Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Black Ops map pack, Escalation, has now been officially confirmed by Activision. It’ll feature five new maps, of which four are multiplayer maps and one if a zombie shooter thing.

…battle it out in Hotel, on the roof of a Cuban luxury hotel and casino against the vivid backdrop of old Havana; Convoy delivers intense, close-quarters combat at the scene of an ambushed US military convoy; Zoo takes you on a wild ride in an abandoned Soviet Russian Zoo, with danger at every turn; Stockpile pits players in a remote Russian farm town housing secret WMD facilities.

No price or PC date, however. BigDownload reckon it’ll be in June, but I think that’s just speculation.

What! Another game arrives early this year? Something funny is going on in game dev, but it’s true. Brink has apparently wrapped up production a week early, and consequently the game will now release on May 10th in North America and May 13th in Europe. Hmm. I suppose that makes our review schedule a bit easier, anyway…

Despite admitting that they’ve yet to figure out any kind of useful multiplayer for Mass Effect, Bioware’s Casey Hudson has said that the idea of an MMO in the universe “makes sense”. Speaking to world-bestriding super-magazine Game Informer, he said: “Part of what you’re trying to do is save the universe so you can live in it. That’s part of the promise, I think, for any great IP. It has to be a world worth saving… I think Mass Effect has that quality to it. If you get rid of the Reapers and win that, wouldn’t it be amazing to just live on the Citadel or just take a ship to Omega? That makes sense.”

I feel like any genuine space-life MMO would be pretty amazing, and perhaps Eve Online will manage that in the coming years. Or maybe Bioware will make a space MMO of some kind. Hmm. Thanks, VG247.

Arcade dragon management game Hoard has been lurking on Steam for the better part of a week. Maybe you’ve seen it. Maybe you imagine that it’s been looking at you, the words “Buy me” riding its smoky breath like surfers balanced on a wave of deadly lava. For the sake of your sanity I’ve therefore played Hoard, so as to tell you if it’s worth buying. And it… it…
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This is a random sort of update, but it’s just a polite recommendation for all of you. Way back in the mists of 2009 I took a look at the state of mods for Clear Sky, and concluded that while a markedly improved experience was possible, none were a perfect fix to that flawed gem. I’d like to revise and update that, having spent the weekend playing Clear Sky with its Complete mod. That’s the most fun I’ve had playing an FPS since, well, since I played Call Of Pripyat. And the Complete stuff cranked up to maximum on everything seems like the best way to exercise a decent PC. I’ve spend quite a bit of time marvelling at the visuals, but lots more time enjoying the challenge of the unscripted manshoots. It really is something.

What a shame that no other studio seeks to emulate GSC’s achievements with these games. The one time we want people to shamelessly rip something off…

Ah-ha! This is what we like to see: a trailer made of lots of game footage that details exactly how things will play out. It’s a glimpse of 4-player co-op mission from Operation Flashpoint: Red River in which the players perform a search and rescue operation for downed pilots in a river valley. It gives a good (although jumpily edited) impression of how the co-op will work, and how the missions might play out. Disappointingly, it appears to be 360 footage with a touch of auto-aim. Sigh/boo.
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The chaps over at Bigpoint send word that their latest online RPG, the rather beautiful-looking Drakensang Online (based on the German single-player RPG series’ “Anderworld” setting – is that right? Not The Dark Eye stuff, anyway…) is now taking beta applications. Go and hit the “Play Now For Free” button on their site to bring up the registration form. Word is that you’ll hear back any time from today if your application is successful. For firm evidence of the game’s pretties, go and take a look at the trailer, which I’ve embedded below. It’s got a splendid Diablo-y look to it, so I hope the game lives up to these initial glances. We’ll have some more on it soon!
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Cripes. You may remember us reporting that as of some two weeks ago, Valve were selling a variety of hats and noisemakers in Team Fortress 2 with prices ranging from $0.49 to $100 (that’d be the one on the right, there) in the name of raising money forAmerican Red Cross’s disaster relief fund for Japan. Those items vanished from the game’s Mann Co. store on Wednesday last week, but Valve have today reported on the official Team Fortress 2 blog that fans bought a total of $430,543 and 65 cents’ worth of stuff. Good work, gamers!

To mark the occasion, I’ve arranged for Sambomaster to play us out after the jump.
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A few years back I remember Kieron angrily arguing that genres were stifling development. I’ve decided to muse on that. Simply by applying the label we inhibit both the game’s development, and the audience’s appreciation of the results. So perhaps one of the most frustrating results of such thinking is the notion of labelling something a “genre crossing game”.

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And by DADIU I mean the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment, a video game higher education institution which approaches its students’ graduation games a little differently from other courses the world over. Rather than demanding small handfuls of students complete a game over a semester, DADIU exists to assemble crack teams of twelve to fifteen students where everyone fills a highly specialised role, but a game must be conceived and completed in five weeks.

The results speak for themselves. This year’s contestants include historic dinosaur terror, a Portal-style puzzler, a strategy game with a truly brilliant concept and more besides. Better still, they’re all built using Unity and available to play online.
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Multiplayer World War 2-With-Dinosaurs fever dream Dino D-Day has landed on Steam, available now for the price of $20. With 26 different WW2 weapons, 9 human classes and 3 dinosaur classes (Velociraptor, Dilophosaur and Desmatosuchus) you’re guaranteed literally minutes of fun. Perhaps more if the game is any good! Launch trailer after the jump.
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