Unless you’re an entrant to the Running Man or a Guess What I Ate From The Smell In My Toilet event, competition is mostly a good thing, so I’m happy to see Amazon UK finally following America and taking digital PC gaming seriously. The seller of everything has now added digital downloads to the UK store. The usual suspects are on board, with EA, Square Enix, and Ubisoft games all popping up on sale today. (more…)

Well, this came out of nowhere. Actually, no, wait. I suppose I should say that all the evidence was there, but I refused to let it add up in my brain because come on: this is John Carmack we’re talking about. He’s id’s divine ego, the pulsating mutant hyperbrain that looks upon desolate worlds and says, “Let there be graphics.” Now then, it must be noted that Carmack is apparently not> leaving id, despite his new gig as Chief Technology Officer at Oculus Rift. But the eyeball gateway to other worlds is now Carmack’s number one priority, with id and, er, outer space taking a backseat.

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One might think, as inclined as I might be to mix the scrutiny of game design with affectionately-intended trash pop, that Beatbuddy: Tale Of The Guardians is the crux of musicality, ingenuity and design I’d write scads of lovelorn poetry for.

Not only is each level of the underwater puzzler Beatbuddy: Tale Of The Guardians named a ‘song’ and comes with a different piece of music composed by such melodic adonises as Sabrepulse and Austin Wintory, but everything in this game has a beat, the artifacts of gameplay each add a small note to an eventual symphony of rhythm and beat and song. Your very collision with other sea creatures creates music and warps environment; enemies alert you to their presence off-screen by their music slowly working in on a tide towards you. But there’s something stuck in the heart of this grand piano. There’s something slightly out of shape. There’s something off. And that hurts: because that first glorious hour is like being bedded by some baritone merman with rigorous, human-proficient hands. You feel like you are an instrument being strummed. And you settle into the rhythm of it. (more…)

Until very recently, if I’d walked up to someone and asked them if they were excited about the new EverQuest game, any positive response would have seen the authorities rush in. The Pod Person would then be gassed and caged, the area evacuated and nuked, and humanity would feel just a little bit more vulnerable. Even now, when I look in the mirror and someone excited about EverQuest Next is staring back, I flinch a little bit. Am I a Pod Pearson? SOE’s work in revitalising their MMO as a world that I want to explore and smash is baffling. To be honest, I thought Adam was playing an elaborate prank, but the video of SOE’s live reveal is proof that they’re onto something. (more…)

Releasing a game that deals with one of a country’s darkest periods is tantamount to walking on thin ice. Oh, sorry, did I say “walking”? I meant cannon-balling back-flipping onto it. In a tank. Some, then, have argued that Relic could’ve handled its depiction of World War II’s Eastern Front with a bit more grace in Company of Heroes 2. And by “some,” I mean thousands (via an Internet petition) rallying against what they perceive to be a serious “anti-patriotism” slant. As a result, Russian and Eastern European distributor 1C-SoftClub has halted sales of the otherwise decently liked RTS.

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I am deathly afraid of heights, yet I desperately long to fly high above the clouds, unrestrained by any sort of machinery or the laws of physics. This is the complex duality of my nature. If I was actually granted the power of flight, I’d be the worst superhero ever – too busy screaming until I vomited a lung on confused bystanders to save anybody. But I digress. Secrets of Raetikon might just allow me to fulfill my fantasy without the disgusting particulars of reality getting in the way. It’s about gentle, feather-like swooping and soaring, and it hails from And Yet It Moves developer Broken Rules. In it, nature and ancient machinery and peaceful exploration collide. It looks delightful.

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For whatever reason, the spiritual successor to Police Squad, Precinct, just didn’t capture the imagination of the Kickstarter crowd. This week should have been the final hurrah, but the game had only scraped 15% of the hoped $500,000 goal. The team have decided it would be easier on everyone to just cancel the crow-funding. All is not lost, though. They still hope to fund the game, but instead of doing it on Kickstarter, they’re asking for direct donations. (more…)

I have a tedious complaint about the process of games being conceived and then arriving on our screens, and it’s that so often the concept art looks better (more artistic, more atmospheric) than the eventual reality of the thing. I browse concept art all the time, and there’s always a Bioshock painting that looks more interesting than the game. Not so with mega-Kickstarted RPG Project Eternity, as evidenced by a couple of new shots, which you can see below. (more…)

Electronic Arts and Victory Games send word of one of those explanatory videos, where serious people talk about how games are made. Specifically how the forthcoming Command & Conquer gets made. It all seems pretty exciting, and no one appears glum says “well, we go into this big glass building every day, and eventually a game happens.” In fact, this video makes the work of just building a single RTS unit seem a bit like putting a man into space, with lots of people and technology in which things spin and explode. (But just on a computer screen of course.)

Sign ups for the new C&C beta are taking place on the site, if that’s your cup of tiberium. (more…)

You can play a very specific portion of Saints Row 4 right now! Sadly, rolling down the streets while leaving entire city blocks in dubstep-cratered ruins is still off the table, but you now have full, unfettered access to the gloriously unhinged open-worlder’s character creator. No, it’s not a real> taste of all the game has to offer, but the uproarious lunacy is still strong in this one. Want to make Batman villains? Horse people? Whatever this thing is? Then go ahead. Once the full game is out, you’ll be able to hop right in as the first, er, female eagle monster eagle mobster pretty-much-anything-you-can-think-of President.

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