Rock, Paper, Shotgun

My review of Dragon Age in PC Gamer is now online. All 60 million words, but short the very pretty boxouts (and thus vital details about the “taint” – snigger). It looks very splendid in the magazine. (Unfortunately an RPS review will be a while coming as our attempts to get review code were not responded to.) It’s a tremendous game, in many senses of the word. Here’s an excerpt that captures one of my favourite details:

“Whether you play as a human, elf or dwarf, a rogue, warrior or mage, a noble or a commoner, Dragon Age requires smart use of your wits and weapons. Combat is a combination of real-time fighting and turn-based handing out of orders. You have control of all in your current party (which has a maximum of four characters), as well as an elaborate Combat Tactics system that enables you to all but program your team’s AI. But there’s also an entire realm to explore, and a central, overwhelming theme of acculturation within its many towns and races. This is about politics, moral philosophy and love. And about killing dragons with swords.”

You may have noticed Quintin’s enthusiasm about The Void. It really is a remarkable game, and we’ve certainly not heard the last of the analysis and attention it deserves. Me, however – I didn’t fall in love. Which made it an interesting one to review. Well, you can see what I thought of it over at Eurogamer. Then there’s some new bits and pieces of interest below. It starts like this:

“The Void makes me feel stupid. I’m more daunted by writing this review than I have been by any other. Perhaps not surprisingly, the last time I felt this terrified about writing a game up it was Pathologic, the previous game from Void developer Ice Pick Lodge. This is a game that’s an awful lot smarter than I am. Or perhaps just weirder. See, I don’t know. A review is designed to provide the reader with a description of the game, and then act as a buyer’s guide. This will fail on both counts, since The Void is so far outside of the realms of helpful description that I might as well phone you up and make animal noises at you, and since I honestly couldn’t tell you whether you should buy this or not. Instead let’s fumble along together, and at the end you can decide for yourself.”

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PopCap’s latest, Plants Vs. Zombies, certainly won our attention with its lovely promotional music video, and drew us in further with an intriguing and hilarious trailer. But what about the game itself? Can it deliver on the giant pile of cute promises? Find out wot I think below, in Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s review.

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This is something special. This isn’t just the small matter of being one of the best games of the year, it’s also the emergence of a stellar new talent in gaming. World Of Goo is so stunningly designed, so beautifully illustrated, so precisely programmed, and so completely adorable that any of the greatest development companies in the world would be proud to release it. That this is a tiny indie dev’s first release – it is beyond belief.

Small blobs of Goo, when put near one another, form rigid bonds. Connect enough of them together and you can build towers and bridges along which unconnected Goo can saunter. The goal in the majority of levels is to see particular balls of Goo reach a pipe opening, into which they are satisfactorily sucked. There’s your raw concept. Now apply four hundred million gallons of imagination.

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My write-up of the official remake of one of my all-time favourite strategy games is in the current issue of PC Gamer UK, and now also on the magic internet. While a solid and largely faithful remake, the game wasn’t quite what I was hoping it would be, so I’m expecting outraged folk to shout at me and email a death threat or two because I didn’t score it 98% any day now.

Here’s a quote for the road:

Life is good to old Kingy. He’s fine whether or not he gets my money, and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. He’s the bully at school you can’t touch because he’s the headmaster’s son, the seedy politician who never quite gets thrown out of office because his wife is friends with the Prime Minister’s wife. He’s unstoppable.

The new PC Gamer is well worth a look. Especially for a mighty feature offering details of 365 free games. It’s one of those ideas that sounds good, right up until you sit down to try and write it. Poor old Graham Smith nearly died trying, and Craig Pearson blushed red and fainted at the size of the task, at which point Jim and I were enlisted. Like mighty heroes we strode into the office, rested our broadswords against the filing cabinet, and joined Graham and Craig quivering in front of the thing. The result is pretty great, and if you enjoy the links we put to free games, get hold of it.

Meanwhile, the same edition also contains my review of Turok, which PCG have put on their website for utter free. Key words include: “Turok isn’t dreadful. Its fits in that far less entertaining position of mediocre. It makes some ghastly mistakes, but at the same time has giant dinosaurs you can kill with a bow and arrow.“

After yesterday’s Verdict, quickly following is my review of Nations Forever for Eurogamer. It begins like this:

At 1.30am last night, I couldn’t tell you whether I loved or hated TrackMania. What I can tell you is that I was playing it. Or more specifically, playing one track. Again and again. Determined to beat it. Increasingly tired, and as such increasingly unable to make the perfectly timed turns to get that Gold medal that sat between me and sleep.

And then carries on when you click here. (But don’t click here).

How silly of me – I didn’t spot that PCG posted my review of Turning Point: Fall of Liberty last week. Well, now I have, and you can read it with an eye of your choice.

What if Winston Churchill had been killed by that car that hit him in New York in 1931? Apparently, Hitler would have done an awful lot better, and invaded America. All German soldiers’ brains would turn to mush, all worldly objects would become magically sticky, jumping would become nearly impossible, and people would gain super-strength and the ability to absorb dozens of bullets.

As if the phrase ‘Games For Windows’ wasn’t ridiculous enough, Turning Point makes further mockery of any meaning it might contain. No mouse cursor for the menus, no video controls, no ability to task-switch, and a controller setup based on a diagram of an Xbox 360 controller. This is not a game for Windows by any stretch – it’s a crummy port of a crummy 360 game.

Read the rest of it here.

The new adventure from Deck 13, they behind the surprisingly lovely point and clicker Ankh… haven’t done it again. Jack Keane, developed in a similar manner, has sadly drowned beneath poor puzzle design and an absolutely attrocious translation. Hence my recent appeal.

My review is now up on Eurogamer, and it contains these words.

“Maybe it’s over-confidence. Maybe we celebrated Ankh’s not-awfulness too much. But Jack Keane is a depressingly poor game. A big, elaborate, beautifully drawn game. But one that just doesn’t make a satisfying result.”

Read the rest here.

Every now and then when the handsome folk at PC Gamer aren’t feeling handsome enough, they put up one of my reviews. It’s approximately a 34% increase in handsome. Today they’re buffing up with my review of online money-spending opportunity, Kwari. It begins very much like this:

Games traditionally work like this: you buy it, you install it, and then you play it as much as you like until you grow old, wither, and die. Let me try and sell a different idea to you.

How about instead you install the game, and then pay and pay and pay every time you play it? Sounds good, eh? Oh, and you could win some money too! You know, after you’ve paid for your ammunition.

And carries on over here.