Rock, Paper, Shotgun

You want to be a ship’s captain, right? You might say no, but actually you do. Deep down, somewhere in the normal-mapped depths of your GTA-polluted soul, you want to earn an honest living by plying the high seas with reputable cargo. It’s this fundamental lust for earnest oceanic activity that lies – truly – within all gamers, to which Ship Sim Extremes is addressed. With co-op missions, perfect storms, and everything floaty from hovercraft to speedboats to supertankers, this is pretty much as extreme as a simulation of a ship and/or boat is going to get. At least until someone creates a hyperbolic Red Faction style damage-model that allows you to crash supertankers into cities. I mean, that’s gotta be on the cards, right?

Anyway, I’ve posted a video presentation of the game by VSTEP’s Frank Dolmans below. Take it away, Frank!
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Have you heard of Steam? It’s apparently a sort of electronic shop, from which you can buy games without even leaving your house! Via this frankly terrifying-sounding system it has become apparent that one can download a demo for Mafia II. It’s just over a GB, and will let you get a decent glimpse of the 1940s/50s open city.

Don’t call it a comeback. Okay, do. With Quinns’ recent move to London, Kieron and he decided to gather in an office and mumble at one another. And then record it. And then share it. You can download it directly from here, subscribe to it by RSS with this, or get it on iTunes from here. And breakdown of what we cover follows…

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Gadzooks, it’s been over a year since I first ranted about Minecraft, the epic blocky building game by Markus “Notch” Persson. Clearly it’s well overdue a revisit from us. And there’s much to catch up on, too – including a Portal mod – so join me below decks, and we’ll explore the niche this game is carving out for itself.
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Medal Of Honor, the forthcoming series restart from EA, was revealed in June by Eurogamer to allow players to play as the Taliban in multiplayer gaming. A tabloid sensation with young people being encouraged to join terrorist organisations? Perfectly normal online gaming that doesn’t represent real life? Or simply awkward taste?

“It’s a game.”

say developers DICE.

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Anyone interested in upcoming tank battle MMO World of Tanks – yes, both of you – should skedaddle over to Eurogamer, who today uploaded my hands on impressions of the beta. The game’s actually a bit good, with lots of tension and keeping your eyes peeled for the enemy and then Oh, Mercy, Would You Look At The Size Of Him, and then BANG and then JESUS CHRIST. The highlight of the preview is probably this:

By contrast, your first impression of the tank garage is much more likely to make you feel you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. Yesterday I was, no word of a lie, looking over my PzKpfw III Ausf A and wondering whether to swap the 3.7cm KwK36 L/46.5 for either the 5cm KwK 38 L/42 or the 2cm KwK38 L/55. I was also eyeing up additional grousers and some APCR shells.

In reality, this is all simple stu- oh, my goodness! Are you crying? Please don’t cry. It was only a stupid example and the tank development isn’t like it sounds at all. Let me explain.

Well, if the Eurogamer commenters will insist on being very rude to my articles then I’ve no choice but to make insinuations about their masculinity in my copy, have I?

On Friday we gave you guys the chance to win a mammoth stash of StarCraft 2 merchandise, including the above canvas artwork of Arcturus Mengsk. We asked you to describe, in 50 words or less, what you’d craft a star into, and why. And boy, did you ever respond. If I read one more answer relating to Dyson spheres I think I’m going to turn into a Dyson sphere.

Read the best answers and find out who our winner is after the jump. Good Luck Have Fun!
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I have very rarely played Modern Warfare 1 or 2 online, so pray forgive me for not knowing which bits of this video specifically-prompted the internet-wide squeeeee! earlier today. Looks broadly like I would expect it to look, and as I suspect it should look if it’s not to create titanic outrage – although I did particularly like the exploding crossbow. (Even though Timeshift did it first.)
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Splinter Cell 3 and Far Cry 2 lead Clint Hocking stood down from Ubisoft Montreal back in May, citing a need to challenge himself and to leave comfortable habits behind. The newly-announced upshot of that is that he’s moving to LucasArts, to be creative director on an unannounced project.
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We follow any lead if it’ll take us to a story, including our own comment threads where Creative Assembly’s Craig Laycock writes to say that they’ve launched their new Total War Forum. “I couldn’t/could care less!” depending on what side of the pacific you’re on, you may say. But if you do, says Creative Assembly, you get a personalised War Room where you can see stats from your campaigns, battles, achievements and HOW MANY YOU HAVE KILLED. “Pah!” someone will say, inevitably. All right, says Creative Assembly, if you do, you get a free unit for play in Napoleon. “Is it a Hussar? I love Hussars” says the Hussar fanciers. “It’s the 10th Hussars!” says Creative. “Huzzah! Hussars!” they say, and rush off. “What’s a Hussar?” says John Walker before resuming weeping.

Craig! Mail us next time! In other notes – er – I have a Creative Interview I really should transcribe. Soon! Honest!

EQ’s Fan Faire event in Las Vegas has had a big reveal: the working title for the next Everquest title is… Everquest Next. Which is exciting, I suppose, because it means that there really is another Everquest game in the works. EQWire totally blogged the panel in which the new game was mentioned, and although details remain fairly scant, it seems that Everquest Next will be more like the original game, and with a lovely PvP focus for people who like the fantasy mega-biff.

So that’s that. What about PlanetSide Next, eh? We await with mild anticipations.