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Feature: Cosmopolis
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. A mindbending, mesh-distending life sim set in some vast alien abyss, Nowhere is awesome in the way Spore once was before it mutated into an existential Happy Meal. No such danger with this game, though, the husband-and-wife team of Leonard and…
Feature: Dark Horizons
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. Somewhere in the region of the demoscene and modern game jam is Noctuelles, home of mysterious New Zealander Orihaus and the 'strange places' he calls 'games'. Ghostly ‘megastructures’ of stark, sometimes procedurally generated geometry, his Unity-powered projects can seem a million…
Feature: Going Dada
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. It's not every day you find yourself nodding to every comment under a news story, to the point of trolling yourself. But if we pretend for a minute that my buddy's mother does indeed make $68 an hour on 'the internet',…
Feature: Fashion Shooter
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. Not only can I straightfacedly say that I enjoyed playing APB, I even have this document to prove it. Being what felt like a voice in the wilderness back then wasn't what was frustrating, though, it was knowing that the trolls…
Feature:
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. With the galaxy's biggest sci-fi movies using ever more effects houses and artists, it can be hard to pinpoint today's Ralph McQuarries and Ron Cobbs. They're out there, though, often known more by work than name. At the top of the…
Feature: Lawn Of The Dead
An Unexpected Journey: The Life And Dead Of DayZ’s Chernarus
This is the latest in a series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. An irony of Chernarus, the fictional-yet-you-can-somehow-cosplay-there home of DayZ, is that the older the game gets, the younger the map should grow. The awesome ArmA machines for which it was built - planes, helicopters, tanks, boats, guns, the Lada - will…
Feature: Dragonporn
This is the latest in a series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. An occupational risk of Christmas is that the great mead (Jaffa Cakes) hall of my in-laws' living room will inspire me to reinstall Skyrim, post a few fancy screenshots, and sure enough get a few emails asking for some mythical mod…
Feature: A Looking Glass Game
Little China Doll: How Spicy Horse Imagined Alice: Madness Returns
This is the latest in a series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. Alice: Madness Returns is a very special action game, a piece of Lewis Carroll fan fiction conceived by an American (named American, naturally) and illustrated largely by the Chinese, a people not known for their absurdism. Unfortunately it's also a classic…
Feature: Pilot episode
This is the latest in a series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. I promised myself I wouldn't do how-to guides because there's seldom much to say, but this one doesn't count: I don't actually suggest you do this at all. It's a how-not-to, then. A how-ton't. See? Even the jokes are a mistake.…
Feature: Sir Mix-A-Lot
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. When Paul Weir gave a talk at GDC 2011 about GRAMPS, the generative audio system he designed for Eidos Montreal's Thief, the games press took notice. Not so much of the contents, though, or indeed the subject, just Thief. Here, finally,…
Feature: Audioturf
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. In the Tron-like synthesiser world of Fract OSC, dead code awaits the healing touch of the user. Towering polygonal geodes hide the tools for making music, and somewhere in each vast structure is a way to power it back up. Bringing…
Feature: Can Cars Be Art?
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. How better to celebrate 25 years of Mega Drive than on a site dedicated to PC games, via a game synonymous with Xbox-powered coin-ops? Not so fast, RPS! This copy of the seldom-bought PC version of OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast…
Feature: Reflecting On Things
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. Robert Briscoe is obviously not the only great environment artist in games, and it's a bit weird to say he has a singular portfolio after working on just two titles. What makes it a lot easier is if you think in…
Feature: The Art Technology Of MirrorMoon EP
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. The most baffling thing about my favourite game in recent yonks, MirrorMoon EP, is that its creators haven’t played Mercenary. Or Driller, Captain Blood, or any other those great computer games it so resembles. That the likeness is accidental is one…
Feature: The Art Of Fancy Screenshots
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. Games move pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss them. The pretties this week come courtesy not of a particular game, nor indeed me, but of the Dead End Thrills Flickr group,…
Feature: The Art Technology of FEAR
Update: A second conversation with Craig Hubbard revealed a few more details, so I've added them where appropriate. The section 'Mergers And Executions' now talks more about cut villain Conrad Krige and the game's improbable original opening (a car chase), while a new section on its famous radio chatter has been added to the end. In this second of three conversations with the Monolith veterans…
Feature: The Art Technology Of Project CARS
This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills. Grid 2 may have vandalised one for the sake of selling The Most Expensive Game Ever That Isn't This (£125,000 plus whatever it takes to scrape that grotesque livery off), but gaming's real answer to the BAC Mono is the hip,…
Feature: The Art Technology Of Betrayer
The latest installment of an ongoing collaboration between RPS and Dead End Thrills brings you a look at the recently released Betrayer. Just a moment while I stand and address the group. Hi everyone. *deep breath* I am a Monoholic. One whiff of vintage Monolith Productions and I'm back in the throes of a FEAR bender, or in a caravan park somewhere fighting ninjas disguised…
Feature: The Zenozoik Era
This is the first in a weekly series of features about the art and art technology of PC games, in association with website Dead End Thrills. More from Zeno Clash II can be found here. Click the images below for biggies. Punch me in my Salvador Dali and tell me I'm not dreaming. Did just fifteen people really make Zeno Clash II? Of course they…
