Tripwire is set to release a new free content pack for Rising Storm – the Pacific Theatre cousin of Red Orchestra 2 – and it’s called Island Assault. The name implies much. I had a play with it over the weekend, and I’ll tell you about that experience, below. (There’s a trailer, too!)

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Red Orchestra 2′s Pacific-theatre standalone expansion, Rising Storm, appeared last week and offered tough-as-nails World War II multiplayer for the discerning FPS player. I waded on to its tropical beaches with my rifle above my head. Here’s Wot I Think.> (more…)

Rising Storm - a quasi-sideways-sequel-but-also-merger with the splendid Red Orchestra 2 – has been released. As you might expect, it’s a multiplayer FPS where US Army and Marine Corps battles the Imperial Japanese Army across the Pacific theatre.

I’m planning on spending a little time with this – I’m generally reminded of why I always get a kick out of this series of games, particularly with the asymmetrical nature of the two factions, as well as suppression and morale stuff. Anyway, more on this soon, so in the meantime go watch the launch trailer below. (more…)

Red Orchestra 2 occupies some space on my hard-drive. I keep it there, along with Sniper Elite V2 and Build & Shoot, to satisfy a basic need I have to shoot at a tiny cluster of pixels in the distance and hope that their widows are weeping come the end of the round. I’m not a super expert at it, but it’s satisfying enough for me to keep my sights trained on the upcoming Pacific-based Rising Storm, Tripwire’s mod-gone-pro expansion thing. (more…)

Tripwire are having a busy weekend, with the announcement of Killing Floor’s now-traditional Christmas spectacular, and a free weekend on Steam for Red Orchestra 2. This Christmas’ Killing Floor event is IN SPAAAACE, which puts robots and Evil Santa on the moon (a free map with Christmas-themed baddies). Could anything be more festive? Watch the trailer below, and decide for yourself.

R’ochestra meanwhile is free from now until Monday. It’s a fantastic, rumpled bastard of a game. Worth a few squeezes of the mouse button. (more…)

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.

Tripwire have released a bunch of footage of Rising Storm, narrated and explained by the lead dev. It shows some of the extremely diverse maps, as well as the combat in those environments. There’s some great detail in there, showing features such as Japanese riflemen using their grenades as boobytrap mines. Oddly, Heroes Of Stalingrad multiplayer is going to be included in this expansion, which basically means that by buying Rising Storm you’re going to get the meat of both games for free. That might raise a few eyebrows among the existing Red Orchestra onwership. Anyway, detailed nine-minute gameplay trailer below. Take a look! (more…)

Killing Floor is an acquired taste, or at least it was for me, like chugging down a bucket full of rust and blood, with accents so dodgy they’d taken on form and floated atop the grungy broth like cockney croutons. Where Left 4 Dead directs the players’ progress, toying with them, Killing Floor has the player run around in circles, waggling their most succulent parts at the mutants and freaks, encouraging pursuit. Crowd control, herding, elimination; it’s a butchery simulation with cattle that bite back. This summer’s special event, the Summer Slideshow 2012, adds new levels, enemies and guns. The trailer would have given me nightmares when I was a boy.

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Game development hint: if you’re going to place your game in a real setting, make it an island paradise. That way you can claim a holiday on company expenses. I’ll bet the developers of this officially supported mod have spent the last six months laughing it up in the Pacific while they brought Iwo Jima into Red Orchestra 2′s chilly war. The Rising Storm team are suntanned and well-rested, and celebrating their jaunt with the dramatic trailer of their work we present below.

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Red Orchestra 2 SDK at night, modders delight.> THAT should have been my headline, but alas it did not fit. Tripwire explain that these tools are now available to everyone who owns the game: “While the limited functionality preview versions of the SDK have been available to select modders for a while, this release now makes the full capabilities of the Mod SDK available to everyone. Users can now make and publish everything from simple mods and mutators, through custom maps and on to full total conversion mods.” The chaps at Tripwire also point out that there are already some mods in progress with the pre-release SDK: Rising Storm, In Country Vietnam, and Iron Europe.