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Ribbets of Magic

Jeremy Ford — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:31:45 +0000

"Hello darling, there's a party in my frog spawn, and you're invited"

Runes of Magic is currently celebrating it's 1st year anniversary with a daily giveaway for all characters this week. Log in daily and receive a random free item from the diamond shop in your backpack. Yesterday this included 100 free rubies, and this mornings additional freebie is the Lucky Frog pet. He'll follow you around like a loyal hound, while adding 10% to mob drops. Things wind up this weekend with triple XP and TP from all quests and mobs. read more »

When multi-tabling isn't enough!

Jeremy Ford — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:31:11 +0000

My passion for poker has taken a back seat for the last few months since I've been rediscovering the joys of PC gaming. But my deep routed gambling nerve centres jangled like spider senses after I heard about an interesting new Hold'em concept on Full Tilt. read more »

Speed, sir? PC racing games you ought to play

Chris Thornett — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:16:11 +0000

What’s this? It's a blog written by the fine people who read PCFormat magazine and the community regulars on our forums, game servers and Steam group.

By popular demand I give you a Roobarb on PC racing...

PC racing games, like Test Drive Unlimited, are great for screaming around public roads with workmates...

Racing games. They are the marmite of the gaming world. People either love or they hate them. To truly appreciate and enjoy racing games you need to enjoy racing, period, whether it’s Formula One, MotoGP or even Lawnmower Demolition Derby. If you can’t understand why people love to drive “round and round” in circles for “hours on end”, then you’re probably someone who wouldn’t appreciate a racing game. read more »

Just Cause 2: Exclusive interview

Henry Winchester — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:00:56 +0000

Mental chaos 'em up Just Cause 2 is making its way to the PC at the end of the month, and I managed to get a little hands-on time with the game and an interview with Avalanche Studios' Peter Johansson.The game is shaping up quite nicely, imagine Far Cry 2's open world with GTA IV's vehicular insanity. In my brief play-though I hijacked a helicopter, flew it over some mountains and then jumped out. It was bloody awesome. read more »

Streamline your services

Jeremy Ford — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:42:29 +0000

When it comes to improving the performance of Windows, there are a number of techniques which should help to reduce demand on the processor and generally speed up your PC. Programs that start automatically with Windows are the most well-known culprits leading to longer boot times, unnecessary memory use and a general reduction in performance; while these are fairly easily to manage, if you want to fully gain control of your rig, you’re going to have to delve a little deeper. read more »

Shattered Horizon: Free Weekend and Expansion Details

Henry Winchester — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:10:29 +0000

Futuremark is best known for software that lets you benchmark your uber-PC, and see if increasing your heatsink's fan speed by 0.5 RPM will make any difference to your performance. Futuremark's first venture into games was Shattered Horizon, which we kinda liked, if only for the fact that the notions of "floor" and "downwards" were moot points. read more »

Modern Warfare 2 party tonight!

Chris Thornett — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:04:20 +0000

Win a CM Storm mouse pad at our MW2 event tonight!

The PCFormat community is getting together for a Modern Warfare 2 party tonight starting at 8.30pm GMT. This will be led by forum veteran, [PCF]Falcs. If he's not on your Friends list then you'd better get an invite in for tonight.

If you fancy a chat while knifing each other, join the Team Speak 2 server - comms.lazeryattack.com:8769. The password is 'pcformat'.

Since Modern Warfare 2 has no dedicated server support, Falcs will be running a private match. We'll also be giving away a tidy Cooler Master Storm gaming mouse mat, during one of the games. Enjoy the splodes, people. read more »

Halo Legends - Hit or Myth?

Chris Thornett — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:37:42 +0000

The Babysitter – offers a fun change of perspective and stars a team of elite ODST drop-troopers who find themselves playing second-fiddle to a godlike SPARTAN.

PC Format was at the premiere of Halo Legends this week, but don't worry: if you missed out, the DVD goes on sale on the 15th. Is it the game to movie conversion we've been waiting for? Well... no. Actually, it's depressingly mediocre stuff for the most part. read more »

Fallout: New Vegas Trailer Breakdown

Henry Winchester — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:00:06 +0000

The trailer for the latest Fallout game has been released, and I've done a second-by-second breakdown of precisely what's happening, for easily-confused people. Like me. read more »

Secrets of Hard Disk Manufacture

Jeremy Ford — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:00:52 +0000

It's mind blowing the incredibly sophisticated processes involved in producing some of the everyday technology we take for granted. Until SSD becomes cheap and large enough for practical use, the good old hard drive will remain with us for the foreseeable future. It's reliable and cheap, just £40 gets you 500 GB of brand named storage. But even at this disposable price point, the work involved in engineering such a device is intensely complex and precise. PC Plus have turned this manufacturing process into a rather interesting 'hows it's made' article you can find here.

DLC fail?

Jeremy Ford — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:51:55 +0000

I really like Bioware games, in fact I love their games! Epic story telling, incredible attention to detail and the superbly balanced action and RPG elements. With Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 released within a hair's-breadth of each other - "Ambassador you are really spoiling us". read more »

Global Agenda - what you'll be paying your 7 squid for

Chris Thornett — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:11:15 +0000

The Conquest mode opened today for Global Agenda. This is the paid-for section of the new MMO shooter from Hi-Rez Studios, but for the next month it'll be free to those that have bought the game. This is where agencies (read guilds) can fight over territories in a month-long campaign. Word so far during the open beta is that Conquest needed a few safeguards to make it just a smidge less backstabby, as it turns out we all really quite devious. Fancy that.

Here's a nice little guide from Designer Scott Zier to whet your appetite for WORLD DOMINATION.

Hands on: Apple iPad review

Jeremy Ford — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:52:17 +0000

Is it basically a gigantic fancy iPhone without the phone bit, or is the iPad the future of portable computing? We'll let the sale figures decide it's fate. In the meantime Techradar had an opportunity to play with Apple's new gadget post Wednesday's the big announcement and published an early review of their first impressions. Check it out here: Hands on: Apple iPad review

Cities XL aint playing no more

Dave James — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:53:34 +0000

It looks like the online portion of last year's Cities XL isn't even going to last six months. Monte Cristo, the development team behind the flawed city builder, announced yesterday that it would be ceasing the online, Planet Offer, part of the game on the 8th March of this year. That's only five months after the game was originally released." read more »

Gaming as Art

Jeremy Ford — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:30:51 +0000

Whenever you got into gaming, we’re sure you were impressed by it at the time. It can be tough to remember, but over the last 30 years, we’ve moved from simple shapes floating around black screens pretending to be spaceships, all the way through simple sprites, full-screen cartoons, full-motion video and early experiments in 3D, and into blisteringly detailed virtual worlds that we can explore at will. read more »

50 Great Free Microsoft Apps

Jeremy Ford — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:20:21 +0000

Our chums across the way on PC Plus have just posted a mammoth feature on freebie software from both Microsoft and several third-party sources, neatly categorised under the following heading: Utilities, Makeover, Productivity, Web, and Entertainment. Check it out here.

Mysterious Brink stuff arrives, plus video

Henry Winchester — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:38:08 +0000

I received a rather ominous package in the office today: a long cardboard box. What could it be? A shotgun? A plutonium rod? The Classic Thermos Flask Collection 1960-1962, packed end-to-end? read more »

The not review of Global Agenda

Chris Thornett — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:14:47 +0000

Hello and welcome to the not review of Global Agenda. The game's not officially out until 1st February, but I’m playing the beta for PCFormat at the moment. The question I get asked a lot (after “Is it any good” and “Where did you get that cool OCP T-shirt from?”) is what kind of game is it? read more »

First-Person Tetris: get your head round this

Henry Winchester — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:47:10 +0000

Everyone loves Tetris, and royally screwing with their own brain. First-Person Tetris is the latest flash game to be inspired by the Russki GameBoy classic, and it adds a twist. LITERALLY! You'll have to play it to find out how it works, but it certainly is a neck-straining new dimension. We'd love an actual first-person Tetris in the Crysis engine, but this will have to do for now.

Airnergy

Jeremy Ford — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:53:12 +0000

I stumbled across this ingenious bit of technology that was showcased at this years CES. You may well have already heard of wireless energy transfer before, the concept of broadcasting radio signals that special receivers within electronic devices can convert into usable electric current. Airnergy is an even smarter idea we can use today to charge mobile devices. It is able to feed off standard Wi-Fi signals and harvest this energy to charge any mobile device you'd care to attach it too. read more »