Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Runic, the folks behind Diablo-like dungeon-crawler Torchlight – which we talked about favourably when it arrived – have done rather well for themselves. It seems that Torchlight shifted 500k copies, and set Runic up to sell a large stake of themselves to Chinese MMO-imperialists Perfect World (for $8.4m, which would buy a lot of Peggles.) All of which bodes well for the previously mooted Torchlight MMO, which Runic talked about back in 2009. It must seems like Flagship was just a bad dream… (Via Le Shack.)

Only yesterday Jim and I were asking for more information about Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light, and pa-dah! A new trailer has appeared. And crikey, it isn’t like the Tomb Raiders we’ve played before. Although we already knew it was an isometric action platformer, it’s hard to believe it until you see it running, which you can below.

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The splendidly named Lunar Giant have just released a demo of their Delve Deeper, which is a multi-player turn-based strategy game of mining and dwarf-exploitation. Oddly, the main reference which comes to mind is old CD32 launch-game Diggers with a splash of Worms and a whole lot more friendliness. And that sentence may as well be Plutonian to most modern readers, and Lunar Giant have failed their Indie Game Marketing entry exams by failing to have any footage of their game online, I’ll explain a little more below…
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It really is. For the alterna-prices of $10/£6.21 you, a person who owns a computer, could get GalCiv II and its expansion packs – on Impulse, obviously. Why would you want to do such thing? Well, in short, it’s a brilliant strategy game that has few peers in the gaming world. It’ll indulge your galaxy-grabbing fantasies like no other. In long? Well, PCG’s Tom Francis has that covered, at length. Great length. Anyway, go get it, unless you already have it. Or you don’t like strategy games. You freak.

…You’ll download this Dragon Age texture pack, and it’ll just work for you and it’ll look super-spanky and that will be that. Me, I’ve wasted over three hours trying to make this collection of spit’n'polished graphics take with my own DA install, hoping to be saved from the disappointingly muddy visuals of what was otherwise one of the finest games of 2009, but I’m still only getting itermittent, glitching results. Not the fault of the mod at all, I stress – something is just wrong with my install, and I’m avoiding re-downloading 18Gb of RPG to fix it. If the mod’s screenshots (poorly represented by the compressed JPGs herein) are anything to go on, though, it’s well worth it. But: why do mods like this exist in the first place? Why don’t the developers cater for this degree of detail themselves? Well, because it would be insane.
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I’ve been doing some guest blogging for splendid architecture site BLDGBLOG. You can see my previous offerings here and here, as well as an interview here. The latest piece – here! – delves deeper into my obsession with GSC Gameworld’s Stalker games, and the wider fiction – and reality – surrounding them. Go have a read of the rest of BLDGBLOG, too. It will surprise you.

Alec sighs and points at Blues News who points at The Sixth Axis who points at Edge magazine who points at Epic President Mike Capps in an interview situation who points at Piracy for Epic’s pointing away from the PC. He says things like “We still do PC, we still love the PC, but we already saw the impact of piracy: it killed a lot of great independent developers and completely changed our business model.” and “So, maybe Facebook will save PC gaming… but it’s not going to look like Gears of War.”. More here. I’m sure everyone agrees, so I’m tempted to just close the comments thread because there’s nothing to say, but maybe I’m wrong.

Can it really have been so long? It seems so. It’s episode 41! Jim and John gather once more to discuss matters of gaming, philosophy, and quite how tired everyone is. We’re all so tired. Enjoy John’s croaky voice, Jim’s pretty hair, and thoughts on shooters, Macs and the lack of gossiping murderer-based games. Plus bonus exclusive interview with Zombie Cow!

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Counter-Strike getting a rejigging comes at an interesting time, because it coincides with the closed beta of a new team-combat game (I originally typo’d “tram combat”, which sounds a lot more interesting) being developed by members of the original CS team, including Minh Le, or Gooseman. Tactical Intervention, for that is the name of the game, is taking signups now, and the beta is apparently set for launch on 28th of May. Can the world support another team-based tactical shooter? Well, yeah, probably. Footage below.
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Upon hearing the news of Zombie Cow’s pee-pee and hoo-hah themed game, Privates, we clearly wanted to know more. What are these “vaginas” and “penises” they’re talking about? So we got ourselves a chat with project lead Dan Marshall to find out the details on their STI-busting project. We exclusively reveal what the game’s about, how it will play, and what disgusting items lie in Zombie Cow’s search history.

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It’s the sort of thing I’d save for the Sunday Papers but Richard Cobbett’s – Videogames Journalism’s answer to Livy – piece on the rise and fall (or rather birth and early death) of FMV games is so comprehensive it deserves a post of its own. Go read it here. Anyone got fond memories of any of them? Best of all, Cobbett unearths the legendarily infamous Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, which is playable, in its entirety, via Interactive Youtube videos. You’ve probably made jokes about it, but have you ever played it? Do so below…
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