During EA’s E3 press conference last night there was one moment that was by far the most extraordinary of the evening. Rod Humble, the man in charge of the Sims, came out and began to lecture on free will. The corporate reason for this was the announcement that The Sims 3 is to come out on consoles this Autumn – not something we need to concern ourselves with, unless the changes and improvements of the console version are not also updated into the PC version. But that’s a concern for another time. Because as far as we’re concerned, this was a glorious moment of sunshine amongst the usual pomp and explosions of a gaming press junket. You can watch it below.

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The previously covered Dogfighter has launched on Steam for last night, at 25% off until June 21st. That means you can have it for nine – count ‘em! – pounds. I bring it to your attention mainly as everyone who got into the beta will be able to play the game until Wednesday, so you can see how the game ended up and see if you want to buy it. It’s like a very exclusive demo or something. Also, as a note to RPS subscribers – there’s still a few beta codes left in that Subscriber-codes site I mailed out prior to the main distribution, so if you fancy seeing the finished game, you can go there and grab one (if you haven’t already (Because if you try and grab another one it won’t work. And that’s very greedy anyway)). Er… that’s enough parenthesis. Here’s the trailer? (more…)

More UDKosity! Maglev is a capstone project for students at Guildhall SMU, and is a short comedy puzzle game about a robot with a love for a toaster – and toast, understandably – and some troublesome french-bots. Which is all style. The meat is its puzzle mechanics, based around the two forms of magnetism – red and blue [Are you sure about this? - Science Ed>]. Use the red field and you’re attracted to red and repelled from blue. Use the other, and the opposite happens. Also works for coloured energy beams, leading to entertaining destruction by beaming electricity arcs at your foes. It’s like being a hypercute magneto for 20 minutes, basically. Its influences are a little obvious, perhaps – Portal, Wall-E, South Park and Monty Python – but they’re all good influences, they pull it together into something with its own charm. And I’ll forgive a lot for the wonderful surrealism of an Eiffel Tower floating in orbit. The only problem is that the game’s only on rapidshare, in two .rar’s you’ll have to download separately. Still, if that sounds like too much effort, I recommend the trailer.

EDIT: Alternatively, you can find it on Guildhall’s site for a direct download. (more…)

If there’s one thing we know about Vietnam, it’s that the scenery is destructible. It makes sense, therefore, that Battlefield Bad Company 2 should be taking a trip there for the purposes of a multiplayer expansion. DICE say: “Featuring four new maps playable in classic Battlefield modes including Conquest and Rush, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam will be available worldwide this winter.” There’s no price been announced as yet, and – for what it’s worth – I’ve posted the essentially content-free teaser trailer below. (more…)

It’s been a while since we’ve had a cerebral short-form indie platformer we could throw our weight behind with an unreserved recommendation. It’s a bit – as its creator Alexander Ocias says “confrontational” – but in a good way. It’s got the sort of meaningful choices interlaced through it which Fallout fans are always crying out for, has a genuinely oppressive atmosphere and at least a couple of killer endings depending on which way you choose to go. As a meditation about control and free-will – which is what I’m going to say it’s about – it’s really quite excellent. Also, jumping. You can play it here, here or on Alexander’s site here. I’ve played it a couple of times already, and I suspect I’ll go back for another one to try a few more choices.

Also standing out, primarily for not being for the Kinect, is some footage of Crysis 2. (There’s lots more worthwhile games too, to be fair, which we’ll look at tomorrow.) Which looks pretty damned stunning. It’s apparently going to be a mixture of mission-structured shooter and sandbox. A sort of pick-your-own crazy battle town. There should be more clarity about all this over the next few days. Meanwhile go coo below.

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The noise! The noise! Make it all stop! Last year’s E3 Monday saw me safely hidden on an aeroplane from Seattle to LA, having just fished out the big scoop on Left 4 Dead 2. And how pleased everyone was! This year’s E3 Monday sees me in my house, writing They’re Back for PCG a day late. How times have changed. But in filtering through the noise of Microsoft’s daft-looking Kinnn3ckt, or whatever it’s called, Ubisoft’s announcing thirty-million games, and EA shocking the world by announcing there’s to be another Need For Speed game, came one loud cry: “Where’d this giant dick come from?!” That was Bulletstorm.

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That Doctor Who game: a fantastic promise but ultimately an unhappy time. All that exciting adventuring we saw in the trailers and in the interviews, only to be realised as repetitive and frustrating minigames, clearly made for a gamepad. I don’t wish to twist the knife unduly – it is, after all, a free game, a very welcome bonus for UK TV license-payers, and one of painfully few attempts at sending the Doctor to the one universe he’s never really sussed out. Even a poor meal is something to be grateful for when someone cooks it as a favour.

So I come here not to bury Dr Caesar, but to praise what he could be. Any future Doctor Who game has to keep only one thing in mind to be on the right track from the off. (more…)

Mass Effect 2 is a game that some people thought was okay. If you haven’t played it – and you might not have done, what with all that stuff you were doing – then it’s a good time to play the demo. Demo? Yes. Here’s what the digital mouth of EA/Bioware say about that “demo”: “In the demo, players step into the role of Commander Shepard and must escape from a Cerberus space station under siege. Players can jump ahead to a later mission where they must rescue Subject Zero, a hardened, dangerous criminal from a heavily guarded prison ship. Once they play the demo, players will be able to create a save and carry over their character along with the experience points, story decisions, achievements and weapons earned into the full version of the game – picking up right where they left off.” It’s right here. It is 1.87gb.

So that’s that. There’s also some new DLC out tomorrow, and that’s called Overlord, and that apparently has “five levels set across one story on one planet”. I’m going to pick it up, and maybe, maybe finish playing through Mass Effect 2. No, really, I’m still on that. What can I say? There’s all this stuff I’ve been doing.

I spotted an advert – one of those MMO ads with a lady in her bra that you see on games sites that are yet to implement their new ads deal. It was for free-to-play MMO, Rohan, which boasts that it is a “mature game”. Intrigued by what this might mean I clicked. It doesn’t, as it turns out, mean it features characters facing up to the fact that they need to make a will, investigating ISA options, or replacing the oil in their car before the light comes on. It means bikinis.

But, more importantly, a rap. Oh my goodness yes.

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