Over the course of my many years as a game-enjoying human fleshcreature, I’ve been on many adventures that could be described as hell raids. I cannot, however, claim to have experienced the> Hellraid – which might also be some kind of lava-themed rollercoaster/water slide/burrito. But now, with Dead Island and Call of Juarez developer Techland claiming hell and the raiding thereof as its professional purview, that’s all about to change. And by change, I of course mean “bear a rather strong resemblance to either devil-thwacking Dead Island or first-person Diablo.” Here’s hoping for more latter and less former. Details after the break.

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We may have reached a point where many developers are attempting to coexist semi-peacefully with the big, bad, money-chomping wolf that is piracy, but that certainly doesn’t make the situation ideal. Pirates are still sauntering away with sloshing tubs of developers’ blood, sweat, and tears, so I think a little (or more than a little) spite is only fair. In the past, that’s meant theft-thwarting failsafes like Batman: Arkham Asylum’s flight-impaired hero and Serious Sam 3′s immortal pink scorpion, but Greenheart’s recently released Game Dev Tycoon might just be the best yet. In short, the pirated version makes your games crash and burn once they’ve hit the market because of – wait for it – piracy.

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I hate Adam Foster, creator of last decade’s rapturously-received Half-Life 2 mod series MINERVA (not to be confused with BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den) and more recently a Valve employee. I hate him not because he is talented, not because he works at a cool place and not because I have a pathological distaste for people called ‘Adam.’ (Smith, you’re fired). I hate him because today he has made me feel SO OLD.

One of the first long-form pieces I ever wrote for RPS was an interview with Mr Foster about his excellent, thoughtful mod, and its fine accomplishments in level design and mood. That was in 2007. Now it is 2013. Six years> later. And I am posting about MINERVA again. He now works at Valve, and meanwhile I’m still typing words into the same CMS, but older, grimmer, fatter. At least I’ve changed my chair twice since then. Something Foster has also done is repackage and spit’n'polish his mod for a well-deserved re-release on Steam today. (more…)

‘Anomaly’ remains a word my brain doggedly refuses to spell right, but fortunately the little red squiggly line in my word processor always knows what to do. One day we’ll hire that guy, or girl. We’re equal squiggly opportunities here, you know. ‘Anomaly’ is also the first word in the name of the upcoming sequel to 11-Bit Studios’ inverted tower defence game, Anomaly: Warzone Earth. The sensibly subtitless Anomaly 2 arrives in just over a fortnight, on May 15, and while we usually don’t post about preorder incentives because it’s a slightly different weapon or a stupid hat or just being bullied by the man in Gamestop, when it’s a free extra copy of the game it’s rather less slight, stupid or bullying. It’s still bloody preordering, of course, and you wouldn’t preorder a car. You wouldn’t preorder a handbag. You wouldn’t preorder a television. You wouldn’t preorder a movie. Actually, people probably do pre-order all those things, don’t they? Political correctness gone mad, I call it. (more…)

Last time Notch competed in a Ludum Dare game jam, he made Minecraft again, only tiny. Also Zelda. And this time around? He, er, didn’t throw his unmistakable hat into the ring at all. But he coincidentally released a game that practically fits the theme – minimalism – to a tee on the same day the competition wound down, so close enough. Titled Drop, this one contains no traces of survival, blocks, or ill-timed creative blocks. Instead, it’s about typing, pulsing dance beats, Super Hexagon, and Notch’s home ceiling. Naturally, I’m expecting it to be the next Call of Duty.

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We all love origin stories here at RPS. Who could forget Doom: Origins, in which it was revealed that Doom Guy’s actual name was Wallace Burgerstance, a man born from the unholy union of a lady Archvile and a nervous sprite-faced man? And what better example of the form can there be than Half Life: Origins – who could have guessed that the G-Man was both Gordon’s MIT post-grad professor and his brother from another dimension? Arkham: Origins may not tickle our fancy in the same way though because it is out of Rocksteady’s steady hands, doesn’t have Kevin Conroy’s Batman voice and actually exists. Let’s have less Origins and more Oranges. Loads of screenshots below.

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“I’m in the front row at New York University’s last “Practice” developer talks, staring at the projector with intense wariness. A trap?”

Walden, A Game could not be any more RPS*. Developed on an arts grant, this is the upcoming tie-in game to Henry Thoreau’s 1854 philosophy book Walden. A book detailing the author’s experience of escaping modern life by living in the woods near Lake Walden, Massachusetts, for two years.

In other words, it’s a first person sojourn simulator.

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We’ve peered at the glitchy, distorted Memory of a Broken Dimension before but an insightful post over at Eurogamer alerts me that a new playable version is now available, featuring the first-person sections that follow the nightmarish command line opening. It does tickle the memories – of DOS and directories – and there is something dark and dangerous lurking between the static bursts and confused mechanics of its shattered world. You can play online or download, for either Mac or Windows, and I suggest that you do so as soon as all of the light has withdrawn from your corner of the world. I haven’t played a game that so effectively uses my screen, mouse and keyboard as the functional part of its fictional user interface since Uplink.

The last time we mentioned the Deadpool game, we weren’t even sure that it was going to come out on anything other than soon-to-be previous generation consoles, but the recent announcement of a release date also confirmed a PC release. The game is out on June 25th or 28th – the exact time you can play it is dependent on your geographic position. Deadpool can saunter across the fourth wall with ease but it takes him ages to cross an ocean. He’s probably riding an inflatable rubber duck and using his own severed arm as an oar. It’s a third-person action game and I’ve popped a couple of videos below, one of which is a ‘gameplay trailer’, except it isn’t, because haHAHAHAHHA.

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The next SWTOR update is all about customization, allowing radical visual overhauls for any and all characters. Nice move, space developers, but what won’t get me playing your game is the inclusion of cat-people. As we all know, the inclusion of cat people in any franchise (we’ll omit Thundercats for now) is an admission of creative bankruptcy. Yes, even in Elder Scrolls games. It’s just not okay. If you are looking around for that other race, the crazy alterative to elves or stormtroopers, and the best you can come up with is a man that looks like a cat, well… no. Anyway, that’s what this next update brings. Not player Jawas, or anything like that. Hell, even Star Wars Galaxies had playable Ithorians.

Grumble. Videos below. (more…)