Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Raven’s reworking of the old lone Wolf will soon be upon us, August 18 for North American and August 21 for Europe. I’ve post the two most recent game-footage trailers below, in which we seen BJ using his supernatural vision and a flamethrower to clear the decks of a Zeppelin. I’m wondering whether that bit of the game ends in an explosion. It’s a fair bet, eh? More on this, no doubt, when we take a look later in the month of August. There’s a bunch more information over on the official Wolfenstein site, obviously.
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FASA Corp tentatively blowing the dust off their Crimson Skies licence? Splendid news. I can’t think of another interwar-inspired, zeppelin-crammed, fantasy flight-sim that deserves a rebirth more than Zipper’s classic. Well, apart from Rowan Software’s Air Power, obviously.

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Sundays are for sitting, drumming fingers, waiting for your new comic to be announced at WizardWorld Chicago and compiling a list of the (especially fruitful) interesting (main) videogame writing across the week and try and not link to -er – some poetry? That doesn’t sound very me. I blame womankind.

• Simon Parkin plays proper journalist over at Eurogamer, and does a beginners guide to the whole Timothy Langdell situation – fundamentally, Langdell aggressively pursuing anyone who uses the word “Edge” in videogames for infringement of trademark. Strong games journalism, to say the least. And, according to Simon’s twitter, Langdell is unsurprisingly threatening to sue. Go read.
• Gamasutra do a hefty interview with Rhianna Pratchett on games writing. Both about her and the craft generally, if you actually want to know how games writing works currently and who and what you should be blaming for its shortfalls, this is a great grounder.

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Games! They’re everywhere, and they want to steal your soul. Fortunately you can have power over them via the ritual of the EULA ritual. For a small glint of silver across the palms of invisible internet witchmen, you can control your destiny. Which games are most dangerous? You can find out, thanks to SavyGamer‘s voodoo priest of purchases, LewieP. Clickwards for sanctity, and probably the best bundles of indie-gaming awesomeness you will ever see. Behold, a flock of angels!
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When chatting to lord of the vampires Brian Mitsoda and valkyrie warrior Annie Carlson during arranging their Gaming Made Me their post-Obsidian plans, they mentioned they were doing an indie-game. Which I decided to post another time, when there was more info. This week, they announced they were called DoubleBear and would be making an Indie RPG using the Age of Decadence engine. Which I decided to post about another time, when there was more info. And then they started talking about what their game was on the forum, being a freeform RPG with a zombie theme. And I decided to post about another time – another time called RIGHT NOW. All the currently available details beneath the cut…
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Back from an interview with Gobion Red Redemption – more of which in the near future – I decide to ease myself back into the day of work avoidance with an indie-racer I’ve been meaning to play for a while. It’s the splendidly named Super Laser Racer, from the makers of New Star Soccer 4, where play racers made of lasers superly racing. In other words a Top Down Super Sprint (With Gun Pick Up) game with Geometry-Wars-esque retro-modern sprites. The demo features four course, and three of the – oooh – many vehicles to drive, while the full game features a track designer, more levels and campaigns and similar for seven quid fifty. I liked this. Well balanced – i.e. weapons don’t dominate over the racing – and cut to the (er) quick, and very much the sort of thing I played a lot of time with on the Amiga. Only problem is a lack of multiplayer. Video follows.
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Once more unto the breach of reviewing that which is many ways unreviewable… This time around, I’m taking a sober look over on Eurogamer at the Euro-state of Mythic’s MMORPG Warhammer Online, nearly a year on from its high-profile launch. You’ll find my ruminations lurking over yonder, and including chin-scratchy nuggets such as these:

Mythic don’t want you to waste your time saving up money for a bigger rucksack. They just want to you to fight – ideally, to fight other players. The game’s greatest triumph is a largely seamless blend between punching NPCs and punching real people – no need for different skill sets or alternative armour. The enemy is the enemy. That row of number keys and a few team-mates, be they anonymous or known chums, are all you need. The sad side-effect of such single-mindedness is a glaring loss of personality.

A few bonus thoughts are below…
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Street Fighter IV: incredibly pretty and refreshingly onliney, but a singleplayer mode tarnished by laughably long combo animations, a hateful boss fight, nasty AI and a seemingly total ignorance that some people haven’t spent the last decade playing every bewildering, ultra-hardcore derivation of Street Fighter to death. Boo.

Street Fighter II: Biff! Kerpow! Thwack! Spinning biiird keeeck! That’s the stuff. Pretend Street Fighter never stopped being The People’s Fighting Game with the surprisingly robust (and official) Flash version below. The baying hordes should, however, be aware that this doesnae support controllers, so it’s keyboard only.
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Skull Daddy takes a familiar theme – getting object A to door B using items C, D and Z – and makes it morbidly interesting. With a limited selection of tools you need to aid the rolling skill to reach a glowing door, without falling into the abyss below. What makes Christopher Mathes’ take on it distinct is the splendid use of 2D papercraft-style graphics and pleasing physics. And there’s a demo. Good.

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The days of the Restaurant Empires are one of my favourite historical periods. Napoleon, the soux-chef-slaughterer dominating most of Europe with his innovative French cuisine. Wellington’s boot-like beef really couldn’t compare for the longest period. And oh! the meaty-chaos which Blucher wrought in the kitchen. Anyway, following on from other great games in the period like Empire: Totally Stuffed and Age of Omelettes III comes Restaurant Empire 2, which has a just-under-500Mb demo available for you to download and play. You’ll find an old trailer from about a year ago below to give you a – aha! – taste. Remember: When life gives you cannons, make cannonade.
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Via Shacknews, we see some new shots of Rage from SIGGRAPH 2009, where a talk given by id Software senior programmer J.M.P. van Waveren included a whole bunch of stuff about the “virtual texturing” in the new engine. There’s a handful of environment shots on there, and they look incredimentary. This could well be the next game you build a new PC for. The full PDF is here.

Oh, and in case you’ve not seen it, there’s a big old Rage teaser site here.