Rock, Paper, Shotgun

That was a bit of a bust. Not sure what the problem was. I’ll have to fix it when we’ve got more time to experiment. Sorry!

EDIT: Server up again, but likely not for long. Will try to fix it up for tomorrow.

EDIT: Server had crashed, it’s back now. And crashed again. It’s not look very healthy. Working on it. It’s up for now, but not sure why it should be crashing so regularly.

Craig from PC Gamer UK sends word that they’ve got an Air Buccaneers server up and running until May 6th. We had some success with a revival last year, and details for getting started are here. Shall we have a game from, say, 2pm UK time tomorrow? The server should come up in the game browser, or the IP is 85.236.100.18:8077. Reminisce over last year’s events here.

So it seems that issues were indeed raised by RUSE’s length multiplayer beta, as Ubisoft are postponing the RTS-that-wants-to-be-a-boardgame until September. The announcement appears to have been made over on the game’s Facebook page, but we expect official confirmation soon.

You can read some of my impressions on the game over at Eurogamer.

So says Pete Hines over at the big K. That means rumours about Interplay being okay to proceed were indeed false.

“The bottom line is it’s an ongoing legal matter, it’s in no way, shape or form done,” Hines continued. “We’re going to let the process play out in the courts, which is what we’ve said all along, but beyond that I can’t give specifics as to procedures. That’s not my domain.”

Why can’t those boys just get along?

Free L4D2 expansion The Passing is out right now on Steam. Free for you guys, anyway. Xbox 360 gamers actually have to shell out 145,500 Microsoft Points for it (about £5), probably because they smell. Exciting new features include a new uncommon ‘Fallen Survivor’ infected and a brand new three level campaign featuring the survivors from the original Left 4 Dead. Less exciting new features include a new gun, footlockers, and an achievement for decapitating 15 zombies with the new golf club melee weapon.

Weird new features include the new Mutations gameplay mode, which will offer a different new game mode every week. This week it’s Realism Versus, which offers (wait for it) Versus mode, with the punishing twists of Realism mode enabled. Next week it’ll be something entirely different. Fabulous! Lucky we’ve got the mod community to provide fan-made replacements when good Mutations vanish after their week in the spotlight. Unlike 360 owners.

Poor 360 owners. Poor smelly, smelly 360 owners.

By explained, I mean hyped. In a good way. Bioware’s Ray and Greg (amongst others) feature in this video which explains the design philosophy for combat in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The Biowarrians seem keen to emphasize how the game will be more exciting than other MMO combat, which gets away from from the repetitious skill cycle stuff. Light saber combat should, apparently, feature much the same acrobatic movement as in the recent films. Blaster-wielding characters will have to be more careful, and make use of cover. It actually looks pretty interesting. Vid is posted below, obviously.
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I can’t imagine an easier job for the last week than air traffic controller. I can’t imagine a harder job the rest of the time. I’m quite easily distracted, but by the nature of my job when this happens it rarely leads to two passenger jets colliding in mid-air, killing all on board, and raining down hot fiery metal on all below. Rarely. More usually it leads to my eating someone else’s bread. Which isn’t quite as bad. Now it’s possible to have a go at being an air traffic controller in Airport Control Simulator, and its demo, where you won’t have to risk ending the lives of anyone lucky enough to fly in the gaps between volcanoes.

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In short: Top Gun with Samurai Robots.
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Truck simulator! My prayers were somehow answered by the divine forces of actually bothering to look something up after I asked what was basically a rhetorical question… but, yes: UK Truck Simulator has a demo. It’s new! Sadly only a one hour trial, but you should be able to trundle happily around a miniaturised version of Britain for the entire hour. (Pictured: Dover Castle, a Medieval edifice which delivered a strange anecdote about Mel Gibson into my youth. I’ll tell you about it sometime.)

So yes, where’s my MMO that’s basically Eve but with maybe jetpack ninjas versus the titans from Warhammer 40k and some really good emergent strategic stuff, eh? (/Googles)

The last Nail’d in the coffin? Nope, I’ve got pun-blindness on Techland’s “ATV Racing Game” – that means quad bikes and motorcycles – and I feel like a bit of an old duffer even posting about it. Where’s my truck simulator? Anyway, it’s called nail’d, all lower case, which is just silly, but okay. It’s out in the last quarter of the year, and “through its insane bursts of speed, “nail’d” will catapult you from one adrenalin boost to the next.” The same is true of my driving in a quite normal car.

I dunno, these youth racing games. It’s not cricket. And besides, weren’t Techland supposed to be making zombie action affair Dead Island? Whatever happened to that? I see the site has been replaced with a mysterious “under reconstruction” notice. Interesting.

That’s a refurbished Mechwarrior 4 for free, you understand. The chaps over at MekTek have been working on this for a while, and it seems that they’ve finally done it:

If you’ve been following the drama surrounding the free release of Mechwarrior4, than you would be aware that the initial announcement, made last summer, was a bit premature. After nearly a year since the announcement came, MekTek Studios is pleased to announce, that Microsoft Legal has given the all clear for the free release of Mechwarrior4. This hallmark movement by Microsoft Games couldn’t come at a better time, as the Mechwarrior community is attempting a rebirth, amidst announcement of a Mechwarrior Reboot. Thank you Microsoft.

Thanks, Microsoft. No release date yet, but hopefully it’ll be soon. (A new commercial Mechwarrior game, you might recall, has already been announced.)

Duck And Cover reports that Bethesda have dropped their lawsuit against Interplay. (Interplay were suing Bethesda back for something or other, so we can assume that is over too.) Anyway, the long and the short is that Interplay are now able to press ahead with their Fallout MMO, assuming this is true… There’s still a long way to go before “Project V13″ (pictured) becomes a playable Fallout Online, of course, but it’s looking hopeful.

Hard to say whether this is actually good news, of course, not least when Fallen Earth is making already making so much headway on its own ruined future-earth MMO. We’ve got an interview coming up with them, come to think of it. And some other interesting apocalyptic fact-treats in the pipeline. Stay tuned, I’ll go fill my wheelbarrow up with words, straight from the coalface of news.