Rock, Paper, Shotgun

We’re awaiting our copy of the Mafia II DLC, Jimmy’s Vendetta, which we’ve heard makes the city a little bit more lively. It’s a series of assassination missions, taking place in the streets of Empire Bay. Something that might have gone a long way to satisfying all those who got very cross that the world wasn’t open enough, had they included it in the original game. We’ll let you know how it is as soon as we receive our code. In the meantime, know that it’s out, and there’s a trailer below to show it off. You can read my review of Mafia II here.

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Telltale has a little bundle on at the moment, collecting together six adventure games, and giving 25% of the price away to a series of charities. Which seems like a jolly decent sort of thing to do. It’s The Great Adventure Bundle 2010. The quality of the games in the deal are mixed. None is exceptional, and one is dreadful. However, it’s for a very reasonable price at $20. It contains: Penny Arcade Adventures, The Whispered World, Jack Keane, Puzzle Agent, King’s Quest Collection, and if they sell 5,000 bundles, Sam & Max Season 2. For two more days.

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I’d been interested in Ship Simulator Extremes since I heard about it at GamesCom. It’s a ship simulator, but with whole campaigns of relatively extreme missions that see you performing rescues, putting out fires, and even harassing other vessels as a pesky Greenpeace unit. Could I – a man – with no experience in ships – hope to succeed?

Since Ship Simulator Extremes came out a couple a weeks ago, I’ve found out the answer is a very firm “No.” The kind of no the bouncer of a fancy club tells you if you’re not wearing shoes at all. That said, my failure didn’t happen quite the way I was expecting. Put on the life jacket located under your seat and click through the jump for an account of my first few missions.

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What would it be like if Dragon Age’s Morrigan and Mass Effect’s Liara T’Soni met? I fed that question into the RPS supercomputer and it spat out the above image. I don’t think it was trying very hard. Anyway as of yesterday both ladies have received their very own DLC, with DA’s Witch Hunt and ME2′s Lair of the Shadow Broker both available for download RIGHT NOW. Witch Hunt costs $7 and adds about an hour of play time (according to the Dragon Age wiki), while Lair of the Shadow Broker costs $10, lasts about two and a half hours and lets you have sex with Liara. One of these packs is a better deal than the other, I feel.

Oh my. It’s been a week of mod development soap opera. Below the jump you’ll find the whole Black Mesa sorta-leak explained, along with a collection of mod-related gubbins from across the past days.

I’m hugely excited about the prospect of Amnesia: The Dark Descent mods. While I’ve only played a preview build and the demo so far, it seems like John’s Wot I Think last night is pretty much spot-on. So I was delighted to note – albeit apparently months late – that a full SDK will be available soon. I do remember watching a timelapse video of Frictional’s level designers working on a room, and the tools seemed very intuitive. I’m eager to try them out.

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It’s been fascinating to watch the MMO scene evolving over the past couple of years, and seeing the various players stepping away from traditional models. Now it seems to be Cryptic’s turn. After City Of Heroes, Champions and Star Trek, they are now looking at creating something a little different: Neverwinter, a D&D game that appeals to both the adventurer and the Dungeon Master, relying as it does on an amalgam of Cryptic’s own content and user-generated dungeons for its ongoing adventures. Cryptic’s bossman Jack Emmert has already spoken in interviews about how he felt that Champions and Star Trek lacked polish, and in this interview he speaks about what that realisation means for Neverwinter, and why this game represents a new era for the company that originally set out to make MMOs.

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Chime has come from the land of not-PC to the land of PC, via Steam with proper geek-power Still-Alive to round off its fine line up of bald techno-men (and Philip Glass). So, with controller abandoned and mouse held mightily in my paw, I have a look at this music-adorned charity-infused puzzler and tell you Wot I think…

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While there’s no news on APB, the BBC broke news yesterday that the administrators of Realtime Worlds have found a buyer for MyWorld. Staff had been kept on MyWorld in hope of them doing exactly that, so you have to chalk this up in the pro column for them. Who’s the buyer? It’s a secret. “One hundred per cent confidentiality has been imposed by the company.” said the administrators about this mysterious American company, “MyWorld has been sold and unfortunately we cannot disclose any further details of the sale.” Who is it? Well, the obvious guess would be someone working in the social-networking sphere though sources speaking exclusively inside our heads tell us it’s the Bavarian Illuminanti. We must ignore the voices, else we kill again.

World Of Tanks seems to be making quite a following for itself. Half my old Eve corporation seem to be wrapped up in it, while RPS’ own tanketeers are to be found organising and discussing their exploits over in this thread on the forum. It’s quite literally a game of tanks. Small tanks with speed and agility, big tanks with guns like God’s own howitzer. They fight crime each other (although thinking about it, I quite fancy a game where petty criminals are hunted down by a division of Panzers. Oh God That Mugger Is Doomed, I would call it.) Most significant of all to your brainthinks should be that World Of Tanks free, and has some depth for you to explore in the endless possible loadouts and configurations that are possible across the ludicrous number of tanks on offer. You should probably give the ongoing beta a nose.

The most recent trailer, featuring the heaviest hitting tanks, appears below.

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I wake to Shacknews-Killer-Bee Alice O’Connor saying “Everyone who said they’d buy VVVVVV when it hit Steam, I’m holding you to that.” So, yes, VVVVVV is now nestling in the info-hive of Seattle’s Valve Corporation and can be released into your desktop micro-brain for three-fifty at the moment. That’s a small price to pay for a pint in London. More relevantly, it’s also a small price to pay for one of this year’s definitive indie-games. If you want more information, I direct you at our venerable VVVVVV Wot I Think and interview with creator Terry Cavanagh. And, of course, there’s the demo if you want to do the old try before you buy thing.