Focus Home Interactive has released a ten-minute gameplay trailer for Mordheim: City of the Damned, a tactical action game with RPG elements, announced back in March. The setting, a spin-off of Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy universe, is grim, and life for those who prowl and fight within the shattered city of Mordheim is violent and, more often than not, short.
Mordheim: City of the Damned is turn-based, but the battle between human mercenaries and the Cult of the Possessed unfolds fairly quickly nonetheless. The narrator explains that the story campaign features "an authentic narrative over multiple maps across the city," while the skirmish mode makes use of procedurally-generated maps and also allows players to select from a pool of pre-generated maps. The trailer is wrapped in the usual "pre-alpha" disclaimer, but the basic mechanics on display seem fairly well solidified.
Mordheim is set to hit Early Access on Steam sometime this month. In the meantime, if this looks like your bag, you can find out more about what's in store at Mordheim-cityofthedamned.com.
With the consumer release of Oculus Rift expected to arrive "pretty soon", you'd be forgiven for thinking major publishers are starting to ramp up (albeit quietly) virtual reality development. While that may be true, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has told Bloomberg TV (via IGN) that he doesn't think the industry is ready for the shift. Take-Two is parent company to both 2K Games and Rockstar, and with Grand Theft Auto 5 releasing for PC in January many have salivated at the prospect of tweaking GTA to run with Oculus Rift.
"Not yet," Zelnick said when asked whether the industry was ready. "Part of it is we need to see how the headsets roll out and how we can best deliver an experience. We are concerned that you'll play our games for a long period of time -- we don't want people getting nauseated. And also, having had the experience, I'm not sure how long you want an immersive headset on your head. We'll find out. I will say this. If that's what consumers want, we'll be first in line to give it to them."
Zelnick's comments are firmly rooted in a major publisher mentality. While it's arguable that gaming is ready for VR, the shift is unlikely to be spearheaded by major third-party publishers, especially those who prioritise console releases ahead of the PC. Zelnick admits as much, saying he'd prefer to see if it works for other companies first.
"We see no reason to innovate in terms of business models," he said. "We prefer to be a fast follower. No one else can make our intellectual property -- only we can. I'm happy to have other people spend loads of dough on R&D."
In terms of major publishers, Palmer Luckey said in September that Activision, EA and Ubisoft are all investing in virtual reality. Still, it might be a while before we see official VR support for a GTA game.
The corpses of other explorers are a frequent find.
Tensions are high on my east African expedition. In these unfriendly wilds, the reverend Archibald Hosking turns to drink to pick up his spirits and, perhaps, to bring himself closer to his faraway god. Donald MacDougall, our Scottish mercenary, has shown himself to be a superstitious coward, terrified of ancient ruins and cryptic carvings. Of course, none of this is being helped by the cavalier attitude of the expedition leader, Ms. Harriet Tubman, who has taken to dynamiting mountains for fun.
Boom! Take this, nature! yells Harriet, world-famous abolitionist and hero of the underground railroad. The local populace scowls at the destruction of their sacred mountain. Mr. Moses, the expedition s pack-bearing donkey, chooses that moment to run away with all of the food.
Heart of Darkness
The Curious Expedition is an upcoming roguelike (an alpha will be out soon) set in a fictionalized 19th-century heyday of exploration. The game is ostensibly about plundering treasure and discovering new lands, but its systems are equally concerned with illustrating the systemic abuse and subjugation of indigenous peoples common to the colonial and exploration eras. It s a heady, compelling setting headlined by heroic figures of antiquity like Charles Darwin and Nikola Tesla.
The basic rules are simple enough: a famous leader and a selection of comrades pick their gear and head out into a randomly generated New World. Somewhere in the blank, hex-grid vellum map sits a golden pyramid. If they find it, fame and riches are theirs. Otherwise, they wander the wilderness, insane and hungry, until they die.
The more mountains, the more tempting it is to reach for the dynamite.
The full spread of overlapping systems are what makes Curious Expedition such a promising game. Each day spent traveling saps your expedition s sanity; when you run out, that trek is over. Resting in a friendly village or beside a picturesque waterfall can restore sanity, as can taking a shot of whiskey or having an extra ration of chocolate.
The other precious resource is your reputation with the local people. The best way to stay on their good side is to follow the Boy Scouts camping rule: leave no trace. The more you accidentally start brush fires or dynamite ancient mountain passes, the more you upset the equilibrium of this unexplored continent. It s easy to spend less time fretting over this stat than the all-important sanity meter, but disregarding it can mess up your day. I once ignored my low reputation and plundered an ancient shrine for a golden skull. When I emerged, the ground shook and volcanic rifts appeared everywhere as the gods themselves expressed their disgust. The entire continent burned.
Help Wanted
The addictive hook of Curious Expedition is the way it uses characters as upgradable sub-systems. Where you might, say, upgrade your shields in FTL to avoid damage, hiring a native warrior will reduce your chances of triggering combat. Where you might specialize in Master of Arms in Dungeons of Dredmore for greater ass-kicking skills, leading an expedition as big-game-hunter (and giant-rifle-wielder) Frederick Courteney Selous will help you blow through undiscovered country in a straight line, killing everything in your way. Both are equally valid ways to approach the task of discovery.
Local villages are essential for restoring sanity on long treks. Just don t drink the water.
The variety of options here is above most roguelikes and growing, and it can get overwhelming at times. There are fifteen leaders to choose from, eleven hireable party members, and two dozen or so equippable items. All of this gear and these explorers modify the effectiveness of your strategies and safeguards, which gives me thousands of possible strategic approaches. It s kind of a shame that one of the ways Curious Expedition is unfinished is its gear descriptions and tutorials. The only way to discover the use of certain items, then, is to buy them, ship them across the ocean, and entrust your life to them in hostile territory.
It s not ideal, but I guess the worst thing that can happen is an untimely death. Repeated failure is part of the experience, afterall, and the bleached bones of my failed expeditions pave a road from here to the Natural History Museum of your choice. Failure in Curious Expedition is brutal and heartbreaking, but the next life is a couple of clicks away.
Ancient Wonders
Curious Expedition still has a way to go after it begins its paid alpha on November 27. For one thing, some of the background art panels are still crude placeholders—a jarring departure from the otherwise spectacular pixel art seen elsewhere. Many of CE s random encounters repeat too frequently, something that I hope will ease off a bit when the game is finished.
Combat is also a pretty shallow experience at the moment, as skill checks haven t been implemented yet. Encounters (most frequently with wild animals) boil down to a binary choice: run away, or accept a couple of minor casualties in exchange for hides and animal meat. It s not a bad compromise, but it does take some of the fun out of playing a badass game hunter.
Curious Expedition is built in HTML5, which means it plays in-browser with no special plug-ins. The program opens quickly, loads instantly, and animates smoothly. If this were a Steam Early Access game, in other words, I d have nothing negative to say about its performance. The developers told me they do plan to offer an offline, downloadable version of the game and won t rule out a Steam release, but it s not their first priority.
Curious Expedition s paid alpha release gets started on November 27. The full release, with more units, terrains, and encounters, is planned for July 2015.
With Far Cry 4 done and out the door, Creative Director Alex Hutchinson says he's been given the go-ahead to begin work on a new, personal game project. There's no guarantee it will ever see the light of day, but Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat said it's important that smaller, more experimental projects have a place within the studio.
Hutchinson told CVG that the project will be developed by a small team of people from the Assassin's Creed III and IV teams. "The challenge then is to keep costs down and make something that competes at a high level, without saying, 'We need a thousand people for a new IP!'" he said. He didn't reveal any details, but if the game makes it through Ubisoft's internal approval process, he said he hopes the team will be able to reveal it to the world in a year.
Despite the hurdles it faces, Mallat said it's important that smaller projects like this one not be "suffocated" by the pressures that Ubi's big franchises face, because it allows the publisher to grow its internal talent and "try new things without breaking the balance financially."
Heat Signature has come a long way since developer Tom Francis—a former PC Gamer editor—added an artist and a pair of composers to the team back in September. A screen released alongside the announcement indicated that a major visual upgrade was on the way, and now Francis has released a nine-minute gameplay video showing off its new look in action.
The gameplay remains essentially the same and the ships are still blocky, Lego-like constructions. But their interiors are much more detailed, and the cold depths of space through which they travel are far prettier than the speckled blackness of the previous video. It sounds like there's a proper soundtrack in there too, with music that varies depending on what you're getting up to.
Francis says in the video that the new systems are "nascent" and there's a lot more to add, but testing is expected to begin soon. If you're interested in taking part, sign up for the Heat Signature mailing list at heatsig.com.
Valve shoveled some new maps into CS:GO last week, and a couple of them are quite good. Where do these new P90 playgrounds rank alongside CS capitals like de_dust2 and de_inferno? I took a moment to rate every map in the current build.
A few things:
I m excluding maps that aren t in the current rotation (e.g. de_blackgold)
I m also excluding Demolition and Arms Race maps, because c mon
I m mostly judging these maps by how they play in 5-on-5 Competitive mode, which is how you should be playing CS:GO (regardless of your skill level)
The key criteria here is: Would I play this map instead of the one below it?
RANK
MAP
COMMENTS
1
de_mirage
Mirage is your favorite bagel, toasted evenly. Mirage is a warm, unembarrassing hug from your grandmother. Mirage surfaces the best things about CS:GO. Every entry point in Mirage presents interesting, complementary risks and rewards. Pushing cat to B as a Terrorist is a great example of this: you have to smoke the A connector to do it safely, but that action in and of itself expresses your intention to bring the bomb to B. Adjacent map areas, like apartments and underpass, or ladder room and sniper window, have strong relationships to one another. Map timings at mid window, A ramp, the van at B are all deliberately tuned. The bombsites are tough to take and relatively tough to defend, and the CTs have sneaky options to turn defense into offense in apartments, underpass, and palace. Play Mirage.
2
de_season
FMPONE took an average-looking, underappreciated CS map and gave it a gorgeous, high-contrast makeover for Operation Vanguard. The revamp not only gives Season a coherent, original theme for the first time (Japanese laboratory), it also improves how it plays. Patches of bright mustard yellow (on bombsite B) and leaf green (on A) punctuate the sterile white, improving map orientation and making it easier to spot enemies.
3
de_inferno
CTs have a positional edge on Inferno, but I love that the Terrorists have plenty of options for outsmarting, out-aiming, or overwhelming them. And I love the way Inferno challenges you to throw smart grenades. When and whether to smoke mid, or how you flash into B takes intuition and practice. A series of T-shaped intersections facilitate this: mid, arch, at the banana exit to bombsite B. And unlike hilariously one-sided maps like Aztec, the CTs must make hard decisions about which areas of the map they feel comfortable giving up, like boiler or the busted car inside banana.
4
de_dust2
The Toyota Camry of Counter-Strike. Dust2 is reliably fun but a victim of its own popularity. It has the easy to learn, hard to master quality we value in games, with the sniping lane down mid being a great example of the latter. Re-taking bombsite B, despite three entry points, is satisfyingly tough for the CTs. Both teams have to hurry to occupy the junction at long A, a perfectly-timed early-round flashpoint. It s wonderful. Can everyone stop playing it, please?
5
de_cache
Cache is delicious oatmeal: a bit bland, but healthy. No corner of Cache is superfluous—its uncomplicated three-lane structure is gimmick-free. The tiny vent entrance to B is about as unconventional as Cache gets. That leaves us with a pure competitive map—it couldn't be more obvious that Cache was co-designed by a pro player.
6
cs_office
Office is simpler than a one-color Rubik s cube, but I have a lot of affection for this comforting camper s paradise. Blowing holes in the mundane, corporate setting remains a big part of the appeal. Shoulder-peeking and entry grenades are the name of the game for the CTs: Office is about small-scale execution of these maneuvers rather than larger map-level tactics, and I like its focus for that reason, but it s also a map that ll earn you bad habits if you overplay it.
7
de_facade
I m still getting the hang of Facade. I like its raised ledge at mid, which overlooks a pair of dust2-like double doors, forming a treacherous no-man s land. I like the complex configuration of bombsite B, and that it s countered a bit by open windows that beg to have flash grenades thrown through. On the other hand, rotation from one bombsite to another is cumbersome and slow, especially from A to B.
8
de_nuke
I guess it s possible for Nuke to be more CT-sided than it already is. For instance, the Terrorists could spawn inside a room filled with hungry cobras, or inside an Olive Garden that s just run out of breadsticks. Nuke s mid-less configuration and the rafters above A put the Terrorists at a major disadvantage. There s also some lingering sound problems on the map, especially with Z-axis audio behavior. Despite these issues, it remains a mainstay: the same asymmetry that makes it tough for the Ts gives it a unique feel: no other map stacks its bombsites atop one another, for example.
9
cs_workout
Do you even yoga, bro? This is actually a really nice gym. But it kind of looks like a school? Anyway, Workout is a colorful three-lane map with some interesting stuff happening around T spawn (an awkward middle stairway; a pool area with plentiful hiding spots). I ve had enjoyable rounds on Workout, but mid, the long lane to T spawn, and the middle fountain area are a bit too spacious for 5-on-5 play. It can suck the fun out of the map if the hostages spawn closely together, too. I also don t like how viable the autosniper can be for Ts on this map, but Workout gets points for style and color from me.
10
de_overpass
Overpass' unusual layout is both its appeal and a tiny shortcoming, I think. B is one of the most unique bombsites in the game, an exposed concrete perch that the CTs have an elevated line of sight on. The map prompts plenty of tough decisions: A is tougher for the Ts to take but easier to hold. CTs can set themselves up to flank if they scout the tunnel connector aggressively, which can be countered if one or two Ts lurk silently there.
11
de_train
No classic CS map is more argued over than Train. For many matchmakers it s a mainstay, but some displeased players have gone so far to revise the map themselves. One thing s certain: the Terrorists face rough odds on bombsite A—even rushing at full speed, the CTs are always able to put themselves in a better position more quickly. Dark areas in the train tunnels put the Ts at further disadvantage. For better and worse, the map takes a ton of coordinated grenades to solve on the Terrorist side, making solo-queueing on it a pain.
12
de_marquis
My rounds on Marquis have been inexplicably positive, despite all the late-round wandering the map inspires. Terrorists face a collar-tuggingly terrifying route to A on this Operation Vanguard newcomer: long, narrow, and then uphill. B isn t much better, a bite-sized bombsite that s unusually vulnerable to frags and firebombs from three potential entrances. Some of the hiding spots and elbows underground feel pointless to me. The subway setting is at least a convincing combination of weathered graffiti and loose equipment.
13
de_bazaar
I ve been having an okay time with Bazaar since it released last week. It s a conventional three-lane map with an AWP-friendly mid, albeit with a couple variations: its connectors are weird (like the S-shaped zig-zag from mid to B), and mid has a left- and right-side entrance for both teams. One thing that s missing here is some decor: Bazaar is 80% unpainted walls and grey brick, giving the map an unfinished feel. More landmarks would inspire better map callouts, too.
14
cs_backalley
CS 1.6 map Backalley has found its way back into the game. I enjoy Backalley a lot in casual play, where throwing bodies at chokepoints to solve problems becomes standard tactics. In 5-on-5, though, the map s vertical areas become pretty superfluous. I like the urban, vagely criminal feel of it, but its biggest issue from a competitive standpoint is that the CTs only have one narrow, deadly entry option on either side.
15
de_dust
Dust2 s big brother has effectively been retired from competitive play altogether, and these days it s valued for its nostalgia. The route alterations Valve made to Dust when CS:GO released were welcome, but no amount of reengineering can change the fact that both bombsites are absolutely buried in CT turf. It s a piece of history, but hasn t held up as well as most of CS stock maps in Global Offensive.
16
cs_assault
Assault is the siege-iest of CS' campy hostage maps. The CTs' entry options are universally bad, clumsily mitigated in CS:GO by the addition of glass windows on the facility rooftop. Pressure through these skylights forces the Ts to turtle even more, opening up chances for braver CTs to break through the front and back doors. There's not much for Ts to do here but make like paranoid conspiracy theorists and point their guns at their own doors.
17
cs_italy
Like Assault, rounds of Italy drag on longer than seasons of Dragon Ball Z. Valve tried to lure lazy Terrorists away from the hostage house by moving one of the prisoners into the wine cellar near the center of the map, but old habits die hard: Italy is still a haven for selfish snipers. Though it d definitely be higher up on this list if the Pavarotti song that played on the radio in CS and CS:S hadn t been cut from the map, presumably for copyright reasons. Lawyers make bad map designers.
18
de_aztec
Huitzilopochtli, Aztec god of multiplayer maps, is not pleased. Someone at Valve clearly didn t make the correct sacrificial offering. In anger, Huitzilopochtli conspired to give CTs every conceivable advantage: bombsites that are steps away from CT spawn, a bridge that crosses the open air, a horrific ramp, and double doors that open out into two AWP lines for the Terrorists. Temple of Doom indeed.
19
de_cbble
Hey, I ve got an idea: let s make a map with a massive courtyard overlooked by sniper nests that no one will ever, ever use. Cobblestone in its current form has no business being in the competitive rotation. The action strictly happens around the bombsites, where the Ts have to make treacherous crossings in the open in order to plant the bomb. That said, this moment by f0rest was one of my favorites from the ESL One Cologne tournament.
20
cs_militia
Militia s days as a charming pub map in CS 1.6 are well dead. Its art embraces the hostage theme in a way I like (sewers, creepy sheds), but the extensive modifications Valve made to the front yard are messy, and they haven t done much to make Militia more than a misshapen sniping arena. 5-on-5, you can go multiple rounds without seeing anyone depending on which route you take.
21
de_vertigo
Moms don t let their babies grow up to design square-shaped maps. Vertigo s OK as a meat-grindery, 12-on-12, casual romp, but as a competitive map it invites no interesting tactics or tough decisions. Let s review the Terrorists options: 1) attack up an exposed ramp 2) attack up an exposed stairway. There s no backtracking, secondary routes, or opportunities for trickery: just two teams headbutting. Don t.
Square Enix announced earlier this month that Final Fantasy XIII-2 is coming to Steam in December. Today the publisher expanded on that news a bit by revealing that the game will boast PC-specific visual options and nearly all of the DLC released for the console versions of the game.
"Licensing and contractual restrictions" mean that not all of the DLC created for Final Fantasy XIII-2 can be put on the PC, now or in the future. But everything that can be will be bundled with the game, and it's an impressive list:
Coliseum Battles
Omega (from Final Fantasy V)
Gilgamesh (from Final Fantasy V)
Ultros & Typhon (from Final Fantasy VI)
PuPu (from Final Fantasy VIII)
Lightning & Lieutenant Amodar (from Final Fantasy XIII)
PSICOM officer Jihl Nabaat (from Final Fantasy XIII)
Outfits for Serah
Summoner s Garb
Beachwear
White Mage
Outfits for Noel
Battle Attire
Spacetime Guardian
Black Mage
Outfits for Mog
A Wondrous Wardrobe
Scenarios/Story DLC
Sazh: Heads or Tails?
Lightning: Requiem of the Goddess
Snow: Perpetual Battlefield
According to Square Enix, the PC edition of Final Fantasy XIII-2 will run at 60 fps, offer selectable resolutions including 720p and 1080p, and support both English and Japanese voices with subtitles. It certainly sounds like it's getting more pre-release love than its predecessor,the less-than-spectacular FFXIII. Final Fantasy XIII-2 hits steam on December 11.
Far Cry 4 launched yesterday, followed immediately by a day-one patch intended to fix at least some of the bugs and performance issues that almost inevitably seem to plague game releases these days. Alas, it didn't fix all the issues. A Far Cry 4 Live Updates status page has been created to keep players apprised of the game's status.
First and foremost, the page warns that while the day-one patch was meant to be installed "transparently," some players may have missed it, especially those playing offline. If you're having grief with the game, job one is to ensure that it's been installed. Beyond that, Ubisoft says three "primary issues" have so far been reported:
Crashing to a black screen during loading: Ubisoft has been able to reproduce this problem and believes it might be related to the presence of conflicting peripherals, although what those peripherals might be aren't mentioned. One user suggests Logitech devices might be a cause of trouble, but that's entirely anecdotal.
PlayStation 3 game data corruption: This isn't really our bag and Ubisoft doesn't have much to say about it except that it may or may not be related to having previously played Far Cry 3.
Preorder code redemption: Anyone who preordered Far Cry 4 should have been emailed a code for the Blood Ruby mission. Not everyone has received the email, however, and not all emails that were sent out actually contained a code.
Anyone who's run into a problem other than the ones mentioned above that isn't addressed by either the day-one patch or the upcoming second patch, previewed here, is asked to submit a ticket to the Ubisoft support site.
In Why I Love, PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it's brilliant. Today, Phil explains why he loves a character most people only love to hate.
What's the best stealth class in Team Fortress 2?
No, you're wrong.
It's not the Spy. You can't be the best stealth class if you've got a watch that literally makes you invisible. That's cheating.
The best stealth class in TF2 is the Scout. And he is a stealth class. He's frail, but fast quickly killed by a Heavy's minigun or an Engineer's sentry, but able to retreat and reposition for a different approach.
There are two things, specifically, that I love about the Scout. The first is the way he moves. I adore games that offer interesting methods of locomotion. The Scout is fast, and has a double-jump that lets you change direction mid-air. This makes slipping past, around or away from enemies feel great. It's no longer good enough for me to get where I need to go. I need to get there with style.
Stealth is an important part of this. A great Scout will, to the enemy team, appear to be everywhere at once: on their control points, patrolling their corridors and running full bore into their front line. Battles are about the constant flow of position—of where you are relative to everyone else, and of where you need to go in order to be where they least expect. It's not just that you can outrun your opponents; it's that you can outmaneuvere them. This challenge is why I've spent 300+ hours in TF2, and almost 50 hours as its annoying, scrawny shotgun wielder.
The second thing I love about the Scout is that he's a jerk. The Scout's job is to be annoying. There are specific feelings for being killed by each of TF2's classes. Being killed by a Heavy or Pyro feels like the continuation of some natural order. They are forces of nature (or, at least, of fire and meat). Being killed by an Engineer, Spy or Sniper is more cerebral. It's a tactical death—a specific and immediate punishment for a mistake. Being killed by the Soldier or Demoman is annoying, because you'll swear it was a fluke, and also because deep down you'll know that it wasn't.
Being killed by a Medic is, for the most part, humiliating. It's the Medic. The clue is in the name.
Being killed by the Scout is infuriating. The level to which it's infuriating is the result of a complicated formula based on a) how much you are currently sucking, b) how much your team are currently sucking, and c) if the Scout has a Force-A-Nature equipped. I have been specifically and graphically told how infuriating it is in hastily typed strings of four-lettered anger.
I should come clean here: I'm not just a Scout, I'm an unreformed Scout. The abuse is perverse positive feedback. It's how I know I'm credit to team.
For me, both of these loves combined into a single, terrible playstyle when Valve introduced King of the Hill mode, and specifically the maps Nucleus and Sawmill. Both are small—filled with side-routes and escape points. More importantly, both are covered in traps.
A scenario: a Heavy is capping Sawmill's centre point. An opposing Scout is running directly at his back. The opposing Scout has a Force-A-Nature equipped. He gets in close, fires, and watches as the shotgun's knockback flings the Heavy into the spinning buzzsaws. Do you know how angry the Heavy player feels in that moment? Conversely, do you know how elated the Scout player feels?
Based on his abilities, Valve's portrayal of the Scout is perfect. He is a jerk, through attitude as well as deed. It's not just a hint as to how he's best played, but a reward to anyone who manages to kill him. As fun as it is to kill with him, I recognise the catharsis for those who get revenge. In this way an uneasy balance is achieved.
