By Quintin Smith on August 23rd, 2010.
I’m interested in Dark Millenium Online, the 40K MMORPG. I really am. I just wish Vigil Games would reveal more about it, so while I was at GamesCom I hatched a truly brilliant plan. Unfortunately my sock full of pennies and painstakingly sharpened Biro were taken off me at the door of their booth, so I settled for a straight interview with Executive Producer Tim Campbell. You can read it right after the jump.
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By Quintin Smith on August 23rd, 2010.
The torrent of excellent browser games never stops! Not even for GamesCom. Indie Games posted about Liferaft: Zero last week, and it’s tricky bit of platforming with an excellent, Portal-like atmosphere. You play an endless series of cloned, acrobatic girls, and do your best to steer them towards candy and away from certain death. Your best won’t be good enough, but it’s more messed up enough to justify a play. Video after the jump.
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By Jim Rossignol on August 23rd, 2010.
We’ve trundled methodically over the relationship between games and films fairly recently with the Spector article – and I shall come to that another time – but what caught my attention this morning was this column by Steven Poole, in which he addresses the question of the question “What is the Citizen Kane of games?” Bad question, says Poole. But I disagree.
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By Jim Rossignol on August 23rd, 2010.
And not just by the spelling. Yahoo news are reporting that British defence secretary Liam Fox has urged retailers not to stock the next Medal Of Honor game, due to players being able to take on the role of the Taliban in the game’s multiplayer. “I am disgusted and angry,” said Fox. “It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.” EA have apparently responded by telling The Sunday Times that the game simply reflects the fact that there two sides in the conflict.
Personally I’m more uncomfortable with a politician urging a blanket ban on anything than I am with the any tastelessness or insensitivity presented by the game (which neither I nor the British defence secretary have played), but I doubt his words will make much difference in the face of the cold hard cash to be made from the forthcoming shooter. Also, I do wonder whether Dr Fox has been made aware of the game simply to provoke this kind of reaction.
UPDATE: EG reports that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is distancing itself from Fox’s statement, saying that it’s a “personal view”.
By John Walker on August 23rd, 2010.
With only coincidental timing, this week I wrote about the original Grand Theft Auto for Eurogamer – Dave Jones’ game that spawned the empire that led to his creating APB. Does the top-down 1997 original stand the cruel passage of time? Is it still controversial? I write:
It’s not like gaming had been an innocent pursuit until 1997. Obviously not. But it was the year that things got noticeably controversial. (The same year also offered us another chance to mow down innocents with Carmageddon.) And when a mainstream game from DMA – who had entertained us with suicidal green and purple rodents – contains lines like, “My brother knows I’m bangin’ his wife. Waste the sonofabitch before he finds me,” it comes as quite a surprise. To go from Christmas Lemmings to people shouting about “getting pussy”… it’s like your gran revealing she used to be a porn star.
By Kieron Gillen on August 22nd, 2010.
Sundays are for grabbing a boxful of comics so I can make my presence known at Comiket in Battersea – come along, if you’re in the area – while hoping you work out a way to make a plot into (y’know) a plot. Oh – and quickly compiling a list of the fine (mostly) game related reading from across the week, without linking to some piece of pop music by someone who does things other than make pop music. Go!
By Kieron Gillen on August 21st, 2010.
Delirium Wartner altered us to this fascinating snippet. Michael “Braingamer” Abbott’s day job is working at Wabash Liberal Arts college in Indiana. In the new (compulsory) Enduring Questions course they’ll be engaging with a variety texts with a general theme of humanity, across all ages. So we’ll have Gilgamesh rubbing shoulders with Poetics, Donne’s poetry, Hamlet, the Tao Te Ching and… Portal. The full story behind it is fascinating, but the core story is that a long-established (1832) college have decided that it’s worth putting a videogame on the syllabus for study. Abbott also talks about other games he considered – Planescape Torment and Bioshock – but decided on Glados’ star turn. Which does make me think… well, if you were in the same situation, what games would you put on a liberal arts reading list? I suspect I may have made the same call as Abbott. Or Robotron, obvs
By Quintin Smith on August 21st, 2010.
Day 3 was when it all went down. I had appointments to see Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Red Orchestra 2, Guild Wars 2, Bioshock: Infinity, The Secret World and Dungeon Siege 3, among others.
At least, I presume I had appointments. I’ll admit to some amount of shouting and pulling of my arm as I went waltzing into the more exclusive booths, but it’s remarkable how people will reconsider their attitude towards you after a slap.
Also featured in this final batch of hastily typed-up impressions is my own personal Game of Show. What could it possibly be, do you think?
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By Jim Rossignol on August 21st, 2010.
…who lives and who dies, apparently. As it stands Bill dies in The Passing, and there’s going to be comic that explains how and why that happens. But it turns out that in The Sacrifice, you can – in keeping with the game’s own moment-to-moment decision-making – choose who dies for yourselves. This comes via Kotaku, who point out that in this GameTrailers’ chat with Valve, Mr Faliszek reveals that this next bit of free DLC for Left 4 Dead (and also Left 4 Dead 2, it’ll work with either) enables us to experience what happened in the events of The Passing from the perspective of the original cast. The events of this new expansion will, therefore, allow you to choose which of that original cast winds up dead. The Sacrifice also gives Left 4 Dead 2 owners a version of No Mercy, which seems like a splendid little bonus.
By Kieron Gillen on August 21st, 2010.
I’ve been meaning to post this for the last few days, since one Mr Brett mailed us about it. Basically, CCP have blogged about their current work with their Carbon Framework which powers their games, and shown off some of the things they’re doing with soft fabrics. There’s lots of tech stuff here for those who can count above ten to chew over, but the rest of us dullards will just be staring at the prettiness.
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By Kieron Gillen on August 21st, 2010.
The new free-to-play Clone Wars Adventure has just gone live. As in, open Beta where you can pop in and play. Since it’s in Beta there’s content unavailable – including the pay stuff, really – but the basic structure is there. And, as far as I can see, it’s basically a glorified chat-room (with dress up) and a whole load of mini-games you can play. In fact, while you can actually go to places in the world to start the games in an atmospheric fashion, it’s much easier to just press the play button and select from the list. It’s a fancy arcade, with you able to hop between Clone-Wars themed archetypal online games. For example, the sword-fighting is basically an Audition-clone, with whoever hammers out a sequence faster gets to win the clash-of-swords. The Tower Defence clone is probably my favourite so far, with the quality of others varying wildly. I did like the OTTP powering up of your guns in Starfighter when you get a combo going. Alas, the typing-game isn’t the Typing of the Dead… with Jedi thing you’d have hoped for. Anyway – you can sign up and play here or watch the new trailer with devs yabbering below…
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