You probably haven’t heard, but Valve’s officially going forward with its plan to launch its own Steam-centric OS, living room hardware, and a crazy, touch-pad-based controller to back it all up. I know, right? It’s weird that no one has been talking about it incessantly. But while Valve preaches openness and hackability, it’s downplayed an ugly reality of the situation: smaller developers still face a multitude of struggles in the treacherous green jungles of its ecosystem. SteamOS and various Steam Boxes, however, stand to bring brilliantly inventive indie games to an audience that doesn’t even have a clue that they exist, so I got in touch with developers behind Gone Home, Race The Sun, Eldritch, Mark of the Ninja, Incredipede, Project Eternity, and more for their thoughts on SteamOS, who it’s even for, Valve’s rocky relationship with indies, and what it’ll take for Steam to actually be an “open” platform.>

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Would you like to see a cinematic trailer for Deadfall Adventures? The voiceover spouts a lot of vaguely mystical gubbins about the end of all things, from men to mountains, but then decides against that philosophy by adding that everything is actually just asleep. That’s as good an excuse as I’ve ever heard for the introduction of a reanimated, fire-eyed mummy and that’s precisely the sort of blighter that James Quatermain will be up against as he raids tombs and punches mythology in the face. The trailer may not tell us much but it did serve to remind me that the game exists, following a delay earlier this year. And there’s a speedy time lapse of a withering corpse!

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While we’re honking the tune of Eurogamer Expo happenings, it’s worth pointing to the appearance of Batman: Arkham Oranges at the developer sessions. Montrealians from Warner Bros swooped in on their Batcapes to London’s spired gothamscape, and explained a whole bunch of what to expect from the latest street-vigilante skullthumper. It’s looking absolutely astonishing, as you might expect.

In related Batman news: there’s going to be a permadeath mode in the new game, for the most hardcore of man battings. (more…)

There’s been a lot of interest in the new Thief game – due out in February – but also an equally large measure of scepticism. That makes it interesting to see Eidos Montreal presenting their game at EGX this weekend, with lots of game footage, and an in-depth explanation of some of the decisions they made for their latest iteration of the great sneaking series.

Take a look, below. (more…)

Vlambeer have announced that splendid-looking shooter Wasteland Kings is being renamed Nuclear Throne. It seems that this move is in no small part down to concerns expressed by inXile over possible confusion over the contemporaneous development of Wasteland 2. They explain that “It’s a bit of an haphazard announcement, with Justin Chan’s beautiful artwork above still not being finished, without us having a new logo and before we’ve been able to properly change the name on all the platforms officially, but we thought that if we’re doing open development we might just as well be open about it.”

You can watch the Eurogamer Expo Wasteland Kings presentation, in which the name change is mentioned, below. (more…)

All these games teach terrible ethical lessons. All of them.>

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Have you come here looking for some video games that cost less than what you might expect to pay for them? Good, because that is exactly what you are going to get, you lucky thing. This is the bargain bucket, where all the discounted PC games come to play every weekend. Please also go and visit my website SavyGamer.co.uk where I will tell you about all the cheap games on all platforms, throughout the week. (more…)

Sundays are for rest. By which I mean playing the rest of the games you meant to get around to this week.

• This is one of the best pieces on the state of gaming I’ve read in a long time. Helen Lewis explains why she can still enjoy games while identifying them as problemetic. “If we rejected every creative work that is in some way “problematic”, the canonical cupboard would be bare.” Just, you know, don’t read the comments.

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Now, the secret to that painfully convoluted subhead is to say “Harleague of Legends” as though it’s one word. Then Quinn. Get it? DO YOU? DO YOU, HUH? HUH? YOU WEASELY LITTLE- sorry. Got a little worked up. Must be leftover fury from the League of Legends pickup game I just played. Point is, LoL’s new champion Jinx is kind of like Harley Quinn from Batman. Similar voice and personality, a penchant for crime, and an unavoidable attraction to “loose-cannon” antics. She also has a rocket launcher that she’s quite find of, which adds a double-meaning to the whole loose-cannon thing. I have now explained two jokes in the same post. I should probably stop now. After all, it’s like they say: three strikes and you’re dead. I very much like my life, so scurry on to get some fresh, hot details below.

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Well, that didn’t take long. Like an expert> surgeon carving out cavities and worming sausage-fingers indiscriminately between guts, Bossa recently stuffed an ARG into Surgeon Simulator 2013′s latest update. For hours – no, more than a whole day – Codename: Trisha had the game’s community stumped. But then, finally, after many long, sleepless nights, a solution beamed into view. Bizarre, cryptic messages? Wild numerical spews? Enough video tapes to construct a pyramid that’d awe even the most complacent of mice? What could it all mean? Go below to find out.

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