Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I know there’s a few of you out there who will be interested in this. The Lego Universe Beta sign ups have gone live over here. No word as yet for when it will kick off, but it can’t be long. It might be worth registering with the main Lego site too, as there’s an option for logging in with Lego ID? Hmm.

As the Independent Game Festival approaches, I thought a series of short interviews with all the PC-relevant short-listed entries would be an idea. First up is indie-Godhead Cactus who received a nomination for the Nuovo Award for the abstractly beautiful platformer Tuning, which looks like Nebulus as re-imagined by Escher. The interview and footage follows…
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Lots of people wrote about this, but Vertelemming was the most appropriately obscure, so gets namechecked. He said “You are returning. The stream in the Cleft is returning. The cavern is returning. Uru is returning.” And so it is. It’s a free server, so you can just go play and donate if you wish. “We’ve opened all the Ages, and added most of the goodies in MO:UL. We’re referring to it as MO:ULagain—feel free to explore and enjoy,” as they say. And here’s three videos made in tribute to the game when it closed. Lost of footage of – er – stuff. Also, things.
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First of all, to explain why this review is so late. We’d hoped for code well in advance, but sadly it wasn’t sent to us until the release day. I have since played the game to absolute completion. Thus it is only proper to tell you Wot I Think. (You can safely assume this review contains enormous Mass Effect 1 spoilers, but I will not spoil ME2.)

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Dragon Age 2 could be with us as soon as 2011? This appears to be one of the headlines to emerge from EA’s latest telegraph broadcast, alongside Dead Space 2’s peculiar disappearance from the PC, release dates for APB and Crysis 2, and signs of improving fortunes at the publisher. Oddly enough there’s details below.

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Very occasionally RPS runs development diaries from game development teams. Most recently we received one from Sakari Games, who released cartoon combat game Foreign Legion: Buckets Of Blood in late 2009. Written by Pepijn Rijnders, the art lead of Sakari Games, this diary tells the story of how this commercially release game went from Global Game Jam experiment to full-time project for the Sakari team. We think it might make interested reading for all your active or prospective game developers out there, or anyone interested in the indie game process. Okay, over to Mr Rijnders…

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The DRM sucks. It really does. Only… I can’t comment on exactly how sucky it is because this an opinion based on the 360 version of the game. I know! I played it on a gamepad and everything! I’ll be handing in my PC4EVA badge and gun momentarily, but before that it seemed wise to at least write up my experiences. 360 is what we had access to for review, and, while largely speaking (based upon the differences between BS1 console and PC, and how technically similar this is to BS1) the experience should be very similar, I can’t say that it definitely will be, or that those multiple forms of copy protection won’t cause every PC in the world to turn into a chocolate muffin with chicken nuggets on top when it unlocks tomorrow. That would make me a liar, and I only lie about things that don’t matter, like loving my family and whether I really finished reading that Stephen Hawking book. I’ll be checking BS2 PC out tomorrow, and if there’s any sign of trouble or disparity with anything in this piece, rest assured there’ll be posts about it.
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You thought they’d run out of Star Wars films to make Lego games about, right? Wrong. Now the TV series, Clone Wars, is to receive the plastic man treatment. I think it’s tempting to start rolling eyes at the prospect of another Lego game. The Lego Indies have been a bit disappointing, and the prospect of Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 may not fill everyone’s hearts with glee. But the Star Wars games were genuinely fantastic, and yet another could be fun. It will feature all the characters from the two seasons of the show, and apparently “brand new battle modes”. There’s also a new version of the level builder, and of course lightsaber fighting. The game site’s here. So, as is obligatory, below you must suggest which other film series merit the Lego treatment. And everyone’s already said Godfather. Go!

Crikey! At last. Following their winning of the best upcoming indie game in the ModDb award, they’ve uploaded some better quality footage than what was used in the award reel. It’s still pre-alpha, they stress, and they wouldn’t normally release this into the community in this state, but they’re in a celebratory, sharing mood. Frankly, it looks fine to me.
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It’s Monday morning. As such, we should gracefully ease into the working, gaming week with a webgame. Too many to name people mailed us this over the weekend. It’s a one-button web-game based on a cheery Rick Dangerous/Spelunky theme. One Button Bob manages shows that, if you limit the context smartly, you can actually create a lot of the “traditional” gaming problems on a single button. It’s also a bit of a giggle. Go play.