Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Looks like it really might be time to dust-off that joystick Alec was getting all whimsical about: Ubisoft’s fancy-flyin’ aerial combat game is almost upon us (the full game is out on March 13th), and the PC demo has crash-landed its way onto servers across the world. No simulation here, it’s arcade-tastic, obviously, but this two-level demo allows you to fly with “assist” on and off, allowing you to fly with computer guidance, or with just your own reflexes. And it all comes with some Clancy-tastic military undertones: private military companies are taking the skies to play out Top Gun fantasies over the world’s near-future hotspots. The 1.24gb demo is here. Tell us exactly what you think in the comments below. (Minimum and recommended specs for demo after the jump – plus dogfighting action!)
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Flashbang Studio’s latest, Blush, is live. You can play it right here on Blurst. In fact, you should. We first told you about Blush back in January, along with a tasty interview, and showed the early test footage. Ping! It’s finished already, putting FBS well on track for their six games in twelve months plan. Blush is, as you’d guess from the title, a squid-based game, in which you battle other undersea creatures and steal their parts.

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Ooh, just a kind of radar-blip news post for Spore’s expansion pack, Galactic Adventures. No firm release date yet, but we understand it’s not far off. So here’s something: Galactic Adventures delivers a whole load of space-stage stuff to do, mostly with missions on the planet surfaces that you can undertake with your creature and his/her space chums. There’s rescuing of princesses, destroying aliens motherships, and of course loads of that user-generated content pollination. Judging by the trailers post after the jump, the planets themselves are massively more detailed than they were for vanilla Spore, and the “massive battlefields” that the expansion reportedly features could make the unhappy endgame of Spore a little more interesting to get through. Take a look at how Spore will change.
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MMOs are supposed to be the never-ending story. When one bucks that trend – when it concludes – it becomes something else entirely. In hindsight, is it still the same looped search for short-term personal rewards that it began as (and that its peers remain to be), or does it become a complete experience, more akin to a traditional game?

We already knew troubled sci-fi MMORPG Tabula Rasa (the “Richard Garriot’s” was dropped when Big Beard jumped ship from the project last year) was to shut down in early 2009. What we didn’t know is whether it would go with a bang, a whimper, or just the click-BZZZzzzzzzt of a central server being switched off. In the end, the Saturday just gone revealed it to be a little of all three.
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Here’s one in the eye to people who don’t think games are educational. Don’t Shit Your Pants. It’s a going for a poo challenge, in a text parser adventure, that describes itself as a “survival horror”. You’ll likely quickly realise that finishing the game is not the greatest of challenges. However, what it’s really all about is figuring out all the achievements. Yes indeed, you must think of innovative ways to shit yourself.

It’s the work of Rete, on Kongregate, and is the sort of immature 30 seconds of nonsense that only RPS friend Sam could have found.

Reader Andreas Jörgensen writes to us about the game he’s made. It’s called “In Another Brothel”, which clearly immediately got my attention (Being the one member of RPS who thought posting about Left 4 Head was a good idea. And don’t go googling unless you’re at home). Except it’s not porny at all. It’s actually a Noir-platformer with a physics basis. The idea being you have to rescue dames and get them to the exit. Via application of that great noir-staple of a gun that fires crates. Yes. Probably best to explain the game in a pictorial essay…
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My thoughts on Empire: Total War are still a bit jumbled. While I unjumble them (in readiness for a Wot I Think) I thought I’d share a short battle narrative with you. The following heavily illustrated After Action Report is a True and Accurate Account of the Bloody Battle of Bangalore,1714, the latest scrap from my current grand campaign. The glorious Maratha Confederacy (that’s me) has been distracted from its subjugation of the northern Mughals by an unprovoked attack by the cowardly Mysorians. A couple of territories were lost before I was able to assemble a scratch expeditionary force in Hyderabad and march out to meet the new foe. Just outside Bangalore my general-less rabble faced their first test…

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Sundays are for treating hangovers with medicinal bacon and posting about your new Marvel Beta Ray Bill miniseries. No arguments. They are. They’re also for posting a list of fun and smart reading collated across the week while trying to give a plug to an amusing T-shirt advert video for a band and link to the song which we found ourselves bawling atonally last night in a terrible Angel bar.

• Game Designer Rob Hale (aka Schizoslayer from comments threads) has been giving his blog a face-lift. First big thing is his essay on Continuity Level Design, which is a phrase he’s totally made up. There’s no stopping him. In it, with reference to Mirror’s Edge, Portal and Half-life 2, he explores what game designers are up to on a fundamental level-flow way in single player games. Yes.

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