I found You won’t tell anyone, right? to be one of the most depressing and disturbing games I have recently played. Then again, I do normally tend to avoid bleak, tormented personal narratives as much as possible; even more so when they involve child abuse. Or, well, successfully imply it.
If a joke’s worth telling, it’s worth grinding into dust. I don’t know whether I’m referring to Square Enix still using the name ‘Final Fantasy’ after dozens of games or to me dragging this hoary old jape out every year. “Wake up, joke!” I yell, kicking it in the side. “It’s time for me to tell you.” The joke mutters and closes its eyes tighter. “I will tell you and you will be hilarious just like you always are!” I insist.
Did I mention that Square Enix are porting the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy to PC? Oh. Well, they are.
Happy birthday, SHODAN! The puckish AI with delusions of godhood turned 20 on Monday (as did System Shock, I guess), and would be flattered by what some are doing to celebrate and glorify her. Firstly, a group of System Shock’s creators got together to stream the Looking Glass classic and gas about the dear old gal and their game. If watching isn’t enough, (another) project aiming to remake System Shock has appeared, and it’s looking pretty good so far.
Go take a look at your Steam front page. Huuhhhhhhh?! It’s changed! Valve have launched a major update to how Steam will appear to you. No, you>. They’ve personalised the front page, in an effort to adapt to the far more rapid flow of new releases.
Each Monday, Chris Livingston visits an early access game and reports back with stories about whatever he finds inside. This week, shooting thugs in their mugs and then shooting their drugs, with LA Cops.>
I entered a mansion without a warrant. I shot dozens of suspects dead without identifying myself as a police officer. I destroyed several shipments of illegal drugs that could have served as evidence. And, I carelessly got my partner killed. Since I’m a cop in 1970′s Los Angeles, that’s all par for the course. But I also broke two doors! That’s property damage! Man, the Chief is gonna have my ass>.
I felt a terrible familiar pang watching a tourist whack people with their giant backpack on the Paris Metro during my hols last week. They had the same problem as I do with first-person driving or flying games: I don’t know how to move with all that unseen mass. Unable to drive or fly, I understand first-person views as controlling a me-sized body, so I slam my passenger side into walls and clip my wings on trees. I’m awful at arcade flight game Faceted Flight, but perhaps you might take better to zipping around and flying through rings? I dread to imagine how bad I’d be using its VR support.
ArcheAge is a silly name, and also a new MMO from the creator of the Lineage series. It’s free to play – and from my experience of the first few hours, that’s actually very free – and it’s available from Trion if you go through the joy of installing their new Glyph shop-cum-game launcher. I’ve spent today playing it, and try to fathom why I’ve enjoyed myself despite >everything, below.>
I love a good artillery game and Cannon Brawl just might be a great one. As well as measuring angles and projectile strength, the gorgeous RTS hybrid from Turtle Sandbox has players managing resources and locations across its 20 single player missions. I played an early version and found it absolutely delightful. It’s challenging, inventive and rewarding, and allows you to fire drills from a cannon. Even the early stages allow for flexible strategic approaches, and it’s possible to succeed either by playing offensively or defensively. A fine balance is obviously preferable but levels aren’t laid out like puzzles with a single correct solution. The launch trailer below was fired onto my screen at a 67 degree angle at 45% power.
EVE Online would make a poor spectator sport. Reading written reports about huge battles and stalking Titans can be jolly fascinating, but they’re no fun to watch. Unless you’ve blown up loads of things in EVE yourself, you’ll probably be baffled by giant swarms of little red and blue squares swirling around inside blue bubbles. What’s happening? Where even are the spaceships?
Here, watch Clarion Call 4. It’s a one-hour documentary by EVE alliance Rooks and Kings, looking at the changing face of EVE war through battle footage, artwork, recorded voice comms, and narration.
Last week Double Fine announced that Spacebase DF-9 development was coming to an end. The issue was that hundreds of features that had previously been listed as “maybe possibly” coming to the game were no longer to going to be delivered, replaced instead with the release of the game’s LUA codebase so the community could add content themselves.
People are understandably peeved. Tim Schafer has now commented on the game’s Steam discussion forum in response to some of the common questions about what happened.