All Features

65 things that look like Pac-Man (Pac-Man - Xbox Live Arcade)

Jun 28, 2008

Pac-Man's got to be right up there with Mario as one of the most recognisable videogame characters of all time. And because his basic design is simple, you can see him everywhere. Whenever you take a slice of pizza or cut a segment from a cake, he's there. Then the noise starts to go in your head: waka waka waka waka waka ...

EXCLUSIVE REVEAL of PAIN'S Abusement Park level (PAIN - PS3 Network)

Jul 7, 2008

It's been a good eight months since the anarchic, Jackass-inspired destruction-porn game PAIN hit the PlayStation Network, and the game is finally getting a second level. The good news is that the game's new playground - a massive, working indoor carnival called Abusement Park - is bigger, brighter and offers many more opportunities for bone-crunching hilarity than its predecessor. It'll also be released alongside two new characters (who we ...

Painkiller (Painkiller)

Jan 8, 2004

Believe it or not, there are PC shooters out this year that aren't called Half-Life 2 or Doom III. And leading the way in non-sequel action-based FPSers is the intriguingly-titled Painkiller, currently nearing the end of development by Polish coders People Can Fly. We visited them in the somewhat chilly climes of Warsaw to see how the game is progressing and to play through the first few levels.The game marks a return to the roots of FPSing: pure, arcade-style blasting, with nary a whiff of ...

Pariah hands-on (Pariah)

Feb 23, 2005

At first glance Pariah's "Can You Survive?" tagline seems inconspicuous enough and, considering the primary objective of any first-person shooter is one of self-preservation, perhaps just a tad unimaginative.But during a hands-on session with the game in the company of its Canadian developers, Digital Extremes, we discovered that there was a much deeper meaning to those three little words.Set on Earth in the far away future of 2520, players will assume the role of Jack Mason, a down-on-his-luck ...

Pariah (Pariah)

Jan 20, 2005

After the huge success of the Unreal series, Digital Extremes have a lot to live up to with their latest first-person shooter Pariah. Especially when claims of an immersive storyline penned by Hollywood writers, compelling first-person action and the ultimate multiplayer experience are bandied about. We talked to James Schmalz, founder and creative director of Digital Extremes, to get the full, gory details: upgradeable weapons, multiplayer map editing... and just what's happening with that PS2 ...

Hardcore Gaming Crimes (PC)

Jul 24, 2008

If you asked me if I was a hardcore gamer, I’d say yes. I wouldn’t even pause to think about it. Not only did I find a way to take my passion for videogaming and turn it into a damned good career, but I still find time almost every day to play a videogame, even when I’m in crunch (like I am as I write this—what made me think I could pony up 600 words to the PC Gamer slavedrivers editors two weeks before the Spore ...

365 days of free games (PC)

Jul 21, 2008

Summer is all about free time (at least when you haven’t joined the rat race just yet), and what better way to fill free time than with free games? ...

E3 08: Best (and worst) trailers (PC)

Jul 18, 2008

While there’s plenty of griping around the internets about a piss-poor E3’s boring press conferences and lack of big announcements, we saw plenty of great trailers for great games that we can’t wait to play. ...

X-Plane Times Nine (PC)

Jul 17, 2008

Austin Meyer’s X-Plane franchise has been airborne for almost a decade and a half and, despite ongoing predictions of its imminent demise, the indie flight sim continues to evolve and expand. Now up to version nine, this stubbornly autonomous product plies an ambitious new route with some imaginative aircraft and a whopping 60 gigabytes of global scenery.Yeah, you read that right. The latest version ships on six DVDs that can ...

Strategy you can't buy (PC)

Jul 16, 2008

The hottest trend in PC gaming these days is high-quality free-to-play games that make their revenue from advertising or microtransactions (players buying low-priced in-game items or currency), instead of a retail price tag. Right now, you can download and play free MMORPGs like Sword of the New World and Requiem: Bloodymare, and EA is gearing up for a bold experiment in free-to-play shooters with Battlefield Heroes. (You can also play the ...

Dead or alive (PC)

Jul 15, 2008

Games for Windows LIVE, in case you didn’t know, is Microsoft’s online gaming service, a single multiplayer platform across which all of their games may eventually run. Israeli tech news website NGOHQ.com is one of the service’s most notable doubters, having set up a petition to boycott the thing outright. ...

The End of ALT+TAB (PC)

Jul 15, 2008

It’s as if it weren’t bad enough being abandoned in World of Warcraft by a guild member tending to pedestrian concerns like using the bathroom or a baby. Now, thanks to a new game overlay called PlayXpert, you’ll be competing for attention with Facebook, AOL Instant Messenger, iTunes, and potentially any other PC application, all accessible without ever leaving the game.But it doesn’t stop with World of Warcraft. ...

Open Source Shoot-Em-Up (PC)

Jul 9, 2008

I’ve been hard on shooter modding recently, for one big reason: lack of a show-stopper game that everybody who’s anybody is modding. Like the summer hit single that you can’t get out of your head (even if you hate the damned thing—I’m looking at you, “Soak Up The Sun”), there’s something alluring about being in a moment when everyone is on the same wavelength.But lately, I’m also starting ...

Wii: Official console of babes? (PC)

Jul 9, 2008

Wii is the ultimate family console. Isn't it? With its waggle-tech, Nintendo has indeed managed to attract both genders, all ages and both hardcore and casual gamers to its little white box (with varying levels of satisfaction from each). But we have a question. If it's so 'family-friendly', why does it have so smut attached to it? It may not be the hardcore gamers' console of choice, but it's certainly the softcore aficionado's ...

Genre Blender (PC)

Jul 3, 2008

I may be PC Gamer’s “first-person shooter guy,” but I actually love playing all kinds of PC (and yes, even console) games. And in reality, the definition of “shooters” is rapidly evolving. When making gaming recommendations to friends, I find it increasingly difficult to pigeonhole games into clear-cut genres. Readers looking to embrace the genre commonly ask me which shooter to try out...but that’s a loaded ...

Pokemon invade Spore (PC)

Jul 1, 2008

Over a million creatures have been uploaded to the Sporepedia since Spore’s Creature Creator was released. But now that the novelty of dancing phalluses and bouncing boob-a-licious breasts have died down, many players seem to be focusing their energies on the important stuff: recreating freaky Pokemon clones to conquer the galaxy with. ...

Kevin Unangst talks up Games for Windows (PC)

Jun 26, 2008

An “open-letter” email from John Schappert -- a corporate vice president from Microsoft we hadn’t heard of until now -- kicked off Microsoft’s “Big Picture” event on June 25 in San Francisco intended to showcase a slew of new Games for Windows games. The email cited, among other things, the “continued success with the Games for Windows branding initiative, which adds prominence, a quality and ...

Alienware Area-51 M15X (PC)

Jun 26, 2008

You may have missed the fly-by of the m9750 or crouched in a bunker as the enormous m17x passed overhead, but the invasion continues with the Area-51 m15x notebook. And while no one should be surprised to find that this new craft bears better technology and even more advanced design than its predecessors, intense scrutiny reveals crucial and devastating weaknesses in the newest descendent from the Alienware mothership.Despite its modest ...

Forget NASCAR - there’s a new stocker in town (PC)

Jun 19, 2008

The demise of the Papyrus Design Group in 2003—and the subsequent orphaning of its seminal NASCAR Racing 2003 Season simulation—marked the end of a decade-long love affair between PC racing fans and the sport of stock car racing. Papyrus pampered us for years with its wonderfully crafted NASCAR titles, and though modders and competing developers struggled to produce alternatives, the writing was on the wall. The rolling thunder of ...

Massive for nothing (PC)

Jun 18, 2008

In just a few years, the world of free MMOs has grown from a 2D ghetto of suspicious foreign ZIP files into a full-fledged gaming subgenre of international scale. Yet it’s still a wild, ungoverned field, with far-flung nations like Korea and Malaysia flooding the web with more and more no-fee games every day - many of which are archaic, incomprehensible, or just plain bad. ...