3DS currently outselling Vita by 46 to 1 in Japan

For every PS Vita that was sold in Japan last week, there were 46 3DS units making their way into consumers' hands. Bolstered, no doubt, by Animal Crossing: New Leaf 's launch (which we'll have to wait a little longer for in the west, sadly), 3DS shifted a total of 187,077 units in one week, compared to PS Vita's 4,021. The majority of the 3DS units sold were the 3DS LL (that's the 3DS XL to us), but

GTA IV mod makes incredible graphical overhaul

Parts of the above trailer for the GTA IV mod look as though they could come from a GTA V.

GTA IV mod look as though they could come from a GTA V. The fan made update, spotted by RPS, builds on a selection of GTA IV mods, like RealityIVand DKT70 road textures, and then adds updated shaders to make this three year old game look as though it could be coming out next year. Improved lighting, weather effects, depth of field and more combine to transform GTA IV into the video you see above. GTA IV isn't well optimised under the best of circumstances, it might take a hefty PC to run this one, but we can't wait to try it out.

For another way to see Liberty City as you've never seen it before, check out Dead End Thrillswhere friend of PC Gamer Duncan Harris uses a series of mods and texture packs to create photorealistic images of the mean streets of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Brink is free to play this weekend

Coinciding with both QuakeCon 2011 and the release of Brink's first DLC , Steam has started a free weekend for Splash Damage's parkour shooter.

Spotted by Eurogamer, the offer has already started, and continues until Sunday evening, giving players a chance to experience the multiplayer shooter free of charge. The new Agents of Change DLC is included as well, which gives players a broader range of abilities, attachments and costumes, as well as two new maps to try out.

During this period Brink is also on salefor 50% of its regular price, meaning you can get the game (along with the currently free DLC) for just £14.99. The deal comes as part of a celebration for QuakeCon 2011, which began yesterday and has already brought us an impressive new Rage trailer. On top of this, a number of other sales and deals are popping up for Bethesda games over the next couple of days.

PlayStation 3 sells 525,000 over Black Friday week

Sony's revealed its Black-Friday-week sales for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, and while retailer discounts pushed PS3 sales up 15 percent from last year it still landed in the middle of the pack. The various PS3 bundles sold more than 525,000 units over the week, sitting squarely between Wii U's 400,000 and Xbox 360's 750,000 . Of course, if you put Wii U and original Wii sales together for

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

Kotaku reports than an internal source claims the company will file an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors in California, and will cease to exist before a new company is reformed in its place.

Gamasutra reportsthat an affected employee has confirmed that the entire staff was laid off this morning.

The original story follows:

According to game developer Brian Fargo, an employee of cloud gaming service OnLive e-mailed him this morningwith 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."

"I'm sorry I cannot be more specific," concluded Jaquet, neither confirming nor denying that layoffs have occurred.

The OnLive Game Serviceopened in 2010, and now offers over 300 games which can be rendered server-side and streamed to PCs and other devices. Given that game streaming competitor Gaikai was recently acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment, Forbesspeculates that a similar acquisition may be in process at OnLive, among other possibilities.

Brink back on Steam in the UK

Why look, if it isn't that handsome young shooter from Splash Damage, making a stealthy re-appearance on our UK Steam feeds.

Why look, if it isn't that handsome young shooter from Splash Damage, making a stealthy re-appearance on our UK Steam feeds. Where have you been all this time, Brink? We asked around to try and find out why you vanished, but to no avail. Whatever happened, whether it be a publisher spat, or something to do with the change in Steam terms of service that saw Crysis 2 withdrawn, it's all in the past now. Let's get together and go shoot some men in the face, preferably while sliding along the floor like a greasy-arsed badger.

RPSnoticed the shooter lounging around on Steam as though it had never been away. It's reappeared just in time, as the new DLCis set to arrive sometime this month. When that hits, the game will go free for two weeks to celebrate. The game's currently 25% off at £22.49.

Assassin's Creed III Limited Edition unboxing

In only a few days Assassin's Creed III will be released in America. But which version should you get? Are you going to spend $60 on the regular, plain Jane version, or drop an additional $60 on the Limited Edition? Before you even think about buying check out our unboxing video to see exactly what you get for double the money.

Three Lane Highway: heroes of solo ranked matchmaking

Imagine the Power Rangers.

Three Lane Highway is Chris' weekly column about Dota 2. Art by biggreenpepper .

Imagine the Power Rangers. Not the Dota 2 pro team—but we'll get to the game in a minute—but the actual, cornerstone-of-my-childhood Power Rangers. Now imagine that instead of assembling a team of Earth-defending teens with attitude, Zordon pulled together five strangers who mostly didn't speak the same language and were predisposed to loathe one another. Imagine those five shitty Power Rangers attempting to form a Megazord where nobody wants to be the legs or left arm: everybody that wants to be the head or hold the giant sword. Three different guys decide that they're the Red Ranger. Midway through the finale, the Megazord's torso declares that life's too short and abruptly vanishes.

This is solo ranked matchmaking, and for whatever reason, I still play it. The notion that your solo MMR is your 'real' MMR is a compelling one: it represents you individually, the argument goes, whereas your party rating (or organised team rating) is skewed by the undoubtedly more talented people that you play with. I've written about the problems with this idea a few timesbefore, without ever really shaking the assumption that to be better at Dota you've got to be better at solo Dota.

This notion has to be offset against the fact the solo ranked matchmaking queue is the single weirdest place to hang out in the Dota community. Trying to play seriously in this mode is like going to a club and expecting to have a real conversation—maybe, one time in five, you'll get what you want. The rest of the time you're going to be running up against people who're really just there to follow their id for a couple of hours, who can't hear you, and in any case don't care what you think. It's a grab-bag of crazy: the equation for calculating your solo MMR is your technical skill divided by the universe's willingness to match you with actual full-on circus clowns. Like these.

Commited singleplayer RPG fan

I met one of these recently. He picked Spectre and demanded the safelane—a legitimate call, in its own right—and farmed slowly for the first five minutes of the game, which was also the only time he spoke. When pressured he moved full-time into the jungle, and then into the enemy jungle. He finished his Radiance around the thirty minute mark, but only used Haunt to try to escape when the enemy team caught him stealing their camps. Otherwise, he'd run down his mana using Spectral Dagger to last-hit and had almost no presence in teamfights as a result.

A few of the other members of my team weren't happy about this, and told him so. The word 'report' was used, as it often is. Spectre didn't care. Spectre kept farming. Spectre farmed for sixty minutes, then seventy, and then the game ended. He had scored two kills, and I suspect one of them was an accident—a consquence of using Haunt with a Radiance while an enemy support happened to be low on health.

His silent, implacable farming could be interpreted as an attempt to mimic Arteezy-style efficiency, but I'm not sure that was what was going on here. If he wanted to play like Arteezy, he'd probably also demonstrate some desire to win the game. But he didn't. He just farmed, farmed, farmed. If we won a teamfight and asked him to push, and all three lanes were available, he'd take the jungle instead. It was clear that he didn't want to foreshorten a game that he was enjoying. He wanted to right click creeps and collect the money forever.

Who were you, mysterious singleplayer Dota fan? I would like to find you, and maybe buy you a World of Warcraft subscription, or something. I'd also like my 25 MMR back.

Captain metagame and the world of yesterday

I've met this individual in a few different guises over the years, but the parameters are always the same. This is always someone vocal, someone with ideas about team composition and strategy, and somebody who has watched a few professional matches. This experience has armed them with the confidence to tell everybody else what to pick and how to play, and to point out staggering mistakes in other peoples' interpretations of the game. What makes these people special is that they watched those few professional matches months ago, and haven't adjusted their thinking since. These people see the metagame as a document to be read once and internalised, not a process that requires continual work to understand.

Now is a very good time to seek out these guys in the wild, because (a) The International was a few months ago and (b) there's been a very significant patch since then. This is fertile ground for strangers to angrily demand, for example, that Tinker is an essential hero that games can't be won without. To cite Newbee's 8 minute victory over ViCi as proof that eight minute deathball Dota is how you win, noob .

The irony here is that at the level of most pub players it doesn't matter. Yesterday's pro meta may as well be today's pro meta, because the technical skill necessary to differentiate between them isn't present. That Tinker picker wasn't stacking and farming ancients before, and they're not doing it now, so not only would you not make any progress if you tried to talk them out of their misunderstanding but you wouldn't necessarily even be right to do so. There are, functionally, as many metagames as there are people willing to earnestly believe in them. Many of them are dumb.

Friendly neighbourhood spider guy

This is an old story—it happened a couple of years ago, now—but it's probably my favourite, and I've nothing but respect for the person involved. Solo All Pick, in the days before MMR was a thing. Somebody auto-locks Pudge. Another guy picks Dark Seer. Then Juggernaut, so I take Crystal Maiden. There's a long wait. We need a second support, maybe, or a jungler.

Ten seconds to go. Click! Broodmother.

Instant rage from the rest of the team. Report, GG, noob brood, etc. Then Broodmother wanders towards mid before the horn and Pudge loses his shit, as pub Pudge players are wont to do. Broodmother is in the middle of the lane, scuttling in little circles. He types in chat for the first time.

"hey man. im really high."

"just wanna make the spider do things"

He hovers around in mid for a while but lets Pudge take the actual lane. Then he goes to the jungle and places all of his webs. Then he goes to the safelane for a bit and, with that experience under his belt, returns to the jungle to make spiderlings out of the little satyrs and has them run around in the webs for a while. He goes top, for a bit, at which point I lose track of him. I catch sight of him a while later, back in mid, running back and forth. Level four or something. Then, he disconnects and we never see him again.

Now I don't want to glorify his lifestyle or anything but this guy is my hero. I think about him all of the time. Here is somebody who knew exactly what he wanted to achieve in his game of solo Dota 2. He knew the experience he wanted to have, and did this without doubt or remorse. He booted up the clicky-man wizard game because he wanted to make the giant spider do things, and god damn it that is exactly what he did. He had fun, on his own terms, and made no apologies for it.

He had fun . In solo ranked matchmaking! Can you imagine it? Baked spider guy has so much to teach us.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

Brink DLC detailed. Will include new maps, abilities, weapons attachments and outfits

We've just got the details of Brink's first (free) DLC, Agents of Change.

We've just got the details of Brink's first (free) DLC, Agents of Change. It seems like the war for the Ark is going to be shaken up a little: "Secrets, lies and double agents. Nothing and no-one is who they seem as the Resistance and Security factions deal with the arrival of a mysterious ship from the outside world."

Blimey, that's different. Agents of Change is slated for June. Click more for the details.

Agents of Change will include two new maps, five new abilities, two new weapon attachments and two new outfits. The level cap will also be increased to 24.

If you're still deciding if you should buy Brink you can find our review here. If you're in the UK, however, you still won't be able to get it on Steam.

Founders' Tower – The revolution finally reaches the island's iconic spire and takes the battle

for the Ark to dizzying heights.

Labs – Venture into the depths of the Ark's original research and development laboratories, a

submerged high-tech facility so far untouched by the civil war

UAV – This stealthy and lethal device allows Operatives to automatically mark nearby enemies on their radar. For more explosive fun, they can even take direct control of the UAV and detonate it near unsuspecting foes. Napalm Grenade – Soldiers can use this new grenade to cover an area in a sea of deadly flames. Pyro Mine – Engineers can plant these mines and leave enemies in the epicenter of a massive napalm explosion. Field Regen Unit – Medics can deploy these units to increase the health regeneration of any nearby teammates. Tactical Scanner – This universal ability allows players to reveal the active buffs of their opponents, allowing them to pick off enemies more strategically. Bayonets – Gain the edge in melee combat and cause extra damage with these deadly blades. Weapon Shields – Take cover from enemy fire and prevent headshot bonus damage behind riot-style shields. The Sad Punk – Add a touch of Steampunk to your Resistance character. The Limey – Bring order to the Ark with this outfit inspired by traditional European police lawmen.

How are you getting on with Brink? We've got two official PC Gamer UK servers up at the moment, but they're sadly empty. To find them, just search "PC Gamer" in the browser.

Assassin's Creed III 'Tyranny of King Washington' DLC announced

If Assassin's Creed III's historical fiction account of the American Revolution isn't fictional enough, perhaps fighting the oppressive regime of King George Washington will fit the bill. Ubisoft today announced plans for five packs of AC III downloadable content available in one $30 season-pass purchase, three of which center on "The Tyranny of King Washington.” The alternate history narrative will

Old friends: an ode to Defence of the Ancients

This article originally appeared in issue 246 of PC Gamer.

Some people think that gaming is a solitary hobby. But for me, DotA was a way to connect with my real life friends through an experience that didn't include a darkened room serving overpriced alcohol we couldn't afford. We got to know each other by style of play and syntax of insults. We got to know each other better by issuing orders or coming to someone's aid. We talked to each other over the game like it mattered that we heard each other. And later, when we could afford to leave our rooms, we'd sit in a pub together and laugh endlessly at mishaps and in-jokes and personality quirks, as if our characters were part of ourselves.

Take Vexd. An old veteran of Quake tournaments, his trigger finger was well exercised on unassuming Quakenet noobs, crazy-eyed American smack talkers, and squeal-happy losers. Vexd had a fetish for hopped-up graphics: he riffed on overclocking, he got hot over shiny surfaces, cold over jaggies. He'd go crazy for gutsy, voluptuous environments. Once he told us that Crysis was going to be the best game ever developed. We all politely told him to go and fellate himself. In DotA, he was hot-blooded, impetuous and slightly demented. He put the enemy off. He made them go mad. As an example of this, he always played as Goblin Techies, a set of three tiny green monsters as mad as Vexd's tactics. Watching Vexd's trap-laying, mine-spewing gang of gobbos was like leaving your flat and seeing a toddler with a machine gun on a quadbike: you know something bad will happen, you just don't know why or when or how. And you don't want to be near when it does.

Compare this with Pottej. Pottej was our jack-of-all-trades guy: he was a good leader and could be decisive without being controversial. It was rare that he made a call in DotA that didn't work out, which was unusual: when he played other games, such as clan-level Counter-Strike, his temper could put him on tilt and he'd scream in, guns blazing, and get shot. Yet on the DotA floor he was quick to throw down, quick to escape, and never took a risk he didn't have to. He was an economical player, restrained. He always played like he was playing for us and not for himself. He played quietly. His play reassured us all.

We each took turns to swap in and out of games, depending on who was available that day. We'd met via my university's Games Society, and classes tried their best to dictate our schedules. They often failed. We'd load up on awful canteen food and hunker down for the day's losses and victories, never looking at a clock until 3am. Sometimes we'd forget to go to classes at all.

Playing a good game of Defense of the Ancients – a game where you have assisted, been assisted, died and been reborn, been present at a close scrape and been the saving grace in the small hours of the morning – is to know both raging glee and gutting disappointment. Looking back, I can think how strange it was that those diametrically opposed emotions could exist in the same brain within seconds of each other.

Back then, I didn't have much time for thinking.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I scream, mashing the push-to-talk button down so hard it was almost pressing through the keyboard into wood. “AAAAAAAAAH THEY FOUND ME AAAAAAAAH!”

The Queen of Pain had found me in DotA's forest item shop.

“JESUS,” says Cumminz, after a few seconds of echo recovery. “They might have found Cara.”

In these few seconds of silence I imagine all of them putting their headphones back on, sighing. I feel repentant but am still panicking and screaming down my mic.

“I AM SHADOW STRUCK I am SLOWING I AM GOING TO DIE WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?” I say. “FUCK.”

I look at the minimap. My teammates are miles away. They could not be further away if I'd told them I was carrying a nuke. Why the hell had I gone to our team's shop?

“Come this way, Cara, down the river,” Airhorse says, with a slight smirk in his voice. God, I hate him. He's a fucking god at this game. “Kite him here,” he says. “We're coming to you. Hurl all your specials at him until we get there.”

From across the map, Lavos, who is playing shit horseriding beard-wearer Chen, performs a universal heal which gives me back most of my health and tops up the rest of the team. He gallops towards me too, but I can see on the game's mini-map that the enemy team are disappearing one-by-one from their assigned lanes into the fog of war.

They are coming for me. They are all coming.

I am slowing to a halt. I'm being hit. The poison gouging my character's stats is making me slow, falling inexorably into the grasp of the Queen of Pain behind me. And behind her – oh god. The horror.

“SKELETON KIIIIING,” I say, my throat sore with the words. I'm playing as Tidehunter: a giant fish man. I unleash my Tidehunter's Ravage, damaging and stunning the King and Queen who are chasing me. Finally the slow spell releases me and I run into the arms of my team.

'Oh god, I am so glad to see your ugly, weird faces,' I think, staring at the motley band of characters running past me into the fray. I look at my stupid fat Tidehunter character with annoyance. He looks sheepish. “The rest are coming,” I say, dawdling on 5 health. “But I did some damage, Queen is on less than half.”

“Let's deck them,” Cumminz says, succinctly, “then kill the dickheads that come late to the party.”

Skeleton King and Queen of Slow and Excruciating Pain emerge from the trees to the river, and my team descend on them like ravens on eyeballs, slowing, stunning, hacking, slashing. Both Skeleton and Queen promptly die, and I disappear into a nearby bush to regain some health. My teammates wait for the rest of the enemy to arrive.

“Why,” I begin, “do the characters with mounts not get a speed bonus? If they have a horsie they should -”

“Shh,” Airhorse says to me. “Shh. They're coming.” We listen for the sounds of footsteps in water.

'This is the moment I should leave,' I think. Although I'm regaining my lost health, I'm still on less than 20% and all my abilities are on cooldown. But I just cannot drag myself away. I am part of it. I started it. I want to be there at the end.

The remaining enemy team descends in a pincer movement of weird noises and spells. AI creeps bite into our towers back at our base, and the calm Night Elf voice that seems to speak for the Ancient that needs defending informs us that 'our base is under attack'.

No one pays attention to the towers: Airhorse is ducking in and out expertly, his health miraculously near full even though he is always in the middle of the action. Cumminz is low, but he's winning this one. These two stragglers are too late: there are three of us in the fight and only two of them, and we have them now. I stride out and attempt to kill-steal Cumminz's one.

“Get tae fuck, Cara!” he whines, always more Scottish when complaining. Wait. Skeleton King. Doesn't Skeleton King...

“AAAAAH!” I say. Skeleton King's ultimate ability – earned a good ten minutes into the game, usually – is Reincarnate. Assuming that he's got enough mana and the skill's not on cooldown, one kill won't be enough to put him down. He has just Reincarnated behind me, trying to finish what he'd started by hacking into my Tidehunter's shell.

I am going to die.

I turn around and anchor the guy in his bony, smug face. Airhorse comes in to help. I am down to 5 health again though, and just as I think I'm done -

Silence. The bodies are on the forest floor.

Cumminz laughs. Then Lavos laughs. Airhorse says, “Cara, you idiot, you're on 1 health.”

I look at the health bar. I was one nasty look away from death. We laugh, slightly madly, like one should late at night. I immediately go to All Chat and type: “ul guys 1 hp”

The reply: “fuk u tidhonter”

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Comments
Our Verdict
Play the game the way it asks you to and you can have lots of fun, but Brink can be a bit too needy for pick-up-and-play.

It took about eight hours before Brink finally clicked for me. I'd levelled up, grabbed caltrops as a special secondary power and disguised myself as an enemy. Free-running, I was leaping from boxes to banisters and jumping off walls, doing so just for the pleasure of the movement, and heading to my objective: stop the Resistance stealing hydraulic fluid.

I was playing on the Security side, Operative class - hacker, disguiser, all-round jerk. Players tend not to spy-check in Brink, so when I arrived at the hydraulic fluid store cupboard, the Resistance didn't take any notice. Tee-hee! They were being pinned back by the rest of my team and focusing their attentions on the amassing forces. At least four of them were crammed in there. Their Engineer had dropped a turret inside. It was a stupid place to put it: it wasn't covering the entrance, but was pointing at his own team.

I reprogrammed the turret, and in doing so dropped my disguise, but surprise goes hand-in-hand with a sodding great turret. I tossed the caltrops to add to their misery, and the four foes in the room were ripped apart, all dropping to the ground and begging to be put down (which is actually an option). Now, to get to the fluid, they had to make it past me, their own reprogrammed turret and my shrapnel.

Breaking the stranglehold on the room let the rest of my team set up around it. We coordinated: the Heavy Soldiers took the sides, a Medic flitted between everyone, Engineers set up more turrets and another Operative set about harassing the Resistance. We held them off, and not even a brutal assault at the final tick of the clock unseated us. We owned that space.

It was my first great moment in Brink, but it took some time for the game to open up enough to let it happen. The first few hours of the mostly online, team-based shooter were filled with a series of scrappy battles. I don't think that was because they've made a complicated shooter; more that the game's disparate parts take a while to get used to when all you want is to go shooty-bang-bang.

Those disparate parts? The same levels for singleplayer, multiplayer and co-op. A generous XP system. Multiple objectives that depend on character class. Different body types that affect the game's free-running movement system. It's more than most games would be willing to throw into a pacey online shooter.

When you create a character, you're given a choice: 'Save the Ark?' or 'Escape the Ark?' Your answer leads to the Security or Resistance sides, respectively. The two teams are fighting over the giant, floating city you live in - the Ark. This leads to asymmetrical objectives. It's an interesting story, slickly told. Nobody is right, and motivations are selfish, but each side has fair points. How you handle that is up to you.

In Brink, the singleplayer is the same as the co-op and multiplayer (there are bots that populate maps clearly made for multiplayer). Even so, the only encouragement for playing offline is in the challenge maps, and only because it's there that you unlock weapons and costumes. The bots are alright, but there's no substitute for online play.

There are no faction-specific classes or weapons, but the character creation doles out various clothing options, and the objectives are different for each team when you hit the servers. I spent most of my time as a Security Operative, but dabbled with the rest of the casts: Soldier, Engineer and Medic, alternating between sides online. Aside from the usual hairdos and bandanas, you also select a body type in the character creator. This has implications for your overall movement. New characters are locked into the Medium body until you level up. You have access to most but not all of the weapons, and have a better range of movement than a Heavy (who gets all the weapons), but not as much as a Light. The idea is that you discover Brink's level-design diversity slowly, locking the 'SMART' free-running system until you've experienced a few games. It's a shame that it takes a few hours of having your wings clipped before you're given full reign, because SMART is Brink's most successful innovation.

You have the normal range of movement you'd expect from an FPS, but holding down the SMART button, or simply jumping or ducking at the right moments, adds mantling, wall-running and sliding. It's wonderfully fulfilling when you're sprinting alongside a group of other players, watching them peel off and run right at walls, leaping up to grasp ledges and then pull up and over. A sprinting group of gun-wielding acrobats, Medics and Engineers buffing everyone as they sprint to the objectives.

It also has a purpose: you use SMART to flank or hunt higher ground. It encourages some incredible moment-to-moment gunplay as you race along, spraying bullets into enemies and fleeing them by sliding through broken doorways. Even purposeless running is a joy. You find yourself steering for things to skip over or slide under, just for the fun of it. And without any fall damage, you can make dramatic entrances, leaping over barriers into enemy-packed warehouses. Sure you'll die, but what a death.

Body type is divorced from the character class limits, so you can be a Light, Medium or Heavy anything. Where the classes can be altered on-the-fly in the game (adjusting to your objective is a key principle), you have to quit to tweak your body type in the character creation screen. You also spend your XP points offline. Brink is generous: just joining a server for a few seconds before the end of a match earned me points for the next level. You have both general and class-specific unlocks.

It wasn't until I'd bagged the caltrops for the Operative that I felt there were some tactics to my approach, rather than just launching at the enemy from the level above, using the element of surprise to bring shock and awe to their dumb, gaping faces. Now I could lace entrances with spiny bits of shrapnel. When you do overwhelm someone, they don't die right away. They lie there in a state of suspension, waiting to resurrect or for a Medic. You can finish them off or surround them with caltrops and injure any Medic that comes to heal them. The game tells you where every bit of XP comes from, so lining a space with caltrops is a good way of knowing when an enemy is approaching.

The slick UI presents a lot of information well (when you select an objective, the camera spins to show you where it is). Yet the levels and objective placements are Brink's biggest letdown. Neither mesh that well with the free-running. They're tight, with more corridors than you'd expect in a game that encourages expressive acrobatics.

The completion countdown timers seemed surprisingly generous. It's because you spend a lot of time in stalemates, trying to force through chokepoints. Some are doorways, but others require the right class to hack a door or repair a crane. If you're not all crammed into a small space, fighting it out for ten minutes, you're on one of the escort missions that pepper Brink with annoying regularity. It's not that it's not possible to have fun, it's just that, for a game built for the joy of sprinting and leaping, the objectives are either slow or made for standoffs. Even the secondary, quickly capped tasks tend to take away from the main ones, making progress sluggish.

Brink is tuned to work under a particular set of circumstances, and these come along a bit too irregularly in public play. As in Enemy Territory, you need a team working together to make things special. I don't have a problem with that, but it's definitely a niche game draped in AAA clothing, where you don't just join up and do your own thing. You need to know the levels, understand that objectives need certain classes (there, Brink fails to be forceful enough) and be willing to muck in when required. I like it, but it's not for everyone.

The Verdict

Brink

Play the game the way it asks you to and you can have lots of fun, but Brink can be a bit too needy for pick-up-and-play.

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Dota 2 - The International 2 documentary video released by Valve

The International 2 was Valve's second-annual tournament for Dota 2 .

. Even with the game still in beta, a $1.6 million prize pool (with $1 million awarded to the champs) was dangled before teams, a purse exceeded in eSports only by League of Legends' Season Two Championship.

To coincide with the tournament, which took place at PAX Prime during the days connecting August and September, Valve commissioned a documentary that finally released today. The video features interviews with the 16 teams who competed, following them from the preliminary stages (held at Valve's offices) through to the finale itself.

What a strange, happy thing it is to have two technically independent developers--Valve and Riot Games--trying to out-spectacle one another as eSports. Though technical issues and instances of cheatingslightly soured the League of Legends' Season Two Championship, it was a delight to watch. We're gaming in an exciting time, aren't we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqk9C1wVT0U

The Dota 2 YouTubechannel has plenty of other video bits and interviews from The International 2, if you're hungry for more.

Brink patch fixes lag and improves performance

Steam brings news that a new Brink patch landed last night.

brings news that a new Brink patch landed last night. The update should clear up many of the lag and performance issues many players have encountered. According to the patch notes, the server browser is now easier to use, ambient occlusion won't kill your frame rate and alt-tabbing won't explode your game. You'll find all the latest updates listed below.

If you're on the fence about splashing our Splash Damage's latest shooter, check out our Brink review. To make more tweaks and improvements to the game, check out Brink Config, a handy little tool that will give you control over mouse and field of view settings. Don't forget that we have two PC Gamer UK servers set up too. Search for "PC Gamer" in the in-game browser, or join us directly on 85.236.100.61. Port: 27115 for Objective and 85.236.100.61. Port: 27215 for Stopwatch matches.

General:

Fixed sound dropping out when playing networked games Improved graphical performance, especially when using Ambient Occlusion Fixed voice packs being reset to default when you delete another character Removed ability to use certain cheat protected commands in challenges Fixed memory leak/crash when alt-tabbed out

User Interface:

Full servers are no longer filtered out of the browser Added support for entering a range of numbers (i.e. 10-12) in server filters Reduced font size in the server browser Exiting Head customization returns to the correct menu Fixed being unable to bind KP_Enter in the UI Increased font size of in-game text chat 'Enter' now closes text chat prompt if empty Fixed challenge in menu flashing even after completion

Dedicated Servers:

Improved dedicated server CPU performance Fixed NPC not spawning for escort objectives online on servers using unsupported cvars

New Assassin's Creed 3 trailer stirs the soul

Get your muskets ready, folks, because this new trailer for Assassin's Creed 3 is going to make you want to go out and snipe some Redcoats. Yes, even if you're British. We're starting to worry things might get a little bit awkward between us and GamesRadar UK when Assassin's Creed III comes out. On one hand, it looks like a stellar game that most people will enjoy. On the other hand, it doesn't look much like ACIII will be very understanding when it comes to the position of the British. Also, we're really hoping ACIII includes a level where you play that woman with an ax defending her children. Topics Assassin's Creed 3 Ubisoft Action Assassin's Creed III We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments

Dota 2 data yields ideal team composition

What's the ideal Dota team composition?

What's the ideal Dota team composition? You might be thinking that the answer is something like a carry, a semi-carry/initiator, a pusher, a support and a disabler, or something along those lines. That would make sense right?

Well, Reddit user KjellJaglandwanted to find out for sure, so he turned to good, hard, statistics. He sucked in a bunch of Dota data from stats site Dotabuff, ran it through an open source C# app, and ranked different team compositions according to their win ratios.

The huge number of heroes available in Dota 2 also means an even huger number of potential team compositions -- almost 50 million, to be precise. But plenty of those are only rarely seen, so to smooth out the data, KjellJagland accepted only the team compositions that had more than 50 results to analyse -- a total of 39,626 different combinations.

The resultsare pretty surprising. Agility heroes fared terribly, with the most successful team composition (successful 54.2% of the time) being four strength heroes and one intelligence hero. That makes a certain amount of sense -- tying a hero's damage output and health pool to a single stat means that you end up with a long-lasting, high-damage team that simply dies less often.

Interestingly, ranged heroes perform consistently better than melee ones. A team with five ranged heroes wins 55.3% of the time, whereas one with five melee heroes has a win-rate of just 42.6%.

But that was just a small deviation from the average. The really weird results came when different hero roles were analysed. These roles were taken directly from Valve's descriptions, so they could take into account a hero labelled as "carry" being played as a support, but that should average out over time.

The most successful number of carries on a team wasn't one. It wasn't two, or even five. It was zero. A team with no carries on it at all tended to win 14.1% more than average.

The statistics for disablers were pretty interesting too. A team with none sucks, losing 6.1% more than the average, but increasing the number brings only small benefits - four disablers on a team is the most successful combination, but it only wins 2.3% more than average. It seems like as long as you've got a few disablers, you'll be fine, but adding loads doesn't help much more.

It makes sense that the more durable heroes you have, the better. Having all five of your heroes marked as "durable" will win you 61.4% of your games, with all other factors being equal. That's for the same reasons that strength heroes dominate the stats -- more health means fewer deaths, and less XP for the enemy team as a result.

The same logic would suggest that a team with lots of escape heroes should do well, but weirdly they don't. A team with none whatsoever should win 7.7% more games than average. It's hard to say why this might be -- KjellJagland suggests in the comments on his Reddit threadthat it's because escape heroes tend to run away from fights leaving their friends to die.

I'd add that it might be because using escape mechanisms often requires a degree of skill -- and most of the data here is likely to come from newer players, who don't fully know how to use their abilities. Escape heroes tend to be naturally more squishy, so if they're not using their abilities to their fullest, that'll bring the average down.

Junglers, and nukers don't tend to have much impact on the game, but pushers do -- a team with four pushers will win 11.9% more than average. "running full pusher setups might actually be viable," says KjellJagland. Initiators are powerful too -- a five-initiator lineup should tend to win 61.9% of its matches.

So what does that make the ideal team composition? Well, the very highest win-rates come from a no-carry, four-disabler or one-carry, one-disabler setup, but these have very small popularity ratings (0.2% and 0.3% respectively), so it's possible that success rates are being skewed by outliers - weird games that don't represent "normal" play.

A one-carry, two-disabler team (which represents a larger chunk of test data, 3%) with the other heroes filling out the other roles -- pushing, initiating and support in different combinations is probably best. This team should win 61.2% of its games, again assuming that all other factors are equal.

The very worst? Five carries and three initiators, which will win just 31.9% of its games. That's not an 8-hero team, by the way, almost all heroes are flagged with more than one role.

The lesson you should take away from all of this is that if you're on a public server with three carries already selected on your team, the best thing you can do is play a disabler or a pusher.

Skip Riki this time, take one for the team, and you'll be far more likely to bring home a victory.

Tweak Brink's FOV, mouse settings and more with Brink Config 1.4

Brink isn't a bare-bones console port, but it's not the most accommodating of PC games either, lacking in Field Of Vision settings and lots of the options we love to tweak.

Brink isn't a bare-bones console port, but it's not the most accommodating of PC games either, lacking in Field Of Vision settings and lots of the options we love to tweak. Brink Config 1.4 lets you to fiddle with lots of settings you couldn't previously. Lovely.

Click more for the full list of features and to download Brink Config.

Get the tool here.

Crouch Toggle Zoom Toggle Raw Mouse Input Mouse Sensitivity Mouse smoothing Mouse invert Allow Console Machine Spec FOV Fullscreen Custom resolution width Custom resolution height Show FPS Motion Blur Anti Aliasing Anisotropy Texture Filtering Shadows HBAO Soft Particles Gamma Brightness Post Processing Portals Optimized Shadows Sound Occlusion Number of speakers Sprint Toggle View Effects Skip Intro Skip Particles Refresh Rate Threaded Renderer Decals View Distance Enemy Tint Enabled

Seeing as we're in the UK, we're still having issues installing Brinkin the first place. In fact, we still can't see it on Steam, which makes us extremely sad. To whoever is responsible for this: please fix. Preferably by lunchtime.

...

Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Free-form platforming is awesome Simple satisfying combat and stealth kills Decent boss battles and exciting escape sequences Cons Imprecise controls cause platforming flubs Lifeless characters and story; brain-dead AI Spotlights the original's bothersome flaws A lot of people condemned the original Assassin%26rsquo;s Creed%26rsquo;s repetition as its worst

The making of Dota 2's Aegis of Champions, plus premium WETA replicas

The Dota 2 team have detailed of process of building the Aegis of Champions - the massive trophy and functioning shield* given out at the end of this year's International tournament - in conjunction with master propbuilders WETA.

The shield is made of bronze, leather and electroplated silver and features the Dota 2 symbol surrounded by a Radiant and Dire Yin and Yang style motif. An area on the back is reserved for the names of International champions, currently Chinese team Invictus Gaming.

WETA are also taking preorders for a range of premium Dota 2 props. Vanguard and the Demon Edge Sword are a whopping $299 each, and you can pick up a Butterfly or a statue of Axe for only $249 a piece.

It's notable (ish) that Butterfly is the cheapest real-life weapon, as it costs a hefty 6000 gold in the game itself. Vanguard is only 2225, for heaven's sake - and who doesn't already have a stout shield and a ring of health lying around? Demon Edge will cost you 2400 gold all in one go, but really it's just a stepping stone on the way to a Daedalus.

Basically, I'm saying that if you're in the market for a massive urethane sword, then Butterfly is the best value proposition. Also, that 35% evasion chance could come in handy when crossing the road.**

* I am perfectly happy to take Gabe Newell at his word in this regard.

** Please under no circumstances attempt this.

Brink parkour challenge completed in 18 seconds

Here's a dose of mad Brink parkour skills, via Splash Damage writer and designer Ed Stern's Twitter feed.

Twitter feed. The freerunner defies gravity to complete the assault course in just 18 seconds. Impressive, no? The runner admits it's not quite perfect, but says that "17s will be unbeatable," which is a challenge if ever I heard one.

CCP: EVE Online 's Players 'Greatly Affected' Game's Direction, Via CSM

The making of Dota 2's Aegis of Champions, plus premium WETA replicas

The Dota 2 team have detailed of process of building the Aegis of Champions - the massive trophy and functioning shield* given out at the end of this year's International tournament - in conjunction with master propbuilders WETA.

The shield is made of bronze, leather and electroplated silver and features the Dota 2 symbol surrounded by a Radiant and Dire Yin and Yang style motif. An area on the back is reserved for the names of International champions, currently Chinese team Invictus Gaming.

WETA are also taking preorders for a range of premium Dota 2 props. Vanguard and the Demon Edge Sword are a whopping $299 each, and you can pick up a Butterfly or a statue of Axe for only $249 a piece.

It's notable (ish) that Butterfly is the cheapest real-life weapon, as it costs a hefty 6000 gold in the game itself. Vanguard is only 2225, for heaven's sake - and who doesn't already have a stout shield and a ring of health lying around? Demon Edge will cost you 2400 gold all in one go, but really it's just a stepping stone on the way to a Daedalus.

Basically, I'm saying that if you're in the market for a massive urethane sword, then Butterfly is the best value proposition. Also, that 35% evasion chance could come in handy when crossing the road.**

* I am perfectly happy to take Gabe Newell at his word in this regard.

** Please under no circumstances attempt this.

Brink disappears from UK Steam store. Customers unable to activate retail copies

Brink was due to get a UK release on Steam today, but its product page has mysteriously disappeared from the store.

Users who try and access the game's official Steam pageare informed that "This item is currently unavailable in your region." Search for " Brink" and you get by the past few trailers but no download page.

According to posts on the Steam forums, most players who activated their copies soon after the 1am release this morning have been able to play. Lots of UK users, including those who pre-loaded or bought a retail copy, can't boot it up either.

We've contacted Splash Damage and Bethesda for comment and will update as soon as we get some information. Lucky US gamers have been shooting each other up since Tuesday.

Need for Speed movie coming in 2014

The first rumors of a Need for Speed movie popped up way back in April, but today we're getting the official confirmation that a movie deal is underway between Dreamworks and EA. Many details about the project are still unknown, but we know that EA along with John Gatins and Mark Sourianmad will be producing the picture, while Scott Woagh will be the director. Woagh previously co-directed the critically

Dota 2 update: Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light and Visage arrive

As expected, Dota 2 received a bumper round of hero additions this week!

As expected, Dota 2 received a bumper round of hero additions this week! Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light and Visage the Necro'lic all caught their buses on time and are settling in nicely with their team mates/mortal enemies, depending on how the picks play out. I like to think the Dota 2 heroes are set up in a small town of lodges akin to the Olympic village, where small dramas and rivalries play out with the melodrama of a long running soap opera.

That makes Nyx Assassin the new big bruiser in town, you know, the one with the dark past and a bad attitude with a hidden sensitive side that's gradually teased out as he forms new friendships, like a flower blooming tentatively for young spring sunshine. Except that last part will never happen because he is a GIANT EVIL SCARAB MONSTER. Want to see what he can really do? Let's get into this.

Nyx Assassin

Roses are red, violets are blue, Nyx likes to gank and is right behind you

His bio currently just says "bio" on the Dota 2 official heropedia page, but Dota 2 wikidescribes him as a telepathic "zealot scarab." If you want a sense of what he's all about, he has one attack called "impale" and an ultimate called "vendetta." It doesn't matter how you mash the words "zealot scarab vendetta impale" together, you get a recipe for a pretty horrible death. Nyx can mana burn foes to defend or limit their escape powers, coat himself in an array of spikes to reflect damage and stun, and can turn completely invisible for lengthy periods and deal massive damage when springing out of stealth. In short, he's a competent killer with terrible table manners. Here's Dota Cinema'sdemo showing off his skills.

Keeper of the Light

Pushes lanes with glowing balls of love, is Gandalf

You're a creep, say. That came out wrong. Imagine you're a creep. You're halfway there. You've fought tooth and nail to get past the last wave. The hero supporting you has vanished into the jungle. You make your way forwards with your few remain allies, you turn the corner and suddenly you're obliterated by a wall of HORSES MADE OF LIGHT. Keeper of the Light's illuminate ability is the bane of small-fry lane baddies. He can scrub a path clean as well as any contender, which makes the power that allows him to summon an allied hero from anywhere on the battlefield an extremely useful bonus. Factor in his spirit form, and you have one tough addition to the Dota 2 roster.

Visage the Necro'lic

Glowing blue support gargoyle, comes with goons

If Keeper is Gandalf, Visage is a big, blue Balrog. A slightly tentative Balrog, who doesn't really want to cross that narrow bridge protected by a mad wizard. He'd rather sit back, lay down a few debuffs and then send two flying familiars ahead to deal with the situation. He's pragmatic like that, Visage. There's some resource management involved in keeping him operating at peak efficiency, though. He can layer Gravekeeper's Cloaks to fend off damage, and dish out punishment with stacks of soul charges using his Soul Assumption ability. The ability to throw out gargoyle minions lets him linger near the carnage while hopefully staying out of too much trouble. That's just his style. Some would call it cowardice, but they're all dead now, carrion for his hungry, hungry goons.

The International is coming

We're just weeks away from Valve's second big Dota 2 invitational event, The International. As a result, it sounds as though we won't be getting many new heroes in the coming weeks. According to the latest post on the Dota 2 blog Valve will be "clamping things down a tad, focusing on getting the existing feature and hero set polished to a high sheen."

"Fear not, we will continue to work on new heroes internally, getting them ready for a release once The International is over."

You'll find the full list of teams involved on the International site. It's all kicking off on August 31 in Seattle. For more on the latest additions to Dota 2, surf recent posts on our Dota 2 tag.

New trailer for The Climb takes Crytek's VR sim to the Alps

The new teaser shows off more in the way of gameplay than the announcement trailer posted late last year.

Crytek has released a new gameplay trailer for its VR mountain climbing sim The Climb, this one showcasing the game's second location in the Alps.

The new teaser shows off more in the way of gameplay than the announcement trailer posted late last year. The disembodied hands appear to have changed ever-so-slightly, and those route guides painted onto the rock are interesting too, and not something I recall seeing prior to this teaser.

Routes—although not route makers—are something that Senior Level Designer Matthias Otto actually talked about in a blog post last month. He said Crytek designed the game with plenty of horizontal and even downward movement, in order to avoid discomfort and neck strain caused by climbing—and thus looking—upward all the time. He also said the team opted to incorporate a fade-out when players fall, because the sensation of falling is a rush, but the sensation of landing apparently proved to be a little less pleasant.

James spent some time with The Climb back in December and described it as " a harrowing bit of fun," which sounds promising, although he also copped to a dreadful fear of heights, which no doubt contributed to the intensity of the experience. It's being developed for the Oculus Rift, and while there's currently no launch date, there is a website at theclimbgame.com.

Geometry Wars 3: Say goodbye to sleep. Again

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Dota 2 heroes incoming: Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light and Visage

According to test notes published on the Dota 2 forums by Icefrog, THREE heroes are warming up for combat, which means we can soon look forward to picking vengeful, nuke-tastic zealot scarab Nyx Assassin, man-on-horse who's basically Gandalf, Keeper of the Light and flaming blue gargoyle monster, Visage.

According to test notes published on the Dota 2 forums by Icefrog, THREE heroes are warming up for combat, which means we can soon look forward to picking vengeful, nuke-tastic zealot scarab Nyx Assassin, man-on-horse who's basically Gandalf, Keeper of the Light and flaming blue gargoyle monster, Visage. They'll likely be added to the main client in this week's Thursday update, but they're rampaging all over the test client right now blinding, spiking and mana-burning all manner of foes.

That's a nice, varied mix of heroes. Nyx is an insectoid gank artist with a passion for spikes and invisibility. Keeper of the Light is a righteous pusher who can blast lanes with waves of glowing horses and Visage is a minion-summoning support specialist. The weekly updates are doing a great job of keeping Dota 2 fresh. It's currently the most played game on Steam, and that popularity is only going to grow as the next International tournamentdraws close, and Dota 2 creeps towards a proper release.

Here are those update notes from the Dota 2 forums.

- Added Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light, and Visage and enabled in Captain's Mode!

- Added a cooldown to being able to find a match when a player declines or abandons a game.

- Beastmaster: Fixed Wild Axes working with Refresher.

- Beastmaster: Wild Axes no longer provide vision when they aren't flying.

- Naga Siren: Fixed Dust of Appearance not working against units slept by Song of the Siren.

- Naga Siren: Fixed Ice Blast debuff not getting added to units slept by Song of the Siren.

- Naga Siren: Fixed Weave not affecting units slept by Song of the Siren.

- Phantom Lancer: Fixed Doppelwalk illusions not correctly replicating their inventory item slots.

- Rubick: Fixed Wild Axes being left around when another ability is stolen.

- Sand King: Neutrals can now be damaged by Sandstorm.

- Templar Assassin: Fixed Meld initial attack doing too much damage.

- Slardar: Fixed Bash working while doomed.

- Neutrals damaged by an invisible enemy will now try to run away.

- Multiple tweaks to director events and framing.

- Fixed particle effects sometimes not drawing while in Player Perspective mode.

- Added notification for when a Tournament has a live game currently running.

- The kill card now shows a randomly selected item that the killer is wearing. Also reduced its size.

- Fixed equipping an item in the backpack not jumping to the correct hero in the loadout

- Added Buyback to the spectating stats dropdown.

- Added a cooldown for being able to find a match when a player declines or abandons a game.

- Fixed Rubick retaining incorrect skins from stolen abilities when returning to his normal model.

- Meld damage display is now only shown for successful hits.

- Significant revision of how bots determine their strategic desires.

- Roshan desire has been significantly reworked. It's now based on how quickly Roshan can be killed given the available heroes and how quickly enemies can show up.

- Evasion desire is now more granular. Things like Blade Fury now cause a range of evasion desire based on the bot's current health.

- Fixed case where bots were trying to path to an invalid location when defending their base.

- Made bots more aggressive about attacking when defending a lane.

- Cleaned up inferred human modes for pushing and defending lanes.

- Made bots less concerned about distance when considering an attack on a pinged target.

- Fixed bug that made pinged towers less likely to attract allied bots that were doing other high-priority stuff.

- Tuned retreat desire values when hurt and close to the fountain.

- Made bots somewhat more likely to buy a flying courier.

- Added a new Import Wearable option to the Publish New Item section of the in-game workshop UI. It will compile, validate, and preview your model before you submit it. When submitting, it also packs the files into a format that makes it much easier for us to bring it into the game.

Crytek reveals dino-based VR game Robinson: The Journey

Guess who's making their first virtual reality title, a game about a young boy stranded on a planet full of dinosaurs?

Guess who's making their first virtual reality title, a game about a young boy stranded on a planet full of dinosaurs? It can't be Crytek, because it's not called RobCRYinson: The Journey. It's called Robinson: The Journey. And yes, it is being developed by Crytek, who don't appear to be in a hurry to fill this game with robosuited cockneys or guns.

Robinson (no relation to Robinson's Requiem, probably, or to Neighbours' Paul Robinson) will "offer players an unparalleled sense of presence in a game world as they assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a mysterious planet. With freedom to explore their surroundings in 360 degrees of detail, players will become pioneers by interacting with the rich ecosystem around them and unearthing incredible secrets at every turn".

Robinson likely has something to do with this VR demo Crytek were showing off a little while back, which had the more enjoyable title 'Back to Dinosaur Island'.

Man. Why would you go back to Dinosaur Island?

No platforms or other details about Robinson have been released yet, but we'll doubtless learn more during one of the E3 presentations this week. For now, here's a big piece of art with the logo on it:

Gamescom 2014 predictions

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Dota 2 update adds better bots, new special chests and new hero: Templar Assassin

This week's Dota 2 update is a chunky one in spite of the addition of just the one hero.

This week's Dota 2 update is a chunky one in spite of the addition of just the one hero. Templar Assassin's long range traps and invisibility powers will give gankers an intriguing new skillset to work with, but this week's winners are fans of Dota 2's round blue king of camp, Storm Spirit. His new announcer pack brings a bit of bonus melodrama to Dota's lane battles. Those with a bit more money to burn can make use of a new breed of special chests full of exclusive items. They can be opened with keys bought in the Dota 2 store.

That's not all, though. Bug fixes, better bot behaviour and new items all get a mention in the latest Dota 2 update. Let's get stuck in.

Lanaya the Templar Assassin

Stealthy Agility Carry/Ganker

It wasn't until she was fired from her day job for non-attendance that the ever-punctual Lanaya realised that she had a tendency to turn invisible when sitting still. She retreated to a nearby park bench to contemplate her future, but could find no answers until she stood up to leave and surprised a pigeon to death. That was the moment she realised her true ganking potential. Inspired, she perfected the art of turning aside damage, throwing cones of psi energy and laying traps, and headed to the lanes of Dota to turn her skills to more murderous matters.

Lanaya's most interesting quirk is the way her effective range changes over the course of a fight. Her Psi-blades attack can be passively upgraded to deal damage at longer distances with increased damage and her ultimate lets her throw down numerous traps all over the battlefield, setting up assists and, at a pinch, hindering escaping enemies. Her refraction ability immunises her to precisely six hits, which can be used to great advantage in the middle of a melee, but the micro needed to time these abilities effectively make her a challenging hero to learn.

Here's another one of Dota Cinema'sever-useful hero overviews, showing off Templar Assassin's abilities.

New treasure chest

The patch notes mentions the arrival of a new type of treasure chest. The poster below from the Dota 2 blogprovides more details. The chest has a turtle-like appearance, and the keyused to unlock seems to have a tiny turtle impaled on the end of it. I sure hope the items within are worth the death of that poor tiny turtle.

The new chests have only just arrived, so it's hard to know what sort of items they'll contain, but details are sure to appear soon on the chest summary on the Dota 2 wiki.

Storm Spirit Announcer Pack

£5 in the Dota 2 store. I'll just leave this here.

Patch notes

And here are the latest patch notes, via Steam:

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

- Added Templar Assassin!

- Enabled Templar Assassin, Disruptor and Undying in Captain's Mode.

GAMEPLAY

- Bounty Hunter: Fixed Jinada proccing on Tombstone.

- Broodmother: Fixed Spiderling passive proccing on magic immune units (like zombies) and spawning mass spiderlings.

- Disruptor: Fixed Kinetic Field sometimes causing heroes to fail to attack a hero who is being trapped in the field.

- Earthshaker: Fixed Echo Slam inital damage not hitting units through magic immunity.

- Leshrac: Fixed Pulse Nova procing Essence Aura.

- Lone Druid: Fixed Spirit Bear not aggroing creeps when it attacks a hero

- Luna: Fixed Moon Glaive bouncing on ward type units

- Luna: Fixed Moon Glaive bounce order.

- Lycan: Fixed wolves having max speed for their duration after Shapeshift ends if summoned during Shapeshift.

- Necrolyte: Fixed Death Pulse not healing allied magic immune units

- Puck: Fixed Phase Shift proccing Essence Aura.

- Rubick: Fixed being able to steal spells from their being toggled off.

- Rubick: Fixed getting stuck in Flesh Golem form when respawning with the buff.

- Rubick: Fixed some abilities being broken when re-stealing them, now re-stealing an ability will have no effect on your currently stolen ability.

- Shadow Shaman: Fixed Ether Shock ignoring Linken's Sphere.

- Spiritbreaker: Fixed Greaterbash affecting Magic Immune units when procced via other abilities

- Undying: Fixed Tombstone interaction with Refresher Orb.

- Undying: Fixed Deathlust sometimes not working properly.

- Undying: Fixed a bug where Deathlust would sometimes not go away.

- Undying: Decay now makes the target lose exactly 76 health when cast and heal exactly 76 when it ends. Before the health scaling was causing the target not to lose then gain the correct amount of health.

- Wisp: Fixed Spirits exploding on illusions.

- Wisp: Fixed Relocate to not teleport Wisp while dead

- Improved AFK detection.

- Fixed Smoke of Deceit dodging incoming projectiles if there are nearby enemy heroes.

- Fixed Ethereal Blade and Black King Bar interaction.

- Fixed completely-avoided damage from triggering blink dagger's cooldown.

UI

- Rich Presence now shows if you're casting a game.

- If you buy an Aghanim's Scepter on a hero with no upgrade, this is now shown in the ability.

- Battle point rate and any equipped bonuses are now shown in the inspect panel.

- Numerical battle points earned (split into base and bonus) are now shown on the game end screen.

- The play panel now shows matchmaking game modes and regions from the party when finding a match.

- Improved unpause countdown, added UI sound.

- Fixed case where we weren't properly crediting damage from summoned units/wards to their hero in the combatlog.

- Added an interface setting to prevent the camera from moving upon respawn

- Neutrals now have yellow healthbars when spectating.

- Roshan's healthbar is now slightly bigger.

- We now hide all match details until you reveal the winner.

- Team names and logos are now shown on match details panel.

- Fixed a handful of issues with the message and chat system when watching replays.

- The killcam card now flips over to show the full body portrait.

DOTA 2 BOTS

- Improved how bots manage their movement while doing evasive maneuvers -- they will now consider a range of escape directions and select the best one based on other nearby avoidance zones.

- Added avoidance to Disruptor's Kinetic Field (while it's forming) and Static Storm.

- Improved how bots request items from the stash via the courier. The courier will now only deliver items the hero has room for, and bots will take into account projected item combines.

VISUALS

- Added overhead messages when items or abilities cause unnatural mana gain or loss (such as Arcane Boots).

ECONOMY

- A new chest with exclusive items has been spotted.

- Announcers, couriers and several rare items on sale.

- Added Storm Spirit announcer.

- Added over 50 new community created items.

Crytek's Back to Dinosaur Island VR experience is now free on Steam

If you've got a VR headset you can now download and experience Crytek's Back to Dinosaur Island demo for free.

If you've got a VR headset you can now download and experience Crytek's Back to Dinosaur Island demo for free. It's not a game per se , but it's a pretty stunning demonstration of what VR is capable of at the moment, and yeah, it has dinosaurs.

Months after showing off Back to Dinosaur Island at GDC in March, Crytek announced Robinson: The Journey, another VR experience that seems to extend the premise of Back to Dinosaur Island, albeit this time in a more 'game-y' way. According to Crytek's June announcement, Robinson will "offer players an unparalleled sense of presence in a game world as they assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a mysterious planet." A mysterious planet with dinosaurs, of course.

As for Back to Dinosaur Island, Tyler had a go back at GDCand came away a little bit rattled, apparently. "It made me realize that we're going to have to put a lot of trust in the people making VR games," he wrote. "They can't mess with us, or at least, not any more than we agree to be messed with before putting on the headset."

Back to Dinosaur Island is now on Steam.

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Dota 2 update adds new heroes: Disruptor and Undying

BWAAAARM.

BWAAAARM. The audacious horn/bong/bwaaarm noise that loudly announces that you've been slotted into a game in Dota 2 is also a fitting one with which to introduce the two new heroes added by the latest weekly patch. Look, an Orc riding a Tauntaun with a backpack made of tesla coils! It must be Thrall the Disruptor, here to mess up your Dota 2 strategies with a combination of electrical strikes and forced teleports. But woah, what's that awful smell? Has that Tauntaun let off a banger again? Oh, no. That's just Dirge the Undying dragging his fetid carcass to the party. Welcome to the party Dirge, just ... try not to touch anything.

But what can these new heroes do, and what changes have been made in the latest patch? Let's find out.

Thrall the Disruptor

Tesla-mad nuker

Dota 2 heroes often combine magic and science in interesting ways. I can sort of buy the fact that Thrall has a powerful battery pack that electrifies his hammer letting him through lightning about with gusto, but there's very little explanation for his ability to call forth a perfect circle of tesla coils from the earth to trap his foes. Nonetheless, the ability to layer his damaging static storm ultimate template directly over that fizzling ringfence makes him a significant threat. What's more, his comedy forced teleport can throw foes back to the location they occupied a few seconds ago. Just when you think you've escaped that electrified ring of tesla coils, Thrall keeps pulling you back in .

Dota Cinema'sSunsfan provides a nice visual overview of The Disruptor's techniques in this video.

Dirge The Undying

Decomposing pusher

Dirge the Undying is a walking zombie apocalypse that can draw strength and health from enemies. He also has an alternative monster form that's even more monster than his ordinary form. His flesh golem form comes with its own charming plague aura that amplifies damage depending on his proximity. That only lasts 30 seconds, so he'll also spend a lot of time raising his undead friends to gnaw on enemy ankles, slowing them a little and freaking them out a lot.

See those abilities in action in this Dota Cinema overview.

Dirge and Disruptor should make interesting additions to Dota 2's ever-expanding lineup, slotting in nicely alongside last week's new heroes, Luna and Wisp. The latest patch has also fixed a few bugs, as highlighted in the latest patch notes.

HIGHLIGHTS

- Added Disruptor and Undying!

- Enabled Rubick, Wisp, and Luna in Captain's Mode.

- Fixed a number of issues that caused effects to be delayed and in some cases not show up while watching Tournament games.

- You can now select your favorite hero and gear to showcase in your profile.

- Tournaments you have passes for are now shown in your profile.

GAMEPLAY

- Bloodseeker: Fixed Bloodbath not properly healing from enemy heroes dying in an AoE.

- Invoker: Fixed DPS burn from Chaos Meteor not stacking per tick.

- Luna: Fixed Eclipse ending if you get Cycloned.

- Outworld Destroyer: Fixed astral indicator to only show for hero and allied team.

- Rubick: Fixed stolen Persuasion not killing stolen creeps when lost.

- Rubick: Fixed stolen Relocate not teleporting teammates who are linked with a stolen Tether.

- Rubick: Fixed Toggleable spells not being stealable.

- Rubick: Fixed not getting flying vision or flying height when stealing Firefly.

- Rubick: Fixed Fade Bolt stopping when Rubick dies.

- Rubick: Fixed stealing Morph Replicate and Replicate not working correctly.

- Rubick: Fixed Invoker's Spell Stolen abilities having broken hotkeys sometimes when using Legacy Mode.

- Rubick: Fixed Telekinesis land AoE triggering Linken's Sphere.

- Wisp: Fixed Magic Stick interaction with Tether.

- Wisp: Overcharge and the two spirit control sub abilities no longer proc magic stick.

- Wisp: Spirits no longer don't retain their vision after they explode.

- Wisp: Fixed Relocate's return not interrupting other channeling spells (like TP Scroll).

- Wisp: Fixed heroes continuing old movement orders after returning with Relocate.

- Wisp: Fixed Soul Ring not working with Tether.

- Warlock: Fixed the burn aura from Warlock's Golems so it stacks correctly.

- Small fix to creep aggro reaction time.

VISUALS

- Fixes for guardian spirits rendering with pops and such when entering/leaving FoW.

- Added 'Telekinesis Land' effect marker for Rubick.

- Added new screen effect while the game is paused.

- Fixed Wisp's voice lipsync getting stuck on with random noise.

- Fixed ranged display stomping on ambient effects, including Wisp's.

- Fixed Unusual Flying Couriers losing some of their effects when transitioning fom walking to flying.

- Fixed Wisp's Tether being left behind when an enemy teleported into the fog of war.

- Changed Guardian Wisp Explosion Effects.

- Added a more obvious Wisp's Tether Boundary Effect.

UI

- When someone buys back, an icon is now displayed on the top bar for 5 seconds.

- Wisp's Tether now shows the amount that it heals it's target.

- Wisp's spirits no longer show up on the minimap.

- Wisp and his tethered unit move their camera when they Relocate and Relocate back.

- Right clicking an upgradable item in the shop will attempt to upgrade any (fully combined) version of that item that the player already owns. (Right click on necro 1 will actually buy a necro recipe if the player has a necro 1 or 2, etc)

- Fixed shop closing when other players' selections change.

- We now show the upgraded info in the ability itself if you're holding an Aghanim's Scepter.

- You can now select your favorite hero and gear to showcase in your profile.

- Tournaments you have passes for are now shown in your profile.

NETWORK

- Fixed a number of issues that caused effects to be delayed and in some cases not show up while watching Tournament games.

AUDIO

- The Relocate sound stops correctly now.

BOTS

- Fixed a bug were all bots would disable themselves if a human on the other team disconnected before picking a hero.

- Changed how bots use Glyph, they should no longer use it when their buildings aren't being attacked.

- Made Crystal Maiden bot even more timid.

- Made bots go to the lane front when defending in-base rather than cowering behind the innermost towers.

- Fixed bug where bots weren't correctly parsing their roles, which would lead to bad hero picking/randoming.

- Fixed case were bots could "cheat" and have knowlege of where their target was when blinking.

Vulnerability and VR: Crytek's tense Oculus Rift demo

I wasn't really scared of the T-rex staring me down.

I wasn't really scared of the T-rex staring me down. I'm pretty sure it was a loving stare, actually, and that I was a baby T-rex chilling in the nest. As I stood on the GDC 2015 show floor with an Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype on my head, I was scared of Crytek. I was scared that they'd tricked me into playing this demo so they could scare the crap out of me in public.

That would be a mean-spirited thing to do—making the T-rex snap my head off without warning—and of course, it didn't happen. After some roars, the dino bounded off into the jungle. But I had to tell myself that Crytek wouldn't do that to me the whole time. Crytek isn't mean. Crytek won't bite my head off while I'm surrounded by hundreds of people.

The coolest thing about Crytek's 'Back to Dinosaur Island' demo is actually really sweet. As the T-rex peered into my eyes, I got a tap on the shoulder. "Tilt your head," said a voice from the other world. I did, and the beast tilted its head with me. The 'I tilt my head when you tilt your head game' is my freaking favorite thing about dogs. It's one of the best things about anything, really. It would've been more adorable if there were fewer sharp teeth involved, but I really liked it. Yet still, I'm thinking, "Hello dinosaur, please don't suddenly bite my head off. I will look very stupid if you do."

Wearing an Oculus Rift can be scary. If I'm watching a horror movie and I don't like what's about to happen, I can look away and study something in the room to remind myself that whatever awful finger-related injury is on the screen is just an effect. In VR, I am at the mercy of the game designer. They can make me jump whenever they want, or gross me out, or all kinds of things I haven't thought of because no one's done it. It is a very vulnerable position to be in, and makes VR not entirely pleasant.

It comes with the territory, though. Either I'm looking at a flat screen and there's that barrier between what's real and what's a game, or my vision is so filled with a new reality that I believe it and can be manipulated by it. Crytek and the Oculus Rift had me feeling that sense of VR 'presence' enough that a jump scare would've destroyed me, but it wasn't fully there. The demo was running on some fancy Nvidia hardware (though not the Titan Xannounced today) at over 90 fps, and looked gorgeous, but I had some issues with the Rift. The headset was uncomfortable over my glasses and there was a crack of light at the bottom, and though it's a massive improvement over the first Rift DK, I still felt like I was peering through a screen door. The consumer version is said to be another big leap, which is encouraging. I also wonder how much it would have improved if I'd been able to adjust the optics and not use my glasses.

It is close, though—whether or not it happens in this first round of consumer releases, I very much believe that VR tech is going to get to the point where we feel totally present in virtual worlds. And it made me realize that we're going to have to put a lot of trust in the people making VR games. They can't mess with us, or at least, not any more than we agree to be messed with before putting on the headset.

I will not be playing VR horror games.

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Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Great RPG fundamentals with clever additions Interesting concept for monster collecting Will please fans looking for racier content Cons Over-the-top fanservice Not all that original Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars is its own worst enemy. It understands and improves upon the fundamentals of dungeon-crawling to make this an enjoyable new entry in the

Dota 2 gets Heropedia and new heroes: Wisp and Luna

Dota 2's expansion gathers pace with the arrival of this week's second update.

Dota 2's expansion gathers pace with the arrival of this week's second update. This one introduces the heropedia, which presents a breakdown of every character's stats, lore background and skills, with short videos of every ability. You can browse it now on the Dota 2 site, or access it via the "Learn" tab in the Dota 2 client.

The grand roster of heroes has also been expanded with two new characters, Luna the Moonrider, who's much more dangerous than she sounds, and Wisp, a glowing ball of light with some unusual abilities. Find out more about them, and absorb the latest patch notes below.

Luna The Moonrider

As titles go, "Luna the Moonrider" isn't likely to instil much fear, until you actually see her and notice that she's riding a giant panther. Then you'll notice that the giant panther is wearing a hat, but while you're busy noticing that, you'll be taking a hit to the face from a rebounding magical chakram. Then as you're trying to pull your senses together she'll be activating her ultimate ability, which turns day to night and starts zapping you with bolts of searing moon energy . "What the hell, moon!?" you'll probably cry.

The ability videos in the updated heropedia were done by Dota cinema, who have also done a couple of overview videos for the new heroes. Here's one for Luna.

Wisp

No Warcraft 3 sprite was left unused in the formation of Defence of the Ancients. Even glowing balls of light can become characters, as Guardian Wisp demonstrates. According to his bio, "Wisp occupies all planes at once, the merest fraction of its being crossing into physical existence at any one moment," which sounds grandiose, but it's best thought of as a sentient glowing ball who just wants to help. It does this by tethering itself to heroes, increasing their movement speed and stunning anyone who touches the strand. For its ultimate trick, it can teleport to any point on the map for 12 seconds, taking any tethered hero along for the ride.

See these abilities in action in the Dota Cinema overview of Wisp.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Added Luna Added Guardian Wisp Dota 2 now uses the CELT codec for increased voice communication quality. Added a testing tool to the Workshop tab that allows contributors to see their models on a hero before submitting. Added Heropedia to the Learn tab.

GAMEPLAY

Bloodseeker: Fixed a bug where he could get healed by friendly heroes dying in the area around him that he didn't deny. Pudge: Fixed a bug that was sometimes causing Pudge's Dismember to do an extra tick of damage Pudge: Fixed a bug that allowed Pudge to deal damage without hurting himself by quickly toggling Rot. Rubick: Fixed a rare case where Rubick could get permanently stuck with Telekinesis Land. Rubick: Fixed a bug where Rubick would gain permanent Spectral Dagger buffs until he died. Rubick: Fixed a bug with Poison Release that would cause you to steal the wrong ability from Shadow Demon. Tiny: Fixed Aghanim's Scepter siege damage vs backdoor armor Fixed being able to use a different player's items in your combine, if that item was in your stash at the time

VISUALS

More Rubick spell animations Various Rubick visual effect improvements and fixes Haste animation added for Bloodseeker Adjusted Ogre Magi's sidearm attack animation Logos removed from waterfall and mid river areas to safeguard gameplay Tweaked dire banner position left of fountain shop Roshan timer appear only after 10 seconds have passed from death Reduced Gyro's model scale a little Removed ambient effects on Razor and Morphling when hexed

UI

Fixed some cases where icons could get stuck on the screen Fixed new heroes not showing up in the hero picker if you had custom view set (They'll now appear in the top left of the grid view, for you to then place as you like) Tournament Panel: Fixed game list not refreshing unless you opened a different tournament and then back. Tournament Panel: Increased the size of the live games and recent games. Tournament Panel: Fixed details button not working properly for the last few games. Fixed Spectator label cutting off number of spectators. Fixed Live games not displaying correctly after opening a Tournament. Fixed a recent bug with the shop not closing when a unit is selected Fixed some bugs with losing commentator perspecting when pausing and unpausing Added backpack preview to couriers Back button in the loadout takes you back to the backpack if you arrived via a backpack right click Fixed some slots on the backpack not being right-clickable if they were not on page 1 Fixed the first equip from the backpack sometimes not working properly Added inspect button near the hero panel for heroes that have custom items Updated the replay skill filter to have more usefull categories. Fixed dragging an item onto itself not turning its icon back on. Cheat commands are now echoed to chat Added a testing tool to the Workshop tab that allows contributors to see their models on a hero before submitting. Fixed Mute button on the scoreboard not working.

AUDIO:

Dota 2 now uses the CELT codec for increased voice communication quality.

Crytek takes Warface to Siberia in its next expansion

I've always thought that Warface is somewhat of a strange title for a game, mainly because I can't read it without imagining R.

is somewhat of a strange title for a game, mainly because I can't read it without imagining R. Lee Ermey screaming in my face and telling me I don't scare him. Which isn't really relevant to the recent announcement of an upcoming Warface expansion set in the chilly mountains of Sibera, but I can't stop thinking about it nonetheless.

Operation Cold Peak will add three new maps to the game, leading to a secluded stronghold in the Altai Mountains. It will require a particular focus on team-based play, as each map is filled with enemies boasting "advanced tactical AI," along with new new bosses and even suddenly-appearing blizzards that will "change the state of play."

Crytek's focus on Warface, and on the free-to-play market in general, caused the studio no small amount of griefover the summer, but the situation has seemingly smoothed out. And while Warface isn't great, it's far from the worst thing you could do with your time, and it's free, which remains a compelling price point. The expansion will be as well, when it comes out, but at this point a release date has not been announced.

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Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Fantastic combat system Masterful art direction A meaningful moral choice system Cons Weak melodramatic and overwritten narrative Poor voice acting gives the game a campy feel Linearity can lead to a frustrating amount of grinding Any time there’s mention of “high fantasy” these days, someone’s bound to roll their eyes and scoff. Tolkein’s core of orcs, elves

Dota 2 International 2012 tickets go on sale tomorrow

The second big International tournament for Dota 2 will take place at PAX Prime in Seattle on August 31.

The second big International tournament for Dota 2 will take place at PAX Prime in Seattle on August 31. Valve are going to top last year's International tournament with a prize pool of at least $1.6 million. With so much cash on the line, we can look forward to a lively contest. If you'd like to swing by and absorb the ambience of the event first-hand, tickets will go on sale on the Dota 2 storetomorrow at 9am PDT / 5pm GTM.

The Dota 2 blogmentions that a lump of tickets will drop every day at that time until Saturday. Tickets cost $49.99 and will be added to your Dota 2 inventory on purchase. That means you can trade it with other players for an unspeakable number of Bill's hats. Using the item will tie your invite to your Steam account, after which "your confirmation and access pass required to enter the event will be emailed to you at a later date." PAX Prime attendees will be able to grab a few spare seats, but that'll be on a first come first served basis, so be sure to bring your best knuckle dusters. Valve say "we expect tickets to sell out quickly."

Valve recently announced that Dota 2 will be free to play, though it's not available yet. Valve are beefing up their server infrastructure to make sure they can handle the demand when the game eventually goes completely live. You can buy your way in, however, with a £25 / $39.99 Dota 2 Invite.

Jump to Section:Best Price

Comments
Our Verdict
Ryse: Son of Rome's combat and incredible graphics are entertaining, but it's too narrow and repetitive, even for a short game.

NEED TO KNOW

What is it? A Roman character action game.
Play it on: Quad Core or Six Core CPU (6+ logical processors), 8 GB RAM, DirectX 11 graphics card with 2 GB video RAM, 26 GB available space
Reviewed on: AMD Quad Core 3.3GHz, 16GB Ram, GeForce GTX 660 Ti PC
Alternatively: DmC: Devil May Cry, Batman: Arkham City
Price: $40/£35
Release date: October 10, 2014
Publisher: Crytek
Developer: Crytek
Multiplayer: two player cooperative
Link : Official site

Marius, a Roman legionnaire with a neck as thick as a glazed ham, is on a mission to avenge multiple murdered father figures. When he returns to Rome, it's beset by the most ferocious barbarians the world has ever known: the Britons.

A group of them cornered me in a courtyard, but they're no match for my ability with a Gladius and Scutum, the Roman short sword and rectangular shield. With a combination of slashes, bashes, and dodges, I weaken them until execution markers appear above their heads, at which point I kill them one at a time or in pairs, relieving them of a limb or two in the process. It's all about timing and matching the right attack to the right enemy, who's always conveniently glowing in the color of the corresponding button.

I could, at any time, press one of the directions on the D-pad to choose whether a successful execution restored health, increased damage, increased XP that I could spend to boost my stats, or focus, which I could use to slow time and kill enemies more easily. If I missed a button press I'd still kill the enemy, only without the desired bonus, but it isn't a big deal because Ryse was never hard enough to make me feel like I need it. Striving for perfection is pointless. I also tested Ryse with keyboard and mouse controls, and it worked just fine, but it was clearly designed for the color-coded Xbox controller

History repeating

It's about as complex as Simon Says, and while it did get repetitive quickly, I'm not going to pretend that I was too sophisticated to derive some pleasure from it for the five hours Ryse lasted. I'm not proud of it, but a childish, depraved part of me enjoyed the shiny graphics and dismemberment every time.

It's essentially the combat from the Batman Arkham and Assassin's Creed games, which means a strong reliance on counters and follow-up strikes. What makes those games so much better than Ryse is that they start with those core mechanics, but then slowly add new gadgets, enemies, and other wrinkles. They have open worlds where I could use that combat to accomplish a bigger goal. Ryse has none of that.

From that first encounter to the last, nothing changes. At all. There were brief sections where I led Roman troops in a straight line by holding the stick forward, and turret sections straight out of Call of Duty (the mounted crossbow has the fire rate of a .50 caliber machine gun), but Ryse is almost entirely combat. I could revive a friend in the two player cooperative arena mode, but otherwise it was more of the same.

Watching the same executions over and over again really gave me the opportunity to appreciate them. I noticed that it's not just the body animations that were realistic, but the facial expressions too. Marius frowns, winces, and grunts generically at the right times. The barbarian's jaw goes lax, his eyes wide in shock and maybe a hint of curiosity at the sword that just emerged from his chest.

It looks absolutely incredible. Ryse is Crytek's latest and best looking game, as if all the energy that would go into building huge open areas in Crysis were condensed into Ryse's smaller world and fewer assets. The fluid animations, floating globs of blood, and over-the-top sound effects make every strike brutal. With the exception of supersampling, which brought my framerate down under 30fps, I ran Ryse at 1920 x 1080 on high settings on my AMD Quad Core 3.3GHz, 16GB Ram, GeForce GTX 660 Ti PC without a problem. It still looked fantastic with supersampling off, and at medium and low setting as well.

Prodigal son

I've seen some impressive digital acting in games before, but always with central characters. In Ryse, even the extras are convincing—but there are only a handful. I’m used to killing the same person multiple times in games, but it's much more obvious in Ryse because enemies have a near photo-realistic specificity to them. Ryse tries to hide this problem later by introducing enemies with masks.

That’s one of many tricks it uses to hide its limitations, and after a while I could see through all of them. For all its beauty, Ryse is incredibly narrow. It took me to ancient Rome, the wilderness of York, and a cliffside outpost battered by waves, but somehow I was always on a path barely wider than Marius, and with him taking about a third of the screen most of the time, it feels claustrophobic. There's always something obstructing the view or cluttering the frame. It's like looking at the most beautiful game ever made through a keyhole.

I'm also annoyed that Ryse is more inspired by God of War than history. Marius doesn't only grunt and yell like Kratos, he's also mired in a dispute between gods for reasons that are never explained. Roman history was amazing enough as it is. There's no need for impossibly intricate armor, transforming coliseums, and a story that dips into the supernatural.

It's meant to give it the appearance of an ambitious, epic tale, but it just makes all its limitations that much more obvious and sad.

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The Verdict

Ryse: Son of Rome

Ryse: Son of Rome's combat and incredible graphics are entertaining, but it's too narrow and repetitive, even for a short game.

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