Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Or whatever the hell it is today’s supposed to be about. I carved a pumpkin and went to a shop with some cobwebs in the window. Is that suitably Halloweenoriffic for you?

Oh, and I also played The Organ Trail – which, as the name suggests, is a remake of The Oregon Trail, but neatly documenting a deadly drive to apparent safe haven during a zombie apocalypse. Time, food, fuel, ammo and medicine are survival mainstays as in the original telling, but the Romerian narrative fits this perfectly. You’ll like this one – go forth and drive through the walking dead, you wretched human survivor, you.

You have died of dysentery, then come back to life and eaten your wife’s brains.

Thanks, Craig

Sundays are for remembering the costumes from the night before. And were all those beers a good idea? It’s hard to say. Perhaps we can trade these thoughts for meat. Pig meat, to be precise. While the hot fat pops and sizzles, we shall browse a collection of internet wordthinks.

• As part of Kotaku’s PC gaming week, they’ve been asking various industry types what they think the future of PC gaming holds. Riot Games’ Marc Merrill said that the capacity to respond to player feedback and change even fundamental designs as the game is played would be definitive of PC gaming: “The future of PC gaming is being responsive to players and letting them decide the direction and priorities of game development.” It’s something lots of people have been observing about online gaming for a while now. But we’re also beginning to see why that might not be such a great idea, aren’t we? Can we really afford to lose the priority status of the vision of the designer?

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Hello youse.

With it being Halloween tomorrow, many of you will be organising a special board game night, and inviting some friends round for some horror-themed games. I could have used this column to write about the best of those horror-themed games to play on Halloween, but there would be precisely zero point, because it’s not like you’d be able to go out and buy them in time. Instead I want to use this column to talk about the “board game night” itself. How to hold one, and how to make it go smoothly.

I wrote about this before on my old website, so I’ll be re-using a little bit of that material here, because it all still applies, and also because I like it and I want all my new pals to see it. I’m sorry, I love you. Most of this is hot and fresh out the kitchen, though, like R Kelly’s Ignition.

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Have I got time to fill the bargain bucket to the brim with its usual selection of lovely cheap computer games? I hope so, I’m heading off to the frozen Northerly land of Carlisle as soon as I’m done, for a huge family party thing, so I’m a little rushed for time. It comes at a week when Valve have gone a bit mental, with a million billion games on sale. A sign of things to come in the Christmas sale no doubt. Remember to head to SavyGamer.co.uk for cheap games throughout the week.
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Sometimes working for RPS means poking through the internet for news, like a dirty gremlin. And sometimes you wake up, see something, raise one eyebrow as high as it’ll go, spit, do a pressup, and post that stuff, because it could not be more news.

Wondrous-looking indie climate change sim Fate of the World has just become available for pre-order. If you missed Kieron’s comprehensive interview with developers Red Redemption, you can, and should, read it here. The pre-order gets you a 50% discount off the price of the game (making it £9.99 + VAT), and from this Monday you’ll have access to the beta, plus you’re ordering the Special Edition, so you’ll get some extra gubbins when the full game is released in Feb 2011. Anything else? YEAH! New trailer after the jump.
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Battlestar Galactica (the new version, clearly) remains something of a magnet for game projects, and there’s good reason for that: its depiction of space battles remains a masterpiece in scale, affecting minimalism and sinister awe. Mighty fine-lookin’ standalone Freespace 2 mod Diaspora does, it appears, absolutely nail all of that. If the finished project can even slightly live up to the apparently in-game footage below, we’re in for a frakking amazing time.

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There just can’t be enough of the plastic-zombie-faced nonsense-fests in the CSI game series. More and more, I cry! I want nothing more than the deep-seated fear that’s generated by hearing the show’s cast speak through the barely-reanimated waxwork cartoon bobbleheads. So just in time for Halloween, yet another game in the franchise is out, CSI: Fatal Conspiracy. With a name as imaginative as the reactionary nonsense that fills the source programme, it can only be brilliant, and there’s a demo you can play to be sure.

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Breach! It’s a download-only class-based multiplayer FPS coming in Jan 2011! Oh yes it is.

I went pottering along to a preview event on Wednesday for some hands-on time. As it turns out, Breach focuses on encouraging some authentic military tactics, and, more excitingly, boasts some really advanced destructible environment tech. Atomic Games president Peter Tamte laid out for me like this:
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Hell, if anyone was going to make an effort for Halloween, it should probably be the studio making FEAR 3. The new trailer is suitable something-curdling. Also, the game has been dated for 25th March 2011 in the UK, and the 22nd everywhere else. Boo. And I mean that in a derisory/commiseratory sense, rather than the Halloween sense.
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I could come up with my own penis extension gags to celebrate the announcement of free DLC for Zombie Cow’s splendid free shoot/giggle/educate game Privates, but they’ve done such a good job themselves that I really don’t need to bother. Like so:

Zombie Cow Studios and Channel 4 to offer PENIS ENLARGEMENT.
=~~ DO YOUR MANHOOD NEED MORE? практические методы разработк
Satisfy longer!!Longer-lasting action!text-decoration: underline;”>
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(Those are actually the only two options I ever see when talking to real girls.)

A wonderful thing about the PC is that we’ve got a back catalogue of games that dwarfs every other platform. That’s a technical term, meaning the PC has more games featuring dwarves than other platforms have games.

A consequence of this is that, unless you’re some kind of frantic cyber-librarian (read: Kieron), there are always old curios to dig up. This week, after a recommendation from RPS reader Ed Evans, I’ve been playing sinister 1992 adventure game KGB. It’s wonderful. And it’s really got me thinking.
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