March of the Mytran – StormRegion’s Gabor Komor

Known for the stunning Codename: Panzers series and its supercharged spin-offs in Rush For Berlin/The Bomb, the sadly now-defunct Hungarian studio StormRegion’s first and last console outing is soon to be released in North America.

 Mytran Wars, already released in Europe, is a bright and colourful turn-based strategy game for the PSP, and one of fine heritage.  Coming from a development house that specialised in tactical PC titles, StormRegion was determined to bring to the portable scene a deep and content-rich experience; one that offered an entirely new intellectual property for gamers to explore as well as well-conceived and watertight strategic formulae.  4X.Scope is lucky enough to have been granted an interview with Gabor ‘Tassuriel’ Komor, one of the lead designers on the Mytran Wars project.  In the following article, valuable insight is offered on the trials of bringing StormRegion’s mech-based turn-based strategy to both the PSP and the world.

Fleet Commander – Positech Games’ Cliff Harris

Keeping the dream alive as one of the more prolific and professional of the one-man ‘bedroom developer’, Cliff Harris has dropped out of warp to let readers into the wonderful world of Gratuitous Space Battles and beyond.

Better known as “Cliffski”, Harris has been in the gaming industry in varying capacities, from working at Elixir studios to A.I. programming for Lionhead Studios’ 2005 title The Movies, as well as prior employment as a boat builder, guitar teacher and stock trader.  Bringing to the table a different attitude to most, Harris stands by guidelines in production and community contact many of the big studios simply bypass, lending the Positech Games  experience a more homely, friendly and noble encounter.  Today, Cliffski shares with us some of his observations and experiences in being an independent developer and the life of Gratuitous Space Battles thus far. 

Distilled – The curious case of The Club

Bizarre Creations, the development team behind Metropolis Street Racer and the Project Gotham franchise, took the underlying concepts of a shooter – twitch and reward – and created The Club.  Strangely, few were receptive to the fusion of racing sensibilities with run-and-gun action.

When Criterion detoured from their Burnout series to create Black, a similar story to Bizarre Creations in a studio specialising in top-tier racing titles turning to the shooter genre, the initial premise was a first-person action game that rewarded creative and stylish kills with points and a system not unlike the various iterations of the chain/combo feat system found in their racing games.  However, somewhere along the development trail, the combo system in Black was dropped – much to the chagrin of many expectant fans.  The Club does the exact opposite.  In place of a  forced story or Po-faced attempt at justifying the violence, the game sidesteps these unspoken prerequisites and finds itself in a realm of pure, unadulterated gunplay.  The curious problem is the polarizing effect The Club received upon release; when given a shooter in its purest form, stripped back to achievements and a cast of deliberately over-the-top characters, a majority of the gaming public shied away. 

Games, Art and Solidification

Games not being taken seriously is a fairly tired argument, but one still with an anchor of merit.  Though the medium is both in its infancy and relatively distanced from the established art forms, it is casting its own irrevocable shadow.

There is nothing more aggravating that the old chestnut of “are games art?” being dredged up ad nauseam on message boards with indignation on the medium not being taken seriously – helped to a large extent over the question of credibility within the gaming journalism field.  Pundits figure that simply because games feature comparative notions to that of cinema, print and the visual arts – sound, narrative and progression, aesthetic characteristics – the medium should be treated with the same level of understanding, admiration and critique as the aforementioned artistic expressions.  However, given a number of reasons, there needs to be some lines drawn at the same time as the parallels.

Unashamedly Great – Squadron of Shame

Throwing the spotlight on underappreciated games is no solo exercise.  4X.Scope illuminates a miniscule genre-biased sliver of the vast stockpile of underdog gems.  A multinational force to be reckoned with in unearthing those forgotten and misrepresented titles is The Squadron Of Shame.

The rise of both the internet and gaming on a relative equilibrium has coalesced in an explosion of sites – both commercial and informal – on the gaming industry.  This very site can be viewed as a result of the boom.  One of the more exciting and innovative products to have resulted – other than simply transcribing print journalism and its inevitable erstwhile colleague, the  editorial, onto the web – sees the seemingly archaic radio broadcast reinvented as a fresh, invigorated piece of digital media known as the podcast.  While there are any number of official productions by the large gaming sites, much of the best content online is user-created.  No better example of this is Chris Whittington and the crew with their Squadcast.

Screenshot of the week – Stormrise

Stormrise was always going to fight an uphill battle, challenging people’s well-founded generalisations on real-time strategies on console.  However, despite being mauled by critics and still-born on the commercial front thereafter, Creative Assembly Oz hit the mark with this misunderstood, slightly flawed underdog.  Once controls are learned and the game play mechanics understood, it becomes a visceral, fast-moving tactical experience that takes no prisoners.

It’s Blitz! – The Return of Blitz1941

After briefly gaining cult international popularity then disappearing back to the Korean peninsula – where many good MMO games roost – Mowelsoft’s World War II armoured vehicle all-in brawl is set to roll back into the international arena.

Now under the control and administration of EFusion MMOG as TwoWar.com, who also manage the European version of NavyFIELD, Blitz1941 is set for a closed beta release sometime during the next few months, and fans could not be more happy.  For those who experienced those fleeting few months back in 2006, the news of this tank  en-masse MMOG returning has been an answered prayer due to the sudden disappearance of Blitz1941 three years ago.  But for those not familiar with the title, the fuss needs examination. 

Go tell it on the mountains – Super Hind Update

News just at hand – Mountain Sheep’s PSP gunship action game Super Hind is now available for download on the European PSN Store:

Super Hind (£15.99/€19.99)
What would you do if you were given access to the deadliest military helicopter created and the power to change the world? Now is your chance to find out.
PEGI 7+
(182MB required)

Timo Vihola, Mountain Sheep’s co-founder and art director, gave 4X.Scope this news with the following:

“…At the moment I don’t have info on other PSN regions but it could be coming elsewhere too!”

For the moment, it remains to be unavailable on the Oceania PSN stores and in the US.  However, with the launch of the PSP Go only months away, gamers outside of Europe might be firing up their helicopters sooner rather than later.  Still on the Mountain Sheep front, their iPhone arcade game Minigore is nearing submission to Apple.  Keep up to date with progress at the Minigore website.

High Flyers – Interview with Erik Measure

Nimbly Games’ Altitude is a thoroughly enjoyable arcade multiplayer title that deserves a lot of attention.  It is undoubtedly one of the favourites at 4X.Scope for its sheer drop-in fun-factor. 

One half of Nimbly Games, Erik Measure, has kindly allowed the interview crosshairs to be levelled as he talks candidly about the beginning, middle and future of Altitude.  From its roots as a reinvention of an Intellivision game to being a popular game around the globe and around the clock, Erik gives a peak into the Altitude arena and all that it entails – from balance to design to what’s next.

Sunburned Gaming – Interview with Guy Blomberg

4X.Scope is honoured to have Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg in the crosshairs for an interview on certain games, certain trends and the future of both local software development and Australian games journalism.

Australia can punch about its weight in most entertainment mediums, having shown great prowess in a number of films, in music, with art and with game development.  Growing out of big-name titles like Super International Cricket and other domestically-popular games, Australia has become a burgeoning  hotspot for game production.  AustralianGamer.com’s PR and Creative Director Guy Blomberg has offered an in-depth insight into the brave new world of where the medium is at in Australia today.