Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Very soon I will have finished the first ever Virtual Novel RTS game. This follows hot on the heels of my first ever top-down football manager (you can see the very thin lines of the top edges of the graphs), and the first ever basketball third-person shooter. I WILL CORNER ALL MARKETS! Unfortunately, beating me to the first ever FPS tower defence game (or so they claim – there was bound to be one on Amiga that was only released in Poland), was Sanctum, and now there’s a Sanctum 2. A game that Jim described as “decent”. But Jim was given a copy to review, in his usually corrupt fashion. You, as just some ghastly member of the ordinary public, will have to pay £12. So that’s why I’ve just invented the concept of the “demo”.

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The dust settled on Ludum Dare‘s 26th marathon development sprint a couple weeks ago, but one very important question was left hanging in the air: who won? I mean, that’s all games are about, right? Winning and losing? Oh, and TV, sports, and dogs. Urgh, sorry. The Xbox One reveal must have rotted my brain. In reality, games can be about quite a bit more, and Ludum Dare compos prove that time and time again. But when you’re dealing with a list of 2346 games, it’s helpful to have some form of organization. Jump past the break for the winner’s circle.

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The real joy of bridge-building games is in the destruction. The challenge of making death trap bridges that will crumble at the slightest provocation. I can’t be the only person who puts effort into weakening bonds and lengthening rods, then laughing and clapping as a train nosedives into a ravine, can I? There’s room for many, many more structural puzzle games in my life, so I was pleased to find Sinking Ship Simulator, a game that understands the desire to watch the world crumble. Here it’s about the fun of watching 5000 springs wobbling, tensing, straaaaaining, before the inevitable point of no return, where it all goes a bit Poseidon Adventure.
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REVELATORY NEWS. Did you know that PlanetSide 2 – free-to-play titan and king among first-person Jimshoots – had a prequel? That’s right: the two in the title isn’t just for show like everybody clearly assumed it was. There is another. It’s still about refreshingly colorful spacewars and shootouts with more moving pieces than an upturned ant hill, but the graphics are worse and wobbly netcode is a mightier enemy than any mecha tank. Also, it still costs money for some reason. SOE’s not crazy, though. It sees the writing on the wall. Soon, PS1′s subscription fee will be extinct just like all the others, and it’ll join the F2P era.

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Metanet’s charming platformer N is so old the only wallpapers available at their site are in a 4:3 aspect ratio. That’s as close to a ‘yo momma’ joke as I’m comfortable making, but it’s also true – the high-res desktop backgrounds are 1600×1200. Out of curiosity, is there anyone reading this on a 4:3 monitor? Are you visiting your parents? The platform puzzle game was released in 2005, which in game time means it’s due a comfortable and easy retirement at one of our specially constructed facilities. But N has other ideas: Version 2.0 has just been released, and the old Ninja’s joints are as flexible and detachable as ever.

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I’m pretty sure Bladeless‘ title is wrong. Based on the number of heads I saw fly (many of which were mine), I feel pretty safe in saying that there are, in fact, blades. Either that or they don’t build unnervingly silent samurai monsters like they used to. But then, in this economy… Anyway. Bladeless’ focus is on briefly telegraphed attacks and split-second reactions. It’s hardly the most original formula ever (Hello, Punch-Out, every game that’s ripped off Punch-Out), but Bladeless’ side-scrolling duel setup and utterly sublime feel put it head and shoulders above the rest. At least, until a lightning strike katana slice trims off those conveniently exposed extremities.

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I can see you, sat there, your forehead resting on your spread finger and thumb, as you stare into the blankness. You’re in a dilemma (great cars). You perhaps want to play Resident Evil: Revelations, but you played Operation Raccoon City and you still have the dreams. Lift your weary face! I am here to help! There’s now a demo.

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“Remembering is a poetic exploration game driven by sound,” says the description of a short indie project from SonicPicnic, Monobanda and In-Visuals. Further “an audio driven exploration through a dreamlike world.” And as with every single audio-based game, its press release announces that it will “break new ground”. It’s odd – Blindside did the same a couple of years ago, declaring itself the “first” game of its like, despite there being hundreds of the things. Anyhow, their lack of perspicacity is not necessarily a blight on the games themselves, and you can play Remembering right now, for free.

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Babies are the truest scions of terror. They represent the most primal, universally relevant fears we humans can have: responsibility, loss of freedom, uncontrollable fecal matter, etc. Among The Sleep, however, is not a horror game about raising an infant (although, thinking about it, that could be incredible), but rather being one. It teeters onto the scene at a good time, given that small-time survival-horror’s been hit by the Slenderfication Beam and the Dead Spaces and Resident Evils of the world don’t seem to understand that it’s not particularly scary to be the unstoppable monster that slaughters everything. A breath of fresh (read: putrid and rotting, with a hint of squash-flavored baby food) air is much appreciated right now, and you can have a go at it this very second. So hop to it. Oh, but don’t step on the cracks. As we all learned from our childhood peers on the playground, lives are at stake.

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