Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Fellow PC gaming journalist and friend of RPS Tom Francis is working on an indie video game. It’s about breaking into people’s houses, something Tom is extremely qualified to write about. Er, because he got robbed a couple of years back, not because he’s a housebreaker. To the best of my knowledge, at least.

To be specific, Gunpoint is about infiltration, and the achievement thereof primarily via rewiring of electronics such as cameras, doors and lights. If Agent 47 was a rogue electrician rather than a genetically-engineered assassin, it might go a little something like this…
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You might recollect that back, way back, in the mists of of the mid-Naughties, former Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins (a legend of the industry, in no small measure) got into some trouble over tax stuff related to his time at that company. He’s attempted to make it all go away by filing personal bankruptcy, but Forbes reports that this hasn’t worked:

In a stinging 16-page opinion this week, US. District Judge Jeffrey S. White upheld an earlier bankruptcy-court ruling, saying Hawkins knew he was insolvent after the Internal Revenue Service disallowed his tax shelters but “continued to spend money extravagantly with knowledge of his tax liabilities” to the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board. “Hawkins planned to defeat his taxes via bankruptcy and continue living the lifestyle to which he had grown accustomed,” the judge declared. Cited evidence included purchase of a $70,000 car–the fourth vehicle in a two-driver household.

Oops. [I actually only ran this story so we could use that headline again. Sorry.]

I think Titan Quest is one of the most underrated action RPGs (as we all now so politely call Diablo clones), so it’s with a happy face that I see new news of the team’s new game, Grim Dawn. From Crate Entertainment – the company formed by many of the former Iron Lore gang – comes some pre-alpha footage, as spotted by PCG. You can watch it below.

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Choplifter was a side-scrolling shooter that features a helicopter. HD (pronounced “ccchhhuud”) is the modern remake of it. The helicopter can go up and down, and side to side, and shoot. It’s just like it was in the old days, only a bit prettier. You can see the truth of that statement in the trailer below. It’s even being developed by inXile Entertainment, whose Big Boy project is Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. However, it’s my contention that such a direct pun (“Choplifter”) is actually categorically wasted here. This should have been a game about stealing candy from a store using a remote-control helicopter, while the enraged store owner chases your miscreant contraption about with a baseball bat. That is my firm belief, and I will not move from it.

The game is out in the Autumn.
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Having played Crysis 2, the latest from the former technical innovators at Crytek, I have to express that I’m not only horrified, but also shocked, at the paucity of graphical accomplishments in what should have been a groundbreaking game. It’s quite clear that massive compromises have been made in order to keep the console market happy, meaning the PC version of the game is crippled to the point where it’s literally impossible to look at without feeling physically sick. I have put together some detailed analysis of the differences between CryEngine 2 and CryEngine 3, to prove that the developers have let everyone down.

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Come on, you can’t make a game in just four kilobytes. That’s just impossible. It’s crazy talk. It’s… oh, 45 people have done it this year alone, and many dozens more (including none other than Notch) in years gone by. Hmmph.

Java4K is an annual contest to create java-based browser games that use no more than that sainted figure. 4096 bytes. That’s all. By comparison, the 600-word Word document I saved this morning is 31K. We’re really talking about tiny here. But enough about Jim Rossignol. The results of the 2011 contest are in, and you can play all 45 of them right now – including miniature remakes of all manner of retromancers’ favourite games, such as wee Zelda above.
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Let’s face it – the next GTA game, rumours of which currently have consoleland all a-flutter, ever arriving on PC is pretty unlikely. Red Dead Redemption never made it this way (something I rue enormously), there’s no news of LA Noire doing it either, and Rockstar probably weren’t super-happy about the scathing reaction to the belated, bloatware-afflicted PC version of GTA IV. Bah. Bah, I said.

Still, we can at least have things the console fun-toys cannot: such as the series’ neon-lit finest hour, Vice City, recreated in the rather meatier GTA IV engine.
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“Play as asteroids, planets, stars and black holes in an infinite universe.” Eh? No, really. You actually play as celestial objects in a giant, sandbox space, complete with gravity and world-shattering collisions. Solar 2 is coming to PC in June, and I recommend taking a look at the trailer (below) to get an idea of what that entails. It’s quite the thing.
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And there was much rejoicing. Following a web-wide waggling of worried eyebrows (of which I was just one of a great many), Metacritic has done the decent thing and removed its ratings of individual developers.

Mr 8%? It’s okay. It’s over now. You’re free.
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Remember this? Well, now there’s… this. Just watch the video.
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We’ve talked a bit already about Maxis’ strange action-RPG reworking of the tools and ideas of Spore, which they’re call DarkSpore. But now you can have a look for yourself over on Steam, where there’s an open beta until the game’s launch on 26th April. Probably worth a look if you like to loot the genetic materials of your fallen enemies, and honestly, who doesn’t? There’s a four-pack pre-order bundle up there, too, for encouraging of the co-op. I think you will want to try before you buy.