Latest Articles (Page 2115)

The world, quite understandably, simply adores Portal's silent square. While we all tough out the agonising wait until Christmas to snuggle up to an official Weighted Companion Cube plushie, here's a couple more wallpapers that RPS readers have kindly pointed out.

Chris sends this piece of widescreen eyeball delight, available in multiple shades including 'toxic green' and 'hot pink': And Wolf sends his own fine creation, available in widescreen and full-fat flavours here.

The beta demo for Unreal Tournament 3 is out, but we can't find a server that isn't maxed out. Try here and here, if you're patient.

Post any other good download links in the comments, y'all.

[This interview was done with Thomas Hauser circa the 10 year anniversary edition of Settlers II. The interview was fairly tricky one to do, partially due to Thomas having to do it in a second language, partially by the phone line and partially, as evidenced by the following text, it was a long time ago and Thomas had forgot a load of stuff. I think that added a human quality to it. I dunno. You tell me.]

We’ve all played armchair designer. Sitting and playing the latest game and thinking “You know, this is pretty neat, but if I was in charge I’d have done this and this and of course THAT” before going off and getting on with our lives. Except, there was a time when if you were in the right place at the right time you could put your ideas where your idle whimsy was. Take Thomas Hauser, who has always been primarily a programmer. He certainly resists being labeled a programmer/designer. “I started as a programmer,” he argues, “I would much more say I’m a programmer than a designer. I very much like games, and game play and design problems… but I wouldn’t describe myself as a game designer.”

But enough about really old Your Sinclair Gags which about four people in our readership will get. Electronic Arts has bought Bioware and Pandemic, in an exciting two-for-one offer. Let's quote the bit about the money, as money is all that matters in our world.

EA will pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. and will issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain employees of VG Holding Corp., which will be subject to time-based or performance-based vesting criteria. EA will also assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options. In addition, EA has agreed to lend VG Holding Corp. up to $35 million through the closing of the acquisition.

Er... VG Holding group is the kind of corporate structure for Bioware/Pandemic. What's notable about this deal is that it follows closely from 2005, where Elevation invested 300 million in forming the Bioware/Pandemic partnership in the first place. Hmm.

There are so few ways to kill pretend men at the moment. However will we murderous sociopaths with flashing-pixel obsessions cope? Perhaps with the Call of Duty 4 (don't call it 'Modern Combat') demo, which was released a few hours back.

This is Dave Gun:

Dave Gun says "Hello! I'm in the Call of Duty 4 demo, which includes one singeplayer level, slightly embarrasingly called 'The Bog.' You should play it. I like guns! Ratatatatatatatbrrrrkerplow!"

Those handsome and worldly developers at CCP have offered to donate a copy of their new book, the coffee table-improving Art Of Eve, for our competition prize pool. The book is a finely crafted tome, containing prototypical sketches, commentary, and glorious renders of the beautiful Eve universe, with all its space oddities and wonderships. If you would like a copy then all you (potentially) need to do is to enter our competition. Only one person will win, obviously, unless you agree to timeshare the book with someone, or something.

Anyway, the challenge is to find us the best spaceships. We don't want real spaceships, of course, but rather something you've dredged up from the slick innards of the internet. It can be a link to a YouTube clip, a retro comicbook cover, a childish scribble, or a found photograph - but it must be of or pertaining to spaceshipness. What we judge to be the best celestial ephemera will win the prize. Email your entries to here, and await our judgment. Needless to say, we'll probably post any really good stuff you come up with. The competition closes on the 2nd of November. Go to work.

So this is weird. Tonight, in a fit of madness and love, I emailed Valve's over-harrassed PR wunder-human to demand that they immediately begin manufacturing a Weighted Companion Cube plush toy to add to their range. (While over there, I spotted a prototype Hunter plushie, which was all kinds of cute). And then I find they've already confirmed it, via the least official means possible.

PC Gamer report that an email from Gabe Newell was posted on Penny Arcade's forum, assuring him that cuddly cubes will be out before Christmas. Or as I prefer to put it to everyone who loves me, in time for Christmas.

So if a forum post linked via a blog post (for a magazine that appears to have completely THIEVED our guide for getting That Song from your files without crediting us at all - I'd assume they sourced it from elsewhere as is hugely likely, but then I'd not be able to feel self-righteous) is true, hip-hip: hooray!

SimCity Societies is almost upon us, with release set for the 13th of November in the US and the 16th in Europe. But does anyone still care about SimCity? I recently visited SimCity 2000 for a PC Gamer retrospective and was consumed for a couple of days - especially after cheating to give myself unlimited landscaping funds - but I couldn't help wondering what a new SimCity game could actually deliver? And what would you want from another city-building game anyway?

EA think we want to shape culture and place individual buildings, rather than all that zoning and public-service fiddling. I can't help thinking that societies might be entertaining, even if it's just a case of seeing what kinds of urban landscapes you can seed with the prescribed templates that the Tilted Mill team have come up with. Freedom might be more limited than ever before... but maybe that's not a bad thing?

Anyway, here's the most recent trailer. See if you can spot the subtle association of British Petroleum with green and clean energy...

Continuing (and probably concluding) my irregular misadventures in Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn. For the story so far, a sad tale of axeless lumberjacking, lost shoes, bullying healers and being rubbish at hiding, clicky here and scroll down.

Things are looking up. I mean, I'm being diligently followed everywhere by a horse, a llama, a dog, a cat and a rabbit. They'll fight for me if I tell them to. Even the rabbit. I can't think a more definite sign that I've made it.

Perhaps, like us, after the sheer joy of the Orange Box, you were left with a twinge of disappointment at the lack of the promised song via the Steam version. Well fear not, as it's already on your hard drive. You just have to know where to look.

Instructions after the word-portal, for those who don't want spoilers. (RSS readers: run away now).

I do.

And I have a desktop to prove it.

(Found by Rllmuk)

As if the terrible name wasn't enough, the Perseus Mandate demo turns out to be a shambolic outing for the ailing FEAR series. You can download the 734.82MB sampler from here. Once installed and playing, you'll probably find yourself saying: "woooOOOooo" in that sarcastic way that you do when things just aren't scary.

It's still trying to deliver the proven FEAR formula (there's some cryptic information about spooky goings on, you see some stuttering ghosts down the end of a corridor, and then you fight a load of marines) but it's nevertheless drained of life. The environments are makeshift and absurdly dull, the action is obvious and predictable - even the NPC voice actor sounds bored, rather than however it is you are supposed to sound when being attacked by psychic marines and pursued by diaphanous ninjas. Presumably TimeGate, who are now handling the series, have got better things to do. Or perhaps this disappointing demo is somehow unrepresentative of the full game. Whatever the reality: get back to making Kohan, TimeGate. And I guess genuine fans of the original game will just have to wait to see what Monolith come up with for 'Project Origin'. (Why DID they choose such an insipid name?)

It's been a long time coming, but we've decided it's time to cravenly submit to the dominant form of critical discourse in the early twenty-first century. That is, list features. However, as is our wont, we will subvert the form as best we can. Which isn't very best at all, but we're trying, no, really, we're trying. ("very best at all"? - Ed)

Anyway - for our first countdown we decided... well, everyone talks about occasionally dreaming of a game. But what happens in those dreams? There's the question. So we sent a mail around at RPS, and ended up with a selection of dreams. Not as many as we'd have thought, but it seems that people tend to forget dreams when they wake up. No, really. Anyway, enough were gathered to make a list of sorts and hopefully prompt people to tell us about their own game-dreams in the comments thread. We promise the forthcoming Toilets In Games Countdown UltroMegaFeature will be incredible. Probably. Anyway, to start it off, let's have a picture of splendid dream-based (yet non-featured) videogame Psychonauts to liven up this texty entry...

And on with the count-down.

The peerless TIGSource led me to this wondrous discovery: an open-source (and freeware, natch) XCOM variant of considerable ambition. UFO: Alien Invasion, for that is the name of this beast, has taken a rather more serious approach to the subject matter of alien invasion than one might expect, with a purported 'hard science' fiction and a whiff of the dreaded realism to authenticate the extra-terrestrial shootings. Needless to say, it still delivers the kind of turn-based agonising, base-building, and team-equipping fiddliness we've come to love. I've not had a chance to play more much - had a few other distractions today - but I expect I'll post something a little more detailed later this month. As I understand it there's a new version due soon and they'll need beta-testers.

The downloads page is here, and you'll need to select the operating system from the funny drop-down menus. It's 261mb big, which is the equivalent some amount of freeware games... I don't know. I'm so tired.

Spoiler free, fret not. We shall be elusive.

If you've played Portal, and you've been very observant, you'll have noticed some information the game didn't do anything with.

If so, then you'll know what to do when you re-visit the viral promo site of Aperture Science.

Eidos have marched in, thinking Orangeboxday is an appropriate time for announcing a new multiplayer element for their forthcoming Kane & Lynch.

And it sounds potentially rather fun. Because you get to stab your friends in the back.

It's to begin as a co-op scenario, with up to eight of you teamed up against the cops, performing heists. Which already sounds a decent amount of fun, but gets more interesting. Your group objective is to steal whatever you're stealing, and make it to your getaway point. Except, there are winners and losers here, and the winner is the one who escapes with the most. I.e. the one who turns on the others most effectively. As their exciteable press release says, "How and when you make your move is up to you."

This isn't about Valve either. Because you know, games are busy.

Kieron posted a couple of days ago about the freshly confirmed release date for Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, on the 22nd Oct. Turns out their "confirmation" wasn't enormously accurate, what with the game being on Gamersgate today.

It's a teeny weeny download of only 85.8MB (exactly six Peggles) (don't believe the 58.94MB (4.12P) lie on the game's main page), but you do have to jump through the fiery hoops of Gamersgate's registration, then paying, then downloading their downloader, then downloading the game proper, then installing it. Which doesn't take long, but blimey.

Sorry, sorry, this isn't about a Valve game. But it's pretty big news if it's true. And, realistically speaking, it probably is true. A supposedly leaked document brings news of (the inevitable) Battlefield 3, and what it may contain.

Standing out from the neatly bullet-pointed and occasionally tedious list at the link above is a claim that matches will now feature teams of up to 40 each. That's 80 men all told. 80! Death will be bloody and regular. Also mentioned are customisable, MMO-style avatars, a fairly logical evolution from the rank system of BF2/2142. It'd certainly be quite a thing to know that the man who just shot you in the head actually chose the face he's now sneering at your dismembered carcass with, rather than simply bearing the same image the game hands out to every player. Gives murder a more personal touch, doesn't it? It's reportedly set in a similar time-frame (i.e. modernish day) to Battlefield 2, and it's coming next Summer.

EA have given only a resounding 'no comment' so far. Understandable, really. Of course, the tinfoil hat-wearing part of me can't help but wonder if it could be a stealth announcement to take advantage of Team Fortress 2 and Quake Wars causing teamplay mania at the moment. But that's only because I'm a crazy, paranoid loon who likes making up stories.

A New Day

It’s imperative that you play another first-person shooter immediately after finishing Episode Two. Any – it doesn’t matter. Because you need to remind yourself, after the six or so hours, that games aren’t anywhere near this good. Games aren’t so precise, so damn perfectly laid out. Games don’t hide tutorial and training such that you never notice them. Games aren’t built with such ludicrous care that they never leave you lost or frustrated. But Episode 2 is these things with such an air of nonchalance, such a relaxed ease, that it’s vital to remind yourself it isn’t normal. You’ll need perspective.

It’s like a perfectly constructed sentence. You likely don’t notice a perfectly constructed sentence, just won full off mistakes. Errors and niggles stand out, well written text is absorbed. The great book’s structure sits modestly in place, letting its tale sweep you up and carry you somewhere wonderful. Videogames tend to have a nasty habit of reminding you they’re a videogame. We accept this – it’s part of the deal. When it doesn’t happen, it’s only upon reflection that you realise.

Concept: A gun that shoots holes in the fabric of reality. Fire once to create an ‘in’ hole, and again to create an ‘out’ hole, enter one, and exit the other.

Application: A puzzle game, obviously. Elaborate obstacle courses only traversed via this dimensional manipulation.

Execution: Mellifluous.

Hello? Can I Help You?

The fairytale story of how Portal came into being has all but entered into legend. A plucky group of Digipen paupers created a final year project, Narbacular Drop, that was shown at the annual Digipen event for visiting developers. The handsome princes at Valve saw it, and liked it. Valve invited the team to visit their castle and demo their concept. Before they were halfway through their presentation, they’d all been offered jobs by the king. And then a couple of years later, a beautiful baby Portal was born. And we all lived happily ever after.

You'll be creating your own soon enough, but until then, here's our spoiler-free screenshot gallery.

If you've pre-ordered the Orange Box, you may have noticed that your pre-load info now shows a countdown clock, numbering in but a few hours. The biggest event in PC gaming since the last big event in PC gaming is almost upon us, and the tension is making it hard to move. So, in our unhelpful manner, here's another exclusive Portal screenshot to make the aching worse.

The countdown does just as good a job of telling you how long there is to wait for our verdicts on both Episode Two and Portal, to appear here at 8:01am UK time (12:01am Pacific time) Wednesday morning.

P.S. An Appeal

Anyone feeling left feeling a little meh by the Team Fortress 2 Demoman video today may find their spirits uplifted by Lit Fuse Films' incredible TF2 fan-film Ignis Solus. As I observed a while back, Pyro is lonely. So lonely. And this is how he copes with it.

Tragic, witty, beautifully edited and heavy with in-jokes on the nature of multiplayer shooters, it's billed as the first TF2 machinima - and is hopefully the first of many. I'm pretty sure there'll be some folks at Valve watching this with great admiration too.

Lit Fuse's site is (understandably) experiencing heavy traffic and conking out at the moment, but here's a low-res Youtube jobbie. For a big, shiny HD version - which I strongly recommend - trundle over here.

You may be aware that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has been undergoing a closed Beta. Your awareness is a day out of date. Mythic have confirmed that they're closing their Beta for a couple of months so they can - I paraphrase loosely - "Have A Little Think".

Closed betas closing aren't exactly commonplace, so this has lead to a mass of speculation. Mythic's Big Chief Mark Jacobs takes time from not running a closed beta anymore to elaborate over at f13.net. In the thread on the topic he posts extensively, basically saying everything's fine. If you're interested in Warhammer Online - hell, or just the difficulties of MMO makers generally, I suggest you read it all, but here's a fun quote to get a taste...

"The reactions have been kinda funny. When we said we could do the game in about 2 years (we didn't even have a contract for WAR till the summer of '05), people said we should take more time, spend more money and do it right. When other companies take extra time to do it right, lots of people jump up and down and say that shows that they really care about making a great game. When we announced our delay last year so we could make the game even better than we originally planned (thanks to the level of competition from Blizzard and elsewhere), people said the game was doomed."

This new video trailer for Crysis mixes developer Cervat Yerli talking fairly frankly about the game, with Microsoft and Nvidia folks delivering empty eulogies that seem to have been downloaded directly from MarketingBrain HQ. The footage has a similar piecemeal quality to it. There are man-shooting, grenade-lobbing scenes when it it looks like Crysis is simply Another Generic Shooter, and then contrasting scenes where you have to sit back with raised eyebrows and nod in agreement with Cervat: it does look a bit gosh blimey. Have a look for yourself:

Thanks Game Trailers, thanks.

Demo on 26th October, full game on the 16th of November, says Cervat. And my bank balance tells me I'm not going to be able to play this game with anything like the "fidelity" that will make it really impressive, whether I have DirectX 10 installed or not. Bum.

Of all the things I thought I'd be writing about today, announcing a sequel to Durrell's 1983's Harrier Attack would have come below Messiah Returns, Cancer Cured or Obsidian Release Game Without Some Crazy Ass Bug in it. Shows what I know.

Durrell's 1983's Harrier Attack has a sequel! And a 6.5Mb demo (That's less than 1 Peggle, so entirely outside the scientific precision of our standard-measurement system for file-sizes, annoyingly). Harrier Attack was actually a forerunner of authentic mili-porn Tom Clancy-ville. Abstractly, just a left-right scrolling shooter, it amped it up with some nods to authenticity, including a Falklands War inspired setting. This sequel follows it, and amps it up even further. This is a left right scrolling shooter where there's eight tutorials to play to introduce various facets - there's even a character growth system, key-codes for special abilities (including turning), missions involving hugging the land to avoid radar and... well, it's different. When playing the demo, to start with, I thought this was going to be just a charity blog post for old time's sake. But there's actually something here which reminds me of old Amiga Power favourite Jetstrike and I suspect this could get beneath the skin of a surprising number of you.

Somewhat bemusingly, the latest Team Fortress 2 class movie - Demoman - has appeared on GameStop's wobbly website before Steam.

You can watch Meet The Demoman here, in a tiny little window that takes a very long time to load. Or wait for it to appear on Steam hopefully pretty soon. However, we think it unlikely that the excruciating "Scottish" accent will be improved by this time.

Edit - embedded version:

[Reposting this now, as the game was knocked offline on the day I wrote about it due to excessive interest, but now it's back (thanks for the tip-off, Seniath). Do do do go looky if you missed it first time. And the Halo 3 reference was, I'm sure, devastating in its timeliness originally but now reads as odd and outdated. Sigh.]

Additional update - here's the blog of the chap behind Launchball, detailing some of the thinking and backstory behind this excellent game's creation.

Why yes, since you ask, I do own a copy of Halo 3. Except it's currently still in the shrink wrap as, frankly, I already had better things to be doing. And now, I've also got free thingy Launchball to eat up my time. Trust me, this one will make you feel a whole lot better about yourself than grenading another Grunt will.

Bungie's design ethos for Halo may be '30 seconds of fun' , but that 30 seconds is just shooting people, innit? Launchball, created by the Science Museum in London (which would make me feel a swell of patriotic pride if only the part of my brain that associates personal worth with the patch of land I happened to be born in functioned properly), is all about 30 seconds of ever-changing fun. Why? Clicky below to find out. Don't stop reading here because it looks like the post ends. It doesn't. That's just the internet playing tricks on you.

Not had a chance to give this a whirl myself yet due to a nasty dose of manflu and work-excess, but it sounds as though it could offer nuggets of wonder. Platinum Arts Sandbox is a free world-builder tool, apparently so easy and quick that even those screaming, sulking, pre-pubescent monsters who are supposed to be the future of humanity can use it. And make scenes like this:

Aw, pretty. Kinda. The worlds that can spill forth from your boundlessly creative hands don't, as I understand it, offer much beyond roamability, but there's a little of Garry's Mod in its claimed drop-in approach to adding models. Garry's Mod but for scenery and without all the juvenile teabagging poses? Could be quite promising, really.