit you in the face with an axe for rolling your eyes at me, whelp! The Norse are joining the existing roster of Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, Persian, and Babylonian civs, and bringing some new tricks and Northern fury to the game.

Like the Norse faction in Age of Mythology, Norse infantry will be able to build and repair structures. Because even a Norse peasant could probably beat up whatever your civilization has. They'll also have area-damaging berserkers, war dogs, and the cheapest, most mobile cavalry in the game. Oh, and you know those ox carts the other civs use to generate money by moving between markets? FEH, say we! How about BEAR CARTS! (No, I'm not even kidding.)



You can check out the full blog post on the official site, and jump in to join (or be pillaged and annihilated by) the Norsemen when the update hits on October 23.

Of all the user-made interpretations of Half-Life's doomed resonance cascade in the Black Mesa facility, the version fashioned by Minecraft modder "Xannot" might very well include the first Swiss-cheese-lined test chamber. Really, Xannot's Minecraft-ed Black Mesa appears quite faithful to the original, with explorable hallways, tram rails, and an open-oven microwave.

The mod's forum thread details the ongoing scope of completion (up to the first Houndeye encounter so far) and a handy download link for interested miners. Hopefully, Xannoc will add subsequent portions of Gordon Freeman's journey, as his efforts already look just as ambitious as other noteworthy creations.