Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Nathan Grayson on September 25th, 2012 at 10:00 am.

Hey everyone, Slenderman’s back! Again. Also, he was never really away, seeing as he’s always right behind you and – seriously – he never went anywhere. After redefining the phrase “anatomy of fear,” Slender spawned roughly 300 (just kidding: actual number is one gazillion) imitators of varying quality and, er, existence. But now, original developer Parsec Productions is on the comeback trail – this time with a full commercial release. I have to wonder, though: How far can this go? I mean, Slenderman’s overnight fame precedes him. At this point, what’s left for him to kill aside from the element of surprise?

Read the rest of this entry »

By Nathan Grayson on September 25th, 2012 at 9:00 am.

When last we checked in on abstract, kind-of-Mysty walk ‘n’ gawk Kairo, it was supposed to be out before the end of the year. That year was 2011. It is now – according to my well-placed sources (I just moved my calendar; it looks incredible now) – no longer 2011. Fortunately, based on the demo I just played, it’s turning out to be quite an impressive piece of work, and the full game’s right around the corner. Specifically, it’s launching in October, but you can watch a new-ish trailer and try the demo right now. Heck, you could even do both at the same time if you really wanted. I’m not exactly sure why you would, but the option is available.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Adam Smith on September 24th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.

Earlier, at Revolution Software:

Jimmy Wordsmith: If our Broken Sword Kickstarter raises $1 million dollars, I’d love to work on a sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky!
Ian Programmer: I would love to do the programming. BASS is one of my favourite things ever.
Penelope Management: Haha. We only made $800,000 so forget it. We’ll all work on something we hate instead of returning to a world we love.
Jimmy Wordsmith: Or…we could just make it anyway.

And so they will, after Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse is finished. Actual quotes below.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Adam Smith on September 24th, 2012 at 6:00 pm.

Killing Floor knows all about mods, having been one itself. They never tidy their rooms, leaving files scattered all over internets and hard drives alike, and trying to organise them is like trying to herd cats. The multiplayer horrorshow is gathering all its mods in one place, the increasingly active Steam Workshop, which should make keeping track of maps and modes much easier. Tripwire will also be adding Steam Workshop support to Red Orchestra 2, which is receiving a paid for expandomod by the name of Rising Storm. I’ve got a load of notes about that which I shall compile later this week. There are booby traps, flamethrowers and kamikaze bayonet stabbings, all of which I approve of in games though I frown at them in life.

By Alec Meer on September 24th, 2012 at 4:07 pm.

Aha! If you’ve been fretting about whether XCOM Enemy Unknown is the second coming or an act of outrageous vandalism, now you can – partially – find out for yourself. A two-mission plus base-browsing demo has just arrived on Steam, which sounds like it’s primarily tutorially but should give you a flavour of Firaxis’ 21st-century reimagining of the classic 90s TBS. Get it from the link on the right of this page. Be warned it’s a chubby old six gigabytes, however.
Read the rest of this entry »

By Alec Meer on September 24th, 2012 at 4:00 pm.

Here’s a fact of a life: when a large corporation (for instance, a games publisher. For instance, EA) buys up an exciting, highly-respected smaller, independent firm (for instance, a games developer. For instance, PopCap), the following process will invariably happen:

1) Happy, positive talk of independence, unfettered creativity and bright futures from both sides
2) A gradual shift into having that developer do what it’s told, rather than what it wants
3) Redundancies at or closure of the developer once it doesn’t look to be providing a suitably enormous return on the obscene sum paid to acquire it in the first place
4) Repeat

So, best of luck to all those who sailed in the good ship PopCap Dublin, which newish owners EA closed down today. Edit: Though apparently it was “the PopCap leadership team” which pulled the trigger on this.
Read the rest of this entry »

By Adam Smith on September 24th, 2012 at 3:00 pm.

The demo for Anna’s Quest contains a single puzzle that is solved in a few simple steps but there’s plenty of dialogue to pad out the length. I ended up clicking through most of it, reading rather than listening, because I’d rather hear the voices in my head. If this were the nineties, I’d be opting for the unvoiced floppy disc version rather than the shiny, shiny CD. The setting is something of a Grimm mashup, with superpowers and speculative machinery thrown in alongside the witches and woods. Anna’s special ability could allow for some clever puzzle design, but the demo, in its single room, is a bit too restrictive. Trailer below.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jim Rossignol on September 24th, 2012 at 2:00 pm.

Cortex Command is a recipe book for robots fighting each other across a 2D landscape. It is brilliant, it is difficult, it is awkward, it is ludicrous and fantastic. It’s one of my favourite indie projects – long hampered by tortuously slow development over many years – and I am pleased as punch that it is now about to find itself on that vast steambotic behemoth of a distribution platform. Data Realms have been working on the campaign setting quite intensively – we had a brief look at it some months back – and that’s what will roll out with the 1.0 Steam version. There’s a video detailing the new meta-game which is overlaid on to the familiar physics-heavy tactical game. Massive 40-minute preview video below, dominated by an explanation of the strategic game. Skip to around 35 mins for serious tactical action bit, although the dev’s voice is getting drowned out a bit by that stage.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Adam Smith on September 24th, 2012 at 1:00 pm.

I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of Pandora and I’ll never actually shoot the handsome off Handsome Jack’s face. I like finding weird guns but actually shooting my way through the missions feels like sticking my head into a beehive. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZZZ, go the bees, and even if I manage to eat some honey while my face is being perforated, I’m still going to have a headache afterwards and there are a lot of dead bees piling up around my chin. I certainly don’t feel the need for more Borderlands 2, but for those who do there’s that Season Pass. Four episodes of new content for £19.99. And there will also be new characters and vehicles to buy. Those won’t be included with the pass.

Read the rest of this entry »