Mod News
By Adam Smith on October 14th, 2011.
It’s self-indulgence time in Modland this week as I use my hastily rigged together platform, which runs on the Soapbox Derby engine, to direct you all to spend your weekends playing one of the greatest games ever made. Jagged Alliance 2 should need no introduction, nor should its most infamous and essential mod, known simply as 1.13, being in the form of a super patch of sorts. But does such a bountiful game require any additions? Can it be made even greater?
By Alec Meer on October 14th, 2011.
Well, maybe. Suppose it depends on whether they squeak out any particularly tasty DLC. With the game due for release on the unantialiased darklands of console next week and currently drawing huge review scores – but sadly delayed on PC – its constant torrent of promotional videos is now capped off by this launch-ish trailer. It’s very dramatic! It implies Batman facing his darkest challenge since all the other dark challenges he’s faced and will no doubt continue to face! It features some slightly troubling voice acting!
It also looks rather cracking, which makes me only grumpier that we’ll have to wait a few weeks to play it on our faithful game-towers.
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The Dark Eye goes electric
By Alec Meer on October 14th, 2011.
There’s a dark, haunting corner of my laptop, and it is a place I fear to tread. It smells of hope, and cobwebs, and hastily-scrawled email addresses, and Europe: it is my notes from Gamescom back in August, a disorientating four days spent sprinting across a village-sized convention centre full of noise, neon, rictus grins and electronic wonders beyond count. There are many PC games I saw out there that I’ve yet to cover, because I’ve been too busy playing other PC games, but I must stay the course and conclude my preview-quest. Next – The Dark Eye: Demonicon, an RPG based on a pen and paper roleplaying setting renowned in Germany. It has a semi-open-world (comparable to the Witcher in that regard, apparently), it has fast, bloody combat (think Devil May Cry and its ilk), and it has a whole lot of necromancy.
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What happens below decks
By Jim Rossignol on October 14th, 2011.
Deus Ex: Human Revolutions’s first piece of expansion DLC turns up on the 18th, for the price of $14.99 USD, €10.99, or £8.99. I’ve been having a bit of a play, and I’ll be able to tell you a bit more – while attempting to dodge spoilers (there are few quite stealthy ones, but nothing fatal) – below.
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By Adam Smith on October 14th, 2011.
I’m a huge admirer of the gentleman’s sport of crazy golf, or as I prefer to call it, Bedlam Roughage & Greens. Combining that most elegant of pursuits with the antics of Team 17′s Worms, forming some kind of Worms Crazy Golf, seems a sensible plan and a few videos of the (mercifully) 2d title have now appeared online. It all looks very agreeable, although I hope the puzzle-type layout of the levels doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of room for a more chaotic approach. The game is due on Steam on the 19th of this very month of October and there are several videos of golfing worms below.
By Jim Rossignol on October 14th, 2011.
Speaking to Joystiq, THQ bossman Danny Bilson wasn’t lending support to the idea of a Space Marine sequel, preferring to emphasize upcoming MMO, Dark Millennium. He said: “We’ve already announced the Imperium in the MMO as a class you can play… and if you combine that it’s very active, as opposed to the more turn-based stuff. I’m not sure there’s room for Space Marine.”
Oddly, this awkward statement lends a bit of credibility to yesterday’s “leak”, which THQ later dismissed as “pure speculation”. It might well have been speculation, but it does sound like some of it is on the mark, and it’s not like they’ve not had some big info leaks before. Might be interesting to look back, come 2013…
By Jim Rossignol on October 14th, 2011.
I found Allods to be interesting, but frankly a bit lacking where it counts, when I played it. The operators of the free MMO, Gala Networks, are trying to reduce some of those issues with their new expansion for the game, Undaunted, which as well as pouring in new content massively reduces the rate of grind required to get through the first 25 levels. It should, apparently, bring the rate of progress a little closer to the industry standards of WoW and so forth. Whether that will see people return to the game, I am not sure.
The trailer, below, isn’t particularly inspiring and is quite peculiarly edited. Hmm. Stuff like this makes me wonder whether we’re going to start seeing some serious casualties in the free-to-play space, with the better games starting to rise to the top…
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Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on October 14th, 2011.
Looking for the latest gen on brutal Peruvian insurgency games? You’re in the wrong place. My Shining Path column appears on a Tuesday. The Flare Path concerns itself with gentler, less Maoist matters. In two of the splendidly singular creations word-sketched beyond the jump, the only person you can murder is yourself, and in the other one it’s plastic tanks and army men that get it in the neck. Read the rest of this entry »
By Adam Smith on October 14th, 2011.
Spanish developer Francisco Téllez de Meneses makes me feel like less of a man with his splendiferous appellation but I’ve managed to put those feelings of inadequacy aside while trying out the demo for Unepic, the Metroidvania style indie title he’s been developing for the last two years. Several people seemed to think this would be my kind of thing, emailing me and demanding that I give it a shot. Francisco describes it as “a mixture of platform game, role game and joke”, all of which are things I’m fairly sure I enjoy. The actual exploration aspect is shaping up particularly well, with lots of loot, a smattering of side quests and a big old castle to map out. Demo link below.
By Alec Meer on October 14th, 2011.
Here’s five minutes of your life you won’t get back. Fortunately, you might rather enjoy them. Or you might be bewildered by them. Or you might be angered by them. I’m at a loss to accurately describe your likely reaction. Oceanspirit Dennis is a one-screen, non-complicated point’n'click adventure made in AGS, which seems to be gleefully ripping the piss out of other point’n'clicks, out of Final Fantasy, out of RPGs in general, and most of all out of itself. It may well have no purpose at all, and I kind of like it for that. I also have a headache, due to particularly sadistic use of sound. Ben Chandler’s happily stupid little creation can be found here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Via Indiegames
By Alec Meer on October 14th, 2011.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Hitman and (spit) Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix has been experimenting with a brand new, proprietary graphics engine, which it calls Luminous. Given Develop notes this is DirectX 11 tech, it seems more than likely it’s coming to future PC games – so let’s take a look at the thing below. The idea is it’s that much closer to photo-realism, at least in terms of environments – while I’d rather spend my games in a crazy, impossible, fantastical environment than a faithfully-recreated multistorey carpark, there’s no denying that this tech looks mighty impressive.
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