Rock, Paper, Shotgun

One last snippet of news from Quakecon. They’ve set the release date for Rage in UK for September 16th 2011.

So – er – yes.

Astute (and handsome) readers will recall that we’ve been following the hyperbolically ludicrous-looking dinosaurs-versus-jetpack-battlesuits-plus-other-stuff Half-Life 2 mod, Orion: Prelude since it started looking like a contender. Now, however, it’s pushed itself even further into the realms of awesomeness by becoming a commercial project, Orion Project. The mod team have formed “Spiral Game Studios” and say: “ORION: Prelude pays homage to other classics that we grew up on that entertained us as gamers as well as inspired us as developers. You will see inspiration from classics such as the Unreal Tournament series, Quake 2 CTF, Starsiege: Tribes, early Counter-Strike betas and plenty of our own unique takes and twists in the design and mechanics.” There’s loads more information and some more visuals here, as well as confirmation of “Dinosaur Interaction” on the feature list. Happy days. Oh – and here’s some footage of the previous Orion Source Multiplayer Beta to give a vibe. First real video at PAX.
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Financial squabbles between Southpeak Interactive and CDV had made some people wonder what would happen to the games being produced by the corporate couple, and somehow we missed the confirmation last week that Stronghold 3 is unaffected, and will still hit its 2011 release slot. Eurogamer have the news, and some affirmation by Southpeak’s CEO that they have confidence in the title. And they should have confidence, because it’s one of Germany’s biggest selling strategy titles and as such is likely to sell half a squajillion copies. No major details on the game yet, but a smattering of screens show a new 3D engine, which should make for spangly castle-construction when the game arrives next year.

Sundays are for finishing off an episode of Twin Peaks, crouching in your office trying to type quietly while Delightful Fiance records some music and compiling a line of the fine (mostly) games related reading from across the week, while trying to not link to some manner of future-music remix of the future-fiction of the Victorian age.

• This was probably the story which lead to most outrage. Kaitol writes about How To Hire An Artist to assist making their games. And he writes about it with awe-inspiring candour, basically explaining exactly how to exploit ignorant artists to maximise your own bottom line. Clearly, artists explode at it… but the piece actually serves a useful purpose in educating artists that this is how people are going to be treating them. That Kaitol was stupid enough to say what actually happens will hopefully lead to the penny dropping for a whole load of people. It’s the same in games journalism. I recently heard that apparently some people are working for free for national newspapers for “the exposure”. It was only not knowing for sure if it was true which didn’t stop me hunting them down and boiling the little scabs alive. It’s fine to work for free when people aren’t making serious money off you (i.e. You aren’t being exploited). To agree to exploitation is to sell out your entire fraternity, and forever reduce the currency of your work, you idiot scum.

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I want to quickly post this, which Jim found. Where did he find it? I don’t know. He could have just been reading the XCOM thread at Gamasutra. Google suggests he may have found it at RPGCodex, but that doesn’t sound likely. Anyway, Julian Gollop was the legendary creator of Chaos, Laser Squad and – relevantly – the original X-COM. I’ve been wondering about what he makes of all this ever since it came out. Sadly, he’s not replying to any of our e-mails. However, he did turn up in the comment thread (twice!) to the aforementioned Gamasutra article and said the following…
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The Curfew’s been in Beta for a few weeks now with all the four episodes running, but they’ve been a bit twitchy. However, as the end of its Beta approaches, it’s basically in a good enough state for me to feel happy to link to it – which is pretty much what Curfewer in arms Simon Parkin said last night. As in, my saved game for the end of episode one works and I got all the way through it with only a couple of eyebrow raises. For those who the loading is still iffy – and it’s always been fine for me – I’ll say two things. Try loading it and leaving it running in a tab for a while, because I vaguely recall it having some streaming tech. Give the game a chance to get ahead, and it could be smoother. Secondly, they’re planning a full 700Mb Download of it for September, which will obviously solve everything. What’s the Curfew? Well, it’s… oh, let’s hand over to Simon’s short description…

EDIT: But see the edits at the bottom of the post too…
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One of the stories to emerge from Quakecon was that Zenimax have got their corporate cheque-book out again. Following Id into Bethesda’s masters maw is Arkane Studios, who you’ll know from Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might And Magic and doing work alongside 2K Marin on Bioshock 2. To state the obvious – with Id, Bethesda and publishing Splash Damage’s Brink, this helps cement Zenimax as a major power in that PC-centric PC/Console developed game area. By which I mean, traditional PC games which are now developed for both (and so provoke comment thread – aha! – Rage for merely existing). The press release follows and if you want to try and work out what Arkane are actually up to, our interview with Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith is where they lay out their current thinking best. Though I would say that.
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This week’s BB is about twice as long as usual, because it’s filled with massive lists of discounted games. Beautiful discounted games, where would we be without them? We’d be a lot poorer, and we’d have slightly less ways to entertain ourselves on a Saturday afternoon, and that’s no fun. Buckle yourselves in, hold on tight, brace yourselves and get ready for yet another selection of the finest gaming offers available this weekend. Remember to keep an eye on the now fully fixed (!) SavyGamer.co.uk for all the bargains, all the time.
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Kalypso and Haemimont Games aren’t abandoning their dreams of benevolent dictatorship simulation any time soon. We’re going to be basking in the warm light of a fourth island-managing build and diplomacy game in Q2 2011. It looks like this will be an expanded take on Tropico 3, with new buildings and political features, some new online rankings and Facebook/Twitter feature stuff, as well as revamped disaster and trade systems in the game itself. I discussed my casual fondness for Tropico 3 just here.

GSC have been vaguely rumbling about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 for a while now, but it seems that they’ve decided to officially announce its development and arrival in 2012. A news article over on the company’s main site makes the matter known, saying that it the technology will be “completely new” – a statement which could be aimed at rumours GSC were going to use the Crysis engine. “”After the official sales of the series exceeded 4 million copies worldwide, we had no doubts left to start creating a new big game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe,” says GSC’s Sergiy Grygorovych. “This will be the next chapter of the mega-popular game players expect from us.”

Don’t just stand there, etc. I’ll get in the queue for an interview.

Hail, hero. Would you like to win a copy of the super-chap MMO that half the internet has called Going Rouge? Plus enough add-on microstransactiony costume parts and whatnot to fill up a Fortress of Solitude? Well, you can. And, I’m very pleased to say, even if you’re not a UK resident. This is global baby, global.

Going Rogue is the second mega-expansion for City of Heroes, following City of Villains. This one deals with the moral stickiness between good and evil, enabling you to go off super-piste to pursue something that’s more your own agenda, rather than that of organised do-goodery or crime. Sounds good. Sounds… roguish. You should try and win a copy. If only you could find a website that had such a competition! Oh.
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