|  |  |  | | | | | PC Gamer» PC Gamer – The global authority on PC games | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The telling point came near the start. "Turn to wireframe," enthused Epic Game's Mark Rein. "Show them that it's running in real time." It was. And that in itself is staggering. The second telling point came immediately after the demo. When Epic revealed that the PC they'd rigged up to demonstrate their vision of what in-game graphics could be capable of was packing three top of the range Nvidia GTX 580's. The event? Epic’s private showcase of new technology coming to the latest version of the Unreal engine at GDC. The reason? To show the world that it’s time to start thinking about what the future of graphics should look like. First reactions? The graphicsability is high. And out of reach of the average PC gamer for a good few years.
"The stuff we’re showing today is doable on PC now," explained Mark, "but it’s pretty darn powerful. Maybe the next nVidia graphics card bump means we can use two, we don’t need three. And maybe the next bump means we can use just one. And the next bump after that means that we can use the mid-range card." 
The ‘Samaritan’ demo features a super-hero character, all trenchcoat and stubble chinned, breaking into a warehouse using a blow-torch and a cigarette, before rescuing an old lady from a gang of thugs, before picking a fight with an ED 209 style robot peacekeeper. It's set in a dirty, rain drenched street scene, straight out of Blade Runner. And it's very, very pretty. The tech on display is, at it's core, the Unreal Engine 3 that powers many modern games albeit upgraded with new features that vastly increase the image quality. Specifically, image based reflections allow puddles to reflect the neon lights of advertising hoardings near perfectly – with the reflections disappearing as characters cast shadows across the water. 
Subsurface scattering means that textures mean super-detailed skin textures. The tech works by simulating the way light scatters in semi-tranlusent situations. In the demo, there's a moment when the lead character lights a blowtorch with his cigarette – the way the light plays across his face is gorgeous. Bokeh depth of field isn't something I've ever heard of, but Epic explained that it allows light sources that are in the distance to affect the pixels around them – in practice it means that the lights on a cop car just glow like they would if in the background of a film. And the implementation of clothing is just spectacular: the character's coat flaps in the wind as he leaps off the side of a building. That's thanks to Epic and Nvidia working together on further physics tech. Mark described the demo as "a love letter to hardware manufacturers. This is our proposal for what the next big generational leap of gaming should be." It's also a test – to figure out how to build assets, art and technology in the future. The demo took 12 developers two months to build. 
"This is how we did our first Unreal Engine 3 demo," explains Mark. "We built the technology, we made a plan for what we wanted it to do, we started demo content for it to start figuring out what the pipeline is, and how you can do things most efficiently, how many polygons you should and shouldn't use…. We pour tens of millions of dollars into these R&D experiments." The first UE3 demo took place at GDC in 2004, a year ahead of the official unveiling of the Xbox 360. A movie of this year's demo will be released in the coming week. Developers who work with UE3 will be able to implement games with this level of detail as soon as the technology is shipped out in the March build of the engine. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | If you’re running an MMO, you need to know what’s going in your MMO. That’s the lesson that came from Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, Eve-Online’s lead Economist who demonstrated the level of detail available to developers to survey the inner workings of their galactic community. Eve, which is run as a single universe to which all of its 360,000 subscribers connect to, has a database of over 10 terabytes, which requires 24 hours for developers to submit and return survey queries. The data they gather is used to evaluate design decisions, track exploits and explain the state of Eve’s financial market in a quarterly economic report. Eyjolfur also revealed that CCP monitor their own employee’s actions in game. “We have a secret unit called Internal Affairs that only monitors employees. Because Eve Online is a single shard with a player driven economy, any single dishonest employee could destroy the universe. We think of it as protection for our employees, and a way to ensure no cheating is ongoing. The data gathered by Eyjolfur’s team has been used to crack down on Real Money Trade and exploiters. In one instance, CCP discovered one player had run a single glitched mission over 100,000 times, producing vast quantities of ISK. Meanwhile, they spotted a significant reduction in player activity in one mission hub over Chinese new year – raising suspicions that the players based there were professional gold farmers. Banning gold farmers is good for Eve, explained Eyjolfur. “Removing gold farmers improves [server] hardware performance. After we banned these farmers, the server load dropped by 30% per player.” 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaking at a panel at GDC today, Bungie’s lead network engineer David Aldrige has announced that their next game will be an MMO. Aldrige also pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, the game won’t be “WoW in space.” Probably be more like Halo in Azeroth then. Lol. At GDC last year Bungie's creative director Joe Staten was asked what Bungie's next game would be, saying: "Wouldn't it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you? Wow. That would be great." The new series, which is yet to be named, will be published under Activision. (via IGN) 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Blizzard have announced that the Firelands raid content planned for patch 4.1 will not actually feature. Speaking to Eurogamer at GDC, lead producer J. Allen Brack said “We feel like the player base isn’t really ready for the next raid yet. Firelands is now actually going to be in 4.2.” Read on for the details.
Blizzard are planning on releasing smaller updates more regularly, rather than larger ones at longer intervals. According to Brack, patch 4.1 will now feature “a dungeon revamp, as opposed to an entirely new tier of content with an entirely new raid. “I’m sure there’ll be some grousing about the 4.1 decision, and if it ends up being the wrong decision, then we won’t do it again, right? That’s one of the nice things. We’ll learn from this and make the right decision in 4.2″ he continued. “We’ve started to put a build up on the PTR [Public Test Realm] so that players can take a look at it. Usually we’re on the PTR for six to eight-ish weeks, plus or minus four weeks I would say. So that’s probably where we are in terms of the development of 4.1.” After the interview, Blizzard issued the following statement to Eurogamer regarding the patch. “Patch 4.1 provides our players with access to the completely redesigned Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub five-player dungeons, where they’ll be able to experience challenging encounters featuring all-new boss mechanics, obtain updated epic-level loot, and possibly acquire rare mounts. “One of our long-standing development goals is to release regular content updates for the community to enjoy. These updates are generally focused on introducing specific content, like a new raid or new gameplay features. “Our plan is to package these features into smaller content updates and to release them as soon as possible, rather than wait and release larger updates more infrequently. “The previously announced Firelands raid will be part of content update 4.2 which should come soon after 4.1. “Our flexible approach to content updates allows us to release content like Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub so that players will have new challenges to overcome (and loot to collect) until we’re ready to unleash the Firelands. “Our previous experience with content updates informed this decision. We feel like Call of the Crusade was released while raiders were still busy with Ulduar, which stamped out Ulduar raiding. We don’t feel that Cataclysm needs a new raid tier just yet. “Releasing an epic raid dungeon before its time would, in the words of Ragnaros himself, be ‘too soon!’”
(via Eurogamer) 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | World of Warcraft. Starcraft. Diablo. We’re extremely glad that Mike Morhaime and Frank Pearce founded Blizzard 20 years ago. This video just popped up on Blizzard’s youTube channel. Watch it and accept their thanks graciously. What would you like to thank Blizzard for? I like cloaked Banshees best. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Developer and founder of GDC Chris Crawford has been reminiscing on the old days of our beloved industry, looking back to the very first computers and how games have evolved over time. Has much changed? "What the player does has not changed in 30 years," he said. Read on for more details. Whilst things have not changed for the player, being a developer certainly has. "Back then to be a game programmer, you had to be a hero," said Crawford. "You had to do everything! People in the game industry were basically working alone. We didn't know each other." This sense of isolation from the rest of the developer community convinced Crawford to establish GDC in 1988. "And it seems as though I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, because you are certainly not alone right now!" he joked. "There was a lot of crap back then. Really bad games, but there was also a lot of diversity," he said. Comparing them to modern titles, Crawford notes a distinct lack of variety in today’s games. "When you're putting millions of dollars into a game, you can't afford to be too creative." Crawford reminded his audience of his first law of software development: "Whenever you sit down to design a game, throughout the entire process, you must repeatedly ask yourself 'What does the user do?'" He pointed out that since gamers play, rather than watch or listen, that the ‘doing’ is the most important aspect. Crawford drew comparisons between old and new titles, noting that the core mechanics of platformers, shooters, and strategy games haven't changed much. "What the player does has not changed in 30 years," he said. "I want to be very careful here. I'm not saying that modern games are no better than ancient games," he added. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bigpoint – the studio behind Battlestar Galactica Online and Ruined Online – have announced that their browser-based MMO’s are now available in full stereoscopic 3D. Holy frak! “With the right hardware, stereoscopic 3D technology will take online browser-game graphics to new heights. Today, Bigpoint is demonstrating once again that conventional PC and console games have nothing on Bigpoint browser games with demonstrations of Battlestar Galactica Online, Toon Racer and Ruined Online in full 3D,” the company said in a press release. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaking at GDC, Cliff Bleszinski has expressed the dramatic impact his personal life has had on his design decisions. He also offered some sage advice for upcoming developers. “Assess yourself. Know your weakness. As a creative, I am not a spreadsheet designer, I am a holistic designer, and you must find complimentary talent, the yin to your yang. And build mutal respect. “Make your product personal. I'm not having a fucking debate, this is art. If you look at Gears, you can tell I was a child of the 80s, I was raised with Transformers, He-Man, I saw Predator when I was 13 and it melted my face off. I was actually going through a very tough time when I was working on the first game, I was actually going through a divorce. There's a reason Marcus has daddy issues; I lost my dad when I was a kid.” Read on for more quotes from Epic Game’s charismatic design director.
 “PR is necessary, you need it now,” continued Cliff. “You need to figure out how to put yourself out there. I was never cool enough for the cool kids, but never geeky enough for the geeks. You need to be a chameleon, you need to be able to sit down with the hardcore coder, the hippie artist, and sit down with the marketing guy and get drunk and have fun with him. Do not be afraid to be public with yourself. “Why don't we do PR more? Truth is game developers are assholes. And publishers don't want it. A lot of people are happy just working in games, but put yourself out there, you may be a person but ultimate you have to be a brand. “You are forming a band here and you are the front man, if you are the face of the company you have to stay humble. You don't want some Metallica Monster thing going on here. It's not just your game, it's the team's game. If you are fortunate enough to become visible, and you meet a fan, you shake their hand and you thank them.” For more on Cliff, visit his blog, or follow him and his dog’s twitter feeds. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaking at GDC, Cliff Bleszinski has expressed the dramatic impact his personal life has had on his design decisions. He also offered some sage advice for upcoming developers. “Assess yourself. Know your weakness. As a creative, I am not a spreadsheet designer, I am a holistic designer, and you must find complimentary talent, the yin to your yang. And build mutal respect. “Make your product personal. I'm not having a fucking debate, this is art. If you look at Gears, you can tell I was a child of the 80s, I was raised with Transformers, He-Man, I saw Predator when I was 13 and it melted my face off. I was actually going through a very tough time when I was working on the first game. I was actually going through a divorce. There's a reason Marcus has daddy issues; I lost my dad when I was a kid.” Read on for more quotes from Epic Game’s charismatic design director.
“PR is necessary, you need it now,” continued Cliff. “You need to figure out how to put yourself out there. I was never cool enough for the cool kids, but never geeky enough for the geeks. You need to be a chameleon, you need to be able to sit down with the hardcore coder, the hippie artist, and sit down with the marketing guy and get drunk and have fun with him. Do not be afraid to be public with yourself. “Why don't we do PR more? Truth is game developers are assholes. And publishers don't want it. A lot of people are happy just working in games, but put yourself out there, you may be a person but ultimate you have to be a brand. “You are forming a band here and you are the front man, if you are the face of the company you have to stay humble. You don't want some Metallica Monster thing going on here. It's not just your game, it's the team's game. If you are fortunate enough to become visible, and you meet a fan, you shake their hand and you thank them.” For more on Cliff, visit his blog, or follow him and his dog’s twitter feeds.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Update: the original text of this story quoted Cliff as saying “game developers are assholes.” This was incorrect. He was talking about internet trolls. They’re assholes. We offer our apologies. Speaking at GDC, Cliff Bleszinski has expressed the dramatic impact his personal life has had on his design decisions. He also offered some sage advice for upcoming developers. “Assess yourself. Know your weakness. As a creative, I am not a spreadsheet designer, I am a holistic designer, and you must find complementary talent, the yin to your yang. And build mutal respect. “Make your product personal. I'm not having a fucking debate, this is art. If you look at Gears, you can tell I was a child of the 80s, I was raised with Transformers, He-Man, I saw Predator when I was 13 and it melted my face off. I was actually going through a very tough time when I was working on the first game. I was actually going through a divorce. There's a reason Marcus has daddy issues; I lost my dad when I was a kid.” Read on for more quotes from Epic Game’s charismatic design director.
“PR is necessary, you need it now,” continued Cliff. “You need to figure out how to put yourself out there. I was never cool enough for the cool kids, but never geeky enough for the geeks. You need to be a chameleon, you need to be able to sit down with the hardcore coder, the hippie artist, and sit down with the marketing guy and get drunk and have fun with him. Do not be afraid to be public with yourself. “Why don't we do PR more? Truth is game developers internet trolls are assholes. And publishers don't want it. A lot of people are happy just working in games, but put yourself out there, you may be a person but ultimate you have to be a brand.” “You are forming a band here and you are the front man, if you are the face of the company you have to stay humble. You don't want some Metallica Monster thing going on here. It's not just your game, it's the team's game. If you are fortunate enough to become visible, and you meet a fan, you shake their hand and you thank them.” For more on Cliff, visit his blog, or follow him and his dog’s twitter feeds.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | At today’s GDC talk, Senior Producer of Battlefield Heroes Ben Cousins revealed that 17% of the game’s players want to buy items that would provide them an edge. In attempts to make Battlefield Heroes more profitable, Cousins and his team conducted a survey of the players to find out just what kind of offers would convince them to pay for items. The response was a demand for items that gave players an advantage in-game. “What really surprised us was how far up this one was: "If I could by items that give me an advantage” Stuff like health boost, speed boost, etc. This wasn’t even on our list of things to do, but 17% of responders wanted it,” explained Cousins. Would you be willing to pay money for an in-game stat boost? Let us know in the comments. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ubisoft recently announced that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood will be dropping the always-online DRM of Assassin’s Creed 2, but said that players will still be required to login to validate their copy of the game. Many thought that this would mean logging in every time the game is started up. Ubisoft community developer Gabe Graziani has tweeted to make it clear that the game will only require a login on installation. After that, the game will run offline. Happy days! The game’s due out on March 18 in the US, and March 22 in Europe. [via Bluesnews] 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | We’ve been catching up with Minecraft developer Notch and his fellow programmer Jakob Porser at GDC this week. The two have been elaborating on their current project Scrolls: a turn-based strategy based on collectable card games. The pair, whilst clearly excited about the game’s prospects, are being pretty realistic when it comes to the title’s success in comparison to the incredible success of Minecraft. Read on for the details. 
“I’m sure we will not have anything as close as viral to the success of Minecraft obviously, it’s whole other type of game,” said Porser. He even went so far as to say “I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people disappointed in this game because it’s not a Minecraft kind of game.” But the threat of Scrolls being neither as virally successful nor as immediately embraced by the community still hasn’t put the two off trying out new ideas. “We get a lot of stuff right now because of Minecraft. It’s very important to remind ourselves that we’re here to do the games that we really love, and we really want to do ourselves” added Porser. For those who were hoping for another Minecraft, Notch is only working on the original right now alongside supporting Scrolls. “At a normal company we’ll probably do Minecraft 2, but [Scrolls] is a game I really want to make instead” explained Notch. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Senior Producer of Battlefield Heroes Ben Cousins has revealed in his conference at GDC the trials his team went through with Battlefield Heroes, and that the game’s players are “crash test dummies” for Battlefield Play4Free, which he hopes will become the “biggest Western free-to-play title in the world.” Read on for the details. Cousins explained about the difficulty bringing the free-to-play formula – predominantly successful in eastern regions – to the West, and how what they learnt from Battlefield Heroes has got them to their current position; just weeks away from Battlefield Play4Free’s beta launch. In specific, Cousins referred to the hurdles of bringing microtransactions to the Battlefield community. “I had a meeting with [developer] Johnny Mang, and he said ‘The game is too free, we were giving away too much.’” With this in mind, Cousins looked at the demands players were making in surveys, and decided that more powerful weapons sold for cash was the way to solve the problem. The team made improvements to the cash purchase weapons, adding slightly bigger magazines and larger chances of critical hits. “We wanted the difference to be noticible but not unbalancing,” commented Cousins. The move to offer these better weapons for a price backfired though. The community very vocally rejected the idea. “The first weapon we dropped was the shotguns, and by the end of the day we had a 64 page thread on the forums just about the shotguns. The moderators were having to work really hard. People were posting porn and other horrible things on the forum as a protest to what we were doing, and the press picked up on this. This was quite a stressful day for us,” said Cousins. However, the actual result within the game was a different picture. Daily gross funding revenue doubled overnight, with no change in user number at all. “Contrary from what people were saying, there was no one leaving the game,” explained Cousins. Looking at player statistics and forum usage, the team determined that just 2% of players used the forums to voice their opinions, so whilst the forums were rife with anger, the vast majority of players were happy with the changes. Such events bring us to the present day. “Battlefield Heroes is very profitable now: our predictions for this year sees us working at a 50% margin,” revealed Cousins. “It's given us the ability to creating a HD free-to-play title with Battlefield Play4Free, and we aim to make that the biggest Western free-to-play title in the world.” 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | NCsoft and ArenaNet have just unveiled the sixth profession for Guild Wars 2. The Thief has arrived, and he’s sure to steal your heart (and your coin purse). Something of a mix between GW’s Assassin profession and a rogue from WoW, the Thief will be sneaking into Tyria when GW2 is released later this year.  I promise not to stab you if you hand over that wallet. According to NCsoft’s press release, “the Thief is deadly in single combat—particularly when catching enemies off guard. Thieves compensate for their relatively low armor and health by being quick and evasive. They can travel through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons.” The Thief, as expected, is a master of hand-to-hand combat, able to dual-wield daggers and swords. They can also dual-wield pistols, something we just don’t see enough of in MMOs. Instead of spending Energy, the Thief has a new mechanic dubbed Initiative. All of the Thief’s abilities have no cooldowns, so players will have to micromanage how many Initiative points they have available with no breaks in the ability-casting action. Be sure to stay tuned to PC Gamer—we’ll have HQ footage of the Thief in action tomorrow, as well as all the Guild Wars 2 info that we can print. Until then, try to decide whether or not your Thief will be named Aladdin or the Artful Dodger. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A huge Guild Wars update is landing on Thursday. The patch will add a new hub location for adventurers called Embark Beach. From here, teams will be to get together and fast travel to any locations they have unlocked, making it much easier to get straight into the quests. The limit on the number of heroes you can recruit any one time has also been increased from three to seven, letting you tailor even more powerful retinue, and there’s also a new Mercenary Slot feature, which will let you clone and play alongside your own alt characters. On top of all this there will also be new daily quests, a new minion UI to let you control your pets directly, and changes to how you get drunk in the game. Read on for more details and the first screens. 
Embark Beach is a new outpost in the Battle Isles, and is populated by NPCs representing Guild Wars’ different expansions. These NPCs will offer fast travel to a number of locations within each campaign. Every destination will be manned by a scout that can give the player swift travel back to the beach. The aim is for the beach to become a social hub where players can gather and form groups, before sailing off to the campaign of their choice. If you’re not looking to group with other players, the update will also allow you to recruit four more hero characters. The extra four heroes should be more effective than the often useless henchmen they’re replacing, and should prove especially useful when taking on high level areas. There will also be an option to buy Mercenary Hero slots for your characters. Slots can be bought for £6.99 each, or it’s £12.99 for a 3-pack. Mercenary Heros are exact clones of characters in your other accounts, meaning you’ll be able to form a party of characters you’ve built and levelled yourself. There are even changes to how drunkenness is calculated. Previously players would have to be moderately plastered for 7 days to unlock the Drunkard title. Now, very much unlike real life, every drink contributes points to an overall score. It’s dependent on the drink’s strength, too, so gutrot and rye are worth more points than a light shandy. The update will be applied for free this Thursday at 10pm GMT. Head over to the Guild Wars site for more on the game. We’ve got some screens of the new hub area below. Click on them to enlarge. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaking during the “Biofeedback in Gameplay” talk at GDC, Valve’s experimental psychologist Mike Ambinder – they have one – showed off the ways they’re using biological measurements to enhance their games. They showed a version of Portal 2 where the player’s view is controlled by where he looks in real life, and a version of Left 4 Dead 2 that senses your stress levels and adjusts the game accordingly. Read on for the details, and video footage of both games. Valve showed off facial recognition software and 10,000 dollar eye-tracking tech. They used the latter to play a short section of Portal 2, where the player uses their eyes to aim the cursor, and their hands to move around the environment. According to Ambinder, “The eye tracker is used to extract eye's X Y position. This data is updated at 60hz, before being fed back into the game engine.” “We don't know how the player is feeling,” said Ambinder. “We'd like to attack that problem. We'd like to figure out player sentiment, and player emotion.” He also hinted at future matchmaking profiles based on player’s emotional responses: “We don't want to pair passive players with emotional players. It's something we're thinking about it, we think it's worthwhile.” Valve have been experimenting with varied techniques during the research. “We made a heartbeat measuring mouse – a detect heartbeat mouse – but had to ditch it because every time it moved it would introduce artefacts into the readings. We have a mouse that senses skin conductance, it's easy to use, pretty cool." Valve’s solution is a piece of tech that costs $10 to make, and consists of two metal contacts attached to a strip. They’re fixed to your hand by a bandage, and a USB cable sends data about the current passing between them to your PC. It’s measuring the electric response of your skin, something which varies with stress. They’ve been using biometrics like this to tweak Left 4 Dead 2: they’ve experimented with an automated AI Director that modified enemy spawns, health and weapon packs based on estimated arousal patterns. According to the surveys post playtest, the use of biofeedback information made Left 4 Dead 2 twice as enjoyable as without. Here’s Mike Ambinder’s explanation, with one player’s stress levels on-screen as they play. Mike talked us through some of the extraordinary ideas they have planned for this tech. “We can detect when a player is bored,” he said, and suggested this as a way of determining if the player is lots, and using in-game prompts to help them out. “Can we tie health to arousal? If you stay calm, your health rises… imagine a lie detection game: fool your interrogator by remaining calm.” Or an NPC who knows how you’re feeling – “Hey Mike, why are you so sad?” “Watching the arousal patterns of competitive players – just knowing if the competitors were aroused – could be interesting.” Mike said they could also use it to detect when your team-mates are in trouble in a co-op game like Left 4 Dead, by spotting spikes in arousal. In the video above you’ll see the clear response when the player’s attacked by the tank. “Or [you could] earn points from eliciting responses from your team-mates,” Mike adds. They’ve even tried using an emotional tracker during games of DOTA 2, their forthcoming arena-based multiplayer action RPG. “People love it when they do something that makes their opponents suffer,” says Mike. Valve have always been a forward-thinking company, but even for them it’s remarkable to see this kind of mad science demonstrated for all. Gabe Newell spoke to us about their plans to use biometrics in games back in September last year. Now we know they’re actually going to do it. But will players go for it? Would you buy a $10 glove that would let you play a version of Left 4 Dead 2 tailored to your emotions? And would you want other players to be able to see that info about you? 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaking during the “Biofeedback in Gameplay” talk at GDC, Valve’s experimental psychologist Mike Ambinder – they have one – showed off the ways they’re using biological measurements to enhance their games. They showed a version of Portal 2 where the player’s view is controlled by where he looks in real life, and a version of Left 4 Dead 2 that senses your stress levels and adjusts the game accordingly. The Portal 2 video’s embedded above, read on for details and the Left 4 Dead 2 footage. Valve showed off facial recognition software and 10,000 dollar eye-tracking tech. They used the latter to play a short section of Portal 2, where the player uses their eyes to aim the cursor, and their hands to move around the environment. According to Ambinder, “The eye tracker is used to extract eye's X Y position. This data is updated at 60hz, before being fed back into the game engine.” “We don't know how the player is feeling,” said Ambinder. “We'd like to attack that problem. We'd like to figure out player sentiment, and player emotion.” He also hinted at future matchmaking profiles based on player’s emotional responses: “We don't want to pair passive players with emotional players. It's something we're thinking about it, we think it's worthwhile.” Valve have been experimenting with varied techniques during the research. “We made a heartbeat measuring mouse – a detect heartbeat mouse – but had to ditch it because every time it moved it would introduce artefacts into the readings. We have a mouse that senses skin conductance, it's easy to use, pretty cool." They’ve been using biometrics like this to tweak Left 4 Dead 2: they’ve experimented with an automated AI Director that modified enemy spawns, health and weapon packs based on estimated arousal patterns. According to the surveys post playtest, the use of biofeedback information made Left 4 Dead 2 twice as enjoyable as without. Here’s Mike Ambinder’s explanation, with one player’s stress levels on-screen as they play.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mark Morris – the business mind behind Introversion – has declared at GDC that he doesnt believe the team would ever work alongside industrial giant Microsoft in the future. “Do we regret working with Microsoft?” said Morris. “No, but it’s unlikely we’ll work with them again … they make you work harder on the production value, but they don’t back it up with sales.” Referring to the Xbox Live Arcade ports of Darwinia and Multiwinia, Morris remarked: “XBLA were good to us and put us in the deal of the week, but it had no impact. Steam promotion was an order of magnitude better.” 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The IGF awards have shown that this has been an amazing year for indie games. Minecraft we’ve all heard of, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent is great, too. But there are dozens of other gems to discover and play. Have a look at the IGF winners this year, many of them are free to play, or at least have demos to try. Or perhaps you’d rather stare at some gorgeous gaming images instead. Duncan Harris’ shots of Crysis are extraordinary. If you’re looking for a new desktop background, it’s certainly worth checking them out. But that’s enough sightseeing, we’re here to round up everything that’s been going on in PC gaming into a handy list. Here it be.
This lunchtime Ed, Tom, Graham and Rich learned that sliding along the floor on your arse is an excellent mode of transportation. Especially when the objects or people you hit along the way are sent sprawling into the air in slow motion. Multiplayer Bulletstorm is a thing of cruel beauty. Why shoot a man in the head for ten points when you can tear him limb from limb with electric leashes? What are your most satisfying co-op victories? 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Epic have been showing off the latest iteration of Unreal Engine 3 at GDC with a tech demo designed to show what the next generation of gaming will look like. The demo they showed had a trenchcoat wearing, augmented hero taking on security forces and giant robots with his fists. Epic’s Mark Rein assured audiences that it wouldn’t run on modern consoles, but was powered by three Nvidia GTX 580s, a pricey setup, but one available to PC gamers today. You’ll find some stunning screenshots from the demo below.
[via VG247] 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sorry about that. I’m a horrible gamer. Hopefully it doesn’t show in ordinary conversation, but as soon as I start playing something, I become an asshole. The instant the first character speaks, I reflexively want them to shut up. If there’s text on screen, I’m not reading it. If there’s a cut-scene, I’m skipping it. If there are no enemies to shoot, I shoot my friends, and if I can’t shoot my friends, I shoot just next to my friends and then swing my crosshair onto them as quickly as possible in a lame attempt to glance them with a bullet I know won’t do anything. I thought that was normal. Then, playing Bulletstorm the other night and hating every second of it, I had an awful realisation: this is my fault. I’m the reason games suck now. I’m the lazy, belligerent jerk every mainstream shooter seems to be designed for, and it’s because of gamers like me that they’re built this way. 
Unskippable cut-scenes exist because idiots like me skip the skippable ones. There’s text on screen because idiots like me don’t listen to the characters, and the characters are repeating what the text says because idiots like me won’t read the text. Friendly characters are invincible because idiots like me would shoot them, and we’re not allowed to shoot them because idiots like me will try anyway. I’m a game designer’s nightmare: an angry, crazy asshole who’s impossible to engage, has no emotions other than irritation and impatience, and at times seems to be trying to ruin every scripted sequence and miss every set piece. Bulletstorm actually bribes you – with real, spendable in-game currency – to look in the right direction when something cool happens. You get more points the quicker you press the F key to swivel toward where the designer wants you facing. And it’s become a point of pride for me to refuse to do so until the timer runs out and a text prompt points out that I’ve earned no points. I stare at the ground. LOOK: SOME MUD. THIS ROCK TEXTURE IS INTERESTING. DO YOU HEAR SOMETHING? I DON’T. 
At one point the reason the game wants you to turn round is that enemies are pouring in behind you, and I still wouldn’t do it. I charged backwards, bullets slamming into my spine, staring fiercely at a hot dog cart. How does a gamer get this way? Is there some deep psychological damage I’m repressing from my childhood? I don’t think so. I was the ideal gamer as a kid. I only got games on my birthday and at Christmas, so they were rare, magical things to be treasured and explored with patience and an open mind. 30% of the time, they would simply not work. When they did, they were awkward to control, illogical to play and often absurdly difficult. I don’t know how many games I actually completed in the dark DOS days before GameFAQs, but I diligently explored them all as thoroughly as I could, with a sense of wonder and excitement. Games got better, and my excitement only grew. It changed with Half-Life, a remarkable game that showed the world how cinematic and atmospheric the medium could be. The world, broadly, got the wrong end of the stick. ‘Games can be like films!’ The world decided. ‘We can script exactly what happens!’ The world decided. ‘We can play out whole scenes with digital actors just the way we want, and the player will happily stand there and watch!’ Not really, world. The player, in my case and the case of the legions of dicks like me, will beat your digital actors in the face with a crowbar six times for every word they speak. We’re not watching your expensively acted conversation, we’re punching the words ‘SHUT UP’ into the wall with bullet holes. Not everyone sat quietly through that long tram ride – people like me were crawling over the chairs in crouch mode and trying to stick their heads out of the windows. 
For the most part, Half-Life and its sequel did it right: you could always look wherever you wanted, and after the intro you were usually free to move. You generally couldn’t interact with the scripted sequences, but for logical reasons – they happened out of reach or behind glass. That subtlety was lost on its imitators, who’ve been progressively hobbling the player, smacking him around and locking his head in a vice more and more with each game since. Call of Duty is barely interactive now. I had to play one scene in Black Ops four or five times before I figured out what the game designer needed me to do for the game to progress without glitching. Another time you’re forced to put broken glass in someone’s mouth and punch him. And the Cuba level doesn’t even really need the player to be there, except as a camera dolly. I bore with Black Ops because I was reviewing it – when it’s my job, of course I’ll wade through any amount of bullshit to find out if it ever stops or gets better. But it doesn’t, it’s not alone, and it’s stuff like this that’s broken me. I don’t have Attention Deficit Disorder, designers – you do. Only one of us in this relationship is forcing the other to look at what they’re doing. We’re locked in a destructive cycle of dickification: I resent when you take control away from me, so I’m as much of a dick as the controls permit. You see dicks like me being dicks in your playtests, and you think of new ways to be bigger dicks back: to force me to watch your scenes, play out your script, follow your high-school reading level plot. Together, we have ruined mainstream videogames. And for my part, I’m sorry. The first thing you have to do in Bulletstorm is shoot at an unarmed man’s head while drunk, then kill him. ‘Hate’ is an awfully strong word to use about these things, but I hate the person who made me do that. I’d probably like them if I met them, but all I know right now is that they wanted everyone who played their game to belch in a man’s face while they murdered him. I have to do it, because Rich gave this game 85% (I hate him too), so I know there’s a good game beyond this. And I still love games, when I’m allowed to play them. 
It feels like six hours of bullshit – but it’s probably one – before the overscripting eases off and you finally get a decent weapon in Bulletstorm. And suddenly, it’s a game. It’s a fast, fun, vicious and inventive shooter with a magnificent visual imagination and an exciting sense of place. It’s exactly my kind of thing. But in a desperate, frantic attempt to engage disinterested jerks like me, it tried to shove its horrible characters, misjudged script and awkward on-rails sections down my throat before showing me what the game was really about. If it wasn’t for Rich’s review, I’d never have drudged through that miserable dross to the game I like beyond. I am an asshole, it’s true, but game designers are misunderstanding how to deal with that. You can never break through to us brute force – morons like me will always out-dick you. The fact that you disapprove of what we do with our freedom doesn’t mean you should give us less of it – it means you should give us more. Let us miss the odd pretty explosion or line of dialogue, and let us run on ahead. Let those of us who are itching to get to the game, get to the game. Once we do, we’ll still be assholes. But we’ll be assholes to our enemies, and we’ll enjoy it. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | How do you like your stealth? Dry or wet? Now you have the option to choose. Depth is a multiplayer stealth action game set in the ocean where you get to play as a shark and bite you friends online. Click more for a trailer announced at GDC and a bunch of screenshots.
The Depth Team have been busy developing their shark tech. As Alex Quick writes on the official website: “It was one of the most technically challenging and complex systems any of us have had the opportunity of developing in Unreal Engine. But now it’s finished, and we are overjoyed.” We’ll have more news on Depth as it’s announced. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Da Vinci Disappearance is a DLC pack for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood on consoles, but will be included as part of the PC version for free. It contains a campaign to rescue protagonist Ezio’s good friend, Leonardo Da Vinci, presumably by stabbing everyone in Rome until you find him. The trailer above focuses on the extra multiplayer modes and characters that come with the pack. The knight in shining armour is definitely in the running for the clankiest, most noticeable assassin of all time. Click more for the trailer.
[via Bluesnews] 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Valve have just announced Steam Guard, a new Steam and Steamworks feature, designed to provide increased account security for gamers. Click more for the details.
The new feature will allow users to link account management options to a specific machine; an extra measure to prevent unauthorised access. Steam Guard will also notify you if any PCs attempt to log in to your account. The feature will be available for third parties to use. Steam Guard will take advantage of upcoming Intel® Identity Protection Technology (Intel® IPT), an encrypted, hardware-based feature available with the new 2nd Generation Intel® CoreT and Intel® CoreT vProT processors. Valve’s president, Gabe Newell has said “”Account phishing and hijacking are our #1 support issues. With Intel’s IPT and Steam Guard, we’ve taken a big step towards giving customers the account security they need as they purchase more and more digital goods.” Valve are due to release Portal 2 on April 21 this year. The PS3 build will feature cross-platform play with PC, and Steamworks features. Sony’s console has suffered from a few serious security issues in the past few weeks, as reported on by our friends at CVG. 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speaking at GDC yesterday, Ben Cousens has revealed that Battlefield Play4Free cost a mere 10 to 15 percent of the upcoming Battlefield 3’s budget to develop, and that it’s already making a profit through microtransactions. Battlefield Play4Free is currently in beta, and has taken 600,000 signatures since testing began on November 30 last year. Players of Battlefield 1943, or either of the Battlefield: Bad Company games, will get access to the Beta on March 1. Followers of the official twitter feed and Facebook page will be able to play on April 4. The first footage of Battlefield 3 was released yesterday. I still do a little ooh-rah every time I watch it. Tom has been the Battlefield Play4Free beta. He’s not ooh-rahing quite so much. (via Gamasutra) 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The IGF awards ceremony took place last night at GDC, recognising the best new and forthcoming indie games. Minecraft was the obvious favourite to win the overall prize, which it did, but it wasn’t the clean sweep some expected. The Technical Excellence category was instead won by first-person horror Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Design went to low-fi 2D Rogue-like game Desktop Dungeons. Here’s the full list of winners and nominees, along with where you can play them or at least see them played.
Student Showcase Award 
Winner – FRACT
Demo | Trailer Nominees: - e7
- GLiD
- OctoDad
- PaperPlane
- Solace
- Tiny and Big
- Toys
Technical Excellence 
Winner – Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Demo | Trailer Nominees: - Confetti Carnival
- Miegakure
- Minecraft
- Neverdaunt:8Bit
Excellence In Design 
Winner – Desktop Dungeons
Full game | Trailer Nominees: - Faraway
- Minecraft
- Nidhogg
- Super Crate Box
Best Mobile Game 
Winner – Helsing's Fire
Site | Trailer Nominees: - Colorbind
- Halcyon
- Shot Shot Shoot
- Solipskier
Excellence In Visual Art 
Winner – Bit.Trip Runner
Site | Trailer
Nominees: - Bastion
- Cave Story (2010 Edition)
- The Dream Machine
- Hohokum
Excellence In Audio 
Winner – Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Demo | Trailer Nominees: - Bastion
- Bit.Trip Beat
- Cobalt
- Retro City Rampage
Audience Award 
Winner – Minecraft
Minecraft Classic (free-to play) | Site | 10 incredible Minecraft creations Direct2Drive Vision Award 
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Demo | Trailer
Nominees: - Flotilla
- Confetti Carnival
- Hazard: The Journey of Life
- NightSky
Nuovo Award
Winner – Nidhogg
Site | Trailer | PC Gamer UK Indie Special podcast – in which Tom and Graham discuss their Nidhogg duels.
Nominees: - Bohm
- Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now (B.U.T.T.O.N.)
- The Cat and the Coup
- Dinner Date
- Hazard: The Journey Of Life
- A House in California
- Loop Raccord
Seamus McNally Grand Prize 
Winner – Minecraft
Minecraft Classic (free-to play) | Site | 10 incredible Minecraft creations Runners up: - Amnesia: The Dark Descent
- Desktop Dungeons
- Nidhogg
- SpyParty
[thanks TIGsource] 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The new Mount and Blade with Fire and Sword expansion is adding guns, but it’s good to see that they won’t be replacing the good old fashioned horse charge. In a battle between fire and swords, you’d have thought the munitions would win out every time, but the 1654 setting means the guns are slow and inaccurate enough to still make for a fair fight. Some more in-game footage of the expansion in the second trailer below.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | That subtitle is ‘the third’. As in, Saints Row: The Third. That is all. [Source: Game Informer] 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | That subtitle is ‘the third’. As in, Saints Row: The Third. That is all. [Source: Game Informer] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | We’ve been catching up with Minecraft developer Notch and his fellow programmer Jakob Porser at GDC this week. The two have been elaborating on their current project: Scrolls – a collectable card game. The pair, whilst clearly excited about the game’s prospects, are being pretty realistic when it comes to the title’s success in comparison to Notch’s incredible hit Minecraft. Read on for the details. “I’m sure we will not have anything as close as viral to the success of Minecraft obviously, it’s whole other type of game,” said Porser. He even went so far as to say “I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people dissapointed in this game because it’s not a Minecraft kind of game.” But the threat of Scrolls being neither as virally successful nor as immediately embraced by the community still hasn’t put the two off trying out new ideas. “We get a lot of stuff right now because of Minecraft. It’s very important to remind ourselves that we’re here to do the games that we really love, and we really want to do ourselves” added Porser. For those who were hoping for another Minecraft though don’t be too disappointed; your wishes may be granted in the future. “We’ll probably do Minecraft 2, but [Scrolls] is a game I really want to make” explained Jakob. | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
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