Dota 2 will have LAN mode

Some exciting news for change in the PC gaming field! In an interview with joinDOTA.com, Valve's Erik Johnson confirmed that Dota 2 will indeed have a LAN mode.

This comes to me as a kind of surprise, really. I was fully waiting Dota 2 to be a freemium game with matchmaking and such, ala League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. Instead, Valve has showed that they really listen to their fans and implement changes that get requested. This is big news in some cases, like Offline Tournaments and net cafes. I can only applaud to Valve on this issue, excellent work on their part.

There's also other interesting tidbits in the interview, like that the next international they will be helding, will have bigger than last time's $1.6 Million USD prize pool. Alas, but still no answer about the pricing model and in-game store.

Are you guys excited of this game? Got the beta key already?

Mass Effect 3 gone gold

Alright, looks like it is official! Casey Hudson, the Executive Producer of Mass Effect, just tweeted that ME3 has gone gold.

For those of you who don't know, when a game goes gold, it means that the developers have finished the game and they have started copying the master disc. This disc used to gold-plated, hence the name.

So, we shouldn't wait for long for the edition of the ME series! Are you guys excited? I am, I really enjoyed the previous ones. I gotta find my save somewhere...

FoV in PC Games

Couldn't have said it any better. TotalBiscuit uploaded a new video today, about Field of View in PC games.

The problem with FoV is that most modern PC games only allow up to 60, which is certainly not enough! Maybe for consoles, but definitely not for PC. Most developers dismiss user-configurable as being technically challenging, but many utilities exist where the scripters have enabled different FoV in PC games that do not support it. I think the real reason is just the laziness of developers and lack of respect of PC as a gaming platform...

OnLive: It actually works!

Hey guys!

First of all, sorry for being late on the posts, been really busy lately. Had a business trip and was away for 6 days. But, now I am back and starting the daily posts again!

Alright, so something I tried last week was OnLive. Those who don't know, OnLive is a web service, where the games are streamed on remote machines by OnLive and you can play those almost lag-free. So all the computing and graphics is done at OnLive HQ. That means that your computer does not have to be powerful to play latest games, so a netbook is okay, and they even have a iPad app.

The biggest concern what I had with it was the lag. I heard that the nearest HQ to me would be in UK (I am in Finland), so I was bit worried of the lag. But surprisingly, the lag was not a issue! Sure, there is a slight input lag, but otherwise, I played it for several hours and got no serious lag.

There are couple of things I like about the service. One of them is that you can "demo" almost all of the games. What this means is that you can play 30 minutes of the game (the real deal!). In 30 minutes you get a pretty good view of the game in my opinion. Also what I like is the Arena. There, you can jump in on anybody playing a game on the service and almost instantly can start streaming. Awesome!

The resolution of all games is 720p, which is not that good honestly. Also the stream is a bit compressed, so you get some artifacts.

In the end, I would recommend this service to anybody not that serious to gaming. You can play some fun games here and there and you don't need the latest machine for that. But don't play competitively on this service, oh no.

Anybody got experience on this service?

Nintendo to launch WiiU before year end

Reuters is writing that Nintendo is going to launch Wii successor in key markets for year end. This is exciting news, I for one cannot wait for it! I feel like Nintendo is finally listening to it's hardcore supporters and gives them exactly what they want. I got to admit though, that I am a gadget freak, so out of the ordinary controllers are exactly something I get hyped over.

So, what do you guys think about WiiU? Is it enough to beat Microsoft and Sony? Do you believe that the controller and hardware is enough?

Zynga accused of ripping off a canadian iOS game

This image has received quite the raging today on the internet. In it, Zynga is accused of ripping off "Tiny Tower" in their new game "Dream Heights" from a small canadian developer team called Nimblebit.

Look guys, this is a bit harsh way of saying it, but tough shit. This is exactly what Zynga does. This is not new to them! They copy what their competitors have done and (try to) make it success.

Like Farmville, the game that Zynga is famous for, is it an original game? Of course not. Hell, even their CEO told their employees to just copy the games. And let's face it guys, you didn't really invent tower building games (SimTower anyone?)

Sorry guys, it sucks that it happens, but that's all. Don't make a big deal out of it.

Rocksteady's next game to be TMNT?

Heard an awesome rumor today! Rocksteady Studios (the guys behind Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City) are rumored to be developing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game! That is absolutely an astounding rumor!

I have been a huge fan of TMNT for a long time, I have fond of memories of watching the Saturday morning cartoons long, long time ago. Rocksteady has been doing an amazing job with the Batham franchise, the Arkham games have been entertaining and high quality. We'll see what they are gonna come up with the TMNT franchise. More details about the upcoming game in the blog post.

Elevator: Source - a HL2 mod

So today I stumbled into a bit weird of a mod for Half-Life 2 called Elevator: Source by PixelTail Games. It is marketed as a single or co-op "elevator experience". What this means, is that the whole mod is based on an elevator, which takes you to 28 unique floors. And oh man, it is quite a journey!

Below is a video of a group playing it for 45 minutes. I know it sounds long, but I have short attention span and for some reason I just had to watch the whole thing!

You can download the mod on the project's website or ModDB. Please note that you will HL2: Episode Two and Garry's Mod 10 and up.

Red Eclipse - Free Multiplatform FPS

Today I learned about a new free (open source!) FPS called Red Eclipse. It's based on Cube 2-engine and features a dozen weapons, over 30 maps and it looks pretty damn awesome (getting some Halo-vibes from this)!

Red Eclipse 1.2

They have just released a new version 1.2, named "Cosmic Edition". Weirdly though, I can't find any changelog for the releases.

Having played it for a while, I must admit that it is good fun! Not that many players currently though, but all the servers with players have been really cool! I certainly recommend that everyone tries this game, being free and multiplatform (PC/Mac/Linux). And since it's based on Cube 2, it has pretty low system requirements and should be running on all kinds of hardware.

Anybody else have thoughts about this game?

3 games made in Blender, for Linux

http://www.techdrivein.com/2012/01/3-nice-blender-made-games-for-linux.html

These are awesome! I haven't heard about these yet. Linux sure can use as many games as possible.

I have tried some Blender, and the fact that some people have made a full game with it? Jesus, hats off to them.