Rock, Paper, Shotgun

We remain quietly hopeful about the upcoming AvP game. If it manages to capture some of the terrifying atmosphere of the original game then we could be in for a treat. The one part of the jigsaw we haven’t yet seen in action was the alien itself, which gets fixed today. Eeech, face-huggers still give me the willies. And I wonder if the speed of the alien that we see here is representative of the game experience.
Read the rest of this entry »

BRING ME ALIENS VS PREDATOR. BRING IT TO ME NOW.

We’ve seen the Predator at play already – and in fact I sat through a live demo of ol’ crab-face in action just last week. In short – he’s a lot more agile, a lot more outdoorsy and a lot more assassiny than the tank-like role he took in Rebellion’s original Aliens vs Predator. Also, the spinal cord-removal death move is one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen a videogame do. Even so, I don’t really give a single facehugger poo about the Predator. Always thought there was something oddly boring about him, at least when he’s not wrestling with Arnie. For me, AvP is about the age-old conflict between the Aliens and the Marines. The latter may be the most vanilla of the three races, but survival horror always suited this IP better than anything else – so Marine is the campaign I know I’ll be playing first. Bidee-bee… Bidee-bee… Bidde-bee…
Read the rest of this entry »

Update: cheaper Ground Control bundle here, but only for Britons.

Quite a few people sent in comments about classic, resource-free, 3D real time strategy Ground Control being on GoG.com. It’s interesting to see the game up there for a number of reasons, not least because the original game was actually freely distributed by Vivendi for quite some time. Of course with Vivendi disappearing into the ActiBlizzard merger there’s all kinds of funny things going on with the ownership of their games, their distribution and so on. Rebellion – the chaps who are making the new AvP game – now own Evil Genius, Ground Control, Empire Earth and Lords Of The Realm, and they’re distributing them via that aforementioned digital download service. I suspect a few of you will have something to say about all those games, but Ground Control was a particular love of mine, and I wanted to say a few things about the GoG bundle, and why it might actually still be worth a few dollars.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wahey – proper footage at last of what looks to be an epic comback for Aliens, Predators and fallen-from-grace Britdevs Rebellion alike. Should we be concerned they’re trying to rescue their reputation by revisiting past glories? Nah, not when it looks as good as this. Only the Predator mode is shown off for now, but there’s nonetheless plenty of opportunity to ogle the sci-fi FPS’ other two species. In motion, it’s perhaps not quite as pretty as screenshots suggest, but that doesn’t stop it from being the FPS I’m currently most excited by, hapless little nerd that I am.
Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, most folk have known about this for a little while already, but today’s the day official word and oh-gawd-so-pretty pictures spill into the public domain. It’s Aliens! It’s Predators! It’s by Rebellion, creators of the still-splendid original AvP game! Admittedly, Rebellion have been churning out rubbish for the last couple of years, but I’m quite sure that, with this, they intend to reclaim their crown as one of the most accomplished FPS developers in all the world. Y’know what this is? This is redemption. Information, pictures and frothing follows.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Splinter Cell if Sam Fisher wasn’t such a gigantic pussy. Escape From Butcher Bay if Riddick was more than a shiv-wielding, growly thug. Gears of War with something like brains. Metal Gear Solid, as written by someone with a mental age of more than 14. Call of Duty: Far Future Warfare. So: why wasn’t 2006 tacticalish shooter Rogue Trooper massive?
Read the rest of this entry »

I recently found myself rereading a whole load of Judge Dredd strips I’d eagerly devoured as a violence-crazed teenager. I’d not questioned the politics or attitudes of them at that age – I’d just cheered when Dredd killed a guy. Coming to it now is fascinating, trying to spot the dividing line between satire and the disturbing inherent implication that a police state is a-ok so long as the police are moral and honest actionmen. Of course, it also made me want to go shoot some perps.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a sequel I didn’t expect to happen. Shellshock: Nam 67 was what Guerilla Games got up to before making those Killzone games on Playstation 2/3. An underwhelming fps-but-with-more-shoulder, it turned up in the midst of the brief Vietnam obsession that hit the PC in the mid-2000s. It was also a straight down the line war is hell jobbie. Which makes its having a sequel even odder, because Shellshock 2 is about mutants and experimental toxins and stuff. Someone’s been reading their Agent Orange conspiracy theories, clearly.
Read the rest of this entry »

Like every good geek, I have a favourite gaming moment. It’s in Aliens Versus Predator, a vintage but oft-forgotten first-person shooter that gets mentioned by my games-hack peers about as often as the Pope says “are you sure this hat makes God happy?”
Read the rest of this entry »