Another long weekend is here! Monday is May Day, so we’ll all be off dancing around maypoles and getting ourselves burned in giant wicker men. I hope I get to go in the arm with the geese; those honky lads love a bit of a banter. Those of us who survive the festivities will return on Tuesday.
Until then, what are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on. … [visit site to read more]
That’s a long time to wait to find out what really happens when you shoot a Barnacle creature. Germany has long been notorious for the strict limitations it placed on videogame content, and the noble Half-Life was a particularly infamous victim of the censor’s stamp. Until now. That means no more robots instead of soldiers, no more barnacles spewing nuts and bolts instead of blood and gore, and no more sad looks from invulnerable scientists if you shoot at them.
Sudden realisation: censored versions of HL are going to become collector’s items now, aren’t they?
… [visit site to read more]
This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Crawl [official site].
Crawl is a game about cooperation, betrayal and murder and accumulating enough eldritch power to kill a god. Made by Australian indie Powerhoof, it’s a couch multiplayer game played with up to three friends, but only one of you can be the hero. Everyone else is playing a monster, but when a monster kills the hero, it takes their place. This loop, of ganging up, competing to strike the final blow and then turning on your friends, captures the essential heart of the best local multiplayer games. It’s that delicious tension of power and powerlessness, of ruthlessness and submission, of laughter and jeering. At the centre of Crawl is a lovely bit of:
THE MECHANIC: Unfairness … [visit site to read more]
Martian crafty survival sandbox Rokh [official site] is coming to early access (of course) on May 16th. Sure, you’ve crafted and built in survival sandboxes before. Okay, you’ve done it in space too. And sure, you have even done it on Mars. But have you crafted and built in a Martian survival sandbox whose look is overseen by Viktor Antonov, the artist behind the wonderful looks of Half-Life 2 and Dishonored? Ah! Well, you’ll want Rokh for that. Watching a new trailer I don’t get a feel for the intricacies that can make two similar-seeming games be quite different, but I do like its Mars. … [visit site to read more]
Since launching last year, Total War: Warhammer’s [official site] digital facsimile of Games Workshop’s weird fantasy universe has grown considerably. The Old World’s become nice and fat with new factions, campaigns, units and mechanics, and now it’s finished. So this is a pretty good time to jump in, especially if you’ve been holding out for every piece of DLC. But oh no! There’s so much of it! If you get the wrong one, you might never forgive yourself. That’s why you’d best stick with me to find out which ones are crackers and which are stinkers.
The follow-up to charming and decent-enough city-builder Lethis – Path of Progress is not another build ’em up, but rather an interplanetary exploration game. Triskell Interactive this week announced Lethis – Daring Discoverers [official site], which will blast some odd folks from the steampunk world up to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no gungan has gone before. Have a look at the announcement trailer: … [visit site to read more]
Every party-goer knows it’s cool and trendy to arrive late. You wait until everyone is tipsy and bored of each other, then you appear in the doorway, hands full of ice creams, wearing your best pair of gloves. de Blob [official site], the jazzy puzzle-platformer about painting the town red and other colours, has arrived to the PC party a whole 9 years after its original release on the Wii. So, uh, hi de Blob.
… [visit site to read more]
