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In today's digital-only edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter TaylorEatWorld tries to find a physical copy of a hit PC game, not knowing what a monumental challenge that is these days. More »
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Not everyone that purchases downloadable PC games does it because they prefer shopping at home. Some of them just hate discs and boxes. Maybe it's an environmental thing. Perhaps their father was killed by a DVD. Whatever the case, GameStop's in-store digital PC game purchase method is perfect for those types. More »
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GameStop's purchase of Steam rival Impulse comes to a head today, as the video game retail giant fully integrates the PC game digital download service into its online store. Now, instead of purchasing a downloadable PC game through GameStop.com, you can go to Steam instead, like you were doing already anyway. More »
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Kotaku commenter Heyitsguy was once a video game pirate, downing PC games for free via the internet. Now he is not. He tells you why in today's episode of Speak-Up on Kotaku. More »
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CD Projekt's DRM-free classic PC game service GOG.com ditches class in favor of crass with the addition of Running With Scissors infamous Postal series. More »
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While widespread PC game piracy is generally seen as a blight on the industry, PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude contends that the free exchange of games has definitely had a positive effect. More »
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Far Cry 2 launched on PC sans widescreen. Considering everything else on the PC version was superior to the console iterations (quicksaves!), that was an odd move. Nevermind. It's fixed now. More »
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If I've said it once, I've said it 7-8 times: Grand Theft Auto is best when enjoyed on the PC. The fact GTAIV will feature 32-player multiplayer only supports my position. More »
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When Windows Vista shipped, it shipped alongside DirectX 10. DirectX 10 would only run with Vista. It wouldn't run with the faster, more stable, more popular Windows XP. This made those running games on XP unhappy. Well, fast forward a few years, and the next release of a Windows OS - Windows 7 - won't be repeating the same mistake. Microsoft's Product Marketing Manager Windows, Ben Basaric, has gone on record saying that while Windows 7 will be shipping with DX11 support (which will add features like allowing a graphics processor to process more than just graphics), it will also run on Windows Vista. So no need to go upgrading. Well...unless you're one of millions still using XP... More »
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Little late this week, sorry. We were waiting on the NPD charts to show up. Guess the chart-trackers were too busy playing Left 4 Dead. Weren't we all? Well, no. Looks like plenty of people were also busy playing Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir as well. And Fallout 3. And the $0.98 Half-Life. Oh, that and some Call of Duty game. More »
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The NPD sales charts are traditionally a little...sketchy when it comes to PC sales. But for the week ending November 1, they look right on the money, with Fallout 3 taking not just the top spot, but 3rd and 9th spot as well with the two collectors editions. With the game still charting well on both Steam and Direct2Drive, you can easily see where a lot (least the PC side of things) of those 4.7 million shifted copies went. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5084938&view=rss&microfeed=true Above, a demonstration by Mgestyk Technologies, showing off their webcam-based gesture control system on a bunch of games like Far Cry and Halo. While we admire the effort, all we're left thinking after watching this is: just because you can do something, doesn't always mean you should. Laggy controls that force you to use strange hand gestures won't be replacing WASD and a mouse just yet. More »
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Earlier this week, THQ got around to formally announcing the long-known-about Company of Heroes expansion pack, Tales of Valor. Problem is, that's about all they announced. No details. Well, Relic have since spoken with Edge, and now, we have details. Seems the game will come with three "mini campaigns", which instead of being centred around a single, long story like the existing campaigns, will be shorter affairs. One of those three will revolve around the exploits of SS Panzer commander Michael Wittmann, who at the Battle of Villers-Bocage destroyed over 20 British vehicles in only 15 minutes. More »
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The tinkering continues! The official NPD charts were interesting, but fundamentally flawed. So we added Steam's charts as well. Steam painted a much clearer picture of the actual purchasing habits of PC users, but was still incomplete, because we'd left off the other major purveyor of digital distribution, Direct2Drive. So this week, they're included as well, giving us not one, not two, but three PC sales charts. If you can't get a clear idea of what's been selling on the PC after that, well, you're probably asking too much of your sales charts. More »
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I've been watching the movements of Beijing Perfect World with some interest; in comparison to some of the up and coming companies, they've certainly kept a reasonably low profile lately. Until, of course, they launched the 'international' version of their original MMO, Perfect World. Now they're eying another go with the Japanese market, bringing their Chi Bi ('Red Cliff') MMO to Romance of the Three Kingdoms-mad gamers. I've heard tell Perfect World will be releasing another of their games to the US market in the near future, and we can only hope that it's Red Cliff — I'm all about some classical Chinese fiction renovated for a 21st century audience. The Three Kingdoms gaming phenomenon is fascinating to me, and one that I hope to write on formally at some point in the not-too-distant future. Press release after the jump. More »
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Here's your PC gaming good news story for the day: CD Projekt Red have announced today that, since the game was first released in 2007, The Witcher has sold over a million copies. That's including both versions of the game, the original as well as the "Enhanced Edition". For a traditional PC RPG, made by an obscure Eastern European developer with a silly name, those are great, great numbers. Congrats! More »
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While it’s fairly common these days for console games (Wii excepted) to launch with widescreen/16:9 support, PC games aren’t so fortunate. Even in 2008, with widescreen monitors becoming so popular that even the Xbox 360 natively supports many of their resolutions, a ton of PC games don’t ship with proper widescreen support. Widescreen Gaming Forum to the rescue!. If there’s a workaround, you’ll find it there. If there’s complaining to be had, it’ll start there. So it’s great seeing that the site have just held their first “Widescreen Gaming Awards”, to both honour and shame the best and worst in supporting widescreen gaming on the PC. More »
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Last week seemed to go pretty well, so we'll keep on running with the NPD/Steam tag-team. The NPD charts, they're as...predictable as ever, with plenty to please Maxis and Blizzard fanboys the world over. The Steam charts, they're a little more fluid, with Far Cry 2 shooting straight to #1, closely followed by pre-sales of Fallout 3. More »
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[UPDATE - EA contacted us to let us know the German version has two covers; a paper sleeve and the actual DVD case. Only the paper sleeve features this edited box art]The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle, or USK, are Germany's classification board. And as you may already be aware, they're a conservative bunch, banning games that even Australia let slide. But this, this is new. Witness Germany's box art for Valve's upcoming zombie co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead. Notice anything, uh, different? That's right. We don't know whether the USK had a say in this, or whether Valve/EA just felt like playing it safe, either way, that's a different box. While every other region's cover art shows a left hand with the thumb bitten off - zombies feast on the flesh of the living, you see, it's a joke - on the German version, the thumb's simply tucked in behind the hand there. No gore. How humourless. More »
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Meet the new Left 4 Dead system specs. Same as the old Left 4 Dead system spe-waitaminute. Feeling the need/desire to mix things up a little ahead of the game's release, Valve have unveiled a revised set of system requirements for the PC version of Left 4 Dead. They're identical to those released in September except for one thing: you now only need a 128MB graphics card instead of a 256MB one. Sure, that's only one change, but I'm sure it's one that'll bring smiles to a lot of people out there with dusty old rigs and an aversion to system upgrades. More »
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While Street Fighter IV is definitely coming to consoles this "Winter", the future of the PC version's not looking so rosy. While a PC iteration of the hotly-anticipated fighting game is still on the cards, Capcom can't commit to even the vaguest of release windows, instead saying only that the "PC version is in the works, but will come post-console release". Disappointing, but really, how many of you are really going to be playing a Street Fighter game on PC? More »
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Seems Ubisoft's free-roaming gun safari has "done a BioShock" and fudged its widescreen, with gamers on the trusted widescreengamingforum quickly noticing that rather than render the game in true 16:9, all Far Cry 2 does is crop the top and bottom of the screen. See pic above for reference. Disappointing, Ubisoft; we buy widescreen monitors to see more of the game, not less. Hopefully they can copy 2K a second time, and get a patch out to fix this. Far Cry 2 [WSGF] More »
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Gonna try something new this week. Something a little...fairer. While we appreciate the lengths the NPD Group go to in providing us with weekly sales data for the PC gaming market, the fact they cover only bricks-n-mortar sales skews the data somewhat, what with so many people buying their shit from Steam these days. So this week, we're going to run two charts. The NPD charts, and the Steam charts. Give you a clearer overall picture of how the PC market's shaping up. More »
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No weekly PC sales charts this...week, as the release of NPD's monthly console data also lets us take a look at the PC market's September sales figures. Unsurprisingly, Spore was the biggest-selling game of the month, though by how much we don't know, as unlike the console charts, PC figures don't include hard numbers. Warhammer Online came in at #2, beating out WoW, while the most heartwarming entry has to be at #14, which is where the timeless Civilization IV placed. Also included - possibly just for shits and giggles - were the overall PC sales charts, showing how well games fared against less exciting fare such as Microsoft Office and Norton Antivirus. More »
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Hey. PC gamers. In case you've forgotten, you need to know that one of the most exciting PC games in development at the moment isn't coming from Valve. Or from id, or from Relic, or from Creative Assembly. It's coming from Eskil Steenberg. He's at work, single-handedly, on the MMO Love, which although difficult to describe, basically amounts to a co-operative MMO, built atop procedurally-generated worlds, that plays out like a summer cocktail made from Populous, Spore, shooters and everything in between. At the link below you'll find the game's debut trailer, and while you're watching it, remember: everything you see is the work of one man. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5064260&view=rss&microfeed=true It's not all Tokyo Game Show here at Kotaku. BlizzCon's going down as well, and as Blizzard are prone to do, they're following up their major announcements with new media. in this instance, two new Starcraft 2 clips, one Protoss v Terran, one Zerg v Terran. More »
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Blizzard have released the specs sheet for their upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. And, yes, being World of Warcraft, they're nice and low (though they have been upgraded from previous WoW specs, just a pinch). So low that it feels good typing them here, like we jumped in a way-back machine and set the "TIME" dial to "The Good Old Days". PC users will need a 1.3ghz processor and 512MB/1GB RAM (XP/Vista), while Mac users will need a PowerPC G5 1.6 ghz or Intel Core Duo. Full specs after the jump. More »
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The latest bricks-and-mortar PC sales charts are in. They cover the week of September 21-27. As you expect, the words EA, Maxis and Blizzard feature prominently. But then so do the words Crytek, Firaxis and Traveller's Tales, so please, enjoy the variety. More »
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Don't look now, but there are real games on the bricks-n-mortar PC sales charts for the week. Real, honest-to-goodness, not-made-by-Maxis-or-Blizzard games. Don't believe me? Check out Warhammer Online at #1. Or Crysis Warhead at #4. Or, bless it, Stalker: Clear Sky, which doesn't just make the charts, it beats out World of Warcraft. More »
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You know how id's John Carmack said that his company's upcoming shooter Rage just wasn't going to work in terms of digital delivery? And how you'd need to buy the game on a disc, like the olden days? Yeah, turns out he was wrong. id's Tim Willits has corrected his boss, telling 1UP: More »
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I've mentioned the unfortunately named Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection blog a couple of times, but I really do love it — I'm always curious to see what gems will be dredged up from the archives. Following on the heels of a post from Owen on five games to play during a stock market crash comes a post showing what (some) people were playing during the financial downturn of 1987. In addition to some less stimulating titles from 'Blue Chip Software,' we get the fantastic box art of Wall$treet and the dismal sounding Black Monday, among others: More »
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You may not have heard of Uwe Boll's 2007 film Seed. Mostly because it wasn't based on a game, and as such, would have received absolutely zero press (as opposed to the slight amounts of press he gets from a strangely-obsessed gaming media). That means that the DVD version of the game's going to be a tough sell! So to sweeten the deal with Boll's primary (only?) fanbase, the DVD box set is going to come bundled with a copy of Advent Rising on the PC. Hopefully because the distributors found a few thousand copies lying around, and not because Uwe Boll is planning on doing an Advent Rising movie. More »
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Spore, anyone? More like Spore, everyone, as Maxis' galactic creature game sold like a house on fire that was full of combustible hotcakes. Spore's #1, the Galactic Edition is #2, and even the Creature Creator hangs on to #4, despite the real thing being out. The rest is your standard Warcraft/Sims breakdown, with the exception of Crysis, which hung around thanks the pre-Warhead interest spike. More »
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Windows 7 - the successor to Vista - is already out there in the hands of testers. And while it's early, early days (ie it still looks exactly like Vista), a few additions/changes have already surfaced. Most pressing of those for you, video game enthusiast, is that if this screen is to be believed, it looks like the new OS will give you the option of letting Windows handle your game updates/patches. Handy (if it can be trusted). More »
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Slightly disappointing! Rockstar and Microsoft have today announced that the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV will be running exclusively under the Games for Windows banner. So, yeah, if you want to play multiplayer, the fact Microsoft throw the word "exclusively" around suggests you'll have to use GFW Live's sub-par system. Granted, GTA IV's release will coincide with a range of updates for GFW Live, including a new interface and the yet-to-be-named marketplace, but you'll excuse us if we take a minute to stare at the "G" section of the Steam games list, think of what could have been and sigh, just a little. More »
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Looks like I spoke to soon! Sims 2 Apartment Life won a reprieve atop the PC sales charts for the week ending September 6, as Spore didn't quite have a long enough stay on the shelves to take the top spot. it'll no doubt get there next week. Asfor the rest, you know how it goes, though I'd like everyone to say a big hello to Crysis, who's rejoining us this week at #10 after a long sojourn. Hello, Crysis! More »
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The developers of upcoming MMO The Agency, Sony Online Entertainment, are releasing the game on two platforms. PC and PS3. So it's natural to hope that they're looking at cross-platform play between users of either system, yes? Correct. Natural and fortunate, because that's exactly what they're doing. Replying to a question asking about play between PS3 and PC users, SOE's Matt Wilson replied "we're actually doing that at the office. Technology-wise, it's really not that complicated". Good news! Temper that good news, however, with a pinch of pragmatism; just because they can do it, doesn't mean they will. There's all sorts of things to consider, from the ease of hacking/cheating on PC to differences in control schemes to the inevitable "that's not fair" whining that comes when one group of players is using a control system they think isn't as good as another. More »
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Poor Sims 2: Apartment Life. In it comes, debuting at #1, just like everything else that's ever had "The Sims" in front of it. And just like everything else that's ever had "The Sims" in front of it, it would be expecting a long stay at the top of the charts. Pity (for it), then, that it's just keeping the seat warm for Spore. As for the rest of the charts, Nancy Drew has retreated back into the shadows, replaced by...Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. If you're going to break the Blizzard/EA stranglehold, the best way to do it, is to do it with crustaceans. More »
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First announced in July at Comic-Con, we now have the first hard details on the official, Crysis-branded PC that's due for release later this month. The end result of an assurance by Crytek that their games game could run - at "high" settings - on a $900 machine, the rig actually comes in at $699, has been christened the "Warhead PC" in honour of the upcoming expansion, and will launch alongside it on September 16. Specs are as follows. - CPU: Intel Core Duo e7300 (@2.66GHz) - GFX: Nvidia 9800GT - RAM: 2GB Bear in mind this isn't an official announcement, just some stuff reported by journo Chris Remo, who had a chance to check the machine out last week. The official word will come down later this week, and should be accompanied not only by the rest of the tech specs, but also some shots of the final exterior, since it's unknown whether the one pictured is the full retail model, or is just rocking the same hardware. Oh, and you should check out the full piece below for some more peripheral stuff regarding the machine. Seems the PC is more than just a marketing gimmick, as it was used extensively in both the development and testing of Warhead. The Remo Files: The Crysis Warhead PC Explained [GameSetWatch] More »
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This is Owlboy. It's a game from D-pad Studio. This is their description of the game: More »
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