Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Have we written about the august ScummVM before? I rather believe we haven’t. What cads we are- it’s the lash for us tonight, lads. As the tireless folk behind it have just released version 0.13.0, now seems as good a time as any to mention this wonderful application. It’s more than likely you’re already familiar with this indispensable (and free) tool of retro PC gaming, but just in case not I’ll bang out a quick summary before talking about the new version.

ScummVM, y’see, is a freeware project designed predominantly to make the classic LucasArts adventure games run all slick’n'nice on modern PCs’ new-fangled hardware and operating systems. That’s Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Full Throttle et al. Woo!
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Our recent interview with Codemasters about their new racing game FUEL suggested that changing weather would be more than just a visual extra, it should also affect the racing. Of course the trailer (anterior to click) totally fails to convey that: it just looks pretty. Although I bet driving into that tornado probably isn’t going to help you win the race. Unless the finishing line is in Oz.

FUEL is, miraculously, still on course for a May release.
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Man Raised by Puffins tells us there’s a Stalin Vs. Martians trailer. There is. It’s beneath the cut.

Gosh.
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If any reader of any website is likely to have World of Goo, you have to suspect RPS readers are. We did the first review! We never shut up about it! However if for some reason you don’t, Steam are selling it for 75% off this weekend. That’s just over four quid. Go get it.

If you’re feeling even four-quid skint, also over at Steam, Unreal Tournament 3 Black is free to play all weekend - plus 40% off the full game (Making it just over eight quid). It includes the Titan Pack, which is a hefty newly released expansion for the full game which includes lots of stuff which I’ll lob beneath the cut. As it really is a load of stuff, including the word “behemoth”….
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2D BOY are offering a really interesting glimpse into the process World of Goo went through, on its way to become the cuddly bundle of ludicrous loveliness that made us crack our ears with smiling last year. These will apparently be in seven stages, and the first is available to download from their site today. It’s a single room, containing some very primitive goo balls, which begin to show some of the characteristics that would form the final game.

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Michael Norskov suggested we play this. I did and then Walker revealed he gave it a crack a couple of days ago and didn’t think it interesting enough to post about. Which lead to a little RPS-chat-room debate about why he didn’t, and why I thought Sophie Houlden had nailed it, admittedly in a pretty mean-spirited way. And the fact we were having the debate at all probably meant it was worth posting about. In other words, it’s one of those videogame deconstruction things which wind some of you up right rotten.
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Vin Diesel’s driving game Wheelman is due in about three weeks. Savour that. A Vin Diesel game, not based on a movie nor nuffink. He plays a man called Milo Burik, which literally rhymes with the central character of another open-city car driving game that was recently quite popular. In this instance the city is Barcelona, which must be smashed to bits, cars and all, as Diesel hurtles around performing pumped up stunts and general bravado. There’s a couple of new trailers showing off quite how explosive the car-go-bangs are to be.

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While spaceship chumps like myself are generally gearing up for both next week’s Eve patch and the Jumpgate Evolution beta a few weeks later, those aren’t the only space MMO excitements on the horizon. There’s another visually impressive offering incoming from German development studio, Reakktor Media (of Neocron fame). The Black Prophecy website has just been relaunched, complete with a lovely beta sign up form – suggesting that a playable version of the game isn’t too far away. Other than a handful of new screenshots there’s not much more information than what we got with last year’s sumptuous trailer (after the link), but the game nevertheless remains a profoundly shiny proposition.

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Ask me what my favourite games are, and once you’ve snoozed through me banging on about X-COM, Dungeon Keeper and Planescape: Torment yet again, you might catch me trying to sneak The Settlers of Catan into my list. While the PC’s cutsey-management Settlers series is loosely based on it, they’re two very distinct entities.

Catan is a boardgame, as you probably know – a German boardgame about grain and sheep and tiny wooden roads. One of the things I’ve always liked about it is that, when describing it to anyone, their brows will furrow with the understandable concern of someone who thinks they’re trapped in conversation with a European farming enthusiast. Get them into a game, however, and they’ll slip into its fine blend of socialising and intense competition as if they’ve been playing it their whole lives.
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To fund the development of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Dejobaan Games are offering a sale price of $9.95 on their whimsically insane The Wonderful End Of The World. We previously blogged about the goofy madness of the Katamari-like here, and you should at least try out the demo (33mb).

NCSoft was hit rather hard by the failure of Tabula Rasa, and they’ll be looking for their next big title to do a little better. Despite being another fantasy MMORPG Aion is actually looking pretty interesting, with its scenario of war between angel and demon analogues, it’s ludicrously spectacular environments, and its aerial combat. It’s also visually splendid, being powered by CryTek’s CryEngine technology. You can see that in action, with some flying manta-rays and floating castles, after the jump. Aion is already making waves in China and Korea, and we’re expecting to see it roll out in Europe and North America towards the end of the year.

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