Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I have a dream. That dream is a submarine game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe – Das Boot with Nurglings. This day will never become, of course. Today, however, we have come as close to it as we ever will – for Eurogamer is currently hosting adjacent reviews of Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, by me, and *******’s Silent Hunter V, by Quintin. One of these reviews is happy, and one is angry. Before you click over to find out, though, take a guess as to which game each of these quotes refers:

Will you pet this cute puppy, or kick it into the nearest canal then tell the little girl who owns it that it always hated her anyway?

VS

But all of these missteps pale in comparison to how unfinished this game is. Any notes I take while reviewing a game tend to be of the angry variety; when I’m having fun I don’t often stop to jot things down.

Ooh!

This has been in the works for a while, but Codemasters have finally announced that their next big racing game will indeed be the official game of the FIA Formula One World Championship. This new game, F1 2010, will be based on the GRID/DIRT2 “EGO” tech. Codies say:

In F1 2010 gamers will take on the full, expanded grid in a variety of game modes including GRAND PRIX, Championship, Time Trial and an extensive, innovative Career mode. F1 2010 will also feature a highly advanced damage model, fully dynamic weather system and extensive competitive multiplayer options.

Which is good, because if they’d said “prolly gonna have cars, pff, dunno. Stop bothering us!” we’d actually be a bit worried. It’s going to be released in September.

Miegakure is one of the most enigmatic designs in all of the IGF. It’s a competition which has been known for highlighting brain-bending designs. Not many have actually gone as far to be based around the conceptual headflips of a 19th century novella. Marc ten Bosch’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop presentation at last year’s GDC was widely commented upon. This year, he’s picked up a nomination in excellence in design. And now, he’s speaking to use. Read on.
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Neptune’s Pride is an in-development slow-form browser-based strategy game from Iron Helmet games, currently in open beta. You can play it now. Over a period of a month or so, we did just that, with intriguing consequences. We’ve joined forces with PC Gamer (who are also posting this diary here) to bring you the full story of what happened…

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The next True Crime game is bound for PC and this time it knows Kung Fu. The reason for this is that it’s going to be set in Hong Kong, where apparently people are just as adept with their feet as with guns (see illustrative image). Once again it’s an open world tale of undercover police work and horrible gangsterism in the real world. 2010′s not a bad year for sandbox criminality then, even without a GTA game… “We tried to give the franchise a reboot and take a more mature slant,” producer Jeff O’Connell told peerless news-trumpeter, VG247. “In doing that, to get the background information we needed, one of the writers gained the trust of an ex-Triad to make the experience more authentic.” Hmm. For some reason the words “mature” and “immature” both now have the same meaning in my head. Anyway, first trailer below.
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We’ve been meaning to post about Ribbon Hero for a while, prompted by – oooh – at least many people. Unfortunately, we wanted to give it a try first and John’s the only one who has a copy of Office (The of us rest being punk rock heroes! and/or cheapskates with Open Office). And John’s spent the last couple of days discharging fountains of bilious fluid from every imaginable organ, so it hasn’t happened, so I’m going to plug it swiftly before I jet off to Seattle. Basically, it turns the process of learning bits of Office (Both 2007 and the 2010 Beta) into a game, complete with achievements and the ability to compete against friends. I’d expect to see a lot more stuff like this over the next few years. Anyway, you can get it from here or find it explained by a chap below.
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Jim pointed me at this video earlier, presumably believing that my knowledge of, for instance, how to overclock a processor without setting my house on fire means I can say whether there’s any water to its boasts. Um. Maybe? Unlimited Detail Technology reckon their clever tech is the biggest leap in realtime 3D graphics in decades. If what they say is true, we’re going to wave goodbye to games rendered in polygons, and hello to games free from cubist edges and limited model counts. Take a look below, and see what you think.
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Capcom’s grapple-tastic science fictional shooter Lost Planet 2 is coming out on the console toys around May 18th and apparently it’s coming out on the Windows too, but we’ve not got a date confirmed for PC as far as my investigations are able to uncover. Nevertheless there’s reasons to be excited, which come in the form of giant alien mega-monsters being splatted in constituent gore-chunks by space-dudes who are playing army with fast-firing future-weapons. I mean it: the latest trailer (below, clearly) is hyperbole like they used to make back when I was a boy.

“FULL-SCALE COMBAT.” What. Is. That.
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Oh no! RPS’s TV-news champion John Walker is unavailable to post this news because he is stricken with gut-horror and must away to bed. The more mite! RPS readership, please use your psychic powers en masse to make him better. Anyway, German browser-MMO types Bigpoint are making a Battlestar game. It’s being developed in the Unity engine as a browser-embedded 3D game, seemingly to be available for a limited time only. Also this stuff: “Players will be able to choose to play as cylons or humans in a constant struggle to control the universe or just survive its perils. A blend of tactical space combat, exploration, and mission-based gameplay will provide a diverse experience. The dramatic missions will define the game’s overall storyline, enabling the player to delve into mysteries of the Battlestar universe.”

And teaser website here. Full press release below.
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Honestly, people: there is more than one game to make mods for. You wouldn’t know it from this week’s bunch, though. I’ve trawled the internet far and wide, and the vast majority of mod news from the past seven days has gravitated conspicuously towards a single title. Never mind, though, as some of it looks rather good. Onwards!
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RPS are big fans of Owls – they’re wise! Athena digs them! That freaky neck thing! We’re not so fond of boys – they’re made of slugs and snails and similar material. So we have mixed feeling about the approaching lusciously-retro-formed platformer. Let’s over-come them, because it looks beautiful as hell in a gotta-a-visual-arts-nomination-in-the-IGF way. You’ll find our interview with Adrian Bauer of D-pad studio about the artist-probably-being-called-Owlboy below, along with footage – or maybe talon-age, if we’re being appropriately owl-like. Love those owl guys.
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