RockPaperShotgun

Want you access to the Guild Wars 2 beta? Well, from this very minute and for the next 48 hours you can sign up. It doesn’t seem that it will guarantee you a spot, but you’ll certainly be on the list for future beta events. You need only head here, put in your details, drip one drop of blood from your palm into the gauze pad by your keyboard, and you’re done. I’d suggest doing it right now, but you’ve got until 6pm (Queen’s Time) on Friday before the offer is up.

Poor Catacomb Snatch, forever destined to be a quirk of game development: the game Mojang made in a weekend and then tossed out into the world, unready, uneducated, unubered. All it needed was a little polish to make it all better, some tender loving uber. But what if it could happen? What if someone took the source code, appended the game with with “Uber” and carried on developing? That would make an Uber Catacomb Snatch. And if such a thing were to happen, they might as well set up a website saying so. It would look a bit like this , and host downloads of the game for everyone to play. And you know, if it did happen, if the impossible became possible, then I might see fit to include a video of it below this here line. Dare you step over it and into the World of the Impossible?

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Today’s the day for indie projects from former major-developers. After Banner comes BlackSpace from PixelFoundry Games, a group of devs who’d previously been together at EA Sports Tiburon. And it’s exclusively for the PC. Good. There’s more details, four pictures of rocks, and a (lifeless) teaser trailer for it below.

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The title of Wargame: European Escalation makes me think of all those grey-and-white products you see in the background of adverts for washing powder. There in the front is the packed of Whizzi-Wash, bright and colourful, and behind are stacked greyscale box after box of “SOAP” and “CLEANING POWDER”. I’m saying it’s a bland name. Is that clear? Bland. But it doesn’t look bland at all, as the launch trailer below proves.

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“What do we want?” “More people to get access to the upcoming free-to-play shooter Tribes: Ascend, new maps, gametypes, weapons, and bug-fixes!” “When do we want it?” “Sometime on Friday, maybe. It’s really up to you! We’re just keen to get involved!” Well, good news. Tribes: Ascend developers Hi-Rez Studios have crumbled to the pressure I exerted with my catchy protest chant and will be opening the beta of their online shooter on Friday Feb 24th, at exactly 5pm. So far over 300,0000 players have skied the slopes and spammed their spinfusors, and if you missed out then you’re being welcomed with open arms. The current client will be receiving a major content drop as well, details of which are below.
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Hi gang. So, if you’ve read part one of our modern gaming monitor opus, you’ll know at least two things. Firstly, there’s no substitute for a good underlying LCD panel. And secondly, things are looking up for penniless gamers on the hunt for a solid screen on a tight budget. In this second and final part on monitors, I’ll boil the current crop down to the only four screens, ranging from cheapo to aaargh-my-bank-account, that you should consider if you’re in the market for a new display.

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Waveform is an interesting experiment in minimal game design: you stretch and compress a wave passing through space, manipulating it to fit the patterns it encounters. It’s on the relaxing end of the spectrum, with only one control and chill-out music. Despite a troubled inception, failing to reach a modest Kickstarter goal of $8000 funding, it’s managed to wiggle into Steam’s servers, oscillating to fit the wavelength of Gabe Newell’s heart. Fancy seeing what it’ll look like? Video here.

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Start getting excited, because Rock, Paper, Shotgun will soon be releasing its trailer to celebrate the announcement of a release date for the reveal date for its next trailer! But in the meantime, why not enjoy the trailer released to announce the launch date for Borderlands 2? Which is the 18th September in the US, then after a long swim the 21st Sept in the UK/EU. Which is aaaaaages away.

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Action RPG platform sandbox thing Terraria has seen its last major update. In a statement to the fans, developer Andrew “Redigit” Spinks thanked them for making the game so popular, but admitted there would be no more extra content coming.

After a lot of internal debate, we have decided that it is time to move on. My wife and I are due to have another boy soon, and I want to spend some time getting to know him. I also want to spend the time recharging and bettering myself as both a programmer and game designer. I have learned a lot from working on Terraria and plan on using what I’ve learned, building upon it, and moving forward with another, even better project. However, we are still planning at least one more bug fix for Terraria.

So no more additions, no new ores or monsters, or bosses. The developers will focus on bugfixes, while the huge fan-base clamours for a proper mod API.

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I have come to the conclusion that indie developers will never run out of cool new ways to meddle with platforming standards. The latest I’ve encountered is Swindler, from the pixel masters at Nitrome (check out why we rate them). Here you appear to play a blob of snot, who is able to let loose from his own ectoplasmic entity a long, stretchy green string, tied to a post at the top of a level, and then extended or contracted. However, rather than moving him about the world, you move the world about him.

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Being a notorious liar has gave me many opportunities in life: my zeppelin is made of gold, my cat is the last of its species, and I’m typing this from the top of Skull Mountain. But it also made playing increpare’s tiny, dungeon crawler Promises really tough, as you need to keep your promises to snatch the keys to complete the game. I don’t want to spoil it, as there’s only a minute’s worth of game here and because I’m essentially a nice person with some flaws, so instead I’ll write some more lies. In Promises you fight a mega-copter made of the ghosts of old tanks, and if you Google the name of the game three times in a row there’s a small chance the rapture will occur. Look, just play it. I promise I’ll tell the truth below.
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Former BioWareites, Stoic, are formed from a gathering of those who worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic, then ran off into the Texan wastelands to form their own studio. The three-man indie team is working on an online hybrid called The Banner Saga, that plans to merge RPG, turn-based strategy, and vikings. It is the combination mentioned in the Mayan Codecs.

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I was rather close to falling down a deep, dark Counter-Strike hole just after the Counter-Strike:Global Offensive launched in November, but a broken PC released me from a frightening future of constant de_dust2 battles and crying about how unfair it is. I’d actually forgotten I had it until Valve and Hidden Path updated it this week, switching from a stress test to a big-assed closed beta, with over 80 tweaks. The big changes are the addition of three reworked classic maps, de_inferno, de_train, and de_nuke, and new guns, the Nova shotgun, the Bizon and the MP7 SMGs. But there’s more.
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You may well remember the absolutely gorgeous The Journey Down: Over The Edge – a superb AGS adventure game by indie devs Skygoblin that not only surprised us with its splendid graphics, but also by being a point-and-clicker that really understood the genre. That was the first chapter in a series, and we’ve been looking forward to the second one for well over a year now. The bad news is, it’s not coming yet. The good news is, the first part has been remade as a commercial game, with swishy new graphics, and apparently lots of new content. You can still play the original chapter for free, and you can see how the new version is shaping up below.

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Hitman doesn’t just have subtitles, it also has people, and not just the sort that are like pinatas stuffed with money waiting to be popped open by an enterprising exterminator. The first in the “International Contract Agency Files” series gives the background detail on Diana Burnwood, the hairless one’s handler. The word is that Absolution is a more personal story, so maybe the Olyphant man will be finding out who his friends really are, or somesuch. I bet he doesn’t have any friends, because he’s a surly murderer who shows up at the pub in a tie and makes everyone feel comparitively underdressed. Way to go, Hitman.

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The Secret World, Funcom’s modern day, pop culture-infused MMORPG, has just been given an official release date of June 19th. It’s a little later than some may have been expecting but it does provide plenty of time for some public beta testing. Although no dates for any opening of the beta have been provided, Ragnar Tørnquist, Funcom’s creative director and itinerary planner of the most lengthy journeys, had this to say: “The additional time will also allow us to carry out even more quality beta testing, and soon we will also be announcing several public beta events where hundreds of thousands of gamers will get to test the game prior to launch.” We’ve already played the game and spoken to the chaps behind it, and will have more coverage soon.

OK folks, we’ve done CPUs and graphics cards, now for my favourite subject of all, screens. I’ve long said a decent screen is the best investment you can make. Frankly, I’ve long been right. I’ve three 30-inchers of my own, two of which are about five years old. And with the exception of 120Hz support (see below), the game hasn’t moved on dramatically. Any five-year-old CPU or GPU, by contrast, is garbage. That’s the difference.

As it happens, good LCD screens have just become a lot more affordable. You’ll need to check out part two for the whys and wherefores along with a tour of the best currently available options. But things change fast, so a little knowledge can go a long way. Here are the eight most important things you need to know about screens for games.
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If, like me, you were left out of this weekend’s Guild Wars 2 beta then you’ll know the tang of anger and the boiling of bile that welled up inside, directed at those that did. Felt good, didn’t it? Don’t lie: that directed spew of internal grrrrr made you feel all war-like, yeah? Me too, which is why I’m starting a guild of non-Guild War 2 players. Our mission: to not be playing Guild Wars 2 while others are enjoying it and videoing their fun. We shall, instead, watch them with twitching eyeballs, consuming all the video we can and learning about their ways, ready to exploit any weaknesses we witness. Join me, for I will be your leader and guide you through the land of Guild War 2 beta videos, unless I’m invited to play, in which case I never knew you and I was never here.
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Last time I looked at Cube World, Wollay had added adorable pet dogs which officially meant that anyone doubtful of the game’s potential was probably called Norman ‘Pessimist-Pants’ Naysay. Sure enough, it’s a popular name and people started to chunner about the combat looking too simplistic for their refined tastes. Behold, a new video that shows several different weapons and their functions, as well as some grin-stretching customisation. It doesn’t look deep and it doesn’t look tactical; it looks like splashing about somewhat haphazardly in a shallow pool filled with something that’s sugary, delicious and somehow filled with vitamins.

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GSC have announced their arrival at Good Old Games with a bundled package of some of their most fondly remembered titles. Yes, it’s the Cossacks Anthology, containing Cossacks: European Wars and its two expansion packs. Now, I do have very fond memories of Cossacks’ take on the historical RTS, throwing around thousands of units at once, but of course it’s the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games that most people know GSC for. Further titles will be appearing but I’m not even sure S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is old enough to be considered anything other than a GG. The Cossacks Anthology is available here, priced at $5.99. Maybe if everyone in the world buys it twice, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 appears immediately?