Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Craig Pearson on May 20th, 2013 at 10:04 am.

Valve’s secret augmented reality project, or at least one of them, has finally surfaced. At the weekend’s Maker Faire, ex-Valvesters Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, demonstrated CastAR, a pair of glasses with a mini-projector that ‘casts’ games onto a reflective surface. The game appears in 3D in front of the player, who can interact with the insubstantial environments. It was a project that died during Valve’s “great cleansing” at the start of the year, but it’s not a cloak-and-dagger tech theft: Gabe waved his magic wand and gave his ex-employees the rights to the new technology.
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By Jim Rossignol on May 20th, 2013 at 9:00 am.

Hmm, here’s a thing. An announcement has been made at Russian game convention KRI, saying that Obsidian and the Allods team Astrum Nival are going to be making a new MMO, the trailer for which you can see below. Sadly it’s in Russian, which I do not speak. Anyone able to give us the gist?

The game is called Skyforge and Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart described it as “interesting and promising.” It’s certainly interesting. The game appears to be a sequel, of sorts, to Allods, and it seems as if Obsidian will be helping out with the making the game – which was announced originally in May 2012 – appear “promising” to European and North American audiences. We’ll hear more about this in the next couple of weeks, no doubt.
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By Jim Rossignol on May 20th, 2013 at 8:00 am.

Alien Rage is apparently the new name for Alien Fear, although neither game had materialised on my Release Schedule Bioscanner before today. Anyway, it has a trailer which shoes some aliens and some rage. Good thing they dropped that fear malarky, that would have made no sense at all. Anyway, the teaser trailer below makes it look like a game somewhere in the middle of the hilarious/awesome spectrum, so hopefully City will be able to pull off the “arcade FPS” that they are touting.

Go look at it!
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By Jim Rossignol on May 19th, 2013 at 11:00 am.

Sundays are for telepathy and cake. But that’s not all there is to life. There is also the contemplation of electronic contraptions. And they are many.

• An important (for the desktop colonel) article on recent developments in the strategy genre: “Strategy no longer means what it once did. The prominence of League of Legends and DOTA 2 and the recent failure of games like Age of Empires Online and Fall of Nations has led to a shift in what publishers and developers think people want. MOBAs now dominate the online space, there’s no getting around that, and who can blame them? These games are easy to get into, have a huge and dedicated community. Why would you develop anything else?”

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By Nathan Grayson on May 18th, 2013 at 5:00 pm.

There are nearly as many Team Fortress 2 hats as there are snarky jokes about Team Fortress 2 hats. I see more hats in a day of browsing the Valvier parts of the Internet than I do in a year of going outside. But let’s face it: ours is a hatted man’s world, and so long as there are heads to be ogled and summarily shot, people will clamor for more carnivals of craftsmanship to cover them. You can probably see where I’m going with this. There’s a new Team Fortress 2 update, and it’s entirely player-created. Also, it’s mostly hats. These, however, are robot hats, and – as the wisest of all Benders taught us – that makes them exponentially more interesting. There’s also a video, comic, and all sorts of other post-update revelry. The break is not a robot, but it will do is best to emulate the experience.

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By Lewie Procter on May 18th, 2013 at 4:00 pm.

Don’t go scavenging all over the internet to find the best deals, I’m hear with my usual round of the best deals for you to conveniently consider at your leisure. There’s some cracking deals this week, so you’ll not want to miss out. Of course you can rely on SavyGamer.co.uk throughout the week for all your discounted gaming needs. Read the rest of this entry »

By Nathan Grayson on May 18th, 2013 at 3:00 pm.

Hey, kid. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you. You wanna buy some- oh jeez, shush! Police and/or an out-of-touch politician! OK, phew. They’ve passed now. Anyway, might I interest you in some videogames? Oh, don’t worry: they’re real. Fresh out of the oven too, if you know what I mean. Heh. What’ve I got? You’re in luck today, kid. Yes indeed. Ever wonder what it’d feel like to be god - and also a planet, and also some manner of crab giant? Well then, Reus might just float your boat, if you know what I mean. Heh. No good? Brain too rotten from your “Call of Honorfield” murder machines? Hm, then how about Renaissance Heroes? It’s got all of the guns and none of the plausibility! Go to beauteous portions of 16th century Renaissance Europe and then blow them up! That sort of thing. Oh, you want trailers? Mr high-roller, huh? Fine, fine. Go past the break and they’re all yours. If you know what I mean. Heh.

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By Nathan Grayson on May 18th, 2013 at 1:00 pm.

At this rate, Trion Worlds might soon be forced to change its name to Trion Islands, or maybe Trion Small Yet Charming Spanish Getaway Vacation Villa. After the Rift team got hit by a major round of layoffs late last year, Defiance‘s band of trigger finger scratchers has taken a possibly even bigger hit. While the exact number is unconfirmed, many reports place the total at around 100, which is a worrisomely not-small portion of the entire company. For its part, Trion has confirmed the unfortunate turn of events, but it’s been illusive otherwise. The company’s statement is after the break, in addition to a few further details.

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By Nathan Grayson on May 18th, 2013 at 11:00 am.

I am constantly impressed by indie productions that honestly have no business being indie. You know, things of such scope and ambition that they make many triple-A behemoths look like whimpering, glitz-and-glamour-drowned mice. But they also worry me. I look at them and say, “Oh wow, that’s being built from the ground-up by a two-person team? Goodness. There is no way.” Often, the results end up being mixed bags of wonderful intentions and rocky realities. Cases in point: Miasmata, 3079, Anna, etc, etc, etc. It’s with a similar combo of stomach butterflies and stomach acid that I approach Frontiers. It looks like a more laid-back, exploration-and-survival-focused Morrowind, but can a small team really give something so massive the meticulous care it deserves? Fingers crossed. Trailer after the break.

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By Nathan Grayson on May 18th, 2013 at 9:00 am.

There are so many videogames! More than I can count with my entire, exceedingly creepy plaster hand collection. Valve tries its darndest to get the best ones on Steam, but they just keep coming. Perhaps throwing the towering Select-O-Tron 9000 and 3/5 into hyperdrive is the answer? Valve’s having a go at it, at least, and so far the result’s been smaller batches of games at an appreciably speedier clip. Last time, that meant three games, but this time it’s six. Hooray, progress! Standouts include the piracy plagued Game Dev Tycoon, Harvest-Moon-meets-Minecraft standout Stardew Valley, and the creatively named RIOT, which is about riots. Details after the break.

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