Rock, Paper, Shotgun

So, if the (reportedly false) rumours are to be believed (update: and apparently they’re not. Hooray!), the future of Doom 4 might be in doubt. Which raises a question: what do we want from a fourth Doom game anyway? Should the next Doom game keep it old skool with a key-collecting run-and-gun? Or should it up updated to compete with the contemporary manshoots? Do we still want demons on Mars? And should it showcase the next generation of graphics, or do something new with the way shooters work? If you were in charge, what would you do?

Personally I quite like the idea of re-releasing a blow-by-blow remake the original game in an astonishing modern engine, with the only gameplay concessions to modern design being mouse-look and so on. Failing that, a single-button iPhone game, like Canabalt with cacodemons. (Not really. Likely.)

Here’s the first part of a documentary following the making of Mojang’s new game Scrolls. It’s a shame that, as with most of the discussion elsewhere, so much of this concerns the name rather than the game, but it’s still worth a watch if only to see the legal issue being discussed by the lead designer. Especially because he’s looking rather dapper while discussing it, with a bottle of Staropramen his only prop, suggesting that this is a man who has better things to do and better places to be than a courtroom. Do we actually learn anything about the game? Not really, beyond the fact that there will be ‘dust puff’ animations, among others. You can see the puffing of dust for yourself, below.

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Happy update: Bethesda’s Pete Hines says this rumour is “complete bollocks.” Hooray! Plus, additional denial.

This is pure rumour, but the Big K are reporting that a source inside Bethesda told them the company has made the decision to “indefinitely postpone” development of Doom 4. This move, made at a recent meeting in Dallas, apparently comes as a response to general disappointment with Rage, which was buggy on release and earned review scores of a less than 8/10 average (gasp!)

The story says that the issues surrounding Rage’s launch have resulted in “a serious lack of confidence in the project management at id”. This might be nonsense, of course, but it’s believable nonsense. That said, I am not sure why the company would deny id Doom 4, which seems like a game that would sell no matter how it was managed. Also, Rage seems to be doing okay in the charts, and we all know that it’s money, not review scores, that talk.

Colourful UDK-powered 4-player co-op tower defence RPG Dungeon Defenders has a demo! You can get it here. I’ve not had a chance to play this yet, but given how pretty it looks, and the fact that I am a sucker for tower defences, I might just have to have a crack. I’ve also posted the most recent trailer below for your perusal.
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VG247 have noticed that things are afoot over former Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock, with their THQ-published shooter being confirmed as a cross-platform CryEngine production for which they are now hiring. Although THQ are not talking about the 2013 title yet, Danny Bilson has claimed: “The Turtle Rock game we’ll probably talk about next year. It’s well underway. It’s fantastic. It’s one of the most incredible designs that’s ever come across my desk. Really excited about that. It has some mechanics in it and gameplay that you haven’t really played before.”

Hmm! Turtle rock, which was bought and then closed by Valve in 2008, reopened as a new studio in 2009.

Are artillery games much-maligned? I feel like they are but that may just be because Angry Birds has become a weird cultural phenomenon, with plush toys sold in Next and all sorts of other madness. I almost accidentally won an Angry Bird toy at a fair. All of that means it’s definitely popular enough that it must be sneered at. The sheer number of artillery games out there does make it hard to see what makes each one different, but Catapult For Hire doesn’t have that problem. It’s in 3d, with lovely art design, has a full campaign mode, side missions, fishing, loads of ammo types and objects that break apart in fancy physics-based ways, based on impact and projectile type. There’s a trailer below and more videos and information at the site.

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Introversion’s Chris delay sends word that their new project, Prison Architect, is a game in which you “Build and manage a maximum security prison”. Crikey! Unexpected. But then it was unexpected. That’s the first image up there, too. This is the title the pioneering indie dev are working on now that their procedural heist game, Subversion, has been put on hold.

We’ll be speaking to Chris soon to get some more details.

You’ll have seen some of these before in our recent Skyrim articles, but only all small and not in such a way that you could print them out and put them on a t-shirt. So here are the ten most recent Skyrim shots, which, like a penis, will get bigger if you click on them.

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