By Alec Meer on April 6th, 2011.
Last week’s news that US high street gaming market-choker Gamestop had acquired the Impulse download service from Stardock caused a whole lot of shock in these parts. Looks like PC gamers weren’t the only ones a little troubled by the news; Star Ruler dev Blind Mind Studios has pulled its sci-fi grand strategy game from the digital store in protest.
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By Alec Meer on April 5th, 2011.
We sort of sat on this one despite all the rumours about it, due to a combination of thinking it was an April Fool’s thing, our usual elderly-style bewilderment and being distracted by my cat chasing a bit of… Oh! Look at her! It’s adorable! She’s rolled over now! And she’s purring! And..
Oops, I did it again. Oh yes, the Valve ARG. This is elaborate and packed with delectable mysteries – but what does it mean?
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By Alec Meer on April 5th, 2011.
I’m going to have a whole lot more to say about this later in the week, but it is only right to point your ocular organs its way while I finish playing it and arranging my thoughts. The wonderfully-titled ‘Don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story‘ is the next (free) game from Christine Love, who you may know from the best adventure game of 2010, Digital: A Love Story. I’ve only played an hour or so, but already it’s lodged expertly in my head and won’t get out.
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By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2011.
Valve Software sure do make videos good. They’ve done just that for Portal 2, several times now. And now there is more of it! I don’t know where they get their ideas from. A book, probably.
The “Turrets” video is below.
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By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2011.
So that next-generation Unreal Engine video was fairly impressive, but getting into the depths of what the tools actually do – and how much of that is actually DX11 stuff – has had to wait until this video over on Kotaku. Real-time beards! That’s the fucking future, right there.
By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2011.
Tesla: The Weather Man is a side-scrolling platformer in which the godfather of electricity must save himself from his arch enemy by using weather manipulation techniques. Hmm, yes, occasionally the developer-supplied description of a game will do: “Use weather control powers to stop Thomas Edison and his army of DC-powered robots! You play as Nikola Tesla after the triumph of alternating current has sent Edison into a violent rage.” There’s a demo.
And a video below, of course.
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By Alec Meer on April 5th, 2011.
Czech devs Future Games must have been pretty narked when arch Canadian indie band the Arcade Fire titled the first track on their overblown second album ‘Black Mirror.’ The Googles were suddenly filled with lyrics pages rather than links to horror-themed point and click adventures. How unfair!
You can help to right this accidental injustice by having a peer at the just-released demo for Black Mirror 3. Includes haunted houses, a troubled mind and the deciphering of puzzles. Read the rest of this entry »
By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2011.
Via the newsbeast of VG247, I am made aware of a new Brink trailer. This one is about the abilities you can unlock for your characters over time. It includes a pretty sweet deployable turret, and the obligatory stealth-dude ability to counter it, in this case hacking it so that the thing guns down its former owners.
Brink is out on May 17th. So that’s going to be a busy week.
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By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2011.
Gosh, the venerable superhero MMO has hit its twentieth major update! The expansion is called Incarnates, and NCsoft explains it like this: “Players will be introduced to the game’s new Incarnate Trials, group encounters featuring a series of innovative game mechanics that will test even the most powerful characters. Taking place in the seemingly utopian empire of Praetoria, Heroes and Villains will find themselves challenged with a cosmic threat that could destroy two worlds.” All of which means new powers and new challenges for groups of 8-24 players.
We’ve got more details on that below, along with a illustrative trailer which show some of the trials in action, as well as some of the characters involved. (If I had a super power it would be this one, so that I could get all these games played.)
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By Jim Rossignol on April 5th, 2011.
The Witcher 2 looks shiny. But how shiny will it be? And will it really take advantage of our big strong PCs? We can find out more with a closer look a the system specs (which I’ve posted below), as well as some lovely new screenshots. I’ve got ‘em all set to click through to hi-res, should you wish to inspect them closely.
The game is out on May 17th.
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By Alec Meer on April 5th, 2011.
I have only foggy memories of Sega’s 1991 side-scrolling man-thumper Streets of Rage (I was more of a Final Fight man, played on a chum’s Amiga) but I remember visiting the house of the only boy in the world to own a Mega-CD / Sega CD and playing it with him there. Though it might have been the second game, now I think of it. No matter – many buttons were bashed, many men were thumped, many naughty-swears were uttered. And yes, I do remember that thing where the police car turns up and bombs everything to death with as much fondness as the next man.
Now, a cartel of indie devs have painstakingly remade the bally thing as an elaborate, faithful but free PC game. After a remarkable eight years in development, you can play the ‘final’ version of this labour of violent love right now.
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