Notch reveals: Mass Effect April Fool is really a new game

If you spent all of Sunday hiding from April 1's annual barrage of falsehood, japery and good old-fashioned made-up crap, you'll have missed the debut of Mars Effect, an obsessive-sounding sci-fi concoction posing as the new game from Minecraft heart-throb “Notch” Persson. So now you're all caught up on Notch's April Fool, the Swedish trickster's about ready to meta-fool you with the announcement that Mars Effect really is his next project, albeit without that difficult name. No, this game's got a whole new, arguably even more difficult name!

0x10c is the real, no-fooling title of Notch's next effort, which the Mojang founder describes as a “quite ambitious” space sim. The game's backstory sees the Space Race continuing into the 1980s with the growth of corporate and personal interplanetary tech – before a programming glitch sees hypersleep modules sending people to sleep until the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD.

Features promised for the title so far include hard science fiction, “lots of engineering,” an advanced economy system, space battles, and a fully-working 16-bit computer front-end for tinkering by programming-savvy players. This “can be used to control your entire ship,” says Notch, “or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish.”

Persson says the game's “still very early in development,” but hopes to adopt a Minecraft-esque, player-driven development model. The finished game will likely run on a subscription system, says Notch, necessary to power the game's substantial persistent backend. Jump on Gmail Tap and spread the news!

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The Secret World: EA launches pre-orders with early-access rewards

EA's just launched its preorder campaign for The Secret World, Funcom's conspiracy-themed action-MMO. Launching June, the game's leadup will be marked by a series of Beta Weekends which'll tease the game's world and content for players – and of course, there's a secret entrance to these weekends, if you'll only hand over a token of your worldly esteem and join the conspiracy. Or, in plain old English, preorder the game and you can play it before it's released.

In addition to guaranteed full beta access, preorder customers will get to play the finished game up to four days before release and a headstart on choosing a character name. There'll also be in-game perks for preordering, including an experience-boosting item and faction-specific pet. Pre-order customers will also get an exclusive in-game t-shirt, adorned with “a unique monster design” so everyone can recognize the true secret-society OGs. The game's set for launch on June 19; check our most recent The Secret World video preview now.

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Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 3: First details released ahead of PAX reveal

Penny Arcade's just announced the first details of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3, third in a series many had given up on after the long silence that followed Episode 2. Which is to say that when the game's revealed to the public this weekend at PAX East, Penny Arcade Adventures will kind of succeed where both Half-Life Episodes and Shenmue have so far failed.

Bound for PC, Mac, Android, iOS and the Xbox Live Indie Games channel in the coming months, Precipice 3 continues the saga begun in 2008's initial installments. With previous developer Hothead Games having moved onto its own IPs, last year saw the series revived after a deal was hatched on the comic's own forums for Cthulhu Saves the World dev Zeboyd Gams to continue Penny Arcade's extra-canonical adventures.

PAX East attendees will be able to get a look at Zeboyd's 16-bit-inspired take on the series at the show this weekend, with a panel discussion between the game and comic's staff on Friday evening. Non-attendees can keep up with the game's progress at its newly-launched website.

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PlanetSide 2: Detailed new clip devotes 3 minutes to one sniper scope

Sony's going all-out to impress upon you just how much work's going into upcoming free-play MMOFPS PlanetSide 2. A previous PlanetSide 2 timelapse clip shows the birth of one of the game's new large-scale weapons – but as you can see from this developer walkthrough (via Joystiq), the same attention to detail's being paid to smaller elements like the game's sniper scopes. Well, that is what many players will spend much of their time looking at, after all.

When you consider how many bits and pieces have to be modeled with this level of attention to detail, it's no wonder PlanetSide 2 is still a ways off from release. While we leave the good people of SOE to get back to their obsessive virtual ordinance-crafting, have a look at some more GDC-fresh PlanetSide 2: 12 minutes of pure gameplay to give you look at what all that detail's going toward. (Destruction and face-shooting, mainly.)

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