Heroes Rise: Text Adventures Coming To Steam
By Graham Smith on June 18th, 2014 at 12:00 pm.
It’s 2014. Despite the creative rennaissance enabled by the likes of Twine, text adventures and interactive fiction are one of the few genres yet to experience a commercial revival from the rise of new funding models and digital distribution. There’s still hope, though. Choice Of Games, one of the few companies trying to make a living from making such games, have just announced that their Heroes Rise series is coming to Steam. They’re the first text adventures to join the platform.
So what’s your plan of attack?
The Quest To Reclaim Identity: Flashback Dev’s Subject 13
By Alec Meer on June 18th, 2014 at 2:00 pm.
The CV of Paul Cuisset, lead designer of Flashback (plus the oft-infuriating but semi-brilliant Future Wars), is a bewildering one. King of the world after Flashback, surely, yet his follow-up to it was Shaq Fu. While that no doubt bought him a mansion made of solid gold basketballs, his titles since suggest a slow decline, with his once-great studio Delphine Software International closing down in 2004. Follow-up company VectorCell met an abrupt end in 2008 after a Flashback remake and disastrous horror game AMY failed to generate requisite digital funbucks.
I would have predicted a Kickstarter any moment now, but looks like he’s instead gone traditional and partnered up with a publisher for his next effort, Subject 13, which is billed as a return to his acclaimed sci-fi adventure roots.
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Impressions – Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms
By Alec Meer on June 18th, 2014 at 5:00 pm.
It is, I’m afraid, true that the only reason I even installed this fantasy roleplaying game is because Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor himself, provides some voicework for it. I’ve heard many strange and troubling things about old teeth’n'curls, but many wonderful things too, and most of all he’ll always by the iconic face of Doctor Who to me. Joyful, mercurial, wise, stupid, relishing rather than tortured by his adventures: a definitive screen hero, the definitive Doctor. Of course I couldn’t resist, even for a game with as forgettable a title as Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms.
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Frost And Found: Road Not Taken
By Adam Smith on June 18th, 2014 at 6:00 pm.
Jim was the first member of RPS to wander down the Road Not Taken and we’ve barely seen him since. It’d take a brave or foolhardy individual to follow in his footsteps, trekking deep into the life sim roguelike puzzler, and I reckon I’m the right man for the job. The video below shows the core mechanic in action, portraying the game as a cross between the developer’s own Triple Town and Bomberman. Except with lost children and twigs instead of bombs. The video doesn’t tell the full story though – Road Not Taken is a game of secrets. Each playthrough lasts for a maximum of 15 in-game years, although death will often occur before that time, and multiple lifetimes will be required to discover all.
Orcs Must Die! Unchained – Closed Beta Launches June 27th
Robot Entertainment has announced that the closed beta phase for Orcs Must Die! Unchained will be launched on June 27th. During the course of this phase, the development team will be introducing a whole new map, three additional heroes and the innovative deck editing system, which allows players to create the best possible combination of traps and creatures. Continue reading
Watch_Dogs – First Official PC Patch Detailed
Ubisoft has revealed the changelog for the first official PC patch that will go live in the coming days. According to the changelog, this update fixes some crashes on SLI configurations, fixes graphical glitches on Low & Medium settings, and brings several performance improvements. This patch will also be available on all other versions (without obviously the PC specific fixes/additions/improvements). You can view the complete changelog after the jump. Kudos to our reader ‘[Chaotic]‘ for informing us! Continue reading
Get Escape Goat 2 and Goat Simulator by donating to goat-themed charity
Ask the person nearest to you how they feel about goats. It is unlikely they will say they hate goats, because humankind tends to look fondly on goatkind. Sometimes it feels like there are too few goats though, and that’s where video games and charity come into the equation: by donating to goat-themed charity Heifer International, you will not only contribute a real life goat to farmers in need, but you will also receive two goat-themed computer games for your efforts.
Summoner's Rift update hits League of Legends PBE
Riot Games teased some big changes coming to Summoner's Rift earlier this month, promising to bring "additional clarity" to the map through various tweaks and changes. Now, as promised, that update has been rolled out to the Public Beta Environment.
Rainbow Six Siege interview: how destruction works, moddability, hostage design
Rainbow Six Siege was our favorite game at E3. The promise of a Rainbow reboot centered around competitive multiplayer and high-fidelity destruction captured our tactical imaginations, but Ubisoft’s narrow, one-level demo left us with a ton of unanswered questions. How does destruction work? Would it be moddable? Can hostages move on their own? What form will co-op take?
Trine Enchanted Edition coming free to Steam
Trine was pretty fantastic when it came out in 2009 but Trine 2 was a major overhaul in just about every way, offering dramatically improved visuals and cooperative multiplayer that allowed the game's three lead characters – the Wizard, the Thief and the Knight – to be controlled simultaneously. Frozenbyte described those features as "missing" from the original game, and that's where the newly-announced Enchanted Edition comes into play.
Ubisoft CEO says "we'll try" to increase character diversity in future games
Ubisoft took some heat during E3 over the absence of a playable female character in Assassin's Creed Unity, and even more so for the lame excuse it offered up to justify it. Some people also found questionable its use of a suburban housewife as a helpless hostage in the impressive Rainbow Six Siege trailer, and the hero of the hit Watch Dogs is noteworthy primarily because, as a typically generic white male, he is not noteworthy at all.
Battlefield Hardline beta now open to all PC gamers
It seems like only a week ago that the Battlefield Hardline beta was a closed affair, accessible to only the most fortunate and well-connected of the world's virtual warriors. And you know what? It was only a week ago, roughly, but that doesn't matter anymore, because those doors have now swung wide open. Want in? All you have to do is sign up.
Grey Goo preview
I spent a lot of time playing StarCraft in high school. There have been other real-time strategy games in my life, sure, but StarCraft was my first true love. Consequently, it shaped my expectations for the entire genre. It’s also why I’m so fascinated with Grey Goo, the oddly named, sci-fi themed RTS that plays by all the old school rules. As we outlined in our exclusive reveal in March, Grey Goo abides by all the archetypal resource mining, base building, and unit management that defined the classics of the genre.
What separates Grey Goo from the games it seeks to honor are its drastically asymmetrical races, most notably the eponymous, ultra-aggressive Goo. Remember all that stuff I was saying about respecting tradition? The Goo take those expectations and deliberately subvert them.
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