Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ll admit, the first thing I did when I started playing Bloody Good Time was bounce off it. I read through the How To, joined a game and.. got summarily confused, bemused, and killed. Over and over, for reasons I wasn’t entirely sure of, by people I didn’t think were supposed to be able to kill me, and in ways I didn’t completely understand. This isn’t exactly the best feeling to have when you start playing a new game. Especially one with such an esoteric premise and play style as Bloody Good Time.
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Acclaimed Wiiware title BIT.TRIP BEAT hit Steam last week, and the Pong-inspired musical pixel extravaganza is now available to us for £6.29. It’s a fair-sized asking price for a game with no demo and only 3 (15 minute) levels, but perhaps the video beneath will convince you. As for me, I’m automatically convinced by any game that swaps to either Mega Mode or Punishment Mode depending on how well you do.
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My instruments are giving me mixed reports. Today sees Call of Duty: Black Ops, the year’s biggest release, dropping onto international markets like a continent-spanning commercial panther. Now, I’m hearing that some Steam pre-order customers have had their game unlocked already, but Americans are having to wait until 10am Eastern time, our own Alec is having to wait until between 3pm and 8pm [Alec Update - no I'm not. If you buy it in the UK it seems to unlock just fine; my problem was related to my account apparently having US review code applied], and apparently although shop copies go through Steam, they’ll work right away. Buh. Are you playing it, readers? Any impressions?

If you can’t yet play Black Ops, and you’re livid, and your existence has shrunk to a world containing only, Black Ops and sharp objects, I have a temporary solution. Below, courtesy of VG247 you can watch the first 13 minutes of the game. Spoilers, obv, but I will say this: It looks like a somewhat different beast from Modern Warfare.
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Last week saw the release of Commander Bond’s major outing for 2010, James Bond: Blood Stone. Having finished it, I’m ready to attempt the impossible: to write a Bond review that in no way puns off any of the titles of any of the films, nor tries to crowbar in some reference to something being shaken and/or stirred. (Although now I’ve thought of a joke for that! Oh, okay, maybe it will contain one.) Here’s Wot I Think.

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It’s been sad, watching consoleland getting so excited/frustrated about Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refene’s breakout indie hit Super Meat Boy these past few weeks. It should be ouuuuuuuurs. [Stamps feet petulantly]. Fortunately, the PC version is still planned for sometime this month (the target is the last week of Nov) – complete with some bonus famous faces. Well, they’re more or less faces, if you squint a bit.

Two of the PC version’s six exclusive playable characters will be Mr Minecraft, as publicly arranged on Twitter with Notch (as shown above), and VVVVVV’s Captain Viridian (as shown below). There are four more mystery chaps yet to come. Perhaps you’d like to take a guess.
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That being the official Battlestar Galactica MMO, rather than the spangly space-shooter we posted about last week. BSG Online is a free to play browser thingy created by Bigpoint, a German firm who’ve made a mountain of cash making a slew of browser MMOs in the past. I suspect standard behaviour from many quarters is to sneer at the very concept of free to play and browser-based, but I get the sense there’s quite a lot of money/effort going into this one. That doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily be the BSG game we’re crying out for, of course, but it also doesn’t mean this’ll be a shoddy cash grab either. One way to find out: sign yourself up to yonder beta. Closed at the moment, but taking on new sign ups all the time, and due to go open in December. Go!

‘Tis the day for impressively strange videos. This time, it’s a man requesting that Bethesda make a new Elder Scrolls. Requesting via the medium of rap.

You probably think it’s going to be rubbish, and amateurish, and oppressively nerdy. You’re wrong. Well, mostly.

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That is all. (Source).

It is, as you probably haven’t been able to avoid, Black Ops O’Clock at midnight tonight. In time-honoured fashion, I will be shooting some dudes then writing some words about shooting some dudes on the morrow, but ahead of that let’s not forget Call of Warfare Duty 2 Modern, the game the seized the hearts and mind of a hundred billion men. What passion, indeed, it inspires.

None more so than the excitable gentleman below. His commentary is, to use his own vernacular, a biblical piece of work. Straight-up beast, even.
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Hurrah! Cliffski‘s announced that the Galactic Conquest expansion for Gratuitous Space Battles is now available for purchase, although the expansion isn’t actually out yet and technically the £5 you’re dropping is a pre-order that gets you access to the beta, which may have a bug or three.

Galactic Conquest is a big ol’ update, adding a brand new campaign mode where you battle for planets and gradually build up fleets using captured shipyards and academies. As Jim pointed out, a campaign mode surely makes all those space battles much less gratuitous. Less Gratuitous: Space Battles, that’s what Cliffski should have called it. Full, lengthy features list and video after the jump.
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The Stronghold news is twofold:

1) You can vote for the type of dead animal ammo for trebuchets to be featured in in Stronghold 3 just here. The choice is between a senile donkey, a cage of rabid otters, a retired dancing bear, or a sack of diseased badgers. Internet: you decide!

2) The Stronghold Kingdoms MMO is now in beta. You can play it if you wish.

Stronghold! I might change my name to Stronghold. “Stronghold Rossignol” has a certain ring to it. That is not news. I am just being flippant.