Rock, Paper, Shotgun

S2 Games’ Heroes Of Newerth (fantasy multiplayer tactical combat in the vicinity of Defense Of The Ancients) is all set for release on Wednesday. I think that gives you close to two days to leap onto the open beta and see what all the fuss is about – the fuss being the IGF audience award earlier this year and a claim of two million people on the beta. Exciting illustrative video ‘neathwards.
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Men Of War is probably my favourite RTS, and I’ve definitely not spent enough time with the multiplayer. Fortunately there’s a grand excuse to get back into this week, as 1c explain: “In the lead up to the 65 th anniversary of Victory in Europe day, 505 Games and 1C company have today made the Men Of War multiplayer client available for free download. From the 11 th to 23 rd May inclusive, players will be given a temporary access key to engage in the game’s tense multiplayer combat modes.”

Get the key here and the client here. (1.9gb)

Highly agile reader Christopher Webb points us to this: Canabalt Typing Tutor Edition. Not exactly Typing Of The Dead, but it’s a neat remix of the one-button game concept. It starts off slow and unchallenging but, well, let’s just say it picks up its pace as you go. Touch typing improved? Maybe.

There’s a rather touching new trailer for EA’s CoD-spoiling reinvention of Medal Of Honour. (And yes, RPS continues to pioneer in ignoring how games are spelt in favour of inserting rogue ‘u’s.) There’s mere seconds of what might be in-game footage, but building up to it is a well performed, smartly filmed sequence in which we see one of the game’s soldiers effectively humanised.

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Max Payne zooms back into our consciousnesses with the appearance of Alan Wake. But stupid stinky Alan Wake is only on 360, and Max Payne is still available for the PC. Does it hold up nearly a decade on? I attempt to answer that question, and also to mock the hilarious writing for as long as I can bear. It begins:

“The third-person shooter had been our first dance with Bullet Time. Sure, we’ve all been to bed with the gimmick now, but this was the first flirtation. For reasons unknown, Payne could enter a slow-motion world like a hand enters an oven glove. It doesn’t stay forever, but it can handle a lot more heat when it’s there. Able to react in real-time, it allowed Max to demonstrate his super-reflexes, filling enemies with bullets like he was making bullet pie with a human crust.”

You can read the rest here.

Sundays are for lazing around in a dressing gown, catching up with your reading, getting ready to play some electronic videogame and compiling a list of the fine (mostly) game related reading from across the week while trying to avoid to link to some music or start yabbering about some of the stuff that was drunkenly talked about post-Gamecamp last night.

• Clint Hocking’s Leaving Ubisoft post is probably the most interesting thing anyone put out this week. Key quote: “I am a person of habit. I have many good habits, but the reality is that new habits develop and reinforce themselves everyday, and it is rare that one just picks up good habits. We pick up bad habits, mostly, and the good habits we have and the few we are lucky enough to adopt often atrophy into bad ones. That is what was happening to me in Vancouver a decade ago, and while it is hard to look at your life and say ‘this is unsustainable’, it is even harder to look at your life and say ‘the reason my life is unsustainable is because I am unsustainable.’ “

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Mr Meer was the first to take a look at the new XCOM, thanks to the PC Gamer’s exclusive feature. Since he’s currently off having weekend adventures I thought it might be wise to link to an online sighting: GamesRadar have the full text, and some images.

This isn’t a linear shooter, either. Your base’s phonetappers and police-radio scanners present you with choices as to where to go next and what to do, picked from a large map of the US. Rumours of animal attacks and strange weather patterns in a certain state? Sounds like Blobs are on the rampage. Saddle up, Agent Carter. Grab the wheel of your hulking fedmobile, take two of your best men with you, and go see what’s going on.

Go read.

Cryptic have revealed some details about their free trial for Star Trek Online, which is now available. It allows you to play through the tutorial and an early mission as part of the Federation, and so seems like a decent taster. Any STO veterans want to add more as to whether this is a representative sampler?

Some of the prices I’ve quoted here, as usual, are conversions from one currency to another. What with the political landscape in the UK being like looking at a Kandinsky through a kaleidoscope, who knows how much these prices could change over the course of the weekend. It’s not my fault, I voted for Kang. Keep your browser on SavyGamer.co.uk for video game bargains, as always. Here’s the cream of the crop of this week’s digital discounts.
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Well? Would you? (Expanded below.)
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I’m trying to think of a way to link the new puzzle/adventure game from Erin Robinson and Dave Gilbert, Puzzle Bots, to a hung parliament in the UK election… Right, okay, here we go. In this hybrid game you control up to five robots at once, who are all forced to work in coalition with each other in order to complete tasks that would otherwise be impossible on their own. Come on – that’s why they pay me the big bucks*. It’s a game that’s out today.

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