The Humble Indie Bundle event has now ended, and was a great chance to get your hands on $80 (RRP) of cross platform, DRM free indie games, for as much (or more importantly, as little) money as you like.

The games that were on offer:

• World of Goo
• Aquaria
• Gish
• Lugaru
• Penumbra

Now, the stats: the event raised a total of $1,273,541, with over 130,000 contributions. The average contribution was $9.18, excellent considering the payment system was set up for pay-as-you-like.

Total Revenue by Platform

Good to see the Mac and Linux people donating more (less users, but higher donation amount per user); I guess it’s just because we aren’t used to games that actually run on our systems…

Fingers crossed, we’ll see more of these type of events; I like the fact they are a great way to both raise money, and get indie games out there and known!

An ICRCEPVGD fundraising event

This week’s Australian new release list is brought to you by the International Campaign to Reduce Carbon Emissions by Playing Video Games in the Dark.

The good people at the ICRCEPVGD (catchy, huh!) believe that millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution could be avoided each year if gamers simply turned off their lights and let the screen glow do the work during their all-night gaming sessions.  Sure, doctors are probably shaking their heads at all the eye damage a campaign like this will cause and wives/girlfriends/mothers everywhere are shaking their heads at the amount of damage unintentional drink spilling will cause to couches around the world.  But if the media has taught us anything in recent years it’s that saving the environment is the more important than any boring shit like being able to see properly* and lounge-room cleanliness.

Those who join the campaign will be playing the following new games in the dark this week:

• Alan Wake (May 20, 360)
• All Star Karate (May 20, Wii)
• ModNation Racers (May 20, PS3)
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (May 20, 360 / DS / PS3 / Wii)
• Split/Second (May 20, 360 / PS3)
• Red Dead Redemption (May 21, 260 / PS3)
• Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 (May 22, PSP)

That’s the lot until next week, enjoy and remember that the ICRCEPVGD accepts no liability or responsibility for any ill-lit video game playing mishaps.

* Wait, did I just make some kind of social commentary in an AD post?  If so, oops!

The villain in the new ME2 DLC, we presume

Yep, it seems Bioware are conspiring to make sure that Mass Effect 2 never leaves our front page.  The company announced the next DLC release for the game this week, titled “Overlord”.

The premise is that Shepard has to go investigate a Cerberus base that’s gone silent.  Bioware use the word “mysteriously” in that description, by the way, but I think the mystery has gone for any regular players of the game: it’s undoubtedly gone silent because someone there did something monumentally stupid, resulting in genetically engineered life forms / robots / biotics / robo-space ponies running wild and killing everybody.

Just to prove me right, this time it’s robots.  A rogue VI is doing some nasty stuff and only you can shut it down.  We’re being promised five new level areas and two new achievements for a cost of 560 MS / Bioware points, the same price as the Kasumi package.  Which means I’ll have to buy even more Bioware points, which annoys the hell out of me, but I’ll do it because I’m obviously a fanboy who doesn’t know better.

Expect a June 2010 release date and visit the official page for more info and pics.

Smashed on a first birthday.  Classy.

Seriously kids, elephants look nothing like this

Yes, that’s right readers, on this very day last year we made our very first post!  We’re a whole one years old!

Throughout the course of the year we’ve:

• Made 430 posts in total
• Reviewed 69 games/game add-ons
• Acquired three new writers
• Started a Twitter account
• Acquired four new consoles
• Never once reviewed a game specifically for Wii

Sorry about that last one by the way, Nintendo fans, I promise we’ll fix that in the next year!

So how else do you celebrate the birthday for a one year old? Why you go out drinking of course!  The entire AD crew are out enjoying a few brews tonight, and we promise to bring you some pictures of our drunken antics tomorrow.

Get ready to make use of that bayonet, Bourbon

THQ have dropped a little knowledge concerning the upcoming DLC package for Metro 2033 and, before you all start rolling your eyes, it actually sounds kind of cool.  The developers have decided to build on the game’s strongest asset, the atmosphere, and are releasing a new game mode to make the most of it: Ranger Mode.

Ranger Mode will apparently decrease the amount of ammo strewn about the metro, while at the same time making all guns more powerful.  So while enemies will deal greater damage than before, the power increase will also allow players to make better use of the game’s stealth system for strategic takedowns.  There’s also an option to completely remove the game’s HUD, to add a touch of difficulty and make better use of the game’s on-screen elements.  Overall, it’s attempting to move the game in a slightly more realistic direction, a move which I heartily approve of.

For those not satisfied with just cranking the difficulty up the “Ranger Pack” will also include a new set of achievements, and add two new guns for your enjoyment.  The new weapons are the Heavy Automatic Shotgun, previously available as a pre-order bonus, and the Volt Driver, the post-apocalyptic rail-gun you can see Miller use in later levels.  The Volt Driver sounds a little out of place but I’ll be happy to get my hands on the Auto Shotgun, especially considering my pre-order code wouldn’t redeem.  Thanks for that, EB Games.

No details on the price yet, but if the asking price is fair I can totallly see myself buying this DLC.  It sounds like it will compliment the game quite nicely.  You can read over the official announcement here.

Sure is one badass moustache there, great-grand-Sam

Yep, we took it to dinner and movie then got shot down before making it to first base.

Sigh.

In other news, the upcoming new installment in Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse has also been given a release date, May 18th to be precise.  Unless you’re playing the game on PS3 and happen to be outside America that is, in which case you’ve been given the slightly tardier release date of May 26th.  You know, what with international shipping times (?) and all that.

The Devil’s Playhouse had a good start (if I did say so myself), so I’m looking forward to playing The Tomb of Sammun-Mak next week.  To accompany the announcement, Telltale Games have also released a few screenshots over on their blog, including the one pictured here of Sam and Max’s respective (and dapper!) great-grandparents.  Neat!

I think she once brutalised a cauliflower too ...

New from those serious-business-types at PETA, rather than those anti-vegan, discriminating Majesco bastards, comes Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals!

This parody game was made by PETA in response to the lack of a full vegan version of Cooking Mama. After playing the game – which includes enough blood to make it a dubious contender for MA15+ – the site gives you the opportunity to petition Majesco to create a vegan only game, saying ‘Mama’ herself would be saddened by where her meat comes from.

She looks innocent enough—a happy woman who has a twinkle in her eye and loves to cook—but if you take just a minute to think about what happens to the animals who are killed for Mama’s meals, a fun cooking game no longer seems quite so innocent.

The game centers on the plucking, gutting and stuffing of a turkey for Thanksgiving. I don’t celebrate the holiday, not being a North American, but holy shit it sounds like fun! You get to cut the neck off! Pull out guts! Mix them around in a bowl with what looks like acid! What’s not to like? Oh. Right. All of this is bad for the turkey.

For some reason, you also crack open eggs full of blood into a bowl. I’m sorry? Last time I cracked open an unfertilised egg, blood didn’t come out of them. In fact, the last time I had the misfortune of cracking open a cold, dead, fertilised egg, there weren’t any splatters or blood either.

Have a play of this amusingly bloody game. If you really want to support PETA, or pledge to become vegan, then there are links on the page. You can also sign the petition. I hear for every petition signed, you save one blood filled egg from being cracked into a bowl, saving at least $7 in bleach alone to get the stains out of your clothes.

"... and I said to him: Speak up, you're a little hoarse!"

This week’s Australian new release list is brought to you by video game horses – now with 100% less sore arse muscles than riding the real thing!

Coming to an Australian store (real, virtual or otherwise) near you this week are:

• Amazing Adventures: The Caribbean Secret (May 13, PC)
• Bookworm Adventure 2 (May 13, PC)
• Lost Planet 2 (May 13, 360 / PC / PS3)
• Murder She Wrote (May 13, PC)
• Mystery PI: Lost in Los Angeles (May 13, PC)
• Sherlock Holmes: The Lost Cases of 221B Baker Street (May 13, PC)
• Skate 3 (May 13, 260 / PS3)
• Red Dead Redemption (May 15, 260 / PS3)
• Samurai Warriors 3 (May 15, Wii)
• Scene It? Twilight (May 15, DS / Wii)

Red Dead Redemption is almost certainly the most hyped game out this week, anyone else preparing to bare-knuckle fist fight a bear?

Editorial Retraction: Red Dead is actually being released on the 21st of May, but both it and Skate 3 certainly will be making their way to Xbox 260! You heard it here, folks!

It kinda looks like a puzzle game for bee-keepers

So, by the team’s own admission, it’s been in development for some time now, but it looks like the wait has been worthwhile.  The team over at Cipher Prime announced a couple of days ago that pre-orders are now available for their new puzzle game Fractal.

But what’s Fractal, and why should you care?  Well, they’re ready to answer that question too, in the form of a playable Campaign Mode demo which demonstrates how the game works and what you can expect.  Essentially the game is a hexagonal brick-breaker, that gives the player a certain amount of moves to set up and trigger a quota of “blooms”.  It’s kind of like Hexic but with more of an eye for physics.

Grabbing a copy of this is a no-brainer, at least for me, as Cipher Prime were the creative geniuses who bought us Auditorium, a puzzle game that had me gushing all over myself in review form.  I’m certain we can expect nothing less than a top quality puzzler from it’s successor.

Although the game will eventually retail for US$15, the developers would like to extend a $5 discount for everyone who pre-orders their copy of the game (so it’s $10 right now, all you maths challenged folk).  Fractal is due out on the 20th of May, and unlike the browser-based Auditorium will be a downloadable title for both PC and Mac.

Head on over to the Cipher Prime blog to get the complete lowdown, or give Fractal a try for yourself.