Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Thanks to Bioware’s original brilliant idea to set Knights Of The Old Republic safely 4,000 years before the Lucas films, the forthcoming MMO, The Old Republic, can distance itself from the events of KotOR and KotOR II, without having to worry about nibbling at the heels of the movie story. But it still gets confusing, so Bioware have put out a video explaining the timeline of events that led from the KotOR games to the events at the beginning of SW:TOR. Or at least we think Bioware have. It’s made with unanimated artwork, which makes it all look like the illustration from a Bible story you were shown in primary school. Ignore the pictures, and focus on the voice over.

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There really isn’t enough passive aggression in game titles. Come on, developers – dare us. Mock us. Lure us into sampling your fine wares by snootily claiming we won’t be able to handle them. I want to see “That End Boss Is Totally Going To Smoke You”, “Bet You Can’t Beat My Mum’s Lap Time” and “If You Don’t Play This You’re Like All Dumb And Stuff.”

So this oh-so-simple platformer‘s smug/pessimistic title was an expertly effective gauntlet thrown down before me. “You Probably Won’t Make It?” Graaah! Kill you!
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Richard Monette sends news of the indie game just released by his student group Rocktopus Games. It’s called Glasshouse and it’s first-person action/puzzle game with one of the most novel set-ups I’ve seen in ages. Put in a semi-industrial/scientific setting with a generally ironic tone, you use a specialist experimental weapon to manipulate your environment to… oh, all right. It’s shamelessly inspired by Portal. But that’s no bad thing – it’s a scratch built piece of neat platform puzzling. Video and impressions beneath the cut.
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This mod for current RPS strategy beau Men of War is a bit good: a dynamic campaign generator [FORUM DOWN AT THE MOMENT, you can use this link but the mod needs loads of stuff that is not detailed there, only on forum thread.], complete with a bunch of map packs. It allows you to build a sequence of battles in the skirmish mode, and populate them for attack or defence scenarios. The install process and required extras is a bit hefty, but I doubt that will be too much challenge for Men Of War enthusiasts. There’s also a realism mod out which is under continued development. There’s also some chatter about a native languages mod for replacing the English with Russian dialogue, but no sign of that at the moment. I’ve posted a video of the announced (but unfinished) Stalker mod after the jump, which is some kind of perfect collision between two games. Man!
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Here’s a fun, ridiculous, and undoubtedly dubious rumour: murmurings suggest that Blizzard’s secret project might be a new Redneck Rampage game.

The story comes from IncGamers, who report that Blizzard have recently bought the rights to the Redneck trademarks, and extrapolate from this. And as unlikely as it seems, they do go on to point out that an original Redneck Rampage developer now work for Blizzard. Hmmmmm.

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A couple of weeks after the micro-furore which followed its launch, the good ship Eurogamer send me off to evaluate Tale of Tales’ game of short horror and long walks. I start like this…

“There’s an urge to give it one out of ten. Maybe a two, because two sounds more genuine than one. One sounds like foot-stomping petulance. Two sounds considered, as if I really do mean it. I’m not, because I don’t, but it’d serve a couple of good purposes. Firstly, if considered solely as a classical game, The Path is bloody terrible. Secondly, if you’re the sort of person who cares about the review score, it’s almost certainly not for you and I should turn you off as quickly as possible.”

And then set controls for the heart of the sun. Join me!

A while back I posted about the tragedy of games like Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Following that one of the original Troika team, writer Brian Mitsoda, got in touch to talk about the project. A veteran of Troika and RPG-devs Obsidian, he’s had plenty of experience in the words that make up videogames. What follows is a discussion of Bloodlines, Troika, dialogue, character design, and inaccurate porn geographies.
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Sundays are for getting mild sunburn. Which, to the ever-hypochondriac minds at RPS, is clearly terminal sunstroke. Expect delirium in this, my final post, on RPS. It’s been great doing this for you, and I hope you’ll think of me when I’m gone, occasionally. It doesn’t even have to be fondly. So now, for the last time, I set forth to compile a list of interesting (mostly) videogame related reading from across the week and try to resist with all my failing strength linking to some pop-video or another.

• This PlayThisThing Greg Costikyan piece was cut and paste into my Sunday Papers Google document with the note “This is fucking dark”. Entitled “Mothers, Don’t Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Game Developers”, it’s Costikyan’s response to Epic’s Mike Capps defending 60-hour working weeks.

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One of the few things the Silent Hunter series hasn’t managed to deliver yet, is a fully modelled sub interior. SH4 actually provided fewer interior spaces than its predecessor. While lazy sods like me were content to grumble about this in reviews and leave it at that, two industrious CAD craftsmen - subsim.com forumites Mikhayl and Tomi - have been busy making the missing compartments themselves. Tomi’s breathtaking engine room isn’t complete yet, but, even in its current state, stands head and shoulders above anything produced by Ubisoft Romania. Truly amazing work.

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It’s sunny! But don’t go outside. There are dangers there – you will surely perish. Instead, remain safely inside your dark, dank bedroom, enjoying one of these agreeably-priced PC games – temporary bargains identified, as always, by SavyGamer’s peerless discount-hound LewieP.
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The Rook is clearly going to be the first demigod that each of us try in Demigod. It’s a giant brick golem with castles for shoulder-pads. It also has a hammer. Lead designer Mike Marr shows it off in the walkthrough below, and although he cackles at one point, he doesn’t sound excited enough for me. Gas Powered should totally get the Black Prophecy trailer dude in to narrate their videos. THE ROOK IS DESTINED… TO SMASH!

Demigod is out soon, and we’re going to review the crap out of it.
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