Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Finally a trailer for moneybags racer Test Drive Unlimited 2 that isn’t about the environment. This one reveals the multiplayer modes, accompanied by some THUMPING BEATS.

Race on »

Is Homefront poorly-timed or perfectly-timed? I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in THQHQ when news broke about the recent violence between North and South Korea. “Does this mean the game’s screwed or a guaranteed success?”, I imagine a man with expensive business cards saying. No-one at THQHQ actually said that, of course. I’m just imagining what it might have been like. It’s like The West Wing, but with Rachael Bilson’s dad and some Space Marine statues in the halls.
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You may recall this Spring’s Humble Indie Bundle, in which an assortment of delectable indie treats lined up and asked for however much/little you were willing to offer them, then duly forked over a portion of proceeds to Child’s Play and the EFF. It sold rather well, and there was much rejoicing. It was an epochal moment, which could never possibly happen again.

Somehow, it’s happened again. Five super indie games, at a price of your choosing.
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I’ve been installing texture packs on and off for a while now when playing Minecraft, but this one is definitely going into the library for regular use: Via IndieGames, we have Scribblecraft, the hand-drawn texture pack. It’s lovely. Full of colour and character, while still getting across all the necessary information. It uses the HD texture fix, too, of course. Illustrative informational video below!

There will probably be no other Minecraft posts today. Carry on!
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Kalypso send word of their new project being developed by Lesta Studios, a weather and terrain-based strategy game called Elements Of War. Here’s what they say: “a real time strategy game unlike any other – where armies manipulate the forces of nature to rain down destruction on their foes or gain a tactical advantage by transforming the battlefield with hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.” Sounds like someone’s been reading the weaponised landscapes section of the BLDGBLOG book… Three factions will apparently fight it out to control the world by manipulating the weather and tectonic forces, a process which looks like it might entail familiar tanks and helicopters and stuff backed up by meteorological special powers.

The game is out in February 2011.

Ho ho ho! Tis’ the season to be jesus christ it’s the 14th already and I haven’t started my Christmas shopping. Doomed.

Anyway, Good Old Games are having a dirty great Holiday sale and perhaps as a means of driving further interest they’ve (1) Added scrolling shooter Tyrian 2000 to their catalogue, and (2) Made it available for free. You can get it here. Tyrian 2000 was only an update of the original Tyrian which went freeware in 2004 (EDIT: Apparently Tyrian 2000 is also freeware!), so this isn’t exactly the world’s most generous offer, but it’s still a pleasant surprise. Want to see what you’re in for? Well! Have a gander at the following archive footage.
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My job is largely based around describing games. A good description might be useful to you, or funny, or poignant. It might be revealing about the true nature of the game, or say something about what it means. Currently, I am struggling with this when faced with the developer’s own description of Banker’s Dozen. Here it is: “Based on the forgotten occult writings of a Nobel prize winning economist, Banker’s Dozen is a game about time traveling financiers.” Which means that it uses relativity and finance to teach you about… relativity and finance. I’m not sure it really does either that, but sometimes an idea is all you need.

There’s an explanatory video below.
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A chunk of Monty Python’s Ministry Of Silly Games is now available to play, even if you’re not on the beta. It’s essentially promotion for the game to be released next year, letting people play some of the minigames that will feature as standalone web content. The first of these that we’ve spotted is Camelot Smashalot. To say that it owes something to Crush The Castle and Angry Birds is like saying McDonald’s owes something to cattle. But heck, it’s more knocking stuff over gaming. To see my chat with Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, in which they don’t talk about this game, click here. Did I mention that I’ve met Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam?

As evidenced by this awesomely overblown splash page, the Defense of the Ancients-inspired Heroes of Newerth has emerged, angry and red-hot, from the furnaces of development into a new era of “2.0″. The upgrades include a new Casual mode, improved matchmaking, an improved interface, a map editor, a new map and (wait for it) a new micro-transaction store! Yes, players can now buy cosmetic and flair upgrades with Goblin Coins! That’s just a name the developers made up, though. You don’t have to go out and find actual coins belonging to goblins or anything. 2.0 trailer after the jump.
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We’re going down, deeper down, into the abyss. There’s something alive down there, and it means to make soup from our bones. Yes, the sound of the underground involves less girls singing and more the singing of machineguns. What could all this be pointing to? Well, it’s not exactly a platform game, but it does have some trains…
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As of this weekend, Christmas has come early for the Through the Looking Glass community. A CD’s been discovered containing the source code for the Dark Engine, aka the engine used by Thief, Thief II and System Shock 2 (not to mention Irrational and Looking Glass’ cancelled cold war spy game Deep Cover).

What does this mean? Well, if the fans can get the code into a workable state, initially it’ll mean versions of those Dark Engine classics optimised for modern systems. In the long term, you can probably look at the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project for a glimpse at what lies ahead.
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