Just Add Water have released some early pre-alpha gameplay footage of the upcoming HD re-release, Abe’s Oddysee New N’ Tasty.

This gameplay footage builds on the last gameplay footage we saw and shows the same amazing crisp animations and total lack of screen transitions. Amazing!

You can download this file for yourself by clicking right here.

Check it out below.

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The prominence of AMD components in both next-gen consoles means that Battlefield 4 on PC will also be optimised for AMD, confirmed AMD overnight.

“It makes sense that game developers would focus on AMD hardware with AMD hardware being the backbone of the next console generation,” said AMD in a statement to IGN. “At this time, though, our relationship with DICE and EA is exclusively focused on Battlefield 4 and its performance optimizations for AMD CPUs, GPUs and APUs.”

If you’re worried that your NVIDIA card will be sub-par, AMD confirmed that they “undertake no efforts to prevent our competition from optimizing for games before their release”, with EA chiming in to add that “This does not exclude DICE from working with other partners to ensure players have a great experience across a wide set of PCs for all their titles.”

Source: IGN

Four new multiplayer maps and one new zombies map are coming to Black Ops 2 on July 2 in the ‘Vengeance’ map pack, which has a timed exclusivity deal with Microsoft.

The mas include ‘Cove’, a small island littered with jet wreckage, ‘Detour’, a destroyed suspension bridge, ‘Rush’, a paintball course turned into a combat arena, and ‘Uplink’, a re-imagined version of ‘Summit’ from the original Black Ops, set in the jungle.

‘Buried’ is the zombie map addition, and is set in an abandoned Old West mining town. The ‘Vengeance’ pack also comes with the Ray Gun Mark II, which is apparently “so powerful” that anybody who buys the ‘Vengeance’ pack will be able to use this gun in all other zombies maps.

PC and PS3 players will have to wait as usual — the last two maps packs have taken a month to drip down to other platforms so this will likely be much the same.

Check out the trailer below.

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If for some reason you still haven’t played Torchlight, the first installment in Runic Games ARPG series, then now you have literally no excuse as the entire game is free for the next 48 hours.

You can head over to GOG.com and grab it right now. The sequel, should this one be to your liking, can be found here for $19.99 and is well worth your time (our review).

This is all part of GOG.com’s current #NoDRM Summer Sale, with 500 games on sale until July 5. Today’s deals include The Definitive D&D bundle for just $20 (which is obnoxiously good value) and the Alan Wake bundle for just $5 (again, dang).

The upcoming first-person puzzler Magrunner: Dark Pulse is launching on Thursday, seeking to blend sci-fi with the Cthulu Mythos because well why not.

As you can see in the trailer below, it’s got a bit of a Portal vibe to it, assuming of course Portal also featured shoggoths and the Dark Young of Shug-Niggurath.

The current cheapest pre-order price is at GOG.com, where you can grab it for $16.99. It is also available on Steam.

Take a look!

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We The Force Studios are a small indie group developing out of Mexico, and they’ve used E3 to announce the upcoming launch of their 2D action-platformer Randall.

Set in a dystopian future where a crystal-like mineral infects the minds of the populace and keeps them docile and afraid, Randall has instead found himself with the ability to read people’s minds — and must use this power to prevent an evil corporation from taking over the world.

Take a look at the trailer below and see what you think — we could be in for a treat.

Source: Polygon

EA deployed Need for Speed Rivals at their E3 conference last week, and for those of you who missed the livestream, you can now catch it here.

It’s one of those “interactive trailers” which are all the rage and allows you to watch a single pursuit from different angles. If it’s not working out, click here to jump to YouTube and watch it there instead.

The game hits on November 19 this year.

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Game development in Australia has been given a boost today with the announcement of $6 million in funding, to be divided amongst 10 Australian developers.

The $6 million is the first part of the $20 million package announced last year, to be delivered over the next three years.

The ten successful companies to receive funding were:

• Defiant Development (QLD)
• ODD Games (SA)
• Soap Creative (NSW)
• Tantalus Media (VIC)
• Tin Man Games (VIC
• Torus Games (VIC)
• Twiitch (VIC)
• Uppercut Games (NSW/ACT)
• The Voxel Agents (VIC)
• Wicked Witch Software (VIC)

Data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that employment numbers in the Australian game development sector have fallen from 1431 to 581 people. Hopefully this cash injection can help to bring that number around.

Source: Screen Australia (thanks David)

Jonathan Blow was the most accomplished E3 presenter I saw all show.

While most demos consisted of rehearsed hyperbole, checking off each key message in easily quotable soundbites, Blow instead took his audience on a thoughtful journey of understanding. In doing so he conveyed perfectly what his new game, The Witness, is aiming to deliver to players.

The upcoming Salem MMO, which we last covered a year ago, has just announced that they are splitting from Paradox and will be bringing their sandbox MMO to market themselves.

“Effective from July 8, Seatribe will assume full support management and development ownership of Salem: The Crafting MMO,” writes Seatribe on their official forum. “Any decisions taken from that point on will be taken by and communicated through Seatribe to you – the community. Paradox Interactive will start phasing out their involvement in the project from today and on July 8 the game for all intents and purposes will be Seatribe’s to run.”

“We firmly believe this decision is in the best interest of Seatribe, Paradox Interactive and absolutely for the community as you will have a development team working even more direct with you and the game.”

The game will continue to be monetised as it currently is, so players who have already bought in will be taken care of.

Source: PC Gamer

According to reports today, Bethesda showed a brief teaser of Fallout 4 at E3 last week.

We didn’t get to see it (if it existed) but apparently it’s coming in October 2015 for PC and both current- and next-gen consoles.

Reportedly the game has been in development since January 2011 and is set in Boston, with areas including Somerville, Cambridge, and Arlington. If there are any Americans reading this, I hope this makes sense to you.

Local co-op options are reportedly being considered as well — although this whole article is complete speculation, so keep your tinfoil hat firmly on.

Source: Strategy Informer

EA’s Andrew Wilson (seen here at 0:38) has explained that one of the main reasons it hasn’t ported most of its EA Sports range over to PC is because the majority of PC users who would play it won’t be able to run the new engine.

Before you post your PC specs with a scoff, Wilson clarifies that he is aware that high-end gaming PCs exist — but claims these represent a small portion of the people likely to be interested in an EA sports title.

When discussing the recent FIFA 11, Wilson claimed that “Even though there were some PCs on the marketplace that could run that engine, the lion’s share of PCs on the marketplace could not. And the majority of the gamer base that was playing the game on PC did not have a PC spec that would work with that.”

Wilson also claimed that porting the new EA Sports Ignite engine to PC is possible, but could cause some issues. “There needs to be some adjustment in terms of how EA Sports Ignite works to facilitate the open nature of PC architecture, rather than the closed nature of console architecture,” he explained.

Source: Polygon