Oh to be a bullet. To exist in a momentary, frequently black-and-white world free of complications or petty concerns. Point A to point B. That’d be my entire lightning-quick existence, but I’d get to savor ever slow-mo second – probably while shouting “wheeeeeeeeeeeee!” Max Payne 3, at least, offers a glimpse into this hot leaden utopia, but at what cost? Pretty much none, as it turns out.
Now, that’s not to say it wants you to avoid playing the game – nor is it requesting that you consider exchanging some of your precious monetary currency for J. J. Abrams hit island humdinger. “You,” in this case, refers to your character, Jim. In Lost Planet 3′s first trailer, he is having the worst day, because the titular Lost Planet’s continent-sized nametag should really read “Hello, my name is Incredible Jerk Planet.”
The sequel to Radical Entertainment’s best-selling open-world action game of 2009, PROTOTYPE® 2 takes the unsurpassed carnage of the original PROTOTYPE and continues the experience of becoming the ultimate shape-shifting weapon. You are Sgt James Heller, husband to a deceased wife and child and a soldier left simply to die.
As well as being the year of the Gamejam and Kickstarter, 2012 is the year that turn-based strategy finally uses up all the action points its been conserving since the ’90s and trundles back into view. There it is now, jogging up the road, ready to show us alien-killing, petrol stations exploding and maybe the occasional viking with a banner. Oh, but now it’s stopped in the middle of the road. It’ll be there for a few months, squatting, but then the fun will begin. Void Rim should be joining the turn-based battle soon as well.
Released when I was distracted by something that wasn’t the internet over the weekend, Deadly 30 is a side-scrolling game of zombie killing, home building and exploration. More killing than building, granted, but while each of the 30 days that must be survived allow for scavenging, and the discovery and recruitment of other survivors, the nights are given over to barricade building and defense, as the hordes of dead knock on the doors and windows, possibly asking to borrow some sugar or tea.
The year they call 2012 will be full of dungeon crawling and loot hauling. Thousands of people probably descended on the Path of Exile for the first time this weekend and there’s the not inconsequential matter of Diablo III’s mid-May arrival. But what of Torchlight II? I feel like it hasn’t been clamouring for my attention as loudly as perhaps it should and a short video showing animated animals is hardly the most clamorous display. Still, that is one cute bulldog.
More information about Ubisoft’s frontal attack on the free-to-play realms keeps pouring out. This Ghost Recon Online trailer shows off one of the character classes, revealing a bunch of the hi-tech super-gear that the assault class will have at his disposal. As the player gains experience, so the sophistication of his tools increases, too. The most hilarious of these is a microwave area of effect weapon, which allows you to cook nearby baddies on demand. Yes.
With Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coming out later this year, we decided to take a detailed look at one of the most popular online shooters ever made. Lock and Load. When we published the Half-Life episode at the start of season two I was genuinely shocked by how many comments there were from people who had never played either game in the series.
Hello, you. The unseasonably warm afternoons seem to be making the hivemind sleepy. Personally I’ve been in a trance for the best part of an hour, just staring off into the blue skies overhead. Mmm. Is that jazz playing from an open window? But then everything suddenly came back into focus and I realised there were videos to be blogged. And we all like to see imaginary men getting shot – Hell, some of us depend on it for our sanity.
I’m all about hybrids. When I’m not in Castle Shotgun’s basement laboratories, attempting to breed rabbits with dragons, I love to investigate games that plunder from multiple genres. But by crikey, I’m daunted by the prospect of a third-person shooter crossed with a real-time strategy. That’s the nature of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, the latest from Paradox that’s just gone on sale. Fortunately braver men than I, like Jim “Brave” Rossignol, have taken a detailed look at it in the past. And now you can buy it.