And in other PC gaming news...


This morning we watched the Shogun 2 multiplayer trailer, our heads full of dreams of clan warfare and co-op domination. It's going to be epic. As we watched armies clashing on the battlefields of Japan, the last question on our minds was "I wonder what that smells like?" Fortunately, Scent Science were on hand to answer the questions that almost nobody was asking, with the announcement of their amazing machine that will let us smell our games. What will they think of next?

Virtual reality, perhaps? Once again, we've grabbed the most interesting tidbits of PC gaming news from around globe. Read on for virtual reality out of body experiences, a lecture from Gabe Newell, and a man with a head full of diamonds.

  • Gabe Newell holds an impromptu video conference with a high school class, and reveals a lot of fascinating facts and ideas about Valve's approach to making games, covering the success of the Team Fortress 2 item store, and the idea that disruptive players should be forced to watch ads, while players that draw communities together should be able to play for free.

  • Zynga, the creator of Farmville, is worth $10 billion dollars.

  • Scientists are using virtual reality avatars to create out of body experiences.

  • Epic tried to put co-op into Bulletstorm, and broke it.

  • Here's the first of a couple of great Minecraft videos today. Why are there diamonds in his head?

  • Minecraft: The Last Minecart .

  • The PC Gaming Alliance say game piracy is declining .

  • Survivors of Ragnarok is an attempt to create a side-scrolling Dwarf Fortress. It's very much in early alpha, but looks intriguing .

  • The Diablo 3 developers love Torchlight .

  • Gears of War is free with the GfWL version of Bulletstorm .

  • This is a text adventure about a pacifist sheep trying to survive the Falklands War. The devs say "Rather predictably, it ended up being about the futility of war. But more than that, it is about the futility of being a sheep trying to stop that war.”

Today Graham and Tom continued yesterday's Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance robo-war. I couldn't tell who was winning, because there were too many damn explosions. Meanwhile Ed has been pitting Chaos against Chaos in Dawn of War: Retribution and I have been sitting quietly in a corner, folding origami paper planes and reading Sun Tzu in preparation for Shogun 2. As the wise warrior once said: "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Then, and only then, will you be able to thouroughly pwn your oppenent," or something. What are you playing at the moment? As always, let us know in the comments.