Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is just great. Galcon won the 2009 IGF Mobile Game Design award, and Galcon Fusion is a PC (and other, similar to PC-but-not-PC formats) version of it. It’s also interestingly timed. Neptune’s Pride and Galcon Fusion are basically the same game – based around conquering planets to maximise ship production and manouvering those ships. Except that Neptune’s Pride plays across a time-scale of weeks and Galcon Fusion plays in a time-scale of about a minute. Putting aside the obvious improvements, Galcon Fusion has a 80s graphics mode AND a colour-blindness mode to avoid the obvious problems. Get the demo from here or buy for 9 dollars (going up to 10 next week) here. Also on Steam, before you ask. Footage follows!
Read the rest of this entry »

Okay – I haven’t played this, but conceptually it’s interesting. Well, kinda interesting. Settlement: Colossus merges a city-building game with the casual-staple of the hidden-object game. The mind boggles. There’s a one-hour demo if you fancy giving it a crack.

There are some games you play, there are some games you watch. For some reason I only ever watched Dead Rising, as my former housemate – Xbox supremo Jon Hicks – slaughtered thousands upon thousands of zombies for my viewing pleasure. The sequel, cleverly called Dead Rising 2, is coming to PC too, and so it is that we may delight in the process. The new trailer, below, is a strangely crappy job. It has official Capcom logos on the front, and then looks like it was cobbled together by a seven year old who didn’t remember the music. Anyway, it importantly demonstrates that the sequel won’t be deviating from its purpose: killing zombies in ludicrous ways. I think the highlight below is not the double-ended chainsaw pole, but the moose head.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a few recent Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening: The Subtitlier trailers to introduce new ingredients for the upcoming expansion. First up is Anders, Pyramid star and husband of Starbu… oh no wait. Anders the apostate mage, who can join your crew, with quite a few nice lines in his video. Then there’s Velanna, who apparently makes the trees come alive. Which is cool. It’s not explicitly stated that she’s a potential party member, but I’m guessing that’s the case. And finally there’s the Children, which is a strange word since giving it capital C suddenly makes it seem creepy and threatening.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a space captain, ma! Yeah, it’s amazing – I was only an Ensign 20 minutes ago, but they’ve given me my own ship already! I’m going to fly it into the sun and see what happens – I expect it will be lovely and warm there, so the crew will surely be delighted.

STO made me feel pretty important pretty quickly. I like that, even if it seems like open foolishness on the Federation’s part. I was deeply curious to try this here MMO back when it was in beta, but knew that sitting down with an MMO can be like giving a vampire permission to enter my home. Danger! Danger! However, as I currently have a work calendar more frighteningly empty than the soul of Haliburton executive, I quite literally have nothing better to do – I can justify getting my Captain’s Log on for a little while. As the title states, this isn’t a review: it’s just me dicking about in the first hour of the game then deciding if I want to continue playing or not. If I was going to give it a score, though, it’d be eight fourths out of C.
Read the rest of this entry »

I offer you, without comment or critique, Jesper Juul’s free browser game pastiche 4:32. You may find it oddly familiar. Hopefully you’ll also realise it’s a gag; others did not.

Two new videos of upcoming shooter Metro 2033 have surfaced via the omnipotent vid-tubes of GameTrailers, and I’ve posted them below. There’s some interesting elucidation of the plot, some discussion of the interaction with NPCs, and some talking about how bullets are currency. For a closer look and some thoughts on the game from our own Mr Meer take a look at these impressions.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve barely mentioned that the Empire: Total War expandalone Napoleon is almost upon us – but it is! The new campaign will feature three theatres of war, as Mr Napoleon does war in Europe and Egypt as he attempts to expand the French empire. The footage explains that Napoleon is essential to your control of the battlefield, and as a general he boosts the effectiveness of troops on the field. There’s a;sp a look at the other factions – Prussia, Great Britain, and Austria – and some fancy glimpses of the game in motion. It’s looking pretty interesting, assuming you want more in the Empire vein. The game is due out on the 26th of February.
Read the rest of this entry »

Strange Loop Games’ Vessel picked up a nomination for a technical award this year, in its fluid-based character-puzzle game with a mass of glorious steampunkisms. We talk to John Krajewski and Martin Farren about it, the IGF and the future…
Read the rest of this entry »

Brrrrrrr. I just had a thoroughly unpleasant gaming experience. Edmund, by Paul Greasley. It’s a game about playing a rapist. So, you know, you might not want to click. It’s deeply horrible. It is, however, an impressively presented game, and one that raises some very interesting questions about interaction.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first trailer for TV-management game M.U.D. TV has turned up, and it looks moderately interesting (the iPhone-alike interface is a fun touch). The game puts you in charge of a TV station, from where you can create TV shows and sabotage your rivals. You’ll be able to set up your studios first hand, in classic management-game style, and customise individual staff. Interestingly it’ll even work in multiplayer, and you can sign up for a beta. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one.
Read the rest of this entry »