By Quintin Smith on May 26th, 2011.
The following was just sent in to the RPS twitter account by a Mr. GibletHead2000:
‘You really need to cover “Japan World Cup“. GOTY? Probably. Japanese, but you’ll figure it out.’
He’s right, you know. On all counts. And that’s all I’m willing to say about it. Don’t worry if you don’t speak a word of Japanese, just go and place your bets in the Japan World Cup.
By Alec Meer on May 26th, 2011.
Social networked Diablo-with-guns thinger Gunshine was a closed beta, and now it is an open beta. NEWS. Good news, however, as it means you no longer have to beg, borrow, steal or create a complicated algorithm to illegally generate a key to get in. It’s open to any and all, so long as they’ve got a browser which supports Flash. I’ve had a quick look at it and… well, it’s not horrible. I say this with some surprise, because I’ve become accustomed to games made for the Book of Faces being pretty horrible for traditional gamers like you and I (even if they are better-suited to non-gamers). Gunshine appears, so far, to be doing the right thing – making the addition of friends and spending give you better stuff and extra clout, rather than essentially locking you out unless you cough up or wait around.
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By John Walker on May 26th, 2011.
Oh my goodness, the cute-o-meter has just started hissing heart-shaped clouds of steam and leaking glitter. Heroic dad Ryan Creighton (of Flash developer Untold Entertainment) took his five-year-old daughter Cassie to this year’s TOJam, and together they created the adventure game, Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure. Which has turned out to be the most popular game of the show, to the point where the poor TOJam website has been taken over by it.
By Quintin Smith on May 26th, 2011.
This one’s a little disturbing, so if you’re in a good mood then proceed with caution. The Guardian has spoken to a Chinese man by the pseudonym of Liu Dali who claims that during his spell in a prison in North-East China, among the traditional back-breaking labour of breaking rocks and “whittling chopsticks and toothpicks from planks of wood”, the guards also made him and the other convicts play massively multiplayer games in twelve hour shifts, in the interest of selling the gold online. I’ve never bought MMORPG currency online, but I imagine if I had I’d currently be feeling quite ill.
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By John Walker on May 26th, 2011.
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations has information to spill. As we rejoin Ezio Auditore, running around Constantinople, this November it’ll be time to kick some Templar arse. And so far, Ubisoft are saying that includes the PC, although history suggests there’s the possibility that could change. What we know so far, some brand new screenshots, and a the first teaser trailer, are below.
By John Walker on May 26th, 2011.
Red Faction: Armageddon doesn’t appear to be taking itself very seriously. One of the unlockable modes in the forthcoming destruct-em-up will let things look like they’re in an ’80s music video. They’re calling it Sketch Mode, and say it “redefines comic mischief”, which seems an odd claim.
But, they say it’s “more than a fun way to play.” Apparently it “showcases the GeoMod 2.0 destruction technology in a whole new light, as entire colony buildings come crashing down on your enemies in black and white.” So just a fun way to play, then. The game is out on the 10th June, which is quite soon. You can watch the extremely silly trailer below.
By Alec Meer on May 26th, 2011.
I guess Activision have been pretty good at rolling with the hard punch they took when Kotaku controversially busted open most of Modern Warfare 3′s secrets the other week. A selection of trailers has now been followed by a preview day for the press that Activision’s prepared to talk to (sigh). Here’s Eurogamer’s and VG24/7′s impressions, both of which suggest a pretty familiarly hyper-scripted experience, but a bigger, brasher, noisier approach to setpieces and a focus on urban combat and the explosive destruction of global landmarks in the UK, US and Germany.
You know! Anyway, some screenshots for you – and what I believe are the first official ones.
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By Alec Meer on May 26th, 2011.
I miss demos. I miss them so much. I wouldn’t be here, writing these words, if it weren’t for demos: how else could a sport-fearing, skinny young misery with only the slightest pittance for pocketmoney have found his way into playing video games? Once, my bedroom was littered with floppy discs, each and every one of which had at some point led to me standing outside a game shop, counting pennies with a quivering hand, praying I had enough.
Granted, magazines were the gateway drug back then, when there was no way to watch a trailer or scour Facebook for new screenshots, but later in life the web too seemed an infinite fount of sampled digital delights, and led to any number of purchases of those games that seemed the most absorbing – or simply because the demo ended, apparently expertly, at a point which left me urgently hungry for more. Those days are gone.
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By Quintin Smith on May 26th, 2011.
Slowly spreading mushrooms, dead shrubs, doors that make noises that everyone else can hear and paper maps? It sounds like Alec’s flat, but in fact it’s the Minecraft 1.6 patch, which has now gone live. You’ll find the full changelog after the jump, along with the following enigmatic entry: “The record player now supports more than 15 different songs (you can’t get the records yet, though)”.
Surely the only justifiable way of getting records would be from an NPC of some kind? I mean, surely Notch wouldn’t expect you to whittle a record. Surely.
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By John Walker on May 26th, 2011.
One of my favourite jokes is making up genres. Generally I pick two or three that seem unlikely to work together, inevitably beginning with “turn-based”, because it’s the unlikeliest approach to many other types. Which makes the description of Dark Scavenger, announced today by Psydra Games, beyond intriguing. They’re calling it a turn-based combat point-and-click adventure. Wuh?
By Quintin Smith on May 26th, 2011.
Crikey, kudos to Blizzard for releasing a hundred and sixty eight screenshots of Diablo 3 on the official site and all, and I do hate to be picky, but it’d be nice if could release just one or two that didn’t look terrible.
We’ve got some sizeable Diablo 3 news today. Blizzard have done a big post on the game’s new system of Runestones. Where in previous Diablo games you were able to plug gems into sockets on your equipment to alter it slightly, Runestones do much the same for your skills, altering precisely how they work and even what they look like. There’s some serious work that’s gone into this- in short, each of the game’s hundred plus skills will five additional variants. I can’t even conceive of trying to balance that for competitive multiplayer.
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