Bus Simulator 2008 Demo!

Written by John Walker on May 12, 2008.

Control yourselves: the Bus Simulator 2008 demo is out. Warning: it’s possibly not a good idea to play this after prolongued sessions with GTA IV. Especially since its primitive engine does let you knock down lampposts and traffic lights.

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The Sunday Papers

Written by Kieron Gillen on May 11, 2008.

Crashing in from a gathering of sequential narrative fans, what I like to do is sit down and have a read of some lovely thoughtful pieces on games. But what I have to do is pack up my life, so this will be a shorter-than-usual Sunday Papers. As always, the idea is that I hammer out a list of things that caught my eye this week in the world of games writing while resisting linking to some completely irrelevant record on Youtube.

• Strategy specialist Troy S Goodfellow has been blogging about the history of Ancients videogames - Romans and chums! - and has now reached the end of his list. From Legionnaire in 1982 to Rome: Total War in 2004, it’s comprehensive and thought provoking series of retrospectives. Offer unto Ceaser clicks.

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Charlie Foxtrot & The Galaxy Of Tomorrow

Written by John Walker on May 11, 2008.

The best adventure game I’ve played in a long time? A freeware AGS adventure called Charlie Foxtrot & The Galaxy of Tomorrow.

This could be taken (accurately) as an indictment of the state of commercial adventures, but I think that would do an injustice to a very capable and entertaining game. From Hatter’s Guild Productions, and more specifically Alex V.D.Wijst, it’s a mid-period Sierra-style adventure (rotating mouse cursor, all point and click, text dialogue) telling the story of a cloned human attempting to escape from the boundaries of conformity.

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Strafe Left: The Formative Years #29

Written by Tim Stone on May 11, 2008.

Drawn in Feb 06 for the BFME2 review issue of PC Gamer UK.

Space Siege Trailer

Written by Jim Rossignol on May 11, 2008.

I had the distinct please of having some hands-on time with Space Siege recently, the results of which you’re able to read in the latest PC Gamer UK. (They also have an almighty preview of Empire Total War.) Anyway, a cinematic trailer for Space Siege has been released and you can find it after the jump. We’ll hopefully be talking to the devs of said action RPG in a few weeks time, so if you have an questions about the game they’re calling “Diablo-with-cyborgs” the post them below. Perhaps they’ll even get answered…
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Storm in a Teacup: Anti-Anti-Aliasing

Written by Alec Meer on May 10, 2008.

I keep seeing this story doing the rounds, and originally didn’t deem it worthy of a post, but seeing as this week seems to have inadvertently been Hot Button Issue Week on RPS, may as well give you folks a chance to have a shout about Assassin’s Creed too. I know you do like to.
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Gears Of War 2 Footage

Written by Jim Rossignol on May 10, 2008.

God knows when Epic’s hyper-muscular shooter sequel will chainsaw its way through a flimsy format-exclusive to find itself on PC, but here’s the first footage anyway. It’s introduced by the Internet’s favourite Clifford Bleszinski, Clifford Bleszinski, who is the lead designer on the game. By golly it looks a bit exciting: guns, giant machines, flying octopuses ridden by evil aliens. ClickJump for War.

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GRID Demo: Quite Good

Written by Jim Rossignol on May 10, 2008.

Just in case anyone missed it, the GRID demo is out now. It’s 893mb and some excellent racing fun. There are three events in those megabytes, including a Ford Mustang GT-R in San Francisco, a Nissan S15 Silvia in Yokohama Docks, and a BMW 320si touring car for the crashing into other cars on every bend. Officially quite a good demo.

EA Backs Down From 10-Day Authentication

Written by John Walker on May 9, 2008.

Good news, loud, complaining denizens of the internet! Bioware have backed down on their draconian copy protection for Mass Effect.

Edit: And EA say the same goes for Spore.

Community Manager, Jay Watamaniuk, has posted to the Mass Effect forums saying,

“There has been a lot of discussion in the past few days on how the security requirements for Mass Effect for PC will work. BioWare, a division of EA, wants to let fans know that Mass Effect will not require 10- day periodic re-authentication.”

The reasons jumpward.

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Burnout Coming Out on PC

Written by Kieron Gillen on May 9, 2008.

Unexpected but not unwelcome, Shacknews are reporting that Criterion are bringing the latest version of their console racer to the PC. More details will be forthcoming, but they’re talking about improved online stuff and community-driven content. The last one strikes me as the interesting on. Burnout Paradise, in its open city with seamless multi-player play, is an interesting space for the community to create.

And before anyone who hasn’t heard of Burnout start googling and panics about the game’s apparent stability, the crashes Burnout specialises in are the good kind.

Warhammer is 25 (and a few days)

Written by Kieron Gillen on May 9, 2008.

With Warhammer moving ever more into the world of videogames, this just about inches into our remit. Or, at least, an excuse for an amusingly geeky comments thread. On Wednesday, Games Workshop’s Warhammer celebrated its 25 years of painting little guys at the weekend. The Miniature Wargames Union made a two-part documentary about the development of the game, which will make certain gamers sigh nostalgically about the Nippon and Norse Army lists in Ravening Hordes.

Second part beneath the cut.
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Look On My Works, Ye Mighty…

Written by Alec Meer on May 9, 2008.

Activision are the new kings of gaming hill, they claim - in America at least. They’ve just published their results for the last financial year, and, well, they’ve made lots of money. More than any other publisher. Primarily from Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty IV, by the sounds of it. Admittedly they’re number one for console and handheld, not PC, but we can surely expect their swollen coffers to impact their future PC releases.
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Friday Linkswap: Boing Boing Gadgets

Written by John Walker on May 9, 2008.

Last week BBG described us as insouciant. Not to be bettered, this week we once more celebrate the debonair, er… very nice, um… okay, we’re bettered. Here’s some links to some of the best bits to have appeared on the excellent Boing Boing Gadgets in the last week.

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Wrath Of The Lich King Trailers

Written by Jim Rossignol on May 9, 2008.

The new World Of Warcraft expansion, Wrath Of the Lich King, is hurtling towards the social lives of my friends and peers with the inexorability of a epoch-changing meteorite. I, however, am entirely safe in my Eve Online bunker, from where I will laugh at the WoW crowd, before feeling quietly guilty about having spend the past five years playing with internet spaceships.

Anyway, after the jump are some in-game footage trailers for the upcoming Angry Lich King Adventures, including aerial combat cleverness for those of you gold-laden enough to be zooming about on flying mounts. The real pull of the expansion, however, is the raised level cap (to 80) and the hero class, the necromantic Death Knight. Woo.
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Bioshock: the Movie

Written by Alec Meer on May 9, 2008.

Oh yes - Rapture for real will be quite the sight to behold.

Oh no - It’s to be directed and produced by Gore ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Verbinski. Well, the first film was loads of fun, but even discounting those sequels, high seas hi-jinks seems an unusual pedigree for undersea rumination upon the nature of man. But hey, both have water and zombies.
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