Here's my impression: "GARGLEFLARGLE"
By John Walker on August 20th, 2012.
Is Battle Vs Chess finally the revision of the dusty old board game that has been so desperately needed for so many years? Can we at last see the embellishments the franchise has been longing for, for over 3,000 years? Perhaps today is that day, with the game now out on Steam. I’ve taken a look to see how the game has finally pulled itself out of the dark ages.
By John Walker on August 2nd, 2012.
At RPS, we’re hardy men. Jim can often be seen carrying a shed on his shoulders, packed with all his tools. Alec and Adam run a side business as fix-it gentlemen for logging machines, while Nathan is officially San Francisco’s Sturdiest Man. And I once fixed a tap. But English Country Tune is too much for us. (Well, for me and Jim, as we’re the ones who tried it.) A really beautiful puzzle game that Quinns once sent a biscuit. But by golly it’s hard.
Puzzling Choices
By John Walker on June 18th, 2012.
My need for puzzle games is insatiable, constantly fed by the teams of enslaved designers I have generating me new Slitherlinks and Doodle Fit levels, as Telegraph cryptic crossword setters weep as their fingertips bleed from setting me more and more clues. Gathering them all a few seconds pause in their toils is Splice, a new puzzler from Auditorium developers, Cipher Prime. Will it do?
Under the Underground
By Adam Smith on March 30th, 2012.
Browser-based narrative experiment Echo Bazaar has quite the following and when it took on the new name, Fallen London, I decided I was long overdue a visit to the delirious, devil-haunted sprawl of suggestive steampunk. It’s a browser-based adventure, working from a lovingly illustrated but mostly textual interface, which involves seeking mysteries, stories, secrets and opportunities in the sunken city. There are stats that increase as plotlines are pursued and there are action points that replenish over time, or through the expenditure of real world currency. The pleasure of it isn’t really in the self-improvement though, it’s in the joy of discovery, and the word-forging and world-building are quite brilliant.
By Andrew Smee on March 22nd, 2012.
Saints Row The Third’s third DLC pack was just released, detailing the further exploits of the Third Street Saints, this time with the foul creations of unhinged Science. When will people learn? The Trouble With Clones is the latest in Volition’s short-form content packs for the silliest excuse to have fun there is, keeping with the scifi B-movie themeing following last month’s groovy Gangstas in Space. I’ve got some brief thoughts below about the way Volition are treating DLC, as well as the new Clones trailer. It features purple superpowers.
edit: As Maltose says in the comments, Saints Row 3 and all the DLC is currently 50% off on GamersGate.
By Craig Pearson on March 14th, 2012.
The movie Cube, the TV show Lost and, Portal are all broken down and reassembled in CUBE, a Half-Life 2: Episode Two mod about self-assembling test chambers. Unsurprisingly, I spent a lot of time stuck, but in a good way. CUBE’s an odd one: accomplished and beautifully designed in most respects, but always on the cusp of crashing. Engine errors are as ubiquitous as new puzzles. I’m still working my way through it: there’s hours of content and multiple endings to complete, but it’s worth picking up and persevering if you miss Valve’s elaborately designed roomy puzzles.
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By Craig Pearson on February 28th, 2012.
Every fantasy you’ve ever had to reroute power to the shields exists in FTL. I know because I just pulled power from the sick-bay to boost my shields while I attempted to flee a hostile enemy scout. If you don’t have those fantasies yet, then soon it’ll be all you can think about. FTL’s random, rogue-like space-faring nastiness just got me into an unwinnable fight against an unmanned scout ship: if I destroyed it, it would automatically send out a distress signal to inform the rest fleet that I’d just Captain Mal-led him. So instead of going for a death blow, I had to stoke the shields and retaliate by hitting their weapons, keeping us both alive while my FTL drives powered up. No-one was hurt so far; the sick-bay was expendable. Recuperation would have to happen post-battle.
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Man-shoot-mania
By Brendan Caldwell on February 21st, 2012.
It’s exactly like that training course scene from Starship Troopers. The one with the non-lethal lasers, I mean. Not the one where a man gets shot to death in the skull during a live fire exercise. In ShootMania, nobody gets shot to death in the skull – that would be much too violent. Violence isn’t really what this particular FPS has in mind.
By Adam Smith on February 16th, 2012.
As many of you will have noticed, Crusader Kings II came out on Valentine’s Day. This, as it turns out, was a good thing. I’d already played the beta extensively and have only emerged from the full version when the fact of being a biological entity has demanded that I do so, or when the necessity to write about other things has arisen. I’m not ready to write extensively about wot I think yet – it’s a big game and I’ll be thinking lots about it – but it would be remiss not to acknowledge the release and the hours I’ve already enjoyed.
Hovering A Mouse Over A Teenage Girl
By Craig Pearson on February 16th, 2012.
I just got Chloe a date with Doug, and now I’m manipulating the emotions of a high-school Prom judge. This is sick. Prom Week’s plots are raging, emotional torrents of cruelty, humiliation and, if you’re inclined, affection. If you’re old enough to look back on youth as a learning experience, making a teenager insult someone so their enemy becomes your friend has that horrible air of familiarity to it, but one that you can eventually (hopefully) look back on as an ugly fact of life. I like Prom Week, but there are times when its social strategy just made me feel bad about myself.
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By Craig Pearson on January 30th, 2012.
I’ve been fiddling about with Valve’s first iPhone app, Steam Mobile . Normally when a developer makes a leap to the mobile world, we wouldn’t give it a second thought, but Valve’s iPhone and Android app is Steam without the games and can affect what’s on your PC, so it’s worth talking about. That and I just tapped out a chat to Alec while I was on the toilet, using Steam. Read the rest of this entry »
