Ace of Spades preview: Driller Killer
Blocks meet bullets in Jagex's team-based first-person shooter.
'Minecraft with guns' is the elevator pitch for Ace of Spades, and the elevator pitch is a bit weird, really. Surely a major reason for Minecraft's sweeping success with so many different sorts of players is that it didn't come with guns in the first place?
Sure enough, watch YouTube videos of Jagex's latest project - the Keepers of Runescape picked the game up about a year ago and have been working with the original creators in-house since then - and it looks a bit like satire: those glorious Minecraft steppes and valleys are seen through the squint of iron-sights, blocks shatter under the impact of shotgun blasts, enemies tunnel into the ground to escape incoming rockets, and mountains erupt from well-placed proximity mines.
Hold on, that all sounds pretty good, actually - and it plays even better than it sounds. On a recent visit to the company's Cambridge offices, Jagex staff might have bristled every time Notch's modern classic came up in conversation, but the online team-based blaster they're putting together has gained a lot from Minecraft's sense of play and of possibility. Very little of that atmosphere is lost, it seems, when you throw in automatic weaponry.
