Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I toddled off to see this jetpack-centric shooter a little while ago, and must get around to transcribing the PC-specific stuff I snuck into the otherwise Xbox-focused interview. It’s a first-person-but-with-more-shoulder-shooter with a vaguely adventure serial feel, set in an evil alien-governed universe lurking beyond the Bermuda Triangle. Yes, the Bermuda Triangle – that old tart of a conspiracy theory is back, back, back. Not entirely sure what I make of it yet, as alas I didn’t get hands-on with, but certainly there aren’t enough jetpacks in games. If Dark Void can pull off both the freedom and the tightness of control necessary to evoke the back-mounted propulsion of our nerdiest dreams, it could be onto a winner.
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This looks like my kind of thing. My kind of thing being “games that make me feel like I’m incredibly good at games, even though I’m not.” IGF China finalist S.H.M.U.P. is, as the name suggests, a side-scrolling shooter. But! Rather than being a precision game of exhausting bullet-dodging, it’s one in which you unleash a sustained torrent of improbable explodey-death, with your avatar eventually consisting of a fleet of up to 15 ships. In other words, Press Button, Watch Everything Explode. Yay!
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Nothing much to add to this, but wanted to show it. Earlier, Introversion twittered a recent shot of Subversion. You’ll see it above, fucked up a bit by our JPGing and expanding of it. Go see the original here. It’s looks both quintessentially Introversion and as beguiling as ever. My money’s still on something Neuromancer-y.

I totally found this game for myself. I didn’t find it on IndieGames and I definitely am not claiming I didn’t find it there because Michael IndieGames corrected me again! The bast! Whose Bast!-esque qualities don’t effect the fact I found this game entirely by myself and not on Indiegames. Anyway, Saut is a post-Canabalt atmospheric one-button indie-game. However, rather than careening along madly with only a jump to save you, here you only progress when you jump. It’s a little trial and error for my tastes – and my space button is shit at this sort of multiple presses – but I think it’s pretty neat. Footage follows…
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Cor, big gaming news: EA have announced Medal Of Hono(u)r is to return next year, all up-to-date and modern. What they’ve done here, you see, is they’ve taken a popular WW2 series and updated it to present what I’m going to call “modern warfare”. And frankly, good. Because I liked the Medal of Honour games even if they weren’t quite the most cutting edge, and the splendid Medal of Honour: Airborne was lost in the noise of Call of Duty’s reinvention. You should buy it. Although not at that price – cripes – that’s what it cost new! But to the new game. So, what do we know so far?

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We already had the first proper video via G4 earlier in the week, and now the blighters have two more videos, which I’ve posted below. The environments really do look as impressive and freely explorable as Splash Damage have been boasting. We also get to see even more of the romping gun-action, which is making the delay until the end of 2010 all the more frustrating. This really is one of the most interesting FPS games in development, and I pray Splash Damage have the talent to pull it off. For a lot of chat about the philosophy and fiction of the world, check out our interview with senior designer Ed Stern.
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Brian RPGWatch brought news that The Ultima 6 Project has reached the public beta stage and is, by all accounts, pretty stable. The idea, much like the previous Ultima 5 Lazarus, is to reincarnate these seminal games in a more modern engine. In this case, Dungeon Siege. You can go and download the beta from here if you fancy a trip to Britannia. To see it in action… well, the only footage I could find is from Milestone 5. So bear in mind, the full Beta is 3 milestones along from this. Though, to be honest, this looks pretty nifty to me.
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Blimey, space-fleet management game Gratuitous Space Battles already has an expansion, called The Tribe. Creator Cliff Harris says: “The pack adds an extra playable race to the game, complete with shiny new spaceships to blast apart in gratuitous slow motion. As well as new ship hulls, the game adds two new missions and a scattering of new tribe-specific modules to reflect their emphasis on ‘strong hulls and weak shields’. It also introduces the first use of kinetic weapons.” There are also improvements and changes in the pipeline for the vanilla game.

The Tribe is out now, and it’s $6. (Trailer below)
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Oh dear, the price restructuring in Electronic Art’s micropayment-funded FPS, Battlefield Heroes, has delivered some unhappiness to the internet. Players who were previously able to enjoy the high-end weapons without using real money to pay for them are now unable to do so, due to the amount of grind involved in earning enough points. Essentially, people weren’t spending enough money and consequently the points cost of game-earned “Valour Point” items – which include weapons which define your effectiveness on the field – has been increased, while the real-money “BattleFunds” are now a bit cheaper.

So was Battlefield Heroes ever going to work? Should players stop whining and cough up for their super-sniper rifles? Can it be rebalanced in a more amenable and profitable way? It’s hard to see for sure, but it’ll be interesting to see whether the game survives this hiccup and lives to profit another day.

Via VG247 I spy a new trailer for Blackrock’s action-tastic racer Split/Second, in which you can blow up the world (or thereabouts) to win your race. “The city is your weapon,” they say, which sound about right to me. And look at those explosions! Hot damn. This looks like a special grade of fun that the fun-dealers usually keep for themselves. The bastards.
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Michael Rose posted Continuity over at Indie Games yesterday. I was going to steal the link without credit because he corrected my spelling on Twitter. I can’t bring myself to do it, because I’m not a total wanker. Well, not total. ANYWAY! Continuity is a platform-puzzler with an incredibly elegant twist – the levels are basically sliding puzzles, with you able to re-arrange the pieces to your own advantage. Press Space to zoom in and out from each level and go play.