You’re to blame. EA’s to blame. The journos are to blame. Your gran’s probably to blame. Infact she’s probably behind it all. Unless you’re a veritable saint of a man/woman/pensioner, I bet you’ve downloaded at least one game, CD or film without giving its creator due credit. And we all know all too well that the recent furor over DRM that publishers are becoming less and less in touch with their consumer base.

But these are not the only problems.

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We recently managed to wangle an interview with Mike Patton, the voice behind the Common Infected in Left 4 Dead, The Darkness in the game of the same name, and the eponymous hero in Bionic Commando. Oh, and I heard he did the Anger Sphere of GLaDOS. He’s also one of the driving forces behind Faith no More, Mr. Bungle and more recently Fantomas. After hearing about the voice acting process from some of the boys at Valve, we wanted to find out a bit more about the process. Being one of the few voice actors who we knew by their real names rather than the characters they played, Mike Patton was an easy choice to ask about it. Carry on down to have a gander at what he had to say.

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In October I talked about how Atari were planning to publish Tension, the latest game from Ice-Pick Lodge, the team behind Pathologic.

The big news direct from Ice-Pick Lodge is that the game has a new name, it is now going to be known as The Void and is going to be published in the Western world by Atari.

The game is undergoing some big changes to prepare it for the English language release, the story is being totally re-written and the game is being re-balanced. The Russian version has been described as being very hardcore orientated, this is being changed to make the game easier for new players. The Void will also see some new locations that were not seen in the Russian release.

Finally Wolfgang Walk, an experienced producer from the Settlers games has been brought on board to help with the final spit and polish required to get the game ready to release. While the team are hoping for a Steam release, nothing is confirmed yet.

A video which some of you may not have seen yet is available here.

In a related note, Pathologic has been voted Number 8 in the creepiest PC games ever.

I have been meaning to throw an update on this game up here for a few days now but only now am I getting around to it, shame on me.

Indie game devs Wolfire Games have announced that Overgrowth is now in the Alpha stages of testing. This is the sequel to the indie hit Lugaru and it is slated for a Q1 2009 release.

The video below is very interesting, it shows off the procedural animation used in the new Phoenix Engine being used for Overgrowth, quite impressive what this team are doing. Bear in mind that the final version of the game will be looking much better than what you can see here.

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“This is my hiding spot, and I’m not moving until the situation has drastically improved.“ He looks up at me, his eyes having turned into a haze by his overly thick glasses. “Now go away and don’t tell anyone I’m here!“ He’s been here for a while and he’s obviously trembling from the chilly, moist air in the huge room.

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David Rosen from Wolfire Games (more on them soon) has done this amazing ‘Design Tour’ video on World of Goo. If you are at all interested in how World of Goo works, and in game design in general then this is a must watch video.

I like adventure games quite a lot.  I’ve even bought some of the newer entries to the (apparently) dying genre, such as Broken Sword: Angel of Death and all the new Sam and Max games (ergh).  Amongst these sits the awesomeness that is Homestar Runner, and their rather brilliant adventure games released on a monthly schedule.

SBCG4AP (as the kids are calling it) is very, very good, but it’s missing something integral to a legendary adventure game, (S)VGA graphics.  Thankfully the Videlectrix boys have rectified this with “Dangeresque Roomisode 1: Behind the Dangerdesque”.

Play it.  Please.  If you’ve seen how excellent their Sierra pastiche was with Peasant’s Quest then you owe it to yourself to check out this new roomisode.  If you haven’t played PQ however, then you owe it to yourself to play both.

Go on, click the links and game like it’s 1990 all over again.  We’ll wait for you, don’t worry.

Half Life turned 10 a week or so ago, and it’s only fitting that the boys behind Black Mesa would release something (unfortunately not the bloody game) to commemorate the occasion. Just to give a bit of background; Black Mesa is a complete reimagining of the orignal Half Life, with entirely new textures, models and sounds. They’re basically rebuilding the game in the new Source engine, and understandably that’s taking quite a long time. I recently played through the original thanks to the Anniversary Deal on Steam, and I have to say I’m very, very eagerly awaiting this. Even 10 years on, it’s bloody good fun.

Hit the jump for their new media.

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