Rock, Paper, Shotgun

If ever there was a time when some in-game footage of mythical dudes hitting each other was required, it’s in these two videos. They are, amazingly enough, purely of the back end summoner-management stuff for League Of Legends. Of course that does go to show the depth the game boasts behind the scenes, and the care the developers have taken in making the game infinitely tweakable, and packed with supernatural champions – exactly what the DoTA veterans will want to see. For the rest of us: less exciting. Anyway, we’ve heard the game is in closed beta right now, so the full game may not be too far off, and we can expect plenty more information from Riot Games soon. And don’t worry particle effects fans, I’ve posted the in-game trailer too. Hooray!

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I have been enjoying Ben Chandler’s indie adventures so far. Shifter’s Box was a smart collection of puzzles with a neat dimension-shifting mechanic, while Annie Android offered a cute mini-story to play through. His latest, Heed, is by far the more peculiar, and certainly the most interesting.

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The notion of open game worlds has always appealed to me, ever since Elite. When there’s even the faintest whiff on a free roaming environment, or virtuality that I can go off an explore, I’m interested. It’s an impulse that leads me to spend endless hours in Stalker, or to expend an entire day driving around Fuel. But whatever game I play, I end up feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It’s kind of dissatisfaction that does not seem to be so common with linear or arena games. I think it’s to do with a specific tension that open world games create: between what the game is about, and what the environment – and its openness – implies.

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Edit: The incorrect video was posted on GT earlier, and has now been replaced with an HD offering.

It’s been almost two years since the last time we posted a trailer of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. This is extraordinary for two reasons. Firstly, this 2D indie shmup has been quiet for two years. Secondly, RPS is old enough to write that. It still looks like a cute, interesting shooter, with an extended trailer to see below.

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Indie Finnish developers Frozenbyte last caught our attention with their top-down shooter, Shadowgrounds, which was a little Aliens-y. Their latest game could scarcely be further way from that gloom and gunfire: Trine (as in “fine”) is a side-scrolling, puzzle-led, fairy-tale platformer, built in the Swiss-Army-character-swap tradition of Lost Vikings. But is it any good? And what’s with the pricing? Here’s Wot I Think.
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What a terrible name, for a games on demand thinger. Anyway, below there’s 17-minutes of footage of the Shiny-one talking about Gaikai, his latest project, courtesy of all-seeing news-tube VG247. In it he reveals that the service is looking at a launch in California in “the first quarter of 2010″, with a beta test proceeding it. All being profitable at that point, they’ll roll out to “the whole of the US”. No one’s taken up the cloud gaming baton for Europe’s (okay, maybe just the UK, the rest of Europe sounds like some kind of broadband utopia if comments below are to be believed) creaky broadband infrastructure as yet, and I can’t say I blame them.
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Update: cheaper Ground Control bundle here, but only for Britons.

Quite a few people sent in comments about classic, resource-free, 3D real time strategy Ground Control being on GoG.com. It’s interesting to see the game up there for a number of reasons, not least because the original game was actually freely distributed by Vivendi for quite some time. Of course with Vivendi disappearing into the ActiBlizzard merger there’s all kinds of funny things going on with the ownership of their games, their distribution and so on. Rebellion – the chaps who are making the new AvP game – now own Evil Genius, Ground Control, Empire Earth and Lords Of The Realm, and they’re distributing them via that aforementioned digital download service. I suspect a few of you will have something to say about all those games, but Ground Control was a particular love of mine, and I wanted to say a few things about the GoG bundle, and why it might actually still be worth a few dollars.

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This indie Britisher adventure game has been available for a couple of weeks now, for a piddling £2.99/$5. You may have heard of its precessor, the free Ben There, Dan That. But how does it compare to professional point’n'clickery of both yesterday and today? My judgement awaits…
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It’s been emotional. Now, over a week of frenzied nostalgia later, Gaming Made Me draws to a close with a final round-up of Developers and Journalists. From the former, Ed Stern, Brian Mitsoda, Annie Carlson, Dan Marshall and Simon Parkin. From the latter, LewieP and Simon Parkin. Oh no! Simon’s dual-classed, the powergaming twink. Recollections… go!

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It’s going to be a quieter Christmas than we were expecting. A bundle of big-name games have announced in the last few days that they’ll no longer be bulging Santa’s sack, but instead offering themselves in the colder months of 2010. This year your Christmas tree will not be towering over 2K games BioShock 2, Mafia II, nor Max Payne 3. Indeed they’re not alone. A smattering of console-only titles have also slipped, as well as Activision’s Singularity. What’s a jolly-bellied man to do this holiday season? Deliver Modern Warfare 2 an awful lot, it seems.

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This is something of a disappointment. The 400Mb or so demo of Fairy Tales: Three Heroes demo has gone live. It was the winner of a Russian award for the best unsigned game, and with its striking cel-shaded look and its Three-Viking-esque concept (You get to swap between these three characters depending on your situation, with the other two following along) it seemed interesting. But it crashes on launch for me, so I can’t do any impressions. Pah, fiddlesticks and fuckity. Well, here’s two old trailers beneath the cut to give a taste. Perhaps those who do play it will be willing to give their impressions in the comment thread, eh?
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