Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Okay, so most of our games for this Game Club thing are going to be cheap or free, but there will be a few full-price excursions. One such is the first of our community-led evenings, which will take place on the Unofficial RPS Arma 2 server this coming weekend. To play on there you will need Operation Arrowhead patched up to 1.54, or whatever the latest is if BIS randomly release another one. The server can be found at “RockPaperShotgun – Unofficial edition” or 81.19.209.123:64738, and there is a mumble server at the same address. Password for both the server and Mumble is: rumpus

The server crew will be operating some big, organised (as much as these things can be) operations on both evenings of this coming weekend, 6th and 7th of November, starting between 18:00-19:00 UK. So come join in, it’ll be friendly and fun. I’ll be along on the Sunday night, myself. There’s an ongoing forum thread about all this general shooty business here.

In his round-up of Black Ops videos earlier today, Quinns forgot one very important clip. Very, very important. Crucial, as far as I’m concerned.

It concerns the player characters in one of the game’s two Zombie modes – something that, quite frankly, is the first time to date that I’ve felt even a flicker of personal (i.e. not purely professional) interest in Treyarch’s franchise-nicking shooter. Spoilers below. But if you feel a similar level of disinterest in Black Ops, you should probably take a look.
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We all like the art mods, right? Good – glad we’re in chin-stroking, beret-topped agreement. Earlier this week, Eddie Cameron got in touch to poke me in the direction of his new Half-Life 2 mod, Tedium, which I finally got round to playing yesterday. And, oh my, it is interesting.
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I’ve just done some made up maths, and by my calculations every single human being on Earth has bought Bejeweled at least twice, even though Zoo Keeper is way better. It’s by far the most widely known match-3 game, and has made PopCap richer than God. Then came the rather improved Bejeweled 2. And next the wildly missing the point Bejewled Twist. Today they’ve announced Bejeweled 3, which they describe as “the first true sequel to [the] beloved flagship franchise in more than six years.” But what are those three matching gems up to now? And might they have made the improvement that could make me take it more seriously?

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The guys over at the Indie Games blog are going crazy for this. Escape from the Underworld is a half-hour long Metroidvania-style indie game following the fall and rise of an Angel. It’s tough, but smart, and perseverance is well rewarded. Go play!

Did you have a nice Haloween? I love Haloween. It’s how I’d like the world to be all the time. Black/orange colour scheme, scary films, everyone dressing like an Australian’s nightmare, and vegetable carving an accepted pastime. It’s great, and if you disagree you are a miserable grumpycat. That’s what I think.

Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator – the most Star Trekky game ever made, despite not being a Star Trek game. Following our discovery of this new gaming life and new sensation, I chatted to its creator, Thomas Robertson about why, how, inspirations, future frontiers and South Africans.

RPS: Why do this, basically? What inspired you, other than the obvious?

Robertson: Long ago, when my buddies and I all had Commodore64s (like, 25 years ago), I had an idea. I could link our computers together and play a game like the Star Trek bridge. One machine would run the simulation and the “main screen”. Each other machine would be a bridge station, like Helm, Science, or Weapons. That idea has lain dormant in my brain for a very long time, but recently my muse told me “Make it. Now.”
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You know Left 4 Dead? 4 player co-op zombieshoots? Imagine that from a top-down perspective, with over the top cartoon artwork and the zombies assault being masterminded by aliens, and I suppose you kinda have Bunch of Heroes.

The download-only title was announced this weekend, scheduled for summer 2011. Full press release and trailer after the jump. Maybe THIS game will have that feature I want, where a fifth player launches the enemy waves and tries to bring down the players with tactics and timing and… no? Probably not? Ah, well.
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Imagine you’re standing in front of a large piñata, shaped like your favourite handgun. I am giving you a heavy stick. Go on! Whack the piñata. Don’t be shy! It probably won’t explode.

BAM! What’s inside? What’s falling out? Why, it’s four new videos of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which hits shops next Tuesday. The first of these videos is the launch trailer, then we’ve got two singleplayer walkthrough videos and a video of the zombie multiplayer mode. Go on, gorge yourself.
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Good morning! Below you see the trailer for The Old Republic‘s Imperial Agent class. He’s a sneaky blue man, as you might expect, and should – via the magic of sniper rifles and backstabs – allow us to get our imperial evil on in roguish fashion. On what is basically an unrelated note, I can’t help feeling that The Old Republic was announced too early. Here I am posting the nth trailer, and the game is still ten thousand years away from release. Is the long trickle of information actually a good idea? Couldn’t games get away with that blaze of publicity thing like the movies? Perhaps this is a sub-curse of the internet: we asked for an endless supply of video game trailers, and by God we got them…

Nevermind, at least we have actual exciting news about The Old Republic coming up soon.
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