New Vegas: Malcolm the Molerat

Yes, that is a Molerat with a lawn chair attached to it's back, and yes, you can ride it. His name is Malcolm.

I wasn't really planning to post a lot about mods on this blog, with just the Fallout games and Oblivion alone, there is a metric ton of them. Plenty I've used myself too. But this one looked extra special!

Getting around the Mojave Desert can be a pain in the ass, that's where Malcolm comes in to help. He can be ordered around, carry your stuff and mostly importantly, used as a mount at 150% of your normal speed. Wow the ladies today!

You can find more screenshots here.

Also, bonus funny Fallout: New Vegas video:

Portal 2 Soundboard

It's pretty early in the year but so far I can easily say that Portal 2 is probably near the top of my list of  'Awesome games', it's hard to deny how fun the game-play and characters are. However, if you haven't played it... Stop looking at this and go play it. This contains spoilers.

More importantly though, if you've been longing for the ramblings of Wheatly, Cave Johnson or any of the characters, look no further.

This Portal 2 soundboard is a collection of lines from the game files - even some you didn't hear in the game! Again, if you haven't played the game, don't click the link. Go play it first!

Enjoy!

Trailer for fun:

An Interview with Gabe Newell

 

Came across this today, thought it would be an interesting share for anyone that likes the behind the scenes type stuff. This is an interview with Gabe Newell of Valve Software (Half Life, Portal and the Left 4 Dead series' if you didn't know.)

The questions asked:

1. What is Valve up to these days?

2. With the addition of STEAM to the PSN is Valve planning on shifting development focus to consoles or are you going to remain developing games primarily for the PC?

3. How does Valve plan on differentiating the game from the very popular "League of Legends"?

4. How does micro transactions affect the future of Valve's business model?

5. Do you still plan on making single player games? (dispelling a rumour)

6. Do you ever get a chance to play games for fun anymore? If so, what games are you playing?

7. Do you plan on deviating from SOURCE or do you plan on indefinitely updating the current engine?

8. What games in the last decade do you believe have improved the gaming industry?

9. Will Chell from Portal and Gordon Freeman from HL be meeting?

10. Why are some of your most famous protagonists silent? How do you feel this affects the games as a whole?

11. What advice would you give to somebody aspiring to get into the gaming industry?

12. I read that you collect knives. How many knives do you own? What do you like about them?

13. What was your favorite game to work on?

How Gamers Helped Aid Japan

On Friday the 11th of March this year, Japan was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake and the after effects, needless to say, were extremely destructive. This date marked one of the greatest natural disasters in history. In an effort to support those affected by the devastation, a few game developers set up a way for you to donate through your favourite games.

Having a look back, I wondered how much those games raised to aid Japan because of gamers who wanted to help, and if there were any other games I missed out on - the results were impressive!

Team Fortress 2 players managed to raise $430,543.65 in the space of two weeks through buying unique hats that Valve put on sale for that time. There were three hats in total, all limited edition!

Extralives.org hosted a 37 hour Minecraft marathon that they put together very quickly in an effort to raise money as soon as possible. They managed to raise $9,099.33 through their stream and offering people slots on the server they were playing on.

Over 50,000 summoners participated in Riot games efforts, raising over $160,000 through the purchase of  the champion Akali and her nurse skin in League of Legends.

Play for Japan have raised money in a slightly different way, but are still very worth a mention.  As of the 28/4/2011 they've raised $116,941 by auctioning rare and unique gaming items, usually signed by game devs too. My favourite item sold has to be the Guitar played by Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka.



There have probably been even more cases of gamers or game developers raising money for the cause, if you find any, feel free to add them in comments. Remember, never let anyone tell you games never helped anyone!

Mass Effect 3 Delayed

We knew undoubtedly that with so many releases this year, some of our most awaited were bound to take a hit, and it looks like we have our first: Mass Effect 3.

Casey Hudson, Executive Producer of the Mass Effect series posted this on Bioware's Facebook page a few hours ago:

Mass Effect 3 will be released in the first three months of 2012. The development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series, ensuring that it exceeds everyone’s expectations.

It looks like DICE has also been drafted in to help develop the game, although reportedly only to help with some of the in-game sounds.

So, do you think the delay is good or bad? Perhaps Bioware want to avoid another Dragon Age 2 type reception.

An amazing look into the Half Life 2 Universe

With the recent release of Portal 2, it's easy to forget the past accomplishments of Valve. So why not celebrate it with this piece of superb cinematography:

Tweak Crysis 2 Options Without .ini Files

If you're a buyer of Crytek's newest release, Crysis 2, you might have felt a little let down by the lack of options when it came to optimising your graphics.

For a lot of people, this one size fits all graphics interface meant fiddling about with the .ini files to get their preferred set up, but no more!

A guy over at the incrysis.com forums called wasdie has created a helpful little tool which makes the process a lot easier, though still a far cry(sis) from what should already be in-game (sorry). The tool, and further instructions can be found here.

Remember to spread the word if the tool is of any help to you!

Sunday edit: According to some sources, the game will get DirectX 11 support and advanced graphics options in-game in a patch tomorrow. There has been no official press release yet, but you can read more here.

The DirectX 11 patch has now been debunked.