Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Yeah, this is the sort of semi-rumour which we don’t usually touch. But because it’s for one of Those Iconic PC Games and It’s Kinda Obvious They May Do This One, The Feed at G4 are reporting Lucasart’s Darrell Rodriguez’s response to being quizzed on whether they’ll be doing X-Wing or Tie-Fighter in the wake of the success of the Monkey Island Special Edition…

“We don’t have any announcements now, but stay tuned,” said Rodriguez. “We will soon…..”

Which could, of course, mean anything, but sounds like as good excuse as any for another orgy of what-Lucasarts-classics-we’d-like-to-see. Me? Rescue on Fractalus! The Eidolon! Ballblazer!

It’s launching imminently (August 7th). Hell, I’ve got a review copy which is looking at me threatening. I inch away. I’m not Tim Stone, for God’s sake. He can handle a strategic lady like you. I’ll just try bopping my cock gently on your forehead, and that’s no use to anyone. Er… metaphorically speaking. Anyway, for those still on the fence, there’s a demo of Hearts of Iron III available now. In it you an play as Germany, France, Poland or the UK for the first four months of WW2. Poor Poland. Anyway, there’s a latest trailer below, which shows off the Blitzkrieg gameplay. “Blitzkrieg” is one of my favourite words. Go Blitzkrieg!
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For a while the Need For Speed games became something… we weren’t paying much attention to. Then Shift was announced, and everyone sat up to take notice. Why? Because it’s being made by Slightly Mad Studios, a team made up of people responsible for the stunning GT Legends and GTR games. Jim writes much about it here. So a crop of new trailers appear, and I think, hooray! Then I watch them and I shake my pretty head.

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Eve Online developers CCP have filed two new trademarks pertaining to online gaming: Dust, and Dust 514. And it could be something Eve-related, but that’s totally a word I would use were I trademarking a post-apocalyptic game world. Actually I’d probably call it “Dust Tribes”, for the vehicular combat vibe, but that’s just me (Omg, to the trademark factory!) There’s loads of speculation flying around about this at the moment – particularly since CCP showed an FPS prototype a while back – but we don’t know anything more. We’re expecting something to be revealed at the Cologne games Con, where the CCP bossman is going to give a keynote.

Needless to say, if CCP do end up making a post-apocalyptic PvP-focused MMO, my life will be ruined.

The open beta for MMOFPS Huxley is North America only, which means I can’t get my hands on it (without using naughty means *cough*). But anyway it’s, right here. Perhaps some of our North American comrades would like to dive in and then tell us what the deal is? The game is out in the fourth quarter of this year but we still don’t know much about it. Go forth!

Hyper-stylised FPS-RPG Borderlands is shaping up to be one of the best action games of the year. In case you missed it, I previewed it here. A couple of days back, I also sat down with Gearbox’s garrulous bossman Randy Pitchford; I was there on behalf of a magazine, but saved some time at the end for something a little different – a few questions from our goodly readers, conveyed to me via our Twitter. Read on for this absurdly loquacious and infectiously enthusiastic veteran PC developer’s thoughts on PC vs Xbox Borderlands, what might be in store for DLC, the reasons for and problems with all those grey’n'brown shooters, and a ton of insight into the thinking behind Borderlands. Also: his verdict on who would win in a fight between CliffyB and Gabe Newell. IMPORTANT JOURNALISM.
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This is rather cute. Almost immediately after Jonathan Blow announces his new game, Flashbang follow up with a parody site to announce their own. This is our way of telling you: Jonathan Blow and Flashbang have announced new games.

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Some rather big Left 4 Dead news. This September will see the release of some brand new free DLC for the original game. Called Crash Course, it’s designed to link the end of No Mercy to the beginning of Death Toll, primarily intended to be played as a Versus map that will apparently take half an hour to play through. Valve also say the new free content will be set in new locations, feature new dialogue from the cast, and have what they call “an explosive finale”. More details and the new poster below.

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I suspect Jagex are off your radar. They were off mine. While I was more than aware of their enormous success with the free MMO Runescape, I never quite filed it as something directly relevant to my interests in PC Games. A chance meeting with their recent brilliant arcade football game Kickabout League made me reconsider, so I grasped the chance to hook up at Develop with their CEO Mark Gehard, the Head of their new not-revealed MMO Mechscape Henrique Olifiers and PR Manager Adam Tuckwell. I come away with the impression of a proud, ambitious and iconoclastic company with a lot of big ideas. An MMO which looks at Master of Orion rather than Ultima as its inspiration? Picking up where Sensible Software left of? Real Men Programmers Do It In 64Mb? PC as pure populism, and taking that seriously? And not playing the hype game at all? It’s time Jagex got on your radar. You start here…
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Squeenix’s World War II RTS (you want to make a strategy game, set in World War II, are you sure?), Order Of War, has a demo up on Steam. Here it is. The 3D RTS boasts some bold scale, with “up 1000″ troops being under your command and on screen at any one time, and it’s being developed by the chaps at Wargaming.net, the same developer behind Galactic Assault and the Massive Assault games, and it looks a bit clever. Unconvinced? Check out the snazzy trailer below.
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Right, it looks like I was a bit confused on this front: the next stage of Section 8′s testing is a European beta, since the first lot was North American, and it does have limited places. You can sign up here. That European beta will start on the 10th. For my recent impressions take a look here. Kristan at Eurogamer was also pretty positive. As I understand it, an open beta, presumably for both continents, is to follow. The game is scheduled for release worldwide on August 28th.