Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Watching Jesse Schell’s DICE2010 presentation about recent trends in game development – which took as its subject matter the unexpected popularity of Facebook’s “social” games and the external reward boom (unlocks, achievements, increased focus on the “score” for gaming generally) – I started to have a think about our Gaming Made Me series. I don’t think there were many mentions in there of “I just got hooked on the points system,” and I wondered if that would be different if we did it again in ten years time, or just with a wider net of people. Moreover, it got me thinking about some of the reasons why some gamers were horrified by the picture Schell painted.

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Sundays are for considering whether you can talk Quinns into being a punching bag in Starcraft 2 again, sipping tea and compiling a list of fine (mostly) games writing we collected across the week, resisting the urge to link to pop music, no matter how much the urge compels me. Must… no… fail… again.

• Tom Armitage writes about his annoyance with positive mainstream reviews of Bioshock 2, but applying generally to any game they get excited by. In short – always hailing them as literature, never hailing their game-ness. This has been pretty well chewed over by a lot of people, but I think it’s an interesting example of the debate’s progression. We used to be happy with any coverage. Now, we’re starting to argue about the type of coverage. This is all small steps towards some future synthesis of what games will considered to be.

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This week’s bucket is early, because I am away in Birmingham seeing a bunch of friends I have not seen in FAR TOO LONG (XxX) this weekend, so you have even more time to consider these impulse purchases. As always, more of this kind of thing can be found at SavyGamer.co.uk.
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Since we’re probably not doing a Wot I Think, I thought it worthwhile to point everyone in the direction of Boy Wonder Quinns’ Eurogamer review of Napoleon: Total War. Wherein he starts like this…

So, Napoleon finally gave me the battle I wanted from Empire.

And continues in an agreeably histrionic historical vein.

You were excited when John brought this up last week. As is only right. Shank is one of the most visceral games in this year’s IGF, and picked up a nomination for Visual Excellence for its efforts. We took time to talk to Jamie Cheng of Klei to find out about the origins of this love-letter to the idea of classic brawlers.
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It’s my birthday. I want these things.
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Kieron already thought of describing Joe Danger as Trials 2 meets Trackmania, and therefore I must be more original. It’s a cross between Bergman’s Nattvardsgästerna and a puma. Too original. It’s a cartoony platform bike riding bounce fest that looks awesome fun. It’s in this year’s IGF running for the grand prize, and we should have an interview with creators Hello Games just as soon as they hurry up and reply. Meanwhile, there’s a new trailer that shows off why this is bulging with potential, as well as doing that clever thing with the quotes in the background that I always like.

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Jim made us aware of M.U.D. TV just a couple of weeks back, using his Make Awareness Laser. And already there’s a demo for you to find out more. It’s super-dense management stuff, asking you to operate a television station with the sole intent of taking over the world. Not with your advertising. To literally take over the world as an act of mad revenge. Any suggestions that this game is based on the life story of Rupert Murdoch would be libellous, and strictly untrue. The demo offers the first two missions, as well as the comprehensive tutorial. It’s a dauntingly detailed game, made slightly more complicated by the need to physically walk your character into locations to be able to access various options. A bit like real life then.

Well, it’s supposed to be the first footage of Transformers: War For Cybertron, and I think there’s some in-game snapshots in there, but this is one of those cases where it’s hard to judge precisely where the FMV ends and the in-game stuff takes over. So that means it’s looking pretty spectacular and, dare I say it, “cinematic”… Ooh, I had a little shudder there.

Robo-biff will be arriving on 22nd June.
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Ah. I was not previously aware that 90s platformer Jazz Jackrabbit 2 featured the titular bunny’s brother, a bug-eyed, drooling loon called – their name, not mine – ‘Spaz.’ Wait: Epic actually got away with that in a commercial game? Or is it just a term of abuse in the UK, not the US? Oh, CliffyB. The gifts you’ve given us over the years.

Anyway, the retromancers amongst you may be interested to fiddle with this fan-made semi-sequel to Epic’s old Sonic rival. It was huge in 1994 because the PC really didn’t get many of the platformers that were utterly pervasive on the SNES and Megadrive, but 1998′s Spaz-co-starring sequel was the lurid lagomorph’s last gasp, bar an unnsuccessful Gameboy Advance jobbie in 2002. Everything has its fans, of course – and that’s why, improbably, Jazz Jackrabbit 2.5 exists.
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Aw, I feel so proud. It’s like seeing your own children in the papers, but without their having had to stab someone to get there. For winning a really tough swimming race or something. Because today on the real actual Queen’s official BBC News is a story about Mr Cliff Harris and Mr Dan Marshall. That’s Cliffski and Dan Off Of Time Gentlemen Please to you and me. It’s a story about the “return of the bedroom coder”, focusing on Positech and Zombie Cow as examples of British independent developers, and explaining that they can be successful in the larger world of gaming. Cliffski and Dan! We know them! They’re on the news!

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