It's been a hot minute since we last gathered round the RPS Time Capsule vault (thanks, Gamescom), but at long last we have returned with another cracking year of PC games to preserve: 2011. In hindsight, it's a bit of an interesting year for Time Capsuling purposes, as we're now getting to the point where games from this era are getting their own remakes and remasters, or fancier, super duper director's cut special editions. We've included the original 2011 release of one of these games in this month's Time Capsule, but there's another notable exception we've decided to save for further down the line. I mean, seriously, would you really recommend vanilla Skyrim from 2011 over 2016's Special Edition?
]]>Comb your hair, spray that perfume and suit up for a night of high culture, readers - the third edition of the Game Music Festival is underway. Starting last night, you can already tune into a full evening of orchestral rearrangement of scores from Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades, with Larian Studios picking up the mic tonight for a more high-fantasy swing at the concert scene.
]]>Steam's soundtrack sale is nearly over, but as the resident soundtrack fanatic here at RPS, I thought it was only right and proper to take some time out and celebrate some of my favourite tracks and compilations. After all, there are plenty of bangers in there right now, and it would be a shame to miss out on these crackin' tunes while they're going cheap. So come, put on your headphones, turn up your speakers and prepare yourself for an aural assault on the senses.
]]>I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Supergiant Games. I loved Bastion, didn't really get on with Transistor, and have never summoned the strength to try another one since. Indeed, fellow Supergiant admirers Matt and Ollie were, and I quote, "aghast" when I said I wasn't much of a fan of Transistor's soundtrack earlier in the week (which are fighting words coming from the self-proclaimed soundtrack queen herself), but our chat reminded me just why I love Bastion as much as I do - and part of that is because back in 2012, I decided a fun thing to do would be to record every line of dialogue in the game, not once, but twice (because the New Game+ dialogue is different, I'll have you know), and then type it all up and write a 6000 word essay about the real story of Bastion for no reason in particular.
]]>Today's Humble Bundle - probably the PC gaming deal of the day - contains a lot of grimdark Bat-biffery, and a few surprises on the side. Seven games for (up to) $12, mostly comics-themed, but with some underappreciated stuff in there. Plus, the incongruously bright Bastion and the wildly weird and happy Scribblenauts Unlimited, all capped off with the complete edition of Batman: Arkham Knight (which I reckon has grown past a lot of the flak it caught at launch) at the top tier. Below, trailers both cheerful and bat-grumpy, and some thoughts on the games included.
]]>A purgatorial fantasy sport is not the direction I expected Supergiant Games, creators of Bastion and Transistor, to go with their next game. Then again, expectations seem increasingly useless when it comes to a studio such as this. Pyre [official site] is set in a world where literacy is banned and punishable by exile – banishment to a dangerous land called the Downside, cut off from the home realm of the Commonwealth. This underworld is where you find yourself. But you soon make new friends and, to earn your freedom, you start to compete in a quasi-religious tournament of orb-throwing and goal-scoring.
The sport of Pyreball itself has caused me to curse and sigh many times, but I can’t accuse it of being uninventive. That goes double for the story of this band of exile-sinners, told through visual novel-style interjections and dialogue choices. It’s a great story. One I often wish didn’t have fantasy netball clinging to it.
]]>Supergiant Games, the folks behind Bastion and Transistor, today announced their third game - Pyre [official site]. They call it a "party-based RPG", telling a story about a group of exiles trying to complete tasks that might just let them be absolved and return home. Pyre is due in 2017 and SuperGiant don't have too much to say about it right now, but have a gander at this here pretty announcement trailer:
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
After the Calamity, few remain on the floating worlds of Bastion [official site]. You're one of them. And you love doing roly-polies.
]]>Transistor is a phenomenal thing in places. Just tremendous. Sometimes overwhelming in its cleverness and subtlety. It had me on the verge of tears from both laughter and a creeping, ever-constricting stranglehold on my heart, and a talking sword (given life by the sultry tones of Bastion narrator Logan Cunningham) was responsible for most of it. This is a very different story from Bastion, arguably a much more personal one. It is, however, also a more natural progression from the latter's painterly walk on sunshine than its dusky cyberpunk setting might suggest.
All that said, Transistor is a strong tale and a very good game. But it could've been much better. Here's wot I think.
]]>Transistor, Supergiant's second game and follow-up to the chatty Cathy that was Bastion, is almost upon us. I don't mean that in a stalkery murderous way, but in a release datey way. The strategic sci-fi RPG has already tickled Nathan to the point of hyperventilation, and the rest of us can join in the wheezing and gasping on May 20th. Can someone get Nathan a paper bag?
]]>As a semi-longtime games journo (and hobbyist coal miner), I've seen my fair share of diamonds in the rough. Some eventually go the distance and gleam like a million smiling suns, while others... well, they don't fare so well. And yet, even after losing countless hopefuls (and also canaries), I'm not ready to give up hope on promising upstarts like Lemma. The rune-encrusted run-leaper has evolved significantly since Adam first highlighted it, combining the path-producing footfall's of something like Bastion with Mirror's Edge's feather-like grace and, er, color scheme. It still looks a little janky, but I'm ready to place two of my crossed fingers before its altar. New trailer below.
]]>Oh goodness gracious me oh my oh tickle me red and green and black and gold and all the colors of the cyberpunk noir rainbow, Bastion developer Supergiant's Transistor is looking magnificent. Sure, at first glance it doesn't seem to have fallen far from the narration-prone, hack-'n'-slash-heavy tree, but there's no denying that this place feels just as uniquely alluring as Bastion's pastel paradise. Plus, other bright spots - for instance, the entire combat system - crackle with intrigue, making this one to watch by any measure. And watch it you can, right this very moment. 18 whole minutes, in fact, just after the break.
]]>Bastion was absolutely marvelous, and Transistor - aka, Bastion 2: Cyberpunk Boogaloo - very much looks to be following in its pathway summoning footsteps. But while surface-level similarities (a Logan-Cunningham-voiced narrator-type, bleak yet beautiful environments, a silent main character, isometric perspective, etc) might suggest a familiar experience, Supergiant definitely isn't sticking to Bastion's straight-and-narrow. Case in point: Transistor isn't entirely a solo affair. As part of a gigantic interview/preview session (the full results of which you'll see very soon), creative director Greg Kasavin explained to RPS that the action/turn-based tactics RPG hybrid will include a fairly novel form of multiplayer functionality.
]]>When I say "Supergiant," what do you think of? No, no, after an image of a particularly muscular giant wearing a cape. OK, no, but before the word loses all meaning and deconstructs into "Superg Iant," which... what? Yes, correct, you think of Bastion. And that's perfectly fair. After all, it is, so far, the only game that's found the magically materializing path out of the little colossus that could's lair. So naturally, SG's "the Bastion company" in the eyes of most. It does twangy Western-flavored tales and narrators with voices made of gravel-bedazzled silk. But, while there are certainly far worse ways to be pigeonholed, co-founder Amir Rao isn't interested in confining his company to a nigh-inescapable box.
]]>There's a new Humble Bundle, wouldn't you believe it. And blimey, it's a good-un. I'm not in charge of deciding what's best, but this looks to me like one of the best bundles I've ever seen. Just look at this list: Amnesia, Limbo, Sword & Sworcery, Bastion, and Psychonauts. Seriously. And it has an absolutely brilliant video to promote it.
]]>The headline doesn't refer to an extravagant orchestral rendition that you'd have to pay money to see, but rather a short video containing two of Bastion's most glorious audio treats. I'll never find these songs as powerful as I did when they first drifted in, just as the structure of the world and the melancholy of the situation slotted into place around my gun-toting kid, but I still get shivers up my spine when that vocal starts. An intimate performance by audio director Darren Korb and vocalist Ashley Barrett, this is a lovely way to start a Friday, or any other day. Pretty good way to end one too. Listen down yonder.
]]>Twenty one. It's a good number. Three times seven. Less occult than 23, but more interesting than boring old 20. Right next to handsome 22. (They're getting married.) It is the perfect number, therefore, to introduce our twenty first game of Christmas. Can you guess what it is?
]]>Edit: We're reading below that lots of regions outside the UK are being charged a really very much larger sum. Which sucks. Valve will always insist prices are decided by publishers, so yell at Warner. There's also confusion over the inclusion of Arkham City and War In The North - to be absolutely clear, the Warner Complete Pack definitely currently includes those games, whether by design or mistake. It also seems that some regions can't see the deal at all. The solution: move to the UK.
I'm never quite sure whether posting about the Steam sale is doing mindless promotion for the company, or alerting our readers to amazing prices for games. I'm going with the latter in this instance, because bloody hell, this one took me by surprise. Not boasted of on the front page of Steam's decidedly confusing sales page (not including the names of the games on sale is perhaps an odd choice) is the Warner Complete Pack. Clearly one of many extraordinarily reduced bundles (19 THQ games for £50, 80 Sega games for £70 for instance), the Warner bundle brings 18 games for £40, and one of them is Batman: Arkham City. So that's basically "buy Arkham City, get every other Warner game on Steam free." And one of those is Bastion. And another is the brand new Lord Of The Rings: War In The North. And of course yet another is Batman: Arkham Asylum.
]]>Supergiant are apparently fully aware that when talking about Bastion over the summer, they say they designed the original game to be complete, and therefore not really requiring of DLC. Needless to say, that stance has changed a little, as they explain: "HOWEVER! In the weeks following the release of the game, we decided to put a little something together for the holidays as a show of thanks to our fans. So, on December 14, we’ll be pleased to bring you the Stranger’s Dream DLC for Bastion, which should give you some good reasons to come back to the game while preserving the core experience just as we intended." The Stranger's Dream will be "a new fully narrated Who Knows Where sequence, bigger and more challenging than the others", and there are two other new game modes, too.
]]>OK, Google's Chrome browser just officially became scary/magnificent. It's been able to run a few games - like Plants vs Zombies - in a browser window for a while now, but the excellent Bastion has just been added, marking a serious step up in what's technologically possible. The game starts playing in less than a minute of clicking the button to add it, it looks just like the standard version as far as I can tell, runs smoothly and scales to your screen/window size. Oh, and you can play a free demo then pay to unlock the full thing right away if you like.
]]>Well this is unquestionably glorious. Did you play Bastion? Of course you did. You wouldn't be so epically silly as to ignore our insistence that you do, nor to have failed to buy it last week when it cost about 7p. So since you did, you'll be familiar with the wonderful voice of the narrator, and his real-time commentary on the action. But, wondered Dorkly, where else might this be applied?
]]>Every single damn week, I can't remember if it's called 'Byte vs Brick' or 'Brick vs Byte.' My failing memory terrifies me. Though my girlfriend is vaguely appreciative of it, as it allows her to tell me the same anecdotes repeatedly with me having no clue I've heard them before. At least, she claims she's my girlfriend; I can't rightly recall if that's the case or not. There's just this person in my house who tells me to do the washing up and feed the cat, and it seems to prudent to play along and hope my memory kicks in at some point. And why are all these words tattooed on my torso?
Anyway: Brick vs Byte, our weekly, unscientific look at how the top 10 best-selling games on Steam compare to the top 10 at UK retail. What mysteries will be revealed? Will Battlefield 3 still be king of the hill? And who the hell are you people? What's going on? Where are my trousers?
]]>Beautiful, beautiful hack and slash dungeon-crawler (if a shattered archipelago of floating islands in the sky can be said to be a dungeon) Bastion is now half-price on the Steam digital computer game distribution pipe. I would use this opportunity to direct you to John's review, where he implores you to buy the game. But you don't need to believe his big lying face, because there's also a demo you can play to try it out.
]]>Artful dungeon-crawler Bastion charmed us with its strange world, solid combat mechanics, and elegant narration. John loved it. It even inspired Alec to a big old cleverthink. I decided to have a chat with Greg Kasavin, creative director and writer on the project, to find out a bit more about how Bastion came to be, and what the future holds.
]]>Supergiant's sombre action-RPG Bastion was released on PC a few weeks back; John has already told you what he thinks of it, but in the last few days I've been exploring its shattered world for myself. It's put me in a funny place. Spoilers of a sort await, so don't read this unless you've played the game, don't intend to, or don't give a toss about narrative events in a hack and slash game.
I was sad when it ended. Forlorn, even. For me, that isn’t a regular state of affairs. Even with games I love, I’m oddly grateful when they wrap up - there’s a sense of accomplishment to it, and a relief that they didn’t string things out too long or defeat my sense of goodwill with a BioShock-boss or one too many achingly earnest cutscenes. Bastion, though: a true wave of sadness hit me as the credits rolled.
]]>Action RPG Bastion was released on Steam yesterday. I've been weaving my way through its enchantingly morose worlds, and although still a good way from the end, I am absolutely ready to tell you Wot I Think.
]]>Released today is Supergiant Games' gorgeous looking action-RPG, Bastion. It's available to purchase from Steam at a price of £11.49/€13.99/$14.99, and you can take a poke at the launch trailer here. Despite being temporarily wrapped up in a web of Xbox exclusivity, Bastion has always been PC bound. As you can see if you compare PC screenshots to Xbox screenshots, the PC version has access to far higher quality assets for those of you with grown-up sized monitors. There is a demo available and you can read Jim's hands on impressions here.
]]>If the Steam page is to be believed then SuperGiant's esoteric dungeon-crawler is set to arrive on 16th of August (SuperGiant just confirmed this to us over email.) I am honestly expecting this to be one of the games of the year: it's a beautiful blend of compelling, click hack 'n' slash action with artful indie sensibility. What the screens and talk of whacking monsters doesn't quite get across is how exquisitely the world is delivered as it drops into place ahead of you, a process that is oddly dreamlike, especially when framed against the hard-boiled, wise-cracking voiceover. Anyway, I am sure we'll ramble about this extensively when it arrives on our Windows boxes.
]]>Awesome-looking (and even better sounding) esoteric action-RPG Bastion has arrived on the console boxes this week, but should also making its way to PC soon. Supergiant told us that the PC version has no set release date yet and explained: "We're still sorting out the controls and making a few other changes to make sure the PC version feels like a proper PC game."
You can check out the trailer below, and read my hands-on impressions of the PC version of the game.
]]>One of many pleasant experiences at GDC this year was sitting down to play SuperGiant Games' awesome IGF-nominated fantasy action game, Bastion. I've just gone back and played the same build this afternoon, and remembered why I was quite so delighted by seeing this game in motion. Today has also seen the announcement that the game will be distributed by Warner Bros, which is great for SuperGiant Games. The deal means that they're remaining independent, while getting some marketing and sales clout for one of the best-presented indie games I've encountered in the past year. Well done them.
Read on for some thoughts on the game, and the trailer.
]]>
