(What’s this?)

Release date: 1996
Original RRP: £29.99

In brief:

Games luminary Sid Meier launches his second Civilization title having proved to Microprose that PC gamers would pay to play a loosely historical turn-based strategy game that doesn’t necessarily involve death and destruction. And good god, it sells even more than the first- who’d have thunk it, eh?

Box art: 2/5

Yeah… can you imagine this on any modern gaming title? I half expected a CD copy the Encyclopedia Britannica inside this…

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After much deliberation, digestion and cogitation, EVE Online’s Council Of Stellar Management called it a day (or a weekend, rather) on Sunday night and I was sent home from beautiful Reykjavik having had a far more interesting time than I’d bargained for. Honestly, I had no idea what they were talking about half the time, but it was well worth it just to see CCP’s devs react to the demands of ten prominent EVE players given a position of some responsibility by their peers. I got the impression CCP underestimated just how tenacious these guys would be.

A beast of rare quality… the Greater-Headed TPCG, as seen with the aid of EA’s Spore Creature Editor demo, available for download as of 17 June. Oddly fascinating this… relatively speaking, I’m not enjoying it that much, but I can’t stop making freaky creatures with it.

Hobbits, Men, Elves and Dwarves - how do you plan to celebrate Father’s Day this year? Will you buy your Dad a lame card from the shop? A bottle of whisky maybe? Or some tartan slippers to add to his burgeoning collection? Boring. What your Dad wants to do is spend some quality time with his kids. And what better way to bond with him than to spend the day fishing, watching fireworks and taking part in the numerous activities and festivities Turbine has laid on for Lord Of The Rings Online, this Sunday, 15 June. Download your free seven day trial here.

And after that you can catch up with me, wandering the Badlands of Middle-Earth and depriving evil Orc children of their daddies. Happy day!

Replay Studios, developer of the upcoming PC and 360 WWII stealth title, Velvet Assassin, were kind enough to invite me out to Hamburg to look at the latest build of their game… unfortunately due to an online embargo I can’t actually talk about this yet though. What I can talk about and show you is the Russian submarine they took us to see (which may or may not have somethingto do with the game). Get ready for a tidal wave of arbitrary naval facts. Ahem: U-434 was built in 1974 in Russia and cost around 110 million Euros to build, which was around one fifth of the cost of the nuclear equivalent at the time. After decommissioning it was bought for 1 million Euros and cost a further 1 million to tow to the dock in Hamburg where it resides today. When U-434 was still in service, it housed 84 mariners (including officers and KGB agents) who would be at sea for up to three months at a time living in a consistent temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius. Toasty…

(What’s this?)Release date: 1999Original RRP: $???In brief:Ultima IX is, to date, the final single-player game in Richard Garriot’s groundbreaking RPG series. It featured a new 3D engine (quite a change from the isometric view of previous titles) and was massively hyped in the months leading to launch, but poorly received by game reviewers and Ultima fans. Ascension had been through four versions since 1990 and seen various team members leave in the middle of production, and the final release was buggy and had hefty hardware requirements for the time, demanding a powerful graphics card to drive its 3D engine. It was also criticised for largely ignoring the story of previous Ultima games, and for lacking the depth which had made the series so famous.The ‘Dragon Edition’ of Ultima IX was named for the Ultima Dragons fan club and is a huge box with a bundle of extras for true Ultima fanatics, and was only available in the US in very limited quantities. It’s now quite rare, with mint-condition copies fetching a high price (though don’t be fooled by Amazon Marketplace sellers listing them for $2,000, it’s not that rare). Read the rest of this entry »

Age Of Conan launches on the 23rd, so Eidos and Funcom thought it would be a great idea to hire a medieval re-enactment group, dress them up as battle-scarred barbarians, give them wenches, then make them fight eachother in a field filled with debauched and drunken journalists. TPCG thought so too, which is why I got sent to Oslo with explicit instructions to take photos and if possible, challenge Conan to manly hand-to-hand combat. I did. He wussed out.

In issue 7 we had the chance to talk with Kamaal Anwar of Dreamcatcher Interactive about Gothic 4, the next entry in the epic RPG series being developed by Spellbound. The interview as published had to be heavily edited to fit in the mag, so here it is in its entirety, along with the first screenshots and concept art.

Total PC Gaming: What’s the situation with Piranha Bytes? What is Spellbound doing differently?

Kamaal Anwar: Piranha Bytes is now obviously not working on Gothic 4 anymore. It’s going to have a more North American feel to it all, that’s definitely our goal. We want to make a game that’s going to sell outside of Germany. Most of the production team on the publishers side is in North America. Piranha Bytes gave us a great universe to work with, although the actual application of their games could have been a bit better. We want to give the customers what they deserve. We’ll try to cater to what Gothic fans want to see while being respectful of the rest of the world.

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Inspired by the release of the outstanding freeware game TrackMania Nations Forever, and being a bit of a cheapskate, I went on a hunt for some other great freebies…

Steam rival GameTap has a vast selection of free games available to non-paying members, and surprisingly they’re not all garbage. Have to sit through a short advert each time you play, but it’s only a minor inconvenience. Create an account, browse the Free Games list and download. On the GameTap site you’ll find:

Hitman 2 – IO’s classic action game with our favourite slap-headed assassin.

Cannon Fodder – this strategy title is old, but still great.

Tomb Raider: Legend – a return to form after the terrible Angel Of Darkness.

Thief: Deadly Shadows – excellent stealth adventure with one of the scariest levels in any game, ever.

Mr. Robot – Brilliant RPG with cute isometric visuals.

Psychonauts – charming and funny platformer from Tim Schafer, the genius behind Day Of The Tentacle.

Rogue Trooper – underrated shooter based on the 2000AD comic.

X2: The Threat – massive, complex space sim that is the closest anyone has come to a modern-day Elite.

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Simple: wait until it comes out on PC. With all the ‘secret’ midnight retail launches and stupid numbers of PS3 and 360 pre-orders going on in the last couple of weeks, if you hadn’t pre-ordered prior to April, it seems that you’re not likely to have got your copy today. You’re not guaranteed to have one reserved even if you did pre-order. I can’t even get my hands on a promo copy – and I’m a games journalist, they should be sending me this stuff, goddammit! It’s probably our only consolation as PC gamers that, despite having to wait until 2093 or whatever for our version, we probably won’t even have to queue for it. Plus modders will inevitably hack it to bits and put all sorts of extra interesting (read ‘sexy’) content in GTA IV. Plus it will be cheaper. Plus the team will have fixed any bugs or issues that surface over the next year. Plus it will look even better on a beefy PC and big screen (probably). In the meantime we’ll have to console ourselves with Fallout 3, Spore, Battlefield Heroes, Far Cry 2, Red Alert 3, Empire: Total War, Guild Wars 2, Dragon Age and… oh, loads of other games. *Sigh*

I’m not bitter, me. No way, José.