Archive for September, 2011
By Jim Rossignol on September 30th, 2011.
Valve send word that their free DLC for Portal 2 will arrive on October 4th. Man, I totally already said all that in the headline! Here’s what I didn’t say, which was what Valve said: “In “Peer Review”, you and a friend will continue the story of loyal bots P-Body and Atlas as you puzzle your way through a mysterious new co-op test track and once again match wits with GLaDOS. The DLC also features a single player and co-op Challenge Mode, and leaderboards to compare Challenge Mode scores with friends and the Portal community.”
In other Portal news there’s more Songs TO Test by over here, and I’ve posted quite a special Portal fan video below. Thanks, Jeep!
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Portal 2, Valve.
By Jim Rossignol on September 30th, 2011.
There’s almost too much to play! I probably should be hammering noobs on the Battlefield 3 beta, but it really could be anything. Hell, I have that epic game of Supreme Commander to get done, new Minecraft to explore, Dead Island to continue, Stalker mods to work on, and some secret things to preview. But what do you think I should play? What are you going to play? Suggest me do!
And yes, I probably will just end up being paralysed by choice and end up laying down in the sun…
RPS asks.
By Alec Meer on September 30th, 2011.
Betrayal! Oh, the wound! Why, why, why? The eve of shamelessly excessive manshooting with a retro flavour but a hypermodern look was almost upon us, and then they only go and move the release date of Serious Sam 3: BFE back by a month. You’re not going to be playing this on October 18 after all. I BET THEY DON’T EVEN LOVE US AT ALL. I bet they don’t even like us. Wonder what crappy reason they’re going to fob us off with? So they can add more DRM? Because some suit at Microsoft told them to? Because they’re in a dark alliance with an evil retail chain? Or just because they’re cold, mean-hearted bastards?
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croteam, devolver digital, Fork Parker, Serious Sam 3 BFE.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on September 30th, 2011.
Though the port engine of the Flare Path C-47 is sheathed in flame, and most of the starboard aileron is shot away, I reckon I should be able to keep the old bird in the air long enough to reach the DZ and jettison this week’s cannisters of simulation and wargame news. In the sim cannister you’ll find some choice machinima, analysis of a beastly armour sim, and the frank confessions of a bruised speedwayist. In the wargame one there’s three-dozen red berets, a… Hang on. That’s not good. That’s definitely not good. Mayday! Mayday! This is B for Beswick. We are going down. I repeat, we are going down! Read the rest of this entry »
FIM Speedway Grand Prix 4, free, Machinima, Simulation, T-17 Tanky, The Flare Path.
By Jim Rossignol on September 30th, 2011.
Ah, I had become a bit lost on the King Arthur release timeline. I thought Fallen Champions was King Arthur II, but not so. It’s actually a standalone expansion for the first game which bridges the storyline between Arthur I and Arthur II, and it came out earlier this month! Sorry, I missed that entirely. It has its own timeline, map, quests, heroes and so on. You can see all that in action in the gameplay trailer below.
I have to say that I rather like the King Arthur games. They are a sort of Total War-lite with more RPG stuff for your heroes and a good dose of fantasy nonsense. Honestly, I don’t know how Neocore are churning out all these games.
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king arthur: fallen champions, neocore, Paradox.
The Sims ThFree
By Adam Smith on September 30th, 2011.
Today we are faced with a series of questions. How is it possible to convince even more people to buy The Sims 3? Who would be targeted in such a drive? People who are still clinging to the arguably more complete and less buggy Sims 2, where they can already own pets? What about the cynics and naysayers, can they be convinced? What is the hook that will snare a new audience? EA have decided to offer a teaser, which is kind of like a demo but not. The teaser can be downloaded or played online through the Gaikai cloud service. That’s a new one on me so I decided to see how it worked and what it offered. The first and most difficult step was making my way inside.
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browser-based, demo, Electronic Arts, feature, gaikai, Maxis, sims 3.
By Alec Meer on September 30th, 2011.
Adam wrote about visually delightful side-scrolling TF2 demake Team Fortress Arcade just the other week. It’s true, he did! I have proof. The problem was the game wasn’t actually out then, which looked like we were teasing you with a cool thing you couldn’t actually play. That’s because we are rotters, and want you to experience only suffering. But now it is out, which means you can play it right now.
Don’t think that gets you off the hook, though. We’ll find some new way to make you suffer any minute now. Maybe it’ll be my forthcoming Xenonauts hands-on preview. Maybe it’ll be Jim’s review of the Deus Ex: Human Revolution DLC. Maybe it’ll be that dead stoat I hid under your bed. Or maybe we’ll say something you disagree with about a game you’re fond of. Truly, our cruelty knows no bounds.
eric ruth, free, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress Arcade.
By Adam Smith on September 30th, 2011.
Psychonauts unexpectedly updated itself on Steam today, adding achievements and cloud saves. For our Macintosh brethren, there’s super-exciting news in that the game is now available on OSX, so you too can neglect to buy it. To ensure that your portable iDevices won’t be jealous when they see the mindscapes you’re traversing, Doublefine have also released a Memory Vault Viewer app, which has all the memory slides with new commentary by Tim Schafer and Scott Campbell. Along with the other Steamy updates, there’s also a difficulty tweak to one area of the game. Guess which one? I’ll tell you, but only if you click for more.
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Doublefine, OSX, Psychonauts, Staring Eyes, Tim-Schafer.
By Alec Meer on September 30th, 2011.
Zombies, girls with long, dark haircuts, things that vanish when you try to approach them, flickering lights, mutants: horror games seem less and less interested in doing anything else. The tropes of the genre are wearing desperately thin – which is why Amnesia was so warmly-received. Despite indulging itself in a fair few horror staples, it worked hard on the overall unsettling feel, and less on fairground ride jumps. Another indie project, Tower22, appears to exploring similarly ways of roundly convincing us that everything is terribly, terribly wrong – take a look at the 10 month old but extremely impressive and increasingly terrifying trailer below, and then cross your gnarled fingers that its creator will finish and release this tale of dread and monstrosity inside a Russian towerblock (as designed by a German dev). But what starts looking a lot like City 17 ends up as something else entirely…
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Horror, Rick Nieuwlaat, Tower22.
By Jim Rossignol on September 30th, 2011.
505 Games and Reverie World Studios are rather pleased with themselves for launching their fantasy MMORTS, Dawn Of Fantasy. A bit of a shame that no-one thought of a decent name for it, but at least it’s looking extremely bloomy pretty. I’m not really precisely clear how it works – I’m going to have to play it to find out! – but it apparently offers both a story-driven quests-based RTS type stuff, and also co-op and PvP modes. Yes, it could hardly be more generic in its setting – “elves, orcs, and men” – but since MMORTS games are so rare I think it might be worth investigating.
Launch trailer belooooow. I’m going to make some tea.
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505 games, dawn of fantasy, reverie world studios.
By Adam Smith on September 30th, 2011.
Edited to correct pricing details – thanks for pointing it out, folks!
It’s been a while since I’ve played Fate of the World, the game that tasks you with saving the world from mankind and itself in a terrifyingly realistic fashion. Quinns wrote a fine summation of it here, summed up by the phrase “You find out you’re an idiot”, which is precisely what I found out when playing as well. And for a while I played it far too much, so that every news report of a real life catastrophe I read would make me roll my eyes at the futility of all possible solutions. It might be time to go back and give it another go with the release of Fate of the World: Tipping Point, which adds new scenarios, cards, features and UI enhancements. It’s available at a 20% discount at present and can be purchased either through Steam, GamersGate or direct from Red Redemption. Both Steam and GamersGate are currently offering large discounts to owners of the original. There’s even a trailer!
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Fate of the World, Fate of the World: Tipping Point, Red Redemption, Strategy.
