Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ve been playing Blood Bowl to the death – mostly other people’s, occasionally mine. I can’t actually do a Wot-I-Think review, due to feeling uncomfortable with my conflict of interest. But I’ve played so much, with its UK release imminent, I wanted to do something. As such, with the second season of the RPS Cup now under way, I thought I’d take you with me on the rise and fall of the Skaven blighters. Why don’t you join me? Join me..
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Given recent discussions I thought it might be useful to create a list that demonstrates how videogames could be categorically improved. Of course, there’s a difference between this and other such lists. The difference is that this list is better. Thanks to coincidence, a game incorporating all these elements is guaranteed a 100% perfect score on Metacritic.
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If the hyper-death Shank trailer and attendant mention of the Zombie/Alien Shooter series has whetted your appetite for absurd violence, perhaps this small, browser-based chunk of cheerful monster-shredding idiocy will do the trick. It’s called XenoSpace Survivor, it’s a lot like Alien Shooter, and there’s very, very little to it. But there is a beyond-wanton level of alien-death, plenty of guns and OTT power-ups, and even some scientist-shepherding action to pretend you’re doing something worthwhile amidst all that cartoon gore. It is Quite Fun, and it may be played here. It would be Extra Fun if it had mouse support – cursors and spacebar only, alas.

It was PAX last week. And no, we weren’t out there, because by an unfortunate coincidence the RPS personal helicopter was in the shop having its napalm missiles upgraded, hence we had no way to reach Seattle. What we could do, at least, is Observe From Afar, like sinister gaming perverts. We’re good at the watching-but-not-doing thing. For instance, here’s a fairly undocumented wee game that appeared there. It’s called Shank, it’s a side-scrolling third person action thinger, and it’s quite incredibly violent.
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FunCom is soon to release a wad of new information about its MMO The Secret World (check out psychological profile for your faction recommendation), after being shown at PAX, but currently it’s still being kept secret by The Man. The moment we can kill them all we’ll have all the details, but until then you’ll have to make do with this really rather pretty CGI trailer. Clearly it reveals nothing of what happens in-game, but it suggests a lovely spooky atmosphere. And a pretty girl fighting a weird bird beast. Which is enough.
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This Lucas-baiting moddery from a team of German chaps aims to recreate Star Warsian combat in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Are Lucasarts still litigious about this kind of thing, or have they eased up nowadays? It does very much look like COD4 with Storm Trooper and Rebel skins, although the Tatooine setting positively scream’s Counter-Strike’s Dust. But it’s got the pew-pew lasers and the epic music, so it’s going to make a fair few gentlemen very happy, I don’t doubt. Galactic Warfare’s trailer can be found in a galaxy far, far away. Also, below.
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Sundays are for… God, this is a Long one. Anyway, Sundays are for heading to the evil South, having lunch, coming back and compiling a hefty list of splendid reading about games and similar things while trying to resist linking to one of the may things which were filling my late-night music listening last night, at least until I started playing AAAaaa(“Snip”-Ed) at 3:30am.

• Graham Smith has the misfortune to share a house with John Walker and an Office with PC Gamer’s Tim Edwards. He has no peace. Occasionally, he finds the strength to write something as he huddles and weeps. In the week that Spelunky went 1.0, his old piece on Spelunky’s Rick-Dangerous-where-the-random-danger-is-good caught my eye. Also, his piece on the now-forgotten Lotus 3, which – through the eyes of hindsight – seems to be Spelunky: The Racer. Someone should dig into that, I think.

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On this list of Good Things That Happened on the 5th of September 2009, I can now write: “Played PuzzleBloom.” Thanks to a Mr Britton, who pointed out that the PAX exhibitor had wowed the locals, and is now wowing the internet, I loaded it up and smiled anew. PuzzleBloom is a 3D isometric puzzle game in which you must bring greenery and life back to cold, dead, industrialized floating islands. You achieve that by being a green fuzzy dude, who leaps parasitically from drone to drone, controlling their actions to gain access to a node which will light up the environment with trees and grass. It’s a bit like Okami, only with mind control and no wolf ladygods. You have to play PuzzleBloom and you will do so here. Go! (Requires Unity to be installed, so don’t fall at that hurdle, honestly.)

There’s something in our bucket. What is it? Value, that’s what. Who put it there? The master of all games cheap and bargainful, the SavyGamer himself, LewieP. Read on for this weekend’s best buys in the basement of the internet.
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“Described by top scientists as Monkey Island meets Diablo,” according to the DeathSpank official webpage. It’s what Ron Gilbert is working on now so, you know, go take a look.
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Big Fish Games have just released a rather charming adventure game called Drawn: The Painted Tower. The story-book illustration art style is perfect for the concept, which involves various magical paintings which must be fixed, navigated, and interacted-with as you negotiate your way up the tower to save the last person who can paint such things: a young girl. Annoyingly, the demo comes wrapped up in Big Fish Games game launcher, but nevertheless the hour-limited taster is definitely enough to get a sense of whether or not you like it, which I rather do. It has some of the frustrations of “er wot” that come with point-and-click adventures, but it’s not been too obtuse with its puzzles so far.

See, John, I can totally write about adventure games!