Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Goodbye The Silver Lining. Our culture is formed by the sharing of ideas. Throughout history, for millennia, every piece of art, music, literature and entertainment has been the result of a worldwide collaboration. It’s been an astonishing act of creative evolution, the most vibrant and extraordinary gene pool of imagination and inspiration, from which all were free to draw and create. It has been exceptional, and in the last 50 to 100 years it has come to an end.

The tragedy of the abuse and misuse of intellectual property and copyright cannot be counted. After centuries of sharing, we have allowed a “MINE!” tag to be affixed to every thought, string of notes, doodle on a page, or merest whim. We have committed a grotesque cultural suicide. And the extent to which this has reached should be a parody. We have now allowed ourselves to be in the situation where art museums ban sketching – something that should surely make anyone whose understanding of art history goes beyond yesterday scream in fear. And it exists in our world of gaming in a similarly berserk form. And so it is that Activision has closed down work on not-for-profit fan creation The Silver Lining.

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More revelations from the ongoing ARG-decoding, which is currently neatly summarised here. The latest is that they’ve been able to dial into an Aperture Science bulletin board and download a load of ASCII art. It’s quite clearly Portal / Weighted Companion Cube-related stuff, but it wasn’t giving much away. But then someone tried rotating some of it…

Whaddaya think? Looks a little Mirrors Edgy to me… And what could these little chaps be?

Doing anything on Friday? As in, this Friday. Friday 5th. Yes, I think you are. At least if you live in London, anyway. There’s a series of game-related events in London at the Tate Britain in the “Late at the Tate Britain: Game Play” event, which is a mix of social games (ala Werewolf), music, actual videogames and talks. The full program is below, but I’ll selfishly highlight the panel I’m on – “Video Games: design, narrative, gameplay”, where I’ll be sitting alongside Charles Cecil (Broken Sword), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) and chair Ste Curran (General Trolling of all reality, Creative Director of Zoe Mode, etc). The whole thing kicks off at 6:30, and is totally free, though you’ll need to pick up tickets on a first-come-first-served basis for the talks from 6. Come!
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Can we judge a wargame by its map? I think so, and it’s clear from the map of Ageod’s latest (they’re the Europa Universalis, Pax Romana types) we can see that they’ve not strayed far from their classical historical wargame roots. Check out the trailer below and you’ll see what I mean. This one is all in the map. Rise Of Prussia focuses on one particular stretch of the 18th century (reportedly it consists of six “Annual Campaigns Scenarios”, for each year between 1757 and 1763 and one Grand Campaign Scenario 1756-1763,) which is – obviously – the period in which Prussia was at its most arsey. The full game is out on 9th of March.
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You might have noticed Steam downloading an update for Portal and HL2 Episode 2 earlier. Just a routine patch, you probably thought. You’re wrong, stupid! Learn to be more paranoid, why don’t you? Important secrets are being revealed…
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[As you're probably aware, the Starcraft 2 Beta is ticking along. We've played it enough so each of the RPSers have their own favourites. Or, at least the one they've gravitated towards so far. We thought we'd take it in turns giving a little picture portrait of each of faction, and why we've been drawn to them and how playing them is effecting us. First up is Quinns...]

I got my hands on the Starcraft 2 beta and I chose…
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This feature was written for PC Format magazine what feels like a million years ago. It’s a very broad overview of some of the choicest morsels of PC gaming in the late 80s to mid 90s, primarily the pre-3D age, and aimed at those who didn’t grow up with a beige box rather than at those who did. Clearly too, it’s more shaped by my own experiences and influences than by anything like objectivity. My objectivometer must have been out for repairs that week. I repost it here with minor updates, and tired resignation about how many comments will say “what, no game X?” No wordcount in the world is big enough to encompass everything that should be mentioned – but it’ll certainly be useful if the comments thread becomes a juicy list of olden gems for other curious readers to hunt down.

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I know I should probably resist, but I can’t help myself. I have to keep passing on these Just Cause 2 videos. They’ve been amazing in their campaign, and they’ve hit a real high with the Anatomy Of A Stunt series. So below is the latest, and one from last week that I had resisted posting since the previous lot had gone up the day before. The latest isn’t so great, but for the final caption punchline. The other is one hell of a tease. The game’s out later this month, and I know I’m chasing my own tail in anticipation. As I say every time: so long as the game doesn’t get in the way of the fun these trailers have shown, it’s going to be a playground of madness. So long as the game doesn’t get in the way. Because I love you I’ve included GameTrailers’ interview about this very subject as well. Which is well worth watching.

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He’s a boy! He’s made of meat! He’s super! He’s Super Meat Boy! He’s up for the Audio and Grand Prize at this year’s IGF! He’s made by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes (aka Team Meat)! We’re talking to them! Like, right now! MEAT! MEAT!
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My keyboard + Supreme Commander 2 = 1200-odd words on Eurogamer. Going to be a divisive game, this – even behind RPS closed doors, Quinns and I have furiously disagreed about it. But then, he hates most things and I hate everything else, so such argument is inevitable. Here’s a quote from the review, anyway. I know you like quotes.

StarCraft is like some rare breed of exquisite tropical fish which requires constant care and attention else it’ll perish, while SupCom 2′s more like an average moggy. It might be less of a talking point, but chuck some food in a bowl a couple of times a day and that’s about all it needs to show you love.

I really need to stop using cat analogies.

Jason Rohrer, the indie auteur behind the moving Passage, is back. If you’re one of those delightful people who reach immediately for the P word whenever a game requires you to have a bit of a think, you’ll be glad to hear that Sleep Is Death is, despite the arch name, something very different from his usual mediations on existence. Hell, any and everyone should be over the ruddy moon about the concept behind it. After seeing how it works, I’m about as excited as I’ve ever been about an upcoming videogame.
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