I couldn't be more delighted with the news that the promising Chasm has met its Kickstarter target - and not just because it gave me an excuse to use that exciting headline. OK, so it's mostly that, but I also like the cut of the action RPG's jib. The Symphony of the Night/Zelda/Diablo-inspired sidescroller has brought in all $150,000 required to make the game happen. It's still a few...hundred thousand dollars shy of achieving all its stretch goals, but there are five days to go before Mr Kickstarter bangs his power-gavel and declares Chasm's funding campaign "OOOOOVEERRRRR". Also: Mr Kickstarter is a robot.

While wait for Discord Games to, y'know, finish making it - development would probably go a lot smoother if I stopped poking them with a stick - remember that there's a demo on the Kickstarter page, for PC, Mac and Linux. If you're too afraid of that great fiery sky-ball to leave the house, I can't think of a more ironic game to play today.

Might and Magic Heroes VI is currently kind of incredibly broken, according to justifiably angry players on the official Ubisoft forum, the game's Steam forum, and the Heroes Community forum. The massive, massive list of problems includes launching issues, missing content, crashes, freezes and invalid keys - both the base game and its recent Shades of Darkness expansion appear to have collapsed like a DRM-riddled souffle. Ubisoft haven't been terribly helpful over the weekend, but they recently updated to say that they are "working to correct" players who are still affected by the mess, pointing out that "none of your content is lost". So that's something.

The cause of the whole mess is not particularly clear, but it appears to be something to do with the recent Patch 2.1 and the equally recent Shades of Darkness expandalone - there's probably a prophecy somewhere warning humanity to keep those two things apart. If you're affected, have a browse of the increasingly angry, swelling forums for potential fixes, or hold out for Ubisoft to give the all-clear. Which will hopefully happen very soon.

Thanks to BluesNews.

Neverwinter is here, and like the British summer it's currently in open beta - meaning it suffers from the odd rain cloud now and again. Still, if you're a fan of dungeons and/or dragons and/or free things, you should probably get stuck in. This latest video takes us on a brief tour through the Whispering Caverns - a lovely family picnic spot located just outside Neverwinter, off the M1. Oh. It's actually a giant labyrinth of tunnels filled with all manner of beasties such as giant spiders and my nemesis the Beholder (pictured above). I don't think Nan would like that. I don't think Nan would like that at all.

I'm off to find a less horrifying place to take the family - I've heard Oblivion's nice this time of year. While I'm gone, don't touch the following video, or the accompanying dev diary, found via Joystiq/Massively.

This time last year you'd never have guessed that news of Far Cry 3 would leak via the one and only Michael Biehn. But y'know, this is the future. Anything can happen. Speaking on Major Nelson Radio recently, Biehn revealed that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Creative Director, Dean Evans, is having internal discussions at Ubisoft about a potential future for the '80s sci-fi spin off.

"Dean was with me on the phone last night," Biehn said in that voice. "He was pretty jacked up. He was going into a meeting today. I think he wants to turn it into some sort of franchise. He's got a sequel in mind."

If you haven't played Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon yet, you ought to do so. It's basically Far Cry 3 with a kitsch '80s cyberpunk aesthetic. There's also giant dragons that shoot lasers from their eyes. Check out the launch trailer.

 

 

If you're the sort of person that likes to torment yourself with thoughts of what could have been, then you're going to love this hour-long stream of the cancelled Star Wars Battlefront 3, recorded yesterday in celebration of the series ('May the 4th be with you' and all that). It's "pre-alpha", so not the disputed "99% done" version that was axed by LucasArts - but nevertheless it appears to be (sorta) playable, if a little spotty visually. Battlefront fans can check it out here, but be sure to have your monogrammed Darth Vader handkerchiefs at the ready.

Battlefront 3 is definitely dead, along with everything LucasArts were more recently cooking up, including the moderately promising Star Wars 1313. This stream comes courtesy of Past to Present Online, via the great lidless eye of NeoGAF. Here's a random sampling of multiplayer action:

Valve has thrown a bit more of its weight behind Linux with the release of beta builds of Portal and Left 4 Dead 2. If you own either (or both) games you should find that beta versions have materialised in your Steam library - along with Portal 2, according to some. The Linux build of the first-person puzzler has so far gone unheralded by Valve, but here's a blog post describing the latest beta version of Left 4 Dead 2. In addition to letting Linux users play Valve's zombie hit, the download acts as a "testing ground" for its new Extended Mutation System. Thankfully, you can try the beta on Windows and Mac too.

The beta version of Left 4 Dead 2 is the same size as the main game, so you have a hefty download ahead of you. (I assume the same is true of Portal.) Steam for Linux officially launched in February, so it hasn't taken too long to get Portal and L4D2 on there. Half-Life 2 next?

Thanks to BluesNews and Kotaku.

Remember your first fight with a dragon in Skyrim, and how exciting it was? The powerful leathery wings, the blasts of magical breath, the earth-shaking rumble as it landed... thrilling! Now, remember your most recent fight with a dragon? How you sighed and rolled your eyes as you climbed off your horse, how you killed it with one or two blows, how you were already a half-mile away when you absorbed its soul, and how you didn't even bother to take its bones because you already have a dresser full of them in one of your mansions?

Enhanced Mighty Dragons is a mod that restores dragons to their rightful perch as the most feared and deadly creatures in Skyrim by adding sixteen new dragons, each with its own powers, abilities, and fighting styles. Finally, dragons feel truly legendary.

Rather than wait around for a random dragon to show up after installing the mod, I decided to hunt one down. Esbern, in Sky Haven Temple, offers radiant dragon hunting missions, and after talking with him I found myself on a mountaintop with my wife and two of The Blades in tow. I lead the charge toward the resting dragon, my enchanted axe at the ready. Let's do this!

The dragon is also quite prepared to "do this"

The dragon sees me coming and immediately leaps into the air. I quickly glug a couple potions to protect myself from the standard fire and frost attacks, but something else comes out of the dragon's mouth, a fast-moving ball of ghostly white energy. I think to myself "Huh, that doesn't look like fire or frost," though I only really have time to think "Huh, th--" before I'm suddenly and violently catapulted backwards, doing two full flips before landing right on my face.

I hope there are no bards watching. I don't want this ending up in a song.

I see from the Skyrim wiki that there are some "vanilla" dragons that have Unrelenting Force, but I honestly can't recall a dragon ever using it, let alone leading with it. This particular new dragon uses it almost exclusively and to great effect. By the time I've managed to stand back up, it's circled overhead, scattered my companions with another Force shout, then skimmed back to knock me on my ass just as I've managed to recover.

My dragon's breath smells like... me.

After being thrown down the hill in a jumble of limbs and armor for the third time, I finally manage to get off a shout of my own: Dragonrend, which forces the beast to land. I sprint over for a power attack with my axe as it turns to face me. I land a nice blow, and see the dragon's hit points decline by a tiny sliver. Okay, so it's got some extra hit points. I may have to hit it a few more times. I try to land another blow, but can't help noticing that my hands are suddenly completely empty. My battleaxe is gone.

Used to be, the butt was a good place to hit a dragon. Now, they have tail attacks.

I've been disarmed. This scaly sonofagun has a Disarm Shout? That is so not fair and yet so awesome, I say to myself as I sail through the air once again, the victim of another dose of Unrelenting Force. The dragon shrugs off my Rend spell and takes flight again.

It's pretty hard to look for an axe in a blizzard while a dragon knocks you around like a pinball, so I draw my bow and call in my own dragon, who starts dive-bombing with flame breath. After five or six minutes of three Blades, myself, and my wife peppering the dragon with arrows, and my own dragon pitching in, we finally manage to bring it down. I died about four times, once from being bitten and thrown, once from a tail-whip, the rest from being Force blasted all over the mountain.

Some of them do still breathe ice and fire. They just do it better.

I check the mod page and discover I just faced Al'Mul'Grah, the youngest and least-powerful of the new dragons. In addition to its love of Force and Disarm shouts, it can also summon animals to help it in combat, which, luckily, it didn't do this time. It had my hands full without some stupid dragon-loving bear ripping into me while I lay stunned and face-down in the snow.

Over the next few days, I look for more of the new dragons. One appears randomly, circling overhead, and I manage to avoid its Force shouts and Rend it to the ground. Sprinting, I raise my axe to bash its head in, and it belches poison on me, then casts a paralysis spell, so I get to watch my helpless, rigid body be slowly consumed by dragon venom. Fun!

You'd be able to clearly see this dragon spitting poison in my face if this dragon wasn't spitting poison in my face

On top of a mountain, another dragon spots me coming, summons a Daedra Lord, and takes flight. From the air it blasts me with Shock Breath, and then decides it might as well double-down on the whole electrocution theme and whips up a full blown lightning storm so it doesn't even have to be looking at me to hurt me. Awesome! Also, incredibly painful.

You'd be able to clearly see this dragon summoning a lightning storm in my face if, well, you get it.

Later, I encounter one in an open field, but manage to draw him into fighting three nearby giants. I figure this fight will be over in no time, but the dragon scatters the giants like bowling pins with Unrelenting Force. It takes a while, and some of my help, but the dragon is eventually destroyed, which you would think would make the giants and me best friends, but they just club me to death.

On the left, a dragon shouting. On the right, two giants listening.

Those are just the three or four dragons I've seen so far, but I'm keen to find the rest and get slapped around by them. The mod includes a skeletal dragon who can't fly, but fights with deadly physical attacks. A couple of the new dragons can summon storms to hide in, and even turn invisible. One has mayhem shouts, can muffle spell casters, and uses mass paralysis. Another is a phantom with few attacks but incredible defenses. There's even a dragon that can raise the dead to fight for him. I want to see all these dragons, and get killed by them.

That's my wife in the middle. A moment later, she entered orbit.

The mod is also amazingly customizable. There are four different difficultly levels, from Slightly Mighty to Nightmare, and with each you can choose if you want all random dragon encounters to be Enhanced or just the boss dragons. You can also decide if you want to stick with the classic dragon textures, new ones, or a mix of both. And, if you think fighting extra-tough dragons means you deserve extra-looty-loot, you can choose that as well. You can also increase the spawn time between random dragon encounters if they're proving a little too much to fight on a regular basis. Finally, Dragon Priests can be beefed up to Nightmare levels as well, just in case you want some extra pain.

Installation: While it doesn't appear to be on Steamworks, Enhanced Mighty Dragons comes with its own installer and configuration utility, so my work here is done. It also uses no scripts, so it's easy to uninstall as well.

“Let’s Reboot” takes a look back at a classic in need of a new outing or a beloved series gone stale and asks how it might be best redesigned or given a kick up the backside for today’s gaming audience. The Rules: Assume a free hand, and a decent budget, but realistic technology and expectations. This week’s sacred cow – an attempt to make a revamped classic RTS, with a Nod or two to the old.

There was a time when Command and Conquer essentially was PC strategy - earlier games like Dune 2 and Herzog Zwei simply swept away in the face of the words "C&C clone". Now, it's at best a dusty franchise, with reinvention on the way in the form of a massive free-to-play online version, but the regular single-player side of things comprehensively killed by the abysmal Tiberian Twilight. Could there still be scope to bring back the story-driven core of the franchise though? Maybe so! Let's reboot...

As ever, it's probably best to start with what went wrong. For C&C, there were a few key elements - the biggest that the basic game was stuck in a rut, with C&C 4's attempt to break out of it just not being all that much fun. Another big one though was that the Tiberium storyline was simply too fast. It took the world from a game set tomorrow, to ridiculous SF nonsense with mutants and entire continents covered in alien crystal and lots of other stuff that made its universe unrecognisable. The Red Alert series kept things more grounded there, and honestly I thought it was great, but it was arguably a little too silly for many - even if those people did often only have about 1/3 of the average human soul.

For our reboot, we're going to take a bit of both. We need something striking. We need something with character. We need something a bit different. We need a new timeline. We need a new war.

And what else could it be, but the United States vs. Europe? Oh yes. US vs Them.

Yellow zones, giant walking battle-tanks... the more C&C advanced, the less resonance it had.

It's not World War 3 yet though, but a fight primarily being played out through proxies. Both are trying to get other countries on side in advance of a war both seem convinced is going to happen, even if in public they're making a show of politeness and keeping their knives behind their backs. Unlike with C&C's Tiberium, the exact reason for the sudden animosity is a mystery; one that our heroes have to slowly uncover as this Cold War becomes defrosted. Rather than good and evil campaigns, this time we play both sides and a few one-shot missions here and there - swapping and changing over the course of a single story that allows for the mechanics to shift more convincingly between quick skirmishing and having entire fixed armies to control. Where a big assault might have been a cut-scene before, now we play it, and see the results directly from the point of view of the other side in the next mission.

Like the C&C games of old, of course cut-scenes have to be FMV. It offers a narmy charm, with each side here alternating between distinct styles - the Americans fighting an 80s style action movie, while the British take a more detatched, Men From From The Ministry type big picture view, and other countries have their own styles as we blip around the world and other people get caught up in the fight. The characters will actually do more than just stand in front of a blue screen though, as the lack of any actual action got incredibly boring in the last few games. There's no point trying to tell a serious, gritty story - but regular moments of actual character awesomeness are needed, not just camp. We're talking a President who can take on assassins hand-to-hand, civil servants who don't even blink at explosions while sipping tea, and the nations of the world playing off their stereotypes. Schlock, basically, of the kind where even people who don't play the game still head to YouTube to enjoy the cut-scenes.

Tanya, you appear confused about the difference between *being* a commando and *going* commando.

As for the action itself? That has to be taken a little more seriously.

For starters, it won't be classic C&C. Even if the last attempt to break away failed, the raw mechanics need updating. The whole "GDI Laboratory for sale, located in middle of GDI base, buyer collects" thing is silly, as is mass producing engines of war on the battlefield. At the same time though, being stuck entirely with a handful of units tends to turn missions into puzzles more than tactical challenges.

As a compromise, there will be base building, but it'll be much simplified. Instead of full-on fortified bases, which can only exist in missions where their existence makes sense, player bases will be more outposts. Some missions will have a fixed team. Others are based on a reinforcements system, where instead of spending cash specifically, you get a pool of points that refreshes every few minutes and can be expanded over the course of a game with specific buildings or achievements like taking out an enemy outpost. Using this, you make your shopping list for the next wave - something like a tank costing more than a few guys, and the top level gear not being available until your pool has been sufficiently expanded - and your units show up as a group when the timer ticks down. Points can't be saved up between waves, encouraging liberal spending and actually getting a new set of toys each reinforcement tick.

RTS is dull these days. Bring back Red Alert's love of the ridiculous! But with more energy in the FMV.

Each side though plays things a bit differently. A crack team of specialists for instance - think a whole team of Tanya types - will get no backup, because they shouldn't need it. Others might revolve around asynchronicity - a fixed army that has to move quickly, or be slowly defeated by a smaller one whose regular reinforcements of basic troops will slowly erode them away like waves against a beach. Much like Starcraft 2, everything in the single-player is balanced for that, with a fairer set of rules in place for the equally necessary multiplayer action. But that goes without saying for this genre.

Later, a second mechanic enters the fray, with the discovery of another Tiberium like substance. It's not actually Tiberium, because that story is over, but a limited, non-respawning resource on the map that can specifically be gathered up and used to purchase super-weapons. Unlike the classic production facilities, these actually are on the map so that the other side can destroy or capture them. Think weapons like the Chronosphere or Nuke, which take time to build and prepare for battle, but have devastating effects. Starving the other player of the necessary material can be just as effective a tactic as actually building one, and it also works as an upgrade resource for other units. Will you go for the nuke, or spend it on upgrading your soldiers to be individually more deadly? That's another tactical decision.

Sadly, Kane's story is done. But there's plenty of scope for similar types with a desire to see the world burn.

What exactly is this mysterious new substance? It has a technical name, but you'll come to know it as Detritus - the ashes of a war that's yet to be fought, rippling back in time from future battlefields its own discovery will ultimately cause. What our heroes are finding are the scraps from small skirmishes around the world, with both the US and Europe stockpiling the stuff from the epic world war they led to - already hard at work creating the kind of devices that make the game's superweapons look like children's toys.

Neither is evil, or even the bad guy. Both have hawks, and both have doves. Both sides simply believe that the upcoming war is inevitable, and that they need to prepare - even if that preparation means starting it. Uncovering the truth, with the additional perspective that the future isn't yet written in stone, our heroes' final objective is to come together and prevent the first strike that will lock the world into the apocalyptic time loop. To be an informal sort of... oh... global defense initiative, if you will.

But will one of the sides blink first? And if so, are you a bad enough dude to assassinate the President?

Also, has anyone noticed that Russia has been worryingly quiet during all of this? Just saying.

Ah, simpler times. When Tiberian Sun was a more anticipated one than a regretted one.

Obviously, it's all very silly stuff - but that's part of the charm of C&C. It's a series that needs to be larger than life, not least because its mechanics and premises are ridiculous. Generals never appealed to me, simply because while it wasn't exactly realistic, it still felt too grounded to convey the madness of people being ridiculous and battles fought with the mindset that overkill is precisely enough kill. The new version may well have that in the action, but there's not much chance it'll be wrapped in all the kitsch charm and B-Movie acting that made the series so much fun both on and off the battlefield.

Those elements might not be something worth adding to a new game, or be better done by CG, but I miss them, so they're staying. You wouldn't want Tex Murphy without Chris Jones in his fedora. Likewise, C&C just isn't the same without a few hey-it's-that-guy actors hamming it up in front of a camera. It might be tough to budget or justify for an actual game, especially with gamer tastes as they are but in the realms of a thought experiment, we can do whatever the heck we like. Anything, that is, except add orcs to help fight the humans. Probably better save those for that other RTS.

I'm told by people in the know that Pinball FX is one of the better pinball simulators out there - if not the best. I'm also told you're not supposed to get the ball into the big pit at the bottom of the screen (who knew?) As of Friday May 10th, Pinball FX2 is going to be on Steam - and for free, no less. Fear not, fans of paying for things: you'll be able to purchase several themed table packs for $9.99 a pop, based on Star Wars, Marvel and the like.

The game's been out on PC - well, Windows 8 - since October last year, but it will be good to see it unshackled from that particular mule. Here's the full list of DLC table packs that will launch alongside the free game:

Star Wars™ Pinball
Marvel Pinball
Marvel Pinball: Vengeance and Virtue
Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles
Pinball FX2 Core Collection
Zen Classics

Thanks to BluesNews.

If you had a GameCube back in the day, there's a good chance you had a copy of Eternal Darkness, the time-jumping survival horror that wasn't afraid to mess with your mind. Until the Age of Kickstarter began, hopes for a sequel were slim, but they just got a lot fatter with the reveal of Shadow of the Eternals, a spiritual successor hitting a crowdfunding platform near you this coming Monday. The best part, however, is that it's coming to PC - you know, if the game hits its $1.5m funding target. Check out the mildly terrifying teaser trailer after the break.

As revealed by IGN, the campaign for Shadow of the Eternals will launch on Monday May 6th, seeking an ambitious $1,500,000 to develop the first part of a 12-episode series. (Any additional funds will go towards future episodes, additional characters, platforms and so on.) Precursor Games is the team behind it, whose chief creative officer is none other than Denis Dyack, the man who directed the original game.

We'll know more on Monday, but in the meantime here's a brief description of the game. It certainly sounds a lot like the original Eternal Darkness.

"When Detective Paul Becker is called to one of the bloodiest gang massacres in Louisiana state history, only two survivors remain from a brutal conflict between two rival cults. As Becker begins his interrogations of the suspects, their combined recollections will uncover the truth about the ‘Eternals’.

"Featuring an ensemble cast of heroes and villains, Shadow of the Eternals will span over 2500 years of history throughout Egypt, England, Hungary, and the United States. Players will question the perception of reality as they try to balance the mechanics of combat, magick, and sanity events to progress through the adventure.

"Shadow of the Eternals will take players on a memorable journey throughout time; weaving historical fact with disturbing fiction to create an experience unlike any other."

And here's what that looks like in motion: