Man With Beard Makes Game: Special Forces Team X

When a man with a beard talks about games, you listen. This has always been the RPS way. Jared Gerritzen, Creative Studio Head of Zombie Studios (I hope that job title is reflective of his mighty chin rug and nothing else) bearded his beard onto G4 last night to talk about the Blacklight developer's new 'casualcore' game 'Special Forces Team X' (the 'X' is for 'Xdfaljksdfkhalsdfh'). Their beardspertise in first-person sci-fi blasting is being redirected into a third-person, cartoonish shooter, where the players customise the map. Enough about the game, Jared: do you condition that fibrous follicle forest?

SFTX's maps are based around customisable tiles. At the start of each round, both team pick the tile closest to their spawn, with the middle one being randomly selected by the game. Each time you join a map it's a monster of combined map styles, meaning there's no opportunity for players to plan an optimum route through the whole space. It sounds cool, but I do have a concern: I only really start to enjoy multiplayer games when I get comfortable with the surroundings, and when I'm aware of the map's flow. But I've stood behind Quake 3 Arena champ Fatal1ty (pronounced Fatal-one-ty) and watched him playing: he was so into his prescribed route that the other players were more of an annoyance than a challenge. It didn't look fun.

The rest is pretty standard: over the smoulder shooting, loadouts. Bizarrely they're licensing all the guns, so while it has a cartoonish tone the weaponry is real-world. Herreeeeeeeeee's G4

It'll be out soon, this summer. Also, where's my introductory round of applause, RPS? [You're just some interloper with a dangerous beard - Ed]