We tease Valve for not making games any more, what with their not making games any more, but it’s really starting to look most peculiar as the company loses its fourth big-name writer in less than two years. According to a Facebook update on Jay Pinkerton’s timeline, he left the company last night. Read the rest of this entry »
Hot on the heels of his hero Erik Wolpaw, Valve’s VR top-dog and grizzled bossman Chet Faliszek has announced that he’s leaving the company. Amicably, he claims, but anyone who’s ever met him will know that’s not possible. Read the rest of this entry »
Cor blimey, love a duck, and stone the crows: Activision have announced that the next Call of Duty game will be Call of Duty: WWII [official site]. Their official announcement says about as much as the leak which gave this away four weeks ago. Another supposed leak has sprung with unconfirmed babbling about unsurprising things like D-Day and a co-op mode. But what’s most important is that ↑ teaser artwork up there. What’s going on with the man we shall assume is named Robert Gunnington? Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Uneasy Ryder
Since the original trailers, some players have had questions about Mass Effect Andromeda [official site] and some of its details. In the name of answers, we present this snippet from the official prequel novel. Available March 28th from all good bookshelves.
From where Director Tann stood, the curves of the Nexus stretched out like the wings of an angel, embracing Andromeda and all its potential. He winced at the thought. Human thought. Sentimental. Shameful. A thought most unbecoming of a salarian, who should have seen nothing but steel and forceshields, aluminium and plastic.
The buzzer rang. Ah. Distraction. How welcome.
“Send him in.” Read the rest of this entry »
What is Crusader Kings II [official site] missing? I’ve been playing again recently, drawn back in by The Reaper’s Due and its perfect simulation of the general snotty sickness of an English winter. I’d never have thought of disease as such an important addition, which is a bit silly really considering the historical impact of the Black Death, and the fact that entire military campaigns could be undone by infection and illness. Disease is important.
So too are religious societies and cults, and that’s what the next expansion, Monks and Mystics, will bring. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Time To Think
Quantum Break [official site] has finally received a proper PC release via Steam (although sadly only Steam so far), rather than the ridiculous Windows Store. (A store that hides where it installs games on your PC, which isn’t something you’ll want with a 70GB game!) I’ve played it through for the very first time this week, and can tell you wot I think of this time travelling multimedia caper.
I do not believe that I shall ever come to terms with the fact that Quake III’s announcer was not, in fact, voiced by Michael Dorn. I believed that to be the case for so long, having been told it was so by someone at university. Watching this trailer for upcoming online shooter Quake Champions [official site], my heart leaped when I heard the familiar refrain in that familiar bass voice: “Excellent.” Worf! You’re back! No. It was never Worf, Meer. It is not Worf now. But maybe it is the original Q3A announcer returned. That would be something. You can hear Not-Worf for yourself in this first in-game footage of Champions, which rather looks like Quake III and Unreal Tournament had a baby. The speed of the former, the more vibrant palette of the latter.
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At 9PM BTS/4PM ET, we’ll find out whether the new Battlefield game is Battlefield 5, Battlefield: More Uncomfortable Police Brutality Allusions, or something else entirely. I’m wondering if it could be something a little science-fictional, in order to go toe-to-toe with what COD is up to. Also, wild speculation funtimes: the seconds-long teaser trailer below suggests that its Big Face Man is looking up at something enormous and maybe a little scary. Maybe a mech? We’re overdue a return to 2142. Although the rest of the internet seems to think we’re going back to 1942 at long last.
Street Fighter V [official site] will run on Linux. There’s a sentence I never expected to write. Through the Steam community pages for the game, Capcom have confirmed that the latest in their glorious series of biff ’em ups will support Steam OS.
“We are working closely with Valve on this endeavor, and will have more details to announce in the near future, so stay tuned for updates. Street Fighter V will also support the Steam controller, and you’ll be able to try that out right away during the upcoming beta test that takes place from December 18~20.”
The beta is open to anyone with a preorder.
Black Desert Online [official site] is an MMO about sprightly, perfect-skinned warriors doing battle with various grimy monsters. The latter part looks fine, but it’s the enormously detailed character creator that let’s you influence those sprightly fighters that makes it interesting to me. After being released in Korea last year, it’s now in closed beta in the west.
Haha, that could be anyone in there. Though if you look really closely, you can just about make out a wince of shame in his eyes. But yes, this is our very first look at Michael ‘Big Boy’ Fassbender in the movie adaptation of Ubisoft’s jumpy-stabby Assassin’s Creed series.
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RPS Feature Sleepy
Niko: Through The Dream [official site] is a ghastly title, but is it a ghastly game? I’ve been wandering through its dream-ish puzzles for a good while, to give you my impressions:
The wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding Batman: Arkham Kerniggut’s PC port continues, as the publisher/developer’s first attempt to improve matters involves essentially telling everyone to turn all the settings right down for the time being, then make do with a game running in 720 at 30 frames per second. Oy gevalt.
So, hardware which many feel should be capable of running the game with most of its bells and whistles on is now deemed capable only of much lower settings, and ones which fall a long way short of the console version. This might be but a short-term measure, but it does feel a little like being told to eat your posh dinner off a paper plate.
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This is a good trailer. It’s a good trailer even though it doesn’t contain even a picosecond of in-game footage. This first ‘cinematic’ trailer for the Creative Assembly’s RTS adaptation of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battles is a good trailer because it’s got a big old dust-up between the Orcs (on boars!) and the Empire (on Griffons!) with a side-helping of Zombie Dragons, dwarfs fighting Arachnarok spiders and what looks an awful lot like mother-lovin’ Tzeentch. I might be wrong in that, but lord I hope not, because Tzeentch has always been my Chaos god, and sadly he’s gotten a raw deal in videogames to date
Anyway, you’ll want to watch this.
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Batman is well known for having some of the best villains in comics, but there are far more that are less well-known though, for one reason or another. Calendar Man for example is a villain whose crimes are related to the day upon which they’re committed. That sounds like the kind of thing I can tenuously relate to news that Batman: Arkham Knight [official site] has been delayed from June 2nd to June 23rd. There’s a new, seven-minute video of Batpunching below.
After a year drifting through the sinister oceans of Early Access, Failbetter’s wonderful Sunless Sea [official site] is released this Friday. Full steam ahead, Mr. Boatswain, full steam ahead. It’s a game of steampunk and Lovecraft, sailing and survival, roleplaying and pint-sized naval combat, wonderful words and terrifying faces. It was one of 2014’s best games as far as Adam and I were concerned, and all being well we’ll be saying the same thing by the end of this year. I looked in on it a couple of weeks ago and all seemed well on course. We shall see, though: a question mark still hangs over the long game. While we all wring hands nervously, let’s enjoy the splendid typography and apocalyptic drum soundtrack of its launch trailer.
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On typing Grey Goo into Google, the search box auto-resolved what I was typing into Grey Goose. Might I have just stumbled across the inevitable sequel to Grey Goo, in which its asymmetrical single- and multiplayer is expanded to include a world-ending race of nanogosling, consuming all matter with their honking beaks? Think on this question, I say, while watching the launch trailer for the Grey Goose prequel, which is out on January 23rd.
The opening cinematic for Resident Evil Revelations 2 is below. Why am I posting an intro to a game that I’ll almost certainly never play? I think it’s because after watching it this morning, I moved from almost complete apathy to mild curiosity – I cannot imagine a single human being who would be the ideal target audience for this video. It suggests the game will contain all of the melodrama and convoluted corporate conspiracy nonsense that has accumulated on the series like barnacles on a hull, but will be entirely lacking in horror or humour. Unless you find the name ‘Barry’ particularly funny.
Hardly any time has passed since the previous Arkham Knight trailer but I wanted to share this one for reasons that will become obvious. It’s all about the car, that being the big new feature and all, and it has managed to eradicate any enthusiasm I had about getting behind the wheel. The Batmobile looks more like a military fetishist’s wargasmic dream (never forget), and in the new clip we see more of its weaponry as it fights an army of tanks. Presumably they’re unmanned tank drones of some kind because Brucey does not seem concerned about the crew. Or collateral damage. It’s more Battlezone than Batman.
The age of “Zelda-inspired” is very much upon us. After the best part of a decade of our being besieged by Mario-inspired platformers, Johnny Indie’s sights are aimed a touch higher these, at Nintendo’s deathless action-adventure/fairy-bothering series. Latest case in point is Animal Gods Reborn, which has just successfully cast its Kickstarter incantation and is now preparing for the dark rite of stretch goals. Set in Bronze Age Europe, it’s all about battling the titular beast deities. And speaking of concepts from the dim and distant past, it’s even got a demo.
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