Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Continuing the coverage of the E3 event in Los Angeles, which somehow seems to have started on the internet almost a week before it’s due to start in the real world, we have the Borderlands trailer. I rather expected them to remake the original trailer in the new engine, but they did not. Shame. And I am totally doing a trailer poll at the end of all this, and not for the best one, for the worst. Who made the biggest waste of corporate airtime this year? You can decide. I think this will be somewhere in the middle, because it does at least show fragments of game footage. And don’t get me started on this increasing footage-free teaser-trailer trend! (Chokes on pickle sandwich, oh God, must post before unconsciousness…)
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Robots! Squenix seem to be making some serious inroads to newish (or at least refreshed) gaming territory, with their most recently announced title being a mech-based third person shooter called Front Mission Evolved, of this lineage. The robots in question are called “Wanzers”, which made me snigger a bit, but I’m sure they’ll satisfy a few robo-porn-hungry gamers out there. Clearly it’s going to be action-tastic, rather than a Battletech type robo-sim, but that could be okay. Not much other info at present, other than it’s being developed by Double Helix Games, a California-based spin off from Shiny Entertainment. Perhaps we’ll find out a bit more at E3. Early CGI robo-trailer beneath the click.
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Sundays are for lying, working on my tan and hacking through big ol’ Russian novels. Or so I hope. But Tuesday nights are for rushing around, desperately trying to pack, write a script and generally tie up all my business… including doing the Sunday Papers five days in advance. Let’s hope no major stories break between now and Sunday, eh? So, as always, here’s some interesting reading gathered from across (er) the last two days which I show to you, while trying to resist linking to a late-nineties zinekid micro-classic which re-impinged on my consciousness when panickedly running around yesterday.

• Mindless Ones are primarily a smart and funny comics blog, but they went deep down the hole marked gaming nostalgia this week with a post on the glory of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Plenty of memories to be prompted, but great for focing on exactly how evocative those covers were. Go see.
• There’s a never ending string of articles about what’s wrong about the games press and how people should fix it – enough that I’ve been wanting for a few years to write an article giving 10 reasons why games writing now is better than ever. Leigh Alexander goes for something I think is much more fresh – as in, looking at what’s wrong with Games PR and how they should all ditch the predictable script in favour of genuine transparency.

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The best way to learn about Paradox’s rapidly approaching grand-strategy leviathan Hearts of Iron 3? Sit down with a gallon mug of tea and a family-size packet of custard creams and plough through the fascinating 30-part developer diary. If you’ve already done that, or don’t have the patience/dunkable biscuitry to take on such a task, try the following Q&A in which Lead Designer and Man of History Johan Andersson fields questions on subjects as diverse as HoI3, gulags, and HoI3.

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A grand old week of bargainage, this one – some big names, some superlative indie hi-jinks, and an overlooked demi-classic or two. Manning the discount decks is, as always, Savygamer‘s LewieP. Go bargains!
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Here’s a spot of news. Team Fortress 2 has received an update tonight that means the Sniper and Spy unlockables can now be received through gaining achievement milestones. This works alongside the controversial new random-o-drops that enable people to get new items out of the blue, blue sky. The change comes alongside a collection of fixes for bugs and exploits that were brought in with the new bits and bobs. So there we go. Is everyone happy now? Cheers to pezhore for alerting us.

There’s two weeks left to go until the next Blurst game, Crane Wars, comes out, and Flashbang Studios have released a video showing it in its alpha stage. Finally the purpose of the game begins to make sense, and it looks like it might be yet another cracking offering.

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The demo for Science Girls is an interesting combination of weirdness, amateurish hacky writing, scientific pedantry, and utter rubbish. Sort of an RPG, you play a girl at a Japanese school who teams up with the rest of the Science Club to fight off the attacks of some peculiar plant-like creatures.

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Oh dear, the last Dragon Age Trailer we posted didn’t half cause a stink. Outrage at the Marilyn Manson soundtrack and silly sex scenes from one camp, and accusations of prudish snobbery from the other. Why… why can’t we all just get along? Sniff. Bioware seem to think similarly, their latest vid-snippet aiming square at a compromise – big, sonorous speeches paired with more heavy rawk. While I don’t think for one second that’s going to be representative of the game itself, it kind of works in this intro cinematic.
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Well, not all, but a healthy “some”. Mostly regarding that recent teaser trailer for the long delayed standalone sequel to the classic Half-Life mod, which delighted and confused in equal measure. I had a quick chat with Unknown World’s Game Director Charlie Cleveland about the most salient points raised by the trailer. Does the game really look that good? Is it really coming out this year? Which is best, daddy or chips?
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Splash Damage’s new game, being developed in conjunction with Bethesda, is called Brink. It’s a game of future war. The teaser trailer below offers very little in the way of additional clues about the title. Eyes, it seems, will feature in the game. And you can bet it’s a multiplayer FPS (because we know it is). It’s scheduled for Spring 2010. That’s all eye got. (Sorry.) Perhaps you guys can speculate the game into existence, below. Oh, and the official site is here, although it doesn’t contain much more than the video, yet.
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