Now Black Mesa has fallen through a Source engine resonance cascade and out into the world, modders are piggy-backing off its upgraded assets to fill in the extended family of Gordon Freeman's original adventure. Black Mesa: Insecurity hopes to remake Gearbox's second expansion, Half-Life: Blue Shift, starring everybody's favourite beer-owing security guard Barney Rubble Calhoun.



"Overall what I hope to achieve is an experience similar to Black Mesa's in that the essence of what Blue Shift was remains intact while adding a major facelift and re-imagining to the rest," writes the mod's creator. He admits that this is a small project, being worked on during study breaks, but the team have already created a number of new models to go along with the repurposed Black Mesa files.

More screenshots below. The project's release is still "TBD," but yo can keep up to date with the latest work over at Insecurity's ModDB page.

Creative Assembly continue to announce Rome 2's playable factions. Today's reveal heralds the Suebi as the sixth of the game's eight factions, meaning we're only a few weeks away from the full roster. "The Suebi are an indomitable Germanic culture dwelling to the north east of Gaul. Not a single people, but rather numerous tribes sharing a common language and similar religious beliefs," says the wiki page. From the look of the above screenshot, they also make passing wolves rather nervous.

"Heavily reliant on infantry and ambush tactics, raiding is their predominant form of conflict. Lightly equipped, most Suebi warriors make use of the framea, a javelin-like spear, as swords are a rarity. Often unarmoured they carried their rounded, oval or long, hexagonal shields into battle and wore little more than simple cloaks or other garments at times."

From the sounds of things, their Berserker units will prove powerful fighters, and the Night Hunters will camouflage well in forests. "Like other Germanic factions, the Suebi are masters of forest warfare and plunder. Stemming from a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, they have a diplomatic edge when dealing with other barbarians and excel at fighting lesser tribes who dare to stand in their way." Despite this, their isolationist stance will likely hamper trade with outside factions.

The Suebi join Arverni, Iceni, Macedon, Carthage, and, of course, Rome. But which civilisations will make up the final two factions? Place you bets... Now!

Rome II is out in October.

It's Friday, which means it's time for your weekly dose of webgames, this time's batch consisting of an interdimensional platformer, a game about depression, a game about depressing the Spacebar and watching as the seasons change around you, a 2.5D take on classic Metal Gear Solid, and of course a very messy alien gore game. Combined, these amount to just one of your five-a-day, so you may also want to drink some OJ or something. Enjoy!

Prism Panic by Noel Berry, Connor Ullmann Play it online here.

When I grew up we only had the two dimensions, X and Q, but we made do.

Well this is clever. Flash wizards Noel Berry (Broken Robot Love) and Connor Ullmann (Seedling) have teamed up to make a 2D platformer with an extra dimension – and by that I don't mean it's in 3D. Prism Panic is essentially the best parts of Fringe, its levels boasting roving pockets of interdimensionality that (for example) replace a peaceful critter with a horrible monster, or make spikes appear out of thin air. Wonderful, challenging stuff, with a great soundtrack too.

Depression Quest by Zoe Quinn, Patrick Lindsey, Isaac Schankler Play it online here.

These Dragon Quest spin-offs are starting to get really weird.

A wonderfully written game, and one of the most helpful and powerful pieces of Interactive Fiction I've played. Depression Quest puts you in the shoes of someone suffering from, well, depression; it's not an easy ride, but there is hope here. On a slightly unrelated note, the game's social interaction choices remind me of my favourite parts of the last two Shin Megami Tensei: Persona games, which sandwiched visual novel elements in-between all the demon-slaying.

If you've never entirely understood the illness, or you suspect you may be suffering from it, I'm certain Depression Quest will help. It's been released on a Pay What You Want model, so while there is a free version, you may want to consider thanking the developers with a sum of your choosing, a portion of which will go to the charity iFred.

CJR by nitram_cero Play it online here.

It turns out all you need to defeat an alien infestation is a Nerf assault rifle and a tank-top.

In CJR, you are a guy with biceps bigger than all the other biceps, and with a gun that fires in all sorts of crazy directions – up, diagonally, sideways... the lot. When your bullets connect with the weird purple alien things, the weird purple alien things explode in a shower of goop, which then stays on any surface it splatters upon, Super Meat Boy-Style. (The game also features “mucho checkpoints”, which is just bueno.) Sometimes biceps, a big gun, and alien gore are all you need – and CJR definitely has you covered on that front.

(Via Free Indie Games)

400 Years by scriptwelder Play it online here.

You're the stone idol thing. Rather sadly, you tend to inspire fear in humans.

400 years should be enough time to stop an unspecified calamity and save the world, but in this enchanting time-travelling sidescroller, those years go by in the blink of an eye. The game's masterstroke is your ability to pass time by holding the Spacebar, which causes seasons to change (Winter, for example, turning water into ice, allowing you walk over a frozen stream), and trees to grow. Beautiful stuff, in no small part due to the vaguely Thomas Was Alone-esque narration, and the lovely soundtrack.

(Via IndieGames)

Linear Gear by Sophie Houlden Play it online here.

Chunky 2D pixels in a 3D space is the new black.

Developer Sophie Houlden made her arcade-puzzle game Swift ☆ Stitch available for free earlier in the week and, on Twitter shortly afterwards, shelved her Metal Gear Solid-inspired Linear Gear, which takes the super-spy and robs him of (half of) the third dimension. Both games are available to play online (Swift ☆ Stitch is also downloadable), but I wanted to draw particular attention to the sadly unfinished Linear Gear, which does a fantastic job of recreating the feel of the original and best MGS, while shifting it to 2.5D. The music's great, and the pixels are delicious – it's just a shame the full game will never be.

Dreamfall Chapters' Kickstarter campaign is sailing towards completion, with over $787,000 of its $850,000 goal raised and 22 days still to go. With success all but assured, Red Thread have announced the first stretch goals for the adventure sequel. The team have also released early prototype footage of the game, showing an explorable location and their hybrid UI system.



Three stretch goals have been unveiled so far. The first, at $900,000, will guarantee support for Mac and Linux. At $950,000, the game will receive the Loremaster extras, which include: "the Great Library of Marcuria (rebuilt in secrecy, of course), a fully-voiced librarian character, and tons of books, documents, ancient parchments and tomes of lore in-game for players to read, explore and dig into!"

The $1,000,000 milestone is titled A Longer Journey, and looks like a large expansion to the game, introducing new characters, locations, side-stories and dialogue. The rest of the long list of potential additions is being kept secret, but Red Thread have released the title of the final one. It's called "The Longest Journey Home" and will unlock at the £2 million mark. Sounds intriguing.

To be fair, they've missed a trick here. They could have called one of the stretch goals "No goddamn rubber duck puzzles" and watched the money flood in.

Nvidia have hit back in the great bundle wars earlier this week with their own $150 F2P content giveaway. That’s around £100 in 'real' money. If the lure of having a brand new performance pixel-pusher chucking polygons around your PC’s monitron wasn’t enough to entice you to part with your hard-earned cash, Nvidia are hoping that giving you extra pocket-money in three of the top free-to-play games around will sway you their way.

It’s a different take on the game bundle compared with rival GPU manufacturer, AMD. They recently launched their Never Settle Reloaded bundle, offering triple-A games with newly-purchased graphics cards in their HD 7800 and HD 7900 series.

Nvidia though is banking on the explosion in the free-to-play market being more of an attraction than a bundle of new titles.

They’re supporting Planetside 2, World of Tanks and PhysX poster-child, Hawken, with the purchase of a new GTX card. That means anything from a GTX 650 upwards.

There are though two tiers to this bundle, with the purchase of a GTX 650 or GTX 650 Ti giving you $25 worth of in-game items for the three free titles, and anything from a GTX 660 and above giving you $50 value pack each.



In Planetside 2, for example, the lower tier cards will net you the ‘Gear Up’ pack, which includes Infantry Camo, Weapon Camo, Exclusive Gun, 7 Day XP Boost and a 7 Day Resource Boost (equivalent to 2500 Station Cash).

When you buy a GTX 660 or above you’ll get the ‘Premium Gear Up’ pack, which includes Infantry Camo, Weapon Camo, Vehicle Camo, Exclusive Gun, 7 Day Squad XP Boost, 7 Day Squad Resource Boost, 7 Day XP Boost, 7 Day Resource Boost, equivalent to 5000 Station Cash.

That way we avoid any awkwardness in exchange rate fluctuations between different territories.

Exclusive guns for Nvidia-sponsored kills
AMD on the flip side are offering free copies of Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite with any purchase of a HD 7900 series card and Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider with a HD 7800 series card.
When those games are released, anyways...

It’s going to be interesting to see whether Nvidia’s bundle only serves to entice those who are already card-carrying members of the free-to-play frontier, or whether AMD’s reliance on good ol’ fashioned triple-A titles makes the difference for them.

Our Friday question though is: if you were in the market for a new GPU, all things being equal (and we know they’re really not) which of these two latest gaming bundles would sway you towards either the green or red side of the great graphics card divide?

We were quite taken with The 90's Arcade Racer's modest Kickstarter bid, despite its nostalgia-baiting name and errant apostrophe. The game's developer was looking for a conservative £10,000 to add new tracks and cars into a racing game that was already well into production. Not only has it broken that total - hitting £14,515 with 59 hours to go - but now indie publishing house Nicalis are set to take it under their wing.

"We’re working with Anthony on The ‘90s Arcade Racer," says Nicalis founder Tyrone Rodriguez. "Our collaboration will allow him to realize his vision of the game and make sure that he has the necessary Unity programming and design help he needs so that he can concentrate on art and other aspects."

Nicalis specialise in providing development support, porting and publishing for indie titles. They've previously worked on Cave Story, VVVVVV, Nifflas' NightSky, and are developing the upcoming Binding of Isaac remake.

"For anyone asking about the physics, both Anthony and I know what arcade racers should feel like. I also have experience with racing games and actual track experience; I worked on The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift (PS2, PSP), designing its drift physics. and have over 100 hours of real-world track time (open-wheel, street and race cars). Anthony and I won’t stop until we get the tuning just right."

Sounds promising, and hopefully the deal will give the developer the support to push The 90's Arcade Racer beyond its initial scope.

Thanks, Indie Games.

Codemasters might be getting a little carried away. Sure, GRID 2 is all about going ridiculously fast, but they don't have to apply that philosophy to every aspect of their production. Take this trailer - the first dedicated showing of in-game footage. It lasts a scant one minute and ten seconds. Take out all the surrounding logos and you're left with 37 seconds of high-speed action. Guys! It's not a race!

What we do get is cars of various shapes and sizes jostling for position around the Californian coast, Paris and Australia's Red Bull Ring. If nothing else, it's nice to see Codemasters settle back down to a game that seems to be purely about racing. As much as I enjoyed the Dirt series, it did increasingly focus on silly Gymkhana showmanship. With any luck, GRID's tarmac tracks will put the emphasis firmly back on Codies enjoyable race engine.

GRID 2 is due out in May.

Not content with completely shifting the game purchasing paradigm, Hi-Rez have also announced a new content update that will arrive today alongside the "single purchase" option. It brings new maps, a new weapon, turret shields to enhance Generator battles, and additional physics options for custom servers.

Six new maps have been added; three for CTF, and three for Arena. Bella Omega makes a return, hopefully free from the Generator problems that prompted its original removal. There's also Canyon Crusade Revival, a remade version of the classic Tribes map.

The new weapon is the Shocklance, a secondary slot item available to all classes. It does higher damage from behind, which should prompt some close-range balletic jetpacking to manoeuvre yourself into position.

Of course, the patch's biggest change is the Game of the Year unlock itself, giving all existing weapons, maps and perks for a single price. That price is £20.99 for new players, and £13.99 for existing VIPs.

Well, that was fast. Only a little over 24 hours have passed since Aliens: Colonial Marines emerged from its dark alcove, but graphics mods are already becoming available. Two such offerings are the DirectX 10 and SweetFX add-ons which spruce up shadows, lighting, and color palettes for something a bit more reminiscent of the films' murky tones and cool hues.

The DirectX 10 mod softens shadows a bit and tweaks illumination and to bounce and reflect off weapon textures and other surfaces. Installing SweetFX provides a less subtle effect: deeper color saturation, a sharpened texture filter, stronger shadows, and a faint blue gradient for outdoor areas. The latter looks a little extreme in some indoor areas, but it's definitely a darker flavor than the default visuals.

Though Colonial Marines wasn't the Aliens game reboot fans desired for years, it's still nice to see a few dedicated modders pushing for graphical excellence regardless of the quality of the game. Have a look at some sample shots below for both DirectX 10 and SweetFX, and head to Mod DB and DSOGaming to download each one.

DirectX 10 mod

Default lighting and colors

SweetFX enabled

Ether One's mystique first embedded itself in our synapses during our roundup of the best-looking upcoming games. Developer White Paper recently shared an enigmatic new trailer for the first-person adventure, which is themed around the surrealism of dreams, the dangers of mental instability, and repurposing recollections using nothing but a magical camera.

As a Restorer, you're gifted with the ability to shape and change the memories embedded within others to help them rebuild their shattered minds—sort of like Jennifer Lopez in The Cell but with less horse mutilation. Of course, your own memories need fixing as well, and only by delving into the mind of a patient named Jean can you make everything right.

The relationship between the Restorer and Jean seems like an important piece of Ether One's tale, and its strength lies in dangling answers beyond the wonderful juxtapositions dreams pull off so well, such as a paneled doorway at the end of a concrete hall opening to a slice of tropical paradise. The impressive lighting effects and deep colors of the Unreal Engine game only increase the appeal of escaping into explorable abstraction as you walk Jean's mind.

White Paper hopes for an early 2013 release for Ether One. In the meantime, have a look at its website or Greenlight page for more vibrant shots.