Savage 2: A Tortured Soul released

Catching up over the last few days of PC news - I've been deep in IGF nominees and Sins of a Solar Empire - I noticed that Savage 2's been released. The full game's just short of thirty dollars, but you get a full five hour trial to evaluate whether this brand of team-based strategy/action hybrid-thing if you can find the bandwidth to download the about-42-Peggles client. I admit, I haven't played either it or the original, but it's always seemed at least interesting in terms of having separate class-based teams and high-level RTS commanders. Our old mate Tom Bramwell over at Eurogamer liked the original it anyway, and he's not always drunk at the keyboard.

Is anyone playing it? Is anyone tempted TO PLAY IT? Will anyone click the link to see the new TRAILER and associated time-line of highlights with added mild snark and jokes at Walker's expense?

For the latter, signs point to "some".

0:07 – Ooh, scary blood on the logo. Ooh.
0:22 – A black screen
0:24 - A bit more black screen. Get a move on.
0:28 – Fucking hell! It's a big thing with a club. Presumably you don't play the game from this in-front-of-the-player angle. That's the sort of design flaw you think should get worked out during development.
00:39 – Ooh, and a tank-type thing. Looks like the sort of ingenious device Dwarfs would make. Actually, while we're on the subject, have you seen what Lineage 2's dwarfs look like? Males ones look like this. Female ones look like this. Can you imagine them having sex? Well stop it immediately. There's laws against that. It's like a race solely consisting of dirty old men and jailbait.
0:46 – An uninspiring top-down fight between two people.
0:54 – And the tank's been set on fire by what look like goblins. Those scamps.
1:01 – Ah, there's another tank. And another behind him. They do like their tanks. Actually, they have wheels not treads, so aren't tanks. They're armoured cars. RPS apologises, and hides its shame beneath by writing in the third-person.
1:07: Ooh, drag and click interface in a top down way. I hope it has lots of hotkeys, because then Tom Chick would get excited. He sure does like his hotkeys.
1:12 – And a tower being built, probably showing how commanders deal with the economy in game.
1:16 – A floaty, fiery thing floating and setting things on fire. At night, which means its handy he glows.
1: 32 – A thief-looking guy creeps up and (er) does something. The fiery thing explodes.
1:38 – Some top down combat. I wonder if the people playing Commanders enjoy the sense of distance and power, as if imagining themselves in a tower, looking down on the pitiful ant-like people. Perhaps they throw coins down, but when the other players camper to get them, they realise it's only silver-milk-bottle tops. Bastards.
1:54 – And back to the third person thing. A knight running around not getting stuck into the combat right in front of him. Bloody coward.
2:02 – The tank-armoued car thing again, which actually now reminds me of a Warhammer 40k ork battlewagon. I've been thinking a lot about 40k recently though, so that probably doesn't prove too much.
2:19 – Back to the big thing with a club, being shot at by a guy with a bazooka which fires green snot. I now realise the big guy actually looks like Ludo from labyrinth, except shaved and having got some ink done. Probably just a phase he's going through.
2:38 – Some catapults firing at something distant. Frankly, looks a bit boring to be a catapult.
2:56 – A cleric goes “Arise, my fallen brethern” while raising his mates from the ground. Clerics are healers then. Not to everyone - if you play with Walker, do not let him be a healer. He'll be rubbish at it, as he always is.
3:05 – Assasin running around in the dark. Turns the corner and...
3:11 – Shitingcockfuck! It's a Big Balrog thing. Nerf the Balrog!

And that's it. All in all: Looks quite nifty actually.