Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As we anticipated, quirky 2D adventure Blueberry Garden, by Erik Svedang, was the winner of this year’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Read the details of the other winners below. (Dyson was robbed! Boo!)
Read the rest of this entry »

While we’re being all mainstreamy this morning, it’s worth nodding over at BlizzPlanet’s canny sniffing around the Blizzard haunches. We already know they’ve a mystery MMO in the works as well as Starcraft II and Diablo III, but if this direct quote is gen-ooo-ayne, it seems the king o’polish has a fifth game up their sleeve…
Read the rest of this entry »

This is the sort of thing I’d normally save for the weekend’s Sunday Papers, but I realised that EndWar has come out on the PC and we haven’t really talked about it. Reason being, I suspect, it hasn’t really impressed the RPSers who’ve explored it. Hotkey-expert Tom Chick is painfully aware that he appears to be is in the minority in appreciating it (“Looking for a multiplayer game of EndWar on the PC has a very “I Am Legend” feel.”) but that hasn’t stopped him taking a swing at ten reasons why EndWar is a totally unique RTS game and well worth more attention. It’s deliberately, gleefully perverse. To quote from its conclusion “10. EndWar has no depth. 9. EndWar has no variety. 8. EndWar has a dull economy”. So… what did everyone else make of it? And for those who don’t know anything about it, you’ll find the PC launch trailer beneath the cut…
Read the rest of this entry »

GDC continues to out-E3 E3 with yet another incredi-announcment. This time it’s Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2. Note that’s not “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″, just “Modern Warfare 2.” Which is an odd choice. Is it fear of “Call of Duty 5/6″ sounding too haggard and aged? Is it shame/annoyance at Treyarch’s entries in the COD lineage? Or is it because they want to save “COD 5″ for a different theme, as 4 was to CODs 1/2/3?

Anyway, atmospheric but possibly controversial teaser trailer beneath the digi-hurdle.
Read the rest of this entry »

EA’s card trading deck-based RTS BattleForge is now available to buy in North America and should hit Europe on Friday. I’ve been playing the beta and had a pretty good time: I think once the card trading and deck building starts in earnest this will be a glowing nerd-elysium. The game feels well-engineered if a little lacking in tactical flare in the campaign mode. But you don’t have to concern yourself with my chatterings because there’s a demo to play. Double launch trailers beyond the click.
Read the rest of this entry »

I feel terrible breaking the relaxing silence with this, but here’s some new game footage of Postal III. Fire, shooting and badgers. And it’s got some awfully raucous music on it, you know the sort, all shouting and banging and you can’t make out the words. It’s beneath.

Read the rest of this entry »

BLAM-STAB-BLAM! Wanted, which was first a comic book and then a Angelina Jolie vehicle, is now a videogame. It’s the cultural media equivalent of the ascent of man illustration, or something. Anyway, there’s fancy shootin’ aplenty in an 843mb demo, which came out yesterday. Trailer and thoughts below.

Read the rest of this entry »

The all-powerful, all-loving, all-mighty Tigsource pointed this English Translation out, thinking it a good place for someone to try out the whole Visual Novel thing. I agree, if only it’s worth playing one to have a handle on what one actually is. Visual Novels are… well, imagine a choose your own adventure, with not much choosing or adventuring, but piling on some melodrama and gawky-anime-fanboy humour. Or porn, if you’re going to go the Leigh Alexander route. Brass Restoration tells the story of a skilled percusionist who loses his arm, and then pretty much gives up. Presumably, he pulls his ass together, but in the 10 minutes I played, I spent most of my time wishing one of the other characters would inform him THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD ONLY HAS ONE ARM and then everyone could go home happy. Anyway, you can get it from here and there’s 10 minutes of footage beneath the cut.
Read the rest of this entry »

The almighty righteous TIGSource totally scooped the second Fez trailer. The dimension-warping platformer still looks completely great. One day we hope Polytron will talk to us too. That would be a fun time. They even link to us on their blog, but they’ve never got in touch. Don’t be shy Polydudes, we aren’t just about the horrendous implications of journalist porn. Honest. Splendid safe for work Fez trailer below.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the season of GDC award ceremonies. RPS isn’t going to be there. We don’t like other people and, more relevantly, other people don’t like us so we don’t get invites. Or, at least, invites which don’t read “DIE SCUM” in what we believe is blood. So Double Fine’s new online mini adventure Host Master And The Conquest Of Humour is the closest we’re going to get to hanging back stage with Tim Schafer. It’s a one room affair – or at least, it is for me – with you playing Tim, trying to collect enough jokes to make through his presentation. And, suffice to say, Jokes are found along the way. I got 11 of them, and apparently there’s 22. Where’s the rest? I don’t know. I’ve got three items left and nowhere left unturned. Gahk! I’m going to stop and play the Path. That’ll show you, Doublefine. That’ll show you.

Er… you have a try here.

The current, surprising industry-wide obsession with real-time strategising continues. This time it’s Ubisoft having a crack at both a new IP and a new take on this oft-static genre, with the fascinating, board game-esque and absolutely gi-frigging-normous Ruse.

I took a first-hand gander at Eugen Systems’ (you’ll know them from oddball action-RTS Act of War) new baby last week, but sadly the terrifying EmbargoBot has been stood menacingly by my PC since then, wagging an electro-death-finger at me whenever I think about mentioning the game here. Now I can. And I will. Watch me. Yeah. Yeah!

Read the rest of this entry »