Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The enduring question around 2K Australia’s upcoming XCOM FPS has been “why not just come up with a new IP?” Well, that three posts about X-COM each clocked up triple-figures of comments on Wednesday is the answer to that. A secondary question is “why is everyone so upset that it’s using the X-COM IP?” The IP is not what’s important about X-COM. In terms of fiction, X-COM has only ever been about killing aliens. The important thing is having a game that plays as X-COM did, with its sublime multi-genre cleverness. While it’s unlikely a major publisher would tackle it, the door is not closed to someone else doing that. As has been mentioned by various people, someone like Stardock would be insane to not pick up this baton – there’s a vast and willing audience out there.

First out the gate, though, is indie title Xenonauts, which is militant in its desire to do X-COM properly. It also has a cute genesis – its lead designer Chris England (who is indeed from England) says he was inspired to create an X-COM remake after we wished for one on our podcast. Aw!
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I was just reading some stuff about forthcoming MMO Tera, and I had assumed we’d posted Brian Cox doing a walkthrough of the game at GDC, but I can’t find it. Must have been imagining things. Anyway, it’s a useful follow up to the interview we did when the project was announced, and you can see what they mean about “action” stuff being included, even if the game does look very much like a whole bunch of traditional MMOs. Also: it’s really rather pretty. That seems to be a theme. Where are the ugly, half-breed mongrel games, eh?
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LORE EXCLUSIVE. I don’t think we’ve had one of those before. Lore! Pure lore! Big proper info on long-awaited MMO sequel Guild Wars 2 is bound to hit during E3, but until then here’s a scoopette on how it’s going to link up to the first game. Including a couple of Big Fat Hints about what kind of world GW2 will be. Lumped under the Guild Wars Beyond umbrella, there’s going to be a series of updates that setup the world and the narrative for whatever goes down in GW 2. In other words, a storm is coming. And, judging by these screenshots, it’s a robo-storm… Your first details on the War In Kryta are below, chums.
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Look, right, I’m just going to say it: I don’t much like Harry Potter. The books, I mean. I’m sure Harry’s just lovely. But the whole thing has never done anything for me. I’m not boasting – how tiresome people are who think they’re clever for not liking something popular. I’m missing out. (Although I can always re-read His Dark Materials, I suppose.) But still. I tell you this to explain my confusion at the new video for Lego: Harry Potter Years 1-4. It’s quite a dilemma really – the Lego Star Wars games were wonderful, and even though the Lego Indys were weaker they still offered that smash-everything fun that appeals to me so. So of course a Potter game will offer the opportunity for deliberately making those characters collapse into their Lego bits over and over.

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This chap is better than you at Sim City 3000.
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Free-to-play MMOs don’t tend to get the time of day around RPS Towers, but I thought I’d had a look at this one because… well, it’s pretty. Allods Online has some exquisite art, and as we all know, it’s best to judge things by superficial appearances. Hell, if you don’t judge a book by its cover then you tend to end up reading the wrong kind of literature. Anyway, here’s Wot I Think.
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Today, RPS has a quest for you. A quest of great import but little time to perform it in. Do you live in Ireland? Do you own a decent graphics card you could spare to be without for a couple of days? Only you can save our gnomish rogue Quintin The Tight. He has great rewards for you…

[Update: Not anymore, he doesn't! Our thanks to hero-reader Daniel Klein for fixing our hardware woes. Your prize is enroute.]

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RPS’ master of the skies Flight-Commander Stone wrote about the Rise of Flight Beta last year. Once you register on the site it gives you 72 hours with it. The full download’s a hefty 3 gig or so, but it seems a hefty, serious sim. I’ve always liked WW1 as a sim period, in the “this is a lawnmower with pretensions” school of plane designs. I had crazy crush on Knights of the Sky back in the day – though the cover is somewhat hilarious. I digress. A short trailer follows…
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Hey – Major MMO devs. It’s another sports-based MMO. Beach Volleyball Online is going into a closed Beta, and you can get keys from here. The sport of Beach Volleyball is, of course, how seeing exactly how outraged you could get an Edge Reader by sticking Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball on the cover. ENORMOUSLY ANGRY. I probably should try and drag Edge’s Dave Taurus out of retirement to see what he makes of this. 8/10, I dare say. Trailer and – hey! – a few notes on the old Edge cover controversy for old-time’s sake follow…
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Hi-Rez send word that their free trial for Global Agenda, which is now also available via Steam, allows anyone to play the game for free, up to level fifteen. You can even create eight different characters along the way, so you get a taste of the different mechanisms. Personally I always enjoyed the nippy little recon chaps, because you had a sword, could turn invisible, and jump like a Kung Fu hero. Admittedly, I also got a bit tired of the game before I got properly stuck into the territorial conquest stuff, but the PvP generally is fun, and it’s definitely worth taking a look at for free.

If you’ve been playing with Sleep Is Death (and so far, I haven’t, but it’s because I’m so busy! And have no friends…) you might well have found yourself telling a fantastic story. If it’s super-fantastic, you could be within a chance of winning $200 from developer Jason Rohrer. He’s looking for the finest narratives told with the game to be submitted to him before midnight tomorrow New York Time, and his five favourites get cash. Which seems a good incentive. Although he’s only one man, so has stated that only the first 100 entries stand a chance of being read. There’s a bunch of rules and conditions to read on the compo’s page, so be sure to check them carefully before sending off your finest adventure.