Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Yesterday afternoon a bold story appeared on Develop’s site, stating that there was far more to the abandoning of videogame tax relief in this week’s UK budget. It was not, they say, a case of the treasury overturning the decision, but rather the influence of an unnamed “global publisher” who “sabotaged [the] UK games tax break.” Obviously this story has received quite a lot of attention, especially with people guessing who this major publisher might be. But major industry figures give the impression that it might be no publisher at all.

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Since its announcement in 2008 things have been quiet at Earthrise towers. Bulgarian devs Masthead have been quietly working away on an apocalyptic sci-fi MMO, which has long been sounding like one of the more interesting prospects from Eastern Europe. A free-form, sandbox approach, a player-driven economy, politics, PvP and PvE conflict over resources, and a claim to be doing things in an “old school” way that belies a love of UO. Well, it’s certainly interesting, if a little mysterious. But now it seems things are hotting up as Masthead are beginning to work on their closed beta, which you can sign up for on the site. We spoke to Atanas Atanasov at Masthead Studios to find out a bit more about the game, and see how things are coming along.

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News reaches us via the internet and the whispering of swallows that shooty-MMO Global Agenda has changed its model, removing the need for a subscription to play its highest level content. You can play the first fifteen levels with the trial but then need to actually buy the game to shoot as long as you like (Which is 33% off on Steam’s current enormo-sale). More details on their site. I want to write something like “Go On A Global Agenda Bender” but I’m not sure if that’s offensive and/or make any sense.

The story is overtaking us. Since we’re off at World of Love today, I’m quickly nosing around for stories we’ve missed. I see that turn-based fantasy game Disciples III: Renaissance has had an E3 trailer out. Then I see that it’s due shortly in Summer. I see that summer means already out late last year in Russia, next month in the US and TODAY IN EUROPE! Disciples III: Renaissance is out in Europe! It cannot be contained! The signal is coming from inside the building!

Trailer follows.
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Our favourite apologia of the private school system and quasi-meritocratic racism has finally been all lego-ed up. It’s out today, on pretty much every system, including the one we cover. And here’s the launch trailer…
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APB has had another moment of controversy before release with the news that the game is to feature unavoidable audio advertising, via the Vivox voice chat. These adverts will appear when players enter zones, rather than randomly butting in, but the news has still created something of a fuss on various forums. Players are upset because as well as hearing the ads they will have also paid for the game, and subscribed for game time.

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Wahey! But ‘wahey’ in a measured, ‘this will hopefully be helpful for young person’s sex education’ sort of way. Zombie Cow’s Cannon Fodder-meets-venereal disease-meets Ghostbusters condomania title finally gets in-game footage, and it looks like this. Well, like the ‘this’ that is below this. Um. Beneath the cut, then. Yes.

There are some naughty words. There are some gags that may offend people who tend to get offended. You should watch it anyway. It’s very funny.
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Kieron’s even planning to stand up to say stuff about things. He’s funny like that. The full spread of indie speaker types is pretty nifty, fortunately, as you can see here. That final line up includes Cliffski, Introversion and one Mr Eskil Steenberg, who I happened to have lunch with yesterday. That Love expansion is looking pretty amazing… but more of that another time. Those of you who aren’t going, do you have any questions for that ragged band of indie heroes?

Following on from yesterday’s first part, here’s another couple of developers who were just entering the industry when Deus Ex hit, and the influence it had on them. Both 2k-Mariners of Bioshock 2 fame, Lead Level Designer Jean-Paul LeBreton was starting his career at Human Head when Deus Ex hit while Senior System Designer Kent Hudson was at college making game maps on any SDK he could find…
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Cordy, as Simon Parkin rightly notes, is a Little Big Planet clone, crammed into Unity. Only a couple of demo levels here, but feature all manner of Rube Goldberg styled levels of spinning, falling and crushing stuff. Very quick to play, and hopefully more to come – though, obviously, to be a real Little Big Planet clone, it’d have to include some manner of construction elements. WELCOME TO OUR ROBOT GAME state Silvertree media, proudly. I would be too.

One of the last of the PC showings from E3 that we’ve got around to taking a glance are those for Lego Universe. I’ve posted the lovely cinematic and some developer-chatter captured by GameTrailers below. I think it gives you a fairly good idea of what this is going to be. It’s not exactly throwing off the familiar mantle of how MMOs doing things – with quests and hitting stuff and so on – but it is still doing a fair number of things differently. Plus you get to build stuff with Lego, which is kind of special, all on its own.

I’ve messed around with the beta of this for a while, and we’re hoping to have some detailed impressions closer to release. And that release will be in October.
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