It can only amuse some passing deity that the spread of zombies through games was akin to that of an infection. They’re now omnipresent, always raving for the flesh of a new title or trying to plop themselves down and feed on some franchise. We might have to stop talking “genres” and start discussing “strains” if this keeps up. Still, I’ve got time for them as a concept – clichés usually become such because they have such wide reaching potential. The point and click adventure’s strategy of lying low and praying they don’t notice you has left that particular strain of game mostly uninfected, with one notable exception. But hark, shambling into view is Metal Dead, ready to consume your time with ever more tales of the recently deceased. Demo thoughts and trailer in the graveyard.

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Tower of Guns is a splendid first-person robot-shooter with randomised elements and power ups that stack, creating weaponry and skill sets that are ludicrously powerful and> ludicrously ludicrous. A work in progress build is available to those willing to pay $7.50 for a preorder and I’ve spent forty five minutes ascending the tower this morning, pinging circular saws off angled walls, trashing hordes of robots and triple jumping to safety as avalanches of chunky, cartoonish bombs threaten to crush me. Levels are stitched together from a selection of predesigned rooms, some cramped and packed with whirling dervish-bots, others requiring vertical navigation and precision aiming. It’s the Borderlands of Isaac, a roguish Quakelike delight. But you probably shouldn’t play it. Not yet.

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I started writing this story just to point out that Natural Selection 2 is going to have a free weekend over the next few days, and that if you hadn’t yet bought it then you should take a look. It’s a really good indie multiplayer shooter that managed to overshadow Aliens: Colonial Marines in every possible way, and they’ve just updated it with loads of new content. There’s new weapons, female player models, better tutorials, and more. There’s a trailer for that below. But there’s also a trailer for a new crowd-funding scheme as well. Unknown Worlds has released free updates for the game since it’s been launched, but as the game’s returns diminish they need cash to continue working on it full-time. The latest free update cost them $550,000. Their hope? That a tiered donation and reward system will recoup some of that expenditure.UPDATE: Unknown Worlds have responded to some of my concerns. They’re at PAX and recorded a video. I’ve embedded it below.

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The RPS style guide prohibits me from altering the font siz (and it also suggests wearing socks with sandals, so I think John wrote it), so when I say “it’s a big if” at the end of this paragraph, please imagine a whopping 72 point ‘”if”, in bold, italicized and possibly blinking. The Star Citizen Hangar Module is out now, space fans. It’s the first proper playable in-engine glimpse of Chris Roberts’ space opus, and it allows people who pledged to walk into a hangar and see the ships they’ve purchased, walking around outside and inside each spacewing. If, and it’s a big if, you can get the damn thing to run that is. I’ve tried a few times and have suffered download fails and connection errors at every step. I have a video of it working for another Scottish person below. (more…)

Manfred von Richthofen’s final flight – the facts you won’t find in any book or documentary:

Fact 1. If letters written by his batman, Andreas Krantz, circa 1929 are to be believed, in the weeks leading up to his death, the increasingly withdrawn Richthofen spent many hours poring over medieval bestiaries in the library at Chateau d’Arandeau. Fact 2. On April 19, 1918, two days before his death, Richthofen instructed Jasta 11′s chief mechanic to commence work on a fully enclosed cockpit canopy – the first of its kind in military aviation. Fact 3. Reports that Dr.1 425/17 was undamaged when it crash-landed at Vaux-sur-Somme were disputed by at least one eyewitness. Gunner Edward Kendall recollected seeing large rents in the aircraft’s tail and top plane canvas. Fact 4. According to Bryce Buckland, an Australian chaplain also present at Vaux-sur-Somme, though Richthofen’s last word was> the infamous “Kaput”, the word he was muttering while being lifted from the cockpit was “Greif” not> “Angriff”. (more…)

About every six months there’s a little section of my brain that lights up, firing familiar neurons out towards my question centers. “Why,” they thunder, “in the name of the holy keyboard, mouse and monitor trinity hasn’t somebody ripped off Advance Wars yet?” Usually this statement takes fly on twitter and various half-measures are pointed out to me. In the end I forget the whole thing and go back to playing with a piece of string. I’m reminded again, however, by sci-fi Sword of the Stars spin-off and hex-based strategy kickstarter Ground Pounders. The two don’t even really share that much in common – wargames of the six sided variety far pre-date the greatest handheld series of all time. But the surprisingly long alpha demo I just played and trailer after the drop-zone do scratch that same itch.

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I’m fairly glad the America’s Army series exists. Before it existed, I had to ask my dad about army life, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned if I want to sleep at night it’s to not ask my dad about what he did in the army. To be honest, that also applies to his life in Glasgow before the army. And after. And yesterday. So instead I’ve had to find another route into the khaki trousers, and that’s where the mightily pro-Army series comes in. America’s Army: Proving Grounds, a new game focusing on ‘small unit tactics’ has just launched its beta on Steam. Have a proper gander at the trailer below. (more…)

The problem I have with Minecraft’s biomes is the word “biome” (which means “climate zone”, btw). It’s too close to “Boom”, which means I end up singing “Biome, biome, biome, biome, I want you in my room!” whenever I read it. Mojang’s problems with the biomes, however, are a bit less childish: the rules used to create variety in Minecraft’s world generation means there’s often unrealistic placement of zones. Desert and snow bump up against each other, there are uncrossable oceans separating continents, and there’s not enough variety between chunks. Version 1.7 seeks to change those rules. (more…)

It’s hard to believe there’s any originality left in puzzle platforming. It’s up there with tennis in the “oldest genres” category and the (relative) ease of putting one together has made it a good starting point for indie devs. And yet we’re entering the pre-dinner snack period of 2013 and I’m still getting surprised. Ethan: Meteor Hunter is one such pleasantry. It’s not so much that the time-stopping and telekinesis powers on show are wholly new, but their unusual interactions are refreshing. I’ve played an early alpha demo and there’s a more recent trailer once you get this giant, oddly placed brick out of the way.

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Don’t ever let it be said I am not a lover of juvenile humour. To allow its actual name to take the stage for a moment, time for another Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag trailer. I’ve just gone and counted and this is the twentieth one that has been made available, not counting extra versions, additional languages or live streamed events. I have to pray that that is some sort of record, because any more would surely cause deadly games-burnout. There’s some merit in this latest effort though - Game Director Ashraf Ismail narrates the attack of main character Pirate McPirateson on an opposing fort. Despite my snark, it’s actually pretty cool. Sail on to check it out.

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