Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Sometimes a premise is all you need. Build your own robot from a big pile of parts, then have it fight someone else’s robot. Sold? Good. Check out the Rawbots video below.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

This is the closest Dark Souls will ever come to hugging you

Demanded and then reprimanded, Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition is the most basic port of one of the most peculiar and powerful games of recent times. It’s unforgiving, mysterious, bizarre and thoroughly rewarding, but are there enough graphics to let the brilliance shine through and does the game deserve its reputation? Here’s wot I think.>

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

In other news, people who pledge money they don't have are pricks.

There are a number of potential ways Kickstarter funding is going to go wrong. The most obvious is the first time a high-profile crowd-funded big-budget game comes out and is a big pile of crap. That’s going to hurt things. The other is if a game doesn’t come out at all, and the ensuing fuss that will follow. But one I hadn’t considered is people making pledges they cannot honour. That’s exactly what happened to Warbird Games, whose stop-motion based adventure exceeded its funding goal of $56,000 by an impressive eight thousand bucks. Except, it turns out, one $10k pledge never existed at all. So now the indie studio is asking for donations via its site to make up the gap.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Yesterday we spoke to Broken Sword creator Charles Cecil about the themes behind Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse. Today we talk about the practice of Kickstarting itself, the flaws with the traditional publisher model, and how Uncle Charles hopes to involve the community as this fifth Broken Sword game is developed. So why does Revolution even need Kickstarter money? How will they promote the game without a publisher to push it? And how does Cecil respond to people’s concerns over the new look for the characters?>

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Jim Rossignol)

Me, yesterdayLast night Kojima Productions had a big party to celebrate twenty-five long years of the Metal Gear Solid franchise. There’s going to be a movie! But who cares about that because there’s also going to be a new game: Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. There are only twitter reports from the event to go on so far, but apparently the new game has an open-world structure, and according to at least one onlooker, was “amazing”. It was shown on a PC, although it’s not clear whether that’s definitely a target platform or just a development setup. My feeling is that PC gaming is dead, and that no one should attempt to launch games on the platform, for any reason.

An official announcement is incoming. Hell, it might even be here by the time I post this. Let’s see, eh?

Garry's Mod - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Craig Pearson)

According to Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman: “There’s so much stuff going on in GMod that it’s hard to pull out individual addons. I think the real great thing about GMod is that all these addons exist. It has a rich user contribution community. It keeps itself entertained.”

It really is impossible to cover everything that the GMod community has made. I tried and gave up, instead creating an inexhaustive list of amazing things that have tickled me over the years as an on-and-off GModder. So this list includes my choices with a couple of Garry’s mixed in. The upcoming GMod update might include modes that won’t function for much longer, but that’s okay. It’s about wonderful, ephemeral things, not a list of things you have to do right now. If there’s something I’ve missed you’re absolutely more than welcome to drop it in the comments. Just make sure it’s something that’s set your Face Poser to ‘stunned’. And remember: none of the below comes shipped with the game: it’s all community generated. > (more…)

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Richard Cobbett)

I get knocked down! But I get up again! Because permadeath isn't part of our world!

Guild Wars 2 isn’t the first MMO that’s tried to tell a single-player story. For that specific element, it’s not even the highest profile one in recent months – both The Old Republic and The Secret World going all out to make narrative matter. The stories it tells, while definitely fun, aren’t as interesting or memorable, or even as notable a presence during most of my travels.

So why do I feel much more involved with my Elementalist’s personal journey through the world than with either of the games that set out to make narrative their main selling point?

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SpaceChem - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nathan Grayson)

This would've made Civil War re-enactments so much more interesting.

We have, in the past, said some very nice things about brainosaurusly brilliant puzzler SpaceChem. For instance, things like “straight up genius.” Also, “brainosaurusly brilliant.” That’s technically the past now. But Zachtronic Industries – booming center of commerce that it/he is – refuses to stick to the straight-and-narrow. Which brings us to Ironclad Tactics, a “real-time, card-based tactics game set in an alternate history Civil War – with steam-powered military robots.” To which I reply by gathering a studio audience, teaching them to cry on command, and then having them give a standing ovation for 45 minutes.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nathan Grayson)

Because 'A Smaller But No Less Important Portion Of A War' wasn't quite as catchy of a title.

The Total War series is about armies the size of small countries crashing into each other, resulting in a deafening cacophony of clangs, ka-booms, ooooos, and ahhhhhs. It’s rather big, is what I’m saying. Small things, meanwhile, have not generally been known to create deafening cacophonies – well, aside from maybe babies or this terrifying breed of disarmingly adorable fox, neither of which are often featured in war>. And yet, the iPhone – certainly a small thing if I’ve ever seen one – managed to play host to a rather solid re-imagining of Total War. But how? Well, Total War Battles: Shogun is on Steam now, beckoning you to find out with its sultry Japanese war screams.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nathan Grayson)

What? My friends need rescuing? Sorry, can't hear you over all this awesome fun I'm having up in the sky.

Far Cry 3 definitely isn’t the second coming of Far Cry 2, but the more I see of it, the more I’m actually pretty OK with that. It’s big, loud, and over-the-top, but – to hear its lead writer tell it – with a nicely subversive point>. Also, there are tigers. Last time I played a demo, I tried to turn them on my enemies, but instead, they traded our five-second-long allegiance for my jugular. Then I caught on fire and died. Which is a long-winded way of saying combat seems nicely open, and – if a new trailer’s any indication – the world itself will have a breadth of options to match.

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