Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Nathan Grayson on June 16th, 2012 at 10:31 am.

Remember when Valve said it was looking to hire all sorts of people from every walk of life – from lowly programmers to the giant-bow-tie-wearingest of fungineers? Well, one bit in there stood out: “And if you’re a first-class economist,” Michael Abrash wrote, ”please check us out. You’ll have a sandbox with 40 million users, and I promise you’ll never be bored.” Well, apologies to RPS’ substantial audience of budding TF2 hat economists. That position, you see, has officially been filled.

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By Adam Smith on June 15th, 2012 at 9:00 pm.

Walter is not a stop motion point and click game about a bag of water exploring the world. The trailer suggests that’s what it’s going to be before actually demonstrating that it’s a gorgeous platformer with fluid physics, state changes and a delightful sense of wonder. Fair enough then, although I’d probably play the stop motion version as well. Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until the terrifying future time that is 2013, at which point all of Earth’s water will have been turned into brown fizzjuice by Coca Cola, which will then sell it to the highest bidder at horrific blood-auctions. Poor Walter’s going to look like a terribly inappropriate work of mockery. See for yourself below.

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By Richard Cobbett on June 15th, 2012 at 8:00 pm.

Arriving slightly later than on consoles – boo, hiss – you can now check out the Heart of Darkness inspired shooter Spec Ops: The Line in all its sand-strewn glory. It doesn’t just want you to murder your way through armies of crazy people in the remnants of fallen Dubai, but to think a little while you do. And not simply ‘which gun should I shoot this guy with?’ You’ll get sand in your eyes, sand in your pants, and sand in your sandwiches, but try this demo if you’re still feeling… wait for it, wait for it… Dubai-us! (accepts applause and thrown undergarments)

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By Richard Cobbett on June 15th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.

As if you needed any more reason to hide from the evil star of the day that brings fear and burning to all, Blizzard is launching a series of weekly Warcraft Summer Challenges to help avoid the outside world. It’s a way of gently urging you to go back and relive some old glories, check out some content you might have levelled straight past if you joined with one of the expansion packs, and fill up a bit of time while you wait for Mists of Pandaria that would otherwise be wasted on doing the same old endgame raids for the thousandth time.

First up on the schedule: Karazhan! Better known as the old endgame raid you probably did a thousand times or more. But hey. It’s a pretty good dungeon, if you’ve yet to see it…

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By Nathan Grayson on June 15th, 2012 at 6:00 pm.

I feel like having your eyes located inside your mouth – just behind a jagged row of teeth that probably uses live sharks as dental floss – would pigeon hole you a bit from a career standpoint. Such is the plight of Natural Selection 2‘s Skulk aliens, and yet, they seem to do rather well for themselves within their small area of chompy expertise – at least, if Natural Selection 2′s latest trailer is any indication. This time around, the asymmetrical puny, mechanically assisted humans vs horrifying aliens (some of whom are colossal elephant monsters) action takes place on a new map called Docking, which should be available to closed beta players any time now. It’s a positively gorgeous mix of red-hued industrialism, green alien goop, and, er, some form of shooting range/basketball court, but the shooty, bitey, bleedy goodness is the real star here. Check out the madness after the break.

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By Richard Cobbett on June 15th, 2012 at 5:00 pm.

Why, hello there! Diablo here. What? No. No, Diablo 3. Diablo 2 was my father. Those miserable fleshlings at Rock Paper Shotgun have asked me to cast my expert eye over you scumbags’ failed attempts at murdering me IN MY OWN ****ING HOUSE. Why? The correct assumption I might rather enjoy witnessing hours upon hours of Hardcore adventuring going straight down the crapper. In exchange for a chance to plug my favourite book, I of course agreed…

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By Adam Smith on June 15th, 2012 at 4:00 pm.

The power of the demo! It’s not that I didn’t notice John’s joyous effusions about Botanicula, heck, I had to fetch the mop and bucket from the cellar and clean up afterwards, but despite all of that I didn’t actually play the game. Today Amanita have made a demo available, played directly in your browser at the website, and now I have played it. I played until the demo was over and then I started playing the full game and now I don’t want to carry on writing things for people to read because that means I’m not playing Botanicula. It’s absolutely lovely. Try the demo and maybe you’ll agree.

By Nathan Grayson on June 15th, 2012 at 3:00 pm.

Adam first spotted The Real Texas last year, but – to be perfectly honest – I hadn’t heard of it until very, very recently. Conveniently, however, it’s now officially buyable, playable, and possibly edible, so take that, Past Adam. Current Adam is way cooler than you anyway. At any rate, this is exciting news! For those in need of a refresher, The Real Texas looks like the silliest thing, stuffing Zelda-esque dungeon-crawling, Ultima-style progression, and heaping ten-gallon-hat-loads of whimsy into a vision of Texas that’s described as “a Kafka-esque parody stuck halfway between modern-day America and olden-days, RPG England.” Given that I grew up in Texas and learned all my childhood life lessons from RPGs set in olden-days RPG England, uh, sold. Sold forever.

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