By Alec Meer on July 31st, 2009.
Vignette art-game, social commentary or satire upon the coin-collection stereotype of so many olden platformers? All of the above, most likely. The Beggar is a free browser game about a hungry hobo. He might look like a cute comedy pixel-art tramp, but in fact he’s a tragic wee thing.
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By Alec Meer on July 31st, 2009.
This lavish historical combat’n'commerce title has been attracting a fair bit of attention from devout strategy types (Tom Chick’s mammoth diary series, for instance), but we’ve barely mentioned it here. Why? Because we were too busy thinking up unusual celebrities to name future pets after, or something. (I’m totally going to own a dog called Edward Woodward one day.) So, rather than relying on our trusted words to guide your decision on this matter, you should try the demo instead. 800Mb to you, squire, including a taste of the trading and the naval combat. If that sounds like too much bandwidth to gamble on, there’s a launch trailer below.
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By John Walker on July 31st, 2009.
This is slightly outside the boundaries of our remit, but it’s a special occasion. At 21:15 this evening on BBC Radio 2 the first episode of The Adventures of Sexton Blake is broadcast. Edit: You can listen to it here – for the love of all that’s holy, skip to 3:40 lest your ears burn at the horrendous programme that preceded it. Sexton Blake is a fascinating fictional figure, whose detective stories have been told by over 200 authors since 1893, each without a care for canon. However, in all his 116 years, he’s never been in a videogame. We bring this programme to your attention for another reason: it is co-written by Mr J Nash.
By Kieron Gillen on July 31st, 2009.
News reached us that the Gates of Andaron was opened up yesterday. We waited for today to post it as… er… maybe we wanted to give you something to play at the weekend? Yeah, that sounds likely. Anyway, this is a free Fantasy MMO which includes all the usual RPG race and class gubbins (e.g. The Rekamies “…have the ability to perform both white and black magic.” Which must be handy. All of RPS can only cast either black or white magic. We can barely dream of a world where we could have both). Most interesting features look like the Realm Versus Realm stuff plus the large scale battles where you can play as a commander in conflicts of up to 49 players. Which sounds fancy. Anyway, if you fancy some MMOing of the free variety,you can download the client from here. If you need more, there’s some early user videos below.
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By Kieron Gillen on July 31st, 2009.
When the press release for Lies And Seduction – a free PC and (er) Macintosh PC game – arrived in RPS’ communal inbox, Alec noted dryly “For you, I suspect”. Sometimes, I’m so stereotyped it hurts. Just because a game’s a seduction-’em-up loosely based on an modernised Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it’s filed in RPS’ pervert-in-residence’s “To Play” drawer? Unfair, I say, unf… okay, I’m playing it.
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By John Walker on July 31st, 2009.
Doubtful about the spelling magic of Bookworm Adventures 2? I can barely stand to look at you. But there’s hope. There’s a demo. Head to PopCap and download the one hour version of the game, and then spell your little heart out! Spell like you’ve never spelt before! Spell words that make your heart sing, your soul sour, your family faint in wonder. Spell, my children! SPELL!
(Below are some of the screenshots I considered for this post.)
By Jim Rossignol on July 31st, 2009.
You know I’d forgotten about Blur, actually, and I’d skipped a lot of the initial bout of excitement over the game. Seems it is still Windows-bound, however, with a rough “end of 2009″ release date, and so we’re eventually going to get a taste of Bizarre Creations “power-up, power-up, power-up” philosophy for their hyperbolic new racing game. They’ve stuck some of their developer types in front of a camera to talk about it, and mixed that with some in-game footage, all funkily edited up, of course. It’s looking rather… colourful.
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By Jim Rossignol on July 31st, 2009.
The original Death To Spies was seen as something like a poor imitation of the Hitman games, with a whole bunch of technical problems holding back its ambitions as a stealth action experience. The new game, Moment Of Truth, looks to be much more of the same disguise-wearing, back-stabbing action, but I think the test will be whether complaints about omnipotent AI and awkward controls can be dealt with. I’ve not had a chance to play this demo yet, so if you’ve got an opinion from your experience with Moment Of Truth you should carefully type it into the comments box below.
The Death To Spies: Moment Of Truth demo is 589mb, and you can get it here and you’ll find some Russian footage below to give you a taste for the thing…
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By Kieron Gillen on July 31st, 2009.
This broke at San Diego, but was left for me to talk about, because everyone on RPS knows how I feel about Scott Pilgrim and/or are very lazy. Ubisoft announced they’re making a game of the forthcoming Edgar “Spaced/Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz” Wright film-version of Bryan O’Malley’s irresistible Scott Pilgrim. This is a thing to be excited about.
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By Jim Rossignol on July 30th, 2009.
The Demigod demo has finally, suddenly emerged from the storm of patching that was post-release Demigod development. Siphon its 598mb from here.
While we’ve not been back in recent weeks, we’ve had a few reports that the connection issues are now largely solved, making the internet multiplayer of the demo a rather interesting prospect. Will the demo kick off a second wind for the game? I hope so, as it was a fun time. Anyway, this cut-down version of the god-thumping strategy features a single arena, called The Cataract, and four of the eight Demigods (Regulus, Rook, Sedna and Lord Erebus.) No Oak, alas, for he is a splendid being. Still, you’ll get a kick out of Rook and Erebus. Additionally, you can check out the four game modes (Conquest, Dominate, Fortress and Slaughter), which are all contained therein.
I’ll try and revisit Demigod over the weekend and see if we can’t get some more idea of how the battle for the pantheon is going, all these months on.
By Alec Meer on July 30th, 2009.
Isn’t it amazing how I’ve managed to do one of these roundups of splendid threads on our forum every month on the dot, without fail? Here’s April’s if you missed it, and now here I am again with May’s, just like clockwork. I’m incredible, I really am.
- A refreshing change from the now-traditional, cyclic bitching about Left 4 Dead 2 – fun’n'thoughtful plans and suggestions for new L4D campaigns. What? Where? With who? And for how long? Saucy.
- The venerable cutscenes are/aren’t bad for games chestnut comes up again, and proves to be quite the talking point. The definitive answer, of course, is that cutscenes are okay when they’re not fuggin’ awful. But they usually are.
More fun below!
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