Superheroes never die. They just switch MMOs. City of Heroes might have been reduced to a bittersweet memory, but you might find some of that old glory in Valiance Online‘s open pre-alpha test phase, which happily does not require you to sign NDAs in your blood. This upcoming MMORPG is set at the tail end of the 21st century, where spandex-clad superpeople roam free-range through the fictional city of San Cielo.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>
Deep Under The Sky comes from the creators of Incredipede and Pineapple Smash Crew. In it you launch Venusian jellyfish eager to scatter and hatch their children all over the place. In some ways it feels like an RPS workplace simulator.
Roughly a week ago, the lads behind the Brytenwalda mod released the Viking Conquest DLC for Mount & Blade Warband. Replete with hundreds of cities to burn down and hundreds more people to bother, Viking Conquest promised a Dark Age Britain that is supposed to contain authentic scenes, scheming companions, bickering religious people, and… stuff>.
Every Sunday, we reach deep into Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s 141-year history to pull out one of the best moments from the archive. This week, Alec marries a zombie and gets into a fight in a zombie universe, from this piece first published October 2nd, 2008.>
So I gazed up at the mountain of games about guns due this Autumn, and I sighed a little. Did I burn myself out on all those FPSes last year? Are, heaven forfend, my baser instincts now somehow in check? I will> play Far Cry 2 and Dead Space and Fallout 3, but right now they’re not what appeal. I made it about 15 minutes into Crysis Warhead before the oh-this-again tedium hit, and I blame myself more than I do the game for that. I wanted something a little different, something I could sink into on more than a purely visceral level, but I didn’t know what.
Turns out it was King’s Bounty: The Legend, the RPG-strategy remake/sequel from some of the good (mad) folks behind Space Rangers 2. I’m not going to review it or even describe it here. Instead, I’m going to tell two stories that aptly demonstrate the insanity-ingenuity of the thing.
This year has been unusual for me, gaming-wise, because I haven’t had That One Game. You know the one – the game that keeps you up at night while also managing to occupy your coffee breaks. The one that you can play while you’re listening to the new Flying Lotus album just as easily as you can play while Corrie’s on. It can take up all of your attention or the slightest part, filling whatever part of your mind you commit to it at any one time. I miss That Game.>
Sundays are for prepping for a Christmas break, by scheduling and editing, writing and shopping, fretting and food ordering. Best keep ourselves off the naughty list by first reading a round up of the week’s best (mostly) games writing.
Gunmancy. Froggoths. Pop-culture cheekiness. Sentient snot.> Yes, my friends, Cosmic Star Heroine is already looking like a star. If you’re wondering what I’m blathering about, Zeboyd Games recently released half an hour’s worth of gameplay footage, all from the alpha version of the upcoming turn-based RPG, which draws inspiration from the likes of Chrono Trigger.
Legend of Grimrock 2 sure was very good, everyone can agree. It took the style and mechanics of the original and expanded them in every direction, and the result is something that is definitely the best… something or other.
John: Ooh, this was a tough game. A lovely, tough game. Not just because it starts you off far too weak and dumps you in the middle of a vast labyrinth of levels with no sensible way to know which bits are going to be too difficult, but also because the puzzles require an extension be built on your brain.
Preservation efforts? A park to contain all the beauties of the prehistoric world? Nah. We’ll just shoot ‘em all. Freshly arrived in the Early Access folder, The Hunter: Primal errs on the meaner side of the equation, the side that involves gore and goop and other things that could possibly drip from dinosaur-y insides. Here, you play as a hunter, a bipedal predator who must figure out how to survive a primitive yet gorgeous-looking island and its coterie of deadly dinosaurs, while putting together the biggest stack of trophies this side of the planet.
Free Twine game My Father’s Long, Long Legs manages to capture some of the uncanny horror of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki using nothing more than a fine selection of words and some cleverly applied sound effects. There are no jump scares here, just a gradual build toward…something. The story gains much of its power through the distorted vagueness of the threat – if it is truly a threat at all – and the obscure reasons for the changes that are occurring.