Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I don’t think the initials “DLC” quite fill us with the thrill that they were once intended to. Instead this promise of extra content for our games – something that you’d immediately assume would render us happy – now carries with it that little tone of dread: how will it go wrong this time? But how strong is that feeling? What happens when you combine it with a game that’s receiving so much positive attention? A game like Just Cause 2. We’ve not seen a single thing to dampen our spirits for Avalanche’s hyperbolic action crazyfest, so let’s see if we can get through a trailer for the DLC planned to come free with pre-orders for the game without this changing.

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We mentioned this new download service before Christmas, when it could only offer a cheap Serious Sam HD, but now it’s up and running for proper, and we’re hoping it will be good place to get lower profile and PC indie games. It already has an indie games pack to kick off with, which is a Trine, Machinarium and Eufloria bundle. I suppose that might not be the best bundle to point you lot at, because you’re bound to have one of these games already, but anyway, it’s £29.95 for all three titles together, which is a reasonable way to catch three of the best indies from last year. I’m sure Lewie will keep an eye on this to point out any future bargainous recommendations.

In other indie sales news, it’s worth taking a look at the Natural Selection 2 / Overgrowth pre-order post-mortem, where the Wolfire team examines the success of promoting two as-yet-unreleased indie titles.

Intriguing (and now in its fourth run) combat-free MMO A Tale In The Desert is launching an experimental second server to see how much of a “telling” can be generated by player actions, rather than by the dev-tweaked game. They explain:

This will be the first time A Tale in the Desert has run a second shard while another telling is currently ongoing. A Tale in the Desert has always been a great sociological experiment, asking questions like “What will happen if players can completely control the world through the use of laws?” and “Will players work together in a project when working against each other could potentially have more benefit to one of them?” This experiment continues with the launching of a new server, to see what will happen when players have no limitations but themselves.

Sounds interesting, but I have to admit having less than an hour’s experience with this game. Any vets want to chime in on the significance of this? A free trial of the game is currently available for others wanting to investigate.

Two hours! Two! Hours! Gone, lost to idly clicking on the first link I saw on Kongregate. I should be asleep now, dreaming about [CENSORED] with [CENSORED], wearing a top hat made of [CENSORED]. Two hours! Sigh. Well, at least I enjoyed them. I’m sure someone will be able to tell me Civilizations Wars (ouch – that hurts to say/type) is exactly like some obscure Spectrum title from 1986 that I’ve never heard of, but that doesn’t stop this wantonly wasteful of lives RTS from being a coldhearted delight.
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That is the first Tiger Woods gag I’ve ever made, anywhere, for the record – I’m entitled to at least one after these longs weeks of respectful silence, surely?

It’s made in reference to what’s a surprise move by EA, and a big ol’ happy event for the Unity engine. Which, just to remind the slowpokes, is a pretty darn beefy 3D game engine capable of running inside a browser. In this case, to power full-blown golf sim Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online. Yeah, Disgraced Sex Pest Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online. Get over it. The last word’s the important bit.
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Grand Ages: Rome wasn’t a bad city management game (with some mild RTS combat elements), but I’d probably buy Tropico 3, which was by the same team in the same engine. If you’re already gone to that Roman place then you might be interested to hear that the expansion has hit as a download (at GamersGate, but other portals are apparently imminent). It’s called Reign Of Augustus and it’s got twelve more missions, six new multiplayer maps, four new building types, new talents for each family, and the ability to connect your city to the Roman roads. There’s also a sandboxian God Mode for unlimited resources play, which sounds like something that should have been in the vanilla game, to me… Trailer in the below.
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Just picked up at Qt3, here’s the ongoing thread by QuantumSawdust over at the Dwarf Fortress forums where he keeps you up to date about his (semi-retired) fortress, Flarechannel, as shown above Click through for the full image. Well over a year’s work. Many more astounding pics in the thread plus the save file, and I recommend you read The Fable of Catten and Eagle in the first post. I keep on wanting to go back to Dwarf Fortress, and things like this simultaneously make me never want to play it and never play anything but it .

2K have perhaps declared something of a backdown on the BioShock 2 DRM. Sadly this isn’t to get rid of the godforsaken Games for Windows Live inclusion, but it is to reel in SecureROM slightly. Although to compare the before and after isn’t so simple, as it doesn’t seem anyone was quite clear what the before really looked like, and it’s not clear that the after is as different as implied. The current status is: SecureROM check on launch, but no install limts, and now there are offline profile options for GfWL meaning you can in fact save, load, etc without being connected. GfWL will still limit you to 15 activations, but this can be reset with a phone call to Microsoft. And “now our SecuROM is less restrictive on Steam,” although it’s not clear how.

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For just shy of a couple of months six arch-demons waged a war in hell. For just shy of a couple of weeks, four arch-demons wrote up their perspectives on the struggle. The resulting mass of writing works both as a multi-perspective narrative of a single, increasingly dramatic game, a review highlighting the game’s merits and as an extended tutorial of exactly how six newbies came to understand one of 2009′s most intriguing, subtle and just plain best games. If you’ve any interest in learning more about Solium Infernum, this is where to start. If you haven’t any interest in Solium Infernum, this will hopefully start it.
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The chaps over at Paradox Interactive have been announcing loads of games recently, and one of the standout titles is the sequel to lesser-known 4X game, Sword Of The Stars. The new game sounds like something of a remake, as it’ll include the races from the original game and its numerous expansions. This should excite quite a few space-fanatics, as the original game was a remarkably under-rated take on the genre. There are few other details at the moment, but we’ll keep an eye out for them when they arrive. In the meantime we’ll be playing Neptune’s Pride…

Let’s start the week with a little pre-release Indie-hype. You may remember Closure from us posting about it exactly a year ago (minus one day). You can still go and play the flashgame now. However, Messrs Glail and Schubbe are working on a full commercial downloadable version (The scale of difference being, to steal their metaphor, the difference between the first Mario Bros Arcade game and Super Mario World for the SNES). It’s already picked up an Indiecade innovation award, and has been shortlisted for 3 IGFs – in Technical Innovation, Sound and the Nuovo Innovation Award. More on their site and the first trailer below…
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