The Pixeljunk games have been one of the best reasons to power up Playstation: The Third for a good while now. Forget the quips of Drake, the mutilations of Kratos, and the red herrings and wild geese of Heavy Rain – Q-Games have been bringing experimental bundles of joy to the platform for years. Eden’s arrival on Steam surprised me because I’d assumed the series was Sony 4 Life, but news that the next game in the series would launch on PC pleased us late last year. That the recently released footage of the game shows it to be a procedurally generated, robot-constructing, soup-creation simulator is the icing on the cake.

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Battle Worlds: Kronos has almost reached its $120,000 Kickstarter goal with more than a month to spare. It’s the kind of game that is ideally suited to the crowdfunding platform – a turn-based strategy game that references the likes of Battle Isle, simultaneously exciting people like me, and causing publishers to purse their lips and tighten their purses. I spoke with Jan Theysen, co-founder and Creative Director of KING Art, to learn more about the company’s approach to crowdfunding, Battle Worlds history and the game itself.>

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I should just repeat the headline a few times and then drop in the link to the free download, but a little context may be helpful. Playing Football Manager, so people jest, is like playing with spreadsheets, poring over lists and figures. They are wrong. Playing with spreadsheets doesn’t lead to a management simulation, it’s more of an arena-based roguelike sort of experience. Cary Walkin, an accountant and MBA candidate at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, has created an RPG in Excel. Much of the content is procedurally generated, with more than 2,000 possible enemy types and 1,000 item combinations, but there are also boss encounters and a story with several endings. Download it here and check the wiki for info.

More news from PAX East, this time via the electronic eyes of Polgyon. Dean Dodrill and Alex Kain told the world that their side-scrolling ARPG, Dust: An Elysian Tail, will be coming to Steam in April. There’s a trailer below, which is handy for people like me who haven’t played the XBLA original, because Dust means two things in my gaming world: a shooty EVE thing or a platforming sweep ‘em up. This Dust has lots of hacking and possibly some slashing, and anthropomorphic characters.

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Below you will find the first in-game footage of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. I haven’t watched it yet because it’s being released onto the internet at 5pm and the downloadable copy I have is settling onto my hard drive so slowly that it won’t be ready for viewing until 4:59. I’ll add some thoughts below the line after I’ve watched it but, for now, here are three things that I hope to see:

1) A shark attack.2) A shark running up the side of a building.3) An assassin who has replaced his hidden blades with sharks that pop out of his sleeves.

I reckon that last one is a certainty. Let’s find out!

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Moments ago, Warner announced the existence of a DC Comics MOBA called Infinite Crisis and Paradox have now announced the existence of a Magicka MOBA called Wizard Wars. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to learn everything there is to know about the genre in between those announcements so I’m just going to copy some words from the press release and pop the live action trailer below.

In Magicka: Wizard Wars, two teams of four wizards each will go head-to-lightning-bolt on the field of battle, wielding a wealth of magic spells as players adapt their tactics on the fly in response to their opponents. In true Magicka fashion, victory will go to the team whose wizards can combine the craftiest casts – and who can avoid the most friendly fire.

Element combinations are still the basis of spells, which means comically misplaced explosions should be par for the course.

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Oh no! The DC multiverse is exploding again. Heroes and villains will have to work together to save it by engaging in some sort of free-to-play MOBA called Infinite Crisis. I know quite a lot about DC comics but I don’t know anything about MOBA games but since I’m all alone in Castle RPS at the moment, I’m going to have to tackle this anyway. In place of informed opinion, I present to you a brief anecdote. I installed and played DOTA 2 for the first time this weekend and played through the tutorial, which involved hitting things and then getting dressed. Then I tried to play a game with bots and realised that I didn’t even know what my objectives were, beyond wearing armour. Here is the trailer for Infinite Crisis.

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IGN carry the news that Gearbox are raising the level cap in Borderlands 2, and adding a new difficulty mode and item tier. There is also a short video showing the latest Vault Hunter murdering bandits – he’s a psycho by the name of Krieg. The level cap will be raised to 61, the new mode scales monsters to the highest level in your party and the item tier provides ultra-rare pearlescent gear. That all makes sense, but the prices and distribution are slightly more confusing. The new difficulty mode is free to all but the level cap rise costs $4.99, unless you’re a season pass holder in which case it’s free. Kriege isn’t included in the season pass though and will cost around $10. You can see him below.

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The first footage of Supergiant’s Transistor suggested that the game would not be entirely dissimilar to the studio’s splendid isometric smash ‘em up, Bastion, although it did lack one of its predecessor’s most distinctive features – the superb narration of Logan Cunningham. Total Biscuit captured fifteen minutes of the game at PAX East and has uploaded a version without commentary, so that another voice can be heard and, by gum, it’s Logan again. He’s a sort of sidekick rather than a narrator this time around, a voice trapped inside the protagonist’s sword. She doesn’t have a voice of her own – the baddies have robbed it! – but it sounds like Mr Cunningham will be doing enough talking for two.

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BioShock: Infinite is a new first-person shooter from Irrational, creators of BioShock, System Shock 2 and SWAT 4. It’s set on a flying city in 1912, where racism and religious fundamentalism dictate society. You’re up there, wielding guns and magic, to bring someone the girl and wipe away the debt. Here’s what I thought, spoiler-free.> (more…)