Normally I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash at some random cross-game promotional effort – let alone dedicate precious RPS Hyper Maturity Space to it – but this time is different. The reason? Two of the dumbest, most laughably enjoyable games I’ve played in ages are colliding, and there is now no way> that last clause wasn’t a euphemism for something, authorial intent be damned. Yes, it’s finally happening: Saints Row The Third‘s infamous dildo bat is invading another game. I know, I know. It’s only a matter of time before it replaces the standard-issue pistol as every game’s go-to default weapon of choice, but for now Shadow Warrior’s caught its purple, pulsating disease. Continue not being able to look away below.

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We haven’t mentioned before now, but the current Humble Weekly Sale is a clutch of Cliffski’s Positech games, which have already netted over $100k, with a day and a half to go. Beers are on Cliffski! (Just don’t mention piracy.) And now a new fortnight-long Humble Bundle proper has launched, this time showcasing the products of the decidedly not indie Deep Silver. Four of their games (including Saints Row 3!) for pay what you want, two more for over the average, and the rather average Dead Island Riptide if you throw in $25.

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The Western Front isn’t as quiet as you may have heard from other sources but the Eastern Front is almost certainly a great deal louder. That’s what Company of Heroes 2 would have you believe at any rate, with a flashy new engine and a great deal of clamour presenting its conflict. But does the long-awaited sequel add anything more than enormous flurries and drifts of snow? I donned my thermal underpants and went to war.>

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News out of IdolNinja suggests that Volition are gearing up to support modding on Saints Row The Third, with potential support for mods on the fourth game. They explain: “Jeff Thompson, the Studio Director of Programming at Volition, is putting together a package for us containing documentation, file formats, tools, and more on the Saints Row: The Third engine. Myself, Minimaul, and gibbed will be working closely with Jeff over the coming months to use this information to create a robust set of modding tools to supplement our existing ones and creating what is essentially a full sdk for the game! But, that’s not all! Saints Row: The Third is only the beginning!” I can only imagine how awesome this could end up being, especially if it really is a test bed for modding support on the fourth game.

Let’s have a look at that Saints Row IV trailer again… (more…)

OK, Nordic Games, the jig’s up. You can go ahead and change your name to THQ II: The Rise Of Mecha-Bilson already, because seriously, you just purchased the publisher’s legacy. Sure, Gearbox snagged Homeworld, and the company’s modern heavy hitters found new, loving homes, but Nordic now (pending court approval) owns nearly everything else>. Red Faction? Yep. Darksiders? Oh, certainly. And oh man, Titan Quest? Sure, why not. Supreme Commander too. And hey, remember Full Spectrum Warrior? I must admit, I – along with my good friend, Basically The Entire World – had forgotten about it, but Nordic deemed the military tactics sorta-sim worth salvaging. Here’s the kicker, though: all those? Only the tip of the iceberg.

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It’s a dark time to be a mulitplayer server. From the day you’re born, you’re living on borrowed time, and that goes double if any sort of sequel has your cushy spot on the rack in its sights. Which brings us to the original Company of Heroes. It’s coming up on its seventh birthday, Company of Heroes 2 is about to drop a fresh blanket of powder on the hot summer months, and a sudden publisher shift threw everything out of whack. It is, in other words, a prime candidate for the big server farm in the sky. But hark, against all odds, there is hope. Relic’s keeping its relics up and running by switching services. So long, apparent Aztec wind deity Quazal. Hello, Steamworks.

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This kinda seems to be happening a bit too soon – don’t open world games take years and years and years to make? – but I suppose Volition wouldn’t want to sit on their hands after their recent dice with death. And heck, this is probably Saints Row: The Third with bits on (EDIT – oh, yeah, I forgot, it is one-time SR3 DLC expanded into a full game. That makes sense), but when those bits include making the player a superhero I’m not complaining. Offering godlike, reality-bending powers is an entirely logical outcome for a series which started life snipping at GTA’s unconcerned heels then increasingly (d)evolved into out and out AAAARGH WOOOO YEAH WHATEVS ANYTHING EVERYTHING LOOK AT MEEEE POO BUM WILLY HAHAHAHAAHHA happy-madness.

Part IV goes further still, and is somehow out in August. Take a look below. (more…)

One of the many unhappy aspects of the death (sort of – the name still exists and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see it return in some form later on) of THQ is that it had several projects really very close to completion when the axe fell. Foremost, perhaps, of those were Metro: Last Light and snow-bound WW2 strategy game Company of Heroes 2, but fortunately (we hope) both have found new homes. Metro’s with Koch, and Company of Heroes 2 is with SEGA, as is all of Relic – making the house of hedgehog, who also own the Creative Assembly, an unlikely bastion of real-time strategy.

COH2 has a new release date – later than planned but not very far away. It is… Read the rest of this entry..

Nah, only joshing. It’s in June this year. (more…)

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. It’s a delightfully optimistic statement, though in truth, it’s not always, well, true. (Note: I mean this in the metaphorical sense. I don’t claim to be an expert on clouds’ relative silver content, as I still believe they’re made of cotton candy.) Case in point: at first, it sure seemed like Darksiders dev Vigil Games would be getting some of said rain in its gothic Death mascara while everyone else found new homes in the wake of THQ’s collapse. But now, that dark cloud within a silver-lined dark cloud has found a different silver lining. On the wings of nanosuit-clad angels, Crytek’s descended to save the day. Or, well, most of it, anyway.

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OK, hold onto the floppier parts of your brain, because this is about to get a bit complicated. So remember how THQ went bankrupt and fell into bed with “stalking horse bidder” Clearlake Capital? Well, the primary intent of all that was to keep THQ in one piece while dealing with that nasty little “having basically no money” thing, but – at the 11th hour – there was a twist. Creditors decided THQ’s all-or-nothing sales approach wasn’t fair to them (it’d probably pull in less money, after all), and a US bankruptcy court judge agreed. So now THQ’s gone from monolithic one-gulp meal to easily chopped up buffet, and rumor has it that a number of major players are interested in various series, games, and franchises.

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