Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Red 5 Studios’ jetpack-based free-to-play shooter Firefall is making me sing with excitement – and look at this previous coverage for judgement, not this trailer – and no less after watching this new PvP trailer. While I am most interested in the scale of the world and co-op play vs monsters, this player combat (although entirely staged) looks like it might have some Tribes-like value to it. Also: class-based. Hmm! Go take a look.
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Get your pocket money at the ready kids, here’s this weeks selection of cheap games to play on your magical pixel boxes. I’ve spent all morning scouring the internet for the best deals, and here’s the results of my comprehensive research. If cheap games every Saturday isn’t enough for you, then I keep SavyGamer updated throughout the week. Here’s the bargains: Read the rest of this entry »

This week on Gaming Made Me, games journalist and scriptwriter Will Porter remembers less a particular game and more an era – when PC games arrived thick and fast, each one a bewildering new delight. Also, James Pond, GTA and Craig Charles. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, this perhaps goes some way towards making up for the whole over-priced robot hats thingy. Official word has just arrived in our inbox from Valve that the first full-on DLC for the lovely Portal 2 will be free (on all platforms), and promises “new test chambers for players, leaderboards, challenge mode for single and multiplayer modes, and more.” That news again: free. The list of planned content also suggests there’ll be something a little more challenging than in the main game (the arguable ease and signposting of which we had a slight but affectionate moan about in our verdict yesterday), and a chance to really push Portal 2′s crazy physics as far as they’ll go.

A smart move in terms of goodwill generation, I suspect, and hopefully it’ll be top-notch content too. No exact release date yet, but it’s “this Summer”. Doesn’t Summer start on Monday? Maybe it will be Monday! (It won’t be Monday).

Does every game have to have a comic now? I don’t mind a comic, but sometimes I just want the game, and none of this stringing myself along with prequel content and backstory in a different medium. Anyway, I’m probably being a miserabilist. So there’s a Dungeon Siege III tie-in comic due from Dark Horse, spanning three issues – this is good news if you’re into DS lore, I guess.

You get a full-length print copy if you pre-order the game from certain stores (Wal-Mart specifically; not sure about non-US territories yet) or you can read one of its two 10-page stories for free on the magic internet here. You’ll need to create a Dark Horse Digital account. Should you bother? No, not really. It’s just pretty bland exposition and plot setup for the game, really. But it’s free! That’s important, right?

Both myself and Jim have recently been exploring preview code for upcoming dirty fantasy RPG The Witcher 2, which comprised the first two sections of the game. We both found ourselves simpering away like tabloid newspapers at a royal wedding in response to it; we are cynical men by nature, but so far The Witcher 2 has defeated that. Jim’s preview is here, but it’s well worth distilling our experiences down to some of the game’s most impressive aspects. The Witcher 1 may have been a little bit divisive despite the generally fond sentiment towards it, but right now it’s looking as though the second game is exactly what the starving roleplaying hordes have been praying for. Here are just a few good reasons why we’re all a-quiver- and hopefully the full game holds yet more.
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Brazilian indie developer and professional psychotherapist Nicolau Chaud is fast becoming a favourite of RPS. And why not? The man pushes at boundaries like a mean cat in a small shoebox. He first came to our attention with Marvel Brothel, and his next game, a short story of torture and sadism entitled Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, got Kieron so excited that he came out of retirement to do an exhaustive review.

This week, freelance journo Jordan Rivas has taken a look at Chaud’s upcoming game, Polymorphous Perversity. You can read the full blog post here, or examine my digest of the sexy Brazilian’s next big release after the jump. Urgh, I just succeeded in grossing myself out.
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Just two weeks to go. And that means a last gasp newsburst. We’ve got two more feature-elucidating videos below, which talk more about objectives and general gamefoolery. We’ve also got some clarification about dedicated servers. Anyone will be able to run a dedicated server, in the tradition of multiplayer FPS games since year dot: “The Brink Standalone Dedicated Server will be available for download via Steam prior to release. Once the server is available, you can simply browse to the Tools tab in your Steam client and grab it from there.”
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F***! Holy s***! P************! I’ve just spotted over at the industrious (and freshly resdesigned!) IndieGames blog that gorgeous looking indie platformer Capsized is getting released on Steam in just ten hours. I’m also seeing now that as well as the campaign, it’s shipping with a collection of arcade modes- Co-op, Deathmatch, Survival, Time Trials and “Armless Fighting”, whatever that is. Two players sat side by side, controlling the game by mashing the keyboard with their faces? We can only hope. The launch trailer follows. Take a look! Take a look, and then pre-order.
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While RPS is displeased that Britain’s future king elected to go against tradition and marry a woman instead of a horse, we’re not entirely without heart. As such, we’re going to make the big day thematically appropriate for City Of Heroes players by giving away City of Heroes Wedding Packs. That’s right: NCSoft have give us the premium wedding DLC, worth £5.99, and we can give it away to thirty lucky, lucky readers. Lucky European readers, anyway, as it’s limited to Europe. More details below.
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Bad cops, bad cops! Whatcha gonna do when they… No, I don’t know any more words. I should just stop this spurious introduction right now. Except I can’t. I’m trapped in my own cliche. Help me. Help me.

Ah, that’s better. So: attention, fans of leftfield point and click adventure games. While Hector: Badge of Carnage may be published/distributed by Telltale, it isn’t part of their curiously unchanging formula. It’s a satirical, foul-mouthed and resolutely 2D game starring a bad-intentioned copper, made by a couple of chaps from Northern Ireland, and it allows you to indulge yourself with sociopathic delights such as “hit a tramp with a crowbar, steal a young man’s trousers, kick a heroin addict into a cardboard box, enter a porn shop without embarrassment, carry a designer handbag… all in the name of justice.” It’s a British game too (well, Northern Irish), and on this day of ULTIMATE BRITISHNESS you should show your respect for those posh goons who are all over the telly today by playing this.
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