PC Gamer

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag screenshots show lush jungles, lush beards

As revealed earlier this week, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is a very real thing. Hot on the sails of the popular naval battles from Assassin’s Creed 3, Black Flag charts the high-seas adventures of Connor’s grand-sire Edward Kenway and his time moonlighting as a member of the assassin order while leading a pirate crew. Ubisoft’s latest trove of screenshots shows more glimpses at plunder-prone tropical locales (including a couple concept art sketches), Kenway’s totally non-compensating arsenal, and a frozen moment from a full broadside. We’ve also got more info and shots for all you landlubbers in our preview.

Age of Empires 2: HD to launch with improved visuals, Steam Workshop on April 9

The rumors were true. Age of Empires II HD (which includes the content from the Conquerors expansion) is coming to Steam in April. And it’s been aged up to the Modern Era (courtesy of Hidden Path Entertainment), with a host of tweaks and new features. We’ve got more details and a graphical comparison below.

Diablo 3 team plans to tweak Legendary/Rare items, further de-emphasize auction house

When we last checked in with Blizzard about the state of Diablo 3, a great cheer went up across Sanctuary as it put forth the clear goal to move away from auction house farming as a core mechanic. A new dev blog has just rolled off of the brimstone-scented presses, further detailing these plans, as well as some potential solutions to Rare and Legendary items that should make fewer of them seem like more trash with a differently-colored name.

Thermaltake outs a 3rd Gen Beemer-inspired headset – cue expensive gaming audio…

Thermaltake’s collaboration with the BMW DesignworksUSA team has generally meant for expensive PC gaming peripherals with an emphasis on style over content. I’m hoping that the same isn’t true for the third generation of Beemer designed goodies, this time a Level 10 M Headset.

The first generation was the Level 10 chassis – a case which looked pretty good until you got up close or tried installing an actual PC inside it. The partitioned component areas looked funky, in an oversized PlayStation 2 kind of way, but meant your expensive PC gubbins got real hot, real quick.

No Time To Explain review

There’s a fine line between challenge and frustration. Behind it, I hope there’s a firing squad with their guns aimed right at No Time To Explain’s evil mole boss’s grinning face. It’s a platformer that should be great fun: chaotic and endlessly varied. None of it matters though, thanks to a descent into platform hell that’s unfit to lick the gristle from Super Meat Boy’s toenails.

Planetary Annihilation screenshots show buildings, units, unit cannon

A bunch of early Planetary Annihilation screenshots have popped up on the Planetary Annihilation blog, showing a wide selection of prototype building and unit designs (thanks, PCGamesN). Uber Entertainment count a number of Gas Powered Games and Cavedog veterans among their number, so some of the models will look quite famliar to Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander players.

We have played those games rather a lot, so we gathered round an office screen and nerd out over an aerial overview, trying to identify and label every structure and robot. I’ve scribbled our guesses all over one of the screenshots below. How close were we?

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger teaser shows the Wild West’s reflective side

Fans of the Wild West will know there were two prominent activities of the time: shooting things, and reminiscing about that time when you shot some things, usually while using metaphors more tortured than a buffalo in a field of cacti. This teaser video for Call of Juarez: Gunfighter is very much the latter, as narrator Silas Greaves talks about the various legends he’s buried.

SimCity getting additional server capacity and maintenance as players struggle to connect

Update 2: The patch notes for SimCity’s latest update reveals Maxis disabled Cheetah speed in an effort to combat server performance issues. Hit the jump for the notes and a response from EA regarding the change’s duration.

Update: A new forum post from Maxis’ community manager reveals that “non-critical” game features, including leaderboards, achievements and region filters, are to be disabled in an effort to reduce server load.

“We are continuing to do everything we can to address the server issues. In the meantime, so that we can give you as good an experience as possible, we are in the process of deploying a hotfix to all servers. This includes various improvements and also disables a few non-critical gameplay features (leaderboards, achievements and region filters). Disabling these features will in no way affect your core gameplay experience.

“We will continue to let you know as we have more information. We know it has been said before, but we do appreciate your patience as we complete this latest update. Getting you playing is our absolute highest priority.”

Original story: Despite reassurances that Origin would be ready for SimCity’s international launch, players are still experience connection troubles as the game releases in more countries worldwide. Following yesterday’s Australian launch, players are reporting delays with Oceanic servers. In a statement on the SimCity Facebook page, EA say they hope to reduce server traffic by “aggressively undergoing maintenance on the servers and adding capacity to meet demand.”

Petroglyph announce Victory – a squad-based battle arena, with tanks

With development of troubled MMORTS End of Nations now in the hands of Trion Worlds, former developers Petroglyph have returned with Victory. To be clear, Victory is their triumphantly named Kickstarter hopeful, not (yet) a statement of success. It’s an action strategy game that unfolds in real-time, but Petroglyph are saying it’s not an RTS. At least, not in the way that you’d traditional think of the genre.

To The Moon gets a follow-up in the form of A Bird Story, starring a boy and his bird

Everybody knows that the bird is the word, so it’s a little surprising to hear that To The Moon creator Kan Gao (AKA The Crymaster General) is making a follow-up with “essentially no dialogues throughout”. A short semi-sequel to the emotive To The Moon, A Bird Story takes place within the same universe, featuring a new character (the boy) who will go on to appear in episode two of the memory-spelunking adventure series. So far, Gao has revealed a few images and the title screen music, which – blimey, you’re not welling up already, are you?