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From the depths of space an ancient vessel drifts slowly towards the Imperium of Mankind

Subject: General Tech | March 6, 2013 - 02:07 PM |
Tagged: gaming, space hulk, kick ass

This is a good year for a certain subset of gamers who bear a love-hate relationship with Games Workshop.  Not only have we heard tell of Blood Bowl 2 and a free to play Blood Bowl: Star Coach which will resemble a blood soaked Football Manager but finally Space Hulk will be arriving thanks to Full Control.  A classic turn based game pitting Space Marine Terminators against unlimited amounts of Genestealers that is almost impossible to win.  Players often brag about their most memorable losses than their occasional victories but either can be guaranteed to be full of guts, Flamers and Power Fists.  Keep your eyes on Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN for more details as they may be the only ones more excited about this than I.

"SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK SPACE HULK"

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Source: Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN

Finally SHODAN rides again

Subject: General Tech | February 13, 2013 - 01:31 PM |
Tagged: gaming, system shock 2, GOG, steam, kick ass

It has been a long drawn out battle but gamers can finally claim a victory as Good Old Games and Steam finally get the rights to distribute System Shock 2, one of the best FPS games ever released.  Not only were the mechanics, (can you say leaning?) and the AI but the story and atmosphere were the scariest around at the time and still compete well with similar modern games such as Dead Space.  The team at Night Dive has been working hard on stability and option improvements as well as adding in soundtracks, interviews and other historical documents from the games inception.  You will be able to pick up the game 16.5 hours from the writing of this post for $10, well worth the investment and much more fun and probably less buggy than Colonial Marines.  Check out Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN's interview with the team that has finally been allowed to provide the most requested old game around.

RPS_sshock2c.jpg

"RPS: You have updated the Night Dive website to read: “System Shock franchise to resurface with GOG/Steam release”. What is your involvement in the release and is the digital version an update, with high-res textures etc, or a straight re-release?

Kick: Night Dive Studios secured the license to distribute the game, and made the initial modifications to allow the game to run on most current operating systems.

Rambourg: There are some user-made mods out there which do phenomenal work on the game’s stability, but none of them were quite perfect, so we took the game to our expert techninjas to analyse and swat the remaining bugs. It was some work to get it done, but as this is a game that we’ve wanted to release for four-plus years, it was also definitely a labour of love."

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Gaming

Source: Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN

Ignore the Numenera part, Planescape is coming back!

Subject: General Tech | January 9, 2013 - 03:55 PM |
Tagged: planescape, torment, gaming, kick ass

Monte Cook worked for Wizards of the Coast and one of the major contributors to the Planescape: Torment game, way back in the ancient days of brilliant RPGs on the PC.  He recently succeeded in a Kickstarter project to create a new universe called Numenera in which to base future RPGs and he has announced that the first game in this universe will be a spiritual successor to Torment.  Part of the reason for that is the continued idiocy of what was once TSR, they not only declined Monte's attempts to license Planescape but also declined his request about Baldur's Gate 3.  Instead he is going to design a game with the same features which made Torment such wonderful game, like a story more focused on your characters personal journey as opposed to making you feel like a cog in a much bigger story as well as offering NPCs who are more than just a body to absorb damage and cast spells.  Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN has two stories up today, a discussion specifically about Torment as well as a more general discussion about Numenera.

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"Rumours have been swirling for years about a possible sequel to Black Isle’s legendary and powerful roleplaying game Planescape: Torment, but the closure of the original studio and the jealous guarding of the Planescape rights by owners Wizards of the Coast seemed to have put paid to any comeback. But with original Interplay boss Brian Fargo very much back in the RPG business with current studio inXile’s wildly successful Wasteland 2 crowdfunding, everything changes. He and his team have come up with a way to make a new Torment game: this is really happening.

And there was much rejoicing."

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Gaming

Source: Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN

Help bring Nexus 2 to life and save the local galactic neighbourhood

Subject: General Tech | October 3, 2012 - 06:44 PM |
Tagged: Kickstarter, kick ass, Nexus, Nexus 2, gaming

The original Nexus: The Jupiter Incident can be hard to explain to those who believe the only RTS game style involves a base and focuses on harvesting resources in order to produce masses of cloned troops of different styles and tiers.  It is similar to Homeworld in that it involves fleet battles and races with differing technologies and spaceships but that is where the similarity ends.  There is no mothership nor do you collect resources to spawn more ships, instead you start with a set amount of ships and equipment to outfit those ships at the beginning of the mission and if you happen to lose a ship to enemy fire that ship is gone; if you are lucky you might get a replacement next mission.   The ships can be outfitted with a variety of weapons and equipment, from shield destroying beam weapons to hull destroying missiles to close support fighters, your choices are limited only by the supplies available not the amount of money or resources you collected.  The pace is much slower but then the missions are unforgiving and simply having a ship out of place could spell disaster for your entire squadron.  At $10 on Steam if this sounds even slightly interesting you should pick it up!

The reason it is worth mentioning this 8 year old game is that the Most Wanted Entertainment and most of the original dev team have launched a Kickstarter program to fund the creation of the sequel, Nexus : The Gods Awaken.  Keeping the original feel, as they put it "a game for Admirals, not Project Managers", and updating the game to modern specifications with the use of the Unreal Engine, perhaps not an exact match to the two tech demos released over the past few years, in fact perhaps even better.  Ship design is planned to be modular which will allow greater customization of your task force as well as enabling the inclusion of larger, better designed space stations and capital ships.  You will get full control over the design of your fighters, bombers and gunboats, which may make watching them die while protecting your ships a more personal experience than in the first game.  You can also expect to see familiar faces and two new alien races, not to mention the one you already went up against but only if they get enough money to get this project off the ground.

Kickstarter is quickly becoming a way for game companies to finance the creation of a game without needing a large publisher behind them and when tied with a release on Steam it also reduces the need for a distributor.  Many will loudly scream that this will lead to a fragmentation of the gaming industry as not everyone will hear about the release of a game, as well as leading to the release of games not destined to be blockbusters.  You can safely ignore them, another Halo game should come out soon and they will stop paying attention and let those who like a game for what it is and not what the advertising says get on with supporting projects like this.  If you feel the same, head to the Kickstarter site and toss them a few coins!

"The gameplay of Nexus is everything the discerning Space Admiral could desire. Alongside improvements and polish across the board to existing graphics and gameplay, there is also a wealth of new features to expand and enrich the gameplay to ever-greater heights.

The Psis are a new class of NPC, who can be added to the crew of certain ships. Each Psi has a unique power, allowing them to influence the course of battle, and turn a lost cause into a triumphant victory."

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Gaming

Source: Kickstarter

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