Whilst negotiating the desert of the real, I have of course been keeping up with all things space and sci fi related, so while this news is rather late, it’s still important. Eve developers CCP’s newest creation, Dust 514, has finally gone open beta as of Tuesday this week! Anyone with a PS3 can don their best space-armour and hop into world after world of FPS combat, all linked (however tenuously, at the moment) with the larger persistent world of Eve Online.

Of course, being an Eve-related game, Dust 514 is pretty experimental, and has an absolute shedload of customisation options, so your loadout in Dust will be just as important as the fittings on your spaceship. In a way, it might be the closest the console arena comes to something like Planetside 2, and while it obviously won’t approach the same sheer scale, the concept of a free to play MMOFPS in which you can directly affect the lives of Eve players will surely be appealing to some.

I’ve not played Dust since the early days of closed beta, so the time has come for me to use my PS3 for something other than DVDs and get downloading the game so I can try it out properly. Richie has been playing regularly though, so if we’re very lucky we might see his thoughts on the game soon, with the added weight of a perspective that’s seen the game change and evolve as it progressed closer to the open beta stage.

Either way, we’ll be covering this one closely as it approaches release. Have you tried it already? If so, let us know what you think in the comments!

Due to be released ‘when its ready’, Cyberpunk 2077 will be set in the dark future world of the classic tabletop roleplaying game, and from the general blurb released so far, the game looks to be staying very true to that template. Hackers, junkies, mercenaries and brain-dance addicts (a kind of virtual reality) inhabit the filthy bottom rungs of society while the high-rollers live in obscene luxury, with relationships between the two mediated by cybernetic implants and lots of guns.

I can’t wait for this one. CD Projekt have an excellent RPG pedigree from the Witcher series (an announcement about which is, apparently, hidden within the trailer) and their take on the Cyberpunk universe could really be something to behold. I still have fond memories of playing the tabletop roleplay game with friends when I was younger, not to mention the spinoff CyberGeneration, and the chance to relive those memories on a modern PC with all the graphical lavishness that entails is tantalising, to say the least. The news that original Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith is on board just makes me even more confident that this will be a monster of a game.

Check out the trailer below, see if you can spot the hidden Witcher announcement (I can’t, but I suck at that kind of thing), and mark this one down as one to watch out for. I have a feeling it’s going to be massive, and of course I’ll be hunting down any additional details as and when they become available. Adam Jensen, eat your heart out!

Star Trek: The Video Game (inventive title, eh?) will be a third-person action game with more than a whiff of the Mass Effect series about it. You’ll play as Kirk and Spock, saving the universe from the usual pan-dimensional space menaces, though whether there’ll be an opportunity to participate in Kirk’s other favourite hobby (seducing lady aliens) remains to be seen. Details seem a little sparse, which is fairly par for the course for a movie tie-in, but you’ll be able to find out for yourself when the game launches on April 26th.

Pre-order customers will be given various goodies: mostly uniforms and a couple of weapons (StarFleet Type IV Stealth Sniper Rifle anyone? Don’t remember that being in the film). As with all movie tie-ins, the game will likely be either utterly awful or surprisingly enjoyable – there tends to be little in the way of middle ground with these things – but the pre-release blurb does mention co-op, which could be fun, assuming you’ve got a friend who can do the ‘Spock eyebrow’ and make sarcastic comments about humans and logic through the voice channel.

I’ll be sending out a PlaySF away team over the coming weeks to see if we can dig up any useful information on the game, but until then – set phasers to cautious.

Corporations and alliances have been fighting across Eve space for close to a decade, but today marks the first time that first-person combat across its Unreal-enhanced planetary surfaces will be an option for its inhabitants.

Today’s soft-ish launch of Dust 514 won’t just hasten a conjugation of communities, but will see desktop and console gamers co-operating and competing in the same projected reality on an unprecedented cross-platform scale. If you imagine the console-gamers as bleary-eyed wretches emerging from under the cosh of a paranoid dictatorship, today’s events might well unfold as a game-themed re-telling of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, only without The Hoff providing the soundtrack. Kinda.

I’ve been playing the Dust 514 beta on and off for a few months, frustrated and enthralled by it in equal measure. I’ve found it to be a surprisingly solid and reliable shooter, if a little complex next to the others on the shelf, but one that is, for better or worse, true to the New Eden ethos. Whereas Eve has often had a tendency to be impenetrable just for the sake of it, I’ve found Dust 514 to be one of those prospects where you can just jump in without worrying about your character build and just blow stuff away – which has been the whole point behind making it and why CCP have persisted in keeping it a PS3 exclusive.

Inevitably Dust 514 is being compared to the PC uber-shooter Planetside 2, which some have said isn’t a fair comparison given the scale on which they both operate, but I would argue that Dust 514, because of it’s integration into a universe of 400,000 players, has the potential to make Planetside 2 seem positively quaint,  especially once some semblance of economic union between the spacefarers and ground-pounders has been established.

For now, that’s all in the future. Today – assuming all goes well behind the scenes – is about emerging into the sunlight and shaking hands.

Defiance is going to be a ‘cross-media experiment’ of sorts, where the action in the TV show will be directly affected by player actions in the MMO of the same name. Given the fact that some of the SyFy channel’s output has been… dubious, shall we say, the idea is intriguing, but the execution could leave an awful lot to be desired.

Whether good or bad, players across the world will have the opportunity in the coming weeks to try the MMO slice of Defiance – where players take on the role of ‘Ark Hunters’ delving into the remnants of falling starships after their disastrous crash to Earth, in order to pilfer the powerful alien technology found therein. Signups for the first PC beta event are now open, and the event itself will run from the 18th to the 20th of January. Both the game and the show are due out in April, though currently the show itself will only air in the US (boo!).

Scrawl your details into the form found here to offer up your services, and you can find more general information about the game here. Having watched a few trailers now, the TV show at least looks fairly polished, although the alien make-up still leaves something to be desired. As for the game, well – the lucky amongst us will find out in a few weeks, and of course I’ve signed up so I can bring you a first-hand report.

Will this be another Battlestar Galactica, or will it go the way of the truly horrific ‘Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus’? Only time will tell.

Crowd-funding for Elite: Dangerous is closing in on the £1.5m mark – £250k beyond goal – which is probably a blessed releif for David Braben and his young charges given the negativity that surrounded the bid when it kicked off last November (not from me I hasten to add). Updates have been coming Star Citizen-thick and fast of late.

Although I’m obviously a huge fan of the original Elite, to the point that it’s been my all-time favourite game since 1984 (overtaken briefly at various times recently by Eve Online), my investment into the Kickstarter has been more an emotional one rather than financial. Those rewards just haven’t been enough to tempt me to delve deep into my wallet. For one thing, while I’m normally eager to get some kind of beta access to a game, I actually don’t want to play Elite: Dangerous in too unfinished a state, lest all those years of simmering anticipation be snagged on a beta’s inevitable rough edges. For another it concerns me to have to pay extra for the option of head starts in other systems. Call me old school but 100 credits and a basic ship should be enough for anyone with designs on earning their Elite wings. Then again, having recently started playing BBC Elite for the umpteenth time, I quite forgot how tedious Elite’s early hours can be once the magical effects of those wireframe graphics wear off.

All that aside, I’m a sucker for a premium boxed edition… Decisions decisions…

That game (oh, the suspense etc) is Planetside 2.

I’m still annoyed that I never found time to review it properly, but given the early teething problems, that’s perhaps not a bad thing. As with all massively multiplayer online games, Planetside 2 is and will continue to be an evolving beast, and there have already been some seriously sexy hints about what the future holds for this most enormous of shooters. That said, I have to look at it from several perspectives: not least as one who played the beta prior to release, but also as one who can take a critical eye and see the game’s flaws as well as it’s triumphs. Fortunately, the latter far outweigh the former.

With each server’s three continents and two thousand players (yes, really), Sony have raised the bar for multiplayer shooters pretty damn high. The fact that it’s possible at all is still something of a novelty – I can remember people cooing over MAG back in 2010, with it’s 250-or-so players, but that seems laughably small scale now in comparison, and proof that the PC as a gaming platform is coming into its own once more. You just can’t get experiences like this on a console.

Esamir, 23:45 hours. The glacier I stand on stretches in all directions, split in two by a vast frozen river to the North. Above me, there are stars and an aurora glowing green against the black; above me there is death. But my outfit is determined to hold, no matter what.

Five enemy Liberator Bombers unleash their payloads, and we scatter for cover, explosions turning the night into a firework display. Our own ground-based anti-air opens up, forcing one away, then another – but more are coming, with fighter escorts. More of us make the switch to anti-air, but then a forward scout reports a tank column heading our way. I call for help from other allied squad leaders, but the command channel is silent. We’re on our own. While our anti-air forces bomber after bomber away, the tanks are crossing the frozen river, and the rest of the squad swap class to Heavy Assault, using lock-on anti-tank missiles to shell the incoming armour column from range. The tanks falter and slow, trying to shell us from a distance, but we’re protected  reasonably well by the nearby buildings, and those who die respawn just behind us, leaping into the fray again.

Enemy air and armour presence is increasing, when suddenly we’re rushed by enemy infantry from the left flank. They’ve managed to get a mobile spawn vehicle into position while we were distracted, and suddenly our standoff turns into a brutal close-range battle. We lose most of our anti-air to the infantry, but we find and kill their mobile spawn at the cost of many lives, then return our attention back to the aircraft. Fire rains down from above, and the tanks have taken advantage and closed the distance, now right at our very doorstep. I’m seconds away from giving the order to retreat, when something amazing happens. Five of the Liberators in orbit explode almost simultaneously and suddenly the sky is filled with fighters – our fighters. Over the hill behind us comes a friendly tank column which immediately sets about obliterating the already depleted enemy armour. All I can hear are explosions, cannon fire and the sound of crashing aircraft.

It takes four or five minutes for the dust to settle. The commander of the allied air & tank group congratulates us on an excellent holding action. We had achieved the impossible, fought off overwhelming odds for long enough for our own reinforcements to arrive – and had an absolute blast into the bargain. Our outfit members still talk about it today.

Planetside 2′s approach to combined-arms warfare simply has to be seen to be believed, but it is not without its flaws. The game is quite complex, with myriad, poorly explained icons and little in the way of direction for new players bar a set of fairly basic videos. The first time you install and load the game, you’re literally dropped into the middle of a fight, with no explanation of how the spawn or class systems work, and the result is usually instant death.

It can be unforgiving, to say the least. There are balance issues, and the meta-game of territorial conquest is bare bones at the moment, with too little emphasis placed on defence. There are technical issues too, mostly based around the difficulties of rendering hundreds of players at once – something that was perhaps inevitable to some extent.

Many beta players feel the release was rushed, but the promise of a large patch in January could go a long way to easing some of the more pressing issues, and SOE clearly have plans for the game far beyond the six month ‘roadmap’ players have been promised. In a year, two years – this could be a very different game.

That’s why Planetside 2 is my game of the year for 2012. Not just for what it is now, which – warts and all – is still one of the most technically and conceptually impressive games released last year, but for what it will become. Planetside 2 is already impressive as hell, and in a few years time, it will be even more so – of that I have no doubt.

Various things both good and bad have kept Richie and I from working much on the site since late November, and for that we can only apologise. Sometimes the real, non sci-fi gaming world must come first (especially with those xmas bills looming), and so our output has not been what you would expect from a high-quality, dedicated gaming website.

On the plus side though, it’s a new year, and that means new starts all round. The world didn’t end just because some hinky Mayan calendar happened to run out of dates, and it hasn’t ended because we’ve had a break, either. We’re still here, and 2013 will bring a flood of new writing to PlaySF, both in terms of reviews, news and features – so from here on in, you can expect plenty to wrap your peepers round. Last year was a great year for sci-fi gaming, and this year looks to be even better – and we’ll be here, every step of the way, making sure you don’t miss out on all the good stuff.

Since you’re reading this, I’d like to say a big personal thank you for sticking with us. Both Richie and I wish you all the best for the new year: in love, in life, and of course – in gaming. We’re looking forward to getting stuck into what 2013 has to offer, and we hope you are too.

Salutations and space-wishes to all our readers. The fun’s only just beginning, and we hope you’ll share it with us.

Hell, it’s not like any of us stopped playing X3, or Masters of Orion, or Endless Space, is it? So when the news arrived this week of two cool looking new space games on Kickstarter, it was enough to set my funding-finger twitching.

First up is a new 4x turn-based strategy title called Predestination. The small team of developers includes Brendan Drain, of Massively.com and EON magazine fame, and they’ve set their sights on a traditional, turn based 4x with some interesting features. Procedurally generated planets will allow multiple colonies and terraforming, with the tantalising thought that improper maintenance could cause climate change (presumably of the disastrous kind), and orbital bombardment will scar the surface with craters visible from space.

All the usual 4x tropes such as ship customisation and random-generated universes for replayability are present and correct, and though the 4x genre has had some standout titles lately (as well as a few lame ducks), this one looks different enough to be worth paying attention to. Best of luck chaps!

Second on our list today is Limit Theory, which claims to be an ‘infinitely generated, procedural space game’. As a pilot in a sandbox universe, you’ll be able to mine, fight and explore across a galaxy with no story or restrictions. We’ll apparently be able to command fleets, fly down to the surface of planets to trade, interact with NPCs (and blow them up, of course) and all kinds of other cool-sounding stuff. It has more than a whiff of Elite about it – the open universe etc – but with a distinct twitch-based vibe.

The lack of story gave me pause, but the Kickstarter promises a ‘rich social interaction system’ to keep track of and maintain relationships with NPCs throughout the universe, which if implemented well could be really interesting to play. I’ve always been a fan of having something concrete to carry me through a game while still giving me room to explore and play around the edges, a la the X series, but replacing a central story-arc with multiple, detailed character interactions sounds like a great way to keep the player involved without forcing them down a linear path – something that Limit Theory sounds quite keen to avoid.

This wouldn’t be a Kickstarter article without some sexy videos to show you (well, unless you’re David Braben, but hey we all make mistakes), so wrap your scanners around these concept movies and see if they get your wallet twitching. As always, the PlaySF crew don’t endorse any particular project over another – we just bring you the info so you can make your own minds up – but between these two and the very good-looking Maia, you’ve got plenty of choice! Here’s hoping that 2013 continues the trend!

I had a chat with creator Simon Roth, who’s previous pedigrees include the excellent VVVVVV, about the challenges and joys of working on his own project, his vision for Maia, mod support and how he sees the project progressing if it hits that all important funding total.

PlaySF: Maia seems to take inspiration from classic management games such as Dungeon Keeper and Startopia – was this a deliberate choice on your part, or did the game grow into this role as development progressed?

SR: The game never really grew out of any other titles. Indeed, I hadn’t even seen Startopia until the press started likening Maia to it!

However there are elements, visual cues and mechanics which, as I developed them, started to take inspiration from the classic Bullfrog titles and Maxis games of the nineties. I’m very careful about developing Maia as its own thing though, the temptation to take features from other games is difficult to manage, and if left unchecked would leave me with a horrendous chimera of a game.

PlaySF: What is it about the ’70′s Sci Fi Aesthetic’ that appeals to you so much, and how will that aesthetic come across in the game itself?

SR: The 70′s aesthetic appeals on so many levels, I love how utilitarian it is, the hint of minimalism, block colours, lots of white. It’s a vision of the future based on optimism and practicality. So much science fiction is needlessly “gritty” and dystopian nowadays.

The aesthetic is the core of all our design. Everything that goes into the game is carefully considered and iterated on over and over until it “fits”. Even the lens the player sees the game through is simulating an anamorphic lens and the colour grade and grain is an attempt to match the rich film stock of the era.

PlaySF: How did the idea for the game come about?

SR: The idea has been in my mind in some form or another since about 2008 when I was at University. However it really came alive in 2011 when I started laying down the core mechanics in my head. I was working on VVVVVV at the time and I ended up having two or three sleepless nights designing little elements in my head.

In February I finally found myself with some free time to start hammering out the basics of the engine, whilst putting the games design to paper. At that point the idea was cut down substantially into something manageable and refined.

PlaySF: Tell us more about Maia’s hand-built rendering engine – has it been a challenge to code? Were there any pitfalls? Why not use an existing engine?

SR: The engine has been the most insane thing I’ve ever attempted. Indeed, in comparison, the game itself looks like a cakewalk. I didn’t want to compromise on anything, and despite a few wrong turns, I managed to get something that performs well, makes coding the game much simpler and lets me make the game look very beautiful.

The benefits of writing my own engine outweigh the costs in time and development. Firstly the speed is striking: Without the overhead of lots of complicated features that I’ll never use I can outperform even the fanciest of off-the-shelf solutions. The design only gets expanded if I have a need for it, so it absolutely shines against the bloated generic tools.

Secondly having access to even the lowest level code lets me do some really interesting things in linking the graphics and gameplay. For instance, when the lighting of an area has a direct influence on the moods of your colonists and the plants and solar panels, it’s actually a true sample of the light energy hitting them.

PlaySF: You plan to support Maia ‘indefinitely’ with regular content updates on a monthly basis – this is an impressive commitment. What form do you envision those updates taking?

SR: I have so many ideas to chuck into the game and it would be terribly sad to just leave them in the design documents, however attempting to put them all in the core design would take me years. Regular updates will help me develop the game creatively, without the pressure of a ship-date introducing stress and the inevitable bugs that causes.

PlaySF: Your Kickstarter page mentions ‘dark humour’ and ‘bi-polar androids’. Given that many classic sci-fi stories depict the potential problems with complex human-robot relationships (HAL9000 springs immediately to mind, as does Asimov’s robotic colonisation fleets), will you be using that humour to explore these concepts? Will we need to juggle the psychological needs of our androids, as well as our colonists?

SR: I certainly will! Indeed the robots having personalities is an important foundation to the humour. The IMP’s and other robotics malfunctioning and taking on new personality traits and emotions over time will make for some pretty funny situations.

That said, psychological needs of the robots will be far more subtle than those of the colonists and it will be a challenge for the player to investigate and solve the problems that arise. It will be pretty easy to figure out what is eating at your colonists (figuratively!), but finding out what’s making your colony’s doors depressed might take a little bit of detective work.

PlaySF: You plan to provide full mod-support for Maia, and your Kickstarter stretch goals  include campaign and robot editors. Are there any plans to incorporate some of the best player-made mods into the game over time, perhaps through the regular update system?

SR: Totally. If players find a way to tweak the game that makes it more enjoyable I’ll definitely work with them to get the features built into the game as standard.

PlaySF: You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that environmental effects such as lighting will affect the mood of your colonists – this is quite a unique concept for a game of this kind. Will there be other environmental factors to consider when building our colonies?

SR: The environment is your main adversary in Maia. The game hosts a detailed ecosystem simulation that you will need to carefully manage and exploit to meet your needs for food, water and energy. There will be food chains that if unbalanced, will lead to hungry animals wandering into your base or swarms of herbivores overwhelming your defences and damaging your equipment. The primordial jungle outside your base will slowly start to creep inside, following the light. If left unchecked it will make the colonists unhappy, and worse utterly ruin your airlocks.

There will be a detailed atmosphere system in your base, and maintaining it via generators and airlocks will be crucial. I’m hoping to expand this at a later date with a pressure system too. Combine lava and water and you might end up with a steam build up blowing out a wall section, de-pressurising your colony.

PlaySF: What part of Maia are you most excited about?

SR: I’m really excited to see what happens when the game is released and all the players start building from their own imagination. There’s no way to predict the crazy things people might try, and the complex simulation might turn out some amazing situations and stories to share!

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Of course, as with all Kickstarters, we here at PlaySF have to emphasise that we do not endorse any particular one – but since Kickstarter began we’ve seen a whole new wave of space and sci-fi games take shape, many of which look excellent, at least in their embryonic stages. Maia certainly has a pedigree, and the balance of features is tantalising. I miss the old days of proper management games, and if Maia is the one to breathe life into this near-forgotten genre, I for one won’t be complaining. The 70′s brought us some classic sci-fi – Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien – among others, and a game inspired by that era could be something very special indeed. Beam on over to the Kickstarter site and see if you think it deserves your spacecash!