Ah, so it is. I expected it on the store page (since that's where they put their last freebie) so I only gave the other pages a cursory glance. Much appreciation for the guidance.

Either it's a regional offer (and I'm not in the region), or it was an extremely short offer, or somebody is trolling Blues but I'm not seeing Teleglitch as a freebie anywhere on HumbleBundle. It's still going for $12.99 on the HB storefront.

I was a fan of the originals, somewhat to my surprise since it was a game released at the height of the "hunting FPS" craze and most of those titles weren't very good. But the first three Carnivore games surprised me with the sophisticated technology used to render the worlds. Long before Far Cry or Crysis, the Carnivore games boasted huge, open worlds; hostile and neutral AI that not only interacted with the player but also each other, moving vegetation and even flowing rivers.

The gameplay was less exciting (although I did like that there was a mode where the dinosaurs would ignore you entirely and you could enjoy a virtual nature walk; it was very relaxing). Bagging a T-Rex was a real challenge and even the less dinosaurs could put up quite a fight. Of course, I never quite did get the hang of the wind-meter (was it pointing in the direction the wind was coming FROM or blowing towards) which made sneaking up on the beasts more difficult than it should have been.

Unfortunately, with the fourth game the series completely jumped the shark, abandoning the hunting theme and open worlds entirely, and the mobile games were cheaply made remakes. This new remake also doesn't look too impressive, seeming little more than a graphical update to the originals and not taking into consideration 20 years of gameplay development (and honestly the graphics don't really wow me either). I can't see this title revitalizing the franchise.

Codemasters has always sold cheat codes, from way back. I remember seeing phone numbers in its manuals for Colin McRae Rally games where you could buy cheat codes for money (they were customized to your installation by a special code so you couldn't give them to your friends). This is nothing new for them. They might say their games aren't designed to push you towards these codes, but selling cheats has been a source of income for them for years and I've always found their games very grindy. It's one of the reasons I stopped buying their games.

See? Microsoft does care about PC gaming! Look how they are releasing an eight-year old game back onto the market! That's dedication!

If we are really lucky, they may even re-release Ski-Free.

Definitely a more fun and rewarding game than Steam's "Summer Adventure" thing.

Actually, the GOG sale is generally better in general. Steam's sale this year is very unimpressive. I haven't bought a thing this year, but I've spent more than I should have at GOG.

On the plus side: free is good.
On the negative side: it requires Windows 8.1
On the really negative side: Free A&E TV shows like Hoarders, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Storage Wars

Wonderful poster.

I've never understood Microsoft's disdain for PC gaming. Okay, they have their XBox line of game-consoles, and they want to push that. I totally get that part; Microsoft wants some exclusives for the XBox so that people will chose that platform. But there are a lot of games that just do not work well on consoles (sims, adventure and strategy games, for example) but are a perfect fit for the PC. Yet Microsoft seems to be actively working to sabotage gaming of all sorts on the PC, from killing the MS Flight Sim series, closing Ensemble, and locking games to particular versions of Windows for no reason except marketing. I mean, it's not as if Microsoft has to worry about limited resources; they could have easily supported both platforms.

Windows is still the heart of Microsoft's empire (despite all the money poured into it,it certainly isn't the XBox division, which continues to lose money), and PC gaming was one reason people stuck with Windows; their games didn't run well on the alternatives. Nowadays, Macintosh, Linux and mobile devices are increasing their marketshare, and the PC is only something you use when you have to do work. I don't think it is a coincidence that Microsoft's domination of the desktop began to slip when they made it clear that gaming on the PC was no longer a priority.

So maybe I'm biased but I just don't understand the strategy. They deliberately slaughtered their golden goose - Windows, with 99% control of the home PC market and low cost-of-entry - to chase after the game console market, where they at best would have 50% control and might make a profit after five years.

There was a poll on Usenet (remember Usenet? It's still there) a few weeks ago about what the new average price-point for games was these days. Every single respondent said that it was down in the $10-30 range. $60 was just no longer a viable option for them.

Reasons for this varied. Some pointed to the fact - what with low, low sales on Steam, HumbleBundle, GOG and elsewhere, it was increasingly easy to find these nominally $60 games at much lower prices with just a little bit of searching. Others mentioned that the new breed of independently-published or mobile games offered as much entertainment value but at lower cost. Many decried how big-name AAA games no longer seemed to offer the same value-for-the-dollar, as the industry increasingly homogenized its product; even as the production values were getting better, games were becoming shorter, gameplay was less interesting and there was less apparent variety.

Other reasons included the economic downturn, an aging demographic that has ever less time for playing games, and an increased variety in competing forms of entertainment.

In short, given the competition of low-priced games, changing demographics and the perceived dip in quality of the offered product, gamers no longer see $60 as a reasonable price. It's not that they are disinterested in the offerings, but it is just too expensive when compared to other games that can be had for a tenth the cost.

I hope there'll be a discounted version for people who own Metro 2033 and Last Light like there was with the DX:HR revamp.

Or they could offer it as a free upgrade for users who own both, like CDProjectRed did with their "enhanced editions" for the Witcher games.

Using updated graphics and extra content to draw in new customers without soaking the existing fanbase; it just might work!

Does anyone think there will ever be 360 or xbone support?

No. Home streaming is a direct shot over the bow from Valve to Microsoft. Like the Steambox, it is a statement of challenge from Valve. Microsoft has no reason to allow this app on their console and every reason to forbid it.

I mean, you don't see Playstation4 games or OnLive streaming available on XBox Live; don't expect Valve there either.

And other stuff I've thought about and forgot over the years.Tabbed windows perhaps?

Tabbed windows so I can look at more than one game at once?
More granular bandwidth limiter?
Selective patching?
Bigger fonts?

Just off the top of my head

It's a nice feature, but I wish Steam can finally add support for simultaneous logins of the account on different PCs on the same network.

totally agree with you. People just say "use another log-on" but then I have to buy two copies of the game, or use the terrible home-sharing thing. Just let me play Left4Dead on my main PC while the SO is enjoying Peggle on the laptop already!

On the plus side, at least Valve finally allows me to have more than one client logged on at the same time, so the laptop can download a game while I play on the other.

Anyway, limited as it is, the home streaming is pretty neat. My tiny little netbook - which struggles with Planescape - handles Left4Dead just fine.

I'm all for a Homeworld remake. Aside from improved graphics and compatibility, I just want two things:

- Some tweaks to the game balance, so I don't end up losing the game because I didn't gather enough resources six or seven missions back. This was an annoying problem with the original (less so in Cataclysm and Homeworld 2)

- A return of the first-person view introduced in Cataclysm. I loved attaching it to one of the fighters and watching them dogfight; next best thing to actually flying the ship itself. It was sadly absent from Homeworld 2.

I definitely fall into the second category (experience) and describes my gameplay well.

Myself as well.

I often refer to this as my "PacMan versus Colossal Caves" argument because those tend to be one of the earlier examples of where games divided itself into the two camps; it has all been iterations on those two extremes since then.

For those of you who love to challenge yourself against an opponent - be it the AI or another player - more power to you and have fun. Just don't assume - as did the author of the article above - that everybody wants the same and that greater difficulty will be appreciated by all gamers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

There are two types of gamers:
1) people who play games for the challenge
2) people who play games for what I term "the experience"

Both look for different things from the game. Challenge-oriented gamers tend to place less importance on the production values (graphics, sound, story, characters, pacing); they are more interested in AI, level design, and balance. "Experience"-oriented gamers tend to focus more on the story, environments and how immersive is the game. Neither group are playing the game wrong and - except for the most hardcore - there is usually a good deal of overlap between the two.

But each type of gamer has a tendency towards certain genres. For instance, challenge-focused gamers tend to appreciate multiplayer shooter more; their experience counterparts look at those as being particularly shallow. Meanwhile, immersive roleplaying games tend not to attract hordes of gamers interested in a challenge, since the AI is usually insufficiently difficult and there is too much "pointless" talking and faffing about for their tastes.

Problems appear when developers try to satisfy the needs of both groups simultaneously (or marketing tries to attract the wrong crowd). Then you end up with people complaining that "Brothers A Tale of Two Sons" is not "difficult" enough, or that "Planetside 2" is "shallow and repetitive". But making the puzzles harder in the former or adding an engaging story in the latter would do nothing to improve either game and would probably be detrimental to those game's existing strengths.

Not every game has to suit the needs of every gamer. You want a hard game, there are plenty of games to suit your needs. Other people just want to wander the landscape and enjoy the setting without a continual stream of mechanistic and immersion-breaking gates of boss battles and the like.

A Star Wars... in December?

Star Wars movies are released on Memorial Day weekend, at the end of May. It's, like, a law. Does Disney not understand Star Wars at all?!?!11?!

But really, meh. I'm still a huge geek for the original trilogy and can even bestir myself for some of the extended universe stuff but the prequels made me wary and Disney's purchase of the license (and JJ "Lets Add More Lens-flare!" Abrams involvement) pretty much killed my interest in the new movies. So release it as a Halloween movie for all I care.

Yeah, I gotta say that being able to record gameplay with a hardware encoder and hopefully no performance hit would be pretty sweet.

According to the article, there is a 10-20% performance hit. Honestly, it's about the same I see using FRAPs recording at 1080p

And while the last 20-minute feature is neat, it's a functionality, not optimization issue.

This software isn't that impressive and the only reason nvidia is limiting it to a particular subset of hardware is for marketing, not engineering issues.

It amuses me that ShadowPlay, which has the same functionality as programs I've been using since my Voodoo3 days, only works with the newest GeForce cards (600 & 700s). That's some quality optimizations there, nvidia!

You know how people are always bitching about how console games are ported late - or not at all - to the PC?

With the Call of Duty games, I'm doing the opposite; I'm hoping they just skip the PC entirely. I think we'd all be better off.