Beta Update for Skyrim
The 1.4 update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is currently still in development, but you can apply the beta version now, through Steam.
As this is a beta version of the update, Bethesda note that you apply the update at your own risk, and back up your save games, or at least avoid overwriting them.
Full instructions for applying the beta, and removing it again, are available on the Bethesda Blog, along with the patch notes.
Q.U.B.E. goes live on Steam!
First-person puzzle game Q.U.B.E. (Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion), by Toxic Games, is now live on Steam!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iABxhj0ExA0]
Players begin the game by being dropped into an all-white room, and with little instruction, they must find and use coloured blocks to solve the puzzle and discover the way out of each level. Q.U.B.E. has drawn comparisons with Portal.. but you can see for yourself by trying out the demo.
Toxic Games is a UK-based independent games developer; Q.U.B.E. started out as a part of the developers’ student project in 2009.
Q.U.B.E. is also the first Indie Fund game to be released! Indie Fund is an investment fund backed by a team of successful indie developers, providing the investment new indies need to help cover ongoing costs and get their game finished. Other games being backed are Steph Thirion’s Faraway, Robert Briscoe‘s re-imagination of Dan Pinchbeck‘s Dear Esther, and Pocketwatch Games‘ MONACO.
The Indie Royale – New Year’s Bundle
The Indie Royale New Year’s Bundle has now opened for purchase!
There are four games in the bundle at present: Nuclear Dawn by InterWave Studios, Max & the Magic Marker by Press Play, Fractal by cipherprime, and Indie Royale exclusive Super Crossfire by Radiangames.
As usual, the bundle is pay what you want, above a minimum price. All the games are available on both Windows and Mac, with Steam keys for Nuclear Dawn, Max and the Magic Marker and Fractal, and Desura keys for Max, Fractal and Super Crossfire.
This bundle will be available for only five days.. so go and grab it now, over on www.indieroyale.com!
Christmas in Cairo.. Seriously!
Croteam‘s Serious Sam: BFE was half-price in the Steam Sales, so I got copies for Tim and myself, along with a copy of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter which was on for less than £2.
One of Steam’s Great Gift Pile objectives was to decorate the Christmas tree in the first level of the game: the achievement Christmas in Cairo, so the game got bumped on the playlist while I’m trying to get some of the objectives completed.
I expected Serious Sam: BFE to be much the same as the previous games in the series.. over the top shooting with lots of guns, more than enough ammo and silly numbers of enemies. I didn’t expect it to look quite so good, though!
Doing my usual climbing around on stuff, I found some Parkour secrets. Nothing huge.. a bit of extra ammo or armour.. a few extra enemy encounters, such as the two Kleers I met in a small alleyway. I’ve played through the first level twice now, specifically looking for secret areas on the second run and even then, I didn’t find them all.
There’s a nod back to a previous Sam, with a single Kamikaze running at you, then Sam screaming back after he’s dealt with, then even more Kamikazes appearing..
I reloaded my save to get an extra couple of turns at this section.. one shot stalls the Kamikaze, with the second finishing him off, and you can get a nice Chain Explosion if you make him blow up his friends 😉
Decorating the tree turned out to be one of the last things to do on the level.. and when I got there, I realised I had to go back a little bit to collect some of the decorations. I’d killed all the Rocketeers out in the open, clearing the area before running through to the museum. However.. Christmas! 🙂
Coal Collector!
The Great Gift Pile objectives are turning out to be a mix of quick and easy tasks and longer, more difficult challenges..
Atom Zombie Smasher: KringleJammer was fairly easy to get, as was the Rock of Ages: Snowball War. Audiosurf: Candy Stripe required only the collection of red and white blocks in a line, but it took me a while to find something on my PC that played at the right pace to generate the blocks I wanted. “Still Alive” was giving me blue blocks, so wouldn’t do for this!
Beat Hazard: Survive Christmas 10 required me to survive for 10 minutes.. and it took far longer than that! After several attempts of under five minutes each, I realised I had unlocked some perks which might help: the Ultra DLC added Micro Missiles and a Reflect Shield which just about let me last long enough to complete the objective.
A harder achievement was the deliberate loss of a game in Fate of the World, where instead of trying to save the world, I led it towards global thermonuclear war and the Let it Glow achievement! After a few attempts I ended up consulting the internet for tips on how to get the ‘right’ ending.. it turned out to be a rather tight list of instructions while hoping for the right random numbers to be generated each turn. I think actually winning this game, as opposed to playing for an achievement, will be next to impossible as all territories seem to get annoyed with you very quickly! 😀
For another deliberate loss, I also tried to nuke Santa in DEFCON.. but found his movements too unpredictable, the AI too eager to react, and my supply of nukes too low for me to get him. I quickly got bored of this, so I checked out the tips on the net again, and reduced the number of cities to 5 per territory, but then found the game crashing almost as soon as I launched a nuke! Something to do with the latest update and Windows 7 🙁
Another not-quite-game objective was Winter Assault.. survive a 30 minute match on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution, on one of the winter maps. Four of us joined the game, with one going AFK immediately.. only interested in the achievement itself.. but three of us met in the middle to trade blows until we’d met our time requirement! I wished for more Great Unclean Ones, but settled for a squad of Chaos Dreadnoughts instead 😀
With the completion of all these objectives, I’m collecting lots of coal along with vouchers which probably won’t get used.. two are for Valve.. I already own all their games, as do all my gaming friends. Although, if anyone does want them.. 🙂
I did win one game via the giveaway.. Silent Dreams’ Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes, a fantasy role-playing game with strategic combat and a sense of humour. The games in this giveaway are provided as a token, which can be added to your own inventory or traded.. so if you already own the game you win, you can give it away or trade it for something else.
A friend bought me Space Pirates and Zombies by Minmax Games, which I tried briefly last night. After stumbling through the first couple of missions, I decided I need to be somewhat alert to play! 🙂
The Steam sales are ongoing, and I also picked up ACE Team‘s rather Monty Python-esque Rock of Ages, mentioned earlier, and Croteam‘s Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, and Serious Sam 3: BFE, with the first two games below £2 each, and Serious Sam 3 at a reasonable price, considering I wanted a copy for me and a copy for Tim.
Other women spend their money on shoes: I spend my money on games! 🙂
Merry Christmas 2011!
Finally finished with work.. and the Christmas shopping.. time for games!
Well, time for finishing off a Christmas and pony related drawing for a friend, and attempting some of the Great Gift Pile objectives on Steam! A fairly straightforward objective was to find an Xmas present in any multiplayer level of PAYDAY: The Heist. In the First World Bank, the presents were waiting in the vault with the money 🙂
We also noticed new “beef” masks had been added to the game.. so here’s a friendly Tyrannosaurus with a gun! 😀
More games..
A friend bought us Renegade Ops, an action game by Avalanche Studios, featuring top-down driving destruction.. there’s 4-player co-op, so I can crash into my friends while I destroy things 😉
I took up an offer a while back for a different Christmas bundle; the Intermediaware Christmas bundle which also came with copies for friends too. This pack contained eight games from Intermediaware.. shooters: Absolute Blue, Impact and Defense of Yano, puzzle games.. Captain Backwater, Temple of Tangram, Psychoballs and Atom Antics, and turn-based board game Kabama, for one or two players. This bundle arrived by email as promised, on Christmas Eve!
I also won another game.. 11 Bit Studios‘ action-strategy Anomaly: Warzone Earth, from Day 5 of Splitkick.com’s Holiday Giveaway!
Need More Time.. Oh Wait!
Over the last week I’ve added yet more to my list of unplayed games. I would normally say “I need more time”.. but I’ve now finished work, and it’s Christmas! Though I’ll soon have to start on some projects, it means I do have a lot more free time 🙂
Today was partly spent trying to achieve a Gold Badge in the adrenaline challenge mode of Defense Grid: The Awakening.. trying, but not succeeding. I completed the map, but didn’t score highly enough to get gold.
Earning a Gold Badge, and thereby getting the Flurry achievement was one of the objectives of Valve’s latest sale and competition: The Great Gift Pile.. collecting coal and winning prizes, with the chance to win everything on Steam via the Epic Holiday Giveaway on the 2nd Jan. Everything on Steam.. wow.. I really wouldn’t have enough time!
Last week, I acquired Empire Earth: Gold Edition via GOG.com.. Empire Earth and expansion The Art of Conquest were being given away to anyone who came to the Good Old Games site! Empire Earth is a real-time strategy by Stainless Steel Studios, said to be somewhat like my beloved Age of Empires, but going from the Stone Age all the way to the Space Age. Looking forward to this one..
I previously noted that I’d won a copy of EA’s Alice: Madness Returns for the 360, through DR Gaming‘s 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Facebook.. the game arrived this week, and better still, it came with a bonus Xbox LIVE code for the original American McGee’s Alice! I remember playing the PC version of this game during my first Christmas together with Tim, on his recommendation 😉
Via a GameSpot UK competition, I won a Cyborg RAT 9 gaming mouse and “gaming surface” aka mousemat 😉
I’ve handed my address over and now await the postman! Great timing too.. my mouse has been failing intermittently for a while now! I also won a copy of Orcs Must Die! for Tim, through Day 2 of Splitkick.com’s Holiday Giveaway 2011. Note: I’m not keeping track of the number of competitions I haven’t won 😉
Yet other new games have arrived thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle.. the contents of Bundle #3 have been added as bonus gifts for those who paid over the average! This bundle contained Crayon Physics Deluxe, which I got from the Humble Introversion Bundle, and Lazy 8 Studios’ Cogs, which a friend gave me earlier in the year, as well as VVVVVV, Hammerfight and And Yet It Moves.
VVVVVV is a 2d platformer by Terry Cavanagh, with an interesting gravity-switching mechanic which you use to travel and avoid hazards. I’m hopeful that this doesn’t require too much flailing at the keyboard to manage, otherwise I’ll find it more frustrating than fun. Hammerfight, by Kranx Productions, is an aerial combat game where you control airships outfitted with hammers and swords!
The final game of the list is Broken Rules’ And Yet It Moves. It isn’t a horror game, as I first thought when I heard the title, but a 2d puzzle where you control the orientation of the game environment as well as the player character. This is the game I’m looking forward to most out of the three as I expect the puzzles to be quite fun!
The Little Big Bunch
The latest in the line of indie bundles arrived today: the Little Big Bunch, with five indie games on the usual pay what you want scheme, with money being split between developers and Games Aid as you wish.
This one has a minimum price.. something I’m glad of after seeing a guy taunting one of the indie devs on Twitter this afternoon. He was bragging about only having paid 1 cent for the game.. less than a penny.. which would have been bad enough without the taunting!
I already owned one of the games: Mode 7‘s strategy game Frozen Synapse, so this one is going to Tim, and maybe we’ll get to play together at some point 😉
Also in the bundle are two platformers, one with destruction: Explodemon, by Curve Studios, and one with aliens: Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee. Finally there’s New Star Soccer 5, a football career sim, by New Star Games.. which isn’t really my type of game. The one I’m most interested in here is 2d platform shooter Serious Sam Double D, from Mommy’s Best Games, and supported by Croteam through their Serious Sam Indie series.
Serious Sam Double D is via Steam code, while the rest of the games are available via Get Games‘ download system. I have to say I much prefer Steam, knowing that I can download the games as many times as I want, and that updates will be applied as they appear. Get Games’ FAQ says that the number of activations per game vary between publishers.. while I don’t mind if I lose a cheap indie game after a couple of reinstalls, I’d be wary of buying anything I forsee playing over and over again.
Competitions and Presents!
What’s better than games? Free games! Having seen a large number of Christmas competitions out at the moment, I decided that I may as well try to win some games and spare my bank balance the pain..
So last weekend, I won a copy of the beautiful Trine from a competition on Splitkick.com! Since I had a copy, the guys kindly let me give it to a friend.. although this turned into a comedy of errors as he told me the wrong email and only realised after I’d told them.. but one more email later, he got the game 🙂
Oh, and I’ve completed Trine too! I loved the last level, with the continually rising lava, and the evil ghostly figure trying to stop us. There was also a bonus level, which was another mad dash to escape rising lava, but with purple vials to collect on the way.
Developers Frozenbyte have also now released Trine 2, and I found a few competitions for the game, and told friends to enter too. One of these involved writing a short story.. and I was surprised to find it really hard to come up with something, and how self-conscious I felt writing it and sending it in. I realised that I’m even more fussy about my writing than I am about my drawing!
My friend was lucky enough to win one of the competitions for Trine 2.. so he now has both games.. and through DR Gaming‘s 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Facebook, I won a copy of EA’s Alice: Madness Returns for the 360.. awesome stuff as both Tim and I have wanted this since the teaser trailers came out over a year ago!
Valve have been running a Daily Wishlist Giveaway on Steam over the last week, where a winner each day will get the contents of their Wishlist. They’ve also had some great offers on, and two friends gifted me games as they came up: Robot Entertainment‘s fortress defence Orcs Must Die and DLC, and Bastion, an RPG by Supergiant Games!
I’ve been playing through Orcs Must Die, and discovered some of the new weapons and traps.. the Fire Bracers allow me to throw fireballs, and are therefore automatically awesome, although I run out of mana rather quickly.. and the Pounder, a ceiling-mounted trap, crushes the orcs with such finality that I can’t not love it! 🙂
I was also pleasantly surprised by the introduction of the Weavers, which add optional talent trees to the game, either strengthening the War Mage or the traps and Guardians. I love the fact you can choose these at the beginning of each level, so you can change how you play each time 🙂
The Indie Gala
Another indie bundle? Oh yes.. and at this point I’m starting to wonder how many different bundles the market can sustain..
The Indie Gala is another indie games bundle, where you pay what you want, money being split between developers, charity and websites.. these games arrive via email Steam codes, which I prefer to downloads as I don’t have to worry about backing it up anywhere.
This bundle contains another set of games I hadn’t really heard of: inMomentum, a sci-fi racing platform game by Digital Arrow, hacking sim Hacker Evolution: Duality, by Exosyphen Studios, 2d platformer Saira, by Nifflas Games, creative puzzler Your Doodles Are Bugged! by Spyn Doctor Games, and Zombie Shooter 2, an action RPG with zombies, by Sigma Team.
There are also some bonuses, only available for the first two days of the gala: Bonus DLC doodles for Your Doodles Are Bugged!, Sigma Team’s earlier game, Zombie Shooter 1, as well as the official theme for the series, and one of Exosyphen Studios’ other hacking sim games, Hacker Evolution: Untold.. their website lists a lot of similar games for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Windows Mobile too.
Over the day, IndieGala.com have sold over 18,000 bundles, but the average price paid is on the low side at just $1.30, or about £1. I suspect they’d have had larger payments if they’d kept the bonuses for those who paid above the average.. though then again, those who didn’t know the games might have been put off that way.
I was a little reluctant to pick up the bundle at first due to not recognising the games.. but meh.. I’ve come across plenty of random games and loved them 🙂