Rock, Paper, Shotgun

James Benson contacted us, saying after a hard day’s animating in Source, he decided to relax by creating an animation of Rock, Paper, Shotgun. James, we salute you.

What ho! A podcasting we did go. And a merry old blah blah something. Jim and John squeezed into the RPS telephone box to record a new podcast, where we not only mentioned subjects, but then went on to discuss them. Amongst that which exited our mouth was the nature of open world gaming, easter eggs in The Dig, why Bookworm Adventures was great, and what defines an MMO.

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Art-mod Radiator returns, and its (entirely standalone from the first part, worry not – but you do need HL2 Ep 2) second instalment is a dramatically different affair to the maudlin stargazing of the first episode, Polaris. It’s no less introspective, but if you’re the kind of chap who’s turned off by even a hint of navelgazing, consider this: it has explosions.
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So, I reviewed an MMO.
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Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising has a release date. According to Eurogamer, it will arrive on the UK shores/airdrop into our cities/invade this country/storm our beaches/infiltrate British stores/come on RPS you’re better than this/go on sale on the 9th of October. To commemorate this momentous announcement, Codies have released a new trailer showing off various weapon types which you can see below.

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As you’ll have heard, there’s a game called Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 coming out this Christmas. A game that’s expected to be so huge that other publishers are hiding their games in cupboards until it goes away. Even publisher Activision doesn’t want to launch its own games against it. But there’s one country where consumers might be a little surprised when it comes out in November. That’s the UK, where it’s been given an RRP for £40 on PC, and a whopping £55 on 360 and PS3.

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Kieron and I have been expanding our minds and destroying our livers at the annual Develop conference in Brighton, Blighty for the last couple of the days. One of the highlights of the show so far has been David Braben, he of Elite fame, and Dave Jones, he of APB and GTA1 fame and their ‘designer mash-up.’ The concept – they play each other’s most iconic game, and provide retrospective commentary about their time making these two goliaths of gaming history. Some ramblomatic highlights below…
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Internet info-king Pat Garratt of VG247 has bagged an interview with APB mastermind – the man who created the GTA series – Dave Jones. The Realtime Worlds bossman talked at length about the mechanics of the game, and even has a few words about the GTA series. You can watch it below.

APB, in case you weren’t paying attention, is a forthcoming 100-man online gang combat game set in a contemporary city, and one of the most intriguing developments in the MMO space for several years. It was also, if our own John Walker’s account is to be believed, the most exciting game shown at E3. You probably want to watch this one, eh? (In other Develop news, Kieron says: “The Unreal Flesh Engine sex stuff is the best stuff of the show. I couldn’t believe it. Bosoms will never be the same again.”)
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The really very splendid Time Gentlemen, Please!, from indie developers Zombie Cow, has already seen Alec pronounce its glories in beautiful form. An genuinely hilarious game (oh, how woefully that word is applied to any game that isn’t actively about the gruesome death of children – here it’s used correctly), it deserves a lot of attention. So does the creator, one half of Zombie Cow, Dan Marshall. We grabbed him by the knees, pathetically hugging him, and begged him to answer just some of our questions. Find out about how the game came about, joking about Hitler, and what adventures game needs to get right.

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Indie type Miguel Sternberg sends word of a new batch of games at Toronto-based Artsy Games Incubator (which I initially read as Arsey Games Incubator). These include a multiplayer sequel to his own Night of the Cephalopods, which I do like very much. The two-player game, Cephalopods Co-op Cottage Defence, sees “a lady scientist, her clockwork valet” – which looks like a cat in a hat and monocle – defending their cottage from floating evil octopi. Use a shotgun to kill the cephalapods, and a hammer to repair the barricades. Can you survive until dawn? Probably not if you’re playing two-handed like me. Best wait for housemates to turn up and play. In the meantime, go browse the rest of the Artsy games.

I don’t mean to be controversial, but I think all people who prefer Peggle over Bookworm Adventures should be sliced into ham and banished to the moon. Wait, no, that’s not true. I do mean to be controversial. Because of course it’s ridiculous to even compare the two games, just because they’re from the same developer. One is a game about bouncing a ball and pretending any positive results were due to skill, and any negative were random bad chance, and the other is the intellectual pursuit of personal betterment through challenging word puzzles. Chalk and cheese – it’s madness to say that one is better than the other even though one is. By the by, PopCap have just announced there’s to be a Bookworm Adventures 2 in a month! Hooray. We’ve already started pathetically pleading with them for review code, and will bring you all the information as soonfully as possible. (Peggle is of course great – I suppose – and don’t forget there’s a new free WoW version.)

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