News

Slowdown Slowdown

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

While you have probably noticed the tell-tale signs of a steady stream of “Quote of the Day” posts (as fun as they are to post…!), I would just like to take a moment to clarify the situation somewhat: Richard, Nabeel and I have all been beyond busy lately. I’m telling you, it feels so good to be able to write that down, even if it doesn’t change a thing: Busy!

(Kinda dig the earlier one – it doesn’t read “TORMENT” all over it…)

To write about games, you have to think about games. To do that, you do have to read and discuss them, too. Doing that properly means you have to play them first. The problem? The above chain of events simply never even gets rolling when you’re pressed for time! We try to take each and every post seriously and this sometimes means more work and delays.

Right now, our @slowdownvg Twitter feed is slightly more active than the front page, as is my own @martynzachary – if only barely.

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Grassroots Renegade

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Jools Watsham is a dude with a broken heel (do get well soon!). He’s also the owner and creative director of Dementium the Ward and Moon developers Renegade Kid. Three weeks ago, he posted a video titled “YOU CAN HELP!” on his YouTube vlog:

Check out some fresh (if diminutive) Dementium II screenshots and my take on the video after the jump!

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Maximize Your Torment

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Planescape Torment 01As you might have heard, after reissuing a portion of their back catalogue digitally, Interplay also seem to be re-retailing some of their classic games. Make of that ethically what you will – especially in relation to the recent, omnipresent lawsuits – but as things stand, it seems that the earlier Planescape: Torment release date got pushed back a month, and the current release date stands at the 20th – that is, in a few days. That means we have just enough time to outline how to best install mods for the game!

First off, we would start with installing the official v1.1 patch. This is not required for 2CD versions of the game, though I’ve never come across those. After that, the smartest choice is bigg’s unambiguous Widescreen Mod, currently sitting at v2.2 – as an added plus, it works for other games built on the Infinity engine, too. To get more bang for you buck with the bigger resolution you just got, you should also install GhostDog’s PS:T UI mod for the aforementioned. According to the site, it makes “1280×800, 1280×720, 1280×768 and 1280×1024 resolutions viable for Planescape: Torment by changing a number of things in the UI.”

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From Unigine to Project Offset

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

Unigine Heaven BenchmarkWith all this engine talk up in the air recently, Richard and I thought to sample Unigine’s demo benchmarks. You might already know Unigine from its association with Afterfall, the on-again off-again post-apocalyptic RPG – most other titles using the platform were admittedly unfamiliar to us.

In any case, while waltzing through their newest DirectX 11 -supporting “Heaven Benchmark”, I was struck by massive déjà vu: I could have sworn I’d seen a project of this type some years before – one that had been riding a considerable wave of hype, indie credibility and a touch of megalomania no less.

I’d completely and conveniently forgotten its name, though, and nobody seemed to remember what I was talking about.

After spending considerable time booting up and patching my Swiss cheese of a brain – enough to get some Google on – I was able to pin down my hunch: Project Offset! Can you think of a less demarcating, less descriptive codename for a fantasy project? How is one supposed to go about searching for that, exactly? Gawrsh! Naming conventions aside, the most relevant question obviously is:

What’s happened ‘tween 2007 and 2009?

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