Rock, Paper, Shotgun

(Thi4f? 4FS.) The giant rumour-phone they call the Internet has been a-rumbling with Thief 4 noises for many months now, and so it seemed certain the announcement was imminent. Naturally RPS’ enormous BFG-like ears had long ago picked up concrete information, but we couldn’t confirm it. Now we can. Confirmed. The press release (in full below) reports that the game is still at a very early stage, and is being developed by Eidos Montreal, who are also handling Deus Ex 3. They’re looking for new staff, too. Talk about labouring under the weight of expectations, eh readers?
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The weekend before last Cryptic opened the doors of their Champions Online beta to the gentlemen of the press, and let them have a crack. And lo! a crack was had. Well, John and I did, anyway, and then John gave up after the interface annoyed him. He intended to come back later in the week, not realising that it was only open for a few days. I, on the other hand, persisted manfully, and managed to play the tutorial section and get to level five before I had to go and hammer together some shelves or something. This proves that time limited previews for journalists are a little rubbish for time-limited journalists. But I did bring back some opinions which I present herein…
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Finnish developers Frozenbyte recently sent us an unfinished version of their forthcoming action adventure puzzler, Trine (rhymes with “fine”). I’ve been playing through the opening levels of this intriguing game – which is something like Lost Vikings in a lavish fantasy world, colliding with modern physics – and find myself entertained. Needless to say, written impressions follow.

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What interesting timing. A few weeks ago I talked to Dragon Age’s designer Mike Laidlaw at a press event. It has just gone up on Eurogamer. Of course, this ties in to the uproar around the recent violence trailer. I found myself eye-brow raising a little in the PR-line which Bioware seem to be following with this too, but when pressed Mike defended the mature direction as more than just trailers…

“I’m not sure the level of maturity is the difference – but the depth, the experience itself. Does it all hang together on a single theme? Because I think our greatest failing could be it’s just a standard oh-look-a-unicorn fantasy… also, this guy’s head just popped off. For it to feel tacked on, and not part of the experience.”

More here. Of course, there’s also the sarcastic response inspired by Psychopomp’s comment thread post…
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This splurged its way all across the web yesterday, but we might as well report it for The Eye of RPS to gaze down on it with a fiery stare. It is apparently a demo reel from developer Bryan Brewer, who worked on the game until the recently closure of 3D Realms. Various sources managed to grab the video before he pulled it off his site, presumably at the sabre-rattle of parties who remain interested in what exists of the game. The actual game footage is spliced with a lot of modeling roughs and concept stuff, but it gives us a fairly good idea about how Duke might have played: it’s a first-person shooter videogame.
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When Fighter Squadron: Screamin’ Demons Over Europe touched down in early 1999 it found all the comfiest armchairs in the mess bagsied, all the comeliest WAAFs spoken for, and all the Brylcreem in the local branch of Boots sold out. The previous year European Air War, Jane’s WW2 Fighters, and Combat Flight Simulator had arrived and snaffled everything. Obscurity beckoned until a band of inquisitive erks led by one ArgonV noticed the sim’s mod potential and set to work. The most impressive product of their labours to date – a massive WWI TC  – has just been released in a convenient standalone package. If there’s a better free combat flight-sim available, I’m unaware of it.

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Fridays are for compiling a list of interesting reading across the week for the RPS readership’s attention to be posted on Sunday, because I almost certainly won’t be around and/or sober on Sunday due to some Best Man Duties and if I do it now, I can set it to go up automatically then and not worry about it any more. Let’s just hope I don’t do it in such a rush that I end up linking to some bally pop music.

• 2K Marin’s Steve Gaynor writes about what he describes as Single A Games. As in games which are neither the hyper-budget AAA nor the deliberately restricted aesthetics of the underground indie/retro scenes. Cases in point, Zeno Clash and The Path. He wonders whether this is a sustainable new niche between the two. The comments thread is also interesting, to say the least, as Jonathan Blow notes it’s almost certainly Zeno Clash making enough cash to pay for its team. Of course, there’s an expense of living aspect to that too. SF is a little bit more expensive than Chile.

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Possibly a bit spoilery this one, and very bloody. I’m not sure quite what to make of it: the bloody, lusty delivery is somewhat at odds with almost every other glimpse of Bioware’s forthcoming fantasy RPG that we’ve so far seen. I can only assume that the Dragon Age soundtrack will be nothing like the one featured here. Anyway, see what you think, and let the inevitable debate not dwell too long on the sex bits.

Oh, Bioware.
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This week’s round-up of agreeably-priced electric videogames constitutes a heady mix of long-time RPS favourites and a few titles we’ve curled our knowing lips at. Both the Clever and the Stupid, in other words. Your ringmaster of revenue is, as always, Savygamer‘s LewieP.
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Kotaku highlight an interesting video, discovered from French site Eversonic. It’s what appears to be concept footage from Beyond Good & Evil 2. It’s obviously hard to be sure, but it certainly looks like Jade, and matches the style of the screenshots and video we’ve seen before. Even the music is right. If this concept is anything like how the game is going to look and play, then crikey, there’s even more reasons to look forward to it. A lot appears to be inspired by Mirror’s Edge movement, and you could argue quite extensively that it runs like an ME mod. Well, see what you make of it – it’s below.

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CRUSH THE CASTLE! That’s an order, you. What a fun title. I’d type more eloquent and useful things, except my right hand has swollen up like a balloon – seriously, it’s red and puffy and deeply weird. It’s hard to type properly. I’ve put the symptoms into WebMD, and there’s only one suggested ailment: I’m pregnant. So with this rather shocking news, I leave you to play this really rather fabby Flash game which involves throwing rocks at castle-dwelling folk until they all get squished. Perhaps a little too easy, but you can design your own levels too, and you should totally share the best ones with all the other children, below.