Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As part of an eyewatering 2.6Gb cumulative patch known as Client R11 due for release today, DICE have taken the bad out of Battlefield Bad Company 2. The bad in this case being the icky and pointless SecuROM DRM in non-Steam versions of the game. Hooray for small freedoms! The patch also brings some tasty-sounding performance improvements and bug-splats, as detailed more below.

Sadly, DICE claim expediency required that they didn’t also put out a smaller patch for people who’ve installed all the former updates, so you’ll need to bully your broadband connection into the full 2.6Gb for now. This seems rather cruel, to be honest. They give with one hand, and take with the other, but oh well. Both Steam and the non-Steam versions should auto-update with the new patch right about now.
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Developer Cyanide and fantasy author George RR Martin seem concerned that people are confusing the Game Of Thrones RTS that their Montreal studio is making (and which is out soon) with the RPG being made by their French studio, which is out sometime in the far future. In fact, as Blues spotted, Martin has blogged about the difference, saying of his experiences seeing the first game: “Just to be clear. This is the RTS game, designed and developed by Cyanide’s studio in Montreal. A second videogame, an RPG, is also under development at Cyanide’s studio in France, but that one won’t be along for a while yet. The two games are very different, so please don’t get them confused.” Meanwhile, Cyanide have released the first fragments of information about the RPG game, which basically amounts to no information and a request that we read other blogs, as look at two screenshots. Hm. What we do know about the RPG is that Cyanide are saying it has a strong narrative focus, citing Planescape – Torment as an influence. Hm!

Jim: i am totally downloading it!
John: I’m totally downloading it too!
Jim: We are so cool.

UPDATE:

John: I’m totally playing.
Jim: I’m totally playing too!

Men Of War: Assault Squad’s men of development have sent word that they expect to fling an update at the game later this week. There’s also going to be more DLC to follow, and then more to follow that, if they word of DMS’ Chris Kramer (below) is to be believed. Which it is.

He also says: “we are discussing a new title for the series, which is an entire rework of the present game from the ground up”, which is quite, quite exciting.
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These Rich Knuckles / Serious Sam 3 helpline videos aren’t ever going to stop, are they? As long as that man has breath in his body, he will just keep on uttering catchphrases, puns, mum gags and snarky digs at the competition. And reassuring people that 16-player co-op does not count as an orgy.

(I heard a rumour they filmed 13 thousand of these videos back to back. 3,124 cameraman died in the process. Knuckles ate their festering corpses in order to keep going himself, though he left all the fingers. He doesn’t like fingers. That’s just what I heard, anyway.)

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Something I still haven’t done, that I was originally planning before Christmas, is to write a WIT for Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4. I know that sounds like a strange game to review long after it came out, and perhaps not quite in the target audience for RPS, but blimey, it’s a brilliant game. Certainly I’m a sucker for Traveller’s Tales’ Lego games, but not without an eye for quality. Lego Star Wars: great. Lego Indy: poop. And as it happens, I can’t stand Harry Potter. But Lego Harry Potter was a level above all the others, not only nailing the regularly repeated formula exactly, but also framing itself very differently. One day I’ll write it, and probably call it a “retro”. Indeed, I could time it with the release of the next game in the series, Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7, which Warner has just announced for the 18th November this year. Which is splendid news, even for a boy-wizard-hating git like me.

Sigh, the disease is spreading. Batman: Arkham City on PC, formerly set to be released alongside the consoles, has been pushed back a month. The 360 and PS3 versions of Warner’s game are still coming out on the 21st October, but our version has been given the ambiguous and extremely unhelpful date of “November”. Absolutely no reason is given, so we’ve contacted Warner to find out what’s up.

Meanwhile, four new colourful screenshots don’t exactly make us feel much better about it. They’re below.

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