First Impressions: Alien Isolation

As a very young child I have grown up watching the Alien movies, so being an avid fan of the alien series I have been expecting great things from the gaming industry. There are some titles worthy of the alien franchise such as Alien Trilogy and Alien Resurrection for the Sony PlayStation; unfortunately these classic 3D titles are the closest things to the movies you will get. There are a few spin-offs that looked quite promising, but ultimately failed to meet standards that the hardcore alien fans expected.

The Rezzed Report 2013

In an industry such as gaming, it’s surprising how often things can change and surprise you. In the past few years we have seen whole segments of the gaming industry rise and fall, with indie gaming most notably emerging as a dominant force. At no other point since the twilight of games development in the 70’s, have we seen such a prominence of “bedroom coders”. Is it any wonder when titles such as Minecraft (which recently hit 11 million sales) and Super Meat Boy (which has sold over a million copies) have captured the gamer’s attention, even managing to outperform some publisher backed blockbusters?

So if indie games are really such a big thing why don’t we see more at expos? Better yet, why don’t they have their own specialised events? This is what RockPaperShotgun and Eurogamer aims to address with the follow up to their indie focused event – Rezzed 2013.

First Impressions: Tekken Revolution

Tekken Revolution is Namco Bandai's free to play fighter now released as a PS3 exclusive. This comes completely out of the blue as it was only announced last week, and confirmed it's launch at E3 a few days ago. However this is not the first venture into free to play Namco have taken as the rock, paper, scissors styled Tekken Card Tournament was released not too long ago.

Revolution unlike Card Tournament is a fully working brawler with a roster of 12 characters, 4 of which need to be unlocked. The game itself is probably one of the best sounding and looking Tekkens to date, with stylized menu backgrounds, flashy character intros (cheesey voice acting can be forgiven), and full HD combat arenas. Even the combat has been tweaked a little with certain moves blurring the character when moving to highlight the speed of the actions. The character selection screen also highlights key moves for each of the characters, giving the little bit of feedback so even new players can understand the basics behind each character's combat style.

Interview with Trendy Entertainment's Philip Asher

A few weeks ago I had the glorious opportunity, to interview Trendy Entertainments very own Marketing Director Philip Asher. Trendy Entertainment, as you probably know are the masterminds behind the Tower Defence/Action RPG mash up Dungeon Defenders. During the interview we covered not only Trendy's stance on their DLC marketing, but developing and balancing the ever expanding content.

So for those of you who saunter around with your level 70 mage, destroying wave after wave of orcs, prepare for the inside scoop on this years most exciting Tower Defense title.

Enjoy.

Epic.EIGHT CSS Final Day roundup

After the group stages of the Epic.EIGHT Counter Strike: Source Tournament have finished, we are left with eight of the ten teams that have entered. Sadly CHICO LAND and Xtreame One were dominated in their matches, (despite putting up a brave fight) and didn't make it into the top eight.

FRAGMASTERS TOXIC despite being top seed, ended up drawing one match and losing another, whereas Visualize Your Enmity and Rasta Gaming, had clean sweeps winning all four of their matches. This has left no clear leader going into the quarter final, read on of the full results of the rest of the tournament.

CoD4 Epic.EIGHT Tournament Grand Final

After completion of both the Upper and Lower Brackets, the two teams that have pulled through to the final confrontation are ESPC and TCM-Gaming. The current favourites coming into this match is ESPC, since they previously knocked down TCM-Gaming in the Upper Bracket Final. Whether TCM-Gaming can step up their game and counter ESPC's strong Backlot gameplay is to be seen, but one thing is certain, it will be an experience.

Cod4 Epic.EIGHT Elimination Stage

The Elimination stage has now begun, with the top 16 rated teams in the group stage, advancing to the Upper Bracket. We've seen laughter, anger and a whole host of other emotions at this event, and the playoffs will be sure to deliver even more tense faceoffs. After dominating their group with a flawless 5-0 record, TCM-Gaming is looking confident to win the Upper Bracket and possibly even the tournament. The big competition for them however is ESPC, who similarly also dominated their group without dropping a single match. ESPC is riding high after their strong 3rd place finish at BenQ Grunex European LAN, so it seems TCM-Gaming will have to give it their all to succeed.

CSS Epic.EIGHT Group Stage

Welcome to our constantly updating coverage of the £2500 CSS Epic.EIGHT tournament. Live from our seats at the event, we'll keep this post updated as it happens, keeping you in the know.

10 teams have entered this tournament, with LiNK Gaming, winners of Epic.SEVEN's tournament absent from this, it leaves the door open for a brand new champion this time around, although FRAGMASTERS TOXIC have been seeded first, can third placed winners of Epic.SEVEN Rasta Gaming secure the top spot?

CoD4 Epic.EIGHT Group Stage

 

Welcome to our constantly updating, live coverage of the £2500 Call of Duty 4 Epic.EIGHT tournament. Coming in straight from the event, we'll keep this post updated as it happens, keeping you in the know.

With 22 teams taking part in this tournament, this is a pioneering event for Call of Duty 4 and is bound to liven the lagging Pro-Gaming scene for the title. The victors of last years tournament fm! Sapphire are here to defend their title, as well as the runners up LANiMALS, who still sore from their defeat last LAN, plan to dominate.

However with 20 other top teams from all over Europe including top teams such as: TCM-Gaming, team Infused, and Epic.LAN newcomers ESPC.LGT from Finland, it's going to be one hell of a battle to the top.

Retro Review: Heroes of Might and Magic 2

The Heroes of Might and Magic series, popular off-shoot of the Might and Magic games, has been an enduring classic in PC gamers’ libraries for many years. Many consider the third entry, HoMM 3, to be the definitive game in the series. Though I loved that game from the first time I played it, I've had a soft spot for its predecessor, (Heroes of Might and Magic 2) since being introduced to it by a friend. Maybe it’s the entrancing soundtrack, the addictive gameplay, or the nostalgia-educing graphics - but whatever its secret is, this game is truly magical, in more ways than one.

The first game in the series was first released in 1995, and told the tale of Lord Ironfist, who fled to Enroth from his home and was forced into a life-or-death battle against three opponents vying for the kingdom’s throne. Eventually he won the ensuing war - this ending is canonical, but in the game you can also lead one of his opponents to victory as well.

I have never played the original HoMM, though I have a copy on my hard drive. I’m sure that the basis for the wonderful series it would become was there, but surely Heroes 2 was the game which solidified it as the turn-based strategy series of choice.

Gaming Under Ceej: Those Games Ain’t Right

Back in my day, video gaming was more simple and clear cut. It was impossible to get lost, the objectives were clear, and you were always the hero. You knew you were the hero even though you never read the book that came with it, because that’s how gaming worked. And your objective was to defeat the villain at all costs. All costs.

Obviously those costs included shooting, punching, or stabbing anything that moved. Don’t worry. If it’s not a bad guy, you can’t kill it. Even if it’s that damn dog from Duck Hunt. Sometimes you needed supplies, and it was perfectly okay to break into people’s houses and take their grandmother’s medicine. Why? You’re the hero. You need it to save the world.

Your heroism was defined by your end goal. To maintain the status quo. Any disruption to that status quo was, by definition, a villainous deed that needed to be stopped. Sometimes the villain had a noble end too, but he was killing everything that moved to achieve that end. Ergo, you had to kill everything that moved to stop him. It was just so clear. If you’re not getting it, you must be too young to remember.

"INCOMING!" Interview with Team17 Lead Designer

Welcome to Crash To Desktop, we have a something special for you today with an interview with Team17's very own Lead Designer Grant Towell. Team17 is well known for developing some of the best known Amiga games such as Alien Breed, Superfrog and more recently their hugely popular Worms series. 

After the break you'll be treated to a delectable selection of questions that we've posed to one of the most popular UK based developers, and some tantalising tips on breaking into games development.

i44 Interview with Riot Games' Matt Knott

Here is the second of Fatal's Insomnia 44 interviews!

This one features Matt Knott League of Legend's and Riot Games' community manager, enjoy!

Total Biscuit Interview from i44

After a LOT of work editing and running about we finally get to give you the gift of interviews!

This following one is Fatal's midnight interview along with G3 Radio's Sebbo with Total Biscuit from Insomnia 44 talking over Starcraft, TB himself and hats or lack there of..

Crash To Desktop - 2 Months In

It's been a long few weeks between wrapping up for the winter and stocking up on food, being ill and working behind the scenes, but now I'm finally able to sit down and write.

I'm sure most of you were expecting to see our round up of Insomnia 44 by now, it was planned to go up this time last week, but looking at the calendar I realised something, this week marks the '2 months in' date of Crash To Desktop going live, and seeing as this is the last month of the year, I thought I'd write something special instead...

What I will be doing is a 'story so far' from my perspective and a look forward to what we have planned for the future - Read on for the full story

Crash To Desktop Invades Replay Expo 2011

With thousands of gaming events happening every year it's hard to keep track these days. In fact the United Kingdom itself has quite the event scene. One of those such events is the Replay Expo which is dedicated to the art (and nostalgia) of retro gaming.

"So what is Replay?"

Simply put, the Replay Expo is a huge weekend long event that celebrates gaming through the ages. The idea is simple and effective, you turn up, you find that one elusive console that you never could quite pin down (in my case the Nintendo 64DD), and you experience what you missed the first time round. With over 100 consoles ranging from the neolithic BBC Micro, to the incredibly rare and sought after Panasonic Q (basically a shiny Nintendo GameCube with DVD player inbuilt), the sheer scope of the gems found here is breathtaking.

Geeks Today: A Tale about Gamers

The following is a guest article by David Jennings (aka Teldur) of Blastprocess.com, they are friends of ours (actual friends as well), go check out their site.
Gamers: An underground species of few number. Typically males, with unwashed hair. People who spend their lives sat in front of a TV, entering unknown virtual worlds, saving the day and defeating the bad guys. They don't need a social life, nor do they require someone to have a 'relationship' with. They venture outside purely to purchase more games, before venturing back home.

That paragraph, of course, is complete rubbish. A statement reserved for the school playgrounds of yesteryear. The image below possibly gives a bolder statement of gamers today:

That image was shot in the small town of Crewe during the evening of Monday 7th November 2011. The occasion? The midnight release of one of the most anticipated iterations of the first-person shooter genre ever, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. I think its pretty apparent even just by that shot, that more and more people are engaging in videogames as a hobby, or even as part of a social routine. So is it now cool to play games? Read on to find out...

A friendly guide to Warhammer 40K

Warhammer 40,000, or 40k as it is also known amongst its players, is a tabletop wargame played with numerous 6-sided dice. Games usually take about a couple of hours to play through, (for most “average” sized games of 1,500 points per side) and consists of two or more players moving, shooting and attacking with their respective armies.

Bigger games take longer and it is common for games of 4,000 points to take an entire evening - The game itself is played in turns, with each player taking their turn before their opponent does, and each turn is broken up into numerous phases. These phases are movement, shooting and assault.

Savage Worlds Review

Savage Worlds is a generic system written by Pinnacle Studios, and published by Studio 2 Publishing it has won the award "The People’s Choice 2003" for "Best Roleplaying Game".

Savage Worlds is a generic system and as such tailors itself to that genre of gaming. Although the game system has uses outside of table top roleplay, (and can be used in table top war games) the difference is that on a roleplaying game, the games master describes everything, on war games the players can see the models on the table and don’t need to describe everything.

Still recovering from epic.SEVEN

Still recovering from last weekend's epic.LAN event, to put it simply, it was great to see gamers just out in force, beer was had by all, drunken card games a plenty, and of course many games of LAN were played.

First off congratulations to the various tournament winners both in COD and CSS, you can find them around the site however by clicking on the label 'Epic.Lan' over on your right *points flight attendantly* will easily list all the content there - Finally after slaving over a hot audio and video editor we can finally release Fatal's interview with CSS 1v1 finalists Chronic and Avash:

Read on for the other tournaments, the pub quiz, boat races, more images and videos, and werewolves...