Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The DRM sucks. It really does. Only… I can’t comment on exactly how sucky it is because this an opinion based on the 360 version of the game. I know! I played it on a gamepad and everything! I’ll be handing in my PC4EVA badge and gun momentarily, but before that it seemed wise to at least write up my experiences. 360 is what we had access to for review, and, while largely speaking (based upon the differences between BS1 console and PC, and how technically similar this is to BS1) the experience should be very similar, I can’t say that it definitely will be, or that those multiple forms of copy protection won’t cause every PC in the world to turn into a chocolate muffin with chicken nuggets on top when it unlocks tomorrow. That would make me a liar, and I only lie about things that don’t matter, like loving my family and whether I really finished reading that Stephen Hawking book. I’ll be checking BS2 PC out tomorrow, and if there’s any sign of trouble or disparity with anything in this piece, rest assured there’ll be posts about it.
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You thought they’d run out of Star Wars films to make Lego games about, right? Wrong. Now the TV series, Clone Wars, is to receive the plastic man treatment. I think it’s tempting to start rolling eyes at the prospect of another Lego game. The Lego Indies have been a bit disappointing, and the prospect of Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 may not fill everyone’s hearts with glee. But the Star Wars games were genuinely fantastic, and yet another could be fun. It will feature all the characters from the two seasons of the show, and apparently “brand new battle modes”. There’s also a new version of the level builder, and of course lightsaber fighting. The game site’s here. So, as is obligatory, below you must suggest which other film series merit the Lego treatment. And everyone’s already said Godfather. Go!

Crikey! At last. Following their winning of the best upcoming indie game in the ModDb award, they’ve uploaded some better quality footage than what was used in the award reel. It’s still pre-alpha, they stress, and they wouldn’t normally release this into the community in this state, but they’re in a celebratory, sharing mood. Frankly, it looks fine to me.
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It’s Monday morning. As such, we should gracefully ease into the working, gaming week with a webgame. Too many to name people mailed us this over the weekend. It’s a one-button web-game based on a cheery Rick Dangerous/Spelunky theme. One Button Bob manages shows that, if you limit the context smartly, you can actually create a lot of the “traditional” gaming problems on a single button. It’s also a bit of a giggle. Go play.

Mod-making mothership Moddb has announced its mod of the year winners. You can see the full list of winners here, but the all important top ten – the players choice for mod of the year 2009 – is here. The prizes aren’t bad either. And yes, we’re acutely aware that we don’t do anything like enough mod coverage here on RPS, so consider this your notification to download and play all the top mods of 2009. If you don’t already own Crysis, this might be a reason to get it…

Reverie World Studios haven’t exactly managed to come up with the most excitingly original name for their new MMORTS – it’s called “Dawn Of Fantasy” – but other elements of the game give us reason to murmur to each other over the internet, and surreptitiously keep an eye on things in the months leading up to release. Dawn Of Fantasy is a traditional orks vs humans type strategy in the style of the Total War games (so it’s a big old campaign map punctuated with 3D combat), and most interesting of all, it’s going to be a single player campaign and skirmish game with an option to turn it into an online game if you wish. Most recently they’ve revealed elements of the game map and, well, I’m just a sucker for maps at the worst of time, and this lures me in. If this can work as a single player game and an MMO then Reverie will have hit the jackpot. Naturally we’re sceptical that anyone can pull this off quite so readily, but I guess we’ll find out when the game turns up later this year. Slightly dodgy trailer below.
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Sundays are for gathering ancient Ogres to give to my brother in a sinister North-London meeting before he sods back off to Sheffield and compiling a list of the fine (mostly) games related reading from across the week, while trying to not include a link to a new Mix-tape that’s tweaking my monkey and a track by the band I went to see last night. Tweaking my monkey? I don’t know. I just don’t know. GO LIST!

• This ties in amusingly to what’s the main game the half of RPS who don’t review the sexy new stuff are playing this week. Neptune’s Bounty has been picking up a gear and… well, we’re wrestling with how on Earth we’re going to write about the bastard thing. Anyway! Graham PCG, who’s playing an important part in the game in the last 24 hours, writes about his teenage gaming with Planeterion: “At my Secondary School, for a few months at least, our teenaged politics was defined by who was kissing whom, who had insulted whom, and who was sending spaceships to defend or attack whom.” We do forget the personal a bit, being grown-ups, I think. Well, mostly grown ups.

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Stop paying full price for games you silly goose! Come here, look at the cheap games you can get for 10%, 20% sometimes even 30% less than RRP! Throw just a little bit of cash into the bargain bucket, and out pops hours worth of electronic entertainment. Monetary Magic! For more ways to stretch your gaming budget, head to SavyGamer.co.uk.
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Via the almighty news node of VG247 we cyber-pilfer news of a new Dawn Of War II: Chaos Rising trailer, this time with footage of a demon in action. Not sure about that narration, though, because it really just sounds a bit like me when I get all excited and do a space marine voice.
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Man versus dinosaur. We all know the days are coming. In preparation for the ultimate war, there’s Primal Carnage. It’s to be a team-based FPS multiplayer, in which one side plays as the humans, the other the giant stompy reptiles. It’s from indie team Lukewarm Media, previously noticed for their unreleased mod/full game, Light Spire. But we’re focusing on dinosaurs just now, and Primal Carnage has just opened itself a website, announced a deal with Ungine, and offers a few tech videos to look at.

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