Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Indeed. It is true. We’ve put our mouths in front of a microphone and made noises at it once again. Only not very much this time, I’m afraid. Instead, the bulk of the larynx-gymnastics originate from Splash Damage’s Senior Game Designer Ed Stern, who’s behind most of the words and a whole lot of other things in Brink.

Also making vocal appearances are a cartel of RPS readers who attended the recent Eurogamer Expo, at which this chat was held. They had questions. They asked them. Ed answered. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Many Bothans died.

If that still isn’t enough mumbly Britvoices for you, you’ll be glad to hear RPS’ Alec Meer (I hate that guy), Quintin Smith and Karen Gillan or someone were also in attendance, chiming in with matters relevant, string-related or just plain rude.
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Obsidian’s pseudo-sequel to Bethesda’s Fallout 3 hits the UK tomorrow, arriving amid a raft of positive reviews. But I see you there, perched atop that blasted rock, canteen in hand, waiting for the official RPS review. That wait is over. Here’s Wot I Think of New Vegas.

There’s a distant sound that can be heard throughout your time with New Vegas. Quieter than the cheery 1930s pop hits that warble from your radio, quieter even than the chirps of night-time insects, or the long gasps of wind blowing across the wasteland. It is the sound of Obsidian phoning this game in. I’m talking long distance, reversed charges, not-giving-a-fuck.
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Earlier this month Jim posted about the re-release of Divinity II, with overhauled graphics, and a whole new campaign called Flames of Vengeance. The pack, titled Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga now has a release date, and some shiny new screenshots. It’s out at the beginning of November, in two weeks time. Which is either the 4th or the 5th – for some reason they’re being ambiguous. Take a look below to see if it will tempt you. It didn’t tempt us at the beginning of this year, but there’s a lot that’s new this time around.

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Is this allowed? Are shotgun-wielding Sega employees hauling a bound and gagged indie developer to a shed in the everglades even as we speak? Quick, before it’s too late: one Mr Sonic T. Hedgehog is wearing his PC hat for the first time in years, in the form of a fan-made remake of his classic jewellery-thieving, animal-bothering outing. Given half the world’s frothing/complaining about having Sonic 4 on their eXecutableBoxes this week, it’s good to have a spot of blue spiky retro-fetishism on PC too. It’s a sort of 2.5D thing: modern visuals, olden DNA.

Here’s the 100MB demo, but as it’s only hosted on RapidShare for the time being, you might want to stare at the below video while you wait. Pretties, if on the manic side.
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Actually, it’s even more interesting than that. Forthcoming indie platformer The Swapper by Facepalm Games is, in their words, an “indie game and a story about treating human beings as objects. It features interesting platform puzzles and multiplayer based around never-before-seen game mechanics. Of course blended with an ambiguous storyline. Yet it’s something you’ve not yet seen.” The video, pointed out to me by Comrade Betts, shows off some of those features, and gives us a taste of the Trine-meets-Limbo-in-space atmosphere it has going on. Go take a look, this is a contender for one of the big IGF prizes, I suspect.
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So I got pretty cross about Kotaku presenting its vast audience with a piece pejoratively entitled ’10 doomed games businesses’ (and about its industry analyst author, Gamesbrief’s Nicholas Lovell, choosing such emotive and negative terminology for an otherwise discussion-worthy topic). He then wrote his reasons for doing it, with a spot of mea culpa, and there’s been plenty of civil discussion since, though the jury apparently remains very much hung. Now Nicholas has penned a follow-up, which appears to be half a more optimistic exploration of the strange and myriad games industry business models of the hour, and half a sort of sociological experiment into whether audiences flock to positivity or negativity.
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Miner Wars, the ambitious indie space game, has a new trailer. I’m just getting stuck into the game myself, and I will post about it soon, but in the meantime you can take a look at this new trailer. It’s a piece of work by Dan Wentz, who did the music for Descent, Red Factions, Freespace, and a bunch of others. Atmospheric stuff.

Miner Wars isn’t a finished retail thinger yet – it is currently having one of those pre-order access things – but it does look rather promising for us space fetishists. Anyone else playing?
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Ace Team, the Chilean studio behind the fantastically unusual first person beat ‘em up Zeno Clash, are now making a game that combines bowling with art history. It’s called Rock Of Ages, and it’s a game of two halves. One half is that of a boulder crashing around destroying stuff, the other is about defending things from that errant ball of rock. Sounds suitably strange, but what of the details? We talked to Ace Team’s Andres Bordeu to find out more.
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Sometimes I wish I could just walk past a story that makes some daft claim about addiction or gaming violence. I’m trying with this one, because it’s about Facebook. But then again, it’s rubbish, so I should say so. All Facebook, an unofficial fansite, has produced what it describes as “10 Mind Blowing Facebook Games Statistics”. Some of which are indeed mind blowing. One of which, however, is that around 50 million – 19% of those who play games on Facebook – say they are “addicted”.

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Turns out that Nick Earl was talking about EA as a whole, not Visceral, as Game Informer managed to uncover: “EA confirmed with us that a new Command & Conquer title is indeed early in development, but that it was being handled by an Los Angeles-based team that reports to Earl in Redwood Shores, CA.”

So that’s that then. Cheers to all who pointed that out.

While people are waiting for Petroglyph’s forthcoming MMORTS, End Of Nations (recognisable by there being sea there), there’s a whole other strategy game from the same developer that was released today. It’s Guardians Of Galaxia, a turn-based card game-cum board game strategy, the likes of which makes me feel a bit nervous. And it looks properly bonkers. And as Kieron pointed out last month, it’s a board game too! And it features fighting elephants.

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