I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Funny I’d end up posting it on the same day as Kieron posted his own thoughts on uniquely disturbing game. I doubt many of you went ahead and downloaded Norrland, Cactus’ pseudo-8-bit hunting trip, but – and I’m treading on eggshells here – hiding inside Norrland is a… moment. A scared, devastating bullet of a moment, fired in desperation. This moment was my single favourite bit of gaming in all of 2010.

The following is safe for work, but only just. (more…)

Last Friday, on the way to break in my new copy of Cosmic Encounter, I was able to rendezvous with Trion Worlds to have a quick look at their upcoming massively multiplayer game, Rift, previously Rift: Planes of Telara. No inventive payment plans or mould-busting design to discuss here- RIFT is a straight-up MMORPG that was described to me as the “fully fledged MMO that gamers have been waiting for.” Have you been waiting, readers? Because Rift does have a fair bit going for it. (more…)

I’m not out protesting. I’m sat at home, absorbing a steady drip-feed of political horror off of Twitter. But now, thanks to inexhaustible indie developer Increpare, I can pretend> I’m there! Join me as I lock the toilet, open a window, put on a coat and fire up Kettle, a game which casts you as the police trying to effectively bundle a small crowd into a tight space. I got it off Kieron, who got it off Boing Boing. As he says, it really is a neat little puzzler, albeit full disturbing one-liners from a policeman birthed from MSPaint. Thanks, Kieron. Thieron.

In a year where a fake game about being a serial killer was at the center of an internet whirlpool, it’s somehow pleasing that another serial killer game was actually released and has performed its act of unspeakable brutality without drawing much attention to itself. Only the detectives of ElectronDance brought it to my attention. The contrasting approach to the subject matter of the two games seems to follow the ideas of serial murder which they’re most interested in. Serial Killer Roguelike was all cheap opportunism, (metaphorically) breaking in an open window, cutting up its victims and smearing itself in viscera. Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer is about the secretive killers who do their grim work for years and no-one will ever know – except their victim, and only too late. In other words, a serial killer who’s all the more disturbing.

Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer is also more disturbing in a key, important way. It actually exists. (more…)

What a strange headline that is. What it means is this: Introversion’s forthcoming procedurally-generated espionage game, Subversion, was shown at London-based Indie convention World Of Love earlier this year. It was filmed, via the magic of wobblecam, and uploaded for the internet. That means you can watch Chris Delay play through one of the levels, and see polygonal Kieron Gillen and Eskil Steenberg rob a bank, using their charm and their tech. As in games, so in life…

Go, watch! (more…)

This gives me the creepydinks. A trailer for a new indie adventure called The Cat Lady. However, it doesn’t seem to be about a nice old lady living with her twenty-seven cats, eventually dying and being eaten by them. Nor a giant cat-human mutant destroying central Brighton. Instead it appears to be about DEATH and BLOOD and GORE. Also, a rather interesting looking paper-craft style of animation. I’m not entirely sure the video below could be qualified as safe for work, mostly because it’s so weird. So at your discretion, click on.

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Another day, another MMORPG goes free to play. This morning it’s 2008 game of naval combat, swashbuckling and trading Pirates of the Burning Sea. Kieron actually had a chat to the developers about the decision a couple of months ago, but now it’s finally happened. As of today the standard $14.99/month subscription simply gets you access to exclusive “Captain’s Club” content. Alternatively, you can buy little items and account upgrades piecemeal over at Treasure Aisle. Yes. Watch the latest and greatest trailer after the jump. (more…)

It’s Saturday, so that means it’s time for another…..Hang on, it’s not Saturday! Never mind. The lovely folk over at Arcen games have just sent word that they are lopping off an entire 60% off all of their games. Not only does buying DRM-free direct from the developers come with a free warm fuzzy feeling deep in your belly, but in this instance you can (optionally) also use the code you get from Arcen to register the games on Steam if you prefer. Best of all worlds. (more…)

The RPS Hivemind does not know this “foot-to-ball”, nor the management thereof. It has therefore called in an expert – Los Campesinos! singer, Gareth Campesinos! – to review Football Manager 2011 on its behalf. Other websites get the work experience kid to do it, we turn to pop stars. A lesson, there.>

Is it wrong to think that Rock, Paper, Shotgun>‘s readership would be anything like those who steer the ship? Other than intelligent and attractive, I specifically mean completely bemused by the concept of “foot-to-ball”. Perhaps more bemused that this popular series of Football Management Sims offer no control as such, and is perhaps as visually stimulating as a GNVQ IT student’s final project on Microsoft Access. Present me your heartstrings… (more…)

I had a chat (registration required, and yes I’ve heard every argument against that) with Markus ‘Notch’ Persson for my day job recently, and was rather taken with one particular observation he made about the current state of PC gaming. To crudely paraphrase: the big publishers pissing off to console because they thought the PC wasn’t as lucrative as platform as they’d like actually turned out to be a good thing.

With all the sound and fury of big, PC-specific, graphically intensive games gone, there was space for something new – something better, I’d argue – to come through. Leading on from that, I’d like to thank the graphics card companies for making such a right royal mess of the PC. I’m not being sarcastic. They did us a favour. (more…)