Akalaupdate: If you’re still on the fence, why not try the just-released demo, available through Steam?

Over at the Wing Commander CIC, Bandit LOAF has posted a review — with screenshots — of the new space sim from Austin-based independent studio Seamless Entertainment: SOL: Exodus. Obviously, he looks at it from the perspective of a die-hard, old guard Wing Commander fan, and asks whether the game does right by the space shooter genre.

And happily, he argues that it does.

The 1990s were rife with soulless imitators that sought to be nothing more than the last Wing Commander done cheaper with the benefit of the latest video card drivers. Then the last decade was a scattering of well-meaning attempts to recapture our favorite series’ glory that generally suffered from trying to do too much with too little money. Suddenly every attempt needed a Privateer-style open world, a Wing Commander cinematic story and years worth of “player wish list” bucket items involving overly complicated physics and off-putting gameplay options..

I’m happy to announce that Sol: Exodus is none of these things. This is a small game that’s aimed at giving a modern audience their first taste of how much fun a space shooter should be. The game forgoes all those pitfalls to give us something unique: a deceptively simple action game that should teach today’s gamers how awesome space combat is.

It does look rather pretty...

He goes through some of the game’s “highs and lows”, but in general he offers up far more praise than criticism for what sounds like a worthy successor to the Wing Commander tradition. And the price — $9.99 on Steam, at least for now — is damn hard to argue with. Maybe consider picking this one up, Dragons and Dragonettes!

Risen 2

Risen 2 Previews Galore!

Or, well, not “galore” in the sense of hundreds and thousands and suchlike, but even so: RPGWatch has links to previews of the game from a handful of gaming websites of note. The preview at RPG Gamer even features an interview with Bjorn Pankratz, the project director for the game.

Risen 2 will be in beta soon.

And apparently, if you sprung for the Collector’s Edition of Risen, you already have the key to get in:

Buyers of the Collector’s Edition of Risen 1 might remember that an access code for a “beta test” for the next game by Piranha Bytes was part of that box.

This “beta test” is now entering its next stage. Those who registered their code with Deep Silver received an e-mail today in which Deep Silver announced that the “beta test” will take place from February, 20th to March, 2nd. The e-mail recipients are asked to register again on the website betatest.risen2.com with their personal access code.

If anyone is in on this, do drop by when it’s all said and done and let us know what you think of the second game in the Risen series, eh?

Risen 2 – The Sand Devil

Feast your eyes on THIS beastie:

Yikes!

These disgusting creatures emerge from the hidden depths of the sea and lie in wait for their prey, primarily in sandy terrain. They are not particularly large, but what they lack in size they make up for in numbers by appearing in packs. Once a victim is surrounded by a group of Sand Devils there will be no escape. The helpless prey is wrestled to the ground via lightning-fast attacks and mercilessly slaughtered by the bloodthirsty pack. Even for the most experienced of fighters, these stubborn beasts are a real threat who must be encountered with great caution and determination.

So basically, they’re an air-breathing, land-walking anglerfish. Great.

Goldenflame Dragon has posted a couple of news updates to the website of his online-playable, Ultima 4-like game: The Dark Unknown. The first concerns death and loot, systems he was able to implement within the game:

January 17, 2012: Death and loot

I did in fact take Nov mostly off, and got some writing done. Dec had the holidays and let’s be honest, Jan has The Old Republic, but I’m still getting some work done.

Stuff can be fought in combat and can die. Check out this screenshot for a look at it. And now as of last night the Search command is implemented and monsters can drop loot. I’d call that pretty important!

One new browser issue- FF on some OSX installs has a redraw issue that manifests pretty badly in DU. Seems to replace my black tiles (for places with no LOS, for instance) with whatever it last saw there. Since sometimes that is the contents of another tab in the browser, I’m going to assume that the problem here isn’t in my code and just hope it fixes itself like the FF6 issue did.

More recently (just this month, in fact), he put some more work into the how the game handles combat:

February 5, 2012: More combat

You can now actually leave the combat map after a fight. Seemed like a useful thing.

The OSX FF draw bug is still present in FF10.0. Will keep an eye on it.

The version of the game and editor under the DEMOS tab is now up to date!

You can find a web-only playable demo of the game, in its alpha state, here (along with its map editor). Though at present The Dark Unknown is only playable in a browser, it’s worth noting that (as is stated in the project entry) Goldenflame’s ultimate goal is “to give players the option to either play the game online, via his website, or download and play it on their own computers. Whether that latter goal will be realized by means of a client or an actual standalone game is not yet clear.”

Our friends at the Wing Commander CIC are all abuzz over the news that Electronic Arts recently extended the Wing Commander trademark, the third such extension they have requested for it.

The trademark filing shows that there have been several extensions submitted, and the most recent went through on September 6, 2011. It was first established on August 5, 2009. Hopefully the extension means the project still has momentum!

What say you, Dragons and Dragonettes? Could this be further indication that EA has something in the works as far as Wing Commander is concerned? Is there another Wing Commander title in some stage of production at this time?

Warhorse Studios is a relatively new independent studio that opened up in the Czech Republic last year, amalgamating talent from a number of top-rated European game development studios. Initial buzz surrounding them suggested that they had an RPG in mind as their first title, and this news would seem to confirm it.

Leaving aside the usual boilerplate about open-world experience, rich gameplay, and suchlike, here’s the meat of the announcement:

Martin Klima, Executive Producer at Warhorse Studios commented: “We looked at every major technology out there and CryENGINE 3 suits our needs perfectly. We are confident it will allow us to make the vision for our game come true.”

“The team at Warhorse Studios consists of industry veterans from AAA classics such as the Mafia franchise and Operation Flashpoint. We’re excited by their vision for an innovative RPG and we are looking forward to working with them to help them achieve that vision with CryENGINE 3.”, said Carl Jones, Director of Global Business Development CryENGINE.

CryENGINE 3 is powerful, let me just point out, so I for one am curious to see what Warhorse can deliver in the open-world space with it. I’m a little unsure of what genre their proposed RPG will fall in to, however; the studio is comprised of veterans of such series as Operation Flashpoint and Mafia. The studio’s logo/splash page certainly teases the possibility of something medieval.

Regardless: I, for one, am inclined to say “welcome and have at it!” to any developer who wants to play around with the open-world concept. We need more of that.

Send a super Ultima-themed Valentine’s Day greeting to your special dragon or dragoness, thanks to our wonderful wiki contributor Blu3Vib3.

Thou Art My Other Half

She also has a number of other cute 1990s video game based Valentine’s Day greetings available.  I personally love her Quest For Glory II themed card.