Latest Articles (Page 1714)

I keep reading the name Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet as one word in my head, delivered in breathless American advertising fashion. Whoever stole the spaces from those words in my thoughts, I truly hope you're putting them to good use. If you're using them to add double spaces after full stops, then I will hunt you down. Erm, things went a little surreal there. Back on track: the attractive adventure shooter thinger is maneuvering its way to the PC, with its co-operative DLC coming as an added bonus.

Eurogamer has news that THQ's MMO project, Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online, has been refocused as a single-player and multi-player online game. The game had previously been rumoured to be cancelled. THQ boss Brian Ferrell said: "Based on changing market dynamics and the additional investment required to complete the game as an MMO, we believe the right direction for us is to shift the title from an MMO to a premium experience with single and multiplayer gameplay, robust digital content and community features." Around 120 people across the Relic and Vigil studios have been laid off as a result of the change, which is depressing news. Hopefully we'll firm up exactly what sort of game we're left soon. A 40k RPG with online bits? Could be... And that would be okay by me.

With Legend Of Grimrock coming up soon, my thoughts turned back to the original Dungeon Master. Released in 1987, a year I mostly spent aged 9, it was for me one of the most defining games of my childhood. Smart, enormous, and terrifying, it was such a stride forward for gaming. But I was pretty certain getting it working on a Windows 7 box was going to be something of a fiddly nightmare. Not so!

Co-operative, open-world sci-fi dinosaur hunting game Orion: Dino Beatdown is strapping into its jetpacks for an April the 20th release date. After watching the trailer below I just hopped onto Google Calendar and made sure I had nothing planned for that day - just some lump thing in my brain needed removal on that day. I soon got rid of that. What smells of burning, btw? Anyway: I also added "Sleepover with the Timothy Olyphant" to my girlfriend's calendar to make sure I'm not disturbed. I love Trespasser and I take my dinosaur hunting VERY seriously. I am the Bob Peck of RPS.

Here's a thing that looked fake but isn't. The notorious Mass Effect 3 ending - could it have really been hinted at in Mass Effect 1? A post on Reddit showed a planet description that seemed to describe, well, that's a spoiler I'll put below. But apart from the picture that had been rather hastily added, that planet is really there. I've flown there myself. Take a look below.

I took to the role of Death with great aplomb when I played Darksiders II recently and later that same day I had the chance to speak with game director Marvin Donald. Although we didn't question the nature of Death in an existential fashion, we did discuss how he feels about his game being compared to The Legend of Zelda, the stranger worlds through which Death walks, whether this will be a four game series and how much we both like collecting loot.

I'm a lapsed football fan, so I'm writing this not knowing a) where Euro 2012 is being held, b) if any of the British teams have made it to the finals, and c) if goalies are paying much attention to the ten-step rule. I have heard of Lionel Messi, though. But even as a missing link in the Mexican wave of foot-o-ball trivia, I knew that there would be an EA Euro 2012 game released this year, just like I knew the sun would be up this morning. What's surprising is that EA Sports UEFA Euro 2012 (that's a mad name) will be DLC for Fifa 12 game and not sold in the shops.

The Battlefield 3 patch rolls out today, bringing some excellent tweaks as well as adding "shortcut items" that allow players to buy items rather than putting in the hours to unlock them - "If you’re new to the game, this is the perfect way to gain some ground on the veterans online." Or maybe you're just a lazy man-/vehicle-shooter with money to burn? If so, these are the items for you, with an ultimate bundle that unlocks everything and smaller collections available. Some people are predictably furious, whether due to price or due to the fact that newcomers can jump to the top of the tree straight away. Personally, as I gibbered about earlier, I'm increasingly disinterested in these multiplayer unlock systems. Other changes listed below.

2012 will be the year of the gamejam: there's only a few hours left to pop over to the Indie Buskers website and drop an idea into their requests box. Five developers will be picking five game ideas and live-streaming the creative process for 48 hours. Why? Because they are poor and want to make something from their skills. Doing game busking on the street probably wouldn't have the same effect as signing 'No Woman No Cry' for three hours, but the internet is the perfect place for strangers to watch their code spill across the screen and offer up a few coins in appreciation.

One of the images that will be forever burned into my mind is the expression on the faces of Kieron Gillen and the brave lady who is now his wife when witnessing my first ever attempt to play Guitar Hero. I just didn't get it. I tapped and hammered without logic or rhythm, to the extent that any sane onlooker would have presumed there was something terribly wrong with me. In time, I became at least competent at that short-lived plastic guitar fad, but today's attempts at mastering free browser game Epic Sax have taken me right back to that humiliating square one.

We know very little about Ghost Recon: Commander, so little in fact that I only just found out that it's going to exist. I'd rather be a Commander than a Future Soldier or an Online so I was pleased about the prospect, but then I saw that it's a Facebook/mobile game and my interest spiraled away like chocolate syrup down a motel shower drain. However, Chris Early of Ubisoft has told Pocketgamer.biz that playing Commander will unlock advantages in the other two upcoming Ghost Recon games, and vice versa. I suppose the idea is that spending a spare half hour on Facebook could earn you a gun rather than a dubiously rekindled acquaintance with a former sort-of-friend. Quotes and thoughts await below.

The Mittani, Eve Online's most famous and infamous player, has learned the hard way that the internet is serious business after all. The controversy arose at last week's Eve Fanfest, where in a public talk he first mocked and then urged others to hound a player who was apparently suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. "Incidentally, if you want to make the guy kill himself, his [in-game] name is [REDACTED]", Mittani declared. Unsurprisingly, this quickly spread beyond the Fanfest.

After initially appearing to shrug off complaints as he had been drunk at the time (which he acknowledges was entirely his own fault) and didn't have total recall of what he'd done, Mittani offered a lengthy public apology a few days later, and promised his resignation as Eve Online Council chairman. Since then, Eve devs CCP have decided his actions were a breach of the EULA and are enforcing a harsher penalty.

I'm not entirely convinced I'd like to deliberately steer my vehicle anywhere called Death Road. Perhaps I'm being old-fashioned and twee, but there's just something about the name I find offputting. I can't put my finger on it, it's just a feeling. That is the rather direct name given to what I'm going to generously call a "WipEout-inspired racer", coming to PC tomorrow. You can see a trailer of it below, and then say, "No, that's not WipEout, that's..."

EA have issued a clarification to Gamespy that while you will have to have an internet connection to launch SimCity, it will not boot you off if your connection goes down. Which is to say, it's not as egregious as others' "always-on" DRM, but we maintain is still an unnecessary and game-crippling mistake, which we really hope they will reverse before release. That the game won't stop working if your connection goes down sounds great, but it makes no useful difference to those who wish to play the ostensibly single-player game without an internet connection, whatever the cause. As we've said before, the online features sound like they'll superbly enhance your single-player experience, but enforcing them is cruel and stupid, and renders the game broken for enormous numbers of players. We desperately hope to see EA backing down from this position before release. Just as we expect to see Blizzard come to their senses and not release a self-sabotaged version of Diablo 3. The reality is, unofficial versions of the games will appear very soon after release, offering useful features that the publishers' versions of the games will not. That's simply crazy. We've contacted EA to ask if we can talk to them about this all.

Gosh, things are getting fraught in A Game Of Thrones RPG trailer-land. Dudes are getting stabbed and bashed with big metal clubs. Men and women alike are making accusations and sounding cross. There's even something about cockroaches, so it sounds like they need to get the fumigators in to that castle. Yeah, I have no idea what's going on, frankly, but it sounds exciting. Join in with vociferations below!

Joe Martin decides to explore Fallout 2 from the perspective of a character with no stats in the brain department. And, goodness, has a game ever responded coherently to attributed stupidity?

Fallout 2 is old, so there’s only a handful of flickery cutscenes and none of these ever show you your hand-built character actually doing anything. The intro, for example, where you’re told that you’re the Chosen One and must quest for the Macguffin of the Moment, focuses solely on the the half-blind village elder. Which is a shame, because I imagine how my character, Al, would react to this news would be... interesting.

Hello, you. The unseasonably warm afternoons seem to be making the hivemind sleepy. Personally I've been in a trance for the best part of an hour, just staring off into the blue skies overhead. Mmm. Is that jazz playing from an open window? But then everything suddenly came back into focus and I realised there were videos to be blogged. And we all like to see imaginary men getting shot - Hell, some of us depend on it for our sanity. Yes, not a day goes by where RPS doesn't provide your manshoot fix. Here it is. Again, and it's Max Payne 3 multiplayer. How could that possibly work? Apparently by only making players in your line of sight enter bullet time. Which is a neat way to solve it. You'll have sort of bullet time "bubbles" going off across the level when people choose to use it, I suppose. Anyway, the video explains it, so go take a look. Slooooowllllyyyyy.

Paradox Interactive are getting a taste for the limelight. Mmm, citrussy. Tonight at 8PM CEST, which my brain refuses to accept is 7pm UK time, they'll be showing off four of their upcoming games on their Twitch TV channel. There's something for everyone, as long as you like 2D shooters, dwarf-based strategy, co-op action adventures , or competitive RTS. Do you like those? I'm interested in The Showdown Effect, personally. He's dreamy.

Remember when Google made a big deal of running Bastion in Chrome? They made the opposite of that fuss with Mini Ninjas, Io Interactives's cute little NinjSim. I mean, I only noticed when I was poking around the Chrome store for a browser add-on. I clicked it expecting a webbified version of the game, but as far as I can tell it's not been fiddled with in the slightest. In less than a minute, I was playing the first level of the game, full screen, with no obvious technical issues. Oh, apart from the bizarre payment model.

Just in case my three-part, 15,000 word interview with Jake Solomon, lead designer on Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown, wasn't enough for you, here's a follow-up chat with the effusive main brain behind the X-COM remake. This time, we're finding out about how much soldiers' special abilities define the game, what's been done to ammo and why the perception that this new version only has one base isn't quite right.

Some good news and some bad news about the forthcoming SimCity reboot. Good news: you won't have to buy it through Origin, meaning there can be pricing competition. Bad news: you will have to play it through Origin, with a permanent online connection all the time. That's some fairly bloody enormous bad news. But there is time to convince EA that while there are many merits to having your game online, there are also some vastly more dreadful downsides, and failing to recognise that would be a terrible shame.

The work of arty developer types Tale Of Tales tends to divide people. I would argue that The Endless Forest is probably their best work - an ambient forest MMO in which players take the role of man-faced deer. There is minimal interaction, and just a few odd puzzle things to do, but that's hardly the point: it's simply a strange, shared internet space, and the kind of oddity that makes our vast series of tubes worth exploring. Anyway, it seems that is doomed now, since it lost its backing. The studio are appealing for donations to keep it alive: "This is not just a question of finances. It is also a matter of principle. We believe that an artist and their audience can have a symbiotic relationship that does not require any interference from the outside. So in a way, we are taking this opportunity to prove a point. Please help us do so."

So, will you?

Shoot Many Robots, Ubisoft's co-op side-scrolling shooter, has a PC release date for Steam. The 6th April. It's been out on console downloads for a while now, and has garnered an extremely confusing mix of reviews. The super-angry Destructoid loved it with an 8, while the pathologically generous IGN broke their score machine by going as low as 4.5. So I don't know what to think. About anything. Pre-ordering the game will score you a few bonuses. Get three copies and they'll throw in a fourth, along with some aesthetic Valve-themed changes for the game - the likes of Gordon Freeman as a playable character, or Portal turrets as enemies, along with some TF2 shenanigans.

Pity the simulated citizens who will live in SimCity, the reboot of the franchise of the same name, due from the god-game guys at Maxis sometime in 2013. No easy life for them, no appearing as if by magic on the streets of your town and scurrying back and forth between the busy districts of the day. No - instead, life will be a precarious crap-shoot of existential uncertainty, in which no satisfaction, however small, may be taken for granted, and no need may ever be filled in more than momentary fashion. And, as if it need be said, in the game.

I'm all about hybrids. When I'm not in Castle Shotgun's basement laboratories, attempting to breed rabbits with dragons, I love to investigate games that plunder from multiple genres. But by crikey, I'm daunted by the prospect of a third-person shooter crossed with a real-time strategy. That's the nature of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, the latest from Paradox that's just gone on sale. Fortunately braver men than I, like Jim "Brave" Rossignol, have taken a detailed look at it in the past. And now you can buy it.

City Interactive have announced that they will be publishing a free-to-play shooter called World Of Mercenaries. Which immediately begs the question: if it is a world entirely made of mercenaries, who hires them? Do they hire each other? And why? Tricky stuff for any dev studio to handle, I'm sure. It seems like such questions haven't hindered development, however, because it's just one week to the beta registration, something about which Executive Producer Bogdan Oprescu has this to say: “Our closed beta program will be an integral part of the development process for World of Mercenaries, as it is our goal to deliver a game made by, for and with FPS fans. We are shaping the future of competitive FPS, and are fully confident it will be achieved with the enthusiasm and help of our beta testers.” Fine words there from Bogdan.

No release date yet, but we do know that the game is being developed in Unreal with an aim of making the kind of high-end FPS that would make your graphics card proud.

Every year around this time Google calendar reminds me that A New Zero, Cryptic Sea's abstract, multiplayer military vehicle sim, exists. It's so lo-fi that I keep forgetting it's still in development, and expanding at a very slow but steady rate: I tend to forget games that are under a Peggle in size, even if they're capable of procedurally generating massive landscapes and battles. My yearly check-in has dug up a few new videos, showing off the work-in-progress infantry additions that will end up powering Hidden & Dangerous style missions co-op missions. Cor.

Last night Alec mentioned that Auditorium 2 was narrowly short of meeting its necessary Kickstarter funding to spring into existence. Well, the good news for them is that they made it, just. With 67 hours to go, they've sneaked over the $60,000 target, so it looks like the sequel to a well-loved indie project will be going ahead. It's fair to say that Cipher Prime are quite pleased, reporting, "There are not enough exclamation points in the world for us to give to you."

According to an interview with Gamespy, Assassin Creed 3's creative director, Alex Hutchinson, has declared that Ubisoft won't be "investing hugely in a mouse and keyboard setup", instead suggesting that PC gamers use a controller to play the game. Which at first may look like another reason for us to hitch up our skirts and stomp angrily to the protesting grounds, but I'd argue that perhaps he's right.

Remember atmospheric, reflection-based music game curio Auditorium? Presumably, despite being received with hugs and even awards the world over, it didn't rake in quite all the readies it could have done, otherwise sequel Auditorum Duet perhaps wouldn't be Kickstarter-funded.

With three days left to go on its crowdsourcing, it's at $51,000 of its $60,000 goal, so odds of pulling it off are reasonable at this stage.