Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I seem to be missing where and when this was said, but UK industry site MCV has Sega boss John Clark claiming that the PC market is better than most people seem inclined to report. And Sega should know, because they’re the UK’s second biggest PC publisher thanks to their ownership of Total Warists, The Creative Assembly. “The PC market is third in terms of its year-on-year performance with a decline of 26 per cent, but this doesn’t really reflect the full picture,” said Clark. “The PC digital download business is now a viable sector but somewhat invisible as it’s not yet covered by Chart-Track. The PC market overall is actually performing much better than is currently reported and remains a vital and strong sector to be involved in.”

Interesting.

There are occasions where you can only desperately hope that a game’s name is literal. It’s a bit of a shame that’s not the case for the recently announced Sniper Ghost Warrior, which rather than being about playing a spectral sniper, who presumably uses his invisibility to excellent effect when using poltergeist skills to assassinate targets, is in fact about being an elite sniper carrying out missions in the fictitious South American island, Isla Trueno. In fact, it’s so contrary to my supernatural assumptions that City Interactive‘s game is focusing on creating something as realistic as possible.

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[I wrote this article for PC Gamer UK last year. It's the story of my brush with one of gaming's most fearsome map secrets, and a true story, and a love story. Kind of.]

Strangest game I ever played?

Well, okay.

It started when we met in the underpass at dawn. The memory’s hazy now but I remember it was the underpass, and I remember it was dawn, because it was always dawn in AHL_5am.
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Oh my goodness, there’s a new Hoshi Saga game. And it’s in colour. But let me explain. If you’ve been following carefully you’ll have noticed that every now and then I remember to check the site of Yoshio Ishii, NekoGames, to see if anything new has appeared. Because when something has, it’s always worth a look. And this time: a fourth Hoshi Saga, the blissfully beautiful micro-game collections that ask you to find a star.

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The forums have been all over this. While I’ve yet to play it – it doesn’t have a demo – Distant Worlds seems definitely worth a plug. It’s from Code Force and is a real-time 4X game, basically. Bar all the scope of the genre, its defining feature is how much can be automated beneath you. As in, the empire’s civilians will go about and create their living little empire while you control the high-scale strategy. Reading around threads and AARs – try this ship design one – make me suspect this could be well worth digging into. Footage follows. Anyone played it?
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My friend’s gone on holiday this week and left me in the possession of her prized DS. Which has nothing at all to do with mods (or, indeed, PC gaming), but does mean that I’ve been able to pour every waking second into Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and still compile a fairly sizeable list of interesting mod news from the past seven days (and a bit beyond). Below the jump is where you’ll find it all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, OBJECTION!
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Just a quick post about this, I think. Previous MUCH CELEBRATED RPS GAME Mount & Blade’s expandalone was released today. Mount & Blade: Warband’s primary attraction is its focusing on multiplayer, allowing 64 players to bash the flax of out of one another, but there’s much more which is worth of comment. Graphical upgrade is promising, but additions to let you rule a faction and force people to become your vassals is pretty neat. But best is doing what I like to call “the Quinns option”, where you can hitch up with a lady by romancing her with poetry. Sexy poetry! Or you can be a right bastard and do it for political gain. Anyway, launch trailer follows and you can buy from places on the electric internet. Time for a yelp, I think: yay!
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So this is what Will Wright did next. It seemed highly likely that the mighty-brained chap behind the Sims, Sim City and Spore would be working on some kind of absurdly ambitious game project in the wake of leaving Maxis and EA. And indeed he is – but he’s doing it via television. Remember television? It’s that old thing that’s like a game consisting only of cutscenes.

Anyway, Will Wright + TV = The Creation Project.
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There aren’t many things that could possibly lure me back to STALKER: Clear Sky, knowing the series’ troubled second game is bookended by far finer titles. One of them, however, is hearing that Artistpavel, the acclaimed modder who compiled the spectacular Complete 2009 tweak’n'fix’n'upgrade collection for the original STALKER, has just released the first iteration of Clear Sky Complete. You’ll probably want to treat your graphics card to this.
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Since November, I’ve been playing one of two games all day, every day.
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THQ have dropped us a line to mention that console hack-n-slash business Darksiders will be coming to PC in June. Not played it myself, but I’ve heard good things, so this is pleasing. It’s a game about WAR, whose name must be spelled in all-capitals and shouted if you say it out loud, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, doing harm to demons and stuff. Vigil Games’ David Adams says this: “We are really excited to have the opportunity to bring Darksiders to the global PC audience. We feel that the growth of digital distribution and PC online communities creates a great environment for our game. We are working really hard to make sure that key features such as user-defined resolutions, interface and both keyboard and game pad control sets are all up to the standards for today’s discerning PC consumer.” That’s YOU, because you discern all the time. Hooray! (Original launch trailer below.)
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