Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It just occurred to me that I’ve not been particularly pro-active with game nights and such of late, so I thought I might do a quick run down on some of the stuff that is going on with the community, as well as mention that there’s probably going to be some Arma action this weekend. Not sure about times on that, will update with it later. In the meantime it’s worth noting that the forum is a great place to finding gaming chums, particularly in the social clubs folder. Currently there’s a call out to find Section 8 players, and a thread about MegaMek, which is a way of playing the Battletech boardgame online. Then there’s the Blood Bowl league, which isn’t looking for sign ups, but is nonetheless in progress and interesting, and a bunch of other things, such as a call out for Rift players. Last, but not least, there’s the ongoing adventures of the community Minecraft server.

Anyone else want to pimp their exploits?

UPDATE: Arma 2 kicking off at 7pm (GMT+1) next Saturday. The ArmA 2 server can be found by filtering games by name for “rock”, password rumpus. Mumble is at 81.19.209.123 port 64738 (config guide at http://rockpapershotgun.com/rpsforum/topic.php?id=4093)

In a clear case of Notch putting the cart before the ography, he’s announced on his blog that the 1.6 update for Minecraft will predominantly be made up of bugfixes, but will also add maps to the game.

It’s a little bit cooler than it sounds. If another player picks up a map you’ve dropped, they’ll be able to see your handiwork and add to it themselves. Notch also says there’ll be a way to “clone” maps, so that two players will see one another as flashing marks on each of their copies of the map. Predictable song after the jump.
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Unbounded? Really? Is that even a word? I suppose language matters not a jot to muscle cars. What they care about is getting somewhere quickly. They hate to be late. Me too, frankly. One of my pet peeves.

Anyway, Ridge Racer “Unbounded” will be arriving on PC some time in 2012. In the meantime you can look at the latest teaser trailer, below. It shows a car driving through a wall which suggests… destructible scenery? Could this be the BFBC2 of racing games?
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Must admit, I sorta miss the time before Call of Duty came up with the bright idea of dicking around with the era it was set in, swiftly leading to every other bugger giving it a shot too. Latest on this modernisation bandwagon is Call of Juarez, a series which so far has steadily carved away its most interesting aspects in favour of chasing that tasty, tasty mainstream tail. The third game/reboot is The Cartel, set in modern-day Mexico (much to the consternation of real-life local law figures, who feel that making light of an ongoing culture of violence may not be a good idea for the impressionable youngsters of Juarez), and it seems more determined than ever to snatch the attention of whatever it is that focus groups say today’s average gamer is. After having made do with CGIy stuff until now, here’s the game in action. Subtlety? We don’t need no stinkin’ subtlety. Read the rest of this entry »

Poor old Trolls – Azeroth hasn’t treated them too kindly over the years. They’ve either been comedy Jamaicans or murderous sword-fodder, so often denied the prestige and glory of Warcraft’s major races. And don’t even get me started on the raw deal the gnomes get… Anyway, the Trolls are getting their day in the sun for the latest WoW patch, 4.1, which sees the angrier arms of the family uniting and deciding to raise merry hell for everyone else. Essentially, it means a fun/bloody time for level 85 players, and it looks a little something like this. Warning: includes boulders. I say that in case anyone reading has a phobia of boulders. We’re a kinder, more considerate RPS these days.
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Things that are good + LEGO = Happiness. It’s a sum we were all taught in school, and it’s as true today as it ever was. So when a clever person, Catsy [CSF], builds a customised GLaDOS and Chell out of LEGO, I’m so sold. Have a look at a couple of the splendid results below.

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Russian developers Ice-Pick Lodge are an inspiration of mine. Operating out of a two bedroom Moscow apartment, their small team assembled Pathologic, one of my favourite games of all time, and monstrous afterlife-simulator The Void, which was among the most interesting games of 2008.

Both of these games were legendarily bleak. Last week Ice-Pick released Cargo! – The Quest For Gravity, and it’s eye-popping colour alone makes it unlike anything they’ve ever done. But precisely what kind of game is it? And is it worth buying? These were tough answers to acquire, but you’ll find them both after the jump.
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Not here, I’m afraid – although Jim and I will be pairing up for further discussion about CD Projekt’s new roleplaying opus very soon – but over on Eurogamer, where I’ve dashed out a goodly few words about the first two sections of The Witcher 2. Now, I’m known in some parts (by people who don’t entirely grasp that there are medium-sized numbers in between high numbers and low numbers) as one of the guys who didn’t dig the original Witcher all that much. You’ll find over here that I certainly don’t feel the same way about the second game. E.g. on EG:

A huge step upwards in terms of presentation, writing and roleplaying complexity, The Witcher 2 takes the RPG fight right to the big boys. Assassins of Kings? If the kings are BioWare and Bethesda, that sounds about right.

I really, really, really hope review code’s landing soon. In fact, I just spied a press release claiming the game’s gone gold, so that May 17 release date is in no doubt.

If you were planning on being either a Pointy Man or a ton of Fettel this time next month, make a sad face now. The third full game in the now long-running series about man-shooting and women-fearing has backed down from its planned release on May 27, for reasons we may never know. Although the line (as given to OXM) is so “more time can be spent on optimisation in order to provide the best experience possible.”
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It’s been a week of people announcing that it will be possible to make mods for things in the future. We might not be easily able to mod the below games for now, but it’s looking like the next few months will see some exciting new additions to the moddable titlesphere. You want to know which games, don’t you? Unless you already know. You might. But read on anyway, for all the latest mod-related gubbins. This week: Minecraft, Crysis 2, HL2 meets Shock 2, STALKER, the Witcher and… Wolfenstein 3D.
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In an exclusive interview with two of Portal 2‘s writers, Chet Faliszek and Jay Pinkerton, we take the opportunity to discuss the game now most people have finished it. In the first part of our spoiler-packed chat we discuss the motivations behind the sequel’s content, favourite Easter eggs, and how Portal 2 almost contained no GLaDOS, no Chell, and even at one point, no portals. Have we mentioned that there’s spoilers?

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