Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A quick refresher on the epochal events of everyone’s favourite ten-year-old videogame… If you find any inaccuracies in this meticulously-researched document, that’s because you’re wrong. Spoilers, obv.

INT: A BIG RED ROOM WITH A GIGANTIC CREEPY HAND IN IT
BOB PAGE: Underneath this gigantic creepy hand is the perfect place to openly discuss our plans to take over the world.
WALTON SIMMONS: Yes. And I seem to have been promoted into a position of immense power despite being incredibly and obviously sinister. No-one would ever suspect me of unleashing synthetic plagues and killer cyborgs.
BOB PAGE: Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings. Or better than kings. Gods.
THE PLAYER: I do hope you’re not expecting me to be surprised when you two turn out to be evil later.
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This is turning into an oddly sad day here at RPS. Pete Closs forwards this footage of the last day at Looking Glass: May 25th 2000. About 40 minutes of the last seconds of one of the greatest developers of all time. Impromptu silly interviews with everyone you care to mention. Discover who will play everyone in the inevitable Looking Glass movie and see Lulu Lamer brag about her Unreal Tournament skills. Hurrah! But mainly sniff.
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Anyone remember March? Ah, those halcyon days of innocence, back when we considered the possibility of good news for the British games industry. Then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, announced in what would be his final budget a pledge for a tax credit system that would aid creative industries, including game development. Of course, as we said at the time, this was dependent upon whoever won the election not overturning the decision. However, pre-election both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats pledged support for the move. But new Chancellor of the Coalition Government, George Osborne, has scrapped the plans in today’s budget. And many in the games industry have already reported their horror.

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It’s been a while since we got together to do a verdict. That splendid Deus Ex anniversary seems like the right kind of time to do so. Below we judge the game, ten years on. Does it live up to the legend?
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A quick one this. The second of the four Doctor Who episodes debuts on Saturday, immediately after the series finale. It involves Cybermen. Perhaps also their blood. I’m reaching here. Let writer Phil Ford explain: “”Blood of the Cybermen is classic ‘Who… From the intriguing title, through the pre-credits intro to the mystery surrounding the Arctic base, this is everything you expect from a TV episode – only this time you control the action. It’s an epic story, and one we could only tell in a computer game. We’ve ambitious sets, a thrill-a-minute narrative, and we re-introduce a Doctor Who adversary not seen since the Tom Baker era.” IS IT A BIG SCARF? Like the first, it’ll be available for free online, from the Who site. They claim the first episode had 525,000 downloads in the first twelve days. Which is impressive, but strikes me as lower than you may expect. Screenshots of Amy dressed impractically follow…
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Deus Ex is ten years old today. That’s ten years since JC first stormed the Statue Of Liberty in front of a paying audience. Ten years since people really started talking about Best Game Ever status for another science fiction game made in Texas. Ten years since greasels. Ten years since the bit where Gunther Hermann didn’t get the right flavour of fizzy drink. If nothing else, it means the all the RPS staff are now basically very old, and should probably have a rest. But we cannot! For we have more Deus Ex birthday things coming up, and we shall not stop until this particular anniversary is well and truly celebrated.

So dig out your copy, or buy it if you don’t own it, and join us in raising a toast to having your legs shot off in the tutorial. Hooray!

I haven’t posted about this until now as the servers have been heaving for the last day with its mass Digg-age. After trying all yesterday, I finally managed to get into a game at about 2am last night. And it’s good! This morning? Servers are still sticky, but there’s a new Russian one as well as the English and (more populated) French ones. I’ve got in after a few tries. MAYBE YOU COULD TOO. And it’s worth the effort. Transformice positions you as a mouse, with the mission to get cheese and get back. With many other mice, trying to do the same thing. What stands against you? Physics. Evil physics. Luckily, one of you is the Shaman, who is abstractly meant to be facilitating all this hot mouse-on-cheese action. It doesn’t normally work like that. A video explaining it and a few other notes follow…
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Going through the lists of E3 games to see if there’s anything which I missed, and I hit on Heroes of the Three Kingdoms. It’s a PvP-focused free-to-play MMO… yeah, stop that now. It’s got a few things which make it more interesting. Its setting isn’t the trad fantasy one… but frankly, when your combat looks like it does, it may as well be. Secondly, it isn’t class based in a traditional way. It’s weapon based, with your role changing depending on what you choose to tool up with. Finally – and most RPS-interestingly – in the end game, after you’ve formed legions and conquered cities, leads to a large-scale board-game which apparently involves keeping your population happy and taxation and similar. The trailer below is mainly the fighting, but PCG grabbed a quick hand-phone shot of the map to give you an idea. If that interests you, you can try and sign up for the closed beta on the game’s site.
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Gamasutra picked up the story that Activision’s Bobby Kotick has confirmed that 70% of his company’s operating profit comes from “non-console based” games. And you know what that means. As if there was any doubt, we can now be sure that of the impact World Of Warcraft is having on filling Activision’s coffers with precious gold. It doesn’t matter how many plastic guitars Acti sells to the console owners, the biggest game publisher in the world is still being bankrolled by a PC game featuring malignant fishmen. Kotick is also hinting at a “subscription-based” version of the Call Of Duty franchise. So that should be interesting.