Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I began installing the Pride of Nations demo earlier, but became so distracted by the oddly evocative awkwardness of the install screen (see below) that I haven’t actually played the thing yet. AGEOD’s latest is a 19th Century-set, turn-based grand strategy affair of vast scope and depth if perhaps not graphicsability (as has always been their shtick), with the demo containing five tutorial levels and then 12 turns of you trying to be king of the bloody world. Yes, you. Big on diplomacy and low on objectionably scripted enemies, it all sounds rather fine on paper. If 750MB of downloadery is beyond your ability, perhaps you’d like to watch the below walkthrough video to get a sense of how it plays. Just don’t call it Rise Of Nations. I just had to go and correct every instance of its name in this post because I made that rookie mistake.
Read the rest of this entry »

Along with news of a release date on 15th November, Volition have produced a CG trailer for Saints Row: The Third. Straight facts, no jokes. Except for this one: What’s red and invisible? No tomatoes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you play Darksiders? THQ’s hack-n-slashing action-them-to-bits had a nine month delay before its release on PC, which always subdues the reaction somewhat. When Jim got hold of it last September he was having a lovely time, right up until a dumb boss fight at the end of a long walk and unskippable cutscene kept splatting him with cars. But until that point it was offering lots of fighty-fun. So perhaps a sequel will provide a more refined pathway to an ending?

Read the rest of this entry »

What? What! WHAT. Given the annoucement that the Creative Assembly is working on an Alien game for SEGA and that Gearbox seemed so busy with Duke Nukem Forever and doubtless something Borderlandsy, we’d begun to presume that Randy Pitchford’s lot had quietly shelved Aliens: Colonial Marines. IT IS NOT SO. The little-seen team/co-op-based shooter has come out of the God-damned walls at last, promising a 2012 release date and an appearance at E3 later this month. Words and pictures and videos and stuff and things about it are below…
Read the rest of this entry »

Friend of RPS Phill Cameron pinged this at me this morning, the sweetie- indie project King Arthur’s Gold is big ol’ team-based multiplayer battle with an emphasis on destructible terrain and constructing defenses. In essence, it’s a 2D, medieval interpretation of the incredible Ace of Spades. Which was, of course, a more combative interpretation of Minecraft. Between this and Terraria, we’ve got quite a commendable amount of larceny going on. It’s so nice seeing those strong ideas honed and repurposed.

Want to learn more about King Arthur’s Gold? I’ve got info and footage after the jump. Or, if you’d prefer, you can just start playing it here.
Read the rest of this entry »

Adult Swim: home of naughty cartoons and a surprising number of clever, free indie games. UK ministudio Preloaded are the latest to join those ranks, with side-scrolling, high-casualty strategy game zOMT.

Auto-marching strategy games, wherein your lads do most of the violent legwork for you once you’ve built them, are increasingly pervasive – the nominal successor to tower defence, and based on similar values. zOMT differs somewhat in that it’s primarily a defensive game, with you spending generated mana on constructing soldiers, exploding madmen, elemental spells, bomb-bouncing clouds and sturdy trees to keep an implacable enemy from nobbling your base.
Read the rest of this entry »

Are any of you lot still playing EverQuest 2? Some people are, it would seem, since Sony are continuing to churn out both pay-for and free content. The latest free update, The Children of War, adds the fortress of Drunder, seven new missions, new PvP maps and modes, new quests, new crafting recipes and all kinds of other gubbins. This comes after Destiny of Velious, the latest pay-for expansion, added flying mounts and reduced the number of stats belonging to each character to two.

It would also appear that somewhere along the line the developers stopped hiring professional voice actors for their trailers, as you’ll see below.
Read the rest of this entry »

Quite a lot of mod news this week, apparently, even though there’s very little for you to actually play. There’s a long-awaited update from Jurrassic Life, as well as plenty of other gubbins related to Half-Life 2, Crysis, Stalker: Clear Sky, Portal 2 and Dirt 3. That’s a lot of games! Read on to find out what’s what.
Read the rest of this entry »

It doesn’t seem right, watching two of the calmest developers you will ever lay eyes on talk about a game called Rage, but that’s exactly what you’ll find after the jump. Apparently intercepted on their way to a bikram yoga class, these two were happy to spend plenty of time answering questions about The Authority, the corporate future-bastards you’ll be fighting in Rage alongside all those grubby mutants. I’m not sure, but I think this game looks prettier every time they release footage of it.
Read the rest of this entry »