Good morning, Internet! I’ve been off having adventures, but I suppose I’d better try and put together an entertaining Saturday. Let’s kick off with the latest Aliens stuff: after that CGI trailer it’s good to get at least a few fragments of game footage, which is what you can see below. This latest emission from the developmental innards of the Gearbox creature show a bunch of scene-setting stuff, and then a little of the running about with a gun shooting Aliens stuff. I’m tentatively excited about this one, and it’s been a while since I’ve thought that about a licence shooter.
This massively multiplayer online game immerses you in the world of Star Trek. Now you can explore the galaxy, defend your bases and ships, and play as your favorite characters from the Star Trek TV show. The 2800 return and invade Star Trek online on Saturday, February 11, 2012.
Well here’s a thing. You may remember that last January there was a flurry of excitement at the prospect of a new Cannon Fodder game. The 1993 Amiga classic still generates a lot of love, and people especially like arguing about whether Cannon Fodder 2 was an acceptable sequel, and whether Stuart Campbell ruined it with his sticky-up hair. Let’s fight about that now! But a third never happened, until the peculiarity of Codemasters licensing the title for a Russian-only third part developed by GFI. Codies quickly distanced themselves from it, and things fell silent. But now every other site on the internet has reported the spotting of a YouTube video of some footage by Twitterite superannuation. And, well, it looks like Cannon Fodder with improved graphics.
Polytron’s Fez, a world-shifting indie platformer that’s been coming to Xbox Live Arcade longer than some of you have been alive, might actually be out soon. Why? It’s been rated by the ESRB.
To be rated by the ESRB, it’s got to be almost completely finished, at least in terms of classifiable content.
Last we heard the game was due in “early 2012″, but we’ve long ago learned to mistrust anything that comes out developer Phil Fish’s mouth when it comes to release dates. The ESRB, however, are far more reliable, so hey, Fez! It might be out in a month or three!
EA Partners’ executive says single-player, co-op shooter won’t include controversial pass in an effort to have the game achieve mass appeal. Electronic Arts has stirred up much fervor with its online pass proposition, but Syndicate fans looking forward to the upcoming game won’t have to worry about it.
Speaking to Eurogamer, EA Partners executive producer Jeff Gamon said the publisher chose not to include an online pass with Syndicate, a single-player game with co-op missions, so as to reach the broadest appeal.
“We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible,” Gamon told the website. “The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product.”
If you’re going to infringe on copyright, you might infringe on all the copyrights at the same time. That way you can keep track of who’s taking you to court. Mario Crossover 2.0, the sequel to the already astonishingly rippy-offy original, is a remarkably slick mash-up of all the best Nintendo games. And Zelda.
Crossover 2.0 takes the basic concept of allowing characters like Samus (from Metroid), or Link (from Meh-lda) to run around Mario levels and runs in crazy directions with it. Mega-Man tossing blocks at Koopas, Samus blasting them with her arm gun thing, Link boring them to death with his boring-ness. I love the idea of in-game power-ups upgrading the graphics, taking the player into a modern era with every mushroom, and sliding back through history when damage is taken. And Ryu fighting Bowser is just precious. Feast your eyes on the entire roster in this demonstrative video-gram from a bygone era.
Inversion is a third-person co-op shooter that combines hard-hitting, adrenaline-pumping action with a revolutionary gravity manipulation engine.
Featuring the Grappler weapon, players will be able to manipulate gravity for their own purposes. The Grappler can be used in countless combat situations by maneuvering massive objects as shields or projectiles, and moving camped enemies out of concealed cover so they can be blasted away. The Grappler is also a key tool for tactical situations and puzzle solving as players can lift, move, or create cover objects at their whim. The awesome power of gravity is right at players’ fingertips. Additionally, Inversion is one of the first games to feature the HAVOK destruction engine which bestows Inversion with massively destructible environments including an elaborate cover system.
Set in the near future, the tranquil peace enjoyed by mankind shatters with an unforeseen invasion by an unknown enemy called the Lutadore. Armed to the teeth with futuristic gravity-controlling weapons, the Lutadore easily overrun the city’s defenses. Unbeknownst to all, mysterious anomalies have surfaced in conjunction with the invasion. Random regions in the city have entered zero gravity or have suffered vector changes, throwing the world into topsy-turvy chaos. Assuming the role of Davis Russel, a hotheaded 28-year-old cop, or Leo Delgado, Davis’ neighbor, players will embark on a journey through the war ravaged gravity twisted disorienting streets of their home town and beyond, to find Davis’ missing child.
Renegade-X is a reworking of the original, awful Command & Conquer: Renegade, Westwood’s ambitious FPS with RTS acne. I’m downloading the just released short single-player preview, “Operation Black Dawn”, from the official torrent, and we’ll make brain thinks into words about its UDK-based goodness another day. In the meantime, here’s the download link and video, strategically placed below.
The current download is just a peek, with a short single-player campaign to tide you over until the multiplayer release. There’s a lot of bluster in this video, about redefining entire genres, but it does look pretty and with a cool name like “Renegade-X” you kind of have to be all: “we’re making it the best thing since that last thing that was also good”. Grab it here.
Smudged Cat Games have decided to release a Windows version of the classic time travel game, Timeslip,… completely for free. You can download the game here
“Timeslip Screens” was posted on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:36:01 -0800
Indie platformer A Walk In The Dark has a cat rescuing a lost little girl in a dark, fantasy world; the quarter of Dexter that John owns once lost a fight with his own feet (my bit was obviously the winner there). I see now why they had to place the game in a gothic forest: as a cat owner of four years, I wouldn’t believe the skills he shows off in the trailer below.
Side-scrolling, sillouhettey lovliness seems like an effect that indie developers lean on, but the results here are perfectly pleasing as the cat leaps over spikes and flips gravity in VVVVVV fashion. He sproings rather neatly over spikey things, and gracefully hops from wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling. It reminds me of the time that Dexter ate a tapeworm that he’d just extruded. Good times.
Want to help the kitty pursue the ancient evil through the gothic forest? All we have is a vague 2012 release date. Why not rescue a real one, instead? You can pretent the shelter is a gothic forest, and the administration people are ancient demons.
