Eurogamer in blog format - PC

The Creatures series has been added to GOG.com. For $9.99 you'll get Creatures: The Albian Years (Creatures 1 & 2), Creatures Exodus (Creatures 3 & Docking Station) and Creatures Village (Creatures Adventures & Creatures Playground)

Creatures is a game that used clever programming to simulate life and allow players to breed animals with unpredictable results, which itself resulted in a strong online following and lots of sequels. You could think of it as a precursor to Spore.

But the only review on Eurogamer is for Creatures 3, and it's not exactly a recommendation at 2/10. Read more...

War's road to redemption begins.

The PC version of licensed shooter Aliens vs Predator will support dedicated servers, according to a new statement made by British developer Rebellion.

"Despite rumours, Rebellion has always been planning to support dedicated servers for Aliens vs Predator PC and we can now officially confirm that this is the case. Rebellion has always appreciated fan support," said Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley. "We're really looking forward to the release of Aliens vs Predator as much as you guys are!"

Previously senior producer David Brickley had remained uncommitted on the question, commenting: "You know what the internet's like. We're obviously used to getting things for free over the years. I guess on our side the thing we're focusing on is whatever your set-up at home, you get the best possible experience from it. We're just trying to use our time and resources wisely." Read more...

Brad Wardell, boss of Stardock and digital distribution platform Impulse, reckons Valve's Steam is miles ahead of any competition in the PC gaming download market.

"Our estimation is that Steam - as the current market leader - enjoys approximately 70 per cent of the overall digital distribution market with Impulse at 10 per cent and all others combined at 20 per cent in terms of actual dollars generated per month," wrote Wardell in a company report this week (spotted by Gamasutra).

Wardell also feels Valve is beginning to monopolise on its position by integrating Steamworks tools into games at an early development stage and essentially locking them out from other digital distribution platforms. Read more...

I'm both the best and the worst guy to be reviewing this. The best because last year's strategy/role-playing curio King's Bounty: The Legend was comfortably my game of the year, and one I bent the ear of anyone unlucky enough to be in the same room as me about. The worst because, well, that. I know the thing inside out. Armored Princess is a standalone expansion for it, and as such it's pretty much the same game. If I'd come to it without already knowing how good King's Bounty is, I'd have been grabbing people in the street, staring at them with wild eyes, shaking them by the shoulders and shouting, "Princess! Armored Princess! Omi god it's amazing it's a proper PC game you have to play it you have to play it whoops I just had a trouser malfunction."

It is a proper PC game. You do have to play it. I have just had a trouser malfunction. It's just... it's the same game again. When you can pick up the first game (well, not the first - The Legend was a semi-remake of the old 1990s King's Bounty) for less than a tenner, it's very hard to tell you to spend £30 on this one instead. And that's the nub of it - if you haven't played the first King's Bounty, get that. There isn't anything in Armored Princess that's worth spending an extra £20 on, unless you particularly get off on inventory screens showing a girl in chainmail that cuts away to reveal an impossibly flat stomach. She might be an Armored Princess, but she's certainly not a Well-Armored Princess. As for whether you should pick this up if you do know King's Bounty intimately, I'll get into that shortly.

First, though, let's talk about what King's Bounty is. Heroes of Might & Magic is the easiest touchstone - a fantasy world which you roam around from a fairly birds-eye perspective, being sucked into turn-based strategic battles whenever you encounter an enemy. Whilst the battles are ostensibly Final Fantasy-esque, with two opposing sides taking turns to biff each other with wild abilities, the difference is that you're pitching armies against each other. You've got 68 archers, 108 snakes, 34 guard droids and three Cyclops and a bunch of werewolves; he's got a gaggle of ghosts, skeletons, dragons, pirates and bears. Fight! Read more...

Croteam has announced that Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter will be released for PC on 24th November.

The announcement comes in an exclusive trailer on Eurogamer TV today.

"Over the past years we have had loads of fans requesting that we bring the world of Serious Sam up to date and give him a high-definition makeover," said Roman Ribaric, CEO. Read more...

Croteam's high-def update of the PC blasting classic gets a formal release date.

Rock Band gets light-hearted with the minifigs.

Dotnia experiences an expansion into an entirely new dimension.

Wheee! We're suckers for a bit of dog-fighting, especially with those crazy rear-prop driven Japanese planes.

Sneaky tactics and sharp headshots in the sequel to DICE's jolly battlefield romp.

Blizzard has let its StarCraft II community know that there is a ton of new content on first release Wings of Liberty on the official website to distract you from the fact you're not even in the beta yet.

The articles on single-player storytelling and multiplayer map design are well worth a read for some hard science from Blizzard's developers. The single-player article discusses how even outlying missions in the game's branching structure are crafted for storytelling, while the map design piece discusses the considerations in building a 1v1 map for serious competitive play.

There's also a short story, new character bios and new screens and art, and video absolutely everywhere. Read more...

Blood Bowl gets its first new race in the lithe and dangerous form of the Dark Elves.

BioWare has revealed new Dragon Age downloadable add-on Return to Ostagar, which involves doing what the title suggests.

It's due out this winter or holiday or festive season or whatever you want to call it, and costs £3.99 on PS3, 400 MSP (£3.40/€4.80) on Xbox 360 and 400 BioWare Points on PC. We presume the latter shares the same value as Microsoft Points, but we're asking EA to be sure.

Return to Ostagar takes players back to the titular site where the Grey Wardens were nearly wiped out. You'll uncover history and a secret plot by some King Calian bloke to go behind enemy lines and get to a place many believed was lost to history. And of course that means loot, as King Calian's weapons and armour await those brave enough. Read more...

As an ancient and powerful Umbra witch, Bayonetta has a few handy tricks up her tight sleeves. Here, learn about her flashy, demon-powered killer moves.

The latest offering from the safest hands in sim racing turns out to be another reissue of ageing stalwart Race 07. Last year the Swedish dev added Nordschleife and a host of handsome Grand Tourers, and called the result GTR: Evolution. This year they've bolstered it with American muscle cars, Swedish touring action, and WTCC 08 updates, and called the result Race On. Cynical cash-gouging or welcome horizon-broadening? Let's sift the evidence.

If you caught Top Gear's recent US road trip you're already familiar with half the American additions. The improbably ugly Cadillac CTS-V that eventually won James May's heart has been sim-ified, as has Hammond's ride, the sixties-styled Dodge Challenger SRTS. A Chevy Camaro and another Dodge - the Charger SRT8 Super Bee - complete a contingent that makes up for what it lacks in style and fuel economy in rogue-elephant-with-spear-in-its-side lairiness.

The only thing these bulky V8 brutes have in common with their nimble European touring cars stablemates is number of wheels. The first time I took one for a spin - I think it was the Caddy at Okayama - I went so wide on the first bend I needed to stop and ask directions to find my way back to the track. Frail brakes + low traction control + battleship tonnage = cantankerous cornering. The standard street versions (there are both road and race variants) are particularly fond of turf and gravel, but put in a few laps and spend a bit of time in the predictably well-equipped tuning garage and you'll almost certainly end up enjoying their wayward ways. Read more...

Video on demand streaming is coming to the PS3 very soon, with a massive wedge of entertainment waiting at your digital fingertips.

When you're heading into a life or death battle against uncaring robotic overlords, you want to be wearing the right dress.

Ever wanted a zebra-striped AK-47? Of course you have.

The PSP title slips out, somewhat in the shadow of its big brother.

Meet the two opposing forces of the Avatar world, and choose which one you'll be fighting for.

Valve has set up a website dedicated to the Midnight Riders, the rock band whose light show saves the day in Left 4 Dead 2's Dark Carnival campaign.

The teaser site (thanks Destructoid) consists of a splash image of the band and the words "Coming soon". Whatever could it mean?

Meanwhile, an enterprising young so-and-so on the Valve forums has uncovered a Jimmy Gibbs Jr. zombie hidden in the L4D2 game files - Gibbs Jr. being central to the opening campaign, Dead Center - and found a way to reintegrate him. There's even some dialogue for the survivors. Read more...

Not 20 yards from my house is a penned-off area which the council, judging by the logo-festooned barriers, has clearly commissioned a contractor to work on. It's basically a big hole in the road, and has gone untended for some four or five days now. Every time I walk past on my way to work, two emotions resume their daily struggle.

The first is a tutting sense of gentle outrage that a slice of my council tax is trundling slowly, inexorably, into the contractor's purse as he juggles his teams around various jobs for maximum profit. Standard stuff; we all know it happens. And maybe this makes me a bad citizen, but my civic concern is soon shoved gleefully aside by the second: a kind of boyish wonder at the very innards of infrastructure. There's a number of coloured pipes down there, that are obviously pumping vital services into houses like mine. What substance does the blue plastic pipe transport? And that huge yellow one next to it? If I was a little more Victorian in my principles, I'd roll up to the nearest workman, and inquire as to the nature of these services, just to know more about how it all works. If only I could find a workman to ask, obviously.

Crane Simulator 2009 caters to the second of these emotions. It seeks to engage the fascination men have with artifice and construction, and the skilled control of precision equipment. Building stuff to further the cause is in our blood, and that's evident in so many forms of gaming. From the swiftly crafted series of passes and crosses culminating in the perfect goal, to upgrading a barracks so it can knock out stick-men with rocket launchers, it's all about the build. How can Crane Simulator 2009 fail? Read more...

Series creator Chris Taylor discusses his sequel, and what improvements have been made over the original.

Ubisoft has announced that a VIP extended R.U.S.E. beta will start on 30th November.

This tester taster will be offered to Steam users via codes sent to various website partners, so keep your eyes peeled.

To begin with, the beta will be a fight between R.U.S.E. factions Germany and the US, a bit like the second half of World War II [it's set in World War II you lunatic - Ed]. The UK, USSR, Italy and France will be added later. Read more...

Square Enix has announced the spring 2010 arrival of Supreme Commander 2 on PC and Xbox 360.

Set 25 years after the original, SupCom 2 is based around a fragile and distrustful alliance between The United Earth Federation, The Illuminate and The Cybran Nation.

Obviously they'll be blowing each other to pieces in trademark battles of enormous proportions - which can be zoomed right in or out of at the scroll of a wheel (or press of a pad, presumably) - but Gas Powered Games also claims to have instilled character and emotion into the story. Read more...

Two short CCTV vignettes with those lovable, psychopathic rogues, Kane and Lynch.

Tecmo KOEI offers a first look at Again, a DS game made by Hotel Dusk developer Cing. Story and contenxt are explained in this clip.

CD Projekt has pointed Eurogamer towards another leaked video of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, this time caught off-camera during a presentation.

PR boss Pawel Majak told us the developer had decided to talk about the leak openly "as we are curious about feedback from fans". "Let's turn the damage into something good and make [the game] even better," he said.

The handheld and wonky clip follows mutant hero Geralt nosing around a rural village before he battles a giant sea monster (maybe a Kraken) on the side of a cliff. He dodges pounding tentacles before slicing off their tips like sushi, causing the creature to flail wildly and dislodge a very large piece of precariously placed scenery. Read more...

Codemasters has released a PC demo of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

The sampler contains the first level of the game, and you can find afull list of demo download locations on the Operation Flashpoint website.

Dragon Rising was released in October and, when played in co-op, hit a high note few others have. Head over to our PC review of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising to find out more. Read more...

A fantastic job of a sequel, building on strengths and addressing weaknesses - AC II hits the shops this Friday.

We still don't know anything about the new Medal of Honor, but EA Games vice president Nick Earl has told staff that it looks "simply stunning".

That's according to a leaked internal memo reported by Kotaku, in which Earl describes how bosses at EA Los Angeles "have been leading a reinvention".

Apparently Earl "couldn't be happier with the focus and progress these teams have shown" - the other team being the one working on "Command & Conquer with a new digital model" for a world after Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. Read more...

The perpetually confined simians return in their first balance board title, jonesing for bananas like the dirty little potassium junkies they are.

Publishers and developer are free to drop and raise the price of digitally released games without any penalty to future sales or consumer loyalty, according to Valve's head of Steam, Jason Holtman, as reported on GamesIndustry.biz.

Speaking at the Montreal International Game Summit this week, Holtman said the digital market flips traditional retail thinking on its head, and that a game discounted for a short time can still go back to full price and increase sales after the promotion.

"In a connected world with a connected game it's very different and it bucks some of the traditional trends on the way people think about pricing," said Holtman. Read more...

With social network integration a hot topic, Sony pumps up its Facebook app.

The hub of all starship activity, the bridge is where the important stuff happens. That and engineering, but engineering is far less glamorous and doesn't have the comfy chairs.

Activision has confirmed the removal of the controversial airport scene from the Russian version of Modern Warfare 2, and said the move was its own decision.

"Other countries have formal ratings boards that we regularly work with. However, Russia does not have a formal ratings entity. As a result, we chose to block the scene after seeking the advice of local counsel," the company told Eurogamer in a statement. Modern Warfare 2 is currently only available on PC in the country.

Activision was moving to clear up reports that the game had been banned or censored by the Russian government. There are claims that the console versions of the game have been recalled from retailers so the airport scene can be removed. Read more...