Golden Joysticks 2011 voting extended, vote now or forever hold your peace

Games are great, as we all know.

Games are great, as we all know. But some games are greater than others, and some people tend to disagree on which games are the greatest. That is why we have the Golden Joysticks 2011. They let us use the power of democracy to decide which games are the greatest ONCE AND FOR ALL (until next year).

The thing is, you people have too many opinions about games. Voting on the Golden Joysticks was supposed to close today, but there are still those out there who want their opinion to be known. And Lo, so it came to pass that voting on the Golden Joysticks was extended until 4pm, Monday October 17.

But SERIOUSLY. Look at my face. Okay, you can't see my face. But it is Deadly Serious. There are brilliant PC games in some of those categories that deserve to win everything, including Total War: Shogun 2, The Witcher 2, Civilization V, Minecraft. Oh, and you stand a chance to win a top of the range Alienware gaming laptop if you vote in every category. Head over to the Golden Joysticks siteand make it so.

The Mirror's Edge Catalyst launch trailer is here

Mirror's Edge Catalyst won't be out for another two weeks, which in my mind makes it a bit early for a launch trailer.

won't be out for another two weeks, which in my mind makes it a bit early for a launch trailer. Yet here we are, face-to-face with a swanky new video dropping more cryptic hints about recently-released juvie Faith Connors, and the things that drive her to be a runner.

There's not much here that we don't already know: Faith gets out of the slammer, reconnects with her runner pals, gets tangled up with some revolutionary jerks, and discovers Important Things about her childhood. I'm guessing about that last part, admittedly, but it sure seems to be where things are headed.

I do worry that the game will end up taking itself a little too seriously for its own good, and there sure does seem to be a lot of fighting going on, although that's hopefully just to ensure that it's an appropriately action-packed trailer. But the city of Glass looks awfully good, no? The new theme songis really great, too.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst arrives on June 7, unless you're an Origin Access subscriber, in which case you can get your hands on a six-hour trial version, free, beginning June 2.

Videogames and Television

Videogames and Television ‘Transmedia’ has been an industry buzzword for several years, with videogame franchises straddling silicon, the silver screen, novelisations, comics and more. Yet rarely do these modern cross-disciplinary marketing techniques touch on television. It’s been many years since videogames were a prime television enterprise – shows like Earthworm Jim, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Golden Joysticks: Guess the game

We've heard from Tim , we've heard from Graham , now it's the turn of Tom S to tease his favourite for this year's Golden Joysticks.

, now it's the turn of Tom S to tease his favourite for this year's Golden Joysticks. You'll probably get this instantly. After all, how many games can claim to let you nuke Ghandi? Not enough, that's for sure.

The answer will be revealed later on the Golden Joysticks Facebook page, and you can cast your own vote on the Golden Joysticks 2011 site. If you vote in every category, you'll be entered into a prize draw to win all of the Golden Josticks nominees, and a lovely Alienware laptop.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst will be playable five days early on Origin Access

Mirror's Edge Catalyst will be scampering across rooftops on June 7, a slight, and slightly last-minute, delay over the original May 26 launch date that we learned about in April .

. But Origin Access members will be able to leap into it a full five days earlierthan that, without paying up front—with one or two restrictions.

Catalyst will be playable on June 2 as one of the “ Play First Trials” on Origin Access, and if you dig the experience and spring for the full game, your progress will carry over. But playtime will be limited to six hours, with ten missions and two districts to explore. That's kind of an unusual number, and a good bit less than the ten hours of free play offered by the other Access trials, Need for Speed and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. The safe assumption is that much more than that would be enough to finish the single-player campaign, and that's probably a little too much of a freebie for EA's liking.

Not that it's actually free, of course. Origin Access is a subscription-based servicethat will set you back $5 per month. On the other hand, subscribers get ten percent off the $60 purchase price, which is actually more than a single month's fee—and as the terms of servicesay, you can cancel your subscription at any time. Do with that information as you see fit.

Painted and 'Certified' items slated for Rocket League's June update

Painted and 'Certified' items will come to Rocket League with its June patch.

with its June patch. Psyonix has long been teasing changes to the item system, and though it promises more to come, the endless stream of toppers is already looking more interesting.

Painted items are colourful reskins of existing items, starting with toppers and wheels. If you receive a painted item, its colour will be randomly chosen. Psyonix gives the examplesof 'Titanium White' and 'Burnt Sienna'. I'm hoping for 'Hopes and Dreams Ash' and 'Division Down Denim'.

Certified items track stats. That is, more interesting stats than are currently tracked by each class of item. For example,  a 'Sniper Wizard Hat' tracks long goals, levelling up at milestones to a 'Skillful' or 'Incredible' Sniper Wizard Hat.

Psyonix is leaving it to us to discover the full extent of the trackers and prefixes. The stat-tracking will only work in casual and compeititve games, mind, so there'll be no stat farming in custom matches.

Golden Joysticks: Guess the game

The Golden Joysticks are upon us and after his rage filled appearance in the Golden Joysticks shortlist video Tim is making another appearance.

Tim is making another appearance. Here our mighty Editron is describing the game he voted for in the Golden Joysticks, but without telling you the name. What do you think he's talking about? The answer will be revealed on the Golden Joysticks facebook pagelater today.

If you want to cast your vote, go to the Golden Joysticks websiteand you'll have a chance to win some loot, including an Alienware gaming laptop.

Mods bring the magic to Oblivion a decade later

Now playing
I’m standing in the cold grey Nordic town of Bruma.

In Now Playingarticles PC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today Holly is still finding fun 100 hours into Oblivion.

I’m standing in the cold grey Nordic town of Bruma. Expressionless NPCs acknowledge my presence with either an overly jovial “HELLO” or strangely omniscient statements about my various levelled skills. I’ve now spent a good minute watching a steady stream of town guards tumble from the city walls. They follow their patrol diligently, even when the route means flinging yourself off the battlements like a steel-clad Lady Macbeth.

I’ve played this game for hundreds of hours in the ten years it’s been out, first on the Xbox 360 and now on my laptop (usually in bed with a cup of tea—luxury 12-year-old me could hardly dream of). My latest playthrough has been given a new lease of life by mods. Beautiful, face-revamping, texture-defining, location re-jigging mods.

I lack all the necessary skills to be able to mod Oblivion myself, so I rely on the hard work of others to make my gaming experience slightly slicker. Even with the vital tool of Nexus Mod Manager at my fingertips I still find modding a fiddly business. I spent hours hunched over the screen as screen tear rendered the world of Cyrodiil in twain and unexplained grey blocks bombarded innocent textures. “It must be something in the code,” I whispered to myself, pretending I knew what I was talking about. I gave up for the night. The next day I realised there was something in the wrong place in the load order. Cyrodiil is fixed. Nexus is forgiven. I feel like a technological mastermind.

An hour later I’m standing in Bruma, observing the lemmings dressed as town guards. What’s happened is that the guards’ set path hasn’t been changed to fit the fancy new city modifications I’ve added. After a little while the guards start to become aware of the difficulties of patrolling a now imaginary wall and change their route to fit my desire for slightly higher architecture. The mods I’ve added don’t hugely alter the game: I’ve passed by the ostentatious player-built mansions and laser weapons in favour of prettier flowers. However, I did go for something that made the cities a little more interesting, and apart from the odd out-of-place statue it’s brilliant.

The quests and world in this game are what bring me back, whether it’s finding something sinister in a quaint looking chapel, or putting on the boots of Spring Heel Jak and leaping about like a grasshopper on steroids. The silliness, ambition and the feeling that PVA glue and sheer will are keeping the game together charms me every time. Now, thanks to an army of dedicated modders, I can look at my wood elf, and instead of a stumpy cuboid with a potato face staring back, it’s now a closer representation to how she looked in my imagination ten years ago.

I scurry towards the wall to loot the bodies of the guards. Burdened with armour and apples, my thrifty wood elf hastens to the closest shop to sell the still warm chainmail. I go to fast travel and the game immediately crashes. My eyes wander over to the Nexus Mod Manager icon on my desktop, and I prepare yet again to do battle with my own incompetence.

By Holly Nielsen.

Pillars is the next crazy arena to join Rocket Labs

The intimidating Pillars arena will be joining Rocket League's Rocket Labs playlist in the June update.

in the June update. I'm desperately trying to think of a way to describe it without just repeating the word 'pillars'.

Two triangular columns (nailed it) split the field into three, with a clear central lane linking the two goals. This is the point where you start wishing you'd practised those wall shots some more.

As Psyonix has it, "banking shots off the tall columns in the middle of the arena makes for some incredible moments and driving up the walls and flying down on the competition feels just right."

There's no mention of how it feels to accidentally ramp off a corner and land on your roof.

Golden Joysticks 2011 voting extended, vote now or forever hold your peace

Games are great, as we all know.

Games are great, as we all know. But some games are greater than others, and some people tend to disagree on which games are the greatest. That is why we have the Golden Joysticks 2011. They let us use the power of democracy to decide which games are the greatest ONCE AND FOR ALL (until next year).

The thing is, you people have too many opinions about games. Voting on the Golden Joysticks was supposed to close today, but there are still those out there who want their opinion to be known. And Lo, so it came to pass that voting on the Golden Joysticks was extended until 4pm, Monday October 17.

But SERIOUSLY. Look at my face. Okay, you can't see my face. But it is Deadly Serious. There are brilliant PC games in some of those categories that deserve to win everything, including Total War: Shogun 2, The Witcher 2, Civilization V, Minecraft. Oh, and you stand a chance to win a top of the range Alienware gaming laptop if you vote in every category. Head over to the Golden Joysticks siteand make it so.

Now playing: shunning the saccharine world of Stardew Valley

I came to Stardew Valley as a cynic.

In Now Playingarticles PC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today Phil shuns the world in Stardew Valley.

I came to Stardew Valley as a cynic. I’d seen screenshots, I’d seen praise, I’d seen it topping the Steam chart. It’s a sickeningly cheerful RPG about farming, I thought. Can it really be that good?

Yes, it really can. I’ve now played for over 25 hours, and I’m creeping towards the end of my first year in Pelican Town. After the initially overwhelming introduction to Stardew Valley’s many activities, I gained an economic foothold via the fishing minigame. It’s a pleasant time waster, and easy enough that I could haul in a decent catch in a day.

That’s when the numbers started growing, and everything became compulsive. Fishing gave me money that I invested in seeds. Weeks later, the seeds became vegetables, and money started to pour in at a steadier rate. By summer, I’d made enough to buy chickens. By autumn, cows.

At this point I was a full-time farmer, hand-watering rows of crops, brewing pale ales, and creating artisanal cheese and mayonnaise. I became the hipster’s hipster, supplying the town with all the raw materials of gentrification without any of the downsides. Even homeless hermit Linus has his tent.

It’s winter now, and I’m tidying up the wilder edges of my farmland. I’m investing in upgrades, new buildings, and finding more valuable resources in the mines. It’s all with a goal of increasing production in year two. Come spring, it all begins again—this time, with the benefit of tens of hours of experience. I’m using an external tool to map the ideal layout. Stardew Valley has its tendrils in me, and it’s not letting go.

A few remnants of my cynicism remain. Stardew Valley asks you for a few basic details on character creation. As a result, I’m the proud owner of Atrocity Farm. When I find an energy-boosting stardrop fruit, I’m told that my “mind is filled with thoughts of petrol bombs.” It’s like having a friend who teases your latest hobby, but instead it’s my past self mocking me through time. And for good reason. As much as I’m obsessed with the game, I can’t quite deal with how gosh darned nice it is.

Pelican Town feels sickly sweet. Its inhabitants are mostly unfailingly polite, even when they don’t much care for you. Living in Stardew Valley is like being indoctrinated into a cult, only without the underlying tragedy. It’s the version of the countryside people who’ve never lived in the countryside dream of moving to. I did live in the countryside. It was boring and full of jerks and cow shit. Not necessarily a higher percentage of jerks than you’d find anywhere else, but when there’s less people around they tend to stand out. Rural life is full of gossip, and polite, silent judgement. Here, I can’t even tell people about the mayor’s fling with the ranch owner.

I’ve come to admire and embrace the few dark edges that exist in the game. I’ve almost entirely ignored the NPCs, because I can’t bring myself to join their saccharine community. My favourite character is Haley, because her borderline disgust at my appearance and work feels honest. I’ve embraced the life of an embittered loner in protest at the townspeople’s anodyne pleasantries. I’ve taken to rummaging through bins as characters walk by. It grosses them out, which I find funny. Plus, I once found a pufferfish that someone had thrown away. I sold it for 200 gold.

Now Playing: Spade-related violence in Fallout 3: Point Lookout

"Aww, mah eye!" wails a melt-faced mutant hick as I spang him in the face with a spade.

"Aww, mah eye!" wails a melt-faced mutant hick as I spang him in the face with a spade. I spang him with the spade again, but he makes no further comment. This is a magic spade, and by 'magic' I mean 'covered in shit'. The stated explanation for the +3 damage is that it's been used for years as a fertiliser shovel.

"Welcome to Point Lookout, bitch." I would have said, except that he lives here and I don't, and he died from feces poisoning before I could say it.

This is what became of Maryland: a putrid swamp so grim and desolate that even after the Capital Wasteland's howlingly bleak deadscapes it makes you want to drop to your knees and sob. And it hasn't got better in the last 200 years.

The reason I like it, the reason I've played this Fallout 3 DLC to death and barely touched the other four, is that it's a big chunk o'land. There is one questline that's longer and more spectacular than the others, but I stumbled upon it naturally from exploring rather than being shoved down it like The Pitt. Wandering around is more personal, more lonely and more evocative of life in a cold war nightmare.

My excitement at stepping off the boat onto a misty broadwalk didn't last long. The creepily deserted coastal town gave way to a deliciously spongey bayou, pocked with burping splats of liquid mud. It was a long time before I saw anyone, which goes a small way to excusing why, when I did, I ran directly at them to say hi.

I was shot, I think fourteen times. Lank haired rednecks let off their shotguns, their dungarees dangling open to bare withered chests, and a burly mechanic drawled that "You in the wraawng place giirl!" before hitting me in the skull with a baseball bat. And then Sloth showed up.

It wasn't actually Sloth, from The Goonies, but that was cold comfort as the lumbering malformed freak chased me across Maryland with a woodcutter. In fact, it would have taken the edge off if he'd been groaning "Hey you guuuuuys!" as he ran.

I'd emptied every gun I had into him, but he kept coming. I'd trodden in bear traps, blundered into deathbots and stepped on landmines in my epic run from one of the first enemies I met. After a while I stopped checking behind me - he was always there, gurning and swiping inches from my back, and looking was only bringing him closer. When he'd finally chased me all the way to the coastal cliffs, I just threw myself off.

Sloth was gone. But I was cold, cut, burnt, shot, beaten, badly irradiated, surrounded by Mirelurks and more than a little homesick. I clambered up the craggy rock face and staggered inland - cautiously - until I found a cathedral.

It was walled off, with an intercom next to the gate. I used it: silence.

It was gone dark, so I did what anyone would: stood stock still staring at the intercom for eight hours, then used it again. Silence. I left.

When I came back, a day later, I was dressed as one of the tribe I'd learned now lived there. They still wouldn't let me in, but they were at least talking to me. The conversation didn't go well.

In a few surprising minutes, it ended with me having my hair shaved off, a chunk cut out of my brain, and hallucinating that double-basses grew on trees, Nuka Cola Bottles were nuclear bombs, the world was upside down and a giant phantasmal needle was stitching it together.

But I got into that cathedral, god damn it, and one of the punga-fruit farmers inside offered me his shit-stained spade. I wouldn't call it Excalibur, but when you're looking for something to beat seven shades of fertilizer out of a hideous Goonies stand-in who gone done you wrong, a spade's a spade.

Golden Joysticks 2011: the shortlisting

For the first time, this year's Golden Joysticks nominations have been made by a team of Future's fightiest editors, including our very own Tim.

For the first time, this year's Golden Joysticks nominations have been made by a team of Future's fightiest editors, including our very own Tim. See him screaming, Official Playstation Magazine's Ben Wilson rending his garments in rage and Official Xbox Magazine's Jon Hicks hide under a table the video account above. It's far less traumatic than the real meeting used to decide the final nominees, but you get a good idea.

You can vote now over on the Golden Joysticks site. If you vote in all 14 categories, you'll be in with a chance to win a top of the range Alienware laptop, and all of the games nominated for prizes in the Golden Joysticks 2011.

Clicking a lot, yet failing to click, in romance sim Cibele

NOW PLAYING
This article contains major spoilers for Cibele.

In Now Playingarticles PC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today Tony tries to steer and unsteerable romance in Cibele.

Illicitly trawling through the contents of an adolescent girl’s computer is less fun than I had previously imagined. The folders I open contain a lot of selfies, a few message logs and blog entries, and not a lot else. I’m playing a game called Cibele, by the way, in case you thought this was something I do as a hobby. It’s set in the online world of nearly-nineteen-year-old Nina, as revealed by the contents of her desktop. Nina has pink hair, plays videogames with her friends, and is sorta interested in Blake, a guy she knows through the MMO Valtameri.

When I click on an unfamiliar taskbar icon and Valtameri itself starts up, things start to look more promising. I’m in a shifting pastel landscape with adorable pink octopus sprites, and there’s Nina’s pink-haired avatar, which I control. I’m playing Nina in a videogame playing Nina in a videogame! I’m totally clicking on the adorable pink octopi to make Nina zap them with her staff.

Except, apparently I’m not playing Nina after all, because while I’m clicking, she’s shyly voicechatting with the equally socially inept Blake, who is also here. And I have no control over that at all. I have no dialogue options. All I can do is listen while they clumsily shove awkward adolescent compliments in each other’s general direction like shopping trolleys overloaded with dough. Periodically I trigger the next scripted exchange by killing enough octopi or opening a new email. There is no option to tell Blake ‘You are an emo twat’, which is a particular shame.

The session ends. I’m returned to Nina’s desktop with the news that two months have passed. A quick rummage through her folders reveals that she’s now sending Blake saucy selfpics, and writing excruciatingly bad poetry.

I start a new Valtameri session. The scenery is different, but my presence is as irrelevant as ever as the two lovebirds step through a new pre-scripted voicechat. Dear God, now they’re full-on flirting with each other. Can I push the conversation in a new direction? No. Can I get out of this by dying? No. In this MMO, it turns out, the monsters don’t hit back. All I can do is farm creeps with Nina’s avatar while she has the fun. I’m like one of those indentured children living in a warehouse in China that people hire to level their character for them. Except I’m not being paid.

There is no option to tell Blake ‘You are an emo twat’, which is a particular shame.

When we return to Nina’s desktop, another four months have passed. Incredibly, Blake and Nina still haven’t met up in real life. Perhaps I can help their relationship by clicking on sprites while they talk? I boot up Valtameri again. It’s a lava world this time, and that’s never a good sign. Sure enough, Blake is confessing that he only feels comfortable with their relationship in-game. He doesn’t know how to relate to people in real life. Nina persuades him to meet up anyway. In a short video denouement they have sex then he breaks up with her. The end.

It’s an old story. Girl meets boy, girl has disappointing first sex with boy, boy says he’s not actually that into her.

It’s an old story, but it’s not my story. It’s not the story of what happened to me when I played the game called Cibele. Me, I clicked on stuff with Nina’s avatar, while the story happened to her. I sat through a three-act college play, while she got to star in it. And do you know, Nina, I feel a little bit used.

Fallout 4 player maps (almost) all of the underwater realm

We learned a couple of weeks ago about an intrepid underwater explorer who had discovered some interesting stuff beneath the radioactive waves of Fallout 4 .

. Could there be more, we wondered? As Reddit user Lavonicus discovered, the answer is yes—quite a lot more, in fact.

Lavonicus spent more than 30 hours over the past three weekends exploring the Fallout 4 seabed, an adventure he documented in a collection of more than 100 images that he posted to Imgur. Most of them are conventional screen shots, but there are a few maps as well, documenting the location of particularly important finds, like an unoccupied suit of power armor, or the "Meow Boat."

The bulk of the shots are blurry, as underwater scenery tends to be, because Lavonicus plays Fallout 4 on a PS4 and thus can't use "noclip" to dispel the effect. And unfortunately, he didn't stumble across any great secrets, although an interesting mystery did come up in the form of a "one of a kind sphere" with some writing on it, half-buried in the muck. It appears to say "New!" but new what? (There's a video showing exactly how to get to the sphere on YouTube, if you want to check it out yourself.)

Lavonicus said his travels cover close to 100 percent of Fallout 4's underwater realm, but promised to resume his deep-diving in DLC follow-ups, which he predicted will contain proper aquatic locations. "In the past for Fallout 4 you have shown concept art of underwater content and through mods we have found out there is a Harpoon gunthat was supposed to be in the game," he wrote. "It may not be in the game currently, but I know we'll have underwater content eventually in DLC. When that time comes, I'll spend my time combing through the water content of the DLC until I find it."

Well done, Lavon. You are truly the Steve Zissou of the post-nuclear world.

Thanks, GamesRadar.

Humble Weekly Sale offers Codemasters games DiRT cheap

It's Codemasters turn to flaunt their goods on Humble's digital sale shelf .

. Seven games, including various DiRTs, Overlords and Operation Flashpoints, have been bundled together, in a genre mash-up that has tiny imps erratically driving rally cars away from hyper-efficient snipers. Okay, so it's not that - it's the more traditional bundle of games collected for a pay-what-you-want price.

It's a good package, specifically for the quirky Overlord series, the excellent DiRT 3, and the kinda-funDiRT Showdown. Unfortunately, the bundle does still necessitate a warning. With GfW Live's rumoured July 1st shutdown, both Operation Flashpoint: Red River and DiRT 3 could potentially stop working. While Codemasters have confirmed that DiRT 3 will be getting the Steamworks treatment, they've made no comment on their plans for Red River.

As always it's a two-tiered deal, with people who pay under $6 getting Overlord, the Raising Hell DLC, Operation Flashpoint: Red River, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Rise of the Argonauts. Pay over $6, and you'll also be given DiRT Showdown, DiRT 3 and Overlord 2.

The deal will run until February 6th.

Battling Windows 10 to play a game of Hitman Go

NOW PLAYING
Note: This article was originally published in PC Gamer issue 290, before the Steam edition had been announced.

In 'Now Playing' articles PC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today Phil plays the game of trying to play a game on Windows 10.

Hitman: Go is a surprisingly enjoyable turn-based puzzler. It’s styled like a board game, where your job is to move your Agent 47 piece towards the target without being seen by the patrolling guards. In essence, it’s a series of maze puzzles. Like The Witness, but with murder. I don’t really do mobile gaming, so I’d only tapped my way through a couple of levels of the Android edition. But the PC version seemed like a fine lunchtime distraction.

I can’t simply play the game, though, because for some reason Square Enix neglected to release it on Steam. Instead, Hitman: Go is only available through the Windows 10 Store. That means installing Windows 10. This isn’t a particularly big deal—I use Windows 10 on my home PC and like it well enough. It was only a matter of time before my work PC followed suit. Things do get a little hairy when the system freezes during the initial configuration, on the screen that warns me not to turn off my PC. It sounds like good advice, but I don’t really see another option. I turn off my PC.

Restarting, it loads the Windows 10 upgrade procedure. Things appear to be fine, despite my disobeying the only command I’ve been given. Twenty minutes later, the OS is installed and I’m almost ready to buy the game. Nearly. First I have to go through every option, tweaking Microsoft’s many, many privacy settings. It’s as I’m disabling Big Brother that my screen goes blank.

I restart, and a couple of minutes later my screen goes blank again. I suspect – hope—this is a display driver issue. Not a problem, I’ll just download the Windows 10 version of the latest driver. Restarting, I open Nvidia’s GeForce experience tool and click to download a driver update. The screen goes blank.

At this point, I’m not really thinking about Hitman: Go any more. I’m scheduled for a Skype interview directly after lunch and I’d rather not tell the founder of Taleworlds that I can’t make our appointment because I’d wanted to play a puzzle game. As against-the-clock drama goes, this is hardly 24. Still, if I’m going to destroy what little professional reputation I’ve built up over the years, I’d rather it was because of something less stupid.

It feels like my PC is playing Roadrunner to my Wile E Coyote—waiting for me to get within seconds of starting the update, then cutting the display before I can.

After numerous further attempts, it feels like my PC is playing Roadrunner to my Wile E Coyote—waiting for me to get within seconds of starting the update, then cutting the display before I can. Clearly a change of approach is needed. I manually download the driver update on my Mac, and pop it onto a USB stick. With the file transferred to Windows, I can finally... oh no. The driver update won’t run in safe mode.

I restart and cross my fingers. As I navigate towards the update folder, my screen goes blank. This time, it immediately flickers back to life. Not taking any chances I run the update. With five minutes left of my lunch break, I buy Hitman: Go and play the first couple of levels. It’s good, but probably not worth the effort. A couple of hours later I’m in the process of transcribing my interview. Without warning, my screen goes blank.

Final Fantasy 9 is finally coming to PC

Final Fantasy IX, the secret best Final Fantasy title, is coming to PC, only 15 years after it released for the original PlayStation.

Final Fantasy IX, the secret best Final Fantasy title, is coming to PC, only 15 years after it released for the original PlayStation. Square Enix announced the news on their Japanese site here(thanks, NeoGAF!), and while there's no guarantee it'll release in the West, the fact that you can view that site in English makes me hopeful.

The belated PC port will feature "high-definition graphics, newly added achievements, auto-save, high speed mode, and several game boosting features", and that's thankfully not code for "we made the game look hideous", a la Final Fantasy VI. You can see how the port looks in the accompanying trailer:

Oh, and in these screenshotsfrom Famitsu. It looks absolutely fine! Phew.

Final Fantasy IX is coming to PC (and smartphones) "soon".

Why I can't stop stealing in Fallout 4

NOW PLAYING
"Seems to be growing well,” I tell the malnourished farmhands before ripping their gourds from the ground and stuffing them down my trousers.

In Now PlayingPC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today, Ben pinches everything that isn't nailed down in Fallout 4.

"Seems to be growing well,” I tell the malnourished farmhands before ripping their gourds from the ground and stuffing them down my trousers. Strangely, they’re cool with this, so I try selling the grotty vegetables back to them to see what happens. They buy them. They actually buy back the gourds they saw me steal. Fallout 4 ’s wasteland is my own personal pick ‘n’ mix.

A kidnapped baby isn’t the driving force behind my exploits in this nuclear-ravaged world. No, my primary motivation is building an increasingly epic looter’s paradise loaded with disco balls and pictures of kittens and musical pressure pads that play La Cucaracha badly when you walk on them. The boy comes second after I finish my dance floor, which is probably never, and the whole ‘avenging my dead wife’ thing is third I guess.

So, pockets unfeasibly loaded with corn and melons and something called ‘tatos’ which are a mutated tomato/ potato hybrid that sadly does not work well in song (“You say tato, and I... also say tato”), I travel to Sanctuary. The quaint neighbourhood I lived in before being frozen for 200 years is still standing, and despite peeling paint on the houses and the cars outside them turning to rusted husks, it’s a home I’m committed to rebuilding. My every second exploring the Commonwealth is spent looking for shiny items like a massive featherless magpie, a magpie with opposable thumbs who can fashion those objects into something cool. A magpie on a mission.

A guard in Diamond City strikes up a conversation but I ignore him and focus on scanning the background for umbrellas and spatulas. I walk through majestic environments staring entirely at the floor. I make a beeline for a broken mop in a super-mutant’s lair because I need its precious cloth and that futon won’t make itself. Old newspapers and ashtrays and duct tape and desk fans are the new gold (the old gold, gold, is fairly useless).

My routine involves loading up with lightbulbs and hotplates and teddy bears until I can’t carry any more, giving another ton of junk to my begrudging pack mule of a companion, then hotfooting it back to base after every mission to empty my stash. I imagine typewriters and paintbrushes and battered books streaming from pockets en route like a crappy breadcrumb trail made from sheer garbage.

My ultimate aim is collecting enough human bones to make a pool I can swim in like a detestable Scrooge McDuck.

I can do a lot with these materials, though, like scandalously shredding an American flag and using its material to make a doormat, mounting stuffed animal parts on the walls of my bedroom, scrapping plungers and pencils and using their wood to build a fence around my most annoying settler who keeps asking me for drugs, and harvesting copper from telephones to wire up my electricity pylons and creating a promotional radio station that broadcasts a humblebrag across the Commonwealth. My ultimate aim is collecting enough human bones to make a pool I can swim in like a detestable Scrooge McDuck.

My every action in Fallout 4 is taken with homestead expansion in mind, and as such it’s spoiled other games for me. I don’t want to play something in which filling my clown-car pockets with alarm clocks and spatulas isn’t handsomely rewarded. I’d steal you if I could.

Mass Effect 4 lead writer revealed as Halo 4 veteran Chris Schlerf

BioWare has announced that the lead writer of the next Mass Effect game—fingers still crossed for M4ss Effect—is Chris Schlerf, perhaps better known to the gaming world at large as the writer of Halo 4 .

Schlerf joined BioWare in November 2013, and managed to keep his work on Mass Effect a secret until today's announcement. "Every day is a revelation and every day I get to play in a new corner of the universe," Schlerf said, reinforcing the idea that Mass Effect 4 will be entirely separate from the original trilogy. "To be able to look three steps ahead to, ‘Where does this take us and how does it add to the way we look at the Mass Effect trilogy?’ You couldn’t ask for a better playground."

"As a writer, I write for characters," he continued. "To me, it’s always about what makes my characters tick and what stories I can tell through those characters that will actually engage people about their own lives. It provides a mirror to that player’s experience [so that they are] not just sitting back in an armchair."

The announcement also revealed a number of other lead developers on the game, including Senior Development Director Chris Wynn, Producer Fabrice Condominas, Lead Designer Ian Frazier, Art Director Joel MacMillan, Creative Director Mac Walters, Producer Mike Gamble, and BioWare Montreal Studio Director Yanick Roy. BioWare's Montreal studio is leading the development of the project.

BioWare will reveal more about the game during a Mass Effect developer roundtablethat will be broadcast live on Twitch at 10 am PST/1 pm EST.

Nvidia 313.95 beta drivers improve performance for Crysis 3 beta, Assassin's Creed III, Far Cry 3

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Dirt Showdown trailer reveals May 25 release date, demo due May 1

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The trailer above loudly announces that Dirt Showdown will be released on May 25.

The trailer above loudly announces that Dirt Showdown will be released on May 25. A demo will be released on Steamin a couple of weeks on May 1 if you fancy trying out Showdown's lively, arcade slant on the relatively serious rallying of the core Dirt games. That'll let us crash a selection of cars across a "solo and multiplayer event."

Showdown features rough and tumble races set amid boisterous carnival locations. Expect ramps, choke points, stunts and plenty of collisions. Previous trailers have shown crashes on the 8 ball arena, crashes in the midst of crowded night time contestsand crashes during frantic midday bouts. If that's not enough crashing, there's a destruction derby mode solely devoted to dishing out points for big hits.

If you're to get hold of Showdown early, the "Hoonigan Edition" should be available to pre-order from Gameand Gamestation, though the PC version doesn't seem to be there at the moment. The Hoonigan version comes with some extra car liveries, and online XP bonus and some extra in-game cash to spend on your cars. Check out the Dirt Showdown sitefor more.

Having accidental adventures in 80 days

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I’ve heard some amazing anecdotes from 80 Days players.

In Now PlayingPC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today, Phil seeks adventure in the marvelous 80 Days.

I’ve heard some amazing anecdotes from 80 Days players. Stories of mystery, adventure, and quiet, sad failure. Looking over the achievement list, it’s clear that a lot can happen on Fogg and Passepartout’s trip. It sounds rather exciting: a wager, a time limit, and guaranteed hijinks. I travel a lot, but the most eventful journey I’ve ever taken was in an unairconditioned train that stunk oppressively of human excrement. I’m in the mood for something more romantic.

Instead I get mild adventure, pleasant conversation and accidental efficiency. We depart from London, and I quickly establish Passepartout as Fogg’s unflappable valet. I will be calm and dependable; a man of the world, intrigued at the march of progress. Each time we arrive at a city, I plan out the route ahead—sometimes negotiating an earlier departure, other times exploring in search of faster or more direct routes.

Before long it’s day 19 and we’re in Istanbul. Some canny trading means we’ve got £11,000 in the bank. In all, it’s been pretty uneventful. There was an incident with some pirates, but they were actually pretty chill. Most games reward efficiency, but I think here it’s to my detriment. Taking a train to Iran, I catch a passenger using suction cups to scale the length of the train’s exterior. That seems mysterious, but, before anything comes of it, we’re in Tehran. I talk to some blacksmiths instead. They seem nice.

Herat, Quetta and Lahore fly by. It’s day 28, and we’re in Dehli. I find a retired airship pilot rumoured to have the fastest ship in the world. I goad her into proving her claim by taking us to Hong Kong. She challenges me to produce £10,000. What the hell, it’s time for some adventure. The pilot hates the English, and has called her ship the Death of the Empire. The whole journey passes without incident. We’ve been travelling for just over 30 days, and we’re already in China. Why am I so good at this?

He drugs me with opiates in a plot to loosen my tongue and I end up wandering the streets looking for my master.

Finally, in Hong Kong, some intrigue. An undercover detective claims Fogg is wanted for stealing £50,000. He drugs me with opiates in a plot to loosen my tongue and I end up wandering the streets looking for my master. I hear a rumour that someone English-looking boarded an airship for Yokohama. I follow. I’m penniless, so I join the circus in the hope of earning some cash. There, in the crowd at my first performance, I spot Fogg.

It feels like I’m collecting the first half of every story—pirates, train-scaling thieves, unscrupulous detectives all feel like plot threads I’ve misplaced before the payoff. I’m becoming increasingly reckless in the pursuit of drama. In Washington, I charter a flight to Ponta Delgada. As it leaves, I’m given an option: bribe the navigator to take us to London instead. It’s a gamble, given the airship’s fuel load. I take it happily. We crash outside of the UK. Hours later, a rescue ship picks us up and takes us the remaining distance. 67 days and only one life-threatening disaster. I’m a bit disappointed. Next time, I decide, I’ll get Fogg killed. That’ll be interesting.

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear expansion announced

The Baldur's Gate countdown that popped up last week has now ticked its last tock, revealing a brand-new expansion called Siege of Dragonspear.

that popped up last week has now ticked its last tock, revealing a brand-new expansion called Siege of Dragonspear. It's a "massive" addition to the epic RPG franchise, taking place between the events of the first game and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear tells the tale of a mysterious crusade in the north, led by a warrior known only as the Shining Lady. The city of Baldur's Gate once again calls upon you and your allies to save it from chaos, but there's more to this march than first meets the eye: Like you, the Shining Lady is rumored to be the child of a god, and the Lord of Murder, though dead, "still casts a long shadow upon your path."

The expansion will add an estimated 25 hours of gameplay to Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, with new areas to explore, monsters to kill, treasures to claim, and four new NPCs to recruit to your party. The expansion will also add the Shaman class to the game, more than 100 new magic items, a redesigned interface, cross-platform multiplayer (it's being released for Windows, Linux Mac, and mobile), and a soundtrack by the outstanding Sam Hulick, the man whose music made you cry in Mass Effect 3.

Also very interesting is the new Story Mode difficulty that "allows players to experience the entire story with none of the Game Over screens." Those who prefer it the other way can opt for the Legend of Bhaal difficulty, "for a challenging tactical experience."

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear will not work with the original release of Baldur's Gate—a copy of Beamdog's Enhanced Editionis required to play. Pricing and release date have not been announced, but we do have some screens for perusal, and more information is up now at siegeofdragonspear.com.

Dirt: Showdown footage shows demolition derby and night races

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Codemasters stopped by earlier with a preview build of Dirt: Showdown.

Codemasters stopped by earlier with a preview build of Dirt: Showdown. It's living up to its billing as a more accessible, rough and tumble take on the carefully simulated physics of Dirt 3. You won't find any serious Rallying here, it's all about going wheel to wheel with your competitors, ploughing them into barriers and boosting past them to steal the win with brute force.

We'll have some more detailed impressions for you in a bit. Meanwhile, here's three new videos of three of the different modes available in Dirt 3, including your racing, demolition derby and more of the 8 ball circuit shown in the last Dirt: Showdown trailer. Click 'Read and Comment' for more VRRRRRM-SMASH.

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Croft Manor in Tomb Raider

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I wonder what the elevator pitch was for Tomb Raider circa 1996.

In Now PlayingPC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today Tom tortures poor Winston, again.

I wonder what the elevator pitch was for Tomb Raider circa 1996. “Indiana Jones with guns and a T-Rex”, perhaps. Lara Croft travels all over the world quipping in the Queen's english, unraveling ancient mysteries and killing enough wildlife to incur the wrath of real-world animal rights organisations. She has the extraordinary ability to flip 12 feet into the air sideways and, like Indie, remains relaxed in the face ancient magic that melts people.

There would be little more to discover about Lara Croft in the early games if it wasn't for a humble tutorial mission set in her country mansion. We're supposed to believe that Indiana Jones spends his spare hours living a bookish existence lecturing Archaeology students in Connecticut. Lara Croft prefers to return to her heavily customised (and definitely haunted) mansion to train and entertain. The textures and geometry are primitive, but Lara's mansion is an early example of environmental storytelling that puts distance between Tomb Raider and its closest influences.

I immediately loved the mansion, because to an 11 year old the idea of having an assault course in your lounge is brilliant. Returning now, I appreciate Croft manor even more. The assault course has a practical use—teaching you the jumps and shimmies you need to survive booby-trapped tombs on expedition—but it also shows how dedicated Lara is to her chosen profession. Once you've explored this multi-storey expression of independent wealth you know that she's not raiding tombs for upkeep; she's in it for the excitement and prestige. In later games she even puts a few of these priceless artifacts on display in glass cases for visitors to admire.

The mansion seems quiet when you're exploring, but there are plenty of hints that point to Lara's life as a socialite and a thrill-seeker. She has an entertainment room with a grand piano, a harp, and a large carpeted space that could serve as a ballroom at a pinch. In Tomb Raider 2 Lara hides a switch inside a topiary maze. This opens up a secret passageway to a basement full of treasure she's stolen from dead people. In Tomb Raider 3 the maze becomes a gateway to a quad bike course. The mansion goes far beyond the detail needed to simply teach players the game. It's a playground that reflects Lara's personality in a series that, back then, devoted little time for dialogue, cut scenes and other character-building devices.

Croft Manor changes across the first three games. In Tomb Raider 2 the boxes that form some small jumping puzzles in TR1 can be found in the attic, and the assault course has been moved outside. Lara is attended by Winston the flatulent butler, truly a hero among butlers. He follows Lara everywhere. In the depths of the topiary maze you might hear his gurgling bowels from the other side of a hedge as he finds his way to your side. His slow pathfinding can famously be exploited to lock him in Lara's meat freezer. In Tomb Raider 3's mansion Winston comes prepared for more bullying, dressed in full survival combat gear. Winston's development was part of the ongoing dialogue between developers and fans in the first three games. In search of new secrets, players would always find new ways to break the latest iteration of Croft Manor, using glitches to reach rooftops, balconies, and the top of the outer walls.

The Tomb Raider games moved away from Croft Manor. It became Abbingdon Manor and was burned down in Tomb Raider: Underworld. The 2013 reboot opts for a desperate, survivalist tone and sets the game in a continuous environment far away from the British countryside—perhaps in rebellion against the stupidest excesses of Tomb Raider canon, which featured evil clones of Lara and other nonsense. There's no room for Croft Manor in Lara's new world, and there's no point in the series returning purely for nostalgia's sake. Still, I think it's worth taking a moment to celebrate the enduring memories I'm sure many of us have, of keenly searching for secrets in Lara's big old house. I'll find that ghost one day.

Destiny studio Bungie is hiring for something PC-related

Don't jump to any conclusions yet, wannabe Guardians, but according to a new job listing Destiny studio Bungie is looking for a "PC compatibility tester".

Destiny studio Bungie is looking for a "PC compatibility tester". The advertisement, published on the careers page at Bungie.net, seeks people who can "evaluate PC hardware-specific features and ensure various systems work together across multiple PC configurations to provide a great experience".

Does that mean Destiny is coming to PC? Honestly, I don't know. The game's first major expansion, The Taken King, is due in September. It feels unlikely a PC version of that is going to materialise anytime soon, unless Bungie plans to launch it far later than the console versions. What seems more likely is that this role is related to the inevitable Destiny 2, which is expected towards the end of 2016, but at this point all we can do is cross our fingers.

Certainly publisher Activision isn't closed to the idea of Destiny on PC (because, hey, dollars). Last year Activision Publishing's CEO Erik Hershberg indicated it was a possibility: "Again, no announcements, but it's something that's a heavy point of discussion," he said in June last year – months before the game's September release.

"You know, developing on PC is a different animal than developing for consoles and so we just want to make sure that we're putting one foot in front of the other and getting it right, and that it's of the highest possible quality. But obviously I see the same things about the natural fit."

At least PC has one Destiny feature the consoles can no longer boast: the loot cave.

Dirt Showdown trailer shows 8 Ball arena

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Dirt Showdown bears the Dirt name associated with Colin McRae and, once upon a time, serious rally racing, but is really more of an arcade spin-off.

Dirt Showdown bears the Dirt name associated with Colin McRae and, once upon a time, serious rally racing, but is really more of an arcade spin-off. This new trailer shows off an "8 Ball" course. It's like those Hot Wheelstoys where you'd launch cars down convoluted tracks towards a central crash site, where they'd collide and fly off to hit your dog in the eye. This time, you're inside those cars, and some of them are spouting fire.

Showdown's focus is on Destruction Derbies and "full contact" racing, with lots of ramps and choke points, and will apparently make use of "gaming's most advanced damage engine." Move aside, Frostbite 2! It's due out in May and was announced with an announcement trailer a few weeks ago which looked a little bit like this.

Finally playing Thirty Flights of Loving

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What kind of idiot would lie about playing Thirty Flights of Loving just so they can avoid being told, “oh man, what the hell are you doing, get that played!”?

In Now PlayingPC Gamer writers talk about the game currently dominating their spare time. Today, Ben launches a basketball career in 2K16.

Hi, I’m Samuel Roberts, editor of PC Gamer, and I’ve been fraudulently telling people I’ve played Blendo Games’ heist story for about two years now. I developed a whole patter on what I’d say when people asked me about it, too. “Oh yeah, less story is better, what a masterwork! Interactive narrative at its best!” This is not normal behaviour, but by the time I told a couple of people I’d played Thirty Flights, I’d become properly invested in the fiction of the lie.

It turns out it would’ve been far easier just to play the game in the first place: it is 13 minutes long. One Sunday recently, I sat down and did just that.

I remember reading a piece on Thirty Flights of Loving by my predecessor, Graham, a few years ago. He said that Thirty Flights tells a better story in 13 minutes than a game typically does in 13 hours, and praised its use of cinematic techniques to enhance the story, calling it the sort of game Edgar Wright might make. In case you’re not familiar with it, Thirty Flights is about a heist that goes wrong, using smash cuts and flashbacks to explore the characters, their relationships and the build-up to the disaster.

It’s a very effective way of presenting quite a simple story. I wonder if there’s anything a 13-hour game can learn from it. Some environments in Thirty Flights of Loving, which I guess could’ve taken weeks for Blendo mastermind Brendon Chung to make, appear for no longer than a few seconds. It’s hard to envision a game by a bigger developer using a technique like this, because the cost of building detailed environments that only linger on-screen for a moment is probably too cost prohibitive to be worth it. There’s a sequence in Hot Fuzz I’m obsessed with, where sergeant Nicholas Angel leaves London and heads for the fictional West Country village of Sandford by train. It perfectly captures the mundane experience of public transport in the UK, but it also beautifully conveys the passage of time and feeling of stepping from one place to another. Thirty Flights cuts from place to place in a similar fashion, leaving your imagination to fill the gaps.

I’ve been fraudulently telling people I’ve played Blendo Games’ heist story for about two years now.

It’s a rare example of experimental narrative technique in a game, and three years after its release, to my memory only The Stanley Parable and Beginner’s Guide have used cuts to a similarly energising effect. What if the next Wolfenstein instantly cut from place to place to show how the world had changed in the years since The New Order? What if Fallout 4 ended with a quick montage of all your major decisions in the game that had led to that point? Imagine if the next GTA took character-swapping a step further and occasionally cut to a gunfight in another part of the world.

Thirty Flights of Loving has made me want to see more experimentation in the way stories are told in games. Now that I no longer have to pretend I’ve played it, I shall ramble about that the next time someone asks me what I think of the game.