PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

I missed this video for The Bridge during my roundup of the most interesting IndieCade finalists and I’m sorry that I did, which is why I’m going to share it now. There’s not a lot of information on the game yet, not even a website, but I think it’s safe to say it will have a bit in common with And Yet It Moves. The trailer shows that the game world rotates and then frames the device rather poetically: “The world is much larger when every wall is a floor…” I’m already smitten by the Eschery design and you can be too by watching the trailer, right here. Thanks to Indie Games for bringing my attention to this one.

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Cloud-based (that means it streams to your “device” from the internets, rather than being rendered by local hardware) gaming service OnLive is launching in the UK… now! You can sign up on the site and begin streaming games within a couple of minutes, apparently. The games on offer cost between £1.99 and £39.99, and the “micro-console” which allows you to stream to TVs is £69.99. I am just logging in now and will post some thoughts in a bit.

(Launcher hanging… Hmm.)

Blizzard isn't ready to announce any kind of console version of Diablo 3 -- as in all things, it's taking its sweet damn time -- but game director Jay Wilson is open to discussing the results of the company's console "experiments."

Blizzard has been conducting said experiments, Wilson said, because "we feel that the controls and the style of the game lend itself to a console." And the tests have been successful. "With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I've been 'Oh this feels even better, with direct control...'"

But Blizzard still isn't officially announcing this apparently better functionality for the game, either in the form of a console release or gamepad support for the existing PC version. Wilson made a conditional announcement, however: "I can pretty much guarantee that if we decide to do a console version that we will look to support a pad on the PC," he said. "But initially with release I don't think we'll be ready."

It was a long, interesting process. When RPS put out the appeal for a new writer to plug into the hivemind™, we were never expecting not only the incredible volume of applicants, but the extraordinarily high standards. Over 300 people applied for the position, and in there were many absolutely fantastic candidates. It was not an easy decision by any means, which is partly why it’s taken us so very long. But one writer stood out, in terms of the specialisms we were hoping for combined with just really great writing. He, you may have guessed, is Adam Smith.

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BT has announced that anyone who subscribes to its broadband services will be given three months free access to OnLive's Play Pack, giving them unlimited access to over 100 games. The announcement comes on the UK launch day of OnLive, the cloud-based gaming service that lets players check out the latest top-end games on PC, Mac and tablet...

There are a fair number of games where after playing them, in fact years after playing them, you tip your head back and scream at the sky, “WHY AREN’T THERE MORE GAMES LIKE THIS?!” Ico is definitely one of those for me. So I’m delighted to hear from David Board, an indie developer who is attempting to fill that particular gap. Lifeless Planet is an action adventure that focuses on the adventure, which appears to involve exploring. Oh thank goodness.

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You find some odd things, poking around the dusty corners of the internet. Take Cryptozookeeper, a darkly comic splatterpunk interactive fiction adventure with grisly Pokemon type elements. It sounds like an unholy abomination of game types but for the most part it’s a narrative interspersed with fairly conventional puzzles. The story isn’t conventional at all though. It starts with a courier collecting some alien DNA from a rundown shack containing a large one-eyed man and his pet bear-dog, Puzzle, and swiftly becomes increasingly deranged. Later on you’ll be merging DNA to make battle-beasts even more uncanny than a duckbilled platypus but first you just need to deal with that bear-dog. The game is free to download although there is a deluxe copy for sale, which comes on discs in a box like olden times.

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Paradox are developing a game called Cartel. The timing is interesting, because this is a game of two familiar halves: one real-time squad-based RTS action, the other on a global research and diplomacy map. And it is set in a near-future world of global mega-corporations, or “cartels”, battling for ultimate supremacy. Sound familiar? It should do. This is the antidote to EA’s new Syndicate being an FPS, and Paradox aren’t too shy about it. I talked to Paradox’s Shams Jorjani about what the Swedish publisher is up to, and whether this could be regarded as Syndicate: Total War.

Sadly, there are no images at this time. Boo.(more…)

Something brought up by the article below – in which the way gaming causes us to change our behaviour in the real world is discussed – is quite how brilliant that stuff actually is. It’s the same thrill you can get from watching a superhero film, or being inspired by a character in a book. Those bizarre, often hilarious moments in life, when you’re taken back to a gaming experience. I think they deserve celebrating, so let’s all do that below.

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Did you know that you can’t tell reality from fantasy? No, I’m not a twenty-foot dragon from Saturn, silly! I’m a human. But you can’t tell. I know this because the Metro told me so. According to the free rag, Nottingham Trent university researchers have revealed that gamers get so immersed in fantasy that they are unable to distinguish the real world. So this must be based on a broad, far-reaching study for the paper to make such a statement, right? No of course not. It’s an interview study of 42 people. Which I’ve now read. And has nothing to do with the Metro’s conclusions. So obviously I’m going to take issue with the Metro’s coverage, but then get a little bit deeper when taking issue with the paper itself.

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We mentioned a while back that Epic were developing a number of new games aside from the Gears franchise, and we couldn’t help hoping against hope that perhaps one of them might be Unreal 3. Not so, says Mike Capps. Talking to businesslication Forbes the Epic bossman said: “Unreal and Unreal Tournament continue to have a huge influence on the studio here, even though we’re not currently working on an Unreal IP project.” It’s not the first time that Capps has mentioned the U-word recently, but it’s the first indication that they’re not actually doing anything with it.

Writing in a blogpost on PC gaming journal Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jim Rossignol said “Aww, that’s a shame. But perhaps they are working on something exciting and new! That would be exciting. And new.”

Developer Cyanide and fantasy author George RR Martin seem concerned that people are confusing the Game Of Thrones RTS that their Montreal studio is making (and which is out soon) with the RPG being made by their French studio, which is out sometime in the far future. In fact, as Blues spotted, Martin has blogged about the difference, saying of his experiences seeing the first game: “Just to be clear. This is the RTS game, designed and developed by Cyanide’s studio in Montreal. A second videogame, an RPG, is also under development at Cyanide’s studio in France, but that one won’t be along for a while yet. The two games are very different, so please don’t get them confused.” Meanwhile, Cyanide have released the first fragments of information about the RPG game, which basically amounts to no information and a request that we read other blogs, as look at well two screenshots. Hm. What we do know about the RPG is that Cyanide are saying it has a strong narrative focus, citing Planescape – Torment as an influence.

From plumbers and farmers to ... Noids, video games have a long tradition of elevating blue collar jobs to rockstar status. Now, after eying these new Gunpoint screens, it looks like we'll be adding "electrician" to that list when Tom Francis' secret agent game arrives this Christmas.

As you can see in the prototype video after the break, Gunpoint casts the player as a secret agent breaking into high-security facilities. Though he's good with his fists and has one hell of a vertical, the agent's most notable tool is the Crosslink, which lets him rewire buildings. So, for instance, a guard attempting to use a light switch inadvertently opens a crucial door for our hero, or maybe even electrifies a buddy.

We're not making it sound particularly thrilling, we know. But check out the demo video and the game's brand new look in the gallery below. We're sure you'll get a ... charge out of them.

Because electricity.

Checked your inbox yet today? Blizzard has sent out beta invites for Diablo 3 to the lucky chosen who opted in through their Battlenet account. If you've got one, log into your Battlenet account and download the client now. Like, now now.

Didn't get an invite? Well, first step back from the ledge -- Blizzard will be handing out beta keys through some upcoming promotions and giveaways. So exercise a little patience and just watch a bunch of YouTube videos until your time comes.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

I’m not sure what I want from an adventure game any more. I’m not even sure I want adventure games any more. When I play modern adventures I find them too simple and lament the lost art of the 90s glory years. When I replay 90s adventures I rediscover quite what obscure, obfuscated nonsenses most of them were. With my teenage patience for leaving a puzzle unsolved for days lost, while still wanting to be equally entertained, perhaps I simply don’t fit the criteria any more? Maybe the world really does just want the unending bilge of a lady detective solving supernatural crime, or sexist cartoons that endlessly self-reference. Maybe what I’m left with are the bite-sized portions of loveliness like Machinarium and The Dream Machine. And then I find myself rather enjoying The Book Of Unwritten Tales.

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“Fantasy non-linear turn-based strategy” is the official description. I can’t think of a better way to put it, but it hardly begins to describe the scope and scale of Snowberry’s vast game of space-island conquest.

You may recognise Masters of the Broken World from John pretending he isn’t afraid of strategy games in this post. Since then, I’ve seen this remake of what was formerly a one-man project myself, and have if not total then at least partial understanding of what’s going on in the deep’n'clever build or bash opus.(more…)

Four new screenshots of Cities XL 2012 have been released, and if I can be brutally honest with you – I can, can’t I? – that didn’t excite me very much. The Cities XL games are clearly very good at what they do, but I feel like I was exhausted of city management long ago. And then I looked at the pictures. Blimey, this isn’t Sim City 2000 any more, is it? They’re worth a look.

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Four new screenshots of Cities XL 2012 have been released, and if I can be brutally honest with you – I can, can’t I? – that didn’t excite me very much. The Cities XL games are clearly very good at what they do, but I feel like I was exhausted of city management long ago. And then I looked at the pictures. Blimey, this isn’t Sim City 2000 any more, is it? They’re worth a look.

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I’ve just had my first taste of Arcen’s ambitious side-scrolling exploration game (with crafting, base-building, and perma-death), A Valley Without Wind. The game is still at a very early, unreleased stage, but I’ve spent enough time with it to talk a little about what it is and where Arcen are going with it. You can see my attempts at trying to describe it accurately below.(more…)

Remember Gunpoint, the stealth/hacking/rewiring game from friend/co-arch-nemesis of RPS Tom Francis? In between murdering trees and optimising for search engines, Tom’s drafted in some artists to dramatically overhaul the game’s look, which results in the rather eye-catching, Flashback-y aesthetic you’ll see above (and indeed below). There’s much more imagery and information on how it works and what’s going on in the new shot over at the shiny (i.e. dark) new website, but I’ve embedded the old video below in case you missed it first time. Don’t squeal about the graphics in it. They’ve changed now, remember? Tcch, you kids and your attention spans. TOO MUCH MTV.(more…)

Oh hello. I am back after a lovely holiday. It was the first full week for at least four years that that I did not play some kind of electronic game. What that means, however, is that I now have a pile of stuff to get through: Monaco preview code, Red Orchestra 2, Minecraft 1.8, and some preview code for A Valley Without Wind. Exciting stuff, but not exactly easy on my free time.

Anyway, this thread is actually about you lot. I assume everyone has finished played and replaying DXHR, so what’s next on the reader pile? What have you been playing?

Grand Theft Auto's stint as top dog of the mainstream market is over, says Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter...

Doing something as simple as playing a computer game called Foldit, gamers have helped to unlock the secrets of a protein-cutting enzyme from a virus that resembles AIDS. Though that may not mean much to you, it's a breakthrough that could have real repercussions for those researching AIDS and cancer treatment.

The specifics are ... complicated, but, in short, players of Foldit work together to fill in the parts of research that computers struggle with: namely, spatial reasoning. (Sort of like Folding@Home, only this requires your brainpower rather than unused PS3 horsepower.) This newest collaborative breakthrough is being published in research journal Nature: Structural & Molecular Biology.

While our colleagues at Rock, Paper, Shotgun rush to bring you the heartwarming story, we're distracted by the far more pressing revelation of the study: Games have officially obviated the need for science. That's it, show's over. From now on, when we need an answer to the big questions, we'll make a video game about it.

Leave your pocket protector with Valerie on the way out, Poindexter.

German developers Zeroscale arguably aren’t famous for anything yet, although they did bring us Fantastic Football Fan Party and Germany’s Next Top Model. Of perhaps more interest is Demolition Inc., a cute puzzle action game due to appear on Steam this evening. Having demolished many cities from the safety of my UFO I’m entirely qualified to tell you Wot I Think.

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Cardboard Computer, the indie developer behind A House In California, has created Ruins, a short, desolate game in which you play a dog. Chasing some rabbits. But there’s a little more to it than that.

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There are a great many online free-to-play games that we ignore every day. If we did not, the site would be only covering such games, no one would read it, and we’d all be broken, sobbing messes. But I am not a strong enough man to skip past something called Pony Vs. Pony. Not when there’s a song, too.

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So, it’s bloody Talk Like An Idiot Day. Oh, internet, you’re good at some things, but you’re not at others.

And worse, Talk Like A Pirate Day has now become so horribly commercialised. Remember when it was all just that annoying friend thinking they were being amusingly wacky? Perhaps wearing a novelty eye-patch and shouting “ARRRRRRHHH” until someone punched them? Those original values are lost amongst a bunch of publishers and developers thinking it canny to release pirate-themed news today. So it is that Tales Of Monkey Island is on sale, and Pirates Of New Horizons promotes itself with a video. And there will probably be others too. More details below. (NO NOT “BELOW” LIKE ON A PIRATE SHIP.)

Read the rrrest of this entryyyyyy

White Wolf are holding their Grand Masquerade at the moment, which makes me wish I was in New Orleans. That said, just mentioning New Orleans makes me want to be there so we won’t give White Wolf too much credit. If you’re not aware of them, they’re the company behind Vampire: The Masquerade and other related role playing games. Not the computer versions, mind, but the actual pen and paper, sit around and speak words to each other versions. The Grand Masquerade is their fan get-together and details about CCP’s upcoming World of Darkness MMORPG have been dripping out of it. Dripping like blood, you see?

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Perhaps you’re not familiar with the search for the molecular structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus found in rhesus monkeys. But groups of scientists have been trying to fathom this mystery for years. And it’s just been cracked by PC gamers.

Why is this exciting? Because it’s believed that this information could be crucial to better figuring out how the AIDS virus works, and how it can be tackled. The findings, discovered via the game Foldit, are published online ahead of the next issue of Nature: Structural & Molecular Biology, with the authorship listing both scientists and gamers.

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This week marks the Eurogamer Expo at Earl’s Court in London, an event at which there will be many delightful videogames to see and play – including a raft of top-notch indie titles. Some members of RPS will be in attendance at the show on the Friday at least, but on Saturday we must all flock to Bath as a last ditch attempt to rescue the lady John has tricked into marrying him that day. However, we will also be lurking in an alehouse in the vicinity of the Expo on Friday night, where we will be in the proximity of copious amounts of alcohol/soft drinks and, hopefully, you.

Wanna come along?

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