War Thunder: Ground Forces expansion moves its tanks into open beta

War Thunder was already pretty war-y, what with its battling sky-tanks. Or “planes”. Now, though, it’s even war-ier, thanks to a new update that introduces ground-tanks. Or “tanks”. The long-teased Ground Forces expansion has been released into open beta, giving a new altitude for players of the free-to-play combat game to fight across. Naturally, the launch trailer features lots of angry metal boxes rolling across some fields.

To add tanks to your ‘hanger’ (read: tank shed), go to the Research menu’s Army tab and buy them in the usual way.

You can see the full patch notes for update 1.41 below.

• Ground forces are now available for all players in open beta test (Ground Forces progress achieved by players in the CBT will be wiped);
• New planes, which include the MiG-3 armed with cannons, the I-185 reference model, navy version of the B-25 – the PBJ-1 in two modifications and two new jet-powered Me-262 in the German tree,
• Griffon powered Spitfire fighters for Britain;

• Cockpit for all versions of the Ki-45 heavy fighter;
• Optimization of shadows and update of visual effects;
• Updated ammunition and ballistics.

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Sir, You Are Being Hunted review

Sir, You Are Being Hunted is like being hooked up to an Earl Grey drip and bludgeoned with crumpets. It’s a tut at the weather. It’s a framed picture of the Queen. It’s a pissed old regular at the village pub. The developers call it ‘tweedpunk’. I call it ‘very British’. It’s to the UK what the Fallout games are to the US, and it has an utterly unique visual language.

A stealth game at heart, you’ll forage through spectral swathes of British countryside for mysterious fragments and bring them to a shrine. Badass robotic gentry with tweed jackets and flat caps stand in your way. Such open parameters should leave ample room for experimentation, the perfect structure in which to house a whirring, spluttering anecdote generator, but developers Big Robot don’t use the space interestingly enough.

This space comes in five randomly generated varieties: castle, industrial, rural, mountainous, and fenland, each sailed to by boat. Traversing these gloomy isles, as you can imagine if you’ve ever actually walked through a field, isn’t very exciting. Endless wandering is sometimes enhanced by a stunning sight – pink sunlight streaming through gnarled branches, a family of factories belching out thick grey smoke, flocks of crows passing before a forlorn moon, dull lamplight seeping from an old farmhouse – but mostly it’s thorny hedgerows, dead grass and industrial ruin. Hey, at least it captures the misery of Britain, then.

But a Dear Esther-ish hiking simulator this ain’t. Remember, sir, you’re being hunted. It starts slow, with three or four hunters to dodge. They roam the land in small groups packing slow-firing shotguns. Soon, however, more powerful foes visit – bog creatures, robot attack dogs, headless riders on hover horses, teleporting scarecrows who can only be vanquished by staring into their glowing eyes and walking towards them. Despite this upwards curve, threat levels generally stay the same because you’re always looting beefier weapons. As opponents improve, so do you.

Outfoxing the AI is fun at first. In one encounter I litter the road with bear traps, then toot a trombone to bait the gentlemen machines. In another, I throw bottles to kite them down an alley then chuck in dynamite. Then I light my pipe and get dizzy drunk on stout because shut up you don’t know me. As a sort of thickety sandbox in which you combine items and outwit AI, however, Sir is limited because weapons aren’t interesting enough. There are four firearms, a hatchet, bear trap and dynamite, and I soon ran out of ways to combine them.

You can only save at shrines, so one wrong move can wipe clean 20 minutes of progress. This is a dynamic stealth experience in which randomised enemies and locations are designed to keep players on their feet, but there’s too much unpredictability, too many variables. Take the sporadic enemy patrol routes. At one point in some sombre Victorian village I was trailing a posse of robots on the opposite bank of a winding river, sure they were leaving, when without warning one spun around and spotted me, alerting his gang. I thought robot brains were meant to be logical, not liberal.

Crouching behind a wall or barrel provides sanctuary, but on the downside you’re, well, looking at a wall or barrel. While there are welcome stealth aids – a meter to show how visible you are, a lean button, and robots with bright red laser eyes to designate their sightlines – the best technique always boils down to crawling through grass like a tortoise, and this makes for a slow, slow game.

The act of scavenging isn’t enjoyable, either. Because you can’t enter houses, you’ll simply walk up to the door and hit F, treating it as less like accommodation and more like one big crate. In a game all about atmosphere, these churches, sheds, barns and factories sit like inert Lego blocks on the landscape. They don’t feel functionally attuned to the world.

Survival elements, meanwhile, are an intrusion. If you don’t eat pies and cheese to keep your vitality up, you’ll drop dead. You can catch rabbits and cook them by igniting log piles with matches, adding a nice degree of crafting into proceedings, but levels don’t invite you to live in them, to carve out an existence. This is a game in which you’re perpetually trespassing on some angry farmer’s land. You need to get in, find your magical macguffins, and get out.

Gags manage to mask some of Sir’s flaws. Item descriptions raise a smile: the hatchet is “good for splitting logarithms,” while one village sign darkly advises us to “D i e Slowly.” Then there’s the title screen option to change the game’s name to Madam, You Are Being Hunted in the name of equality. Indeed, along with the darkly designed world, humour is Sir’s biggest draw, from the imaginative assortment of dapper robots to the fact you can actually eat marmalade and drink flasks of tea – surely a videogame first.

But Sir needed more than a strong cuppa. It needed more items, more ways to experiment with enemies, and more to ease often unforgiving stealth.

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Elite: Dangerous reaches final alpha phase, adding impossibly cool hyperspace jumps

Okay, look, I’ve got a confession to make. We will get to all the newsy stuff about how Elite: Dangerous is entering a new alpha phase, thus bridging another of the many gaps between its inception and public release. But that’s not really why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because of an excellent video that’s surfaced showing the game’s new hyperspace jumps. Let’s ditch this paragraph of boring text, and get to the exciting space stuff…

(The exciting space stuff starts around 40 seconds in.)

!!!

When I eventually get my hands on both this game and the consumer model of the Oculus Rift, I will never be seen again.

Anyway, the news. Alpha 4 is set across a 200 cubic light-year volume containing five star systems, all centred around the Boötes constellation.

“They include spectacular sights such as an unusual quaternary star system and ringed gas giants, and are part of contested space between the Federation and Independent systems,” explains a press release sent out by Frontier. “Additionally IP 98-132 is an anarchy which is rife with pirate activity.” I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think some of this might be fictional.

In addition to hyperspace jumps, ships can now also super-cruse for accelerated travel within systems. Having not played the game, I cannot confirm whether or not you activate super-cruising by leaning one arm out of your ship’s window.

This is now Elite: Dangerous’s last alpha phase. As of May 30th, the game will move into beta.

TL;DR: Space! Fuck, yeah!

(Thanks to Reddit for the video)

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Asus Republic of Gamers Maximus VII Hero motherboard review

Surely it follows that with a new chipset should come new chips, right? And with Intel’s latest motherboard chipset, the Z97, having just launched promising support for both the Devil’s Canyon Haswell CPU updates and the next-gen Broadwell die-shrink, it’s hugely disappointing not to be sat here extolling the virtues of some fine new processors too.

But what can the new Z97 chipset offer in this first Republic of Gamers Maximus VII Hero board from Asus? Well, to be fair to them quite a lot, but very little of it is actually related to Intel’s latest chipset. Right now these Z97 boards are going to live or die by their feature sets, and in typical RoG fashion Asus has thrown not just the kitchen sink, but an entire Magnet showroom at the Hero.

What the new chipset offers over and above the previous Z87 is the ability to run the incoming Devil’s Canyon Haswell chips as well as provide compatibility for Broadwell processors some time next year. The other big ticket item is that it also provides some PCIe lanes for the new M.2 format of PCIe-based SSDs.

That could be big news as the new M.2 drives are going to be all the rage in the mobile sphere, and the prospect being able to plug the same speedy boards of Flash into our mobos for lightning boot drives is tantalising. The promise is that with a pair of PCIe lanes they should be able to deliver up to 1GB/s performance, topping the 600MB/s maximum SATA can offer at the moment.

The new M.2 interface will offer super-speedy SSDs…in the future

Unfortunately the only M.2 drives around at the moment are still based on the SATA spec and so can’t live up to their M.2 billing. That means we’re still waiting for any hardware to make the Z97 chipset’s two new features in any way relevant.

But this RoG Maximus VII Hero can offer much, much more. Most of it is aimed directly at gamers. Where to start? Well, there’s the new SupremeFX onboard sound card, offering physical shielding from the rest of the board to cut out the electro-hiss you can get through headphones, as well as a bunch of audiophile extras like high-end audio capacitors and a hefty software suite.

Another neat gaming addition is the Keybot microprocessor on the board. Simply plug your basic keyboard into the specific USB port and through the Keybot utility you can assign whatever macros you want to any of the function keys on your board. You can also set up some function keys to wake your machine up with different overclocking profiles should you so wish.

But what about performance? Sadly that seems to have little relation to the motherboard these days. Either everyone’s mobos are just as good or the CPU and GPU have far more bearing over how well your system performs.

Overall there’s little performance difference between this Hero and the Z87 version. There’s no improvement in gaming performance or overclocking—i7 4770K is still locked at 4.7GHz as a maximum.

One seriously feature-rich motherboard, just waiting for some CPUs to do it justice

Considering that it’s the exact same price as the board it’s replacing it’s not really much of an issue, though £165 / $270 is still a lot of money for a mobo. It remains a great board though, with a beautiful, angular aesthetic and a seriously healthy feature set too.

If you’d been thinking about a Z87 board before, then you’d have to shift over to Z97. If you’re thinking of replacing a Z87 board, however, there’s little reason in any of them right now to make the change worthwhile. That may change when Devil’s Canyon finally breaks cover, but we’ll see come June.

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Transformers Universe interview: building new robots for a free-to-play universe

Why can’t the Autobots and Decepticons ever get along? Well, sadly they’re programmed to punch each other forever. That does make the Transformers setting a fitting one for a game about brutal, neverending war, however. It’s a slightly unexpected direction for Jagex, the creators of the relatively peaceful MMO, Runescape, so we caught up with vice president David Nicholson to ask him about building new bots and the challenges of capturing the magic of a much-loved series.

PC Gamer: What lessons have Jagex learned from the launch of RuneScape 3 in launching Transformers Universe?

David Nicholson: Well, to borrow an analogy from the music industry, Transformers Universe can be likened to a band’s second album following a hugely successful debut. One thing that we realised very early on is that we needed a new team to build this world we were envisioning. Jagex spent a lot of time attracting the right kind of talent in order to be able to build this brand new team that could craft and develop a fresh and exciting new IP. We obviously wanted to learn from our past experience, but we also wanted to ensure that the organisation was able to build on it and bring new ideas, and new ways of working, into the mix. So here we are, a few years later, and we’re almost at the point where we can share all the hard work, all the late nights, the lost weekends and all the team discussions with the players and the fans. And that is both immensely exciting and also very humbling.

PC Gamer: How have you found the fan response to the Transformers you’ve created for the game?

David Nicholson: (Laughs) Well, being able to design and implement our own Transformers could have been a double edged sword, especially when it comes to the fans and their respect and love for the Transformers brand. We’re really pleased, the fan response has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s obviously a huge honour, privilege and responsibility to introduce new characters into the Transformers universe. Throughout development we’ve worked very closely with Hasbro, sharing our initial thoughts and ideas, taking on board their feedback and working within the existing Transformers canon.

PC Gamer: Can you talk about the process of creating new Transformers, and why you felt it was important to generate new ones for the game?

David Nicholson: The actual task of introducing new characters starts with research. Hundreds of Transformers already exist across movies, TV shows and books, so we want to make sure we’re not overlapping with something that’s already in place. After that, it becomes a collaborative process between the creative team and the concept team as they start working up concepts, and develop initial thoughts on names biographies and back stories for the characters. It’s an exhilarating process. We’re really excited about the characters that we’ve created, and can’t wait for players to get their hands on them.

PC Gamer: Where did you take inspiration for the type of game Transformers Universe is?

David Nicholson: MMOs have been a growing genre for many years now and it’s been interesting to watch the transition from traditional MMORPGs through to MOBAs and on to war games like World of Tanks. We don’t like being pigeon-holed and feel that Transformers Universe, as a blend of strategic, tactical and collaborative game play is best described as a ‘multiplayer online tactical action’ game. There’s huge competition out there for people’s attention, from games, films, TV, books and more, and we think Transformers Universe can really stand out because not only is it Transformers, and millions of people around the world have grown up with this brand for 30 years, but we’ve got a game that, irrelevant of the brand attached to it, stands on its own merits. The game plays to many strengths. It offers players the chance to collect these great Transformers warriors and lead them into battle; it lets you go head to head against players from around the world; and it features game modes that suit your style of play. Ultimately, who doesn’t like huge robot warriors that can kick ass and who also have fantastic and growing back stories. It’s the perfect mechanical storm!

PC Gamer: Can you talk a bit about the background of the story and how that was created?

David Nicholson: We’ve been able to build on established lore and really take Transformers Universe off in a unique direction. Narrative will be an important part of Transformers Universe and the way gamers play it will impact on how the story develops. We’ve worked very hard with Hasbro on building out the storyline for Transformers Universe, and as part of that we’ve added award-winning music video and feature film director, Alex De Rakoff, to the team to help establish tone and narrative for the game too.

PC Gamer: What are your future plans for rolling out content?

David Nicholson: Obviously our current focus is on delivering a great product for launch. We are using the beta period to get feedback from real players and understand what’s working for people and what isn’t.

After that we’ll be more open about our future plans. We’ve got plans for content updates, significant narrative events that are really going to steer the story and a pipeline of numerous bots that players are going to meet post-launch. But, at the moment, the focus is all about the here and the now, and that means releasing a product that is worthy of the Transformers brand as well as being worthy of the fans loyalty and patience.

PC Gamer: How does the pricing structure work for the game?

David Nicholson: Transformers Universe will be free-to-play and content will not be gated by a subscription. If you’ve got the time then you’ll be able to get everything you want without spending a penny. We want players to experience the best of what we’re offering, while allowing those that are a little more time constrained the option of getting into the experience a little quicker.

PC Gamer: Are you hoping to pick up fans of the movies with the release coming this summer?

David Nicholson: Firstly, and I say this from the perspective of being a Transformers fan, it’s going to be a bumper summer for people like me! It’s completely serendipitous that the film and Transformers Universe are released within the same time frame. There is very little content or story overlap between the film and the game. That said, the fact that there is another movie hitting the screens at a similar time as Transformers Universe is being played, can only bode well for both the hardcore fans and the more casual observers. You can enjoy the movie experience and then come home, log on and continue the adventure in the comfort of your own home

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The week’s highs and lows in PC gaming

Every Friday the PC Gamer team turns around, bright eyes, and looks back at the best and the worst of the previous week…

THE HIGHS

Wes Fenlon: Playing and reviewing The Walking Dead: Season 2 Episode 3 was the highlight of my week. The episode wasn’t quite as strong as episode two, for me, which found a near-perfect balance between interesting conversations, character progression and hard choices. But I loved reviewing episode three because it left me with so much to think about. It really made me question player agency in story-driven games and the difficulty of balancing the player’s influence with the character’s own personality. I think Clementine is a little too reliable in episode three compared to the adults around her, but Telltale really nailed making every decision a labor of fear and uncertainty.

Phil Savage: Over the last few months, Gone Home’s Steve Gaynor has been talking to a selection of game designers, and releasing their conversations as a podcast. It’s called Tone Control, and it’s now completed its first ‘season’—with Gaynor taking a break as he works on The Fullbright Company’s next project. That makes it a great time to dip into the archive, which is well worth doing if you’re the sort of person who likes to spend hours listening to hot, intimate games chat. Which I am.

Notable interviewees include Tim Schafer, Clint Hocking, Ken Levine, Craig Hubbard and more. Also, former PCG writer Tom Francis—who isn’t a long-standing industry veteran, but did once buy me a whiskey, and so deserves a mention. Whoever Gaynor’s talking to, he uncovers some fascinating insights into game design and creation.

Tim Clark: The key art created to accompany the Far Cry 4 announcement is so—I dunno, let’s say startling—that, like Phil, I wasn’t even sure whether it was real or a particularly well-executed NeoGAF parody. Only a despotic junta leader of the most supreme self-confidence is able to rock that particular shade of purple.

What isn’t in doubt is how glad I am to have a new Far Cry on the way. The heavily trailed Himalyan setting should provide plenty of opportunity to expand on the ‘savage beauty’ vibe of the previous game, a shooter which has only grown in my admiration as more time has passed since I finished it. But here’s the key question: will there be a yeti hidden away in those foothills? And what is the monetary value of a yetiskin wallet? Asking for a friend.

Ben Griffin: There are three things I love in this world. The first is Dark Souls. The second is my reflection. And third is FIFA. But for the purposes of this bit, let’s just say third is The Sims (ordinarily it’s fifth, behind Christmas and the smell of cut grass). I’ve wasted my actual life playing the last three over the last 15 years, and yes before anyone points it out, I’m bitterly aware of the irony.

The trailer shows off the revamped character creator which does away with clunky menus, a range of body shapes from slim and ripped to morbidly obese and depressed, and a feature that lets you finetune wrinkles. Unlike last time around, it’s now possible to create someone without giving them a great honking moon face, and that’s what I’m most excited about. Now I can make my Sim as appealing as me. Also, it’s not always online like SimCity was, so you might even get to play it at launch!

Tyler Wilde: I’m really happy to see player communities band together to keep old multiplayer games going, as they have with the Battlefield series. I could wag my finger at EA for not fighting to keep its old games running post-GameSpy shutdown, but that’s a dead end—our effort is better spent praising the players who are knocking down barriers to keep playing the games they love.

Chris Thursten: Dota events always feel like Christmas, but The International is something else. Super Christmas? Let’s go with ‘Super Christmas’. The Compendium—the in-game betting book that helps to crowdfund the tournament’s prize pool—is the best expression of what Valve are trying to do with the game. It’s been great to watch the community take ownership of Dota as an e-sport, whether that’s finding more inventive ways to present the qualifier games or inflating the prize pool north of $5 million. As much as I’d like to see that prize pool distributed more evenly, that’s a small gripe with an otherwise-great system.

I’ve also enjoyed watching North American Rejects stampede through the American qualifiers. If you’re one of the people on reddit who questioned my praise for the quality of play in that tournament this week, well, it was NAR I was referring to. The US has always struggled to pull together a team capable of living up to the hometown support they get at The International, and between EG and NAR this might just be the year where those chants of ‘USA!’ ‘USA!’ get heard outside of the lower bracket.

Read on for our lows of the week…

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Telltale Confirms PS4, Xbox Versions Of The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us

After appearing mysterious appearances on retailer websites, Telltale Games has confirmed that it will release its titles on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The Wolf Among Us and both seasons of The Walking Dead will be arriving on new-gen hardware later this year.

Additionally, The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us will be arriving at retail for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4. You’ll probably need to wait until after the seasons are complete for digital play before they show up on shelves, though. For more, check out our most recent reviews of The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead Season 2.

[Source: Telltale]

 

Our Take
This news signals that Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones will be on Xbox One and PS4, also. Whether that’s simultaneously with other platforms (or if Telltale will even deliver future games on Xbox 360 and PS3) is yet unknown.

Sunset Overdrive's Exploding Teddy Bears & Vinyl Records

Insomniac is known for creating cool weapons in its games, and the latest episode of Sunset TV goes over two of them: High Fidelity and TNTeddy.

High Fidelity shoots out explosive records that ricochet everywhere and produce more damage, and the TNTeddy shots out explosive teddy bear's with a large blast radius.

The latest episode also answers some fans' questions about single- and multiplayer, as well as melee combos.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

For the first episode of Sunset TV, check out our previous preview.

Sunset Overdrive is out for the Xbox One this year.

Does The Public Know Who Develops Call of Duty?

With our June cover story on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, we introduced you to the new primary developer for the Call of Duty series Sledgehammer Games. With the expanding roster of studios and new three-year development cycle between Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and Sledgehammer Games, we started to wonder if the average Call of Duty player would recognize the names of the developers. To close things out for our month of coverage, we roped in Game Informer's Ben Reeves to hit the streets of Minneapolis to talk to the public about the Call of Duty series and how much they know about game development. If you like this sort of thing, feel free to check out our previous man-on-the-street videos on the Wii U and the Xbox One versus the PlayStation 4.

Watch the video below to learn whether the tiny sliver of the public that is familiar with Call of Duty knows where the games come from.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

To learn more about what Sledgehammer Games is bringing to the table with Advanced Warfare, click on the banner below to enter our exclusive content hub.

To check out our breakdown of the debut trailer, head here. You can also follow our Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare updates and other stories by following Game Informer on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.

Re-Enter The Metro With Three Redux Screenshots

Last week, Deep Silver revealed the extensive remake of 4A Games' Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. The titles, which will be available separately via digital delivery or in a retail bundle, are more than a visual touch-up.

As we mentioned last week, the Redux titles form a more cohesive experience. Both now feature game modes that allow players to take a more survival oriented path or one that is more action-focused. Mechanics, like the mask wipe from Last Light have been implemented in 2033.

You can see the announcement trailer here. Metro Redux (and the titles individually) will be out this summer for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

Disney Infinity 2.0 Gets Brave And Baleful With Merida And Maleficent

Two new characters have been announced for Disney Infinity 2.0. The game, which is largely focused on Marvel Super Heroes, won’t be leaving its pure Disney roots behind.

In addition to Marvel’s most iconic stars, classic characters from the Disney universe will get some action in the Toy Box. The two latest to join the party are Merida from Brave and Maleficent. The latter is modeled after Angelina Jolie as she appears in the upcoming film carrying the witch’s name.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

These will be featured in the game similarly to the Frozen characters in the original. There won’t be any specific adventures, but you’ll be able to use them and level them up in the Toy Box.

For more on Disney Infinity, check out information from the reveal. You can also read a follow-up interview with members of the development team and Marvel’s Brian Michael Bendis. Disney Infinity Marvel Super Heroes will be out this fall for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC, and iOS. 

Atelier Rorona Plus Trailer Turns Lead Into New Visuals

For the remake of Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland, developer Gust is introducing new party members, updated visuals, and a revamped battle system. New bosses, maps, and costumes are also promised.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Other improvements will be coming to item crafting and synthesis. In addition, you will be able to save and transfer save files from the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions.

Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland is set to release on June 24th on the PlayStation 3 and Vita. Be sure to check out our spotlight on Atelier if you would like to learn more about the series.

Games We Hope To See At E3 (But Probably Won’t)

As announcements ramp up next week, we’ll be doing lots of coverage on the games that are confirmed for E3, but this weekend we’re pausing for a moment to consider the games that probably won’t make the cut.  Some are in the works but further out, and others are just wishful thinking. In every case, we hope we’re wrong, but there’s good reason to believe that these longed-for projects won’t be among the titles seen at this year’s conference.

 

Borderlands 3

Astute observers have noticed that the next Borderlands game (The Pre-Sequel) is not only for last-gen consoles, but is also being developed by 2K Australia rather than Gearbox. So what about a full-on new-gen sequel to this insanely cooperative shooter? Vault hunters needn’t be too worried – we’d be amazed if publisher 2K wasn’t already looking into a true sequel in this lucrative series. However, if it exists, we’ve heard no word about it being at E3 2014. 

Dark Souls III

We expect a number of games to show up at E3 that borrow liberally from the Dark Souls formula, including the already announced Lords of the Fallen, as well as the rumored (and leaked) Project Beast. However, despite the recent success of Dark Souls II, we’re too close the most recent release to legitimately expect a sequel to the hardcore fantasy series.

The Elder Scrolls VI

With Bethesda’s focus on the recent release of Elder Scrolls Online and the upcoming release of the same game on consoles, the company would be crazy to start a new PR campaign for yet another Elder Scrolls game so soon. If this is a game in development, don’t expect to hear about it anytime soon. 

Fallout 4

Bethesda proved that the Fallout franchise still had plenty of life left in it when it took over the series for Fallout 3. Obsidian’s New Vegas continued the trend with another story-focused entry that had post-nuclear fans wandering the wasteland. There’s good reason to believe that Fallout 4 is on the way at some point, but we’ve had zero indications that it’s going to show up at this year’s show.

Half-Life 3

At this point, it’s almost an annual joke that we’ll be hearing some big piece of news about Valve’s mythical sequel in the Half-Life series. However, just as it’s been for years now, there is no reason to believe in any forward momentum on a new game in the series. It’s got to happen sometime, though. Right? 

Igarashi’s Castlevania-style game

The recent departure of Koji Igarashi from his long tenure at Konami perked the ears of Castlevania fans everywhere. The acclaimed developer immediately shifted gears to found his own independent studio, and publicly shared with the press his desire to return to making games like Castlevania. Unfortunately, as exciting as that potential is, his new team can’t be anywhere near far enough along to share game details publicly. But we can always dream. 

[Next Page: A Sony game we've been waiting to play for a long time likely won't make the show]

Weekend Warrior 05/30/2014

Now that Watch Dogs is finally in our hands, it looks like it will be taking up a good chunk of weekend time for many of us. Still, a few of us are still hanging back and finishing up some games on our backlogs which is never a bad thing. What are you guys playing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!

Mike Futter: This weekend, I’ll be exploring digital Chicago in Watch Dogs. While that will probably consume most of my weekend, I’ve still got one eye firmly set on Transistor. I’ve been holding off on starting it, and might just spend some time with it this weekend.

Kyle Hilliard: I finally beat Dark Souls II last night, which means I can move on to other things in my life, like cleaning the house and playing Watch Dogs. I also ordered Stephen Chow's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons on Blu-ray yesterday, so I am hoping to check it out this weekend.

Tim Turi: With Infamous Second Son completed, this weekend I’ll be continuing the blast Nazis in Wolfenstein. I also hope to make some more progress in Transistor. I’ll be on the road a bit, so I plan on playing some more of the charming Kero Blaster, a fun iOS side-scroller by the developers of Cave Story.

Daniel Tack: WildStar all weekend for me! Stormtalon Exile is where all the cool kids will be.

Jeff Marchiafava: After playing nothing but Watch Dogs for the week or so, I’m looking forward to heading back to Infamous Second Son and finally trying out Transistor. That and my least favorite game of all: Mow Jeff M’s Lawn. I’m really tired of the annual sequels in that series.

Ben Hanson: I'm really excited to check out the new State of Decay DLC that just came out, but I don't know if I'll have time. I also have been meaning to finish Transistor. Games are already starting to pile up and I haven't even had time to go back and play more Age of Mythology!

Wayne Stainrook: Although I still haven’t played all the way through Cave Story, I’m trying out Kero Blaster on iOS this weekend. And I might just be able to finish Fire Emblem: Awakening after nearly a year of playing on and off and move on to something new on 3DS (Kirby Triple Deluxe, perhaps?).

Dimitri Gedevanishvili: My biggest goal this weekend is to finally get started on Watch Dogs. I still haven’t opened the game yet since I bought it at launch so I hope I’ll have some time to delve into it. I also want to finally beat Vendrick in Dark Souls II, although after dying a dozen or so times I’m close to just giving up.

New Mexico Will Eventually Sell Off Found Copies Of E.T.

Atari couldn't profit from the historically terrible E.T. game, but maybe the state of New Mexico can. The city off Alamogordo, New Mexico plans to sell off the cartridges that were recently unearth from its landfill.

New Mexico's space museum is helping appraise and certify over 700 of the 1,300 copies of the classic Atarti 2600 title E.T., and will then prepare the games for sale. While some of the remaining games will be distributed to local museums, and given to the documentary team that helped dig them up.

"We have been working with the space museum for curation, both for
displaying and selling the games; they are now artifacts," Alamogordo
mayor Susie Galea recently told Polygon. "The City Commission acted on Tuesday to
give 100 of the games to (documentary production companies) Lightbox
and Fuel Entertainment. There are 700 that we can sell."

The city hasn't yet decided how much to sell the games for, or where video game historians will have to go to purchase a piece of history.

For more on the dig that uncovered the fabled cache of cartridges, head here. For more pictures from the event care of Microsoft, head here.

 

[Source: Polygon]

 

Our Take
It's interesting to see that games that once wouldn't sell at a discount might soon get put up for sale because of the massive legend that now surrounds them. I'll be interested to see how quickly they sell and how big a price tag a piece of trash fetches.

Reading Rainbow Could Be Headed To Gaming Consoles

"Butterfly in the sky. I can go twice as high. Take a look. It's on a video game console." Sure, the lyrics aren't catchy, but they could be accurate if LeVar Burton's Kickstarter raises more money.

LeVar Burton just can't let go. Despite the fact that Reading Rainbow ran for over 20 years, the esteemed actor has recently launched a Kickstarter to bring back the Peabody- and Emmy Award-winning children's television series about books. But, we can't blame him, the campaign has already been remarkably successful; as of press time the Kickstarter has raised over three times it's proposed $1 million, and the Kickstarter still has over a month to go. This money will help the organization provide reading software for free to 1,500 schools in need. However, stretch goals will help bring the new Reading Rainbow to unexplored territory.

"With $5 million, we can get to mobile, we can do Android, we can definitely do Xbox, we can do set-top boxes," Burton told backers in a recent video, "And we can get to at least 7,500 schools for free."

This sounds like a cool program, but you don't have to take my word for it. Check out the Kickstarter. It's not a game, but if none of us could read, there would be no games. I'm serious guys!

 

[Source: Kickstarter via Polygon]

 

Our Take
I have a lot of good memories of watching Reading Rainbow growing up, and if the Kickstarter reaches it's goal, I'll look forward to downloading my new Reading Rainbow app. I have some cats that need to learn their ABCs.

Here's A Bunch Of Hearthstone Facts

I've played the game for hours upon hours and I still didn't know that the prototype for Hearthstone was designed by a two man team inside Blizzard. You'd know more than I did if you watched this informational video.

The zany crew from Lore in a Minute! brings us another short video that features a bunch of cool facts about our favorite new digital card game.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Bat Outta Hell – The Batman Game You Didn’t Know Existed

Batman has risen to become one of the biggest properties in gaming, but the hero’s next big outing isn’t Rocksteady’s highly anticipated Arkham Knight; it’s a little-known title simply called Batman. However, this game is far from what you’d expect – it’s a car combat title that can only be played in arcades. How did the world’s most popular super hero end up racing into a market that many believe died decades ago? That’s a question befitting the world’s greatest detective.

Street Justice
Gotham’s lunatics are out in full force. Roving gangs led by villains such as The Joker, Bane, and Mr. Freeze have turned Gotham’s streets into a demolition derby. Thankfully, they’re not the only freaks on the road tonight – the Batmobile practically flies off a ramp and out of the Batcave, and within seconds Batman is battling the world’s worst thugs.

Scarecrow has scattered fear toxin across the city and Batman has to race around Gotham to disable his fearsome traps. Fortunately, a series of weapon upgrades and side-mounted machine guns have turned the Batmobile into a tank – a tank that drives like a sports car. Electronic Batarangs let Batman disable enemy vehicles, while sky drones grab cars and fling them off the road, and a battering ram upgrade turns the Batmobile itself into a bullet that smashes anything it touches off the road.

After Batman works his way through a series of missions scattered around the city, he comes face-to-face with the Clown Prince of Crime himself. The Joker has commandeered a freight train and strapped a nuke to it, and Batman has to take out the railcars to shorten the train before he can get to Joker and stop him from nuking the city.

Specular Interactive’s new Batman game features enough explosive action to fill a Call of Duty title, but retains a racy feel similar to EA’s Need For Speed series. Released last November, Specular says that it’s been the most successful arcade game in the last decade. And yet, many gamers haven’t heard of it. Specular’s Batman is an enigma worthy of the Riddler himself. So, how did such an unusual project come to fruition? Its foundations were laid decades ago in the garage of a young boy named Steven Ranck.

A lineup of all the Batmobiles in the game

Before The Bat
Steven Ranck always knew he wanted to make games. “I have very vivid memories of being 13 years old and making these electronic mechanical games as a hobby,” recalls Ranck. “I got such a thrill when my friends would come over and play the things I made. My first project was a Star Trek game, and then I made three Star Wars games. I knew right then that this was what I wanted to do with my life.”

Ranck got a degree in electronic engineering, and started working his way up the corporate ladder, eventually earning a position in upper management, but when a friend told him that Midway Games was hiring, he jumped at the chance to apply. Ranck had to take a 50-percent pay cut and endure a 70-minute commute to the office. On his first day on the job, Ranck was surprised to see that some of the ceiling tiles were falling down and he had to share a cubicle with another officemate. But none of that mattered; Ranck got to write software for video games. He was in love.

Throughout Ranck’s career, he worked on projects like an N64 port of Cruis'n USA and the arcade boat racing title Hydro Thunder, which made waves in the arcade scene. He eventually formed his own studio, Swingin' Ape Studios, which created Metal Arms: Glitch in the System for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 and concepted the never-released StarCraft: Ghost for Blizzard Entertainment. Ranck also made a lot of friends, including industry veteran Eugene Jarvis, the creator of classic arcade games such as Defender, Robotron: 2084, and the Cruis'n racing series.

Years later, Jarvis called Ranck and asked him if he wanted to quit his job and come make coin-op games for a living. Ranck’s reply was, “Isn’t the arcade dead?” Still, it didn’t take much convincing before Ranck formed Specular Interactive and began work on a spiritual sequel to Hydro Thunder, a game called H2Overdrive, which still sells to the arcade market even five years after its initial release. Next up was a monster truck-inspired car combat title called Dirty Drivin'.

After making two successful vehicle-based games for arcades, Specular was ready to embark on its most ambitious project to date. Given the studio’s history, the duo knew that they wanted to do another car combat game. They asked themselves, “What would be the ultimate car to drive?” That question didn’t take long to answer: the Batmobile.

WildStar Weekend Livestream

Suit up with Daniel Tack all weekend as he streams the new MMORPG WildStar! While the stream won’t be going 24 hrs, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to catch plenty of gameplay and dungeon crawling as Dan works through the early stages of the game and takes a deep dive into the latest MMO on the block.

The stream will be running throughout the weekend in solid 2-3 hour blocks, so stop by for a chance to win free digital deluxe early access copies of the game (Dan will be throwing out QUESTIONS!) and hang out! Let D-Tack know what you think of the game in chat! This post will get kicked to the top of the feed each time the stream goes live during the weekend.

Catch all the action here! http://www.twitch.tv/dansnax