Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Archive for June, 2011

Hands On: Dead Island

By John Walker on June 23rd, 2011.

Here, have this axe. It's a present!

Oftentimes with games, what you want is to gain knowledge from scratch. There’s a title, a genre, and what we need is to build information upon that. With Dead Island it often feels like things are working in the opposite direction, thanks to that trailer. Everyone invented their own version of the game, and the reality can often feel like the result of chipping away at this impossible ideal. So let’s scrap all that, forget the trailer since it has no real bearing on the game you play, and start getting interested from the ground up.

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Boom: Nuclear Dawn Arrives September 2011

By Jim Rossignol on June 23rd, 2011.

Needs better action screenshots. This is poor.
Nuclear Dawn, the FPS-RTS hybrid Source mod turned (maybe) commercial title, had all got a bit hazy of late. What was going on with it? We hadn’t even posted about it in two years. Two years! Anyway, we’ve just received word that post-apocalyptic project is getting a release in September (definitely!) The game is a multiplayer mix of FPS and RTS, with folks able to take on the roles of RTS-style commander, or one of four classes on the battlefield. As I understand it the two factions differ in how their bases work, with their team loadouts being roughly symmetrical. The new announcement also claims that the game will be packed with all the trappings of modern multiplayer, with unlocks, 60 ranks, squad-functionality, and Steamworks-based cloud configs and character stuff. It will kick off with six maps and 32-player servers. Not 32 player servers. Obviously.

Teaser below.
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Bugging Out: Infested Planet

By B Caldwell on June 23rd, 2011.

It's really hard to take a good screenshot of this one. Forgive me, masters.
Look look look look look look look look. Someone has watched Starship Troopers a dozen times in a row and then, after fondling his chin and scrutinising the grander philosophies of the universe, concluded: “You know what I think? I think: videogame.” That person is blessed Canadian Alex Vostrov, of Rocket Bear Games. And the game he made is Infested Planet, which you can see visual evidence of down below.
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Dungeon Siege 3 Getting Better PC Controls

By Quintin Smith on June 23rd, 2011.

Is she kneeling or being eaten by the floor? Screenshots, you are so mysterious

Obsidian lead designer Nathaniel Chapman has stated in an interview with Eurogamer that the developers are currently working on a patch to improve the PC version of Dungeon Siege 3‘s keyboard and mouse controls. I’ve yet to play the PC version of DS3, but I was witness to Alec’s agitated bellowing about the PC controls (among other things), so I’m going to go ahead an assume that this is a good thing.
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PopCap Being Sold To EA For $Lots Bn?

By B Caldwell on June 23rd, 2011.


The unblinking eye of Internet-news following that is Techcrunch has reported that Electronic Arts might just currently be in the middle of a deal to be acquire PopCap for the paltry sum of $1 billion. Given that EA aren’t as involved in the business of squeezing out casual or mobile games as they are in the home console and PC market, it seems like a logical move for them. But $1 billion is a sizeable chunk of EA’s total market value of $1 squillion kajillion (conventional mathematics puts this figure at $7.49 billion, so EA would be offering 13% of that. Yikes).

You might be terrified of EA’s influence on one of the most creative and fun studios in the casual market but this was good news for me, because it gave me the chance to question PopCap via the PR with the best name in the world, Ember Wardrop. “Per company policy, we do not comment on rumors and speculation of this nature,” she said. Oh, boo.

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TF2 Update Is Here All Week, Folks!

By Jim Rossignol on June 23rd, 2011.


Ooh, we didn’t mention this yesterday, but it was apparently Timbuk Tuesday, which revealed Sniper and Demoman stuff, and today is World War Wednesday, which reveals three new packs for the Soldier. No, wait. THAT was yesterday. Today is Thursday, that’s right. More on that later.

But there’s already more! In Tuesday there was hidden stuff for the Scout, too. He gets a radiation-imbued bat that enabled triple jump, with the third jump deal damage. (And other stuff, too!) Oh, there’s also this Pyro stuff.

But what’s this? Some kind of number. 85.236.100.200:27015 What could be it? Possibly the address of the RPS TF2 server? We’ll have to investigate.

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‘Blops “Annihilation” Multiplayer DLC Trailer

By Jim Rossignol on June 23rd, 2011.

See how they get shot, there. Clever stuff.
Call Of Duty: Black Ops is getting some kind of multiplayer expansion thing! I know, I can hardly believe it either, but it’s true. The trailer (below) shows off some elements of what to expect, and also a live action bit with some moustachioed dude in a diner. Why is that? I do not know. It makes little sense. But there are zombies, too. The zombies are from a fourth map, Shangri-La, which provides a supernatural alternative to the three standard multiplayer maps.

This expansion apparently turns up on the X-machine on the 28th and will then appear on our machine sometime thereafter. So that’s the mainstream Action News for the day. Let’s see if we can find an indie RTS to talk about. Aha, here comes one now!
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There Are An Awful Lot Of MMOs: Part 2

By John Walker on June 23rd, 2011.

I can't ever play Lucent Heart. It can't be as amazing as I now think it is.

Sometimes, late at night, I like to browse through the entries on Gamespress. It just makes me feel safe, comfortable, surrounded by the news that the games – they are always arriving. Shhhhh, it’s okay John, games are coming soon. So many games. So very many I’ve never heard of, too. And I think, “The Enigma Of Daggers? On PC? What’s that then?” And discover that Fight For Tuesdays/Cars That Can Walk/Heroes Of Heroic Hearing is not the potentially exciting new single-player RPG/FPS I’ve been waiting for, but in fact another (quite possibly potentially exciting) new MMO that’s being precariously balanced on top of the teetering pile. While (as much as I wish they were) none of those games are real, the following all are, and all appeared on GP in the last few days. Let me take you through my thought process with each encounter. (This is worth it for Lucent Heart alone.)

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RPS Asks: Cloud Gaming = PC Gaming?

By Alec Meer on June 22nd, 2011.

My god, it's full of videoclips

Pay attention, students – here’s your homework for today. Cloud gaming services such as OnLive and Gaikai: discuss. They’re on the rise, and approaching the point where they’re not just a fascinating gimmick but a viable way of playing high-end games at reasonable graphical quality. But what do they mean for PC gaming? Indeed, can they be considered PC gaming? And most of all – how seriously should we, and you, be taking them?
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In The Trenches: Running With Rifles

By Jim Rossignol on June 22nd, 2011.

The fog of war, eh?
Okay, look, this is a tough one for good screenshots, but nevertheless promising. It’s an oddity that I am sure a few of you will be interested in. It’s an early version of a game by Modulaatio Games, called Running With Rifles. You can download it on the site there. The game is a top-down, Cannon Fodder-y sort of soldier thing, but on a wide-open sandbox of a battlefield. There are two nations shooting each other and drawing up battle-lines across the map. (Hit Tab to see what’s going on in terms of the territory, and also to guide yourself to the action via the onscreen info-prompts.) The battles are brief and brutal, but if you start working with the AI there’s some interesting stuff going on. Just be prepared for a lot of running. I’ve not managed to get an online game (presumably not working yet) but it’s something that could evolve interestingly in the coming months. Right now I’m imagining a sort of 2D Battlefield game, with teeming AI. Something like that.
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Spatial Awareness: Critical Mass

By B Caldwell on June 22nd, 2011.

Richard Of York Gave Blocks In Vain
Critical Mass came out t’other day on Steam. It’s a match-four game in which – wait! Don’t go! Well, I never. What a rude young cabal. They just up and clicked away. Whatever. We don’t need them, casual fans. We’ve got this bad boy, a game that is half Rubik’s cube, half Bejeweled, all okay to play even if you are not a stay-at-home-Mum-thank-you-very-much. Read on for some more thoughts.

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