Rock, Paper, Shotgun

So Dungeon Keeper may be returning, as evidenced by not one but two trademark applications on EA’s part. My feelings on the matter are the very definition of ‘mixed’.
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To all good things, a sequel. To pretty much all things, an expansion pack. News breaks that Funcom are releasing an expansion for Age of Conan. GODSLAYER! Which is the sort of thing which demands capital letters. The add-on pack promises “more brutal, sexy and savage adventure” which is something that RPS is all very fond of, except Walker who prefers kindly, affectionate and sensitive staying-in. The game site is here and you’ll find a screenshot gallery over at Blues. The press release follows…

Update: Added in trailer.
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The Mini Ninjas demo is out, and it’s here. This is the surprise move for what the Hitman team did next and, yes, it’s showing off at least a fragment of their creativity and invention. Your download today will be 778mb. My impressions and the two (possibly one, with new player bugs) new trailers below.
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Sadly, there’s no room for a “Aren’t You A Little Short For A Dictator?” gag in the subject line. C’est la vie, as Napoleon might have said with a Gallic flourish. News breaks from the European Land-Mass Videogameisual Show that – as perhaps expected – Creative Assembly are adding using the tiny tyrant as their next step on from Empire: Total War. CA’s interview with IGN is about the only information in the public sphere which isn’t in the press release, their site gubbins or the trailer. You’ll find all of them, for your convenience, beneath the cut.
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After our last rather cynical few comment thread chats about Dragon Age, a source from within EA (who will have to remain anonymous) got in touch to say that the cynics were wrong, and that the game really is the modern equivalent of the famed Baldur’s Gate games. It is, our source insists, one of the great RPGs. Do we believe them? I mean, it’s all within towing their company line, isn’t it? Well, despite some scepticism induced by terrible marketing, I do hold out that this is going to be a thoroughly enjoyable RPG. Bioware aren’t exactly short on talent, and this game has been years in the tweaking. That said, I’m kind of looking forward to both Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect 2 more, because they’re both looking bold and non-fantasy. But then again, the collector’s retail edition of Dragon Age comes with a cloth map (see below). And that kind of changes things… Terrible map-lust.

Anyway, GamesCom trailer below. It’s good. And Darkspawny.
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March 2010 will see the arrival of the sequel to an FPS spin off from the Battlefield series that never actually showed up on PC the first time around. Once again the focus will be on environmental destruction, with the new game finally challenging Red Faction in the breaking-stuff stakes. You’ll be able to blow holes in walls with light weapons, and flatten entire buildings with more serious ordnance. It sounds like there’s a lot more focus on multiplayer for Bad Company 2, with lots of random extras, including the weapons from Battlefield 1943 as unlocks.

Anyway, GamesCom trailer lurks below, in which stuff gets shattered, knocked over, penetrated, cracked, and otherwise exploded. It’s a cinematic, but a clever one. Goes a bit meta at the end there.
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Walker lamented a couple of weeks ago that EA were mysteriously promoting Shift, their oh-so-knowingly-named reboot of the horribly tarnished Need For Speed series, by showing almost nothing of the game. In the wake of EA’s press conference at this year’s GamesCom, that’s changed. Now we get to see lots of pretend cars.
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First there was Mass Effect, and soon there will be two of it. And yet, to be quite honest, I’ve not really be tracking said sequel, despite quite enjoying the first part of Bioware’s big space adventure. With 2 being bumped back to continue in early in 2010 (no concrete date yet), I’ve lost ever more focus on it. However, I just spotted this dude shown (above) – who was apparently revealed a bit earlier in the year – and interest has once again glimmered. He’s a beautifully blank-faced alien assassin character, Thane, and I can see him being rather popular in my ME2 team, made up from “the galaxy’s most powerful mystics, geniuses, and convicts”, as we make adventures and deign to save the human race. Of course what has nudged me into looking into all this is some information from GamesCom, where those extraneous plot details and a grunt, called, er Grunt, have been revealed.

Oh, and there’s a trailer illustrating Mr Grunt too, straight from the convention and posted below. Game footage, a-lovely. But why does every possible future have an ’80s pole-dancing club?
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It is highly unlikely we’ll ever get bored of posting new footage of Cryptic Sea‘s upcoming Hitlers Must Die, part of their No Quarter indie-retro-sadism-mashup compilation. For one, it means we get to say “Hitlers Must Die!” again and again. For two, it looks like this…
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John was rather intrigued by Hi-Rez Studios’ shooter MMO Global Agenda when he saw it at E3. It has intrigued the rest of us too, but we haven’t yet had a chance to play it. You might get a chance though, as the very first round of beta testing is now in motion. On a handful of people will be allowed in for the first look this weekend, and we have a special code that will enter you for that first round draw. Clickwards for more.

UPDATE: This has finished! Winners drawn and below. Expect information today/tomorrow.

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PopCap have just released the chains holding us back from letting you know they’ve a new game on the way. A follow up to Zuma, called Zuma’s Revenge, it’s a reinvention of the frog-spitting ball-matching puzzler that PopCap say has lots of new bits and bobs in fancy new graphics. New modes, new mechanics and new power-ups. Possibly new contention from Puzzloop fans. The original sold an incredible 17 million, which by our calculations means everyone at PopCap is carried to work on golden thrones, where they spend their days playing real-life games of Bejeweled with real-life jewels, which they then stuff down their pants while laughing. Video and full press release for the new game below.

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