Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Gosh, has it really been over two years since I dabbled in Pirate Galaxy? The browser-based space ‘em up has been growing apace since that time and has just announced a major update. They explain: “All changes will result in the exploration of the Sirius Singularity being significantly easier, and even small clans will be able to get the most out of the game. The difficulty level has been adapted to smaller groups of players, and there are now over 750 technologies to collect. More updates are already in the planning stages.” Hmm, that probably means something to people who played Pirate Galaxy more recently than I did. Anyway, the MMO continues to offer a light snack of space combat and exploration, and is probably worth a look if you want multiplayer intergalactic adventures but can’t stomach the full Eve Online space diet.

Here’s a new, visually splendid, science fiction action MMORPG from Singaporean dev RealU and free-to-play types Gamigo. Based on the “cyberpunk Lord Of The Rings” book series by Tad Williams, Otherland seems to mash up abstract sci-fi visuals with more traditional fantasy MMO guff, as well as some entirely abstract things. Crazy whirling fly-through announcement trailer details all this, below: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s GamesCom next week in Cologne, and that means we’re about to be engulfed in a torrent of news. A few early trailers and so on have started turning up, and he first of these to attach to our GamesCom 2011 tag will be this: Jagged Alliance Online (not to be confused with Jagged Alliance: Back In Action). Gamigo’s MMOG take on the tactical squad-combat game is going to be properly revealed at the show – having been announced at the show last year – but today we get a bit of a glimpse of it in action. Developer’s Cliffhanger are producing an isometric combat game that is reminiscent of the original series, even if not quite the same sort of turn-based affair. Go take a look, and we’ll round up some more details next week.
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Free to play – and frankly fairly okay – space shooter MMO Black Prophecy has expanded today. The expansion is called EPISODE 1: INFERNO IN TULIMA, and I think it is called that to make it sound exciting. The trailer, which you can see below, is also clearly designed to make it seem exciting. I don’t know what is going on here, but it seems like the company who make this game want you, and all of the rest of us, to think their game is exciting. Anyway, the expansion adds a new sector to explore, but perhaps more importantly it does a lot of general tweaking to the game, including new missions, new weapons, new skills, and overhauled communications system, and a customisable UI.

The game is now also available in North America, apparently. Isn’t that right, North Americans? If it is not right, then I am sorry.
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Free-to-play space MMO Black Prophecy is actually fairly interesting. I played through the prologue, but had to move on to other things before I really got stuck into the main world. It’s impressively pretty, and the mouse-keyboard space combat controls are surprisingly action-oriented. I did get splatted attempting to higher level missions with RPS chums, however, so I suspect that linear level ladder might be too much for me. Anyway! The devs have written a letter to the community, addressing concern over lag and bugs, as well as talking about features planned for the future of the game. You can read it in full here. (And my initial impressions of the game here.)

One of the features they propose for the future is “Station walking”. Sounds oddly familiar…

The free-to-play space MMO Black Prophecy is out in the EU, and there’s a beta underway for North America. I decided to take a look over the past couple of days and have written up a little about my experience. Read on for sparkling wit and space-insight.
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Germanic space-action MMO Black Prophecy is now live, and free to play. I’ve not had a chance to play this yet, but I surely will. My sources tell me that the action is solid enough, but much of the MMO side of the game remains superfluous or wonky, which would be a shame, if true. It certainly looks pretty, at least. Anyone else got any thoughts on it?

North America will apparently get a beta of the game “soon”. Not sure if Americans can currently get at the European game, but I suppose not.

Morning, netlings. Take a look at this- it’s a recently announced game from German publisher Gamigo called UFO Online: Fight For Earth, it’s obviously X-Com inspired and it’ll play straight out of your browser using Unity. Full press release and a brief trailer after the jump, but this looks to me like it might be neat, offering hot PvE and PvP turn-based action, slathered in a sauce of persistent base management that you can check during your lunch break? Yes please! Also, I should probably eat breakfast.
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One Mr Bastock informs us that following the release of the German demo there’s a PC version of the September-releasing economics game demo available on Steam. You can totally download it now. Or later. Or earlier, if you knew about it before we told you. Go demo! Go demo!

EDIT: This is interesting. The demo was up there earlier and now appears to have been removed. We’ll update with further – er – updates.

A micro choose your own adventure. 1) Are you very excited by the Patrician IV? If yes, go to 2. If no, go to 5. 2) Do you speak German? If yes, go to 4. If no, go to 3. 3) Do you care enough about Patrician IV to deal with the fact the demo isn’t in a language you understand and you figure that you can get by just clicking stuff randomly? If yes, go to 4. If no, go to 5. 4) There’s a 700Mb Patrician IV German demo out you can download. Woo! If you’re excited enough to just go and get it now, go here. If you can’t remember what it looks like, go to 6. 5) Go Sumotori! 6)…
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Troubled action space-MMO Black Prophecy seems to have had a fairly good showing at GamesCom 2010, and both trailer and off-screen wobblecam footage of the demo (via MMOReviews) suggest that it is looking like one of the most promising free-to-play games in Gamigo’s rapidly-swelling portfolio. The “real” flight model combined with persistent world stuff might just make this a viable alternative for all those folks who wanted to like Eve but couldn’t swallow the third-person model. There are beta sign-ups going on over at the game’s main site, and the beta apparently starts soon.

No firm release date yet either, but it’s out later this year.
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