League of Legends’ AI bots multiply, get smarter, and move to Dominion [Hands-on]
I ran out of my spawn area on League of Legends’ Dominion map and made a move for the nearest capture-point, which an enemy Sona was stealing from us. I was confident I could take the flimsy healer and reclaim our home point, but before I can get in range, a burst of flames erupts around me and burning-man Brand bursts from the bushes. He’s now pacing side-to-side between me and Sona, tossing out flames if I get close, but stubbornly refusing to let me drag him off point, where I could safely kill him.
Now, Brand running interference on a point in Dominion isn’t that unusual—but this Brand is a bot, and he’s ruining my day, courtesy of the improved AI and bot rosters being added to League of Legends in the next few weeks.
Cave Story + review
Review by Chris Donlan.
Over on a Cave Story messageboard, X-Calibar has a problem with Cave Story+. It’s to do with Balrog, a boss who looks like a suitcase. In the old days, his catchphrase used to be “Huzzah!” Now, thanks to the HD upgrade’s alternate translation, it’s “Oh yeah!” X-Calibar isn’t happy. “‘Oh yeah’? What kind of charge is that?! Even ‘Booyah!’ might make more sense.”
If you’re wondering how a game could inspire criticism of this granularity, you probably haven’t played Cave Story. Daisuke Amaya’s homebrew classic is a uniquely polite 2D platform adventure in which you’re dropped into a subterranean world where a villainous doctor threatens a group of bunny people. You save the day by exploring, shooting weird animals, fighting bosses, and collecting items that, more often than not, open up new parts of the environment, where the whole thing repeats.
And in other PC gaming news…
Do you play Facebook games? It’s alarming to think that something players have invested time and money in can be suddenly wiped out, but of course that’s true of any online game, from Facebook games like Baking Life to long-running MMOs like Star Wars Galaxies.
But whatever happens, And in other PC gaming news… will never die! Apart from that bit over Christmas when it died because we were all on holiday. The heat death of the universe may also prove a small barrier in the long term, but for now the fort is secure. As such, here’s todays list of links, including rumours of a Ninja Turtles game from Rocksteady.
January hardware bargains: AMD’s HD7970, keyboards, monitors and more
There weren’t many hardware bargains to be had in the January sales as far as PC components were concerned, but in the UK at least it looks like the end of the month is a bit more promising. Shopping around over the last few days to spec up some potential PC builds, it strikes me that while the quantity of good deals around isn’t huge, the quality is very promising.
Mafia’s lead dev on the perils of project funding: “I know people who got their bones broken”
Dan Vavra was the lead designer on Mafia and Mafia 2. He’s started work on a new project with a new studio called Warhorse. While the new project is closely under wraps for now, Vavra has started a frank development blog which promises to deliver an honest account of the trials and tribulations of a new studio trying to bring a game to market.
In the first post published on the new Warhorse site, Vavra describes the studio’s struggles to secure financial backing in a difficult market unwilling to make big investment risks and, incredibly, hints at a darker side to the business. Vavra explains that the team pitched their game at every studio and publisher they could think of, except for “loan sharks and some strange underworld types.”
“I wrote a game about the Mafia and I don’t want to deal with those types of “businessmen”.” he writes. “The game industry is a risky business and nobody wants to end up under the boardwalk. I personally know people who got their bones broken or were kidnapped during game development. No kidding.”
PopCap killing off Baking Life, not offering refunds or exchanges for customers’ money
Are you one of the 100,000 daily users who enjoy creating recipes, baking goods, hiring your friends, and serving customers each day?
Probably not, but that’s not the point. PopCap are closing down Baking Life at the end of January, and any “Zip Cash” bought with real-life money will be erased from existence.
I’ve never baked a virtual cake via the Baking Life app, but that PopCap aren’t offering any exchange or refund option sets an ugly precedent for the value of microtransactions and gamer’s rights. As pointed out in the screenshot below, PopCap seem keen to redirect players to alternative Facebook titles, but don’t seem so keen on converting player’s funds.
Musical puzzler AVSEQ gets a demo, out now
AVSEQ stands for Audio Visual Sequencer. It’s a puzzle game in which you must draw links between descending orbs to vapourise them and unlock new notes on an audio sequencer cycling through the background. The idea is to build up massive chains to gain mega-points and unlock new notes for the gradually building musical score. You have to collect every note before the time runs out to beat the stage. It’s join-the-dots against the clock with the added satisfaction of a swelling musical accompaniment.
There’s a catch, though. If those orbs touch the bottom of the screen, they evaporate and break any chain they’re hooked into. Each level becomes a frantic but absorbing game of risk vs reward as you try to sketch more and more ambitious webs over an increasingly kaleidoscopic backdrop. A two-mission demo is available now on the AVSEQ page of the Big-Robot site. If its musical tendrils manage to snare your attention, you can grab the full game here for a mere $5.
Mass Effect 3 figures to come with multiplayer DLC
It looks like Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer mode will be getting extra DLC after launch, and Bioware will be offering a new way to get it. A series of toy store adverts spotted on Eurogamer show off a series of Mass Effect figures. Each one comes with a code that will unlock extra bits and pieces for Mass Effect 3′s new co-op mode.
The randomised codes “could include powerful new weapons and new characters,” according to a post on the Bioware store, or they could contain “character boosters, weapon modifications, and weapon upgrades to make your multi-player squad stronger.”
Resident Evil 6 screenshots show zombie president, armoured cars and EXPLOSIONS
Capcom have sent over the first set of Resident Evil 6 screenshots. They look to be high res renders taken from the debut trailer which means we get a closer look at the zombie president, and other ‘orrible creatures afflicted by the latest escaped virus. If it’s in keeping with previous Resident Evils, the bioweapon was no doubt created by the least secretive, most evil secret evil organisation ever devised for a videogame, The Umbrella Corporation (and its various malicious subsidiaries).
Most of the shots are the dark brooding sort that you’d expect from a series with Resi’s survival horror roots, but it’ll almost certainly contain lots of action, a la Resident Evil 5, so let’s kick things off with an explosion. BOOM!
Skyrim patch 1.4 beta available now
Patch 1.4 for Skyrim is set to arrive soon, but if you’re really eager to take advantage of the latest round of fixes then you can sign up for the beta through Steam. A post on the Bethblog says that you can opt in on the accounts tab of your Steam settings page. You’ll want to back up your saved games first, though, just to be safe.
The preliminary patch notes for patch 1.4 include many, many quest and crash fixes. Bethesda recommend that you sign up for the beta if one of the fixes applies to your game. You’ll find the list below. The first entry suggests that Skyrim will be getting Steam Workshop support shortly, the infrastructure that will let modders share projects created with the incoming Skyrim Creation Kit. The mod tools are still set to land sometime later this month.
Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock trailer introduces classic villains
It looks like the new Doctor Who game from Supermassive Games will only use two of the four dimensions the Doctor is accustomed to. There are plenty of villainous cameos from Who foes old and new, and it looks like there’ll be some stealth bits with the latest series’ creepiest monsters, The Silence. It’ll be out in March. No word yet on a price. You can follow The Eternity Clock on Twitter for the latest Doctor Who game announcements and you can follow The Talking Clock for the very latest news on what time it is in London.
A guide to Skyrim’s prettiest locations
I’ve heard talk that vanilla Skyrim isn’t pretty. Balderdash! Sure, it’s got a few muddy textures, but I think it deserves a ton of recognition for the scale and artistry of its environments. To that end, I’ve created a video featuring my favorite places in the game, which I’ve dubbed “Koyaaniskyrim.”
The Elder Strolls, Part 7: Homeless Romantic
It’s a little weird to admit that, as a grown man, I have a genuine emotional attachment to a fake dog in a video game. And yet I do. I love my new dog, Jasper. I love him. He has bright, cheerful eyes and a big panting smile. He happily follows me everywhere I stroll. When I stop, he sits or lies down. He pitches in during combat, and helps me hunt large game like deer and elk (animals too large for me to kill with one shot from my bow), bounding after and finishing off the wounded beasts that would have otherwise escaped.
My warm feelings for Jasper help me overlook his main flaw, which is his incessant, endless barking. They also explain the sudden bolt of terror and sadness I feel when, while crossing a river, Jasper gets trapped in the current and sucked over a waterfall.
And in other PC gaming news…
Sometimes a soundtrack can get in your head and stay there forever. The Zelda themetune is one of those soundtracks. The soundtrack to HBO fantasy series A Game of Thrones is another. Battlefield 3′s angry machine noise is yet another. Owen has come across a unique way of washing one’s brain clean of an invading soundtrack. It’s and album called The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski, in which a short loop is repeated for an hour, but changes subtly with each repetition as the track slowly degrades, bludgeoning your brain into a state that couldn’t even absorb an Abba riff. Here it is. Happy Monday!
Avant garde ambient music aside, it’s been a fun day for news. ITV took an official rebuke to the face for mistakenly including footage of Arma 2 when they meant to include footage of the IRA attacking a helicopter. It was confirmed that Guild Wars 2 will be out this year and we had a chat with Notch about whether Mojang consider themselves indie devs anymore. There was loads more we couldn’t cram in, so we’ve assembled them in a gradually disintegrating list of links below.
Alan Wake PC release date set for February, system requirements detailed
An updated Q&A post on the Alan Wake blog suggests that we’ll be getting Alan Wake next month. There’s no mention of how much it’ll cost, but Remedy have released the system requirements. They mention that they’re “still finalising the optimisations and graphics scalability,” so they could change a little before release.
The Q&A also mentions that Alan Wake will work with Nvision 3D, though you’ll need a top end PC to harness the power of that extra dimension. There won’t be a demo, either, but as previously mentioned, we won’t have to mess around with Games for Windows Live either. Hooray for that!
