Player One Gaming

Steam is expanding

2013-09-20T20:04:00.001+01:00

It would seem Steam are making a push for the living room, which I'm taking as hints at the 'Steambox', Valves take on a console. Anyways on the Steam website we are told that "The Steam Universe is Expanding in 2014" and it goes on to mention about their 'Big Picture' feature in Steam optimizing controller and TV use.

Along with this we have a count down timer, which is sat at around 70 hours at the moment. It also has 2 more imaged next to the first timer with nothing around them currently. So I am going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that the guys at Valve have 3 big announcements over the next coming months/year. The first of which we will find out about in just under 3 days.

As I mentioned before this is bound to be news about Valves console and their push for the living room. Hopefully if I am right about this, they will be the ones to push what Microsoft should have done with the Xbox and GFWL and encourage cross platform gaming. I prefer playing on my PC a lot of my friends prefer to play on console. This has generally stopped us playing together as I don't have consoles and they don't have PCs. The different platform should be irrelevant, I would quite happily wait a few extra months for developers to integrate this feature in to their games, if anything this could quite easily extend the life span of games due to there being more players rather than having the fan base of a game split up over at least 3 different platforms. It is the way forward. I get that different platforms have their exclusives as incentive to buy said console. But more and more games are becoming available on multiple platforms, in these cases cross platform gaming would be idle.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see what Valve and Steam do, considering we haven't heard too much from them as of late.

Female Protagonists in games.

2013-09-20T18:24:00.001+01:00

I'm a bit late typing this up as I drafted it out a few days ago and have been busy doing other stuff I can't really remember. Anyway I had seen a couple of articles kicking up a fuss about the new Grand Theft Auto. Believe it or not, it's not the usual this game is corrupting our children which it's violence and all that bull that subject is a story for another day. This complaint, as you might have guessed from the title, is about the lack of a playable female character.

My little rant about this matter, is does it really matter? Surely you play games like Grand Theft Auto to steal cars, cause mayhem, randomly kill people and when you get bored play through the story. I couldn't care less about what gender the playable characters are. So long as I get to play the bad guy (sorry, I mean bad person to be politically correct). Which at the end of the day is exactly what this game is about. It is Rockstars choice what gender they want the protagonists to be, not ours. Should we get offended when they don't do something we want with the game. I'd say no, it is there game, they can make it however they want to. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's simple enough.

I get there isn't too many female protagonists out there, the only ones I can think of is Tomb Raiders Lara Croft, Chell from Portal and Kate from Hydrophobia: Prophecy. Most people won't know of Kate as it is a pretty small game that has been over looked by a lot of people. I believe it was meant to be the first game of a few, but never got enough funding to carry on the series, check it out anyway you can pick it up fairly cheap on Steam and probably some other places as well, I generally buy everything on Steam so I wouldn't know. Anyway tangent aside all of these games, never got complained about because the protagonists are female. So why should we complain about when you play as a guy. It does not matter, some games have male players some have female. It is entirely up to the developer to choose what they believe would suit the game better.

Humble Indie Bundle 9

2013-09-12T10:23:00.000+01:00

It's once again indie bundle time. Today I will be looking at the Humble Bundles latest one. They seem to be on a roll lately throwing out a bunch of decent bundles over the past few weeks or so. Just in case you have been sleeping under a rock the past however long these indie bundles have been going on, it must be years by now, Humble Bundle (and other bundles like it for that matter) let you buy a select group of games for a very small minimum price, if you are feeling flush feel free to chuck some extra money at them as a lot of the takings from this bundle does go to charity. I'm not sure if it changes from bundle to bundle I've never really noticed to be honest. Anyway charities that are involved are:

The games in this cool little bundle are:

I've heard good things about all of these games, except Eets Munchies which I have never heard of at all. However I will give it a download and see what it's like. Might even put up a little first thoughts post on here if I get round to it. I did many buy this bundle for Brutal Legend as I have found memories of playing it ages ago when I had a Playstation. However I have already put a good few hours into FTL, that game is really quite hard but oh so addictive, I can see it being my favourite out of the bunch. The bundle also comes with soundtracks for Trine, Brutal Legend, FTL and FEZ. All for the low, low cost of $4.59 minimum at the time of writing this, rather than the £50+ you would be paying if you bought all these games separately. I would definitely reckon getting in on this bundle, not only do you help out charities you get a bunch of cool games as well.

Steam is a big boy now.

2013-09-12T09:49:00.001+01:00

It would seem that Steam has hit it's 10th birthday today. Which apparently means I missed out on the first 3 years of it's life missing all those big moments like it's first steps, it's first word and the fact that it was a little bit shit when it first came out and everyone hated it.

Back then was a simpler time for gaming, you bought a game put a serial key in during installation and boom you can play your game. But Valve obviously saw the potential of the future of online gaming and took a left turn while everyone else was going right. This is also why I am so lenient with the likes of Origin and the fact everyone rips on it. It's still early days for EA and their digital download system, yes it's not the greatest, but since it started it has improved and will continue to improve of the years, just as Steam did. Other wise it will end up as another GFWL, I don't see that happening though, as EA do seem to actually be working on it.

Hopefully we will see the guys at Valve continue to improve Steam for the next 10 years and we will see some bugs fixed, new features and other improvements I can't think of. I was going to put a corny line in to finish this about the cake and lies but I decided against it. Instead have a picture of portal cake.

State of PC Digital Download

2013-08-20T21:24:00.002+01:00

There has been a couple things I've read related to this matter as of late. The first being Microsoft seemingly giving up on Games for Windows live and shutting down the service on July 1st 2014. While a lot of people will see this as a good thing considering there a quite number of folk who can't stand Microsofts GFWL platform, which I do understand as it isn't exactly the greatest out there. However I am one of the few(many? I haven't looked into figures) that still plays games on said platform, with the likes of Batman, Red Faction Guerilla, GTA 4 to name a few. All of these games I really enjoy and often go back to playing them on a some what regular (okay not that regular but they all get return visits over time), they also require you to sign into Microsofts service to play and save your game. My worry is how many developers will come around to patch out GFWL once it's gone? Will I still be able to play these games in a years time? Who is to say? Hopefully we will hear from them and whether they are going to sort this out.

I while I agree GFWL is a pain in the ass at times, Microsoft shouldn't have just bailed on PC gamers. It did have so much potential done right, under the right management and team it could have easily rivaled Steam, Origin (yes Origin it's a valid platform it just had a crappy launch like Steam did but that's a rant for another day) and other online distributors. They could have started cross platform gaming, pulled in gamers with Xbox exclusives such as Halo and Gears of War. But alas we got cock all, even though they are more than capable of making something decent (ie the Xbox interface). Why could they not have done something similar only on PC. Whether this is them MS scrapping the disaster of windows live and starting over from scratch or just giving up completely, only time will tell.

Next we have some news about Origin. They have recently set up a returns policy you can find here. This is quite a big step in Digital Download systems as usually when you buy something online you are kind of stuck with it. However under EAs new rules you can return game downloads for full refunds with 24 hours of the first time you launch the game, within seven days from when you purchase it, or within the first seven days after the games release if you pre ordered. No other DD platform has implemented such a clause in their ToS. EA definitely gained some kudos with this move. Granted it still has a while to gain the influence that Steam has but it's just a baby in comparison, however if EA keep pulling moves like this out the bag I'm sure they will catch up.

Origin Humble Bundle

2013-08-17T00:54:00.000+01:00

I have returned once again to bring you news (I say news damn near every other website will tell u before me lol) of the Humble Origin Bundle.

After reading a few articles and the comments that were bound to come along with a lot of them came with their hatred to Origin (as did PewDiePew bundle they have going at the moment, never watched him dunno anything about him so I staying away from commenting about that.). At the end of the day, yes Origin are blatantly trying to pick up business for their DD service as it business putting the amount they have into Origin they are hardly going to turn round and say to the guys in the office 'Hey you guys just want to fuck off out system, instead of work we can go get drunk and eat pizza instead'. However if they can get away doing that props to them I'd love to get drunk and eat pizza for a living, anyway before I get too distracted I'll get to my point.

The point is EA and the Origin guys have taken it upon themselves to give you this deal in the name of charity. Whether you like EA/Origin at all is irrelevant as it is for a Charity. If you don't like EA you can give all your money to charity, If you don't like Origin, all the games are available on Steam with the exception of Dead Space 3, Battlefield 3 and The Sims 3 starter set. But at the end of the day whether you like it or not EA are in fact doing this for charity. Yes, extra promotion will be a reason in there some where, does that really matter though. You can get 8 pretty awesome games for as little as a fiver can you really argue at that price. And I know there will be "but Origin is terrible and Steam is much better" comments out there.

However if we take a trip down memory lane, everyone hated Valve and Steam when it first came onto the scene way back when. It took them years of trust building and listening to what people what in the service to get where it is today. By all means Steam isn't perfect by any matters there a number of things that could and hopefully will be implemented in the future. I am giving Origin the benefit of the doubt as at least EA are doing better than Microsoft with the joke that is GFWL. Origin is still playing catch up as Valve has many years on them in the digital distribution field. The fact they are giving a lot of their best games away in the name of charity, I am going to give them Kudos for it. Granted I haven't used Origin for a while, not since I went through my Sim City phase I had no problems with it really, well except you can't auto update Sim City and have to open the log in to the game screen (and I'm assuming the rest of the games until you load up the game. That may have been fixed by now but don't quote me on that as I haven't checked.) I give it a year or 2 and see what they have done from here, these clients constantly get updated so I'm looking to see what they do. EA does need to knock down the prices on Origin though as they are more expensive that buying in an actual shop. But my dig at prices of digital download games is a complete story.

Anyway I've feed what ever trolls my come my way; now on to the bundle itself.

As always with the Humble Bundle it is a pay what you want scheme, the average purchase is around $5 at the moment and consists of:

Dead Space
Burnout Paradise
Crysis 2
Mirror's Edge
Dead Space 3
Medal of Honour
Battlefield 3
The Sims 3 + Starter Pack (which consists of Late Night Expansion Park and High-End Loft Stuff Expansion

Both Battlefield and The Sims require you to pay above the average to unlock. Are you really going to turn down this standard of games for such a low price. You are frankly an idiot if you do to be honest.

Anyways you have just under 12 days left to take advantage of this frankly amazing deal

The Summer Bundle

2012-07-01T01:27:00.001+01:00

I think I missed the last Indie Royale bundle but we have another one on the go now. This bundle is a fairly big one as well which will include 9 games and also some music if you pay over $8. As usual it has a minimum price which sits at about £3.60 at the moment. The games included are:

Harvest: Massive Encounter (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
The Journey Down: Chapter One (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
Serious Sam 2 (available on Steam)
Gundemonium Recollection (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
GundeadliGne (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
Hitogata Happa (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
Acceleration Of Suguri X-Edition (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows)
Dino Run SE (available on Desura and as a drm free download for windows, mac and linux)
AirMech (available on Steam, Desura and as a drm free download for windows)

The bundle expires in just over 9 days 13 hours from me writing this so by my math it will end on Tuesday 10th July at 11 pm GMT or BST I can't remember which I'm in atm, it's definitely Tuesday night though I'm pretty sure it's british summer time now anyway. I am going to be getting this for Harvest: Massive Encounter as I have wanted it since last time I saw it on sale on Steam, Serious Sam 2 is also an extremely good reason to get this bundle aswell, I already have this so may just be giving my copy away.

Also check out Unfair Reviews video review (below) and also Backlog Journeys review of the bundle for more detail on each game.

Guild Wars 2 Release Date

2012-06-28T15:12:00.000+01:00

This news has just made my day. Long awaited sequel to Guild Wars has finally got an official release date. So get the 28th of August in your diary as this is the release date of Guild Wars 2. I'm considering putting in a weeks holiday at work from then just so I can play the crap out of the game. The announcement was made on Arena Nets blog.

Humble Bundle Update

2012-06-07T23:49:00.001+01:00

While I have already talked about Humble Bundle V in a previous post. We have an update on this frankly fantastic bundle. Now not only do you get Bastion if you beat the average purchase price which is now about $8 you also get Super Meat Boy, Braid and Lone Survivor making this bundle, I would say the greatest one that has been released so far, and I am talking out of the numerous different bundles and not just Humble. You will be essentially be paying $1 per game minimum to get all 8 games now included. Saving nearly $150 should you buy these games separately at retail price. Not to mention you will helping out a good cause with some profits going to both EFF and Childs Play charities. If you haven't already got this bundle there should be nothing stopping you getting it now. It's $8, just over £5 for 8 great games.

The future of Origin

2012-06-06T20:34:00.001+01:00

I came across an interview with head of Origin, David Demartini on Games Industry about what the future holds for EAs digital distribution service, it's an interesting read. They want Origin to be 'the hub' for gamers and goes on to talk about cross platform though it does sound like they want to be something like Raptr which allows you to see acheivements, game collections, what you've been playing etc and rank you against friends. We seen cross platform gaming done, quite successfully may I add, with Valve and Portal 2 between PC and PS3. Hopefully this is a sign of things, I have been wanting this to happen since GFWL started (which I am still hoping will happen but I'm not holding my breath), cross platform gaming could and should have happened back then but alas Microsoft never followed through with what could have brought Xbox and PC gamers closer together, but I'm not going to get in to that rant now. EA are definitely big enough to fund this sort project, so maybe in the not to distant future we will see EA dabbling in cross platform games. I'm sure if one company sets the ground work for something like this others will follow suite. It needs to be done.

He also discusses Steam, talking about Valves raping of wallets... I mean sales and discounts and how Origin won't be going down this road. Saying how it cheapens your intellectual property. While I can see where he's coming from on the matter, I disagree with the fact it cheapens your ip, the fact of the matter is due to the fact that you are buying from a digital distributor the games shouldn't be the same price as they are if you are buying a hard copy. You have no case, instruction books or discs to make therefore no manufactor costs only those of for the upkeep of servers. I don't see how you can justify £40 for a downloadable copy of a game when it you pay the exact same amount for everything that comes with a hard copy. Then there is also the fact that we are in a recession and everyone can't afford to buy every single title that comes out at 40 quid a pop. Which is why I am yet to buy a single new AAA title this year. Purely because I can't afford to, along with the fact that if I wait a couple months it will be half the price, which points to his earlier comment about cheapening ips, but this is how businesses work. You set a price, if it doesn't sell well enough, you cut the price to increase sales, which is exactly what Valve do with Steam. Not every sale they do is ridiculously discounted they generally range from 10% and upwards, if we take the lowest discount thats only 3-4 quid off a new game. Then there is the fact these sales can rejuvinise games vastly increasing their popularity and even extending the life span of games.

Anyway I have rambled on enough for now, I am interested to see what Origin do in the future, I've never really used it so can't comment on how good or bad I think it is, however they are the new kids on the block and have to prove themselves and it would seem they are attempting to do that as it has had multiple updates during it's first year and looks like they are going to continue to do so.

Humble Bundle V

2012-06-03T14:39:00.000+01:00

The latest Humble Bundle has a total of 5 games (4 if you don't meet the minimum which is just under $8 at the time of writing this), all of which are redeemable through Steam. The games included are:

All of these games are well known indie titles these days and definitely worth a buy if you haven't played them already (I can't say personally for Superbrothers as I haven't played that yet but I have heard good things about it). Bastion is the game you get if you beat the minimum and I would highly suggest doing so as it is an awesome little game.

Also this Humble Bundle is the highest grossing bundle they have done so far according to Indie Game Magazine beating it's previous record of $2,417,659 made during the Humble Bundle IV with 11 days still to go before this current bundle expires. Along with the games mentioned above you also get the soundtrack for each game included with your purchase of the bundle. Also check out Unfair Reviews 'Should I Buy?' video of the bundle for a little more info on each game.

The Graduation Bundle

2012-05-31T15:07:00.000+01:00

So it is Indie Royale time once again. This bundle includes a total of 6 games and a music bonus if you pay over $7, you'll get Cheap Dinosaurs' acclaimed self-titled chiptune-rock album (which you can stream for free via the link above), though the minimum for just the games sits at about £3. The games included are:

All of the games except Dead Pixels (an Indie Royale exclusive PC debut and LaserCat are available on Steam, and all but The Ship (which includes 2 extra giftable Steam keys) are available on Desura. Check out UnfairReviews if you want to know a little more about each game, each video is one a couple minutes long and worth checking out.

The All Charity Lightning Pack

2012-05-16T15:55:00.000+01:00

Indie Royale have yet another bundle on the go and the profits from this one will go entirely to charity. What ever you pay is split between Amnesty International, EFF, Action Aid and Unicef. You can split your payment on Humble Bundle and Indie Gala between charity, developers, and the bundle company, only it is split between the 4 charities mentioned above instead. The games included in this bundle are:

All of these games are available as DRM free versions, or redeemable on Steam (except The Shivah) and Desura. The Minimum for the 4 games above is £2.63 as of writing this, however if you pay over $7 (about £4.30ish) you also get 3 bonus albums:

So as per usual I will be buying this bundle as I do with damn near every bundle after I get paid on Friday. You have about 99 hours left to get in on this bundle so by my math it should end about 7pm GMT this Sunday. For a review of the bundle check out The Backlog Journey and also the YouTube video below, he covers all indie bundles so give him a subscribe if you want reviews of future bundles.

Blizzard and Valve Make Up

2012-05-11T23:53:00.000+01:00

A while back there was some legal issues between Valve and Blizzard about Valve making Dota 2, Dota originally being a Warcraft mod. But this has been sorted out according to the guys at PC Gamer where I found out about this. (The italic paragraph below is quoted from the PC Gamer article about this linked above)

Valve will retain the commercial trademark to DOTA, and will not be required to change the name of their upcoming title DOTA 2, a stand-alone sequel to the Warcraft III map. Blizzard, however, will retain the right to use the DOTA name non-commercially. This includes promoting DOTA-style maps made for Blizzard games by the community. Their in-house DOTA successor, formerly known as Blizzard DOTA, will be renamed to Blizzard All-Stars while keeping the core gameplay mostly unchanged.

The great Gaben in the sky has commented about this ordeal stating “We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” “We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

I don't like it when mum and dad fight and am glad they've kissed and made up.

Indie Gala IV

2012-05-04T15:19:00.000+01:00

I'm a little late writing about this bundle as it went live a few days ago, can't remember exactly when but Indie Gala have a nice little bundle of 9 games (7 of which are available as Steam downloads) so long as you pay over the minimum which at the time of me writing this is $5.19 (£3.20). So paying even the minimum it works out at about 35p a game, how can you go wrong with that. The games included in this bundle are:

This bundle has just over 11 days left until it ends, so if my maths is correct it should be ending midnight GMT on Tuesday 15th of May. As I am currently skint at this moment in time that will give me plenty of time to find a few quid for this. Also If you want a review of all the games involved check out The Backlog Journey, he seems to cover just about every indie bundle in existence.

The May Hurray Bundle

2012-05-03T22:54:00.000+01:00

Would you believe it? We have yet another Indie Royale bundle on the go. This one is obviously for the May Day holiday given the bundles name. This bundle includes the following 5 games:

All of these games are available on Desura, and all but Weird Worlds is available as a Steam download. I would personally get this bundle purely for Dungeon Defenders, it's a multiplayer coop tower defence game, I have only played the demo but I have heard many good things from people who have played the game, this game has been on my list for a while so what's a better time to get it than during a sale like this. Anyway as with every Indie Royale bundle you can pay what you want so long as you meet the minimum which stands at just over £3 at the point of me writing this and the offer ends in just over 6 days time which is handy because I'm skint until Tuesday and I reckon I will be picking this one up. Also check out The Backlog Journey, there is a write up of all the games included in this bundle.

EA Indie Bundle?

2012-05-03T10:23:00.000+01:00

Yes, thats right I used EA and indie in the same sentence. But according to Indie Game Magazine an EA Indie Bundle has been registered on Steam. Now I have always classed indie games and developers are those that are independent of publishers so by definition EA can not technically have an Indie Bundle as every game in here they are in fact publisher to and not developer. None the less they are apparently getting in on some indie game action as it seems to be quite the growing trend at the moment.

This bundle will consist of the following 6 games:

This bundle will cost you £14.38 saving you just over £30 if you were to buy these games at their usual price. You can also buy the games in this bundle individually if you happen to have some of the games in question already at a 50% discount of the usual price. This offer is running until the 9th of May and I would suggest if anything get Deathspank for cheap out of this. The other games I haven't played so I can't really say how good or bad they are, but Deathspank and it's sequels are awesome.

Should used games be abolished?

2012-05-01T13:20:00.000+01:00

I was reading an article on Gamerant about how Crytek developers are in favour of the next generation consoles blocking of used games. While I understand why developers would want this to happen and would obviously be in favour of this: It could potentially lead to more sales of new games making them more money.

This has happened already on the PC side of gaming with the majority of PC games these days having some sort of DRM, be it Steam, Origin or Ubisofts always online DRM system which everyone loves to hate. The Point I'm getting to is that it seems that consoles may be taking a page out of the PCs side of the industry should rumours be true.

Since this has already happened over with the PC community and me primarily being a PC gamer, I am used to this anyway and it isn't as big of a deal to me as it is to a lot of console gamers. But due to the fact I can't buy used games on PC any more, places like Steam have realised this and took advantage with all there constant sales, now instead of buying used games I just wait until they go on sale and buy them cheap. My theory is if these rumours are true, consoles and developers should take a page out of Valves book and do something similar sale wise to keep customers happy.

At the end of the day though, I don't agree with this business practice. I'm all for companies trying to up sell their products it is a business after all and of course they need to make money. But to me this logic is ridiculous. Let's put this mentality into perspective shall we? Say I buy a brand new car, then after a while of using it I decide to sell it for whatever reason; to buy a better one, because I need the money or I just plain don't want it any more. Should the car manufacturer get a cut of my sale of a product which is rightfully mine now? No, of course they shouldn't, they set a price that they thought reasonable to make back the money the initially spent building it. Therefore after I paid said initial price the car would be mine to do whatever I please with. If I want to sell it on, destroy it, keep it forever and add to my collection, it is might right to have a choice in what I do with it as it now belongs to me.

This logic is the same for the likes of books, dvds, furniture and damn near everything that you can physically buy. There are many places that have made businesses out of selling used goods, look at Gamestop, Love Film (renting by post, not the online version), used car lots, Blockbuster (not sure if they are in business anymore but you get my point), charity shops, eBay and the list goes on, that's just a few off the top of my head. But if you stop used goods from being sold you will destroy many businesses and cause job loses for even more people, which is exactly what we need right now (going to stop here or I will get in to a rant about politics and I can't be arsed with it). The fact of the matter is this does not happen in any other industry why should the gaming industry be the exception.

Theme Hospital

2012-04-23T15:41:00.000+01:00

I recently bought this of GOG.com as it was only about $6 and I loved playing it as a kid. I dunno why but it seems a hell of a lot easier than I remember it being. I used to struggle to get past the first level with earthquakes but I've beat that one and got a fair few levels higher than that just since yesterday and I haven't even done the money cheat either, which used to get used a lot back in the day. There aren't enough games like this these days, the closest we have today is the bullshittery that are facebook games. I want a proper game not one I have to be friends with so many people to achieve the next level. Tycoon games are in quite a lul at the moment, sure we had the announcement of Sim City 5 recently but except that what have we had, Rollercoaster Tycoon was about 7 years ago, Hospital Tycoon was 5, Sim City 4 was about 9 and we haven't seen anything Bullfrog in over a decade. I want someone, I don't care who, to bring out a series of new Theme games with fancy new graphics. This was meant to be reminiscing about the awesomeness that was Theme Hospital, but I kind of went on a tangent. Long story short people should go buy Theme Hospital it's a great little game.

Shoot Many Robots - First Thoughts

2012-04-20T14:37:00.001+01:00

A friend of mine suggested this game to me a while back and I am kinda glad he did, it's a fun little game. Shoot Many Robots is a side scrolling shooter and as you might have guessed by the name of the game the primary aim of the game is to shoot many robots (10,000 of them if you want the Shoot Many Robots achievement). There are many different types of robots starting with choppers which are small little robots with chainsaws attached to them which are normally found in large hordes, then we have Hummers which are annoying little flying robots that shoot rockets, then as levels progress you get bigger and harder robots in your path such as the hot rod, which is pretty much a gattling gun and can hurt quite a bit if you get the way of its barrage of gun fire and a number of others that I won't go into but you can read about here if you are interested.

The game is both single and multiplayer. The multiplayer is however just a coop version of the story mode. While playing by your self is quite fun and fairly challenging, but this game seems to me like one of those games that should be played with some buddies while having a couple of beers, it's fun, fast paced and quite chaotic. Perfect for those nights of drunken gaming.

Shoot Many Robots also has a leveling and weapon unlock system, which seem to becoming more and more of a trend with shooters these days which I'm not the greatest fan of, but I'll not get in to that rant right now. To get to the max level (50) doesn't take all that long, so long as you join in coop games on Hard or Insane difficulty, I went from level 1 to 45 in a matter of a couple hours, unlocking guns and gear on the other hand can take a fair while longer as they seem to just drop randomly in game (I believe it's when you kill the harder robots, but don't quote me on that) which you then have to buy at the store with nuts and bolts you pick up during your robot killing adventure, so getting everything would take awhile.

Overall it is a cool and fun little game definitely worth the £8 I spent on it on Steam (it is also available on XBLA and PSN and I would suggest it to others who are in the need of a distraction until that next big game they are wanting comes along.

The Spring Bundle

2012-04-19T09:26:00.000+01:00

It's Indie Royale time and once again you can pay whatever you want for this little bundle of indieness so long as you meet the minimum which tends to stick around the £3 mark, give or take. This bundle includes the 6 following games:

All of these games are available on Desura to download, if you want Steam versions of the games you can get them for the first 3 in the list but the rest are currently not available on your favourite digital download service. But at a couple quid for 6 games you can't complain at all.

The April Fools Bundle

2012-04-04T16:20:00.000+01:00

It's that time once again and the Indie Royale team are at it again this bundle as you may have guessed by the title is the April Fools Bundle. This bundle includes the following games:

Just like all the other bundles before it all these games are available as DRM free downloads, though you can redeem all of them through Desura, and all but Explodemon are available on Steam according to the Indie Royale site but doing a quick search in the steam store I couldn't find Hack, Slash, Loot. As usual I will once again be giving a few quid to get me some indie bundle goodness.

Orcs Must Die 2 Announced

2012-04-03T14:07:00.000+01:00

Orcs Must Die! was one of my favourite games from last year. The idea of it is so simple but the outcome was such a fun little game. Now Robot Entertainment have announced that they will be making a sequel including all your favourite traps and enemies from the first game and many new ones as well. Not only will Orcs Must Die 2 will have a single player just as it's predecessor did but it will include a co-op mode so you can trap along side you buddies. This is probably one of the biggest complaints about the first one, the fact that it was purely single player. I didn't mind this as like I said before I loved this game and picked it up for a mere couple of quid on a steam sale some point last year, have to say was the best £3 I spent last year. I am looking forward to see a sequel to this game and hope it is good as the first. More information about the game can be found at the games website.

OMG OMG OMG OMG

2012-03-31T20:04:00.000+01:00

I just loaded up steam for the first time in a few days and I noticed I had something in my inventory so I go check and low and behold I find an invite to nothing other than the CS:GO beta. So as you may have guessed by the title I am very quite excited about this. I don't know why I got a key I don't think I signed up for it at any point, but none the less I am not going to sit here and complain about it. So long story short I have CS:GO beta and I am very very happy about it to say the least.

St Patricks Indie Bundle

2012-03-15T16:33:00.000+00:00

So St Paddys Day is nearly upon us and not only do we get to celebrate the drunkenness of the Irish we also have another Indie Royale bundle on the go. This one is available now and we have just under 5 days left to get this bundle of goodness. The games included in this one are:

Hard Reset
Jolly Rover
Vertex Dispenser
DLC Quest
Lair of the Evildoer

The first three games are available on Steam, the last two however are not, they are available on Desura though. The minimum at the moment is round about £3, but as always it is subject to change. I would highly suggest getting this if anything purely for Hard Reset, it is a great little game I picked it up in a Steam sale a while back and love it. The other games would just be a bonus but as I said before Hard Reset is awesome and is a hell of a bargain if you pick it up for the minimum.