As Norn Week over at the Guild Wars 2 official blog rumbles on, ArenaNet have just updated the norn racial page with brand new wallpapers, expanded lore, and a brand new video featuring the Shiverpeaks, hunting grounds of the norn. If you haven’t already seen it, you really should head on over and take a look. The desktop wallpapers are absolutely brilliant (made from concept art) but most importantly, the new footage of Shiverpeaks makes me want to …
Have you ever had such a desire to play a video game that to soak up every column inch of information and to repeatedly tap F5 on the developer’s blog is simply not a good enough fix? That need eventually becomes a permanent itch, where the first thing you do at 6am as the alarm sounds isn’t to say good morning to your partner/girlfriend/lover/cat/other, but is instead to leap onto the computer and check the latest forum posts …
“Kill with skill,” advises Bulletstorm’s ad copy. That rhymes so it makes a nice tagline. “Kill as brutally and hideously as you possibly can within only the loosest confines of physics” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily.
Bulletstorm is exactly what it wants to be: a zany, foulmouthed, crass, absurdly violent fiesta of carnage. And everything about it appears crafted to suit this. Polish developer People Can Fly, working with Epic, have brought their considerable talents for atmosphere, outlandishness, and gleefully gory over-the-topism to bear yet again in a game that really does kind of remind us that “mindless” is not only sometimes a good thing, it can actually be a personality trait.
For those who are not already, please cease current activity and toddle over to our friend Harbour Master’s Electron Dance, and read The Aspiration, in which he is chronicling a game of Neptune’s Pride. At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, even emotionally exhausting, it is always epic and written in a classic Harbour Masterian style that many can emulate but none can match. Preview—— Part 1—— Part 2—— Part 3—— Part 4—— Part 5 It’s not …
Gamesindustry.biz reports that Microsoft and NVIDIA have departed the PC Gaming Alliance, a movement the two organizations helped found. Neither firm offered a reason for departure. The PCGA was founded a couple years ago, if memory serves, to advance the PC as a viable platform for gaming. As consoles grow in market share, and development costs for PC (plus the ever-present threat of piracy) continue to spiral upward, the platform has long been losing its …
I know you’ve grown tired of the zombification of our planet. I have too, friends. However, being late to the party is not a crime, in fact sometimes it might even be a good thing. Enter: Dead Island. Sometimes you go away for a long weekend and when you come back you find electronically transmitted pieces of mail from your friends; heartwarming it is. Sometimes those pieces of mail show you a teaser/trailer that you …
Warning: Bulletstorm will make you rape people. So says Fox News, that bastion of fair-and-balanced reporting, its experts dourly citing completely unrelated and often debunked studies to that effect. To my knowledge no rapes have been connected to the recent demo release, but likely the law hasn’t been looking for said connection. Bulletstorm is going to make you rape stuff, not because there are any rapes in it or because it endorses rape or even uses the word rape (though it does use the word “dicktits”), but because… um.
Assuming what we can from the demo, Bulletstorm is juvenile toilet humor with liberal amounts of gore and NSFW, often sexually-charged achievement names for killing things by pumping shells up their rectums or what have you. Sometimes juvenile toilets can be kind of awesome.
I’ve written Culture Clash for the IGDA website for over eight years now. I’ve always meant to start posting my monthly columns here as well, but never got around to until now. As time permits I’ll post the older ones and back-date them, so give me a couple days, then be sure to check out the Culture Clash category archive here at Tap to read more.
This one’s about… hell, click the button and you’ll see.
Over at the official EVE Online site, CCP have begun to reveal details relating to the new Captain’s Quarters that players will be able to experience by the summer. The dev-blog describes the Captains Qaurters as: “your place of power, center of your control, operational nucleus, living room and home office. They are the dusty motel room for the vagabond capsuleer. Whether docking your ship to a station or entering EVE for the first …
After Guild Wars 2’s recent Human Week, ArenaNet have announced the second installment to their ongoing series dedicated to detailing the races featured in Guild Wars 2. This coming Monday the official ArenaNet Blog will give players an in-depth introduction to the shape shifting half-giants known as the Norn, and throughout the remainder of the week will provide readers with additional insight from the developers on the lore, the newest art, and a new video! If you haven’t already …
“A future in which almost every aspect of your life includes a game like experience is all but inevitable.” — Jesse Schell, Video game designer/researcher, Carnegie-Mellon University I just got around to reading the December issue of Scientific American. Bad mistake, I should have gotten to it earlier because therein is a fascinating article by John Pavlus called “The Game of Life.” He makes the very simple claim that games will become part of our …
With over 300 hours invested, I’ve lost patience with Team Fortress 2. As a team based, class based shooter, its original focus was that of a competitive but organised multiplayer experience, which required cooperation between you and team mates in order to be successful. The result of its mutations and gradual evolution over many years however, is that Team Fortress 2 is distinctly lacking two key elements: team-work and organisation.
As my second piece of news, also Steam related, SEGA of America, Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd have today announced that Total War: Shogun 2, will be available on Steam on February 22. The press release goes on to state: SEGA and The Creative Assembly are proud to let gamers everywhere know that a demo for Total War: Shogun 2 will soon be available on Steam. The demo will allow all armchair samurai to test their skills …
I should have been posting this bite-sized news yesterday, but I’ve been feeling under the weather lately (I blame Steerpike and his relentless beatings). So I’m posting it now, instead. Forbes Magazine in February’s issue have revealed that Steam controls up to 70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games, with a staggering 200% year-over-year growth. Although Valve have never revealed their turnover or profit margins, its fair to say that their profit will undoubtedly …
A few weeks ago Armand from Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming inspired me to check out The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a game I’ve been curious about for years but never felt compelled to pick up. After a quick dash around some of the local game shops I found a copy of the Bloodmoon expansion tucked away amongst a neglected pile of second-hand titles and miraculously, a few shelves down, Morrowind and Tribunal, all for the …