The next Assassin’s Creed, Revelations, is once again going to have a fulsome multiplayer game for us to sink our concealed weapons into. It’s beautiful, too. And stabby. For a taste of quite how stabby it’s worth taking a look at the trailer below. Goodness, that’s some stylish violence, yes sir. The game is apparently due for release on all formats on November 15th.
Read the rest of this entry »
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Archive for September, 2011
A Stab At It: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
By Jim Rossignol on September 22nd, 2011.
God's own Scaletrix set
Impressions: Trackmania 2
By Alec Meer on September 21st, 2011.
I’ve spent three or four hours playing Nadeo’s latest slice of science-defying racing absurdity – nowhere near enough to tell you conclusively Wot I Think, but plenty to witter about what I’m starting to think.
If there’s one factor that’s bedevilled the ever-joyous Trackmania series, it’s that naming conventions and cross-pollinated content has made it ever harder to work out exactly which one’s which. While the 2 here marks a chance to start with a clean slate, the series’ latter day focus on being a service rather than a self-contained entity means the confusion doesn’t quite go away. Initially, as a relatively casual player of Nadeo’s driving fantasy games, I struggled to quite appreciate that I was playing a different Trackmania to whichever the last one I played was. Be it product or be it service, Trackmania is also a state of mind, and 2 took me right back there. I knew how to play, and knew it well.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Race For Space: Lifeless Planet
By John Walker on September 21st, 2011.
There are a fair number of games where after playing them, in fact years after playing them, you tip your head back and scream at the sky, “WHY AREN’T THERE MORE GAMES LIKE THIS?!” Ico is definitely one of those for me. So I’m delighted to hear from David Board, an indie developer who is attempting to fill that particular gap. Lifeless Planet is an action adventure that focuses on the adventure, which appears to involve exploring. Oh thank goodness.
Splice Of Life: Cryptozookeeper
By Adam Smith on September 21st, 2011.
You find some odd things, poking around the dusty corners of the internet. Take Cryptozookeeper, a darkly comic splatterpunk interactive fiction adventure with grisly Pokemon type elements. It sounds like an unholy abomination of game types but for the most part it’s a narrative interspersed with fairly conventional puzzles. The story isn’t conventional at all though. It starts with a courier collecting some alien DNA from a rundown shack containing a large one-eyed man and his pet bear-dog, Puzzle, and swiftly becomes increasingly deranged. Later on you’ll be merging DNA to make battle-beasts even more uncanny than a duckbilled platypus but first you just need to deal with that bear-dog. The game is free to download although there is a deluxe copy for sale, which comes on discs in a box like olden times.
A home of your own
Asura Thing? A Guild Wars 2 Preview
By Alec Meer on September 21st, 2011.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve walked into a room with a monitor and a nervously-smiling man at one end and been told I’m about to see the future of MMOs. I smile back politely, and the same old dance begins. Too often, I feel a numbness, a struggle to reconcile professionally wanting to know what’s going on with personally despairing of the idea of giving over dozens of hours of my life to what’s so often a mess of cloned features and over-sold, under-realised promises. My most recent sighting of Guild Wars 2 really did break through that numbness, made me sit up straight and pay full attention. I still don’t know how much of what it’s trying to do will be practicable and effective over long-term play, but seeing it took me back to a time before my awful genre ennui, back to when every time I sat down to see a new MMO my mood was excitement, not cynicism. Here’s why.
Read the rest of this entry »
Syndicated Content
Paradox’s Cartel: The True Syndicate Sequel?
By Jim Rossignol on September 21st, 2011.
Paradox are developing a game called Cartel. The timing is interesting, because this is a game of two familiar halves: one real-time squad-based RTS action, the other on a global research and diplomacy map. And it is set in a near-future world of global mega-corporations, or “cartels”, battling for ultimate supremacy. Sound familiar? It should do. This is the antidote to EA’s new Syndicate being an FPS, and Paradox aren’t too shy about it. I talked to Paradox’s Shams Jorjani about what the Swedish publisher is up to, and whether this could be regarded as Syndicate: Total War.
Sadly, there are no images at this time. Boo.
Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Asks: Which Games Meddle With Life?
By John Walker on September 21st, 2011.
Something brought up by the article below – in which the way gaming causes us to change our behaviour in the real world is discussed – is quite how brilliant that stuff actually is. It’s the same thrill you can get from watching a superhero film, or being inspired by a character in a book. Those bizarre, often hilarious moments in life, when you’re taken back to a gaming experience. I think they deserve celebrating, so let’s all do that below.
Meet Mr Tea
Sengoku: Diary Of A Nobutoki #2
By Adam Smith on September 21st, 2011.
“Security is to surround oneself with friends and then to surround those friends with heavily armed men willing to commit brutal acts for a mere pittance, or preferably because they are also surrounded by heavily armed men who are glowering and sharpening their swords with purpose and intent. Diplomacy is to be history’s forgotten man, so obscure in your actions that your enemies do not know you are a danger until you strike. Honour is to present a smiling face to the world but, at night when alone, to weep for all the blood that must be spilled. This is the path of conquest. This is my path.”
Nanbu Nobutoki, 1470
For Science!
Fantasy And Reality: Can Gamers Tell?
By John Walker on September 21st, 2011.
Did you know that you can’t tell reality from fantasy? No, I’m not a twenty-foot dragon from Saturn, silly! I’m a human. But you can’t tell. I know this because the Metro told me so. According to the free rag, Nottingham Trent university researchers have revealed that gamers get so immersed in fantasy that they are unable to distinguish the real world. So this must be based on a broad, far-reaching study for the paper to make such a statement, right? No of course not. It’s an interview study of 42 people. Which I’ve now read. And has nothing to do with the Metro’s conclusions. So obviously I’m going to take issue with the Metro’s coverage, but then get a little bit deeper when taking issue with the paper itself.
Unreal Not One Of Epic’s New Games
By Jim Rossignol on September 21st, 2011.
We mentioned a while back that Epic were developing a number of new games aside from the Gears franchise, and we couldn’t help hoping against hope that perhaps one of them might be Unreal 3. Not so, says Mike Capps. Talking to businesslication Forbes the Epic bossman said: “Unreal and Unreal Tournament continue to have a huge influence on the studio here, even though we’re not currently working on an Unreal IP project.” It’s not the first time that Capps has mentioned the U-word recently, but it’s the first indication that they’re not actually doing anything with it.
Writing in a blogpost on PC gaming journal Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jim Rossignol said “Aww, that’s a shame. But perhaps they are working on something exciting and new! That would be exciting. And new.”
Playing For Keeps: Dungeon Defenders
By Adam Smith on September 21st, 2011.
Diablo 3 wasn’t quite as shiny and pony-strewn as some people were expecting, so it’s making this place seem a little grim and gothic at the moment. Time for something incredibly colourful and chaotic. So here are two developer diaries for upcoming 4 player co-op tower defence action RPG Dungeon Defenders. Not my description, but the description of developers Trendy Entertainment. There’s a LOT going on in these videos, the first one in particular, and I’m not sure I caught everything first time through. I did get a Torchlight meets Magicka vibe, although without the sadistic unfortunate friendly fire of Magicka and with an added build phase. Take a look.
Search
Read our finest words
Respond to our gibber
- Dances to Podcasts : “As many as the porn director says you can.” on Interview: Jim Rossignol On AVSEQ
- FreshwaterAU : “I remember PC gamer dinging Half Life 2 some points specifically because of steam. I also remember thinking WTF is this Steam crap at the ...” on The Witcher II To Land On Origin
- Richard Cobbett : “It could have been said. I merely chose not to because I dislike the term in question and it's not one I care to use. ...” on BoneCraft: A Different Kind Of Grind
- Pointless Puppies : “Big, complex DRM is a waste of money for one reason: it accomplishes nothing. One only needs to apply basic laws of logic to realize ...” on Fred Wester: “DRM Is A Waste Of Money”
- KaMy : “Stop making boxes they are useless § Retail is only considered good by most because we can have games on zavvi the hut etc for ...” on Larian: Retail Important To Indie PC Studios
