Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I would have written this post a great deal more quickly but I accidentally got Stoned while doing a quick spot of research. Fear not – nobody’s been pelting me with rocks and I haven’t decided that the only way to write about flight sims is in a herbal haze. I did make the mistake of checking the writings of Tim Stone in historical Flare Path briefings and that was, as ever, like entering a world of exciting things that I know so little about. Did you know that pilots in WWI flight sim, Rise of Flight, have sidearms in the cockpit with them? 777 Studios were behind that game and 1C have handed them development duties on the WWII Eastern Front sequel.

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Yesterday we reported how gamers in Russia and bordering countries had received a peculiar version of Borderlands 2. It was in Russian only, and region locked so it was not possible to play with people from other countries. That was strange enough, but more odd was that this was also being distributed to non-Russian-speaking former USSR nations, which didn’t much impress people. The good news is, it’s now all being sorted. 2K have ensured that customers both in and neighbouring Russia will have access to the international version of the game as well.

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Nuclear Union does look quite a bit like somebody took one slice of Fallout 3 and one slice of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and then made an irradiated sandwich out of them. Holding the post-apocalyptic pastrami together are the binding brains of Men of War developers Best Way. Jim spoke with the team last month to find out about the switch from strategy to RPG and found that the game will have tactical combat, mutants and environmental hazards. At Gamescom I saw a trailer that includes some gameplay and you can now see that same trailer below and you won’t even have to be in a noisy hall the size of an aircraft hangar, unless that’s where you live in which case you should totally apply to be on Grand Designs.

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1C and Men Of War men Best Way are making a post-apocalyptic RPG called Nuclear Union. This is basically party-based STALKER/Metro in the Men Of War engine.

Uh huh.

It’s as if they sat down in a meeting and said “What would really make Jim Rossignol’s head explode on a Friday afternoon?” Well, they came pretty damned close. A bit more on this, including the first trailer, below.
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Court-martialed officers are given the chance to redeem themselves by signing up to fight alongside their fellow condemned in the bloodiest battles of a bloody great war. It sounds like it could be a science fiction concept, with electrified manacles, guns that are also handcuffs and remote controlled explosive dogtags that bark out orders in the abrasive tones of an angry prison warden played by Malcolm McDowell. No such thing. Men Of War: Condemned Heroes tells the story of a soviet penal battalion during World War II. To the Eastern Front then and a slightly more unusual story of that many-storied war to discover. Trailer below, game due on April 12th.

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In retrospect, I should probably have made more of a fuss over the superb Men Of War: Assault Squad, because it was one of my favourite experiences of last year. Yes, it was a co-op/multiplayer remix of the original, and all the DLCs meant the pleasure was sort of fragmented, but actually I spent many meticulous hours playing through this game both solo and with my MoW-playing friends, and the result is always one of the best RTS experiences I can think of. The original game and all the DLCs are now being bundled together in a Game Of The Year edition. 1c explain: “The pack totals 25 skirmishes, over 50 multiplayer maps, 5 playable nations, over 100 infantry weapons and over 200 vehicles.” It only seems to be on GamersGate so far, but I expect it will pop up elsewhere today.

I’ve posted the most recent devs versus game video below to provide the clueless with a taster.
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Also in new screenshot news come these images from Red Orchestra 2: Heroes Of Stalingrad. Due out 30th August, the sequel from Tripwire boasts improved multiplayer, and a Stalingrad campaign using the multiplayer maps, which will let you play as either the Germans or the Russians – two sides that don’t get much attention in first-person gaming. You can see the latest images below, along with a peak of the Rising Storm mod that Tripwire are sponsoring.

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Men Of War: Assault Squad has had another patch, which fixes up some balancing issues and adds a couple of new vehicles. You can get the patch here if you need to. There’s also some paid-fo downloadable content now available, which is a pack of five new maps for assault zones multiplayer mode. Sigh. I love this game.