Skyrim Creation Kit video tutorial – part 3
Making a mod for Skyrim actually isn’t that hard, and Bethesda are making it even easier with a series of 15 minute video tutorials. This is part 3 – if you’re just joining us, see part 1 of the Skyrim Creation Kit video tutorial first. We’ll be posting part 4 this time tomorrow.
Skyrim Creation Kit video tutorial – part 2
Making a mod for Skyrim actually isn’t that hard, and Bethesda are making it even easier with a series of 15 minute video tutorials. This is part 2 – if you’re just joining us, see part 1 of the Skyrim Creation Kit video tutorial first. We’ll be posting part 3 this time tomorrow.
Skyrim Creation Kit video tutorial – part 1
Making a mod for Skyrim is easier than you might think. The Creation Kit, released this week, lets you create new monsters, quests, buildings, landscapes and weapons without having to take up programming. Grab it by selecting ‘Tools’ in your Steam games library – it’s under C for Creation Kit rather than S for Skyrim.
Best of all, the developers themselves are doing a great series of video tutorials on how to use the Creation Kit, aimed at absolute beginners. They’re in easily digestible 15 minute chunks, so we’ll be posting a new one every day. Until Bethesda can’t keep up, of course, at which point we’ll start calling them and asking “Is it out yet? Is it out now? How about now?” until they do. Part 1 is above.
Mass Effect 3 trailer shows female Shepard in full flow
It’s been a long time coming, but Bioware have finally released the promised trailer starring the female Shepard that fans voted to create. It’s a treat for anyone who loved Jennifer Hale’s performance as female Shepard in the first two games and it sent a tangible shiver down my spine during that last scene. You know the bit. “Tell your friends we’re coming for them.” ORCHESTRAL BONG. FLAMING LOGO. March 6 can’t come quick enough. If this trailer isn’t enough Mass Effect for you, a whole cluster of Mass Effect 3 trailers were released earlier.
Firefall trailer reveals launch plans with magic hologram
If you’re interested in the key Mark Kern’s success as CEO of Red 5, look no further than the 2:28 mark in the latest Firefall dev diary when he starts using his holo-magical powers to explain Firefall’s intriguing progression system. Imagine being able to pull a diagram out of thin air. You’d win every meeting you walked into, and you’d make a pretty great Bond villain, at a pinch. I’m not saying that Mark Kern is a Bond villain per se, just that he’s sitting in the sort of bar you could well find hidden in the depths of a volcano base. And then there’s the bit where he crushes the Earth IN THE PALM OF HIS HAND at 3:30. Just saying.
You can sign up for the beta and become part of Red 5′s diabolical machinations on the Firefall site. It’s looking very smart indeed.
Mass Effect 3 trailers show weapon and armour customisation, epic space battles
The Mass Effect 3 website has been updated with FIVE new trailers. The one above struck me as the most interesting to Mass Effect fans. It’s the first we’ve seen of the upgraded weapon and armour customisation. Attaching better barrels, silencers and scopes will change the appearance of the gun as well as its stats. Armour values like shield regeneration, health regeneration are now easy to scan, making equipment easier to compare. Also, you can tailor your colour scheme and turn the little glowy bits pink, if you like.
The other four trailers follow, showing some of the biggest space war scenes we’ve seen yet, including a shot of a vast fleet of Reaper vessels swarming like angry space lobsters towards the alliance fleet. Epic stuff.
Skyrim video shows fantastic unused features: colossal crabs, spear fighting, house building
This video is from Todd Howard’s speech at the DICE 2012 keynote in Las Vegas, spotted on Eurogamer. It shows the results of a week-long Bethesda game jam, in which developers were given one task: “Do anything you want, and add it to the game.” The results were impressive. Enormous crab monsters, a lycanthrope skill tree, seasonal foliage, moving platforms, adoption and house building were just a few of the ideas the team came up with.
Watch an indie developer program a feature in real time
Playing games can desensitize you to the fact that they’re really an amalgamation of number and letter strings, each of which was painstakingly placed in the proper order. This Matrix-like wizardry isn’t often seen in full, but Daniel Tabár of Data Realms has done us the kindness of offering a window into the intricate labor that goes into coding a game.
In a series of three videos spanning nearly five hours in total (!), Tabár walks us through his process for adding the Techs feature to the indie sidescrolling shooter Cortex Command. You might recognize the game from 2010′s Humble Indie Bundle 2—now see a fraction of all the work that went into making it.
Eve Online trailer makes our brains happy
Nestled deep within the brain, slightly above the singulate cortex and just in front of the Parietal lobe, there lies a small section of grey matter that the scientific community refer to as the “OMG spaceships” part of the brain. Shaped like a tiny Millennium Falcon, this region is entirely responsible for the feelings of awe and love that many humans experience when shown images of interstellar craft flying gracefully in front of planets, or in front of other, larger spaceships.
The wizards at CCP are especially good at creating trailers that reach right in through our eyes to tickle our tiny pleasure centres. Wait, what did I just write? Basically, we love spaceships and want to marry them. Eve Online doesn’t let us marry spaceships yet, but it does let us BE spaceships, which is why we quite like it. If you’re inspired to try it, you can download a 14 day free trial from the Eve Online site.
Minecraft video shows lovely 3D-printed Minecraft village
A little while ago we threw a spotlight on this gorgeous model of a Minecraft village, ported from Minecraft into a CAD program, and then built with a 3D printer. Now, there’s a video. A well-placed coin shows just how tiny the model is. It’s total dimensions are just 360 x 250 x 60 mm. D’aww.
If only 3D printing wasn’t so expensive, we’d find a way to carve a model of the glorious constructions on the PC Gamer server. We could stick some cogs in it, add some tilt-shift and shoot a pretty good reconstruction of the Game of Thrones intro, only with more Nyan cats. The model above was created with the Zprinter 650.
You can find plenty more images of tiny Minecraft worlds on the post apocalyptic research institute flickr account. Here are a few more choice picks from the recently uploaded sets.
Dirt: Showdown footage shows demolition derby and night races
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.
Age of Empires Online getting Celts, snowstorms and stealth missions
The Celts are coming to Age of Empires Online, and they’re bringing some mean weather with them. Snowy tundra that slowly saps your units strength will be a key part of the new missions that the pack will add, and there will be a wealth of new units, of course. Celtic priests will be able to sacrifice deer to help out your forces, and their new hero is capable of infiltrating enemy villages.
The Celts will be available as an army pack that can be bought separately as an add on for the core game, which is free to play. You can sign up for an account and download the client from the Age of Empires Online site if you fancy checking it out. You can read our verdict on launch in our Age of Empires Online review.
Champion Roundtable: Ziggs, the Hexplosives Expert
Every two weeks, we give you our verdict on whether or not the latest League of Legends champion is worth buying. Take a seat at the table with Josh, Lucas, and Hollander Cooper as they wax poetic on the joys of blowing people up with magical bombs as a maniacal Yordle. Could Ziggs be the diminutive demolitions expert you’ve been looking for?
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City has no raccoons. No raccoons at all
The latest trailer introduces us to the co-op team we’ll get to play as in Operation Raccoon City. This is a different game entirely to Resident Evil 6, which is due out later this year, and both are separate from Resident Evil: Revelations game Capcom released for the 3DS. Operation Raccoon City will have you playing as a squad of promiscuous raccoons seeking to populate a city decimated by zombie outbreak.
No, my mistake, misread the press release there. It’s actually another story about stopping the Umbrella Corporation from unleashing a new virus on the world. It’s the G-virus this time. One day, the Umbrella Corporation will run out of alphabet and transition to selling garden storage solutions, setting up the next entry in the series, Shedisent Evil.
A Game of Thrones trailer and screenshots explore Riverspring
Riverspring is the setting for the latest Game of Thrones trailer. It’s the home town of Red Priest, Alester Sarwyck, one of the RPG’s two playable characters. The other is Mors, a member of the hardened, reclusive order of the Black Watch. The threads of their separate stories are sure to tangle in a campaign that promises “a twisting plot filled with betrayal and violence.” A typical day in Westeros, then
Cyanide have taken the dark fantasy label a little too literally in the eight new screenshots they’ve released, but if you squint, you can make out some scowling warriors and the worn stone of Riverspring’s great halls. The release date is set for “early 2012.” Wait, that’s pretty much now! The RPG could bridge the gap until April 1, when the second series starts on HBO. You’ll find the screenshots below, but you’ll probably want to click on this first to set the mood.
