By Alec Meer on August 2nd, 2011.
Yesterday brought assorted confusing news about Diablo III, which left quite a few people unhappy – let’s see if today does any better. Here’s almost eight minutes of Blizzard’s hacky-slashy game in hacky-slashy and incredibly noisy action, in footage taken from the game’s beta. Seems to me – though I say this with extreme caution – that it’s a little more on the grimdark side than perhaps we’d been expecting from earlier look-sees…
By Jim Rossignol on August 2nd, 2011.
WARNING: SPOILERS IN THE COMMENT THREAD I SHOULD IMAGINE. OKAY THEN.
Anyway, I was just having a chat with my cat about all the games that have terrible endings, and I said that I honestly couldn’t think of any game endings that I really liked or respected, no, not even the Portal ones. And so he mentioned that he knew I was lying, because I liked the end of Hired Guns and also Grim Fandango. And he was right. Bloody cat.
So then: let’s see if we can come up with a definitive best ending? Any suggestions?
Rage Against The Dying Of The Light
By Dan Griliopoulos on August 2nd, 2011.
(Click the images in this feature for full sized shots.)
I am a ark survivor! A proud child of the late Mother Earth, dispatched into hypersleep to escape the meteor inbound to pummel Gaia. Our deep-buried pod is one of hundreds of such! When we wake we will show that mankind has learnt from the mistakes we made on our original home. We shall spread enlightenment and humility through the stars until the heat death of the universe! I have a spanking new jumpsuit!
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Irrational co-founder rationalises PC CCG
By Alec Meer on August 2nd, 2011.
Card Hunter, the lovely-looking PC-based CCG/boardgame/MMO hybrid from Irrational co-founder (and former Looking Glass man) John Chey’s new studio Blue Manchu Games, looks right up RPS’ street. So, I had a chat to him about the game’s inspirations, its conceptual similarity to Mojang’s Scrolls, why it might be first time a collectible card game manages to be successfully singleplayer, and why it’s an idealised version of the RPGs we played as children.
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By John Walker on August 2nd, 2011.
Why, twas only Sunday that Alec brought us the in-game footage of Hard Reset – the PC only shooter from Polish Travelling Wilburys-like developer best-of, Flying Wild Hog. Made up of developers from People Can Fly, CD Project and City Interactive. And today, for those who find moving pictures distracting and upsetting, I’ve some still images of the game in action. And for once the word “action” is actually appropriate. Okay, for one of the four, anyway. One other has some action. The other two would be rejected by any editor if you tried to submit them with a review.
By Jim Rossignol on August 2nd, 2011.
The third Humble Indie Bundle cannot be stopped. First it adds free Minecraft, then it hits ONE MILLION DOLLARS and then it adds a whole extra game! What game? Why it’s only Steel Storm: Burning Retribution, that handsome fellow. And what a terrible name for game it bears. But it’s okay, because Burning Retribution is actually a fun time!
Anyone who already bought the bundle will find this game added to their account, while those of you who are yet to buy it get a free bonus shoot ‘em up. Good times.
By John Walker on August 2nd, 2011.
Eurogamer, the crazed news sniffing addicts they are, have caught wind of the development of Borderlands 2. There have been rumours for a while, and Randy Pitchford even told EG that they would likely be returning to it at some point post Duke Nukem Forever. But how do they know it is definitely being developed now? A “source” told them. Suspicious. The real truth is below.
By Jim Rossignol on August 2nd, 2011.
A rare period of mid-morning downtime finds me poking about in the netherworld of browser gaming, and – as usual – I’ve quickly bumped into something that has left me vaguely mesmerised. It’s called Blipzkrieg, and it’s a a sort of maze/puzzle/tactics game. In it you drag around a blob (optimistically called a “battlesuit”) and pick up other blobs which act as a buzzing flock of weapons. These can be used to fight enemies, or to take out forcefield locks and so forth. Usually there are more enemies than you can actually deal with, so running away isn’t simply an option. Tense and interesting little game, I would say.
By John Walker on August 2nd, 2011.
Oh my word. Look, you may have seen a lot of things created in Minecraft, and sure, you may have thought over the passing months that you’ve had enough of them. But you’re wrong. Because you haven’t yet seen Left 4 Dead created in Minecraft, in the form of Mine 4 Dead: Blockhawk Down. Your attention: I have it.
By John Walker on August 2nd, 2011.
Back in February we brought you the sad news that True Crime: Hong Kong would not be released. Despite apparently being pretty much finished, Activision canned the project. United Front Games’ open world action-them-up was put into a locked cupboard because Activision believed it wasn’t competitive with other games in the genre. Which is to say, they thought it was poop. And this came after almost a six months’ delay to add polish. Polish that Acti CEO Eric Hirshberg rather confusingly explained in November last year had “paid off”. However, clearly not enough. But now, release the party poppers, Gamasutra reports that Square Enix have announced they’ve acquired the game and plan to release is.
By Jim Rossignol on August 2nd, 2011.
You might remember that a year ago we posted about the Unlimited Detail graphics engine, which is apparently based on a system called “point cloud data”, which is a step beyond polygon rendering into a miraculous world of infinite geometry. The claims caused quite a stir, but then the technology promptly vanished. The claims that it was vapourware all along are being addressed by a new video from the company behind the idea, Euclideon, in which they claim to be back, Back, BACK! And demonstrate it with a new video.
The new video zooms in to show individually-rendered grains of dirt. The claims get more astonishing from there.
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