Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Sanctum was something of a rocket out of left field. There’s nothing unusual about tower defence, of course, and the “action” tower defence genre is now setting itself up as a thing, but Sanctum’s tight sci-fi world and solid feel set it apart from either tower defence games or FPS titles. That meant popularity, and a lot of players. Sanctum 2, meanwhile, attempts to place a fresh turret on top of previous successes, and use a flamethrower on the opposition. I spent some time with it. Here’s Wot I Think.

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In the second instalment of our Twenty Bucks series (because we’re made of money), John looks at what President Jackson can buy you within the free-to-play halls of Neverwinter. Is it riches beyond your wildest dreams? Or imaginary trinkets that elude your touch. Read on, brave adventurer.

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Grim Dawn may still be a good few months away (currently perhaps at the end of August), but I’ve had my hands on some early alpha code to get an impression of this furrow-browed, grimly serious action RPG from the former Titan Quest developers. You can see my thoughts below.

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While it’s the fourth game in the Call Of Juarez series, Gunslinger is not directly connected to its preceding brethren. A Western that tells the unreliable memories of cowboy bounty hunter Silas Greaves, through first-person shooting, for a remarkably low £12 pricetag. Should it climb atop a horse for dairy consumption, or might it be the sheriff of this here town? Here’s wot I think:

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4A’s sequel to their widely-enjoyed post-apocalyptic shooter Metro 203 appeared last week, and I’ve been waving my Geiger counter of critical analysis over its glowing innards. Will Metro: Last Light be remembered as a worthy sequel, or as a the point where 4A’s filter finally failed? Here’s wot I think.
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Yesterday, I put on my fuzzy-eared detective hat and grilled Telltale president Kevin Bruner about his company’s next big, hopefully not bad thing, The Wolf Among Us. The Fables-based caper sounds like a worthy (though unexpected) follow-up to The Walking Dead, but it’s hardly the only story being writ large by Telltale’s ostentatiously oversized quill pens. The developer also regularly creates experimental prototypes involving AI, story structures, the way players communicate with characters, and tons more. Fittingly – given the developer’s love of episodic stories – they call it the Pilot Program. Some of these “weird” ideas make it into games, but many of them don’t. Ultimately, though, this is Telltale’s way of paving a path to its own future. I quizzed Bruner about the good, the bad, and the ugly of his company’s experiments, as well as a couple other loose ends like King’s Quest. It’s all after the break.

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To hear Telltale tell the tale, The Walking Dead wasn’t built to be a wildly acclaimed game of the year award magnet. A good game? Yes. A great story? Clearly. But not a bowling ball catapult into zombified super stardom. With all eyes suddenly on the once-unassuming developer, “that Fables game” has an incredibly tough act to follow. But The Wolf Among Us is a) about a gruff, nicotine-addicted werewolf detective and b) not about gazing sullenly out the window while protesting, “No, it’s just the rain/my allergies/this waterfall we’re standing under.” It takes place in a mad fantasy reality where anything can happen – except, um, the undead apocalypse. It’s maybe a bit different. So, where does Walking Dead’s DNA end and Wolf Among Us begin? What about Fables-specific issues like mystery-solving, a pre-established main character, wolfed-out combat, and a somewhat controversial creator? I spoke with Telltale president Kevin Bruner about all of that and more.

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Somewhere in a warehouse there’s a monster. It is being hunted by men with laser-sighted shotguns and pistols. They have movement sensors and flashlights, and the monster is doing all it can to keep away from them. Plot twist: It’s me! I have a knife and some bombs. I can see through the boxes, I can cling to walls and ceilings, and I’m invisible. In fact, it’s the team below me that are terrified. They’re shooting at things that aren’t there, pumping rounds into shadows, and one of them just died from friendly fire. At this rate, I could wait out the panic and let them kill off one other.
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We all have our embarrassing secrets. For instance, Jim has never hopped, too scared to take such a risk with gravity. Adam never realised you were supposed to apologise to ducks. And I’ve never played System Shock 2. It’s not my fault – I was busy. But with my first gap in my schedule since August 1999, I’ve been having a go at the freshly re-released version on Steam. It’s… it’s not easy, is it?

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For the first time in ages, Deus Ex director Warren Spector is unemployed. The man who created what’s regarded by many as the greatest game of all time isn’t cracking any whips, cooking up cyber conspiracies, or teaching cartoon mice to sing. Instead, he’s taking some time to both teach and learn, which is what brought him to UC Santa Cruz’s recent Interactive Storytelling Symposium. There, he echoed the refrain that’s recently become his calling card: take games to new, interesting places, and don’t just lean on crutches from film, TV, and the like to do it. It was a call to action – a plea for tomorrow’s burgeoning brains to break outside the box and then burn the remains. Do not, however, mistake that for an admission of inaction on Spector’s part. Unemployed or not, his gears are churning again, and he’s starting to think about his next big move. After his session, Spector and I discussed why he can’t simply make another Deus-Ex-esque game, why he really wants to put a “no weapons restriction” on his next project, Kickstarter’s popularity among his pioneering peers, Epic Mickey in retrospect, and more.

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