Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m pretty sure that title line doesn’t work at all, but it’s early. So early, that I even posted this story with just the title at 9:27, before I’d written anything. Man! I need more tea. Anyway, it’s later in the day now, and as we mentioned on Friday, the most outstanding literature sequence of the last fifteen years has finally been given its long-expected treatment in Lego. But now there’s a demo. Which you can play, the gaming equivalent of standing in Borders and just reading the first few chapters of the fucker. And to prepare you, here’s the trailer…
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You may have noticed that Steam is having one of its crazy-ass sales, this time under the name of “Perils of Summer”, pointing out the dangers of leaving the house during the Summer months. (I’m at the beach right now! Woo!) As you might have grown to expect there are some ludicrous daily offers, and you can go find those – we’re not their advertisers you know. However, we do want you to play great games without paying lots, so it’s worth pointing you in the direction of Didimatic, a site that lists all the current sale prices on the various digital download sites. (Didimatic is short for “the digital-distribution-o-matic 2000″, of course.)

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You may remember back in March we brought you the very sad news that the giant, evil clawed feet of Activision had cruelly stomped down on the fan-made King’s Quest game, The Silver Lining. Well, it turns out that Activision’s feet are fluffy little kitten paws, not capable of crushing a weeny bug. (Or perhaps somewhere in between – Realism Ed) A deal has been struck between the amateur developers, Phoenix Online Studios, and the giant laser-eyed robot publisher, and the first episode of the new game will be released on the 10th July. That would be in two weeks!

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We like to start the week with sexual congress with gorgeous creatures who exist only for our total gratification by providing hyperorgasm. But when we can’t get that, we’ll settle for burning through a simple room-based escape game with delightful visuals, wit and some great jazzy music. What’s that, TheBlackBandit? Easy Joe, you say? That’ll do nicely. Go play.

Picked up from Craig Pearson, but this excites my ever-over-excitable space-geek. You know that NASA are actually working on Astronaut: Moon, Mars And Beyond? A team-based hard-science space-MMO? Well, that’s not here yet – but Moonbase Alpha is. It’ll be hitting on Steam on July 6th, and seems to be one-small-step towards that larger vision. The site’s a place-holder at the moment, so literally all the information we have is watching the video and wondering…
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Time for a relaxing, beautiful UDK-video of hundreds of blocks swirling magnificently to the music? I think so. I love how this stuff looks, and what it hints towards. Also, I’m reminded of a presentation at World of Love, where Eskil Steenberg is showing his automated texture-jigsaw explosion thing, where the model just comes apart into a flat shape for easy texturing. It was such a striking visual, I thought that there has to be a way of using that in game – either stuff exploding out of walls from that flat state, to bloody transformers. Anyway – video!
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Since I’m behind on Who, I’ve avoided playing it yet – I fear it may include spoilers for the final part – but if you’re up to date or just don’t care, the second of the Who adventure games is now available to download and play. You can get it from here, assuming that you’re in Britain. If you’re not – er – you’ll have to wait. And if you’re on a mac, you’ll have to wait too. Its version isn’t out until Wednesday, apparently. Anyone played this? Better/Worse than the first part? Oh – and here’s the trailer.
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Sundays are for crawling out of bed far too late, because I was up until dawn playing around with Ren.py after being at the World of Love Jam yesterday and being introduced to making nonsense with it, and then hurriedly compiling a list of the fine (mostly) games related reading from across the week (and trying so so hard not to include a list to some pop music), so I can finish off an actual script before Delightful Fiancée returns from a hen-night (not hers) on the other side of the country. Go!

• Always fun to see Stuart Campbell pick a fight with the entire universe. Here’s him writing about the love that dare not speak its name. As in, a love of Dragon’s Lair. He argues that its demonization is a little rich when so hailed games – Half-life 2, etc – do pretty much the same thing.

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Following on from the first two parts, here’s the influence of Deus Ex on two developers in very different places. EA’s RTS Lead Designer Saul Bass was in the industry for five years… and then left. Meanwhile, Aubrey Hesselgren was in Tiverton. There’s a dark future for you…
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Having spent all Thursday working on my World of Love presentation and Friday actually doing it, I’m catching up with the gaming Internet. Hence, seeing Kotaku linking on Thursday to Laura Shigihara’s performing the song she wrote and performed in Plants Vs Zombies, There’s A Zombie On Your Lawn. Ah, 2009 flashback. ‘Tis very cute, and you’ll find it below…
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Heroes creator/murderer Tim Kring has revealed his next project – an alternative reality game. The idea is, essentially, an interactive TV show – yer timeless wotsit of good and evil, which participants (i.e. you) observe, interact with and even shape as it happens. Exciting! And hopefully nothing at all like Heroes season 2-4.
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