Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Thanks to everyone who turned up for Air Buccaneers this evening, it was a lighter-than-air riot. We’re going to do it again next Saturday at 7pm UK time, until we are defeated. More ruminations on this evening’s events below, along with some tips for anyone intending to come along at the weekend.

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So, I’ve been sitting and reviewing Anno all day on the Wii, where I found myself unfeasibly amused by being repeatedly told to pay the herb tribute to the king, which sounds like some fascinating kind of drug-dealing slang. I come upstairs and find that the big-boy pants version of Anno 1404 (aka Dawn of Discovery in the US) has just released its demo. It’s time limited, allowing you an hour of play in each of the demo’s two modes, which still leaves a lot of time for city building, trading and herb-tributing. Jim did a mass post with all the videos on recently, but I think you’ll find one beneath the cut which he didn’t include. Or I could be wrong. You tell me, Anno 1404 fans.
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Gaming diaries: all the rage, eh? Buoyed by the splendidosity of the likes of Roburky’s Sims 3 chronicles and Tom Francis’ Galactic Civilizations II bible, I’m embarking on something I’ve had brewing for a while – a diary of my (mis)adventures in Morrowind. I’ve always maintained it’s a far better game than its sequel Oblivion (which was also pretty good), and now’s my chance to prove it. I’ll commence with the diaries proper in a few days, but ahead of that I thought I’d share the setup.
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Peeyow-peeyow-peeyow! The cutest ickle tower defence game, and the start of a PC-consuming trend, is back – this time with a ‘Pro’ suffix and a ton of new content. It’s still as lo as fi gets, so don’t go expecting DTD HD, but content-wise it’s fatted with healthy new children. For instance, there’s a new series of scenarios, and a sandbox mode in which you can toggle settings to your obsessive heart’s content. Again, no vast, sweeping changes, but what Pro does do is evolve a desktop toy into a big ol’ game in its own right. Still browser-based, still free, still as a charming as a kitten in an Easter egg. Peeyow!

We get a lot of mails about indie games. How do we pick which ones to write about? Random chance. Random chance plus including a sentence like “Golemizer is a free MMORPG where players are set in the role of mad scientists creating strange creatures in a steampunk universe” in your mail. Even if it isn’t true, we’re going to look at your game. As practitioners of mad word-science, RPS generally consider ourselves exactly like that anyway, so it’s RPS the game in all but names. Including being 2D and not aesthetically pleasing. But fuck it! Full user crafting? Full User-quest generation? There’s a lot of things here to see. You’ll find a video explaining the game plus some more thoughts from my few minutes with it below…
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An interesting story from yesterday merits a brief comment, I think. The PEGI rating system for games in the UK is to become the industry standard, and legal. The current confusion, where the BBFC ratings are often voluntary but enforced by law, and the PEGI ratings required but not enforced, has been muddling parents and shop assistants for years. After the Byron Review, Tanya Byron suggested just one ratings system, more robust, and far more clear. And it looks like it’s now going to happen.

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UPDATE: From 7pm UK time? EDIT: Use .zip version of the game for Steam UT2004.
Keen-brained readers might recall a comments thread conversation we had about the lack of airships, balloons and other dirigibles in games. I decided we had to fix that, and the easiest way to do it was by starting up a game of the brilliantly barmy balloon combat mod for UT2004, Air Buccaneers. You probably don’t remember it, as it was one of the more obscure mods of the time, but it’s wonderful, mad, and remarkably atmospheric. In it two teams fight with cannons, blunderbusses, “air-mines” and other steampunk equipment, as they traverse the skies in rickety balloons. It’s brilliant. I downloaded it, and booted it up and… disaster. No servers. Fortunately, the heroic men at PC Gamer UK stepped into the breach and put a server up! (85.236.100.18:8077) Now it’s down to you lot to get the mod, and bring this work of airship excellence back to life, if just for a few evenings. More details below.

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I’ve been having a quick play of Blurst’s latest – as Kieron noted this morning – Crane Wars. It’s a game with some cranes, and they’re at war. I didn’t enjoy it very much. More of this standard of journalism, and my thoughts, below.

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Two historical strategies in a single day? Perhaps not unprecedented, but certainly unusual. What’s particularly unusual is they both have something of a nautical theme, East India Company is particularly focused on the high seas, and offers splendid-looking 18th century sailboat gun action between bouts of management. We have to wonder whether it’ll trounce Empire: Total War’s ship-to-ship combat, or come in a barnacled second. The game is set for a July 28th release, and if you want to keep up with the design chatter then they’ve been keeping a rather detailed development blog. Now I must get back to Arma II, there be a reviewin’ brewin’.
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On sale now is the oft-delayed open-world anti-hero killathon by Radical Entertainment, they of the hugely enjoyable console romp The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Prototype’s concept is similar, but it now stars a surly guy in a hoodie rather than the unjolly green giant. Promising an absurd level of mayhem and violence, can this possibly achieve the omnipotence it promises? Here’s my take on it. I even wore a hoodie while I wrote it.
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I just realised that we’ve barely paid any attention to Dawn Of Discovery, which is the historical city-forging management sequel ANNO 1404 for us Europeans. Presumably Americans need something that ties into the whole colonial history/discover of America thing to make sense of it, eh? [This bit is where I am poking fun at pointless rebranding exercises, HAHA.] Whatever the naming foolery, it’s looking rather splendid, with some remarkably intricate city-building going on. The core campaign of the game is based around interaction with Eastern cultures, including what is apparently fairly complex trade and diplomacy, as you settle a chain of islands. What looks most satisfying is the visual wealth of the cities themselves: I can easily imagining sinking weeks into creating the bustling little economies. That should be made easier by the game apparently being a bit more sandboxy than the previous ANNO titles.

No US release date yet, but it should be out by the end of the month in Europe. Check out the four videos below for a mildly amusing juxtaposition of smooth-voiced American narrator, and the German developers.

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