Rock, Paper, Shotgun

One of many pleasant experiences at GDC this year was sitting down to play SuperGiant Games’ awesome IGF-nominated fantasy action game, Bastion. I’ve just gone back and played the same build this afternoon, and remembered why I was quite so delighted by seeing this game in motion. Today has also seen the announcement that the game will be distributed by Warner Bros, which is great for SuperGiant Games. The deal means that they’re remaining independent, while getting some marketing and sales clout for one of the best-presented indie games I’ve encountered in the past year. Well done them.

Read on for some thoughts on the game, and the trailer.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I got to see Funcom’s supernatural conspiracy MMO The Secret World in action, and I went from being interested to being excited. Maybe I was already excited, but anyway, there is now some state of arousal associated with it. For an MMO to be set in a modern-world scenario is intriguing enough, but some of the elements that Funcom showed off demonstrated genuine ambition. They want to do story, and they want to do bold new game ideas. The most interesting of these are the “investigation” quests. A few words on those, and other interesting things, below.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’re still Mystery Months away from getting to play Bioware’s Star Wars MMO The Old Republic, but clearly they expect their players to be organised. No hanging around the newbie areas yelling “PLZ HELP WERE IS RANCOR TUSK NEED 1 MORE LOL” on your todd – you can get on with pre-registering your guild, or joining another, right away. Step to it, magic soldier.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Todd Howard, lead blokey on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has fessed up that last game Oblivion ditched a bit of the wonderful oddness of its marvellous predecessor Morrowind – and that this is something Bethesda hopes to correct in Skyrim.
Read the rest of this entry »

Lancashire therapist Steve Pope is once again making his claim that two hours of gaming is the same as a line of cocaine. A statement he first made in May last year, winning him media attention from the unquestioning writers in his local press, and then the wider press. A statement we investigated, and for which we found he was unable or unwilling to show us any evidence. As MCV reports, on BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday afternoon, Pope was once again comparing gaming’s apples to addiction’s oranges, making unevidenced statements about how videogaming produces a cocaine-like “high” in the brain, and without an example – astonishingly – calling gaming “the silent killer of our generation.” So to celebrate his reappearance, after some more on his latest, I’m republishing our previous investigation below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Grand strategy Europa Universalis III is now swollen to the point of popping with four (count ‘em) expansions, and these are all to be bundled in a single thing called Europa Universalis III Chronicles. The new bundle will be out on the 22nd of March. Quite why RPS hasn’t spent more time focusing on this multifarious historical strategy, which allows you to control any nation in Europe between the end of the 14th century and the start of the 19th century, is a bit beyond me, so maybe now’s the time for that to happen.

Aaaaand there’s a trailer below.
What have we learned from the lessons of history? Nuthin’ >>

Videogaming’s representation in the wider media is, as we all know, peculiar. But nowhere is it more strange than in the world of television. Those bonkers small screen writers seem to have somehow grown up in a society completely free of their existence, talking about them as if they’re an alien artefact on which no researchable information is available. Or another theory: all American dramas are written by my mum. The latest incident of her scripting a show is Season 8 Episode 16 of NCIS, which aired in the States last month. The moment is below, and it’s beautiful.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, indie game. Hawken, the multiplayer mech combat game seen in the above screenshot and below video represents nine months work from Los Angeles-based studio Adhesive Games, a studio employing just nine people, but look at it! Absolutely incredible stuff. Thanks to RPS reader Christopher “The World Wide” Webb for sending this in.
Read the rest of this entry »

Calendars and alka seltzer at the ready, ladies and gents! And, uh, axes, apparently! The details of the second ever RPS social club have been fixed, and they are as follows: March 19th at The Blue Posts pub in London. More details, an amazing promotional poster and some similarly amazing name tags await on our forums. After the jump I’ll do my best to persuade you to come, but up here I’d just like to give thanks to noble RPS reader Siri for making this all happen. Siri! You are one classy lady, and the energy you’re putting into this can only strengthen the already-mighty RPS community. Now, onwards!
Read the rest of this entry »

Introversion’s Chris Delay revealed yesterday the project he’s been working at the Cambridge Friendship Club, a weekly gathering of local indie developers. It is, in a nutshell, Delay’s own (voxel-powered) quick’n'dirty take on the Minecraft engine, and then when Delay had gotten it into a workable state he realised he could add rigid body physics (using open-source physics library Bullet) relatively easily. You’ll find the end result below- a video showing what is essentially Minecraft with physics. Go take a look, and thanks to RPS reader “Kieron Gillen” for sending this one in.
Read the rest of this entry »

I could lie to you. I could claim that I’m posting the four tutorial trailers for World Of Tanks because I decided it was about time we updated you on the state of the game (still in open beta – you can sign up here in the US, here in the EU, and here in RU). I could claim that the tutorial video run is now complete, but I don’t know if there’s a part five to come. But I never want to lie to you. I’m posting this because I thought of the headline pun for the free-to-play tank-based MMO last night, and realised I was compelled to use it. Sure, I could have saved it up and given it to Jim for when the game is officially launched. But no, I wanted it, and I wanted it NOW. So there’s the four tutorial videos below.

Read the rest of this entry »