Besides being one of the best looking games of Ludum Dare 30, The Lion’s Song also happens to be one of the select few that sport really great writing. And an excellent core storytelling idea; one that has made for some classical short stories and, finally, for a wonderful short game about the quest for inspiration.
Good news for people who like spinning around in their chair. This weekend saw the Oculus Connect conference take place, at which Oculus’ many smart people gave talks about the future and current state of VR. In between talks by Abrash, Iribe and Carmack, Oculus also revealed their latest prototype, called Crescent Bay. It features “new display technology, 360 head tracking, expanded positional tracking volume, dramatically improved weight and ergonomics, and high-quality integrated audio.”
I think I posted those Metal Gear Solid V Tokyo Game Show videos too soon. Not because the first set of videos were in Japanese – this one is too – but because the video released at the end of this weekend has introduces a new companion for Solid Snake Big Boss: a wolf. A wolf with an eyepatch>.
Are there any fans of Falling Skies out there? I have vague memories of a trailer for the first season but it left about as much of an impression as a gnat on a trampoline. As the end times approach for the sci-fi show about the end times that follow an alien invasion, some enterprising developers have released an XCOM total conversion that takes place following “the destruction of an Espheni tower at the end of season 3″. Quite how DreamWorks will feel about this use of their intellectual property is…
Oh. It’s not an XCOM mod. It’s an officially licensed game based on a series about an alien invasion that looks a bit like XCOM. And by ‘a bit’, I mean ‘almost exactly’.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>
Politics and puzzles. Art and animation. Cats and coups. A little bit of little-discussed history that’s all too relevant to what’s happening right now. … [visit site to read more]
Every Sunday, we reach deep into Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s 141-year history to pull out one of the the best moments from the archive. This week, another Jim road trip, only this time he’s cleaning up the mean streets of Street Cleaning Simulator. This article was first published on July 8th 2011 with the title, “Street Cleanin’ Man”, an age before we were all au fait with labour sims.>
Discovering that this game existed was a moment of perverse joy for me. I knew that it would be deeply boring – it really is and that I would have to play it extensively for no reason other than to take joy in being quite deliberately boring. It’s the kind of non-challenge I relish, and I gleefully set about compiling a diary of the events or lack thereof in the life of a simulatory street cleaner.
Read on to find out how I got on with that.
Sundays are for transcribing 20,000 words of interviews long ago recorded, but before I type my fingers into bloodied stumps, lets round up the week’s best wordythoughts about viddygames.
None of the game s characters show distress, and that to me was bizarre it s a post apocalyptic scenario, with a few remaining humans fighting for the survival of their race! To be successful, a player must be the perpetrator of extreme, and highly graphic, violence. I m interested in a more emotionally engaged type of photography, where the human reaction to a scene is what brings a story to life. That was tough inside this game. Occasionally the characters show anger, though generally they re nonchalant about the situation they ve found themselves in. In the end, their emotions mimicked that of the zombies they were killing.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>
As we all know, Half-Life 3 will be released without fanfare tomorrow, but if you just can’t wait any longer for more dabbling with the Freeman arsenal, there’s always MINERVA. Originally a mod but subsequently granted Valve-endorsed standalone status, this was the Half-Life 2 campaign that did a number of things better than Half-Life 2 itself did. So much so that Valve wound up hiring the guy who made it. … [visit site to read more]
Avast, ye – no, I’m not even going to try. But, it is apparently Talk like a Pirate Day and I won’t judge if you fill my comments with growly, ocean lingo. As some of you might already know, I had the distinct pleasure of having fellow columnist Cara Ellison over in Malaysia for a few weeks. I also played host to Aaron Souppouris, a colleague from the Verge. Naturally, both brought plushies to the altar. (P.S: I haven’t figured out a name for the cozily-garbed bear. If anyone would like to contribute a ponder, go right ahead.) Personal updates, enjoy this week’s bucket of bargains.
Space Hulk Space Hulk Space… Hulk? Full Control’s adaptation of the cult classic Games Workshop boardgame turned out to be a divisive experience after early excitement. A buggy launch (though rectified later) didn’t help, but players seemed polarized between enjoying its careful faithfulness and being put off by what some felt was too slow and rudimentary. Rab was very much in the latter camp when he covered it for us.
Last month, the Danish devs unexpectedly announced Space Hulk: Ascension edition, which has a looser, faster, flashier interpretation of the hallowed source material, including adding roleplaying mechanics, revised combat, different types of enemy, many more weapons and a slew of brand new missions. I talked to their lead Thomas Lund about the intent behind this deliberately more ‘videogamey’ standalone expansion, what’s changed both on the surface and deeper down, the critical differences between a boardgame and a videogame, why the two Space Hulks are companions rather than replacements, his response to criticism of the first game, why it had a messy launch and what they’ve learned from it all.> … [visit site to read more]