Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Warco – which has been in development for a while but recently seems to have surfaced properly in a small surge of publicity – looks intriguing. Australian devs Defiant describe their UDK project like this: “In the role of war correspondent (‘warco’) Jesse DeMarco, the player must capture battle footage and edit together a news story, while trying to make it out alive.” The proof of concept video, which I’ve posted below, is quite something. Surviving this stuff could be genuinely more exciting than firing back. It’s like Beyond Good & Evil: Call Of Duty Edition, but apparently the real game will be in splicing together your footage at the end and deciding on the story you want to tell about the events you have filmed.

It’s shaping up to be something quite interesting indeed.
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Back when we told you about Airport Control Simulator, we thought that was as exciting as an airport traffic controller simulator could get. But somehow there is room for MORE EXCITING! See, the problem with Airport Control Simulator is you have to control it with your mouse, like you’re some sort of caveman or something. Because now there is the appropriately excitably named Tower! 2011. And it’s voice controlled.

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It’s been a while since I crawled through dungeons or instances in an MMO (or jumped into Eve’s wormholes or complexes, even) but I couldn’t help thinking that Rift’s 1-2 player instances, called “Chronicles“, were a rather good idea for making the body of the game’s instanced content available to players who really only want to play with a single chum. I certainly did quite a lot of WoW with just Alec or John as a companion, and we often struggled to be bothered to get a party together for the dungeons, because we’d always end up with some guy who ran into walls, or a companion who could only type “what”. Anyway, it got me thinking about the Dungeon experience in MMOs, and I ended up thinking of two that I’ve enjoyed most: Guild Wars, for its largely instanced storyline, where pretty much everything lay within areas you’d play with a couple of friends, or even solo, and City Of Heroes, whose missions always seemed somehow “logical”, thanks to taking place in underground bases, warehouses, and so on.

So I ask you lot: where is the finest dungeoneering to be had? Which MMO does it best?

From what I can gather, people waited decades for the most recent book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. In comparison, Cyanide Studios’ RTS take on Mr R R Martin’s world, A Game of Thrones: Genesis, has burst into existence with stunning alacrity. Screenshots have emerged, showing glowering men in armour and maps with recognisable landmarks on them, such as The Wall, which isn’t a prog rock album but an actual wall that’s covered with ice. I know that because I’ve read the first book. Now, just one week before release, there’s a trailer for the game. Watch it below.
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I missed this video for The Bridge during my roundup of the most interesting IndieCade finalists and I’m sorry that I did, which is why I’m going to share it now. There’s not a lot of information on the game yet, not even a website, but I think it’s safe to say it will have a bit in common with And Yet It Moves. The trailer shows that the game world rotates and then frames the device rather poetically: “The world is much larger when every wall is a floor…” I’m already smitten by the Eschery design and you can be too by watching the trailer, right here. Thanks to Indie Games for bringing my attention to this one.

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Cloud-based (that means it streams to your “device” from the internets, rather than being rendered by local hardware) gaming service OnLive is launching in the UK… now! You can sign up on the site and begin streaming games within a couple of minutes, apparently. The games on offer cost between £1.99 and £39.99, and the “micro-console” which allows you to stream to TVs is £69.99. I am just logging in now and will post some thoughts in a bit.

(Launcher hanging… Hmm. Maybe later then.)

It was a long, interesting process. When RPS put out the appeal for a new writer to plug into the hivemind™, we were never expecting not only the incredible volume of applicants, but the extraordinarily high standards. Over 300 people applied for the position, and in there were many absolutely fantastic candidates. It was not an easy decision by any means, which is partly why it’s taken us so very long. But one writer stood out, in terms of the specialisms we were hoping for combined with just really great writing. He, you may have guessed, is Adam Smith.

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Hi-Rez send word that their new expansion for moderately entertaining free-to-play jetpacks ‘n shooty sci-fi MMO combat game, Global Agenda, has arrived. It’s called Recursive Colony, and is free to all players. But what is it? Well: “Recursive Colony puts the players against an army of self-replicating robots invading the once-safe haven of Dome City.” It also adds new PvE and PvP maps, the ability to transfer between open zone instances, as well as new crafting stuff, pets, and so on. It’s quite the download of additional content, some of which is illustrated by the trailer which I have posted below.
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Valve are a canny bunch. They know that remaking Counter-Strike is sure to be met by cries of “THIS PIXEL IS ONE NANOMETRE TOO FAR TO THE LEFT!” So it makes good sense for them to look at the best mods that have created the largest audiences, and work them into the new version of the game. So it is that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will feature an “Arsenal Mode”, based on the CS: Source mod, Gun Game. Oh, and we have nine brand new images of the game.

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