Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Forthcoming tactical combat game Shadowrun Online, which we first looked at here (and not to be confused with the gigantically Kickstarted RPG, Shadowrun Returns) has revealed some early game footage, which they stress is a work-in-progress prototype, and you can see that below. But they too have hit Kickstarter, aiming for a fulsome $500k to fund their work. They’ve also rethought some of their plans about how he game is to be paid for, and are now opting for a model not unlike Guild Wars, as you can see below.
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The alliance that is jagged, but also online (rather than the one that will soon be back in action) has an open beta! You can completely sign up for that right here. I’ve no idea whatsoever about whether this is any good, or not, but I do rather hope it is, because this is the same company (and therefore the same design and tech) as the forthcoming Shadowrun Online. And that is something I have a fair bit of interest in. Oh yes, the residual fandom of the cyberpunk RPGs of youth remains strong.

Thanks to everyone who troubled my inbox to point this beta out.

Cliffhanger (also doing Jagged Alliance Online) have announced that they will be making a Shadowrun game. The fantasy-meet-cyberpunk setting is a splendid one, and Cliffhanger’s effort looks closer to the old RPG than the recent shonky multiplayer take on the game concept. Cliffhanger explain their approach: “it will have a perspective camera in a 3D setting, much like our Jagged Alliance Online game… So, it will be a decent quality, but it won’t be what some call AAA. The reason for that is simple: We are doing a browser based game. This means anyone can access it at any time from their PC… But that also means we need to limit visuals. I hope you agree that gameplay is king, so we think the visuals are decent enough.”

There’s a bit more information over at the announcement, including an explanation of how the game will have two parts – action map and city planning level map. Sounds intriguing.

It’s GamesCom next week in Cologne, and that means we’re about to be engulfed in a torrent of news. A few early trailers and so on have started turning up, and he first of these to attach to our GamesCom 2011 tag will be this: Jagged Alliance Online (not to be confused with Jagged Alliance: Back In Action). Gamigo’s MMOG take on the tactical squad-combat game is going to be properly revealed at the show – having been announced at the show last year – but today we get a bit of a glimpse of it in action. Developer’s Cliffhanger are producing an isometric combat game that is reminiscent of the original series, even if not quite the same sort of turn-based affair. Go take a look, and we’ll round up some more details next week.
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Emerging from the jungles of Cologne is news of a classic PC series getting a reboot. Jagged Alliance is back as a browser based tactical MMO. And yes, there’s I can hear the sigh from here, even before I’ve published the story. But abstractly, this is the sort of game which could transfer interestingly across and – hey! – at least it’s turn based. There’s little details and certainly no screenshots I can find, but looking at the feature list one of the more interesting ideas is that as well as managing your own mercenary company, you can rent out your carefully trained troops to your friends to help them out. I’m going to publish the whole press release below, as there’s so few details and you’ll probably want to pick over them yourself, but if you’re really interested you can register for a chance of getting into its closed beta.
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