Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Halloween’s a-comin’. What a great opportunity for grand updates on the hundreds of millions of horror mods in production, huh? Which is presumably why I’ve only found one piece of spooky news all week. Mod community? I am disappoint. Nevertheless, here’s a round-up of the most interesting mod-related gumph from the past seven days, and a picture of a pumpkin lantern to make up for the lack of scares.
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I’ve got a random question for you, readers. I’d like you to leave your answers in the comments section below, if you would be so kind.

What games did you spend money on in October? Please list anything you might have bought, PC or console, budget or full price, DLC, subscription, or microtransaction.

Go!

A browser-based Star Trek free-to-play MMO was just announced last night. Did you know that? I didn’t. But we all do now. It’s being developed by German team, Keen Games (who have previously made What’s Cooking? Jamie Oliver (if only that were a question and answer), and G-Force guinea pig-based movie tie-in), and published by GameForge. Neither of whom have gotten around to adding the game to their own websites. Which is always an odd choice. I’ve nothing to link to. There’s a trailer that I’m certain contains absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the game below.

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Hmm, this one somehow bypassed my radar entirely. And it’s out now on PC. I guess we’ll try and take a look at it later in the week. Maybe. Anyone so excited about light sabres and stuff that they already have it? Looks like the critical consensus is a bit non-plussed – another below average Star Wars game? It wouldn’t be the biggest surprise in the world. Hmm. The new trailer (below) might just be the closest I get to this one. We need a proper Jedi Knight game, I think.
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How are we all feeling about Dragon Age 2? Quintin wasn’t too impressed when he played it at this year’s GamesCom, but me – with no experience of the game – I’m determinedly optimistic. I mean, it’s not like BioWare messes up very often. However, if picking my ideal Dragon Age sequel, I wouldn’t have it be more action orientated. Quite the opposite. They spent a decade developing that world’s lore, and exploring it, interacting with it, learning from it: that’s my motivation. Hitting it doesn’t quite grab me in the same way. Still, it’s not out for another six months, and I’ve not even seen it running, so I’m just wildly guessing. To become more informed on the matter there’s a new trailer below, that shows some glimpses of in-game footage.

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Some people have wondered why we’re yet to write about Microsoft’s recently-announced relaunch of Games For Windows. I wondered too, and eventually settled on it being something to do with just how tainted that name is now. After all these years of confusing marketing and frustrating attempts to regulate multiplayer, so many PC gaming brains either skip right over it or focus into some manner of cranial snarl at its mere mention. Well, let’s resist that impulse and strive for a little understanding.

Here’s the plan: Microsoft are rebooting Games For Window again, but this time around it’s about trying to make that strange, cludgy brand be associated with something other than irksome sign-in screens. How are they doing it? By putting its Marketplace element head-to-head with Steam.
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Well, Rage-y. id Software’s Tim Willits faces a panel of RPS readers (the same ones who fired teeny quiz missiles at Splash Damage’s Ed Stern last week) to talk Rage.

And only Rage. Honestly, when I set this up I presumed those guys would want to ask a bunch of stuff about Doom and Quake and Wolfenstein and Commander Keen. But nooooooooooooooo, they only wanted to know about the shiny new thing. FINE. You know what? FINE.
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It takes something special to get us excited about the announcement of a new MMO, and one coming from the team behind King’s Bounty and Space Rangers is just that. We got hold of Katauri Interactive’s boss, Dmitry Gusarov, to ask about Royal Quest, finding out how they’re making their hobby their business, their plans for payment models, aims for Diablo-style speed, and how they hope their games are all cosy and understandable.

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Champions: Online, the spiritual successor to City Of Heroes, has announced that it will move to a free-to-play model from the first quarter of 2011. This also involves a new closed beta test that starts on the 9th November, mostly aimed at current players, with a possibility of outsiders being let in too. There’s more super-details underneath the sentence I’m super-typing right super-now.

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The Ball is released today, via Steam. Jim and John have been playing it for the last couple of days, leaving them no choice but to have a chit-chat about it all. Which you can read below. Warning: contains monkey death.

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This is a lovely, simple, violent, artistic idea, fairly well executed. White is a thing of horrible cuteness made by students at students at ENJIM, a French design school. Essentially, it’s an FPS set on a blank canvas. Patrolling this canvas are various little bug dudes who waddle about, getting into staring contests with each other and warbling to vague tunes. You are a shooter chap armed with a series of weapons, including a gravity gun for moving the little blighters around. Each weapon has a different effect on the bugs, which bleed their colour on to the canvas when maimed. A shotgun turns them into a splat, a machinegun will send them running, while bleeding out a trail of their colour, and the grenade thing just splatters them everywhere… You get the idea. As you kill, you draw. Hit Esc and you can see what you have drawn with the paint-gore of your victims. I suppose I should have drawn the RPS logo, but I will leave that to someone with more time, and less sense.

Oh, and my 360 pad messed with the keyboard controls. Stupid thing. Trailer below. (It’s free to play, too.)
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