John’s Newsround – 4/6/06 News Posted by John Hoare on 4th June 2006, 00:22 *flips calendar* Oooh, Ace Rimmer. Kissy-kissy. Hats, then. I’m at a loss as to what to say here, except that if this isn’t one of the best DVD games ever made up to this point, I’ll be surprised. I’ve never been hugely enthused with the format up until now – the Millionaire one just plays like a bad version of the Playstation game, and isn’t half as much fun, wheras the QI one seemed great at first, but got tedious very quickly because the creators simply hadn’t thought out the game mechanics very well. (As in: the questions are impossible to get right, and the nature of the game means you have to do some tedious replaying of the same questions over and over again, where you sometimes don’t even know exactly where you went wrong.) Each DVD Details article just reinforces the fact that playability, and replayability, have been the major driving force behind the game. And who knows, if it sells well, perhaps it might spark off that long-awaited Red Dwarf puter game. I always wondered why it never had one in the past (well, an official one, anyway – there are obviously plenty of fan-written games) – especially considering that shows like, of all things, Spitting Image had a few. I do wonder whether Rob and Doug simply exerted ruthless quality control, and maybe in later years this was compounded by the cost of game development shooting up. Other stuff, then. In fansite news, Groovetown has revamped its forums – by, erm, changing the colours a bit, and adding a big number behind each post. It does look good, though. Meanwhile, after the death of Channel 27 last December, Ghostie has decided to restart it, and has set up a development blog, which actually looks pretty interesting – but I’m a sucker for things like that. There’s also an interesting three page piece on it2i2 in this month’s TV Zone (issue 203) – which, oddly enough, uses one of these photos. Robert’s also done a “My Sci-Fi” piece in the latest SFX. Fucking hell, I didn’t know he was 50. That’s yer lot, then. You may have noticed we’ve been having a bit of a spam problem at the moment – I’ve tightened up the controls until it eases off, so for now, don’t worry if your comment isn’t published immediately – I’ll get round to approving it eventually. Oh, and one final thing: buy Joking Apart. See why here. That is all.
But, if you had a choice, what sort of Red Dwarf game would you want? Would you run about shooting simulants, or would it be a whole integrated game where you have to loot ships, fight people, find enough curry to live on and move onto the next derelict. I’d say something with some thought and strategy like the second one, but that’s me.
A massive, non-linear GTA-style game, please. One with a clear and coherent storyline, but one you can do in your own time. Either do the missions one after another, or spend time exploring the ship and pissing about. Ideally, the missions will be a lovely cross-genre mix – some require you to play pool with planets, some are like flight sims, some shoot-em-ups, some beat-em-ups… *cums in pants*
I’d have a LucasArts-style point-and-click, thanks. Preferably one using an updated version of the GrimE engine that only ended up being used for two games (the brilliant Grim Fandango and the significantly less brilliant fourth Monkey Island). Adventure games offer the best opportunity for use of humour, and a Red Dwarf game that isn’t funny and just focuses on the sci-fi elements isn’t worth doing at all. On the other hand, Simpsons Hit ‘n’ Run showed that you can go a GTA-type free-roamer and still have it be funny in addition to playing extremely well; so something like that, as Ian described, would also be good. It’d be nice if it were quite episodic, too – so in the early part of the game, you were on Red Dwarf and able to explore as you wanted; but later on, you got stranded on Starbug and were forced to scavenge and survive.
Morrowind Dwarf edition plz. The thought of piloting Red Dwarf around (and it would be very easy to make a to sclae Dwarf. Morrowind covers a similar distance without problems), finding some random planet, hopping on Starbug and exploring said planet all in real time is just mindblowing. Also: I want to blow things up.
World of Warcraft has successfully grasped my attention for over a year. beats morrowind i’m afraid – thats cause i can’t stand being in first person mode or is there a way to get it in 3rd player mode?