Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m yet to play Troika’s fondly-remembered, industrial-fantasy 2D RPG Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura, despite a) it having basically the best name in the world and b) my owning a copy that’s stared challenging at me from my game draw for years. The release of one Drog Black Tooth’s resolution-embiggening mod for it, a la the gorgeous Planescape high-definitioniser, may be enough to finally lure me over. I can’t personally attest to its reliability just yet, but unlike the Planescape one it doesn’t seem to mess up the UI, plus it purportedly supports any resolution. While Arcanum’s nowhere near as pretty as Planescape’s hand-painted backdrops, it still looks pretty sharp and fresh. Which seems like a good excuse for an Arcanum Retro piece soon….

Ta to sfury for the tip.

I mean you can download it from other sources, but you’d still need Steam to play it. So you might as well download it on Steam. Of course that only really matters if you haven’t already bought and played DoWII anyway, which I know a few of you haven’t, because at least one of you has been asking me whether the single player is really worth full-price game money. You’d have hoped our extensive judgments on the game might have counted for something, but this demo now means you can decide for yourself with 333mb of Marines vs Orks.

What do you think, RTS veterans, should Andrew buy Dawn Of War II? (If he hasn’t already.)

Confused squinting at legal dispute time! We’ve known for a while that Fallout 1/2 publishers Interplay had clung onto rights for a Fallout MMO as part of their skin-saving deal to flog the Fallout 3 license to Bethesda, and a few months back the reborn publisher had coolly revealed they have one ‘Project V13‘ in the pipeline. Deal done, right? Apparently not. Bethesda may now dispute Interplay’s right to make Fallout Online…
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Maya Plisetskaya, whose Monkey Island shoes we were so enamoured with last month, emails us to let us know her next footwear-framed masterpiece is unveiled. Day of the Tentacle All Stars! Day of the Tentacle is obviously the best of all the LucasArts adventures, and anyone who would disagree is clearly a dangerous lunatic, making these the ultimate Converse of all time. Maya has optimistically put them for sale on eBay for €250 (and not the rather more optimistic €250,000 I first misread the European money-punctuating comma to denote). If I had oodles of money I’d be buying them immediately – they’re my size! Someone else should, because they’re utterly lovely. More fun than a jumpsuit full of weasels.

On its initial release on the 360, Braid was one of the most critically adored, controversial and successful indie games of the year. I’m going to do an impressions post more than a traditional review, because I still haven’t finished the bally thing, but there’s stuff worth saying with it coming to the PC. The inclusion of a level editor is great. Having to use JoyToKey to play with a non-360 controller less so. But really, what’s important is to sort of reset newcomers expectation. The debate has confused things.

You’ll have seen this:
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There’s a little bit of news about Ben There, Dan That follow-up, Time Gentlemen, Please. The indie adventure shocked everyone last year when it turned out someone from PC Zone was funny. (Ha ha!) And rather a lot too – Zombie Cow‘s point-n-clicker showed really smart design along with properly hilarious jokes. The sequel was intended to be a little bonus extra, and has somehow become a full-size game bigger than the original.

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Gas-Powered Games’ (with a little help from Stardock) Demigod enjoyed an unexpected early release yesterday, thanks to a silly snafu by Gamestop. Jim’s feverishly working on a full verdict on it to be posted in a few days’ time, but unfortunately it’s been held up by the release version suffering some pretty flaky netcode. It wouldn’t do to judge a game that’s almost entirely multiplayer only on the strength of its offline skirmishes, so while we wait and pray for an ultra-patch, Jim and Alec had a brief chat about their impressions so far… If they both seem a little surly, it’s because their clever brainwave to try and get the damn thing working in LAN mode over Hamachi had also just failed miserably…
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Robots! Giant robots! Giant robots that turn into cars! If there’s a property more ideally suited to action videogaming than Transformers then I’ll eat my decepti-hat. Apart from Transmorphers, obviously.

Sadly, them robots in disguise haven’t been treated well by gaming, with the exception of the fairly pleasing Transformers Armada PS2 game a while back. The only PC game was 2007′s abominable tie-in to Michael Bay’s Transformers movie. Truly horrible, despite being handled by Traveller’s Tales, they of Lego Star Wars fame. With a second movie due this Summer, there is, inevitably, a second game. Will lessons have been learned? Could we, finally, maybe, oh lord please, get a decent Transformers game?
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Browser-based, hook-handed platformer Scarygirl has been released (and is currently being crushed by the weight of internet traffic). It turns out to be a highly accomplished, preposterously beautiful little game: it’s a kind of perfect collision between the best children’s books and cream of 16-bit era platform puzzlers. The puzzles are splendidly intricate, it’s full of weird little details and flourishes, and the artwork – by master illustrator Nathan Jurevicius – is simply magnificently colourful and charming throughout. Clearly you must stop reading my blather and go play it without further ado.

These things pop out of the demo scene competitions all the time, but they’re as seldom impressive as this: Elevation is landscape and music generation in 4k, and it really does blow away any of the mathematically generated cleverness I’ve seen before. It’ll black out your screen for a couple of minutes while it loads. Thanks to Tom for the tip. (Video embedded after the link, in case you can’t get it working.)
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Criterion are plugging the next addition due for Burnout: Paradise, a Cops & Robbers game. I’m really pleased that Criterion are delivering on extra content for the already superb game. New stuff seems to be arriving all the time. And best of all, the biggest stuff has been completely free, including new game modes, and an entire alternate version of the game for motorbikes. Less pleasing are some of the astonishing prices they’ve charged for the smaller updates. The recent “Toys” pack, which gives you nine new super-cute cars to muck about in, costs an incredible £10 for the “value” version. Or perhaps you fancy sending £6 on getting just two new cars with extra boost? So how much will Cops & Robbers cost? There’s a video of it below to see if you want to smash your piggy bank.

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