Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Oh yes. I have review code for Rig’n'Roll, “the ultimate truck driving experience.” This name and that statement alone were enough to ensure I was going to try this anyway, but the promise on the back of the box that it has an “exciting story with an unexpected finale” has pushed my intruigometer to maximum. Unexpected how? Turns out the driver’s in a coma, imagining driving a truck? Or it’s not a truck at all, but a sentient crustacean in truck form? Or it turns out the truck was in purgatory, waiting to be reunited with the people it loves the most? Nah, no-one’d write something that silly. It’ll be a short while before I can fire this rare beauty up, but in the meantime let’s look at some videos. RAWK videos.

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There’s two things which RPS love. One: Tanks. Two: Demos. As such, the release of the Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943 demo is a prompt for celebrations in the RPS shack and/or a post. You can download the whole getting on-for-700Mb demo thing here. Kursk was the largest tank battle of all time – at least, until Jim gets his Elite-with-robots game idea made by someone. Lots more details on its own site, or you can watch a teaser trailer below.
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1c’s international publishing director Darryl Still has claimed that retail is to blame for the decline in PC software sales. Talking to industry trade publication MCV UK, he predicted that PC software will vanish entirely from retail by 2011.

“There is still demand, but retail is forcing PC games out. Digital is fantastic, and we’re very pleased with it. But it is not us as the developers and publishers driving products to digital – it is because the options for the PC at retail are so limited… Q1 2011 is my estimate as to when PC games will be sold completely via digital. I have seen the predictions that by 2013 more than 50 per cent of our revenues will be earned digitally. But if the PC games market has to wait until 2013 then we are all in trouble.”

Still says that there are challenges ahead for digital distribution, not least because of the number of outlets now available. “We have contracts with 25 of them at the moment, and of that amount six or seven are producing decent revenue numbers.”

The sequel to Microprose/Cyberlore’s 2000 RTS/RPG/management game has just hit, this time handled by one of Russian omni-developer/publisher 1C’s many studios. I confess I’ve never played the first game, but I was intrigued enough by this decade-on sequel to take a nose…

There’s something rather scathing about Majesty 2. It tears away the pretend philanthropy and nobility of fantasy heroes, leaving the terrible truth of what we really play most RPGs and MMOs for. We want gold, and we want to watch a bunch of numbers increase – because we are greedy and self-obssessed. And Majesty 2′s AI-controlled, massively selfish heroes turn the mirror on us.
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This is quite interesting, if only because you don’t see many people do it anymore. 1C have released an almost 1-gig Vista techdemo of their forthcoming FPS/Survival-Horror boat-based Cryostasis. It’s a canned demo which walks you through the grin corridors of the boat where it’s set, and shows off some of its fancier engine elements. They’re particularly showing off the water and fabric modeling – the best of which comes towards the end. Download it if you’re the sort who spends a bit too much time staring at textures in FPS games. We know you exist. You’ll find the old trailer beneath the cut if you need an introduction…
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Ino Co’s latest strategy game, Elven Legacy, (previous was the honestly named Fantasy Wars) is a mighty purdy lookin’ turn-based affair which, as you might have been able to deduce from its name, features elves: “A rogue human has discovered the treasured secrets of the elven race and for the first time in centuries, elves are forced to enter the world of man in order to protect this sacred information.” And that means hot, turn-based action. Ino Co are keen to emphasize that the game not only features dozens of different unit types, but that there’s also a complex MMO-style character editor for the creation of unique fantasy heroes. After the excellence of King’s Bounty this year, we’d be hard pressed to dismiss this. We’ll be able to take a look at it in Q1 of next year. Trailer after the jump.
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Russian spacewar simulator The Tomorrow War is set for a September 1st release in Europe, and should apparently have an English-language version in the pipeline too. The game is an incredibly expansive simulation based on the galactic-war fictions of Alexander Zorich (actually a pseudonym for two Russian writers, Yana Botsman and Dmitry Gordevsky). After the jump we have ten minutes of footage from the game’s vast interstellar environments: it’s the absolute antidote to those glossed-up trailers coming out of Leipzig.

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While I was out at the KRI game developers summit in Moscow I had a chance to play a number of games from the East European theatre. One that stood out was Cryostasis by Action Forms. This survival shooter has already caused a bit of hopeful muttering and anticipation round here, so I thought I’d go into it in a little more detail, as well as briefly talk to one of the leads on the project, Dmitriy Kozmin.
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As I’ve mentioned before, Men Of War is a rather excellent-looking RTS from Russian developers Best Way. It’s incredibly realistic and rather formidable in its attempt to convey the Russian theatre of World War II. Quite what is going on with this latest trailer I don’t know. It’s been scripted up to be… wacky? Quite peculiar indeed.
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Action Forms have released a bunch of new screenshots for their upcoming frozen-waste-time-hopping survival-shooter Cryostasis, and I’ve posted the best of them after the jump. They show a number of different aspects of the game – your frozen, undead opponents, the dog sled, and some of the beautifully creepy ship interiors. Click on the letterbox images for the full sized shot.
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Did we use that pun before? Oh nevermind. I do so enjoy it when a random theme emerges from the internet, and today’s theme is: tanks of World War II. The tank you see above is from Men of War, which I shall talk about in a moment. Firstly, the secondary purpose of this post is to pimp out the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, which I implore all who are able to purchase immediately. The reason? Lots of Jim Rossignol words, obviously, but more specifically my feature on the Russian games industry. I went to Moscow and came back laden with delicious information. It’s the the best thing I’ve written for a magazine since my trip to Korea. Anyway… Men Of War – or why a fiddly wargame was one of the best things I saw in Moscow.
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