Path of Exile has been in beta for roughly 8,000 years, but its journey is finally about to come to an end. As revealed to Shacknews, the free-to-play action RPG will escape open beta and emerge blinking into the real world on October 23rd, accompanied by a new prestige class.

That new class is the Scion, a nobleman's daughter exiled for killing her husband back on the mainland. She's a bit tricky to play as, apparently - as she's located near the middle of Exile's staggeringly huge skill tree - so she won't be unlocked until you've completed the game. Other new things we can expect from the launch: six new areas, boss fights, and a more satisfying conclusion to the game, along with more story-based content further down the line.

If you can't wait two-and-a-bit weeks, Path of Exile's open beta is still very much open and, er, in beta.

This latest Survarium trailer is a pretty good showcase for the game's lovingly rendered ruined world, but it's also one of the more exciting 'let's show off one of our game maps' videos I've watched. It has a narrative and everything, telling the story of a sniper perched on top of an abandoned church, and some dude who tries to take him down. What is Survarium again? It's the free-to-play multiplayer shooter from former Stalker 2 devs, and you can still sign up for the alpha over here.



Snipers. Why'd it have to be snipers? Although it looks like a straightforward Call of Duty-style shooter in this video, Survarium, like Stalker, will feature various anomalies - which appear to add various buffs and power-ups to your character - along with co-op missions and an intriguing "free play" mode where anything goes. The beta and launch (for ex-USSR territories at least) is still on track for later this year, with the international one happening next year.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Remember when buying a game didn’t feel like a guarantee of seeing the ending? There are still hard games out there, Dark Souls flying the flag most recently, but increasingly, the challenge has dripped out or at least softened, often leading to sadly wasted opportunities. What would Skyrim be like, for instance, if its ice and snow wasn’t simply cosmetic, but actually punished you for going mountain climbing in your underpants?

With a quick mod – Frostfall in this case – you’re forced to dress up warm before facing the elements, and things become much more interesting. That’s just one example, and over the next couple of pages you’ll find plenty more. These aren’t mods that just do something cheap like double your enemy’s hit-points, they’re full rebalances and total conversions. Face their challenge, and they’ll reward you with both a whole new experience and the satisfaction of going above and beyond the call of duty.

Misery
Game: Stalker: Call of Pripyat
Link: ModDB



All those weapons scattered around? Gone. Anomalies? Now more dangerous. Magic mini-map? Forget it. Valuable quest rewards? Good luck. Things you do get: thirsty, and factions who send goons after you if you anger them. On the plus side Pripyat is much more active, with a complete sound overhaul, and new NPCs to meet – who all have to play by the rules too, with no more infinite ammo. If you can survive here, you’ve got a good chance when the actual apocalypse comes.

Project Nevada
Fallout: New Vegas
Link: Nexus Mods



Nevada is a good example of making things more difficult without being openly psychotic. Levelling is slower, players and NPCs get less health, and obvious features are now in, such as armour only being a factor in headshots if the target actually has head protection. It’s also possible to toggle some extra-hardcore options, such as food no longer healing and taking care of hunger/thirst/ sleep on the move. There’s a sack of new content, and an Extra Options mod is also available, offering even more control.

Brutal Doom
Game: Doom
Link: ModDB



Despite what modern ‘old-school’ shooters would have you think, Doom was a relatively sedate experience – fast running speed, yes, but lots of skulking in the dark and going slow. Not any more! Brutal Doom cranks everything up to 11, then yawns and goes right for 25.6. We’re talking extra shrapnel, execution attacks, tougher and faster monsters, metal music, and blood, blood, blood as far as your exploding eyes can see. It’s compatible with just about any level you can throw at it, turning even E1M1 into charnel house devastation. The enemies don’t get it all their own way, as Doomguy now starts with an assault rifle rather than simply a pistol, and a whole arsenal of new guns has been added to the Doom collection – including the BFG’s big brother.



Full Combat Rebalance 2
Game: The Witcher 2
Link: RedKit



This streamlines the combat and makes the action closer to how Geralt’s adventure might have played out in the books. He’s more responsive, can automatically parry incoming attacks, begins with his Witcher skills unlocked, and no longer has to spend most fights rolling around like a circus acrobat. But he’s in a tougher world, with monsters now figuring out counterattacks much faster, enemies balanced based on equipment rather than levels, and experience only gained from quests, not combat. Be warned this is a 1.5GB file, not the megabyte Hotfix that’s claimed.

Requiem
Game: Skyrim
Link: Nexus



Elder Scrolls games get ever more streamlined, and further from the classic RPG experience. Requiem drags Skyrim back, kicking and screaming. The world is no longer levelled for your convenience. Bandits deliver one-hit kills from the start. The undead mock arrows, quietly pointing out their lack of internal organs with a quick bonk to your head. Gods hold back their favour from those who displease them. Most importantly, stamina is now practically a curse. Heavy armour and no training can drain it even if you’re standing still, and running out in battle is Very Bad News. Combine this with Frostfall, and Skyrim finally becomes the cold, unforgiving place it claims to be.

Radious
Total War: Shogun 2
Link: TWCenter



Not only is this one of the most comprehensive mods any Total War game has ever seen, its modular nature makes it easy to pick and choose the changes that work best for the experience you want. Together, the campaign AI is reworked, as are the skills and experience systems, diplomacy and technology trees. There are over 100 new units. Campaigns are also longer, providing more time to play with all this, with easier access to the good stuff early on in the name of variety. There’s even a sound module that adds oomph to rifles. Add everything, or only the bits you want. It’s as much of a tactical decision as anything else on the road to conquering Japan.

Game of Thrones
Game: Crusader Kings II
Link: ModDB



Real history doesn’t have enough bite for you? Recast the whole thing with Starks, Lannisters, Freys and the rest and it will. This doesn’t simply swap a few names around, but works with the engine to recreate specific scenarios in the war for the Iron Throne. Individual characters’ traits are pushed into the foreground, especially when duels break out. Wildlings care little about who your daddy was. It’s best to know a fair amount about the world before jumping in, and the scenarios themselves contain spoilers, but you’re absolutely not restricted to just following the story laid down in the books.



Realistic Weapons
Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
Link: GTAGarage



Guess what this one does. A bowling league for Roman? Cars that drive themselves? A character who appears to tell Niko “You have $30,000 in your pocket, you don’t need to goon for assholes” after Act 2? No, of course not. These guns put a little reality back into the cartoon that is GTA. The missions weren’t written with that in mind, obviously, but there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a shot. Worst case: murdering random civilians on the street is much quicker, easier and more satisfying. At least until the cops show up to spoil the fun. Range, accuracy, damage, ammo and fire rate are all covered, though be warned that you shouldn’t expect perfect accuracy from your upgraded hardware. This is GTA after all. Realism is not baked into its combat engine.

The Long War
Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Link: NexusMods



You’re looking at eight soldier classes, many more missions, invaders as focused on upgrades as your own science team, and a much longer path to victory. Research is slow, not least to make early weapon upgrades more useful, while the aliens are constantly getting more powerful. Their ships are better, their terror missions are more regular, and more of them show up for battle. In exchange, you get to field more Interceptors, the council is easier to appease, and the ETs don’t cheat as much.

Ziggy's Mod
Game: Far Cry 3
Link: NexusMods



Ziggy makes Rook Island a more natural place, removing mission requirements for skills, cutting some of the easier ways to earn XP, increasing spawn rates to make the island busier, and throwing away the magic mini-map in favour of a compass. The second island is also unlocked from the start. Smaller changes include randomised ammo from dropped weapons, being able to climb hills that you should realistically be able to, and wingsuit abilities made available earlier to get more out of them.

Terrafirmacraft
Game: Minecraft
Link: Terrafirmacraft



Minecraft has a Survival mode, but it’s not desperately challenging. Terrafirmacraft takes it seriously, with hunger and thirst that must be dealt with at all times, and key elements added such as the need to construct support beams while mining to prevent cave-ins, and a seasonal cycle that determines whether or not trees will produce fruit. Many more features are to be added, but there’s enough here already to make survival about much more than throwing together a Creeper-proof fort.



Synergies Mod
Game: Torchlight II
Link: Synergies Mod



This adds a new act to the game, over a hundred monsters, new rare bosses, a new class – the Necromancer – more and tougher monsters and the gear to take them on. There are also endgame raids to add challenge once the world is saved yet again, and more on the way – including two new classes (Paladin and Warlock). It’s the top-ranked Torchlight II mod on Steam Workshop, and easily the most popular. Be aware that it’s still in development, and has a few rough edges.

Civilization Nights
Game: Civilization V
Link: Steam Workshop



While Brave New World has officially given Civ V a big shake up, for many players Nights remains its most popular add-on. It’s a comprehensive upgrade, adding new buildings, wonders, technologies and units, with a heavy focus on policies and making the AI better. The single biggest change is how it calculates happiness, citizens adding cheer simply by existing, but the slow march of war and other miseries detracting from the good times. Annexed a city? Don’t expect too many ticker-tape parades. Yet keeping happiness up is crucial, as it’s also the core of a strong military. This rebalancing completely changes how you play, while the other additions offer plenty of scope for new tactics and even more carefully designed civilisations.

Ultimate Difficulty Mod
Game: Dishonored
Link: TTLG Forums



This makes Dishonored’s enemies more attentive, faster and able to hear a pin drop from the other side of the map. When you get into a fight, it quickly becomes an all-out street war. The biggest change is to Dishonored’s second most abusable ability: the Lean (Blink of course being #1). Corvo can no longer sit behind scenery, lean out into an enemy’s face and be politely ignored. He’s now much more likely to be spotted – especially in ghost runs, where his advantages are now limited to the Outsider’s gifts rather than the Overseers’ continued lack of a local Specsavers.

Hardcore
Game: Deus Ex
Link: ModDB



New augmentations! Altered AI! Randomised inventories! Also a few time-savers: instead of separate keys and multitools for instance, a special keyring has both, while upgrades are used automatically if necessary. Difficulty also changes the balance considerably, from the standard game to ‘Realistic’ mode where you only get nine inventory slots, to ‘Unrealistic’, which makes JC Denton the cyborg killing machine he’s meant to be, but at the cost of facing opponents who warrant it. In this mode he gets double-jumping powers, and automatically gobbles health items when he gets badly wounded. Good luck though, I still got nowhere.

Last week, Valve made a series of announcements that could dramatically impact how people play games on the PC. But slick micro-sites aren't created in a vacuum. Valve have been hinting at SteamOS, Steam Machines and the Steam Controller for years, through interviews and information that goes all the way back to 2010. I've combed through these interviews, in order to find out what the future might hold for Valve's move into the living room.

Just how open will their open OS be? How will Steam Machines evolve to match more powerful tech? Could the Steam Controller be any stranger? And what do these announcements mean for Windows? Read on to find out.

SteamOS: an open and shut case

Back in January, Gabe Newell admitted that he thought of Apple, not Microsoft or Sony, as Valve's biggest competitor in the living room space. Talking to students of the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs, he envisioned an unflattering future of a "dumbed down" living room, in which Apple was at the centre.

"I think that there’s a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging — I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"

This wasn't the first time Newell was publicly critical of the mobile phone behemoth. In October 2011, he appeared on a panel at WTIA TechNW, reported on by The Seattle Times, saying, "it’s sort of ominous that the world seems to be moving away from open platforms."

"I suspect Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people’s expectations."

"I suspect Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people's expectations really strongly and the notion of a separate console platform will disappear," he said, going on to call their closed nature the "wrong philosophical approach".

"I’m worried that the things that traditionally have been the source of a lot of innovation are going – there’s going to be an attempt to close those off so somebody will say ‘I’m tired of competing with Google, I’m tired of competing with Facebook, I’ll apply a console model and exclude the competitors I don’t like from my world.’"

Openness also came up during the Casual Connect talk. “In order for innovation to happen, a bunch of things that aren’t happening on closed platforms need to occur. Valve wouldn’t exist today without the PC, or Epic, or Zynga, or Google. They all wouldn’t have existed without the openness of the platform. There’s a strong tempation to close the platform, because they look at what they can accomplish when they limit the competitors’ access to the platform, and they say ‘That’s really exciting.’

“We are looking at the platform and saying, ‘We’ve been a free rider, and we’ve been able to benefit from everything that went into PCs and the Internet, and we have to continue to figure out how there will be open platforms.’”



To point out the obvious: Steam isn't an open platform. While there have been moves to make it more accessible to developers - specifically Greenlight, a service Newell isn't too wild about in its current form - Valve remain the gatekeepers for everything that is accepted onto Steam.

But given how many of Newell's comments praise openness, it seems absurd to think that SteamOS could be anything but. Certainly, it's open intentions are touched on by the announcement page. "With SteamOS, 'openness' means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love."

"On the consumer side, anybody should be able to put up a store..."

Again, though, it doesn't touch on how game creators not currently on Steam will be part of SteamOS. Will there be a separate area for non-Steam Apps, or will compatible games be able to integrate more seamlessly? Newell's previous comments do suggest a broad degree of flexibility. When The Verge asked about SteamOS running Netflix, he said, "absolutely. You can fire up a web browser, you can do whatever you want." Linux users will know that, thanks to its baffling reliance on Microsoft Silverlight, running Netflix is more complicated than opening a web browser, suggesting that the operating system will be similarly supportive of the workarounds needed.

The likelihood is that if a game can run on Linux, it can run on SteamOS, but it would be nice to think that Valve are planning to lower the barriers further: removing some of the requirements to entry for games, even while maintaining their own front-page list of approved titles. That's certainly something that's been hinted at in the past, when Newell made mention of user-created storefronts.

"An editorial filter is fine, but there should be a bunch of editorial filters," he told The Verge. "The backend services should be network APIs that anybody can use. On the consumer side, anybody should be able to put up a store that hooks into those services. Our view is that, in the same way users are critical in a multiplayer experience, like the fellow next to you is critical to your enjoyment, we should figure out how we can help users find people that are going to make their game experiences better."

That could look like a super-charged version of the current recommendations system, in which users become curators of Steam's huge and growing catalogue. The more dramatic and 'open' way to do it, would be to let any Greenlight-submitted game become a candidate for user stores, with the most popular being boosted into Steam's 'official' selection.

On the next page: Steam Machines and Gabe's vision of a connected future.





Steam Machines: server suggestions

Yesterday Valve revealed the specs for their prototype Steam boxes. For an idea of how long SteamOS and its companion box have been in the pipeline, take a look at our series of interviews with Gabe and other members of Valve from September 2010. "So my job is always changing, right? That’s the nature of the industry; it changes for a lot of people here. So right now I’m thinking a lot about longer term stuff," Newell told Tom, listing, among other things, "thin client architecture" as an avenue of exploration.

"You could have one PC and eight televisions and eight controllers and everybody getting great performance."

You can already see the results of that in SteamOS's ability to communicate with a Windows PC to stream incompatible games, but Newell seems to be planning to extend such capabilities in the future. In his interview with The Verge, he talked about the then "Steam Box" being able to send data through to multiple monitors.

"The Steam Box will also be a server. Any PC can serve multiple monitors, so over time, the next-generation (post-Kepler) you can have one GPU that’s serving up eight simultaneous game calls. So you could have one PC and eight televisions and eight controllers and everybody getting great performance out of it. We’re used to having one monitor, or two monitors — now we’re saying let's expand that a little bit."

Clearly that's not a feature that you'll find out of the box, but then, that's the benefit of Steam Machines' malleability. Essentially, any device running SteamOS becomes a de facto Steam Machine, and - as their announcement post explains - "The specific machine we're testing is designed for users who want the most control possible over their hardware."



Pay particular attention to the set up mentioned in Newell's previous scenario. "One PC and eight televisions and eight controllers." That's specifically in relation to a Steam Machine as a server, not as a regular PC with an absurd number of HDMI slots. But what Newell doesn't mention is the eight PCs you'd presumably need receiving a signal from the main box. A few possibilities exist, of which:


He forgot.
The open nature of SteamOS allows for the possibility of a lightweight version being installed directly onto TVs.


Theoretically it should be possible. All it would need is a version of the OS specced purely to receive a stream from the central PC/Steam Machine. Lord knows, TV manufacturers are in desperate need of a valid reason to flog us more flatscreens (unless you want an expensive new 3D telly ... anyone? No?). Then there are small devices like Google's Chromecast and the Raspberry Pi, variations on which could network home entertainment servers with multiple screens/controllers. "Thin client architecture" doesn't have a defined shape yet.

"'Thin client architecture' doesn't have a defined shape"

That's not even the full extent of the futurism we can wring out of Newell's scenario. An eight player set up doesn't make sense as a luxury split-screen replacement, because PC games are traditionally not designed to support simultaneous players offline. To be of use outside very specific examples, the Steam Machine would need to act as a bespoke LAN, simultaneously running the profiles of multiple Steam users, and their copies of the game.

I'll admit that seems a little too far in the realms of wishful thinking. Even so, Steam's Big Picture mode can already support multiple accounts, which opens the possibility for them to one day take simultaneous logins. The flexibility of the system wouldn't even need to be that dramatic. If running multiple games is too far-fetched, it's possible other accounts could make use of some form of variation to Steam's family sharing - kids logging in to their profile from their own TV, accessing a house-wide Steam account with an added parental filter. If Valve do want Steam Machines as the server powering household entertainment, they're going to want to make the experience be as smooth and natural as possible.

On the next page: Steam's new controller might look a bit odd, but things could get a lot weirder.





Steam Controller: HUD, sweat and tears

That controller, eh? It's a big enough departure from the now standard 360 pad that I struggle to imagine how well it will work. Even so, it's a lot tamer than I was initially expecting, thanks to comments made about Valve's experiments with the relationship between game and player.

"Oh, I’m also thinking about biometrics," Newell told us back in 2010.

"So when you look at our games, more and more we have this representation of player state, where we think we know how you feel, essentially," he continued. "And with biometrics, rather than guessing, we can actually just use a variety of things like gaze tracking, skin galvanic response, pulse rate, and so on.

"We’re a lot more excited about biometrics as an input method."

"Through combining those pieces of information, we can get a much more accurate indication of player state. So that’s something we’re super interested in. We’ve done some experiments in that space, and feel like there’s some easy wins for customers and for developers."

Of course, being Valve, their plan for biometrics didn't end at the internal testing phase. Newell went on to tell Tom, "we think there are several people out there with interesting approaches on the hardware side . Enough that we have confidence that the hardware side will be a sort of resolved problem in the not too distant future."

A wild flight of fancy, which soon afterwards they stopped thinking about, right? Nope. January, 2013: "Maybe the motion stuff is just failure of imagination on our part, but we’re a lot more excited about biometrics as an input method,” Newell said. “Your hands, your wrist muscles, and your fingers are actually your highest bandwidth, so to try and talk to a game with your arms is essentially saying, ‘Oh, we’re gonna stop using ethernet and go back to 300 baud dial-up.’"



It may contain a touchscreen and have fancy haptic feedback, but the Steam Controller announcement made no mention of biometrics. Given that, you could assume it was too difficult, or too expensive to fit inside a commercial controller. But if that is the case right now, it won't be forever.

"We plan to make tools available that will enable users to participate in all aspects of the experience."

As the announcement page claims: "We plan to make tools available that will enable users to participate in all aspects of the experience, from industrial design to electrical engineering. We can’t wait to see what you come up with." In short, it's designed to be hacked, modified and iterated upon. As PCs with replaceable components, Steam Machines won't have a defined shelf life, which means we'll almost certainly see multiple revisions and new versions that build upon its controller's initial concept. Don't be surprised if one of them knows what makes you sweat.

Beyond that? One research project that's been teased on Valve employee Michael Abrash's Ramblings in Valve Time blog is 'wearable computing'. "By 'wearable computing' I mean mobile computing where both computer-generated graphics and the real world are seamlessly overlaid in your view," Abrash wrote in his introductory post. "There is no separate display that you hold in your hands (think Terminator vision)." Alternatively, if you didn't grow up in the 90s, think Google Glass.

Currently only at the R&D stage, Valve must still have some idea of how such a device could integrate into their existing products. SteamOS compatibility would seem like the perfect fit. It could easily show information peripheral to the game - everything from alerts, chat notifications and friends lists, to server browsers, Workshop lists and Steam guides. Expand out further, and it could offer video chat, or a Portal 2 style feed of your co-op partner's display, fitting nicely into Newell's previous server scenario.

On the next page: how SteamOS plays into Gabe's war against Windows.





Steam's Competition: Gabe vs Windows 8

We'll end with one of Newell's most memorable quotes from the last few years. No, I'm not talking about the time that he said he would "like to be super transparent about the future of Ricochet 2."

"Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space."

"I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space," Newell told attendees of the Casual Connect conference in July of 2012. He was talking about why Valve were eager to get Steam's then 2,500 games running on Linux.

"I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs , who will exit the market," he continued. "I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality." You can see more transcribed excerpts from Newell's talk courtesy of All Things D.



While Microsoft's maligned OS hasn't quite brought about the End Times, we can already see interest in SteamOS among one of the big two GPU manufacturers. In the last week, not only have Nvidia reached out to open source driver creators, but they've also revealed their part in the creation of SteamOS. Meanwhile, AMD's technological advancements have seemingly been driven more by their position inside both new consoles, than by any loyalty to Windows.

Newell was just as uncharitable towards Windows 8 in January of this year, when, in an interview with The Verge, he called it a "giant sadness".

"we’ve had a 20+ percent decline in PC sales — it’s like 'holy cow that’s not what the new generation of the operating system is supposed to do.'"

"The thing about Windows 8 wasn’t just distribution. As somebody who participates in the overall PC ecosystem, it’s totally great when faster wireless networks and standards come out, or when graphics get faster. Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business.

"Rather than everybody being all excited to go buy a new PC, buying new software to run on it, we’ve had a 20+ percent decline in PC sales — it’s like 'holy cow that’s not what the new generation of the operating system is supposed to do.' There’s supposed to be a 40 percent uptake, not a 20 percent decline, so that’s what really scares me."

In this context, the focus of SteamOS - and its accompanying Steam Machines - makes sense. Realistically, SteamOS won't act as a replacement for Windows. Your desktop PC can already run Steam, and, if you're on Windows 7 or 8, the entirety of its catalogue. There's little reason for the majority of existing users to switch. By focusing on the living room, Valve are hoping to expand hardware growth by offering some of the advantages of PC gaming in a new setting. In doing so, there's every chance they'll further increase the already strong sales of PC games through their platform.

For now, expect SteamOS to create added value to the PC by bringing its flexibility into living rooms, and making it appealing to users used to closed systems. That's the goal, it seems, in the short term at least. That said, this is just the beginning of an operating system that will likely be tweaked and changed as often as Steam itself. SteamOS may not be a Windows killer on release. In the years to come? I wouldn't bet against it.

What would you like to see from SteamOS, Valve's new controller and Steam machines?

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, adventure legends Sierra present a dark vision of one of the strangest alien invasions ever. And you thought your boss was a monster.

In 2002, the Orbs invaded. They looked like giant floating eyeballs. Despite that, humanity's attempt to fight back with a big pokey stick didn't work out so well, and two years later, Earth is theirs. Humanity is now crushed under their... uh... lower squishy bits. Now, under the hellish scarlet skies, only one man has a chance of turning the tide. There's only one problem; or two, if you count the entire world having been nuked into a monstrous parody of civilisation. He works for them. And he's pretty good at his job, when he's not being randomly murdered by everything from street punks to dinosaurs.

This happens a lot.

Manhunter is one of the weirdest SF adventures ever made.

Start spreading the plague. We're invading today. We wanna rip apart all it. New York, New York!

Honestly, it's a bit of a surprise that it's taken this long for Manhunter - no relation to the Hannibal movies, incidentally - to show up here, because in the great list of weird and variably wonderful games, it's had a little red cross next to it since it came out back in 1988. It's one of Sierra Online's lesser known games, with none of the recognisability of, say, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. It's also not one of its best, honestly. It retains a cult following though, partly because cults appreciate a hero who knows how to rock a spooky looking cloak, but mostly because there's nothing else quite like it.

Meanwhile, in the NSA's wettest of digital surveillance dreams...

Here's an example. You're a nameless Manhunter, which means that your job is to do the Orbs' dirty work and investigate human related incidents around New York. You have a computer, which the Orbs can use to contact you at any time. Being the Orbs though, they don't actually use that to send new missions. No, instead they prefer to burst into your room while you're sleeping and-

OHMYGODCHRISTWHATHEHELLISGOINGON?!

And to think I jump when I'm woken by my iPhone.

As if there's any doubt whatsoever that they're completely screwing with you, the Orbs can fly. When this guy leaves, after waking you up with nothing more than "THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AT BELLEVUE HOSPITAL! INVESTIGATE!", you see him flying past the window. Why then did he use the elevator to come into your room? Because Orbs, bitch! Orbs! They're basically an entire species that wishes they were sentient flying bottoms rather than eyeballs. Even their kids get in on it. Look.

Why must I... feel so blue... when I'm creeping out you...

No, look closer.

SURPRISE!

They're also carnivorous, and as well as using humans as convenient baby-incubators, even their babies are capable of eating you alive if you hang around gawping when you should be running screaming and yelling "OH DEATH, FREE ME OF THIS MEMORY!"

You can't actually do that though. In fact, you can't talk at all. Nobody can. The Orbs, having listened to one too many minions responding to their orders with "Eye Eye, Sir!" have banned all speech, which means humanity has to communicate with nothing more than facial expressions. They've also banned any clothes that aren't a full-length monk habit thing, which looks very itchy - though on the plus side, at least it's an outfit that will still fit after Christmas dinner and has forever banished the plumbers' bum crack. So overall, it could be worse, though the itchiness does explain why everyone is so damn cranky.

Also, there's that thing about you being a traitor to your species and professional quisling. But hey.

While Manhunter pretends to be a detective game though, it's really more Try To Stay Sane: The Adventure. The basic gist is that every day, the Orbs wake you up with a "SURPRISE, HUMAN! EYEBALL RIGHT IN YOUR FACE!" alarm call, and tell you to go sort something out. You then track the suspect's movement via your computer, and more or less follow them around and try to work out what the hell they were doing in each location. On the first day for instance, we see the suspect going to a bar, a church, a park, and then just... vanishing. When you go to the bar, the only thing to play with is an old arcade machine, but as soon as you touch it, everyone in the room angrily jumps on top of you.

How do you prove your worthiness to play on their arcade cabinet?

Knife throwing. Obviously.

Yes, knife throwing. The least understood of the social lubricants.

Somewhat unfairly, if you miss during this mini-game, the guy then pops your head like a champagne cork before you can actively not say "Dude! This was your idea!" Win, and everyone just vanishes, on the grounds that clearly nobody who works for the Orbs can have basic motor skills.

Why won't they let you touch their arcade machine? Oh, you'll love this.

The Orbs' ultimate evil - destroying all Street Fighter II cabinets. Now, there is only Halls, Walls, Balls & Dolls

This game is actually a map for later on, showing the location of twelve keycards - yes, twelve - that you need to find in a maze. Every one you collect also knocks down one of the dolls, with knocking them all down showing a picture of Coney Island - the Orbs having apparently decided that we're not allowed proper clothes, speech, dignity or freedom of action, but that shutting down our funfairs would be too much of a dick move even for them. After seeing what the resistance thinks is a good idea though, to say nothing of their real security later, I'm starting to warm to the little buggers.

But it gets even sillier than this! Having gotten the codes, you need to keep following the suspect, who disappeared at the park. As a trained Manhunter, we can probably assume that there's some kind of secret door. And... well... yeah, there is. Kindof. More or less.

That was a productive day. I feel flushed with success.

DAMN YOU WORDPLAAAAAAAAY!

Most games wait a while before hitting this level of craziness. Manhunter has you literally flush yourself down a toilet on Day 1, into an endless sewer maze full of grape juice that has to be mapped out by using a map from an arcade game that you're not allowed to play until you've proved yourself a master of knife throwing. This is a thing that happens, about five minutes into the game.

Most games wait a while before throwing players into a maze from Hell. But that's not how Manhunter rolls, baby.

And no, it's not even remotely done being weird yet.

Wait, is the resistance against the Orbs, or onions? Their logo makes it a bit hard to tell sometimes.

At Coney Island, showing a medallion found in the sewer to a truly hideous looking guy is deemed proof of your loyalty, or perhaps he just wants you to get the poop-smelling thing out of his face and go away, and the first day wraps up with essentially nothing whatsoever solved or resolved. Have you actually joined the resistance? It's difficult to tell, given that literally the only humans in the game with the power of speech are the designers, and they only really use it to take far too much pleasure in your death.

Psst, guys? You're not allowed to talk. You should know, you wrote it.

It's not that there's no internal logic to the game, just that it's a constant battle to work out how big a bottle of absinthe was used to come up with it. Manhunter is a super linear game where you're not allowed to go anywhere unless you have a confirmed reason to be there, and there's not a lot to do once you arrive except stumble around until a solution presents itself. And die, a lot.

One of the worst examples of this comes on Day 2, with a mini-game about getting into a nightclub where another resistance member was tracked going to. Outside, you face off with another angry, knife-obsessed human who's so rebellious, he's not even wearing his hood.

If my hate for you had a name, it would be 'Blunderarse'.

It's not enough to just very, very, veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly make your way across the screen and punch him though. That would be too easy. You have to very, very, veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly make your way across the screen and punch him, then deal with two more guys in exactly the same way. Manhunter is merciful enough to put you back where you were after death, but skip mini-games? Heresy! At times like this, it's almost like it's trying to push you into ending it all for real.

Most of the investigation early on is about collecting roughly a billion keycards for no reason, with the resistance being pretty careless about who it hands them off to. "Oh, you've got a picture of an orb with a cross through it?" one might say, if they could talk. "Good enough for me. Here's my card." In the nightclub, a lady resistance member spots you following her and smacks you in the face with her purse, leading to her card falling out for you to collect. My general feeling that the Orbs deserve to win this one and do whatever they want with humanity's festering corpses only keeps getting stronger.

Randomly, I love that the people of this world have official party robes for going to the disco in.

At this point though, the game starts getting a little confused about what you're doing and why. The big villain of the game is a guy called Phil, which... I think speaks for himself. It's about this point that you start stumbling across his handiwork, which he politely signs by writing the letter P onto the victims.

Like this!

He's not angry to have been murdered, just seriously P-offed.

Ordinarily, going after a serial killer would seem like a sensible idea, but in Manhunter, Phil pretty much works for the same aliens that you do, so professional courtesy would seem to involve just leaving him to it. While we don't hear the character's thoughts on working for a sadistic army of overlord eyeballs, he sure as hell sleeps soundly at night and it's not as though the people he's helping to oppress are exactly a bunch of charmers. I'm just saying. At least with the Orbs, you know where you are.

As do they, of course. All the time.

At this point, Phil's racked up a bigger death count than the marine in Doom.

All of the keycards you collect during the first couple of days... all thirteen of the damn things... turn out to be for doors in the Museum of Natural History. Manhunter's speciality is blending the mundane with the what-the-hell though, so obviously it's not going to be that simple to track down the day's targets. Remember when I said that you could be killed by dinosaurs in this game?

I was so not kidding about that.

If all of this seems a little chaotic, that's because it absolutely is. As I said, Manhunter is more about being led to stuff than really investigating it, and doing things because they're there. It's what's sometimes known as reverse-design, or more colloquially, 'crap design'. You don't collect 13 keycards because you know you need them for the Museum, for instance; you get to the Museum and find you need 13 keycards. It's obviously okay for things to turn out like that occasionally, especially when you're carrying around something mysterious like a card from a corpse or an artefact like Planescape's bronze sphere. Generally though, it's considered a good idea to let the main character have some kind of plan guiding their actions, rather than just simply stumbling across everything. In the case of Manhunter though, at least having nigh-omniscient eyeballs telling you where to go and tracking everyone in the city means that you always have a reason to visit key locations.

What you eventually pick up though, aside from the resistance being far too fond of bullshit puzzles, is that they were working on a plan to take out the Orbs once and for all. Unfortunately, Phil - oh, by the way, this is Phil:

Hi, Phil!

Phil has managed to murder them all before they could actually pull it off. That means that you're the only one with a chance of striking back, and the game just assumes that you're in the mood for that after discovering the Orbs' greatest secret - that they're mulching up the citizens of New York for their meat. Again, normally I'd be against that kind of of thing... but these citizens specifically? I'm going to have to call reverse-design here again, in that it makes you decide to strike back before giving you a genuinely compelling reason to go all-in with the resistance. Specifically, Orby the Mission Eyeball turns up and essentially orders you to investigate yourself, the mysterious person who broke into their files, and doubles-down by saying that after this assignment, you're going to be "Transferred To Chicago".

Now, that might sound okay. I gather it's been at least five days since its last jazz related fatality. In Manhunter though, it's code for 'about to spend the rest of your life being glad that the rest of your life at least isn't going to be very long', and then becoming an alien hamburger. So, yeah. Probably best to stop these guys, as long as it doesn't involve more insane, out of place mini-games.

I like to think Phil was a resistance member who snapped after too many bullshit puzzles. He is a Hero.

The Orbs loving their drama, they've based their plans out of the Empire State Building. Luckily, despite their armies of robots and meat-mulching machines, they are no match for one guy who psychically decided to sabotage their security systems in advance. The resistance's plan? Steal an Orb bomber ship and consult Sun Tzu's The Art Of War, Chapter III: Nuke All That Shit. Sounds like a plan!

But first... even more mini-games!

Huh. This looks a little... familiar...

Great. You know your aliens are intergalactic losers when their plans involve live-action Frak.

Stealing an Orb ship, all that remains to be done is to take out their four New York bases - made only slightly trickier by the fact that Phil also has an Orb ship and is coming to get you. There's the Hospital, where they feed on the dead, the Statue of Liberty pumping noxious chemicals into the air, the Empire State Building where they run their schemes, and a small newsagent who once short-changed the Manhunter and he's still bitter about. Or Grand Central Station. One of the two, anyway.

Even this isn't enough to conclusively stop the Orbs, who have after all conquered the planet. It buys New York its temporary freedom though, and everyone is quite happy about that.

Look how happy everyone is about that. Their happy faces.

Happy happy happy!

Then everyone remembers that Phil is still flying an Orb ship around. Then this happens.

Good job his laser wasn't tuned to 'protagonist', really.

And this is Phil's face after that happened.

Happy happy happy!

So, yeah. That was totally worth it! And so the game ends, with the Manhunter getting back aboard his stolen ship and giving chase to the second game, Manhunter: San Francisco. In that one, he's officially with the rebels from the start, though spends most of the game masquerading as a loyal Manhunter after stealing a new identity. It's also a very strange game, though second time around, the quirkiness wasn't as surprising. There were plans for a third adventure, Manhunter: London, but the series ended there - in Manhunter style, very strangely, with him literally hanging onto Phil's spaceship as it took off.



These were not particularly good adventures, but it's easy to see why people remember them so fondly. They manage to make looking hideous work for them, with a ton of detail. The surreal situations mean you never have the slightest clue what's coming next, whether it's being killed by a dinosaur or trying to make it through a minefield in Central Park. Even when something seems like it's relatively sane, there's usually a twist - a shopkeeper working for the resistance for instance won't simply open a door to a base when given the code, but a trapdoor, with the Manhunter's cloak blowing up to reveal comedy boxer shorts as he falls. It's a really weird mix of genuinely gruesome and ludicrously silly that's actually really entertaining, even if the puzzles and minigames are generally a pain in the neck.

While there are a couple of LPs out there, the best way to check out the complete investigation - from the start of New York to the end of San Francisco - is over here on the LP Archive. It's got animated gifs for some of the more interesting moments, and even comes up with an epilogue to replace London that's probably about what it would have turned out to be given the designers' sense of humour.

And now, excuse me. After repeating some of these puzzles, I need to go and apologise to the Towers of Hanoi for ever complaining about them. Don't however expect this mood to last longer than... oooh... Sunday though. Next time I see them, I'm still bringing the wrecking ball.

Many publishers swarmed in on THQ’s trove of established licenses earlier this year, but Nordic Games arguably got one of the biggest takes by buying both the Darksiders and Red Faction franchises. However, it’ll probably be a while before we see anything new from those franchises, considering Nordic bought the licenses just this April. So what do you do with a stack of licenses and nothing new to show? Put them on sale.

Nordic Games has taken over this week’s Humble Weekly Sale, and you’ll notice it’s plastered with games that used fall under THQ name. Paying a penny or more will get you Red Faction: Armageddon, The Guild 2, Neighbours From Hell Compilation, the original Supreme Commander its standalone expansion, Forged Alliance. Paying at least six of your hard-earned dollars adds Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, ArcaniA, Darksiders 2, and SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny to the list. I’m not sure why Supreme Commander 2 and the original Darksiders aren’t bundled, but you can’t really complain with six dollars. Well, you can, but not without sounding the opposite of humble.

Every game comes with a Steam key except the Neighbours From Hell Compilation, though that’s because the game’s still trying to be greenlit on Steam. The game listing says users will automatically receive Steam keys if the game gets the greenlight. It’s not really a big deal considering you have eight other games to play, though I suppose you could just double-click the .exe like a caveman.

Correction: This article previously referred to the sale as a "Humble Bundle," which is distinct from the "Humble Weekly Sale."

More and more new games every year are sequels, so I guess the next logical step is enormous collections of previously released games. Bethesda announced at QuakeCon that every Elder Scrolls game would be available, and now Ubisoft is following suit with the Assassin’s Creed Heritage Collection. Available on November 8, the Heritage Collection will include Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, and Assassin’s Creed 3.

The official price has not been announced, but some listings are starting to pop up in the neighborhood of $70/£40, which isn’t outrageous for five games plus DLC. Still, at that price you’re paying a premium for the packaging and whatever extras they throw in there, and we have no idea what those extras might be.

Of course, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag lands on November 19. Technically speaking, I suppose gamers brand-new to the series could pound through the first five games in time for the launch of Black Flag, but only if they’re willing to give up showering and eating. Still, die-hard fans might appreciate having the games and their individual DLCs all in one tidy package.

Volition’s still hard at work on a set of Saints Row IV mod tools for all you tinkerers out there, but the delay hasn’t stopped a few prolific modders from allowing you to "serve and protect" the fine citizens of Steelport through the eyes of your character.

While I can’t wait to play what’s basically Mirror’s Edge with super powers, be warned that the mod is still a work in progress. Things can, and probably will, break. However, there are a few things you can do to ensure your first-person power trip is a relatively smooth one.

For one, don’t wear any facial accessories like hats, glasses, or even clothes with high collar. Also, proceed with caution while using large weapons like the dubstep gun. Though dropping aliens with dubstep drops has practically become an American pastime, the camera needs a little tweaking before things look just right.

Those minor warnings aside, anyone interested in trying the mod out for themselves can mosey on over to the official page for some super power-infused shenanigans through new eyes.

Telltale’s next interactive comic game, The Wolf Among Us, has just popped up on Steam for pre-orders. Given how much everyone loved last year’s The Walking Dead (and how much Hollander enjoyed his time with a The Wolf Among Us hands-on), it’s one of my most anticipated games of the jam-packed fall gaming season.



Set in the 80s-era scummy underside of New York, the game serves as a prequel to Bill Willingham’s fantastic Fables comic series. As Sheriff Bigby Wolf, you work to solve a nasty murder in a cell-shaded comic art style that Telltale fans will recognize. There will be tough choices to make, but I hope the emotional payload will be slightly smaller than the brutal ethics of The Walking Dead (Episode 3—you know what I’m talking about). There will be more action this time around, and the fighting mechanics have been completely overhauled.

The five episodes retail for $5 each, but you can shave a bit off that if you pre-order the whole season at once. Episode 1 will land sometime this month.

The Steam Machine prototypes going out to 300 lucky beta participants have been detailed in a post in the Steam Universe group. Quick catch-up: Last week, Valve revealed SteamOS, a free Linux-based operating system for living room gaming, and announced that multiple hardware manufacturers will be selling SteamOS machines next year. But first, Valve is testing its own prototype with 300 systems.

According to Valve's Greg Coomer, the 300 beta participants will receive one of the following builds:

GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
CPU: some boxes with Intel : i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB DDR5 (GPU)
Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

These aren't necessarily the specs of the third-party systems being sold next year. "As we talked about last week, the Steam Machines available for sale next year will be made by a variety of companies," writes Coomer. "Some of those companies will be capable of meeting the demands of lots of Steam users very quickly, some will be more specialized and lower volume. The hardware specs of each of those machines will differ, in many cases substantially, from our prototype.

"Valve didn't set out to create our own prototype hardware just for the sake of going it alone—we wanted to accomplish some specific design goals that in the past others weren't yet tackling. One of them was to combine high-end power with a living-room-friendly form factor. Another was to help us test living-room scenarios on a box that's as open as possible."

The prototype isn't yet "finished enough" for a photo, says Coomer, but he teases upcoming details on SteamOS's streaming technology, which allows games to be streamed from a Windows PC to another PC running SteamOS, as well as the Steam Controller, Valve's custom solution for PC gaming on a couch.