Rock, Paper, Shotgun

If I had been in charge of naming Soundodger, it would probably be called “Don’t Fuck Up Don’t Fuck Up Don’t Fuck Up: The Game.” But I guess that’s not entirely accurate, because your goal in this delightful (and free) magical rainbow rhythm triangle avalanche is to avoiding fucking up the soundtrack, not the game. Each song (from folks like Fez collaborator Disasterpeace, I might add) slings singing daggers of pure sound in your general direction, and you have to skirt each pattern’s edges just so to avoid them. Fail, and the song gets broken into a billion screaming pieces by a hideous record scratch and a sudden, music-less void. It’s a brief, largely inconsequential, er, consequence, but the soundtrack is so good and the flow of each pattern so satisfying that it’s physically painful to ruin them.

But once you get into the zone, well, let’s put it this way: I just got done playing for waaaay too long, and each time I blink, I see triangles. Glance quickly in any direction? Triangles. You are triangles. I am triangles.

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Plants vs Zombies is boldly going where no popular gaming franchise has gone before: to a land of over-the-shoulder camera angles and gleefully bobbing crosshairs, whereupon things will be shot mercilessly. OK, maybe it’s not the boldest move ever in the grand scheme of things, but Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare is quite a departure for PopCap’s vegetable stew of a tower porch defender, and it’s looking admirably silly. But so far, all we’ve seen is a quick bit of co-op. What about large-scale (24-ish player) competitive multiplayer and the ability to play as zombies? Also, stepping back a bit, why make a shooter out of Plants vs Zombies at all? I spoke with creative director Justin Wiebe to find out. 
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Yes, it’s happening. 

Hotline Miami 2 is indeed very real, and the neon-slathered sequel made quite the appearance at E3 last week. Or rather, um, outside it. In a parking lot. Inside a trailer. It was an oddball setup even by E3 standards, but it got the job done. A brand new sparse, acoustic theme song drifted through the wheeled bullet’s chrome-y confines, mirroring the first’s but with a hint of somber resignation. Dennaton’s Dennis Wedin quickly explained why: Wrong Number is the second Hotline Miami, but also the last. It’s been a wild, psychadelic, gore-and-teeth-spattered ride for Cactus and himself, but all things must come to an end.

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American McGee’s Akaneiro: Demon Hunters was Kickstarted only this February. Squeaking past its goal in the eleventh hour, it’s only four short months later that a playable build is available. For free, if you go to their own site. Or for money, if you get it from Steam. Huh? This whole odd situation asks some interesting questions about such models, and when is the right time to let people start buying your game?

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A dog. A big, tongue-lolling lug of a beast with dog feelings and adorable, kicky-leg dog dreams is the most exciting thing to happen to the world’s biggest shooter franchise in years. We live in strange times. But let’s face it: the poor pooch probably won’t be around for long, will he? I mean, these types of situations have a way of ending tragically for all creatures with more than two legs – at least, if other action games/movies are any indication. How’s Infinity Ward feeling about Call of Duty: Ghosts, though? Will they stick with the cliche? As part of a wide-ranging (read: dog) interview on a variety of topics (read: the dog), I asked the question (involving the dog) on everybody’s mind.

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E3 happened last week! It was full of glitz and glamour and Z-list celebrities and A-list zombies and TV TV sports and cars and also games sometimes. I was there all by my lonesome, because I hate sleep and love hoarding awful press room box lunches so I can pile their damp, discarded remains into impregnable Journalism Forts. Also, to observe, learn, and then wordpuke forecasts of certain doom for the gaming industry onto this here Internet. You heard me: DOOOOOOOM. OK, actually, we’re probably going to be fine. But I do have some things to rant about, because I’m still sleep-deprived and grumpy. Also, there might be a slight chance of doom.     

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E3 is chaos. In its worst moments, it’s a swirling maelstrom of poor planning and slip-sliding schedules – a thumping videogame Valhalla that feels like it was designed with techno-ravers and cosplayers in mind, not journalists. I guess what I’m trying to say is, sometimes you have to interview Thief‘s developers before playing their game. Optimal? Not really. But it still made for an interesting conversation – just between Eidos Montreal and its own game, not Eidos and myself. The question: was Thief’s E3 demo able to live up to what lead level designer Daniel Windfeld Schmidt told me about it mere moments before? The answer: Errrrrrrrrrrrrr.

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Geralt’s hit the big time. He’s got his own open world, a handsomely haggard beard, and a simultaneous launch across multiple “next-gen” platforms. It’s the latter, however, that could spell his undoing – or at least make his witchy charms a lot less bewitching for a sizable portion of PC gamers. Console-makers, after all, aren’t too terribly fond of free updates, but CD Projekt’s modus operandi is handing them out like candy. Microsoft, meanwhile, has decided that draconian DRM is back in this season, and CDP’s been fighting on the opposite side of that battle for ages. Who will survive? Well, probably everyone, because we’re only talking about DLC for a videogame. But, if nothing else, PC gamers don’t need to worry. CD Projekt head Marcin Iwinski assured me that it’ll be business as usual for Witcher 3 updates on our platform of choice, even if consoles aren’t so lucky.

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In 2013, the good ship Mancunia set sail for the New World. Upon arrival, my band of Conquistadors smoked a potato, ate some tobacco broth and became pals with the natives. I’m considering building a holiday resort on the coast of and below I’ll explain why you should pay us a visit, but when booking your stay, bear in mind that you might want to go home sooner rather than later.

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After sitting through nearly all of E3′s press conferences (and catching up on Microsoft’s, which I skipped to marvel at my super cutting-edge next-gen loft sink), I came away with two raucously growling gut reactions: 1) new Mirror’s Edge yes yes yes yay yes mmm-hmm yes good indeed and 2) did I just step into an alternate dimension where PC never emerged from the primordial gaming ooze? I don’t mean that in the sense that PC’s not the focus at E3 either, because frankly it never really has been. But come on: our platform of choice has spent years in the deepest waters of areas where Microsoft and Sony are only just beginning to dip their piggy toes. Free-to-play, DRM, cloud, servers, indies, problematic communities, etc, etc, etc. So why does it seem like nobody’s even tried to learn from PC gaming’s mistakes?

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Yesterday we heard the news that there was to be a new Warhammer 40K MMO. Games Workshop announced that Eternal Crusade is to step into the gap left by the failed Dark Millennium Online, this time developed by MMO first-timers, Behaviour. It’s not an immediately obvious choice – the studio is primarily known for ports, and their in-house games haven’t been met with critical success. So we reached out to Behaviour, specifically studio online boss Miguel Caron and 40K’s creative director David Ghozland (The Secret World, Far Cry), to find out how the deal came about, why they believe they’re up to the mammoth task, and the direction the game is taking.

The big news here is that this isn’t looking to be a WoW-style game, but rather aim for something more in the ballpark of PlanetSide or EVE. Essentially following the ethos that There Is Only War.

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