I conceal my love for Distant Worlds quite well by never actually mentioning the game but I do love it, very much. If I actually owned a physical copy rather than a digital download, I’d probably give it a hug occasionally. Now, the gigantically scaled but manageable space strategy behemoth has received a second expansion pack, following last year’s Return of the Shakturi. The core appeal of the game is its representation of a living universe, with the masses of information made vibrant by effective visuals and customisable automation levels. It’s easy to build an empire and then sit back and watch it function in meticulous detail. The Legends expansion should add to that appeal. Details below.

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It seems like the correct time of day to lift spirits with a free, open source economic simulation game that takes place in a randomly generated archipelago. Thankfully, Unknown Horizons is just such a thing and it’s a damn fine one as well. The project was originally intended to be an Anno clone but it has evolved from those beginnings to become its own master. With economics, diplomacy and combat already handled well, it’s already a tiny slice of delicious isometric cake and regular updates along with its open source nature mean all manner of fancy ingredients should be added. Download here or watch a video showing the latest features below.

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Gosh, we’re seldom angered by a developer’s words, but I Am Alive‘s creative director Stanislas Mettra is going some to tempt it out of us. With frankly astonishing arrogance, he declared that his team is not bothering to create a port of the game for PC because “no one will buy it”, even though people are demanding a version. Of course he aimlessly blames piracy, even though being with Ubisoft he has the option to stick so much DRM up its arse no one will be able to play it without his personally coming around their house to type in his password. But then, in a moment of just remarkable hubris, Mettra declares that the “no one” means fewer than 50,000.

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You may remember Cadenza Interactive from Sol Survivor, the tower defense game that captured Jim’s attention last year. They’ve recently announced their second game, Retrovirus. It is, they say, “a modern take on the classic six degrees of freedom shooter”, made only on PC. Ooh, like Descent? we asked when Jim spotted it last week. The moving pictures below help to explain.

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Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this, but one night last week I awoke drenched in cold sweat, my hands gripping the bedclothes as if they were the only viable scraps of flotsam to emerge from the splintered wreck of the good ship Sleep, which had been torn asunder by the crashing waves of doubt and the Kraken of existential angst. The question which plagued me was one which every man, woman and child has asked themselves, often in the hours just before a winter’s dawn when the streets outside are indistinct and all existence seems poised to crumble like a biscuit in a blender. Has there ever been a PC game that captures the noble and exotic art of Capoeira?>

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If you want a single reason why the free-to-play market seems to so attractive to the people interested in making money from games, then take a look at this craziness: Gamesbrief have run a story claiming that Bigpoint’s DarkOrbit game has sold two thousand €1,000 “drones”, which are virtual items that help players in combat. The article explains: “There are different levels of drone ranking up to the 10th Drone. The 10th Drone – also called the Zeus Drone – is very rare – you need to have all 9 previous drones and collect blueprints to make it in the game. Earlier this month, on a total of four separate days, Bigpoint made it possible to buy a 10th Drone for €1,000.” And such is the popularity of the game, that quite a large number of people were willing to buy it. Or at least that’s what publishers Bigpoint claim. Are you one of those people who spent that much? Speak up! And also lend us a fiver.

(Unrelated, does anyone want to buy our mysterious The Tenth Blog Post?> We’ll make it available next week for £79,000? Anyone? You won’t even have had to read previous RPS posts!)

In episode 51 of the RPS Electronic Wireless Show, Jim and John catch up on the events that have taken place in the week since we last recorded. Events like the release of some games, and some games we have played. Those are the events we experience in our lives.

There’s chat about how great Tim Stone is, Jim’s racism against cat people, and we ponder why RPS readers like RPGs so much. John explains why he hates Modern Warfare 3 so much, while Jim moans about BF3′s doors. There’s thoughts on how open we really want our worlds to be, and then, perhaps not surprisingly, we turn to Skyrim. We talk Skyrim’s structure, exploration, quests and peculiarities.

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Playing The Secret World was enlightening but the only way to explore its most secret parts was to sit down with some of the myth-makers who are conspiring together to create this story-led MMO. So I did what was necessary, gathering together three of the minds behind the game and forcing them to talk at me and each other for many an hour. In the first part of this two-part conversation, you will DISCOVER the reason the game is set in the modern day, THRILL to the origins of the secret societies, CONSIDER the difficulty of inserting narrative into an MMO, and PONDER religion and mythology at great length.>

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This isn’t PC gaming news so much as general internet nerding, but it’s a lovely thing nonetheless. I have to admit that I haven’t seen the Google homepage in months, so I wouldn’t have realised that the current logo is an extraordinary interactive Google doodle game thing, had John not alerted me. How did he know? Well, there are a lot of tubes from all round the world leading to his office. He was probably peering down them. [Actually my wife told me - John>] Anyway, the new doodle is the tale of a meeting of robots, and has been put up in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the first publication by brilliant sci-fi author, Stanislaw Lem. Lem is best know for Solaris, which was made into movies by Tarkovsky and Soderburgh, but his influence on sf generally has been enormous, thanks to his prolific and insightful writing and amazing short stories. You should definitely have a read of some of his stuff, if you haven’t already. (The art in the logo is inspired by Lem illustrator, Daniel Mrózh, who illustrated a version of The Cyberiad. Which now, I learn, was even turned into an opera!)

Oh sigh, as soon as we report some balanced coverage of the effects of gaming, of course Keith Vaz appears once more to make everyone feel stupid again. He’s tabled an Early Day Motion to condemn Modern Warfare 3, presumably after some careful analysis to make sure such a thing would bring him maximum attention. Well, actually he’s condemning “Call Of Duty 3″, which is perhaps a bit late. But heck, why know the name of the game you’re wasting Parliament time over? Where he finds time to play all these games between chairing so many parliamentary committees I cannot imagine. Because of course he’s played the game he describes as having “gratuitous acts of violence”, right? More than that, he’s even finding the time to do his own scientific research, because his (as yet unpublished, I presume) study has found that “there is increasing evidence of a link between perpetrators of violent crime and violent video games users.” Which is a remarkable finding!

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