Rock, Paper, Shotgun

More or less cut off from my sugary internet drip-feed for a couple of weeks due to a house move (look ma, I’m in That London!), the very idea of playing an MMO seems absolutely ludicrous to me right now – it’s like dreaming of going swimming while stranded in the desert, or asking for a Big Mac in Burger King. What I can do while I wait is appreciate Mythic’s cheeky viral hints as to upcoming Warhammer Online updates. Remember all those classes they cut a while before release? A couple of ‘em were reinstated last month, and now it looks like the remaining fellas are inbound too. Either that or Mythic are just really rude about bloggers’ haircuts.
Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s play a little choose-your-own-adventure game. Okay, ready? You’re a small Russian games development studio located deep in the grassy guts of your enormous nation. It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. In your inventory is: Some designers. Some computers. Two jars of instant coffee. Some asshole has drunk all the milk.

Read the rest of this entry »

Flash game supremo, Tyler Glaiel, follows up Aether (co-created with Edmund McMillen) with a new, imaginative puzzler, Closure. The all-important unique device: if it isn’t lit up, it doesn’t exist.

Read the rest of this entry »

We linked to the online demo before, because we’re all about the linking. But that was just a single battle against a bloke who thrashed everyone, it seems. Now there’s a proper PC game demo out which allows you to play the first five (Count ‘em!) character levels and generally explore its puzzle-game cosmos. Impresions follow…
Read the rest of this entry »

The first official Rock, Paper, Shotgun Planetside mob formed up on the Gemini server last night at 8pm GMT. We had around thirty people in the platoon, which meant lots of chaotic combat, and a whole lot of tanks. Read on for the battle report.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday Morning is a time for slowly making your way across London town whilst carrying very tired friends. Though, I suppose, that was more Saturday Night. Sunday Morning is now Sunday Afternoon, but still – its true purpose remains. That is, compiling a (shorter than usual) list of fine games-related reading from across the week for your entertainment whilst trying to avoid linking to potted histories of last night’s clubbing or in fact any music whatsoever. Go!

• Ian Holdstock mailed me a while back with his paper on “Greek Tragedy And Its Relation To Interactive Media”. Which I enjoyed, and said if he ever put it online, I’d link to it. He did and I have. KOTOR, Portal and (especially) Mirror’s Edge features prominently. And he got an A. RPS Reader Brain-dump for high-marks winnah! All RPS Readers are “A”s in our book.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the BBC spends most of its TV licence revenue on overpaying chatshow hosts and making fine nature documentaries, ORF, its Austrian equivalent, prefers to splash its cash on overpaying chatshow hosts and making fine free winter sports games. For years ORF have been dishing out top-notch ski simulators. The latest – Ski Challenge 2009 - lets you slide down six famous European peaks at breakneck speeds. Don’t be put-off by the Deutsch web page. The installer and game menus are all in English.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some staggering news from Redmond via Gamasutra. Microsoft have just euthanised the most successful sim studio of all time. ACES, the team behind the Flight Simulator and Combat Flight Simulator franchises, are effectively no more. A skeleton staff of six will be kept on to service existing ESP contracts but it’s curtains for everyone else. Blimey.

Read on for ill-informed speculation.

Read the rest of this entry »

At first the end of January seems an odd time to release a baseball management game. With all the teams hibernating in their branded caves, and the beginning of the glorious new season not until April, people aren’t in a ballgame frame of mind. But Spring Training begins in about three weeks, and it’s right now that the managers are in their frenzied meetings and negotiations, performing the real-world version of swapping baseball cards with the other kids on the playground. (I hear the players with hologram faces are the most popular.) So it is that 2K Sports’ MLB Front Office Manager is out Monday. There’s the first of three trailers introducing the game below, along with ill-informed comment from the only person in England who could care less.

Read the rest of this entry »

Been online for a while, it seems, but Shawn Elliot’s Tweet-o-thing expose us to the above lovely fanart by Peganthyrus of the ‘shipping of ur-AI-hottie Shodan and fairly-ur-AI hottie GladOS. Above is her humourous take on it. And beneath the cut, the more slashy approach. Click through to go to the full images on her deviant-art page at much better image quality.

NSFW? I think it’s fine, but I’m a big old pervert.
Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve had a bit more time on the Dawn Of War 2 multiplayer beta, and some thoughts come to mind. I’ve written them up after the jump, and I’m fairly certain you’ll tell me whether or not you agree.
Read the rest of this entry »