Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s the season of GDC award ceremonies. RPS isn’t going to be there. We don’t like other people and, more relevantly, other people don’t like us so we don’t get invites. Or, at least, invites which don’t read “DIE SCUM” in what we believe is blood. So Double Fine’s new online mini adventure Host Master And The Conquest Of Humour is the closest we’re going to get to hanging back stage with Tim Schafer. It’s a one room affair – or at least, it is for me – with you playing Tim, trying to collect enough jokes to make through his presentation. And, suffice to say, Jokes are found along the way. I got 11 of them, and apparently there’s 22. Where’s the rest? I don’t know. I’ve got three items left and nowhere left unturned. Gahk! I’m going to stop and play the Path. That’ll show you, Doublefine. That’ll show you.

Er… you have a try here.

Here’s some news that probably shouldn’t be here. But it’s such good news that we’ll extend our optimism that Schafer’s just playing hard to get for a moment longer. Brütal Legend has a publisher. A publisher that had bloody well better tell him to release the game on PC.

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Interesting news regarding Brütal Legend. Which is a splendid thing to be able to say. After Atari picked up Ghostbusters, it’s hard not to despair that Schafer’s new project is still without a publisher, following the Activision/Blizzard high speed collision. So how come Jack Black’s going to be showing a “premiere” of the game at next week’s Spike TV’s 2008 Video Game Awards? And for goodness sakes, will it be on PC?

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Pyschonauts developers, Double Fine, have released a new range of free, web-based minigames to play. And by “range”, I of course mean, “one of them”. But as the site says under its grand banner, “When there’s only one candidate, there’s only one choice!”

The game is Epic Saga, a beat-em-up that quite literally matches the glory of Rise of the Robots. Looking an awful lot like the wonderful Videlectrix old-skool game spoofs by the Homestar Runner people, it’s hardcore retro something something. (Is this the “delirious rambling” GSW were on about?)

It’s interesting to see that often missed gaming technique of creating games that are hard to not win. Also, it’s really very funny, with comments such as, “Oh my the gods, what have I done?” after a win. Sadly it’s the same end sequence whichever character you play, but if you’ve had enough of Virtua Kombat XVIII constantly beating you because you haven’t practised at it since you were seven months old, this is all quite a relief. (Thanks to Richard Cobbett for the link).