Rock, Paper, Shotgun

One of my main criticisms of the mediocre Medal Of Honor was the lack of feeling involved. Indeed, I felt similarly playing the Modern Warfare games, whenever it became apparent that my actions weren’t exactly crucial to progress (I followed behind on No Russian, without firing a shot). This is something “T2DMrBungle” discovered when playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops, specifically the first mission, played on the disturbingly named “Hardened” difficulty level. It’s a fifteen minute video during which he doesn’t fire his gun once. It’s below.

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CD Projekt send word that their witching sequel is targeted for May 17, 2011, although – of course, sigh – exact release dates might vary from territory to territory, which means someone, somewhere is going to be rocking back and forth on their chair, waiting for it to unlock on Steam, while the rest of us have already tackled a hellhound and charmed our first maiden. That’s apparently a few weeks back from what they’d planned, so as to allow for more of the old elbow grease. A load more information is due to turn up in a couple of days, as CD Projekt have some kind of press conference going on for the 18th.

Anyway, just in case you’ve forgotten why we’re excited about this, I’ve posted the prison escape story video below. It shows off non-linearity, and some other stuff. I am going to play this game. Yep.

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This makes me feel happy in my armoured belly: tank-based pseudo-MMO World Of Tanks now boasts 500,000 subscribers. It’s free, of course, but I think this should still be some kind of measure of success for the game. For something that is just about World War II tanks blowing each other up (and then refitting and upgrading themselves between explosioneering expeditions) this seems like a remarkable number. I shouldn’t be surprised, however, because it always seemed like it was just weird enough to be awesome, and it’s just solid enough for people who were searching for something unusual in PvP combat to be thrilled by the prospect. Most of my old Eve Online corporation seem to be playing this now, too. Proof, if proof be needed, that free-to-play is a good idea.

Are you playing it?

Jane “Gabriel Knight” Jensen’s new point’n'click adventure, Gray Matter, is now available from German digital download site Gamesplanet after 7 years in development under two different dev studios and two different publishers. The German version has English voiceovers, so apparently it’s playable. You can buy it here for €39.99, which I think is more money than I’ve ever had at any one time. Thanks to RPS reader Wendy for the heads up, and thanks to Qt3 poster Triggercut from informing Wendy via this thread.

EDIT: Anyone interested in the boxed version can hit up the German Amazon, too.

Gray Matter is still scheduled for a February 2011 release for America and the UK.

Looks as though the most recent APB purchase rumour was the true one. Reloaded Productions, owned by GamersFirst, owned by the K2 Network, owned by entropy, has bought it all up, and plans to make it free-to-play during the second half of next year. Whatever they paid, it’s one heck of a bargain for the technology they now own. As dodgy as the game may have been, the customisation tech in there is unparalleled. They plan to redevelop a few aspects, the GamersFirst dude explaining,

“We are deep into the planning and early execution stages for this next chapter of APB and we will share more details in the near future. In order to put ‘Gamers First’ we will also actively engage the community in many aspects of all the planned changes.”

Love rats? Patch 1.4.0 hits the now free-to-play-for-the-first-10-levels Warhammer Online this Thursday, and will bring all kinds of tasty additions. You can read about them here, but to summarise: revamped Realm vs. Realm combat, 4 new playable Skaven classes, a new Skaven dungeon for levels 65+, and two new pay-for Realm vs. Realm packs, one for endgame players that also accelerates character progression and another containing pets, dyes, mounts and haircuts. Details on those new classes follows. Squeak!

I had a pet rat as a kid, but he went wrong and we had to release him in a forest. There’s a lesson in that. If something in your life goes wrong, take it to a forest and leave it there. Never fails.
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Bulletstorm is due to turn up in February next year, and it’s probably going to put smiles on a few faces. Not because it’s clever, but because, well… there’s a point in this trailer where it’s not clear which way it’s going to go, and then someone says “Son of a dick!” and all is revealed. There are things videogames do well, and there are things that they do really, really well. See if you can spot some of them, below.

And what the hell is that giant wheel thing?
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We have a date! Super Meat Boy will be squelching onto the PC in exactly two weeks, boasting six (SIX!) exclusive characters. We already knew two of them- MineCraft guy and Captain Viridian from VVVVVV – and two more have been announced this morning. Ooh, and Team Meat has also mentioned that from November 23rd, anyone pre-ordering the game on Steam will get SMB for the price of $10, as opposed to the game’s full price of $15. Now, those characters.
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UPDATE: Should be functioning as intended now.

We’re getting some emails from you guys about some of your comments being incorrectly recognised as spam. We’re currently investigating the problem and we’ll be fixing it ASAP. Apologies, gents and gentesses.

EDIT: Please comment as much as normal (or even more than normal) so we can test the new filter. How did you sleep, readers? Did you sleep okay?

As revealed the other week, and now actually actual – right over here. There’s not a vast amount of super-recent games on there as yet, but Lego Universe, Dead Rising 2 and 007: Blood Stone are the headliners and suggest a drive to be relatively contemporary. A lot of the existing stuff remains comically expensive, however, which suggests that publishers are either very cautious about this service or Microsoft are still testing the waters. Clue: be cheaper.

There’s an inaugural mega-bargain, at least – GTA IV, sans DLC, for £12. Alas, it has been cheaper on Steam during past ultro-sales and can still be had for less at retail/etail, but if the high street or a wait for the post-person ain’t handy for you it’s certainly cheaper than any other digi-store right this minute. You can also use your Live/Messenger/Hotmail/whatevs id to sign in and buy stuff, which might make it a little easier or more palatable for some folks. Or not. WHO KNOWS?
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While I’ve yet to play this, in these lean roleplaying times (is Gothic 4 really the only other totally new’un we’re going to get this Winter?) it seems only gracious to flag up the arrival of a new RPG. Deck 13′s Euro-fantasy Venetica, which we’ve only posted about once previously, stars the daughter of Death in a quest to apparently stop more death. Hmm. Maybe someone didn’t read her job description properly?

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