Rock, Paper, Shotgun

DoW2 Hunkers Down In Readiness/Fear

Alec Meer — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:04:00 +0000

In preparation for the impending Chaos Rising expandaspansionlone due later this week, there’s just been a hunka hunka burning patch for the original Dawn of War II. While the price of Chaos Rising might seem a little unfair, given it’s primarily an expansion hiding in self-contained form, Relic are going to extreme lengths to not split the player base. The update that’s just hit allows DoW2-plain players to battle against Chaos Rising players (and Dow2+Chaos Rising players), essentially patching the entire Chaos Faction into the original game. You can’t play as ‘em if you don’t own Chaos Rising, but you can play against them. Better still, the shiny new units for the four existing DoW2 races are now yours to play with, for free – including Genestealers. Genestealers! Dance-dance-happy-dance. Also thrown in are a clutch of new maps – the net result being that, whichever configuration of DoW2 you own, you’re not locked out of playing with anyone else. It’s an incredibly generous update, and I’ve a sneaking feeling it’ll shift a lot of copies of the expansion as a result. Full patch notes are hiding below – but you’ll get the whole lot if you update your copy of DoW2 on Steam now.
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Writer: Alec Meer. | 13 comments

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Napoleon: Partial War

Alec Meer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:29:31 +0000

Demo! Demo! Demo! Demo of a strategy game! Being a gentleman who tends towards robots and explosions in his real-time strategy games and turn-based in his historical strategy games, I remain a little unclear as to whether Napoleon: Total War is a brand new game, or a cleverly-marketed standalone expansion. Or both. All I know is that Quinns quite liked it. There’s a demo out now via Steam, which means you can ascertain for yourself whether it’s a new age or a repeat of Empire. The AI’s much better, I hear. And it’s important to always mention the AI in any discussion of recent Total War games, apparently. Oh- the demo contains a tutorial and the France vs Prussia Battle of Ligny scenario. Fight!

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2009 PC Gaming Software Sales Up 3%

Jim Rossignol — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:50:21 +0000

The PCGA (remember them?) have released a report to their members claiming that PC gaming software sales went up in 2009. The report apparently collated data on PC games software sales from all part of the world, in both retail and digital sales markets. “PC gaming software revenue was a $13.1 billion industry in 2009,” says the PCGA’s release, “up 3% from 2008.” While traditional mainstream PC games sales are still in decline, it seems that revenues across the globe have been boosted by online distribution. “In our surveys of PC gamers in North America and Europe we found that over 70% indicate they have bought a full game online. Furthermore, over 50% indicate that they have bought a virtual item,” said DFC Analyst David Cole. “This is very positive because, when done successfully, companies in Asia have found the digital distribution model to be significantly more profitable than the traditional retail boxed goods business.”

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Writer: Jim Rossignol. | 32 comments

Post tags: pc gaming is dead, PCGA | Help RPS: donate or subscribe
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OnLive Launches June 17th

Jim Rossignol — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:27:51 +0000

The OnLive “Games On Demand” service will launch in the US on June 17th for Mac and PC, and it will cost $15/month. Remind yourself why this is a big deal by revisiting last year’s announcement.

Launch titles for the streamed-games service include Assassin’s Creed II, Metro 2033 and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. Which kind of makes sense, because you really will have to be “always on” connected if you want to play the games. There’s a demo of it going on at GDC right now, and tweeters in the audience are saying it looks “amazing”. Apparently it needs 1.5mbps. What’s the latency like? We just won’t know, I suspect, until it goes live.

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OnLive: The End Of Games Platforms?

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The Chaos Periscope

Alec Meer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:44:55 +0000

I have a dream. That dream is a submarine game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe – Das Boot with Nurglings. This day will never become, of course. Today, however, we have come as close to it as we ever will – for Eurogamer is currently hosting adjacent reviews of Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, by me, and *******’s Silent Hunter V, by Quintin. One of these reviews is happy, and one is angry. Before you click over to find out, though, take a guess as to which game each of these quotes refers:

Will you pet this cute puppy, or kick it into the nearest canal then tell the little girl who owns it that it always hated her anyway?

But all of these missteps pale in comparison to how unfinished this game is. Any notes I take while reviewing a game tend to be of the angry variety; when I’m having fun I don’t often stop to jot things down.

Ooh!

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Codies Confirm F1 2010

Jim Rossignol — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:07:26 +0000

This has been in the works for a while, but Codemasters have finally announced that their next big racing game will indeed be the official game of the FIA Formula One World Championship. This new game, F1 2010, will be based on the GRID/DIRT2 “EGO” tech. Codies say:

In F1 2010 gamers will take on the full, expanded grid in a variety of game modes including GRAND PRIX, Championship, Time Trial and an extensive, innovative Career mode. F1 2010 will also feature a highly advanced damage model, fully dynamic weather system and extensive competitive multiplayer options.

Which is good, because if they’d said “prolly gonna have cars, pff, dunno. Stop bothering us!” we’d actually be a bit worried. It’s going to be released in September.

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IGF Factor 2010: Miegakure

Kieron Gillen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:30:51 +0000

Miegakure is one of the most enigmatic designs in all of the IGF. It’s a competition which has been known for highlighting brain-bending designs. Not many have actually gone as far to be based around the conceptual headflips of a 19th century novella. Marc ten Bosch’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop presentation at last year’s GDC was widely commented upon. This year, he’s picked up a nomination in excellence in design. And now, he’s speaking to use. Read on.
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Pride And Falls: Neptune’s Pride Diary Part 1

RPS — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:09:21 +0000

Neptune’s Pride is an in-development slow-form browser-based strategy game from Iron Helmet games, currently in open beta. You can play it now. Over a period of a month or so, we did just that, with intriguing consequences. We’ve joined forces with PC Gamer (who are also posting this diary here) to bring you the full story of what happened…

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True Crime In Hong Kong In The Autumn

Jim Rossignol — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:37:35 +0000

The next True Crime game is bound for PC and this time it knows Kung Fu. The reason for this is that it’s going to be set in Hong Kong, where apparently people are just as adept with their feet as with guns (see illustrative image). Once again it’s an open world tale of undercover police work and horrible gangsterism in the real world. 2010’s not a bad year for sandbox criminality then, even without a GTA game… “We tried to give the franchise a reboot and take a more mature slant,” producer Jeff O’Connell told peerless news-trumpeter, VG247. “In doing that, to get the background information we needed, one of the writers gained the trust of an ex-Triad to make the experience more authentic.” Hmm. For some reason the words “mature” and “immature” both now have the same meaning in my head. Anyway, first trailer below.
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Word Play: Ribbon Hero

Kieron Gillen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:33:02 +0000

We’ve been meaning to post about Ribbon Hero for a while, prompted by – oooh – at least many people. Unfortunately, we wanted to give it a try first and John’s the only one who has a copy of Office (The of us rest being punk rock heroes! and/or cheapskates with Open Office). And John’s spent the last couple of days discharging fountains of bilious fluid from every imaginable organ, so it hasn’t happened, so I’m going to plug it swiftly before I jet off to Seattle. Basically, it turns the process of learning bits of Office (Both 2007 and the 2010 Beta) into a game, complete with achievements and the ability to compete against friends. I’d expect to see a lot more stuff like this over the next few years. Anyway, you can get it from here or find it explained by a chap below.
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Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

Alec Meer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:05:02 +0000

Jim pointed me at this video earlier, presumably believing that my knowledge of, for instance, how to overclock a processor without setting my house on fire means I can say whether there’s any water to its boasts. Um. Maybe? Unlimited Detail Technology reckon their clever tech is the biggest leap in realtime 3D graphics in decades. If what they say is true, we’re going to wave goodbye to games rendered in polygons, and hello to games free from cubist edges and limited model counts. Take a look below, and see what you think.
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Writer: Alec Meer. | 186 comments

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Completely Exciting Lost Planet 2

Jim Rossignol — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:12:54 +0000

Capcom’s grapple-tastic science fictional shooter Lost Planet 2 is coming out on the console toys around May 18th and apparently it’s coming out on the Windows too, but we’ve not got a date confirmed for PC as far as my investigations are able to uncover. Nevertheless there’s reasons to be excited, which come in the form of giant alien mega-monsters being splatted in constituent gore-chunks by space-dudes who are playing army with fast-firing future-weapons. I mean it: the latest trailer (below, clearly) is hyperbole like they used to make back when I was a boy.

“FULL-SCALE COMBAT.” What. Is. That.
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