Rock, Paper, Shotgun

We mentioned the recently revealed existence of EA 2D project Dragon Age Journeys a couple of days ago, and it seems it’s with us sooner than we expected. Today, in fact. The first episode of the Flash-based 2D action RPG, The Deep Roads, will be released on the game’s site at 8pm BST (12pm PST) this very day. It acts as a prequel to the game, set in the Dwarven city of Orzammar, and going into the mining passages known as the Deep Roads. Screenshots reveal that it’s definitely deeper than a simple hack-n-slash, featuring much of the main game’s screen furniture, multiple party members, an inventory and character items. We’ll find out more later today, it seems.

After 12 hours of adventuring, I’ve finally got a hat. Man, I love hats.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was weeks ago that Henrik Nåmark contacted me to tell me he’d made another song for an indie game, and because I’m a colossal idiot I’ve only just gotten around to telling you about it. Nåmark is responsible for one of our all-time favourite game songs, You Have To Burn The Rope. Later he released a song and video called Reload Press Play, which was also fantastic. His most recent audible appearance is on the compellingly silly Harry Cannon’s Pipe Dreams.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a post about an underwhelming zombie game yesterday, I expressed a yearning to instead play a game in which I was 80 foot tall with laserbeams for eyes, if only such a thing existed. A no doubt incredibly handsome man called Hamelin understood my yearning, and kindly linked me to a game called Crush! In it, you play something that’s 80 foot (or something like it) tall with laserbeams for eyes. Win? Win.
Read the rest of this entry »

A while back I wrote a book that I’m rather proud of. Although its net was cast wide to take in the whole spectrum of videogames, it was me writing it, so there’s an inevitable focus on PC gaming. Topics include Korea, China, Quake, Eve, human computation, modding, persistence, community, evolution, science fiction becoming reality, and all the other stuff about PC gaming that has kept me interested over the years. This Gaming Life was a partly travel book, a partly of kind of philosophy of fun, and mostly an examination of the relationship between gamers and the games they play. The hardback version of the book was lavish and, well, expensive. The considerably cheaper paperback version is out in the US now, and you can get it here. Frustratingly, the paperback has yet to be released in Europe, but this site will be distributing it when it is. More thoughts on all this below.
Read the rest of this entry »

It was called Dyson at the Independent Games Festival, and now it’s called Eufloria. That should have been Euphloria, I reckon, but no matter: it’s a minimalistic “ambient” space strategy game, and it’s out already on Steam or, better still, from the creator’s site. I’ve been playing it for the past couple of days, and my flowery words follow beneath the click.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ah-ha! I can totally use that demo-n line this time, because Painkiller: Resurrection is about killing grotesque horrors and stuff in the afterlife. Are they demons? I don’t know, but they don’t seem friendly. But anyway, the new game is based on the overhauled tech of the original (with some interesting post-processing effects, but the looks of it) and once against sees you running about with a shotgun, shooting hordes of horrors and generally making a nuisance of yourself. Apparently there’s a co-op multiplayer mode featured in the full game, too. The demo is 1.3gb, it’s here and here, and I’ve posted the trailer below, just for good measure. The game is out on October 27th.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is really quite sweet. Way back in the day, when Max Payne was happily married and didn’t expect everyone he loved to have been killed to give him motivation to shoot dudes (slowly), Remedy made a racing game. It was called Death Rally. They’ve updated it from the DOS to work on modern systems and made it freely available to download. It features both death and rallying, so is adroitly named. My favourite feature is how you can run over the people watching the actual event, which probably explains track-attendance figures slipping in recent Death Rally years. Now, Remedy! Get back to working on Alan Wake. You’ll find some Youtube Death Rally DOSbox footage below…
Read the rest of this entry »

We get a lot of mail based around new webgame releases. A whole lot. So I don’t actually always go through them. This one, I did. Do you know why? Because it’s called “Bloodfield: The Meat City”. That’s videogame poetry, as far as I’m concerned. The game? Well, it’s very Zombie Shooter. Or Smash TV For our older readers. Or Robotron for our even older readers. Or on the Colosseum floor, with a gladius, being chased around by lions for our really old readers. In other words, an arena based shooter. Plus – because this is the late 00s – a whole mass of upgrading systems in a shop. It’s 2009 and the whole world has become Xenon II: Megablast.

Game Informer were first in line with the responses from Infinity Ward, with this peculiarly unpleasant article by Adam Biessener. The Game Informer writer says of the general outcry about the news that MW2 would not support dedicated servers for online play: “Predictably, nerds across world took to the Internet with a wailing and a gnashing of teeth that would make the Left 4 Dead community proud.” Or perhaps we – nerds or otherwise – were justifiably upset about a change to a proven way of doing things, a change no-one seems confident will be to our advantage. The article goes on to quote Infinity Ward’s Jason West saying “”We’re just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners… we thought maybe it would be cool if the fans could play the game.”

There’s a more detailed breakdown of what IW are proposing over on Robert Bowling’s blog, which makes for a clearer response. I’m a little dubious about the anti-cheating claim, however, since dedicated server admins have gone a long way to self-policing the community, and I feel like IW’s claim that they’ll be able to deal with it might be a little bold.

This guy?

I hate this guy.
Read the rest of this entry »