Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s a good day for the interview to go live, I think. I’ve been following Red Redemption’s global-future strategy game for a while and now – with its release on the horizon and its name settled, I thought it was time to talk to its charismatic founder Gobion Rowlands, Creative Director/Lead Designer Ian Roberts and MD/Producer Klaude Thomas about Fate of The World. We take in everything from the real science behind it to the gloriously apocalyptic actions you can perform to try and save – or destroy – the world.
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All MMOs are rubbish, blah blah blah. World of Snorecraft, blah blah blah. Well, make your own bloody MMO, then. How? With the complete source code and art assets from fantasy monster-biffing game The Saga of Ryzom. It’s had player content-building for a while, but this is extraordinary. The devs have just made the whole kit and kaboodle open source, free to use and modify for anyone. They’re continuing to run Ryzom as-is meanwhile, which is an interesting one – are the fans loyal enough to keep paying for it, or will they head off and try to create their own servers with this code?

More importantly, will anyone make a fully-fledged new MMO as a result of this uber-generous offer? Even more importantly, which one of you is going to make RPS: The MMO? Four opposing and equally useless factions, Dave Tosser as a dungeon boss, Summon Infinite Bear powers and Kieron as the troll-king – it’s so beautifully suited to it. Details and links to the Ryzom new deal below.

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It is Team Fortress news so we must post it because it is Team Fortress news, even in the face of our great despair about what the morrow may bring for the UK. Valve’s monopoly on patch-centric gossip remains extraordinary, the presentation alone ensuring gents like us are duty-bound to cover it. This time, it’s a teaser for the long-awaited Engineer update…
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If indie developers know one thing, it’s how to turn national political warfare into cheap-and-nasty monetization. Mode 7 Games are having 20% off their Frozen Synapse Pre-order (including Beta Access) in their Tactical Voting offer. You can order it here, and need to enter the coupon code WELLHUNG to get the reduction, before 1pm tomorrow. I fear that code’s pandering to my twitter rubbishness. I rambled about Frozen Synapse here, if you don’t remember. In short: Aces! Also, Positech are celebrating the decline of our democratic values with a decline in the prices of their Democracy 2. There’s a massive 50% off today. And now to get drunk and stare at the TV in mounting horror, I suspect.

I feel it’s about time I posted another Kane & Lynch 2 trailer. So that’s just what I’ll do. It’s for the co-op Arcade Mode, in which you’re challenged with blowing stuff up and stealing money! Hooray! It’s co-op in the fragile sense. Betray your team and you’ll be assassinated. But don’t perform well enough and your team could turn on you, recognising you as disposable. You can see more of the strange CCTV perspective shots that appear to be in-game, which is a nice idea.

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There’s new Dragon Age DLC on the way. Which so far hasn’t really been much of a cause for celebration, but this one, Darkspawn Chronicles, sounds interesting. Very interesting. It’s an alternative history, where your character is killed during the Grey Warden’s Joining ceremony. This leaves the lovely Alistair in charge of the elite group, but oh no, you don’t play as him. You play as a darkspawn.

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The game bluescreens. For the third time this game. I swear. Not again. Not fucking again.

You may wonder why a developer is proudly letting journalists play their game in their state. There is reason to their madness. This isn’t a bug. This is a feature.
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Me! I saw XCOM! Me! And I still can’t bloody talk about it. But I can direct you to buy, beg, borrow, steal or consume the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, which contains a big-ass feature wot I wrote about 2K Australia/Marin’s controversial do-over of The World’s Greatest Videogame™. What I can say – I hope – is that the feature goes into why the game is a lot more interesting than the infuriatingly brief press release suggested. The issue’s lurking on the shelves of UK agents o’news now, or you can buy a copy direct from here. Free delivery, I’m told. Oh, and the feature also includes the largest picture you’ve ever seen of a Sectoid from the original X-COM. We’ll be spilling XCOM details on this very website in a few weeks: print/online embargo splits are absolutely ludicrous in this day and age, but there you go.

It’s been a while since I’ve remembered there’s a Gothic 4 coming. But no, not Gothic 4. It’s ArcaniA: A Gothic Tale we were told in 2008. Except, um, now it seems to be ArcaniA: Gothic 4. Not developed by previous Gothic devs, Piranha Bytes (who of course made last year’s Risen), it’s instead coming from Spellbound. It was delayed last year when JoWood announced they wanted to make some significant improvements and put lots more money in. Now it seems to be re-emerging with a couple of new in-game trailers.

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Right now, this instant, play Hue Shift. Goodness me, it’s brilliant.

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News reaches us that Preloaded have done another of their education games. You’ll remember the Tim-Stone favoured 1066? Of course you do. And if you don’t, you’ll have clicked on that link. This time it’s Trafalgar Origins, an arcade game based around tall-ships and Nelson generally kicking ship-ass. Or Stern, as I believe it’s known. My quick play reveals a game which simplifies a little (you fire a broadside and your whole ship counts as if it’s reloading), but includes a lot of fine details (multiple shot types plus floating powder-keg mines, wind direction, etc) to complicate it just so. And RPG elements with buying crew, facebook integration and multiplayer. Also just enough edutainment to justify its remit as part of Channel 4′s remit. Trailer follows…
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