Are you ready for some Doter? That's just one of the questions posed by Rucks, the narrator from Bastion. He's an old-timey sort of fella, and ain't got no truck with these kids' short-As. If you'd like your wizard killing narrated by his smooth, folksy tones, you can now grab the recently released Bastion Announcer Pack for Doter Dota 2.

As with other announcement packs, it replaces the voice of both the announcer and the mega-kill announcer with the Bastion's elderly guardian. You can see (and hear) the full round-up of his proclamations over at the Dota 2 wiki. He's got some pretty sharp words for anybody caught cussing.

The pack is currently available at 3.24 for the next 20 hours. After that, it'll default to the regular price of 6.49. It follows a series of other external game announcement packs, including Half-Life 2's Dr. Kleiner, Portal's GLaDOS, and - oddly enough - the extremely British AI from Defense Grid. In the future, a Stanley Parable narrator pack is also planned.

In addition to commentating on Dota's forests of fantasy, Rucks' voice actor Logan Cunningham is also working on Transistor, the next game from Bastion developers Supergiant Games. You can read Cass's preview of that game here.

Transistor, the new action RPG from Bastion devs Supergiant Games, got a brand-new reveal trailer at last night’s Sony E3 press conference. Lost in a sci-fi cityscape and lugging a +1 Sword of Logan Cunningham, protagonist Red sings her way through piles of robot enemies.


The new trailer doesn’t show a lot of new gameplay above its PAX East footage. There are glimpses of some wild enemy design that prove Supergiant isn’t going to be rehashing any of its old Bastion assets. The pausable combat and stylish environments look great, but we didn’t see any information about the possible multiplayer elements hinted at by Supergiant’s Greg Kasavin earlier this year.

For a better look at Transistor, check out Cassandra Khaw’s hands-on preview of the game from PAX East.

For the latest from E3, check out our complete coverage.

Bastion creators Supergiant recently revealed their next game, Transistor. In it, protagonist Red finds a giant USB stick, and promptly destroys a legion of robots while trying to figure out where their input port is located. I can sympathise. You never get the bloody things the right way round first try.

Oh wait, it's actually a whopping great big sword - the eponymous Transistor - acting as both Red's weapon against the robotic onslaught, and the means with which Supergiant can pipe the smooth tones of Logan Cunningham directly into our ears. You can see and hear that it in action in this 15 minute PAX East game demo, courtesy of YouTuber Total Biscuit.



You can also see that same footage, this time with Total Biscuit interviewing Supergiant's Greg Kasavin. Kasivin details Transistor's planned combat, which expands from Bastion's real-time ARPG nature with a new strategic planning mode. Here you use action points to plan movement and attacks, which can be quickly executed, letting you pull off complicated plans without relying on twitch keyboard skills.

Enemies will have specific weaknesses to target in strategic mode. In the video, you can see the Young Lady robot type has, like many of us, a weakness to backstabs. But the same enemy teleports away with each hit, leaving a shadow copy that also opens fire. "This is a game in which you start with the ultimate weapon right at the very beginning," Kasavin says. As a result, enemies are designed to keep you thinking through the sword's abilities, and constantly switching between real-time and planning modes.

Transistor is out Early 2014. Platforms are still to be announced.

Supergiant - that's the developers of the fantastic Bastion, and not some sort of king of the giants - have announced their next game. It's called Transistor, it looks fab, and Logan Cunningham (the voice of Rucks) is back "in a vocal capacity". Well, I'm sure he makes a mean omelette, but that's the part of him we wanted - so grand. Read on for more details, plus the exciting reveal trailer.



As you can see, Transistor's isometric combat looks pretty similar to Bastion's, so fans of whacking gasfellas with a giant hammer should be well catered for. This game's set in a new world, with a new protagonist: a currently unnamed woman wielding a massive sword. However, it's a massive sword with a shady past - aren't they always? Here's the lowdown, from that Supergiant post:

"In Transistor, players assume the role of a young woman who gains control of a powerful weapon after a mysterious group of assailants nearly kills her with it. Now she must fight from street to street against forces that will stop at nothing to recover the weapon. During the course of the adventure, players will piece together the Transistor’s mysteries as they pursue its former owners." I bet the sword used to be a dagger, or something.

Transistor will be playable at PAX East in Boston this week, if you happen to be going, so we'll see and hear more of the game very soon.

The Humble Bundle has evolved. No, not into a Wartortle - the charitable pay-what-you-want initiative is set to get humbler and bundlier and even more regular with the announcement of The Humble Weekly Sale, which will offer a new game for your consideration every Tuesday. The first deal goes live now, with the wonderful Bastion. As ever you can pay what you want for a DRM-free copy of the game (on Windows, Mac and Linux), though a donation of $1 or more will also get you a Steam key. If you beat the average you'll get extra digital content; spend $25 or more and you'll get physical merch thrown in too, including an actual Bastion bandana. Just the thing for when you wake up in a world of floating islands, with Logan Cunningham narrating everything you do.

Here's the full list of additional gubbins. Pay over the average to unlock:

Bastion Digital Soundtrack (MP3/FLAC)
Exclusive Bastion Digital Art Pack, featuring never-before-seen artwork
Bastion Sheet Music
Bastion iPhone/Android Ringtones

While $25 or more will also get you:

Bastion Original Soundtrack CD
A real Bastion bandana
A Bastion postcard
A postcard for Supergiant’s newly-announced next game, Transistor!

As usual, you can choose how much of your money you want to give to the devs or to charity - the charities in this case being the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play.

Oh and here's what Bastion looks like, in case you've forgotten somehow:

This week's best deals  ►  Borderlands 2, Saints Row: The Third, and more
Amazon has 10% off Borderlands 2 - it's not a lot, but it did just release - and a more substantial 40% off The Walking Dead. Meanwhile, Saints Row: The Third is 66% off on Steam and free to play this weekend, the Tribes: Ascend Starter Pack is only $7.49 at GameStop, and Green Man Gaming continues to give out 25% off vouchers (it matches Amazon's Borderlands 2 deal, too).


10% off Borderlands 2 at Amazon - $53.99
40% off The Walking Dead at Amazon - $14.99
75% off Tribes: Ascend Starter Pack at GameStop - $7.49
66% off Killing Floor Bundle on Steam - $10.19
66% off Saints Row: The Third on Steam - $13.59
75% off Bastion at GameFly - $3.75
25% off a PC download at Green Man Gaming with voucher code: GMG20-27J4Z-8NXHO



Steam  ►  Saints Row: The Third, Red Orchestra 2, Killing Floor
Saints Row: The Third is 66% off and free to play this weekend. Killing Floor and Red Orchestra 2 also get the double-six treatment, and Sniper Elite V2 is 50% off.


66% off Saints Row: The Third - $13.59
66% off Killing Floor Bundle - $10.19
66% off Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad - GOTY - $6.79
50% off Sniper Elite V2 - $24.99
75% off Kung Fu Strike - The Warrior's Rise - $2.49
More Steam deals



Amazon  ►  Borderlands 2, The Walking Dead
Amazon was a little disappointing last week, but this week it has 10% off the just-released Borderlands 2 and 40% off The Walking Dead. The other sales have carried over from previous weeks, and some have been around for ages. Someone at Amazon really wants you to play Mount & Blade.


10% off Borderlands 2 - $53.99
40% off The Walking Dead - $14.99
50% off Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X 2 - $9.99
50% off Deus Ex: Human Revolution - $14.99
60% off Mount & Blade - $6.03
More Amazon PC game downloads


Green Man Gaming   ►  25% off voucher, Borderlands 2

Use the voucher code GMG20-27J4Z-8NXHO to receive 25% off a digital download by Tuesday September 25th at 4 a.m. PDT. By the way, Arma II: Combined Ops was recently added to GMG's catalog, so there's an idea. Plus, there's all the deals below:


10% off Borderlands 2 - $53.99
60% off Duke Nukem Forever - $7.99
60% off Mafia - $5.98
75% off Mafia II - $7.49
75% off Sid Meier's Civilization V - $7.49
60% off Borderlands - $7.99
60% off BioShock - $7.99
75% off BioShock 2 - $4.99
More GMG deals


Get Games  ►  Guild Wars 2, Sleeping Dogs
You can still get Sleeping Dogs for 25% off and Borderlands for 50% off. Guild Wars 2, however, is down from 25% to 15% off, and still only for European customers. Sad face.


15% off Guild Wars 2 - $46.75 (Europe only)
15% off Guild Wars 2: Digital Deluxe Edition - $63.75 (Europe only)
25% off Sleeping Dogs - $37.49
50% off Borderlands - $9.99
More deals from Get Games


GameStop   ►   Tribes: Ascend, Arma II
GameStop has 75% off the Tribes: Ascend Starter Pack. That's a pretty good deal - it includes all classes, permanent VIP status (50% XP bonus), 800 Gold, a 30 day XP booster, and some gear and perks. Compare that to $10 for 800 Gold (and nothing else) from Hi-Rez's store.


75% off Tribes: Ascend Starter Pack - $7.49
20% off ARMA II - $15.99
50% off Resident Evil 5 - $9.99
14% off War of the Roses - House of York Deluxe Edition - $29.99
20% off Sleeping Dogs - $39.99 (Cheaper above)
More GameStop deals


GOG  ►  Atari All-Stars
GOG is selling a selection of Atari games at 60% off this weekend. I would list them all here, but it turns out Atari published a lot of games.

GamersGate  ►  Same deals, different day

Some of last week's deals, like BioShock at 50% off, are gone, but those that remain look to be the same as always - mostly tons of Paradox games. Let me know if I missed anything crazy big.

GameFly   ►  Bastion 'n Batman
Bastion is a damn neat game, and it's currently only $3.75 at GameFly.

75% off Bastion - $3.75
75% off F.E.A.R. 3 - $4.99
20% off Batman: Arkham City GOTY - $23.99
75% off Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY - $4.99
50% off Resident Evil 5 - $9.99
More GameFly deals


Let us know in the comments if you find any more great deals!

Disclaimer: We offer no guarantees regarding the validity of these sales, their restrictions, or the quality of service provided by these distributors. We cannot vet every deal: we only list what we see advertised at the time of writing. Buy at your own risk!

It took us a while to figure out what sort of panel we wanted to put on at PAX. We knew we wanted to do more than a live version of our podcast (we do that every week)! We settled on storytelling as a topic because it's a particularly interesting moment in gaming for stories and storytellers. BioWare released the first fully-voiced MMO, and it responded to fan feedback about Mass Effect 3. "Choice" as a concept is leaking into every genre it can. Story generators like DayZ are innovating with systems rather than scriptwriting. But wait—conventional storytellers like Telltale are finding novel ways of humanizing characters.

To solve all of these creative quagmires in a mere hour, we called in some developers:

Sean Vanaman - Creative Lead, The Walking Dead
Jake Solomon - Lead Designer, XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Greg Kasavin - Creative Director, Supergiant Games
Markus "Notch" Persson - Creator, Minecraft, Founder of Mojang
Dean "Rocket" Hall - Creator, DayZ

http://youtu.be/Qkr_xYRG6bo

Watch the full hour conversation above. Thanks to everyone who came, and to our gallery of sages. Here are more photos from the panel, too.

Join us live at PAX Prime in Seattle today for the PC Gamer Megapanel, featuring a discussion on "The Incredible, Uncertain Future of Storytelling" with the super-creative minds of Jake Solomon (XCOM: Enemy Unknown), Dean "Rocket" Hall (DayZ), Greg Kasavin (Bastion), Sean Vanaman (The Walking Dead), and Markus "Notch" Persson (Minecraft).

The panel starts at 2:30 pm PDT (4:30 CDT, 5:30 EDT, 9:30 GMT) - if you're at PAX, come see it at the Kraken Theater, but if not: don't worry! You can watch it all live on the official PAX livestream above.

If you're going to this year's PAX in Seattle, Washington, then we'd love for you to join us on Friday for an unprecedented gathering of PC gaming's finest developers and storytellers at the The PC Gamer Megapanel: The Incredible, Uncertain Future of Storytelling!

From the earliest days of text adventures and multi-user dungeons to today's MMORPGs, open-world and sandbox games, PC gaming has a rich and decades-long history of amazing narratives whose influence is felt and embedded throughout our culture. But developers continue to explore new ways of telling stories and creating experiences for gamers--and that includes making games that allow us to create our own stories.

So we're bringing together the developers behind the some of the most memorable experiences on the PC to talk about the challenges of building narratives in games, and to explore the future of storytelling on the PC. Is it in branching storylines that adapt to player choice? Is it in player-generated experiences? What ideas are they toying with now that will show up in our games tomorrow? We'll have Dean "Rocket" Hall, Greg Kasavin, Sean Vanaman, Jake Solomon, and Notch on hand to help us figure it out.

Find out at the Kraken Theater @ 2:30 this Friday at PAX! You'll not only hear about the future of storytelling from the developers who are creating it, but you'll also be able to meet the PC Gamer team and hundreds of other PC gaming fans.

Ooh, and everyone at the panel gets a free bag of loot with beta keys, codes for in-game items, stickers, buttons, posters, food, and more! And a few lucky PC gamers chosen at random at the end of the show will receive even more loot, including a MechWarrior Online Legendary Founder's Package!

But if you can't make it to PAX, don't sweat it: TwitchTV will be livestreaming our panel. We'll share a link to where the livestream will be located here (and on our Twitter and Facebook pages) as soon as we have a URL.

Innovative platformer Braid, differently innovative platformer Super Meat Boy and horror adventure game Lone Survivor have been added to the already immensely successful Humble Bundle 5. Anyone who's already bought the bundle will be able to grab the new games gratis. If you haven't already bought the bundle (WHY???), you'll need to splash out more than the average (currently $7.87) to get the three games included.

The latest Humble Bundle has been the best yet, packing Bastion, Limbo, Amnesia, Psychonauts and Superbrothers into one tidy and cheap virtual box. Now it's hard to know how it could be any more awesome, unless it added Half-Life 3 to the roster. We're also not sure how any future bundle can stand a hope in hell against its sheer blinding awesomeness.