We sent Craig into what I can only assume was the heart of a diabolical sandstorm to take a look at Spec Ops: The Line. Despite misgivings, he admired the impressive spectacle, most of which seems to be due to the game’s setting in a decaying and sand-suffocated Dubai. A new trailer, which shows a fair bit of gameplay, does manage to impress with its sense of scale. There are towering, shattered buildings and a beach’s worth of sand being dumped onto unsuspecting enemies. That goes along with some cover-based shooting and some excessive violence, including a foot stomp that Isaac Clarke would be proud of. Put on your shades, then take a look.

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Dear me, I wasn’t paying attention yesterday. Remember that we told you about the excellent trailer for a Left 4 Dead fan-made film, that to my eyes at least look Hollywood scale? The full 10 minute version is now there for you to see. And by “there”, I mean, “just below these words”. It really is remarkably good.

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Fancy a game of Star Wars: The Old Republic? Well tough, because the servers are all down this morning until 12pm, for scheduled> maintenance work. And this isn’t the first time. In what appears to be a very strange decision for such a high profile game, European servers are all being taken offline for hours during the daytime, for a game that’s only just launched. And even more strange – doing this takes down the entire www.swtor.com website too, meaning anyone wanting to say, learn about the game, can’t. And then you notice this is an international thing, and Europe starts to look a little unloved.

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I do like destroying things. Buildings, hope, people’s lives. So I’m immediately drawn to Nitrome’s Rubble Trouble Moscow. You may remember the original Rubble Trouble in Feb last year, and apparently there was another one between then and now. This one is Russian themed, in so much as the characters are wearing hats, and the music is a bit Russian. The actual game is still blowing up buildings using a constantly changing arsenal of strange weapons. Now including tanks, dancing bears and gymnasts. And it’s still good fun, apart from a frustratingly drifty camera, and a game in a box which doesn’t capture your cursor. Which is annoying. But fortunately the rest of the game isn’t, and is infuriatingly morish. Even though I’m currently stuck on a level and getting increasingly frustrated.

Earlier this month, Valve made a video of Wheatley talking about his nomination in the ‘Best Character’ category of the VGAs. The Joker actually took the award, which seemed disappointing at first, since he’s a decades old character who even in this incarnation is appearing in a sequel, while Wheatley is quite the original. Then I noticed that the other two entrants were Nathan Drake and Marcus Fenix, appearing in the third games of their respective trilogies. The awards mean diddly squat, but I was a little disappointed about Wheatley missing out because it meant we all missed out an an acceptance speech. No more! Here’s what he would have said.

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Polite notice: THE CODES WORK FOR NEW EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN REGISTRATIONS ONLY. If you are already a WoT player they won’t be much use to you. Unless you want to get a chum involved or whatever.

Anyway! If our interview with the producer from World Of Warplanes got your pseudo-World War II PvP glands engorged, then you might want to try their original game, World Of Tanks. We’ve got 1000 starter codes to give away, which will apparently boost you on your way into the game with a free premium tank, one day of full premium play, and 300 gold. To to claim a code you have to be logged into RPS. If you click here you will automatically> claim a code, and also get to see the sign up instructions.

Planetside 2‘s launch creeps steadily closer, and SOE have quietly gone and relaunched the website to contain a bunch more information and the beta registration page. You need an SOE account to sign up, of course. Thanks to Planetside Universe for this, who also note this phrase from the new details on the revamped official site: “With air, ground and seaborne combat, the battles will be larger and more intense than ever.” Could there be boats this time? Or are they just referring to the odd hovertank? We shall see!

I’ve not put anywhere near as much time as I’d have liked into Rob ‘Squid in a Box’ Hale’s graceful-but-frantic twin-stick shooter Waves, which has built up quite a following in recent weeks – as well as snagging the coveted RPS ‘best use of the Unreal engine’ award at Indievisibility the other week. I did, however, discover the other day that it runs rather well on my laptop’s integrated Intel graphics thinger, so I expect to spend a fair bit of time shooting shapes while hiding in the bathroom from my girlfriend’s extended family over Christmas. (That’s ‘shooting shapes’, not ‘shooting up’, heroin fans).

It’s just had a healthy free update, adding a sixth mode known as Chase, known variously as ‘the hardest mode yet’ and ‘the speed metal of shmups’, so masochistic nutters will be delighted. (more…)

Monaco, which is the indie heist game you will be going crazy for in 2012, has a video out! It shows the online multiplayer in action: you are going to be able to play peer-to-peer co-op with teams of burglars doing their business across the exquisitely-crafted lo-fi levels. Oh, you are going to enjoy this game. (more…)

Good news and less good news from the Humble Bundle camp today. The happier end of the bargain is that purchasers of the current Humble Bundle 4 now get the base contents of Humble Bundle 3 (i.e. VVVVVV, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, And Yet It Moves, and Hammerfight) added to their pack. That’s if they’ve bought HB4 already. If they haven’t, they’ll have to beat the average price to get the bonus goodies. The average price is currently $5.17 million. (more…)