Star Conflict is a space based-arcade-MMO-deathmatch-spaceship game. Think World of Tanks in space, with snippets of story and you honestly won’t be far off. It is clear that this game owes a huge debt to WoT, the similarities are in places, striking, but it mostly holds it’s own and manages to come across as a separate entity. This is no mean feat.
Read on after the cut to find out what I think. …
Seems like a good day to be a PC gamer. Firstly, to mark the 25th anniversary of Battletech, Smith & Tinker are allowing Mektek.net, a Mechwarrior community site, to give away Mech Warrior 4 and all of its expansions for free, to go with the announcement of a new Mechwarrior game. Blimey, that’s a lot of stompy robots for better than cheap. While they haven’t quite launched it yet, keep an eye on the website for download details. Mechwarrior 4 is known to be perhaps one of the less than classic Mechwarrior titles, I still have fond memories of loading up my MadCat with far too many EMP lasers and heat sinks, and trying to melt everything with hydraulics.
…
I know we’re a little late with this one, but A New Zero is definitely worth a look for the three readers we have who don’t also read Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Also, due to the fact that it’s in a constant state of improvement, my impressions might just be different from all the others have written. And not just because the game I’m playing is different. I’m special, you know.
Another gem unearthed on the TIGSource forums. White Butterfly is a vertical shooter that’s a little bit different, although I’m not sure entirely why. It could be the aesthetics, which are lovely in a very soft curves, deadly plasma way, and that, coupled with the sparsity of colour on display certainly help. The weapons have a very unique feel, even if some of them seem rather generic at first. Maybe it’s because it’s so cripplingly hard, despite having such a vast array of weaponry at hand. Maybe it’s the music.
As usual, I’m quite bad at it, and I didn’t even get past the first stage, despite beating one boss. Funny thing was, though, I still really enjoyed it. There different ship types make it interesting quite a few times, as it creates the illusion that you’re not actually that bad, you just haven’t found the ‘right’ ship yet. There’s one which is locked to begin with, and I’m pretty sure that’s the ship that is the perfect one for me. Pity I’ll have to get past stage three to unlock it. Seems we’ve got a bit of a quandary, huh?
Anyway, you can download it here, and here’s a video of someone who’s unfairly good at the game:
This is the fourth in a series of analysis I’m doing on the IGF Finalists. Dyson has been around for a while, but it’s still very good, if very, very hard. I’m going to start this article with a disclaimer: I’m pretty pap at strategy games. The only ones I’ve ever been any good at were things like Company of Heroes, and even then I only work well when I’ve got two friends covering my sides. The problem with me is I like to watch the battles, and for a commander that’s a bit… dangerous. While you’re watching your men rip the enemy apart, the rest of them could be flanking you or decimating your weak flanks or.. whatever battle speak there is for being outmaneuvered majestically.
TIGSource clued me onto this particular stand alone mod for Quake 3 (the next iteration of the engine used by Gravity Bone) called Smokin’ Guns, which takes the legacy of the Western Mod of Quake and turns it into it’s own thing, complete with bank robberies, duels and, of course, much knifings, ’cause, ya’know, everyone was knifing everyone back then. I rustled up a group of friends to play the game with (due to me inexplicably having no servers to browse apart from… one) and, all for you, took out some personal justice on them dirty gunslingers.