Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Second Chance Heroes looks like an aggressively silly thing. The basic idea is that modern society has made us terrible at everything, so when, like, 12 different apocalypses strike, we have to clone long-dead historical heroes to clean up our mess of irradiated alien fast food zombots. The game takes the form of a Diablo-esque ARPG, but with a billion outlandish locations and ridiculous characters to unlock. Yes, it probably screams, “LOOK AT ME, I AM GOOFY WARBLE WARBLE MOO” a little too loudly, but at this stage, I’m still definitely willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Trailer with just the right amount of Abraham Lincoln after the break.

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The psychology of being inside a car is kind of fascinating – in a twisted, human-limits-revealing sort of way. We tend to stop viewing our fellow road-hogging compatriots as people, preferring instead to focus on the galloping four-wheeled colossi in front of us. Other drivers become objects, impediments, enemies. Have you ever had one of those moments where you’re honking and raging, and then you finally pass the person ahead of you and briefly see their face? “Oh god,” I often think. “They look so upset. Did I do that? To another person? That’s fucked!” But I keep doing it anyway, because I’m in a soulless metal shell, and so are they. That, I figure, is why street racing games are never about anything other than competition, rivalry, and sticking it to the po-lice. It’s so easy to hate a car, run it off the road, and laugh. Need For Speed Rivals‘ title, then, strikes me as weirdly redundant, in its own way.

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Grave news: The Flare Path has been delayed until tomorrow. But don’t look so sad, we’ve filled its usual 1pm Friday slot with news of a splendid-looking cartoon jousting and knightliness game, Last Knight. The developer lists features of this Unreal-powered adventure as being things such as ” A full-fledged adventure in the story mode” and also “Randomly generated world in the arcade mode (every game is different)”. That sounds intriguing as the game is based on “Jousting, platforming and navigating around obstacles gameplay”.

You can see all that in a video, below. (more…)

IMPOSSIBLY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I run 3-man game studio Big Robot in my spare time. This post is blatant self-promotion of that happen-thing.

We’re busy getting Sir, You Are Being Hunted ready for Rezzed, which means that the playable alpha for our Kickstarter backers is not far away. Part of the work that we’re doing towards that involves new biomes, and I’ve made a video to show off one of those, which you can see below. (more…)

ZOMBIES ARE EVERYWHERE. In the schools, under your refrigerator, buried deep within the collective cultural conscience. Especially that last one, which is probably why a new zombie game gets announced every 0.4674 seconds. That brings us to the current undead re-deadifier du seconde: Dying Light. It comes from Techland and takes place in a balmy, bloody tropical setting, but it’s not part of the Dead Island series. The main differences? Fleet-footed, Mirror’s-Edge-esque parkour and a Minecraft-like survival element. Don’t worry, though: you can still make an electrified machete.

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Guildford-based developers Hello Games have spent the past few years crafting the delightful Joe Danger, but only for those console things. Now, though, they’re bringing their colourful stuntman to PC, and they’re promising a PC version with shiny knobs on.

We spoke to Hello’s Sean Murray to find out more. (more…)

Plush is a game that proves even the most mundane things can be totally terrifying. It is a game about making room on a bed for a little girl’s stuffed animal collection, which is already a better story than the last Call Of Duty. But there’s something about the disembodied voice, the chirpy music, the pink room scheme, the script, and the floppy physics on the toys that makes me want to call an exorcist. Especially the pent-up frustration when she barks “Get off my bed!” at her tanks. You should be safe to watch the trailer, though: I blessed a can of Irn Bru, and I’ve made a cross out of a Twirl. (more…)

Did you wake up this morning feeling more judged than usual? Don’t panic. Just look around the room and see if you can spot the RPS Staring Eye of Judgement? Well done, you have chosen, or been chosen, to take part in our little experiment: the RPS Staring Eye of Judgement will, eventually, monitor your every move to ensure that when you sit down and make a comment on the site that you’ve made the correct decisions in life up to that point. I say “eventually”, because right now it’s just a helium balloon with an eye drawn on it. Could you just drag it around and pretend, maybe making whirring and clicking noises? Thanks! We got the idea from Valve, who’ve decided to hand the matter of CS: GO’s policing over to the community. The sinister sounding Overwatch will be community members who have the power to review cheating cases reported by players and ban those responsible. (more…)

There’s a saying, quoted by the late socialist and storyteller Utah Phillips, that goes:

“Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.”

In light of various confusions and controversies in the wake of the Xbox One announcement, and the many other matters similar to it in this industry, do we really have any notion of freedom in game ownership, and our right to share?

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Since its earliest inception, 7 Grand Steps has been an intrigue among intrigues. For one, it comes from Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble maestro Mousechief, which already pretty much guarantees that the end result won’t step outside the box so much as it will scream forth from it, Hulk-like, in a confetti shower of splinters. 7 Grand Steps adopts a boardgame-style rule set to weave a highly reactive, multi-generational tale – letting you lift a family line from squalor to, well, pretty much whatever you see fit. I’m quite excited to find out what’ll come of my first run, though my real life habits suggest it’ll probably be widespread infamy or being held responsible for one of history’s most destructive fires. Soon, however, I’ll be able to find out for sure, because 7 Grand Steps is coming out next month.

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