Rock, Paper, Shotgun

What a shame. Pioneering online gaming portal Instant Action has ceased to be. We know this because of this message. There was some speculation that the service, which has been down for a while, might be saved, but it seems that only the Torque engine itself will still be available, and that will be up for sale. They previously sold off the Tribes licence to Hi-Rez.

Good luck, chaps.

(In other troubled game engine company news: Fallout 3-powering engine Gamebryo is being sold off by investors, because of, y’know, financial stuff. I blame the name, I mean seriously? Gamebryo?)

Tron! Tron. It’s a word that you mustn’t say too many times, lest it become absurd. Avoid this danger by watching other people say the word in the most recent look at Tron Evolution, which I have posted below. In this informative video capsule the developers say stuff about Tron, and they do this because they know more about the game than we do, and wish to impart some of that knowledge. At least I hope they know more than we do, because otherwise the game is in big trouble. I also note that there’s a chap over on GameTrailers calling for a boycott on this game because it isn’t coming out on PC. His mistake is that it is coming out on PC, which makes that seem like a bad reason to boycott it. He does make a good point about Tron 2.0, though. I made some good points about it here, too. I’m not going to be boycotting anything, either, because I like the glowy colours.

Below: Tron.
Read the rest of this entry »

That’s what GSC are suggesting with their Quest Contest. There are bunch of rules and stuff over on the competition page, but what it comes down to is this: “The best ideas from the contest may be implemented in the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. This said, the developers retain the right to change the quest looks or implementation, while preserving the key author’s idea.” Quest authors will also get the name in the credits. They’re looking for less than a side of A4, so it’s not exactly an insurmountable challenge. Might as well have go, eh? It can’t look bad on your CV, either.

EDIT: Man. Not three hours after I posted this, Funcom confirmed the release date for Bloodline Champions. It’ll be out in late December or early January.

First Bloodlines, now Bloodline. A very bloody Friday morning this is turning out to be.

Excellent DoTA-inspired multiplayer arena battler Bloodline Champions is currently undergoing a lengthy beta, and developers Stunlock are holding down the fort by releasing videos covering select champions from their game. There’s no quicker way to understand BC’s emphasis on player skill than to watch a couple of these, and note how each class’s abilities all seem to have a knack to them. It’s a game that lends itself to beautiful, beautiful plays.
Read the rest of this entry »

Who remembers the above charmer? I polished him off with a sledgehammer. Felt good.

The umpteenth unofficial Vampire – The Masquerade: Bloodlines patch has been released, bringing us up to version 7.2. This time the few changes are all very minor, so I’m really posting this as a reminder. If you haven’t played Bloodlines with these unofficial patches that not only fix the game, but dig out and restore a stash of Troika’s unfinished quests from the game’s files, you’re missing out on one of the single biggest gems PC gaming has to its name. 7.2 patch notes below.
Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, Indie Games Blog, the gifts you give! Ahem: IGF 2011 entrant Octodad is a game where you play an octopus who is pretending to be a dad. A human dad. The tagline alone leaves me lost for words – “Loving father. Caring husband. Secret octopus.” That might just be the single best piece of games writing ever.

As you’ll see from the trailer below, the game’s quite forgiving as to what constitutes normal behaviour and lets you concentrate on the little things, like staying relatively upright and not smashing every single object in your house. Now, I won’t ask you to download this game. I’m just going to suggest you watch the following trailer, and then do what comes naturally.
Read the rest of this entry »

Are you interested in information pertaining to the release date of Shogun 2: Total War? If not, then click away now. Otherwise, it’s the 15th March 2011.

A corpse has surfaced on the choppy waters of manshoot lagoon. Ignition’s multi-million dollar sci-fi Nazi-infused FPS, Reich, was cancelled last week. Ignition’s London studio was shut down back in September, and then the game was permanenty lost when the bigger Florida studio closed its doors last week. According to GI.biz‘s insider source, “A slice of the game revealed a [review] rating of 5.0 instead of the desired rating of 8.5.”

But those years of work and millions of dollars haven’t all gone to waste, because Ignition has released not one, not two, but FIVE videos of Reich. You can watch them below.
Read the rest of this entry »

Mediocre subscription MMOs don’t die, they just go free-to-play. And so it seems that after the high-profile collapse of Realtime Worlds, following the release of MMO flop APB, the game is looking likely to re-emerge some time toward the end of this year. GI.biz reports that the K2 Network, owners of F2P service GamersFirst, is paying around £1.5 million for the intellectual property. This is currently unconfirmed, and K2 declined to respond to GI’s newshound sniffing, so maybe this could go the way of the Codies rumour from last week, or September’s erroneous Epic gossip. Call me cynical. But if it’s happening, it’ll be a way for fans of the game to re-enter its world, without the completely daft gametime-purchasing system + micro-transactions that accompanied the game’s launch.

As the trend for PC sales leans increasingly toward digital distribution, with retail stores feeling their age, there are increasing rumblings about the prominence and dominance of Valve’s Steam. Today’s MCV reports, from unnamed sources, that retailers and online rivals are beginning to get a little cross with the requirement to install Steam in games they’re selling, and threatening to boycott Steam-infused games entirely. Games, they say, that require you to install some software that makes their own stores redundant. But are their arguments sound? What’s the real reason publishers are choosing Steam?

Read the rest of this entry »

In what will doubtless be a hugely controversial move, independant game developer Alexej “Notch” Persson has released what he’s calling a “patch” for MineCraft. Players of MineCraft the world over will find that the next time they start their copy of MineCraft, the game will connect to the internet and download various changes that Notch has decided on. The version MineCraft that we all used to play will be lost, forever.

You can read Notch’s full list of “improvements” that the patch will add beneath the jump, including a new texture pack selector that will supposedly allow us to swap between textures packs with ease.
Read the rest of this entry »