Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Reviewing Risen here wouldn’t be right. For one thing, it’s too big and time right now is too short to mainline it in such a way. For a second thing, to mainline it in such a way would probably be the wrong move. This vast German RPG is really not a game designed to be rushed through. For a third thing, it’s the successor to the Gothic games – a series which, in the US and UK at least, hasn’t reviewed anywhere near as rapturously as the reception they’ve won from their fans (with the exception of the much-maligned third). To a fair few people, Risen is the most important game of the year. What’s the reason for this disparity of opinion and enthusiasm? Well, that’s probably another post.

For this post, the first of several, I want to do something else – I simply want to play the game at a leisurely/sporadic pace. As I do so, I’m going to document my experiences, as a mix of narrative and opinion. Narrapinion I’d call it, if I was a massive arsehole.
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LucasArts Workshop’s first game, Lucidity, is now available. It’s on Steam for £7, and we’re told it will be elsewhere (such as Direct2Drive) soon enough. It’s a platformer crossed with Tetris, where you guide the young girl, Sofi, through a dream-like world by placing objects for her to run across. The old trailer is below, along with LucasArts’ blurb for the release.

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Having pootled around in Love for a while last week, and watching Steenberg’s updates on Twitter, I decided it was time to have a decent session in the alpha build of the game. This led to me tell my girlfriend that I’d be spending the morning “in Love with James.” She didn’t bat an eyelid, used to such early-morning incoherence, and continued getting ready for work. Later, armed with Teamspeak and cups of tea, James (Arma II’s scriptwriter) and I set about investigating the indie not-quite-MMO in its embryonic stages. Our findings are below.
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Idle hardware browing leads me to Techradar’s coverage of Microsoft’s concept mouse project. Usually, attempts to redesign one of the most fundamental features of the PC is something I greet with a sneer – how can you be so stupid as to waste so much money on trying to replace the irreplaceable? When it’s Microsoft, though, for all their flaws it’s worth paying attention to.
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One Mr Britton starts my day with splendid news. Shrapnel have added to their fine roster of free games. Particularly, the splendid Strange Adventures In Infinite Space by Digital Eel. It’s the precursor to Weird Worlds, which I adored – go see my Eurogamer review for further elaboration. If you can put up with the more retro-presentation, Strange Adventures is a very similar thing – basically a 20-minute top-down Elite clone where you explore a randomly generated galaxy for swag and get home before your mate’s fag break has finished. Get it here and waste some time today. If it takes your fancy, its sequel is still available to buy. Also, Strange Adventures has a hefty mod-scene, so you can expand the free game with more splendid free-osity. Hurrah for Free-osity! Hurrah for Digital Eel! Hurrah for Strange Adventures In Infinite Space! Hurrah! Hurr[Snip! That's quite enough o that - Ed].

Courtesy of Byteside, we have Gabe Newell’s speech to the gathered Australian gamers when he met modder Joe W-A yesterday posted below. Newell talks about the importance of the PC gaming community to the creativity of the industry. We also get to hear from the modder himself, the chap behind flying Gabe and Erik to Australia in the first place, who seems kind of dumbfounded by the entire thing. A Q&A and some interviews follow. Congratulations to everyone involved, it’s been very funny, and good for charity too.
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Thanks to Jun Shen Chia for sending in a link to this first episode of what proposes to be an ongoing series made in Fallout 3, which I’ve posted below. Further episodes can be found here. I have to admit it’s been a while since I’ve paid any attention to the machinima scene, so do feel free to send in other efforts that are out there on the web. This particular piece is by Drakortha Productions, a chap who has done a whole bunch of game movies before now.
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Permaband. Do you see? A clever joke there. Eve Online operators CCP seem to have no fear of getting up on stage to strut their stuff, and they seem to have taken that habit to its logical extreme in this video, a rap about running an MMO and having studios on three continents.
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I think I have a new favourite trailer. For Magicka. Despite the accolades it’s already won it hasn’t crossed my path before, only announced this week as an official game. It’s the creation of developers Arrowhead Games, based in Skellefteå, Sweden, and appears to be a cross between a dungeon crawler and a top-down shooter, letting you create your own magic spells on the fly. Offering up to four-player co-op, it’s, well, offering the chance to “become immersed in a generic fantasy world”. Which is where it gets enticing.

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The planets aligned. The Mayan prophecies were proven true. All four Ultimate Controllers of Rock, Paper, Shotgun gathered together in one echoey lounge to create an electronic wireless show for the ages. Led by your tweeted contributions we discuss the highest matters of the day in a manner suited by fine gentlemen.

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We’ve covered art mod series Radiator before, both first part Polaris and the second Handle With Care. Because we are all about the art-wank. Or wanking generally, in my case. However, some people are less into splendid art-ejaculate, and Robert Yang writes about their responses over in this week’s Escapist. Of course, their problem isn’t pretension or even iffy Half-life-two-level design. It’s because you were “tricked” into playing a gay protagonist…

You might have, as some players did, invented a female persona for your player character and assumed it was the same young “lady” dating Dylan from my previous mod, “Polaris.” And then you would find out, whether from seeing the name “James” so often or from reading forum posts – that I had managed to “trick” you into playing as a homosexual male.
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