Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The previously covered Dogfighter has launched on Steam for last night, at 25% off until June 21st. That means you can have it for nine – count ‘em! – pounds. I bring it to your attention mainly as everyone who got into the beta will be able to play the game until Wednesday, so you can see how the game ended up and see if you want to buy it. It’s like a very exclusive demo or something. Also, as a note to RPS subscribers – there’s still a few beta codes left in that Subscriber-codes site I mailed out prior to the main distribution, so if you fancy seeing the finished game, you can go there and grab one (if you haven’t already (Because if you try and grab another one it won’t work. And that’s very greedy anyway)). Er… that’s enough parenthesis. Here’s the trailer?
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If there’s one thing we know about Vietnam, it’s that the scenery is destructible. It makes sense, therefore, that Battlefield Bad Company 2 should be taking a trip there for the purposes of a multiplayer expansion. DICE say: “Featuring four new maps playable in classic Battlefield modes including Conquest and Rush, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam will be available worldwide this winter.” There’s no price been announced as yet, and – for what it’s worth – I’ve posted the essentially content-free teaser trailer below.
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It’s been a while since we’ve had a cerebral short-form indie platformer we could throw our weight behind with an unreserved recommendation. It’s a bit – as its creator Alexander Ocias says “confrontational” – but in a good way. It’s got the sort of meaningful choices interlaced through it which Fallout fans are always crying out for, has a genuinely oppressive atmosphere and at least a couple of killer endings depending on which way you choose to go. As a meditation about control and free-will – which is what I’m going to say it’s about – it’s really quite excellent. Also, jumping. You can play it here, here or on Alexander’s site here. I’ve played it a couple of times already, and I suspect I’ll go back for another one to try a few more choices.

Also standing out, primarily for not being for the Kinect, is some footage of Crysis 2. (There’s lots more worthwhile games too, to be fair, which we’ll look at tomorrow.) Which looks pretty damned stunning. It’s apparently going to be a mixture of mission-structured shooter and sandbox. A sort of pick-your-own crazy battle town. There should be more clarity about all this over the next few days. Meanwhile go coo below.

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The noise! The noise! Make it all stop! Last year’s E3 Monday saw me safely hidden on an aeroplane from Seattle to LA, having just fished out the big scoop on Left 4 Dead 2. And how pleased everyone was! This year’s E3 Monday sees me in my house, writing They’re Back for PCG a day late. How times have changed. But in filtering through the noise of Microsoft’s daft-looking Kinnn3ckt, or whatever it’s called, Ubisoft’s announcing thirty-million games, and EA shocking the world by announcing there’s to be another Need For Speed game, came one loud cry: “Where’d this giant dick come from?!” That was Bulletstorm.

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That Doctor Who game: a fantastic promise but ultimately an unhappy time. All that exciting adventuring we saw in the trailers and in the interviews, only to be realised as repetitive and frustrating minigames, clearly made for a gamepad. I don’t wish to twist the knife unduly – it is, after all, a free game, a very welcome bonus for UK TV license-payers, and one of painfully few attempts at sending the Doctor to the one universe he’s never really sussed out. Even a poor meal is something to be grateful for when someone cooks it as a favour.

So I come here not to bury Dr Caesar, but to praise what he could be. Any future Doctor Who game has to keep only one thing in mind to be on the right track from the off.
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Mass Effect 2 is a game that some people thought was okay. If you haven’t played it – and you might not have done, what with all that stuff you were doing – then it’s a good time to play the demo. Demo? Yes. Here’s what the digital mouth of EA/Bioware say about that “demo”: “In the demo, players step into the role of Commander Shepard and must escape from a Cerberus space station under siege. Players can jump ahead to a later mission where they must rescue Subject Zero, a hardened, dangerous criminal from a heavily guarded prison ship. Once they play the demo, players will be able to create a save and carry over their character along with the experience points, story decisions, achievements and weapons earned into the full version of the game – picking up right where they left off.” It’s right here. It is 1.87gb.

So that’s that. There’s also some new DLC out tomorrow, and that’s called Overlord, and that apparently has “five levels set across one story on one planet”. I’m going to pick it up, and maybe, maybe finish playing through Mass Effect 2. No, really, I’m still on that. What can I say? There’s all this stuff I’ve been doing.

I spotted an advert – one of those MMO ads with a lady in her bra that you see on games sites that are yet to implement their new ads deal. It was for free-to-play MMO, Rohan, which boasts that it is a “mature game”. Intrigued by what this might mean I clicked. It doesn’t, as it turns out, mean it features characters facing up to the fact that they need to make a will, investigating ISA options, or replacing the oil in their car before the light comes on. It means bikinis.

But, more importantly, a rap. Oh my goodness yes.

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We’re itchy for access to Elemental, Stardock’s massive 4X fantasy strategy with delicious and nutritious RPG bits. Why? Read this. Pre-ordering types can get access right now, thanks to the second beta of the game, which is detailed over on the mail site. Also this beta guide goes into some of the detail that wasn’t quite clear from Wardell’s epic twelve-minute ramble from earlier in the month, and it’s just making more desirous of the game. Release for all is August 24, a date which Stardock describe as “firm”. And we like firm.

Hup, hup, quickly now. Over on Eurogamer at the moment is a preview wot I dun wrote about THQ’s upcoming COD-like shooter Homefront. Looks promising, but the whole ‘North Korea invades America’ plot isn’t a particularly comfortable or believable concept. The game’s definitely THQ trying to hit it out the park rather than hang around in the cheap-seats, though.

For more on how the once-beleaguered publisher is trying to rejoin the big leagues, have a read of my interview with one of their biggest (and mouthiest) wigs, Danny Bilson. Yes, perv-o-gossips, he’s the father of the OC’s Rachel Bilson. Also includes him frothing about the Warhammer 40K MMO, and comfirming the inclusion of Titans. Titans!

WoW be changin’! The titular cataclysm is going to shake up Azeroth permanently, and Blizzard have been steadily releasing information about what it all means before the launch, later this year. There are a couple of new races, and their starting areas, a level cap boost (only five this time) and a bunch of low end changes, but there are also some big changes to more familiar areas, especially cities, as you can see below. Also, regions like Desolace were always like spare bedrooms that the game never really used properly – Blizzard probably just left some boxes in there and stuff – but it, along with a few other places, are now being refurbished and requestenated for the benefit of future generations of shiny, happy WoW players. Bless. Watching these trailers there’s a part of my brain that says “ooh, you should go back and have a look at that.” And I’ll probably create a goblin… What’s that noise? The dark, inexorable roar of the timesink? Well, I always had a thing for staring into the abyss.
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