Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Remember when puzzle games were nice, sedate affairs? A gentle afternoon in the company of some disappearing gems, or carefully placed tiles? How it’s all changed since Puzzle Quest, eh? Now puzzle games are about COMBAT! As is the case with Konami’s imaginatively named Puzzle Chronicles. It’s by Infinite Interactive, they who brought us Puzzle Quest and Galactrix, which is immediately obvious when you start playing the demo: lots of effort has gone into it. It’s what makes their games stand out from the vast numbers of lazy copycats. However, I’m not completely convinced this one is going to engage quite as much.

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My chosen fighting style is an insane combination of guns, knives and chainsaws, all used simultaneously in a mad, clattering rush. And finally there’s a game that represents this for me. Shank, from the creators of Eets, Klei Entertainment, is up for the Excellence In Visual Arts award at this year’s IGF, and from the look of the trailer below it’s going to be ace.

It’s a side-scrolling 2D platformer, and it looks absolutely lovely. Especially when wedging a chainsaw through a man’s chest, then pummelling him against the ground.

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Own horsey-fighty RPG Mount & Blade? That means you can go and try out the open beta version of upcoming expansion Warband for free. Right now. Go! Go here! Experience better graphics and multiplayer! Become a king, kinda! Get married! Help the developers by reporting any bugs you find! Have a nice day!

[Boom]. RPS inbox explodes. And so it should – Civ news is always enormous news. Hooray, hooray! Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth by Civ fans in concern that last year’s super-streamlined Civilization Revolution on console meant the end of Civ tradition, the freshly-revealed Civilization V (CiV?) looks about as PC as PC gets. By which I mean, “hexes.”
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We’ve talked about the Flashback-with-a-fowl of Rocketbirds: Revolution before. Since then, it’s been nominated for three IGF awards – Excellence in Audio, Visual art and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. As the big night approaches it’s time to sidle up to Ratloop Asia and desperately resist any chicken-based gags. The interview and Mark the Intern of ScrewAttack.com explaining the game follows…
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The StarCraft II beta is up and running, and keys were apparently distributed last night. I’ve got one, so I’ll pen some thoughts on it as soon as I get my arse handed to me by some RTS ninja on Battlenet we’re able. Right now the downloader looks very much the World Of Warcraft one, and I have to write something about Stalker.

Talking of Unreal mods going standalone, Schizoslayer tips us off about Bounty Arms by Open-Reset. It’s a 3D side-scrolling platformer, looking absolutely beautiful and extremely reminiscent of the glory days of the platform on the Amiga. It’s no longer a mod, and runs independently of Unreal. Splendid. The best thing to do is watch the trailer below, that shows it off in all its chunky glory. And then download the 280MB 0.1 UDK demo!

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It’s on my PC, in fact, but I can’t tell you about it until March 1st. Although I can exclusively reveal that it’s got tanks in it. Also, planes. I think I might have spotted some terrain at one point too. With only two weeks to go until the game’s released, you’ll be wanting some sort of hint as to whether you want the robotty RTS sequel or not, though. So try these trailers on for size, in which large machines blow up a lot of smaller machines and Chris Taylor sounds uncharacteristically nervous…
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Flint linked this to us a couple of days ago, and I haven’t got around to posting it until now. Pah! Anyway, Open Outcast is a work-in progress mod of Crysis Wars, which is trying to create a sequel to the 99 voxel-heavy Cutter Slade-starring classic. They’ve reached their first major milestone, releasing a tech-demo of the game. Crikey. Well done them. You can get it from ModDB and – apparently - it only requires the trial rather than the full version of Crysis Wars. As a historical note, John’s first review was a reader-review submission slagging off Outcast for being like looking at a wonderful world through a snotty hanky. If you look at the four videos beneath the cut, you can tell that 2010 Walker wouldn’t be able to make the same complaints…
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You may well have previously played The Ball. Toltec Studio’s Unreal 3 mod generated a lot of attention back in 2008 during development, and then was released in 2009. It’s sort of Weighted Companion Cube: The Movie. You move around the world in first person, but you interact by manipulating a large lead ball. It’s used for puzzle solving, as well as crushing your foes. Now the project has become commercial, and is due to be released this Summer. Which means a new trailer has been created, and it’s a goodun.

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Kharkov! Tank battle! Tank battle! Well, as previously reported, Paradox are publishing this tanky-a-bit-like-total-war-apparently-game. Tim Stone played the Russian demo and liked it. You can get it from here or watch a trailer below…
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