Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Two minutes of Bioshock 2 footage have emerged from the cold abyss of development, and lie shivering beneath the cut. You really are a Big Daddy, drill and all. The underwater bit looks cool, anyway.
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It has been sad times for proto-gaming of late. We lost Gary Gygax a mere 13 months ago, and, unbelievably, his Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson has now passed away too. The great man died on Tuesday, aged just 61.
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There’s a new Zeno Clash trailer, which is a good way to fill in some of the time before its 21st April release. This time we’re introduced to the nature of some of the characters, as well as shown some more splendid in game face-punching action. Sadly no elephants were harmed in the contents of this video.

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“Grand strategy” is a sub-genre title that always amuses me. I can’t help but picture someone playing Command & Conquer whilst wearing a ceremonial robe and crown, or Dawn of War on a 300″ monitor. Slightly disappointingly, it’s a different kind of grandiose it refers to – playing as an entire nation, seeing only the big picture and rarely the individual soldiers. Total War’s strategy map is a good example. The Hearts of Iron series is all about that uber-bird-eye’s view, with the upcoming HoI III handing you the reigns of practically any nation during 1936-1948. Dates you may recognise as covering a period of modern history that there almost no videogames about. Perhaps even none.

Yes, it’s flippin’ Dubya Dubya Too, but a version of it in which you could take over the world with Costa Rica, or plot revenge against the Nazis as the Polish government in exile. While clearly it’s fatted with a frightnening amount of historical accuracy, it’s also a giant What If? sandbox.
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We’ve mentioned Cyanide’s (who are currently finishing off Blood Bowl) free-to-play MMO being in development before. However news reaches us via the wonders of e-mail that it’s gone into full on Open Beta. You can download the 400Mb or so client from here and make an account here. I haven’t had a chance to take it out for a spin yet, but it appears to be a competitive team-based comedy RPG thing based around dragging the treasure out of the dungeon first. Also, dressing your characters up like agreeable dolts. You’ll get the feel from a couple of videos beneath the cut. Anyone given it a shot yet?
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This is an odd one: a trailer which combines what is clearly in-game footage minus the UI (complete with some bunny hopping) and footage that is obviously pre-scripted stuff. Anyway, it gives us a good glimpse of some of the environments and characters in motion – which are intriguing enough, if bland in places – and introduces laser action for the first time. All of this makes Masthead’s sci-fi MMO all the more interesting. Earthrise is something of an odd fish, with both real-time XP grinding and offline advancement, as in Eve Online. It’s got a huge PvE world, the size of Azeroth, but also territorial PvP between guilds. It’s not exactly looking super big-budget, but there’s nevertheless a good chance this might actually last longer than Tabula Rasa – assuming Masthead don’t aim too high… Anyway, the beta sign up is on the site, so it might be worth putting your name down.
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Update: Now with new Nielsen figures on hardcore PC gaming below.

Nielsen’s latest gaming data has been published in the form of The State of the Video Gamer (pdf). Gathering PC gaming data from the “Nielsen MegaPanel”, more than 185,000 PCs were tracked by their system in the US. The findings include that “PC gaming is alive and well,” showing growth, and that females aged 25 and older make up the largest block of PC gamers, responsible for 54.6% of all game play minutes in December 2008.

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Here’s a fun thing via Indiegames: it’s a game in which you must cause as much damage as possible with hail stones. You have to keep the stones in the air by directing the wind, and the longer they stay aloft the larger and more damaging they become. It’s a little laborious to progress, but I love the illustrative-diagram visuals and the general idea is cute.

Via the all-encompassing bloggings of Castle Crecente, we discover deep-space menu browsing from the other forthcoming space MMO, Black Prophecy. Despite spending a long time on snazzy GUI, it’s got atmosphere coming out of its coaxial thrusters, and it gets rather exciting at about 4:40. I hope there’s a cockpit-free first person mode.
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Will Wright has left EA to start up an “entertainment think tank” that EA is investing in. It’s called Stupid Fun Club. “The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change,” said Will Wright. “Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms.” EA will get the right to develop any game concepts produced by the think tank. Full press blurb below.

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My Brute has been nagging at the corners of my consciousness for a while now, but it was Simon Parkin who finally made me play. It’s basically a perversely compulsive cross between Progress Quest and a Pyramid Scheme. You create your brute and then challenge people to fights, going up levels. You also gain XP by getting other people to join, which brings the Pyramid scheme into play. Simon noted that it seemed to be yet more proof that my old line about gaming’s dark secret being that occasionally just seeing a number going up being enough. Worryingly true. Its hyper-cute art style’s another boon. It’s easier to see than actually explain, so go play. You’ll totally beat my Violent Trevor. Despite being level 5, she hasn’t got a weapon yet. Pah.

Yes, this an experiment to see how many pupils posting a link to my brute on a biggish PC games site can get me. And because this has made me hit level 10, you can join the RPS clan! (EDIT: CLAN FILLED! SOMEONE ELSE START ONE) Clearly, post your brute’s name in the comment thread so everyone can fight everyone else.