Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Archive for September, 2010

Tantalization V Continues

By Alec Meer on September 19th, 2010.

First the absurdly long walkthrough video, and now the whole bally manual for next week’s Civ V. If you want to get a head start on what path up the tech tree you need to take to build helicopter gunships and exactly how the no unit stacking combat thinger works, have a read on this. It’s got a complete unit breakdown for warlike types and buildings and wonders for the more constructively minded, but sadly the entire tech tree chart isn’t in there, nor is there any designer commentary. Should give you a decent sense of how the game does and doesn’t differ from its predecessors, though. All being well (i.e. if the build I’ve got starts behaving itself again) we’ll have Words O’Judgement for you on Tuesday.

25MB PDF here. Full colour, as they used to say when such things were rare. Download rather than open in a browser tab, unless you want long waits.

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The Sunday Papers

By Kieron Gillen on September 19th, 2010.

Sundays are for keeping on getting distracted doing quick RPS posts when you’re meant to be compiling a list of the fine (mostly) games related reading gathered across the week, while trying to not link to some pop music.

  • I linked to this when APB’s actual closure was announced, but it deserves a proper picking over here. Luke Halliwell Ex-Realtime Worlds writes a three part piece on what went wrong. It’s a pretty comprehensive portrait of a developer going astray. Key thesis: “In any case, I don’t think specific design flaws were the root cause of our problems. While it’s true that without them, APB probably could have sold much better and I wouldn’t be writing this piece, it would be a very lazy attempt to explain our failure. It would be tantamount to pointing the finger at a small number of staff and saying “it was all your fault”. I don’t buy that. There were 300 of us, some of us there for years, and we spent over $100m. The problems had to run deeper than that. I believe our poor decisions (and there were plenty of them, not just in design!) are best explained as patterns of behaviour within the context of a system that was not healthy.” Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
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Finite: Incy-Bit Of Bioshock Infinite Gameplay

By Kieron Gillen on September 19th, 2010.

Just a quickie here. The full Bioshock Infinite gameplay footage video which I saw in August on the game’s unveiling is going live on 21st. However, they gave Gametrailer TV a few short snippets in their latest show. So you can watch that, or just go to the cut-for-youtube snippet Phill found below…
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Pointy-Clicky: The Silver Lining Episode 2

By Kieron Gillen on September 19th, 2010.

Hello! I welcome you to your dog-headed nightmare.

I suspect John will write some impressions on this up, but since he’s still away on holiday, I want to bring to your adventuring attention to the second episode of the King’s Quest-inspired graphic adventure, which is now available to download. John was a bit down on the first episode, not least because it didn’t really have any significant puzzles in it. So, basically, that was an intro and this - entitled “Two Households” – is where the game should kick off. Abstractly. More formal improvements to the first episode include a walk/run toggle, widescreen support and a shorter-narration option for those who feel they should shut the fuck up. All those changes have been implemented in episode 1 too. Anyway, you can get it here, and the trailer is below…
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Mine, All Mine: MineCraft Free Weekend

By Quintin Smith on September 18th, 2010.

AUUUUUUGH

Like the sound of MineCraft? Still too stingy to part with €10? Waiting on a paycheck?

As of an hour ago MineCraft’s account verification servers collapsed under the weight of a sea of new customers. You can’t currently buy the game or log in to MineCraft’s account verification servers. Proving his status as an amazing human being, MineCraft developer Notch has since turned off said account verification, so for as long as it takes him to get some new servers up and running (a few days, by the sounds of things) anybody can download and play the latest version of MineCraft for no money.

Gentlemen? Go and enjoy yourselves.

EDIT: OK, so it looks like the MineCraft auto-update servers are currently being flattened by everybody in the world. It might take you several/many tries to successfully load the game client.

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Cardboard Children: DungeonQuest

By Robert Florence on September 18th, 2010.


Hello. Every Saturday, from now until-

TEST YOUR READING SKILLS!

YOU ARE DEAD!

Let’s try that again.

Hello. Every Saturday, from now until the day you die, I’m going to be here to talk to you about board games. And card games. And pen and paper role-playing games. And stuff. My name’s Robert Florence, and I used to spend a lot of time talking about computer games, like the other fine fellows on this site. But these days I like to talk about games you can hold in your hand. Games you can touch and smell and flip right off the table in a rage if you should feel the need. Games that take up a ridiculous amount of space, and make you decide that you’ll be moving house in a couple of years just so you can have a dedicated games room. Which is ridiculous. So, you tell people you need to move because you want to have another child. Yes, a cardboard child. With statistics and an axe. Called OLAF THE DREAD.
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The RPS Bargain Bucket: Monkeying

By Lewie Procter on September 18th, 2010.

The powers that be heard my moaning about the poor showings last week, and have made up for it by giving us a bumper special set of weekend deals this time. Discounts all over the shop, on some fantastic games too. Delve into this week’s bargain bucket to find out what’s cheap this week. For constantly updated information about all cheap games, head to SavyGamer.co.uk.
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The Official RPS Minecraft Server

By Jim Rossignol on September 18th, 2010.


Anyone for a spot of Minecraft?

UPDATE: Restarting server to increase player limit.

UPDATE: As awesome as 64 players is, the server is falling over. Dropping it to 32 for stability’s sake.
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Schafer Liveblogs Monkey Island 2

By Alec Meer on September 17th, 2010.

Tim Schafer may be long-gone to console-land these days, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the PC adventure game roots that made him. As anyone who follows him on Twit-witter knows, he’s been sharing his thoughts, memories and mild horror about Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge as he plays through the Special Edition. It’s as close as you’re likely to get to a director’s commentary [edit - ah. There is one with the SE. Didn't play it yet, see. Oh well, this is still new stuff, and wonderfully pithy] for the revered pointer-clickerer. Some highlights of what’s clearly the man having a great time with one of his old creations are below.
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Walk Like An Egyptian: Civ V Walkthrough

By Quintin Smith on September 17th, 2010.

I'm starting a support group for people who can't not go for the science victory. You want in?

Sid Meier’s Civilization Videogame Number V By Sid Meier is out on September 21st, as is the demo, as is our review, making it a grand day for Civilization fans. Until then you’ll have to play very a different game entitled Sid Meier’s Tantalization. You can play this game by watching the new two hour developer walkthrough video embedded beneath the jump. Alternatively, you could read Alec’s two part write-up of his time with the preview code, or my interview with lead designer Jon Shafer.

Some people might think that Sid Meier’s Tantalization is not a very fun game. Well, I have to say to those people, that, I mean. Well.
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Privates Not As Public As Hoped

By Alec Meer on September 17th, 2010.

That Zombie Cow’s naughty-but-nice sex-ed shooter Privates won’t be making an appearance on Xbox 360 thanks to Microsoft deeming its sexual content too sexy (even though it’s educational and even though there’s no actual sex and even though they’ll happily show any amount of extreme violence) isn’t RPSy news. I know this. I accept this.

However, it does reminds me, as I’m sure was the partial intention of ZC’s statement on the 360 cancellation today, that the free PC version’s had a whole heap of fixes and patches since launch day.

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