Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Here’s something that slipped through the cracks last week. Which cracks? The ones in space and time which mean that even though RPS diligently covers every single piece of PC gaming news long before any other site, sometimes it appears as though we haven’t. But we have. I actually wrote this post a week last Wednesday, for instance.

Anyway – Age of Empires Online. That’s the project ex-Ensemble Guys Robot Entertainment were working on before turning their attentions to Orcs Must Die. Turns out, however, that they weren’t the only studio working on it. You know how SupCom/Dungeon Siege studio Gas Powered Guys put Kings and Castles on hold? This, I’m guessing, is why.
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That was the message from philanthropic pay-what-you-want Humble Indie Bundle post-mortemers Jeffrey Rosen and John Graham, who were speaking at the IGF earlier today. The pair revealed that Mac and Linux accounted for fifty percent of revenue from the bundles, with Linux users being the most generous overall. Was this just because the game-starved Linuxers were so grateful to be included? Maybe, but it’s still an interesting lesson for the indie circuit that these kinds of deals work so well with non-Windows platforms: “We recommend developers support Mac and Linux,” said Rosen, after revealing that the two bundles had, in total, raised $3m, with $1m of that going to charities Child’s Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (We previously analysed some of the breakdown of this cash-haul here.)

So, Mac and Linux users, do you also read RPS?

This is potentially huge, if it’s done right. This is, if I understand it right, Valve having a little nose at whether it’s possible for the PC to become a console. In fact, to be better than a console. They’ve just announced a “big picture” mode for Steam, which essentially is a revised interface and pepped-up controller support designed for playing your PC games on your TV. Gasp.

Heresy or the Singularity?
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Oh, snap! Excellent climate change indie strategy game Fate of the World unlocks on Steam tonight. If you number among the eager beavers who pre-ordered it to gain access to the beta, you’ll finally be able to enjoy the full game (including the allegedly-quite-hard Dr. Doom scenarios) circa 1am, according to the developers. If, however, you are a cautious ostrich haven’t yet taken the plunge, you can buy from either of the two above links. Official RPS impressions of some kind will, I’m sure, be arriving on the site soon, but until then here’s the link to my feelings on the beta. The one and only FotW trailer that’s been kicking around for months follows.
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Paradox have announced Sengoku, an internally-developed historical strategy gaming that bears a striking resemblance to a certain strategy game set in feudal Japan by Creative Assembly (that rhymes with “Bogun: Fotal Core” (which is TOTALLY what I would name my hardcore shoot ‘em up)). You can watch the launch trailer and read the press release after the jump, though in Paradox’s inimitable style the trailer is just a series of pans across a dull landscape. The press release is much more exciting. Thanks to RPS reader Matija “One-Eye” Kodalovic for sending this in.
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Okay, so I was wrong. I admit it. Everything Dr Carole Lieberman said was absolutely true. The proof is below.

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VG24/7 has word that a Polynesia Pack will be available for purchase for Civ V this Thursday, adding a new Civilization and a new scenario for the tidy sum of £2.99. Firaxis are releasing a free map pack on the same day, too. You’ll find all your precious details and some ukulele music after the jump.
Jump! >>

So Dave Perry’s cloud-based online gaming service, Gaikai, has launched. Well, sort of. Peculiarly, the site is currently pitched as “online advertising network”, and seems to neglect selling the idea to us gamers, opting instead for enticing their commercial clients. There are ways to get in there and try the service, however, as explained on Perry’s blog (scroll down a bit). Test games include Mass Effect 2 and Dead Space 2. So get in there, RPS readerhorde, and see what you make of it.

Croteam said this was coming, and here it is. The plucky Crotian indie developers have announced Serious Sam 3: BFE is coming this Summer, and you’ll find all the screenshots plus the (really quite good) press release after the jump.

Turns out it’s a prequel, shares the Egyptian setting of Serious Sam: The First Encounter and will feature up to 16 player co-op. 16! That said, the press release still doesn’t explain what BFE actually stands for. Big F**king Enemies? Battlefield Earth? I like the commenter over at PC Gamer who suggests “Budget FPS Entry”. Words and pictures follow…
Click here to get SERIOUS. >>

I am SO rubbish at Gravitar games. My brain just isn’t equipped with the necessary dexterity for controlling a drifting ship with only one thruster. Who designs those ships, anyway? You’ve developed the ability to travel in space, and you only put a single thruster on your triangular ship? No brakes? No reverse thruster? Who is behind these decisions? It must have cost billions and billions of dollars to build this craft, and such an obvious piece of design not being included is just irresponsible. Imagine the population of the planet tuning in to watch its maiden voyage, the families of those on board watching on the monitors in Mission Control, as it uncontrollably smashes into the first spacewall it encounters, killing everyone on board. My second query is: who is building all those caves in space?

Meanwhile, Thunderware Games created Cygnus.

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Grandmaster leagues, faster Battlecruisers, Bunkers that take longer to build and tweaked Infestors are just some of the many changes coming in the 1.3 patch for StarCraft 2, now live on the game’s test servers (thanks, Bigdownload!). The Grandmaster league (currently only available for 1v1 matches) is more than a little demanding, accepting as it does the top 200 players in each region, making it more exclusive than becoming, say, a real-life judge. Full patch notes after the jump.
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