Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Today I went to have a bit of a fiddle with the upcoming Dawn of War II stanpansion (did I say it right?) Chaos Rising, my thoughts on which I will be expressing by repeatedly placing my fingers onto a series of plastic blocks arranged in a grid formation tomorrow. Today, though, I want to scratch at an itch that’s been bugging me and, quite clearly, a lot of RTS developers for a little while now. While playing – and getting roundly spanked at – CR’s multiplayer, I once again mulled over the problems multiplayer real-time strategy faces in trying to remain true to its build’n'bash roots whilst also finding ways to be accessible to folk who weren’t raised on years of it, or at least aren’t heavily invested enough to learn all the statistics, hotkeys and timings necessary to do well in online matches. Is there a danger that the new trend towards less building and more co-operation is throwing out too many babies with the minutiae-filled bathwater or, are those babies horribly mutated anyway? Whether you like to think of yourself that way or not, if you’re reading this site you’re a pretty hardcore PC gamer. You’re the audience for these games, and for the attempted changes to them. So: do you like to strategise online, in real-time? How? Why?
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I’ve been wanting to post about Sacraboar for a while. Because I like its name. Alas, there’s been no video to link to and no demo, so little reason to do so other than “Crikey! Nice name, eh?”. However, with its release imminent (Steam, Impulse, Gamersgate if you want to pre-order), they’ve released a demo so people can have a taste of it. You can get it from here. What is it? Well, it’s a “real-time capture-the-pig strategy game”. The ghost of Psycho Pigs UXB lives. The full thing is actually on our Steam press accounts, but no-one on RPS has had time to have a crack yet – Jim did, but it crashed his PC (Which he thinks is a bad download rather than the game). Impressions will have to wait. But it certainly has a splendid name.

The sequel to Microprose/Cyberlore’s 2000 RTS/RPG/management game has just hit, this time handled by one of Russian omni-developer/publisher 1C’s many studios. I confess I’ve never played the first game, but I was intrigued enough by this decade-on sequel to take a nose…

There’s something rather scathing about Majesty 2. It tears away the pretend philanthropy and nobility of fantasy heroes, leaving the terrible truth of what we really play most RPGs and MMOs for. We want gold, and we want to watch a bunch of numbers increase – because we are greedy and self-obssessed. And Majesty 2’s AI-controlled, massively selfish heroes turn the mirror on us.
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As Britain’s foremost expert on real-time strategies, it’s my pleasure to bring you these three videos of the forthcoming Order of War. I mean, what can I say about the RTS, and the role this game plays in it? Well, “War”, that sure implies there will be battles, and they certainly do require strategy. And you can’t be strategic without some manner of order, I’d imagine. So I think we can all agree, it definitely is an RTS, and they are games that people like. And they have tanks in them. And something about resources. Look, everyone else is out, okay. More helpful information below.

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I’m quite excited about Ubisoft’s enormo-RTS Ruse (let’s not dignify marketing idiocy with the capital letters or full stops), but last time I nattered about it here all I had to show you was a trailer that seemed more like it was advertising haircuts or watches. So it’s way past time I nudged y’all in the direction of some in-game footage. Oh, it’s worth watching the HD version of the first vid if your bandwidth can stomach it…
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The current, surprising industry-wide obsession with real-time strategising continues. This time it’s Ubisoft having a crack at both a new IP and a new take on this oft-static genre, with the fascinating, board game-esque and absolutely gi-frigging-normous Ruse.

I took a first-hand gander at Eugen Systems’ (you’ll know them from oddball action-RTS Act of War) new baby last week, but sadly the terrifying EmbargoBot has been stood menacingly by my PC since then, wagging an electro-death-finger at me whenever I think about mentioning the game here. Now I can. And I will. Watch me. Yeah. Yeah!

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February is, it seems, the official month of killing tiny soldiers, and today in particular is St. Man-Squisher’s Day. This fine Friday has already seen the launch of Dawn of War II – which I’m alt-tabbed from right now, excitingly – and now we also get to behold the majesty of the new Total War game. The 2 gigabyte (lawks, lummee, won’t somebody please think of the children etc) Empire demo’s just gone live on Steam, ahead of the launch of the whole epic shebang on March 4th. We shall, of course, be sharing some sort of opinion on ETW cometh the hour, but let’s be honest, the odds of it being anything less than spectacular are tinier than a vole’s pinkie finger.

Beneath the magical clicky words, details on exactly what’s in this here demo.
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Pawing through the dusty tomes of the RPS archive, it seems our selective history-making does not encompass a real-time strategy game going under the name of Stormrise. This is odd for two reasons. Firstly, because apocalypse-fiction RTSes tend to make us go ‘ooh’ and tremble slightly, like a baby deer in love. Secondly, because it’s made by the Creative Assembly – as in the Total War folks. How did we miss this one? It’s the hose again for us.
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It feels a little odd to be talking about RTS expansion packs on the morning after the election night before. However, outside the window of my Seattle hotel room is a building site that looks straight out of Mirror’s Edge (complete with eye-catchingly red and yellow scaffolding), from which brickies stare at me with that particular malevolence that bemuscled men have fixed upon skinny men with spectacles since time immemorial, so I think “yeah, the world’s still the world” and turn my mind to Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor after all.
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The Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients is big. So big it inspired Demigod. So big that Basshunter made a song about it before he was conquering the UK charts with unintentionally comical Euro-house (which is one of the odder paths to musical fame of recent times). And now it’s so big that the creators of DoTA Allstars – the most popular version of the mod – have gone off and made their own commercial game, League of Legends.
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