The Indie Royale – The Chosen Bundle
The Chosen Bundle is a replay of last year’s St Patrick’s Day Bundle, after fans voted on a poll on The Indie Royale’s Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages.
Marvel Heroes – Destruction Trailer
Marvel Heroes just upped the action RPG stakes by adding destruction on a massive scale. In this new video you’ll see how much stuff can be blown up, smashed, crashed, thrown and destroyed outright in Marvel Heroes, while the catchy theme tune gets stuck in your head, courtesy of your favorite Canadian mutant!
Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk – Due 8th March
Tecmo Koei have announced that Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk is to be released across Europe on March 8, for the PlayStation 3.
Towns Launched
Towns, the city building RPG has now released, with a Steam version having arrived via Steam Greenlight.
Nioki Adventure
Nioki Adventure is a co-operative 2D sandbox game planned for released on PC and Xbox 360, and the first game for French indie studio, Bidogames.
The website for the game has launched today: check it out here.
Indie Royale – The Alpha Collection
The next indie bundle from the Indie Royale is out: The Alpha Collection! This bundle features three games which are currently in alpha: Towns by SMP, 3079 by Phr00t and Wyv and Keep by a jolly corpse.
Possible Kickstarter for Wasteland 2
Brian Fargo, founder of Interplay and creator of post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland, may soon be using Kickstarter to fund a sequel to the game. Wasteland was the precursor to the Fallout series, which was actually only made because Fargo and his team didn’t have the rights to Wasteland. They now have the rights back from EA.
In an interview with IGN, Fargo notes that the fans were the first to get in touch about crowdfunding for a Wasteland sequel, following the success of the Double Fine Kickstarter. If Fargo and the rest of inXile do go on to make the game, it would be “top-down, probably isometric, party based, skill based”, and rather than having to create the game to fit in with publisher demands, they would be able to create the game as they wanted.
Fargo hopes that a Kickstarter will go live in the next month, and notes that he thinks it will take at least a million dollars to complete the project.
Obsidian to try Kickstarter?
Double Fine have found success with Kickstarter: the company’s fans have come forward to support them in making the game they want to make, rather than the game they want adjusted by the demands of a publisher. The donations so far have passed $1,600,000, and are still rising..
Obsidian, developer of Fallout: New Vegas have asked their fans what game they would like to see, if they were also to set up a project via Kickstarter.
The responses so far have been very supportive of the idea, and from the comments it appears fans would like to see an isometric RPG, with turn based combat and a good story.
Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions
We got hold of an early access demo key to BioWare‘s Mass Effect 3, so instead of getting on with one of the many games I’m part-way through, I fired up the 360 to play.
I’ve not played the previous games in the series, although friends have; so I’ve heard plenty about the various companions in the games.. either for their fighting abilities or lack of, or for the romance options which I think are optional. In fact, that was almost all I knew about the series, along with knowing about the dialogue choices that affect the storyline, and the ability to carry your character over from one game to the next.
I was surprised to see that players are given the option to choose the mode of the game: Action, Roleplaying or Story mode.
Action Mode means adjustable combat difficulty, and replaces dialogue options with cutscenes, whilst Story Mode enables character customisation and dialogue options during conversation. Roleplaying mode allows you to customise your character, choose dialogue options and still adjust combat difficulty: this is how the previous games worked, and sounded like a good balance to me.
The next choice was what class to be.. which came down to the mix of combat, tech or biotics I wanted to use. They all sounded interesting.. stealth, powerful close combat attacks, the ability to deploy combat drones.. but I picked Adept as the ability to fire micro singularities at my enemies sounded pretty awesome 
After that, there were a few other choices for background, reputation and potential psychological issues.. whether you’re an orphan who manages to survive disasters while all around you die, or whether you’re an army kid prepared to risk yourself for your team mates and so on.. I suspect these choices come into play during the story, or influence your available dialogue options.
The first part of the demo sees Shepard being brought to the Defense Committee, who are worried as they have been receiving distress signals, and lost touch with colonies and so on. Shepard says it’s the Reapers, but the Committee are still unsure, until the Reapers actually arrive on the scene..
The Reapers destroy the building we’re in, killing the Committee, and when we get outside it’s obvious they’re destroying the rest of the city too.
Impressive, massive machines..
I followed the Admiral out of the ruined buildings and across rooftops, heading for a landing zone and pickup from the Normandy.
I’m not convinced by the constant aiming.. Shepard only lowered the gun when sprinting, so there was a point where I was running along aiming my empty gun at nothing in particular! The controls felt great with just one odd bit: running with the A button, then melee with B.. I think that would make running and hitting a bit awkward.. but maybe melee combat only really comes up in closer quarters. Playing as an Adept, I would probably be using the Singularity and then shooting the enemies trapped in it, and avoiding melee.
The dialogue options were fairly simple: at different points in the conversation, a few options appeared on a little circle at the bottom. You just pick the one you want, and Shepard says something with the same general meaning.. I think this has little effect on events in the demo, but it’s nice to feel involved.. and in the full game this should mean different reactions and endings depending on what you picked.
The second part of the demo is a mission to collect a female Krogan from a Solarian base.. there’s a bit of drama to start with because the Solarians don’t like Rex, the male Krogan on your team. Going to get the female, though, requires fighting through Cerberus forces on the way up through the building.
This action was good fun, moving from one area to the next, flanking enemies, hitting them with singularities and using cover. Cover has been improved from the previous games: you are able to move around the side of some objects while using them for cover, though the game has been designed so that you can’t just pop your head out and kill all the enemies without moving.
Just before we finally got to the female Krogan, a huge mech was dropped into the building..
He had shields and armour to get through, and though I used cover, it didn’t protect me complete from the rockets fired by him, or the grenades thrown by the Agents who appeared to back him up. One tough, but very satisfying fight.. I ended up moving around the whole map to get some distance and avoid the rockets, as well as dealing with the Agents.
I’m now looking forward to this game.. we’re probably going to get it on the 360 to share, rather than buying a copy each on Origin (yes, it does require Origin on PC).
Mass Effect 3 is due to be published by EA on the 6th March in the US, and the 9th March in the UK and Europe.
The Indie Royale: The Valentine’s Bundle
Indie Royale’s The Valentine’s Bundle is now out, with five games, and bonus DLC! As usual the bundle is available on a pay what you want scheme, with a minimum price, although you can pay more to unlock the bonus, show your support, and knock down the price for others!
The games are: action fighting game Zeno Clash, by Ace Team, Hoard, a strategy game featuring dragons, by Big Sandwich Games Inc., adventure puzzle game Lume, by StateofPlay, and world premiere PC versions of retro RPG defense games Soulcaster and Soulcaster II, by MagicalTimeBean!
The bonus DLC in this bundle is for HOARD: Dynamite Roll!, which adds nine new maps and extra units, and Flame-Broiled SANDwich which adds a desert continent and remodelled buildings, units and terrain!
For those paying more than the current minimum, there’s also One Life Left’s music compilation, “Music To Play Games By Too“.
We looked at all the games in a bit more detail.. you can read it over here.