Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Develop are reporting that a survey of 80 British game development studios shows that developers really don’t know what’s going to happen to gaming. Develop spake: “a quarter (24%) believe the demand for console games will decline over the next year. As much as 42 per cent, meanwhile, believe that PC games are in regression,” on the other hand it also shows “…32 per cent of UK developers expecting an increase in console games business, and 20 per cent expecting an increase for PC games.” Conclusion? Confusion!

At least they’re all certain about mobile and casual games, though: “Eighty-nine per cent believe said mobile games demand will climb, while 88 per cent claim the interest in casual games will continue to rise.” Are they right, or are they just wildly ticking boxes on a questionnaire before getting back tot he business of actually making games? We may never care know.

Rage might be all the news today, but I would also like to point out that World Space Week – which is like RPS Space Week, only more downbeat – is also a disappointment. I suppose one could blame the lack of panache in this United Nations-sponsored initiative’s website, but I blame the lack of private enterprise capitalising on Space Week. Only one single F2P company has sent us a press release regarding their space game’s celebration of World Space Week, and that’s Black Prophecy, who are doing some XP event or whatever. That’s pretty weak, Space Game Community. Hell, even Cliffski, designer of Gratuitous Space Battles said: “I have no deals to announce.” Cliff’s shocking disregard for World Space Week is emblematic of the attitude space game producers have to this fine, upstanding event, and I don’t like it one bit. So what we do about it? Not much, really. But if you have got a space game you could put on sale or do some other Space Week themed event with it, I suppose. Maybe I’ll even post about it. Not that I expect any of you to, because you all hate World Space Week, you monsters. I am going to have to make a nice cup of tea and commiserate by looking at pictures of spaceships.

[Disclaimer: Actually, I had no idea it was World Space Week until the Black Prophecy thing turned up, but now that I know I am ALL OVER IT.]

Good news! Rage is now on my PC, and I have begun to play it. I am excited to be doing so, based on what I’ve played of the game previously.

Bad news! I’m seeing quite a few technical problems on my PC. To the point where I’m not sure I can keep playing. Sounds like I’m not alone either.
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Okay then! My rambling foray into PC hardware continues. Later in the week I am going to do another PC-build post with a better, clearer version of what we discussed here. That’ll also contain some suggestions about cheaper builds and also some suggestions for what to do if you can’t/won’t build your own machine. In the meantime, however, I want to hear some opinions on the topic of gaming laptops. I tend to cart around various categories of netbook these days, with no real intention of gaming on them, even if they can actually muster a fair bit of PC gaming’s history. But I am aware than many people do having laptops with considerable more oomph. What I want to hear about is your feedback on laptops that you use for gaming. What are the specs? What was the cost? How happy are you with it? Any niggles? Would you recommend it?

Speak!

Hello! A polite notice for you: while we’re very proud of the community on RPS (which is most certainly smarter than the average bear), one of the reasons for it is that we regularly assassinate certain kinds of comment. Sometimes, people are baffled and/or outraged that this has happened. So, for the record: we do that, we always have done, we always will and you can’t talk us out of it. No mercy. However, if you follow these three simple rules your words shall most likely be safe:

1) Don’t insult anyone, whether they’re an RPS writer, reader or anyone else whether present or not. If you can’t make your argument without insults, it simply isn’t worth making. So the comment will be deleted.
2) Don’t say meh/boring/yawn or any kind of words to that effect (this also includes ‘old!’ and related). If you don’t care about the subject of a post, it’s openly absurd that you’ve made the effort to comment on it instead of just moving on to a story you are interested in. So the comment will be deleted.
3) Don’t reply to spam messages, no matter how hilarious you think you’re being. When something slips through the net, we usually clean it up pretty quickly, so any replies to it are left floating and leave you looking like a mad’un. So the comment will be deleted.

That’s all! Thanks for your time, and for your many interesting and entertaining comments past and future.

I am sorry, I’m feeling especially belligerent today. I’m just so cross that I’ve spent all morning waiting for Rage to download, because apparently it was impossible for online-only publications to have PC code ahead of release. THIS IS 2011 WHAT’S THE PROBLEM. Anyway! Half an hour to go, and in the meantime I’ve been drooling over the various loot I could potentially find in Diablo III when, if ever, it finally launches. Following on from their character build generator, Blizzard have released a visual database of most of the game’s weapons, armour and assorted toys. Or, at least, the base versions of said equipment – you’ll be upgrading them in all sorts of exciting ways via the in-game crafting system. Interesting stuff, as numbers and pictures of weapons go. Like all things Diablo III, you’ll need to be online to look at the database, of course.

My first port of call in the database was, of course, hats. I’ll be aiming for the Resplendent Stechhelm, I think.

Pixelprospector points the way to where Retro Souls have released a demo (bottom of the page) of their moderately cute conceptual platformer, 8-Bit Night. The concept is pretty simple: the 2D level can be flipped around to be played by your “mirror” character. This character moves in a mirror image of your own movements, allowing for some impossible access to bits of the map and a way of creating/sidestepping ingenious puzzles. But which one is the “real” character!? It’s all so confusing. There’s a video of the game below for those who have no inclination to play the thing.
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I do not wish to spoil any of this game’s mystery – or, indeed, frustration – so I will simply observe that Jak Locke’s vintage Atari-aping indie Twin Peaks game Black Lodge 2600 does a damn fine job of being as haunting, bewildering and maddening as its legendary source material. I shall also quote from the manual (which you must read if you are to have any hope of figuring the game out).

“A day in the FBI was never like this before! You are Special Agent Dale Cooper and you’ve found yourself trapped inside of the Black Lodge, a surreal and dangerous place between worlds. Try as you might, you can’t seem to find anything but the same room and hallway no matter which way you turn. Worse yet, your doppelganger is in hot pursuit!”

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Look, I don’t want this to be another groundhog day. I don’t want the comments thread to fill up with people going ‘Call of Duty is boring’ and then some other people saying “that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” I just want you to only bother watching this video of Modern Warfare 3′s ‘Spec Ops’ co-op mode if you honestly have a real interest in Modern Warfare 3. If you don’t, stop reading. Why are you still reading? You don’t even care! STOP READING. And don’t you dare comment. I can delete your words with a single button-click, you know.
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Silently, so silently the Orcs arrived. And silently, so silently, they uploaded a demo of their sort-of-tower-defence opus of sadism to Steam, a week ahead of the full game’s release. A week ahead! No-one does that anymore. Well, not many. Let us celebrate Robot Entertainment’s unexpected kindness! How? Well, by following their single, simple imperative. That imperative being, of course, Orcs Must Die. 995MB of greenskin-bothering awaits the curious (demo link is on the right of that page) right now.

I am one of the curious, but first I must download 21 cocking gigabytes of Rage. Megatextures is a pretty apt name, I guess.