Posts By Mat Growcott

SimCity, Diablo III and World of Warcraft have been blamed for an increase in viruses among gamers. Some people have been turning off their firewalls and anti-virus software in an attempt to get always-on games to work, ESET have said. Lag and other online problems are causing people to hit the off button on their online security and an ESET poll has revealed the majority of people don’t realize what they’re letting themselves in for… 31% of ...

There’s been a great deal of talk about piracy lately, especially since the latest SimCity was released. Team Meat have always had a rather modern take on the issue, and that’s no more obvious than in Tommy Refene’s latest Tumblr post, where he talks about SimCity, about calculable loss and about how chasing pirates as though they’re missed customers are causing actual customers to lose trust in big publishers. From Tumblr: “In the ...

The Halo 3 PC mystery has just gotten a little deeper. After Halo 3 (and its predecessors) turned up in the Steam registry, PC gamers were ready to jump at the chance to play some of the best rated FPS titles on their rigs. Microsoft shot down the idea, specifically saying that it wasn’t going to happen. So why is there an entry for Halo 3 in the latest AMD beta drivers? From the beta drivers: <profile Area=”UDX” Usage=”Halo3″ ...

Lightning Returns is almost certainly going to shake things up a little when it releases later this year. Although key features from previous Final Fantasy XIII games will be making a return, the game's emphasis on time is present even in Lightning's abilities. Square Enix have today released a set of screen shots showing off some of her new abilities. Lightning will be able to not only heal herself, but to slow down time around her. This will make bigger ...

The news that FuturLab are bringing the critically acclaimed Velocity to Vita in May this year should have anybody who owns Sony’s latest handheld quivering with delight. The critically acclaimed shoot ’em up that smashed the PlayStation Minis record and won more than a few awards is going to be completely re-jiggled, with better graphics, improved controls and trophy support. Ultra is going to be the ultimate version of the game, and ...

Mortal Kombat 9, the best-selling fighter and the game which brought bloody fatalities back to the masses, may well be seeing release on PC. Although two years late to the party, Mortal Kombat Game of the Year Edition is currently available to pre-order at Amazon - they've even put in a price. It has a PEGI rating, it's playable on Windows 7/XP, it's coming out in June; the only thing that seems to be missing is an official confirmation.

The Phantom Pain interview with Geoff Keighley yesterday has got plenty of people talking. Unfortunately, the grand reveal turned out to be little more than a man in bandages (similar to the man in The Phantom Pain trailer we saw last year) saying that answers were coming. Nothing seemed to be revealed, or was it? The interview no doubt has some sort of purpose. This has let some to believe the man in bandages might be Cliffy B in disguise…

Aliens: Colonial Marines wasn’t very well received, and with good reason – the game sucked. This was especially so for PC, where the developers had seemingly took everything that was good about the console version – and it was slim pickings there as well – and made it worse. Even the graphics seemed to take a knock, in part thanks to FPS glitches that some suffered from. Gearbox have this morning announced that they’re bringing a ...

Although not quite as convincing as the achievements that were found for Final Fantasy VIII, there’s almost certainly something happening with Final Fantasy VII on Steam. The game was first mentioned in the registry in 2010, and although there was reason to believe the iconic RPG would be coming to Steam last year, Square Enix instead opted to release through their own digital distribution store. It seems like a strange move to suddenly release a Steam ...

EA said it couldn’t be done, but a SimCity modder has proven them wrong – a mere week after release. Worse, he was also able to edit outside of his city and have it save, proving that a bigger city size would be easily implemented as well. By using the debug mode, modder UKAzzer managed to disprove many of EA’s statements on the DRM false. For now you still need to reconnect to the server if you want to save,…