Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Atari have affixed a serious face to announce the next Test Drive game. I tried to make them smile as they did it by capering about, but the news was so grave and grim that not even a glimpse of a smile appeared. No Hawaii, no holidays, no career mode where you take a busboy all the way to luxury car owner, no balloons and bouncy castles. Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends has 50 determined classic Ferrari cars and 36 no-nonsense tracks. If it could be represented as a smiley, it would be :-|
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Yesterday saw Eurogamer display my retrospective of DrivTHREEr, Atari/Reflections’ astonishingly bad sequel to their loved franchise. In it I say things like,

“Vehicles drive like angry shopping trolleys filled with cannonballs being precariously pushed along a bowling alley. But on foot is when you get to enjoy your character (I’m sure he has a name) stumbling around like a man having his first go at walking, on a trampoline covered in marbles.”

And most interesting to me have been the comments beneath.

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Perfect World, the MMO company behind, er Perfect World, and also more recently Forsaken World, seem to be gradually expanding away from their Chinese MMO remit. Last year we heard they were publishing Torchlight 2 and the as-yet-unrevealed Torchlight MMO, and yesterday it was revealed that they have acquired Cryptic from Atari. Perfect World have stated that they expect things to be business as usual for Cryptics operations as a result of the purchase. Right now Cryptic are still working on the Nevewinter MMO, but it’ll be particularly interesting to see what Perfect World have them do once that is complete.

Okay, I know exactly who this loot-promoting trailer for forthcoming D&D hack ‘n’ slasher Daggerdale is aimed at. It’s for the action-RPG player who is basically in it for the haul. You know who you are. Hell, I know who some of you are. You just want that big sword, don’t you? And a bigger one? And shinier? You filthy beast.
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It looks like Atari, recently the focus of negative attention after Test Drive Unlimited developer Eden Games went on strike due to their treatment, are looking to gather some more cash. Via PCG we see Gamespot spotted the news that the publisher is selling Cryptic, the studio behind Star Trek: Online and Champions: Online.

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Eden Games – they behind Test Drive Unlimited 2 and the V-Rally series – and have had enough of their treatment from Atari, and in the face of enormous redundancies at the company and have gone on strike today. GI.biz report that in the face of sackings, the French studio has said enough, and are refusing to work. And they’ve a few choice words to explain why.

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Joystiq report that the Exploration pack for Test Drive Unlimited 2 has been released! Twenty new missions, two new mission types, two new cars (a Lancia Stratos and Dodge Charger), new clothes to wear and more, as well as a bumload of bugfixes that include “Cars no longer launched into the air by glitches in the road” and “impact with tress is now less severe”. Boo!

My dream online driving game would consist almost entirely of people climbing out of their cars to examine crash damage, their overweight avatars clutching their face in both hands and making noises of unfathomable sadness. Anyway, you’ll find the full feature listing of the Exploration pack after the jump
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Atari’s remake of classic weird-arcade home console game Yars’ Revenge is now available. The original pecking fly vs forcefield thing game has been reimagined as an Anime-style on-rails shooter. Why that is, no one seems to know. But there it is.

What we’ve seen of Daggerdale so far hasn’t quite gripped us, but there’s a new trailer out today that sports a bit more than some rare bare looking combat. It does, in fact, have a story, and this one introduces it. It’s something to do with a bad man who likes showing off his right nipple.

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The most exciting news in the last 24 hours has nothing to do with PC games. And yet it still feels like it does. HBO have revealed the first fifteen minutes of their adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s Song Of Ice & Fire series, in the form of Game Of Thrones. And it looks utterly flipping excellent. (Warning: the clip stops before showing tiny wolf cubs. Boo.)

What has that to do with Atari and Bedlam’s Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale? Almost nothing, other than the word “Daggerdale” awakens the same dying flame of my interest in the fantasy genre as “Winterfell”. It makes me want to read the books my dad would leave by the toilet when I was a kid. But the game? It’s the up-to-four-player co-op action RPG that Quintin lamented not seeing enough combat for last year. Well, now there’s a trailer entirely dedicated to fighting.

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This top-down arcade shooter came out earlier this week, and is available to buy for a relatively budget price on assorted download services now. Should you cross its stream, or aim for its flat-top? I don’t even know what that means, but look at me, I’m saying lines from a film you’ve seen! That means you will love me. Guh.

Here’s my verdict on Sanctum of Slime. I played it so you didn’t have to.
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