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GoonSwarm were founded by members of the Something Awful community and achieved notoriety for being one of the least restrictive groups to inhabit the outer reaches of space, operating under the philosophy that anyone, regardless of skill, should be able to get a taste of what life can be like in 0.0 territory. Their sudden departure from the region leaves a massive vacuum that may well trigger a widescale conflict for control of valuable resources.

No official explanation has yet been given for why the alliance has broken up in this way, but whatever the reason, it’s definitely a pivotal moment in EVE’s history.

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They also linked to a selection of photos capturing their sound-recording men in the field. They look like they’re having a great time – I’d love to have their job…

For more Guild Wars 2 news, check out its website.

UFHO2

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What, no Wii Cave Story?!

No sign of NIGORO’s redone version of La-Mulana either, or indeed the blockbuster-in-waiting Super Mario Galaxy 2. But I suppose there’s a whole nine other months which they haven’t mentioned yet…

My pick of the list would have to be  Worms: Battle Islands, ‘cos you just can’t get enough of the classic 2D Worms action. But I really wish Team 17 would come back to their roots and bring out an updated PC version (that’s 2D, not those silly 3D versions). Worms Armageddon / World Party are beginning to show their age – they’re over eight years old, after all. Just think what you could do with proper physics! Ragdoll worms! Particles! Water with proper reflections! Bigger, better, more detailed landscapes! Local networking without the annoying lag! Even just the slightly-more-shiny graphics upgrades of the console ports would be nice. Please guys, you know you want to make it happen…

While us poor old westerners have never been given a solid idea of when we might see our version of the game, this announcement isn’t especially encouraging for those who are still waiting. Conspiracy theories abound (in several places) on exactly what the “production-related” issues are that Sony say have caused this latest delay – their unwillingness to set a new release date is a bit unnerving given how long the title has already been in development.

Now, I own a PS3, and although I can’t say GT5 was ever a game I was desperate to play on it, it bugs me how Sony have swung another hammer blow to a nail in the PS3’s coffin. How many more times are they going to drop the ball? Is it even a ball any more, or a mangled, deflated mass after being repeatedly dumped into a spiky burning pit of doom? Did they release the PS3 purely as an exercise in finding out the most cackhanded and drawn out way of systematically ruining a gaming platform? Sometimes it certainly seems that way.

Yes, I exaggerate. It probably isn’t that bad, and the pit wasn’t actually very spiky at all. Look on the bright side: at least Final Fantasy XIII appears to be on schedule…

The more I see of the diminutive Asurans, the more I’m convinced that’ll be the race I’ll start out with. A friend of mine in work considers them to be “vicious, pointy-teeth midgets with a serious attitude problem” – ha, but he’s so wrong! They’re a bit prickly on the outside, I’ll admit that, but if I were the only one able to build dirty great stompy war golems to sort my problems out for me, I’d probably rub that in other people’s faces too. And what’s wrong with a nice toothy smile from time to time?

Anyhow, seriously, it’s a very cool trailer, and Jeremy Soule’s superb music complements it perfectly. Watch it now! And if you can’t get enough, you might want to read Massively.com’s analysis for some extra commentary.

It seems that today is the day when the Dominion expansion for EVE is released, laying the groundwork for a most ambitious vision of player-controlled territories that include both the vast reaches of space and the planets that lay within. What I find interesting is how CCP plan to merge their future title Dust 514 – a first-person shooter / MMO hybrid game for consoles – into an existing online universe in such a way that actions taken in either game will affect the shared environment.

While the reality of this grand design is still a long way away, Dominion’s feature list should keep new and old players alike busy – it boasts a complete overhaul of the way players can control and influence star systems, gorgeous procedurally-generated graphics for planet surfaces, further improvement to the New Player Experience (that’s the in-game tutorial to you and me), and epic mission arcs for pirate factions. Should any of this tickle your fancy, check out the expansion’s homepage.

Which, in a round about way, brought me to thinking: “Hey, I wonder how many of today’s Modern Warfare 2 players would know about the real online games of the past decade that sparked everything off?” Probably not a whole lot. So I reckon it’d be nice to go back and cover some of the best oldschool 2D multiplayer games – some that time caught up with, and others that are still going strong.

As a series of posts I won’t say they’ll be done overnight – I want to at least try and be concise with the content for each game, and knowing how lazy / easily distracted / generally slow I am, it could take a while. Still, I’ll try to keep prodding myself in the direction of getting them done.

If you think you have some interesting information, historical or otherwise, about any of these games, I’d love to hear it, so feel free to post a comment here or contact me with your thoughts. Watch this space!

Runic Games just announced that their hotly-anticipated action RPG Torchlight [link] will be available on Steam from the first day of release (October 27th). Previously you’d have had to wait an extra month if you wanted to buy the game this way, but there’s no need for that now!

Of course, should you wish to support the Runic team directly you’ll also be able to buy game keys from their website.

I’m hyped. It’s going to be an interesting couple of days!

Take a wander through some of yesteryear’s best games at www.hotud.org. And don’t forget to tell your friends!