One game that I’m going to make time for over the holidays is Salem, Paradox’s sandboxy colonial MMO. I saw it in action at the start of the year and knew that it was going to be a time-hungry slow-burner, and that the sort of open-ended stuff, like universal PvP, and serious consequences for such transgressions, was going to make it an interesting sort of commitment to play. All that stuff is the precisely the reason most people will be put off playing it, I’m sure, but for those folk who understand the appeal of building into a world, this could be gold. Or perhaps it will just a tedious grind. From the highlights of a recent live-steam (which you can see below) I am expecting moments of the former. (more…)

As the decidedly not very good Medal Of Honor: WARFACEFIGHTER received its critical pannings, one refrain was repeated again and again: they’re the games EA puts out on the year’s DICE don’t have a new Battlefield ready. That may well be true, but EA are now at pains to point out (not necessarily in reaction, I should say) that DICE are not “a Battlefield factory”. (Imagine a non-gamer reading those words. “Dice are not battlefield factories? And you say FPS games HELP your minds?”) There’s more to the Swedish team, they insist to OXM today. And in response rumours that Mirror’s Edge 2 is in development have once more bubbled to the surface.

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Molyneux’s new company, 22Cans, has launched a £450,000 Kickstarter called Project GODUS. Behold: “It’s an innovative reinvention of Populous, the original god game and delivers exciting global co-operation, competition, creation and destruction to a whole new generation.”

Video below. Watch. (more…)

As previously noted, Capcom have said that Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry game, DmC, will appear on Windows. There’s no release date for that, of course, so it’s bound to be well after the January release of the console versions, but it gives me plenty of time (and reason) to link the backlog of videos that we have neglected. With Ninja Theory at the controls there’s good reason to expect this game to be a little different to previous outings – and Capcom purists are already making objectionable honking noises. And it’s looking not looking as ludicrous as the previous games, but it’s still pretty mad. (And I am not a fan of nu-Dante.)

Anyway, lots of gameplay footage below. (more…)

The third game in the Far Cry series has arrived, bathed in sun, populated by sharks and murderers, driving too fast along a dirt track, with the grass on fire all around. But is this a holiday of a lifetime, or a trip to the wrong side of the tracks? I pulled on a scratched pair of aviators and scavenged a shotgun from the body of a fallen games journalist to tell you wot I think.> (more…)

I’ve been playing lots of lovely fresh organic Planetside 2. Sometimes during this process my eyebrows were raised. Sometimes they were furrowed in a frown. Other times they were sort of neutral. And other times still they were gyrating up and down like tiny face-wings.

What does this mix of expressions mean? I’ll tell you>. (more…)

I think I exclaimed “Oh no!” about three times in the first two levels of Vertigo. The good kind of “Oh no!” Taking elements from a lot of other games, and a strong visual similarity with the wonderful 1000 Amps, Vertigo is a free puzzle platformer that’s genuinely clever. And hurts my brain. My poor, maligned brain.

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Fuck This Jam was a pretty brilliant idea. Conceived by Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail and Panoramical creator Fernando Ramallo, it challenged developers to design games in their most-despised genres. “Through utter ignorance for conventions and hate for the established rules of a genre,” said the jam’s mission statement, “beautiful things will happen.” And they did! I mean, Dear Esteban had a sky whale. But I took a casual, decidedly less narrated stroll through FTJ’s submission section today and came across a few more standouts. Admittedly, there are plenty of other amazing entries that I fully plan on giving more attention to, but for now, here are a few that made me laugh, cry, and stab in the most fascinating of fashions.

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Lovely-looking 4-player co-op dungeon-crawler Legend Of Dungeon – a beat ‘em up/roguelike that mixes pixel-art with 3D lighting – has a playable demo, which you can play in a browser here. The team are also taking the project to Kickstarter, as they explain: “We are kickstarting the game to pay the composer, purchase Unity Pro, buy a new dev machine, and of course, more coffee.”

I’ve posted their pitch video below. (more…)

Sitting and playing the nonsense of Black Ops 2, it’s hard to imagine that your brain is improving in any way. Turns out, it’s improving in lots of ways.

Goodness, some positive, intelligent science regarding health and videogames. With cathartic ease, cognative researcher Daphne Bavelier discusses how their research has shown that even hardcore FPS games have positive effects on the brain. In fact, especially hardcore FPS games.

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