Archive for August, 2011
By Adam Smith on August 25th, 2011.
When one of the original designers of Portal reveals a new game, it’s time to pay attention. Kim Swift, now of Airtight Games, has been chatting to Gamespot about her new project, Quantum Conundrum. Even the title should tell you that science remains high on the agenda. The game has you searching for your mad scientist uncle whose home, a gigantic mansion, has been converted into a series of perplexing science experiments. I don’t think there will be any neurotoxins this time around, though I have been wrong before when it comes to neurotoxins. It didn’t end well. Launch trailer and video with commentary by Kim below.
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airtight games, fluff, kim-swift, Portal, Quantum Conundrum.
By Adam Smith on August 25th, 2011.
EDIT: Now with trailer!
Monday Night Combat is getting a sequel and it’s going to be super. How do I know? Because that’s its name. Super Monday Night Combat. Uber Entertainment are looking to go up against League of Legends and DOTA 2, emphasising the game’s roots. Most pleasing of all, it will be free to play. That means, for now, it’ll only be on PC because Sony and Microsoft simply won’t allow such generosity on their stationboxes. The release date is as vague as “the next few months” but some details are already available. Overall, Uber are looking to slow the game down, giving players more time to think and plot strategies. All sounds good and as soon as we know more, you’ll know more. Click for trailer and pics of the three new characters.
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free, Monday Night Combat, Super Monday Night Combat, Uber Entertainment.
By John Walker on August 25th, 2011.
Sometimes people just aren’t willing to take the necessary steps to ensure their good cause is appreciated by the masses. That’s something the star of free indie pixel action game, Fear Is Vigilance, doesn’t misunderstand. When her attempts to give out free personal alarms to students, to protect them when walking through the park at night, she finds people just aren’t interested. So she strikes upon a brilliant scheme: Beat people up in the park at night!
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Fear Is Vigilance, free, indie, randomnine.
A Spot Of Skiing
By Dan Griliopoulos on August 25th, 2011.
Roving reporter Dan Griliopoulos has left Alec in Cologne and is heading deeper into Europe, writing up what the best of GamesCom as he goes. Next up is Hi-Rez Studios’ Tribes reboot, Ascend.
Switzerland may have been condemned memorably by Orson Welles as having “five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock”, but (aside from the cuckoo clock actually being a German invention – Pedant Ed) these days the most vertical of European countries is better know for its winter sports. As we rattle through its tunnels and stare up at its mountains, though, I’m thinking of a very different kind of skiing; I look at the 80 degree slopes of the Stelvio pass and think “you’d pick up so much speed on that and then you could jetpack off that glacier and…”
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feature, Gamescom 2011, Hi-Rez Studios, Tribes Ascend.
The Problem With Elbow Swords
By Jim Rossignol on August 25th, 2011.
The first line of discussion I seem to have had with anyone who has played DXHR (which is a considerable fraction of the people I know) concerns how we played it. And to talk about how is to say whether you approached it lethally, or non-lethally. Whether you relied on knockout punches, tranquiliser darts and stunguns, or whether you stabbed people in the dick. Most people I know felt that to be true to the game, and to themselves, they had to defer to a non-lethal route. I… did not feel that way. At least not by the end of the game.
This is my story. (Mild mechanical and narrative spoilers.)
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Eidos Montreal, feature, Square Enix.
By John Walker on August 25th, 2011.
Oh this could get awkward. Wargaming.net recently announced World Of Warplanes to join World Of Tanks and the forthcoming World Of Battleships. But it seems another MMO already had a very similar idea. The imaginatively titled World Of Planes from Gaijin Entertainment was first announced in April, and has a debut trailer out today. In a world where you can’t have The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Scrolls without trouble, I’m impressed that this one hasn’t kicked off yet. (Let alone Blizzard getting involved.) Also, World Of Planes’ trailer is pretty.
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Gaijin Entertainment, MMO, trailer, wargaming.net, World Of Planes, World of Warplanes.
By Adam Smith on August 25th, 2011.
It’s been a long time since we had any coverage of Vessel, Strange Loop Games’ intriguing 2D puzzle-adventure. That all changes right now. With the game due for release this winter, the team have released a new trailer to show how far things have come in the last eighteen months. Already a finalist in IGF’s technical excellence category for 2010, the game’s artwork and complex fluid physics look superb. Open your ears as well as your eyes because the music is delightful too.
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fluids, indie, physics, Strange Loop Games, Vessel.
By John Walker on August 25th, 2011.
Oh my goodness, I’m having Dungeon Master flashbacks of purest/purist happiness. Thank you to reader Mikko-Pentti for pointing us toward Finnish indie project, Legend Of Grimrock. Developers Almost Human Ltd. have just released their first in-game video (below), and it has me clawing at the screen. Tile-based, first-person Dungeon Master-style gaming, but with gorgeous shiny graphics. I want it. I want it now.
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Almost Human, Dungeon Master, indie, Legends Of Grimrock.
What the heck do you call an act like that?
By Alec Meer on August 25th, 2011.
It’s hard to separate the reality of playing Saints Row: The Third from what I imagined playing Saints Row: The Third would be like. Because it’s pretty much exactly the same. That is to say, it’s what I remember playing Saints Row 2 was like – time, tall tales and fondness has seen me forget the busywork of the game and recall only the absurdities, the insanity, the just-because rampaging. Saints Row: The Third is all those absurdities pushed to the very front of the game, rather than hung around its sides: thus, it’s the actualisation of what we think Saints Row games are rather than what they have been to date.
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feature, Saints Row: The Third, THQ, volition.
By John Walker on August 25th, 2011.
You’d imagine gaming would lead the way on more liberal values, but it’s surprising still how rare LGBT characters are in games. The compromise tends to be Sims-like universal polysexuality, almost no characters deliberately written as anything other than straight, with rare exceptions. One such company that tends to recognise a same-sex relationship is BioWare, which makes the news that The Old Republic won’t be supporting them a little surprising. It seems Star Wars might not have room for gays. However, in better news, we learn today that the realms of Skyrim will not only allow same-sex relationships, but also same-sex marriage.
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bethesda, Bioware, LGBT, Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
By Jim Rossignol on August 25th, 2011.
Oh, I guess this is just about expired, but there’s probably still time to get on Team Fortress 2 and receive your party bag for the 15 year birthday hurrah of Team Fortress. Yes, it is that long since the class-based mod originally appeared, spawning an entire sub-genre of FPS, and some of the most popular games of all time. If you log into TF2 before the 24 hours expires (I am not quite sure how long is left) you will get a party hat (obviously), a noise-maker, and a free cake (remodelled health pack). Mmm, virtual.
free stuff, Team Fortress, Team Fortress 2, Valve.
