Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Oh look, another headline with a question mark in the title. That’s journamalisming for you. Can we have some less ambiguous news now please?

So – Black Ops 2, World At War 2, Modern Warfare 3 or some other two to three word summation of conflict? Until now, we had no idea what this year’s Call of Duty game would be. We also had no idea there would be another Call of Duty game this year. It just seemed so very unlikely that this series would continue. Apparently it will, despite catastrophically low sales, rock-bottom reviews and perennially empty servers. Whouldathunkit. The LA Times thinks it knows what’s up. Modern Warfare 3 it is, allegedly. So who’s making it?
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What are you doing next Friday? If you are a UK-based person with interests in the development of indie games then you should almost certainly be attending the second World Of Love event, which is taking place at Conway Hall in London. Speakers include Honeyslug’s Ricky Haggett, Alice Taylor (formerly commission editor for Channel 4′s gaming projects), Nicholas “Games Brief” Lovell, Sophie Houlden, Robert Fearon, and Charlie Knight. And more! We’ll be there too, making faces and trying to remember the secret RPS handshake. Come along! Tickets are on sale now.

Nothing ever goes wrong with speculative posts! In the drafts folder at the moment we have:

Are Codemasters Planning To Blow Up The Sun?

Was Activision Jack The Ripper?

But let’s try this more gentle one for now. It does look likely that amongst the five new projects Telltale will announcing in a month, one will be the comic-turned-TV show.

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When it was announced that there would be Dragon Age armour in Mass Effect 2, it may have gone crashing through the fourth wall like a confused rhinoceros, but at least the two games came from the same developer. It’s bemusing to try to fathom how the two universes might cross over, but we got over it. But for Dragon Age 2 you’ll be able to unlock unique armour if you also have, er, Dead Space 2. Buh-huh?

There’s a trailer explaining all this below.

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The StarCraft MMO mod wrangle looks to have resolved itself overnight, with Blizzard finally offering a comment beyond a scary form DMCA notice. In a statement released to all sorts of places last night, they confirmed they’re not going to block the mod’s ongoing development. While the unwise ‘World of StarCraft’ name was, unsurprisingly, key to the issue, a comment from modder Ryan Winzen suggests that the other side made a bit of a boo-boo too…
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Indie development type Sophie Houlden, who told us all to make games at the last World Of Love, has been following her advice and making a game of her own. It’s a Unity-based 3D puzzler, a physics-bending type affair, called Sarah’s Run. She’s posted a multi-level preview of it here. Go play. Provide feedback. That sort of thing. It’s also worth checking our Houlden’s other work over on her site.

Sometimes we’re guilty of fire and forget posting of trailers – showing you a pretty video then buggering off without much else said about it. Not this time! For the latest video from Splash Damage’s upcoming (and very promising) shooty death game Brink, I’ve taken the liberty of a near second-by-second commentary upon what it’s showing. In it, I uncover incredible secrets and reveal an unprecedented degree of insight into the game.

You’ll see.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun has received word that David “Elite” Braben’s much vaunted next game, The Outsider, was apparently cancelled yesterday.

Edit: David Braben has confirmed to us that development on The Outsider has ceased, explaining that it was due a “change [in] priorities” with regards to unannounced projects, telling us that he is “very sad” about the resulting redundancies. The full quote is below.

Edit edit: Braben has since claimed to Develop that, “There is still publisher interest in the project, and we haven’t cancelled it.” So it’s all a bit confusing. We’re currently trying to establish what “changed priorities” actually means, and have got back in touch with Braben for clarification.

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SpaceChem isn’t simply the best indie game 2011′s seen so far, it’s one of the best puzzle games ever made. If you haven’t yet partaken of the demo or my review then you certainly should. The game is predominantly the work of one Zack Barth of Zachtronics Industries, who describes the outfit as such: “In the pursuit of clandestine R&D objectives, Zachtronics Industries accidentally releases games from time to time.” I infiltrated his hermetically sealed underground laboratory for a chat.
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All aboard the good news Zeppelin! Come, come! Quickly! You too! Yes, and you! No, not you. Sorry. The good news Zeppelin is full now. You should have been faster.

Arcen games has released both another update for Tidalis, their excellent & colourful block puzzler, as well as a new, ‘Lite’ version. A unity-powered browser game, Tidalis Lite was inspired by business models on the iPhone, where the norm is a free, lightweight version that goads people to stop being so cheap and buy the full version. But this is NOT A DEMO. No. Arcen games explain that they already have a demo for Tidalis. This is something else. Ye olde chipper Tidalis trailer is after the jump.
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If you’re going to get bullied, get bullied in public. People notice. If you’ve followed the story of the World Of StarCraft mod, you’ll know that a mod team picked a really dumb name for their ambitious MMO project, and Activision-Blizzard went down the tiresomely dumb route of banning the existence of videos of the work in progress from the internet. But here comes the twist. According to Pixelated Geek, front man Ryan has been offered a potential postion working for League Of Legends developer, Riot Games.

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