Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Everyone loves a giant sale. How else are you supposed to get your giants cheap?! Ahahaha! Oh, that was good. Hey, remember that time I did the giant sale joke?

In other news, Good Old Games is having a great offer this weekend. There’s a 50% discount on the Rebellion pack, which’ll give you (deep breath) Evil Genius, Empire Earth Gold, Empire Earth 2 Gold, Empire Earth 3, Ground Control + its expansion, Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus, Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death, Lords of Magic Special Edition, Lords of the Realm Royal Edition, Lords of the Realm 3, and Republic: The Revolution, all for $40.89.

If you already bought any of the games in that collection, you’ll still get 50% off the rest of them if you complete the pack, or 30% off only some of them. This continues until Tuesday morning, and seems a decent way to get a big pile of interesting games.

We’ve only covered the Engineer Update a little because – oh, I don’t know. When Valve have got as good as playing their community as they are, seems that you’re surplus to requirements. And this one was expertly done, with the whole collection of Golden Wrenches building up to it – with the final heroes enshrined forever in this splendid list. I especially approve of crafter #97 “I Have Very Big Balls”. That you do, my friend, that you do. The full patch notes are here, if you want to get STRAIGHT TO THE FACTS. If you prefer a more scenic route, all the new weapons, achievements and maps are detailed here. And if you prefer experience to fancy-pants book-learnin’, you can just dive into the game and play the bloody thing. And, for a little RPS local colour, here’s the 2007 vintage Go Team! article Alec wrote about the joys of the Engineer. Anyone got any initial impressions?

I’m in charge. This is firmly established ^{(citation needed)}. So it’s important I continue to decree my rulings. All must obey, for I am as bad as BP and I burn in hell. Fear me.

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Remember Tom Clancy’s HAWX? That might be a problem for the announcement of HAWX 2. Below is the début trailer for the sequel to what wasn’t an enormously inspiring game. However, the trailer is looking mighty better than the original. The original suffered from looking a bit lacklustre. This certainly doesn’t. Unless these are renders. I hope they’re not.

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Oh, boo. Boo. Around 20 people have lost their jobs at Civilization developer Firaxis, reports the K-monster. Apparently those going include members of the quality assurance team, the user interface art team, animators, programmers and designers.

Boo.
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In a just world, I would be playing this right now. But as it’s 4 Gigabytes fat and my internet connection in my new flat currently involves dangling a hacked phone out of the window in a near-futile attempt to tether my PC to a flaky 3G connection, I am not. Would you mind doing it for me and telling me what you think? It’s the demo of Disciples III: Rennaisance, a Heroes of Might and Magic / King’s Bounty-style turn-based strategy roleplaying hybrid that looks rather pretty and agreeably fiendish. I would like to play it. I can’t. I’m going to go and kill some puppies because I’m so upset about this.

Oh, and the big fat demo apparently contains three levels (each starring a different faction) and the tutorial.

Well, I discover with crushing inevitability and after the tragic mistake of having typoed ‘faultine’ into the RPS search engine before writing this up that Jim’s already covered it. But he didn’t write very much about it, and I liked it quite a bit, so I’m going to post this anyway, before grumpily going to find something else to write about too.

There’s a lovely little shop just across the street from my new flat. Sells everything – magazines, bread, kitty litter, a thousand magazines all featuring Cheryl Cole’s rictus grin on the cover… There’s just one problem. I have to go out the house and across the street to get it. If only I could temporarily bend space, compressing the distance so that I could simply lean out my window and grab a can of lemonade. Yes, I am that lazy. Faultline, however, is that fantasy.
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RPS didn’t got to E3. So E3 came to RPS, with Ubisoft showing their E3 demos in London yesterday. South London being slightly easier to reach than Los Angeles, I went along to have a look at what they have to offer us in the coming twelve months. Well, quite a bit. While ManiaPlanet will await a future date to look properly at it, there were four key PC-relevant games on show: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Driver: San Francisco, Ruse and – though it hasn’t been announced for the PC, I’ll be surprised if it’s not – Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. What did I make of them? I tell you below, via the medium of telling.
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The Official Dragon Age 2 site is live. No trailer just yet, but that’s coming on the 17th of August, apparently. There is some fey concept art, too, and that possibly links to the last of the details that the site holds:

a whole realm rendered in stunning detail with updated graphics and a new visual style

So possibly not looking like the original. Which could be a good thing. Or could just be a “let’s not look like The Witcher 2″. It also promises “dynamic new combat mechanics”, which could be hot air, or could signal a Mass-Effect-2ification of Dragon Age’s RPG processes. Your speculations, readers?

EDIT: Looks like Game Informer got the scoop for this month’s issue.

Raven’s Singularity is now available. I’ve manipulated my time such that I’ve played it from beginning to end, in that order, and can now tell you Wot I Think.

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Oh my goodness, it’s late. Sorry. My calendar totally whizzed back in time, or something. Quick, before anyone notices, let’s get down to business: here’s what’s been going down on the mod scene in the past eight days.
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