By John Walker on April 19th, 2011.
As Jim and I played through the first couple of chapters of Portal 2‘s co-op, we spied a strange sight. The “Robot Enrichment” option on the main menu transformed from doing nothing to opening up a page featuring the two little robots, P-Body and Atlas, and a collection of itemisable slots. Oh heavens.
By Alec Meer on April 19th, 2011.
And here we were, thinking that an id game might have no multiplayer mode, purely because they’d stubbornly refused to talk about it for years. Non-surprise, non-suckers! At the info-event that led to yesterday’s word-splurges about Skyrim, Prey 2 and Rage singleplayer, I also witnessed the first reveal of the semi-free-roaming shooter’s other modes. Back to deathmatch classic, or up to new things?
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By Jim Rossignol on April 19th, 2011.
That’s what id’s design director Matt Hooper told has told Eurogamer.
“They’re [the Doom 4 team] going in their own direction,” Hooper added. “They’re doing something Doom fans will be happy with. I try to support them as much as possible. It’s a good thing. We’re separated enough to be able to go our own ways, but still connected where we can help facilitate both those directions. It is distinct enough. It would be dangerous… We don’t want to make a re-skinned Doom [with Rage] and then Doom 4 be a re-skinned Rage. That would be bad.”
My speculatometer points to Doom 4 (or 400M, as we’re calling it) being an attempt to recapture the demonic themes and pacey blasting of the original games. Odds on for an unveiling at QuakeCon this summer, and a late-2012 release. But I guess we’ll see…
By Alec Meer on April 19th, 2011.
The shimmery outline around key items and interactive objects in Deus Ex: Human Revolution caused a fair bit of consternation amongst Deus Ex fans the other month. Sure, it’s useful, but a big glowy yellow highlight around half the stuff in the world isn’t ideal for immersion, is it? It’s the old ‘loot glint’ argument all over again… Fortunately, the devs at Eidos Montreal appear to have listened to community feedback – you can now turn the bally thing off if you’re so inclined. Below: see what it looks like without glow-o-vision.
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By John Walker on April 19th, 2011.
Portal 2 has now unlocked. If you’ve preloaded it, you should be able to start the unlocking process now. I played the game all the way through last week, both single-player and co-op, and am very pleased to tell you, without a single spoiler, Wot I Think.
By Alec Meer on April 18th, 2011.
Okay, what. All this diligent, web-wide meta-potato-harvesting to apparently get Portal 2 unlocked early, and now something’s gone all weird, just when the end was in sight. The GLaDOS@home site is showing the work so far seeming being undone at a rate of knots. We don’t know why, we don’t know the result. But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2 that they now may not get.
On the other hand 1) the site now lists ’9 test subjects’ as having been found and 2) the chaps on the ValveARG site are claiming the G-Man can be seen in the background… No. C’mon. We’re being gamed, right? That one’s been removed already, which I take to mean it was trolling by someone. Unsurprising, given its lack of subtlety. Additional: the ’9′ appears to be the ARG’s most successful players being taken to Valve to play the game.
By Quintin Smith on April 18th, 2011.
Oof! I was all set to make fun of Codemasters for releasing yet another Operation Flashpoint: Red River video from their curiously dilapidated offices, but I’ve just found out that Red River is coming out in Europe this very Thursday. Why would you want to buy it? First and foremost for its explosions, but also for its focus on four player co-op, and that’s what this latest developer diary covers. I had quite a bit of fun playing the very multiplayer modes they’re talking about.
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By Alec Meer on April 18th, 2011.
The re-thought Elder Scrolls levelling, skill, attribute and perk system in Skyrim is already proving divisive (as witnessed in comments on the last post), but I fear at least part of the reason for that is it’s not been explained terribly well as yet. And, to be honest, that’s partially because there’s only so much of it I can explain until I’ve had proper hands-on time and experienced it rather than been told ‘it’s better this way’. I like the sound of it, because I always thought Oblivion’s system was fussier and more opaque than it needed be (in terms of what it actually achieved), but I certainly don’t want a reduction in depth any more than the next Morrowind nut. For now though, here’s all the quotes on the subject I’ve got from Bethesda’s Todd Howard, which hopefully clear things up a little more – plus offer some extra detail on how the stealth and persuasion mechanics work.
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By Alec Meer on April 18th, 2011.
I don’t want to do overkill on the latest id game, but I’ve got a ton of info here and one massivo-post wouldn’t be anyone’s idea of a fun time. The hands-on preview is here, but while I pen the next chunk (about the finally-revealed multiplayer modes) here’s a trailer of one of the major singleplayer missions to be getting along with…
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By Alec Meer on April 18th, 2011.
It’s more complicated than I’d suspected. But then I’d suspected something about as complicated as pouring milk into a glass, going on recent id form. The result is something that both does and doesn’t feel like an id game – it’s got the almost slippery high-speed movement on their pre-Doom 3 titles, it’s got a certain tangible familiarity to weapon-faves such as shotguns and machineguns, it’s got scampering mutant-monsters that seem to pop out nowhere and swipe at your back. It’s also got wide-open spaces, a crafting system, puzzles of a sort, optional objectives and freeform roaming. It’s id but it idn’t.
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By Alec Meer on April 18th, 2011.
Well, there’s an awful lot more than 20 reasons to be helplessly nerding out about the next Elder Scrolls game, but a nice round number is a good place to start, right? Let me be clear: I love Morrowind, quite like Oblivion and really didn’t get on with Fallout 3. I am what you might call a doubter. Nonetheless, I am impossibly excited about Skyrim, having recently been shown an hour of it (and listened to a bonus hour of lead dev Todd Howard answering questions about it). Here are just a few reasons why…
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