Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is something special.

If you saw Wednesday’s article about Old Man Murray’s temporary deletion from Wikipedia, you’ll know that it was originally deemed “not notable” due to a lack of references. That’s been fixed now, thanks to the very hard work of Wikipedia editors. (It’s probably wise not to dismiss one of the greatest works of humanity over a single, dodgy admin settling personal grudges. Compare and contrast with when we turned our attention to Fox News. Nothing changed. Wikipedia addresses the issue professionally within 24 hours.) And we want to help it stay that way.

Since Rock, Paper, Shotgun is regarded by Wikipedia to be a notable source for other entries, we thought it would be a good idea to ask some leading industry figures why they hold Old Man Murray in such high regard. To create the ultimate citation. So we approached people in the games industry to tell us why the site was important to them. Below you can see, in no particular order, responses from the likes of Gabe Newell, Harvey Smith, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Martin “GoldenEye” Hollis, and many others.

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There’s a bunch of ALIENS DESTROYING THE EARTH movies coming up this year, about which I couldn’t be more pleased. Who cares how stupid they are, when there’s ALIENS DESTROYING THE EARTH? (Unless it’s ID4, and then yes, of course, I care how stupid it is. I’m not deranged.) One of these films is Battle: Los Angeles, and the trailer looks seventy-six kinds of (dumb) awesome. And last night it was announced that there’s to be a game for it. There’s a few reasons to think this may not be the usual shovelware.

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“MONEY. DRUGS. AND GUNS,” quoth the new trailer for Call of Juarez’s upcoming modern-day sequel, which is an interesting coincidence as that’s my life motto. Why, only last night I had a bit too much tea and stayed up shooting men in Dawn of War: Retribution until 2am! Ah, this crazy lifestyle of mine will catch up with me one day. But when that day comes and I’m sat there in my wheelchair, old and wrinkled like some forgotten orange, I’ll be able to say that I did it. I stayed up and shot men when I should have been sleeping. I lived the dream.

I actually went to see Call of Juarez being demoed last week, and can confirm that it is both as untouchably masculine and resolutely Wild Westy as the footage implies. Will find the time to write about it very soon. Until then- moving pictures!
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If a game that’s late has “slipped”, then what do you call a game that’s early? Unlikely. But bucking the trend is MMO Forsaken World, from Perfect World Entertainment. Originally due to be released on the 23rd March, it’s now appearing two weeks early on the 9th. It seems the beta went well. It’s a free-to-play-er, and you can find out all about it here. Have you been in the beta? Let us know what you think.

Wow, this game slipped under our radar like a stealth fighter carrying a payload of Fun Bombs. Give Up Robot 2 is a browser platformer that Gamasutra picked as their favourite indie game of 2010 (with games like Minecraft, Super Crate Box, Super Meat Boy and Desktop Dungeons following close behind), and having had a quick play I can slap the RPS “STRONG” stamp on it too. The first Give Up Robot was a psychadelic, taxing little thing with a fun grappling hook mechanic, but the sequel is as whip-smart a platformer as I’ve ever seen. Go play!
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Rift is out today, and to mark the occasion we dispatched mad-bearded reporter Dan Griliopoulos to speak to Rift’s Dynamic Content Lead (best job title, ever), Will Cook, to find out what we’re calling “information”. Find out why they’re not opting for free-to-play, how Rift will compete in Blizzard’s playground, and how the game may help John not be a rubbish healer.

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In the unlikely event that your plans for the summer revolved around the release of the as-yet undetailed Tropico 4, I am so sorry. The game, which was scheduled for Q2 this summer, has slipped to August. On the plus side, there’s a trailer! On the down side, the trailer shows very little. Urgh, this is all too rollercoastery for this early in the morning. I feel a bit sick.
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UPDATE: Bungie later back-tracked on this, saying that the comments were “a joke.”

Could we really be seeing the slow, painful and long-overdue rebirth of the MMOFPS in 2011? A panel at GDC suggest that we might be, as Bungie lead network engineer David Aldridge said that their MMO was an action game and also not “WoW In Space.” It’s the first firm evidence of the rumoured MMO title, and the idea that it could be a mature action game too is rather exciting. (Via IGN.)

With Planetside Next, Firefall, and others arriving this year, and the Bungie MMO and others starting to form in the years beyond, we might just start to get the massive shooter horizon we were promised in 2003. (Also, we should have a rather juicy story next week, which is relevant to this line of speculation. Stay tuned!)

Old Man Murray has been reinstated on Wikipedia!

After we began our campaign yesterday, there’s been a remarkable reaction. A quite extraordinarily evidenced article is now on the encyclopaedia site, with more references than the New England Journal Of Medicine. It’s a splendid sight, so congratulations to everyone who weighed in. Especially WP editors, OverlordQ and Masem, for their amazing efforts. (Just need to rescue the Portal Of Evil page now!)

But we’re not leaving it at that. We have something incredibly special lined up for tomorrow. Be sure to tune in at 2pm (Friday) afternoon.

Which makes this the last call for any developers or journalists who would like to tell us why they loved/hated Old Man Murray, and why they think it is notable. We already have the most extraordinary collection, but we’d love to see any more that people may want to send in. Please email john@rockpapershotgun.com with anything you might want to share.

Well that was amazing. Eric Chahi just finished up a post-mortem of Another World (aka Out Of This World) at GDC. While the wider gaming press was writing all caps tweets about Another World coming out on iPad, I was wiping away a tear generated by powerful waves of unmitigated nostalgia, and Chahi’s funny, moving explanation of how the game came to be as it was, which I will write up in detail a little later. What was most fascinating (aside from Chahi’s admissions of existential entanglement with the project, and a description of his own loneliness being reflected in the loneliness of Lester’s experiences – to the point where he gave the character red hair to dissociate the two of them) was that the game almost wasn’t anything like the elegant work of side-on sci-fi that we remember, because Virgin Games – Chahi’s first choice of publisher – almost persuaded him that it should be a point ‘n’ click adventure, because that is what was popular at the time. Chahi admitted that it was only his disinterest in redoing work that stopped it from disappearing down that parallel fate. A close call for all gaming kind. More on this, later.

After the recent extraordinary trailer for Dead Island, it’s safe to say our interests are piqued. So an interview with the developers detailing the numerous ways to slay zombies is just what we’re after. Fortunately, GameTrailers did just such a thing. Unfortunately it does not offer any in-game footage, but at least there’s a nice man explaining things.

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