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Time to take down Braniac: exclusive reveal of DC Universe Online’s next big update

That intergalactic jerk Braniac has been bottling the cities in DC Universe Online and stealing Earth’s citizens for too long. His attempted take-over for Earth has been the primary storyline in DC Universe Online for the past year, since the game’s launch in January 2011. A year and a few raids later, we’re finally going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Mr. smarty-pants when the next content pack takes us to Wonder Woman’s native island of Themyscira. We’ve got the exclusive scoop on what players will find there, and where DCUO is headed after its big, bad villain is down for the count.

This week’s best free PC games

Last week played host to the annual Global Game Jam, in which developers around the world strive to create an entire game within the ludicrously short period of 48 hours. The sheer number of entries is overwhelming, and I’ve not managed to play nearly enough of them to say which are the best. Among this week’s pick of free games are three I’ve found interesting so far, along with a collection of titles developed in association with the London Science Museum. Head below the jump for another week’s worth of free PC gaming.

Never get lost in DCUO’s Watchtower again with this detailed fan-made map

DC Universe does a lot of things really well, but building easily-navigable hangout spots is not one of them. The Justice League Watchtower and Hall of Doom serve as the primary meeting points for all Hero and Villain characters, respectively. Both house a ton of useful objects—like the Phase Shifter, which allows you to swap between PvE and PvP phases of the server at will—but not all of them are easy to find.

The cryptically-named RedDragon74 over at DCUO Life has done heroes a great service by putting together an all-encompassing map that labels the locations of everything you’ll need in the Watchtower and also provides a full list of bounty locations and a complete breakdown of how to earn the different PvE currencies at endgame. It’s not the prettiest map ever made, but all the info is here.

DCUO offers a creative solution to the age-old “Where’s the healer?” problem

I’ve always liked DC Universe Online’s twist on the classic tank-healer-DPS trinity that defines most MMORPG’s group roles. DCUO gives everyone access to two roles—DPS and then either tank, healer, or control (CC and power-restoration), based on their power selection—and lets them swap between them whenever they want.

It’s a hybrid system that lets players specialize, while limiting the usual problem of there being too few healers or tanks because most people want to be able to level and solo efficiently. As a result, the queue times in DCUO are much shorter than they are in many other MMOs. And with the Role-Optional Alerts SOE’s adding in the game’s next update, which use specialized buffs to make any combination of players an effective group, players should be able to form groups almost instantly.

This week’s best free PC games

It’s the unsettling, frozen warzone of The Snowfield that’s had me most intrigued this week: an experimental indie game that plays with original ideas in narrative design is always worth a few paragraphs of rambling in my book. But there are three other freebies of exemplary quality. The Cat That Got The Milk is a delightfully chaotic two-button title, and the wonderfully named Eunaborb is an intriguing take on crazy golf. Elsewhere, The Fourth Wall takes a single clever game mechanic and runs with it, in exactly the right direction. Read on for my thoughts on these lovely free games.

This week’s best free PC games

This week, I’ve mainly been wowed by wonderful Half-Life 2 mod The Stanley Parable, which I finally got round to playing. Since it’s a mod, and it’s not from the past seven days, I figured it’d be a bit unreasonable to spend these column inches on that, which is why this week you get a wholly irrelevant introduction. However, read on, and you’ll find such riches as: a rabbit that’s been turned into a were-bunny, a tin man with one leg, a claustrophobic triangle and a game about setting up a business. Also: play The Stanley Parable.

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.

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.