PC Gamer

Saturday Crapshoot: Hellboy

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. And you know what this week is? It’s the long awaited 100th Crapshoot! (fires cheap party streamer in air, eats single celebratory biscuit)

Yes, one hundred Crapshoots. One hundred Saturdays filled with far, far too many words about insane horror, inexplicable edutainment, dreadful porn, random musical interludes, occasional light-hearted blasphemy, and oh, so very, very much more. It’s the PC gaming column that spits on your “tl;dr”, and about which it has been said “How could anyone drone on so long about Bloodrayne 3?!”

Clearly, this is a very special occasion for fans of both decimals and arbitrary milestones. But how to mark it? How else? Let’s dive into one of the PC’s most infamous duds – the sucking abyss that is… Hellboy! Hmm. That might have been more dramatic if you hadn’t already seen the title.

Weekend Game Deals – August 17, 2012

One of my personal favorite games, DEFCON, is on sale for $1.99 at Green Man Gaming this week (spoiler: everybody dies). You have my word that it’s worth the price of, I don’t know, a Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell or something. If you’re in the market for something bigger and action-ey-er, however, Sleeping Dogs is 25% off at Get Games, Alan Wake is 75% off on Steam, and Arma II: Combined Operations is 30% off at GameFly. Much more inside!

The Witcher 2 mod tools looking for early adopters

At Gamescom this week, CD Projekt RED is unveiling REDkit, its suite of modding tools for The Witcher 2. The dev team is currently accepting applications for early access to the tools on the Witcher official site. Early access is targeted at established modders: you’ll be required to provide a short bio, an example of a mod you’ve made (which doesn’t have to be CD Projekt-related), and a website.

OnLive layoffs rumored, official comment states “the OnLive service is not shutting down”

According to game developer Brian Fargo, an employee of cloud gaming service OnLive e-mailed him this morning with news that “by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist,” and that its staff has been laid off. In response, OnLive Director of Corporate Communications Brian Jaquet told PC Gamer, “I have no comment on the news other than to say the OnLive service is not shutting down.”

Gamescom 2012 day three round-up

Gamescom 2012 is over. And I’m tired. My day has been packed with presentations, interviews, and lots of coffee. Scroll down to read the results of those things, and keep checking the site for more stories in the near future.

For the final time, James from CVG gathered Justin ‘two shoes’ Towell and to talk about our favourite moments. Click through to watch.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare marches onto Kickstarter

Personally, I find that the First Person Maiming People With Axes (FPMPwA) genre has been vastly under-served for too long. Luckily, games like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and War of the Roses are charging in to fill the gap. Torn Banner Studios, the guys behind Chivalry, have launched a Kickstarter to get their engine of war going.

Oculus Rift hands-on video: everything you’ve heard is true

The Oculus Rift is the most exciting peripheral I’ve ever used. This is the virtual reality headset I’ve been dreaming of since I was a little boy; true future tech that will redefine what it means to play games.

I got to demo it running Doom BFG at this year’s Gamescom. Even better, the kind chaps at Oculus let us film the wondrous thing in action, so you get to share in me looking silly but having a truly joyous gaming experience. Click through for the video.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria launch to unlock all races for all players

At the moment, if you want to fight evil as a Goblin or Worgen you need Cataclysm, and it seemed like pandas would only be for those willing to pay the fee to step through the Mists of Pandaria. But no. As of September 25th, any World of Warcraft player will be able to play as any of Azeroth’s races from the start – though not all of its classes – regardless of whether you’ve bought any expansions.

League of Legends dev on LoL vs. Dota 2: “we wanted to find ways to evolve that genre”

Owen’s had an interesting chat with League of Legends lead champion designer Ryann Scott about Riot’s character design philosophy, the reason their entire hero roster isn’t free, and the differences between League of Legends and Dota 2. “Dota 2 is really true to Dota 1, that’s a lot of the appeal. But we started from day one to say that’s not what we want to be, he said “we don’t want to be just like our predecessors, we wanted to find ways to evolve that genre.”