Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s hard to find the right word to describe the launch of Sword of the Stars 2. Troubled? Early? Turnippy? Kerberos CEO Martin Cirulis says the game will advance from “a turnip to a jewel”, which does unfortunately involve calling it a “turnip” in its current state. Both Kerberos and Paradox have released statements apologising for the state of the game, with the developers going into more detail about their hopes for the future. The original built up a strong fanbase in large part because Kerberos improved it over time, but with the sequel initial reports of an accidentally released beta and then an update with serious problems of its own have caused, let us say, a furore.

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Quickly! Kerberos’ gargantually betitled 4X sci-fi strategy sequel, Sword of the Stars II: The Lords of Winter, is due out at the end of this very month and Paradox are now accepting applicants for the closed beta. You’ll need to go here to register your interest, providing intimate details of your life, such as how many hours a day you can spend directing squadrons of swords through the aether. Applications close on October 12th and the lucky few should discover if they made the cut by the 13th. I never found the time to play the original very much but I’m quite the fan of conquering space so perhaps I shall become acquainted with these Lords of Winter.

You know how I feel about ludicrously overwrought voiceovers, and the Sword of the Stars II opening cinematic, which you can see below, this year’s winner in that regard. It shows “the Lords of Winter themselves in action – the ancient Suul’ka have returned to their lost empire and are seeking to regain the power they once had”. Grumpy space tentacle beasts are melodramatic! Who would have guessed it?

I had a look at the game itself a couple of months back, and expect to see more before it is launched next month.
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A few weeks ago I ate a genuinely delicious sandwich – it was amazing – and soon after I took a look at Sword Of The Stars II, and that game looks in fine 4X fettle. It and that sandwich will forever be intertwined in my mind. Sword Of The Stars II is the most delicious 4X game I have ever pre-eaten. It also has the most colourful spacecraft I have ever seen. No need for drab camoflage in space: paint your ship coalescent purple and make the forcefields neon green. No one is going to care. This trailer (below there) shows off some of the fleets that will soon be at your disposal. Ranbow unicorn spacefleets! And what’s that flash of crazy space-snake thing at the end there? Spooky.
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Last week I got a chance to look at upcoming 4X sequel, Sword Of The Stars II. We’ve all seen the fruits of the overhauled 3D battle engine, but what what of the other aspects of this many tentacled space-beast? Read on for some thoughts.

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No, really, it’s for you, Steve. The rest you guys can watch it to, I suppose. In it developers Kerberos talk a bit about what they’re up to with Sword of the Stars II: a dark force returning to the universe, giant spacecraft raking each other with giant beam-weapons, a complex and story-driven 4X game, an empire-driven hierarchies and organisation, complex diplomacy, and so on. Interestingly, lead designer Martin Cirulis suggests that the game will essentially start you “mid-game”, in that you won’t be building up the races from scratch to fight the big bad, you’ll already be well developed, and taking it from there.
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The previously announced Sword of the Stars II? Well, they’ve only gone and released a trailer. HOT FOOTAGE of slowly rotating enormo-ships follow. There is nothing more PC gaming than enormous space-ships, except for terrain. Terrain remains number 1! Number 1 4EVA!
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It’s a way off yet, being set for Q2 2011, but the 4X space sequel from Kerberos has popped out a scene-setting cinematic trailer with some rather colourful galaxy-straddling battleships, and you can check that out below. The feature lists and stuff over on the Paradox page (they’re publishing this one) are heavy on the spaceship porn: “Leviathan class of giant ships, new Battlerider-class ships that carry Destroyer sized ships, new levels of ship details including ship sub-systems, allowing for new fleet strategy and tactics!” But essentially it seems that this is going to be faithtful to the original rather solid grand space strategy and remade a new and shiny engine. We’re looking forward to getting a closer a look at this… possibly a GamesCom?
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Some rather juddery in-game footage from Fort Zombie has been released by publishers Paradox Interactive, and you can check it out below. We talked to Kerberos, the creators of the forthcoming zombie action-RPG (and 4X classive Sword Of The Stars before that), about their plans in this brains-filled interview. The game will apparently be available on digital distribution portals on October 30th, for just $10.

EDIT: Devs release another video!
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When we heard news that Sword of the Stars’ maker Kerberos were, as part of the route to sci-fi RPG Northstar, making a town-based zombie-defence game by the name of Fort Zombie, our response was immediate. To do lots of stuff. And part of that stuff was dropping them a mail, and asking if they were up for a chat about their imminent undead-escapades. And lo! the Lead Designer Martin Cirulis was. We present the results here, in what we call “An interview”.
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This was announced of PAX. Keberos, the makers of Sword of the Stars, are apparently working on an action-rpg game for Paradox which will be out in autumn. In other words, pretty damn imminently. The aim of the game is to defend your selected fort – a police-station, prison or hospital, with different advantages – by running around the town, twatting zombies and searching for stuff to build up your defences. Scanning its feature list, what’s most promising is the 3D town formed from some kind of mix-and-match tile system, which implies the potential for variability. It’s apparently a smaller spin off the tech they’re using to build Northstar, their space-RPG-trading thing. Anyway – press release follows and there’s grabs over at WorthPlaying. More news as it emerges, grave-sodden.
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