Clippings

Over the weekend, I narrated and recorded my first ever Let’s Play video, containing about 40 minutes of Skulls of the Shogun gameplay. Then I discovered (a) I hadn’t captured the sound properly, and (b) even at lower resolutions, the video file was too large for my puny connection to upload. Oops. From what I’ve played — a couple of hours’ worth — Skulls is a very promising strategy game, combining elegance (there are only a few decisions each turn, but they are important ones) with charm, an original setting, and funny dialogue. Definitely worth keeping your eye on! Here are today’s links:

Games

1. A history of Paradox Interactive, with some fascinating anecdotes. Did you know that in one week, Fredrik Wester and two other Paradox team members packed and shipped 4,000 boxed copies of the original Crusader Kings by hand?
2. Christine Love’s visual novel Hate Plus has a new release date – the 19th of August, just a couple of weeks away. Love is tremendously talented — here is my take on her earlier works, the wonderful Digital: A Love Story and the dark, emotionally intense Analogue: A Hate Story — and I look forward to what Hate Plus has to offer.
3. Speaking of visual novels, here is a piece on the localisation of niche Japanese games, from RPGs to VNs.
4. The problem with video game cover art.

Books

1. A salute to Harry Flashman.

Games

1. 2K is set to reveal something named “XCOM: Enemy Within” on 21 August, at Gamescom. An expansion pack, perhaps?
2. A retrospective on the current gaming generation. I disagree with the headline – IMHO console gaming peaked with the PS2 – but it’s still an interesting read.
3. GamesIndustry International speaks to EA’s former CEO, John Riccitiello.
4. HG Wells, wargame designer.
5. JRPG fans, here’s an interesting Siliconera interview with XSEED.

Games

1. “When choice is bad“, an article by Soren Johnson of Civilization IV fame.
2. Kalypso has announced a medieval trading game called Rise of Venice, and here is Strategy Informer’s preview (including caveats). I’m intrigued by the setting, although I still have Patrician IV in my backlog…
3. An interesting-looking strategy game named Skulls of the Shogun has landed on Steam; here is Eurogamer’s take on the Xbox 360 original.
4. 2K Games has announced new DLC for Bioshock Infinite, including an arena/combat pack and a two-part story expansion, Burial at Sea, which stars an alternate-timeline Booker and Elizabeth and is set in pre-fall Rapture. The Burial at Sea Part 1 trailer is here, and here is my review of Bioshock Infinite, from back in April.
5. “ChinaJoy is bigger than E3, it’s hotter than E3 and it’s louder than E3.”

Anime

1. These model mecha are a marvel to behold. They are from a show named Armoured Trooper VOTOMS, rough-edged but one of my favourites.

Games

1. The Steam sale is now over, but for Playstation owners, there is a juicy-looking Atlus sale on the US PSN. The highlight is Persona 4: Golden for 33% off (US$20), but the rest of the Persona series is also on sale, as are several other titles. For myself, I’ve snagged a couple of less-known PSP RPGs, Growlanser and Gungnir. Details over at the Cheapassgamer forums.
2. Here is gameplay footage from the Total War: Rome II campaign. Stay tuned for my detailed thoughts on the game in September!
3. Publisher Slitherine has uploaded a number of gameplay videos of Pandora, an upcoming TBS that looks inspired by Alpha Centauri. Screenshots are available on Pandora‘s official website.
4. The Escapist has an interesting preview of upcoming indie game Redshirt, which simulates life as a Starfleet… well, redshirt.

Movies

1. In a case of “turnabout is fair play”, Ken Watanabe will star as a veteran samurai in a Japanese remake of Unforgiven. This, I want to watch! There is a trailer (no subtitles) here.

Hardware

1. PC Gamer reviews a 1TB SSD priced at £500/US$650. Getting cheaper!
2. Two new gadgets from Google: a new version of the Nexus 7 with a 1920×1080 screen, and the Chromecast, a stick that, once plugged into a TV’s HDMI port, can be used to receive content streamed from smartphones, tablets, and PCs using Chrome.

Hi everyone! Since I’ve recently started a regular (non-gaming) link roundup at my other site, I thought I’d do something similar here — every week, I’m going to post a roundup (like the one below) of news, links, and thoughts that don’t warrant their own blog post. Here goes:

Games

1. This is a brilliant take on Steam sales. (hat tip: reader Wolfox)
2. Speaking of the Steam sale, my haul so far has been modest – a map pack for Civilization V; indie action-puzzler Gunpoint; and Wild West shooter Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. The highlight so far (I’m several levels in) is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, a game with a unique premise — it is a chronicle of its hero’s adventures as recounted to an audience at a saloon. In other words, it’s in-universe fiction, and everything reinforces that: the art is vibrant and colourful, the music (and the hero’s bullet time ability) are an obvious homage to spaghetti Westerns, and levels will actually change mid-way as the speaker alters or embellishes his story. The actual game mechanics are nothing I’d write home about, but that’s not a huge problem; the atmosphere is the real draw. Here is a more detailed review from Polygon.
3. Meanwhile, Episode 2 of Back to the Future: The Game is a worthy successor to the very fine Episode 1.
4. Previewer quill18 is posting Let’s Play videos of Europa Universalis IV on Youtube. I’ve seen four instalments so far (out of five posted), and they’re interesting stuff. He’s playing England, the same country I intend to play for my (text/screenshot) LP, and his strategies are giving me some useful food for thought.
5. A remastered version of Transport Tycoon is coming to Android/iOS! Owen Faraday of Pocket Tactics has rounded up screenshots, and Gamasutra has an interview with creator Chris Sawyer.
6. The bad news is, Age of Wonders III has been delayed to the first quarter of 2014. The good news is, there’s now a dev diary on the official site.
7. There’s an interesting-looking tactical RPG on Kickstarter named Liege, which has a week left to run.
8. I never got around to posting this link from a few weeks back – the gist is that (a) EA’s chief creative officer estimates there are 25-30 AAA console game teams worldwide, (b) this number is down from 125 seven years ago, but (c) they employ the same total number of staff (i.e. each individual team is 4x larger).
9. I’m planning to eventually buy a Vita and a 3DS, so this Eurogamer article was encouraging news.

Books

1. Ben Aaronovitch’s latest urban fantasy novel, Broken Homes, comes out at the end of this month in the UK. (Unfortunately, American readers will have to either wait until next year, or import.) These books are a great read, and I’ve already pre-ordered Broken Homes; look forward to reading it!
2. After a promising (and entertainingly whimsical) start, I was disappointed by the way Jasper Fforde’s comical fantasy novel The Last Dragonslayer panned out. Oh well.