Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[When I was at NYCC, I found some time to have a quick crack at a load of games on the floor. Quick cracks. I'm going to write up the ones that stick in the memory.]

If anyone on the development team is hanging around the Ubisoft booth, you’re glad that they’re not actually standing beside me and watching. It’s about 10 minutes before the doors of the con close, and the early-twenty-something guy on the controls have spent at least the last ten minutes circling aimlessly in the sky. Really trying has long since drained away. He’s destroyed two of the three drones which he’s been charged with shooting in, but the third is proving elusive. Occasionally a missile collides with him. Occasionally he dodges one. He seems to take down the last one down by some semi-random method, puts down the controls at the end of this abstract training sequence before the mission proper and steps away into the thinning crowd, cursing about the bloody camera.
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Action/RPG Rise of the Argonauts came out on all formats rather recently, and the PC version came out last week. Does Jason get the fleece, or just get fleeced? Here’s Wot I Think:

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Imagine a greatest hits of all the games that have found success with non-gamers. The compulsive sight-puzzles of Bejewelled, the dress-up roleplaying of The Sims, the cartoon brawling of World of Warcraft, the micropayment hats of Maple Story, the bumper car silliness of Mario Kart, the customisable animals of Neopets, the ancillary merchandise of Pokemon…

Free Realms, the kid-orienated MMO that Sony clearly hopes will restore its troubled online fortunes, is all things to all children. It has been focused group-trialled to boys and girls alike, and it shows. If your child can’t find something in FR’s long list of mini-games and gimmicks to capture its attention, it’ll probably grow up to be a serial killer.
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Here’s a pretty thing, via Indiegames. And nothing more, really. It’s a simplistic maze game by this chap (download link on the left). The visuals and general presentation are absolutely lovely – bloomy, glowy, snowy – and you wander about in a maze. A peaceful, soothing way to start Monday morning, if ever I’ve found one. Although I started Monday, naturally enough, by killing five hundred Tyranids and quietly nodding as the Space Marines gossip in Dawn Of War 2. They’re dead right, those space marines. The crusade of the righteous really won’t be stopped by anyone.

This is a short, cute cartoon, gently spoofing the idiosyncrasies of Left 4 Dead. It’ll let you know who’s most likely to be turned zombie in an apocalypse, who might survive, and other useful tips. It’s by =Golden-Silver (Stefan Martello), on his Deviant Art page, and worth a glance. Thanks to Yngvild for the tip-off.

What’s Sunday for? Trying to post a compiled list of all the neat reading we’ve found online, in the gaps whilst the troublesome site is actually up, whilst trying to avoid posting a NY-bar karakoke classic. Because that’d be terrible.

• We avoided doing anything Valentines related at the site, for obvious reasons (We forgot and/or couldn’t be bothered and/or considered an evil machination of a world that strives to commercialise affection). But that doesn’t mean we’re not dirty great softies. Barry White proves that Pyro is totally a she. At least, in his case.
• I’m up for any piece of writing which begins with the word “Confessions”. Daedren writes about his experience as a bot-user in World of Warcraft.

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In June 2006 PC Gamer UK replaced its long-running Devil’s Advocaat column (provocative analysis of egg-based liqueurs) with a Devil’s Advocate column (provocative analysis of game-related subjects). It was a popular move. What follows is one of my contributions. Military shooters had been getting some stick for trivialising war. I waded in, semi-seriously, in their defence. Read the rest of this entry »

The Purchase Brothers (their website is currently squished by traffic), independent filmmakers and commercial directors, have released the first part of their Half-Life-inspired short film series. And it’s pretty good. It’s a mixture of live action and game footage, and makes smart use of in-game sound effects, and some really fantastic location hunting. Originally developed to test post-production techniques for their work, as well as to create a ‘spec’ commercial to demonstrate their talents, it eventually became a series of shorts telling a story within the Half-Life universe. And it’s below.

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Positech (Kudos, etc) have announced a new game: Gratuitous Space Battles. That is all.

I’m amazed that it took me so long to realise how I should really be spending the three weeks I recently spent offline thanks to a feckless ISP. Reading, walking, meeting exciting new people? Nah. Finally finishing King’s Bounty, my favourite game of 2008, but one that proved so long and so sadly short on its early hyper-enthusiasm in its later hours that I’d had to put it down long before its conclusion. If you wonder why I was quite so keen on this Vladivostok-developed RPG-strategy underdog, I’d much rather point you here, here and here than summarise myself again. Oh – it’s finally on sale at retail in the UK by the way, so you needn’t fret about the unreasonable Euro pricing for the download versions anymore.

Below is a slightly maudlin account of my final days with King’s Bounty – it includes spoilers of a sort, not that I can believe anyone was really in this game for its cheerfully incoherent plot.
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It’s been a while since the first part of this, but the talking heads have talked their heads enough for a second part. Shawn Elliot’s lobbed it up yesterday, and I’m mirroring it here. I stress again – this is both classic TL;DR and total games journalist shop talk. If that’s not your thing, probably best click on something else. However, if you want to hear games journalists yabber about review ethics…
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