Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Sundays are for not actually being attached to your node of Precious Mother Internet, and instead wandering around in the midwinter gloom of a holiday camp, somewhere in The West. Fortunately, you have already prepared a list of interesting web-materials for other people to browse through, and need only set it in motion…

• Do you read much of Troy Goodfellow’s blog? You probably should. Here he is writing about the Aztec national character, as seen through the lens of Civ. He’s doing a bunch of similar Civ posts. But there’s lots more, like this look back at Soldiers Of Anarchy. The podcast is worth a look, too. So go look!

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Hello youse.

Sid Meier’s Civilization. Oh yeah. Now I’ve got your attention. Speaking to a PC gaming audience about Sid Meier’s Civilization is like speaking to an audience of teenage boys about Sasha Grey. There’s an instant connection. Recognition. A smile. A remembrance of all-night sessions. Of good times, fun, frustration, disgust, guilt. And of desire.
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For every time of plenty, there must be a time of famine. The digital crops aren’t bearing much fruit this week, so I hope you stored away some games from previous sales, or you’ll not have much to play this weekend. The deal of the week is still very special, but aside from that you’ve got a small discount on an already cheap game, a series of games that have been discounted to less previously, and a game that realistically they couldn’t charge much more for even if they wanted to. For more deals on all formats throughout the week, make sure to regularly check SavyGamer.co.uk Read the rest of this entry »

The fourth window on our advent calendar shimmers like a hallucination, giving off a smell of blood and the faint groan of distorted guitars. Is it even really there, or are we just scratching at the wall? No, wait, it’s open now. What sordid madness is back there…

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Greetings, gunners. As an old comrade-in-alms of the RPS Hive-Mind and a long-term dabbler in World of Warcraft, I’ve been drafted in to give a brief account of all the pre-expansion shenanigans that have been going on in the run up to the launch of Cataclysm.

It’s the biggest expansion to hit the game since its 2004 launch, and in the run-up patches a quite enormous amount of content has been incrementally downloading through game clients worldwide. The purpose of this patching has been two-fold: to offer players some kind of context for the expansion before it hits, and to put them through some memorably mad shit that they’ll remember for a long time to come.

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Can there really be someone who hasn’t played Deus Ex yet? Surely not. But just in case, or just in case your copy has exploded, you can pick it up today from Games For Windows Marketplace for 75p. For today only. SEVENTY FIVE PENCE. What on Earth is going on? If you dropped that much money out of your helicopter you’d not bother to land to pick it up! If you’re American you’re paying 99 of your “cents”. (Interesting fact: this doesn’t derive from the Latin for 100, but in fact directly from the word “centaur”. When the dollar was first created it was based on the value of one hundred centaurs, clearly hugely depreciating since.) Just bloody buy it, you idiots.

*Unless the paper you read is worth less than 75p, in which case, stop it.

Here’s a slice of indie oddness courtesy of the IndieGames blog. The Sense of Connectedness is, mechanically speaking, a breed of Pipemania taking place inside someone’s headmeat. Electrical impulses spew forth from the ego, and by flipping neurones you guide them around the brain, illuminating different areas bit by bit and working your way towards one of the game’s enigmatic endstates. It’s hard on the eyes, but also peculiarly hypnotic and gobbled up 20 of my precious minutes before I knew what had happened. Go play, if your curiosity has been poked and/or piqued.

We don’t often cover Facebook games on RPS. I’ve a feeling that’s going to start changing as they become more involved, more inspired, and less like another Farmville clone. And one example of a bit more imagination going into a game is The Ministry Of Silly Games, an official Monty Python-themed project that seems to combine about seven hundred and sixteen genres.

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The third window on our advent calendar is making strange buzzing and throbbing noises. What ever could such emanations mean? What kind of place will be whisked away to if we open this particular portal? Let us dare to find out…

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This is excellent. Courtesy of the IndieGames blog, Endeavor is an adventure-platformer that tasks you with recovering your tiny dwarf’s family inheritance from the comfort of your web browser, except your dwarf’s journey goes “a bit wrong” very quickly indeed. The platforming itself is dainty and robust, and the dialogue is adorable, but the real allure is provided by the game’s Metroidvania exploration. There’s a bit of nonlinearity in here, and the game’s finale is affected by your actions, so I’ll just give you one piece of advice- be kind, babies, be kind. Now go play. You’re looking at a good 45 minutes from start to finish, but (in the manner of most flash games these days) it’ll save your progress in your browser’s cache if you close the page.

First we had news of Telltale’s Back To The Future adventure game. Then, we had pictures. Today, we have… moving pictures. What will come next? Nothing, I think. We’re at the top of the tech tree, gentlemen. It can’t get any better than this. Watch the eerily expressive eyes of Marty McFly after the break. The break… to the future!
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