Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Hurry! The recently-rebooted Games For Windows Live has dropped a crazy-assed old deal today – the complete edition of the habitually over-expensive Age of Empires III for just ten of your British pence, or ten of your American cents. Not sure about Euro-prices just yet, I’m afraid. A saving of $40/£40-ish, which is quite remarkable. Obviously it’s Microsoft’s own game so they can get away with this sort of slasher-behaviour. It’s only for the duration of today though, so get a wriggle on, eh?

(Thanks Ben)

Sundays. Sundays are for staring into the abyss and then, when it stares into you, giving it the V. It might also be for rounding up a batch of the best writings in the game-o-sphere and laying them out for all to see.

• This week’s links have been dominated by Starcraft II stories. There’s the story, via TeamLiquid, about the mum who learned the value of Starcraft II, which is worth a read, despite not really convincing anyone with that “oh children are the greatest” line of thinking. Then there’s this article on the Starcraft pros, which features the chap whose mum appears in the previous article. Finally there’s this article over at Edge Online which deals with the battle for control of Starcraft in South Korea. This time, it seems, Blizzard were ready to take on the organisations which had made so much money from e-sports in the years follow Starcraft’s original surprise success. Fascinating stuff.

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Hello youse.

Once again, I’ve pushed aside my planned column (a photo story of a games night in action) to do something that came to me in a dream earlier in the week. Well, no, it didn’t come to me in a dream. It came to me while I was on the toilet, but that’s not the kind of thing I would tell you on an upmarket PC gaming website.

I’ve been having great fun writing this column over the past couple of months. Mainly because I’ve been blown away by the knowledge and passion of those people making contributions in the comments section. So, I’ve been thinking about doing something that we could all get involved with. Something interesting for the tenth column. And it came to me while I was on the toilet, with my trousers at my ankles, but that’s not the kind of thing I would admit to on an upmarket PC gaming website.

This isn’t a competition. Because there’s no prize. It’s more of a challenge. And it’s the kind of thing I feel comfortable doing on a site like Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Because, y’know, you all seem kinda… kinda smart. Kinda clever. You know? I think it’s the kind of thing that might work here. I hope it does.

So let’s see what it is!
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Bit of a rubbish week this week, sorry about that. Still, in a few weeks time you’ll be wishing for some respite from the constant wave after wave of gaming discounts flying in your face from all angles. The Steam Thanksgiving sale should start next week, which was pretty epic last year, and after that it’s going to be Christmas sales all round. For your constantly updated guide cheap games, head to SavyGamer.co.uk.
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Cliff “Positech” Harris, the man who is currently finishing off the campaign parts of Gratuitous Space Battles, has been busy with a side project: wrangling independent developers.They now have a new indie portal called Show Me The Games. It’s supposed to be a collection of some of the best indie games on the PC, and includes some that you might recognise. Cliff explains:

SMTG is a crazy plan to try and prove that indie game developers, despite theoretically being in competition, can come together as a group, throw some money in an ‘advertising’ bucket, and help promote each others games. It’s true that getting indie developers to organise together is like herding cats, but I’ve owned 4 cats over my life, so I’m not scared. Using the amazing nasa-like technology of random numbers, the SMTG site randomises the games listing so nobody gets ‘top slot’. This simple listing of games is hopefully just the start, there may well be competitions, discount bundles or all kinds of stuff happening on SMTG in the future. The main point is that we now have a fixed location to host that kind of thing.

Go take a look.

Hybrid FPS strategy game Natural Selection 2 – which is threatening to be dangerously good – has begun a closed beta. Accessed via Steam, this stage of the beta will be available to the first 10,000 people who preorder. You can do that here, should you be so inclined. I’ve posted the most recent trailer, which features the teleporting “Fade” alien class, below.

Unknown Worlds, if you are reading, you need to make a decent gameplay footage trailer that explains the concept of the game. Thanks!
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Don’t like tower defence games? Then bugger off. Go on, right over there. No, further. Further. Further. Further. Further. Further. Further.

There you go. You’re now far enough away to safely move onto the next post that does interest you and thus not pollute this one with claptrap like ‘meh’ and ‘oh god not another one of these.’ I love TD, and I love this. Family Defense III is a Famicom-styled browser game, starring fantasy characters instead of towers. Build things, kill things, upgrade things, kill more things: you probably know the drill. So much so that the fact it’s in Japanese shouldn’t be a huge impediment to playing it.

I’ve embedded it below for lazies, but as a) it breaks out of the site’s template a bit and b) game-makers always deserve direct hits, you should go play this impossibly charming strategy game in its original home here.
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Apparently we’re “always a little late to the party” about Desert Bus For Hope, the charity play-a-thon of Penn & Teller’s notoriously and horrifically cruel/tedious driving sim. Sniff. Well, let’s get it right this time. It kicks off in about nine hours, and the current plan is for five drivers to do a 24 hour shift each. Previously, shifts were four hours. So it’s safe to say it’s going to hurt this time around. Reeeeeeally hurt.
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Criterion’s approach to the Need For Speed franchise, an all new Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, is out in the UK today. I’ve spent an awful lot of this week racing about its many challenges, and have clocked up enough miles to feel ready to tell you Wot I Think.

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Have you HEARD? ArenaNet’s started releasing free content updates for Guild Wars under the title of Guild Wars Beyond, updates that are gently guiding the world through the events preceding Guild Wars 2.

The second of these updates, Hearts of the North, landed yesterday. It tells the story of the romantic and legal union of “the greatest heroes of Ascalon, Gwen and Keiran Thackeray” and even ends in a ceremony and “festivities”. Full details can be browsed on the official site, including info on all the accompanying pay-for tuxedos and dresses. £5 gets you a tux, dress or ladytux, and, bizarrely, £7 allows you to dress up in the same clothes as the bride and groom themselves. Now, I have all the social intelligence of a wounded badger, but surely that’s a faux pas.

This is fantastic. Magicka, the 4 player co-op Diablo-meets-Benny-Hill effort that’s due out early next year is having a closed beta. Want in on it? Get your robe (or bedsheet, curtain, carpet, sleeping bag, whatever you’ve got) on and post a photo of yourself on Magicka’s Facebook page.

For anybody not sure of the look to aim for, check out the new trailer below. Winning wizards will get their beta invite in 2-3 weeks.
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