By Adam Smith on February 6th, 2012.
A top-down RPG with crafting, tactical combat, single player or cooperative squad control, and the possibility of permanent injury or death. That’s the early word on Krater, which we’ve learnt a little more about since first seeing evidence of its existence. Some thoughts on that below, along with a teeny snippet of in-game footage. There are also testing signups ongoing, which you can find out about here.
By Adam Smith on January 9th, 2012.
An official website for a game has launched! Shout it from the hilltops! Proclaim it to the masses! There is also a release date for the game! It will actually be released on a day that is not very far away! Total War with myth, magic and choose your own adventure segments is how I think of King Arthur II, which is not to say it doesn’t have an identity of its own and perhaps you will be able to discover that identity on the aforementioned website or upon the aforementioned release date (Jan 27th). Or maybe in the rather more useful 56 minute recording of a livestream that I’ve buried in Avalon, which for our purposes lies just below. Click to retrieve it. Exhumation and archaeology made easy!
By Adam Smith on January 6th, 2012.
This is an astonishing turn of events. Obsidian’s RPG based upon long-running Pixar-bothering animation showcase South Park looks quite a lot like South Park. In fact, it looks almost exactly like South Park. I could just put some screengrabs from the telebox show down here and you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, although the actual screenshots do contain the paraphernalia of combat and class-based conflict, and there’s a tendency for people to be positioned as if waiting to fight in a well-ordered fashion. The visual design on the game draws on a decade and a half’s worth of assets provided by Parker and Stone, who are also writing the script. Look, see.
By John Walker on January 4th, 2012.
Edit: I have been STRONGLY told off by Paradox, involving a firm slap to the back of my knees, informing me that Dead Legions is about 10 hours of game, and that there will be a demo out closer to release.
Original: You can now pre-order Paradox’s King Arthur II, which I understand is a likely action by rather a lot of our readers. And good work if you do, because not only will you be able to sit back, safe in the knowledge that you’ve saved valuable seconds on the day of release, but you’ll also get a chapter of the game to play upon this very day. Which is why I mention it.
By Adam Smith on November 28th, 2011.
When he first laid eyes on it, grid-based RPG Legend of Grimrock caused John to claw at the screen in a futile attempt to get his hands on it. I’m not sure if he always plays games by plucking them out of his monitor and laying them out on a coffee table but it may be the case. Along with the announcement of a delay until early next year, developers Almost Human send word that the project has reached beta. There’s a new video as well, which manages to excite me by showing inventory management the likes of which it’s all too easy to desire romantic liaisons with. Then there are the puzzles, the pressure plates, the man casually falling into a pit…I AM CLAWING AT THE SCREEN
Intrinsic Virtues
By Adam Smith on November 14th, 2011.
I was only young when I played Ultima VII but I had already ventured to the depths of dungeons that dripped with dread, partaken in interstellar war and defended my home planet from invaders. Like Roy Batty and all people who grew up with games, I had seen and done so much. Between adventures in space, I’d rezone my commercial districts or build a new bus route, leaving room in the schedules for occasional postal service functions. Yes, I had lived a full life already, but I had never watched a man clad in the finest clothes in Britain eat an egg and then belch in the face of a barmaid, so who can say I had experienced anything worthwhile at all?
By Adam Smith on November 9th, 2011.
Two female aliens and a human man probably. Whatever the logistics, it’s sick. Either that or I’m not referring to Kirkesque feats at all but rather to the fact that according to leaked beta assets, Mass Effect 3 will allow players to choose from three different playstyles: Action, RPG or Story. The full text from the menus is below but the names are fairly self-explanatory. I certainly wouldn’t want to play a Mass Effect game in ‘Action’ mode, although Mass Effect 2, eh? Improved combat did lead me to believe all traces of RPG had been completely erased and that only guns remained were once there was dialogue. Or not.
By Adam Smith on October 21st, 2011.
It’s been available on Microsoft’s 360th console for a while now, but rhythm-RPG mashup Sequence is now available on Steam. I’m tempted to call it Puzzle Quest but with rhythm game mechanics in place of match-3 mechanics and nothing I’ve seen suggests I’d be incorrect to do so. There’s a narrative, character customisation, magic and, underpinning it all, the hammering of cursor keys in time to music, which is how all fights would be resolved if I was the God of War. There’s a trailer for the Steam release below, which contains timely and pithy comments about Metacritic. I hope to take a proper look myself when I clamber from beneath the current pile of games entombing me.
By Alec Meer on October 18th, 2011.
We’ve recently been asked a few times why we haven’t posted anything about comedy RPG Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. The answer is simple: that game is humanity’s last defence against a dark conspiracy of unimaginable corruption and malevolence, RPS is at the heart of which. Our excuse that we’re just four men against forty-eight thousand billion PC games and so can’t possibly cover everything is just that: an excuse. Were we to break our unholy covenant and post about Rampant Games’ excitable indie turn-based roleplayer Frayed Knights, our plan to consume the miserable souls of every teenager in Basingstoke could never come to pass.
Curses! Now I shall never know supreme power.
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By Andrew Smee on October 11th, 2011.
Oh no. It’s happened again. I’ve started playing a Tower Defence game. My email inbox and To Do list are not going to be happy, because out goes any sense of doing any work today in favour of upgrading and recharging and next wave and circle placement and what’s this? It’s got an RPG-based levelling up your party metagame? That’s it. I’m done for.
A force of destruction
By Alec Meer on October 11th, 2011.
I’m writing this about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning while sat on the train on the way to go play a few hours of Skyrim, which means I’m suffering more than the usual degree of mental discombobulation. Which open world is which? Which was the one with the Red Legion? Which was the one where I was battling rock trolls atop wobbly rope bridges? Which was the one where I was compared to a god? (Oh yeah, that one’s both of ‘em.) That’s the thing with vast, free-form RPGs: there’s only so much room in your head. Usually we only have one at a time to contend with, but 38 Studios’ surprisingly sandbox roleplayer is due to arrive at about the time we’ll have finished climbing Skyrim’s icy mountains and be ready for something else. If all goes to plan, we’re going to be spoilt for choice.
