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Set up a dedicated gaming server for the most popular games

Don t let your computer s parts off the hook just because they were swapped out in an upgrade; put them back to work! Half of the top-ten most-played games on Steam come with the option to customize your entire gameplay, right up through running your own dedicated server. Are you going to sit back and play the game how somebody else envisioned it, or are you going to grab the goat by the horns, run your own server, and make it personal?

Why run the server on your LAN instead of remote hosting (rental server)?

There are many reasons why people rent a server from a remote provider; ranging from bandwidth availability, dedicated support, or even to eliminate any latency advantages between player and host.

Remote hosting can sometimes be a headache. Some server rental hosting services don t consistently update the site s server software for many days after a game update rolls out. By hosting the server yourself on a separate machine, you re able to take command and update it as soon as you like, and the cost is only in the electricity required to run the system. All you need is to save the parts you replace when you upgrade, and build a new system out of it. Sure, it may be old tech, but most dedicated servers for games don t require a lot.

As a thoughtful supernatural adventure created by the founders of the studio that gave the gaming world "dicktits," The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was something of a surprise. And now, a year after its launch, it's time for another surprise: It's been completely rebuilt in Unreal Engine 4 and re-released as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux.

The updated version came, as far as I can tell, entirely without fanfare. The Ethan Carter Steam page simply notes that anyone who buys the game will get both the original and the Redux versions, and provides a link to The Astronauts blog, which explains the situation in greater detail.

The two games are identical in terms of story, and the "Redux" moniker isn't even entirely official, but a number of improvements have been made. The save system has been modified to save the world state at any point, rather than only areas that have been fully solved, and transitioning between areas will happen almost seamlessly. The Redux version also deals with complaints about excessive backtracking, although for fear of dropping spoilers the post doesn't explain how, and equally cryptically, a section of the game that some players apparently found "too scary and/or too exhausting" has been tweaked to ensure it "flows better."

A number of visual enhancements have been made as well. The studio said most of them are too small to really notice, but the new version now properly supports multiple monitors and non-standard resolutions, and it also features a new option called "Resolution Scale," which can be adjusted based on the capabilities of your PC.

"The game will render internally at twice the current resolution and nicely scale down the image to display it at the current resolution," The Astronauts co-founder Adrian Chmielarz explained. "Such technique produces an image of higher quality than most anti-aliasing solutions. Or, as our graphics programmer insists, 'As an alternative to anti-aliasing, such technique produces the extra pixels to help reduce jagged edges.'"

There is one downside: The original, Unreal Engine 3-powered release of the game plays nicely with low-end rigs, but the Redux edition is more demanding. If you're not running a 64-bit version of Windows and at least 6GB of RAM, you're going to want to stick with the old one.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux is a free update for anyone who already owns the game. It's also on sale, for the next couple of days, for $12/ 9.

Bethesda has put out a new-ish Doom gameplay video that showcases the speed of the multiplayer action. How fast is it? As id Software General Manager Garrett Young puts it, "It is fast, fast, fast."

I say the video is "new-ish" rather than new because it's a direct lift from Bethesda's E3 presentation in June, but this version (which was also recorded at E3) features commentary from Young, Executive Producer Marty Stratton, and Art Director Hugo Martin. And some of what they have to say is very interesting, especially Young's remarks about how player skills are "super-transferable" between single-player and multiplayer modes.

"In single-player, our AI and our design of the game, the core design, makes you move. You gotta move," he says. "And those transfer right over to multiplayer. It is fast, fast, fast."

Being able to play as a demon sounds pretty cool too. Doom is set to come out in the spring of 2016.

Big Boss may not talk much in Metal Gear Solid V, but if he did, he'd have some stories to tell. We'll be his voice today, then, with some of our favorite, stupidest, funniest moments from all the free-form infiltrating and extracting we've done for the past week. These unexpected narratives caused by systems and simulations bouncing off each other are best thing about MGS V, so keep it going with your stories in the comments.

As always, if you're extra sensitive to spoilers, proceed with caution, but we've kept it really light. We talk vaguely about missions we've done, but not any cutscenes or dialogue or characters other than the well-known ones.

Where eagles dare

By Tim Clark

Before Metal Gear Solid V, this was the greatest shot I ve ever pulled off in my life: I m in bed on a Greek holiday (not a euphemism) with my then girlfriend, and we hear the telltale EEEEEE of a mosquito. I react particularly badly to their bites so hate them worse than war. In the halflight it flits over the bed and I throw the book I m reading—a horror short story collection, as always—at it, making a snapping motion with my hand as the book exits at speed. It slams shut in mid-air and falls back to the bed. No fucking way , she says. Excited, I flick through the pages, find the bloody insectoid mulch and grin: Way.

Here s my MGS V shot that s better: It s Afghanistan. Broad daylight. I spot the circling silhouette of what I immediately realise is an eagle. It s a long, long way off and I don t feel like I ve got time to pop a Pentazemin to steady Boss s hand. I need the eagle badly because at that point my offshore menagerie resembled a dilapidated municipal park in which two mangy jackals are the big crowd puller. I swing the tranq sniper in a lazy arc, trying to lead the target, and squeeze the trigger a single time. THWIP. The mighty eagle is a puff of falling feathers. Before you can say 420 blaze it MLG no scope (okay, technically I scoped) I m jogging across the desert to retrieve my avian prize. And… it s another raven. Well goddamn. I jam it in my pocket anyway, reasoning that London Zoo wasn t built on eagles alone. And at least I can say I ve nailed the company emblem. Remember: when it comes to conflict, logo choice is important.

A little overprotective

By Tom Marks

I was sneaking through an enemy outpost, silently incapacitating each guard under the watchful eye of my newest buddy, Quiet. They would make fine additions to my totally-not-kidnapped army at Mother Base, but the specialist I really wanted was just ahead. He was the last guard awake and was getting suspicious, so I had to move fast. I turn a corner and sprint straight towards him which, understandably, startles him quite a bit.

The slo-mo kicks in as Reflex Mode begins and I bring the iron sights of my tranquilizer gun up to Big Boss one good eye, centering the specialist s head as the target. But then, quietly off in the distance, I hear a gunshot. Where did that come from? Did I miss a guard? I couldn t have. I realize there was only one other option, as I notice Quiet s laser sight trained squarely on the guard I am trying to extract—preferably with his head still on his shoulders.

Everything is still in slow motion as I squeeze the trigger and my target instantly falls asleep. He begins to limply fall towards the ground in a race against Quiet s pinpoint aim. There is a pregnant pause as I think maybe I prevented the inevitable. I watch his sleeping head explode through the sights of my gun. Captured guard post. Thanks for the backup, Quiet.

This happened while I was streaming on our Twitch channel, the webcam in the top right was my genuine reaction the moment it happened. It was startling.

A Murder of Crows

By Chris Livingston

I ve only just begun playing Phantom Pain, having spent most of the past two weeks on  Mad Max, so I m still firmly in the You Can Attach Balloons To Everything? phase of the game. After ballooning friendlies, enemies, bears, sheep, and one adorable dog, I naturally became curious as to whether I could attach a balloon to a crow.

Unfortunately, I became curious about this while I was in the middle of a mission. I d been tasked with rescuing an engineer from a camp, and as night fell I crept past the barricades, marking foes and planning my approach. That s when a crow flew over my head, and while my first thought was Why are there only ever crows in games? There are a billion kinds of birds, but in games it s always crows. My second thought: Hey, can I balloon that crow? The crow landed on some tanks on a raised platform near me, so shot it with the tranq gun and it fell asleep.

Problem: it didn t fall to the ground, and there didn t seem to be a way to climb up onto the tanks to attach a balloon. There was no ladder, and nothing adjacent I could use to climb and jump over. I wondered if I could steal a truck, drive it over, and climb on top of it, but I wasn t sure. The Russian soldier who walked up behind me while I was standing in the middle of the street staring at a sleeping crow wasn t sure either, but he was pretty sure I shouldn t be there at all.

The alarm was sounded, and I was ripped up by bullets and forced to dodge mortar rounds. Also, I stopped to mark the crow s location (with a C appropriately enough), and taking the time to do that got me shot up even more. So, I did what any grizzled veteran would do when he s almost dead because a napping crow distracted him: I called in air support. As the chopper arrived, I noticed with horror that I d summoned it to the exact spot where the crow was sleeping, so rather than help the chopper fight the Soviets, I just watched worriedly from a distance, hoping my feathered friend wouldn t get hurt.

The crow was unharmed. The helicopter, however, was completely shot to shit. It limped through the air across the valley and exploded against a cliff as 5,000 BossBux were immediately deducted from my bank account to buy a new chopper. (Also, two of my men were needlessly dead due to my crow fixation. Eh, I ll just balloon a few more.)

Eventually, I shot everyone dead, and still unable to reach my sleepy crow, I gave up and entered the compound. I suddenly heard Caw, caw as two more crows flew over my head. Another chance! As I took aim I heard another sound, the iconic exclamation point sound of a guard spotting you while you shoot darts at crows. Oh, come on. I m trying to perform important balloon science, here! After killing everyone, I looked around for the crows, and saw one land on top of a pole. I tranq d it, it flopped to the ground sound asleep, and I finally got my answer. When rescuing a sedated crow from a war zone, no balloons are allowed. Big Boss apparently just shoves it in his pocket. I got a C on the mission.

The final viscount-down

By James Davenport

There s a mission in the first half of the game where you re tasked with tailing a Russian interpreter as he walks around a massive camp between several prisoners. You re to listen in on his translated interrogations in hopes of singling out a specific viscount. The guy is valuable for a reason I lost between all the acronyms and war monologuing, but none of this mattered after I set off an alert state almost immediately. Doing so starts an indeterminate timer during which the prisoners are killed off one by one. Since I hadn t tailed the interpreter to each prisoner s location, I had no idea where the viscount was. I kept searching, figuring the game would tell me if I failed the mission. After two hours of desperate smoking and searching, nothing. I turned off my PC in frustration.

The next day, I finished the mission in ten minutes. (If you don't want it spoiled, stop reading and skip to Sam's story.) After heading to my favorite vantage point, I chanced to look behind me. Just 100 yards north of where I spent most of the previous evening was a shack and two figures. A quick scope informed me that, hoo boy, there he was, the viscount, and guarded by a single soldier. That poor soldier. He was probably the lame duck of the bunch, assigned the easy gig, left on his lonesome in the middle of nowhere. I shot him in the knees and sent the viscount back home via fulton. S-Rank.

As it turns out, my video game conditioning worked against me. The viscount might have been dead during my first playthrough, but the biggest revelation was that he wasn t just spawning in. I thought he d just apparate when needed, but his character existed in the world persistently through day and night, and he was simply transported between the Jerry shack and interrogation room on a schedule. The problem was I d interrupted it with an early alert state. Probably that other guy I shot in the knees and left in the road. So, the proclamation holds true: Metal Gear Solid 5 respects a player s intelligence. Inversely, it also respects a player s lack of intelligence.

Sorry about the leg

By Samuel Roberts

The goal? Extract an Afrikaans interpreter and send him to Mother Base where he can be brainwashed into joining my cause of extracting bears with tiny balloons and shooting Soviet soldiers in the head for no reason. To get to him, I have to follow a guy who can lead me to his location—I follow him across a dark field and even rescue a prisoner along the way, because I m just a bloody good guy like that. After sniping a guard in a watchtower with a sniper rifle, I sneak around the back of a well-lit house where the soldier I was following and my target are talking. I dart one in the head then the other in quick succession, then hop over the window to retrieve my target.

I decide to try throwing him out of the window, which is a little brutal but makes a nice thud when they hit the dirt.

D-Dog is in the field with me. He tells me there s a guy patrolling just outside the front door, so that s a no go for a silent route. I decide to leave the way I came in, over the window sill, and consider how I can drop my guy over the ledge. I decide to try throwing him out of the window, which is a little brutal but makes a nice thud when they hit the dirt. Sadly, instead of getting him out the building, throwing the interpreter gets the guy jammed on top of a shelf right next to the window. He s stuck!

Normally in this situation when you want to wake a guy up in MGSV, you just have to melee attack them. Unfortunately, Snake can t reach the interpreter that high up, so that doesn t work. The only solution is to wake him up by shooting him with a real bullet. Sadly, I m only carrying a loud sniper rifle and a grenade launcher, and I neither want to attract the guards attention nor blast the interpreter to kingdom come with an explosive. My only choice is to call in a silenced pistol from a supply drop and try shooting the guy in the leg. I head outside and do just that, picking up my pistol and heading back indoors.

I shoot the interpreter in the leg. He wakes up and falls off the top of the shelf immediately, and spots Snake just in time for me to slam him to the ground, knocking him straight out again. I decide to just carry the guy out the front door this time and shoot the nearby guard in the head. I call in a chopper, pile the guy onto it and complete the mission without getting caught. My new recruit may not be walking for a while, but I like that MGSV let me solve my own blunder by shooting someone to wake them up. GOTY.

Share your best stories and mishaps in the comments (link to a screenshot if you like), and we may put them in another article!

The Blood Bowl 2 beta is now underway, meaning that if you've preordered the game, you might already be playing it. And if not, you can still enjoy this new gameplay trailer that introduces the Bretonnians, who are highly-skilled, very expensive, and strong, but still a bit fragile compared to some of the other players they'll face.

Blood Bowl 2 is essentially an ultra-ultra-violent version of American football, set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. As you might imagine, injuries (and fatalities) run at an alarming rate, but in spite of its vicious nature, teams from the beefier side of the Warhammer rulebooks don't necessarily dominate: Gut-stomping is good, but as the new trailer makes clear, magic goes a long way toward balancing the scales.

Blood Bowl 2 comes out on September 22, which is less than two weeks away, but you can get into the beta right now if you're willing to pre-purchase on Steam. The beta includes four playable races—Humans, Orcs, Dwarves, and Skaven—plus "friendly" matches against local, online, or AI opponents, multiplayer leagues, team and league management and creation functionality, and the "Cabal TV" replay mode. Those who pre-purchase will also be given their choice of a bonus playable race, either the Lizardmen or the Wood Elves.

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You already know, if you hung out with us here yesterday, that XCOM is free on Steam until Sunday morning. But what to do, you ask, if you already own XCOM and all things related? Perhaps you could give some Saints Row a try instead.

I've always been fascinated by the way the Saints Row series evolved from a low-rent Grand Theft Auto knock-off to become a game about wreaking havoc in hell from the comfort of a mobile La-Z-Boy armed with chain guns. And it somehow got better along the way, too: Saints Row 4 earned an Editor's Choice award in our 2013 review. (Alas, the follow-up, Gat Out of Hell, didn't fare quite as well.)

The announcement of a free Saints Row weekend didn't come with quite the same level of fanfare as that of XCOM, probably because there's not a new Saints Row game currently available for pre-purchase. But free they are, "they" being Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row 4, until 1pm PDT on September 13. During that stretch, you can score those games and all the other Saints Row releases on Steam, plus the mind-boggling array of DLC, for up to 80 percent off. The sale prices will remain in effect until September 14.

The Assassin's Creed Council, announced today by Ubisoft, is a new site the publisher describes as "the number destination for fans of the Assassin's Creed universe." Members will receive inside information about the stabtastic series, access to exclusive content, and opportunities to interact with members of the development team and the Assassin's Creed community.

The Council already contains quite a bit of content, including a link to purchase an official bust of Ezio Auditore, the lead character in Assassin's Creed 2, and an image of an Apple of Eden that will soon go on sale. There are also a a number of "News from the Studio" entries, including an illustrated look at the evolution of the Assassin gauntlet, some early concepts of Jacob Frye's costumes, and an interview with Creative Director Marc Aleix C t , plus several user-submitted posts.

Dedicated fans can earn points, which will carry them further along the "Council path," plus various sorts of badges, and a leaderboard is in the works as well. All in all, it strikes me as quite a bit like Steam's community pages, but dedicated to a single series rather than everything. And it's free to join, which is for the best frankly. Check it out at council.assassinscreed.com—and since we're here, a reminder that the next addition to the Assassin's Creed lineage, Syndicate, is out on PC on November 19.

Microsoft is downloading Windows 10 to Windows 7 and 8 machines, even if the user hasn t expressed permission. A reader of The Inquirer saw that the ~BT Windows 10 folder had appeared on his system even though he hadn t reserved a copy. He only noticed after spotting a number of failed Upgrade to Windows 10 messages in his Windows Update history. Microsoft has confirmed this is happening to The Inquirer, as well as VentureBeat and PCWorld when reached for a statement.

Users have been able to opt-in to the free Windows 10 upgrade if they're running Windows 7 or 8, but apparently even if they don't, the files are being downloaded anyway. It's happening on devices which have automatic updates allowed, which we'd generally recommend to catch the latest security and stability updates for Windows.

When asked about this issue, Microsoft responded by saying For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they ll need if they decide to upgrade. When the upgrade is ready, the customer will be prompted to install Windows 10 on the device. Convenient, if you're installing Windows 7 or 8 specifically to upgrade to Windows 10. Otherwise, not so much.

The automatic download takes up between 3.5 and 6GB of storage space, which may not sound like a lot, but it s not an insignificant amount for some users. Windows tablets with smaller hard drives are affected, and people with data caps on their Internet connections certainly don t want that amount of data coming in without permission. The background download could affect people with poor Internet connections too, without them being aware that they're downloading unnecessary files.

Since launch, over 75 million devices have made the upgrade to Windows 10, and some sources say that the number is closer to 100 million.