Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is what happens when you get busy. I did not know that Gotham City Imposters, Monolith’s inventive multiplayer FPS where players are copycats of Batman and his various villains, has a defensive gnome that tazers people. Where I was and what I was doing at the time to not know I don’t know, but I now begrudge whatever it was I don’t remember doing. I hopefully won’t begrudge playing the game on February the 8th, and peeping into the beta tactics video below, I don’t think I will.
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If only Monaco Is Mine was being developed at the pace this video demonstrated. We’d all be heisting together, instead of picking at every little crumb of development info the haughty team tosses our way. What you’re about to watch is a time-lapse in which a single-player level built, and therefore is totally spoiled for educational purposes. Dare you click the link? I think you’re chicken. Buckaww!
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It’s been too long since we’ve had a gratuitously silly, astonishingly epic Minecraft video post. So here’s twenty minutes of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Minecraft. You know what to do.

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It seems like everywhere I look there are games springing up with procedurally generated worlds and fully destructible environments. That’s partly because I spend most of my waking hours looking at websites for in development, ambitious indie projects, but I’m still surprised by how many of the things there are. There are 3D and 2D choices, there are more complex iterations and this one here is set in space. It’s called Blockade Runner, which is the headline gag I would have used if it had been called literally anything else. Although in pre-release at the moment, it is possible to preorder and play around with the ship designer while waiting for a more functional version next year. Video and more details below.

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After peasant-pleasing and/or poking comes castle crashing. Firefly promised to show more of the militant aspect of Stronghold 3 and here’s a video which does just that. See castle walls crumble and tiny men topple from them, reduced to nothing more than ragdolls. Hear a polite British man explain that the medieval era is an ideal showcase for physics. I was hoping they’d be using a Buridanian impetus model but they’ve gone for Havok. I’m more interested in the castle building than the castle destruction, some of which is briefly shown at the end. Have a gander.

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Map-clicking simulation Sengoku is out on September 13th and if you’ve been following its development, you already know why this is exciting. If you haven’t, allow me to summarise in a crude and reductive fashion. Sengoku is Shogun meets Crusader Kings, it’s Europa Universalis in Japan. Helpful to an extent, if you’ve played those games, but what’s more important than those comparisons is Paradox’s desire to emulate what is unique about the clans and culture of the period and place. That’s why it’s unfair to suggest Sengoku will be Crusader Kings with nothing more than a different hat and moustache. Behold the thrilling world of Feudal Japan in the video below.

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If dragons with jetpacks and skeleton princesses are your favourite things, Dragon Commander is being created specifically for you. It’s not often such niche tastes are accounted for, so count yourself very lucky indeed. Alec was pleasantly surprised during his encounter with Larian Studios’ RPG, strategy, dragon-action hybrid at Gamescom a couple of weeks ago and now a developer walkthrough has found its way online in video form. It’s the same section of the game that Alec saw so there’s nothing explicitly new here, but it’s good to realise the article wasn’t the product of a fever-dream. The world map truly is reminiscent of Small World and there really is a skeleton princess wearing fruit wedged into a corset in order to crudely simulate the fully-fleshed female form. It’s in two parts and is well worth a watch, if only for the nonchalant way in which the jetpack is introduced.

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I think it must have crossed the mind of every person who’s played Portal what they’d do if they had a Portal gun. Me, I’d put one portal in Chicago, another in Bath, and then smash the gun so they’d never get removed. Oh, how I yearn for teleportation to the States. But it does seem reasonably obvious that after about, maybe five minutes, we’d all start using them for practical jokes. Take a look at the video below from YouTube SFXers Final Cut King and the VFX Bro.

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Update: More videos added below.

This one appeared during our second weekend of yacht-hammocking, and is well worth a watch. It’s one of the first truly impressive Portal 2 trickshot videos I’ve seen, themed around the throwing of cubes. I love that there are people out there who see games completely differently to me. They see paths my mind would never think of. Take a look.

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Monday mornings are for posting nine-month-old videos that most people haven’t seen before but for which one person will loudly point out that he knew about it aaaaaages ago. This time it’s a fantastic interview with a few members of the team at CCP, talking about how Eve Online is inspired by Iceland – the country in which the company began. The similarities drawn between Iceland’s extraordinary and dangerous scenery, and Eve’s stretches of space, are very interesting. It left me wondering how many other developers can speak so eloquently about their geographical inspirations, and determined to find out the next time I interview anyone. This is part of a series of videos created by the Icelandic tourist board – Inspired By Iceland – to promote their phenomenally expensive/beautiful country to the rest of the jealous world. A campaign which also includes excellent dancing, so that’s below too.

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I have no idea what to make of this, other than happiness. With confusion. Someone has taken Heywood Banks‘ song Toast, clearly performed live on an American radio programme, and animated it in TF2, and stuck it on Break.com. It’s a year old, millions of people have already watched it. It’s old. Thing is, it’s funny. Thus: post.

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