Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Some games are like potatoes. I can’t say I really care about potatoes, but I nonetheless accept them as a key part of my diet. I’d miss them if they were deleted from reality by some kind of gastronomic demon chef. So it is with certain games, such as Dawn of War 2. I was a little underwhelmed by it, but nevertheless played the game to completion, and devoured a few weeks of multiplayer. There’s also no doubt that the expansions for said game are going to be a key part of my gaming diet in the years to come, with each one being consumed in full as they come out. Chaos Rising might not do anything particularly interesting with the template carved by Relic for Dawn Of War 2, but it’ll nonetheless prove eminently palatable. Man, I totally haven’t had my dinner yet. I’m going to have fajitas. They’re going to be exquisite!

Also, I arsed up this post earlier. The code is valid from Wednesday.
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Variety have been interviewing Warren Spector about the Wii-Epic Mickey game and amongst the information that’s irrelevant to THE WORLD’S MIGHTIEST PC GAMING BLOG a couple of facts came to light. Specifically, some more details of the two games which Junction Point were working on before they were acquired. One was a fantasy game, but the other was basically Deus Ex with the serial numbers filed off because Eidos wouldn’t sell the IP to him. “There were and still are ‘Deus Ex’ stories I would like to tell. That story is not done for me,” he says in the interview. Most crucially, the rights to the two games went to Disney with Junction point and aren’t dead. In other words, we could still see Spector’s Bioshock, if you follow my metaphor. As he said to me a few years ago, it’s possible he’ll only work on three more games before he retires. Epic Mickey, Not Deus Ex and incarnating a Fantasy World his wife and he have wanted to do for fifteen years would be a fine way to round off his ludography.

Kieron spotted this in the 2010 IGF list. Called 78641, it purports to be an English translation of the classic Esperanto game, Pato Viro Simulilo. It’s, um, sort of an adventure game, but mostly an exercise in surrealism. And unlike most things that people label “surreal”, this isn’t just “silly” or saying “fish” a lot – it’s a genuinely surreal and often unsettling experience. In the game you play Doug Beachez, a frying pan. Who sells dildos.

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I picked this up from Cliffski on Quarter to three, but it’s… well, it’s the sort of thing I think we should all read and talk about. It’s the techcrunch article about the propensity of iffy ways that social-game monetize themselves and is catchily entitled “Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell”. It’s incendiary stuff, arguing the whole social-gaming bubble is in a self-enforcing cycle towards the dark side. As in, companies who scam make more money than those which don’t, so they advertise more, so… well, it’s a nasty cycle. By means of balance, the annoyed David Kaye of Meteor Games directs people at another article he considers more balanced. If you’ve had your own experiences with these kind of social gaming, do share.

Schizoslayer pointed this at this game from Casual Game compo. OneMrBean’s How My Grandfather Won The War is basically Nemesis as viewed through a children’s wall painting. By firing a paint splatter ahead of you, it removes anything hostile and instead shows something calmingly pacifistic. It’s really quite a beautiful effect. For me, that’s about it – for a game in the casual project, it doesn’t really have nearly enough restart points. Replaying the undemanding bits at the start of a level before you get a chance at the trickier parts hasn’t interested me since the Amiga days. Still – well worth a quick play. It is a beautiful effect.

The_B flagged up this IGF entry immediately, and you can see why. Attack of the 50ft Robot! from Digipen is the sort of thing which just begs for posting. It’s a retro-50s B-movie Rampage-esque homage with lots of physics malarkies. Its most obviously striking element is the Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow-esque black-and-white footage, shot through with the vivid-laser reds. The secondary striking element is the ability to throw your own head as a striking element. A little twitchy – it crashed a couple of times when I played it – but it’s splendidly silly stuff. You can download from here (EDIT: NEW LINK WITH NEW BUILD) and see footage below…
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It’s that time of year again. The 306 (Count ‘em!) entries to the 2010 IGF awards have been announced. You can browse them at your leisure, with many of them actually including stuff which you can download if you want to play at home. Interestingly, at first glance, there appears to be more already released completed games than usual – and there’s a fair helping of games which RPS have previously championed. I’m a judge again this year, and hope to do a better job than last time round, when I was terribly slack. Good luck to everyone who’s entered. Scanning the list, anyone see anything which looks particularly interesting? I’ll post about one of them in a bit…

My review of Dragon Age in PC Gamer is now online. All 60 million words, but short the very pretty boxouts (and thus vital details about the “taint” – snigger). It looks very splendid in the magazine. (Unfortunately an RPS review will be a while coming as our attempts to get review code were not responded to.) It’s a tremendous game, in many senses of the word. Here’s an excerpt that captures one of my favourite details:

“Whether you play as a human, elf or dwarf, a rogue, warrior or mage, a noble or a commoner, Dragon Age requires smart use of your wits and weapons. Combat is a combination of real-time fighting and turn-based handing out of orders. You have control of all in your current party (which has a maximum of four characters), as well as an elaborate Combat Tactics system that enables you to all but program your team’s AI. But there’s also an entire realm to explore, and a central, overwhelming theme of acculturation within its many towns and races. This is about politics, moral philosophy and love. And about killing dragons with swords.”

EDIT: I AM STUPID. This is valid from tomorrow, not until tomorrow.

Quick post before I rush off into the rain-choked guts of England: don’t take this as a thumbs-up for Painkiller, since I don’t think the collective opinion of the Hivemind is overly favourable towards this retro-angled shooter – it’s deeply old school – but GamersGate nevertheless offered up a discount code for the humble RPS reader, should you be interested. It’s for the Painkiller Universe mega-bundle which includes the original Painkiller and the add-ons Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell and Painkiller Overdose. That’s a lot of pain killed.
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In between leaving pumpkins uncarved and scary masks unworn, I have been playing 1c’s new RTS, Men Of War: Red Tide. The standalone expansion features twenty-three new missions with naval bent, and a small museum of new units. But is it any good? Here’s Wot I Think.
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Hmm. The title’s so long that there’s no room for bad punning (“Hi Card” is what I was going to go for, which is a bit of a stretch, but it’s late). Anyway – Mananation broke the story even before the actual website was up (it is now). Basically, Sony are taking Wizards of the Coast’s famous collectible-card-game-thingy and doing an MMO with it. They’re promising single player scenarios and PvP action (with a “robust tournament environment”), but specific details are thin on the ground. Read the press-release if you fancy decoding them. My reading is very much “Magic: The Gathering… online” rather than a complete translation, but that’s just a reading. We’ll know soon enough though – it’s due for an early 2010 release. You’ll find the teaser beneath the cut…
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