Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Let’s recap. The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 didn’t have dedicated servers, and there was much pulling of hair and spontaneous internet howling. More recently, Treyarch confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops (out November 9th) would have dedicated servers. It was Infinity Ward that abandoned the PC, not them, they said. In an interview with C&VG, Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia said “I think dedicated servers are excellent.” Things were looking rosy.

Rosy like a rush of blood straight to the rage glands, it turns out. According to this article on IGN, Blacks Ops will be only offering dedicated servers through server rental site GameServers.com, where you’ll be paying £9.95/month for an 18 player max ranked server, or 66p per player for a month of an unranked server.

Hardly what we were expecting, to put it lightly.

I am a 31 year old man. I have played and written about some of the most stunning, thoughtful and esoteric games ever created. My ears shouldn’t twitch even slightly at news of a new superhero game. God help me, they do. God help me.

And so it came to pass that my inner child-nerd gave a gleeful start upon hearing that Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is due on PC before the end of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

Staying calm the face of a new Deus Ex game is tricky. Quintin came back from GamesCom making excited chirping noises, but there’s so much at stake. We must remain steady until we’re certain. We’ll play it and then, only then, we’ll decide whether to get to explode in a ticker-tape parade of giddiness. Of course, this steely focus didn’t stop me getting in touch with the lead designer, Jean-François Dugas, and seeing what he had to say about the game. Fortunately for us he said many things, including revealing the link with Rainbow Six: Vegas, and explaining that most of the game could be played through without killing anyone. Also, most significantly, we can exclusively reveal that there are no greasels in Human Revolution.

Read the full conversation below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shaun C Green directed me at Nostalgia For Infinity picking up The Daily Mail reporting a story in a somewhat strange way. They report on the sad story of a woman apparently who neglected her children and let her dogs starve to death due to her obsession with the board-game Smallworld. Except, in addition to assets from the boardgame, they use an image of Warhammer Online, even seeming to add an URL to Days of Wonder’s site to the image.

There’s a twist to even this, however. As far as I’m able to ascertain, there’s no Smallworld game which you could receive a facebook invite for. It simply doesn’t exist. There’s some other games from Days of Wonder, sure, but unless something has changed suddenly, there simply isn’t a Facebook-integrated Smallworld game. In fact, there’s not even one you can play online. However, there is SmallWorlds – plural – social world thing which seems to fit the bill. This story’s been picked up by other newspapers today. We’ve contacted the Mail and all the developers for comment.

UPDATE: We may have reached the bottom of this, speaking to Roger Pearson who wrote the apparent origin-story up for Mercury Press Agency…
Read the rest of this entry »

What if I were to tell you that you could play Guitar Hero, for free, on your PC, using your own music, right now. Maybe you’d call me a liar, and you’d be way out of line because Facebook application Instant Jam is basically that, and it’s currently in open beta and you could be playing it in the time the program takes it to scan your music collection. Details, thoughts and a video after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

The gigantic Oblivion total conversion Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge was release a few months back in its native German. The colossal four-year project is a remarkable undertaking, both revamping the standard Oblivion mechanics (improving skills by use being massively toned down, for example) and creating an world of its own, complete with lore and quest lines. The mod features a hand-crafted “continent-sized” map and a core storyline that could last over forty hours. Boonfully it has now been translated into English, so that all the UI and quest text is in English, and the German voice-acting is now subtitled. Clearly, Oblivion owners are going to want to consider this. But what should they expect? Some thoughts below.

Read the rest of this entry »

When John described Need For Speed World as a free MMO, it was a little over-generous. It was an MMO with a free trial, with a level 10 cap you needed to pay for a twenty dollar price-kit to progress past. However, that’s been changed, with EA moving it to a more true-Free-to-play model. Basically, you can play the whole game for free, with the game being paid via microtransactions which give you – say – rental cars, power-ups or 2x experience points. Those who previously threw down that 20 dollars will get a mass of free rental vouchers. You can get the client here or read John’s Wot I Think for the low-down. And here’s a trailer…
Read the rest of this entry »

Sundays are for finishing off a script, finishing off Amnesia, hopefully squeezing a walk into Daylight hours and compiling a list of the fine (mostly) games related reading from across the week, while trying to avoid linking to the latest single of someone I caught live this week. Go!

• The SF Weekly’s company profile on Zynga - “Farmvillains” – is the week’s must read piece of reporting, and not just because it’s got the sort of pun title which makes RPS stand up and applaud. A systemic look at how Zynga have built their empire, arguing – as the strapline boldly states – “Steal someone else’s game. Change its name. Make millions. Repeat.” It also looks where it may all be going wrong or where things may be changing. Go read.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shop-keeping/monster-biffing indie RPG Recettear is out at last, following Carpe Fulgur’s elaborate translation of EasyGameStation’s 2007 Japanese game. It arrived on Steam, Impulse and Gamersgate yesterday, and I’ve been playing it on and off during the last week. It seems prudent to report my findings.

What I think is that this whimsical indie tale of manning the tills of a semi-stereotypical RPG item shop is about ten times bigger than I’d imagined. I thought I’d got the measure of it from the demo, but what seemed a small and simple thing unravelled and expanded throughout – every time I sat back and thought “that’s it, I’m ready to write this up” it threw in a little something else.

The key effect of this is that “An Item Shop’s Tale” isn’t all that accurate a description. “A Surprisingly Enormous, Sprawling Roleplaying Game” would be far more relevant, if less neat.
Read the rest of this entry »

Things are a bit anaemic this week. D2D have got daily specials on right now that include a PDF with pictures of ladies from video games, and a game that has just gone free to play. Impulse have got a fantastic deal on Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and not much else. GamersGate have reduced their ridiculously overpriced Ubisoft games to be only slightly overpriced. Steam’s weekend special is a game that’s going to be superseded by a better version some point very soon. It’s the bargain bucket. Hooray. This is probably the worst week for deals I can recall in the entire time I’ve been doing the bargain bucket, so perhaps your wallets can get some respite. If you’re eager for more cheap gaming across the entire spectrum of formats, SavyGamer.co.uk is your friend.
Read the rest of this entry »

Blimey, this is a bit more interesting than I was expecting. Dead Space 2‘s multiplayer is a sort of Left 4 Dead type affair, with multiple visored Isaac characters taking on swarms of the nasty necromorph thingies. It’s looking suitably violent and gruesome, with a “coming out of the goddamn walls” aspect that makes these games work. If the team can iron out the flaws from the original and make this multiplayer a smooth ride then we could be in for a treat. Trailer south of here, obviously.
Read the rest of this entry »