Today I learned that it’s really hard being a fly. People are always like, “Man, what I wouldn’t have given to be a fly on the wall during that conversation,” but they don’t know>. They can’t even begin to fathom the maddening struggles of day-to-day… er, millisecond-to-millisecond fly life. Spider webs, errant gusts of wind, leaves detaching in a gentle dance of death, twisting and sailing to signal your doom. But, thanks to Krillbite (they of creepy crawly baby crawler Among The Sleep), you can now see the world through a fly’s hideously compound eyes. Well, OK, actually you can’t, because The Plan‘s a third-person game, but that’d be near-impossible to control anyway. There’s plenty of atmosphere to make up for it, though. Oh, and booming orchestral music. We can’t forget that.

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Of course you remember Aliens, right? Who could forget Danny Glover kicking ass on the Discovery One, Sarah Hamilton shouting, “That’s how they git you. They’re under the goddamned ground!” Ah, the memories. John’s spent the day ploughing through Aliens: Colonial Marines, so he can tell you wot he thinks:>

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The JJ Abrams Star Trek movie was alright! So the sequel due out later this year, starring Benedict Cumberbund as maybe-Kahn or maybe Some Other Guy, will probably be alright too! I know, I know, another controversial opinion about consumer entertainment products, eh?

There will also be a Star Trek game, and that probably won’t be alright, because licensed games so rarely are. But it’s got Sylar’s face in it, and Vulcan nerve pinches, and some spaceship corridors that look a bit like The Normandy, so maybe I’ll be proven ULTRO-WRONG. (more…)

I mean, it’s a bit like FTL and a bit like Descent, but nothing like either of those games at the same time. Creator Stephen Wheadon describes it as: “It is a full 6 degrees of freedom shooter/stealth game that is a spiritual successor to classics like Descent. The player is assigned to escort a mobile base in a journey across space. A large fleet of warships is in pursuit, desperately searching for the base to prevent its escape.” And also this stuff: “The stealth gameplay allows for surprise attacks, evasion and hacking opportunities. Everything is 100% destructible, including large bases (which explode in a satisfying chain reaction of detonations).”

There’s a Greenlight going on here, and there’s a video below, which I suspect you will want to watch. This one looks fascinating. (more…)

Lace Mamba Global have informed RPS that they recognise that there have been some issues with their reporting and accounting, involving certain indie developers. Last night we mentioned an open letter written by a number of European indie developers, accusing Lace Mamba of non-payment, contract violations, and some rather peculiar claims about the business. We approached Lace Mamba for a comment, and they’ve gotten back to us this afternoon, primarily focusing on the confusion over the apparently two separate companies, distancing themselves from Jason Codd and Mamba Games, and stating that they “recognise that Mamba Games pre-existing contractual obligations are not being met.” They also acknowledge that there have been issues with “reporting and accounting”, and that they are working hard to resolve them, and to “regain the trust of the games industry”.

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No, it’s not the anniversary of when I started writing about games – this is in fact year twelve of my moaning about flashing pixel-based products, I’ll have you know – but instead the tenth birthday of satirical, stickman-based browser-kinda-MMO Kingdom of Loathing. It’s a game I spent an awful lot of time playing during the last couple years of my tenure on PC Format magazine, in between compulsively browsing eBay for vintage Transformers and repeatedly going to check if the snack machine had accidentally priced Kit-Kats at 5p again, so I am heartened by its longevity. (more…)

EA’s officially dishonorably discharged the Medal of Honor franchise. That’s unfortunate for a number of reasons, but mainly because it made John sad. As he put it, “It needs new direction, not shelving until the next inevitable reboot in five years time, once Battlefield has run entirely aground.” So, now it’s time for another episode of Good News, Bad News, Picture of an Ostrich. First, the good: Medal of Honor’s definitely not dead. Heck, it might not even be out of action for all that long. But now, the bad: based on comments to RPS by EA chief creative director Rich Hilleman, John might have hit the nail on the head. For now, Battlefield‘s the focus, meaning that it inherits the full weight of EA’s Call-of-Duty-dethroning expectations. Here is a picture of an ostrich. More details (about Medal of Honor, not ostriches) after the break.

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We may be in for a third Batscapade from the Arkhamverse, according to Warner suits in the company’s latest earnings call, and it’ll probably be this year too.

There’s almost nothing to go on, other than Warner’s Chief Financial Officer John K. Martin letting slip that “and we also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise.” This means it’s up to us to let slip the dogs of speculation. (more…)

It’s been the buzz of the indie world – a puzzle game so fiendishly difficult that people pass it to one another like an illicit material. But I eat and drink puzzle games! They occupy a frightening amount of my waking life. A rare day goes by without my attempting a cryptic crossword, a killer sudoku accompanies my every early-morning sit-down, and my phone, tablet and DS offer me a limitless supply of puzzle distractions. I would like to meet the Slitherlink player who could outdo me. I eat puzzles like the hungry man I am. So bring on Jelly No Puzzle! Here’s wot I think.

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Edit – Sega Senior Producer Matthew J. Powers has said of this allegation that “Absolutely not, the game has been developed by Gearbox Software. Other studios [like Timegate] helped Gearbox on the production of single and multiplayer.” Which doesn’t really clear anything up, but there you go.>

By almost all accounts, Aliens: Colonial Marines, released this week, is a trainwreck. And not one of those cool trainwrecks with explosions, collapsing bridges and men in awesome hats leaping to safety at the last second. Instead it sounds like a sad, slow, drift off the edge of the track, toppling gracelessly onto its side and making a limp ‘pffffffffffffffffff’ noise. Mister John Walker will be along either later today or tomorrow to confirm or deny this, but in the meantime let’s have a confusing look at the Gearbox shooter’s odd gestation. I say ‘Gearbox shooter’, but it rather sounds as though other studios did the heavy lifting. (more…)