Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Despite its grotesquely high bodycount and the horrible and humiliating ways in which it rises, the utter absurdity of Saints Row: The Third makes it one of the silliest games of this or any other year. In celebration of the ludicrous actions that the inhabitants of Steelport are performing, Volition have added a map with a live feed of actions across the city to the game’s website. Unfortunately, because so many people are playing, it’s mostly updating with run of the mill vehicular manslaughter and lethal blows to the balls. But the far more entertaining stat tracker has captured some frankly alarming information about what’s happened since launch.

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We’ve received a mysterious link from Ludocraft, who are currently making a “HD” version of one of RPS’ favourite mods, the bizarre airship combat game, Air Buccaneers. It’s a link to this image, which is inscribed with words – possibly Finnish? (my understandening of anything outside basic English is deplorable) – which apparently contain some clue to what will be contained in the remake. Ludocraft describe it as “a small bit of info on one quite interesting and unique new “thing” we’ll be adding to the game.”

Meanwhile the Ludocraft team have put up a server of the original mod. They explain: “It can be found in the Unreal Tournament 2004 server browser under name “LudoCraft’s AirBuccaneers 1.6 Server” or via direct IP: 80.75.107.152:7777.” Details for the mod itself are here, and obviously you’ll need UT2004. Anyone for a game tonight? 8pm UK time?

UPDATE: Turns out there is a trailer, too. (Below.)

This has to be one of the weirdest asset releases we’ve seen lately: a batch of screenshots in which the protagonist of Syndicate is having a good look at the gun that he’s carrying. That’s what it’s about: admiring the shooting cylinder. Conveniently it features most of the guns you’ll be toting in the game. So big. So gunny! Mmm. Full gallery below!
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Stop it! I don’t care what it is you’re doing, just stop for a minute and do this instead. Download Hyper Princess Pitch, a game where an angry princess vows to destroy a friendly robotic Santa and all his helpers because she didn’t receive enough gifts as a child. I think she still is a child. I don’t know – the backstory seemed vague and altogether less important than shooting giant toy-bearing sleighs down in flames. Princess Pitch is a feisty so-and-so, running through Santa’s grotto as if it were the set of Smash TV. Accompanied by her cat that appears to have a jetpack for a bottom, she merrily piledrives trains into the ground and blasts hundreds of robotic Daddy Crimbles into bits. Free, festive and fantastic. Trailer below.

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We’ve not heard much about the Sins of a Solar Empire expandalone/quasi sequel Rebellion since it appeared on the radar back in March. Today though Stardock sent over a couple of images (below) showing how the graphical overhaul will shiny-up the ships from the original game to give the new game a good dose of polish. And they are at least 25% shinier, according to my Pixelshaderised shinometer. Of course Sins of a Solar Empire has been expanding and overhauling aplenty (and with stuff that matters to the game) since the 2007 release, and became far more interesting to play after the Diplomacy pack. Rebellion gets to build on this with new factions, new ships, and of course the whole rebellion theme – factions will be splinter off the main factions to create “rebel” and “loyalist” sub-factions, which in turn makes the conflict all the more hectic. With that and some AI improvements, well, we’ll be looking forward to it. Still no release date for Rebellion, but apparently it will be digital download only. Convenient for some, as Sins is now on Steam.
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SkyDrift is Burnout with Mario Kart powerups, or Pilotwings with more racing and shooting. The fact that it’s about planes rather than cars does take away the possibility of nudging competitors into oncoming traffic or sending them spinning out of control, which is disappointing. Powerups take the place of collisions and although shooting opponents down with missiles hardly seems sporting, no one seems to mind. Perhaps it’s because the settings are so idyllic and tranquil. There’s a demo available on Steam, which I took for a quick test flight. Thoughts follow, like a bogey on your six.

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It seems likely that some of you will not be aware of ’90s classic Marathon, which was one of those obscure-yet-influential games in the history of the shooter. It was one of the things Bungie did before they really made hay with the Halo games. Anyway, fans have continued the series, as well as powered a number of other games, with an open-source engine-creating effort called Aleph One, and that project recently hit a big old milestone, v1.0. This means it’s a good time to download one of the games related to the project if you are looking for some retro FPS adventures. Needless to say there are Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux versions.

Prep your nose because it is in for one almighty workout. I’m not talking about sending anyone to the Christmas party of a major investment bank, I am instead alerting you to Lineage II’s abolition of subscription payments. The MMO which Tarantino and Rodriguez paid such mixed and seemingly irrelevant homage to is now yours to try for a total cost of no pennies and only three decades of your life. The Goddess of Destruction add-on provides plenty of new content for existing players as well, details of which are scattered around here. NCsoft trumpet that no content is hidden behind paywalls but shortly go on to blither that the usual premium items will allow for speedy progression.

While it doesn’t appear to have a personality to match the mad brilliance of Jamestown, recently released Solar Wings is a handsome SHMUPPY thing in its own right. Cheery waves of enemies, colourful bullets fanning across the screen and a co-op mode are all enough to tickle my fancy. Is it my imagination or are we seeing more of these on PC in recent times? It could simply be that I’ve started paying more attention to them, upon realising that I’m capable of lasting for more than five seconds amidst the scrambled madness on the screen. Turns out not every pack of bullets wants to create a tightly patterned hell for me. Available now for £1.99/€2.49, the developers reckon they’ll have a demo to offer soon. Look to the land below for a trailer.

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The latest Eve expansion switches on today, and includes a bunch of things that should please Eve players, such as new battlercruisers, and pretties such as new nebulae, and ephemera such as new captain’s quarters, and VITAL visual tweaks such as new engine trails. The most amazing thing, however, is the concept of slowing down time to deal with big fleet fights. I’ve no idea if that will work, but it’s the cleverest solution to the lag problem I’ve seen offered so far.

Thumping great spaceship battle trailer below.
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