Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The National’s Fake Empire is one of my favourite songs in years. Which means I come to the news that the glum band has recorded an original song for Portal 2 with a happy heart. There’s not really any more to the story than that at this stage. There’s a press release where Valve and the band’s management both say that it’s a good thing. And then there’s an aching gap of silence where a clip of the song could have appeared.

There is, however, one nice detail in there. The press release recommends that we press visit thinkwithportals.com for more details. But doesn’t link there. No, it links to the confusingly broken, presumably intended in-office insult, chet’smom.com. Complete with the %27 ascii code for the apostrophe. There, I bet they’re glad we’re mentioning that.

A few moments ago, in a convention hall reasonably far away, Bioware unleashed a super-shiny new trailer packed with in-game footage of their upcoming Star Wars MMO: The Old Republic.

It looks improbably glossy and exciting. Can the game itself possibly live up to such visual promise? Well, depends to some extent whether your PC can run that much anti-aliasing.
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Shogun 2 is set to be released on the 15th of March. For the past week I’ve been playing the single-player campaign, and I’ve written up my thoughts on this below. What I haven’t done is play any of the multi-player. While Sega did provide a multi-player test for press and other interested parties, I don’t really see the point of talking about it until there’s a live service. That should, all being well, arrive with the game’s launch on the 15th. We’ll take a look at it after that time.

So then: how do I get busy with that shogunate?
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Global Agenda creators Hi-Rez studios have announced Tribes: Ascend. Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO says: “The community has been waiting for a multi-player shooter that is the modern successor to T2. Tribes: Ascend is that game.” And it’s certainly fascinating to see people aiming to take the jetpack crown. Firefall is looking for it, Global Agenda didn’t quite manage it, but will Tribes: Ascend hit that sweet-spot of rocket-propelled combat and vehicular deployment in the vertical? Hi-Rez seem pretty determined.

Excruciatingly footage-free trailer below.
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Lockpick’s MMORTS Dreamlords has been ticking over in the periphery of my awareness for quite some time now, half-remembered and unclear. Paradox’s launch of the free-to-play title has finally made it a reality, as you can see from the launch trailer, below. The game is using one of those micro-transactions thingums to pay for its action, but you can apparently get on fine in the PvP and PvE adventures without them, given commitment. The game is also using Paradox’s own social network system, Paradox Connect, so it’s also a chance to test that out and see if it’s any use.
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UPDATE: EA are now saying this was a mistake, and Arno has access to his games during the ban.

Original story: Be careful what you say. That’s the lesson BioWare forum user Arno has learned in the last 24 hours, after an ill-advised comment on the BioWare forums has led to his EA account being locked, such that he cannot play his purchased copy of Dragon Age 2 for 72 hours.

It reveals a clause in the terms of service that accompany buying an EA game that will surprise the vast majority who do not read the microprint. Misbehave in the forum (as Arno fully admits he did), and you can have your right to play a legitimately purchased game taken away from you. Forever, if they want to.

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Men Of War: Assault Squad just got a big old update, which you can download here. I took the opportunity to have a quick chat with DigitalMindSoft’s Chris Kramer about the launch of the skirmish and multiplayer-focused strategy title, which I reviewed here. Read on for Kramer’s thoughts on how the game was received, DLC, the problems with a large beta test, and what still needs to be done.
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Morning, netlings. Take a look at this- it’s a recently announced game from German publisher Gamigo called UFO Online: Fight For Earth, it’s obviously X-Com inspired and it’ll play straight out of your browser using Unity. Full press release and a brief trailer after the jump, but this looks to me like it might be neat, offering hot PvE and PvP turn-based action, slathered in a sauce of persistent base management that you can check during your lunch break? Yes please! Also, I should probably eat breakfast.
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As TF2 continues its transformation into a strange hybrid of Pokemon and ultra-death, another game has revealed exclooooosive in-game items for willing pre-orderers.

In this instance, it’s Total War: Shogun 2 or Shotgun: Total War 2 or Total Shogun 2: War or whatever the hell the naming order is now. There are eight different hats and Japanese-themed killing tools to be had if you punt some money Steam’s way for CA’s upcoming RTS, and they’re available as of today. Looks like you can also buy them separately if you like, too. How many hats are in the game now? All the hats, I guess.

The full list of items and a couple more pics are below, hat-fans.
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Popular Stalker mod series Complete has arrived at its third iteration, with the completion of Call Of Pripyat Complete. Complete hooray! The mod overhauls the visuals, the audio, the AI, the UI, as well as adding a bunch of other features such as the sleeping bag (for sleeping anywhere), and the fate of stalkers caught out in the emissions. There’s a trailer below. It’s rather pretty, in a bleak sort of way. You can completely download it here.
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I’ve already talked a bit about The Secret World presentation at GDC today, now you can see the trailer they showed us at the end of the session. It’s embedded below, and shows off lots of locations and monsters, as well as talking up some of the big features. Good stuff.
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