Via Shacknews, we’re informed that THQ and Games Workshop have announced an extension of THQ’s license to publish games set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This initially sounds unsurprising – why futz with a good thing, after all – but it at least suggests that GW is feeling good about what they’ve seen of Space Marine, Dark Millennium, and maybe Dawn of War 3 as well. To be fair, GW seems to feel pretty good about pretty much any licensed project; if someone had sat me down and screened Ultramarines for my approval, I’d have canned the whole thing and eaten the cost.
That’s not to say that there aren’t good GW licensees – I’ve heard the Fantasy Flight RPGs are good, and the Black Library turns out some good stuff – but honestly it doesn’t seem like GW are actually that picky, so good licensed product like DoW seems as much a product of luck as of careful management of the property.
Still, we can hope that there’s more Chaos Rising on the way and less Soulstorm.
We don’t talk about analog gaming too much on the site, but I’m quite fond of Warhammer 40K, particularly its hobby aspect. Last year a group of prominent 40k hobby bloggers got together to paint up and raffle off a beautifully-painted Space Marine army. The $16,000+ they raised in the raffle went to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a fine international charity. This year they are doing it again, only the raffle includes four armies rather than just one, as well as regular smaller prizes in the time leading up to the main drawing in July.
Please consider following the link in the image above and entering the raffle. Even if you don’t particularly care for 40K it’s a worthy cause and another opportunity, much as we regularly have with Umloud and Child’s Play, to prove that gamers and hobbyists are caring people with a healthy sense of our place in society.
In other words, every dollar you give to charity as a gamer is a big middle finger to Jack Thompson.
This is a description of some time spent playing Dead Space 2, so be forewarned that it’s all spoilers.
When I last left Isaac Clarke, aka Space McClane, he’d been brutally killed by a gymnasium full of feral zombie children. With my nerves sufficiently recovered, it’s now time for a second go at the big School Fight.
This battle is kind of a motherfucker, and I felt a lot better about the trouble I had with it when the game gave me an achievement for finishing it. My mistake the first time around was in trying to precisely and quickly shoot all of the little kids swarming the auditorium stage in some sort of tactical order. For my second go around I try just punching my way out of things, as Isaac’s haymakers can kill multiple little leapy Pack toddlers in one go. This would work OK if it weren’t for the little suicide bomber infants that are crawling around among the toddlers, and Isaac is exploded limb from limb in my second go.
Yes, this is a real thing.
It's sort of like that scene in Trainspotting, except with more detonation and marginally more screaming
There’s no store in the school. This makes sense – who would sell mining equipment to little kids? – but it’s a pain in the ass for someone who realizes that he just hasn’t got enough damned plasma bullets and needs to buy more. The trip all the way back out of the school to the store and back to the auditorium is fantastically quiet, like the rest of the game has been shut down to save up juice for the fight that’s queued up and ready to go.
Third time’s the charm. I telekinesis a nearby stasis bomb lamp thingy into the mob of angry little runners – it would do me more good to shoot it off later in the fight, but I still don’t have the hang of telekinesis in hectic situations like fights, so I use it first. After that it’s a half-blind mix of plasma shots and roundhouse punches. Hardly the graceful, leet way out, but Isaac survives with one health bar left and limps off through the door that opens up once the last enemy dies. How do the doors always know the bad guys are dead?
FyreHaar: I was watching triathlon videos online on Saturday night FyreHaar: or Friday or something FyreHaar: you don’t know how much you need something til you can’t have it Sonic Rob: I think you need a little more breadth in your hobbies FyreHaar: I knit FyreHaar: I sew FyreHaar: I garden FyreHaar: I play video games Sonic Rob: yeah Sonic Rob: but you don’t need those the way you seem to need to run Sonic Rob: they are things you do when you aren’t running FyreHaar: that is true FyreHaar: but what could possibly take its place? Sonic Rob: I spose that depends what you get from it FyreHaar: it’s calming and exciting FyreHaar: it centers me FyreHaar: zones me out FyreHaar: pumps me full of endorphins FyreHaar: relaxes me FyreHaar: gives me time with the dog Sonic Rob: I suggest getting a massage and mainlining heroin while skydiving, then FyreHaar: heh FyreHaar: running is cheaper and easier Sonic Rob: oh, so now you want budget alternatives?
I played through the original Dead Space last Fall. And by “last Fall”, I literally mean that I spent that entire season playing through the game. I snatched an hour every here and there, savoring the game in discrete chunks like Charlie with his yearly chocolate bar. Every day I’d come to work and the coworker who’d loaned me the game would ask if I’d played any Dead Space the night before. I frequently hadn’t, but on the days that I had we’d happily natter away for a few minutes about the tricky battle, amusing scare, or infuriating story point I’d encountered. I wrung every drop of entertainment out of that game in one long, winding playthrough, and a large aspect of that was due to the fact that it was my water cooler topic for months on end.
I’m sick at the moment, and with Dead Space 2 once again provided to me out of the largesse of my coworkers, I popped the game in yesterday and proceeded to crash through several hours of it without respite.
I’m not sure I could tell you what happened in more than about 15 minutes of it.
Sonic Rob: I wish I had more money Sonic Rob: I want to upgrade my PC Sonic Rob: You can buy a 3 TB HDD now FyreHaar: dude FyreHaar: I have yet to actually install my 500GB HDD FyreHaar: which I need to Sonic Rob: mm FyreHaar: but do you need 3TB? Sonic Rob: no, not yet Sonic Rob: but I could use an extra TB Sonic Rob: I’m thinking of getting a 2 TB, they’re -$100 these days Sonic Rob: I really like having all my games installed on my computer all the time Sonic Rob: it feels decadent Sonic Rob: turning on my PC and loading Steam is like parting the curtain on a harem FyreHaar: ahhh FyreHaar: you have to pick one for the night? Sonic Rob: Yeah, I like to take my time and really pay some serious attention to the one I’m in the mood for
Harken back with us to those halcyon days of yesteryear, when people were watching the Ronald D. Moore television epic BattleStar Galactica and then spending entire working days standing around the breakroom WTFing and OMGing the previous night’s episode. While you and I wrapped up our feelings for the show fucking years ago, Fyre doesn’t watch any television that isn’t on DVD (and almost none that comes from America on top of that) so she’s only just now gotten herself deeply enmeshed in the BSG reboot’s heady web of sexual politics, cosmic nigh-nihilism, and bare robot ass. Let’s join the wutfawmg already in progress…
FyreHaar: we went out to eat FyreHaar: then went book shopping FyreHaar: and watched BSF Sonic Rob: BattlestarmindFuck FyreHaar: BSG It’s pretty much all spoilers after this
With my sister busily dying of the flu and/or pregnancy, here is a quick bit of preview video from PAX East of an upcoming game called Fez. It reminds a bit of echochrome crossed with a Zelda title. I like the idea of puzzles based on perspective changes as well as the fictional conceit of the power gained by a person who suddenly is able to move in an extra dimension relative to everyone else.
Somewhere between Red Letter Media and Extra Credits we find Egoraptor, waxing analytical about the design changes that made Castlevania 2 worse than Castlevania (headphones or it’s NSFW):
