Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There’s no looking back for A Valley Without Wind now – its new, side-scrolling look is signed and sealed, as the below humungo-chunk (17 minutes!) of in-game footage proves. Also now on show from this time-straddling exploration and survival game are brand new character models, plus assorted armour for them to find, craft and wear.

I’m still not entirely sure what to think about the side-on perspective, but it’s definitely growing on me. As it is, this is a game I’m increasingly excited about – procedurally-generated world-roaming with, apparently, a proper layer of game on top of it.
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Today, Arcen Games wants you to get in spire(d). Light of the Spire is the biggest expansion for AI War to date, and with its release today it brings with it the series’ first story-driven campaign, a new Defender mode that should take “minutes instead of hours” to play, new AI types, new factions, new music and 180 new ships, which is great, as I was just sat here thinking that AI War really needed even more sodding ships. Just look at the size of the update they released back in October! Madness.
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It’s Saturday, so that means it’s time for another…..Hang on, it’s not Saturday! Never mind. The lovely folk over at Arcen games have just sent word that they are lopping off an entire 60% off all of their games. Not only does buying DRM-free direct from the developers come with a free warm fuzzy feeling deep in your belly, but in this instance you can (optionally) also use the code you get from Arcen to register the games on Steam if you prefer. Best of all worlds. Read the rest of this entry »

Christ. Not last week I posted about Arcen Games’ colossal update of their maximalist space strategy game AI War, which included hundreds of new ships and porting the entire game to a new engine. Guess what? They’ve just announced a new pay-for expansion, Light of the Spire, will be released next month. Arcen say they’ve got some “some seriously cool ideas for this one, too”.

What’s happening with Arcen’s finances? Weren’t they in trouble? Well, in a recent blog post they’ve once again displayed a remarkable degree of transparency.
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Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this. Arcen Games has released an update for A.I. War of such magnitude that I’m not sure our long-running A.I. War diary will ever be the same again.

Arcen Games describe the free 4.0 update as “unreservedly huge”, which sounds fair: 147 new ships, a new interface, total overhauling of most of the game’s rules and mechanics, updated tutorials, more advanced “teach-yourself-to-play-better” features AND a graphical overhaul. A.I. War now runs in Unity, meaning it’s not just prettier but Mac and Linux compatible. Oh, and the $4 Children of the Neinzul expansion’s been released, too. 3 new Neinzul factions, 6 new AI types, 36 new ship and 6 new AI special weapons. Christ. Trailers after the jump.
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I’ve been meaning to post about this for a couple of weeks now. The ever-busy Arcen Games are working on another micro-expansion for their AI War: Fleet Command. It’s currently in Beta, and if you order now for four dollars (or about two quid sixty) you gain access to it. Planned for a September release, AI War: Children of Neinzul will add 36 new ships, 6 new AI types, 3 new minor-alien-factions, two extra map styles and more. Perhaps it’ll even add some Iron for Quinns. All sounds lovely and affordable, even before you realise the twist. All the profits for this expansion pack will be donated to the Childs Play charity. Arcen are making no money from it whatsoever. Crikey. Here’s the trailer for the last expansion, to give you a taste, but it’s a game that’s well worth investigating in its expansive demo. In short: it was one of the strongest indie strategy games of last year.
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For those whose memories stretch as far back as the mysterious times of yesterday, you may recall the news that the first add-on pack for AI War: Fleet Command has been released. Well, now the demo’s been released. The demo for AI war was enormous, and featured more actual play time than some commercial games, so this should be worth your strategic time. It also features the word golem, which is always a win. Oh – here’s the trailer again…
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Fans of our long-running series of AI War diaries will be pleased to hear that an expansion for AI War has been released. The Zenith Remanant can be bought for ten (Count ‘em!) dollars and opens a mass of new possibilities that will urely impact any second diary’s course. How will we respond to the 122 new ships? Will we manage to capture the seven enormous golem vessels? How will we deal with the 4 minor alien factions? Will our tiny earth brains compare to the 12 new AI Types? And will Quinns deal with his chronic shortage of iron? Only time will tell. Until then, go find out more and watch the trailer below…
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When I blogged about AI War’s demo, an idea struck me. It’s eight players co-op mass-scale space-RTS against apparently only of the most vicious AIs yet seen in gaming. Could we get enough people together to have an eight player game? No, we couldn’t. Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No. Four? No. Two? No. One? No. But three? We totally managed a three-player game. So Quintin, Alec and myself gathered one afternoon to start a battle for the future of humanity against an unrelenting evil AI. Nothing would ever be the same again, except for all the things that were totally unchanged.
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This has been on my list of things to look at for a while, but it’s been promoted due to Tom Chick’s rave about it in his latest Rush, Boom Turtle Column for Crispy Gamer where he argues that if you go past its surface lack of charisma you’ve got a genuinely new approach to the modern RTS. What is it? “For lack of a subgenre as convenient shorthand to explain what it does, let me give you this: AI War is a grand strategic tower defense 4X RTS,” claims Chick, “How’s that for a mouthful?”.

A mouthful indeed. I download the demo to suck and see.
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