Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This week I’ve been playing around with Hazardous Software’s strange RTS concept, Achron. It’s boasts the most interesting feature in, well, probably any RTS, ever. You’ll want to keep reading.
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Hello! How are you? Uh-huh, yep, right, right. Me too! Yeah! Anyway, enough about that. Here’s a few missed trailers for Star Trek Online, which is as much to remind myself that I’ve got a beta key lurking somewhere in my inbox as anything else. My PC’s been dead – a case of motherboard lupus – since just before Christmas, see, and it’s only been back on its unreliable feet as of today. Which leaves me with a dilemma. Where to start? What to catch up on? That unfinished campaign in Dragon Age, the TF2 updates, the first L4D2 mods, finally getting around to learning Solium Infernum, the raft of tantalising indie games that have clogged up the RPS inbox over Christmas, or just staring at my email program for six hours with blinking? All good options. But I really would like to try STO.
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I look forward to new TV-tie-in games like a child looks forward to a visit to the world’s angriest dentist. Over the oh-so many years I’ve been doing this job, I’ve played a lot of them, and they’ve been universally terrible. Oh, with one sort-of exception – the extraordinary ER The Game, which managed to be a mix of Theme Hospital and a lunatic’s fever dream. That game had ninjas and ghost American footballers. Anyway, sidetrack. Perhaps the most consistently awful are the CSI games, whether developed by 369 Interactive or Telltale. (Telltale’s first, 3 Dimensions of Murder, holds a place in history. It has a plot about a developer who may have murdered a former publisher, for screwing him over for his rights to a game based on his two wacky cartoon characters. This was before they regained the rights to Sam & Max…) Anyway, this latest, CSI: Deadly Intent, also by Telltale, has recently had a demo appear. Despite being two months old. And while it’s not nearly as bad as previous games in the series, it’s not that great.

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One of the pleasures of the new decade was seeing Stuart Campbell embracing the last decade and starting blogging. One of his first posts is about Genetos, a SHMUUUUPPPPP! which recapitulates the development of its genre. As in, start at Space Invaders, pass through Space Invaders with some spangles and end up with Space Invaders with a lot of spangles and the sort of fanboy who worries about how you spell SHMUUUUPPPPP! Anyway – while new to me, it’s been about for a while – as the video beneath the cut’s “2007″ posting date shows – but the 2009 copyright on the actual code implies a relatively new build. So if you already know it, go play it again. If you haven’t, go play it not again. Clever, aggressive and even educational.
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For all its glory back in 2005, it can be a little disillusioning to fire up the original Half-Life 2 these days – it looks that much flatter and dimmer than the worlds we’re used to from more recent iterations of Source engine. No HDR or colour correction, and NPCs with pudding-like faces. The one-time Future Of Games doesn’t look so futuristic anymore, in other words. So, one man has sprinkled modern fairy dust over the old dear – porting the entirety of Half-Life 2 to the significantly shinier Orange Box version of Source.
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I’ve been trying to blog this since before Christmas. There’s probably a half-written post lying in the guts of the RPS-machinery. Basically, the geniuses behind Sumotori Dreams have released a paid-for version which includes four (Count ‘em!) player modes and similar. Four buffoons crashing around. It literally doesn’t get any better than that. I wrote about Sumotori Dreams in 2007′s Advent Calender. No less a luminary than Charlie Booker noted “that only way to improve it would be to set it in a branch of Nandos”. Who can argue? Play the demo and pay four dollars fifty for the full one (Note: You can download the full version, but you won’t be able to play it. Get the demo!). Oh – here’s some men falling over.
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Koch Media have confirmed February 5 as the release date for S.T.A.L.K.E.R : Call of Pripyat in the UK, Italy, and “Nordic”, although which countries that stands for isn’t quite clear. Russia, Germany and the rest of Europe have had their versions of the game for a while now, and all feedback points to good. I’ve spent quite a lot of time with the early English-language version myself, and wrote up impressions here. In short: strong stuff, especially in the direction of open-endedness, but I have a few reservations. I’ll be playing the hell out of it when the full version arrives too, obviously. There’s no news about what’s happening with a US version, but presumably it’ll find its way to digital download before long.

Before I begin, other news: Return To Ostagar, today’s DLC release, has been delayed. No word when it will appear. Sadpanda.

Onward. After yesterday’s scurrilous rumours of a potential Dragon Age expansion called The Awakening this March, the truth has come out. There’s a Dragon Age expansion due this March, but it’s called Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening. There’s no “The”. Take that, Eurogamer.cz, with your so-called “news”. It’s set after the events of the main game, with you playing a Grey Warden Commander aiming to rebuild the Warden’s ranks. One thing. It’s going to cost $40.

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We’re going to be playing catch-up with what happened in the PC world when we were away for a while. One of the bigger indie thrills was Iron Tower releasing their long awaited combat demo. Then they had a tweak and released another one with some bugs removed. While I’m excited about this as ever, I haven’t actually had a chance to the demo yet, so I’ll direct you at Vince for his Combat Survival Guide to ease you in. And an internet video of it in – er – action.
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BIS and Idea Games send word that they have moved from nominations to the voting stage of their community awards for last year’s modding and community-operating efforts. Anyone can vote, but it’s probably worth familiarising yourself with the variously nominated mods, campaigns, add-ons and community members. The detail thread for the various nominees for the five categories can be found here, while the voting form is here. The voting phase is open until 31st January 2010.

Not familiar with the game? Let our Quintin introduce you to its delights.

CCP have confirmed that their single-server MMO, Eve Online, hit a record 54,446 concurrent users last Sunday. The weekend also saw the eruption of a new conflict between very old powers within the game.
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