As the ice-god Wulþuz is exacting his revenge on the blasé warm bodies of Britain, it might be a good idea to sort yourself out with a game this weekend. You might get dripped on. You might nearly slip! Why even give yourself the option of leaving the house when you could be inside and away from the icy danger? You could just plug your name into Steam Roulette and see what pops up. Or, if you’re not one of the 1.8 million people that bought a copy of Magicka, then you could pop over to Steam and grab the free weekend. (more…)

The last we heard of The Showdown Effect, the new side-scrolling and cartoony shootybangbang game from the makers of the reliably silly Magicka, was back in April. Now, it’s spooling up its beta-testing mini-gun, and hopes to lure in passers-by by revelling shamelessly in as many action movie cliches as it can conjure up. CONJURE LIKE IN MAGICKA. (more…)

I think we’ve all – at some point or another – turned on the television during a major sporting event and thought to ourselves “You know what? If I really put my nose to the grindstone and trained like a madman, I too could be an almighty elemental demigod wizard.” But that also sounds hard. And to that, I raise you videogames – specifically Magicka, whose WOOT Tournament DLC is mixing Arrowhead’s motley band of magicians with, well, pretty much the only thing left that they haven’t been mixed with: The Olympics.

(more…)

While it’s definitely about time to bid a fond farewell to Magicka’s colourful mages and their crazy spell-slinging ways, we can always find a moment for one of Paradox/Arrowhead’s live-action trailers. In The Other Side Of The Coin, you’re evil. Things are about to get… darkly.

(more…)

More Magicka arrives tomorrow and it’s of the vampiric, necromantic variety. “Being bad feels good” it proclaims in the launch trailer below, to which I must reply that I probably killed more people while trying to be a hero in Magicka than I’ll ever kill by actually putting on an evil hat and setting out to cause harm. I think I’ve sucked all the fun out of Magicka’s jugular already and very tasty it was, but there’s nothing weirdly attractive about this DLC, no Lovecraft or ‘Nam, so it’s probably the first one I’ll pass on. I did enjoy the frolicking pinata ponies though. They were very well done.

(more…)

Run for higher ground, for the deluge has begun. As you may be aware, the GDC is in full swing now, which means announcements of a ludic nature are flooding my inbox and I only need to adjust the intricate series of valves that is my protective system ever so slightly to let them slip through, one at a time. Or maybe three at a time, as Paradox have announced a trio of games.

The first two are Dungeonland, in which three players control heroes in a twisted theme park while a fourth plays the Dungeon Master attempting to kill them, and RED Frontier, a multiplayer RTS. Let’s start with the new game from Arrowhead, creators of friend-murdering simulation Magicka. Going by the name The Showdown Effect It’s a side-on multiplayer action game. Here’s how it looks.

(more…)

Here’s your other piece of Paradox news, via the fine folks of Strategy Informer, and our Jim stuck in the Swedish wastelands without access to a wifi signal: Magicka has sold a shitload. And there’s more to come, with the announcement of a new expansion pack, The Other Side Of The Coin.

(more…)

This is probably old news to you, but it’s new news to me and my ancient Egyptian ancestors told me during my hypnotherapy that the entire universe is just a figment of my imagination, therefore I can post it if I please and if you moan it’s only because I’m imagining someone moaning. Cloud gaming tech Gaikai has been offering streaming demos of various games – most notably Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2 – here and there for a while now, but I’ve just discovered that, over on Eurogamer, you can jump into browser-based slices of Crysis 2, Magicka, FIFA 12 and the Witcher 2.

Update: omigodomigodomigod. There are more demos on the Gaikai site. Including FARMING SIMULATOR. Yes! Also, try this link if you’re being region-blocked on the other. It might work: hard to say without catching a few jetplanes to the other side of the world. (more…)

Arrowhead tell us that Magicka: The Stars Are Left should be available at online stores later today and to herald the alignment of the code, here is a pleasing video. The familiar robed figures are present but the combination of Lovecraftian and noir stylings makes them all the more entertaining, even if they’re not accidentally blowing one another to wizbits. Before the release of the DLC the game engine received what is described as a “major overhaul”. I haven’t had a chance to test that out yet, though I will be trying out this blasphemous content as soon as I get my claws on it.

(more…)

Magicka is free on Steam this weekend. Download, play, if you like it, buy it for the sale price of £1.99. Thought I’d get that out of the way.

I know it’s only been a couple of days since we mentioned the expansion but if you’re rabidly opposed to Magicka and Lovecraft, you’ll just have to skip past the rest of this post. I apologise in advance to your much abused scroll wheels. Your reward for sticking with me is a fifteen minute video that contains two of the developers, right there on your screen>, answering questions about The Stars Are Left. See for yourself.

(more…)