Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Cell: emergence, the experimental medical shooter puzzle… thing from Deus Ex writer Sheldon Pacotti and his team at New Life Interactive (who really sound like they should make Christian games), is out tomorrow. And if you want to try to get your head around one of the most peculiar games in recent times, there’s a demo. I’ve been having a play of it, and will speak my thoughts about it when it’s out. But I can assure you while it’s not as complicated to play as it appears, it’s every bit as strange. It will be on GamersGate amongst others from tomorrow, where it will cost the peculiar price of £8.05. Take a look at the demo – it’s well worth a look.

Mr Lewis Denby, he of Beefjack, occasional RPS postings and, well, all manner of gaming publications the land over, has made a game. It’s called Masked, it’s a room escape game, but it treads where that odd, deathless genre usually fears to – the realm of emotion. “You’re trapped in a room, for goodness’ sake.” he observes. “That must be one of the most emotional scenarios it’s possible to be in!”

Made in AGS, it constitutes a few haunting point’n'click minutes, it’s a creepy mystery with an all-knowing, all-seeing narrator in the SHODAN/GlaDOS vein (but a rather more human connection to to the player character) and, aside from a couple of stylistic wobbles, it’s a confident first effort from Sir Denby. Grab it here.

You there! You enjoy an independent game from time to time, don’t you? I can tell by the way you walk, chin forward, face to the front, heels to the rear. It’s the kind of sensible approach to ambulation that befits a voyager in the wilder realms of the land called Game. You’ll be pleased to hear that the voting for the IGF 2012 Audience Award is now open, meaning you can pop over to the site, download any entrant that has a publicly available build and then vote for your favourite. In the meantime you can also familiarise yourself with the main event finalists in this fine series of word-speaks.

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Perhaps you’ve already discovered the 20 years of playable history that congeal together to form the Crusader Kings II demo? It appears to have marched onto the internet during the weekend, a time when I am traditionally to be found scrutinising medieval maps of Europe. This weekend I decided to be trapped in a cabin in the middle of the woods during a night of heavy snow instead, so I hadn’t spotted the demo until now. Download it here.

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More free gaming to set you up for the weekend. Even if you enjoyed the Pacman stylings of the earlier duo, that’s not to say you won’t also enjoy the Advance Wars meets Defcon horrors of Fail-Deadly. It is, at its core, one of the most horrible games I’ve ever played. It’s also remarkably entertaining. Two forces are at war and you are a terrible person at the head of a terrible organisation who wants nothing more than a stalemate between them. Your goal isn’t to bring about a state of everlasting war though; you really are a nasty piece of work and what you want is a conflict so evenly matched and soul-sapping that the participants turn to the last resort. Nuclear destruction. Free to download.

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The latest release from Nitrome is one of those games that I wish I’d discovered later in the day, because I’m going to spend the remaining hours until I’m released from the shackles that bind me to the keyboard wishing I was playing it. It’s called Rainbogeddon, which should really be enough to make you click here and play it. If you haven’t, know that it’s Pacman, Bomberman, Dig Dug and loads of other brilliant things all packed together into a browser window. Destructible mazes? Of course. Oodles and oodles of powerups? Definitely. A little too tiny for my dwindling eyesight to fully take in? Regrettably. Go and play it. Do it for me, because I can’t.

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Following the release of The Blackwell Deception, Wadjet Eye are publishing Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass, a comedy wrestling adventure from Icebox, who released an earlier game starring the same characters. What of those characters? They are a trio of wrestlers who live together in a tiny apartment and ply their oily trade in the Wrestle Zone. When Brain, their most egotistical and feeble-bodied member, wins a championship belt, he is kidnapped shortly afterwards. Thus begins a quest so save him from his unknown abductors. The game is due on February 29th and the demo is available now. I donned some tights and played it through. Thoughts and a trailer follow.

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Preloaded, the indie team behind The End and zOMT have teamed up with the Science Museum to create a series of games aimed at school-goers, to ask questions about the role of science in our future. Called Futurecade, it’s a collection of four arcade games, each loosely themed to a direction in which technology is taking us. And one of them is properly great. Think about that a moment – an educational game aimed at teenagers that’s good.

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Bland headlines, eh? Steam is now host to a demo for Jagged Alliance: Back In Action, so all those people who have been dismissive of the move to pausable real time can see if hats must be salted, peppered and devoured. Similarly, those who have laid out a welcome mat for Colonel Change can see what the blighter does once he’s in their parlour, hanging his hat on the coat rack and his coat on the hat rack. Oh, you confounding swine, Change, why must you play with our expectations so? If you’re allergic to Steam, here are alternate download links.

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Back in 1997, there was a strategy game released that went by the name of Dark Reign. I’m fairly sure I played the demo but I can’t be certain because I just played the demo again and drew a blank. The reason I’m playing the demo is that it’s just been re-released, remade even, to run through Silverlight as Dark Reign Redux. The demo is available now, with a full release on its way at an undetermined price. The XBLArgh version is priced at 400 Microbucks, which is around £3.50 by my reckoning. Perhaps you wish to try the demo? Here it is, with a 120MB install size. Back in ’97, Dark Reign came on 16,521 floppies.

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