The Skyrim Creation Kit Arrives Today!

The Skyrim Creation Kit is planned to arrive today according to Bethesda’s Pete Hines.  This will be a free download for PC users, via Steam.

The Creation Kit features the same set of tools used to create the game originally, and will include new features such as scene editors, dialogue tree tool, and a new scripting language called Papyrus.  For those new to modding, Bethesda are also releasing wiki documentation, written by the developers.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU4oAKZE1VI]

As the Kit has been integrated with the Steam Workshop, you can browse or search for existing mods, and comment and rate them, as well as upload your own.  You can even subscribe to mods too: the launcher will download and install the latest version of any subscribed mods when you launch the game.

The Last of Us Details

The Last of Us is a third-person survival-horror adventure by Naughty Dog, set in a world where a fungus outbreak has decimated humanity.  Survivors live in quarantine zones, with anyone showing any signs of fungal infection immediately executed.  The game follows two characters, Joel and Ellie: player-character Joel is a weapons and drugs smuggler, and he rescues Ellie from camp as a favour to a dying friend.

New details about the game were published by Game Informer, who were given a short demo of the game by the developer.

Although there are infected humans in the world, the focus of the game is apparently human enemies.  Combat will be melee heavy, as ammo is limited, but guns will be more lethal.  The AI is able to react to the state of combat and the weapons you are using.. they take cover and try to flank you if you are using a gun, but rush you if they see you only have a melee weapon.  They also get angry when you kill one of their friends, and react with fear when they are losing.

While you don’t control Ellie, she takes part in combat and can warn you of dangers, and apparently gains in combat ability through the game.  The developers didn’t want to turn the game into an escort quest and so have tuned her AI so that she is able to keep up with the player without getting in the way.

The story has been designed to be self-contained, so no matter what happens with the IP, there will be no unresolved cliff-hangers here.  There will also be an online component to the game, but the details haven’t yet been decided on.

Indie Gala 2 – Quick Overview

I grabbed my bundle of shiny new indie games from the Indie Gala 2 yesterday, adding Greed Corp, Roboblitz, Critical Mass, Fortix 2 and Bunch of Heroes to my Steam library, and to my ever-expanding backlog!  So on to trying them out, in no particular order..

Fortix 2 is a reverse turret defense game by Nemesys Games, an indie developer from Hungary.  The aim of the game is to capture the castle by capturing the land bit by bit, while avoiding the dragons, cannons, and other monsters..

I tried out the Fortix 2 demo a while ago, and found the gameplay rather easy.. maybe too easy.  At the time I resisted buying the game in part due to that, but also because of the backlog.. so I was rather glad to see it in the bundle and have a bit more of an excuse to get it 😉

I’m happy to note that the full game includes more difficult enemies, including Blood Bats which travel along the base line, meaning nowhere is safe!  Maps start to contain hazards such as bat caves, which when captured release more bats to plague you.. the added challenge was certainly appreciated!

One small niggle, though.. the game takes your name from your Steam profile, with no option for renaming.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, but with a character limit in place, it trimmed my name to “Sir CoffeeScam”!

Vanguard Games‘ Greed Corp is a turn based strategy, where you need to find the balance between harvesting the land for resources and preserving it. Each hexagon of terrain has a number of layers which collapse as you harvest the land.. these can also be strategically destroyed to throw enemy units and buildings into the abyss!

Combat between walkers is simple.. the larger force on each hexagon wins.. but when it comes to the buildings, you need to look at the layout of the map before doing anything!  Harvesters can be built on any land you own, then on each turn they generate resources out of the terrain they are on, as well as those around them.  However, this erodes a layer as well..

You can use these to sabotage your enemy by destroying the land under them; when a hexagon falls, any buildings or units on it fall too!

I only took a quick look at this game, playing through the tutorial to see how it all works.. I’ll be coming back to this one later, and maybe trying out the multiplayer: you can take on up to three other players across a range of maps 🙂

Bunch of Heroes was next: a four-player co-op shooter by NGD Studios.  Aliens are invading Earth, and summoning a Zombie army to assist them.. and the Bunch of Heroes are our last line of defense! 🙂

There are four playable characters in the Bunch, each with a different special attack:  El Comandante, the Cuban Commander, throws exploding cigars, while Jared Joe, the Quarterback, can make a touchdown for his special move.  Captain Smith, the Duke, can call in a bombing run to assist him, and Agent Liu, the spy, can set enemies on fire!  To use the special attack, you need to kill enemies and pick up the energy they drop.

There are three modes: Campaign, Survival and Timed Mode, with a few different scenarios.  Campaign mode consists of simple missions such as clearing enemies from an area, defending a point for a short time, and rescuing cheerleaders.  I found the cheerleader rescue rather funny, as you have to sling her over your shoulder and carry her..

Aside from screaming when you pick her up or put her down, the cheerleader dances at intermittent points while not being carried.  At one point I died while carrying her, and found it rather funny when she almost instantly started dancing at my corpse’s feet! 😀

The game is designed for four players, and as there are no AI bots, playing by yourself means being somewhat swamped.  After trying the first Campaign, I tried out Survival.. my first attempt was rather brief.. 😉

Roboblitz, by Naked Sky Entertainment, is a puzzle platform shooter featuring a little robot technician who lives aboard a Space Cannon Facility.  The Facility comes under attack from pirate robots led by the MegaNOAD, and Blitz has to get all systems up and running in order to fire the Space Cannon while fending off attacks from the various invading pirate robots.

You start off with only your grabby arms and a spin attack, which is fine for dealing with the Pirate Scouts, but ineffective on larger enemies.  Blitz can also gather collectible Upgradium, which can be used to purchase new weapons: the first of these is the EMP gun, which stuns enemies for a short time, but other weapons are able to destroy them.

I liked the variety of puzzles, spread across different areas which you can access at will, but I found the controls and movement occasionally quite poor.

Blitz’s item handling wasn’t as accurate as I’d have liked, and in getting close enough to pick some items up, I found myself bumping them away instead.  More frustrating was the jumping: in particular, I found jumping into one certain pipe in the Coolant Tower was more miss than hit, with a miss causing Blitz to get stuck on the edge, holding on by the arms.  After a few misses in the fan room, and having to go back to try again, this annoyed me enough that I decided to move on to the final game in the bundle..

Critical Mass, a 3d action puzzler by Manic Games Studios!  There are four modes: Classic, Survival, Meditation and Rush, but the core gameplay is the same in each.. destroy the mass by creating colour combos of four or more blocks.  Simple to understand, but difficult to master! 🙂

I tried Classic first, and quickly realised that this has the makings of an addictive game.. winning a level means proceeding to the next, slightly more difficult level, while defeat means retrying the level.  In this mode, the camera zooms in during play until the whole structure shakes and destroys itself.. producing a combo pushes the camera back and gives you just a little more time, while Survival ‘rewards’ a combo by throwing more blocks into the fray.  Rush mode times your efforts, with the object to clear the mass as quickly as possible, and Meditation is the calm, thoughtful mode where you can aim for the biggest combos on the board, without distraction.

The bundle came with music as well, and I have to note I don’t really listen to game music outside of the games themselves.  However, games without music wouldn’t be the same, so it’s good to see some support for indie music too 🙂

The Indie Gala 2

The Indie Gala has returned with their second set of bundles, containing indie games and music albums, with proceeds being split between developers, charity and the Indie Gala itself.

While it is a pay what you want scheme, this time it’s a little different, with three tiers of bundle available depending on how much you pay:

The Carebear Bundle contains Critical Mass by Manic Games Studios, Fortix 2, by Nemesys Games and Bunch of Heroes by NGD Studios along with Casey Lalonde’s Skitter EP, Giraffage’s Comfort, and The Numbers’ Beautiful EP.

The Big Saver Bundle contains all the contents of The Carebear Bundle, two more games: Greed Corp by Vanguard Games and Roboblitz by Naked Sky Entertainment, and music: Casey Lalonde’s Thank You, Robot Science’s Square, and Jack Butler’s Fit the Paradigm.

The Epic Gala Bundle contains all the games and music listed here, but also contains all the contents of the previous Indie Gala bundle: inMomentum by Digital Arrow, hacking sims Hacker Evolution: Duality and Hacker Evolution: Untold, by Exosyphen Studios, puzzler Your Doodles Are Bugged! by Spyn Doctor Games, and Sigma Team‘s Zombie Shooter 1 and Zombie Shooter 2, with Robot Science’s Doodads album too.

THQ Problems Continue, Metro Delayed

Rumours have been circulating for a while now in regards to THQ’s financial situation and the position of their future titles.  While THQ eventually denied the rumours that they were to cancel their 2014 line-up, their financial situation has not improved; their share value remains under the $1 mark which means they are at risk of NASDAQ delisting, more job losses have been reported, and recently published figures show $55.9 million in losses in the last quarter.

The latest release schedule shows that Metro: Last Light has been pushed back to early 2013, from a summer 2012 release.  The reason for this delay is said to be so developer 4A Games can polish the game before release, but we’ll be hearing more closer to E3.

As for Vigil Games‘ 40k MMO Dark Millennium Online: while the game is still on for a 2014 release, Brian Farrell confirmed during the investor call on Feb 2nd that THQ is looking for a partner to help complete the title (via Eurogamer).

TERA Online Available to Pre-Order

Frogster, European publisher of MMO TERA Online, have announced pre-order details for the game.  Pre-ordering will allow guaranteed beta access and a five-day exclusive access to the game at launch, as well as special in-game items.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq7aKNVQbH8]

Beta testing begins on February 17th, with details on available sessions here.

TERA has been in the news over the last few weeks due to a lawsuit filed by NCsoft, and reported on by MMO Culture, and for their IP blocking which excludes players from some countries, including Russia, being unable to access Frogster servers in Europe.

GFACE – Crytek’s Cloud Gaming Service

GFACE, a new browser-based cloud gaming service from Crytek, has now entered closed beta.

GFACE combines social network and gaming elements: users can interact with friends, upload photos and post status updates, as well as stream a variety of console-quality games in their browsers.

As the system is cross-platform, players able to quickly and easily join their friends in multiplayer games.  Games available through the service range from the casual 2D and 3D games through to core games, including Crytek’s own Warface, a free-to-play online military shooter.

While in beta, the system is undergoing testing with a small amount of people.  If you want to apply for a beta spot, you can do that here.

RIFT Lite Announced

Trion Worlds have just announced the launch of a Life version of fantasy MMO RIFT, accessible to anyone with a Trion account.

The Lite version of the game will allow new players to try out the first 20 levels of the game, accessing capital cities as well as other areas, with no cost or time restrictions, rather like World of Warcraft’s Starter Edition.

Via Massively.

Come Home

I just played something beautiful: Come Home, an interactive and rather personal true story by independent developer Quick Fingers.

A beautiful but sad story.. I thought it was very cleverly done and the rain fits how this made me feel.

This was produced in just two weeks, using Unity as well as image stock and music.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo

The demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came out on Steam last week.. an action RPG in a colourful fantasy setting, with four playable races and a fully customisable set of skills and abilities.

The game has been developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, but is published by EA, so on launching the game I had to log in to my EA account.  Doing so unlocked a few items for use in the full game, if I go ahead and purchase later, as well as some themed armour for Mass Effect 3.

Players start as a blank slate, risen from the dead thanks to the powers of the Well of Souls.  After dragging myself out of a pile of dead bodies, I went in search of the exit.. finding starter gear, some gnomes, attacking Tuatha Soldiers, and eventually, the gnome researcher working with the Well of Souls.

The Tower was eventually overrun by the attacking forces, and on the way out I had a final battle with a Rock Troll.. a chance to string a few moves together after being shown the basics of weapons and magic.

At this point, my character’s abilities with each weapon was the same, but I liked the dual-wield daggers best.  During the exploration part of the demo, I found some better-quality daggers with bonus acid damage.. and after levelling up and spending some ability points, I was able to make a rather nice dashing combo too.

Levelling up provided me with a skill point, which I used to improve Detect Hidden, allowing enemies and treasure to appear on the mini map, and ability points which I used to increase damage with daggers, as well as unlocking the Shadow Strike ability.  This was all personal choice: I could have chosen any combination of abilities from Sorcery, Might or Finesse to suit my gameplay.

Reckoning Mode was interesting.. accessible after filling up the purple Fate meter, this gave me extra power and allowed me to finish off weakened enemies with special, and rather showy, moves..

I got different moves each time, too 🙂

The demo was reported to contain a few bugs and glitches: the first of these for me was the worst, as I had no graphics!  A friend told me this was down to having a Radeon, and to turn off post-processing, which fixed it.  Elsewhere, I had the odd short freeze, as well as text which appeared and then disappeared too quickly for me to read it.  The developers were aware of this, and replied to a thread on NeoGAF.  Apparently the demo was created by a third party, from older code, and so the full game should be free of these.

Bugs aside, I think this demo was very well done.  It allowed me to see the basics of the game, get an idea of the forces at play, and then explore the world as I pleased for up to 45 minutes.  For me, this was long enough to see that I’d enjoy playing it.. though I will probably wait till I’ve cleared some of my backlog before picking it up.