Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Just when we thought we’d run out of ways to make jokes about how End Of Nations is a bit like saying “the sea”, another big news story comes out of the MMO RTS. It’s going to be fuh-ruh-ree. Which of course means it’s going to be Free To Play. Co-developed with Petroglyph (the former Westwood team responsible for Command & Conquer), Trion Worlds are claiming that the AAA game’s single player and co-op campaigns will be completely playable to the end without a fee, as well as offering access to 50 player multiplayer battles in the persistent world. So, is there a catch?

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Frozen Synapse now has a demo, which totally demolishes any excuse you might have made to not try this turn-based combat thingum. Other reasons to pay attention to it include this preview essay by Gillen, this AAR by Gillen, and this review by Meer.

Those are our endorsements. We stand by them. Also: Steam will be offering Frozen Synapse at 50% off from Thursday 11th August to Monday 15th August.

It’s a long time since Namco Bandai last made any noise about their reboot of the Ridge Racer series, but with Gamescom just around the corner, they’ve readied a trailer hinting towards an emphasis on city-building and car-smashing. City-building! Some of the first proper footage of Ridge Racer: Unbounded lies herein:

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Mods! They let people cleverer than I add things to games that the original developers never even dreamed of. Take this (beta) playable Iron Man mod for GTA4, for example. The model has been taken from Marvel vs Capcom 3, and cleverly shoved into Liberty City. Paired up with iCEnhancer mod for extra pretties, and a Superman mod for Supermanification, you’ve got an attempt at an Iron Man game that already looks more fun than Sega’s recent officially licensed efforts: Read the rest of this entry »

Dragon Commander isn’t the only turn-based game to be announced today. Along comes Masters Of The Broken World. Funded by the same organisation that gave us Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword – Snowberry Connection – this was originally the creation of one man, Russian Alexey Bokulev. His force was combined with that of Unicorn Games Studio, and they received the funding to do a complete remake. That’s what it says here, anyway. Which is what we’re talking about now.

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Divinity II devs, Larian Studios, have announced their next game. Continuing their fondness for winged lizards, this time it’s all about “massive dragon combat” in Dragon Commander. A turn-based strategy-cum-RPG, it’s of course set in the Divinity universe – although within what they’re calling an “Art Nouveau/Steampunk world” – and they’re promising it will “break new ground”. You can see the first video of it below.

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But not as shiny as studio marketing man James McDermott! Look at his beautiful face. That is a man who knew his immaculate beard was going to appear on a video watched by thousands that day. He’s no Servo-Skull.

Anyway, this trailer talks about the production of the game, making it all look and sound spectacular. There’s loads of cinematic footage – because Relic learned stuff from the movie industry, apparently – and a bit about the general environment and ambience. I think anyone who isn’t excited about this is probably not taking care of their inner Space Marine, and need to think a bit about how he’s feeling right now. Poor guy. He’s all alone in there with your inner child, your inner 1980s Wall Street banker, and your inner Credible Adult. And they all need to learn to get along. They really do.

Okay, go watch the video. You are ready.
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I’ve not played Shadow Planet Productions’ crazy looking Metroidvania/twin stick shooter beyond the demo yet, but just before I snapped and got it for the console, Eurogamer have lead me to believe that a PC release might be in the works. As one of the more interesting indie titles this year, that’s surely good news. Read the rest of this entry »

You know what’s good? When the writer of the first two Deus Ex games announces he has an indie project coming out in a couple of months. That is what is good. Sheldon Pacotti is the man behind the peculiarly capitalised Cell: emergence, which is news that Eurogamer brings us as having been announced today. Which is odd, since the video has been around for a couple of months now, and the game was announced in September last year. Maybe there was a long-delayed echo? But we’re hardly one to mock them, since we didn’t cover it back then either.

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