HiRez Studios has been pretty successful with their third person action MOBA, SMITE.  The game is headed to its World Championship tournament soon, and recently celebrated 10 million players. As a game that focuses on playable gods and demigods from various pantheons around the world, the characters in SMITE are at once familiar and unique. However, they all fall into one of seven pantheons: Chinese, Egyptuan, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Mayan and Norse.  That may be about to change however. Recently, Scott Ghandi who works on the Xbox One side of SMITE tweeted out that everyone should tune in to the patch notes today at 4 PM EST for a special surprise. Along with that rather cryptic tweet, he posted this picture:

Each symbol is the emblem of one of the pantheons currently in SMITE. Speculation, of course is that the giant question mark heralds the reveal of a new pantheon to be added to the game. Speculation about a new pantheon has been going on for months, with Smitedatamining.com claiming to have unearthed references to the Celtic pantheon and Morrigan way back in March of this year. While this is, of course, still speculation, signs seem to indicate big changes coming to SMITE.

I know I’ll be tuned in today at 4 PM. You can catch the patch notes HERE.

Well, if you pay any attention to the news you probably already know the result of Warner Bros ‘fixing’ the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. In case you don’t, here’s the short version: they pretty much didn’t.

However, if you had held on for the re-release/big patch and are therefore now stuck with it there’s some good news. The refund period for both the game and the season pass to go with it have been extended up until the end of the year, meaning that if you still want your money back you can get it. However, the game itself is also going to remain on sale which is a little confusing.

In their statement Warner Bros wrote: “We are very sorry that many of our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues. Until the end of 2015, we will be offering a full refund on Batman: Arkham Knight PC, regardless of how long you have played the product. You can also return the Season Pass along with the main game (but not separately). For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix.”

That last bit is concerning. “Issues we cannot fix”. Sounds like they’re fed up of trying honestly and it doesn’t reflect well on Warner Bros at all. Battlefield 4 for example was also a buggy game upon release and for months after, but last time I looked the developers and companies involved with making it had continued to support it and fix bugs. Warner Bros are a big company and should know better.

There’s also the issue of people who received their copy of the game through promotions like the GTX 970 one that let you get the game as long as you brought the hardware. Those people who got the game that way but also the season pass are a little bit stuck now with a pass they can’t return because they technically never bought the game itself.

I guess the PC version of Arkham Knight is just going to be another chapter in the ongoing saga that seems to be big triple A games from big companies releasing in a state that’s far from fit and never really ever living up to the hype.

And that’s really sad.

This past weekend, I was privileged to play an interesting new indie title named Mushroom 11.

When I watched the trailer of the game, I was instantly interested in the unique mechanic in controlling your ‘character.’ Of course the design of the character you control is absolutely worth mentioning. You play as an amorphic green blob, with no name that I was able to discern. I had no issue with the lack of description or simplicity of the character model, in fact, I applaud it. Mushroom 11’s tutorial instantly begins to show you how to control your blob, and the game becomes completely about the game’s mechanics.

The mechanics of the game appear shockingly simple, you essentially use the 2 mouse buttons to delete parts of your blob to move it. Except when you delete blocks, the blob replaces these blocks randomly out of different sides of itself where the level allows. The mouse gives you 2 types of control: a large sweeping deletion type, and a fine tuned deletion tool. The large sweeping tool, bound to the left mouse button, allows for rapid movement and easy size reduction. The fine tune deletion tool makes it much easier to delete smaller portions of your blob which becomes essential for some of the tougher puzzles as the levels progress.

During the hour I spent playing this game, I easily encompassed the tutorial and enough levels to start to need several tries to clear an area. I was even able to conquer 2 boss fights. It is definitely fair to say the game has a steep learning curve. Rather than being frustrated while playing, and failing several times, I started to see the brilliance in the game. It is the first game where I found myself not having direct control on my character and it’s movement through the game. We are allowed only indirect control, and it’s an absolutely fresh and fantastic idea for a game mechanic. I find myself more and more interested to see how the game will show me to stretch, bend, curve, and express the flexibility of my little blob through the future levels. With the modest price tag, this game is an absolute steal for hours of mind-bending gameplay.

A Solid 9/10

The only reason it’s not a 10 is because I really like a story and it has none. But Otherwise, this is an amazing game!

Valve has removed the SteamOS icon from a batch of games compatible with Linux on Steam, meaning that Linux owners now cannot download those titles anymore.

Reportedly the reason behind the removal of the SteamOS icon from these games is because Valve had determined those games do not work properly with their new OS, and so ahead of the big launch of their new Steam Machine line have trimmed those games to avoid problems later on with games not working which could cause more work around a time they will be busy with the hardware launch.

Unfortunately because the Linux Tux was replaced earlier this year with the SteamOS icon, it does mean that regardless of whether or not a user is using SteamOS they cannot purchase and play these games any longer. However, games purchased before this removal can still apparently be downloaded and played as normal.

Steam Machines, Steam Link and Steam Controller all launch next month.

Steam might be one of the big name in PC digital distribution, but as many have found out their customer service has found to be at times… lacking. Most recently there has even been a post on the /r/steam Reddit about someone willing to seek legal action for the lack of response to their support ticket about a compromised account that had been left untouched for half a YEAR. Ouch.

Fortunately, it seems that Valve have recognised that work needs to be done.

“We started by realising we had a lot of software to write to build a new support system,” says Valve’s Erik Johnson in an interview. “The first feature that came of that was the ability to get refunds of purchases made on Steam. If a customer buys something they don’t like, they can get their money back in a pretty transparent way. We think that’s a good feature, but we don’t think it was the fix for support. It had a lot more work behind it that was long-term thinking than just refunds.”

Next step has been working on account security and theft, with updates coming to the mobile app and two-step authentication being put in place to try and help. They’ve also tried bringing in third-party companies to help, but found that because they were more focused on their numbers Valve have opted to instead provide better in-house training and solutions.

“It’s a function of training up more and more people answer customer issues,” explains Johnson. “We’re not there yet. It’s getting better internally; it’s just that it hasn’t yet translated to great support for users. We’re gonna get there, though.”