Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars looks pretty incredible. Really, go take a look, below.
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Sundays are for being able to see into the future. Well, that could actually be every day, if you believe this extraordinary scientific study, which claims that psychological effects can be demonstrated to work backwards through time. Sorry, I’ve gone off topic before we started. I bet you didn’t see that coming! Let’s try to straighten this out with some solid, wholesome, objective talk about games and stuff.

• Valve’s Erik Johnson talks about Portal 2 in an extensive interview on Gamasutra, and I think the most interesting spot in this sprawling chat is where he says: “This is getting tricky to talk about, because it’s about story stuff a little bit, but I think if you are telling players that the core of the story is “you are going do again what you did last time,” for most people that is pretty unappealing. That’s not what is going to happen in the game, but there are definitely some things that are similar to the previous game. In implementation, they end up being fun and different. You’re still going to have a testing relationship with GLaDOS.” Intriguing. Anticipatory!

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Look, I want you to try to stay as calm as possible, but here it is: there’s a sequel to Miami Shark. It’s out now. It’s called Sydney Shark. It’s like Miami Shark – the fantastic shark attack frenzy that won my heart (after eating it, mid-air) last year – BUT LIKE THREE TIMES AS GOOD.

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Hello youse.

This week I’ve been hard at it, shooting the second series of Burnistoun, a BBC TV show I do here in Scotland. Dressing up as Popes and superheroes all day and learning lines all night doesn’t leave you a great deal of time for games. Sitting around between scenes gives you plenty of time to talk about games, though, so I’ve been telling people about the games I play and encouraging them to try some out. I mentioned RPGs to someone, and got a bit of a blank look. And that got me thinking.

In the comments section last week, or maybe the week before, an interesting question popped up. “What exactly is a pen and paper RPG?” Something along those lines. And I realised that I had been referring to pen and paper RPGs in this column without ever stopping to explain exactly what one is. I had obviously assumed that everyone was just like me, and had spent their teenage years creating RPG campaigns for friends instead of sticking their tongues down the throats of young brunettes OH GOD WHAT A WASTE.

So, this week, I want to talk about the tabletop pen and paper RPG. A brief introduction and an explanation, so I don’t need to cover any of this again when I go into detail on specific games in future columns. And then some pointers on how to be a good Gamesmaster.
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There are some words between this sentence and the deal of the week, but you want to ignore those and skip straight to the deal of the week. Seriously, what are you doing still reading this bit? In the grand scheme of things this bit is totally irrelevant. You know the deal by now surely? Good games, low prices, silly abbreviations, I plug my web site and then we all have a lovely chat in the comments. It can only be the bargain bucket. Read the rest of this entry »

Dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs. Oh you boys and your zombies – don’t you want something a little different? Something, say, featuring bus-sized, man-eating lizards?
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The Stalker TV show was pretty much the most unexpected news item of the week, and I just had to drop a line to GSC to find out more. Below you can read my quick chat with GSC’s Oleg Yavorsky, in which he stresses that the TV show’s production is intended to be as faithful as possible the source game, and reveals that it will be timed to air on the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.
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Indie games and hats: two things which are very much RPS’ bread and butter, yet never the twain shall meet, which seems an oversight. David Lien wants to change all that. He plans to create an indie merchandising business, and as such has already snagged the blessings of the goodly gentlemen of 2D Boy to make these semi-official World of Goo hats. Hats!

But what else from indieland could and should be merchandised? A full, quivering tentacle suit for Octodad (to of course be worn beneath your own tuxedo)? A selection of cutlery shaped like Minecraft tools? Rock of Ages bowling balls?

The hats are preorderifiying here, by the way – $15 to $20 with free postage, and you can optionally lob on $5 more to get World of Goo itself.

Man, World of Goo seems a long time ago. Please hurry up and release a new game, 2D Boy.

Goodness and crikey, Jim and John have recorded an RPS Electronic Wireless Show. As mentioned was in Revelation (22.4: And they shall talk rubbish and creak their chairs until Babylon rises and falls).

We’re not the sort to let themes trouble us, and as such the discussion covers dreaming, Keith Olbermann, and fancy dress costumes. There’s also an exclusive competition to win a rare prize!

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I was only a figment of my father’s inexhaustible libido when Space Invaders came out, but I appreciate this nonetheless. Indie dev Bit Battalion (creator of the stellar Mr. Runner) writes to tell us about his new game, Chaos Invaders, which is sort of like Space Invaders playing out in a wind tunnel. Sacrifice a minute or two and go and have some fun. Trailers and info below.
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A slide from a recent financial conference revealed Activision’s big prospects for the coming years, and it heavily implicates the PC. We know there’s another Blizzard MMO on the way, of course, but there’s also Bungie, who Microsoft relied on to prop up the Xbox with exclusive titles over the past few years. There seems little doubt that Activision will be wanting a similar blockbuster from the studio, only this time Activision know – thanks to the money-printing monster that is Call of Duty – that they might as well bring it out on all platforms. Whether or not you give a damn about Halo, it’s worth remembering how ambitious the game looked when it was still a PC title. If Bungie still have those kinds of aspirations in them, things could get really interesting. This could be the biggest announcement in quite some time, when it happens. Any bets on it being the big reveal for E3 next year?