Tag Archives: PC games

The Masterplan: A Heist Planning Game Set to Funky ’70s Music

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We’ve all sat around a room with some friends talking about how we “really think we could pull of a heist.” In reality, most of us probably couldn’t. It’s not that we’re not smart enough, it’s that we’d want it to be more badass and cinematic than strictly necessary, and that adds complications. Complicated plans end with one guy who can’t get the extremely sophisticated plasma torch to work, one guy stuck in a vent, and one guy trying to get the really fancy getaway vehicle out of valet mode. Rather than becoming both a felon and an entry in a Cracked article about idiot criminals, I might suggest playing this game.

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The Masterplan is a top down, 2D game on Steam Early Access that revolves around putting together a team of unsavory criminals and robbing things in a fashionably dramatic way. It’s all the fun of the fantasy, without any of the boring truths or awful felony convictions of the reality. Players have to manage equipment and personnel while keeping a watchful eye on all of the NPCs who can’t wait to escape and call the police, thus ending your career in an unfortunate manner.

It costs $14.99(USD), and right now that just offers you some basic goons, three missions, and the ability to report bugs (YAY!), but the final release will have a lot more gameplay, individual skills and advancement for your goons, and multiplayer, if all goes according to plan. I think that multiplayer sounds like the perfect way to end the beer-fueled evening that my first paragraph alluded to.

“Tetropolis” Is a Side-Scrolling Adventure Starring a Misshapen Tetris Block

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Tetris is one of the greatest games ever made. There’s something that fascinating, mesmerizing, and addictive about putting various blocks in perfectly fitting holes, even if the Tetris god never graces you with the line piece you need. Tetropolis, which is on Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter now and is planned to be released for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Ouya, imagines a bizarre back story behind Tetris, complete with the unfeeling incineration of blocks that aren’t “perfect.” That’s right, Tetropolis is the story of two blocks who didn’t come out in one of the standard tetromino shapes, and must join forces to create proper block. Will they find their way into a game, or will they decide that they don’t want to?

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Throughout the game, which is designed as a classic metroidvania, the player has to explore by using the special abilities of the tetromino shapes. For example, a square can smash destructible objects and enemies, while a line can scrunch up like a spring and jump across the screen. Interestingly, the theme doesn’t end there: the levels are also made up of tetromino shaped sectors that the play can, at certain points, rearrange in order to unlock new areas of the game. That’s a very clever idea, and we’d love to see it applied to D&D’s Undermountain some day.

Right now, the games Kickstarter doesn’t seem to be going all that well, which is a shame, so get on Steam Greenlight and try to get this game made. It’s always fun to see some real originality in game-design.

[via Tetropolis]

Jason Holtman of Steam Joins Microsoft

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The Windows gaming system will definitely get a boost from Jason Holtman’s arrival at Microsoft. The newcomer had been the main man at Valve since the past eight years or so. He had taken the...

AMD Never Settle bundle gives Radeon HD 7000 buyers free games they’d actually care to play

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AMD Never Settle bundle gives Radeon HD 7000 buyers free games they'd actually care to play

Just about anyone who has bought more than one aftermarket graphics card knows that bundled games rarely matter. They're usually year-old titles or neutered editions built only to showcase the GPU's performance for a few hours. AMD thinks its Never Settle bundle might finally get us to notice. Buy any modern Radeon HD video card from the 7770 GHz Edition on up and you'll get a download code for at least one new game you'd genuinely want to try, ranging from Far Cry 3 on basic cards to a full three-game deal that supplies Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs to high rollers buying the 7900 series. There's likewise a discount for Medal of Honor: Warfighter and promises of bundles in 2013 for Bioshock Infinite and the reimagined Tomb Raider. As long as you're not dead set on springing for a GeForce board in the next few months, one of the qualifying cards might be worth a look to jumpstart your game collection.

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AMD Never Settle bundle gives Radeon HD 7000 buyers free games they'd actually care to play originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PBS mini-documentary explores indie game creation, shows what they do that majors can’t (video)

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PBS minidocumentary explores indie game creation, shows what they do that majors can't video

The indie game world has undergone a metamorphosis over the past few years, transforming from an often overlooked niche into as much a staple of the game industry as once-every-year blockbusters like the Call of Duty series. It's that fast-rising side of gaming that PBS' Off Book has explored in a succinct documentary. As both developers and game journalists explain, the small and more flexible nature of indie teams lets them delve into game concepts, art and sound that major developers typically avoid -- you probably wouldn't get Bastion, Fez or Super Meat Boy out of a company focused mostly on hitting its quarterly revenue targets. Crowdfunding and internet distribution methods like Steam and Xbox Live Arcade have similarly removed many of the barriers that either kept these games from commercial success or forced uncomfortable deals with large publishers in the past. Accordingly, the indie sphere that PBS sees in 2012 is less about trying to become the next Activision or EA and more about experimentation and personal expression. If you've ever wanted an elegant summary of what makes Spelunky feel so special, the whole Off Book episode awaits after the break.

Continue reading PBS mini-documentary explores indie game creation, shows what they do that majors can't (video)

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PBS mini-documentary explores indie game creation, shows what they do that majors can't (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steam Big Picture beta hands-on

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Steam Big Picture beta hands-on

Been keeping up with Steam's Big Picture interface? Then you probably know it's already in beta. The 10-foot UI hopes to help Valve's content distribution portal get comfortable in front of your couch, offering gamers access to their favorite PC titles from a gamepad-friendly interface. We piped the beta out to our own living room to take a look, and weren't surprised to find a sleek attractive UI with a heap of polish. That said, we were glad we didn't leave our mouse and keyboard at the office.

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Steam Big Picture beta hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NYT: Steam’s Big Picture public beta begins Monday

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NYT: Steam's Big Picture public beta begins on Monday

Can't wait to use Steam's forthcoming Big Picture mode to game from the comfort of your couch? Well, you're in luck, because it might be ready for a test drive tomorrow. According to The New York Times, the living room-friendly user interface is getting the public beta treatment starting Monday. Gabe Newell let loose last month that both the TV-geared view and Steam for Linux betas would be "out there fairly quickly," but there's still no word on when the Ubuntu-bound preview will land. In the meantime, we'll keep busy by gawking at Valve's augmented reality headset, which the NYT got a glimpse of during a trip to the firm's headquarters, at the source link below.

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NYT: Steam's Big Picture public beta begins Monday originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve launches Steam Greenlight to pick cream of indie game crop

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Valve launches Steam Greenlight to pick cream of indie game crop for its store

Steam has developed a reputation as a haven for indie games like Super Meat Boy, so it's only fitting that store owner Valve has just launched a section to welcome more of those games into its tent. Greenlight lets small developers submit titles and have gamers vote as to whether or not the candidates should get space on Steam's virtual shelf. Pickier players don't have to see every game in contention; they can filter the list down to specific game types and platforms, and collections can narrow the selection to categories hand-picked by fans or publishers. No games have cleared Greenlight just yet, but it won't be long before the logjam becomes a flood -- between this and general apps, Steam is about to get a lot more crowded.

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Valve launches Steam Greenlight to pick cream of indie game crop originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 22:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free — if you feed the ad meter

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Hitman Blood Money

It's not hard to see that offering high-quality games through the cloud has its pitfalls, not the least of which is getting customers to pay. Square Enix may have licked that last problem through its new Coreonline web gaming service. Players can still pony up for the full-priced games or even single levels if they want unfettered access, but the cleverness comes through Coreonline's parking meter approach to ad-supported free play: the more ads you watch and the longer they run, the longer you'll get to play without spending a single coin. As our colleagues at Joystiq found out, however, the current level of OS support is inconsistent. Windows gamers can use Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer to start playing, but their Mac-owning friends have to lean on Chrome for some games and can't even consider running the marquee title, Hitman: Blood Money. Square Enix's library of eligible games will start expanding in October; while there's no guarantee the Final Fantasy series or many other dream games will make it to the roster, Coreonline's approach might just be viable enough to spare us a few raids on the bargain bins.

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Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free -- if you feed the ad meter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 now working on Linux through Google Chrome, more or less

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Epic Citadel tech demo

A Holy Grail of Linux gaming has been an Unreal Engine 3 port. Getting one for the OS would unlock a world of games that has been the province of, well, just about any other mainstream platform. Thanks to Google preserving Flash on Linux through Chrome, that dream is alive in at least a rudimentary form. Experimenters at the Phoronix forums have found that Chrome 21 has support for the Stage 3D hardware acceleration needed to drive Epic Games' Flash conversion of UE3. Tell Chrome to enable support as well as ignore a graphics chip blacklist, and suddenly you're running Epic Citadel from your Linux install. When we say "running," however, we're taking a slight amount of poetic license. Performance isn't that hot, and certain configurations might not show the medieval architecture in all its glory. We've confirmed with Epic that it works, but it's still firm on the stance that there's no plans for official UE3 support on Linux "at this time." It's still promising enough that maybe, just maybe, gamers can embrace an open-source platform without having to give up the games they love.

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Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 now working on Linux through Google Chrome, more or less originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Aug 2012 01:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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