Gameworlds have become ever-more lavish, but has there been a dark price paid for this? Craig Lager believes so. Production values are up but these worlds don’t seem to react to players’ actions as fulsomely as they once did, he worries – are we allowing games’ strange logic to take us for granted? But there is yet hope. Frowned at: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dragon Age II, Skyrim. Smiled at: The Witcher 2, Dwarf Fortress, Outcast. Please note these are Craig’s views, not necessarily those of RPS.>

In my version of Human Revolution, the police station should be surrounded. There should be SWAT teams, negotiators, probably even an evacuation zone. Adam Jensen’s face should be being projected from every single screen that litters Detroit’s streets as Eliza explains him as being a more-than-prime-suspect in a new, horiffic incident. An hour ago, she would explain, Jensen asked for access to the police morgue and was declined. Now the back door has been broken into, and a path of corpses and hacked computers lead to the morgue in which a body has been clearly tampered with. Instead, Jensen walks into the main lobby and is greeted with “Hello”. (more…)

I don’t know if anyone bought the first Real Warfare game, but I suppose they must have done because otherwise it’s very unlikely that a sequel would have been made. What I do know is that it was very difficult to watch videos of the game in action and not shout “it looks like bloomin’ Medieval Total War”. There was an awful lot of medieval and an awful lot of bloom. Whenever a sword glinted in the sun, retinas were scorched and unshielded eyes risked turning into raisins. The sequel doesn’t dispense with this but it does add a strategic map to the first game’s tactical combat, which should hopefully allow for more varied scenarios. As the trailer below informs, the game is set in “the Medieval Europe”, following the Teutonic Knights as they conquer Prussia.

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Minecon is done and dusted (no, we weren’t there – the RPS private zeppelin was in for servicing that week, so we couldn’t make it out to Vegas). Anyone go? If not, here’s a taste of what it was like, with the lavish, jokey keynote speech – featuring a history of Minecraft, a specially-commissioned animated short film documenting a day in the life of Steve, amateur dramatics, and appearances from all sorts of folk, including that woman with the pink hair, the Yogscast chaps and some guy in a hat called Markus. While witnessing such fervour around an indie game about building stuff is more than a little odd, it’s all very sweet and genuinely celebratory. (more…)

Anno 2070 came out on Friday. Did you see? It’s Anno, but in the future! Although I’m now so used to having ridiculous year names from science fiction like “2011″ that I can no longer register “2070″ as sounding that far away. Heck, it’s reasonably likely I could live until 2070. I think futuristic sounding things now require at least a “2200″ century, if not ideally the third millennium. Please take note. Anyhow, the Anno launch brought with it an Anno launch trailer, which is below. And I believe one of our number is currently playing the game in order to let you know what you should think about it.

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The footage from the event, which is live for another six or so hours, should be found below. There’s been a bunch of furious Starcraft II matches going on, and I believe right now it’s the aftermath of a game between between Huk and NaNiwa which heralds the second slot for the semis. (more…)

By day Sam Redfern is a mild-mannered IT lecturer at the National University of Ireland in Galway. But at night, he creates and maintains his own one-man apocalyptic vehicle MMO. It’s called Darkwind: War on Wheels and consists of a two-tier game, with a web interface for social and economic interaction and a 3D racing/shooting action engine. We caught up with him to find out how he copes with the project on his own. > (more…)

Sundays are for wondering if you will ever sleep again, while cradling a steaming cup of hot drugs. Perhaps, in those grey autumn hours before the sun has managed to struggle out of its own slumberings, you will start going through the week’s writings about games. It’s been a good week for that, at least.

• Chris Dahlen’s piece on imaginary games journalist Rachael Webster is quite the thing: “This was the one big hiccup in the project: nowhere on the site did we advertise that Rachael wasn’t a live girl. Alternate reality games are a special illusion that only works if the audience discovers the trick. The worlds they build aren’t stuck in a television screen, or cheap and obvious like the backdrops at a miniature golf course. They’re pervasive, delivering their fiction straight to your everyday world—to your email, your phone, even to spaces in the real world. They’re fiction without borders, and they can make the player feel as if, to use the most common expression, they’ve “fallen down the rabbit hole.””

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Blue noticed that Radical have put out a trailer detailing their approach for New York in Prototype 2. The so-called “NYZ” will be far more detailed this time, with the city divided into three zones, allowing them to increase the visual fidelity and density of detail in the city. There’s loads from the devs and a bunch of game footage in the video, which I have posted below. It’s looking more and more promising.

(Echoes of a BLDGBLOG article wot I wrote.) (more…)

Helklo youse.

It’s four in the morning and I am reallky really drunk. I will try to fix the typos as I go, but I think it would be dishonest of me to entirely clean this page up. Some of the stuff should re4main intact to speak truly of my condition as I bring you this column.

It’s a columhn about my list abou the best games you can be deciding to play when tou are drunbk. (more…)

I hope you’re all after some cheap games for your computer boxes, because that’s exactly what I’ve got. Here’s your weekly record of the best value gaming offers from across the world of PC gaming, it can only be the RPS Bargain Bucket. There’s tonnes of variety in this week’s selection, I reckon must be something for everyone here, but if you don’t spy anything that grabs your attention, you can always head over to SavyGamer.co.uk for a constantly updated digest of gaming deals across all platforms. Read on for this week’s selection. (more…)