Indie Gala's back, this time with more options

post from Destructoid on 04 February 2012 10:05:38 PM. © Destructoid

Indie Gala's back, this time with more options screenshot

Back in December The Indie Gala threw their proverbial hat in the indie bundle ring. They're back again, but things are a bit different; rather than limit the bundle to a period of time, there's a limited supply of 50,000 copies.

There's even more change in the form of tiered pricing rather than the traditional pay-what-you-want model. For a donation in the $1-$5.51 range you'll get 3 games (Critical, Mass Fortix 2, and Bunch of Heroes) as well three albums. A $5.52-$9.64 purchase gets you that plus Roboblitz, Greed Corp, and three more albums. Finally, for $9.65+ you'll be the proud owner of all of that as well as the entirety of the first Indie Gala.

With just over 40,000 copies still available for purchase, there's still plenty of time to jump in on this. You guys have room in your Steam backlog for yet another collection of indie games?

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You need to think about playing Hack, Slash, Loot

post from Destructoid on 04 February 2012 07:05:10 PM. © Destructoid

You need to think about playing Hack, Slash, Loot screenshot

Indie game dev. David Williamson's newest project was officially released to the wilds recently, and I'm definitely digging it. Hack, Slash, Loot is a turn-based dungeon crawler with an objective that could not be more plain: hack, slash, and loot your way to the end. I just spent some quality time with the demo (available here) and I'm definitely a fan of the grid-based movement and combat.

As the title implies, there's loot aplenty with new equipment, weapons, or one-use items - scrolls, potions, and the like - waiting for you around every corner. Dungeons are generated randomly each time you start a quest so it's always a new experience and, much like Binding of Isaac, you can get lucky and things just might go your way or you'll get a particularly difficult draw. In the case of the latter, good luck.

Take a peek at the trailer and screens, give the demo a try, and, if it's your cup o' tea, you can snag the game for $10 for PC, Mac, or Linux.

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New SSX producer video talks about online
experience

post from Gaming Nexus on 04 February 2012 06:51:00 PM. © Gaming Nexus

by: Russell Archey
NEWS - EA has released a new producer video for their upcoming game SSX that goes into some detail on two online features: Global Events and Geo Tags. The way Global Events works is that instead of going through lobbies and matching making like other games, each drop point will have an event going on. You don't have to be there when it starts or ends, just drop in, put up your best score or time, and move on. You can win in-game credits that you can use to compete at better drop points and other stuff, and the more people that compete at a drop point, the bigger the haul for the one who wins.

As for Geo Tags, these are items you can earn or buy, and you can place them somewhere within the game for your friends to find. However, the long it takes for your friends to find them, the more credits you earn. Sounds like an interesting way to compete with friends, as you can either place it in the most annoying hiding spots, or right out in plain sight high up in the air.

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The Weekend Modder's Guide: Skyrim

post from Destructoid on 04 February 2012 06:05:23 PM. © Destructoid

The Weekend Modder's Guide: Skyrim screenshot

This week, I'm not going to be talking about an older game. Rather, I'll be talking about something fairly new: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Now, the game looks great as it is, but we all know the PC can look far better than anything on consoles. With a little bit of tweaking, we can make Skyrim into an insanely hot-looking game.

I'm going to skip over all of the reasons of why you should play the game this week, since you'll find tons of people talking about why you should already own Skyrim. I'm just gonna jump right into teaching you how to turn Skyrim into the beautiful game that it truly is.

Time: 2-3 hours
Difficulty: Intermediate
What you need: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

1. We're going to start by downloading and installing the Nexus Mod Manager. This mod manager will let you easily install and remove mods. It will create a folder in your Skyrim install directory called "mods." You'll be able to drop mod archives (.zip, .rar, or .7z files) right into this folder and install them from the mod manager. All of the mods that I am going to show you today can be installed this way.

2. Download and install the Skyrim Script Extender . Copy all of the .exe and .dll files from this download into your Skyrim directory. To make this work properly, you have to launch Skyrim from the "skse_loader.exe" from now on. Make sure you get the newest version, and that your copy of Skyrim is up to date. If a new Skyrim patch comes out it might take a few days for this to be updated to match. It can be a little annoying, but it lets you install more powerful mods.

3. Download and install Skyboost. This helps to increase the game's framerate. Skyrim is a CPU hog, and these files relieve some of the stress on your CPU. Extract the downloaded zip folder, and copy both files from the "bin" folder to your Skyrim install directory.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Skyboost MUST match the version of Skyrim that you have installed. If Skyrim gets updated, you might need to delete "skyboost.asi" in order to get your game running again. Just keep checking for a new version of Skyboost if you want to keep using this mod. It's a bit of a pain, but the performance boost is worth it.

4. Download the ENB Series Skyrim Injector. This the mod that makes the game really pretty, and they are also the guys behind the insane Grand Theft Auto IV graphics mods. This is still a beta right now, so once you install this you should keep checking back for updates. Make sure you get the latest version of the injector. If you are running Vista or Windows 7 then you'll need to install DirectX 9 in order to make this run correctly.

If you are ambitious, you can edit the "enbseries.ini" yourself. You can find it in your Skyrim install folder. If you are like me and you want other people to do all of the hard work, you can find a ton of nice preset "enbseries.ini" files online. I am currently using Cinematic Lighting ENB. Just replace the existing .ini file with the new one that you download. It's worth trying out different ones because each one can drastically change the way the game looks.

5. Get some mods! This is the fun and easy part. All of the mods I list below can be used together, so you don't have to pick and choose which ones you want. If you want to add more, just be careful that they don't conflict with anything else you have installed. In other words, you can't have two water texture mods running at the same time. I suggest that you stick with this list if this is your first time modding an Elder Scrolls game. Once you have these successfully running, then you can browse around for other mods. Remember, just copy these to your Skyrim/mods/ folder, and then use the Nexus Mod Manager to install them.

The mods:

A Quality World Map - With Roads
This adds high-quality map textures with roads. It makes navigating way easier and the map screen prettier.

Better Sorting
This renames items so they sort better in your inventory. Instead of Potion of Extreme Healing and Potion of Minor healing, you'll have Restore Health I and Restore Health V. It makes it so much easier to find things.

Categorized Favorites Menu
I hate the way the favorites menu works. It's hard to scroll trough all of the unsorted crap to find the one thing you want. This fancy mod will give you a full-screen favorites menu that is sorted by category.

Detailed Bodies
This replaces the default skin textures with higher-resolution ones. No, it doesn't add penises or boobies.

Enhanced Blood Textures
Just some improved blood -- it looks less like strawberry jelly.

Enhanced Blood Textures

Enhanced Horse Skins
It makes your horses appear as if they actually have fur instead of low-quality plastic!

horse textures

Enhanced Night Skyrim
Adds new HD sky textures, and you can pick from a few different styles.

Glowing Ore Veins
This makes it easier to find ore. I didn't even realize how much ore there was in the game until I installed this mod.

Improved NPC Clothing
NPCs will now have nicer-looking clothing with high-resolution textures.

Intro Music Replacement by Malukah
This replaces the default main menu music with something a little more acoustic.

Nicer Snowflakes
This just gives the game better-looking snow flakes.

Real Ice
Tweaks the game's ice.

Realistic Water Textures
This one replaces all of the ugly water with some much nicer stuff. I recommend that you use the clear and reflective settings, personally.

Skyrim Flora Overhaul
This replaces all of the textures for trees and leaves. It makes forests look awesome.

Skyrim HD - 2k Textures
Still a work in progress, but what it does so far is amazing. It replaces tons of the normal low-resolution textures with much higher-quality ones.

SkyUI
This is my favorite Skyrim mod so far. It changes the game's user interface so it's easier to navigate using a mouse. It also makes the text smaller, so you can see more on the screen at once.

KenMOD - Time on Loading
This adds a clock to the loading screen. It's nothing fancy, but it is really nice to see what time is when you're playing. I think we all know how easy it is to spend way too many hours playing Skyrim.

5. Open up "My Documents/My Games/Skyrim". There are two files in here that we are going to edit. The first one is "Skyrim.ini". Open it up with Notepad add "uGridstoLoad=7" at the end of the [display] section.

Now open up "Skyrimprefs.ini" and edit these values:

bMouseAcceleration=0
bDrawLandShadows=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
iShadowMapResolution=8192
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32
fGrassStartFadeDistance=14000.0000

Make sure you save all of the changes that you make to these files.

Making all of these changes may take a little bit of time, and you'll probably have to do some tweaking to get it all running right for your setup, but the investment is worth it in the end. You'll have a version of Skyrim to show off to all of your friends and the console kiddies will be mad with jealousy.

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Max Payne 3: 608 Revolver Gameplay Video

post from MonsterVine on 04 February 2012 05:36:18 PM. © MonsterVine

Rockstar launched the official Max Payne 3 website earlier this week and introduced the first in a series of interactive features focusing on the weapons in Max Payne 3. The first including the 608 Bull Revolver, a heavy shotgun with firepower when shot in short distances.

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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced
Edition Developer Diary for Xbox 360

post from MonsterVine on 04 February 2012 05:28:27 PM. © MonsterVine

Warner Bros and CD Projekt RED released an 5 minute long developer diary showcasing the work put into The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition for the Xbox 360. In the video, the dev team discusses how they were able to adapt to the console with visual parity and additional content. The Witcher 2 [...]

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Alan Wake Hits Steam on February 16

post from MonsterVine on 04 February 2012 05:21:22 PM. © MonsterVine

Remedy has announced that Alan Wake will finally be available on Steam February 16 and other digital channels later. Additionally, a boxed retail version is in the works. Steam pricing is $29.99 for the game, $34.99 for the Limited Collector’s Edition. The PC version features HD graphics and support for stereoscopic 3D and multiscreen. Remedy [...]

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The Online Bingo Reviews and Prizes in UK

The bingo game satisfies a lengthy, wealthy and eminent history, straddling back part of millennium to the period of Medieval Italy. Love is in the atmosphere in the planet of online bingo reviews UK. When love is in the atmosphere, additional bonanza games and ample of online bingo bonuses are everywhere. Look around at the sites to strive for Valentines affections and you can grab the ladle on the cream of the crop right after the shoot!

GamCare is the UK's public centre for information, counsel and realistic aid regarding the societal brunt of gambling, is delighted to have honoured Fabulous bingo with GamCare recognition to concede their triumph in executing the Code of Practice of GamCare in relative to gambling deal. It has the attained high principles in gamer defence and social liability and recognises the requirement to back up their clients in playing dutifully. Accountable gaming is engaged very gravely. They want you to cover an enormous time on the website and like playing all their exhilarating games. You'll satisfy your moment on the website further if you keep in rule your gaming. It is extremely vital to consider that you must only stake what you can give and always situate yourself sane limits.

Gone Bingo is an outstanding and pioneering bingo website according to the bingo online reviews. Ever since its commence in 2006, Gone Bingo has persistently enhanced their previously striking site with fresh games, niche and proffers. It offers a vast array of bingo rooms with broader file of part games. They also have presents that other websites can only vision of.

The UK's principal sensationalist newspaper, the Sun, with a daily circulation of over seven million, has presented its reader free bingo contest each day. In 2006, the Sun commenced Sun Bingo online which very rapidly became the UK's darling online Bingo pastime site. There are further than 1000 gamers online at Sun Bingo and further than £100 million have been prevail so far by jammy players. There is a fluky first past the post each sixty seconds at the Sun Bingo and there are large cash prizes and bonanza games all the time. Each thirty minutes all the bingo rooms connect up for one large game and the real bingo prizes money shoots up to over £700. The largest bonanza so far at the Sun bingo site has been succeeded by Sara Cox from the West Midlands, who succeeded an enormous 40,000 pounds.

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Location: Home! Sweet...home

Location: Home! Sweet...home? screenshot

_{[Revuhlooshun takes us to Titan Station and shows us why it's such a powerful videogame location. As always, remember to load your own bloggers wanted responses into the Community Blogs and tag them with the "Bloggers Wanted Essay Response" tag, and you may see your blog promoted to the front page. - Kauza]}

Probably the most important aspect about the original Resident Evil games, back in the 1990s, was their context. People sigh and groan whenever an old school fan laments about the early days, but there really is something to be said about just how radically things have changed over the years. People forget that you weren't originally some special agent rappelling off a helicopter or punching boulders – you were an ordinary cop trying to keep your head on. You were painfully human, and with that came all of its vulnerabilities. It was from that humanity that the fear and horror of those games originated from, only to be pushed along by a good closet scare every now and then.

But in addition to that, the locations and their settings cemented that context: police departments, hospitals, parks, even a house up in the woods (protip: only madmen live in the woods). Not only were you human, but so was everyone else. Capcom created an image, an environment, that didn’t take much effort for a player to imagine in his every day. You weren’t in some bumfuck village halfway across the globe – Raccoon City could have been any other midsized American town, awkward and overemphasized vernacular aside.

As the series went on, and these average cops turned into military commandos, that sense of familiarity, of playing upon that sort-of everyday American experience (as best as any Japanese developer could), was unfortunately kicked to the curb. And with each following game, the possibility of ever seeing those sorts of environments seemed slimmer and slimmer with each new run-and-gun.

Then I stepped onto Titan Station.

To me, Dead Space is what every old school Resident Evil fan has always wanted: one long survival game wrapped in a big ass puzzle and stuffed with a lot of cheap scares – and one which doesn’t require a two-week crash course in Tank School every time you want to fire it up. Dead Space is the spiritual successor to Resident Evil, whether you, I, Capcom, or EA wants it.

But what struck me the most with Dead Space, and what really ensured that opinion, was the space station inDead Space 2. It's a very exotic, futuristic locale that not many people (read: nobody) can claim to really know firsthand. When you finally catch your first glimpse of what it looks like outside however, you realize you’re in a city. It’s a city that looks like any one you’ve been to, minus the floating-in-space part. This isn’t some far flung research base packed with a bunch of dry science types – ordinary people actually live here.

And now they’re dying here.

That reality is relentlessly enforced each step you take, the game driving it home every chance it gets, as you walk through shopping malls and apartment floors. What was so foreign and alien in my mind – an outer space colony now turned into a butcher shop – suddenly became much easier to relate to as I could see that the basic, fundamental realities of everyday life were still very well entrenched even way off into the future. Every now and then, between the plasma cutter shots and the people screaming for their lives, an advertisement could be heard somewhere overhead. Some sort of catchy melody enticing people to “Buy! Buy! Buy!” That world, inanimate but very human, still persisted through the carnage and bloodshed, reminding you that you weren’t alone in this.

You weren't inside of a vacuum. You were in somebody’s home. And I could see myself living in it.

It was the feeling I got playing Resident Evil for the first time, all the way back into the ‘90s. It was the feeling I got when I drained a bathtub only to find a human body inside. It was the feeling I got reading the journal of a guardsman as he chronicled his descent into madness and dementia. It was a feeling I sorely missed, having only newer Resident Evil titles to play which had largely abandoned that human element to them. WhereasResident Evil 4 had you combing your way through grand European castles, Dead Space 2 threw you into a grade school, gave you a flamethrower, and said, “Here, figure this shit out.” It was one of the most surreal times I’ve ever had in a game, though one which immediately bubbled to the surface when asked to write about this topic – and one which made a great impact upon the overall game itself.

It was that human touch, those human details painted in the background for you to find, that propelled Dead Space 2 over its predecessor. Be they the family photos hanging along bedroom walls, or the toys of a child scattered about a classroom, everywhere inside the game you can find the living remains of the long deceased – the world is brought to life not by the people who lived there, but by the things they left behind. It's one thing to have a location filled with life – one which is very pretty, but also rather static – and quite another to have one that's actually alive (especially one that is full of death).

The first Dead Space, as much as I love it, can feel boringly isolated at times. It just does not have those human shades to it. Hell, it barely has any humans! But, then again, you’re on an abandoned military cruiser – you shouldn’t be bumping into Larry David for a stop-and-chat. With that said: it still leads to an inferior setting when compared to its sequel. It's to be expected, given it's the first child – but boy is it a little less special after you've spent some time with the second one.

It helped that Titan Station was indeed beautifully designed, and that the game allowed just enough of it to shine through the chaos. What sold it though – and what sold the game – were those splashes of the everyday, despite being 500 years into the future. It was the only way anybody could have ever expected the player to relate to the situation, and Visceral knocked it out of the park.

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Micro Tunnel Escape

"Micro Tunnel Escape" is first part of "Micro Tunnel Escape" point and click room escape game created by Ainars. You found yourself trapped in a tunnel, solve simple tasks to proceed further in game. After all puzzles solved enter code in last scene and escape. Good Luck!Play This Game

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