By John Walker on January 18th, 2013.
Paradox’s The Showdown Effect now has its own website. Why it hasn’t had its own website since its announcement in March last year is perhaps a pertinent question. But with the side-scrolling cop movie-spoofing/celebrating multiplayer due out on the 5th March, it’s about time it did. And as you might imagine on such an occasion, there’s a new trailer too.
By John Walker on January 17th, 2013.
If you listen carefully you’ll be able to hear Adam, all the way hidden in darkest Manchester, mumbling to himself about how much he likes Crusader Kings II. Listen now… [mumble mumble awrite ourkid i love crusader kings ii mad for it mumble mumble]. Did you hear it! He’ll be uncontrollable with glee to learn there’s a new trailer for the Republic expansion, as well as two other smaller expansions out now.
By Nathan Grayson on January 9th, 2013.
I got a chance to go hands-on with Paradox’s Dungeonland some many firework-and-goblin-giblet-obscured moons ago, and I actually had quite a time with it. That said, I don’t think it’s made its way onto many radars, and that’s a shame. No, it didn’t strike me as particularly earth-shaking, but playing as the dungeon master (or maestro, as he’s now being called) against a hapless group of friends could at least rattle a mid-sized landmass or two, I think. So yes, you should keep an eye on it. Here, I will even help you – free of charge and everything. After the break, you’ll find a trailer. Now, I’m not saying it’s necessarily a magic mountain of Dungeonland footage, but when I note that it would make almost zero sense for it to be anything else, I might be implying it a little.
By Nathan Grayson on January 8th, 2013.
I do so love games that are unabashedly cheeky. I know, I know: that’s pretty much like scaling my way to the highest mountain tops and proclaiming my love for breathing and blinking to the calloused undersides of god’s feet, but apparently, some people only play games through gritted teeth and furrowed brows. I think those people are silly, though, and I won’t be inviting them to my games of Magicka developer Arrowhead’s The Showdown Effect because a) they’d hate it and b) I’m very petty. Boasting grin-inducing gems like “Fight to the death, or die trying,” the sidescrolling multiplayer mash-’em-up lampoons just about everything – including itself. Watch its creators have a laugh at their own characters after the break.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on December 28th, 2012.
The walls of the FP office are plastered with pictures of iconic war machines. When I yaw left I see the elegant elliptical wings of a Supermarine Spitball, the slab prow of a Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiepin, the yawning bomb-bay of an Avro Lankystreakofpiss. When I yaw right I see swarms of side-slipping Sopwith Camelots, HMS Hoodie steaming at full speed towards the Denholmelliot Strait, a sharkmouthed McDonnell Dougal F-4 Phantompregnancy splashing napalm onto a bunker-riddled Vietnamese hellside. Read the rest of this entry »
By Alec Meer on December 18th, 2012.
The last we heard of The Showdown Effect, the new side-scrolling and cartoony shootybangbang game from the makers of the reliably silly Magicka, was back in April. Now, it’s spooling up its beta-testing mini-gun, and hopes to lure in passers-by by revelling shamelessly in as many action movie cliches as it can conjure up. CONJURE LIKE IN MAGICKA.
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By Adam Smith on December 17th, 2012.
“Winter has arrived”, says the press release for War of the Roses next batch of free content, and here was me thinking Old Jack Frost would turn out to be the Godot of seasons. December 19th is the date that winter officially arrives in the multiplayer stab ‘em up, bringing “new armor and weaponry, plus two brand new snow-covered maps based on the historic battles of Wakefield and Towton.” There’s also a balance patch on the way, which appears to be primarily targeted at armour tweaks. Sandal Castle, on the Wakefield map, may also be the focus of a new game mode, although that addition won’t be in the initial download. You can see a brief glimpse of snow and blood below, and there will be a livestream of the maps on December 20 at 7pm GMT on the Paradox TwitchTV channel.
By Adam Smith on December 7th, 2012.
Did you miss the livestream of Dungeonland, the multiplayer fantasy theme park game with lashings of murder and (probably) lashings? There’s no need to create paradoxical quandaries by travelling back in time using the modified toaster in your basement because Paradox were clever enough to record the whole thing. They even spliced a highlights package together because they know your time is precious. That’s why you tinkered with the toaster, after all, to regain the wasted days of your youth. The edited version is below but if you do have time to spare, you can watch a replay of the whole event over at Twitch.tv.
By Jim Rossignol on November 29th, 2012.
Dungeonland developers Critical Studio have take some time out of crafting their rather cute cartoon dungeon-crawling game to tell us about their rather cute cartoon dungeon-crawling game. The premise is that it’s a medieval/fantasy themepark in which you undertake themeparkisations of normal dungeon-crawling activities. Only the themeparkness is a trick, and it’s actually there to allow the Evil Overload to kill of the adventurers! Oh no! This bit sounds interesting: “three players must work as a team to survive their visit to an adventurers’ theme park, where the horrible monsters on duty will challenge their skills in combat. The fourth player, however, will work against them as the park’s fiendish Dungeon-Master.” And our kid Craig had a look at it over here.
You can even sign up to the beta, if you want.
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By Jim Rossignol on November 27th, 2012.
Paradox’s next Hearts Of Iron game is going to be called East vs. West. As the name suggests, it takes a long hard look at that point in history when East and West peered at each other through expensive binoculars and fondled both over-engineered tanks and over-proliferated nuclear weapons. The game allows players to players to take control of a nation and guide them through that tricky period, with the inevitable counter-factual possibilities of starting World War III when you actually just wanted to store your missiles on a lovely hot tropical Caribbean island.
This is the first developer diary in a new series, with the devs talking about the scope of the new game, and how the Hearts Of Iron model fits a Cold War scenario.
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By Jim Rossignol on November 21st, 2012.
One game that I’m going to make time for over the holidays is Salem, Paradox’s sandboxy colonial MMO. I saw it in action at the start of the year and knew that it was going to be a time-hungry slow-burner, and that the sort of open-ended stuff, like universal PvP, and serious consequences for such transgressions, was going to make it an interesting sort of commitment to play. All that stuff is the precisely the reason most people will be put off playing it, I’m sure, but for those folk who understand the appeal of building into a world, this could be gold. Or perhaps it will just a tedious grind. From the highlights of a recent live-steam (which you can see below) I am expecting moments of the former.
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