Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m going to have to fall for the viral marketing tricks on this occasion and link to ATI’s science fiction website for the XFX graphics range of 2118AD (which is a rather unsubtle teaser site for the Radeon HD 5000 cards), because it’s a little bit bonkers. The spoof corporate videos poke fun at common futurist themes, such as the blurring of the reality-virtuality distinction, and the silly science of post-human augmentation, with not-quite-funny-but-what-why-did-they-do-that results. It’s just a shame that my crappy 2009 internet is having such trouble streaming videos from the future…

Or even BANGBANGBANG! Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has many best things, as you’ll see in this trailer of the multiplayer aspect of the game, below. We’ve heard only good things about the game so far, better things, indeed, than the previous game. It’s good to see some of that confirmed in a riot of game footage. Destructible scenery, vehicles, beautiful animation and particle effects… all splendid in the virtual violencing. I’ll stop prattling, I’m almost delirious with exhaustion. Go watch.
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Anything that has magic gloves and puzzles is worth a look. Twin Sector comes from German developers DnS Development, a first-person puzzle game with echoes of Portal. Can it live up to such an inevitable peer? Here’s Wot I Think.

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You may remember a fine pretty-much-complete PC translation of the boardgame Space Hulk. You may then remember that the lawyers Cease-and-desisted ‘em. You may then remember them trying to get permission from THQ. You may remember them saying that THQ has given permission as an April Fool’s joke, in an impressive example of a sense of humour failure. And you may remember them deciding to file-off the serial numbers on Space Hulk by inserting their own fiction and re-do the game. Well, maybe you do – I stopped following it after the April Fool’s gag. Anyway, they’ve finished and released it, now renamed Alien Assault and… well, this is an impressively bad job of filing off the serial numbers. If you want a PC Space-Hulk boardgame version, I’d go get it quickly, because frankly God knows how long it’ll be up.

How do you besiege a mirky wood? Expect to find out shortly, when Turbine release its Digital Download pack for Lord of the Rings online. It’s a digital download pack rather than something you can buy in the shop, and features… oh, lots of stuff. Raised level cap. Jump-in Skirmish Feature (Which sounds a little like what Warhammer does). Kicking over Dol Guldur, which is a place which has always deserved a good kicking. Lots of stuff, but there’s some interesting bonuses for this. For example, any returning (or current) player who upgrades their sub for multiple months before October 31st will get it for free. Which strikes me as smart. I’m particularly affectionate towards Mirkwood today, as my girlfriend has given me a amusingly photoshopped picture of Beorn in bear form with a Kenickie badge on his ursine lapel. See more of its features here, catch a glance at the first grabs here and watch some footage taken with a camera at Pax below…
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Not, I must clarify, the only or even best 20 reasons, but simply 20 of all the many, many reasons. There’s been some talk by both friends and strangers that 2009 hasn’t been a year to shout YES! GAMES! in quite the way the last couple have been. I beg to differ. It’s been an extraordinary year, though granted it’s often been necessary to look further than the best-sellers chart. We’re only just entering blockbuster silly season, and already we’ve seen and done countless amazing things in 2009. By which I don’t mean simply “amazing games”, but instead “amazing moments in games.” Here are just a few of them…
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This must be the most surreal games presentation ever. Not only is the game pretty far out – it’s Steve Swink and Scott Anderson’s Shadow Physics in more detail than we’ve ever seen before – but the Tokyo audience is armed to a man with some kind of squeaky rattle thing. When anything interesting happens they all shake their rattles, causing a noise like a hundred laughing insects. Anyway, if you can get past that bizarreness, there’s some views of the light-source cleverness in the game and… well it’s too early in the morning to explain it properly. “Change your light source and you change your world…” Go take a look.
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Here’s your late night nonsense, discovered via the constantly excellent Swiss Miss. It’s a group of freeborders playing a Tetris-alike in the streets of San Francisco. It’s clearly intended as an ad for the Freebord, which appears to be a skateboard that goes sideways or something. But who cares! They made a pretty game-related thing!

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Aieee! Seems Age of Conan devs Funcom aren’t in the rudest of health – they’ve just announced 20% of their workforce is being let go, and their hopefully-incredible MMO The Secret World has been delayed by “some months.” Conan’s upcoming expansion isn’t affected, apparently. Best of luck to those who’ve lost their jobs, and, selfishly, let’s hope The Secret World doesn’t have to compromise itself as a result.

Charlie Brooker, professional media sourpuss, occasional comedy megabrain and former PC games reviewer, tonight turned his frighteningly successful brand of comic sneering towards a games documentary(ish) on UK digital station BBC4. As with his Screenwipe and Newswipe shows, it’s him in a dimly-lit lounge, frothing bitterly to camera about popular culture. UK folk and IP perverters can now watch it online on the BBC iPlayer here, but I’ve just watched it the old-fashioned way. ON TELEVISION, AS IT HAPPENED. It’s like I live in the 1800s.
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Ah, yes. I return from a day of adventuring. Alec’s doing a post about Gameswipe, bless him. In which case, I’ll draw your attention to something which emerged over the weekend. Tim Schafer was hired 20 (count ‘em!) years ago as a designer. He does a post including some splendid rejection letters, as well as reciting the awesome Ballblazer Story. I said the word “ball”. You have to go and read that, yes? No, yes. Yes.