Dungeons & Dragons Online leaps into The Forgotten Realms with its first expansion
The Forgotten Realms is as classic a D&D setting as they get: a lost realm related to our own where magic runs rampant, deities are active, and–well, just imagine most any classic RPG game you’ve played and you’ll see hints of The Forgotten Realms’ influence. And Update 13 is finally bringing it to Dungeons & Dragons Online, which is still offering it’s brand of flexible free-to-play options to the masses. I recently sat down with the game’s Executive Producer Fernando Paiz to talk about what the upcoming content will look like in DDO’s first-ever expansion: Menace of the Underdark.
Q.U.B.E. recoups Indie Fund investment in four days
Q.U.B.E. is the first project released to be bankrolled by the Indie Fund, an organisation made up of a series of successful indie developers looking to provide hands-off financial support to exciting new game makers. A post on the Indie Fund blog, spotted by Joystiq, says that they have recouped their $90,000 investment after just four days.
“In the short time that it’s been available on Steam, Q.U.B.E. has sold over 12,000 copies,” say the Indie Fund. “Indie Fund recouped its investment in Q.U.B.E., and now we’re looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Toxic Games.”
This week’s best free PC games
So, a Ludum Dare 48-hour development competition happened recently, and three of the games below are a result of it. Frostbite smartly works an entire game around the concept of deadly cold, Last Breath is about a dead dog, and ZERO2 sees you investigating something odd among snowy hills. Elsewhere, absolutely enormous point-and-click adventure Donna: Avenger of Blood is a dark and brooding title that demands many hours of your time. Read on for more juicy details on this week’s best freebies!
Red Orchestra 2 mod tools released
The full version of the Red Orchestra 2 SDK has been released for free, giving RO2 owners the opportunity to create maps and game modes for Tripwire’s multiplayer shooter. The developers have released a few limited versions of the SDK, but the full suite of tools is now available.
“Users can now make and publish everything from simple mods and mutators, through custom maps and on to full total conversion mods,” Tripwire say, mentioning that big mods like Rising Storm, In Country Vietnam and Iron Europe are already in development. You can grab the mod tools from the Tools tab of your Steam account.
Tripwire are no strangers to the modding scene. Killing Floor and Red Orchestra started out as mods for Unreal 2004. Hopefully the SDK release can inspire another wave of talented modders.
Age of Empires Online trailer details new skirmish mode
Age of Empires Online is getting a skirmish booster pack. These paid-for bolt-ons normally add new races and missions, but this one will introduce a new mode that will let you and your friends fight a team of tailored AI opponents to gain XP and upgrades. The greater the odds you face, the more loot you’ll get.
The skirmish mode will also unlock all of Age of Empires Online’s units for you to play with, even if you’re at level one. It should be a good way to road test powerful units that you wouldn’t otherwise see for hours. It’s an interesting add-on to the intriguing free to play online RTS. If you’d like to try it, you can download the client from the Age of Empires Online site and start playing now.
Ludum Dare 22 won by Frostbite and Midas
“Alone” was the theme of the latest Ludum Dare indie game contest. Anyone who fancied joining in had 48 hours to create a game based on the theme. Then, everyone got to play each other’s games and rate them based on categories like humour, fun, innovation, graphics, audio. The game with the highest overall score takes the top spot.
This week’s best free PC games
Oh, hello 2012. It’s great to meet you. I hear you’re planning to end the world, is that true? Oh my goodness. In that case, I guess we’d better get on with playing as many excellent free PC games as we can. We wouldn’t want the apocalypse to arrive without having played a couple of decent adventure games, explored some woodland and caves as a fox, and moved around some pennies, would we? Read on for this week’s picks.
Age of Wushu announced: a free to play martial arts MMO with no levels or classes
Age of Wushu is an intriguing free to play MMO from China. You play as a martial arts expert, but there aren’t any levels or character classes. You learn your skills from one of eight schools of combat, and will be able to raid other schools to gain bonus knowledge and unlock more abilities. You’ll be able to train your character outside of the game as well, using 30 “offline activities.”
Expect lots of customisation, too. Apparently there will be more than 5,000 equipment upgrades, 17 progressions and aerial combat. The fighting style draws heavily from Wuxia genre, so there will be plenty of superhuman acrobatics and, as shown in the trailer above, water-running. It’ll be released in the UK as well, under the name Age of Wulin. An “international test” is supposed to be starting soon. Keep an eye on the official Age of Wushu site for news of the beta.
Free games for the New Year: Yeti
As much a comedy sketch as an adventure game, Yeti casts you as the director of a nature documentary in the Himalayas. You’re in pursuit of the mythical creature itself, a beast of the wilds whose hobbies include brandy and dance music. The game’s humour is grounded in the Yeti’s increasingly improbable cosmopolitan lifestyle, the places he finds himself, and the things the film crew will do to facilitate him.
Free games for the New Year: Deity
Deity places you in the hooves of a purple-horned demon whose realm is invaded by torch-bearing, sword-wielding fantasy types. On the surface, it’s an isometric dungeon-crawler in the vein of Diablo: but there’s no direct combat and no loot to find. Instead, this is a stealth puzzle game – the student developers at Digipen cite Batman: Arkham Asylum as one of their influences, and it shows.
It’s entirely mouse controlled, with left click to move and right click to teleport between locations in a cone of purple mist. You’re vulnerable to light, but by teleporting into wall-mounted braziers you can turn them to your side, gaining a little health and a place to hide in the process. Teleporting into enemies, meanwhile, causes them to explode into a shower of giblets.
Super Meat Boy hits one million sales, Bastion passes 500,000
Great news for two top indie games. A Team Meat tweet announces that “Super Meat Boy past the million sales mark last month!” The spattery plaformer recently featured in the superb Humble Indie Bundle 4, which took more than two million dollars in total donations before it closed. “PLATINUM BABY!” said the devs, understandably pleased.
The top 10 free PC games of 2011
With New Year celebrations just around the corner, it’s understandable that you might not have time to trawl through our weekly Best Free PC Games archive, analysing every write-up to construct your own top ten list. So, since we understand the importance of ranking free games in order of perceived quality, we’ve done it for you. Here are PC Gamer’s ten favourite freebies of 2011!
This week’s best free PC games
As Noddy Holder once screeched, “it’s Chriiiiiiistmaaaaaaaas” next week, so the next time you see me rounding up the week’s best free PC games it’ll be either just before or just after the New Year. No bother, though: before then we’ll be counting down the top 10 PC freebies of the year, and this week there’s a nice collection of titles to get stuck into, including a gorgeous platformer, a point-and-click adventure set within an angry space station, and a game I enjoyed but in which I have no idea what the hell happened.
Dragon Nest in-game goodies giveaway [US only]
You put in your time with the family. You ate the cookies, you sat by the fire, you pretended that you could hear whatever grandma was mumbling just fine. But now it’s you time. With skill-shot combat and an adorable anime-esque visual style, Nexon’s action-MMO Dragon Nest is the perfect way to enjoy the rest of your holiday break. Battles aren’t just passive skill rotations—you’ll need to dodge attacks and string together combos if you want a chance at surviving. Yeah, cake-induced blood sugar spikes might set your reflexes back a bit, but you can give yourself an edge with a free digital bundle of Dragon Nest loot from Nexon itself.
Aion to go free to play in Europe in February
Ultra-pretty flighty MMO Aion is set to drop the monthly subscription fees and go free to play in February next year. The free to play version will be rolled out in the UK, France and Germany first before spreading across the whole of Europe. “In the last few months the lands in Atreia have become more and more deserted,” NCSoft write on the new Aion free to play site, “we want to reinvigorate the world of Aion and attract new adventurers to the towns.” There’s no mention of a free to play version for the US yet.
Aion’s been updated many, many times since its release. New dungeons, new endgame quests, new missions and pets that will collect your loot for you are a few additions. The seriousness of the stoic angel warriors that made up Aion’s character base on launch have thawed considerably over the years with the addition of new outfits, afros and a ton of new gear.
