Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The next game from Christine Love, creator of remarkable 2010 adventure game Digital: A Love Story, was released a few days ago. It’s another adventure of sorts, but more specifically it’s a visual novel with heightened interactivity. Here’s how it made me feel.

I know next to nothing about visual novels, I don’t know anything about anime, I’m only passingly familiar with 4Chan, I’ve never been a high school teacher, I haven’t had to wrestle with coming out and I’ve never been seduced by someone half my age. Clearly, I am completely unqualified to write about Don’t Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain’t Your Story. Fortunately, the universality of its theme and its observations means I feel completely qualified anyway. I know what it is to feel like someone’s kicked me straight in the heart. For all the otaku trappings, that’s what Christine Love’s latest is really about.
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No idea whether The Sims Medieval is any good? I used to be like you. Except, you know, taller. And faster. Then I spent a whole weekend playing Medieval for Eurogamer, and as of today they’ve posted my review! It starts like this:

Here’s the best thing I have to say about The Sims Medieval, and it’s coming at you right this second like a fat child scudding down a water slide. The Sims Medieval is like nothing else I’ve ever played. It’s not even like The Sims.

And then gradually gets a little more specific. It’s a curious bit of game design, this one, and I think it has potential. Go read! Or just watch the lengthy launch trailer featuring him from Scrubs laughing way too hard after the jump. In the coming days I will, naturally, be recreating all of RPS as Heroes within Medieval and seeing what happens.
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Registrations for the Blood Bowl World Cup 2011 are now open, although it’s frankly as clear as mud (churned beneath the boot of a team of dirty orcs) exactly how you do that. There are some details here and here, but there doesn’t seem to be an actual entry form, because there are no links where there should be links. Anyway, there will once again be thousands of dollars worth of prizes, and a big old real-world final in Cologne, Germany. So that might be worth (eventually) signing up for if you happened to be interested in Blood Bowl. Which, for some reason, I believe some of you might be.

Hearts Of Iron III: For The Motherland is the second expansion for all-encompassing wargame, Hearts Of Iron III, and it’s “coming soon”. What it does is basically fill out an already complex wargame with even more details. There are now new strategic resources in the game, as well as partisan factions, internal politics and coups. But you need not take my word for it, because lead designer Chris King totally explains it up in a new video diary, which you can see below.
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Easy Studios’ free manshooter Battlefield Play4Free is in open beta now, which means that anyone can play… for free! Hurrah for that. I’ve been playing for a few days now, and will soon post CRITICAL JUDGEMENT on it, sat, as I am, on the throne of judgement that we now use to judge things critically. I’ll be investigating its guns, free and paid for, as well as looking up its nose. Then, and only then, can we be sure of its worth. Here are some initial impressions: Argh, you can’t change any settings in game! Also: hmm, it’s all a bit locked down with these skill trees ‘n stuff. And: there’s lag about, and it really needs that server browser (which is coming, apparently). Fourthly, I totally shot some dudes. I am invincible!

Anyone else in there?

For $15 the new Section 8 game is looking like a bit of a deal. There’s a five hour single-player campaign (I played an hour of it, and it was okay) and both a 4-player co-op and standard multiplayer campaigns. All for the price of cheap. You can check out my hands-on impressions here, too. The game probably isn’t going to be a classic, but it could be eminently playable with some flaws (burdened as it is by GFWL.) Anyway, it’s been dated and that date is later this month: April 20th. I mean May 4th. Which is next month. I hate next month. Stupid May.

As of yesterday, PopCap are now the proud owners of an experimental game label, called 4th & Battery. Named after the intersection on which their Washington HQ can be found, it’s a place where they plan to put their more raw ideas. Which strikes me as a potentially splendid thing.

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Since reading it last night, I’ve been thinking a lot about a particular blog post. Specifically, one by Robert Yang, with the rather controversial statement that modding is dying – and that this is a good thing. It’s linked at the bottom of this post, and it’s got me thinking about what mods can offer that fully-fledged indie games can’t. Is there anything? Help me out in my thinkings, people, but first: read on for all the latest news from the mod scene.
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Codemasters have provided us with a fancy newbie code for Lord Of The Rings Online (EUROPE EDITION!) One code can be claimed per person, and can be used when creating a new account. It gives you free stuff! This is the free stuff: War Cloak of Isildur (a cloak) – Provides 34 Armour & +120 non-combat morale regeneration, The Guiding Star (a pocket Item) – Increases +1% Critical Hit Mod, Ring of Agility (Jewellery) Provides +3 Agility to the player’s character, Waybread of Imladris (Food) Restores power, heals damage, and increases Morale & Power regeneration. (Stack of 10), Bree-horse (Mount) – Provides faster travel around Middle-earth, can be used at lower player levels.

A free mount sounds good to me. (Arf.) Go! Sign up!

Coo – want Mass Effect 2 for free? If you’ve bought Dragon Age II, then it’s already yours for the taking. Indeed, even if you buy a copy of Dragon Age II now, before 30th April, you can get the superb space-RPG for zero dollarpounds as well. This is, BioWare say, how they’re celebrating their having sold one million copies of DA2 in two weeks.

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EA Phenomic’s project with German developer Bigpoint, Lord Of Ultima, has launched, freed from beta. It’s a browser-based MMO RTS, which boasts will continue changing your territory while you’re logged out. It’s got Ultima in the title. I’m not clear why.

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