Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Mass Effect 2 commercial extension modules are nearly here. Firstly there’s some free DLC, in the form of the “Firewalker” pack which is out on the 23rd. This features five new vehicular missions, and a new vehicle: “The Hammerhead is a heavy assault vehicle that hovers over the battlefield at up to 120 kilometers per hour and features a guided missile system ensuring accuracy even during aggressive maneuvering.” Then on April 6th there’s Kasumi’s Stolen Memory, which will cost, but has yet to be priced. Bioware say: “Players can get in touch with Kasumi on the Citadel, either in the middle of an ongoing Mass Effect 2 game or after the completion of the main story (lesson learned from Mass Effect 1 DLC!). Once recruited, Shepard aids Kasumi on a secretive mission of recovery, which requires a suave disguise and a run-in with an influential and predictably corrupt art collector.”

Hands up who’s going to collect the free DLC… And now hands up for paid DLC? Hmm.

Cryptic, they say:

Free access to Champions Online begins Friday March 26, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. PDT and ends Monday March 29, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. PDT.

This latest round of free time can be made use of by signing up on their site, from where you can also preload the client for the free event, should you be so inclined.

German developers Radon Labs have turned their attention from RPGs to turn-based Battle Isle type strategy, with their new game Future Wars. Assuming your weekend isn’t already crammed full of pre-ordained game action then you might want to check out the first five levels of the game, here. It’s a mere 325mb of demo.

Stop looking at that weird thing I’m doing with my finger and my lip in the video below, and harken to this instead. We last wrote about multiplayer cowboy shooter (a subgenre that must henceforth be known as Multiboy) Lead & Gold in October. Seeing as the rootin’, tootin’ thing’s now mere weeks from release, and that you can currently access the beta if you pre-order, let’s have another look-see.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week the handsome Alec Meer, and me, John Walker, were drawn into the arms of the Observer, and asked to join a group discussion about the current state of gaming. This is prompted by an article that will be appearing in this Sunday’s paper that discusses the matter: is the virtual world more beguiling than the real one? Amongst other things. The resulting video is below. If you have comments, make them here, or make them over at the Guardian’s site, as the people behind it are paying close attention. And check out the Observer on Sunday to see further comments from Alec and me in the paper.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you thought our second Canabalt-like game of the day had little hope of competing with a game about a robot unicorn. You’d be wrong. But if you thought our second Canabalt-like game of the day had little hope of competing with a game with an Erasure soundtrack, you’d be right. The Great Class Dash may stumble on the music front, but it’s an ace little puzzle-platformer, and it’s also the prettiest Team Fortress 2 – for which it is a mod – has ever been.
Read the rest of this entry »

It was noted that we haven’t posted Robot Unicorn Attack. It was demanded that we post Robot Unicorn Attack. And – finally! – we submitted to the orders of you, our beloved, dominatrix readers. This is Robot Unicorn Attack. It’s basically what happens if you get Walker to redesign Canabalt. Oh, the humanity.

Realtime Worlds send word that “Massive” online shooter APB is taking another round of beta test signups to expand the testing. You can sign up here. It’s still a closed beta with limited places, so there’s no guarantee of getting it, but it’s got to be worth a shot.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming thousands of new players to San Paro in the coming weeks.” said Dave Jones, Creative Director at Realtime Worlds, “As APB enters this final stage of closed beta testing, we’re anticipating a huge surge of interest with gamers from all over the world applying to take part and provide invaluable feedback to the development team preparing us for launch.”

There’s a trailer out for Free Realms, showing off their ponies, both walking and flying. I’m posting it first, because it made me think of I’m On A Boat. And second, because it made me think of I Love Horses. And believe me, they’re below. But then I went to the game’s site to check stuff out, and it sort of needed me to be a NEW USER to continue, and then it had me create a character, and by that point sticking an email and password in didn’t seem a big deal, by which point it was downloading the game for me, because… because the squirrel kept telling me to.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been meaning to play my preview code of this for a while, but have been pre-empted by its demo release. Since it’s the new game by Soldak – behind the ever-brilliant Depths Of Peril – I have high hopes for its Action-RPG multiplayer-includingness. It seems to be built on the ideological chassis of Depths of Peril’s dynamic approach, with 141 class combinations and a world that’s generated for each single game, from monsters to quests and… oh, you get the idea. I’m downloading now to have a crack, but you can join me or pre-order the full game for twenty dollars (which gives you access to the current Betas.) Some player-recorded Beta footage follows…
Read the rest of this entry »

Cheery things about videogames, to make people cheery. It’s been a while since the LEGO [insert film franchise here] series tickled our funny bones and our puzzle bones quite as expertly as it once did, but I suspect there’s a lot of energy and creativity being poured into the upcoming Barry Trotter builder-basher. For one thing, the fact that the Potter books are centred around a single location should mean it’s an inherently different prospect to the pick’n'mix environments of Star Wars, Indy and Batman. Free-roaming, perhaps? It is on the record that there’ll be less combat than the previous LEGO games, and Hogwarts really needs to be the exploratory gift that keeps on giving. Oh gosh, look at me pretending I know anything about Harry Potter. It is the one with Violet Elizabeth, isn’t it?
Read the rest of this entry »