Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Kickstarter for Heavy Gear Assault caused some consternation with its focus on multiplayer, so the team have revised their goals against that feedback. The $800,000 base goal now includes: “Episode 1 of the single-player story that makes you a part of Heavy Gear history. This first offline, single-player episode details the initial contact with Earth’s Colonial Expeditionary Force (CEF) and sets the stage for Terra Nova’s bid for independence. Bitter enemies will unite to repel the CEF in what will be known as the War of the Alliance. This gripping first episode will be told through the eyes of military veterans turned duelists.”

How rude. I sidle off to the seaside for a week of sun, sand, and saucy postcard scrutiny and instead of downing tools and waiting patiently for my return, the World’s wargame workshops and sim smithies press on regardless. Combat Mission’s assault on the Gustav Line appears to have commenced in my absence. DoorKickers’ doorkickers are now toting sledgehammers and breaching charges. Blimey, even the forest-furrowingly brilliant Spintires seems to be on the verge of slithering out of the Siberian slough where it’s been bogged for ages. (more…)

I’m in a little bit of a hurry this morning, since shortly I’m heading off to a wedding. Oh God why is everyone getting married, can’t we just be young forever? So many adventures couldn’t happen today. So many songs we forgot to play. So many dreams are swinging out of the blue. We let them come true.

Please visit SavyGamer.co.uk, and here are some cheap games: (more…)

So Microsoft suggested it in an exceedingly casual, nonspecific manner, so shall it be. Xbox One’s infinitely more sensitive (it cries during movies and everything) Kinect is headed to PC as well, and it’ll come with a new SDK in tow. One caveat, though: Microsoft really isn’t expecting you to use it for gaming. Case in point: “Just as the new Kinect sensor will bring opportunities for revolutionizing gaming and entertainment, the new Kinect for Windows sensor will revolutionize computing experiences.” This one, then, will be targeted toward businesses and touch-free apps. Honestly, though, that’s not a huge change from Kinect’s first go-’round in our icy cool land of cybertronic future monoliths. What I’m worried about is the “next-gen” edition’s ability to be keenly aware of, well, everything. If the console version’s a useless heap of Orwellian scrap when not plugged into an Xbox, what’s to stop the PC one from pitching a fit unless it’s hooked up to a Windows 8 machine?

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Fact: 52848202102395 chemicals spill every hour. Another fact: said spillages have resulted in the near-extinction of humanity on countless occasions. Third fact: one such spillage recently caused me to forget the meaning of the word “fact”. Fortunately, Chemical Spillage Simulation will soon be on the scene to save the day. Or teach me to save the day, anyway. It’s about stopping oozing, multi-tendriled sludgetastrophes before they ever happen, but instead of going about it the normal way (time travel), you use meticulously calibrated analysis vehicles, tools, and robots. Be still, my beating heart. Oh wait, that’s just my Geiger counter.

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There is nothing wrong in not being very good at Kerbal Space Program. Being bad at it is a state almost everyone will be in for a very long time indeed. Join me in admitting how tough it is. The elite rocketmen will sneeringly deride your honesty, saying: “It’s not rocket science”, but then you can point to the tube of metal and fuel that you’ve spent hours preparing, and then point to the sky, and it’ll dawn on them that it definitely is rocket science, and that everyone is in fact laughing at them.

Anyway, I’ve spent the day playing KSP and I’m not very good at it. (more…)

Bungie’s ambitious-sounding “sandbox” MMOFPS, Destiny, might not miss out on the One True Format after all, according to words spoken by writer and head of community Eric Osborne. In an interview with IGN he said:

“We haven’t said yes, and we haven’t said no… The more platforms we take on, the more work it ultimately becomes, and what we don’t want is to compromise the core experience on any platforms. We have a lot of people who play on PCs. We have a lot of appetite to build that experience. We haven’t announced it yet, but we’re looking forward to talking more about that kind of stuff in the future.”

So… do we want it? I really do like that concept art… But I am wholly indifferent to the CGI trailer, below. (more…)

Minecraft with zombies is, well, Minecraft, but it’s also pretty much what 7 Days To Die could be described as. It’s a take on the zombie survival theme that also attempts to deliver a world that is as malleable as Minecraft’s blocky elysium. You can dig, destroy, build, barricade, and all that good stuff, as well as doing the shotgun business against the hideous undead. It’s Minecraft and DayZ being entwined after some horrible accident in the laboratory of zombie genre-blending. The developers sum it up, as so many games seem to have been summed up lately, by saying: “is an open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, RPG and Tower Defense style games.”

Don’t take my baseless hum of cynicism as a reason not to take a look at the trailer, however, because 7 Days To Die looks genuinely impressive, and I can’t see this not making a huge impact when it arrives. (more…)

I can see where this going. The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot is going to bludgeon us into submission with a series of amusing trailery missives, until we feel obliged to try it out. It’s is F2P, after all. But actually this latest trailer – the archer – shows a lot more of the game in-play than I’d expected. And it actually looks okay. At least as okay as Craig’s hands-on suggested it might be.

Hmm! (more…)

Shadows are total freeloaders. Don’t get me wrong: they look nice and all, but they don’t really do much of anything. Mine just tags along behind me, growing and shrinking at will, taunting me with its substantial insubstantial superpowers. But what if your shadow could be your superpower? That’s the premise of Contrast, a platforming adventure set in a “surreal 1920s dreamscape”. Your character, a little girl named Didi’s imaginary friend, can shift between the tangible foreground and a wispy world of shadows. The short version? She can jump off stuff she totally shouldn’t be able to jump off. It all looks nicely stylish, because shadows are also effortlessly cooler-looking than us. The jerks.

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