 |
Our verdict on 4A's gorgeous post-apocalyptic shooter
Top teams fight for glory in the grand finale
Featuring Skyrim, GTA 4, Portal 2 and more
Bigger, bloodier battles from World War 2's frozen front
CD Projekt RED’s icy open world RPG
Hi folks. This is where you’d normally find the week’s Saturday Crapshoot. This week though, I’m trying a bit of an experiment. This week’s game is – tech willing – going to be livestreamed instead. This may turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. Hopefully, it’ll be quite fun. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?
IGF finalist 7 Grand Steps is releasing for Windows and Mac on June 7th, developer Mousechief has announced. We haven’t covered the game in great detail before, so here’s a recap: it’s an innovative mix of grand strategy and board game which has a novel familial take on the much-plundered topic of civilisation. Dan Gril called it “hugely inspiring and strange” and “a must play” after having a go on it at GDC, and there’s now a demo version to keep you ticking over till June 7th, when the game will release on both the Mousechief website and on Steam for $15.
While I wait in vain for a developer with the vision to combine the football management sim with the sidescrolling shoot-’em-up, I can take some comfort in the fact that Brace Yourself Games are attempting something equally mad and innovative in Crypt of the NecroDancer, a “hardcore roguelike rhythm game” that…wait, let’s just rewind a bit first. NecroDancer turns the randomly generated dungeon into a hazard-filled dancefloor only slightly less dangerous than the real thing. You’ll still explore, fight monsters and collect bags of treasure, but you’ll do so while shaking your hips and furiously tapping your toes. It’s Michael Jackson’s Thriller mixed with Dungeons & Dragons – brand new teaser trailer after the break.
We can’t get enough bank holidays here in the UK, and if you feel like spending your weekend hunched over your computer playing browser games, then boy have you come to the right place. This week is all about giant snakes – as all good weeks should be – but we also found the time to fit in a samurai duelling title, a retro platformer, one good joke, and a peaceful game that takes a leaf out of Wind Waker’s book. Enjoy!
It starts, as it always does, in prison. But The Elder Scrolls Online’s take on the series’ traditional opening is a little different. You’ve been captured and sacrificed to the Daedric prince Molag Bal, harvester of souls. You wake in Coldharbour, Bal’s particular plane of Oblivion. Unlike Mehrunes Dagon’s Deadlands – which you stormed through again and again in TES IV – Coldharbour is a drab, lifeless reflection of the surface world. Your escape from this place and back to reality constitutes The Elder Scrolls Online’s tutorial. My time with the game began immediately after this point.
Where you end up after Coldharbour depends on which of the three factions you belong to. The Aldmeri Dominion, composed of High Elves, Wood Elves, and the catlike Khajiit, are imperious conquerors from the south. The Ebonheart Pact are an alliance of convenience between Skyrim’s Nord, Morrowind’s Dark Elves and the stealthy Argonians – they’re keen to hold on to their independence, but need each other in order to do it. I played the first six levels of the game as a member of the Daggerfall Covenant: the Bretons, Redguard and Orcs who form The Elder Scrolls Online’s final faction.
Ignore that number jammed unharmoniously in Element4l’s name, and focus instead on the relaxing music, the smooth curves of the landscape, and the satisfying way your happy cube-character dissolves into embers and sparks.
It’s time to give Danish developer Full Control a pat on the back as their latest game, Jagged Alliance: Flashback, has gotten over the initial $350,000 hump with a final tally of $368,614—just hours before their Kickstarter ended.
Turns out Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded isn’t coming—well, not for a bit longer, anyway. The remake of Sierra’s infamous 1987 adventure has hit various snags during development, resulting in a release date delayed till June.
Airship combat sim Guns of Icarus Online should see a new game mode on the horizon now that its recent Kickstarter goal has been reached and surpassed in a crowdfunding effort that ended Tuesday. Developer Muse Games received $198,000 from 4,632 backers, exceeding its $100,000 goal for the 60-day pledge period.
From the god of the simulation genre comes the latest in astounding, lifelike approximations of human endurance. No, I’m not talking about SimCity’s infrastructural dramas. You won’t be messing around with the direction of poop flow; instead you’ll be dealing with drama-riddled matters of urgency, such as cleaning green goo off a factory floor to the satisfaction of health and safety inspectors. Yep—it’s Chemical Spillage Simulation!
