I am saddened to admit that I am not a Civilization player. My brain does not work in that way. No matter how much I try, I just bounce off the game, and then I’m pushed out the way by mean Civ bullies who mock my tactical and diplomatic failings. It’s like home economics all over again. But I’m a bigger man than those meanies, and don’t begrudge Civ fans the opportunity to see the new expansion pack, A Brave New World. And I don’t begrudge Revison3 the hits for the preview that I am shamelessy yoinking. Do click here, as that Sessler guy seems like a nice chap.
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Posts Tagged ‘2K’
Digging Up Civ V: Brave New World Footage
By Craig Pearson on May 9th, 2013.
The Truth Is In Here: The Bureau – XCOM Declassified
By Adam Smith on April 26th, 2013.
It’s alive! The name change from XCOM: Mad Men Edition to The Bureau had been anticipated for some time, but we weren’t entirely clear as to whether the former first-person reboot would retain any trappings of its original title. Moments ago, a video and press release revealed that 2K Marin, they of Bioshock 2, are indeed working on the game and that it will be called The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. It’ll also be out on August 20th. I’m glad it’s a period piece and I’m glad it still has XCOM in the name because I’d enjoy seeing at least some of the transition from men in fedoras with retrofitted alien tech to hovering super-snipers. Here’s the trailer. It’s live action.
Alliance and Industry
Impressions: Civ V – Brave New World
By Adam Smith on April 12th, 2013.
I’ve started more games of Civilization V than a hundred men could ever finish and that’s not only because I enjoy discovering new worlds more than I enjoy conquering them. Civilization doesn’t have a compelling end-game, lacking the peaks and troughs of grand strategy, and instead taking a predictable course once the pieces are in place. Brave New World attempts to fix that by overhauling culture, diplomacy and trade.
Deep Rising: Firaxis Tease Possible XCOM Sequel
By Adam Smith on March 25th, 2013.
I hate Monday mornings and this was threatening to be one of the worst. My brain is still on the pillow and my body is refusing to obey the most basic of commands. Funny how a forty second video can turn everything around. Kotaku spotted that Firaxis’ panel at PAX East contained a short video that relates to the XCOM developer’s next “big project”. I reckon it might be time to turn our attention from the skies to the seas. My brain has lurched back into my skull and begun to gibber in an excited fashion. Watch below.
Finally, A BioShock Infinite Trailer!
By Craig Pearson on March 14th, 2013.
After years of speculation, I’ve finally figured out what the ‘Infinite’ stands for in the new BioShock’s title. It’s the number of trailers that they’re going to release before the game comes out. The closer we’ll get, the sheer mass of the trailers they’ve made will start warping time. We’ll slow down the closer we get to the March 26th, and time will stretch on and on. We’ll never escape the trailer singularity, and the closer we the less chance we’ll have of playing. So I have another trailer for you, because I passed the event horizon a long time ago.
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Warble Face: Bioshock Infinite’s Songbird
By Adam Smith on February 15th, 2013.
The investigative documentary style of Bioshock: Infinite’s Modern Day Icarus videos tickles my pleasure-nodes. The earlier reveals of the clockwork catastrophes and mechanical malignancies that roam Columbia are failures of imagination in contrast, and anyone fortunate enough to have instigated some form of media blackout regarding the game last year would be well-advised to continue that policy, with a glimmering exception for these informative and menacing reels. The first covers the vanishing of the city and the second, below, contains dark children’s rhymes and the sinister Songbird.
Today’s Best Video: Bioshock – Infinite’s Documentary
By Adam Smith on January 28th, 2013.
I’ve seen enough of Bioshock: Infinite for now. The next time I see Columbia, I want to be playing the game rather than watching somebody else falling out of the sky or presenting fast-cuts of footage. The latest video doesn’t show the game at all and, remarkably, that isn’t a problem. Presented as a fragment of documentary footage, a teaser for a fictional element of Infinite’s universe as well as for Infinite itself, the Truth From Legend video is as effective a piece of marketing as I’ve seen for a good while. Creepy, convincingly dated and mysterious, it’s an invitation to another world. More of this and less of that and that please, thank you.
And Relax
Ken Levine: The Conversation, Part Two
By Alec Meer on January 23rd, 2013.
“This is like your nightmare interview here, huh?”
Nah. This might not be going too well, but I’ve had worse. Much worse. (The most terrible was probably with an executive at one of the industry’s biggest PC game developers a couple of years back, where I had the distinct impression I was interviewing a robot who’d much rather murder me than talk to me).
This half hour with the lead designer of BioShock: Infinite would definitely win a place in my Top 40 Botched Interviews, but it’s not up there in shotgun-to-the-head territory yet. The mutual acknowledgement that it’s been a misfire does wonders too. Eventually.
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BioShock: Infinite, changing dresses, awkwardness and Jaws
Ken Levine: The Conversation, Part One
By Alec Meer on January 18th, 2013.
Some interviews with prominent figures, as in Polygon’s widely-circulated one with BioShock: Infinite lead designer Ken Levine, are held on top of skyscraping Californian hotels. While it’s not something I’ve experienced myself, I can entirely appreciate why this often leads their eventual write-ups to be somewhat defined by awe, be it overt or subtle: a famous figure is encountered in a dramatic setting, the trappings of aspirational luxury around them. Thus, they are inevitably presupposed to be superhumans of a sort, with achievements and a lifestyle far beyond those of mere mortals such as the humble interviewer. This is the tale. Notoriously, this week also saw the outermost extreme of this, in Esquire’s absurd interview with/clearly lovelorn ode to the attractive but otherwise apparently unexceptional actor Megan Fox.
I can’t ever imagine going as far as Esquire, and I’d hope someone would throw me into the nearest sea if I did, but I do understand why it can happen. The scene is set in such a way that the interviewer is encountering, if not a god, then at least royalty. Even on a more moderate level, I have never conducted an interview in a Californian luxury hotel’s roofgarden, and my own interview with Ken Levine last month was no different, but I am nonetheless left thinking about the narrative created in that half hour. What tale could I now tell from just a talk with a guy in a room? Initially, I thought it impossible, or at least redundant, to spin a story out of a short, slightly awkward conversation in a dark little room somewhere in London: this is why Q&As are the standard interview format here. Let’s try, though. I want to tell you about what happened in that interview, and how it felt to me, as well as sharing Ken Levine’s comments about BioShock: Infinite’s characters, pacing and mysteries with you.
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January Jungles: Borderlands 2 DLC Goes Hunting
By Adam Smith on December 20th, 2012.
Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt is the next wedge of DLC for Borderlands 2. A big game hunt could be a sort of man-shooter shooter, but spiffy old Hammerlock is more concerned with blowing the pelts off the hordes of beasties that populate Pandora. The new post-campaign story content will introduce a new villain and, most exciting, a new continent that is covered in jungles and swamps. Although any ‘Sir’ worthy of the title is sure to doff a cap occasionally, the DLC won’t be raising the cap. The level cap that is. In an interview with IGN, 2K did suggest that the level cap will increase in the first quarter of 2013, possibly in a second season of new content. A video-trailer follows, as is customary.
Solid Copy: XCOM Patched To Fix SHIVs
By Adam Smith on November 5th, 2012.
SHIVs, which are like Wall-E’s angrier siblings, have been causing some problems. Sometimes the engineers forget to put a gun on them and, worse still, on occasion the mechanised Muton-mashers stubbornly refuse to leave XCOM HQ. The next patch, which is due soon, should fix all that, as well as issues with the visibility of certain UFO roofs, Interceptor-related hanging and a correction to the use of snapshot during overwatch. Full notes below, including difficulty tweaks. Has anyone found a mod of choice, either for balance or general changes? I installed Warspace (not face) at the weekend but haven’t had much chance to play with it yet.
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