Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Bioware have put out a video focusing on Shepard’s improved animations in Mass Effect 3, which you can see below. The clip shows off how his reactions when taking cover are more nuanced, and also shows how melee is made a little smoother and more believable with improved animation syncing. It’s quite an interesting insight into the little tweaks that the devs are able to make for the third game, and it shows the designers demonstrating their combat in a test scenario, which makes the improvements on the original character animation really stand out. Skip to 1:20 to get past the “community” blatherings and get to the meat.
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OK, Google’s Chrome browser just officially became scary/magnificent. It’s been able to run a few games – like Plants vs Zombies – in a browser window for a while now, but the excellent Bastion has just been added, marking a serious step up in what’s technologically possible. The game starts playing in less than a minute of clicking the button to add it, it looks just like the standard version as far as I can tell, runs smoothly and scales to your screen/window size. Oh, and you can play a free demo then pay to unlock the full thing right away if you like.
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That sounds flippant, but for a loot-driven game like the Borderlands sequel it’s actually pretty important. It is, as concept designer Scott Kester explains in the first episode of a new video series about the forthcoming game (below), about making a loot-chomping shooter less repetitive by making the content more interesting, and more distinct. No new game footage in this video, sadly, so you’ll just have to make do with Mr Kester explaining the “it’s the same but better concept” over several minutes.
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“Is there anything you like about Christmas?” wondered my significant other last night, after I’d just expelled another long moan about the hassle of the holiday season. I didn’t have to think for long. “Yes!” I exclaimed, confidently. “There’s usually an episode of Dr Who on.” For, despite the good Doctor’s televisual output being what I would generously describe as ‘uneven’, it pushes most of the right buttons for me to never want to miss it. What I don’t yet know is how much this extends to games based on the last Gallifreyan’s time-bending adventures. The recent clutch of free point and click adventures were miserable, clunky affairs, but looks as though there’s something more significant on its way though – Dr Who: The Eternity Clock is due for PC and console next year. Even though the BBC promptly pulled the trailer they accidentally stuck online last night, I’ve reversed the polarity of the neutron flow so you can watch it below.
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Thief-inspired Doom 3 mod The Dark Mod has received an extensive new update over here. What’s most interesting about this appears at the end of the announcement, saying that the build does not utilize the recently-freed Doom 3 source code (and as such requires Doom 3 multiplayer to be installed), but that the team are going to try and start integrating the mod using it, so that they can create a standalone game. The team have asked for help in making this happen: “The Dark Mod can not be a standalone release until all the Doom 3 art assets and animations have been fully replaced. If you wish to help with that effort, please visit The Dark Mod forums and post in the “I Want to Help” sub-forum.”

You might recollect from a few months back that Cyanide announced they were making a videogame version of the tabletop combat system Confrontation. There’s apparently been a bit of progress in that area, because Cyanide have released a teaser trailer (via Blue), which you can see below. It seems to feature a lot of heavily out of breath characters. Regarding the game itself Cyanide explain: “With a core focus on strategy, Confrontation challenges players to lead a squad of elite soldiers, helping them evolve into a unit that is equal parts brain and brawn. Recruit, develop and equip your squadron and the powerful allies that fight by your side; establish new strategies to destroy your enemies!” No word on a release date, but I’d go for “2012ish”. Seems like a fair bet.
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Now I’m in charge things are going to change around here. On this planet. The first thing is: ALL sequels must have the subtitle, “Back In Action”. I don’t care if it’s your fifth game/film in a row with the same subtitle, that’s how it is, and you’ve no choice. So it is that Kalypso have named the return of the RTS series, Jagged Alliance: Back In Action. They have complied. All will. And they’ve finally stopped piddling around with teasers and put out a proper trailer for the game.

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I’m very late to the OnLive party. Cos I’ve got a PC that can play the games just fine, so, well, I’ve not yet taken the time. And then I saw news that they’ve now got it working on smart phones. I can play PC games on my phone? On my phone? And indeed I can. PC gaming is getting a lot more complicated. It’s getting a lot more complicated to know if it’s even PC gaming any more.

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I’ve been reading some interesting discussions about Dear Esther of late, with some folks maintaining that it’s “not even a game”. With just wandering about and some artful narration going for it, you can see why some people are sceptical about it being in the same category as all those other things, with their hi-score tables and their comprehensible rule sets, that currently sit in the big box of games. Whether or not it’s a game, you’re going to be able to pay $10 on Valentine’s Day next year, and wander lonesomely through its breath-takingly remade landscape. It really is quite an extraordinary thing to see, outdoing most mainstream games’ environment work with its lavish Source-powered rocks and weeds. The Chinese Room also announce that: “In other news, we can also confirm we will be speaking at GDC2012′s Game Design track about Dear Esther, the approach to environmental build, audio, voice-overs and storytelling.”