Tag: Gaming

This week there was SO MUCH NEWS! As well as two reviews on two indie visual novels. Have a listen to Paul and Zahra tell all about their experiences with the games as well as lots of totally awesome banter.

Lots of discussion about bugs and worms, the week in gaming news, pro gamer tips, and two fantastic reviews; Zahra on Metamorphosis and Evie discussing theHunter Call of the Wild.

An interesting week in gaming news from Paul as well as two fantastic reviews of Fight Crab and Spiritfarer. Not to mention lots of general banter about total nonsense… If you like that kind of thing.

Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Website: http://southpark.ubi.com/stickoftruth/en-AU/home/index.aspx
Australian classification: R18+

First and Foremost, South Park: the Stick of Truth is the perfect fan service. Right down to the walls of bodily fluids and shattered cue-balls you’ll find jammed inside Mr. Slave’s anus, it’s true to the show – disgusting, vulgar and consistently hilarious. Unfortunately, it’s a whole lot less effective as a turn-based RPG.

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Dom and Chris of Ghostbox drop in to talk about their latest game, Dragon Season (Android/iOS). We discuss the unlikely origins of the game and talk about how some of the key features were conceptualised.

Jody and Candi review Freedom Fall, a “platform game set in a wickedly dark fairy tale”.

In studio: Razor, Jody Macgregor & Candi.

Aired 5 February 2014

Zed Games Podcast – Episode 205

Subscribe to the Zed Games Podcast on iTunes

Meg and Anthony of Screwtape Studios join us live in the studio to talk about Verby, a social word game for iOS and Android. The pair share their experience creating the game and provide some great advice for aspiring developers. 

Lee reviews Broken Age: Part 1 (PC/Mac), a retro adventure game from Tim Schafer & Double Fine.

Aired 29 January 2014

In studio: Razor, Jody, Lee & Candi.

Zed Games Podcast – Episode 204

Subscribe to the Zed Games Podcast on iTunes

CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has officially been confirmed and is already slated as a “must see next generation RPG”.

The game is said to cover three different plot levels:

• Lowest Level: Free-form activities such as crafting, monster slaying (which seems to be more extensive in the third iteration), and going on quests. (There are over 100 hours of hand-scripted quests. These include helping villages and engineering the succession of the Skellige kings. Though, I think the latter would apply to the Next Level.)
• Next Level: The political situation of the Nilfgaardian invasion is resolved through a core plot line for each area, including Skellige, Novigrad, and No Man’s Land.
• Final Level: Geralt’s main storyline, his search for his loved ones, and the chase of the Wild Hunt.

Outside of completing missions or mini-games, there will be no chapters or acts to slow you down. It’s set in a world that is said to be a whopping 20% bigger than Skyrim and will take 30-40 minutes to completely cross on horseback without a single loading screen. There are hugely significant weather effects that could influence your travel, too – clouds are fully modded as real and volumetric instead of being paint on a skybox.

On the ground, monsters and bandits alike will savagely attack anyone they deem hostile. If you go to a town and choose not to save them from attacking from bandits, the village might end up abandoned when you next return.

Along with an enormous world that Geralt seems to have significant influence over, crafting, combat and inventory systems have all been completely re-worked. It is set to release in 2014 and will be the conclusion to the trilogy. Pick up this months Game Informer magazine for more information!

Over the past week, I’ve been lucky enough to wreak some poorly engineered wrath on numerous cities in the SimCity Closed Beta. The new SimCity is set to release in March and if the Beta is anything to go by, the official game is going to glue a lot of us to our computer screens.

The beta starts off with an overly lengthy and honestly fairly dreary – but necessary – tutorial. It teaches you how to attract people to your city, how to raise or lower your taxes, how to zone industrial, commercial and residential areas, and alerts you of things your town is missing. You’ll need a power plant, a sewerage plant, police, hospitals, schools, a town hall, public transport centres and even parks and recreational areas to attract wealthy Sims. Each building or zone you place will build itself from the ground up right before your eyes and handy stat trackers will tell you exactly how prosperous your city is becoming.

Everything you need for a fully functional city is fairly straightforward, easy to find and even easier to become familiar with. The thing that really makes the game addictive is the constant demand for more, more, more. You’ll repeatedly be told, as mayor, that you desperately need more industrial zones to employ your local Sims. Then, there’ll be a higher demand for residential areas, a demand for more fire stations, more police stations and more schools. Nothing is ever perfect, nothing settles for even a moment, so you’ll be building and building and building until you get to a point that makes you sit back and go, ‘huh, I wish I lived here.’

And, when the full game comes out, I’m pretty certain I will be living in front of my computer screen.

An interview with a German site called KGN suggests that Borderlands developer GearBox Software have turned down an opportunity to develop a new Call of Duty game. Randy Pitchford revealed that the studio had been requested to develop the popular franchise’s next instalment, but he said no.

Pitchford commented that Gearbox will only develop a game “when we can contribute to an existing brand something new – a kind of unique perspective and a new approach,” (translation from German in Google Translate). He turned down Activision’s offer because he saw ‘no real challenge’ in taking the job, along with questioning the flexibility he might get from the publisher. Considering the franchise has achieved FPS dominance by repeating a similar formula every year, it’s reasonable to assume that Gearbox wouldn’t be allowed much creative influence over a new Call of Duty.

“You have to play by the rules of the series,” said Pitchford. “You have to do what is expected of a Call of Duty [game]. In this I see but no real challenge for us. It would not strengthen our reputation as a studio, it would not be really motivating for our team.”

It would have been a welcome change to see Gearbox develop a new Call of Duty, but Pitchford‘s refusal is neither surprising nor unreasonable.