Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ve wanted to post about this again for a while, but it’s non-inclusion in the IGF has given me motivation. I’ve still not been able to totally put my back into it, but it’s the sort of game which strikes me is exactly what certain of you are looking for. It’s a Sinistar-esque shooter, but with a sandbox design based around constructing your own ship from the parts of your fallen opponents. You can go and look at it here play the sort of limited demo, consider throwing down money for access to Captain Successor, but there’s also some videos available which sort of show its vibe far better…
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You may remember before Christmas, we mentioned a Medieval 2 Warhammer mod was coming out before Christmas. Now, after Christmas, it’s out. And then it’s slightly more out, as they released a V1.01. Instructions for downloading and installing the mod can be found here. Instructions for installing the English patch to un-Russian it are here. And Hot Daemonette on Bloodletter on Plaguebear action is below the cut. Also some elves, because you can’t have everything.
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I’m quite a fan of Moonpod’s games – Gametunnel’s game of the year from way back Starscape and inspired Head-over-heels/Final-Fantasy/System Shock riff Mr Robot – so I was surprised to see that they’d released a new game late last year and I hadn’t heard about it. It’s called Pirate Princess, and is basically a piratically-themed cross between Puzzle Quest and Bookworm Adventures. Quest, upgrade skills, get in duels, etc. Having had a quick play, it’s a great idea, but lacks the slickness of their previous games with the various UI choices driving Walker to distraction (e.g. tiny letter grids to select, easy-to-misread-font, etc). Still – you can get the demo here and see for yourself. Also! Footage follows! On Youtube! Or – ahahahahah – Yohohotube!
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With my desktop PC out of action over Christmas – it contracted a nasty case of conjunctivitis of the front-side bus – my options for gaming with my weedy laptop were limited. One thing I did managed to spend a few hours with without the poor thing fainting was indie devs Sakari’s third-person shooter Foreign Legion. It’s cheap, it’s cartoony, it’s about killing lots of wee small men for points. It was pretty much ideal for a 3 hour train journey to the Lake District, in other words.
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Watching our first Dragon Age: Awakening thread spiral into something huge (though Awakenings itself is more like a traditional expansion than DLC per se), it’s pretty clear that there’s still a great mistrust of downloadable content, even when it comes from a respected developer. Disproportionate at times, perhaps, but there is good reason for it – it’s something that we’ve definitely been let down down by a fair few times. Everyone wants to spend more time with a game they’ve really enjoyed, but lacklustre paid-for bonus content can actively diminish our fondness for a title. We like to believe we’re given hand-crafted adventures, made with love just for us, but when we’re given something that feels cynical or sub-par, that bubble bursts. It becomes harder to trust the game and its creators. It shouldn’t be like that – so allow me to be your half-crazed, unforgiving street preacher.
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We haven’t even mentioned Mihn Lee’s (One of Counter-strike’s original creators and Valve alumni) new project yet. Now, as screens and a little more info leaks out, let’s make ammends. Go have a nose at the gallery here and see the press-release here. Its Beta will start in the first half of 2010 and is a source-engine shooter which features “hostage NPCs with impeccable AI”. Impeccable AI! I do like AI which has been Impecced.

Not here, sorry. Over there. No, there – on Eurogamer. But it’s okay, it’s written by me, not some strange man you don’t know who probably builds chairs out of human bones and listens to U2 records or something. You can trust me! Mostly. Especially when I say things like:

The idea is that it’s no longer just a game of indistinguishable tanks having at each other from great distances, but one where robotic colossi trade stand amidst and over this ongoing teenier warfare. There are 27 Experimentals in all, and only a few have been shown so far – an enormous UFO, a machine that speed-builds armies then lobs them at a distant location one-by-one, like some kind of apocalyptic Pez dispenser, the Illuminate Space Temple teleportation device and, most excitingly, the Cybranasaurus Rex.

More here. Gas-Powered Games are being both bold and anti-bold with it – but not cowardly. They’re doing things to win the game a bigger audience, but so far as I can tell that’s genuinely making the game better as well. We shall see, obviously. Oh, and there’s a follow-up interview I conducted with head-man Chris Taylor going up next week too.

Hello! Welcome to Gaming Science News, the blogpost that happens when there’s a load of gaming science news to report. Are all those grants for research into the science of electronic gaming finally producing some useful insight into the favourite pastime of the 21st century human-person? Can gaming help you be the best at thinking? Should you play Tetris immediately after a terrorist attack? Let’s find out…
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Ubisoft have released a couple of new R.U.S.E. videos, but only one of them actually gives you a good idea of how the game plays, so that’s the one I’ve posted it below. The video shows how normal strategy systems of building units and sending them off to die can be combined with the RUSE abilities that the game offers. These change major variables on the field of war, like the fog of war and the morale of the units in question. I’ve spend some time in the beta of this and I’ve enjoyed the slow pace that makes it feel something like a RTS with the personality of a really good boardgame. I’ve got fair hopes for its release in the next couple of months.
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Picked up from World of Stuart by Walker – who didn’t want to look at it, because he doesn’t like Futurama – is this lovely little Space Invaders tribute with theme taken from the aforementioned cartoon’s Raiders of the Lost Arcade episode. Shoot aliens! Have tiny clips of show! Save every ten level! Mixes up the formula with extra bits! Rush! Well, four out of five isn’t bad. I actually liked this as much as any Invaders clone as I can remember, though it is a little easy and the clips repeating loses some charm. Get it from here, or see footage below…
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I’ve banged on quite enough about Dragon Age’s first expansion, Awakening, due this March, so I’ll not witter on more here. Just to say there’s a trailer for the new content below, explaining the outline of the plot, and not featuring any silly rawk music. Post-game spoilers below, naturally.

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