Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s first thing in the morning here in the land they call “America”. In a country where Mythbusters is on TV before 8am you know everything is magical. Also magical is the video the boys at 2D BOY just spotted showing World Of Goo in real life. It’s a really beautiful thing, and it’s below.

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Sundays are for trying to get the core of your work done before you find yourself assembling Skaven, playing Dragon Age and going off to Comiket at the ICA. This work includes compiling a list of fine mainly-games-related reading from across the week while trying to avoid linking to two splendid leftfield pop-icons sharing an intimate stage. Go list!

• ABC News reports on finding that sleeping makes you a better gamer. Basically. The idea being, dreaming is part of the learning process. This seems… well, it seems to match up with my own personal experience. If I get stuck on something last thing at night, I tend to beat it first thing in the morning. Of course, there’s lots of other reasons for that – not least the fact I’m no longer angry/tired/frustrated/whatever – but it’s a fun one to think about.

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Not a good week for Combat Mission creators Battlefront. After waiting donkey’s years for Jean-Michel Mathé to finish his ground-breaking Napoleonic ‘First-Person Commander’ wargame HistWar: Les Grognards, the scamp has jumped ship at the eleventh hour and decided to self-publish. Battlefront are sticking doggedly to a ‘we cancelled because of repeated delays’ line, but the simmering annoyance radiating from their statements suggests subtler shenanigans. Read the rest of this entry »

All the rich folk might be gearing up for the big releases coming up shortly, but we’ve got other things on our mind here in the bargain bucket. Value is our hype, discounts are our press releases, and regional pricing discrepancies are our dedicated servers. Head to SavyGamer to fight for your right to game cheap. Here’s this week’s selection…
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Almost forgot there was another Bioware game in the offing (two, in fact – Mass Effect 2 also looms) amidst all this cheery chatter about Dragon Age. The Old Republic remains The New Hope of both Star Wars games and mainstream MMOs, and while we’re all lacking a clear picture of quite how it’s going to play, Bioware are at least providing a steady drip-feed of new info. This time, some of their thinking behind the Jedi class, and the revelation of what another class will be – boo-hiss-baddies, these ones…

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Ill-timed because 1) it came out over Halloween and we’re only just posting about it. That is, of course, because none of RPS have ever demonstrated any kind of fear about anything, hence we do not recognise Halloween as a OH GOD WHAT WAS THAT I’M GONNA DIE I’M GONNA DIE… Oh, it’s just a yogurt pot. Cough. And 2) Because I’ve heard a rumour there might some sort of sequel to Left 4 Dead due any day now. Anyone heard anything about that? Nonetheless, you probably couldn’t wish for a more delectably violent stopgap than this vast and lavish tribute to Dawn of the Dead – a super-spiffy Left 4 Dead 1 mod replete with zombie-infested shopping mall…
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Sorry about the delay on this. The plan was to judge it last night, but there were – er – unavoidable delays. In a pub. Sorry. However, I’ve judged the competition and selected the winners, turning this into a very Dragon-agey day indeed. Hopefully they’ll have their copy of the Dragon’s Age Direct2Drive shortly. The standard of entries were high. Many people did copies of famous people. Many people did copies of us. Many people did seemingly completely normal fantasy characters, with bios, which is very sweet. Some people did things which make me genuinely disturbed. Some of them are winners. But which ones? Click, to discover.
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We’re playing Dragon Age. Except for John, because he’s already finished it and reviewed it for PC Gamer. The rest of RPS were a bit later to the party, so to speak. Consequently we’re a little… distracted. We offer a few early thoughts below. It’s probably fair to say that there will be minor spoilers in this article.
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Well, up to the first 10 levels anyway. It’s quite the move; replacing the traditional 10-day trial, you’re now able to play Warhammer Online as much as you like. You can’t go past the first ten levels, but that still allows you to try all the character classes to see if any fixes. Also, rather than the enormo-client download, the game’s been re-jigged to work on a Guild-Wars-esque streaming basis. So you can just go and get it here and start playing. If I get a chance, I plan to actually go back and have a nose – I’ve heard some interesting word on stuff they’ve been doing on the quiet, and I want to see if it’s true or not. How’s RPS’ Warhammer-playing readers finding it?

Dragon Age playing masses, the 1.01 patch is out, and it’s likely essential. Those who’ve seen my PC Gamer review, and indeed very many others saying the same, will have noticed complaints that the Easy difficulty level at certain points isn’t altogether that easy. And I’ll wager many playing on Normal aren’t exactly finding it a breeze. The patch notes explain that they’ve, “made Easy difficulty easier”, and crucially, “slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty.” I’ve yet to check what difference it actually makes, but hopefully this will address my one major complaint with the game. Steam has already auto-patched, so restart if you’re playing it over there. (And while I’m here, here’s Eurogamer’s review of the 360 version – it seems the PC won this one rather well.)