Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is interesting. Or rather, promises as being interesting and I’d like to bring it to those who wish to make it interest-ing’s attention. Julian Gollop has posted on his forums saying that he’s considering making splendid play-by-e-mail game Laser Squad Nemesis free to play instead of the current subscription-styled model. This means he’s looking around for cheaper server places – perhaps, I suspect, someone volunteering server space – and admins to run it. Gollop’s one of the great unsung creators in the industry and I suspect at least one of the people who are upset about the XCOMisation of his X-COM may be able to offer him a very cheap solution indeed. You’ll find his contact details on the site. While it’s a game which is no longer being developed, this is a rock solid tactical skirmish game that I think would find a whole new audience in a straight free-to-play system. Of course, I’m also wondering what Julian’s doing working at Ubisoft Sofia, but that’s just because I’m nosy. Also, hoping he eventually respond to the mail asking what he makes of XCOM. Hi, Julian!

Despite some middling reviews, and a certain amount of internet grumbling, all is not lost for APB. It is set to be improved over the coming months, at least according to this post by the lead systems designer. Things that are to come under scrutiny include issues with camping, problems with cheaters, changes to rulesets, the improvement of vehicle handling, the look and feel of combat, the accuracy of match-making, and the strategic nature of missions. Which I am guessing encompasses most of what people have mentioned being concerned with. We’ll look forward to seeing how this stuff is addressed in forthcoming patches.

PCG have gone and got DICE to confirm that the Onslaught co-op mode, in which four of the multiplayer maps are reworked for 4-player co-op, will be coming to PC. Although it’s not clear what this means for the server model, which was the reason that was given for it not being released earlier. There are also no details on price or release date, but we’re assuming it can’t take too long… Can it? Hmm, given the back and forth over recent patches, we can see why DICE weren’t forthcoming about this originally, and haven’t provided any dates this time. We’ll see it when we see it, I guess. And then we can start imagining there might be mod tools? No, you’re right, I’m just being silly. I want the moon on a stick, I do. And the strength to wield said lunar lollipop. I’d used it to swat space monsters, or kraken. Probably. I’m all about saving the earth from gigantic horrors.

It’s not really an RPS podcast. Sorry. It’s just me on someone else’s podcast. Sneaky little tyke that I am. My mouth-hole was recruited to accompany Eurogamer editor Tom ‘Tom Bramwell’ Bramwell, their writer Dan Pearson and Ignition producer Jamie Firth in a chat about topics including Dragon Age 2, Blizzard’s real name silliness, War For Cybertron, whether that OnLive stuff is a threat to the PC and whether blockbuster games are allowed more than three As.

I make jokes, mutter and find myself frustratingly forbidden from discussing the preview build of CIv V I’m currently playing. I also make a probably unwise gag about the Iraq war at one point, though they may well have sensibly cut that.

Just as a follow-up to Jim’s post earlier, it’s worth pointing out a Bioware comment from last week in which they revealed that Dragon Age: Origins was their most successful game ever. Which makes it doubly weird that they’re trying to make Dragon Age 2 more like the Mass Effects. The first one, at least, was a less successful project.

*As of last November. Mass Effect 2 probably did okay too.
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There’s a sixty second set up time before you start a map. Sixty seconds for the defending team to hustle, slapping down sentries at key locations, setting up sniper nests and anxiously sweating as they wait for that timer to trickle down to zero. It’s tense stuff, and it makes the coming chaos so much more powerful and brilliant.
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Clint Hocking’s career started with sending his resume into Ubisoft Monreal “on a lark”. Six week’s later, he’s working on the original Splinter Cell, ending up as a designer/scriptwriter. After its enormous success, he rose to the position of Creative Director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2 before leaving this year to chase new horizons. Away from his game design, he’s a prolific essayist on his own blog. And in keeping in that, rather than a traditional interview, Clint has wrote us an essay…
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At a certain point today I’m going to have to accept that I have other work to do than play Pixel Legions. It’s a fantastic game by Pixelante, an arcade strategy in which you must control your armies of pixels in small battles against those of other colours. Wow, it suddenly seems so racist now I type it out. Hey, Pixelante, what have you got against the Magenta people? What did the Cyans ever do to you?

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Why change a winning formula? That’s what I was left wondering after discovering that, on the one hand, Dragon Age sold better than any Bioware game ever as of November, and on the other, that the formula is changing dramatically for Dragon Age 2. It’s worth noting that the PC version isn’t changing as much as the console versions of the game. We will apparently retain “strategic combat”, which is a good news, while console chums will be “playing to their strengths” with more actiony combat mechanics. Conversation will also now be handled via Mass Effect’s wheel system. The biggest change, however, is that Dragon Age 2 will be getting its own equivalent of Shepard, with player character options reduced to the male of female versions of “Hawke” (pictured? I think). Bioware confirmed on their forums that you will have to play a human.

Hell, I enjoyed Mass Effect 2, but you have to wonder why Dragon Age was so successful in the first place. Not because it was copying its less successful sibling, that’s for sure. I enjoy almost all of Bioware’s work, but I think boiling one game down to another just makes gaming a less interesting place. Diversity is important.

Wow. Just wow. Wake up with several people having contacted us about the wonder that is P0nd. DIY Gamer picked up on it first, making it their browser game of the week. Yeah, week and all the rest. This is a short artistic meditation on beauty and life via zen-like one-button breathing controls. In its five minutes, it’ll show you exactly what’s so wonderful about this medium of ours. If you play nothing else today, play this.

EDIT: WEBSITE CRUSHED UNDER THE MIGHT OF RPS (And/Or other places). Will update if mirrors emerge.

EDIT 2: Mirror 1! Mirror 2!

It’s the 8th of October! There’s not been much choice out there for rally folks who wanted something other than Codemaster’s heavily coolified Dirt 2, so it’ll be interesting to see how Black Bean get on with the old fashioned tea-in-a-Thermos rallying licence of the WRC. Limited details and a brief trailer (is that poking some fun at Dirt 2?) are available over on the official site.