Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There’s a point at which looking back on my life can just be humiliating. I was SO rubbish at the classic platformers on the Spectrum. I don’t think I ever got past the third screen of either Manic Miner or Chuckie Egg 2. Honestly, I’m a shame to this entire industry. Orm & Cheep was about my level. So the rather snazzy The Wonderful Towers Of Mr Imp both impresses me and reminds me what a cack-handed buffoon I am. It’s an 8-bit puzzle platformer from Chinese indie dev 8bitattitude, with a sizeable demo.

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Monday Night Combat is getting an update for Uncle Tully’s Funland. It has one of the most incredible trailers yet produced for a videogame (see below) and it features some kind of battle-chicken: “Make Chickey fly away by shooting him and earn a big single-life buff for your entire team! Wait for Chickey to slam the ground and then you can grapple him. Ride him for eight seconds and earn big money! “

We should probably sort out some RPS games of MNC, right? Right.
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Mostly I’m impressed with the tenacity of the title, Of Orcs And Men. That, and my discovery that the green-skinned RPG is developed by spiders. I mean, we’ve played games made by bears, and a couple of flops from raccoons, but spiders! I’ve been waiting so long to see what those industrious beasties could do. And it seems their first high-profile project is… wait, sorry, someone’s talking in my ear… Oh. Spiders. Well, good.

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Jim and Alec have been dipping their toes in the Red River. This second Operation Flashpoint from Codemasters’ internal studio once again returns to sprawling landscapes and manshooter action, but this time seems a little more refined. That said, critical responses to the game once again seem negative. Is that justified? Or is there some value in this desert manshoot? Read on for manshoot eludication.
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A strange beast shambles this way: Darkspore! ‘Tis the progeny of Maxis, sim-creators, and it is… an action RPG? A bold genetic strangeness, then – but is it a virile cross-breed or an inbred abomination? Let me take some time you tell you wot I think.
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UPDATE: Here’s the news from Sony.

“Customers outside the United States should be advised that we further discovered evidence that information from an outdated database from 2007 containing approximately 12,700 non-US customer credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes) and about 10,700 direct debit records listing bank account numbers of certain customers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Spain may have also been obtained. We will be notifying each of those customers promptly.”

Oh dear. The sites for Everquest 2, Planetside, and a bunch of other games are now all defaulting to a “maintenance” screen. The message reads: “We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).”

This is probably just Sony being thorough after last weeks debacle, but it’s nevertheless going to be causing a few frustrations this evening.

UPDATE: This has now relocated to Kyoto Bar, details here.

I once heard that a man can lose himself in London. Lose himself. I was considering jumping on a train to that there capital city for the next London based RPS Social Club meeting, but abject fear of the tube (TRAINS UNDER THE GROUND?!?!) and the fact that I don’t own a bowler hat are preventing me from going. So, I thought, why not get the Social Club to come to me? Read on for details of the first Manchester based RPS Social Club Meet. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s battle broadcast comes to you from a picturesque Dutch city on the banks of the Rhine. It’s September 1944, and a beleaguered force of British paratroopers, clinging by their fingernails to positions around Arnhem’s strategically-vital road bridge, are about to participate in what could well turn out to be their final action. All that stands between the Red Berets and total annihilation is a couple of 6-pounder anti-tank guns, a flamethrower, two PIATs, a few dozen Stens and Lee-Enfield rifles, and one mediocre wargamer who has known and loved Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far for the best part of 14 years.

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Last week, I had bit of a play with Driver: San Francisco, the surprisingly weird comeback attempt for the veteran action-racing series. After a string of delays, it’s due out September 2 this year, but here are some impressions, pictures and videos for you to eyeball in the meantime.
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RPS chum Stephen Totilo met up with Fred Wester from Paradox recently, and they had a little chat. Reader Lasse Bertheussen points out that this little chat contained a brief mention of Syndicate, which is currently being remade by Starbreeze. Here it is:

And down the line? Well, this is how Wester’s mind works: He loved the ruthless isometric tactical classic Syndicate back in the day. He also works in Sweden and is therefore privy to the fact that a neighboring studio is making a new Syndicate for EA and that the game is “more of a like a GTA wannabe than it’s like the original game.” Therefore, he wants Paradox to make its own riff on Syndicate. They don’t have a game design in mind yet, but that’s the dream.

I’m smiling. Are you smiling?

I’m posting this more as a reminder of No Time To Explain’s status than anything else. It started off as a free flash game, then the developers announced they were polishing the game into something more substantial with the best trailer ever made, and since then they’ve amassed almost $20,000 on their Kickstarter page, shattering their original target of $7,000 like a tiny bird flying clean through a windowpane. You’ve still got another 24 days to pledge, with $5 getting you the game at launch (they’re aiming for late summer), a saving of some 50%. For $25 you’ll get beta access and a level editor, and any particularly amazing levels will get into the finished game. Genius.

On April 1st TinyBuild released their first gameplay trailer, which it turned out was just three people dancing. More recently they’ve released an actual gameplay trailer. That’s after the jump.
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