Grave Gamer News & Views — pc

Strider Releases This Month

Double Helix and Capcom’s downloadable reboot of Strider, the classic tale of a man and his violent hatred of things that stop him from moving on one side of the screen to the other, comes out this February.

PS3 and PS4 users can find Mr. Hiryu on PSN Feb. 18th, while both Xbox versions (current-gen and next-gen) as well as the PC release can be purchased Feb. 19th. The retro revival will cost you $14.99.

Two new modes make the cut, too, including “Beacon Run” – where you’ll make speed runs across levels while dicing foes – and “Survival Mode” – in which waves of enemies barrel your way as you utilize an assortment of weapons and items to end them.

More than that, it’s been revealed that you can locate alternate costumes throughout the game, giving you access to new customization options. You’re morbidly peeling these clothes off of dead Striders, but the cost of fashion has always been high.

Download the Whole Bioshock Trilogy for $20

“Trilogy” may not quite square it away, but who has time to argue semantics when you can buy two tickets to Rapture and a bonus flight out to Columbia for just $20?

The Bioshock Triple Pack deal is only available on Amazon for the PC digital downloads of each game. Don’t know what all the fuss over these games is about? Rectify that immediately. Also, if you already have Infinite floating on your harddrive, the first two titles are bundled by themselves for just $5.

Remember Andrew Ryan’s words, folks: A slave obeys, a man chooses…to jump on great savings!

The MOBA Genre Infects Dead Island (Or is That the Other Way Around?)

Deep Silver’s undead romp has apparently outgrown its open-world, RPG-lite genre bending ways and is entering the online multiplayer battle arena.  Is that right?  Or is it multiplayer online battl–  Listen, it’s a MOBA.  We all on the same page?  Moving on.

The newly announced Dead Island: Epidemic sees the series’ signature zombie evisceratin’ take a chunk out of the free-to-play model in a PC exclusive title.  Details are as murky as the crimson fogged waters surrounding Banoi, but Deep Silver promises the game will deliver on Dead Island’s trademark style while focusing on a desperate fight for survival between three rival groups (humans vs. zombies vs…. island fauna?  Again, murky details).

The game’s publisher says it’ll have more substantial information on this mildly intriguing spin-off at this year’s Gamescom (Aug. 21st - 25th).  Hopefully that includes who’s developing this little diddy – Techland has their hands full at the moment – and some percolating imagery to give us an idea just how close to hacking distance Epidemic is to its cult forebearer.

DayZ Might Spread to Console(s)

The former Arma 2 mod turned standalone title, DayZ, may not just be a PC-only prospect if talks go well between developer Bohemia Interactive and Sony.

For the uninitiated, DayZ, currently in closed beta status, is a survival horror game heavy on the “survival,” tasking players to scavenge for food and supplies while also staving off a painful, bite induced death from the undead denizens roaming the game’s vast environments, which is exactly as hard in this game as Romero tried to convey to us through nearly six decades of zombie films.

According to the mod’s creator and standalone title’s designer, Dean Hall, it’s the kind of apocalypse right up Sony’s alley.  “We’ve talked and met with Sony, and they’re very – you know, they’re obviously interested.”

Priority one, though, is launching the standalone on PC.  “Certainly I think if we don’t, for want of a better word, ‘fuck up’ the PC release then I would say a console port is almost certain,” said Hall, speaking to The Escapist.  Hall expects some resistance from the PC crowd to yet another console bound port/traitor, but he doesn’t believe the two versions existing side by side “necessarily have to hurt things."  Typing to you from the other side of a low-end laptop, I second that motion.

With Sony poising a much more indie friendly distribution channel on the PS4 – to, without a shadow of a doubt, one-up Microsoft’s near belligerent mishandling of the indie gaming explosion over the past several years – it wouldn’t be totally surprising to see DayZ start its console-ward journey there, adding to Sony’s amassing indie legion (yeah, still pretty stoked about Primal Carnage: Genesis).

Resident Evil 6 and Left 4 Dead 2 Crossover! Valve and Capcom’s Undead Collide Exclusively for the PC

Did not see this one coming but, as evidenced above, Capcom and Valve have joined forces to provide exclusive content to PC players of both Left 4 Dead 2 and the upcoming Resident Evil 6 port.

On Capcom’s end, RE6’s PC version will have a remixed Mercenaries mode fittingly called “No Mercy” in which the four survivors of Left 4 Dead 2 – Coach, Ellis, Rochelle, and Nick – are featured as selectable characters replete with custom weapon loadouts.  Valve has also relinquished two iconic infected for players to get slaughtered by; the Witch and the Mini-Tank (a bite-sized, still assholey version of the big boy Tanks).  All this content will be made available as a free background download come April 5th.

On Valve’s side of the zombie spectrum, a small roster of RE6’s gruesome B.O.W.’s will run rampant in Left 4 Dead 2 thanks to the power of the Steam Workshop tool set.  The Lepotitsa, Napad, and Ogroman – some of the biggest, meanest sons of bitches RE6 owns (the Ogroman alone stands at two stories tall; expect some reduction there) – will invade as cameo Specials in L4D2 later this Spring.

“We’re huge Resident Evil fans,” said Valve’s senior writer, Chet Faliszek, “so when the opportunity arose to work directly with Capcom to combine L4D2 and RE6, we jumped at it.”

Well, thanks to Capcom and Valve, my console edition of RE6 has been outmoded into the ground, through the earth, and out the other side of the world.  Time to start a PC fund, folks (to which PC players resoundingly reply: "Duh.”)