Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Kieron and I got a bit worked up over indie robot-battler Plain Sight, and I’ve put a few of our choice quotes (as well as a video of the game) after the jump. What you need to know is that not only has the recent 1.2 patch added both persistent perks and hats (their words: “It worked for TF2, right?”), Plain Sight has just begun a three day Steam sale. It’s now available for $2.

$2. Two dollars. Or £1.60 for us UK types. Excuse me while I bang my forehead against the desk and start gurgling like a broken washing machine. That is no money for a hugely inventive, ice-cool and utterly beautiful multiplayer game (with bot support). You’d be some kind of robo-berk if you didn’t stop whatever you were doing to go and buy it right now.
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The Microstudios panel proved to be the most controversial and widely talked about at Develop 10, but the exchange of commentary followed by detente wasn’t all that was worth taking away from the gathering, where Beatnik‘s Robin Lacey (Plain Sight), Positech‘s Cliff Harris (Kudos, Democracy, Gratuitous Space Battles), Introversion‘s Mark Morris (Darwinia, Defcon, Uplink) and Hello Games‘ Sean Murray (Joe “They’ll all be in” Danger “if there’s not a PC port”) talked about the state of the Microstudio. Starting with what a microstudio is anyway…
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In short: Top Gun with Samurai Robots.
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Jump! Jump! Hot on the robo-heels of RPS’s interview with Plain Sight developer Robin Lacey, my Eurogamer review has just gone live. For those of you squatting in the mossy swamp of ignorance, here’s an excerpt:

Understand that Plain Sight is a multiplayer indie game for PC, available on Steam, about murderous, explosive, acrobatic robots battling one another with katanas in a web of gravitational fields. It’s part flight sim, part Jedi Knight, part vertigo-inducing spectacle, part experiment and all risk-reward. What kind of a monster would go and break apart a game like that to say whether it’s worth buying? You might as well dissect a woman to determine that yes, she has healthy kidneys and firm, spongy lungs is therefore probably worth going out with.

Kieron informs me this is the “Patented Gillen Dating Method”, but you’re probably best off not thinking about that and just reading the rest of the review instead. I get quite excited.

We haven’t spoke about Plain Sight since its Open Beta early last year. Beatnik game retreated, got back to work and are finally ready to release. As in, as we speak. To celebrate the event we thought it time to talk to Beatnik’s Robin Lacey about the long road to Plain Sight’s release…
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Sometimes, the future creeps up when we’re not looking. Part of me wonders whether this will be part of it. Channel 4, after some impressive successes with webgames like the Bafta Award Winning Bow Street Runner and the Tim Stone admiration winning 1066 have decided to spend a load more on making games, reports Develop. Key quote…

The move is part of a £4.5m fund – half of which is finding its way to UK independent companies such as Tuna Technologies, Beatnik Games, Zombie Cow Studios, Six to Start, Preloaded and Littleloud to fund projects up to £800,000 in size.

Go read the rest of the interview with Alice Taylor to see the full story. Some thoughts and noting of conflict of interest follow…
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Yet more robots and killing – in fact, robots who like killing so much they’ll turn their murderous attentions to themselves if no-one else is around. Plain Sight’s been in its Open Beta for a while, and Eurogamer asked me to pop over to Beatnik’s Headquarters in South London. And then write about it. For money! It’s amazing, this games journalism caper. And for explanation of the pun, see beneath the cut!
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Actually, it’s pretty plain, but we like the design aesthetic. Anyway – after Bioshock, I’ve still got a hunger for retro pop applied to videogames. After finally seeing Wall-E on Friday, I’ve got a hankering for tiny cute robots. And ninjas? Hell, I can always go for ninjas. Hence the trailer for fortcoming XNA-powered PC-game Plain Sight caught my eye. And that was before I noticed the game’s subtitle: “Kill Yourself”. SUICIDE IS BEST OF ALL THE CIDES, TRY IT NOW. Er… video beneath the cut.
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