The demo for Sniper Elite V2 is now available on Steam, having previously been holed up in consoleland, waiting for a chance to break from cover and dash across to nestle inside your tower. Once there, it’ll scan the room for enemies to gratuitously shoot in the spleen. The level provided, which has been specially tweaked for demonstration purposes, does contain some sniping, although I can’t comment on the amount of elitism. There’s apparently a lot more running between cover than I expected, non-sniper gun rattling away, and there’s a bit of sneaking and stealth-killing as well. Then everything blows up.

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I still don’t quite know if Sniper Elite V2 is as open and as stealthy as I’d like it to be. My hope is that it’s a bit like Hidden And Dangerous, just sniper-centric, but then I wake up every morning hoping for that game. This new walkthrough video shows one mission, trying to get an angle to snipe Müller, sliced into tiny chunks, so we’re left with little glimpses through the sniper’s scope rather than a complete picture. I want to know the choices made, the potential for the player to tell his own snipey story, but there’s not enough here. There’s some talk of recreating the places accurately, so it could be there’s enough open space to move around in, but until I know ‘ja’ or ‘nein’, I’m remaining snootily interested. I’ll have to wait for Brendan’s upcoming hands-on to know more.
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What better way to start a Monday than with a new trailer for the “reimagining” of Nexuiz, an arena-based shooter that aims to resurrect warm memories of killing friends in improbable environments? Maybe a preferably beginning would be a stroll through Montmartre, ending with a fresh coffee by the Seine as conversations erudite and elegant intermingle with the aroma of freshly baked bread? Unfortunately, that’s not going to be happening, so instead let’s all feast our faces on a short video that demonstrates some of the many mutators on offer in IllFonic’s ill-titled slice of deathmatchery.

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Edit: The video is below now.

Perhaps not the most catchy of names, Nexuiz has just been announced as receiving a publishing deal from THQ Partners and Machinima. And thus into the public gaze it heads. IllFonic’s CryEngine 3 game is an FPS “reimagining” of the game’s previous incarnation when released by Alien Trap in 2005. Then it was intended to be a GPL shooter, free to play, and free software, available on PC, Mac and Linux. Original designer, Forest Hale, has moved over to IllFonic for the project, currently suggested to cost $10 on release, which we can probably assume won’t be equally as Free with Crytek’s code underneath. And it’s a properly mind-bending concept.

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Last time we brought you news of Counter-Strike: GO (go go!), we were able to show you nine new images from the game. Nine! That’s a lot of global offense. This time, prepare for an offensive overload because there is over an hour of footage waiting for you below, in the form of a competitive match between the United States and Europe. I wouldn’t spoil the ending even if I had managed to watch the whole thing, but I have found myself riveted to it for a while – partly to stroke my chin and pretend I’m picking up on every difference, no matter how minute, but also because I’m keen for the Old World to represent itself well in the ancient and storied sport of man-shooting. Scarves, rattles and chants at the ready…

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Having been away on my honeymoon for nearly two weeks, and thus not paying much attention to videogames, I’m feeling out of touch. But I’m not sure that can account for my not having realised that a group of ex-IO Interactive founders left the company in 2004 to restart their old development team, Reto-Moto. The company was officially re-announced in 2008, and only now, forty-seven years later, have they offered footage of their first game. It’s called Heroes & Generals, and I’m having some trouble working out exactly when it was announced. Eurogamer are calling it as today. Wikipedia suggests (without proof) that it was September 2010. But then the game’s forum seems to have been alive as early as May 2010. Oh, and there were in-game shots in April 2010. But what’s important today is there’s now footage. Well, there has been since the 7th October, apparently. But I was on holiday.

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