By Kieron Gillen on October 31st, 2009.
Just a hyper-quick post on this, as it had somehow slipped my mind. The recently-released Superhero MMO Champions Online is free to play this weekend. All the details are here, including their Blood Moon Halloween event. And if you want a taste of what it’s like, here’s our What I Think. Who’s still playing Champions? How’s it changed since then?
By Kieron Gillen on October 31st, 2009.
Michael Todd of Spyeart mails to mention he’s thrown a beta-vertical-slice-thingy of his game online. It’s clearly the three-level IGF demo sort of thing, which I had a quick play at now, and find it quite promising. It’s an indie RTS with a psychonauts-esque theme and a striking art style which reminds me of one part 3D Ant Attack and one part a gothy-iconic comic an Ex of mine used to really like whose name currently escapes me. Oh – and the We Share Our Mother’s Health video. You can download it from here and find some footage below. The finished game will apparently be on Steam next year…
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By Alec Meer on October 31st, 2009.
Seven years ago to this very day, uber-Half-Life mod Natural Selection was released. Man! Aliens! Man vs aliens, in a real-time-strategy-in-an-FPS-perspective kinda way! In that time, it’s become something of a landmark in terms of just how far you can stray from the source technology (pun not necessarily intended), just how successful a group of a have-a-go home designers can be, and quite how much prescribed concepts of first-person-shootage can be pushed. Developers Unknown Worlds Entertainment are gearing up for the insanely-anticipated release of the standalone sequel (of which the first and second super-shiny images of this post come from – click to embiggen), whose birth depends hugely on how much pre-order interest they can drum up. In other words, if you’re excited about NS2, you should totally pre-order it. It’s going to be a fine and splendid day in PC land when it finally walks our way.
Right now though, given it’s NS1′s anniversary day, we poked Unknown Worlds’ Game Director Charlie Cleveland into providing a little insight into how this milestone mod came to be…
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By Alec Meer on October 30th, 2009.
I know as much about Live For Speed as I do about the breeding patterns of platypii (or indeed as I do about the correct plural form of ‘platypus’), but I do know that when I worked on a gaming magazine, there was a constant trickle of faintly aggressive email demands that we cover this ultra-serious racing sim. Alright! Please don’t hurt me, Mr Racing Man!
Still, it was immediately evident that this was an ambitious and accomplished project. I can only presume that a fair few RPSites have dabbled in it, hence it’s worth pointing out that a new version has just [driving-related verb] onto the [road-related noun].
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By Kieron Gillen on October 30th, 2009.
Sometimes a good list article is all you need. I highly enjoyed old-comrade-in-arms Jim McCauley’s article for 3D World magazine. As you may imagine, a games list article for a non-games-mag takes a slightly different shape – and this one is about 3D milestones in gaming. The article itself is divided into 5 parts, and it’s worth working through – though for my money, the fifth part is the best. As in, the first eight are ones which I’d have included in a list of – oooh – 15 most important 3D games. Because I’m terribly Brit-centric, and not ashamed about it. Mercenary! I should write something about Mercenary. Er… do go read. And since – to steal a line – a good list is meant to be the start of a conversation rather than the end of one, what do you think’s missing?
By John Walker on October 30th, 2009.
As well-read students of gameology will know, and any who’ve asked me for my wisdom will have heard, the two main prongs of good gaming are grappling hooks and double-jumps. Once both those two are in place, you’ve essentially made a perfect game. It’s quite simple. Now, Just Cause 2 doesn’t have double-jumping, but according to this graph I’m imagining it turns out that this factor can be replaced with infinite parachutes, so long as the grappling hook can double as a tether. It’s a complex graph. Evidence for why I’m hopping from one leg to the other in anticipation for this one can be found in my E3 impressions, and indeed in the new trailer, below.
By Kieron Gillen on October 30th, 2009.
After the furore last time when they released a version of the demo which wasn’t a version of the demo, a proper 1.2 Gig demo thingy is available. As the video which follows shows, it remains very much Painkiller. Watching it myself, I’m reminded of exactly how much I didn’t like the original and how constantly amazed I am when people can’t tell the difference between it and Serious Sam. Also, how a review of it of mine had its score bumped up without anyone asking me about it. But hey! My name wasn’t on it, so at least there’s no blood on my hands.
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By John Walker on October 30th, 2009.
Runic’s new action role-player Torchlight has occupied my week. Does their ultra-sleek and approachable dungeon crawler manage to find that sweet Diablo-shaped spot? Read on to find out wot I think.
By Jim Rossignol on October 30th, 2009.
I’ve been meaning to put up some Borderlands tweaking instructions all week, but I don’t think I could have done it better than this thread on the Gearbox forums. Thanks to Mr Berry for pointing that out to us. Crucially, one of the commands in there allows you disable the voice-comms for the game, so you can use something more sensible. We’ve had no word back from 2K/Gearbox on whether there will be a patch for that stuff, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough. If you are tweaking, don’t forget to back up the relevant files before you start editing, as there might be some problems with loss of keybinds and such. The other issue is port forwarding, the instructions for which are in this thread. If you’re having trouble hosting/connecting to co-op games then you probably need to get busy with that stuff. Sigh.
By Alec Meer on October 30th, 2009.
Well, triple resurrections, if you also include the upcoming sequel/relaunch. For the purposes of this post though, it’s vintage Mechwarring. Not been able to try this myself yet – mainly due to the torturously slow proprietary bitorrent client necessary to download the thing – but there’s a whole lot afoot in Mechwarrior land. First, a major new version of a free remake of Mechwarrior 2 made in Blitzbasic. It’s called Assault Tech 1: Battletech. Tech tech? Tech. Tech! Apparently, it now looks better than the original, thanks to a revamped DirectX7 engine. Oh, mighty seven. Decide for yourself in the videos below. As an additional ray of robotic rapture, the MW fan/mod site behind AT1:BT, MekTek.net, are also gearing up to re-release the rather splendid Mechwarrior 4, in its DRM-free, modern-Windowsed entirety.
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By Kieron Gillen on October 29th, 2009.
I’m dragged out of the joy of having a pet which I’ve trained to summon other pets in Torchlight by the B who informs me there’s been a stealth Halloween Team Fortress 2 update. Which is a fairly urgent thing to post anyway, made more so by news of a two-hour sale of TF2 for 2.49 (either dollars, euros or pounds). I stress, for two hours, which ends at 2pm PST. So imagine Valve returning from lunch to press a big red bargain-destroying button. Really, while I suspect most RPSites will have it already, at that price you may consider buying ‘em for friends for Christmas or something. Oh – the Halloween patch. Includes seasonal achievements, a new map and explosive pumpkins. No, really.
Oh yes. If you’re really in the mood for rushing, the first 10,319 people to go here get a free hat. Rush.
