By Alec Meer on January 11th, 2011.
Two years for a little less than two hours: those are the numbers behind The Trashmaster, a feature-length machinima flick made entirely using GTA IV PC and its video tools. Owing a hard-to-miss debt to Scorsese and likely to be pulled from the internet by the Rolling Stones’ copyright lawyers any day now, this veritable labour of love is the flashy, violent tale of a vigilante garbageman, cleaning up whatever (i.e. whoever) the police can’t…
By Alec Meer on January 11th, 2011.
Already my favourite bad game-name of 2011 (yeah, it was released in December, but shuddup, and your mum smells), Team Sigma’s ‘Alien Hallway’ has just popped out a little demo for you to try. No need to make your mind up about buying Extraterrestrial Corridor based on videos alone – the demo offers the first half-dozen or so levels, three units and assorted upgrades. A few thoughts on Spacebeast Passageway below…
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By Jim Rossignol on January 11th, 2011.
So we already posted the Subversion wobblecam footage from last year’s big indie event, World Of Love, but now there’s much more from a bunch of other speakers. Almost certainly the most interesting of these is the talk by Cliff Harris, who speaks in plain terms about the practicalities of making a living from producing indie games. If you don’t have a cash-button formula like Minecraft then there’s still a lot of hard work to be done, and Cliffski lays that out with illegible Powerpoint slides and straight-talking. Really, this one is worth a watch.
There’s also some of Eskil Steenberg’s wizardry, and some thoughts about how to avoid retro visuals and look good in the 21st century from Tom “Nullpointer” Betts. Go take a look. Also, don’t forget the second World Of Love is up this month. More on that soon!
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By John Walker on January 11th, 2011.
Clearly there will never be a typing game as good as The Typing Of The Dead. I mean: HOW COULD THERE BE? Come on now. But this rather nifty little typing shooter, as spotted by PCG’s Rich Mc will do to rattle around inside the void. In Z-Type, words descend from the top of the screen, which must be typed to be shot. That’s it. It works. You should play it. (And yes, that screenshot is sideways, don’t worry.)
By Quintin Smith on January 11th, 2011.
There’s a new trailer for DC Universe Online! It has a robotic super-egg in it! What is going on?
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By Jim Rossignol on January 11th, 2011.
Hmm, this is odd. I updated my preordered version and had a play last night, and there didn’t seem to be all that much new in the build, so I am assuming this pre-Alpha demo is basically just the same tech demo (which has some basic environments, weapons in, mining tech and so forth, but very little actual game content) that shows off how the game will look and feel. And while a little empty it’s really worth taking a glance at, because the tech is something special for an indie outfit this size, the atmospherics are really good, and the game is altogether a pretty promising prospect. (See what I did there?) It’s available here, anyway, and I am looking forward to watching this progress.
By Jim Rossignol on January 11th, 2011.
City Interactive announced last month that they are now working on four FPS games, and that CryEngine 3 had been licensed for (at least some of) them. One of those has now been confirmed as the sequel to Sniper: Ghost Warrior (which everyone told me to avoid, but I guess must have sold okay to be getting a sequel), as confirmed by this news story on Eurogamer.se, which is teasing a full interview with City Interactive’s chief producer Michal Sroczynski. No other details yet, but I suspect it’s going to involve shooting people in the head. Any other predictions, crosshair fans?
By Jim Rossignol on January 11th, 2011.
There’s a real theme of games doing science this week, particularly chemistry. In this instance, however, it’s real chemistry in a change-the-world sort of way. The New York Times reports that EteRNA is being used to “design complex new ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules,” via a system that allows players to mess around with molecules and “design elaborate structures including knots, lattices and switches.” It’s one of those “social computation” things (see Galaxy Zoo) that uses the massed results of people’s work to process data that can only be sorted by hand. The results of the best molecules will, apparently, be synthesized at a lab at Stanford University. “This is like putting a molecular chess game in people’s hands at a massive level,” said (project boss-person) Dr. Treuille. “I think of this as opening up science. I think we are democratizing science.”
More in the full article, and the game is here.
By Quintin Smith on January 11th, 2011.
Remember Age of Decadence? Fallout-inspired indie RPG set after the fall of the Roman Empire? Kieron did an A-Grade interview with the angry developer, covering the dearth of dialogue-heavy RPGs and whether turn-based combat in RPGs was, in fact, an anachronism? Well, there’s a new gameplay trailer out. Ooh yes, I can already hear you locking and popping with excitement.
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By Jim Rossignol on January 11th, 2011.
It’s true. The third Battlefield game is going to be shown at an EA Partners press event at GDC in San Francisco, on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. Convenient, because I am going to be there. The game is due to release in the final six months of 2011, according to EA. Will it really have been six years since Battlefield 2? Oof.
By Quintin Smith on January 11th, 2011.
Episodes 1 and 2 of startlingly ambitious indie RPG Winter Voices have been released, though they’re technically episodes 2 & 3 since episode 0, Avalanche, is a standalone purchase in itself. You can get any of the episodes from Steam or from the Winter Voices site. I reviewed Avalanche here, and despite its crippling flaws it managed to be one of my favourite indie games of 2010. I’m head over heels in love with Beyond the Pillars, devs of Winter Voices, and what they’re trying to do. A video tour of the studio with lots of excitable chatter from the developers follows…
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