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Interview with Nicholas Vining, Daniel Jacobson, & David Baumgart @ Gaslamp Games

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Oct 022011
 

Dungeons of Dredmor has been performing fantastically since its Summer 2011 release. After PAX, I dropped in to talk to the game’s creators, Nicholas Vining, Daniel Jacobson, and David Baumgart. I assure you, few people have mastered such a passionate attitude towards spreading their love of absurdism with the rest of the world. 

1. It’s been a while since your Steam release. What’s your reaction been to all the success earned?

DGB: I’ll have to get back to you a couple days after my cheque finally clears. When I sober up.

NV: Because I had to move to Vancouver, I ended up spending most of my Dredmor money – to date – at IKEA. Between them and Notch, I don’t know why we don’t just send enormous cheques directly to Sweden and be done with it. (Interestingly, did you know that the King of Sweden is 203rd in line for the British Throne? True facts.)

CD: Very pleasantly surprised that we are in what appears to be a good enough state to “make a go of it” as a “legitimate company”.  Honestly I think I write for everyone when I say that none of us were expecting that, and we’re all totally thrilled by it.

 

2. If you had to say that there was a particular lesson learned or reality observed, what would that be?

DGB: Game development is suspiciously like actual work.

 

3. PAX was incredible this year. What was the experience like for you?

NV: Good! We drank booze with the staff of PC Gamer, and I ate an enormous ice cream sandwich. Seriously, it was larger than my head. In fact, it was kind of disgusting. We also tried to crash Notch’s party, owing to the fact that he put up a Twitter post that said something along the lines of “Hey, Indies, you should just show up!” So we just showed up, and were then unable to get in. I guess either Gaslamp Games is too indie, or not indie enough, or something. We ended up going back to the convention center and playing Battletoads.

We had our musician, Matthew Steele, with us at the time, and he got much better recognition than we did. We kept running into other musicians, who are all, universally, large men with massive beards. They did the whole “Hey! I loved Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack!” “Thanks! I loved the Dredmor soundtrack!” thing – and this kept happening. A lot. I think they all went to their own party for large men with beards that we weren’t allowed to go to. There may have been karaoke. It ALSO turns out that Matthew is a Battletoads Genius.

Next year, I think that Gaslamp will have to do the booth thing. Also, it looks like the Canadian Government may actually give us money to throw a party, so we’ll have to see what happens there.

 

4. Let’s move backward–where were you when it all started? How’s that different compared to now?

CD: Let’s see… Nicholas was (I think) just starting his master’s in comp sci, I was working on my physics degree, David was a starving freelance artist, and we were all in Nick’s dad’s basement which was excessively decorated with various flavors of wooden paneling.  Now we’re all trying really hard to transition from our previous lives into “being a real game company”, but that transition is far from over.  We’re sub-leasing a sub-lease of a large non-descript building in Vancouver, which has a bit less dead tree in it than the bunker, but it’s a lot warmer.

 

5. Indie developers have taken to working on hilarious re-imaginings of Dungeon Crawlers as of late. Do you think your title fits in that category?

NV: Sure, but we started this in… er, awhile ago. We are the Real Slim Shady, and everybody else just wants to be like us.

 

6. What do you think the obsession is with gamers and retromania and the old school?

DGB: Two thoughts come to mind. First, it’s probably a natural impulse that can be seen in any category of interest, it’s just that videogames are such a young medium that there wasn’t such a long history to get obsessive about 20 years ago. Second, it’s probably a reaction against the directions that mainstream gaming, AAA and “social”, have taken due to their business model and the structure of the industry. What is commercially feasible in a blockbuster or microtransaction model driven by investors is not always the same as what people want to play; huge gaps are opening in the market for indie developers to move into.

 

7. What kind of humor did you want there to be in Dredmor?

NV: Really, Dredmor’s humour has a lot to do with whatever made me laugh at the time. As a general rule, I like to put things in the game that make me laugh when I come up with them. I like to keep things in the game that keep making me laugh. (I think the most memorable thing for me is the mineral Bauxite, which David described as “a grudging source of aluminum” and which has never failed to make me giggle.)

DGB: A lot of this just ended up happening because we were stuck in a basement with too much coffee and felt like being silly. It wasn’t clear that any of it was a good idea at the time, but the point was to amuse ourselves. For my part, for better or worse, I find wordplay amusing so you get an awful lot of that happening once I started writing descriptions.

CD: It really is the case that when the three of us get together with big mugs of coffee that this stuff just comes out.  We are gaming culture addicts; add in an unnerving desire to take every idea to the next level, coupled with a strong desire that we also share to add depth and a sense of authenticity in spite of our irreverent references, and Dredmor’s humor was inevitable.

 

8. I love the Dredmor Doomguy face. Were there any other blatant inspirations for the title?

DGB: Some direct influences you can probably see are UI, skills, and overall design from Diablo 1 and 2, Titan Quest, later Ultima games, particularly Ultima Online for me personally. Dwarf Fortress had a huge influence on our artifact and naming system especially, as well as crafting and general humour and references to some degree. There’s a tileset from Quake and one from Doom. The player sprite especially was influence by old Lucasarts titles. The roguelike genre in general are of course a huge inspiration. I’m a huge fan of Darklands so there’s a nod to that here and there. Also early Zelda titles are neat. There’s probably something of the Baldur’s Gate series and D&D generally (of course) going on. The skill icon illustrations owe a lot to Fallout. The list goes on.

NV: There are a bunch of mechanical influences, too, lifted from roguelikes. There are also a handful of things in Dredmor that we do simply because Diablo did them, and that seemed to work well. Great artists steal.

 

9. The monsters certainly have an interesting flair to them as well. Why was the decision made to include such a broad variety of enemies?

NV: We wanted to eschew the standard fantasy monsters. Orcs, goblins… bleh. We wanted to do something more interesting, and I’m pleased that we managed to. A big influence here – for me at least, when I came up with the original monster ideas – was Dragon Quest, and how it has iconic monsters like Slimes. We want a piece of that, and I think that Diggles have been hugely iconic for Dredmor. So, yeah. It’s our inner Akira Toriyama coming out.

I would actually like to have *more* monsters in Dredmor, but we’ll be addressing that further down the road. We hired some contractors and they’ve been drawing things like fish warriors and astronauts and things… it’s all good.

10. The game’s UI has a certain unique diction to it, with its own sense of tongue-in-cheek absurdism. Is that direction your own aesthetic choice?
DGB: It’s a loving reference to the games we grew up on and an acknowledgement of their inherent absurdity. Beside all that, I actually just love doing intricate UI art.

NV: Sometimes, it is too intricate. I think we’ve learned a lot about UI development that we want to apply to the next game.

 

11. How strongly did you want the game’s aesthetics to factor into how players perceive the title?

DGB: Humour plays a huge role in making players feel okay about dying horribly and irreversably. I don’t think Dredmor would be nearly so appealing without something to help players swallow that bitter pill.

 

12. Ideally, how did you want players to perceive the game?

DGB: I love the tagline from a review site – “A Roguelike For The Rest Of Us”. This cuts right to the core of what Dredmor is about, being a roguelike-inspired game that’s also accessible to non-roguelike players.

 

13. Turn-based RPGs typically want to inspire their characters to be thoughtful. Do you think the roguelike wants something different from the gamer?

DGB: Masochism, probably.

CD: Roguelikes definitely require the thoughtful aspect, as they are at their best when every choice you make is the difference between success and defeat.  But more than that, a procedurally generated world has at its heart a desire to be random enough that it forces you to take a bizarre string of events and turn them into the only narrative you could comprehend to make sense of them, and it becomes very uniquely your story in the process.

 

14. Scale-wise, your game has a high amount of visual activity. How do you think that balances with the thoughtfulness of the turn-based gameplay?

DGB: I’m drawn to ornate aesthetics and visually complex scenes so it’s probably where I’d naturally end up going no matter what the case. It all plays a role in flavour and ambiance, of giving a sense of place and feeling of discovery, so I think it’s important even if it does not necessarily make the choices available absolutely clear-cut.

 

15. Given your success, are you looking to try new and different things in the future, or stick with what you know best?

DGB: Something new, definitely. There’s so much we want to do and we certainly don’t want to be the Dredmor-only Dredmor-all-the-time company. Heck, I wouldn’t even say we know roguelikes best — it’s just what we happened to do first. Second actually. It’s what we happened to do first successfully.

CD: We have learned so many lessons on the right and wrong ways to approach game design that I have no doubt you will see Dredmor’s DNA in what we produce next.  What form that takes is something we’re spending a good bit of time debating right now =)

 

16. What are your plans for subsequent releases?

CD: Our first priority (as of this writing) is giving what we’ve been promising to the very patient Linux fans.  After that, we’re going to do the mod support that we’ve been talking about.  And then it gets a bit fuzzy: there is talk of an expansion to Dredmor and of course eventually a next project.  We are really looking forward to divulging the details on these things but until we know for sure what you can expect, we don’t want to get your hopes up.

NV: Our project to re-create the Elder Gods via selective in-breeding of Digby Scallops has yet to meet with success, but we’re hopeful. All we have right now, though, are scallops with bad teeth.

 

17. What’s the feedback process for patching the game generally like?

NV: We go through the list of user complaints and suggestions, merge them into our own database, and then work through it until some sort of predefined point is reached. At this point, we send a build off to testers, and they test it. During this time, we drink martinis.

At some point, things stabilize enough that we feel comfortable releasing a patch, and we release it. It’s worth noting that this is a new system that we set up after some unpleasant learning experiences; it seems to be working well so far.

 

18. What’s it like working in shared office space now?

NV: I need a better chair. This one is awful. Unfortunately, nowhere in downtown Vancouver buys better chairs – you actually have to go down to East Hastings, one of the most poverty-stricken and troubled neighbourhoods in all of Canada, to buy ergonomic chairs. For some reason, this is where all the chair shops are. I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

I’m also not sure how I’m going to get the chair back from East Hastings down to our offices in Yaletown.

DGB: We’ve worked in the same space before in various arrangements. The real difference is that we’re actually sharing with other people who are trying to work. This means that, unfortunately, we can’t blast Italian fantasy metal through the office like we used to.

 

19. What non-Steam channels will you be distributing from from now on?

CD: One of the necessities with a Linux version is of course an alternative distribution model.  Linux isn’t officially supported by Steam, and while you can do clever things like hiding the linux build inside the bundle that you download from them, it also gives us an opportunity to do something else that fans have requested: the ability to pay us (mostly) directly.


If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience Dungeons of Dredmor yet, definitely swing by a pick up a copy. It is well worth it! Thanks to the Gaslamp Team for taking the time for a great interview!

Interview with John Mamais @ CD Projekt RED

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Sep 202011
 

CD Projekt RED has impressed me time and again as one of the upstart and considerate development teams the game industry has to offer this year. I got to interview John Mamais, head of Production over at RED, regarding all the latest press releases that they had shown us since Gamescom. One thing I do know is that the Witcher 2 is certainly getting a fourth play-through from me when these updates are released.

Your progress and overall reception in the United States has been astounding since the release of your two titles. How does it feel in hindsight?

We’re really happy with the critical reception we’ve gotten in the States, but we still feel we have a long way to go before The Witcher is more widely recognized in the mass market. In that context, we can’t help but notice the relative decline of PC gaming compared to console gaming – at least in the U.S. We’re hoping the Xbox 360 version will elevate the IP.

 

Even having played the first game, I was a little blown away as to the depth of all the political and societal struggles in Geralt’s world. Then I found out that that was how Sapkowski designed his universe. How do you think the game addressed all of those intricacies?
Your games are designed to be played independently of the original Blood of the Elves saga. Do you think you’re following Sapkowski’s path, forging your own, or staying somewhere in between?

The game is in fact set after the end-point of Sapkowski’s saga, but we’ve adhered to the canon, style and depth of the novels. In doing that, however,  we completed and extended Sapkowski’s complex universe for the game through mechanisms like character development, and we elaborated on the social and political spectrum he described.

 

Do you think Yennefer will be playing a large role in your series’ future? Or can you not say for certain?

She’s a very important character who will play a significant role in the story of any sequel – if we decide to do one.

 

Gamescom revealed some impressive accomplishments from your team. Are you planning on making the new developments this consistent in later months?

It’s too early to say at this point. We’re working on two things in parallel right now: firstly, on updating the PC game to version 2.0 – an update we’re planning to release in the very near term, and simultaneously on the 360 conversion. We will most likely continue supporting the PC version with updates and patches as needed alongside the 360 version.

 

Both Dark Mode and Arena mode are boasting its difficulty. Is CD Projekt RED setting out to make the world’s most challenging Fantasy RPG?

I don’t think our goal is to make the world’s most challenging RPG. We’re more focused on making something that we as gamers would really like to play, something that is also suitable for a thinking, mature audience. So it’s a two-fold goal – to deliver an interesting, complex story with challenging gameplay that compliments that.

 

Where did the idea for Dark Mode come from? How much of a role did fan reaction to difficulty play in it?

Insane mode doesn’t actually allow players to save, so it’s very difficult though not impossible to play in that mode. We wanted to deliver something that would be similar in difficulty for our harder core fans, but that would give them the tools they need to complete the game. So Dark mode is very hard, but it allows saves. We think the mode’s grim theme, marked by new, cursed gear and sinister-looking special effects, suits the world of The Witcher nicely and should justify another playthrough of the game.

 

Will Dark Mode feature any differences in terms of narrative?

Unfortunately, Dark Mode entails no changes in the narrative.

 

What were the inspirations for the Dark Mode items you designed?

Inspiration for the swords came from Gothic architecture. We merged some of the ornaments with real medieval swords. Geralt’s clothes were inspired by 15th and 16th century fashion, modern military equipment and music metal bands of the 80′s :)

 

Where do they stand in terms of some of the higher quality crafting items?

Dark mode gear has the highest stats of any gear in the game. Players who assemble a complete outfit will also see it affect their character build.

 

How expansive is Arena mode in terms of its difficulty?

Arena mode starts out easy, but the longer you stay alive, the more difficult it becomes. So the difficulty is deep, expanding – so much so that you could almost say it’s infinite.

 

In certain scenes it looked like Geralt was being overrun by enemies. Do certain waves favor certain skill trees i.e. swordsmanship path, Whirl?

Certain character builds are more effective against certain enemy types. This is something that we carefully designed for The Witcher 2. Our Arena waves are constructed to challenge the player more each time he decides to enter the fray, and character builds will certainly make a difference. In the end, though, success will come down to the skill of players and how they use their different builds. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out on the leaderboards.

 

What kind of enemies will we see in each of the waves?

Most of the monsters and many of the human opponents from the game have been integrated into the Arena, though we’ve also added a new monster type – the werewolf .

 

Will the weapons you purchase in the Arena be different from the single player campaign?

The weapons and gear are all sourced from the main game. But remember that there’s no cross-over, so what you earn in the Arena cannot be used in the main game and vice versa. The Arena is a place to experiment and prepare, and a place to compete for high scores.

 

Witcher 2 for the Xbox 360 boasted some new footage on the assassination of Demavend. Is that going to be Xbox exclusive? If so, why? Why not make it multiplatform? 

Well, we can’t confirm how we’ll do this yet, but we do intend to make all the new content available to the PC community.

 

Can you comment on how the footage was primarily focused on Letho?

If I’m not mistaken, you’re referring to shots taken from our new intro cinematic  that features Letho. Letho is a central character in The Witcher 2 and this new cinematic sets the stage for the game, serving as a new introduction for The Witcher 2 on Xbox360.

 

The Witcher 2 arguably has one of the richest narrative experiences of RPGs this year. Can you confidently say that the title will make Game of the Year?

Absolutely, without a doubt, we would really like it to be Game of the Year. Enough said.

 

Does CD Projekt RED have any plans to move beyond the Witcher franchise and into new, unexplored territory?

The team is very content to continue working on the Witcher franchise. But nothing lasts forever and we have some very exciting ideas we are mulling over in the studio.

 

Will the romance cards ever make a return appearance? :)

I certainly hope not.

 

Do you have any shout outs or special mentions for those that you would like to thank?

Writers Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz and Sebastian Stępień,  designers Maciej Szcześnik and Mateusz Kanik, and concept artists Jan Marek and Bartłomiej Gaweł – for contributing to this interview.

 

Once again, thank you all for your participation and patience with us. We’re looking forward to the 2.0 update.

Corsair 600T Special Edition White Graphite Case Review

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Sep 202011
 

Purchasing a computer case to build your PC is always a good test of your aesthetic and pragmatic principles. Each and every year, thanks to innovative engineers and responsive communities, we’re given some of the latest designs in the computer case market to see how efficiently and cleanly we can perform the art of building a PC.

Corsair, who’s been leaving quite a footprint in terms of intelligently-designed water cooling-capable cases, has delivered Gaming Irresponsibly their special edition White 600T from the Graphite Series. Let me put an emphasis on intelligent design here: apart from the snazzy white paint job, the 600T has just about every convenient and well-designed feature an enthusiast computer or gamer could want nowadays.

The basics come in the form of air cooling: the 600T is equipped with two 200mm fans for intake and one 120mm for exhaust. With a mid-size tower, the large fans stay quiet and ensure that there’s no stagnant air inside the chamber. Tests revealed that idle temps consistently stayed around 33 degrees Celsius.  At full load, the CPU stays comfortably in the high forties. They’re not icy cold temperatures, but they certainly do the trick. To access the fans, simply press down and the top and front-facing grills will release, allowing for easy cleaning.

The real beauty of the 600T is the fact that nearly everything is removable and toolless. The side doors, which have latches placed at the top on both sides, remove the necessity of thumb screws and make minor tweaking a breeze within the chamber. The left side panel has a window that can be replaced with a mesh grill, should you choose to be more conservative in how you want your PC to appear externally. Peering inside, users are provided with six grommeted holes for cable management. The motherboard tray has a cutout for CPU cooler management, and even includes an opening for the eight-pin motherboard connector.

There’s plenty of room for everything in the case. Again, I emphasize intelligent design—Corsair has made it so that you should experience relatively zero frustration when you assemble your build. It comfortably fits my large 5970 that I borrowed from my other PC and fit it with relative ease. Hard drives are no real issue either, as it fits three 3.5 and three 2.5 inch drives (also toolless) respectively—more than enough for your average enthusiast. The case’s coup-de-grace is its control panel: a built in fan controller that dims the LEDs as you restrict the fan speed. That, with four USBs, a FireWire, and a USB 3.0, it really has all you could ever need.

The Corsair stands in contrast to many of the more technically rugged cases that we have in today’s market like the HAF, or many of the cases provided by Antec or Thermaltake. It’s sleek, sexy, and minimalist, and yet it doesn’t fail to provide everything that you need to make your PC beautiful. It’s the kind of case that you don’t really get tired of after a year of having it around. It’s the kind of case that you should buy for your annual Q4 computer upgrade. One thing that it most certainly is, is the kind of case that you should buy for your very first build—it’s sure to make it a special one.

For being a stellar performer in intelligent design and sexy presentation, the 600T receives a 5/5.

Pros

  • Sleek, sexy design
  • Roomy and easy to use
  • Wicked control panel
Cons
  • Not as cool as we’d like

 

 

Interview with Olly Ginger @ Interwave Games (Nuclear Dawn)

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Sep 122011
 

Dutch game developer Interwave Studios was kind enough to let us get to know a little bit more about their contribution to class-based FPS games, Nuclear Dawn, and how they’re hoping to change it into an entirely different beast. Here I speak with Olly Ginger, the senior programmer, and why adding RTS elements to the FPS is next natural evolution of strategic and tactical gameplay. Nuclear Dawn will be released this month on Steam, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

 

1) What’s the story behind Interwave?

InterWave started as a modding team for new and interesting gameplay projects. We came from the SteamFriends community, and set off to make mods that delivered both gameplay and quality.

2) Source Engine is a popular and easy way to bring new developers into the industry. How do you feel about using it?

Hard to say objectively, because we’ve been using it for so long! As a coder, I can say that Source offers a clean, complete environment for coders to develop their own solutions, starting from a professional, competent toolset that accelerates development.

 

The basic toolset that the Source engine comes with, outdated as some of its components may be, is a fantastic jumping platform – it definitely was a great learning platform for our past and current projects.

 

3) Nuclear Dawn boasts an impressive backstory. Is the story heavily incorporated into the team-based battles?

The story does not surface much in the action itself, though the advantage of having such a well detailed back story is that every single element of the action, even in the most furious battle, belongs to a coherent game world, which makes sense past the ‘pew pew’ moments.

 

It may not seem like much, but being able to place every single element in a level with the absolute confidence of a complete back story gives each level and moment its own life, that no amount of cinematics can rival.

 

4) Did you have any inspirations for character design or gameplay?

We received the original assets from the Nuclear Dawn modding team. These included several sketches and concept art. That was a great jump start to set the mood and quality of the art.

 

Other than that, and the games we loved to play through our gaming lives, the rest of Nuclear Dawn is all our original design – both in character designs and gameplay.

 

5) Do you think that your game will serve to bring players closer to the RTS or the FPS genre? Or are you hoping for an even mix of both?

We’re hoping Nuclear Dawn will offer a new combination forged from those two genres. Each experience is very much segregated, because the Commander has a full RTS job and the players a full FPS experience, so fans of each won’t have their favourite genre too polluted.

 

However, because of the extra layer of interactions, such as having real human players instead of AI bots, or having a powerful Commander swaying the tide of battle, Nuclear Dawn’s game modes offer a fresh take on either genre.

6) As the RTS Commander, do you have complete control over the strategic processes of your team?

As the RTS Commander you have full control over weapon unlocks (Siege weapon research), structure placement, artillery strikes and Commander abilities, as well as directing your troops with order beacons and feedback.

 

Whether your troops will follow your recommendations and orders… that’s another story.

 

7) Do you think the typical methods of micro and macro apply well to today’s FPS gameplay?

In a very real way, the two game types each perform a balanced half of both micro and macro gameplay. The Commander has full control of macro execution, but he needs his troops to capture and hold the resource points.

 

On the other hand, players have full control over micro manoeuvres, but they still need artillery support, and Commander abilities to succeed fully in their tasks.

 

This way, either side has full control of one side of gameplay, but relies on the other component to fully develop and implement its plans.

 

8) How do structures come into play in the midst of player on player battles?

There’s a variety of ways players can interact with structures during a battle.

 

Beyond the obvious ones (getting killed by a turret, or an artillery strike), players are revealed to the enemy Commander by radars, they restock at their Supply Stations, and respawn at the spawn gates that the Commander placed. They have to defend power structures, and can change their kits and load-outs at the Armoury.

 

Structures are a very real, and very important, factor in any battle, and the right structure in the right place will spell the difference between victory or defeat.

 

9) What would you think would be an ideal experience for a group of players on Nuclear Dawn?

Overturning what looks like a certain defeat. When an enemy is at your gates, pummelling your base with their artillery, picking your structures and soldiers with long range Siege weapons, a determined team can rally, efficiently organize its ranks, and push back on multiple levels, hitting each attacking side with precise counter-manoeuvres.

 

The concentrated push of a desperate faction can rip through the ranks of a complacent enemy, and bring an entire faction back from the brink of death. It’s one of the most exhilarating moments in Nuclear Dawn.

10) Can you go over the classes and how their specializations might be applied in game?

The Exo is the slowest, most armoured class. They also carry the most powerful weapons, though powerful is not the same as instant kill: the chaingun takes time to spin up, and both M95 rockets and X01 bolts take some skill to land kills with. Exos can enter ‘lockdown’ mode, which effectively turns them into living turrets able to kill enemies from great range.

 

The Stealth is the Exo’s diametrical opposite: small and fast, with next to no armour, this class has a powerful cloaking ability that allows them to sneak past enemies and enemy turrets easily, but disables itself on each attack. Stealths are the premier Exo killers: the slow, armoured behemoths can’t see their lithe death coming, and succumb in droves to Stealth knives.

 

Assaults are your average GI JOE army soldier, with a versatile set of load-outs that goes from full combat and sniping to base assault. Their special class ability is a Visor that allows them to spot cloaked Stealths. Any group of Exos intent on survival really should bring an Assault along, to protect them from Stealth attacks.

 

Finally, Supports are not a direct combat class, but still come armed with short range weaponry such as machine pistols, shotguns and flamethrowers. Supports also wield a range of grenades and healing or repair tools. While they may not be the most powerful class in combat, Supports can easily sway the tide of any battle with their poison and EMP grenades, or healing packs.

 

11) Class-based shooters usually go through a thorough patching process to make sure the classes are balanced. Can we expect this from Nuclear Dawn?

That process already started with the Beta – we’re gathering community feedback, watching the new strategies that evolve, and making sure everything stays balanced, as well as stable.

 

We will definitely be patching and balancing the game constantly, though perhaps not as quickly and promptly as some more vocal members of the community think it should happen. The simple fact is that most people jump into a shooter, and expect it to behave just like all their other games do.

 

If I had a penny for every time a ticket feedback cited “balance issues” just because they did not like a weapon, Nuclear Dawn would be free, and we’d all live on our own private floating sky islands. We’re keeping an eye on things, and taking all feedback seriously, and it will all be used to evolve Nuclear Dawn into a better, more mature product over time.

 

12) Are there any plans for expansions and DLC? New maps? Weapons?

We don’t really like the idea of paid DLCs for multiplayer games. InterWave is already planning two major updates to the game, both free to download for owners of Nuclear Dawn.

 

One will add more maps and game modes, and the other will introduce AI bots and drones, along with more game types and updates. New Tier 2 (and eventually Tier 3) weapons will be introduced in successive updates as well.

 

13) Does your team enjoy playing the game as well?

Passionately. Our only guideline is to make sure that the game is fun to play, and we’d be poor developers if we didn’t like our own product. InterWave is a small outfit, and no one involved does it just for the money: there isn’t enough money for that!

 

14) Any concrete details on future projects?

Yes.

 

15) Nuclear Dawn promises a lot that other class-based shooters don’t. Do you think that your approach will be picked up in later generations?

We are hoping so, though any innovation we bring to the table is an evolution of a gameplay paradigm that already started with the original Team Fortress, continued in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and is being picked up more and more by multiple games.

 

16) Any special shout outs or thanks you’d like to include?

Definitely a shout out to my family, to my friends, and to my colleagues – we balance each other out, and make awesome things together.

 

Once again, thanks Ollie, and all the staff at Interwave for showing us your great product.

Corsair SP2500 Speaker Review

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Sep 122011
 

Beautiful, clean, powerful.

Like most things in life, we are ultimately put at odds with the fact that everything has its own duration. Our clothes, our food, our taste in video games… ultimately these things will perspire, and no one can be blamed simply because that’s the way things are. As such, I spend most of my time looking for things that do a good job of doing exactly the opposite. These “things” have to be special. They have to be built with a sense of craftsmanship. They have to have a quality design. They have to be adaptable to a large number of purposes and needs.

My taste in audio is no different. Nowadays, one can walk into a Best Buy and purchase a pair of headphones for anywhere from ten to a hundred dollars, and not know the difference in-between. That’s just the capitalism there—but as one might find it takes a little bit more research to know what you should and just should not buy.

Gaming audio has been subjected to a very typical series of ups and downs. For the longest time, the company Logitech has been made available to most users, and Logitech has had some competitive offerings in both the 2.1 and 5.1 departments that make them controllers in the market.

Out of the blue, Corsair, a longtime producer of memory modules, begins releasing other serious gaming peripherals. First it was their power supplies, next their cases, and now, their speakers. Put simply, Corsair has become the name of sheer quality when it comes to PC-related gaming products these days.

The Corsair SP2500 is a 220 watt, 2.1 channel system offered by company for serious gaming audio performance. Priced at just around 300 dollars, it ranks a little bit on the expensive side for a 2.1 system. However, for what it offers, I would expect Corsair to charge much more.

The product is simple. You have one bass woofer, and two satellites. Plug in cables, and play. There’s nothing more to it. The system is a sexy sleek black, with a good solid construction to all of the parts. The speakers have the trademark Corsair blue on the cones of the satellites. It just looks good—there’s nothing to obnoxious to be seen.

Upon turning the power on, I navigated my way to my media player to do a quick test run of some available tunes. Being a big jazz guy, I tested out some Marcus Miller—a virtuoso slap bassist—to see how the speakers picked up the highs and the lows. The result was extremely pleasant: a balanced range of lows, mids, and highs, with no portion truly outweighing the other. The speakers have a rather warm sound to them, and aren’t excessively sterile. I’m not a fan of cranking music, but turning it up loudly yielded no discernable distortion.

Taking a quick look at the game library, I loaded some of my more impressively composed titles to see how it handled all of the precise sounds of the gameplay. Limbo, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood all yielded similar results: clear, crisp audio with no noticeable deficits. The satellites are fairly precise in their differential timing of sound—footsteps sound like they’re coming from below, ambiance is generally in the background, and so on. Mind you, the tests have been over the period of a week, so I would have picked up on any imbalances in the sound by now.

Any difficulty picking up on any noises is in part due to issues within the recording. The SP2500 definitely presents all of the sounds that there are to hear within a given track, you just have to have the ear to appreciate them.

The set comes equipped with a controller with an LCD display, three buttons, and a dial knob for adjusting levels. One button on the controller allows you to adjust the overall volume, while another lets you pull up the subwoofer levels. The final button brings up a menu of sorts, allowing you to select your input and EQ option. There were several of EQ functions to choose from, but for the tests I used the handy FPS EQ that they programmed in. It’s a shame I didn’t have a manual EQ to choose from, but the options they had were plentiful enough that you’re never lacking a modulated sound to choose from.

In terms of personal home audio, the speaker system has done wonders in terms of simplifying my overall use of peripherals. I no longer have to switch headset or amplification solutions. In fact, if I had to claim this as being the all-in-one midrange solution for your gaming/media needs, this would be it. Sure, it doesn’t stand as something as glamorously engineered as something from Bowers & Wilkins, but the Corsair SP2500 stands as a remarkable piece of machinery that can do just about anything, and gives any 2.1 computer speaker system a darn good kick-in.

For the computer gaming speaker system that pretty much does it all, I give the Corsair SP2500 a 5 out of 5. It does just about everything right.

Pros

  • Crisp sound
  • Seemingly solid construction
  • Warm sound stage

Cons

  • None immediately present

 

Psyko Audio Krypton Headset Review

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Sep 092011
 

 

The Krypton.

Has anyone ever questioned why it is that the gaming market is so saturated with new peripherals that are released each and every year? These peripherals offer new improvements, such as higher DPI on a mouse sensor, or larger and larger numbers of macro keys. If you have a keen enough eye for your ideal gaming experience, these peripherals can make a significant difference in your game. Other times gamers buy these items simply for their aesthetic appeal. One thing is for certain—gamers are picky about the things they buy.

While most of the peripherals found today are purchased off of subjective appeal, I can say for certain that not one team of engineers has found a decent way to create 5.1 technology in a gaming headset. The crux of this issue lies in the design: how in the Good Lord’s name do you take five channels of separate speakers and fit them into a two channel design?

Psyko Audio has provided a solution to this feat of engineering. Their headset, the Krypton, is unlike most modern 5.1 headsets: it doesn’t rely on software. Instead, it physically places five unique sound drivers into the headband of the headset. My first reaction to this was, as foolish as I am, “Can you really hear music through the skull?”

I found out that this was not the case, but almost something entirely different. The Krypton headset presents you with waveguides—pathways for each of the five drivers to shove sound through. This sound travels along the waveguides, down the sides of the headset, and out the horns, which are located inside of the chambers of the earpads. It’s deviously brilliant, and the results are more than impressive.

Sound moves along specially-constructed waveguides.

While most 5.1 headsets would involve the use of software to tweak the soundstage and delay of your output, Psyko Labs does it just by placing the speakers all in the right locations. As I said previously, the headband features five 30mm drivers. Two of these are placed on the backside of the band, while the other two are placed in the front, leaving one in the center. The back speakers function as your left and right rear speakers. You will hear them on your left and right sides according to how the audio is recorded in-game. The same applies for the front speakers. The center and the bass drivers deal with everything else.

The headset is strictly plug-and-play. You plug the headset into the preamp and the preamp into your computer. That’s it.

Now that the objective facts have been addressed, it’s time to refer to my subjective experience.

I have to say, it was amazing. I don’t contend that the drivers had the best bass response as compared to other brands, such as Sennheiser or a more audiophile-oriented brand, but the truth of the matter is that with each driver delivering its own portion of the sound, the result is almost always perfectly balanced. Everything was punchy and tight, and the delayed timing and volume of sounds as recorded by the game were relayed perfectly. Naturally, you’re not supposed to crank this headset. Adjust the volume to something comfortable and let it work its magic.

My test subject was the latest Eidos release, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The game involves a constant repositioning of character due to the high amount of stealth and cover required. Whereas my Adam Jensen didn’t really have the stealth upgrades required to tell me where my enemies were based off of radar or through cones of vision, my headset did the job for me. The realization blew me away, and it saved me a good five Praxis points.

Drivers.

The revelation of enhanced audio is kind of like metamorphosing into a bat. Echo-location, delayed sounds, and different volumes become automatically much more important than they used to be. Sound isn’t simply perceived as a continual stream of unimportant information. All of a sudden, it all becomes important. You want to know where each and every sound is, and where you stand in relation to it. For instance, when I stand on the left side of the guard, I want to hear his voice coming from the right. If I’m crouching behind a wall and there’s a sentry nearby, the blend of volumes from different drivers makes a profound difference in how I approach the next portion of the game. I felt this with the Krypton headset. Switching to two channel headset at this point, would effectively be sensory suicide.

Acoustic experience aside, there are several other points to be observed about their use. Other forms of audio aren’t nearly as impressive with these cans, because they serve a defined purpose. They’re meant to play games. Don’t use them with anything besides games. Well, okay, movies are alright. But most music is recorded in stereo, so don’t listen to them with the Krytpons: it’ll sound funny.

This image is property of BBC ©2005

Unless you have a penchant for ultra-bulky gamer gear, you’re probably not going to like how they look. They’re big—really really big. Putting them on I looked like one of the Cybermen from the BBC Television show Doctor Who. Fortunately for me, I loved the awkwardness of their size.

As with most headsets, they tend to get a tad sore the longer you wear them. I don’t fault them for this though—the cans themselves were very stiff, which I assume was in due part to the nature of the material used for the waveguides. That aside, they feel as if they’re built to last. Nothing squeaks, and everything feels rather rugged.

My one true gripe came from the microphone. It’s modular, so it can be detached at any point, but it didn’t pick up my voice as well as I thought it would. It never really got in the way, but I had to severely tweak my input levels in order to get a register out of it. It’s sufferable, and perhaps even adjustable in later models. I wouldn’t think any less of the marvel of the product because of it.

The fact of the matter is, it’s real 5.1 sound. It’s not 2.1 sound that’s split into five different directions. This headset is genuinely made based off of the physics behind principles of sound, and how they can be directed to achieve optimal precision. Other headsets use software, and the coding process is long and tedious. It’s not that headsets that use software are necessarily bad, it’s just that sound, being the sexy thing that it is, tends to get a little cranky when it’s forced to abide by a program.

For being the best thing gaming audio has seen since surround sound, I give the Psyko Audio Krypton headset a 4.9 out of 5. The microphone was unfortunate, but it’s not enough for me to seriously knock points off, especially since it’s such an amendable problem.

Pros

  • Amazing conceptual design
  • Superior sound quality
  • Plug-and-play
  • Awesome futuristic look

Cons

  • Microphone quality

Interview with Tim Fields @ Certain Affinity (Crimson Alliance, Halo: CE HD)

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Sep 062011
 

1) Certain Affinity has been involved with some of the biggest projects to hit the Xbox: Left for Dead, Call of Duty, Halo. How did the decision to develop Crimson Alliance come about?

We’ve always loved the action-RPG space, and we’ve all always wanted to make a game like this one. So while we’ve been focused on the shooter scene, this was still in the back of our mind as something we really wanted to explore. And since we learned a ton about space design and coop multiplayer working on Halo, L4D, and the Call of Duty franchise, it ended up making Crimson a lot better because we waited. There is a lot about the game that might be reminiscent of a shooter to some players, like the way you use cover, for example.

2) The game bears a strong similarity to the Gauntlet games of old. Does Crimson Alliance want to be a classic dungeon crawler hack-and-slash? Or is it striving for a little bit more?

We want that awesome feel of cooperative dungeon crawling and the hack-n-slash satisfaction of splattering a horde of monsters all across the dungeon floor. But at the same time, we knew we need to build the RPG depth that would keep players coming back night after night. We grew up on Gauntlet AND games like Phantasie and The Bard’s Tale. So Crimson pulls a little bit in from each of those, and (we hope) ends up feeling familiar, but still fresh.

 

3) Does the game have a defined narrative?

Definitely! We’re telling the story of treachery, seduction, a power hungry queen who eats the souls of men. You’ll get to learn why each of the three main characters are drawn into the ruined city of Byzan by the sinister agents of the Soul Siren, and you’ll get to see her booty too! ;) We’re into dark fantasy with adult themes, and we’ve tried to convey that in this game through in game cutscenes, though world design, and through cinematics.

 

4) Do the characters have different stories that they must carry out?

Yes! Each has a different reason to be here. And who they are, and why they are together comes together as you play through the game. There are elements of stories like Record of the Lodoss War here, as well as a lot of classic Robert Howard style sword and sorcery motifs.

5) Are certain playable characters intended to fill support roles? Or is it a general free-for-all?

Each of the classes has their own way of doing things. But the role they fill depends on the makeup of your party. There’s no one who is a dedicated support role, like a healer, for example. Every character will be in the thick of it, killing monsters, smashing stuff, solving puzzles, and grabbing loot. But your ice spec’d wizard is likely to do those things a lot differently than my shuriken focused assassin, or than our buddy’s lightning wizard might.

 

6) Can the characters execute combos with each other?

Yes! There are class tandem specific combos for every possible combination of characters. For example, the wizard can freeze enemies, and if the mercenary uses his shield bash on them they’ll slide into a wall and shatter. Discovering how to use different classes together is a lot of the fun of the game. And since you’re rewarded for discovering and using combos like this…

 

7) Could you explain a little bit more about the uniqueness of each character?

There’s so much to say about this… They all play out very differently. The mercenary is the most melee focused class, of course. His shield can protect him indefinitely, but only from a single direction. He’s got a great killing move that will close distance and do terrific damage. And then there is his whirlwind attack…

 

The wizard is focused on the elements. He’s got a base fireball, which can be charged up. He can call down lightning, and use ice for crowd control. His multi-pronged ice (if you choose to focus your character that way) is completely badass once it gets powerful.

 

The assassin… Well, we haven’t reveled much about her yet. She’s playable for the first time at Penny Arcade Expo next week. But she’s all about stealth and manipulating time. Oh yeah, and she throws exploding shurikens because she was trained by ninjas. But tell her to watch out, because TwoBears is after her…

 

8) How is the level design structured?

The levels are all hand-crafted. No random dungeons here. We wanted to tell a story as the players move through each space, so you’ll go from an excavation site into an area ruined by the magics that we uncovered and on to… well, I’m not going to say more than that. J

9) How many levels are there in all?

A bunch… I don’t know offhand. But the game takes plenty of time to go through, and there are secret areas hidden all over the place, as well as class-specific secret doors that require a particular class to get through. So there’s no way to explore the whole world without replaying as different characters, or having a balanced party. You can still finish the game, but you probably won’t find everything on the first play through.

 

10) Was there a particular theme or motif that you wanted to show through the art?

It differs in different levels. There’s a lot of wrack and ruin going on here, and a tale of how beauty and power can corrupt, turning things, people and places which were once beautiful into monstrosities.

11) Will there be alternate costumes for the characters?

You can choose your colors at the beginning of the game to help distinguish your character from other characters of the same class. And then, any equipment you equip shows up on your character in the game. So yeah, characters end up looking quite different.

 

12) What’s it like for the development team to move from working on such large projects to a smaller one like an XBLA game?

It’s fun! XBLA games are smaller in scope, so you can build them with teams that are ten or twenty people, instead of two hundred. That means everyone get a bit more of a voice than they might on some larger projects. It reminds me of the old days a bit…

 

13) Are there any plans to turn Crimson Alliance into a series?

We’d  love to! It’s up to the fans. If lots of people are excited by the game and buy it and love it, then we’ve definitely got more places and characters and stories to explore in this world!

 

14) If not, what are Certain Affinity’s plans after Crimson Alliance?

I can’t reveal too much else about what we’re working on.. Except to say that you can ALSO play our work in the Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary that is coming out later this year!

 

15) Do you have any shout-outs or special mentions?

Mad props to all the family who helped us get through the long nights, to all the friends who helped us playtest, to our buddies at Halo Waypoint and at 343, who have been so supportive of this game. And of course, peace to Ron G, Brucey B, Kid Capri, Funkmaster Flex, Lovebug Starsky… See you all online!

Jonathan Cacherat @ Streum On Studios (E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy)

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Aug 262011
 

In the wake of Gamescom, I managed to squeak some questions out of Jonathan, the project leader, lead programmer, and artistic director of E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. He shared with us his vision for the future of their game development.

1) Now that E.Y.E. has released on Steam, what’s the public reaction been like? Was it all that you had hoped for?

We expected something worse. We are very happy with the public’s reception, because we didn’t make a consensual game and it obviously makes the opinions differ. Another surprise for us was to see that the game was better acclaimed outside of France.

We also regret that the game was much more bugged than we thought.

 

2) What kind of feedback have you gotten on the game? Will there be improvements made through updates?

We had a lot of positive feedbacks concerning the gameplay, and a lot of negative feedbacks concerning the dialogues.

The first patch fixed an important amount of bugs and we also modified the game’s balance, thanks to very constructive feedbacks from the community.

We hope we’ll be able to add more powers, new maps, and a team-based PvP mode in the future.

We’re also discussing the probability of remaking the dialogues.

 

3) For a small indie release, you’ve created a game with an amazing amount of depth. Was that depth planned, or did most of it happen naturally?

We had this ambition from the beginning, while knowing that it would be very hard. But we have absolutely no regrets.

 

4) The FPS and the RPG are genres that run at very different speeds. Now that you’ve combined the two, do you feel as if you’ve achieved a good balance point?

In retrospect, we think that the RPG aspect of the game could have been more fleshed-out and better, again concerning the dialogues.

 

5) Were there any specific inspirations for the aesthetics of the artwork?

Yes absolutely, we drew a lot of inspiration from the works of Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Avalon), Katsuhiro Ōtomo (Akira), Enki Bilal, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Tsutomu Nihei’s BLAME!, paintings from  Zdzisław Beksiński and H.R. Giger.

 

6) What about for the mechanics of the gameplay?

We tried to give the player an experience similar to those found in RPG and Action-RPG games, while proposing an intense FPS experience. The gameplay relies on the complete freedom of choice for every situation approaches b-y the player, but I think the easiest thing is to play the game.

 

7) Modern stealth mechanics often balance between extremely simplistic and excessively difficult. Where does EYE stand on this?

According to player feedback, we are in the second category. And I quite agree with that.

8) Do you feel that stealth gameplay is a mechanic that needs innovation or renovation right now?

I’m going to be frank; I hate games that extremely simplify stealth. I sometimes have the feeling to play with a blind and deaf AI. So, yes, I think there should be some innovation on this aspect, especially on stopping ego-flattering the player. It should stop, and games should finally propose some real challenge. The AI really is often a neglected domain in video games. Developers should really try to infiltrate actual guarded places to have an idea of what it takes.

 

9) Can we have the scoop on your next project? What’s it going to be like?

Except saying that it may be a FPS, I can’t tell you anything else.

 

10) Where does Streum On Studios plan to be in later years?

We hope to be able to still develop games, and with a lot more resources than we currently have.

 

Once again, thank you Jonathan for all your patience and understanding. We wish you the best in later years.


Dishonored to Revolutionize The Stealth Gameplay Experience

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Aug 242011
 

Since the dawn of the RPG, I have always been fascinated by the concept of “stealth”. The characters you chose that were the thieves or assassins—these are the characters that since my early upbringing have been a fascination to almost anyone in my generation. I mean, it makes sense. A straight-up warrior isn’t as exciting as an assassin. A warrior, gladiator, knight, solider—these people can kill. They will, more often than not, kill you when they are right in front of your face. However, an assassin will do it when no one is looking. Something that exists outside the senses is something to truly be feared.

 

Open World + Tall Enemies = Trouble for an Assassin

However, the execution wasn’t always that easy. In the video games I played, there were always issues with how stealth was incorporated or executed. Most of the time, it had a good deal to do with camera perspective. In a third-person perspective, you were given a scenario something like this: you knew the limitations of your own body and your environment, but you never knew exactly what your enemies were aware of. A good example of this is something that would take place in the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series: you could be very well hidden from enemies, but for some reason they would detect you regardless of your location. Or rather, you would abuse your enemy’s “intelligence” and try to get away with hiding in places where you clearly shouldn’t. Games using this system typically resulted in a sweaty nervousness that made for a good stealth game, but never made you exactly certain of your skills as an assassin. Multiple retries were practically mandatory.

 

The other option was a first-person experience. This was a somewhat better system, as you viewed your character’s world through their eyes, and as such awareness of your environment and your enemies was determined by how much attention you yourself paid attention. However, controlling your character in first person often felt like you had no body—there were no limitations as to where you could or should move. Games like the original Deus Ex or Fallout were notorious for this—the stealth customization would become a useless character trait, as you had no idea where you existed in your enemy’s field of vision half of the time. Multiple retries not as mandatory, but still a common occurrence.

 

Gamescom has provided D&D Assassin players like me something to be excited for after all of this time. The new footage of Bethesda’s Dishonored takes the awareness of a first-person perspective and blends it with the limitations of a third-person game. How do they do this, you ask?

Peek-a-boo

They incorporate a HUD. (see: thegamershub)

 

Before you all get uppity about this, let me explain. I know very well that the HUD has been used in stealth games of the past. However, this HUD is very limited in its presentation. It only appears when you crouch: it explains whether you are still hidden or detectable at the present moment. Yes, yes, I know this is similar to the Elder Scrolls. However, if you thought that the Elder Scrolls had an impressive stealth engine, you might need to go get your eyes tested yourself.

 

If there’s been a game that has previously had this feature, feel free to correct me. I consider myself no slouch when it comes to the stealth game experience, though. Dishonored, however, is the first game I know to be dedicated entirely to its stealth mechanic, while using an open world narrative. With Skyrim behind them, I think Arkane is going to have to deliver something close to perfection.

 

OhmygodImgonnagetyouImgonnagetyou!

With any luck, it will end up having the flair and confidence of a game like Mirror’s Edge, and the deadliness and versatility of Skyrim. If not, we’ll be forever stuck imagining what it could be like to live out the life of an assassin. On the other hand, Rock Steady has their own ideas about this…

DmC Reboot: Best Thing to Happen to Dante Yet

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Aug 232011
 

When one considers the games that they have experienced in their lifetime, they are branched out in numerous directions, each title holding a significance to it that can only be unlocked through the memories you’ve shared with those games. Games and their developers can even claim relation to each other: shared influences, staff, or administrative goals link these titles together across the years in which they entertain their fans with title after title. When it comes to a developer like Capcom, many consider it like a fond but distant relative: enjoyable for a while, but if you spend more than you should with it, you tend to get aggravated at its glaring lack of perspective.

A cigarette smoker? ITS SO EDGY

Capcom is notorious for its disappointments. While the games they produce are of consistent quality and entertainment, it has been noted that each one shows a consistent progression in decreased taste and aesthetics. The marked lack of horror in the Resident Evil games is just one example of this.

 

Contrary to popular opinion, though, Capcom is not going down the gutter. They are, in fact, experiencing a new chrysalis of invention and stylistic design. Their games are in fact, getting better.

 

Give up on the whole "emo" thing. It's no worse than looking at your current wardrobe.

Case in point: the new Devil May Cry game, previewed at Gamescom, has proven that they can take an old and dying series and give it new life. Many believe that the new Devil May Cry, with its newly-designed black-haired Dante, is an instant disappointment and step in the wrong direction. However, let’s examine how the Devil May Cry series was progressing so far. There have been four installments, the first one being an instant hit, the second being not so memorable, and the third and fourth doing decently well. Each installment focused heavily on the strong thematic elements of Dante being the son of a demon who rebelled against his own kind. The swords, the guns, the coats, and the babes were always present. While the storyline could be explored, and new situations could be devised, Dante’s character was essentially flat and static. Other characters, like Virgil and Nero, were simply variations on a theme. Face it: the franchise was at a dead-end.

 

The new DmC title is nowhere close to being related to that imagery. Dante is now a tortured character, with tattered clothing, and an emotional palette that can actually move in new and interesting directions. In the meanwhile, from the footage we’ve seen, the gameplay has been smoothed out and improved, giving fans a combat system they’re both familiar with but can still explore. I’ll be the first one to call it: Capcom is in an experimental stage.

 

The thing you have to keep in mind is that there are currently no sources explaining the rationale for this new Dante. He could be an early version of the white-haired demon hunter that we know and love, recently escaped from hell and with no ideas as to begin his journey into stylish exuberance. He could be a canonical reboot. The true answer is anyone’s guess.

 

This is a truly exciting moment in Capcom’s history. From the beginning they’ve been making games of comfortable expanse, never quite testing boundaries, but staying within what’s acceptable for gamers to at least appreciate. Now, they are coming with a new approach to all of their franchises—Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City just cements this fact. You could even see this with Marvel vs. Capcom 3, when they decided to include rather eclectic characters for their DLC expansions.

 

Limbo City already features an art style different from the previous games.

All the same, I suppose most choices and opinions in life boil down to simple aesthetics and illogical groundings. However, when more light is shed on DmC, I doubt that very many people are going to hate it. They will in fact hate change, but the reality is that Capcom has needed change for quite some time now. If I had to guess, this transition period for them could prove fruitful in terms of injecting some precious life blood into some old and abused series.

Mass Effect 3 Chooses Action Over Storytelling?

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Aug 232011
 

Gamescom has in many ways, proven to be more informative and more revealing regarding the new releases of 2011than press releases that we’ve seen this year. The event gave gamers a grand collection of trailers and visual morsels to gnaw on that even its American counterpart, E3, did not provide. One of the most important things to be seen was the footage revealed on the new gameplay elements of Mass Effect 3.

The footage showcased some of the coolest and most interesting changes to the Mass Effect franchise that we’ve seen to date. Among them we saw the omniblade, the new melee system for Shepard, squad leadership abilities, and the new development trees. For all of the diehard Mass Effect fans out there, these things were an impressive sight to behold. Shepard was faster, more muscular, and more edgy than he’s ever looked before.

Everyone agrees: its a badass feature.

Collectively, action sequences like this have been gist of what EA and Bioware are willing to show us at the moment. They’ve done a fantastic job at showing that Mass Effect 3 is in fact an elegant redesign: it has more of the action and more of the classic RPG elements that were missing from both the first and the second games. These changes, when applied to the scale in which the game’s setting takes place, gives off the strong impression that most of your time playing it will be spent at the edge of your seat.

However, to this assumption I pose a counterpoint: what of the game’s dialogue and storytelling ability? Drew Karpyshyn, the writer for the Mass Effect games, has done a good job of illustrating the classic Bioware dedication to choice and consequence. What if Mass Effect 3 was a step in the opposite direction? The change seems rather minor at first, but it could potentially give us a completely different narrative experience. It’s been heavily implied that since this game is the third and final installment, all of the decisions made in the two previous games will be reaching their climax, and Shepard would be forced to deal with their consequences. However, in the wake of a war, its quite possible that Shepard will be forced to resort to dealing with these consequences with a gun and a fist.

Last Krogan mother? Bullet in the head. Rachni Queen? Bullet in the head. Ashley Williams professing her undying love for you? Bullet in the head.

Ashley Williams displaying her new Spectre skills.

People shouldn’t really solve their problems like this. And while it may present a more mainstream and monetarily successful method of making a great game, I would be saddened by the loss of character that Shepard would endure, especially since he’s spent the last two games building that reputation.

 

I digress. Let me surmise as to say that I hope that Mass Effect 3 includes as much dialogue and narrative juice as possible. My desire and my expectation probably aren’t rational at this point, but I want to be able to see fully dynamic character growth be realized at the same time as Armageddon.

There’s even more to think about than what has been provided with the trailers at Gamescom. What happened to Miranda Lawson? Granted, she was an oversexed neo-Nazi, but she remains as one of the many plot points that have yet to be explained within the Mass Effect universe. While Shepard probably won’t be providing the bullet on this one, perhaps the Illusive Man will. At the event horizon of all things dark and grim, it won’t suffice to have the emotional centers of the plot glossed over with explosions and angry voices.

It leads to the question—did Bioware bite off more than they could chew? In terms of epic sagas, three episodes are the average amount to give. However, it’s not out of the norm to extend this to a fourth or even a fifth installment. Bioware has hinted about going beyond the realms of John Shepard, and the possibilities are broad. One thing is clear—with this latest title, Bioware claims to have perfected the balance of all creative elements within their story. Only time will tell as to whether that truly is the case.

 

 

‘Xbox 720′ Needs to Never Happen

 Posted by  3 Responses »
Aug 192011
 

Riiiiight... What?!

A title can be considered many things. A title can be a summation, of content and ability. A title can be a snapshot of the bigger picture portioned away into metonymy. Titles can even be stylish. What is their purpose though? Why do they exist? While etymology is its own field of study, its sufficient to say that titles exist to inform. They exist to let us know of what is present, regardless of the presentation’s qualities or true nature.

The worst titles are the ones that have nothing to do with what is presented. These titles can be interpreted as cruel jokes–much like the bastard children of Casanova. More often than not, the circumstances in which you find a bad title are the cases in which the namer, through their own juvenile intellectual retardation, see it as humorous to create names to confuse or disorient those viewing said presentation.

I digress. As gamers, we are all drawing closer to the beginning of 2012. It’s going to be a momentous year–several AAA titles will have just been released, Intel will be announcing a new chipset (for you PC gamers out there), and above all else, the new consoles are rolling out. We might as well change the dates of Christmas so that our paychecks coordinate with the emergence of all of this powerful new technology.

The new consoles are no joke. Each and every gamer has to take console releases seriously. The next generation of consoles will define how we play our games–our social interactions, our purchases, our love lives–all of these things depend on the next console. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear any solidified details as to what Microsoft and Sony are offering, and yet rumors and vague hints run rampant among the internet.

One thing that has taken form out of this is a name. For Microsoft fans everywhere, it has seemingly become acceptable and commonplace to refer to their new console offering as the Xbox 720. Am I interpreting this correctly? Are you making a joke out of the old Microsoft console, the Xbox 360? Going so far to imply that instead of making a traditional 360 degree turn in a geometric plane, you are in fact making twice that number? My God, it’s genius.

Let’s take a look at the basic semantics of what’s being said here. Instead of the Xbox 360 going once around, its going twice. Is that supposed to imply technological advancement or innovation? Is what we are to expect from our gaming lifestyle simply another rotation of itself?

Of course you are asking, “Why do you care? It’s just a name, and a fan-made one at that.”

Frankly, it’s much more than that. Names can shape thought, conceptualization, and interpretation. Out of all the possible offerings for something as meaningful and important as successor to the Xbox 360, we were given something with twice the name and half the effort.

If this were to be an official name, I would think that Microsoft were becoming flat-out lazy. I would think that they were trying to give me a console with twice the name and half the effort. I’d also be inclined to ask as to whether Microsoft HR had fired the entirety of their copy editors.

Back in the day, the Console Revolution was important. Each time a console was released, something genuinely new and ground-shaking was being developed. The original Xbox was the first console to have a hard disk. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 were the first consoles to be viewed in high-definition. These technological achievements are taken for granted nowadays, but that doesn’t change the fact that back then, each and every word spent describing it was dripping wet with the pure significance of something special–something special.

Microsoft chose Xbox 360 for several reasons, I’m sure. However, I’m fairly positive that by choosing that name they wanted to claim that they had gone full circle, and as result reached a higher level of existence–a higher level of sophisticated entertainment that they were about to share with us all.

The “Xbox 720″, as it is so brusquely referred to, is a deceit unto itself. It is a pustule, swollen and inflamed off of the idiocy of those that don’t understand the use of eloquence and decided to name something as a joke. Apparently Casanova’s children were born with something left over, as well.

It’s a sad thing, really. The name has become integrated into the stream of information surrounding the latest console releases, and I’d go so far as to say that it’s hindering what we are expecting of it. When you see the words Xbox 720, it’s not anything to be excited over. It’s simply another rumor, another machination of the fan’s whimsy and desire.

At the very least, Microsoft should name its successor. Such an act would change the shape of expectations, and change the fundamental form of what aesthetics were to come.

Put more practically, they could certainly choose something more pleasing to the ear. So many futuristic sounding terms start with the letter X these days, they’d damn well not waste their ingenuity as something as pitiful as a simple manipulation of arithmetic.

 

Interview with Nathan Fouts @ Mommy’s Best Games

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Aug 152011
 

I had the honor and the pleasure of sitting down with Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best Games recently to discuss his new title, Serious Sam: Double D. Officially licensed by Croteam, the title is shaping up to be a beautiful combination of violence and absurdism. Here Nathan shares his knowledge about why Double D is the best of the original 2001 title and more.

1) So, let’s start with Mommy’s Best Games. How did you come into this world? Was there always homemade pie?

Then there was a great, shining pie on the horizon which warmed the world. Then there were 2D sprites to worship this pie. And shortly thereafter, sweet, tightly controlled gameplay came to follow. I think all of this happened around 2007, but I’d have to check the stone tablets to be certain.

The corpse pile.

2) What were your goals for game development? Did you have a clear vision in mind?

I like to take existing genres and sub-genres and build upon those. See Death-brushing in our first game Weapon of Choice on XBLIG and the ship system in our second game Shoot 1UP.

 

3) Did you ever expect to get the chance to work on something like Serious Sam?

Nope! It was like a dream come true but a dream I’d never had. I’d played a lot of Serious Sam when it was first released on the PC back in 2001. I’d even followed stories about it on Old Man Murray. But to have Devolver Digital (publisher for Croteam) contact us and say they’d like a crazy side-scroller version was amazing!

 

4) Double D exists in a grey region in terms of genre. How do you feel about smaller licensed-games based off of popular franchises?

I think it’s very cool as long as they can tap into something interesting and different that the mother-version of the game did not explore. Wayforward Tech does a great job with this. Their new Alien Infestation looks awesome.

For Mommy’s Best Games, we added to Serious Sam Double D with the Gun Stacker system.

5) Did you choose the side-scrolling shooter for any particular reason?

It’s my favorite and most comfortable genre. I think there’s plenty of interesting things to do and create within it.

 

6) I am, to this day, a massive Metal Slug fan. What kind of games influenced you for this one?

Metal Slug is definitely great! The sprite art and animation to this day are still stunning. Some other games that influence me are Ranger X, Granada, Gaiares, Actraiser, Contra Hard Corps, Bangai-O, and Sin and Punishment.

 

7) Would you say that the Gun Stacker is the crowning feature of Double D?

Yes, the ability to interactively stack your weapons as you see fit, customizing this giant pile of guns based on the action ahead is extremely handy. The screen is a button tap away, you can reconfigure the guns anytime you like up to 6 guns high, and can create multiple stacks.

 

I’ll say though that the jump pad in the game is very cool too. I’ve never seen it before–the character can at anytime throw a constantly-replenished jump pad down, stick it to anything and launch the player or enemies into the air. It even reflects bullets!

STACK EM.

8) Could you explain the thought process that went behind developing it?

The Gun Stacker was a way for me to address the existing weapons in the game, and not throw everything away, alienating the large base of existing Sam fans. The system was much simpler originally too.

At first it was just an option “have all guns stacked up” or “use each gun individually”. But happily it evolved. Once we decided to let the player find and collect up to 4 guns of each type (there’s 4 shotguns hidden around the game, 4 laser guns, etc), things got really interesting.

We made the editing screen, and soon you had 32 possible guns to reconfigure.

 

9) All of the MBG games have a very unique art style. Do you think your art style worked well for Sam?

Yes, I like the gritty, over bright colors and style. I think Serious Sam games benefit from intense colors as it adds to the surreal feeling of the game.

 

10) Any comments on the plethora of unique and bizarre giant monster bosses spread throughout the game?

I had a lot of fun making up new enemies—nearly 20 new weirdo creatures! I think some of the best are the Vuvuzelator, an evil stack of pancakes with vuvuzelas sticking from beneath the pancake layers and the Chimputee, which is an amputated chimpanzee with a grenade launcher, battle axe, and jetpacks attached to his limbs.

We also created a boss that is the pet of Mental (the main Sam bad guy). The creature is a massive, 6-legged mutant hamster. He’s cute but terrifying all in one.

 

What is this I don't even

11) Did Croteam give you a lot of leeway in the development process?

Croteam’s been a dream to work with, they’ve got this amazing IP and have been really nice and open to how we expand on it for Double D.

 

12) Are there any plans to make more indie games based off of other franchises?

For MBG we’re open to it, but we have our own games in mind after this.

 

13) What are your other future projects looking like at this point in time?

We have several games going after Serious Sam Double D in wraps.

 

14) You’ve had an insane amount of experience when it comes to developing games. How have those experiences lended themselves in your creations?

The game development experience definitely makes creating games a lot faster and smoother. We don’t often have more than 1 or 2 programmers working on any game and we’re able to ship things within a year most of the time.

 

15) Having worked for both publishers and independently, which do you ultimately prefer? Will you ever go back to the mainstream?

I don’t plan to go back to mainstream if I don’t have to. Unless some group like Rockstar gets the Contra license and promises to stick with sprite art.

 

16) Have any special mentions or shout-outs that you’d like to include?

We run a sister site called 8 Bit Horse which is the premiere place on the web for 2D console games. 8BH maintains a ‘2D Radar’ page filled to the brim with tons of console games in development, give it a look!

 

Once again Nathan, thank you for your time, your patience, and the awesome games.

Ninja Gaiden 3 Should be Forced Back into the Shadows

 Posted by  5 Responses »
Aug 102011
 

In 2004 I witnessed everything that I ever desired from the action platformer. Ninja Gaiden was critically reviewed by major game critics everywhere as the some of the best Xbox software available at the time. My skewed fanboy bias loved Itagaki for his rambunctious, daring personality, and his ability to create amazing ninja games—ninja games that made it okay for almost everyone to like ninjas.

I'd imagine that there would be some entrails falling out right now.

It’s now 2011, and I’ve seen Black, Sigma, Dragon Sword, Ninja Gaiden 2, and several Dead or Alive games. Tobonomu Itagaki has officially left Team Ninja, and Yosuke Hayashi has taken over. These things don’t seem right, and yet myself and fans included are forced to feel excited for something that’s going to be called Ninja Gaiden 3. The thing is, this isn’t supposed to feel right. This is wrong. This is not Ninja Gaiden.

Will Ryu Hayabusa be there? Oh yes, of course he will. He even features some new demonic power ups, a new move list, and some otherwise unique new gameplay features that logically would make for steps in the right direction for a great series. However, what’s at stake is the essence of what Itagaki and Ryu Hayabusa once stood for: challenging, gory action delivered through the hands of a lightning-fast assassin.

A lot of a fans believe ninjas should be able to strike from the shadows without being detected, and dissolve back into them as if they were never there. This is a reasonable expectation. So, for those expecting to see that in Ninja Gaiden 3, you’re in luck. It will now feature stealth gameplay, which will allow you to eliminate enemies without being detected. Something is missing from that picture, though.

Hosukai's Climber.

Put bluntly, what’s missing is the dismemberment. Even if your character removed an opponent’s head from the shadows, wouldn’t there be physical evidence of the assassination? Or would your ninja take the time to remove it, bring out a mop and bucket, and wipe the floors down? Sadly, Ninja Gaiden 3 will no longer feature the timeless dismemberment and decapitation. This in itself is perhaps enough to change the game from something that it once was. The 2004 remake for the Xbox was infamous for the amounts of violence it produced—either through the Flying Swallow, or through Ryu’s use of the Vigoorian Blades. Ryu never killed silently, but he fit into the more modern conception of what a ninja is supposed to be—stylish and deadly. I have the personal opinion that the Western conception of the ninja stands something more along the lines of an efficient killer practiced in the art of stealth. This efficiency is so prominent that killing becomes an art, an enjoyment, or even fun. In a gamer’s mind, this is just plain cool.

Now, Ryu’s sword can become lodged in the bone of his enemies. No. This is false. This is a sin. I realize that I’m playing off of stereotypes, but a ninja’s sword would never be this clumsy. It’s supposed to be so fast that you don’t even see it. It’s supposed to be powerful, and imbued with ancient magics that make it so that it never dulls or loses its sheen.

Team Ninja has taken the Ryu Hayabusa that everyone loved and traded it for something different. This Ryu Hayabusa is in many ways more realistic—I suppose a unified movement towards more realistic gameplay is something that most publishers are looking for these days. Ninja Gaiden never needed realism though. It was about ninjas. That, and it was f@{&ing hard. If you had to worry about your sword getting stuck in someone’s forehead back in the first game, while shock troopers were firing submachine guns at you from all directions, you would have returned the game. It would simply be that impossible. To top it all off, the original series was realistic enough to show that heads would fly when swords are taken to them.

Now, if Team Ninja wanted to create an ideal sequel to the series, they should have merged both elements. And while they’re at it, bring back the Flying Swallow. Better yet, bring back the decapitations. Make Ryu Hayabusa who he should be in his true form: a deadly assassin, in the most surreal sense possible.

Thermaltake eSPORTS – Challenger: Ultimate Review

 Posted by  1 Response »
Aug 102011
 

Thermaltake has long been a standard for quality computer cases and heatsinks for PC gamers in the market. They know their cooling—products like the Level 10 GT and the Frio are just more recent examples of their success. Now, I’ll have a chance to review something I’m rather new to: Thermaltake’s eSPORTS series, or their line of gaming peripherals.

Perhaps I’m a tad late to the game as to when they started making these peripherals, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’m thoroughly impressed. They’ve developed a model for keyboard, mouse, and headset, with each model having three variants depending on the kind of features you desire.

Clean, and not to in-your-face.

I was provided with the flagship model, the Challenger Ultimate. We’ll do a breakdown of what’s offered below.

The board touts a fairly complete package—everything that a hardcore gamer would expect on their board these days. It includes fourteen programmable macro keys, five customizable profiles, backlighting in up to 256 variations, hot swap WASD and directional keys, and most interesting of all—a hand fan. To top it all off, it follows with a matte finish.

I was impressed with all that it had to offer. What I first noticed was the matte finish—my preferred keyboard texture. It doesn’t make much of a difference, but a bias can go a long way. With the matte finish, I didn’t have to worry about the finger marks that some of my older keyboards had. That and the finish seemingly cut down on the oil that collected on the buttons. The buttons had a small sound footprint, so there was no major clack-clackity-clack when I decided to give it for a typing test run. Some people enjoy the sounds of the noise, but minimal noise sounds distinctly more modern in my opinion.

The smaller features were nice multipurpose treats—the braided usb cables for more durability, the rubberized mounts on the bottom of the board—all of these things stood in the board’s favor. Everything was seemingly responsive, and that included all of the multimedia keys. It had somewhat of a smaller form factor, but the adjustment was made rather easily to counteract my large and clumsy hands.

Surprisingly effective.

Much to my surprise, the hand fan made a difference. It’s not a silly feature at all, even though you think it would be. It looks a tad tacky standing off on the side, but all things considered, it kept my hand cool during my most frustrating hours of The Witcher 2, which is more than I can ask for.

All in all, the board is designed for comfort. It has sleek, smooth lines, and soft beveled edges. It retains somewhat of the aggressive gamer appeal through the bright red coloring and some sharp angles, but overall it pleases, with a satisfying smile.

Programming macros usually is the sign of a serious gamer.

My true frustration came when dealing with the drivers of the board. Fortunately, dealing with keyboard drivers is not something I do often, so I was patient. The software package essentially enables you to modify the backlighting, turn of the Thermaltake lighting symbol, and program your macro keys. After installation, I booted up only to realize that it had a rather long load time. Continuing on, I noticed that once a color choice for the keyboard was selected, it had to be saved, and then uploaded again for the changes to stick. Programming macro keys yielded a process similar to this. However, the macro programming is surprisingly versatile—even allowing for recording button presses for as small as a tenth of a second. The test for this was DC Universe Online—which is rather difficult to program macros for considering the timing of the mouse click combat system.  With fourteen macro keys and five available profiles, you have quite a number of permutations to game with. Its standard fare on keyboards these days, but nonetheless impressive.

Unfortunately you can’t change the color of the backlit Thermaltake logo, but you can opt to simply turn it off. It didn’t matter to me either way, so eventually I settled for white and red.

I appreciated everything that the Challenger Ultimate had to offer. The hardware is soundly built and well-designed. The drivers, while sluggish and awkward at times, are manageable if you approach them with some common sense.

For a high-end gaming keyboard, I give the Thermaltake Challenger Ultimate a 4.7 out of 5. It has the specs that gamers need, with solid functionality. I’d definitely spreading the word on this one.

Pros

  • Hand fan!
  • Versatile macros
  • Lots of colors
  • Good feel, solid design
Cons
  • Clumsy drivers

Interview with Joe Olson @ Fuelcell Games

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Aug 092011
 

As everyone should know, the developer and artist behind the amazing game, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, were Michel Gagne and Joe Olson. I had a chance to ask Joe a few questions about the meaningfulness of the project overall, and what it takes to create such a quality indie work in a modern gaming market.

 

1) Let’s start things off on a good note. How do you feel about all the positive feedback and attention that you’ve gotten for the game?

JO:  It’s been a pretty awesome experience.  I’ve worked on many games over the course of my career but this is certainly different as it’s my companies first product.  Getting included in Summer of Arcade was an honor and the positive feedback from the gaming community has really been great.

 

2) Both of you have had rather prolific careers as animators and developers before this collaboration. What was it like when you first started sharing ideas for the project?

JO:  From the get-go I’ve known that this project would be one of a kind and something unique and special.  It was tough to get publishers to feel the same way at first, but thanks to our persistence we finally completed it and it’s great to have it out in the public’s hands.

3) Would you say that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet’s presentation plays a strong role in its gameplay experience?

JO:  I think the presentation and gameplay compliment each other.  Throughout production there was a lot of collaboration and back and forth on both the visuals and the gameplay.  In some cases, the visuals inspired the gameplay choices, and in other cases the roles were reversed.

 

4) If you had to remove the presentation elements from the title, what gameplay features would you seek to reinforce?

JO:  The game was always about exploration and encouraging the player to experiment with their environment.  We also wanted to make the experience smooth and rewarding.

 

5) Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is an incredibly animated world. Tentacles are swaying, gears are turning, not to mention the piloting of your own spacecraft. How did you take into consideration all those issues of movement?

JO:  This was always one of the most important aspects of the project from both a visual and gameplay standpoint.  Michel’s work is always so alive and full of interesting little details.  We had to create some custom tech for the game in order to achieve some of the fluid movement that we just couldn’t get with traditional bone animation.

 

5) Was there an overall goal when it came to choosing an aesthetic principle for the game? 

JO:  The goal was to put the player inside an interactive feature quality animated film.  This informed a lot of the design decisions along the way, including the UI (or lack thereof).  We took great pains to keep the screen clean and uncluttered with mini-maps, help text, and health bars.

6) Your title is a work of art. What would you say your major inspirations were?

JO:  The major inspiration on the visual side was Michel’s incredible body of work, but most specifically a series of animated short films called Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets that he created for Nickelodeon in 2005.  On the gameplay side, we are inspired by the 8bit games of our youth and wanted to bring back that experience to young and old gamers alike.

 

7) 2D side-scrollers have been a popular genre for indie developers to work with throughout the years. What personal significance does the genre hold for you?

JO:  The 2D 8bit games I played as a kid heavily influenced the career I chose in the game industry.  The Legend of Zelda, Contra, R-Type, MegaMan, Ghosts N Goblins…These are the games that made a lasting impression on me.

 

8) What’s it like to be coined as an “indie” developer? Are there different mindsets or expectations as to the kind of results that your efforts will yield?

JO:   It’s a great time to be an indie developer.  With so many avenues and platforms available to help get your product to the masses it’s no wonder there has been an explosion of unique and innovative games in the past 5 years.  I hope that we’ll see this only increase in the years to come.

 

9) Do you still play games in your free time? What titles?

JO:  I thoroughly enjoy the Professor Layton games, as well as just about anything Valve creates – especially the Portal games.

 

10) Overall, was working on ITSP as enjoyable as it was rewarding?

JO:  Absolutely, this has been the single best experience in my long-ish career in the games industry

11) Do you have any plans for further collaborations?

JO:  We have some DLC for Shadow Planet in the works, and some other ideas we’ve been kicking around for the past few years.  If Shadow Planet is a big enough success we may explore the universe further on another platform or device, but we’ll just have to wait and see!

 

12) Do you have any shout-outs or special mentions that you would like to include? 

JO:  Definitely HAVE to give props to the team here at Fuelcell.  This was a labor of love and a lot of free time and sleep was sacraficed to get the quality to the level we wanted it in the short amount of time we had.  With their hard work and passion it would have not been possible.

 

Once again, thank you Joe for all of the time and patience you have showed us here at Gaming Irresponsibly.

Why Lionhead Studios Should Just Stop the Fable Series

 Posted by  4 Responses »
Aug 092011
 

The man himself.

Peter Molyneux seems to be uncannily good at getting a mixed impression from the press, regardless of what he tries to do. Oh wait, there’s a problem with that statement—he’s only been trying to do one thing for the past seven years now. The Fable series started in the Golden Age of the Xbox—it was one of those great RPGS that we saw in 2004 that sprung into success through the popularization of decision-consequence gameplay in open world environments.

Players saw Fable II in 2008, and Fable III in 2010. Each time these titles received generally positive, but not overwhelming reviews. Each time I played the title, I lost a little bit more of what it really meant be a hero living in Albion. With the E3 release of Fable: The Journey, I finally understand why I’ve been losing it.

In essence, Peter Molyneux has been slowly inverting what it means to be a hero. In the first title, you were given a character that, while normal, had enormous untapped potential through his bloodline. The bloodline was what made him special. It’s what made Fable appealing—knowing that you had a focused narrative on your own character’s uniqueness. With each successive Fable release, I saw new developments progressively dilute the meaningfulness of the Hero.

One good example of this was the introduction of newer technology into the world of Albion as time moved forward in the series. This registered with me on a personal level: the introduction of guns and machinery made everything a little more average, a little less special, and a lot less fantasy than what I originally associated the Fable series with. I understand that in the fantasy genre, settings can range from any number of time periods—but the magic of the series was best stored and featured by the first title.

I realize that many of the things that I’m saying make me sound like some form of purist. That is not my goal, but rather to capitalize on the appeal of singular heroism to the human ego. What’s true of many instances of fantasy fiction is that the protagonist is often specialized to meet the odds that they face. With the removal of the bloodlines in Fable: The Journey, all which once made the series special is now lost.

So where does this guy fit in?

The game again seeks to take heroes that are normal and turn them into something greater than they are. However, the premise is different now, as your character has nothing special to prepare him for the dark challenges he will face in the fantasy world. He has a cart. And a horse. You might ask, is he fighting the evil of Albion in any way? Yes, he is, but a good portion of the game is spent traveling—“The Journey”—in your cart. With your horse. This is quite possibly the least heroic thing I’ve ever seen.

By normalizing the role of the hero in this way, Peter Molyneux is effectively taking the same approach that most developers do with MMOs. The attitude is, “Why have just one hero, when you can be a hero with your friends! In our game, you have a huge vast world with endless possibilities!” Except, in this instance, you have no friends. You are alone. In a cart. Whipping your horse.

Molyneux featured Theresa—the seemingly immortal sister of the original hero of Albion that has been featured in all three games—but her presence would imply something far more peripheral than, forgive me for the usage of this phrase—fantastically believable. We understand that the game is about making heroes now, but doesn’t that make Theresa a bit useless now? Wasn’t she the prophet and mentor for all those that should follow in the wakes of her brother’s steps?

To wrap it all up, Molyneux has put the title on Kinect. I understand the drive to make Kinect titles more appealing to the hardcore gaming audience, but this will not do. There is simply nothing about WHIPPING YOUR HORSE appeals to the hardcore gamer.

In the days of Homer, our heroes faced great obstacles and experienced great tragedy. Now, they move from point A to point B in order to complete their tasks. I understand that the principle establishment of transportation is often difficult in plot drafting, but…

7 Games Predicted for Best in Class for 2011

 Posted by  4 Responses »
Aug 092011
 

This list is constructed in terms of anticipation. Yes, that’s right! I’m subjectively preying off of what you want to see at the bottom of this list! Do yourself a favor: scroll slowly… slower… slower. Yes, that’s good. You’ll enjoy it that much more.

Sports: Madden 12

Everyone knew this was going to take the cake (At least in the US)! The game is chocked full of new plays, new ball physics, and something more impressive than the rest: character traits. The character traits give fans a little bit of what they know, love, and hate about each team. These traits will stick with the character throughout each game, and have a determinable influence on the outcome of each play. In turn, the consequences of those plays will be recorded in Franchise Mode, which tracks the stats of the player in a dynamic readout. With sports games, I make a point to judge the video game separately from the game itself—this is one instance where the video game might actually be better.

Runner Up: FIFA 12

Horror: Amnesia: The Dark Descent

This title had a delayed US release—but it was worth the wait. It was one of the few games that universally redefined the substance of the horror game for players. The thing about horror is, I really shouldn’t talk about it, because it dulls the experience. However, in essence, Amnesia: The Dark Descent isn’t anything that you would expect from a standard horror trope. It disarms you of your ability to fight back at the madness that’s invading your world. That, in many ways, is the definition of terror.

Runner Up: Silent Hill: Downpour

Racing: Forza Motorsport 4

The Forza series has long been regarded as Microsoft’s standard of realistic simulation racing. Now, with Forza Motorsport 4, improved physics and showroom features not only try to mimic the realities of racing, but expose you to racing culture as a whole. The game highlights its vast list of cars available (somewhere around 500), the detailed specifications for each individual machine, and the voice of Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear fame) to provide witty commentary. To top it all off, Kinect support adds an additional layer of interactivity with the finely tuned automobiles.

Runner Up: Dirt 3

MMO: Star Wars: The Old Republic

MMO’s have gotten comfortable with the standard affair of classes and large open-world environments. While cutting it a tad close with a release date close to the end of the year, The Old Republic still gets the gold for offering an enriched Star Wars canon to its fans, and decision-based gameplay to RPG-lovers alike. Dynamic events called Flashpoints punctuate the player campaigns; companions will accompany you in your own personal starships. Perhaps the standard classes for MMO are a loose fit for Star Wars canon, but they’ve adapted them quite well in this instance.

Runner Up: Rift

Action: Arkham City

Everyone has been awaiting Rocksteady’s superbly hyped sequel to Arkham Asylum. New character designs have slowly been making their way to the web, with a rather full cast of characters: Hugo Strange, Catwoman, Robin, Talia al Ghul, the Penguin, and Solomon Grundy. UK preorders have also been racking up due to the existence of alternative costumes for the Dark Knight.  Arkham City, the fully-enforced police state of the Mayor , serves as the stage for the Dark Knight to serve justice.

Runner Up: Uncharted 3/Assassins Creed: Revelations

RPG: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Perhaps the largest open-world RPG of the year, Skyrim features a 30 hour long main quest, 150 dungeons, and mountains that you actually have to climb in order to reach the top. The game features a unique dual-wielding system, a remapped and highly-detailed inventory system, and a slick UI. The story is now guided and focused as well—players will no longer spend hundreds of hours exploring before completing the main quest. Well, hopefully they won’t. Last but not least, the game features Dragons and other monsters of incredible dimension. The Dragons are key to the backbone of the story—they are the biological root of your characters past. Combined with a reworked game engine, Skyrim looks beautiful, and its vibrant scaled creations are, too.

Runner Up:  Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings/Deus Ex: Human Revolution

FPS: Battlefield 3

In terms of sheer hype, there’s been no greater title this year. People have ranted and raved, cursed and swore, and still they love Battlefield 3. The game has set a new standard of excellence in terms of visual gameplay: using Frostbite 2 engine, everything looks superb. For the most part, though, DICE follows the principle of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. The game remains at its core similar to Bad Company 2, with the addition of expanded multiplayer classes and other detailing tweaks. For the multiplayer FPS gamer, you can’t go wrong.

Runner Up: Gears of War 3/Rage

The Witcher 3 Could Beat Bethesda’s Best Offerings

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Aug 082011
 

Disclaimer: this article is intended as a medium to exchange thoughts and ideas on the current state of CD Projekt RED’s Witcher trilogy. The information included in this article is in no way factual.

In May, CD Projekt RED gave us The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. It was beautiful. It was dynamic. It was a complete reimagining of what fantasy RPGs should be like. But above all, it was a setup for a sequel. The game featured sixteen endings, and all of them left fans with a slightly bitter taste in the mouth: this was the bitter taste of the unknowing future.

The first of a precursor series.

In all honesty, the game was rather difficult, especially in the initial chapters. However, once it picked up momentum, it blossomed into a beautiful balance of aesthetic and gameplay elements that was hard to surpass. What was more difficult though, was trying to understand the political and social ramifications of the choices that you made throughout the story. Players knew that they had to choose between two individuals to accompany you through the gameplay: Roche and Iorveth. What they might not have known were all of the affiliations, alliances, and histories involved with Andrzej Sapjowski’s epic Blood of the Elves Saga. This is the series that serves as a precursor to all of the events that occurred in the two games thus far.

*SPOILERS*

Let’s take a crash course: in the second game, a kingkiller named Letho was secretly hired by the Southern kingdom of Nilfgaard to assassinate the kings of the North. To do this, Letho uses the secret council of advisor sorceresses known as the Lodge, and Iorveth’s Scoia’tael elf units to assassinate the kings of Temeria and Aedirn (two of the Northern kingdoms). What ensues is a political scramble for control of the Pontar Valley—the Aedernian-owned center of the Northern Kingdoms—by all of the other political spheres. Geralt, trying to hunt Letho down for framing him for the assassination of the Temerian King Foltest, must uncover all of these secrets by himself, while still trying to regain his memory that was missing from the beginning of the first game. Through his experiences and Letho’s eventual help, he discovers that he was looking for his lost love, Yennefer, by looking for the Wild Hunt—the elven spectres from a parallel world that had kidnapped her.

See? Now, apart from a neckbeard or a serious fanboy, who would bother learning all of that? It’s a ridiculous amount of information to process. This is only worsened by the fact that the Witcher novels have not entirely been translated into English. As of right now, there is only one available from the Blood of the Elves saga, and there are five in all in the original Polish.

However, all of this strangely ends up being to CD Projekt RED’s credit. By presenting fans with a dense and layered story with multiple avenues of exploration, they’ve created an expansive narrative that outdoes many of the nonlinear RPGS we have today. In the 2011 year, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings stands out as the best storytelling experience from any RPG publisher, Bethesda Softworks included.

Now, will CD Projekt’s titles beat out Skyrim? I’m guessing that in many cases it will. As it stands, Skyrim is one of the most hyped games of the year. Bethesda has reworked most of their engine, their environments, their gameplay, and the narrative to create a compelling case for RPG GOTY. They will undoubtedly win that award this year.

Will his love become requited?

The Witcher 3, however, will win in the long run. In terms of story, fans will have to address many unsolved plot elements, including: whether Yennefer is an antagonist working for the Nilfgaardian empire, whether Geralt will choose Yennefer or Triss to be his love, how the Northern Kingdoms will stand against the Nilfgaard in their third war thus far, the fate of Iorveth and the remaining members of the Lodge of Sorceresses, and many more. Combined with the Polish devs’ approach to morally-ambiguous decision-based gameplay, the story could be the most satisfying and emotionally-riveting thing gamers have seen since Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic.

This isn’t even including the combat and other gameplay RPG mechanics. In the first Witcher game, players were given a very strict and rigid development and leveling system matched with a very bizarre timing-based combat system. Both were still loved by fans, but it prompted RED to adapt these two systems to be more streamlined and synchronized. The Witcher 2 featured more practical skill trees and some elaborate hack-and-slash combat. The Witcher 3 is the perfect opportunity to blend both of those together, to bring back the advanced leveling of the old game while incorporating the combat of the second.

What’s best to consider is that players won’t ever be lost within the depth of their own open world. Bethesda titles are known to create gamers that don’t complete their main quests, and instead spend endless hours exploring. CD Projekt RED knew their limitations well—they created a vast world without ever making it too vast. With the Witcher 3, everyone should expect to see the same balance of focused drive and exploration elements. Furthermore, with the established tendency to import saves to help impact the decision engine, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the weapons and armor you spent hours collecting, and the character abilities you took the time to plan out, made an appearance again.

It’s the most promising set up I’ve seen in years, and there hasn’t even been any information leaked so far. Speculation will only serve to increase the game’s popularity with time.

Interview- Bill Stiernberg @ Zeboyd Games

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Aug 022011
 

I got the chance to sit down with Bill Stiernberg of Zeboyd and discuss what it means to utilize Cthulhu in a creative work. Through his terrible power, we both arrived at a place of inner solace and self-reflection… and how Cthulhu Saves the World has impacted the world today.

 

 

1) So let’s talk Cthulhu. What do you think the fascination is? Personally? What about the rest of the world?

Well, the main thing is that Cthulhu and the mythos around it is just really cool and really unique.  It’s a cross between sci-fi and horror, but the settings and themes are more unique than typical horror or sci-fi.  He’s an alien squid-man-dragon monster that drives people insane, what’s not to love?

 

2) A little more philosophically: what is it about a unaminable tentacled God of wickedness that makes for such great jokes? (You don’t have to answer this one)

The great thing about Cthulhu is that he’s so incredibly horrifying, both conceptually and in the original mythos.  The more horrifying and terrible it is, the more fun and entertaining it is to see him running around towns, talking to people and boasting a huge ego as he is forced to do good deeds so that he can finally wreck havoc once again.

 

3) Your games reveal a strong reverance to the JRPGs of old. What significance do they hold to you?

For me and for Robert, the designer and programmer of Zeboyd, JRPGs are a genre we grew up with.  We have fond memories of games like Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) on the NES, and there’s a special nostalgic place in our minds for that sort of game style.  Robert and I had seperately played the game “Retro Game Challenge” on the Nintendo DS back when it came out, and seeing Guadia Quest really sort of spiked that nostalgic factor in both of us.  When we started working together as Zeboyd Games, we wanted to take the concept and presentation of a retro RPG and give it some interesting new gameplay mechanics.  They don’t really make games like this any more, but we do not believe we are alone in wanting to see more in this retro style.

 

4) Can you list any titles that Cthulhu Saves the World drew from?

As far as inspiration, obviously Guadia Quest is what really motivated us to start working on a retro style RPG.  As far as inspiration, the biggest one is Dragon Quest in terms of basic style and presentation.  We were also inspired in part by Earthbound, which is a funny game, but also maintains really fun gameplay mechanics.  Some other games that inspired various concepts in CSTW include Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star, Okage: Shadow King, and Brave Story.

 

 

5) At the same time, they show a certain comical irreverance. What’s the reason behind that?

Robert Boyd is a great writer when it comes to humor.  It’s his style and it’s what he likes to do.  Douglas Adams is one of Robert’s favorite authors, and he draws a lot of inspiration from that.  As far gameplay and presentation, we think it fits well as well with the retro theme.  We’re taking old formulas and remixing them with our own new ideas, and so it is fun to kind of refer to those games and works that inspired us.  We also kind of hope that it shows through our game to the player that we have a lot of respect for the old games, and for the source material behind CSTW, and that we enjoyed making a fun, lighthearted game with it.

 

6) What do you suspect was the difference regarding your sales between XBLA and Steam?

Well for one, the PC market in general is vastly larger than the Indie section of the Xbox Live Marketplace.  We can also say that Valve does a great job of supporting independent developers.  Our games received the same treatment on Steam as any other, on the same new release panels and scrolling banners as any other game.  Valve is also a team that is highly organized and they seem to be very capable at understanding the market of Steam gamers.  The Indie section of Xbox Live Arcade, however, is sort of buried beneath a slew of dashboard panels, and Indie games are rarely highlighted by Microsoft.  In a way it is understandable, as MS’s main focus in the marketplace is its Arcade games.  XBLIG is still a great platform to learn with and start with, and the XNA community could not be more awesome.  We’ll continue to support Xblig in the foreseeable future as we also have many fans who prefer to play on the console rather than the PC.  We can’t thank those gamers who venture into the Indie section of the Dashboard enough, as we all know it can be a bit tricky to find the gems there.

 

7) In terms of gameplay, what concepts do you feel should be emphasized over others?

As far as our own two RPGs, there are a few concepts we wanted to emphasize in the genre.  For one, we wanted these games to move quickly.  Many people get burned out on slow, grind-heavy RPGs that last upwards of 40 hours.  What we wanted to do was provide a game with fast gameplay, fast battles, and frequent level-ups.  We wanted to constantly be providing the player with something fresh, be it a story sequence, a new character, or a level-up option, or optional dungeon.  We also wanted to keep the game length long enough to provide value but not so long as to drag on.  We also wanted to try and design the games to be initially accessible, but with a gradual increase in depth.  So those factors, quick rewarding gameplay and accessible depth were our main focus.

 

8) The last time I saw an insanity gameplay engine was in Eternal Darkness. Can you explain what the thought process was behind incorporating that?

Well it was clear to our team that we needed to incorporate the insanity concept into a game that starred Cthulhu!  The concept was originally extremely complex, but ultimately we wanted to use Insanity as a way to give the battles another risk versus reward mechanic.  An insane enemy is more dangerous offensively, but also weaker defensively.  Cthulhu also gains certain buffs when enemies are insane, as a way to mix up the battles.  So we wanted to let the player choose his equipment, or level up options, or attacks in battle, based in part around how dangerous the enemies might become versus how effective their own attacks or stats may be.

 

 

9) If you had to make any significant changes in an upcoming release, what would they be?

Well our next game is going to be significantly different from our two current games.  We want to keep things fresh for our next game.  However, if we were to do another in the same style as CSTW, we would probably make the dungeons slightly more straightforward, and employ some type of game mechanic to streamline dungeon exploration.  The game we’re working on next will employ a new style of battle system with new mechanics, and we are working with a new type of dungeon design.

 

10) As independent developers, do you feel as if there is a variability to the reaction you can receive?

Yes, there is a lot of variability depending on the person.  The overall market of gamers is huge, and there are many different tastes and opinions on games.  We know that our own games are in a somewhat niche genre, so we don’t expect these to be everyone’s cup of tea.  But yes, everything from mechanics to style, the reactions can vary a lot.  Some people enjoy the pixelated retro look, while others simply find the blocky pixels too outdated for their tastes.  For gameplay, some people simply don’t enjoy turn-based action or random encounters; while we tried to reduce some of the traditional headaches involved with these by limiting encounters and speeding up combat, some people just don’t enjoy the basic premise.  As far as the humor in our games, well humor is very subjective and some people find it hilarious while others don’t.  Ultimately we’re in an industry where games can go from simple 2D affairs to great big high production value 3D games, so expectations can vary a lot.

 

11) Is there any way to turn that variability to your favor?

Well, in a way we have tried to take the sort of humble presentation of our game and have fun with it.  There are some jokes in our games’ writing that is sort of self-referential about how it’s not a huge, mega budget blockbuster and we know it.  Hopefully people who do play our games see the humor in that.

 

12) Any chance we can get the scoop on the next upcoming title? Please? 

Unfortunately I can’t reveal any details about the next game yet!  But we should be announcing the new game in a few weeks, so stay tuned.

 

13) If not, will the next project be as hilarious as the last?

Our next game will definitely be humorous, and we certainly hope people enjoy it as much as many have enjoyed Cthulhu Saves the World.

 

14) Do you have any shout-outs or special mentions that you would like to include?

We just want to thank everyone who has ventured into the Xbox Indie section or tried our games out on the PC, and those who contributed to the Kickstarter!  Our development team wouldn’t be where we are today if not for them.

 

Once again, thank you Bill for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer these questions.

Interview – Ed McMillen @ Team Meat

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Aug 022011
 

Recently we sat down with Team Meat’s Ed McMillen to discuss his new project, The Binding of Isaac. McMillen is an honest and unique individual–his work clearly demonstrates this. For The Binding of Isaac, we got exactly what we hoped for: honest, but raw answers that reveal the creative genius behind the man. 

The Binding of Isaac tells the story of a mother wishing to kill her child. Fleeing in terror, the child runs to the basement of his house. Once in the basement, he discovers quite a few unexpected things, but also the keys to overcoming his murderous matriarch.

Such a sad little child.

1) It seems you’ve gone a little biblical with your latest inspiration. Can you explain the story behind this?

I collect Christian “extremist” memorabilia… I have a bit of a love hate relationship with it, I hate them but I love and appreciate the mount of crazy that goes along with it. I actually have a huge collection of Jack Chick comics (ever one must read this chick.com) and have recently been obsessed with christian video propaganda from the 80′s. The Christian Right directly attacked anything they viewed as pagan as evil throughout the 80′s and rumors about satanic cults sacrificing babies to the devil became news all around the world… though none turned out to be true. Stuff like this really fascinated me.

I grew up Catholic and went through 7 years of catechism, the morbid aspects of the bible were burned into my mind from a very young age. I give a lot of credit to the Bible to making me the way I am now artistically, a ton of stories and imagery from it bleed into everything I’ve done.

The Binding of Isaac is my most literal biblical inspiration, its based on the story of god asking Abraham to kill his only son to prove his devotion to him, for the most part anyway.

 

2) Classic McMillen realism and gore aside, some might get a little queasy at the thought of a mother wanting to kill her child. Is there a reason behind the madness for this particular narrative?

I dunno, it could have been what I was watching or even the overall mood of the month the game started. It was around the peak of the Casey Anthony trial so I’m sure some of that made its way in. My wife got on a kick of reading morbid news and reading books on child captives kept in basements I’m sure all of these things had a lot to do with the overall theme of the game… On paper it seems a lot more morbid than it is :), nothing in the game is meant to be taken seriously its all very dark, but dark humor.

 

3) Instead of leveling up you’ve opted for an itemized stacking mechanic. How many paths or options are available for players who want to customize with the stacking?

Customization is a bit limited. You need to think of it more or less like every time you play you are given a new set of powers mostly out of your control and it’s your job find the best way to use each combination. If you save up your pennies and find a few keys you will be able to enter shops to have a bit more control over what items you want your player to have, but for the most part playing as Isaac is going to be very different each time you enter the basement.

Though, there are 3 other unlockable characters you will find as you play that will start you off with a set “class”, these classes are all based on the 4 main D&D classes and the 4 suits of the tarot, fighter (Isaac), cleric, thief and wizard.

4) Just how big is this basement that the child wanders into? i.e. How are levels being organized throughout the game?

It seems to keep going down forever :)

Each level or map is generated out of X rooms that are randomly chosen out of that chapters “room set”. Each chapter consists of 2 maps, the 1st map pulls from mostly easy rooms and the 2nd mostly hard. Each chapters “room set” consists of over 150 rooms that I’ve designed, the contents inside each room are slightly randomized and the visuals are also randomized on top of that. Every map will always contain a Boss room with an exit, treasure room, a shop and a few other secret rooms you’ll discover as you play and as you progress the number of rooms in each map raises. That’s the basic setup of how the game is generated.

 

Basement level after basement level!

5) You’ve hinted at “tons of dynamic happenings”. Can you explain a little bit more?

The focus of the games design is to make sure no play through is ever the same. The maps are randomly generated, the rooms are randomized, the items are randomized as well as the enemies you fight bosses you encounter and things you might run into as you play. One person could play through the game to the end 5 times and never run into the same items bosses and secrets another player might encounter… that’s the magic of the game, it’s the mystery of the experience.

A good example was when I was playing the game last night, I was on level 6 (pretty far) but I had half a heart and was desperate for health. I happened to collect a few coins and was lucky enough to find 2 nickles in the last room I finished but I didnt have a key to get into the shop. I went searching the map for anything I might have missed and found a treasure chest behind a stone wall, using my last bomb I blew up the wall and opened the chest finding a tarot card, the Moon. I used the card and it teleported me into a hidden room filled with bones and a slot machine right between a few fire pits.

Desperate for a few hearts I started spending my pennies on the slot machine, losing a few times but still getting a heart and a few more coins to play with… that’s when it happened! The slot landed on 3 bombs, usually a great thing because that means I get another bomb.. but this bomb happened to be a troll bomb. I ran from it and it exploded, blowing up the slot machine, coins flew everywhere… but so did a key! I grabbed the key and ran back to the shop unlocking the door and entering it in hopes of a heart or even better an item that would heal me up. Sadly as I entered the room the shop keeper charged at me knocking my coins all over the room and summoning creatures to help him fight.

I ended up killing him and stealing his book of coupons to use in later shops… but it’s stories like this is what makes the game shine… there was so much going on that I actually got lost in the game… and I’m the one that designed all these happenings.

 

6) How extreme can the appearance changes be? Are we talking full-blown sex change, or just the steroids?

We have both of those actually… Right now there are over 75 special items in the game, 90% of them will change the way you look in some way. Some change your face or body others change your size and color, some give you little companions and others just give you cool headgear.

 

7) Are the creative and development process with this new team different from the typical happenings of Team Meat?

Yeah its pretty different than working with Tommy, but Isaac is a million times smaller than SMB so it would have been different either way. Florian and I are on totally different schedules so when I’m going to bed he’s waking up, I pass the file to him with a list of design info and he works as I sleep and sends the file back when I get up. One of the biggest changes this time is having Danny on not only as the musician but also as the main play tester of the game, his feedback has been crucial to development.

8) What’s an average day in the life like working on an indie game?

Wake up, check mail, eat, work for a few hours, play with RC helicopter, work for a few hours, Legos, Eat, work for a few hours, watch Judge Judy, watch some Maury, play a few games, go to bed.

I’m pretty sure Florian’s day is more like, work a few hours, play games on steam all day go to sleep. :)

 

One of the bosses, the Duke of the Flies!

9) Would you consider the Binding of Isaac your magnum opus? Or is that work in the far future?

I wouldn’t consider Isaac my magnum opus at all, not to say its not a big grand in scale for one of my side projects. It’s easily the biggest “small” game ive ever done, but its still rather small and development will probably max out at 3 months at most. There’s a lot there but people shouldnt expect to be paying anywhere near what they paid for SMB, not even half.

 

10) How long do you plan to focus on solo projects?

I actually jumped on Isaac as a small game jam “game in a week” project when Tommy took a vacation but it ended up having more potential then I thought when that week ended.

Tommy is currently working on the engine for Game #2, so this gives me something to put my time into while he gets the foundation for our next big project ready.

I enjoy smaller side projects, but I very much want to jump into Game 2 as soon as Isaac is finished, I got to prototype a lot of ideas for the next game with Isaac and im very exited to put what I’ve learned to the test on a much larger scale.

 

Once again, thank you Ed McMillen for all the attention you’ve paid us. We’re looking forward to The Binding of Isaac and more of your mad genius in years to come.

Review – Red Faction: Armageddon (PC)

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Jul 192011
 

-Error reading from ESRB datastream-
Please visit ESRB.org for rating information.

For this review, I just wanted to say that it’s not often that I get to sit down and experience what the industry has to offer in terms of third-person shooters. They’re surprisingly scarce, and as Gears of War still holds the crown, a lot of the promising development work is being left in the dark.

Red Faction has been around for a while. Originally released on the Playstation 2, it’s seen many a sequel, staying just underneath the radar for great action titles. Their latest installment, Red Faction: Armageddon, assumes the chronology of the previous titles and continues the Bradburian tragedy of Mars’s downfall.

Darius Mason is the smart-talking, Mr. Fixit tasked with saving the miners and settlers of Mars. The prologue details the destruction of an atmospheric generator at the hands of a group of cultists. Mason of course is tasked with eliminating the head cultist, but instead is tricked and the atmospheric generator goes boom. Darius then leaves the military group, Red Faction, and becomes a sassy jaded excavator.

The main body of the storyline takes place when these cultists trick him yet again (Seriously? Aren’t you supposed to gain wisdom through experience?) and unleash the Plague, a massive swarm of bugs that moves its way through the chasms and caverns of Mars. My goodness, are there bugs. There are so many bugs. While the linearly-designed levels were always amusing, the sheer amount of carnage you had to squash your way through began to get tiresome.

Behold the Nano Forge.

Fortunately, there are quite a few abilities and weapons to keep things varied. You’re also equipped with a portable AI, Sam, who comes with a Nano Forge. What is a Nano Forge, you ask? It basically reconstructs atoms. Yes, the implications of this are staggeringly vast—any non-organic object destroyed can be reconstructed with a press of a mouse button. With RPG-like leveling elements throughout the game, enabled through the collection of scrap metal, you can upgrade your Nano Forge abilities to give the game some serious flair. The other weapons can be equally absurd, but still impressive—late game I was provided with a Singularity Gun. With it, I could fire a small black hole at my enemies. I’m not even going to ask how it didn’t suck in everything around it for light years–THQ gets mad props for creating weaponry that defies all the natural laws of physics. However, the beauty of the game though doesn’t lie in these portable WMDs you’re provided. It lies within the Maul: Darius’s gigantic mining hammer. I’ll explain why in a bit.

The standard level has you face at least fifteen swarms of bugs. While the enemies are not particularly challenging, you can’t just shoot randomly and run all over the place. A good portion of the time you are anchored to one particular spot, trying to shoot down the bugs that are jumping wall to wall. I need to be clear here. The bugs are blindingly fast when they jump. It’s a good way to waste ammo if you try to tag one that’s moving through the air. Eventually, you get fed up. Unless you have the patience of an enlightened Buddhist Monk, you will get fed up with it. It’s just a reality. While anchored, there’s probably a good chance that you will die as well. So what do you do? You hoist the hammer.

Some of the most beautiful and eye-moistening moments of the game were when I could use both Maul and Nano Forge to destructive and creative strengths. The Maul is absurdly over-powered, killing anything it touches with one hit. The Nano Forge, on the other hand, can repair cover, or even throw a shield of cover around you. It was the most satisfying feeling in the world to take out each of the support structures from a building with my Maul, reflecting fire with my Nano Forge shielding, and have the building collapse in a chaotic heap of rubble, crushing my enemies from the inside.

The game clocks in at just over nine hours on normal difficulty, and I spent almost all of it smashing away. I’m sure that this isn’t how the developers intended it to be played, but…it was just that much cooler that way. Don’t get me wrong, I relied on the assault rifle and other weapons when I needed to be more strategic about my approach, but the Maul was my buddy through-and-through.

Bastards are everywhere.

The game even occasionally takes the time to place Mason in an outfitted mech or crawler of sorts, allowing you to rampage through pretty much anything in your path. It’s a fun, lighthearted way to play exterminator for the sculpted landscapes of Mars. This is important, because the landscapes have the tendency to get a little dull. I mean, logically…you play this game on the surface of Mars. You’re going to see lots of red, and lots of brown. So I suppose, in a sense, the graphics and visuals are true to their Muse. Cut scenes and in-game graphics are soundly rendered, but they’re by no means awe-inspiring.

I digress. Graphically, the game runs satisfactorily. In terms of audio, it’s by no means award-winning, but the monsters sound scary enough, and the insect noises are sufficiently gurgly and squelchy. The voice acting had a good sense of personality to it, but perhaps it stood at odds with the serious nature of the game. There were too many one liners for my taste.

The saddest part of this game was that the multiplayer was limited. The game includes an Infestation mode, which is essentially a four-player survival game type. It’s practical considering the overall style of play, so I can’t say anything too negatively about it. Volition Inc clearly decided it would be a single player experience, and I commend them for that. There are not many games out there that still rely on storytelling as a selling point. For what it’s worth, though, they showed some amazing innovations for the TPS genre.  The idea of the Nano Forge, while perhaps contextually exaggerated, has the potential to be a game changer for years to come. I for one am glad that Volition and THQ showed the initiative on this one.

For a solid gameplay experience, with some amusing and fascinating variety added in, I give Red Faction: Armageddon an 8.7/10.

PC Game

Graphics

60
  

Audio

50
  

Gameplay

70

Creativity

85
  

Execution

70
  

Offset

87
    

7
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Pros

  • Nano Forge
  • Maul
  • RPG-like elements
  • Pure-bred single player campaign

Cons

  • Awkward audio
  • Muddy graphics
  • Limited Multiplayer

id Software’s Rage Releases New Companion Comic

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Jun 222011
 

Comic book and video game fans rejoice! id Software has just released a companion comic to its upcoming post-apocalyptic shooter Rage, and is set to run for a three-issue series. The comic has an all-star crew working behind it, with scripts being written by Arvid Nelson, the creator of Dark Horse’s Rex Mundi. Pencil work is being performed by Andrea Mutti, who has worked on the now long-reaching Vertigo title DMZ. Last but not least, Glenn Fabry, the artist behind many a Hellblazer issue (this means John Constantine for you movie buffs) is doing the cover art.

The comic takes place in the events leading up to the start of the game, and are sure to provide some in-depth looks into the how and why of the world of Rage.

Rage’s creative director, Tim Willits, has been spearheading the series himself—he seeks to reinvent the creation of the post-apocalyptic future, positing that “the survival of humankind doesn’t necessarily mean the survival of humanity”. Earth, having been ravaged by an all-consuming asteroid, has forced humankind to retreat into Arks beneath the Earth’s surface in order to survive. Outside, a global tyrant known as the Authority has been controlling what goes on in the wasteland. Here’s where it gets interesting: one scientist working for the Authority has discovered a few secrets behind where the survivors are and how the Earth fell…

The comic is slated for release on October 4th, 2011.

Why Rage will be a Better Title than Battlefield 3

 Posted by  13 Responses »
Jun 212011
 

Most of us, given the gift being alleged video game journalists, know how hard it is to gain popularity from an article . Unless you have an amazing source and you’re positive that it hasn’t hit the presses yet, you’re looking at a swamp of articles with similar content. Reflecting on the past week, I’ve seen a lot of Battlefield 3 headliners that I myself considered at some point, particularly the article entitled “Have We Hit a Graphical Wall?”—it was an eloquent, intelligent piece that had a thorough understanding of the economics of hardware design.

Recently, I stumbled across another one, written by Christ Blackhorn of mediabeast.net (source: mediabeast). In it, he surmises the recent hype regarding the upcoming Battlefield 3 release in a very poignant fashion: “Over the past couple of weeks Battlefield 3 has been in the spotlight for many websites as the new threat to take the FPS throne. I personally hope that it does take the crown so that we can finally see some innovation from other shooters on the market.”

Now, Battlefield 3 news is dominating a large portion of news on several news sites currently, due in large part to the controversies sparked by DICE regarding DLC and frame rates. The one thing that struck me was the fact that, while Battlefield certainly is a beautifully-rendered game, it offers nothing astoundingly innovative in terms of what we have to see from first-person shooters these days. Blackhorn was right, though—Battlefield’s ascendance to sovereignty will spark a revolution of innovation in FPS designs in years to come.

Frostbite 2 is an impressive engine, to be sure.

 

What we are given now though, is simply a mainstream AAA title, designed, tailored, and published to keep the happy fat gamers happy in their little happy seats.  For this reason, this bitter response provided by all the “loving” fans is absolutely ludicrous. I’m no stranger to typical video game-based exchanges: trolls will continually bite the hand that feeds them, simply for the sake of their own entertainment and pleasure, but this is bordering on cannibalism. I, of course, should admit the hypocrisy of this statement: I’m a troll as well. Most self-proclaimed video game journalists will admit to relying on trolling to some degree; they count on the inflammatory attention it brings when writing an opinion piece. If you weren’t aware of it before, you are now. I’m doing it as we speak.

And yet, I can't imagine what Doom 4 would even look like.

I digress. Whatever Battlefield 3 is being regarded as, whether it be the “King of the FPS” or the next revolutionary FPS title, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s simply a AAA title with high quality graphics. Let’s take an analogous game release—id Software’s Rage, touting the new id Tech 5 engine, utilizes what’s called “Megatextures” to reduce the amount of computation needed to display environments in high definition (source: venturebeat). Everyone knows how beautiful Rage looks by the screens that have circulated, but already John Carmack of id is claiming that their next release, Doom 4, will have “three times the graphic richness” (source: eurogamer). You have to ask, will gamers and trolls alike take this opportunity to scrutinize Doom when its release date rolls around? The answer is maybe, because John Carmack might just slay them in cold blood for slandering his name and his company (he did make Doom and Quake after all, people).

Rage will probably be a strong competitor for this “King of the FPS” title. However, that doesn’t even matter, as there has been no news or opinion piece released so far (to my knowledge) that has claimed that the title will be innovative or revolutionary, and already it stands better in my eyes. If there’s truly something to be upset about, it’s the fact that first-person shooters are being held back by generic war titles that publishers know will be devoured by fans.

All in all, Battlefield 3 is just bleeding absurdity now.

Browser Review – Martial Arts Master (PC)

 Posted by  1 Response »
Jun 192011
 

We here at Gaming Irresponsibly happen to like browser-based games. Yes, we said it—we like them. You might ask, “Why? Why would you ever allow yourselves to get sucked up in that kind of game?” Well, we just happen to have opened our minds up to a new cultural medium of entertainment through various social networking platforms. This trip around takes us to Manic Frog’s delightfully fun and simple title called Martial Arts Master.

I personally prefer Jeet Kun Do, but they didn't have it available.

I started by naming my Dojo. I thought I would start off with something really cool and exciting, since a Dojo is a place to train. I typed in “School of the Wave” and it cut off my text before I could finish. I tried “Dojo Thunder Rock” and it said my entry could only be one word. So, it turns out your Dojo name is just your user name. I chose the name “Solidus”, having just recently finished a playthrough of MGS4.

The game then expects you to choose a Martial Arts style. They have a variety to choose from—Taekwondo, Judo, Kung Fu, Karate, Muay Thai and Boxing. Each style is balanced against each other, so you’ll never have the supreme advantage over your opponent. I chose Judo, as it suited my aesthetic purposes.

At this point, you’re placed inside your Dojo and promptly beaten up by a bunch of thugs. What the hell, man? I just got here. After having my ass handed to me, the game prompts me to train, build my dojo, challenge other dojos, and gain critical acclaim as a martial arts master across the world. In order to train, you need rice. Rice is apparently the ancient method of channeling chi in this game. In order to challenge other dojos, you need spirit. Spirit builds up naturally over time. All of this is done rather instantaneously—if you click train, you train, and you’re done. It deprives the game of what could be hours of content, but instead you literally spend your hours balancing your levels and progressing your character. It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you allow this title to do its job.

Unfortunately, your other quests are hampered by the need to bring other individuals into the game, and spend your own money on virtual money to spend on equipment and other things. It was at this point the elaborate genius of the game’s wallet-draining potential unveiled itself to me. This was disappointing, because if I was richer, I almost certainly would have spent a few dollars trying to bring my kung fu treachery to the rest of facebook.

Additionally, through this entire process you have the option to level up the skills of your dojo so that they weren’t simply confined to Judo. You could points in the other stats as well, but had no reason to unless you had the in-game currency to make the switch or the friends to come join you in playtime.

The layout is simple, and the quests are motivating.

Despite the finesse and ease in which you can complete your quests, I found myself wanting a tad more depth. I attributed this to the fact that the entire game takes place within a two-dimensional plane on your screen. And, once I had run out of energy training and spirit from challenges, I found myself waiting about fifteen minutes at a time in order to resupply. Those huge lags in playtime were the must detrimental in keeping me focused—it went from being an action packed game to a casual wait-and-click game.

The game gets kudos for finding a good balance between the classic stereotypes of Asian culture and martial arts and still maintaining a serious approach. As such I found it enthralling, despite its shortcomings. Browser Based Games speak to a different type of community—that is, facebook—so they bring gaming entertainment to those that normally wouldn’t get up and play a console or PC title. It’s action that definitely won’t keep you on the edge of your seat, but it will certainly pass the time in a given environment: at work, when your boss isn’t looking, when you don’t have a PC that can handle anything more graphically challenging…

I give Manic Frog’s Martial Arts Master a 3 out of 5. It’s a quaint, amusing title that’s well-designed for the crowd it aims towards.

PC Game

Graphics

70
  

Audio

50
  

Gameplay

60

Creativity

60
  

Execution

65
  

Offset

60
    

6.1
  

How do these ratings work? Click here for descriptions!

Pros

  • Simplistic
  • Quick-to-play
  • Lots of RPG elements to enjoy

Cons

  • The promoter makes no attempt to hide the fact that he’s going after your real money
  • Combat could show some more depth

 

 

 

Converse Partners With Nintendo for Super Mario Chucks

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jun 172011
 

Check out this new release from Converse! Looks like they’ve partnered with Nintendo to release this classic Mario design, featuring Toad, Luigi, and Bowser.

It’s got a bunch of great hidden features, including the Invincibility Star on the side flap! Unfortunately these are Japan-only, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t dream to bring a little bit of the old school to our streets.

Source: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2011/06/16/nintendo-teams-with-converse-for-super-mario-chuck-taylors/

Halo 4 Needs to Learn from Battlefield 3 and MW3

 Posted by  11 Responses »
Jun 162011
 

Looking back at the Halo 4 preview at this year’s E3, I can’t help but wonder whether 343 Industries will be able to fill the rather large shoes that it’s stepping into. Let’s take a look at a baseline fact: the entire Halo series, including books, toys, and soundtracks, has grossed over 2 billion dollars. True to the content it provides in-game, it’s a legendary series. With Bungie off the helm, continuing the story of the Master Chief might prove difficult let alone, not to mention what they hope to bring to the series in terms of new gameplay. I’ll admit right now that I’m not the most qualified person to perform this analysis, but if anything this article should open up some healthy skepticism and discussion as to what absolutely needs to be brought to this series to continue its legendary fame, and make it bigger and better than it ever was before. I’ve compiled a list of what should be explored in the game’s development. This isn’t to say that it has to be done, but in order to bring innovation to the series, consideration is necessary.

What Is Master Chief Doing Now?

The plot of the Halo series wasn’t any casual writing experience. It was an epic. When I say epic, I mean in the classic literary sense of epic, involving a lengthy retelling of heroic deeds relating to a culture or people. See: Homer. When we last left John, he was stranded in a space pod, after blowing another Halo ring, some covenant ships, and a forerunner construct to bits. Everyone is wondering: what now? The Covenant has been dealt with, and to bring back the Flood would just be beating a dead horse. As the lore is constructed, the only possible thing left to explore would be the Forerunners. Point: the Forerunners are allegedly a “good” race of aliens. Without an antagonist, is the Master Chief simply going to continue blowing up Halo rings for the rest of his life? Perhaps we need to see a Halo factory, or even better—a new species that is still as threatening as the flood, but perhaps was located in a different portion of the galaxy. It’s naïve to assume that the Covenant and the Flood are the only ones out there, right?

At the end of Halo 3, we saw Master Chief floating towards a glass-looking planet. There was speculation that the planet was in fact Onyx, of the canonical book series. The Ghosts of Onyx had some of the remaining Spartans that evaded Reach become trapped in a Dyson sphere. It would be nice to Chief reunited with his former squad, and bring back some of the old school Spartans for some co-op play. In terms of how the series has been structured, each game has ended with a setback or cliffhanger, apart from the original Combat Evolved. The relaunch is the opportune moment to bring in added plot development and depth, opting to layer story elements in a unique fashion instead of bringing back the traditional rising-tension-and-climax FPS plot experience.

More than this, it would be nice to receive some closure. New enemies and space-age WMDs aside, I’m certain that plenty of players would like to see John receive the rest that he deserves.

Enhanced Gameplay

I’m making a disclaimer of this right now—Halo’s single player campaign is probably one of the best-rounded experiences ever brought to console shooters. However, with behemoths like Battlefield 3 coming out, a lot will have to change in order to compare. Bungie continually upped the ante in each title they released—adding weapons, expanding levels, and making AI more challenging. The fact of the matter is it’s not enough anymore. A simple look at any “modern” shooter will reveal that there were more options—more methods of killing—available to the player than there was in any Halo series. Point: if I can call a gunship to mow down my enemies in any Call of Duty title, why can’t a futuristic super soldier with more cybernetic augmentations than John Shepard? Halo Reach brought about the use of loadouts, which was a great step in the right direction. I just personally feel that John should be able to do a little bit more with that 1.5 ton set of Mjolnir armor than the Chief actually does in-game. The reality is that 343 has tons of inspiration to choose from—they could include a new melee system, or even blend in new plot elements for a hybridized suit of armor that combines alien and human tech. I’m just riffing here, but the point is that since 343 has opened up a brand new can of worms, they’re going to have to catch a lot of fish. They’re simply not going to do that by delivering the same traditional Halo experience. A simple, but beautiful suggestion: the introduction of cover-based combat.

Graphics

This ties into my earlier point. As of right now, Battlefield 3 on Frostbite 2 looks superb. Even though we were given fifteen minutes of riding in a tank, it was the sexiest and most beautiful tank ride I had ever experienced. Halo was one of the first FPS series to include destructible environments to a professional degree, but the scale, rendering, and finite detail of new FPS games is that much better. I want to see plasma burns dissolve chunks of steel and flesh in real time. Phil Spencer, VP of Microsoft Game Studios has already commented on the fact that the title will be a blend of both old and new. For everyone’s sake, we can only hope that it’s more new than old.

Bringing the Title to PC

For the longest time, PC gamers have been denied their share of console game FPS titles, despite the fact that they create some of the largest support communities for the games they own. Way back when, we were blessed with Halo: CE on the PC, and to my knowledge, it still has a dedicated fan base. The tendency is to learn towards consoles now, with the proliferation of motion-sensing technology and 3D, but I can think of no reason why they shouldn’t bring the title to PC Gamers. An even better idea would be to follow in Sony’s footsteps (as they are doing with EVE online and Dust 514) and create a bridge between Xbox Live and PC networks. With XBL coming to Windows 8, this is a practical, beneficial move, and I would be disappointed if they didn’t show the initiative to do so with this title.

Multiplayer

Yeah, I got nothing. Seriously, Halo’s multiplayer is amazing. If they left it the same, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. There’s enough matchmaking balancing options to keep combat fair and competitive. Give us some new loadouts and maps, 343, and we’ll make due.

I find the above points to be, if nothing else, practical. I provided suggestions as opposed to inflammatory statements so that people would converse about what could be done to save the title. I’m sure there are gamers out there that are fine with their bread and butter FPS experience, but my stake is in ensuring that the Halo series doesn’t fall by the wayside. It’s a great series, and it deserves some love and care put into its engineering, instead of a rehash that everyone has experienced three times over. Most gamers will buy the title just because it’s Halo, but that doesn’t mean that it will be as good as it needs to be. And for all the gamers out there that buy it blindly, well, that’s just stupid.

 

Sony E3 Press Conference Highlights

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jun 062011
 

Sony still knows how to throw a hell of a show–they started off their presentation with an amazing 3D montage of all future and present titles to be released for the PS3, as well as some image previews concerning their new hardware. Jack Tretton, from the Sony Corporation, boldly started off with the addressing the network outage on the Playstation network. Tretton claims that Sony is coming back stronger than ever with this presentation: “It’s not about us telling you, it’s about you experiencing it for yourself.” With this speech, he revealed some new services available to the Playstation Network:

  • New media access to CinemaNow
  • Vudu, Netflix, MLB.tv, Music Unlimited, 3D World, Hulu Plus

After this, he began the presentation of new titles, hardware, and peripherals coming to Sony.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

  • Naughty Dog offered a full-feature demo of the title, detailing the game’s interactivity
  • Their multiplayer beta begins on June 28th
  • Uncharted fans come this October can head to Subway eateries to gain access to the full multiplayer adventure
  • An additional video revealed the essence of the game’s plot, which took to the desert in search of ancient fabled city
  • Projected release date of November 1st, 2011

Resistance 3

  • A new demo shed some light on a new protagonist, Joseph Capelli, who joins a resistance movement called the Remnants to fight Chimera
  • Playstation Bundle comes with the game and Playstation Move

God of War Origins

  • First two titles remastered for 3D play

Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection

  • Bundled together for 3D play as well

Playstation-Branded 3D Display & Glasses

  • 24-inch display for consumer access
  • Split-screen play is enabled, allowing 3D view for multiple players
  • Bundled with glasses, Resistance 3, and 6-foot HDMI cable all for 499

NBA 2K12

  • Features Kobe Bryant on the cover
  • New Mode entitled NBA on the Move
  • Release date of October 4th, 2011

Medieval Moves: Deadman’s Quest

  • Fantasy action-adventure game
  • Seamless transition between throwing projectiles, swordfighting, and platforming elements
  • Zero inventory: all weapons are controlled by the PS Move controls
  • Available in Fall 2011

inFamous 2

  • Cole McGrath showed off his brand new moves in a demo which included Playstation Move support

Little Big Planet 2

  • New ability to create your own levels with the help of Playstation Move

Starhawk

  • A new post-apocalyptic third-person shooter comes to the PS3

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

  • Coming 2012

Dust 514

  • A new title from CCP in Iceland reveals FPS focused on planetary conquest
  • In a revolutionary move, they’ve connected the title to EVE Online through the PC
  • Playstation Move support
  • Will be ported to the NGP
  • Closed Beta at the end of this year; full release at the end of this year

Bioshock: Infinite

  • A video of game footage gave viewers an insane sense of scope to the game, as well as some new Big Daddies, an insane zipline system, and plot clues
  • Playstation Move is coming to the Bioshock: Infinite
  • Additionally coming to the NGP
  • Consumers who purchase Bioshock Infinite will also receive a copy of the first Bioshock title

Saint’s Row 3

  • Launches November 13th

Paramount

  • A new Star Trek co-op game with Playstation Move support
  • Players play as Spock and Kirk
  • Comes with a phaser-themed Move controller
  • Demo available on the Playstation Network

SSX

  • EA has created an iconic race down Mount Fuji for Playstation 3 owners

Need for Speed: The Run

  • PS3 owners will receive a special Blu Ray disc which will contain seven additional super cars to race in

Battlefield 3

  • Comes bundled with Battlefield 1942 for PS3 owners

Playstation Suite

  • Playstation install base that brings a gaming experience to Android smartphones and tablets

Playstation Vita (NGP)

  • Kazuo Hirai said in the conference that Vita was mean
  • 2 analog sticks, multitouch five inch oled screen, front and rear touch pads, six axis technology, front and rear cameras
  • WiFi and 3G WiFi models for social networking and gaming
  • Party: voice chat live over headsets regardless of location or game currently played
  • Near: connect and play with other players around you, make recommendations, and show off achievements
  • Cloud saves, content sharing, and cross-platform competition
  • More than 80 titles currently in development
  • Will be available the holiday season this year
  • WiFi only model will retail for 249.99, 3G model for 299.99

Uncharted: Golden Abyss for Playstation Vita

  • Visually beautiful from the very beginning
  • Advanced rendering techniques such as dynamic lighting
  • Touch screen can be used for melee combat and climbing and jumping between ledges
  • Controls can be combined or used individually according to the desires of the user

Ruin

  • Action-based role-playing game with multiple character classes and deep advancements
  • Other players are your rivals–through your actions you can choose how to manage your relationship with them through existing social networks
  • Ruins are based off of the strength of your rivals, and become increasingly more difficult as they become stronger
  • Perfectly ported to the PS3–Vita offers cloud-based saves for synchronization

ModNation Racer

  • ModNation Racer is not a port from the old title
  • Touch screen controls can edit the real-time track editor
  • Owners of ModNation Racer on PS Vita will have access to over two million tracks created by community users

Little Big Planet

  • Touch screen controls allow for new and more interactive way of playing through single and multiplayer levels
  • New ways to create levels and share them with friends on the PS3

Street Fighter xx Tekken

  • Coming to Playstation Vita
  • In collaboration with Sucker Punch, Cole McGrath from inFamous will be joining Street Fighter xx Tekken
  • Simple command inputs can be carried out by using the touch panel feature

 

 

Ubisoft E3 Press Conference Highlights

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jun 062011
 

Ubisoft offered a different approach than EA’s presentation, emphasizing family fun and a shared experience for all. They brought to the table some new Kinect titles, along with the awaited Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

New Rayman 2D release

  • Cooperative play in a side-scrolling adventure

Driver: San Francisco

  • Humorous and optimistic look at destruction and free-driving mayhem
  • Massive scope, missions, and new multiplayer
  • Ideal playground for car chase action

Far Cry: 3

  • With an immense new world and superb graphics

Gearbox Software

  • Previewed their new FPS entitled Brothers In Arms: The Furious Four
  • Comedic Nazi-killing bloodbath

The Adventures of Tintin

  • Explorative, choice-based adventure game
  • Each character has its own abilities that are more useful in certain situations
  • Switches between both a 2D and a 3D experience

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

  • Advanced GUI labeling abilities for coordinating attacks and carrying out mission objectives
  • New features such as live-feed drones, active camouflage, and a satellite maneuvering system for reconnaissance element
  • Synchronized kills, intuitive cover system, and a new Gunsmith weapon modification system
  • Pressure of coordinating real-time tactics and team combat simulations
  • Ghost Recon Online, a new service, is free for all PC Users
  • Beta Available Now

ManiaPlanet

  • Titles include Trackmania, Shootmania, and so on
  • Players can share their world designs amongst each other

Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking

  • Kinect compatibility has you smashing Rabbids in a whack-a-mole fashion
  • Cooperative with up to four players simultaneously to complete various challenges

Just Dance

  • Just Dance 3 comes to all platforms on October 11th, 2011

Rocksmith

  • Authentically turns the hard work of learning the guitar into a game
  • Converts the hardware of an actual guitar into a game controller and amplifies it in-game
  • Coming Fall 2011

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012

  • New ability to play online with a community of people
  • Release in November 2011

Assassins Creed: Revelations

  • Follows Ezio in his final chapter in his search to find the secrets of Altair
  • Reveals a vast cinematic with Ezio traveling across the world
  • Brings Ezio to the city of Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire
  • Hook blade on Ezio’s wrist mount can be used to pull enemies
  • Zip lines are now available for rapid transport throughout cities with the use of this blade
  • Releasing this November

EA E3 Press Conference Highlights

 Posted by  No Responses »
Jun 062011
 

EA delivered a solid performance at this year’s E3. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights, and the new titles they revealed.

Mass Effect 3

  • Faster, more fluid action and running sequences
  • A noticeable improvement in rendering and crispness of graphics
  • More interaction with the environment, particularly through the use of a turret station aimed at a giant Reaper
  • Shooting while running is now a viable tactic.
  • Larger scope of environment–perhaps not open world, but overall more grand in scale
  • SCHEDULED RELEASE: March 06, 2012

Need For Speed: The Run

  • Based around an immense cross-country race from New York to Los Angeles
  • Autolog, the social networking feature in previous NFS titles,  is now weaved into the game’s UI
  • Takes the action out of the car and on foot as well: the game demo revealed that when the car crashes, the player will have to exit the vehicle and
  • When out of the car, your player is exposed to various parkour and combat QTEs

Star Wars: The Old Republic

  • Launched with an epic extended trailer, but no further details were announced, apart from the standard MMO features

SSX

  • Brings players to all parts of the world
  • Three major game modes were revealed: Race It, Trick It, Survive It
  • Release Date pegged around January 2012

FIFA 12

  • Several new gameplay mechanics were added to the game to make it that much more of a realistic football experience
  • Tactical Defending has an increased emphasis
  • Precision Dribbling–player can now applydeft touches on the ball and controlled pace
  • Player Impact Engine brings real world physicality, bringing in new movement and allowing for a greater range of injuries
  • EA Sports Football Club Live Service injects challenges and story lines across all platforms

Madden 12

  • New collision system and defensive AI
  • Dynamic player performance
  • Kinect compatibility
  • August 30th Release

The Sims Social

  • Coming to Facebook
  • Might usurp reality as we know it

38 Studios– Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

  • Produced by R.A. Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, Ken Rolston of Morrowind fame

Insomniac Games

  • New title to be called Overstrike
  • Features team-based play with characters including a mercenary, thief, scientist, and decorated Detective
  • Witty one-liners, cool abilities, and a playful Pixar-like feel

Battlefield 3

  • Frostbite 2 Engine Video displaying a superb sense of scale, physics, and reality of the game
  • Short game footage reveal
  • Battlelog for social networking
  • Multiplatform open beta release in September
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