Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Metro 2033 is out at the end of this week. Who knew March was the month for games? Dragon Age: Awakening, this, Just Cause 2… It’s like it’s November or something. So to celebrate its arrival there is of course a launch trailer, which in this case acts as a sort of best-of compilation of clips, finally reaching some in-game footage toward the end. Shooting! Monsters carrying off cars! A man having a look inside a drawer! I’m really not sure how that bit got in there, but it’s clear that the whole thing was built to match the tune, John Murphy’s In The House In A Heartbeat, familiar from 28 Days Later.

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Brink is showing all sorts of potential. Back at E3 I was rather taken aback by the possibilities for blurring the lines of team-based online gaming and offering a linear narrative. And also slightly bemused by it all. There’s a big old preview here. Below is a video showing off the character customisation, but carrying with it a bunch of more useful information. The body type you create, it seems, isn’t just for your aesthetic pleasure, but also defines the role your character will play and the types of equipment he can use.

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One of the pleasures of the new decade was seeing Stuart Campbell embracing the last decade and starting blogging. One of his first posts is about Genetos, a SHMUUUUPPPPP! which recapitulates the development of its genre. As in, start at Space Invaders, pass through Space Invaders with some spangles and end up with Space Invaders with a lot of spangles and the sort of fanboy who worries about how you spell SHMUUUUPPPPP! Anyway – while new to me, it’s been about for a while – as the video beneath the cut’s “2007″ posting date shows – but the 2009 copyright on the actual code implies a relatively new build. So if you already know it, go play it again. If you haven’t, go play it not again. Clever, aggressive and even educational.
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Well I’ll say this for the Kane & Lynch 2 trailers: they’re damned weird. They also make the game look about as appealing as spending a weekend in a rat infested opium den on the lip of a volcano. But they sure are weird. It raises an interesting point – the grimmest of films can appeal through dingy, murky trailers designed to unnerve the audience. But when you’re playing a game, it’s a simulacrum of you stuck in those conditions. Do I want to spend too much time pretending to be a thoroughly miserable 50-something criminal in a bleak, blue-grey world of poverty and misery? You know what, and I mean this quite sincerely, maybe that would be brilliant. I can’t think of any game that’s perpetually bleak. If it can manage to be more than just another third-person shooter underneath the bad times vibe, this could be properly interesting.

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Ah. “‘n’”. It’s had a difficult history as a link between words, poor little “‘n’”, but let’s overlook a serious analysis of grammatical monstrosities in pop culture. There’s other things to deal with – namely, Jets ‘n’ Guns Gold, that you can currently download. For free. And it’s the full thing, As long as you do it quickly. At the time of writing, there’s still sixteen hours left to download it and install it. And for fans of old-skool Amiga Shooters, you’ll find a suitable Saturday blast a-waiting. Opinions and similar follow, via the medium of internet words.
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Well, they probably won’t, as they’ve had it for years, but the fact that there’s only 32 of them is still worth mentioning. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Polish Casual Game Developers Codeminion have released the first game they ever developed, Pteroglider, for free. Why are they making such an act of generosity? “Basically the game was a commercial failure.” they say, ” It sold an outstanding number of 32 copies worldwide and simply (from today’s perspective) was a bad game in our opinion”. More of Codeminion’s comments and some analysis of my own, beneath the cut.
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