Euxinus

Broken Age part one is due out on Tuesday, January 14 for backers of the game's Kickstarter (yes, all 87,142 of them), Double Fine confirmed to Joystiq. Broken Age is the result of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter campaign, which raised $3.3 ...

The BioShock movie isn't going to happen, but if it ever does, this is how it might look. Concept art from Hollywood illustrator Jim Martin depicts the underwater world of Rapture in BioShock, including grand, greenish cities and dank sewage tunnels. ...

Pedro Farré, ex-director de la SGAE que fue detenido por la guardia civil en 2011 por presunta participación en actividades de apropiación indebida gastó casi 40 mil euros invitando prostitutas usando la tarjeta corporativa a policías y guardias civiles durante sus épocas de lobbying al frente de la entidad de gestión colectiva.

Según informa El Confidencial, Pedro Farré cargó a las cuentas de la SGAE los gastos en clubes de alterne durante un periodo de siete meses, entre noviembre de 2008 y mayo de 2009; además, según los recibos, se invitó a policías nacionales y guardias civiles que mantenían relaciones profesionales con la entidad.

La forma en que se ha justificado los 40 mil euros en gastos en tres clubes de alterne para el como para sus invitados fue por medio de facturas entregadas al departamento de contabilidad de la SGAE que contaba de conceptos como «cena Brigada Policía Nacional», «catering seminarios CNP», «organización encuentros Policía» o «invitación 15 personas reunión Policía», con importes desde 1.000 hasta 3.000 euros

Para justificar los 40.000 euros que presuntamente gastó en esos tres clubes de alterne tanto en sí mismo como para agasajar a sus invitados, Farré entregó al departamento de contabilidad de la SGAE recibos en los que hacía constar conceptos como "cena Brigada Policía Nacional", "catering seminarios CNP (Cuerpo Nacional de Policía)", "organización encuentros Policía" o "invitación 15 personas reunión Policía". Los importes iban desde 1.000 hasta 3.000 euros diarios.

Pedro Farré era uno de los principales elementos de la supuesta lucha anti-piratería que desató la SGAE durante años a medida que el intercambio de archivos vía internet se fue popularizando por medio de redes P2P. Todo indica que, parte del proceso de lobbying con la Guardia Civil y la Policía Nacional para intentar criminalizar a quienes descargaban, era invitar prostitutas, con dinero que en realidad le correspondía a los autores.

The Consumer Electronics Show is happening in Las Vegas right now, which is a lot like E3 but full of televisions and Michael Bay instead of videogames. There is at least one thing there of interest to us, though: Valve have been revealing the first concrete details of their Steam Machine partners, including the 14 manufacturers currently making them and the specs and prices of some of those boxes.

Nathan is at the event and we’ll have interviews and impressions to share with you soon, but let’s round-up the news so far.
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We have all been burned by past Alien games and I would like us to maintain a healthy scepticism about Creative Assembly’s recently unveiled Alien: Isolation, which I went to see and play just before the turn of the year. With this in mind, I believe it an obligation, before we begin discussing this new threat, to observe a moment of silence in which we can all remember the brave souls we lost to the Colonial Marines disaster.

*an eerie hush envelopes the world as billions of people solemnly mute Spotify*

Thank you.

The good news is that, despite keeping that scepticism intact, my recent hands-on with Isolation has given me cause for hope. With luck (and no small amount of effort from the development team) we are a little closer to having an Alien game that actually captures the feel of the original movie.
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PC gamers, have you ever looked down at the mouse and keyboard in your hands and said to yourself (dramatically, with a single tear of regret rolling down your cheek), "no, this will not do"? Well, how about hacking a Wii U GamePad to stream games ...

Digital distribution channel GOG.com has pulled Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics from its virtual shelves. The decision is in regards to new IP owner Bethesda, which officially took over full franchise rights from Interplay as of January 1, ...

In 2013, next-gen consoles — previously the dominant fodder of the rumor mill — were announced and released. Many next-gen rumors turned out to be true — unpopular and confusing DRM policies were announced and reversed, launch titles were delayed, game resolutions differed. Yet these next-gen matters were not the only prominent rumors of the year.

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The Steam Machine is just a tiny PC designed to attach to your television, so when the gadget surgeons at iFixit pulled a beta Machine apart, they were unsurprised to find common components. Inside the Steam Machine - we stress that this is a beta ...

Finalmente, Valve ha dado inicio a una nueva oleada de ofertas y descuentos impresionantes en Steam, la plataforma de videojuegos en PC por excelencia. Esta vez por navidades de 2013.

Vuelve esa época del año donde todos los fanáticos de los videojuegos tememos por nuestras vidas, o mejor dicho, por nuestras billeteras. Steam comienza una nueva oleada de rebajas y ofertas realmente imperdibles, en títulos de todo su catálogo, con especiales cada día y cada ocho horas, para que nadie, absolutamente nadie, deje de comprar algunos grandes títulos con rebajas desde el 33% hasta el 90% de descuento en algunos afortunados casos.

Y es que las ofertas se dividen en cuatro formas: la primera, ofertas "normales" en casi todo el catálogo de juegos que siempre están allí; la segunda mediante "ofertas especiales diarias" que cada 24 horas ofrecen descuentos especiales en nueve títulos; la tercera mediante "ofertas flash" que cada 8 horas ofrece cuatro títulos con descuentos impresionantes; y la cuarta y última forma, mediante la "elección de la comunidad", a través de la cual someten a votación tres títulos cada ocho horas, y el ganador será ofrecido como una rebaja especial.

Así, esto es sencillamente una locura de ofertas y rebajas de todo tipo. Y el día de hoy, el listado abre esta nueva tanda de ofertas de una forma muy atractiva:

• Dishonored - 7.49 dólares (75% de descuento)
• Monaco - 5.99 dólares (60% de descuento)
• Batman Arkham Origins - 24.99 dólares (50% de descuento)
• Dead Island GOTY - 4.99 dólares (75% de descuento)
• BioShock Infinite - 9.99 dólares (75% de descuento)
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - 19.99 dólares (33% de descuento)
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - 3.74 dólares (75% de descuento)
• Divekick - 2.49 dólares (75% de descuento)
• The Stanley Parable - 8.99 dólares (40% de descuento)

Títulos para todos los gustos y preferencias, desde juegos indies a grandes juegos AAA como el más reciente Batman: Arkham Origins o BioShock Infinite. Además, hoy debuta para PC el Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance de Konami, y lo hace con 33% de descuento.

Puedes adquirir cualquiera de estos juegos, y estar pendiente de nuevos descuentos desde hoy al 3 de enero de 2014 en la web oficial de Steam. Y alabado sea Gabe Newell.

Plenty of people try to pull fast ones on the general gaming populace. Very few of them sit down for a pleasant fireside chat afterward. And yet, that’s exactly what the disappointment wizard behind infamous Fallout 4 “teaser” site Survivor 2299 did in the wake of a freshly canceled hoax campaign. Going by the name DCHoaxer on Reddit, he hosted an AMA that revealed why he did it, how much it cost ($990!), and what it was originally going to culminate in (a full-blown CG trailer). Hoaxcrafters and pranksters the world over, meet your new god.

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Browncoats rejoice! Joss Whedon's space Western Firefly may never return to television, but the 'verse goes on. And soon, you'll be able to have a ship and crew of your own, when Firefly Online launches for the PC and Mac. We've got an exclusive first look at the ships, the guns, the characters and more.

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As the headline says, three Fallout games for free. GO AND GET THEM. These isometric beauties will vanish from GOG at the end of the year. The DRM-free store doesn’t reckon it’ll be allowed to peddle them after year’s end as the current deal with Interplay will expire. After December 31st, the rights belong to Bethesda/ZeniMax. However, the magic of GOG means that if you add the free versions to your account in the next 47 hours (I’m an hour late with this post – SORRY), you’ll be able to keep a copy forever. Go go go.

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Do you want to know almost everything ever about Obsidian’s newly renamed Kickstarter opus, Pillars of Eternity? Then click that link for impressions and more new information than you can shake a stick of truth at. But still, somehow, thousands of words later, there is more. What follows is an interview snippet concerning Eternity’s development progress, what’s been left on the cutting room floor, the game’s size/scope, party members, and of course, the Dungeoniest Dungeon To Ever Done Dungeon A Dungeon.

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…DAHN DAHN DAHN…. April 4, 2014. There, look, I know was a big old tease in the headline but at least I didn’t make you wait long, did I? 4/4/14 is indeed the release date for Bethesda’s MMO adaptation of The Elder Scrolls RPG series, and that’s for PC and Mac – next Jennifer systems will follow in June.

Here’s a PVP trailer, too.
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The first round of 300 beta Steam Machines and controllers ship out on Friday, December 13, Valve announced. Selected beta testers will be notified today around 5PM ET. These anointed ones will find a few games running on SteamOS in their libraries and badges on their Steam profiles marking them as participants.

SteamOS will go live once the hardware ships on Friday, downloadable by individual users and commercial OEMs. Additionally, the in-home streaming beta will begin soon, Valve notes.

Steam Machines are due to ship commercially in 2014. Expect more information about Valve's hardware initiative at CES in January.

Steam Machines ship to beta participants on Friday originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember: This is a video game adaptation of a movie based on the popular toy series, not one of the many video game adaptations based on licensed properties as filtered through the lens of the popular toy series. It still has Batman, though.

Continue reading Elijah Wood joins the cast of Broken Age, first half coming in January

Elijah Wood joins the cast of Broken Age, first half coming in January originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 07 Dec 2013 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For the last nine months, a team of four at Hello Games has been working hard on something called "Project Skyscraper," which we now know as No Man's Sky - the upcoming first-person sci-fi exploration game revealed during the VGX video game awards show this past weekend.

It was one of the bigger, more interesting, surprises of the show. And Hello Games managing director Sean Murray is quite ecstatic to be able to finally talk about the studio's ambitious new universe.

Continue reading No Man's Sky is a sci-fi exploration roguelike in a consistent universe

No Man's Sky is a sci-fi exploration roguelike in a consistent universe originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 09 Dec 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Writer Zack Whedon has spilled the beans on where the crew of the Serenity will find themselves when Dark Horse releases the sequel comic, subtitled Leaves in the Wind, this January: the crew is on the run (of course), the Alliance is still in charge, Jayne is missing, and Zoe is pregnant. BABY WASH, PEOPLE.

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Broken Age, the crowdfunded adventure game from Double Fine, has announced a few more key members of its vocal cast. Most notably former Wesley Crusher and current geek celebrity Wil Wheaton.

When Broken Age eventually debuts, Wheaton's voice will be spilling from Curtis the Lumberjack, a character originally created to test animations, but who found such affection among fans that he earned a full-fledged spot in the game. This situation would seem odd, but Double Fine is headed by Tim Schafer of Secret of Monkey Island fame, a game whose main protagonist derives his name from a placeholder brush used to animate the piratical adventure-comedy.

Rounding out the vocal cast are veteran actors Masasa Moyo, Nicki Rapp and Ginny Wescott. You'd best know Moyo as the voice of Lisa (aka "La Mariposa") in later Dead or Alive entries, while Rapp and Wescott have both previously worked with Schafer on classics like Psychonauts and Day of the Tentacle, respectively.

Unexpectedly, Alex Rigopulos, co-founder of Harmonix, also appears in the game as some version of his own notoriously music-obsessed self. It's unclear why or how he fits into the story, but it probably doesn't hurt things that Rigopulos has donated a lot of money toward the funding of Broken Age.

Wil Wheaton lends vocals to Double Fine's Broken Age originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I quite liked Eldritch, that recent coupling of Minecraft and Spelunky and gravitas-free Lovecraft, and I assure you that I use ‘quite’ in a positive sense rather than a back-handed compliment sense. It’s a ‘hey let’s just do this’ sort of game, a hearty gasp of an idea that coalesced into something brief but satisfying. It did feel a bit content-thin though, and I assure you I use ‘thin’ in a ‘not quite enough’ sense rather than ‘oh my, how svelte!’ one. So I’m glad to hear about that an expansion, Mountains of Madness, is en route, and that it is Sinister Christmas-themed.
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Skywind is a mod that brings Morrowind into the Skyrim engine. It’s like someone at Bethesda took the Morrowind and Skyrim design documents and riffle shuffled them as a party trick, and then forgot to unshuffle them. Somehow–probably through a montage–those files ended up with modders. A less tired Craig would probably recount that montage, but that show-off wasn’t up late playing Starbound and eating takeaway, so you just get facts and trailers. The last time I reported on Skywind, it was just an empty world. You could run around, but you could not do anything, but more recent updates have begun the task of integrating people, monsters, and quests. Which means it might be worth installing. There’s a wee video to demonstrate some of that work.
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Valve continúa apostando con mucha fuerza por el software libre, y unirse a la fundación Linux es solo un paso más hacia su meta de contar con un sistema totalmente independiente y basado únicamente en los videojuegos. Así es el futuro de los juegos en PC.

En los últimos dos años hemos visto cómo Valve, empresa reconocida por haber creado algunas de las franquicias de videojuegos para PC más populares de los últimos años (como Counter-Strike, Portal o Half-Life, por solo mencionar algunas) y claro, por ser "padres" de Steam, la plataforma por excelencia de videojuegos en PC, realizaba algunos anuncios y movimientos un tanto peculiares y en gran parte inesperados. Gabe Newell, padre y señor de Valve, apostaba por el software libre para el futuro de su plataforma, y esto parece querer cambiarlo todo.

Valve sigue afianzando su compromiso con LinuxY es que debe entenderse la importancia del anuncio de Valve en que Steam llegaría a Linux (y ya ha llegado). Esto abrió un mundo de posibilidades que en general logran que la plataforma de videojuegos pueda ser mucho más que una "simple" aplicación, pasa a ser un ecosistema, e incluso, un sistema operativo completo e independiente.

Por ello el hecho de que Valve se una a la Fundación Linux no nos toma por sorpresa, dado que es otro movimiento más que esperado. Con ello, la casa de Steam nos asegura que "va por todas" en relación al software libre:

El que nos hayamos unido a la Fundación Linux es solo otra forma con la que nos comprometemos e invertimos en el avance de los videojuegos en Linux.

El responsable del equipo responsable de Linux en Valve, Mike Sartain, ha mencionado esas palabras como parte de su comunicado oficial al anunciar la unión de su empresa a la fundación mencionada. Además, asegura que con esto, y en general con todos sus esfuerzos en el campo, lograrán tres importantísimos objetivos:

• Contribuir con la creación de nuevas herramientas para desarrolladores, para crear nuevas experiencias en Linux
• Ofrecer una plataforma elegante y abierta a los usuarios (nuevos y viejos) de Linux
• Obligar a los fabricantes a que den prioridad e importancia al soporte en Linux

Y sobre todo, el último punto es más que importante y relevante, ya que asegura que los jugadores que prefieran el software libre sobre un sistema como Windows u OS X, podrán tener "soporte asegurado" en cuanto a hardware, dado que de los juegos se encargan Valve y los desarrolladores. Y vamos, hoy por hoy el catálogo de títulos de Steam disponible en Linux casi alcanza los 300.

Así que, ¿por qué hablo de que esto podría ser el futuro de los videojuegos en PC? No es primera vez que hago una afirmación de este tipo, y me baso en una sola cosa muy importante: no tiene nada que ver con Windows, con OS X, con "odio a sistemas privativos y cerrados", ni ninguno de esos extremismos que muchos amantes del software libre tienen. No, la razón es porque un sistema como SteamOS puede revolucionar el mundo de los videojuegos, al ser un sistema operativo hecho y derecho dedicado únicamente a los juegos.

Ya no será necesario instalar una aplicación sobre un sistema, sino que todo el sistema funcionaría con base en los videojuegos y esto ofrece grandes beneficios a futuro.

Hello youse.

And hello news! I haven’t done a news update in a while, so before I give you your shopping list next week, let’s take a look at everything that’s shaking down in the great old world of boardgames. I know what you’re thinking. “There can’t possibly be more news! There was news just a couple of months ago!” And there was a time when, yeah, you’d have been right. But we’re in the middle of a- Oh, let’s continue this after you click the thingy to read more of this after the thingy.
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