Rock, Paper, Shotgun

You may be wondering why, after the release of the full game and the demo, we haven’t posted any more about Solium Infernum. Is it because we find it diabolical in more than just its theme? Nope. It’s pretty nifty. Quinns and I are at work in a game at the moment, and will be diarying it up when it’s all over bar the screaming. We’d do it as we were playing, but it’s the sort of game where there’s a lot of lying and sneakiness, so having a blog entry describing exactly how I’m planning on taking all of Quinns’ Iron would be a bad idea. Anyway! Much like Armageddon Empires, its’ a tricky game to get into. Quinns found this nifty and funny tutorial online. If you had trouble getting into the demo, it’d be a handy thing to browse.

I really am not after Quinns’ iron. No, really.

In this fifth part of my diary chronicling the process and progress of the RPS game I’m making – using the newly-free Unity game-construction suite – I get philosophical as I discuss some of the issues I think Unity throws up, and look at how that might influence my aims for Build 03 and beyond…
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This door of the glorious RPS Advent-o-Calendar is proving tricky to open. We’ve tried prying it with our fingers, sticking a kitchen knife in the gap and levering it, and telekinesis. But none of it’s working. It looks like the only option left is to smash it with a giant hammer. Use the guiding hand of the one true leader of the Autobots to aim your blow.

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Is it wrong that I was drawn to this game purely on the basis of the studio that made it being called “Pigdog Games”? Perhaps, but right now it seems as good a reason as any other to post with wild abandon, and so I link to the one-hour time limited demo. The game is a 2D top down real-time strategy, like those strategies of yesteryear mixed with tower defence. It’s profoundly simplistic, but it might just pass the time if you’re looking for some old fashioned click ‘n’ build distraction. Trailer below.
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I’ve been spending some time in the slow-but-satisfying depths of the R.U.S.E. multiplayer beta. Then I went and wrote about it for that Eurogamer website. Here’s a taste:

The first impression of RUSE is that this is another “long-zoom” game, where the map and the game space are one. When you zoom right out the gameworld is set in some kind of control room, and is reduced to slowly trundling icons. Zoom in and you can see the buildings, trees and even the movements of individual soldiers. It’s not exactly visually breathtaking, but it’s sort of functionally resplendent in a way that will make desktop general nod in sated approval.

Read on!

You know how in a fairytale if someone is generously feeding a child it’s inevitably because they plan to eat them later? I’m suspicious someone’s planning to eat all the indie developers. We’ve now got the Unreal 3 engine freely available for non-profit development, and surprisingly fairly offered for those planning to sell their game. We’ve got Unity available to the masses. And now Havok – the pioneers of gaming physics – introducing a licensing plan for independent game makers. Although there’s a slight confusion over how “indie” this is.

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Neocore’s new “Role-playing Wargame”, King Arthur, has been available for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve been sinking a surprisingly large amount of time into it. It’s a little bit Total War, a little bit fantasy, and a little bit unlike anything else out there. Read on for a round-table discussion of wot I think…
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I am on my own in a hotel room somewhere outside on Stuttgart, Germany. If it was so horrible and lonely that it was making me feel a touch psychotic, then I would have a excellent prompt to start talking with worrying sympathy about Mountain Man, a document of one enraged beardy fellow’s attempts to destroy an entire town. Alas, it’s rather a nice hotel room and I feel quite relaxed. Why can’t I have played this whilst suffering one of my legendary grumps? It’s just so unfair and… Hang on. This has made me grumpy. Yes! I’m now ready to get a sick thrill out of lobbing boulders at police cars and attractive Alpine lodges.
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They keep making new Mass Effect 2 trailers, and I keep posting them. I’d be less of a schmuck about it, maybe bank them up and post a few at once, if I hadn’t just restarted the original game this morning. Earth-born Vanguard Engineer since you ask. And as if the Sky Fairies were watching, so it is that BioWare releases details on the new abilities of the Engineer for the sequel. (Yes, yes, I’m only specialising, not actually an Engineer this time – look, you’ll make the Sky Fairies angry.) And crikey, they’ve got some nice abilities. The freeze looks a lot of fun, as does having a personal upgradeable robo-orb buddy.

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Dead Space 2 has been officially announced. Did we not think that wasn’t happening? Are we surprised? I lose track. But either way, here it is! According to the press release this means we will have opportunities to once more control Isaac Clarke as he uses “new tools to gruesomely slice and dismember the Necromorphs.” Mmmm. These, combined with his plasma cutter, we’re told are “empowering him as he meets new characters, explores epic zero-G environments, and fights against a relentless Necromorph onslaught.”

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We’re alone in the woods. The enemy are almost upon us. There’s only one way out, and it’s through the that door… yes that one over there on our incredible seasonal advent calendar. Remain steadfast, because we never leave a man behind, not least when we’re following the finger of the one true leader of the Autobots to discover…
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