Samstag, 30. April 2016

Classic Mega Drive ROM Hacks Hit Steam Workshop

The Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics Hub has now arrived on Steam, followings its announcement. For the most part it isn’t all that interesting, even if playing classic games from yesteryear via a drab virtual bedroom against eerie acoustics is your bag. No, what’s exciting is the fact that Sega have added Steam Workshop support to their library of Mega Drive/Genesis games on the platform, allowing intuitive modders to upload and share loads of ROM hacks of the classics. Here are few that caught my eye.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1SRo9Ut
via IFTTT

Free Loaders: There’s A Storm Coming

A series of bizarre typhoons struck coastlines in dozens of countries last week in a global phenomenon many are calling the ‘Ludum Storm’. The tempests appear without warning and produce a heavy downpour of free games, leading many to suspect the Ludum Darists to be somehow behind the surreal weather. Our sources say that elements calling themselves ‘the 35th Division’ have taken responsibility for the storms. Forecasters are warning people to stay inside, close their windows and to play only “safe, expensive videogames.”

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1TlaLFN
via IFTTT

What Are We All Playing This Weekend?

Monday is a holiday for us so we’ll be a bit quieter than usual until Tuesday.

But, more importantly… they said it couldn’t be done. They said it’d never happen. They said I was only fooling myself. Hmph! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: all six RPS staffers reporting what we’re playing this weekend!

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1O2y4Cx
via IFTTT

Freitag, 29. April 2016

Goin’ Up! PlanetSide 2 Adds Base-Building

Construction arrived in PlanetSide 2 [official site] this week, letting players build their own little bases. If you’ve been hoping to build a quiet little get-away spot, put up a shed, set out a few lawn chairs, fire up the barbie… yeah, that won’t happen. Especially given the sort of people pootling around, tooled up and looking for trouble. No, this is warconstruction, letting players build little warbases as waroutposts and even to help contribute victory points to the free-to-play MMOFPS’s wareffort.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1O19O3G
via IFTTT

How Brutal Doom’s Gore Works

“Saved my hide, it did. The alien’s broad back shielded me as its brethren flung their fiery mucus wads; the fireballs burst, spraying flaming, red liquid that dribbled down my dance partner’s legs to pool on the ground, lighting the room with a hellish, red glaze. I fired nine or ten times, finally blowing a hole clean through the alien … a gory loophole through which I turned on the rest.”

Knee Deep in the Dead, Dafydd Ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver’s novelisation of Doom, is perhaps a little more theatrical than the Doom that played in my head during the summer of 1994. It features a sidekick and talking demons, and dramatised sequences in which protagonist Corporal Flynn Taggart finds ammo and bumps up against walls to find secrets. But it captures something of Doom’s intensely graphic nature. Doom was the first game I played that felt truly fluid and direct.

Playing Brutal Doom [official site] today feels like Doom always did, despite its custom levels and gouts of blood and gore, death animations and chugging live versions of Doom’s MUS originals. It overhauls pretty much every element of the original, and yet it’s the Doom that plays in my memory, amplifying the original’s gore and immediacy to suit a post-COD, Gears of War – heck, Soldier of Fortune – world. For me, the latest version, v20b, reaches a state of the sublime. But while the blood that drips from ceilings and screen-filling viscera are its obvious achievements, something far more prosaic lies at the root of how it works so well.

THE MECHANIC: Hitboxes.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1QFHH9V
via IFTTT

Long War Studios Making More XCOM 2 Mods

Bum rush 'em.

Long War Studios, the folks behind the loved/feared XCOM 1 mod Long War, have joined up with Firaxis again to make more mods for XCOM 2 [official site]. They had three ready for XCOM 2 at launch, which Adam quite liked, and have been working on another five since then. No, none of them appear to be Long War 2. The first of these extras came out today, adding options like larger squad sizes, randomised soldier stats, and ‘red fog’ lowering the stats of wounded units. Beyond that, look forward to custom classes, new weapons, new aliens, and more.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1WXXF6W
via IFTTT

Lionhead Studios Closed Today

Lionhead Studios, The English developer behind Fable, The Movies, and Black & White, closed down today. Peter Molyneux and other former members of Bullfrog Productions founded Lionhead in 1996, and Microsoft bought it in 2006. Molyneux himself left in 2012 to start new studio 22cans. Microsoft still haven’t really explained why they’re closing Lionhead. But they publicly announced in March that they were “in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios”, and there aren’t many ways back to safe ground from that point. Alas, today was the final day for Lionhead. Godspeed, you cow-tickling, guff-blasting chicken-chasers.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1Um6cjn
via IFTTT

LoL Mage Update: What You Need To Know

With the Mid-Season Invitational around the corner for League of Legends, plans are already well underway at Riot Games for the Summer season. As we’ve discussed before, Riot are not the kind of studio to sit on their haunches and major changes are coming to the game in the form of the Mage Update. You can find the full details of the patch here, but here’s what you need to know:

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1NGon1B
via IFTTT

Wot I Think: Offworld Trading Company

Offworld Trading Company [official site], the new game from Civ IV lead designer Soren Johnson and his team at Mohawk Games, is a strategic simulation of a sci-fi Martian economy. It’s also one of the smartest strategy games I’ve ever played.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1O0oYWV
via IFTTT

Giveaway: 500 Paragon Early Access Founder’s Packs

We’ve got 500 keys to give away for Paragon [official site], Epic’s third-person science fantasy MOBA. It takes the now traditional three lane setup in which each lane is protected by towers and minions and uses its third-person perspective as an opportunity to use height to provide and obscure vision. Its closest relative is Smite, but it feels more like a shooter, leaning on its developers legacy in that other genre.

Eventually Paragon will be free-to-play, but like many MOBAs it’s begun life in a paid early access period, access to which costs $20. This code will get you in now for free.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1O0f6wk
via IFTTT

Romero’s Blackroom Kickstarter Cancelled Until Demo Finished

John Romero and Adrian Carmack have cancelled their Kickstarter for Blackroom [official site], four days after launching it, but will return once they’ve finished a gameplay demo. The pair of former id Software Doomlords and Quakers had pitched Blackroom as an FPS filled with all the good old stuff – circle-strafing, rocketjumping, secret rooms, a metal soundtrack, and all that – but only showed ideas and concept art. Which, yeah, isn’t much for potential backers to go on. They’re hopeful Blackroom will fare a lot better once people can see it a bit.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/24pa2La
via IFTTT

Have You Played… Windows Defrag?

Before there was Clicker Heroes or Adventure Capitalist, there was Defrag: the prototypical timewaster for the bored or disaffected PC gamer. SSDs have cost us dearly.
… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1WXf3st
via IFTTT

Project Highrise Aims To Be A Modern SimTower

Yoot Saito’s SimTower is one of those games I return to every so often, for the pure satisfaction of building something and watching its simulation flourish. In recent years it has increasingly become a game I wish someone would make a modern version of – and no, various mobile genre-mates don’t count.

Good news! The makers of gold prospecting town sim 1849 are now working on their second game, and it’s called Project Highrise [official site]. There’s little information so far, but there’s enough to make me excited.

… [visit site to read more]



from Rock, Paper, Shotgun http://ift.tt/1T9S2fL
via IFTTT