Alex Rubens

After the success of the console release last week, the PC release of Max Payne 3 is highly anticipated. We caught up with Kevin Hoare, Lead PC Designer on Max Payne 3, to talk about the differences in this long-awaited sequel to Remedy Entertainment's classic noir-inspired action games. There's some good stuff in here, so keep an eye on this space for our upcoming Max Payne 3 review.

After hearing nothing about the game since its original debut back at E3 2010, I was worried that Spec Ops: The Line had gone the way of many other MIA titles and been quietly cancelled. Thankfully, not only has it not been cancelled, developer Yager Development has been using the last two years to completely re-do the simple things in an effort to get this just right. After having gotten some hands-on time with the game at this year’s PAX East, I think it’s safe to say that Spec Ops: The Line is easily one of the most intriguing and different shooters in recent memory.

In the spring of 2012 we sent Game On correspondent Alex Rubens on a sucide mission to PAX East in Boston. Not only did he manage to make it back alive, he also played some games while he was there. These are his stories.

After the surprise success of Orcs Must Die last year, Robot Entertainment has been hard at work on making a sequel that could live up to the high bar that they have set for themselves. They’ve gone through and tweaked some gameplay elements to work better and added cooperative play with a new character, so that you can murder orcs with a friend!

Game On correspondent Alex Rubens spent some time wandering the halls of PAX East this year playing everything he could get his hands on. At some point he managed to corner Rockstar employees long enough to play Max Payne 3, which we expect will be released on PC and home consoles in May 2012. Max Payne 3 is being developed by multiple Rockstar studios instead of former Max Payne developer Remedy Entertainment, leading some to wonder whether this is the same Max Payne we know and love. After spending some hands-on time with the game, Alex filed this report.

CCP Games held their annual Fanfest last week in Reykjavík, Iceland and I was on location checking out Dust 514 and everything new happening in EVE Online. While DUST may be the newest property to come from CCP, they aren’t backing away from EVE. In fact, they demonstrated during the show how they plan to bring the two together in a way that has never been done before.

CCP Games is known for their successful, slightly insane Sci-Fi MMO, EVE Online. The game is exclusive to PC, and sees players fighting for dominance in massive spaceships across a single, shared universe that’s home to hundreds of thousands of players. When they announced that they were developing a new title, a free-to-play first-person shooter for consoles wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. But DUST 514 is coming: I was given some hands-on time with the game at CCP’s Fanfest 2012 last week in Reykjavík, Iceland, and it surprised me in more ways than one.

Another great Game Developer's Conference has come and gone, but a few hardy members of the PCWorld Game On team recoup in the PCWorld Podcast studio to talk about the games we played, the talks we witnessed and the people we met at GDC 2012. Listen in as Alex Rubens, David Daw, Nate Ralph and Alex Wawro discuss a few great games (including Johann Sebastian Joust and MechWarrior Online) and the debate surrounding the Independent Games Festival Awards before pondering the future of location-based gaming. Also, we make fun of Alex and talk about Valve (sorry guys, no Steam Box this year) in this very special GDC 2012 edition of the Game On Podcast.

Download the podcast (54:50).

After raking in numerous Game of the Year awards and exceptional holiday sales last year, developer and publisher Bethesda is releasing new content for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in the form of organized user mods. On the off chance you missed it last year, Skyrim is an immersive RPG in which you assume the role of the Dragonborn and must save the realm while traveling the world and completing countless quests. Bethesda announced their creation kit for Skyrim months as a way for players to create their own game mods store and distribute them freely through the Steam digital distribution service. Since we’re as excited about this as you are, here’s a breakdown of the upcoming Skyrim goodies.

Steam is coming to your smartphone! Well, sort of; you won't be buying mobile games with your Steam app, and you won’t be able to play your PC games on your iPhone, but then again, would you really want to? No, what you want is the ability to track Steam sales from the comfort of your couch or your spot on the train, and you can do that when Valve ends the beta period and releases the Steam Mobile App for iOS and Android devices. With the Steam app you can chat with friends, view profiles, view screenshots and user-generated content, and take advantage of the incredible Steam sales to pick up great games for a song. While the app may be free, that last perk will certainly impact my wallet, and I'm betting the folks at Valve know it.

Ready for Mass Effect 3 to launch this March? If you're planning to purchase the game on PC you'll need to download a copy of Electronic Arts' Origin digital distribution client, because it looks like the game won't be available on Valve Software's Steam service at launch. After rumors began to circulate that Mass Effect 3 would not be available for purchase on Steam (as has been the case with EA’s recent PC releases such as Battlefield 3) Bioware’s community coordinator Chris Priestly took to the Bioware forums to clear up rumors and address your concerns about the PC release of Mass Effect 3.