Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Turn-based strategy RPG (think King’s Bounty without the Warcraftian cartoonishness) Disciples III: Renaissance has the a splendid website. You even “turn” the pages of an ancient book to read about the game features. In fact, the entire game’s art-direction is exquisite, apart from the hex-based battle maps, which seem peculiarly deserted. Impossibly gothic cathedral cities, endlessly knotted and gnarled forests, warped supernatural creatures aplenty: it’s got the dark fantasy thing down. And the game looks suitably epic from a player’s point of view too, demanding a RPGTBS mentality for long-term fantasy adventuring. A developer walkthrough from GamesCom explains some of the game mechanics below, but I’d go take a look at their site (English switch top right) to leaf through some more of the game assets, it really does go overboard.
Read the rest of this entry »

A few kindly readers have mailed me about this strategy-RPG, having noted my mildly terrifying obsession with King’s Bounty earlier this year. I’ve never dabbled with the Disciples games before, but certainly this Russian fantasy hybrid appeals to my unrepentantly nerdier instincts.

Unlike KB’s cheerfully low-fi Warcraftian look, this seems pretty hung up on spectacle. KB was really a 2D sheep in 3D wolf’s clothing, but this one’s definitely making a virtue of that third dimension, and then slathering it with moody gloom. What this trailer seems to lack is the charm and cheer that made KB such a rare delight, but it’s entirely possibly the six shiny minutes of footage beneath the cut are solely trying to dazzle us with pixel power, and the brainier best is yet to come.
Read the rest of this entry »

Strategy First have announced that they’re going to be publishing a new sci-fi shooter, Exodus From The Earth. It’s being developed by Parallax Arts Studio, who are based on St. Petersburg. This is Parallax’s third game, and I can’t say I know much about the other two. I vaguely remember the announcement of “Liquidator 2″ but little more. They’ve quite possibly only found distribution in Russia before now.

The features list for the game looks like a checklist of any old FPS, but the screens have some fancy lookin’ vehicle combat action, which might spice things up a little. Not getting my hopes up though, natch. I was, incidentally, out in Russia recently for a report that will be published in PC Gamer UK next month. I saw some pretty interesting stuff, and there are definitely a couple of shooters coming out of Russia that have the potential to shake things up a little. Most impressive of the lot is Cryostasis. But more on that another time.