Tag Archive

The Season Of The Witch

Written by John Walker on November 18, 2008.

This is an ode to a strange, huddled creature. A crying, singing, tangle of ragged limbs and ferocious eyes. Terrifyingly deadly, and yet so distressingly vulnerable. Left 4 Dead’s Witch is unparalleled for me amongst all of gaming’s enemies, more frightening and fascinating than any before. She is pure fear.

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Retro: Where Time Stood Still

Written by Kieron Gillen on November 17, 2008.

When people ask me about emotions and games, I always think of my early-teenage experiences with the Denton Design’s Where Time Stood Still. It was the first time a game had provoked one. And if you’ve just glanced at the cover above, it’s not the emotion you think I’m talking about.
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In Holy Murloctrimony

Written by Alec Meer on November 17, 2008.

Do forgive me yet another World of Warcraft post, but, as tends to be the case with that all-consuming MMO, I haven’t really had the chance to play much else this last week. My thoughts on Lich King so far are appearing as a series of review diaries on IGN UK ahead of the review proper, and they lobbed the first one up today. Here, though, I want to talk about a very specific aspect of WoW. Over the weekend, you see, I attended my first ever in-game wedding. Aw.
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World Of Goo Piracy Rate: “82%”

Written by John Walker on November 15, 2008.

The post yesterday reporting World of Goo’s 90% piracy figure drew a surprising response. The P-word regularly generates comments threads that scare our hosts, but this one was odd. It became a discussion about whether one could disprove the 90% figure, and then extrapolating this to reach peculiar conclusions. Some could see this as people claiming there were far fewer stab wounds than first predicted and therefore there hadn’t been a murder. Others might suggest that fighting over the exact number is completely irrelevant, as that’s not the point of the issue. Now 2D BOY have responded with new look at the figures.

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Our Man In Northrend

Written by Alec Meer on November 13, 2008.

Today, as most of the internet is all-too aware, is Wrath of the Lich King release day. I’ve been playing it for far too many hours now, despite having sworn at least eight times over the last few years that I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever play World of Warcraft again.
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RPS Wireless Show Ep6: Erik Wolpaw Speak-O-Chat

Written by John Walker on November 11, 2008.

In a very special sixth edition of the very “special” Rock, Paper, Shotgun Electronic Wireless Show, not only are all four overlords of RPS united, but also joined by a proper important guest. Mr Erik Wolpaw was lovely enough to join us in one of Valve’s echoey metal rooms, so we could discuss co-op gaming memories, Left 4 Dead, and the trick behind decent voice acting. Along with all the usual excellent distractions and nonsense. Details below.

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RPS Exclusive: Left 4 Dead’s Dead Air Campaign

Written by RPS on November 10, 2008.

So far you’ll have seen details of two of Left 4 Dead’s four campaigns, No Mercy and Blood Harvest. Today we have a world exclusive first look at a third campaign, Dead Air. What follows is a detailed photo “essay” (using that term loosely) of our experience in the campaign - reveling and revealing details from its quiet beginnings to its climactic conclusion (i.e. SPOILERZ). It’s a terrifying journey through a town complex to reach the airport and escape the city. It starts in a shattered commercial greenhouse with a plane going overhead. The team decides to set out and try to get picked up by the military craft…

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Ninth Art Meets Tenth Art: Games To Comics

Written by Kieron Gillen on November 10, 2008.

I found myself chatting to Rhianna Pratchett yesterday about her just released comics spin-off of Mirror’s Edge. Well - the first part of six anyway (First pages here). It’s been interesting for her. As she tells to CBR, it’s her first work in the medium, and she had to do some serious thinking about its strengths and limitations before doing so. Which got me casually thinking a little more on the topic, but from the other way around - as in, what’s the specific strengths and weaknesses of bringing a game to a comic. And while there’s been a deluge of games-to-comics work in the last few years, what games would I pursue were I a comics editor interested in putting out entertaining comics. Which is, of course, a different thing from a comic that does the business.
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The Witcher Done Good?

Written by Jim Rossignol on November 10, 2008.

You probably spotted this from last week, but I wanted to reprise the story to lead into some other thoughts about The Witcher. Polish fantasy RPG The Witcher has sold 1 million copies. That’s a fair amount for a game on any format. Developers CD Projekt are rightly pleased with this, and I’m glad that this unexpected success has allowed them scope to continue and expand their RPG-building projects. The Witcher was one of those games that made me say: “I’d like to see what they do next.” I usually say that only to find that the company in question has gone bust (sorry, Troika) but it looks like that won’t be the case here.
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Retro: The Thing

Written by Alec Meer on November 9, 2008.

I’ve not played Dead Space yet (and, to answer Kieron’s open question, I’m also one of those who feels its relative straightness compared to its contemporaries means it’s best saved for a quieter month), but my housemate has. Chatting to him about it, he referenced The Thing, the 2002 videogame spin-off/sequel to John Carpenter’s finest hour.

Which was a shock, as it was the first time I’d heard that curious survival horror/fps-but-with-more-shoulder game mentioned in a good six years. I have fondish memories of it, so back I went, back to Antarctica, back to paranoia and back to jealously saving up shotgun shells.

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