Remember VR headsets? Probably not. They were popular for a while, way back when. Like 3D movies before them, they were an interesting concept but ultimately just a load of balls. The technology wasn’t all there and they were more of a novelty than something that genuinely had longevity and use for a wide range of games.
It’s been all too long since Monolith did anything that made me want to camp outside their premises waving a banner reading ‘I LOVE YOU! YOU MAKE GAMING A BETTER PLACE! NO-ONE LIVES FOREVER FOREVER!’ Who knows which staff left, what parts of the company were sold to which other companies, who got cold feet about risk-taking – all I know is that the all-too-ordinary FEAR games make me mourn for what was and what might have been.
They’re back, folks. Here’s a taste of what to expect in season three of Escape From Mount Stupid. We’ve got everything you ever wanted to know about the games coming out in 2012.
Blast from the past – Rise Of The Triad is making a comeback! WTF!? Here are the key details: semi-remake/embiggening, Unreal Engine 3, developed by one Interceptor Entertainment and published by a company that’s calling itself Apogee, has most of the original weapons and modes, map and mod creator, out on Steam later this year. Looks a little bit like this:
If you’ve never heard of Natural Selection, think Alien Versus Predator but with a class system & objectives and It’s been in development almost as long as Duke Dukem Forever…
Rezzed was twelve hundred million years ago, but there are still a few dev sessions left to share with those who couldn’t make it down to lovely Brighton on the day. Here’s Unknown Worlds chatting about and demonstrating their aeons-in-gestation FPS/RTS mash-up Natural Selection 2, including a whole lot of giant mouth-based action.
Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of beach sport simulations and ninja revivals, is bringing his next game to the PC. Devil’s Third is a third-person action game that doesn’t look entirely dissimilar to his previous team’s Ninja Gaiden series, although with a few more shotguns and other metal death pipes thrown in for good measure.
Usually when I watch long sequences from unreleased games I’m squinting, wearing my analytical face, trying to work out where the gap between hype and reality is most obvious, trying to see what might be true and what might be marketing.
Under normal circumstances, I would not be excited about a game called Marvel Heroes. I mean, I love Robert Downey Jr: A Movie About Robert Downey Jr Starring Robert Downey Jr (And The Avengers Sometimes) as much as anyone, but these licenses tend to be about as much fun as being bitten by a writhing mass of regular, non-radioactive spiders.
Killing Floor is an acquired taste, or at least it was for me, like chugging down a bucket full of rust and blood, with accents so dodgy they’d taken on form and floated atop the grungy broth like cockney croutons.
The latest trailer for Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron is the one most likely to set giddy hearts racing, for it shows both dinobots and the enormous Metroplex in action, fighting and punching. There’s an inspirational voice-over from Optimus Prime, too, which is something everyone needs to listen to when they’re eating their wheaty breakfast.