Stalin vs Martians is an upcoming RTS by Russian developers Dreamlore and was brought to my attention by the usual fellas.

Stalin vs Martians has a simple premise. The year is 1942, Stalin is the Soviet leader and Martians have invaded Siberia and you are promised a crazy gaming experience later this year.

24 April 2008

Stalin vs. Martians unveiled

Black Wing Foundation, Dreamlore and N-Game announce a joint project Stalin vs. Martians and probably the most bizzare gaming experience of the year 2008.The name of the game is a work of art and actually it doesn’t really matter if the game is playable at all. The concept is enough. Simply makes your brain explode. But somehow we have more than that to offer.

Stalin vs. Martians is also a good real-time strategy. Fast, simple, intuitive and incredibly fun. Trashy and absolutely over-the-top, arthouse kitsch production in it’s finest. With a good technical basis and some healthy gameplay innovations. A natural choice for anyone bored of hundreds and hundreds identical “World War II strategies”. And a perfect choice for anyone who just hates the strategy genre.

Go read the ideology behind this game and wait for more info!

That says it all doesn’t it, Codemasters love their racing games and they also love to drift! I myself am not a big fan of drifting, it is a very Need for Speed sensation and is one I just don’t like in a serious racing game. Though if Codemasters like it then so be it.

Not much else to say really apart from the fact that if I was to make another Codemasters related news post it would be entitled ‘Codemasters Love To Play Queens of the Stoneage Mixes!’.

Codemasters are great at making racing games, we have seen series’ such as Colin McRae and TOCA emanate from them and soon we will see GRID appear. To add to their impressive resume of racing games and work they have acquired UK-based Sega Racing Studio, the team that was behind Sega Rally Revo and which was closed earlier in the month by Sega.

Rod Cousens, chief executive of Codemasters had this to say about the takeover to Next-Gen.biz

“In seizing this opportunity, we have created additional resources to escalate our plans in the racing segment,

“We hope to welcome more than 40 people to the company and we have enjoyed the full co-operation of our friends at Sega in making this happen. It is good business for Codemasters, an exciting prospect and there will be more to come as we are not content to stand still.”

Can we expect to see another racing game get put into development while GRID is finished off, or will this new team work on GRID? I myself wouldn’t be surprised if they started work on a new rally game in the same vein as Colin McRae DIRT.

One thing we can say though is that Codies sure do love to race!

TypeRacer is a superbly designed online word racing game following in the likes of Typing of the Dead. You get thrown a quote from a piece of pop culture, be it a film or a song and have to type what you see as fast as possible to win the race.

Sadly I am only getting around 50 wpm while those RPS guys are getting stuff in the 90 wpm range!

Check it out here for some quick painless fun.

This is a review I started a couple of months ago but only now have gotten round to finishing it off! The Club….read on for my take!

A dash of third-person perspective, a healthy dose of non-stop action, a sprinkle of arcade scoring with a dollop of random bad guys on top. Something is wrong though, this would be the basis of a very good shooter, but to become a great shooter it will require that special ingredient that elusive to all but the very best of games.

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The soon to be famous author of This Gaming Life is the one and only Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun and PC Gamer UK fame.

Jim provides some insight into why he wrote this book here. He says some very interesting things regarding the writing of the book and the book itself. I personally pre-ordered the book back in March and am really looking forward to it and hope it is a success for him.

You can get this book on pre-order from amazon.co.uk and read more about it on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

The Harry Potter franchise has dominated the book charts ever since the first was released, it has dominated the film industry whenever a film of the books has been released, and it has appeared in the gaming industry.

I must profess to have read all the books and seen all the films, and I have quite enjoyed them. I have avoided the games though, movie to game conversions often seem to fall flat on their face and I never have the guts to give them a go. So it is with a touch of nervousness that I reveal that EA and Warner Brothers are going to be releasing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for pretty much every platform available, well apart from Linux! That does include the humble PC though which means we shall see this game arriving later this year at the same time as the film.

In the game of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, players will return to Hogwarts to help Harry survive a fraught sixth year. They will also have a chance to engage in exciting wizard duels, mix and brew magical ingredients in Potions class and take to the air to lead the Gryffindor Quidditch team to victory. Players may even get sidetracked by Ron’s romantic entanglements as they journey towards a dramatic climax and discover the identity of the Half-Blood Prince.

Interestingly this is being released on EAs ‘Casual Entertainment Label.’ I don’t know why that is interesting but it certainly sounds it! The full press release full of excitement for the use of the Wii controller and all the usual hype follows.

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The forthcoming super special version of The Witcher has been delayed from its planned May 16th release.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition is planned to include a much improved translation of the game, tweaks to the gameplay and graphics, numerous other tweaks and two new adventures.

“The delay can be attributed to the company’s goal of making The Witcher: Enhanced Edition as close to a flawless product as possible”, CD Projekt RED’s explained.

It continues in a statement, “CD Projekt RED is dedicated to a simultaneous worldwide launch, and is taking the extra time to polish each language version to meet the high standards of the global games market. The exact date of the premiere of the Enhanced Edition will be announced in the upcoming days.”

Quote from CVG

While I was mildly intrigued by The Witcher when I first heard about, the translation issues put me off. Hopefully this Enhanced Edition will be available once my PC is sorted so I can get my grubby little great manly hands on it and see what it is all about!

Final note – the Enhanced Edition is free to all owners of the original game.

So while I may fully applaud Valve and Steam at times I will be one of the first to admit that there are some serious issues with Steam. An article on cnet.au that has come to my attention (thanks Digi) has sparked me to write about the situation with Steam, various Publishers and games being charged different prices across the world, some not being available and other games not being localized properly.

First off lets take that cnet.au article and see what they say.

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Hellls yeah! The Scout is officially a twat, the Heavy is officially great. That sandwich is mine!