Jupiter's Folly: free to play multiplayer strategy from the makers of Neptune's Pride

The creators of the terrific, slow burn backstabbing simulators Neptune's Pride and Blight of the Immortals have launched a new game.

have launched a new game. It's called Jupiter's Folly, a self styled "online strategy boardgame" that has a cluster of players fighting for the right to mine precious Crystal from bountiful planetoids. You can play for free in your browser, and pay later to unlock premium features, like more maps, new armies and the ability to create your own custom games.

Like Neptune's Pride and Blight of the Immortals, Jupiter's Folly is about using limited forces to capture linked nodes on a battlefield. You can choose to mine nodes above rich veins of crystal, or stock up forces to fend off nearby human rivals and deflect attacks from the malevolent alien race that inhabit the rock. While there can only be one winner, the best way to dominate a map is to team up with your competitors. So fragile alliances start to form, and the inevitable plotting begins.

Games of Jupiter's Folly last for weeks. You log in once a day to move your forces about, check your resources and trade ability cards with other players. While you're logged off, your orders will slowly take shape. It's a formula that will hopefully encourage the kind of back-room deals and glorious betrayals that made Neptune's Prideour web game of the year in 2010. You'll have to pay to set up games with friends, but if you're quick, and all join a game at once, chances are you might get matched up with your pals anyway.

Blizzard is making a Battle.net Voice Chat system

When Blizzard announced the beta launch date for Overwatch last week, it (somewhat surprisingly) said the game would have built-in voice chat.

Blizzard battle net voice chat

last week, it (somewhat surprisingly) said the game would have built-in voice chat. Now we're learning that it won't just be part of Overwatch, but built into Battle.netitself. A post on the Overwatch blogsaid that Battle.net Voice Chat will launch as part of the Overwatch beta, and that it's "still in its early development and testing stages."

The post makes it clear that, for now, Battle.net Voice Chat will only be available to use within the Overwatch Beta and that it's still "too early to say which Blizzard games will be supported and when." But the fact that it is being built as part of Battle.net, rather than as Overwatch's dedicated VoIP system, possibly indicates that Blizzard is interested in the idea of making voice chat available in more of its games.

Heroes of the Storm seems like an easy fit for the service, but the idea of speaking to my BM'ing Hearthstone opponent makes me quiver. Well Met!

Overwatch Lucio Symbol

THQ closes Kaos Studios

The house that built Homefront has been shut down. THQ today confirmed it is closing the doors to its New York based Kaos Studios, and will be shifting all future work on Homefront content to the publisher's offices in Montreal. News of the closure leaked this afternoon when Zach Wilson, a writer and designer at Kaos, told his Twitter followers he and fellow staffers had heard of the impending shut

Neptune's Pride - PC Gamer UK's Webgame Of The Year

Five weeks of plotting, bluffing and double-crossing with Neptune's Pride, the most duplicitous strategy game of the year.

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The icon next to his name turned grey, signalling that he'd just signed out of MSN Messenger. That meant he was away from his computer. It was time. I opened up the other window, selected my fleets and sent them all towards his worlds. By the time he came home that night to see what I'd done, it would be too late. And by the next morning, I'd have won the entire match. All hail the space slug! Doom to the space squid! That'll teach them to make an alliance with me.

Neptune's Prideisn't real-time strategy, it's long-time strategy. Each day, you login, upgrade some of your planets, direct your fleets around the galaxy, and then… you wait. A long time. Moving that one fleet between those two planets? That's going to take four hours. Between the next two planets? Another ten. To reach the enemy planet you've ultimately sent it to attack? About 22 hours total.

The result is that five minutes giving orders in the morning leads to entire days of worry. Did you make the right move? Will your forces be obliterated? Is that damned space turtle about to betray you? It's the betrayal that's key. If you were to list its features, NP is a slip of a game. In fact, here it is in a paragraph:

Maps are randomly generated. There's only one ship type. Planets can be upgraded by Industry, Economy and Science, to generate ships, money or science faster. Better science allows quicker research of stronger weapons, larger scanning range, and faster ships that can travel further distances. And you can trade.


Space invaders

That's the entire game. Everything else is just people. Who will you trade with? Who will you ally with? Who will you attack? Playing becomes about sending messages, and using everyone's limited knowledge to plot behind their back. Or at least, that's the way the space slug plays.

Which is how I ended up sitting at home waiting for that little icon to turn grey. The match had been going on for five weeks by this point, and had been marked by broken alliances, early morning logins and late night attacks. My opponent and I were now the last races standing. We'd betrayed each other once apiece already, but had grown weary and decided instead to create a lasting peace. One I'd just thrown away in pursuit of victory.

It was a few hours later and the space squid's icon turned blue again. When he saw what I'd done, he simply sighed and started trading me his planets for nothing. His message was clear: 'If you want to win that badly, then fine, just take them.'

I did the only thing I could: I traded the planets back as fast as I received them, with the extra he needed to win. All hail the space squid! Space slug feels bad about himself.

Battle.net World Championship tournament kicks off this weekend

On February 16th, Blizzard's eSports organizers kicked off the year-spanning World Championship Series for StarCraft II .

. Hundreds of players from dozens of countries have battled through local qualifiers, national playoffs, and finally continental championships to make it to Shanghai this weekend for the tournament to end all tournaments. 32 players from every corner of the globe remain, but only one will go home with the title of global champion.

Places in the World Championship were awarded to the national champions of China, France, Germany, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, and the U.S., along with varying numbers of the highest seeds from each continental championship.

Player portraits from WCS Official Site.

The North American Champion is Sasha "Scarlett" Hostynof Team Acer, from Canada. She is the most successful female player in the history of StarCraft II, having pulled a major upset at the Canadian and North American finals, unseating several well-known pros.

The Oceanic Champion is Andrew "mOOnGLaDe" Penderof Team Nv, from Australia. A former pro WarCraft III player (in case the name didn't give it away), he has been active in the Wings of Liberty scene from the beginning, but just this year has become a figure in the international scene.

The European Champion is none other than Ilyes "Stephano" Satouriif Team EG, from France. Stephano among the handful of non-South Korean players who is seen as able to play on the level of that country's best. He was offered a spot in the prestigious GSL Code S earlier this year, but elected to turn it down.

Finally, the Asian champion is SK Telecom T1's Jung "Rain" Yoon Jongof South Korea. Despite never placing higher than third in the GSL, he managed to fight to the top of the most competitive national championship of them all.

Other notable players include 2-time MLG champion Chris "HuK" Lorangerfrom Canada, American "bad boy" Greg "IdrA" Fields, StarTale's Won "PartinG" Lee Sakfrom South Korea, and Spanish brothers Pedro "LucifroN" Duránand Juan "VortiX" Moreno Durán, who became the talk of the European Championship when they both advanced to the semifinals and ended up facing off in the loser's bracket.

This is about as close as we can get to having StarCraft in the Olympics. Which nation and which players will win glory on the battlefields of the Korprulu Sector? You can tune into the free livestreamstarting November 16 at 6:00 p.m. PST and find out!

Oh yeah, and there will be World of Warcraft Arena.

http://youtu.be/z3dUax2MUhg

THQ ends MX vs. ATV, closes studios as part of 'strategic realignment'

THQ is abandoning its MX vs. ATV series, shuttering two Australian studios and axing a development team at its Phoenix, Arizona office as part of an ongoing 'strategic realignment' designed to distance the company from kiddie games and licensed fare, and refocus its efforts on homemade franchises with mass-market appeal. “With this realignment, we are narrowing our focus to high-quality owned IP with

Blight of the Immortals preview: a zombie fantasy co-op turn based web strategy game

Jay Kyburz is a man who likes spaceships and zombie centaurs.

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Jay Kyburz is a man who likes spaceships and zombie centaurs. Having worked at 2K Australia on BioShock 1 and 2, he left the studio to make Neptune's Pride, a browser strategy game centred on space diplomacy. It contained spaceships. Now he's working on his next game, Blight of the Immortals. Guess what it contains?

Neptune's Pride was the most intense strategy game of the last year. Orders could be given in a few minutes, but your fleets would spend the next 15 hours carrying them out. You'd spend the entire time thinking over your plans, plotting the inevitable moment when you turned on your friends. My first game took three weeks, and backstabbing was key.

So it's interesting that Blight of the Immortals is mainly cooperative. Its fantasy world is being trampled by undead hordes – the title's 'Immortals' – and players work together to fight back against them using armies of fantasy creatures. The core structure remains the same: a few minutes of activity, a long, stressful wait as your forces march across the world.

But this time it is a world, and not just a colourful background. Your army units are no longer just raw numbers, but creatures with special abilities, such as Elven bowmen, wizards and trolls.

“Each creature has a unique ability, and the undead version of that creature has a similar but perverted version of that,” says Jay. “The player's job is to recruit creatures who have abilities that complement each other.”

As an example, Jay tells us about how the Cyclops has the ability to place an army into a trance, which prevents it from moving. You might choose to slow the advance of a zombie horde with your Cyclops, giving you time to move your Centaurs into position. Since Centaurs are fairly weak, you might bless them with your Enchantresses for a combat bonus.

But if any of your forces fall to the zombie onslaught, they become undead versions of themselves. “The Wizards, for example, summon fierce storms above an enemy, lashing down to disperse armies,” says Jay. “When those wizards rise up as undead creatures, they're no longer able to control the storms and, as a result, thunder and lightning follow them everywhere, lashing out at nearby armies.”

The result is a strategy game with more tactical depth than Neptune's Pride, but one that is hopefully less exhausting and more accessible, because you're working together with friends.

But if you still want to backstab your buddies, there is a PvP mode. Like Neptune's Pride, you're fighting for control of the map, with the first army to conquer half of it being declared the winner. The zombies remain, though, forcing you to rely on shoddy alliances.

Overwatch appears on the Battle.net launcher and gets new hero

Blizzard's online multiplayer FPS Overwatch has, very suddenly and without warning, appeared on the Battle.net launcher.

Oj

has, very suddenly and without warning, appeared on the Battle.net launcher. That doesn't necessarily mean anything—but it could indicate that the beta, which is expected sometime this year, may soon get underway. Of course, "soon", especially where Blizzard is concerned, is an unspecific concept that could mean next week, or next month—next year is probably pushing it, but you know what I mean. In any event, the important thing is that the wheels are turning.

To get in on the 'action', log into Battle.net, then go into your account settings and enable the opt-in for betas, or hit this linkto be taken there directly. Opting in doesn't guarantee access, but it gets your name in the hat, which for the moment is the only way forward.

Blizzard also introduced a new Overwatch hero today named Lúcio, "an international celebrity who uses his music to change the world for the better." That sounds very uplifting and altruistic, but what it means in practical terms is that he carries a gun that shoots "sonic projectiles," makes use of the Crossfade ability to boost his speed or regenerate health, can increase the effect of his songs with Amp It Up, and uses the Sound Barrier ultimate ability to provide protective shields for himself and nearby allies. He also whizzes around on energy skates, very reminiscent of Slashfrom Quake 3.

I've emailed Blizzard to find out more about the addition of Overwatch to the Battle.net launcher and will let you know what we hear.

TimeSplitters dev making Homefront sequel. Warmongering Korean monkeys so far unconfirmed

So, a double kick in the stones for original Homefront dev Kaos Studios then. Not only was it shut down by publisher THQ following the release of the first game (despite decent sales), the franchise it kickstarted is now officially going ahead without it. Yup Homefront 2 (proper title currently unconfirmed) is on the way, and in a somewhat left-field turn of events, it's coming from Crytek. Though

Neptune's Pride team to deliver zombie orcs

Blight of the Immortals is a new multiplayer strategy from Iron Helmet, the guys behind Neptune's Pride.

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Blight of the Immortals is a new multiplayer strategy from Iron Helmet, the guys behind Neptune's Pride. It's set in a fantasy universe where everyone is turning into zombies - not just humans, but the orcs, the elves, and the trolls too. It'll be a similar affair - great big slow movements on a giant map, a handful of your friends competing for resources, working together, and stabbing eachother in the back. There's one difference this time: you have a common enemy. The undead.

If there was a reason to stop playing Neptune's Pride, it was because you'd quite like to have some friends left. Because you could wait until your mate had gone to bed and then betray them as they slept, every single request for allegiance, offer of trade, or informal peace treaty agreed on MSN at 2am was worth about as much as a pair of cardboard socks. It made for a few great sessions full of amazing anecdotes, but it also got a bit exhausting.

In this game, with a big horde of zombies threatening all pointy-eared life, there's something to unite against. And, well, if the zombies happen to overrun this town just before the Free Peoples of Elfington get there to crush the undead, then I suppose it'd be a senseless waste to leave all that gold lying around. It could rust, or get eaten!

We'll have more info for you soon. For now, you can ogle their official site.

Blizzard cuts access to Battle.net in Crimea

Gamers in Crimea are no longer able to access Hearthstone , World of Warcraft , Diablo 3 , and other games that require a connection to Battle.net .

. Blizzard has suspended access to the service in the region, in order to comply with US sanctions.

Battle.net users in the area received a notification of the service cut earlier this week, according to Russian gaming site Geektimes.ru(via The Moscow Times). "You are receiving this email because, in accordance with current trade regulations relating to the region of Crimea, we are legally required to suspend access to your Battle.net account. Any recurring subscription payment will be cancelled," it states. "We are sincerely sorry that you’re being impacted in this way; if the situation changes, we will happily do our best to restore access to your account."

The US has imposed numerous sanctionsas a result of the ongoing dispute between Russia and Ukraine, but the Battle.net blockage would appear to arise from Executive Order 13685, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to the Crimea Region of Ukraine," signed on December 19, 2014. Among its many prohibitions is "the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of any goods, services, or technology to the Crimea region of Ukraine." That, naturally, would include services like Battle.net.

It's an unfortunate mess for gamers in the Crimean region, and given the apparent intractability of the situation, one that could drag on for a long time to come.

Obsidian and THQ releasing... a South Park RPG?

Love Fallout, but wish there were more Cheesie Poofs, subversive political commentary, and talking pieces of poop? Rejoice, for Game Informer has revealed South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are working with THQ and Obsidian to develop a full-scale South Park RPG for PS3 and Xbox 360. No, we didn't see it coming, either. Slated for a 2012 release, South Park: The Game will be written, co

Cobalt is free on Steam this weekend

Cobalt —Mojang's Not-Minecraft platformy, shootery robot game—is currently free on Steam .

Cobalt

. However, it's only free on Steam for this weekend, so be sure to git downloadin' if you want to shoot other robots in slow motion.

There doesn't seem to be a Cobalt review on PC Gamer, but the Steam reviews are "very positive", and there's a 33% sale on at the moment if you'd like to keep the game forever after the free period. That free period ends at 9pm GMT on Sunday night, 1PM PST Sunday afternoon, or whenever that is in your local timezone.

These video introductionsto Cobalt's various systems might be worth a watch.

Battle.net authentication servers suffering major slowdown, cause unknown

If you've tried to play Hearthstone or World of Warcraft today, you've likely run into a Battle.net login queue that's a lot longer than you're used to.

Battle net

today, you've likely run into a Battle.net login queue that's a lot longer than you're used to. Blizzard says it's aware that something is amiss, and is now investigating the cause of the trouble.

Reports of overlong Hearthstone queues turned up earlier today on Reddit, where users complained of wait times of 15 minutes or more. Several posters suggested the problem bears the hallmarks of a DDoS attack, and while Blizzard hasn't acknowledged that this is the case, the "maintenance alert" message on Battle.net suggests that something untoward is happening.

"We’re aware of an issue that is affecting our authentication servers, which may result in failed or slow login attempts," it says. "We’re currently investigating the cause and will provide updates as they’re available."

One possible scenario is that this is another attack by "Lizard Squad," the group that brought so much grief to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network users over the holidays. It carried out a prior DDoS attack against Battle.net and other services in August 2014, when it also (and more famously) used a fake bomb threat to divert an American Airlines flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley.

We've reached out to Blizzard for more information and will update if and when we receive a reply.

Why I Love: Midgar in Final Fantasy 7

WHY I LOVE
In Why I Love , PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it's brilliant.

, PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it's brilliant. Today, Tom goes back to Midgar which he should marry because he loves it so much.

I played Final Fantasy 7 at a formative age, when art and music leaves an afterimage on the soul that never fades. I can't help it. I'm behaviourally conditioned to feel things when Nobou Uematsu's score ushers in the train in 7's opening cutscene. It must look so old and frayed to eyes brought up on modern HD fare, but it makes me want to grab the nearest human and show them the best bit, when the camera flies up to show Midgar in all its disgusting splendour, and then pushes you down again into its guts. "Look at that! Look at that magnificent belching shithole!" I'll shout before my captive has chance to call for help.

Nostalgia makes it difficult to think analytically about Midgar. For a 13 year old kid in the UK with no proper internet that city was a breathtaking vision of industrial living gone wrong. Midgar was my Blade Runner. Years later I'd discover manga and Akira's animated bike battles, but until then Midgar also served as my only contact with Japanese pop culture, and I wanted more. I took every slim opportunity the game presented to go back and steal more ethers from the NPCs' unsecured homes.

Even today, I'm struck by the detail in every shot. it's a place full of rubble, twisted rebars and broken chain link fences. And pipes. In hindsight, Squaresoft probably went too far with the pipes, but they're part of Midgar's contradictory identity. It's a place that runs on electricity, steam and magic all at the same time, but for all of that infrastructure, it's falling apart. Technology here has become an ugly, suffocating force. When you eventually escape to the world map—finally, sunshine!—you see the city for what it is, a huge black bruise, sucking the life out of the surrounding wasteland.

Midgar 1

Midgar doesn't seem like the sort of place that has a fire service. Or running water to put fires out with. Got any ice materia, Cloud?

I love it, but it's easy to romanticise these things in hindsight. Let's remind ourselves of Midgar's humble origins. UK editor Sam Roberts once spoke to FF7 art director Yusuke Naora, who said the city was inspired by a pizza he saw one day when he was stuck for ideas. Midgar is a pizza, divided into two tiers that separate rich from poor. The Shinra tower squats in the middle, a big corporate middle finger that looms over citizens below, while the pizza's slices are vast residential sectors separated by concrete walls. It remains a grim, if overly literal representation of a divided society, and the story does a great job of wringing tension out of Midgar's most obvious design flaw— what if the top tier falls?

You spend the opening act of the game exploring shanty towns far below the iron sky. They seem to have been squeezed into the city's cracks as an afterthought. The homeless sleep in broken pipes, traders hoard scrap from collapsed pillars and roadways. Objects that aren't completely necessary are never repaired. The architecture tells you everything. Human habitation is secondary to the city's primary purpose, which is to suck resources out of the planet for profit. It's a god-sized factory that your employers—the resistance/terrorist group AVALANCHE—want to destroy.

Midgar 3

These My Bloody Valentine posters are the first of a number of music references in FF7. The giant Sister Ray laser that's later attached to the Midgar reactor is surely a reference to the Velvet Underground song. This is funny when you consider Sister Ray's recurring lyrical motif "they said I couldn't hit it sideways, I couldn't hit it sideways".

That ought to make Midgar a completely miserable place, but the first act guides you between heartwarming pockets of humanity. There's Aeris' church, lit by a ray of sunlight that's found a way through the metal ceiling. There's Tifa's bar, and the bars and shops of Wall Market. Final Fantasy 7's NPCs tend to bark their deepest frustrations, hopes and dreams at you whenever you try to talk to them. It seems silly initially, but as you explore those blunt statements collectively create an impression of Midgar's citizens. They're suffering, but they're plucky, and mostly keen to make the best of a bad deal.

There's huge appetite out there for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, no doubt encouraged by luscious fan service projects like Advent Children. I'd settle for a version that rescued the original background art, cruelly down-rezzed to run on a Playstation 1. The static pre-rendered backgrounds are old-fashioned, but they give us a curated tour of Midgar. Shots pan down from rooftop to street-level. Sometimes the camera is hung high, amid the cables. They allowed old hardware to show ambitious scenes, like the battle for sector seven's vast supporting pillar, but they're also a series of postcards that imply greater scale and detail than a huge interactive 3D model might. A movable camera gives you the freedom to find flaws. Better that Midgar's streets remain preserved in those memorable freeze-frames forever, as gross and evocative as the day they first graced my old CRT monitor.

Mojang's 2D brawler Cobalt gets a firm release date

Originally slated for release in October, Mojang's Cobalt was delayed to an unspecified date in February.

Cobalt

was delayed to an unspecified date in February. Now we have a specific day: February 2, to be exact. It'll set you back $19.99, and will come with Steam Workshop support, meaning you'll be able to make your own levels, and play levels created by others. If you paid to take part in the alpha, you'll be provided with free Steam code.

While it looks like a perfect game to play with friends, Cobalt will also have a campaign. The most recent blogpost on the Mojang website estimates it'll take roughly eight hours to complete, and it'll include a bunch of mini-games as well, like pet taming.

The new post also explores some of the special features that make Cobalt special, such as "extreme location-specific slow-mo" (all the better to pull off clever moves in tough scenarios). There's also a bunch of speed and combat challenges, a survival mode (basically a horde mode), and several modes dedicated to both local and online multiplayer. Peruse all the details over here, and check out Richard Cobbett's impressions from back in 2011(eek).

Blizzard says Battle.net is safe from Heartbleed security flaw

This Heartbleed stuff is no joke.

This Heartbleed stuff is no joke. The latest security flaw currently to startle the internet's collective horses can compromise login information and other previously considered safe data that's transmitted over OpenSSL protocols. Affected sites and service providers have been scrambling to fix the flaw, but maybe you're still concerned about your nightly Hearthstonearena runs or Malthael battles in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. If so, don't worry: Blizzard says you're in safe hands when you log into Battle.net.

"We want to emphasize that Battle.net's encryption was not affected by this vulnerability," the company states in a security noticefrom its support section. "However, if you use the same password on Battle.net that you use elsewhere, your Battle.net account could be at risk if those sites were affected by this bug."

The company recommends changing your Battle.net password to something new and unique. Are you thinking of using your birthday or your mother's maiden name? Stop that. The name of your favorite cat, spelled backwards? Not much better. Regardless, switching your passwords for your Blizzard gaming and your other accounts isn't a bad idea – once you know they've addressed the vulnerability.

You can read more about Heartbleed at this helpful site, which will likely spook you enough to change all of your passwords to basically everything. Then you can read our Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls reviewto help ease those shakes.

Final Fantasy XII could be getting a remake

Final Fantasy XII could be getting a remake, if an announcement made by Arnie Roth, the conductor for a Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert held in Pittsburgh at the weekend, is accurate.

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Final Fantasy XII could be getting a remake, if an announcement made by Arnie Roth, the conductor for a Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert held in Pittsburgh at the weekend, is accurate. Roth isn't really an authority when it comes to Square Enix's release plans, but he did make explicit reference to a "remake" and, well, Square Enix is in the habit of remaking Final Fantasy games. Also: Gamescom is this week.

You can see the announcement in the unofficial fan-captured video below. If Roth is correct and there is a XII game on the agenda, I think it's more likely to be a remaster than a fully-fledged remake. There's also the niggling question of whether it'd make it to PC: Final Fantasy Type-0is on the way – as is the Final Fantasy VII remake – but the recent Final Fantasy X remaster isn't. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

The Minecraft movie gets a new director

It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I honestly had no idea that a Minecraft movie was happening at all.

Rob McElhenney

Mojang announcedtoday that Rob McElhenney has signed on as the director of the upcoming Minecraft movie. And in other news, there is apparently an upcoming Minecraftmovie.

It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I honestly had no idea that a Minecraft movie was happening at all. Perhaps that's because so little has been said about it: It was announced in early 2014, but then the wheels came off in December of that same year when then-director Shawn Levy dropped out over creative differences. Levy said in an interview with the Wall Street Journalthat his idea for the flick "had a bit of a Goonies flair," but added that he wasn't allowed to talk about it in any depth.

The most obvious challenge facing a Minecraft film, as Levy pointed out, is that the game lacks much of a narrative. The challenge of directing a box of digital Legos into a film that will keep butts in seats for 90 minutes now falls to McElhenny, who's best known to the world for creating, and playing Mac on, the FX series It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Blizzard: Battle.net being blocked in Iran is due to US sanctions, not government censorship

It was recently reported that Battle.net users with Iranian IP addresses were being locked out of Blizzard's Battle.net service, and thus, all of their flagship games: Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft.

that Battle.net users with Iranian IP addresses were being locked out of Blizzard's Battle.net service, and thus, all of their flagship games: Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft. It was speculated that this was due to content the Iranian government found inappropriate, but as it turns out, the line was cut from the outside. As a Blizzard employee has revealed on their official forums, the outage is the result of sanctions imposed by the United States government.

"Blizzard Entertainment cannot speak to any reports surrounding the Iranian government restricting games from its citizens," the post reads. "What we can tell you is that United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. Several of you have seen and cited the text in the Terms of Use which relates to these government-imposed sanctions. This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services."

VG24/7 reportsthat Battle.net isn't legally available in Iran anyway, but that virtual networks have until now allowed citizens to access these games. Presumably these new procedures Blizzard has implemented have cut off this Terms of Service-breaking means of access. Strangely, the VG24/7 article also reports that Blizzard would "happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows.” This seems to suggest that Blizzard does not take issue with Iranian gamers accessing their servers through virtual networks to bypass government restrictions.

Final Fantasy IV makes a very quiet appearance on Steam

Final Fantasy IV debuted on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991, which means that if it was a human being it likely would have graduated college by now.

debuted on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991, which means that if it was a human being it likely would have graduated college by now. But it's not a person, it's a videogame, and so instead of going to college, it's gone to Steam.

The Steam release of Final Fantasy IV is apparently a remake of the much-more-recent Nintendo DS edition of the game, which came out in North America in 2008. It's been "optimized" for the PC with support for controllers, Steam achievements and an "all-new system for charting dungeons and uncovering the secrets within."

Beyond that, it's hard to say what exactly is in store. The game literally just appeared on Steam without warning, and as far as I can tell neither Valve nor Square Enix have said a word about it. This may be the stealthiest game launch I've ever run into.

Odd though it may be, Final Fantasy IV is in fact live now on Steamand will set you back $16. And there may well be more to come; Final Fantasy IIIlaunched on Steam earlier this year and in February, Producer Yoshinori Kitase said the advent of Steam has made the PC a much more attractive proposition, and that Square Enix is now " very interested" in bringing more Final Fantasy games to the platform.

Minecraft: Story Mode launch trailer: "Don't think about it. Just play it."

I'm still not sure what to make of Minecraft: Story Mode .

. It may well be excellent— Telltale'sreputation as a quality adventure game studio is well-deserved—but "Minecraft" and "story" go together like Max Payne and straight edge. It would be simple enough, relatively speaking, to make a conventional Telltale adventure with Steve and his cubic companions, but that wouldn't really be a Minecraft game, would it? So how do you go about properly blending these two very disparate styles of game? I honestly have no idea. Anyway, Minecraft: Story Mode is out today, and there's a new trailer.

Patton Oswalt is the star of the tale, but I think it's Scott Porter, the voice of Lukas, who really nails the truth of Minecraft: Story Mode. "I know there's a lot of people out there that are wondering how exactly Minecraft and Telltale fit together," he says. "Don't think about it. Just play it."

OK then! Minecraft: Story Mode is available now from fine digital retailers including Steam, Humble, and Green Man.

Diablo 3 Starter Edition now available, play for free up to level 13

Those yet to dip their toes in Diablo 3's lava pools can now try the game for free via the Diablo 3 Starter Edition.

Those yet to dip their toes in Diablo 3's lava pools can now try the game for free via the Diablo 3 Starter Edition. The demo is available now exclusively through Available exclusively through Battle.netand you can grab details on how to download it on the Diablo 3 blog. You'll be able to fight as far as level 13, which should take you up to the first proper boss, the Skeleton King.

The Starter Edition has had a bit of a rocky history. It went livefor a brief period before launch in a glitch that was quickly patched up and, for a time, purchasers of the digital edition were limited to the starter editionfor 72 hours in a move to thwart gold spammers, though those restrictions were later relaxed. Now, it's finally out and working as intended, which is nice.

If you're still unsure of whether Diablo 3 is worthy of your time check out Tom Francis' Diablo 3 review, and take a look at our Diablo 3 build guidesfor a few ideas, or find out which builds Blizzard use.

Square Enix interested in bringing more Final Fantasy to PC

There isn't a lot of Final Fantasy available on the PC.

There isn't a lot of Final Fantasy available on the PC. Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and MMO Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Rebornare the few games in the Japanese role-playing franchise currently available on Steam. Publisher Square Enix says they've been quite popular on the PC, however, and while it didn't share specific sales figures, it's interested in bringing more Final Fantasy games to the platform.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase said the company decided against bringing Final Fantasy to the PC in the past because of the "market situation," and "complex issues like security," by which he means rampant PC games piracy. Steam is a good solution to the latter problem, and Kitase said that Square Enix now sees the potential in territories where PC is a more popular platform.

"There are lots of regions and countries where PC is very strong." Kitase said. "So in terms of our hope of being able to deliver our games to every single country in the world and to as many gamers as possible, yes, we would definitely be interested in pursuing that route in the future...It's an early stage for us. We haven't got an awful lot of experience in this field. So when we have more know-how and experience in this market we would be very interested."

In addition to warming up to the PC, Square Enix is also supporting indie developers. The company recently announceda new crowdfunding platform called Collective, which helps developers turn their pitches into games.

Minecraft vulnerability leaves servers exposed to forced crashes

Developer Ammar Askar has revealed a serious vulnerability in Minecraft that will allow just about anyone to crash a hosting server.

Minecraft

that will allow just about anyone to crash a hosting server. The security flaw results from the ability of the client to send information to the server about inventory slots; when used in conjunction with the NBT metadata storage format, users can send packets that are "incredibly complex for the server to deserialize but trivial for us to generate."

The explanation on Askar's blog(via Ars Technica) is fairly technical, but what it boils down to is that Minecraft users can, with relative ease, create objects that simply overwhelm remote servers. As an example, Askar created one called "rekt," a five-level series of lists within lists.

"The root of the object, rekt, contains 300 lists. Each list has a list with 10 sublists, and each of those sublists has 10 of their own, up until 5 levels of recursion. That’s a total of 10^5 * 300 = 30,000,000 lists," he explained. "And this isn’t even the theoretical maximum for this attack. Just the NBT data for this payload is 26.6 megabytes. But luckily Minecraft implements a way to compress large packets, lucky us! zlib shrinks down our evil data to a mere 39 kilobytes."

The killing stroke comes when the server decompresses that data and then tries to digest it. "When it attempts to parse it into NBT, it’ll create java representations of the objects meaning suddenly, the server is having to create several million java objects including ArrayLists," Askar wrote. "This runs the server out of memory and causes tremendous cpu load."

Askar said he was hesitant to reveal the flaw, but decided to go ahead because Mojang hasn't done anything to fix it despite being warned about it almost two full years ago. "Mojang is no longer a small indie company making a little indie game, their software is used by thousands of servers, hundreds of thousands [of] people play on servers running their software at any given time. They have a responsibility to fix and properly work out problems like this," he wrote. "In addition, it should be noted that giving condescending responses to white hats who are responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities and trying to improve a product they enjoy is a sure fire way to get developers dis-interested the next time they come across a bug like this."

In an update to his post, he noted that in the wake of his revelation, Mojang has identified the problem and attempted to fix it, but has thus far been unable to do so.

Update: Mojang has released a security update that takes Minecraft to version 1.8.4, which fixes the security vulnerability "in addition to some other minor bug fixes & performance tweaks." The update is fully compatible with all previous 1.8 releases, and Mojang strongly recommends that all players upgrade to the new version as soon as possible.

Battle.net hacked: change your password after intrusion detected, account information accessed

Batten down the virtual hatches, Battle.net has been breached.

Batten down the virtual hatches, Battle.net has been breached. Blizzard has posted notification of an illegal intrusioninto its network during which e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords were accessed.

For players on North American servers, the intruders also accessed secret question answers and information relating to Authenticators, but Blizzard does not believe enough information was stolen to access accounts. The company also states that it does not have evidence suggesting real names, addresses, or credit card numbers were accessed.

You should change your password, especially if you're a North American player, but don't panic -- it's very, very unlikely that your plaintext password will be exposed. Still, change your password, and be wary of phishing.

Final Fantasy XIV offers up free world transfers this week

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is waiving fees for switching servers this week, allowing players to move between the MMO's game worlds free of charge, according to its official website .

. The free transfer period runs from Tuesday through Sunday and is a response to problems that surfaced during the game's unstable launchat the end of August.

Demand for the MMO was larger than expected after the game's release. This pushed the Square Enix devs to introduce login restrictions to keep the things as stable as possible, a situation the game's producer Naoki Yoshida later apologized for. The decision meant that players were sometimes separated from their friends or found themselves in a game world server that was less than ideal. This free transfer period is meant to address that situation. There are a host of caveats and eligibility restrictions to this process, however, so if you plan on trying to switch servers, be sure to consult FFXIV's extensive guide here.

The primary stumbling block for players looks to be the following: "Although multiple characters can be transferred from one World to another with a single use of this service, multiple characters from different Worlds cannot be transferred to the same World, nor can multiple characters from a single World be transferred to separate Worlds," according to the World Transfer Service Guide.

Still, it's a welcome and useful response to some of the game's most enthusiastic players, in this case the ones who showed at launch ready to go.

Hat tip, Shacknews.

Mojang closing Scrolls

Scrolls , Mojang's collectible card/strategy game, is no more.

Scrolls deckbuilding

, Mojang's collectible card/strategy game, is no more. The studio announced today that the game "can no longer sustain continuous development," and while it promised to keep the servers running until at least July of 2016, no new features or card sets will be added.

The studio implied that smaller updates may still be forthcoming, however, as it is "planning to keep a close eye on game balance." It will also remain available for purchase "for the time being," with funds going to keep Scrolls online and playable for as long as possible.

"We’ve had a great time working on Scrolls, and appreciate every last player who’s downloaded our game," Mojang wrote. "Extra big thanks to the most dedicated members of our community; some of you have logged in almost every day since release and dedicated a large portion of your time to dominating the leaderboards and taking care of new players."

Scrolls has actually been around for quite awhile: It was originally announced in early 2011, and hit alpha a year later. The beta followed a year after that, and it went into full release at the end of 2014. It fared reasonably well in our review, although Leif noted—presciently, as it turns out—that the relative dearth of players "means frightening things for Scrolls' future."

Alt.Ctrl.GDC Showcase: Octobo

The 2016 Game Developer's Conference will feature an exhibition called alt.ctrl.GDC dedicated to games that use alternative control schemes and interactions.

dedicated to games that use alternative control schemes and interactions. Gamasutra will be talking to the developers of each of the games that have been selected for the showcase. You can find all of the interviews here.

What if your controller could play games along with you?

In a sense, that's what a team of developers at the University of Southern California are trying to explore with Octobo , an interactive storybook that's played, in part, with a plush octopus toy that reacts to player input.

It's a canny response to what Octobo lead Yuting Su sees as a sort of regrettable migration of children away from physical toys in favor of screens. While the Octobo toy has space for a tablet in its head that allows players (or their parents) to download game content from the mobile app stores, the controller itself is built of touchable, kid-friendly materials covering sensors that can detect components in the Octobo storybook.

The project was intriguing enough to merit inclusion in the Alt.Ctrl.GDC alternative controller exhibitat GDC next week. Here, Octobo developers Yuting Su and Julian Ceipek share some interesting thoughts on where Octobo came from, how it was designed and where it fits into the future of game controller design.


Who are you, how did you get here, and what was your role on this project?

Yuting: I’m Yuting Su, Creative Director and Project Lead of Octobo . Octobo is my graduate thesis game project at University of Southern California’s Interactive Media and Games Division. I came up with the core idea/design of Octobo and created the first few prototypes. I'm working on everything related to the project ­­ producing, designing, and crafting the Octobo plush.

I’m originally from Taiwan and have a background in medicine and informatics. During my studies, I cultivated an interest in designing innovative solutions that seamlessly bring technology into people's lives, which eventually brought me to USC. There, I experimented with projects that combine the digital and physical worlds. That led to the birth of Octobo .

Julian: Hi, I'm Julian Ceipek. I was born in Austria and have lived in France, England, and throughout the United States. I'm currently a second year graduate student at USC's Interactive Media and Games Division, where I met Yuting. I joined Octobo as a designer/technical consultant and have since become the project's technical director. I'm responsible for ensuring that Octobo 's behavior matches our vision. In practical terms, that means I write and organize code, evaluate which electrical components to use, and build circuits.


How would you describe Octobo to someone completely unfamiliar with it?

Julian: Octobo is a reactive plush octopus toy that comes with a storybook. As parents and children read the book together, they discover what Octobo wants, give him things they find in the book, interact with Octobo , and see him respond to them.

From a technical perspective, Octobo is stuffed with sensors that can detect when kids hug him, shake his tentacles, and give him goodies they find in the accompanying storybook. Octobo 's brain is an iOS/Android tablet that displays Octobo 's face, plays music, and lets Octobo "talk." The brain gets information from the sensors wirelessly.


So what's your background in making games?

Yuting: I've taken a winding path in the process of becoming a game creator. I studied many different fields before I decided to join the Interactive Media and Games program at USC, but that knowledge and experience gives me a different perspective from people who have always had a focus on making games. I also have a playful attitude towards life and like trying new things.

Just to give an example, when we're eating at a restaurant, my family always complains that I try the strangest things on or off the menu, and they often won't share a plate with me! :P That attitude lets me think out of the box when I design interactive experiences.

Julian: Interactive experiences are special in that creating them requires skills from a vast number of disciplines. Taking that broad view, I could say that I've been learning how to make them for as long as I can remember. At age four, I assembled my first LEGO robot. I was five when I first took pieces from a bunch of different board games to create my own. It was terrible.

My initial foray into creating digital experiences was in elementary school, when my sister and I taught ourselves to use the fabulously well­-designed Stagecast Creator on our family's iMac. Making games was always a side hobby for me, along with reading, making videos, drawing, and exploring visual effects. In college, I acquired a BS in engineering with a concentration in computing and a thirst for designing beautiful interactive experiences. That desire brought me to USC, where I do that full­time.


What dev tools did you use to build Octobo ?

Julian: We've used many different tools to make Octobo a reality. The most useful ones have been custom one­-off creations I made using node.js and various third party libraries to do things like configure/test Bluetooth communications and graphically inspect what's happening with Octobo 's sensors over time.

Octobo 's software is distributed between an Arduino microcontroller and a tablet, which we program using the Arduino development environment and the Unity game engine. Neither environment has a particularly good text editor, so we use Sublime Text with the "OmniSharp" and "Arduino­like IDE" plugins.


What physical materials did you use?

Yuting: The fundamental idea of Octobo is to redesign traditional media in the digital age while preserving all of the things that make traditional media awesome. On the outside, Octobo is soft and cuddly and made from kid-­friendly materials, just like other plush toys.

Internally, he is filled with electronics. Our current prototype uses an Arduino, with multiple sensors embedded throughout Octobo 's body. The storybook that comes with Octobo is made out of traditional materials but also contains removable tokens outfitted with electronic tags.


How did you come up with the concept?

Yuting: I have always had a strong attachment to tangible, physical products. I may be nostalgic, but I feel sad seeing kids become attached to digital screens and no longer spending as much time playing with physical objects. Last year, with my partner Martzi Campos, I made an interactive pop­up book,that was fortunate enough to get into E3 and GDC’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop.

While making that experience, I was amazed that we can actually bring a huge magical surprise to our players just by adding a small twist to traditional media like physical books and toys. With Octobo , I'm trying to make something even better ­ something that has a tangible interface and a seamless hybrid of physical and digital gameplay which can also enhance a social experience around the game.

A lot of people asked me, why an octopus? The initial inspiration was actually a happy accident: one day I was playing with some wires, and thought "the way they're reaching out looks very similar to tentacles!" The octopus form factor is perfect for hiding wires in its long tentacles, its big head works well to hold a display, and its symmetric body provides a consistent play experience. So far Octobo ’s body has served our needs perfectly, but I would like to try testing the concept on different plush animals in the future.


How long have you spent working on this, all told?

Yuting: I’ve been brainstorming ideas for Octobo since late April 2015,when Octobo was still called October and was a space creature settling on an alien planet! The project went through many iterations before it settled into its octopus shape in fall 2015. That's also when I found Julian Ceipek to join the team as a technical consultant and Xian Lu to help out with the graphic design.

Together, we brainstormed more ideas for Octobo . Along the way, we worked with several very talented USC students ­­ Nami Melumad and Jacques Brautbar, who scored for Octobo ; Justin Bortnick, who wrote the Octobo story; and Stacy Shi, who drew the concept art. We've also found collaborators outside of USC, including Liwen Lin, who illustrated Octobo ’s storybook, and Vivian Lin, who consulted on the physical plush toy.


How do you think game interfaces and controllers will change over the next 5-­10 years - or how would you like them to change?

Julian: Making useful predictions is notoriously tricky, but I'll give it a shot. Expect me to be too conservative by far and not nearly conservative enough.

Everyone's obsessed with virtual and augmented reality right now, so I think we can expect to see more and more interfaces and controllers specifically designed for those environments. Most of them won't work very well and very few will deliver on their high concept promises, but a few will become popular and probably be standardized, because platform fragmentation is a huge problem for large content creators that want to reach audiences across different devices. I'm hoping that one of the standard interfaces will involve true haptic feedback, with the ability to feel the texture of virtual objects, but that seems unlikely.

The cost of custom hardware is falling rapidly and will continue to do so, and I think more and more independent makers will take advantage of that trend to create interfaces and controllers tailored to work with radical experiences like Octobo . We might even begin to see services that allow consumers to 3D-print working hardware.

Ten years is a long time in the world of technology ­­ I expect to see at least one completely new platform begin to emerge. I'm hoping that it, whatever it might be, will emphasize full tactile, kinesthetic, and spatial interaction with the physical world. Bret Victor's https://vimeo.com/115154289">The Humane Representation of Thought is worth seeing.

Go hereto read more interviews with developers who will be showcasing their unique controllers at Alt.CTRL.GDC.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn passes 1.5 million registrations, first content patch detailed

After enduring a couple of rough launch issues , it seems that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has a bright, chocobo-filled future ahead as Square Enix has announced more than 1.5 million players have registered for the game since its release two short months ago.

Square Enix's press release also mentioned that the MMO's first content patch drops later this December, bringing new dungeons, player housing, a PVP battle arena and more to the fields of Eorzea. The World Transfer Service, which lets you bring your characters over to different worlds, also opened earlier this week, hopefully making it easier to connect with friends who were lost in the early-launch shuffle.

While it's great to see an MMO succeed in these tough times, the key to success is the length players are willing to stick around. Plenty of MMOs rise up only to eventually slump because people sign up for the first month, devote their lives to discovering every nook and cranny the game has to offer, and then leave before developing a long-term relationship. Star Wars: The Old Republicwas considered pretty successfulin its early days, but moved to the free-to-play modelless than a year after it launched.

I don't want this to come off as some doomsday omen for FF XIV's reborn realm, though—its future is still being written by a million and a half players.

Minecraft: Story Mode detailed at Minecon with trailer

We've known that Telltale are making a Minecraft spinoff for a little while now , but until now details have been thin on the ground.

Minecraft Story Mode

, but until now details have been thin on the ground. We knew that it was an episodic adventure, and that it would be as "Minecrafty as possible", but would it be full of agonising choices, and 'Creeper will remember that'?

Well, Telltale and Mojang have just released a few more details at this weekend's Minecon, along with an exciting first trailer. As the description to the following YouTube video reveals, Minecraft: Story Mode"is an adventure game, by Telltale Games, set in a Minecraft world. It is a five-part episodic series that will take you to the Nether, the Farlands, the End, and beyond! You will drive how the story flows through the decisions you make: what you say to people (and how you say it), and what you choose to do in moments of thrilling action.

"Players will control protagonist Jesse throughout the season, as portrayed by actor Patton Oswalt. Jesse and his group of friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone; four adventurers who slayed an Ender Dragon. The Order is the very best at what they do: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect. While at EnderCon, Jesse and his friends discover that something is wrong... something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and they must set out on a journey to find The Order of the Stone if they are to save their world from oblivion".

Patton Oswalt! Minecraft: Story Mode will be available to download "soon", and [UPDATE], Cory Feldman is doing one of the voices. Also Futurama's Billy West!

Blizzard launch Diablo 3 Battle.net profiles

Blizzard have finally launched the Diablo 3 character profiles on Battle.net, promised since the game's release in May.

on Battle.net, promised since the game's release in May. This new addition won't much alter the way you play, but it does enable you to become better acquainted with your characters and those of your friends.

Providing an overview of your Diablo 3 characters, the profiles enable you to fine tune them, which we're sure will bring out our obsessive and finicky side. This is particularly the case as you can share your characters with your BattleTag friends, meaning they're sure to be thoroughly scrutinised.

Blizzard have said additional functionality, including more detailed stats and achievements, will be added further down the line. We've written lots of Diablo 3 newsin the past few months. How are you guys enjoying the endgame?

Assassin's Creed Syndicate: is invisibility a stealth trick too far?

According to Ubisoft, Evie is the stealthier of Assassin's Creed Syndicate's two protagonists.

Ac1

According to Ubisoft, Evie is the stealthier of Assassin's Creed Syndicate's two protagonists. By this, they mean she can turn invisible. In a room, on the street, up a roof, all she needs to do is crouch on the spot to become a ghostly Animus outline. Let's pick that apart for a second. The Animus is Assassin's Creed's in-fiction tool for reconciling the realities of game design with Ubisoft's desire for open, historical worlds. Wander into a map's outer edge, and the Animus warns you're straying too far from the subject's genetic memory. It's the designers setting boundaries, and using a magical sci-fi computer to express them.

Put simply, the Animus is Ubisoft's tool for maintaining immersion while still guiding the player's hand. It's part UI; part misdirection. So what's actually happening when Evie turns invisible? We see the Animus remove her solid form from the world, but what does that look like in the historical memory that—in the fiction—the device is simulating? I am crouched in a well-lit hallway, and a guard is looking in my direction. What is he seeing? If it's nothing, how does that work? Maybe he's so embarrassed at the sight of an assassin so obviously in plain view that he ignores it out of knee-jerk politeness. If that were the case, Assassin's Creed Syndicate would be the most accurate depiction of British life in any medium.

Yes, I realise that I'm worrying about the realism of a series that, previously, had you fistfight the Pope. But it bothers me, because it suggests Ubisoft is prepared to jettison its own fiction in service of a gimmick that, from what I played, doesn't really work. Assassin's Creed games, from their inception, have been about motion. Altaïr ran across the rooftops of Jerusalem, Ezio clambered up the ruins of Rome, and Kenway crept silently through Caribbean plantations. Motion is at the heart of the series, and so it feels strange to be controlling a character whose superpower is triggered by standing still.

Ac2

I'm playing a "black box" mission set in the Tower of London. My primary goal is to murder a Templar, but to do that I can choose one of three different opportunities. I decide to free a hostage who can rally the Royal Guard for an assault on the tower itself. On my way to his cell, I get a chance to try Syndicate's other new power: a rope launcher. If you've played an Assassin's Creed game, you'll be aware of the slightly off-kilter way their freerunning works. It's fine, for the most part, but occasionally will misinterpret where you want to go. The rope launcher is similarly affected, in that it sometimes launches me onto the roof of the building behind the direction I was facing. Inconsistencies aside, it's a nice addition, and can additionally be fired downwards to create ziplines on the fly. It's a useful tool for traversing wide gaps.

Slipping into the building, it's time to get crouching. Maybe it's impatience, or the chaotic nature of being plunged directly into this demo mission, but I don't take to it. Crouching whenever a guard turns around seems unnatural, and the combat is simple enough that there doesn't seem any need to wait for them to look away. Instead, I decide to just stab everyone. Doctor Who's Weeping Angels could learn a trick from me. As I move on the Templar target, I try to get creative—using hallucinogenic darts to send a guard into a frenzy that will distract the room and let me move in for a quiet kill. I don't find out if my plan would work. During the ensuing chaos, a group of Royal Guards battle their way into the room and kill her themselves. That's why I freed the hostage, I guess, but it was a bit anticlimactic all the same.

Assassin's Creed games have always worked best for me when they've concentrated on doing a few things really well; be that freerunning, 'social stealth', or just being a pirate. My worry for Syndicate is that the series is again becoming bloated—throwing in lots of new ideas in place of any broad innovation. It looks beautifully detailed, but I'm concerned that, as a sandbox, it's being loaded up with gimmicks. My only hope is they don't affect the core of the game. After all, Assassin's Creed: Revelations was pretty good, despite all that tower defence stuff.

Minecraft: Story Mode detailed at Minecon with trailer

We've known that Telltale are making a Minecraft spinoff for a little while now , but until now details have been thin on the ground.

Minecraft Story Mode

, but until now details have been thin on the ground. We knew that it was an episodic adventure, and that it would be as "Minecrafty as possible", but would it be full of agonising choices, and 'Creeper will remember that'?

Well, Telltale and Mojang have just released a few more details at this weekend's Minecon, along with an exciting first trailer. As the description to the following YouTube video reveals, Minecraft: Story Mode"is an adventure game, by Telltale Games, set in a Minecraft world. It is a five-part episodic series that will take you to the Nether, the Farlands, the End, and beyond! You will drive how the story flows through the decisions you make: what you say to people (and how you say it), and what you choose to do in moments of thrilling action.

"Players will control protagonist Jesse throughout the season, as portrayed by actor Patton Oswalt. Jesse and his group of friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone; four adventurers who slayed an Ender Dragon. The Order is the very best at what they do: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect. While at EnderCon, Jesse and his friends discover that something is wrong... something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and they must set out on a journey to find The Order of the Stone if they are to save their world from oblivion".

Patton Oswalt! Minecraft: Story Mode will be available to download "soon", and [UPDATE], Cory Feldman is doing one of the voices. Also Futurama's Billy West!

StarCraft 2 Battle.net World Championship finals heading to Shanghai

Blizzard have announced that the grand finale of the Battle.net StarCraft 2 World Championship will take place in China on Novemeber 17-18.

Blizzard have announced that the grand finale of the Battle.net StarCraft 2 World Championship will take place in China on Novemeber 17-18. Shanghai will host the event, which will also feature the finals of the global World of Warcraft Arena competition and give attendees the chance to sit down for some "hands-on play time with some of the latest Blizzard games."

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime says that Blizzard are "looking forward to seeing the best players in the World Championship Series face each other at the Battle.net World Championship in Shanghai this November," he adds that “the level of StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena competition we've already seen around the world has been amazing, so we're anticipating a truly epic finale."

The event is being organised through NetEase, which publishes StarCraft 2 and World of Warcraft in China. CEO William Ding is unsurprisingly also quite keen about the whole thing: “We're excited to partner with Blizzard to co-host a world-class eSports event here in China," he says. “There are millions of eSports enthusiasts in China and we're looking forward to presenting them with the opportunity to come together, have fun, and celebrate their passion for professional gaming.”

For more on the competition, check out the World Championship pageon Battle.net for an overview of how each region breaks down ahead of the finals. There's already a big e-sports audience in China, but there's potentially a much, much bigger one to be won with centrepiece events like the Battle.net World Championships.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate landing late on PC

Ubisoft has announced that Assassin's Creed: Syndicate will come to the PC on November 19, just shy of a month after it arrives on consoles.

Assassin s Creed Syndicate

will come to the PC on November 19, just shy of a month after it arrives on consoles. The publisher said the extra development time is needed to ensure that "PC players get the most stable, optimized version of the game on day one."

“We have introduced several new improvements to our production pipeline and validation process, which allowed us to focus on polishing, stabilizing and optimizing the PC version very early on in the project,” Ubisoft Kiev Studio Production Manager Sam Kovalev explained. “This has been one of the top priorities for the production team this year.”

Last year's disastrous release of Assassin's Creed: Unityno doubt played a role in the delay as well. That game was such a mess at launch that Ubisoft was forced to halt salesof the season pass shortly after it came out, and offered those who had already purchased it a free game as an apology.

"The additional four weeks are for us to really bear down and finalize all of the polish and optimization, to make sure the game and all of its systems are stable when it launches, so it runs smoothly for all players starting on day one," Kovalev added.

The Assassin's Creed: Syndicate system requirements are still being finalized, but Ubisoft said the recommended spec, whatever it turns out to be, will "target" 1080p resolution and 30 fps.

Microsoft won't be interfering with Minecon 2015

No one can be blamed for panicking when Microsoft acquired Mojang – and therefore Minecraft – last year, but the company has handled its new responsibility well so far.

Minecon

– and therefore Minecraft – last year, but the company has handled its new responsibility well so far. Which is to say, it's kept its distance. That will be the company's approach to this year's Minecon event as well, which Microsoft has confirmed it will leave in Mojang's hands.

“Mojang is running Minecon 2015 in the same manner as their past events,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement provided to VentureBeat. “We’re playing a supporting role; we want to listen, learn, and be inspired by the community that has made Minecraft great.”

“We’re extremely thankful for our passionate community of players, builders, and content creators who have made Minecraft the global phenomenon it is today,” the spokesperson said. “It was important to us to help where needed but let Mojang carry on the tradition of Minecon as a meaningful celebration of the Minecraft community.”

Microsoft acquired Mojang in September for $2.5 billion last year, and the move has already been profitable. Minecon 2015will take place in London on June 4-5.

Barkley 2 is still a thing, and has a new trailer

Here is a trailer for The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.

Here is a trailer for The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. Or Barkley 2 for short. It's the sequel to Tales of Game’s Studios Presents Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. Or Shut Up and Jam: Gaidenfor short.

You may remember Barkley 2 from its Kickstarter. Or you may not, because the Kickstarter happened almost three years ago. Tale of Game's raised $120,335 back in November 2012. The project, originally, was due late-2013. Clearly that hasn't happened.

The trailer above is an homage to the E3 trailer for the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Here, look:

Strikingly similar, no. Even the top logo is a play on FF7's Meteor. Hopefully the given release date—11/11/2023—is also a jab at the Square Enix series, and not how long we'll have to wait for the Barkley sequel. More information should be coming soon, as Barkley 2 will be at the Indie MEGABOOTH, at this coming weekend's PAX Prime.

For a refresher on Barkley 2 and its predecessor, check out Rick McCormick's feature from way back in 2013.

Xbox Store leaks stylised WW1 setting for next Battlefield

A new image has emerged on Reddit of posters bearing the branding 'Battlefield 1'.

Screenshot by Backfoggen.

has emerged on Reddit of posters bearing the branding 'Battlefield 1'. I'm hoping this one's a fake knocked up by someone with a poster printer, because the alternative is that EA missed every Xbone joke of the past three years.

Original: That man has a cape and a mace-grenade. I could not have called that.

If a leak from the Xbox Store reported by NeoGAF user Compsioxis trusted, Battlefield 5 will be set in what appears to be an alternate-universe World War 1. I would definitely be down for sprinting about a warzone in a trench-cape as zeppelins blot out the sun.

It's in keeping with an earlier leakby a Swiss retailer, but a touch of fantasy will save DICE some of the headache associated with making a game about one of the most appalling wars ever fought. It's hard to imagine mustard gas unlockables going down well.

The official reveal falls today, May 6, at 4pm ET (9pm BST). I suddenly find myself more interested in Battlefield than I have been in many years. Our in-house Battlefield boffin John has listed everything he wants to seefrom the fifth instalment.

Mojang responds to demands for Minecraft ban in Turkey

Turkey's Ministry of Family and Social Policies is calling for a ban on Minecraft following an investigation by its Children Services General Directorate that concluded "the game is based on violence." The Hurriyet Daily News said the report warned that children could confuse the game world with the real one, leading to increased violent behavior including the torture of animals, and could also result in "social isolation" and greater exposure to online bullying and abuse.

minecraft NPC

In response to the proposed ban, a Mojang representative told GamesBeatthat "Minecraft is enjoyed by many players in a wide variety of ways," and that while killing mobs is a normal part of the game, it's not actually a necessary one.

"Many enjoy the creative freedom that’s presented by Minecraft and its tools, some are more interested by the opportunity to explore a landscape without boundaries and to go on exciting adventures with friends. We encourage players to cooperate in order to succeed, whether they’re building, exploring, or adventuring," the rep said. "The world of Minecraft can be a dangerous place: it’s inhabited by scary, genderless monsters that come out at night. It might be necessary to defend against them to survive. If people find this level of fantasy conflict upsetting, we would encourage them to play in Creative Mode, or to enable the Peaceful setting. Both of these options will prevent monsters from appearing in the world."

The Family and Social Policies Ministry is expected to file the requisite legal complaint soon, after which the courts will decide whether a ban will be enacted. Turkey isn't actually big on banning games, but Minecraft is a potential exception because the government views it as exclusively for children. The ban would likely be enforced by blocking the Minecraft.netdomain, and Turkey does actually have a history of blocking websites its government deems offensive: It has already dropped the hammer on more than 67,000 of them, according to the GamesBeat report, including 4chan, RichardDawkins.net, and various Wikipedia entries on the naughty bits of human anatomy.

Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe comes to Steam

Andrew Morrish 's Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe, published on Steam today by Adult Swim Games, is freakishly hard.

today by Adult Swim Games, is freakishly hard. For me, that is—I know there are platformer ninjas out there who will scoff at my inability to simultaneously dodge falling blocks, avoid falling into spikes, shoot the same blocks protecting me from those spikes, avoid falling spikes, and oh, come on . Cannons?

We first wrote about Super Puzzle Platformer's "Plus" form in our free webgame roundup, when it was an Adult Swim Flash game which we noted for its novel concept: combining platforming and a falling block puzzle game. You can still play that versionto see what it's like.

The Deluxe version on Steamadds more characters, six worlds, 18 challenges, and local head-to-head multiplayer. It's regularly priced at $8/£6, but you can get it for $6/£4.50 during launch. If I ever make it past the first stage, I'll let you know how it is—so far I can tell you that the music is great and my fingers hurt. While I deal with that, have a trailer and some more screenshots:

Gordon Freeman is dead (according to Mad Max)

Half-Life hero Gordon Freeman was a tough guy.

Gordon Freeman in Mad Max

hero Gordon Freeman was a tough guy. He survived an alien invasion of Earth, a trip to a hostile planet, and the best efforts of an extraterrestrial empire to keep him from overthrowing its chosen ruler of City 17. Yet as the sharp-eyed Imgur user Swagmastavondagmasta discovered, he didn't have what it takes to survive in the cruel Australian wasteland.

These images, from the recently-released Mad Max, leave no doubt. The bespectacled corpse, the severed arm still gripping a crowbar, and the brilliant orange "3" painted on the side of a crate all point to one inescapable conclusion: Freeman is toast. It's a grim reminder of the fragility of life, and of dreams. Because can Half-Life 3 ever really be confirmed without the Freeman?

Actually, maybe it can. This isn't the first time that Gordo has come to grief in a post-apocalyptic hellscape: He's also turned up dead in Metro 2033and STALKER. I guess it's hard to keep a good theoretical physicist down.

Thanks, GamesRadar.

Gordon Freeman in Mad Max

Gordon Freeman in Mad Max

This is poor Gord in Metro 2033 He really gets around

(This is poor Gord in Metro 2033.)

Notch opens up about the Microsoft "sellout"

It was a tremendous surprise when Markus Persson sold Mojang to Microsoft , not just because it was hard to imagine him walking away from the creation that brought him so much success, but because he did the deal with a company he'd previous held in such disdain.

Notch thumb

, not just because it was hard to imagine him walking away from the creation that brought him so much success, but because he did the deal with a company he'd previous held in such disdain. After all, it was only a couple of years prior that he accused Microsoftof "trying to ruin the PC as an open platform." But sometimes people change their minds, and the man they call Notch said in a lengthy and very interesting interview with Forbesthat that's exactly what happened here—and that he's not ashamed of his decision.

Persson said he'd been having a rough time for quite awhile before the sale, but it was the strong negative reaction to Mojang's announcement about cracking down on the worst of Minecraft EULA violations—the " literally worse than EA" days—that drove him to tweethis initial interest in selling the company. He said it was originally intended as a "half-joke," but when Microsoft very quickly contacted Mojang CEO Carl Manneh to find out if Persson was serious, the wheels began to turn. Interestingly, Persson said he was never actually involved in the process; negotiations took place entirely between Manneh and Microsoft's Xbox chief Phil Spencer.

Since the buyout, Persson hasn't been shy with his money, reportedly spending as much as $180,000 in a single night at Las Vegas nightclubs. But he said he's just making up for the time he spent programming when he was in his 20s. "Partying is not a sane way to spend money, but it's fun," he said. "When we were young we did not have a lot of money at all, so I thought, if I ever get rich I'm not going to become one of those boring rich people that doesn't spend money."

As for the future, he's not concerned about matching, or even approaching, the success of Minecraft. He and Mojang co-founder Jakob Porsér have launched a new venture called Rubberbrain, but he admitted that there's not a lot going on so far. "It’s like a daycare for us," he said. "Grown-up daycare."

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Comments
Our Verdict
A wonderful art style and interesting setting cant make Traversers shallow puzzles and exasperating stealth sequences acceptable.

need to know

What is it? A stealth puzzler set in an original dystopian world.
Reviewed on : Windows 8, Core i5, 8GB RAM, GTX 970
Play it on : 2.4 GhZ processor, 4GB RAM, GeForce 8800 GT or better
Alternatively : Infinifactory(93%), The Talos Principle(84%)
Copy protection : Steam
Price : $15 / £11
Release date : Out now
Publisher : Adult Swim Games
Developer: Gatling Goat Studios
Multiplayer : None
Website : Official site

In the underground cities of the last remnants of humanity, oxygen is king, and Raven Corporation is the dystopian mega-conglomerate that controls all the oxygen. Following Valerie, a young girl who’s inducted into the city secret police force, Traverser wants to be a puzzle game about fighting power and using ingenuity in lieu of strength. If only it had great design to back up this great premise.

Valerie is a Traverser, a special agent armed with a gravity-field manipulating glove. Using the glove she can travel between areas and levitate small objects. And sometimes big objects? Traverser’s problems, unfortunately, are this basic and this deeply rooted within the logic of the world.

The basic function of the glove is clear: walk into a room with a high ledge and a bunch of boxes. Use the glove to stack the boxes into a staircase, and use them to reach the ledge. Puzzle solved. But it’s never clear how or why or how much the gravity glove can lift. It can’t move or throw people or tables, but giant stones and an anvil levitate easily. The fact is that there are no rules; the glove levitates whatever the designer chose to make interactive. The lack of simulated systems makes Traverser disappointingly shallow. I never accidentally discovered that I could lift something unexpected, so I never found a unique solution to a formidable problem. There are no systems to play with, and nothing surprising ever happened to me. I solved every simple puzzle exactly as it was designed, instantly and effortlessly, and forgot about them.

With the glove’s limited power, I’m also left to wonder: Why do I need a gravity glove at all? Eventually, Valerie gets tangled up with a rebellion against the totalitarian state, and the rebels justify sending a child to war by saying that she can go places and do things that they can’t, but... she's just lifting boxes and connecting pipes, carrying trash bags and pushing buttons. Find any adult who has ever moved out of an apartment and you will find them equally prepared for the fabled Traverser corps.

Everything about Traverser feels half-baked and incomplete. Another example: at one point I got captured and thrown in prison. My first thought was "oh, this is the part where I get to solve problems without the gravity glove.” It would be interesting—a fun change of pace. Alas. They put me in prison and let me keep the gravity glove. I, a brand new inmate and dangerous traitor, am processed into jail with my super-rare gauntlet of power strapped to my arm, glowing as they lock the doors.

I find myself nitpicking now, and it’s because I’m frustrated. I want to love this game. It’s beautifully animated and it’s got a strong, bold art style. The setting is a little bit steampunk, a little bit sci-fi, and wholly original. Valerie herself is a character I care about, and I want to explore her role as the Raven Corporation Gestapo’s littlest badass. Instead, I get this. Lifting keys and using crates to hit rats in the head. I’m so disappointed.

Solving puzzles with the gravity glove is only half the game, but the other half isn’t better: a limited set of poorly executed stealth mechanics. Holding a button to sneak past sleeping guards is functional enough, but I got spotted around corners and through doors often. The game’s fixed camera makes these sections worse; I was spotted by off-screen guards more than once.

In good stealth games, getting caught can be part of the fun. In Mark of the Ninja or Splinter Cell, getting caught means it’s time to go loud, to salvage the situation somehow. There’s no way for Valerie to go loud. Guards give chase but thanks to the gravity glove’s mysterious limitations, I can’t kill guards. No matter how many times I slap them in the skull with a steel barrel or a wooden crate, they’re only stunned for a moment before they continue chasing me. The result: half of the game consists of insta-fail stealth missions with only a one-button “sneak” mechanic to play with.

Great puzzle games put up barriers just strong enough to resist a first push. When that barrier eventually falls, players feel accomplished. I never got that feeling from Traverser. I was never stumped, and I never had to improvise and think in new ways. Traverser is a limp journey through a lovingly crafted, original setting that holds so much promise. A puzzle game that never challenges players is a disappointing thing.

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Traverser review screens1


The undercity is a filthy, poor town for the lower classes.

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Traverser review screens2


Propaganda and ads for Raven Corporation are clever and everywhere.

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Traverser review screens3


I’m just going to throw this trash of the edge. We don’t recycle, right?

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Traverser review screens4


Most of the first hour is spent in sewer pipes in the dark.

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Traverser review screens5


Environmental puzzles show a real lack of innovation.

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Traverser review screens6


Environmental puzzles show a real lack of innovation.

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Traverser review screens10


The comedy of hiding from guards in a moving barrel wears off fast.

The Verdict

Traverser

A wonderful art style and interesting setting cant make Traversers shallow puzzles and exasperating stealth sequences acceptable.

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