Rainbow Six Siege cheaters will now be permabanned on the first offense

Rainbow Six Siege cheaters and hackers, take note: Ubisoft has the game's code of conduct to allow for permanent bans of anyone who gets up to untoward shenanigans, even on the first offense.

The updated section of the codenow reads as follows: “Cheating / Modding / Hacking: Player is running a modified or otherwise unauthorized version of the game client or a third party software which provides any sort of unfair advantage (wallhacks, aimhacks…) or causing detriment to other players’ experience: Maximum penalty is permanent ban.”

The wording leaves the door open for Ubisoft to opt for some other, less harsh punishment in instances where it sees fit. But it seems to me like a fairly black-and-white situation: Either you're intentionally screwing around with the game, or you're not. As far as I know, you can't accidentally wallhack, and if you're improperly flagged for cheating and then later prove that it didn't happen, your punishment will be rescinded regardless of what it was. Right?

“The presence of cheating in the game is something we take very seriously, and is a priority on the development team,” Ubisoft wrote. “This update is one step among many that we are working on to better engage with the community on this issue.”

Ubi said it's currently testing other client-side anti-cheat options in addition to FairFight, and promised that one of them will be implemented in the future. It also encouraged players to continue reporting incidents of cheating, but reiterated that what sometimes appears to be cheating may just be a well-coordinated team effort, or a player who's just a whole lot better than you.

The PC Gaming Show returns to E3 on Monday June 13, featuring game announcements, updates to existing favourites, and conversation with top developers. You can find out what to expect here , and also book free tickets to attend in person at pcgamingshow.com . The PC Gaming Show will be broadcast live through twitch.tv/pcgamer from 11:30 am PT/2:30 pm ET/6:30 pm GMT, but be sure to tune in beforehand to check out The Steam Speedrun , in which one lucky winner will buy as many games as they can in three minutes.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

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Dots studio Playdots reaps $10M from Tencent and other investors

How Relic devs plan to "raise our game" for Dawn of War 3's campaign

Dawn of War 3 campaign lead Brent Disbrow says the team wants to “quite honestly raise our game” with the singleplayer campaign for Dawn of War 2.

Dawn of War 3 campaign lead Brent Disbrow says the team wants to “quite honestly raise our game” with the singleplayer campaign for Dawn of War 2. That's quite a claim from the studio that crafted Homeworld's story, and built some top class singleplayer missions such as Carentan Counterattack in Company of Heroes.

The studio has experimented with different singleplayer formats over the years, from the territorial system map of Soulstorm to more conventional linear campaigns. Dawn of War 3 will be different again, jumping from faction to faction with each mission as Space Marine, Eldar and Ork forces move to seize a powerful, nameless weapon.

“One thing that was really important to me and to Frank and other members of the team to show off the three factions quickly in the campaign rather than have the system where you play through like an entire act as one race and then an entire act as another race”, says game director Phillippe Boulle. “That's always fun except if you're the fan of the third race and then you feel that you have to wait for two-thirds of the campaign.”

“[Orks] field the most bodies of any of the armies on the field of battle. It's like a group of tazmanian devils from Looney Tunes.”

Campaign lead Brent Disbrow, Relic

The format serves a few other purposes. It provides a varied and lore-light introduction to the universe for newcomers, quickly communicating the personality and capability of each faction. The Space Marines are a heavily armoured phalanx that strikes from the sky with super weapons. The Eldar are, as Disbrow describes them, the “sword wind”—masters of hit and run tactics. The Orks are a “maniac horde” who overrun enemies with sheer numbers. “They field the most bodies of any of the armies on the field of battle,” says Disbrow. “It's like a group of tazmanian devils from Looney Tunes.”

The campaign structure allows each faction to grow in power as the conflict escalates. As the story moves on, new objectives and rules are introduced and new elite units unlock, adding tactical depth. These heroes are vital, bringing Dawn of War 2's character development and micro abilities to Dawn of War 3's busier battlefields. “We wanted to take the epic scale of Dawn of War 1, the large over-the-top battles, and inject into that the awesome heroes from Dawn of War 2, make them the centrepoint of that battle, but have the battle be as large as Dawn of War 1, and bigger still” says Boulle.

Dawn of War 3 moves away from Dawn of War 2's heavy reliance on wargear. Levelling heroes up will unlock new abilities, but each elite's role is carefully defined, as Boulle explains. “One of the things with a really deep equipment system is that you can move units, they become a little mushy—they can do a little bit of everything. Dawn of War 3 units are built to do specific things. You unlock the option to make them do those things in a slightly different way but Gabriel is still an up-close melee brawler tank and Soleria [the Imperial Knight] is always going to be a ranged powerhouse.”

Each army has three elite slots that you fill before each battle. One of those slots will almost always be occupied by the army's leading hero character—Blood Raven captain Gabriel Angelos, in the case of the Space Marines. The other two slots can house super units such as the Imperial Knight, elite squads, or other individual heroes.

“We're going to suggest what heroes you might take in on a given mission, but we're going to let the player choose as well” says Boulle. “If you don't really know what you're doing there's a suggested hero selection for this mission. If you do, but you want to try something else, there's room to do that so you can experiment. That gives you the opportunity to learn more of the elites.”

Relic suggests that there will be a wide variety of elites to choose from, for all three factions. Since Dawn of War 2, hero customisation and progression has been a key part of the series. We'll have to wait and see how Dawn of War 3's wide range of heroes plays, not just in the campaign, but in multiplayer too. That's where players' favourite hero combinations will be put to the ultimate test.

Rainbow Six Siege patch buffs Kapkan and Mute

Ubisoft is rolling out a new Rainbow Six Siege patch tomorrow, ushering in significant changes to two of the game's least popular operators.

patch tomorrow, ushering in significant changes to two of the game's least popular operators. Kapkan, the underused trip wire expert, can now place his laser at any height on a doorway or window, meaning he'll be significantly less useless than he has been in the past (unless you're defending against a reckless opponent).

Other small changes will be made to Kapkan's special ability, making it more attractive to defenders. "The Trip Wire laser now has reduced intensity making it harder to spot by attackers, and is slightly less audible when deployed," the patch notes explain.

Meanwhile, Mute's signal disruptor has a much larger range, moving from 1.5 metres to 2.25. "This range will let you jam larger areas around walls as well as reinforced ones, as well as making it almost impossible for drones to jump through," the patch notes read.

Patch 3.3 has a long list of bug fixes and tweaks as well, which you can read about in detail over here. The update will also make changes to team kill punishments in Ranked play, and renown boosters will offer even bigger renown increases.

Will there be any decent movie tie-ins this year?

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Red 5 shuts down Firefall PvP to 'rethink' its eSports approach

Kinect Star Wars review

Kinect Star Wars review It begins with space – about six by eight feet should cover it. This modest dimension of living area is all it takes to finally live out our fantasy: the first proper lightsabre game since we watched Star Wars in 1977. Except that’s not really true. For one we didn’t watch Star Wars until 1989 and secondly, Kinect Star Wars is a bit rubbish. To say this experience is new to

Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition is now available for $15

If you think Rainbow Six Siege looks cool—and if you don't, Shaun's excellent “ Why I Love ” column on the sweet stress of waiting may change your mind—but don't want to drop $50 just to give it a try, the new, PC-exclusive Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition might be just what you're after.

might be just what you're after. It's available now on Steamfor $15/£12, and includes all of the maps, modes, weapons, and other features from the standard edition, with no restrictions or time limits.

The only difference between the Starter and Standard Editions is in how the Operators are unlocked. The Starter Edition will include just two Operators instead of the usual 20, randomly chosen from a pool of six of the game's most “intuitive” for newcomers: Rook, Sledge, Ash, Fuze, Mute, and Smoke. Additional Operators can be unlocked for 12,500 renown each (a much higher rate than the Standard Edition) or purchased outright with a $35 R6 Credits bundle.

The Starter Edition also comes with 600 R6 Credits that can be used to unlock two more Operators of your choice (from the pool of six) or on other stuff if you prefer, and it works with the Rainbow Six Siege season pass, which gives access to eight post-release Operators that will be added over the course of the year.

So it's Rainbow Six Siege with fewer guys and more grinding, then, although if you'd like a more specific breakdown of what's what, a Starter Edition FAQ is available here. There is one other point to be aware of, however: Even though this seems like a pretty good idea to me, the Starter Edition will only be on sale from today until June 19.

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena – hands-on

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In-depth: The decision to un-publish Afro Samurai 2 and refund buyers

Last week it emerged that not only is publisher Versus Evil is cancelling further development of Afro Samurai 2 (a planned slate of new chapters has been axed) but is going so far as to yank the game down from the PlayStation Network and Steam, and to completely refund all customers who purchased the game.

The game has been labeled a "failure" by Versus Evil general manager Steve Escalante, who speaks to Gamasutra in further depth about the decision to pull the game and refund consumers, and why it makes sense for his company despite the cost.

Is Versus Evil refunding people who bought the game?

Yes. The refunds will be handled directly by the retailer that people bought their game from.

Is Versus Evil giving money back to external funders/investors? If so, who?

Versus Evil is the SOLE funder and investor. We paid for the entire development, marketing, testing and licensing of this project so we are very much aware of the financial impact of this decision.

For a small company like Versus Evil this means we are consciously deciding to make no money back on this game. But we are Versus Evil, which was set up to have relationships with our partners and developers that is transparent, friendly and mutually beneficial. Simply put this must extend to our customers, otherwise it’s just an empty ideal.

How can the company afford to do refund people?

The nature of a refund is you are giving customers their money back, however there are still other costs associated to this decision that will hit Versus Evil. Regardless of this, we are accepting of our losses and feel it’s the right thing to do.

Were very few copies purchased?

Given the game quality was not what people were expecting, it didn’t sell like hot cakes, let’s just put it like that. Fans still bought it despite the negative reviews from press and consumers and we are not the company that will simply say, “they bought it, they didn’t like it, that’s tough.” That’s not who Versus Evil is.

Have you figured out how Sony / Valve will facilitate these publisher-driven refunds?

Once Versus Evil decided to do this, we needed to understand exactly how this was to be done. We immediately began working with our partners on the best course of action. Some of this has already been put into action.  We will have a section on our website to explain to people how they can get their money returned.

Why’d Versus Evil believe it’d be worse to leave the game up, rather than pulling it down completely?

The nature of this business is that you will have good games and bad games released. Our goal as an indie publisher is to release quality games, even more specifically the games the developers want to create. Some of these are niche games that we know up front will only sell so many copies. That’s okay; we just need to go into it with that understanding.

There are some companies that will release tons of products in the hope and desire that one of them will “stick.” I would rather launch a handful of titles that we are proud of and can stand out amongst a very creative, very competitive indie development market. Despite best efforts, Afro Samurai did not meet the quality standards that we require, and as a result, we cannot in good conscience proceed with our planned future content releases. Leaving it up there just wasn’t part of this decision.

How Dark Souls 3 builds up its most villainous slime lord

“But what do you really know about these Lords of Cinder, these supposed legends?

“But what do you really know about these Lords of Cinder, these supposed legends? Let's take Aldrich, for one: a right and proper cleric, only he developed a habit of devouring men. He ate so many that he bloated like a drowned pig then softened into sludge. So they stuck him in the Cathedral of the Deep and made him a Lord of Cinder; not for virtue, but for might.”

Hawkwood, the lowly defeated Undead Legionnaire that hangs his head low in Firelink Shrine, gives the player one of the first detailed descriptions of Aldrich, Saint of the Deep and unwilling Lord of Cinder. The dialogue triggers in a timely fashion, around the time you’re progressing through the swampy lands below the bridge to Lothric and towards the Cathedral of the Deep. The line’s light context is enough to color the state of the world you progress through, and in turn, the sludgy descent of Aldrich as a character—all without uttering another word. (Unless you count the tortured groans of the poor folks left in a Aldrich’s wake.)

Dark Souls 3 kicks off in pursuit of him—Aldrich bailed when called upon to link the fire. In other words, he’s meant to burn to prevent the apocalypse. Pay close attention and it’s easy enough to get the sense that he wasn’t exactly the saint his moniker ascribes—same goes for his affiliated religious institutions. It may not be possible to determine exactly who he is, but turning an open ear to the creatures and environments Aldrich has altered is enough to fill out his character in a few ways. I’m no lore aficionado, so look at this piece as a close reading of Dark Souls 3 and its power as a dense impressionist game—not as the final word on our slimey man.

Moby trick

The first aural indication to mark my descent was easy to miss at first, but now it stands as my favorite bit of atmosphere that reminded me where I was going and who I was after. Listen closely:

It’s a heavily forested area underscored by subtle, deep sea ambience. The white noise of wind through the trees dominates, lightly punctuated by the low hum of whales. There are plenty of connotations to unpack here: whales used to be viewed as creatures as old as the world itself, a sign of sentience and knowledge impossible for man to parse, and the ocean as a primitive bed of mystery and darkness, a place no human can naturally call home. Seeing that we’re headed to the Cathedral of the Deep, I’m starting to doubt that the ‘deep’ can be a good thing.

The oceanic sounds run opposite to what I’d expect to hear in a forest, and as my brain tries to conflate signs from two entirely different settings, I get uneasy, tense. Aldrich echoes the paradox: based on the opening cinematic, he resembles a massive glob of sea scum, algae you’d scrape off the underside of a boulder on the ocean floor. But he’s also supposedly sentient, a formerly respectable top dog in a local religious institution. I’m immediately set up to expect the impossible, but not necessarily anything too dark. Forest and ocean ambience suggest elegance (maybe a pre-goo slash cannibalism Aldrich) even though their combination is dissonant.

Narrative chunks

Deep in the forest, skinny cadavers lazily trudge around a cathedral graveyard where Aldrich was holed up. If I get too close and they discharge (not ceaselessly) a hefty amount of vomit, the ingredients of which look like maggots and milk, a brand of cereal I can’t quite get behind.

Dozens of these enemies dot this area, and even though they’re easy to avoid, running past triggers puking for most of them, kicking off a cascade of vomitry that puts Mr. Creosoteto shame. It’s more overtly gross than anything I can recall from the previous games, but still serves to characterize the gluttonous goo man we’re after. Every retch is an upsetting hybrid of a froggy croak and what sounds like a toilet flipping over, the exaggerated sound carrying connotations of overeating, sickness, and possibly trauma on a massive scale. I wonder if they died from this sickness and were buried in the cathedral graveyard in droves, or if the sickness is what caused them to rise from the dead. For there to be a graveyard in the open and not some guarded pit implies that this puking-slash-rising dead deal wasn’t always a problem, and perhaps Aldrich’s presence and transformation touched a certain dark magic—the deep—that ran wild and started to seep further out from the cathedral over time. Why should a church even need such a huge graveyard? What Aldrich did to cause such a sickness is uncertain, but our bellies are definitely meant to ache in gurgled harmony with the infected denizens affected by his presence.

Aldrich was a known hungry boy, so maybe these walking corpses are failed acolytes, like the rotten apple counterparts to the fresh grub men I run into next.

Wet and wild

It may sound like I was dancing around in ankle high water during this fight, but it took place on a stone surface inside a cathedral. Liquid sloshes around inside of the six or so maggot slug humans I’m fighting. Every hit is like taking a butcher knife to a pile of rotting watermelons. They emit vaguely human gargles as they die, and I emit vaguely human gargles in response. It’s unpleasant, in large thanks to the sound.

The resolute wetness echoes the earlier oceanic connotations.  Looking like grubs is one thing, but because they move with such pronounced sloshy sounds, it’s suggested that these maggot men are fairly sumptuous and juicy, perhaps disillusioned members of Aldrich’s church that have a side gig in his snack drawer. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. A religious institution might hold a lot of influence over its desperate clergy during the very real end times. Aldrich wanted to stay on top, to stay strong, so he turned the process of plumbing up and eating his bros into an honorary religious rite—even after he was gooified and scooped up and locked in his coffin. I get the impression his connection to dark magicks was strong enough to penetrate his prison and that he ran the place from the inside.

Rosaria, a vaguely woman-shaped pile of flesh and leader of the Fingers of Rosaria invasion covenant, seems to be head chef. The grub men hang out almost exclusively outside her chamber door, and upon completing a sidequest for her, she silently rewards you with a grub man of your own—to kill. Do the thing, and you’re rewarded with loot. There’s no doubt these juicy boys are disposable, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Aldrich ‘disposed’ of them regularly.

Hollow there

Eventually, I stumble into Aldrich’s coffin-chamber, where he’s supposed to be imprisoned until someone like myself rolls in, ready to reduce the guy to ash and prevent the apocalypse. I’m greeted by about two-dozen deacons with glowing red eyes, a boss fight foreshadowed by a prominent tableau located next to the first cathedral bonfire.

The deacons appear undead in the present, a hollowed remnant of their former selves and less capable of reason (a fairly obvious side effect of the undead curse), but what struck me about the tableau after revisiting it was that the deacons are depicted as undead in it as well. This implies that the church embraced the deep—eldritch (Aldrich) knowledge—from the get-go. The institutions set in place maybe have been constructed to build harmony around the mysticism of the deep’s power, but once Aldrich arrived and grew in strength, it’s clear from the devastation of the environments that all those plans have gone to shit. The deep’s on the loose.

This further solidifies my belief that Aldrich was never actually held against his will after his transformation into sludge, but continued to rule the church, amplify its connection with the deep (a dark abyssal realm, I imagine), and use the churchgoers as a steady resupply station for food and power until he was ready to take off in search of a larger powers and entities to consume. Aldrich wasn’t just begrudgingly hiding in wait until the Ashen One swung by to take him to Firelink Shrine, but was actually preparing to subvert the fire-linking process entirely by embracing the deep, the darker plane, and possibly becoming ruler of it altogether. He’s not just a pile of sludge; Aldrich is a desperate, egotistic, cruel man on the run. He’s one of the most obvious, influential, and nuanced villains in the Dark Souls series.

Exactly how he obtained that influence, who knows? Maybe he was cunning and charming, easy to trust. Perhaps he subsumed all these people and grown in size and power, literally a massive katamari of ooze tearing through the land. We could’ve just encountered Aldrich as a boss after reading a few small pieces of lore, but Dark Souls 3 dedicates entire zones to characterizing the liquid lord, and the environment is the primary tool with which we can build our strongest perception of Aldrich, even if that characterization isn’t definitive. The most engaging aspect of Dark Souls 3 (for me) are it’s questions, and the trust it places on the player to puzzle them out. There are no easy conclusions here, nothing set in stone, just a pile of imaginative building blocks, and we’re left in charge.

How to take your PC audio experience to 11

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Cripes! Five Atari games you'll actually want to play

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Video: Making linear level design feel non-linear in Gone Home

If Fullbright's 2013 game Gone Home didn't pioneer the genre of first-person exploration games ("walking simulators"), it certainly popularized the term and inspired a host of developers to try their hands at crafting games with narratives that are found, rather than told.

At GDC 2015, Fullbright's Kate Craig and Steve Gaynor took the stage to discuss the techniques they used to breathe life into the lifeless 3D levels that make up Gone Home .

Together they shared approaches for connecting with player psychology and emotion via level layout, design, and decoration.

It was a good talk, rife with best practices for researching and constructing authentic, believable spaces for players to inhabit, and now you can watch it for free over on the GDC Vault .

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultand its new YouTube channeloffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech

Furi is about over the top boss fights and nothing but

The warden’s head rotates 120 degrees to showcase an angry porcelain mask.

The warden’s head rotates 120 degrees to showcase an angry porcelain mask. “You will never defeat me!” he says, and cackles at the sky. Clearly, the guy’s gone mad. And so have I. He spits out an ocean of bullets and I dart between them like a damn dolphin. He slashes in quicker, more erratic patterns, and I parry them all. He screams in hollow rage, says some nonsense about how he’s going to lock me up and throw away the key, so I pull my heart’s ripcord: my grip tightens and my brow furrows. If my hair could turn yellow and catch on fire, I’m sure it would.

Learning to read

To call Furi a series of neon ninja boss battles feels reductive, even if it’s true. It’s structured that way: you’re tasked with escaping a floating celestial prison and the only folks standing in your way are just as strong and capable as you—there are no regular meat sponge grunts, just a few quiet walks between the bigger baddies. That said, the combat is a smooth combination of twin stick bullet hell dodging and shooting with the precise, intimate sword combat of Devil May Cry. The boss I fought was a chatty celestial prison warden who switched between shooting deadly laser orbs and chaining sword combos on my pristine anime ninja mug.

I’m told defeating him won’t be a simple matter of finding a weak spot and hitting it three times, but a dynamic, speedy series of layered challenges. I chortle, silently. The warden begins by darting around the arena and shooting off a short wave of bullets. Once I hit him enough times with my own gun, he hunches over and opens up for a melee bout. The camera zooms in and he starts wailing in a series of attack patterns plainly telegraphed by sound and movement. I can dodge, or by pressing a counter button at the moment before he strikes, I can parry his blows and open him up for another critical combo.

As soon as I get a grip on his initial bullet and melee attacks, the warden throws a few more patterns into each. The bullets grow in number, some new melee attacks that can’t be parried are telegraphed by a huge swath of pulsating red on the floor, so I’m required to memorize a few new patterns and dodge them in rhythm. The more I beat up on the guy, the more combos he introduces. By the end, the entire arena is plastered with neon bullets, his melee combos hit faster and harder, and I feel like I’m barely scraping by.

But I’m actually kicking ass. To anyone watching, it might look like I’ve been playing Furi for a while now or that I’m some incontrovertible video game master with skills inborn generations ago and an ego you can smell a block away. Truth is, I’m not great at games. I’m OK, at best, but Furi’s combat, while challenging, teaches its vital patterns and rhythms at an incremental pace instead of punishing you with them all at once. Think Bop-It, but fun, and with art from Afro Samurai’s Takashi Okazaki—literally though, he’s contributing heavily to the art design. It took me a second to process too.

Furi distills the basic nature of things I find ‘cool’ and combines them into a stylistic, excessive boss gauntlet. It’s all here: anime cyborg ninjas, a pulsing neon aesthetic, an energetic synthy score, dynamic and responsive combat, and enemies that talk a whole lot of shit. I worry that Furi’s kitchen sink approach to style might turn out to be its achilles heel, an amalgamation of ideas that don’t come together into a game with a unique identity, but from the short bit I played, it worked. I felt like a badass cyborg ninja, and really, that’s all I can ask for in this short life.

Furi is set to release this summer.

How to play your next XCOM 2 run

There's new XCOM 2 DLC out, and you can probably guess what that means—we've got the itch.

There's new XCOM 2 DLC out, and you can probably guess what that means—we've got the itch. The itch to kill more Sectoids. To rage at RNG. To feel our hearts pound as we line up a do-or-die shot. It's time for a new run. And why should we play vanilla XCOM since there are now more than 1800 mods on the Steam workshop?

You can browse through the Workshop’s thousand-plus mods from start to finish and find all sorts of tweaks and enhancements you never knew you needed. If you don’t have that kind of time, however, here’s a short list of excellent mods to get you started on your next world-rescuing campaign, broken down into four specific categories:

Optimizing XCOM 2 : small changes and tweaks like an improved line-of-sight indicator. Quality of life improvements that make XCOM 2 a better game without dramatically changing it. Adding more content : More map packs, custom soldier classes, and customization options. Difficulty mods : Fun ways to make XCOM 2 easier or more challenging by changing AI behavior, grenades, and more. Gameplay overhauls : Big changes to how XCOM 2 plays, including new mission types and reworks of the mission timer and overwatch.

Optimizing XCOM 2

To keep XCOM 2’s basic play and difficulty the same with some upgrades and enhancements, there are plenty of mods that fit the bill.

Reliable Smoke deals with how unreliable XCOM’s smoke grenade indicator can be, ensuring that all smokes provide exactly as much defense coverage as they claim to. Flamethrower Panic Fix allows your flamers to properly panic enemies as intended (no, ADVENT is not so brave that they laugh in the face of hellfire). Patrol when Revealed rounds out this set of unofficial patches, removing an issue that caused enemy patrols to annoyingly camp on top of you when you spotted them while concealed.

Gotcha (Flank Preview Evolved) is essential—it upgrades X2’s line of sight indicator to properly reflect whether you’ll flank an enemy from your new position or, even more importantly, if you’ll be able to hack/shoot objective items and even if your sniper will have a squadsight angle on distant targets.

In a similar vein is LOS Preview Ability , granting an ability that you can place on top of enemies and positions to preview exactly what they can see—no more being surprised when a Muton draws a bead on you through two separate windows and over a car hood.

Show Health Values is another great choice for people who value perfect information, summing up friendly and enemy healthbars into numeric form for easy reading.

Stop Wasting My Time is a much-loved mod that speeds up many unnecessarily slow elements in XCOM such as moving the Avenger, without messing up anything important or ruining the game’s atmosphere and animations.

EVAC All is another excellent timesaver that allows you to extract your entire squad with one button instead of roping them up one soldier at a time, which not only speeds up your evacuations but also looks brilliant in action.

Stabilize Me! is a nice upgrade to the game’s medical system, allowing you to use the medkit of a downed trooper to stop them from bleeding out—it’s a sensible tweak you’re likely to appreciate when your only medic goes down.

Better Shieldwall gives a similarly reasonable boost to an otherwise ignored ability, allowing the lategame WAR Suit ability to provide cover to its wearer, not just allies around them.

PanicMod_AlwaysHunker is another voice of reason, ensuring panicked soldiers will always go to ground on the spot instead of shooting or running in a random direction. While it can initially be amusing to watch cowardly troops run into the line of fire instead of away from it, this Commander tired of such unnecessary deaths a long time ago.

As our final entry for optimizations and enhancements, EU Aim Rolls is a brilliant piece of work that fixes a host of issues you likely weren’t even aware of. Long story short: in vanilla XCOM 2, the chance to hit and chance to crit shares a single roll, meaning if you have a 10% to hit and a 10% to crit, you can only crit or miss. This mod separates the rolls as it should be, while also removing a bunch of other problems you’ll be happy to avoid. Ever seen an on-target grenade decide to miss an Archon? Install this mod and you’ll never have to experience such nightmares.

With all of the above fixes and upgrades working together, you can jump straight into a new campaign with all manner of UI luxuries and comfort. That’s just the tip of the modding iceberg, though—on the next page, read on for some top choices to add more content and options to your game.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

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Diablo designer David Brevik quits his post as Gazillion CEO

Sam & Max The Devil’s Playhouse: The Penal Zone Review

Sam & Max The Devil’s Playhouse: The Penal Zone Review A lot has changed at Telltale Games since the ex-Lucasarts team last visited Sam & Max. Since then, we’ve been treated to Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures and the phenomenally popular Tales Of Monkey Island. That time away from their flagship series has seen Telltale’s development tools grow in sophistication

The charming world of Euro Truck Simulator’s amateur DJs and 100-driver convoys

The TruckSimRadio VTC lines up for an imposing shot.

[ After publishing, members of the TSR community and the original interviewees reached out to clarify the origins of the radio station. The article has been updated to reflect those changes.]

For many, Euro Truck Simulator 2is a stubborn rhetorical question. Why play a game that simulates work, the slow transport of goods across long stretches of pseudo-European highways? Players have to manage everything an actual trucker would: delivery schedules, fuel costs, road tolls, bank loans, and their careers in the cutthroat online trucking industry. Hauling 30 tons for hours at a time, avoiding accidents and obeying local traffic laws all the while can be lonely, stressful labor.

And yet, when you’re playing with others, the open road inspires a calm camaraderie. Two of Euro Trucking Simulator 2’s most dedicated players know it best. Mark Watson (Mini in the online trucking world) joined a community effort to start TruckSimRadio(formerly EuroTruckRadio), an internet radio station made specifically for the trucking sim community (and the terrestrial counterpart to EVE-Radio). Later on, Ben Kingdon (Crumbs) came on to provide graphics for the official website and took up the reigns as head of the TruckSimRadio (TSR) virtual trucking company (VTC). With the help of the TSR community, they built something that could only happen on the PC: an amateur internet radio station dedicated to an unofficial multiplayer mod in a niche, monotonous simulation game.

Mini and Crumbs sat down over Skype to tell me how it all came about.

Breaker, breaker

Drivers in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator can ‘tune’ their radio any available internet radio station, but Mini felt there was something missing from the simulation. Calling into stations to request songs or send shoutouts to friends is like shouting into the abyss—there’s no guarantee friends are listening, and calling stations often means dialing another country. The station was created by a group of players active on the ETS2MP.com forums (no longer active) who quickly became passionate about the idea. Rick, the forum-goer with the initial idea, quickly recruited Mini, along with ETS2MP members Clare, Alex, and Mark. He describes the station's origins: "I saw a niche, setup a simple site and radio, and posted it on the forums for some feedback. On the first night we had over 50 listeners. By the end of the month we had well over 100."

Things blew up quickly for Rick. "I got a small team together to help me with the administration side of things. We had techs, people to deal with DJ applications, PR. We had over 40 DJ's to cover 24 hours. Before I knew it, we had 400 to 500 listeners." Unfortunately, life got in the way and Rick had to leave after 18 months as he just couldn't find the time for such a big project.

We had techs, people to deal with DJ applications, PR. We had over 40 DJ's to cover 24 hours. Before I knew it, we had 400 to 500 listeners.

Rick, founder of EuroTruckRadio

As much as it sounds like a hobbyist’s decision, Mini and friends weren’t making the decision lightly—setting up a legitimate internet radio station isn’t like setting up a Tumblr. Besides the costs of setting up the server, license fees for station operation landed somewhere between £400 and £500. And without Rick, it was a tough ship to steer, so even Mini parted ways with the station, leaving behind the trucking scene as a whole. But the call of the open road let to his inevitable return, in which he took over TSR and lead the station to where it is today.

As a place for people looking to roleplay, amateur or not, trucking sims already attract a curious type, which makes them a great low risk place to stretch one’s disk-jockeying skills—Mini and Crumbs knew they’d get applicants without any formal experience, but that’s part of why they do it.

Drivers all over Europe know the name.

“We like taking on people as if it's their first DJing role.” says Crumbs. “They’re not the best to start off with, but our most recent DJ, when he started off, he didn’t even know how to use the software, and he’s doing three to four hours in the morning every day now and obviously he loves it. Actually he’s part of the radio station management now. He started from the bottom.” Now, TruckSimRadio has a regular stream of DJ personalities taking requests and shoutouts. Some show up every day during the same hour, a few come and go as they can, but the schedule is almost always filled with 10 or more hours of scheduled, hosted programming. They’ll play music, hold contests, chat about the state of the game, or what they ate for lunch that day. It’s an eclectic mix of amateurs and the experienced donating hours of their daily lives just to keep drivers company on the road.

The radio station was, and continues to be a hit. Mini claims they’re getting about 200 or more listeners a day, and Crumbs talks up the growth of their Facebook groupeach week. Euro Truck Simulator 2 has around 13,000 active players at a time, an untold percentage of which use the multiplayer mod, which makes that audience pretty impressive. Because Mini and Crumbs found such a successful mouthpiece, they took the community evolution to its next logical step: public convoys.

We got a mighty (slow) convoy

In most European countries, the highway code dictates that a convoy—a group of vehicles moving in unison—is to be treated as a single vehicle. That means other drivers aren’t allowed to split the procession at any point, be it on the highway or moving through an intersection. In Euro Truck Simulator 2, convoys aren't exactly sanctioned, but they’re not traditional convoys either. They’re, as Crumb puts, “controlled chaos”—massive online gatherings where dozens and dozens of truckers meet up to make the same drive. Drivers inch along, snaking their way across low-res Europe, proudly bearing their VTC colors, and chatting all the while. The most popular convoys are scheduled on ETS2C.com, and happen on Wednesday and Sunday, bringing in 80 to 150 drivers regularly. But when Crumbs talks about convoys, his voice strains for enthusiasm.

As it turns out, putting on a convoy isn’t just a matter getting in line and hitting the gas—it’s a marvel that they happen at all. He’s no longer in charge of keeping convoys organized, but feels for the two drivers who took over. “I did the job they’re doing for a couple of months and it was a nightmare,” he says. And it’s true. If one driver makes a wrong turn, then it’s easy for others to follow suit, resulting in a splintered, lost, and frustrated group of 50-plus drivers.

Even so, they’re not nearly as much of a mess as they used to be. TruckSimRadio and co. developed a few tactics to keep convoys in line, literally. Before every drive, TruckSimRadio deploys a convoy control team, whose members park near particularly confusing intersections and repeatedly point out which direction to go in the chat. To make it even easier to deploy the convoy control team, they use custom save files to get on point and respond to problems instantaneously. Crumbs came up with the idea to park at every vital convoy control point on the route ahead of time and make a save file for each. By distributing these files, control members are able to spawn at the designated control points simply by loading their appointed save. The files let convoy control team members teleport between save points without affecting the multiplayer server as a whole, because the files are saved locally and only affect the player that uses them—they basically reset positional data.

Despite the ease they provide, Crumbs says the advances only turned “unorganized chaos to organized chaos,” but I’d argue small doses of human error are part of a convoy’s cryptic appeal.

Anyone can take part in a public convoy, but participating in the TruckSimRadio VTC is a more advanced process. They have a reputation to protect as one of the most popular and respected VTCs. To get in, you need to register on TruckSimRadio.com and then take a driving test as an official panel watches on. “If they don’t pass the first time we offer them a bit of training and whatever they need, and we get them to come back and do another test,” says Crumbs. “As soon as they pass that test they can drive as part of our company.” It’s the ShackTacof truck simulation, roughly.

There’s a romanticism about road-tripping with friends, driving for long stretches, watching the plains spin up into mountains and the fog give way to blue skies—but when it comes to making the cut, business comes first. There’s even a ‘dress code’, so to speak, if you make it. Crumbs explains the truck decoration code like he’s explained it a hundred times before. “We ask that they have TSR VTC (TruckSimRadio Virtual Trucking Co.) in their name, and they drive if in solo, they can drive any truck any color they want. If they drive in a convoy of two or more trucks, they have to use the orange white and black paint scheme.” It’s fancy uniform.

Dress for the job you want.

While the paintjob is a banner of pride for many in the community, for Mini, it functions as a conversation starter and the hard-earned assurance that his crazy ideas are amounting to some good in the world. “You can’t drive along the road in the colors of TruckSimRadio and not be noticed.” Mini’s smile widens. “They say ‘oh, great radio, we listen in all the time!’ It’s really great to get that kind of feedback and obvious we’re doing things right if people are engaging with us in game.”

For younger people it’s quite hard for them to know how to pay their respects, how to get involved in things.

Ben "Crumbs" Kingdon

Mini, Crumbs, and the TruckSimRadio VTC are still reeling at the success of convoys even if they can be a “logistical nightmare” as Crumb says, and now they’ve found ways channel the chaos into tangible good. After the horrific attacks in Paris last November, TSR organized a truck gathering in ETS2’s virtual Paris, where every truck wore the colors of the French flag and they talked about the tragedy. What seems like a passive, incredibly closed off method for showing support was actually a somber educational seminar. Because a surprising number of kids and teenagers play ETS2, Crumbs believes that it’s their community’s duty to be positive role models. “For younger people it’s quite hard for them to know how to pay their respects, how to get involved in things.” They talked with teens about a very sensitive subject in an adult way, something unheard of in most popular gaming communities.

Pictured: the TSR VTC parks it in virtual Paris to chat about the tragedy.

Due to the radio’s reach and the popularity of their VTC, TruckSimRadio is making a habit of charity work and educational outreach however they can. Just last October, they put on a 100 hour convoy in an effort to raise money for the BBC Children in Needfund. By the end their long haul, they made over £1000. Shipping goods and shipping good aren’t so different for TSR.

Keep on trucking

Despite the growing community, the charity events, and popular radio station, Mini and Crumbs make no buts about how uneventful trucking can be. Crumbs described another event they host, where companies meet up in parking lots to show off their most expensive trucks and chat. “They sit in the same place for an hour, an hour and a half, and they love it, they love doing it. It’s just one of those things. It sounds extremely boring and people love doing it.”

Strip away the trucks, the simulation, and you’re left with a group of friends hanging out. Their trucks are just expressions of themselves, tuned and designed to reflect their personality. In the real trucking world, drivers only meet in passing through a quick overtake on the highway or a conversation at the rest stop. A community exists, but it’s ephemeral, coming and going as the drivers do.

In a VTC like TruckSimRadio, those artificial barriers of contact dissolve. Mini and Crumbs, with plenty of help, made one of the most unique, positive, safest places in PC gaming, and the closest we’ll ever get to a trucker’s utopia. It’s a virtual reality in which traffic laws embrace the trucker, convoys, and the spirit of open road trust. Business obligations melt away leaving only the drivers with their trucks, each a personal, powerful force sliding through a live pastoral scene, a long monotonous drive with the radio calling their name and a crowded CB as company, exactly the way it should be.

New CEO for Second Life developer Linden Lab

Devs weigh in on key innovations in Fallout 4's crafting system

Two weeks after Fallout 4 ’s launch, people are still coming to grips with the depth and breadth of its crafting system.

It has already inspired exhaustive how-to guides, webcomic jokes, and fantastic creations ranging from ridiculously overpowered guns to a pagoda house with an entire floor full of generators.

It’s a big, wide-reaching system with lots of potential for player creativity and inspiration, and it's become a go-to topic of conversation among game developers.

To help you laser-focus in on some of the most interesting design ideas, we’ve spoken to developers Rick Ernst, Darcy Smith, and Brendon Chungabout what they see as the most notable lements of Fallout 4’s crafting.

Strong systems

Freelance Designer Rick Ernst, who’s currently contracting at Riot Games, compares Fallout 4’s crafting to Bethesda's Skyrim , and says there’s an immediately visible shift in design that shows significant evolution from older modes of RPG thinking.

"It focuses on discrete jumps via perks. This means that grinding is a poor choice, and advancement can focus on qualitative bonuses through qualitative advancement."

“The crafting system is much more interesting and useful than that of Skyrim , despite the superficial similarities and reuse of core mechanics," he says. “With Skyrim , early crafting was, with few exceptions, grinding out garbage to skill up. Low level enchanters couldn’t make anything worth a damn, but you still did these low-cost transactions because it was the only way to level up enchanting.”

By comparison, Fallout 4 begins by “demoing” skill trees that players may be interested in later. “For example, mods, chems, and structures you build early on are immediately useful power-wise, and don’t feel like grinding to build," says Ernst. "Though a small amount of XP is awarded with crafting, it isn’t a primary means of advancement. “

“ Fallout advancement focuses on discrete jumps via perks, so grinding is a poor choice and advancement can focus on qualitative bonuses through qualitative advancement via S.P.E.C.I.A.L skills that act as a prerequisite gate to better crafting perks.”

For Ernst, it’s an extension of Bethesda’s philosophy across all of the character systems.. “It’s a much more rewarding system--though more expensive from a developer standpoint--and is responsible for a large part of Fallout 4’s engagement and investment.”

Looting, shooting, and reinforcing design pillars
"Apart from being outrageously efficient in terms of development, it does wonders to make the world feel alive."

League of Geeks' Darcy Smith (Armello) points to the scavenging end of the crafting system as another of its strong suits, as it reinforces the central design pillar of the post-apocalyptic scavenger in a way that sufficiently upends his usual looting tendencies. “Initially, my modern day intuition led me to prioritize inventory space for gold and silver trinkets,” Smith says. “When I went to browse potential upgrades, it became very obvious that 15 gold plated stop watches do not equate to a new power suit arm.”

That first failure sent Smith back out into the Wasteland for the (now much-discussed) screws and adhesives that are essential for gun and armor making. This search does tie back into Ernst’s point about the perk system, as spending character points on leveling up can increase the number of screws and adhesives the player discovers upon breaking down guns.

Smith also looks at the way the basic crafting ingredients have been boiled down to exist in every piece of scrappable loot and how it takes advantage of Bethesda’s usual environmental design tactics. “It’s worth noting that a large portion of crafting objects would have to exist as environmental assets regardless of player interaction. Apart from being outrageously efficient in terms of development, it does wonders to make the world feel alive.”

From the shopping list on the Fallout 4 wiki

The Weird and the Wild
"The game bends over backwards to share authorship. There is no grid. It prescribes no sense of right or wrong. The game trusts my character to make horrific and wonderful things"

But of course, it’s not a Bethesda game unless someone tries to stack one hundred cheese rolls inside their perfectly designed house, or plays through every encounter as a chem-addicted junkie. In any case, Brendon Chung, ( Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, Quadilateral Cowboy ) thinks the settlement system--an extension of the crafting system--also taps into the furthest end of Bethesda’s open world design theory. For him, it’s one of the most rewarding experiences in the game.

“I love how Bethesda RPGs are so enthusiastic about relinquishing control," he says. "Relinquishing control to its simulation model, relinquishing control to the player. When I start a quest and a wandering NPC bear unintentionally completes my objective, that is trust. That's the moment I know we can have a two-way conversation."

“The Fallout 4 settlement crafting runs with that ideal," adds Chung. "The game bends over backwards to share authorship. My roof bathtub. My shrine to Mama Murphy. There is no grid. It prescribes no sense of right or wrong. The game trusts my character to make horrific and wonderful things, and that's a conversation I enjoy having.”

Chung’s point about what Fallout 4 lets you do with crafting does become both penned in and strengthened by its limitations. Though it has the workshop elements that are similar to Rust, Day-Z , or even Minecraft , it only limits the zones you can perform this architecture in. But within the limitations, each zone comes with a kind of template that suggests ideas to players who aren’t ready to dive in whole-hog on building their Commonwealth fortress.

Sanctuary Hills has open spaces to build new houses, Greygarden is a small compact farm, Hangman’s Alley is a tiny raider fortress--each of these accesses the same pool of structures and resources fueled by crafting ingredients, but Bethesda’s pre-formatting helps players toward Chung’s idea of “mixed authorship.”

“Mixed authorship works on a spectrum,” says Chung. “On one end you have games that are a wild west of do anything anywhere, and on the other end you have games where the game does almost all the talking while the player gets a few words in sideways. I feel Fallout 4 heavily leans toward the former. There are resource management requirements, but its implementation is done with the lightest touch.”

Why I love helping others in Dark Souls 3

WHY I LOVE
I’m bad at Dark Souls, and that’s why I’ve always avoided co-op.

In Why I Love, PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it's brilliant. Today, Andy lends a hand in Dark Souls 3.

I’m bad at Dark Souls, and that’s why I’ve always avoided co-op. If anyone summoned me into their game, it would probably be a waste of time. But after fifteen hours with Dark Souls 3, the longest I’ve ever lasted in a Souls game, I’m starting to feel like I might be of use to someone. I still suck, but I can kill most things, and I know the High Wall of Lothric inside out.

The first real boss, Vordt of the Boreal Valley, is pretty easy once you learn its attack pattern. And I know it well enough to beat it without taking a hit, so I thought, why not help some players who are having trouble? Dark Souls is a game filled with misery, death, and despair. If I can provide just one faint ray of sunshine for someone, surely it’s worth a shot?

I drop my soapstone at the entrance to Vordt’s chamber. This makes a white sign appear in other people’s games, giving them the option to invite me in. Seconds later a message tells me I’m being summoned. A burly knight is waiting for me, and bows as my shimmering phantom form materialises in front of him. He passes through the white fog, alerting the boss to his presence, and soon we’re in combat with the beast.

Dark Souls has, until this point, been a rather lonely experience. But sharing the world with another player, it doesn’t seem so dark. Vordt doesn’t stand a chance against our combined might. It falls, and as its body disappears and the game prepares to transport me back to my own world, we bow again. It’s the first time Dark Souls hasn’t felt utterly oppressive to me.

And that’s it. I’m hooked. I must have fought Vordt 20 times today. I like how the battle is slightly different each time depending on how many players are summoned and what their particular skills are. But mostly I just like the idea of helping someone who’s finding the boss too challenging. This will be a lot of people’s first Dark Souls experience, and even though veterans will breeze through Vordt, it’s a trial by fire for some.

And, of course, the fact that I’m earning souls for each victory sweetens the deal. This is a much more enjoyable way of farming souls than running solo through the same areas over and over again. I’ve levelled up several times and stockpiled a decent amount of embers, which are awarded every time you successfully vanquish a boss in co-op.

I’m sure people have had much more interesting, challenging co-op experiences than this across the Souls series. But this is my very first experience with it, and it’s a nice change of pace. As well as the practical benefits like souls and embers, I find the ability to bring some positivity to the gloomy world of Dark Souls equally rewarding.

It’s also a great opportunity to experiment with the game’s expressive, often hilarious gesture system, which Tom wrote about last week. I love communicating with players using this, and you can tell a lot about the person who’s summoned you by their in-game body language. Anyone who bows is, in my limited experience, a decent sort.

As I get better at the game and master more boss battles, I’ll be making it my sworn duty to place my soapstone and help struggling players. It makes me feel like an armour-clad superhero, spriting between worlds, lending a helping hand to those in need. I’m glad I gave co-op a chance in Dark Souls 3, and it’s made me appreciate the game on a whole new level.

The charming world of Euro Truck Simulator’s amateur DJs and 100-driver convoys

The TruckSimRadio VTC lines up for an imposing shot.

[ After publishing, members of the TSR community and the original interviewees reached out to clarify the origins of the radio station. The article has been updated to reflect those changes.]

For many, Euro Truck Simulator 2is a stubborn rhetorical question. Why play a game that simulates work, the slow transport of goods across long stretches of pseudo-European highways? Players have to manage everything an actual trucker would: delivery schedules, fuel costs, road tolls, bank loans, and their careers in the cutthroat online trucking industry. Hauling 30 tons for hours at a time, avoiding accidents and obeying local traffic laws all the while can be lonely, stressful labor.

And yet, when you’re playing with others, the open road inspires a calm camaraderie. Two of Euro Trucking Simulator 2’s most dedicated players know it best. Mark Watson (Mini in the online trucking world) joined a community effort to start TruckSimRadio(formerly EuroTruckRadio), an internet radio station made specifically for the trucking sim community (and the terrestrial counterpart to EVE-Radio). Later on, Ben Kingdon (Crumbs) came on to provide graphics for the official website and took up the reigns as head of the TruckSimRadio (TSR) virtual trucking company (VTC). With the help of the TSR community, they built something that could only happen on the PC: an amateur internet radio station dedicated to an unofficial multiplayer mod in a niche, monotonous simulation game.

Mini and Crumbs sat down over Skype to tell me how it all came about.

Breaker, breaker

Drivers in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator can ‘tune’ their radio any available internet radio station, but Mini felt there was something missing from the simulation. Calling into stations to request songs or send shoutouts to friends is like shouting into the abyss—there’s no guarantee friends are listening, and calling stations often means dialing another country. The station was created by a group of players active on the ETS2MP.com forums (no longer active) who quickly became passionate about the idea. Rick, the forum-goer with the initial idea, quickly recruited Mini, along with ETS2MP members Clare, Alex, and Mark. He describes the station's origins: "I saw a niche, setup a simple site and radio, and posted it on the forums for some feedback. On the first night we had over 50 listeners. By the end of the month we had well over 100."

Things blew up quickly for Rick. "I got a small team together to help me with the administration side of things. We had techs, people to deal with DJ applications, PR. We had over 40 DJ's to cover 24 hours. Before I knew it, we had 400 to 500 listeners." Unfortunately, life got in the way and Rick had to leave after 18 months as he just couldn't find the time for such a big project.

We had techs, people to deal with DJ applications, PR. We had over 40 DJ's to cover 24 hours. Before I knew it, we had 400 to 500 listeners.

Rick, founder of EuroTruckRadio

As much as it sounds like a hobbyist’s decision, Mini and friends weren’t making the decision lightly—setting up a legitimate internet radio station isn’t like setting up a Tumblr. Besides the costs of setting up the server, license fees for station operation landed somewhere between £400 and £500. And without Rick, it was a tough ship to steer, so even Mini parted ways with the station, leaving behind the trucking scene as a whole. But the call of the open road let to his inevitable return, in which he took over TSR and lead the station to where it is today.

As a place for people looking to roleplay, amateur or not, trucking sims already attract a curious type, which makes them a great low risk place to stretch one’s disk-jockeying skills—Mini and Crumbs knew they’d get applicants without any formal experience, but that’s part of why they do it.

Drivers all over Europe know the name.

“We like taking on people as if it's their first DJing role.” says Crumbs. “They’re not the best to start off with, but our most recent DJ, when he started off, he didn’t even know how to use the software, and he’s doing three to four hours in the morning every day now and obviously he loves it. Actually he’s part of the radio station management now. He started from the bottom.” Now, TruckSimRadio has a regular stream of DJ personalities taking requests and shoutouts. Some show up every day during the same hour, a few come and go as they can, but the schedule is almost always filled with 10 or more hours of scheduled, hosted programming. They’ll play music, hold contests, chat about the state of the game, or what they ate for lunch that day. It’s an eclectic mix of amateurs and the experienced donating hours of their daily lives just to keep drivers company on the road.

The radio station was, and continues to be a hit. Mini claims they’re getting about 200 or more listeners a day, and Crumbs talks up the growth of their Facebook groupeach week. Euro Truck Simulator 2 has around 13,000 active players at a time, an untold percentage of which use the multiplayer mod, which makes that audience pretty impressive. Because Mini and Crumbs found such a successful mouthpiece, they took the community evolution to its next logical step: public convoys.

We got a mighty (slow) convoy

In most European countries, the highway code dictates that a convoy—a group of vehicles moving in unison—is to be treated as a single vehicle. That means other drivers aren’t allowed to split the procession at any point, be it on the highway or moving through an intersection. In Euro Truck Simulator 2, convoys aren't exactly sanctioned, but they’re not traditional convoys either. They’re, as Crumb puts, “controlled chaos”—massive online gatherings where dozens and dozens of truckers meet up to make the same drive. Drivers inch along, snaking their way across low-res Europe, proudly bearing their VTC colors, and chatting all the while. The most popular convoys are scheduled on ETS2C.com, and happen on Wednesday and Sunday, bringing in 80 to 150 drivers regularly. But when Crumbs talks about convoys, his voice strains for enthusiasm.

As it turns out, putting on a convoy isn’t just a matter getting in line and hitting the gas—it’s a marvel that they happen at all. He’s no longer in charge of keeping convoys organized, but feels for the two drivers who took over. “I did the job they’re doing for a couple of months and it was a nightmare,” he says. And it’s true. If one driver makes a wrong turn, then it’s easy for others to follow suit, resulting in a splintered, lost, and frustrated group of 50-plus drivers.

Even so, they’re not nearly as much of a mess as they used to be. TruckSimRadio and co. developed a few tactics to keep convoys in line, literally. Before every drive, TruckSimRadio deploys a convoy control team, whose members park near particularly confusing intersections and repeatedly point out which direction to go in the chat. To make it even easier to deploy the convoy control team, they use custom save files to get on point and respond to problems instantaneously. Crumbs came up with the idea to park at every vital convoy control point on the route ahead of time and make a save file for each. By distributing these files, control members are able to spawn at the designated control points simply by loading their appointed save. The files let convoy control team members teleport between save points without affecting the multiplayer server as a whole, because the files are saved locally and only affect the player that uses them—they basically reset positional data.

Despite the ease they provide, Crumbs says the advances only turned “unorganized chaos to organized chaos,” but I’d argue small doses of human error are part of a convoy’s cryptic appeal.

Anyone can take part in a public convoy, but participating in the TruckSimRadio VTC is a more advanced process. They have a reputation to protect as one of the most popular and respected VTCs. To get in, you need to register on TruckSimRadio.com and then take a driving test as an official panel watches on. “If they don’t pass the first time we offer them a bit of training and whatever they need, and we get them to come back and do another test,” says Crumbs. “As soon as they pass that test they can drive as part of our company.” It’s the ShackTacof truck simulation, roughly.

There’s a romanticism about road-tripping with friends, driving for long stretches, watching the plains spin up into mountains and the fog give way to blue skies—but when it comes to making the cut, business comes first. There’s even a ‘dress code’, so to speak, if you make it. Crumbs explains the truck decoration code like he’s explained it a hundred times before. “We ask that they have TSR VTC (TruckSimRadio Virtual Trucking Co.) in their name, and they drive if in solo, they can drive any truck any color they want. If they drive in a convoy of two or more trucks, they have to use the orange white and black paint scheme.” It’s fancy uniform.

Dress for the job you want.

While the paintjob is a banner of pride for many in the community, for Mini, it functions as a conversation starter and the hard-earned assurance that his crazy ideas are amounting to some good in the world. “You can’t drive along the road in the colors of TruckSimRadio and not be noticed.” Mini’s smile widens. “They say ‘oh, great radio, we listen in all the time!’ It’s really great to get that kind of feedback and obvious we’re doing things right if people are engaging with us in game.”

For younger people it’s quite hard for them to know how to pay their respects, how to get involved in things.

Ben "Crumbs" Kingdon

Mini, Crumbs, and the TruckSimRadio VTC are still reeling at the success of convoys even if they can be a “logistical nightmare” as Crumb says, and now they’ve found ways channel the chaos into tangible good. After the horrific attacks in Paris last November, TSR organized a truck gathering in ETS2’s virtual Paris, where every truck wore the colors of the French flag and they talked about the tragedy. What seems like a passive, incredibly closed off method for showing support was actually a somber educational seminar. Because a surprising number of kids and teenagers play ETS2, Crumbs believes that it’s their community’s duty to be positive role models. “For younger people it’s quite hard for them to know how to pay their respects, how to get involved in things.” They talked with teens about a very sensitive subject in an adult way, something unheard of in most popular gaming communities.

Pictured: the TSR VTC parks it in virtual Paris to chat about the tragedy.

Due to the radio’s reach and the popularity of their VTC, TruckSimRadio is making a habit of charity work and educational outreach however they can. Just last October, they put on a 100 hour convoy in an effort to raise money for the BBC Children in Needfund. By the end their long haul, they made over £1000. Shipping goods and shipping good aren’t so different for TSR.

Keep on trucking

Despite the growing community, the charity events, and popular radio station, Mini and Crumbs make no buts about how uneventful trucking can be. Crumbs described another event they host, where companies meet up in parking lots to show off their most expensive trucks and chat. “They sit in the same place for an hour, an hour and a half, and they love it, they love doing it. It’s just one of those things. It sounds extremely boring and people love doing it.”

Strip away the trucks, the simulation, and you’re left with a group of friends hanging out. Their trucks are just expressions of themselves, tuned and designed to reflect their personality. In the real trucking world, drivers only meet in passing through a quick overtake on the highway or a conversation at the rest stop. A community exists, but it’s ephemeral, coming and going as the drivers do.

In a VTC like TruckSimRadio, those artificial barriers of contact dissolve. Mini and Crumbs, with plenty of help, made one of the most unique, positive, safest places in PC gaming, and the closest we’ll ever get to a trucker’s utopia. It’s a virtual reality in which traffic laws embrace the trucker, convoys, and the spirit of open road trust. Business obligations melt away leaving only the drivers with their trucks, each a personal, powerful force sliding through a live pastoral scene, a long monotonous drive with the radio calling their name and a crowded CB as company, exactly the way it should be.

Watch the races of Star Wars: The Old Republic dance in their underwear

Massively multiplayer online RPGs have a long history of interesting dances, usually giving each race's male and female side their own unique /dance animation. Some games have scaled it back, some, like Star Wars Galaxies, have taken it even further, but developers usually fill their games with interesting dances because, well, people like to /dance. Once we got our hands on Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars Battlefront helps fuel a strong holiday quarter for EA

The Empire Strikes Out – LucasArts And The Death Of Adventure Games

The Empire Strikes Out – LucasArts And The Death Of Adventure Games LucasArts is a company with two very distinct identities. For classic gamers it is the studio that defined the point-and-click adventure, evolving the medium to its greatest heights, but for modern gamers it’s merely the facilitator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, and occasionally puts out an original action project or allows

30 great PC gaming sound effects

Sound designers are the unsung heroes of game development.

Sound designers are the unsung heroes of game development. We enthusiastically discuss visuals, music, and game design, but we don't often celebrate audio. So, to give these sonic artists their due, here are 30 of our favourite noises from PC games. It's a mix of classic, recognisable sounds and newer stuff that has tickled our earbuds.

Doom – Doors Literally just a door opening, but one of the most recognisable sounds of a door opening ever. Also heard in Star Wars and Doctor Who.

Splinter Cell – Goggle activation Sam Fisher’s goggles are, in hindsight, a bit daft. But the sound they make when you activate them is weirdly satisfying.

Final Fantasy VII – Boss death It’s pretty much the same as a regular enemy death, but they make it slightly longer to let you really savour your victory.

Metal Gear Solid – Guard alert One of the most panic-inducing sounds ever. Someone in the office once had it as a text alert and I accidentally choked them to death.

Transistor – Activating a terminal I don’t know why I love this sound, but I do. There’s just something sonically appealing about it. I should be a music journalist.

Half-Life – Healing The soundtrack to a brief moment of respite from the various horrors of Black Mesa. I feel healthier just listening to it.

Papers, Please – Loudspeaker I’ve always found this garbled voice from Papers, Please really unsettling. It really adds to the game’s gloomy, impersonal tone.

Mass Effect 3 – Reapers It sounds like that sound from absolutely every movie trailer, but gives the Reapers an air of unstoppable, mechanical menace.

Quake II – Super Shotgun It was a close call between this and the one from Doom, but Quake won out. It just sounds so damn powerful, like a handheld AA gun.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault – M1 Garand The metal CLINK of the clip ejecting from this rifle is the main reason I want FPS developers to fall in love with WW2 again.

Rocket League – Goal Whenever I hear this I instinctively punch the air and cheer, like some kind of idiotic Pavlovian response. The sound of joy.

Portal – Portal gun Valve had to come up with the perfect sound for a gun that doesn't exist, and they absolutely nailed it. They're clever like that.

Dark Souls – Bonfire The reassuring crackle of a bonfire in Dark Souls means you’ve found safety. You can almost feel the warmth when you hear it.

Batman: Arkham Asylum – Grapnel I’ve always loved the sound of Batman zipping around with his grapnel in the Arkham games. There’s a nice tactile feel to the sound.

Mass Effect 2 – Launching probes The THOOM of a probe launching after Tricia Helfer’s ‘probe away’ is hypnotic. I’m getting weirdly nostalgic about scanning now.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – AWP Just listen to the power in that. Counter-Strike’s deadly sniper rifle sounds every bit as powerful as it is, and seems to echo forever.

Elite Dangerous – Sidewinder engines Elite is a masterpiece of sound design in general, but the Sidewinder’s little engines spinning up is one of its best sounds.

BioShock – Big Daddy The groan of a Big Daddy is one of the most BioShocky sounds there is. It sounds kinda like an elephant with a bad hangover.

XCOM – Overwatch trigger When you hear the telltale sound of an overwatch trigger in XCOM you’ve either done something amazing or made a horrible mistake.

Dishonored – Blink Dishonored’s coolest power is also one of the best-sounding. I love its eerie, soft whisper as you flit around the level unseen.

Fez – Treasure chest An homage to Zelda’s famous treasure chest sound, hearing this is one of the greatest pleasures in this amazing-sounding platformer.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – iDroid I love the clicky sound of Big Boss activating his iDroid. It sounds like an old Walkman, reinforcing the game’s retro-futuristic style.

Alien: Isolation – Motion tracker The distorted lo-fi bleep of the tracker in Isolation is terrifying, especially when it speeds up, indicating the alien’s approaching you.

Fallout – Vault opening The sound of adventure. When you hear this you know you’re about to emerge into an exciting, unexplored new world.

Star Wars Battlefront – Thermal imploder DICE’s sound design is always incredible, and Battlefront’s thermal imploder is one of their finest sonic creations.

Silent Hill 2 – Radio This unnerving crackling means there’s a monster nearby, which is never a good thing on the foggy nightmare-streets of Silent Hill.

Final Fantasy VIII – Limit break The satisfying magical SHWEEE that heralds the imminent outburst of one of VIII’s epic limit break moves. Never a bad sound.

Half-Life 2 – Strider The enemies in HL2 are creatures enslaved by the Combine, which might explain the weird, anguished cries of the striders.

Life is Strange – Rewind A suitably creepy, otherworldly sound that’s heard when you’re using Max’s unexplained timey-wimey rewind powers.

Devil Daggers – Restart An awesomely demonic sound from this insanely fast-paced indie shooter that could have come straight out of an id Software FPS.

And that's it! There are, inevitably, loads I've idiotically left out or forgotten about, but I'm just one man with an increasingly poor memory. Share your own favourites in the comments below and let's have a fun sound party.

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Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Original world-building fun writing Tons of valid build possibilities Promise of long-term updates Cons Flimsy unsatisfying combat Repetition kills the fun factor Some free-to-play titles execute better Go to page: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 World of Warcraft launched eight years ago, and MMORPGs still don't know what to do with themselves. It's no longer

Terry Cavanagh Talks VVVVVV

Terry Cavanagh Talks VVVVVV First for those who don’t know you, who are you? What’s your background? Ok! My name’s Terry Cavanagh, and I’m a game designer. I’m probably best known for making the platformer VVVVVV. I’ve been making games since I was a kid, and I’ve released dozens and dozens of free games over the years, the best known of which is probably Don’t Look Back. You mention Don’t Look Back

Evaluating VR performance and latency with Futuremark's VRMark

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Taking on Day of the Tentacle without a walkthrough

I never played Day of the Tentacle, despite its reputation as one of the best adventure games ever made.

This article was originally published in PC Gamer issue 292 . For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US .

I never played Day of the Tentacle, despite its reputation as one of the best adventure games ever made. With the remastered edition now available, Andy has challenged me to finish it without a walkthrough. It’s my chance to experience the game as it was meant to be played—without the safety net of the internet. In the spirit of the era, I can use Andy as my very own LucasArts helpline. Be warned, there are puzzle and plot spoilers throughout this article.

I’m not too bad at modern adventure games—I completed the Blackwell series without a walkthrough—but I’m less adept at the older ones. Monkey Island 2 had me utterly stumped. Judging by Day of the Tentacle’s opening cutscene, I’m worried this will be more of the same. It appears to take place in a slapstick cartoon, where logic has upped sticks and bought a quaint country cottage in a heartland of zany adventure. I’m in trouble.

We open to the lobby of Doctor Fred’s combined hotel, laboratory and psych ward. I recognise my first puzzle: a coin on the floor that’s stuck to some gum. I go to pick it up, but it won’t budge. No doubt this is part of some long, elaborate puzzle chain. If I was a standup comedian, here is where I’d go on a long routine imagining common tasks through the lens of adventure game logic. Perhaps a skit about acquiring milk by using leather cushions to trick a cow into letting me near her udders.

No time for that, though, as I trigger a cutscene by climbing into a grandfather clock. Soon, a time travel mishap occurs. The three playable characters now exist in three different time zones. Equable roadie Hoagie is in the past, and skittish student Laverne finds herself in a future ruled by tentacle monsters. Both must get power to their Chron-o-Johns. Back (or forward) in the present, bookish Bernard must buy an expensive diamond to bring his pals home.

I quickly make what seems like progress by picking up every item I can find. Pretty soon Hoagie and Bernard’s pockets are bulging. Not Laverne’s though, because she’s stuck up a tree. Also, I’ve talked to the founding fathers of the United States. They seem nice.

Climbing into a grandfather clock in the past as Hoagie, I find Fred’s ancestor, Red Edison. He’s going to help me build a super-battery, but only if I provide him with three things: oil, vinegar and gold. I suspect these aren’t the ingredients for a battery, but then Fight Club lied about the recipe for homemade napalm, and the most cartoonish thing about that was Jared Leto’s hair. Thanks to my earlier hoarding, I already have the oil.

Next: vinegar. I don’t find any, but I do have a bottle of wine. As any sommelier will tell you, wine plus time equals rhyme. And also vinegar. I’m about to drop the wine bottle into the Chron-o-John—which lets me transport inanimate objects between time periods—when I realise a conceptual flaw in my plan. If I send the wine forward in time, it will still be wine. I need to hide the wine in the past, and have one of the other characters retrieve it and send it back. I am a clever boy.

Admittedly not that clever, as it takes me a while to realise I need to put the wine in Thomas Jefferson’s time capsule. In the meantime, I cajole George Washington into cutting down a kumquat tree by painting its fruit the colour of cherries. This frees Laverne. I’d gloat, but it was accidental. I recognised the basic template of an adventure puzzle, and attempted to solve it regardless of reason. I also add an amendment to the Constitution requiring vacuum cleaners in every basement. I assume this will, at some point, be of use.

Freed from the tree, Laverne is locked up by tentacles. Releasing her proves surprisingly easy. Feigning sickness, I steal a chart of tentacle anatomy and send it back to Hoagie. He hands it to a seamstress who assumes it’s the template for a new American flag. In the future, Laverne is able retrieve the flag and wear it as a disguise. Did I say it was easy? I meant stupid. Free to wander the future mansion, I find the time capsule. Laverne can’t open it with her bare hands, though. Didn’t I see a crowbar back in Bernard’s time?

Doing things for no reason works for a while, but pretty soon I’m stuck.

I did! The crowbar lets me pick up the coin from the lobby, and also steal a stack of quarters from a candy machine. What I can’t do is send it into the future to help Laverne. Instead, I do more things that don’t make sense. I use the dime to shake a fat man off a sweater. (Why?) I put the sweater in a tumble dryer and use my stack of quarters to send it spinning into Laverne’s time. (Er?) Later, I tell Bernard to steal a hamster. (What?) I put the hamster in an ice box. (Oh, come on!) In the future, Laverne retrieves the frozen rodent and puts it in the microwave. (Seriously?) I place the thoroughly damp hamster in the dryer-shrunken sweater to warm him up. (WTF, adventure games.)

Doing things for no reason works for a while, but pretty soon I’m stuck. It’s time to turn to my only hope: Andy Kelly, who is standing in for the LucasArts tips line. For a while, I’d harboured dreams of completing the game without ever calling him—especially as he’ll be billing me for every hint I receive. Alas, I’m at a loss. I email Andy and ask how to send the crowbar to the future.

“Thanks for calling the LucasArts hint line. Calls to this 1-900 number are charged at $3 for the first minute, and $1 for every additional minute. Your hint is as follows: there are other ways to open a time capsule. The charge for this call is $4.”

PopCap, THQ and Funcom hit with layoffs

It's been a fairly dark day for the video game industry today as three major companies have announced layoffs affecting dozens of people. First it was revealed that layoffs have hit EA's PopCap casual gaming imprint with 50 employees reportedly (not official numbers yet) fired at the Seattle studio with the Dublin and Shanghai studios also being sized up for potential cuts as well. Specific numbers

Video: AI devs offer advice on how to design great NPCs

Creating a new NPC for your game can be an interesting challenge, especially under tight time constraints.

Often, it involves many different departments (design, art, sound, effects, and programming) that have to coordinate to craft a distinct character rather than a jumble of different pieces and parts.

Artificial intellgience design typically sits squarely in the center of this process by coordinating all the different working parts into something that feels like a character, and with that in mind AI experts Rez Graham and Daniel Brewer took the stage during the GDC 2014 AI Summit to offer up case studies of how NPCs were designed and built for Electronic Arts' The Sims: Medieval and Digital Extremes' Warframe .

Those are two very different games, and thus Brewer and Graham's learnings were distinct and broadly applicable to a wide range of game design work.

If you missed it in person, you can now watch their tag-team talk completely free over on the Official GDC YouTube channel.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultand its new YouTube channeloffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

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