PC Gamer - January 2012

MONITOR

Heavy Rainbow

Ubisoft reveals Rainbow 6: Patriots

SPIN IT, BABY

GEARBOX DISPUTES
DUKE ’S CRITICAL RECEPTION
In an intervie w with Eurogamer, Gearbox
co-founder Brian Martel hit back at
reviewers who panned Duke Nukem Forever,
saying that “everybody should really be thankful
that it existed to some degree at all.” Martel
claims that critics used the game
as a “soapbox.” He may well be
right: Duke Nukem Forever ’s
depiction of women certainly
caused a controversy when its
“Capture the Babe” mode was
revealed back in March. Martel
believes that gamers misun-
derstood Duke’s retro inten-
tions, asking whether Half-
Life would be regarded highly
if it came out today. Yes, Brian.
Yes, it probably would. C T

Ubisoft Montreal is developing the next Rainbow 6 game, titled Rainbow 6: Patriots, and videos released by Game Informer magazine show a new, cinematic direction for the 13-year-old series. The video opens with a domestic first-person sequence: a few minutes in the life of a banker at home on his birthday. The tranquil scene is brutally interrupted by homegrown terrorist group the True Patriots, who hold the banker and his family hostage. Waking in a truck crossing a bridge into New York, he is fitted with a bomb and told to detonate it in Times Square. Suddenly, the vehicle is raked by gunfire.

Control switches to a Rainbow opera-
tive sniping at the terrorists from the top
of the bridge. As the situation changes,
orders are seemingly given in real-time.
After a rappelling sequence, the counter-
terrorists are faced with a series of hard
decisions: shooting police officers to
prevent them from accidentally deto-
nating the bomb, and then dealing with
the bomber himself.

HARD DRIVE SHORTAGES
THAILAND FLOODS STILL

PLAGUE ELECTRONICS MAKERS Extreme weather affecting Thailand has caused hard drive prices to soar since July.

Western Digital has been the worst hit, and Seagate and Toshiba also have facilities in the region. Analysts at IDC and IHS iSupply claim that shortages are likely to continue until March at the earliest, and the cost of devices that rely on the hard drive industry could be affected for longer. The floods have claimed more than 400 lives, mainly in poor and rural areas, and the Red Cross warns of a potential typhoid epidemic to follow—putting your desire for cheap tech in sad context. C T

lives, mainly in poor and rural

TRENDS

THE NEW WAYS FOR YOU TO PAY
This is the age of pay-
what-you-want, day
one DLC, and pre-order bo-
nuses. As distribution models
change, new ways to spend
are emerging—some good,
some bad, some downright
nefarious. Here are three ways
that developers are making it
a little bit easier to hand over
your hard-earned cash.

Free loot 1Blizzard is offering a free copy of Diablo 3 as part of the World of Warcraft Annual Pass. Already pre-ordered a D3 collector’s edition? You’ll receive bonus Wo W time to make up the difference. For those who subscribe to Wo W anyway, it’s a decent deal—and a step along the road to Battle.net becoming a subscription service in its own right.

Unassuming offer
2The Humble Bundle (humble- bundle.com) is becoming big busi-
ness, with September’s Frozen
Synapse Bundle raising over $1.1
billion in revenue. Gamers pay
what they want, and contrib-
uting over a certain threshold
earns you extra games as
they’re added. You can
choose how your money will
be split among devs, charities,
and Humble Bundle overhead.

King size 3A joint venture between IndieGames.com and distributor Desura, Indie Royale ( indieroyale.com) is a bundle program where players can purchase indie games at heavily discounted rates. However, the more copies are sold at asking price, the greater the minimum price becomes. Opt to pay slightly more for your bundle and the price for everyone else decreases. New bundles are added to the service every two weeks.