By Alec Meer on September 27th, 2011.
Left to steer the good ship RPS on my own today, I was feeling a little grim. Jaw set, lip slightly curled, brow furrowed, coffee cup crushed by my feeble fist: you know the look. Then I watched this footage of Incredipede (‘a game about life and feet’), the next offering from the creator of Fantastic Contraption, and now I keep giggling to myself and wanting to hug people.
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By Alec Meer on September 27th, 2011.
Any day where I have an excuse to make a large number of people watch a Sisters of Mercy video is a good day. You’ll find Andrew Eldritch waiting for you below. While the cane-wielding 80s poison-king has an apparent fondness for text adventures, what we’re nominally here to talk about is the new mode for free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena stalwart League of Legends.
Yesterday saw the much-ballyhooed launch of Dominion, a capture and hold mode which offers a new map and supaquick rounds of about 20 minutes. It’s all described in detail for you by Captain Explanation below.
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Interviewing CDP's Adam Badowski
By Jim Rossignol on September 27th, 2011.
CDP have spent the months since the release of The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings putting yet more work into the title. This all comes to a head with the release of the 2.0 patch on the 29th. This enormo-patch adds a load of content (even – gasp – a tutorial!).
We spoke to CDP’s development director Adam Badowski to find out what the Polish development studio had been up to, and how they’d reacted to the feedback on their game. We also asked whether it would take four years to get to sequel, and were told that the team are still considering whether to make a full-blown expansion…
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By Adam Smith on September 26th, 2011.
Jim has already been playing A Valley Without Wind and shared the experience here but now you can all have a go for yourselves. There’s a free demo available and you can play the full current version for a mere $10, which is half the price it’ll cost you if you buy it when it’s finished. The game is still at a relatively early stage in development so it’s extra helpful to have a demo available alongside the pre-purchase option. I’ll be playing it soon but in the meantime, I’ll refer you once more to Jim’s thoughts if you need help to work out if you’re interested or not. This new trailer might help too.
By Adam Smith on September 26th, 2011.
Seeing that picture could have put all kinds of ideas in your head, which is why I didn’t make the headline cruelly vague. What it all actually denotes is Gordon Freeman’s rather surprising presence in the Steam version of Renegade Ops, Avalanche’s top-down, four player vehicle-based destructathon. Gordon will be driving his buggy and he’s bringing some antlions along to use in a special attack. Oh, Gordon, you’re so science. Avalanche did promise some extras for the Steam version of the game after delivering it to console-dwellers before we PC folk and it’s good of them to follow through on that promise. They’ve even given us a Gordon-specific trailer along with a release date: October 14th.
Cloud gaming devilry
By Alec Meer on September 26th, 2011.
Last week, cloud gaming service OnLive launched in the UK. Americans have had it for a while now, and doubtless thus look down on us as some kind of addled-brained backwater cavemen who’ve only just discovered fire, but for this small and governmentally-besieged isle having local services for this ambitious technology could be a game-changer. Or maybe not. Everyone who’s used it has something to say about it, and very often that’s ‘it kind of works but it looks rubbish on my PC.’ I would say the same thing – full-screen play on my 1920×1200 monitor looks like someone threw grey jelly at my screen and like everyone in the game is melting into the scenery. In windowed mode, I can play for a bit without being too bothered, but if I want OnLive to use more than 25% of my monitor I give up within five minutes.
Then I tried out the Micro-console thing they’ve started giving out/selling over here and my tune changed almost immediately.
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By Adam Smith on September 26th, 2011.
Just in case anyone was worried that Rage might end up just being Slightly Miffed, the launch trailer, which you may have seen on a televisual device, has come along to remind us what the game is really about. Angry music and mutants being clobbered. Of course, there is actually more to it than that but it’s important to emphasise that the following things will be happening: giant mutants will clamber toward you threateningly, vehicles will flip over and explode, and balloons will deliver explosive payloads to incredulous enemies. See below for proof.
47 Turns It Up To 11
By Adam Smith on September 26th, 2011.
Hakan Abrak, lead producer of Hitman: Absolution, held a developer session at the Eurogamer Expo this weekend and I was there to see the game in action. The version we were shown was a pre-alpha build running on PS3 and only covered a single level but, notepad in hand, I managed to scribble down enough impressions to share the bits that made me excited and the other bits that made me raise an eyebrow in a quizzical fashion. Now I’m trying to work out if I’m any closer to understanding the game than I was before the session.
By Alec Meer on September 26th, 2011.
Bethesda haven’t officially documented all the various skills, abilities and perks due to crop up in their now not-too-distant game of roles, but keen-eyed Men Of The Internet have been poring over every screenshot, preview and public demo (including last week’s Eurogamer Expo, at which Skyrim was drawing mega-queues) they can lay their meta-hands on in order to compile this long and growing list of how you’ll be tailoring your own personal Dragon-born. Also covered are the game’s various Racial Abilities. I’m particularly glad to hear that the Khajit will be retaining Night-Eye, which means I’ll doubtless be playing Skyrim in a very similar see in the dark cheeky but non-murderous thief fashion to Oblivion and Morrowind.
I’ve listed all that’s known so far below, but you should know it originated at fansite theelderscrollskyrim.com and you should keep an eye on that original post for further updates.
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By Adam Smith on September 26th, 2011.
RetroEpic Studios dropped me a line earlier to tell me that they’d released a new “sliding puzzle type game”. This filled me with dread because my brain isn’t wired to complete those things. I actually had to look up solutions on Youtube when Alice: Madness Returns decided it’d be a good idea for me to have a go at one of those infernal switcharoos. Thankfully, A Day In The Woods isn’t that kind of sliding block puzzle at all. Instead of making pictures, you’re making routes for Red Riding Hood to follow through the woods, so it’s about navigation of a single piece rather than rearrangement of a group. As an extra treat, the art design, which makes the whole thing look a bit like a fancy wooden gameboard, is beautiful. There’s a trailer yonder and you’ll find a link to the demo, for both Windows and OSX, on this page.
By Alec Meer on September 26th, 2011.
If you’re one of those oxygen-wasting oiks who feels compelled to snarkily observe upon the relative advanced age of things you see on the internet, a) do be quiet b) team RPS has been busy attending the EG Expo and then The Wedding of Walker so we’re still catching up with all the gameosity that bobbed to the surface of this endless electronic ocean over the last few days. Next is a story trailer for 2K/Digital Extremes’ demonic manshooter/manmangler The Darkness II. Which reminds me, I still need to write a preview about this based on what I saw of it at Gamescom. My notes mostly just say ‘IT’S SO NOISY’ repeatedly, though. Then there are some damp, streaky marks that I can only imagine are tear-stains. Which is odd, given I wrote those notes on a laptop.
