Archive for July, 2011
By Jim Rossignol on July 7th, 2011.
Ha, the latest Rage diary has Id’s Tim Willits uttering one of those phrases that (fortunately) tend to only come from the lips of game designers: “…then we had to decide how to destroy the planet.” In this case, of course, it was a convenient asteroid impact in the 2030s which sets the scene for Rage’s ruined world one-hundred years later. Yeah, I think you know the sort of thing, but anyway this latest trailer-diary, entitled “The Dawn”, has loads of new footage and some of it is quite spectacular – that ruined/infected skyscraper is a thing of beauty.
(I also love the juxtaposition of Matt Hooper saying the words “deep and meaningful story” as the player shoots a red exploding barrel on screen.)
Read the rest of this entry »
bethesda, Id Software, RAGE.
Meta-booze And Reality Panic
By Kieron Gillen on July 7th, 2011.
Since abandoning sitting in my underpants writing games journalism for the glittering world of sitting in my glittery underpants writing comics, it takes a lot to get me out of bed. That said, it always took a lot to get me out of bed. I’m lazy. However, a chance to chat to Irrational’s creative director Ken Levine about all things Bioshock Infinite counts as something that’ll have me tearing the duvet asunder. So when I was asked to do it, I – er – did it.
And then it was transcribed into written words…
2K games, BioShock: Infinite, feature, interview, irrational games, Ken-Levine.
By Alec Meer on July 7th, 2011.
New IPs? Nah, we don’t do that anymore, sunshine. Too risky, see. People only want to buy things they’ve already heard of. Or is it that publishers are only prepared to invest enormous marketing budgets in what they consider surefire hits already, thereby damning their less-established names to relative obscurity even before they make it out the starting gate? I forget. Bethesda’s one of few big publishers still prepared to take a risk. Granted, Hunted was a bit of a misfire and Brink didn’t quite scale the heights we were hoping, but that makes it doubly pleasing that Beth are continuing to push new names.
Just as excitingly, this is the highly mysterious new game from Arkane -they of Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Bonus – they recruited Deus Ex veteran Harvey Smith as co-creative director. Bonus bonus: they also recruited the visual architect of Half-Life 2′s City 17, Viktor Antonov. It’s called Dishonored. We barely know anything at all about it. We’re really very excited.
Read the rest of this entry »
Arkane, Arx-Fatalis, bethesda, Dark Messiah: Might & Magic, Dishonored.
By Jim Rossignol on July 7th, 2011.
Seven minutes of Call Of Juarez: The Cartel! That’s enough time to see a dodgy club scene, witness a vehicular combat chase scene, glimpse a running about in a ghost-town shooting goons scene, and also probably some other stuff. There is a lot of looking through iron-sights, some use of cover, men getting shot, dual-wielding of machine-pistols, cars exploding, and a number of other things you might be pleased to see in a game about gang warfare and drug-cartels in the modern world. Phew.
Ubisoft’s co-op criminal-shooter is set for release on July 22nd.
Read the rest of this entry »
Call of Juarez, Call Of Juarez: The Cartell, techland, Ubisoft.
Interview
By John Walker on July 7th, 2011.
Yesterday we spoke to The Secret World‘s project lead, Ragnar Tørnquist about the game’s factions, mythologies and more peculiar ideas. Today we get a bit deeper, and dig into the motivations behind it all. Why the recurring themes in Tørnquist’s work? Does he have an agenda? And why does most of gaming not? We have a good argument about the nature of truth, and ask where games are falling short. And then somehow again return to the topic of Ragnar’s death.
Read the rest of this entry »
feature, Funcom, interview, Ragnar-Tørnquist, The Secret World.
By Jim Rossignol on July 7th, 2011.
The Firaxis team are taking a few pages from Sid Meier’s great gaming history and placing then in the Facebook. The “social” – or maybe “casual”, I don’t really know – version of Civ, named CivWorld, went into an opne beta today, and it actually looks pretty good. I am basing that on having kicked off a game myself after watching the video which I’ve embedded below. If there’s a problem I can report on up front, well, it keeps timing out, and is maddeningly laggy. Still, it is just a beta, and one that is too popular for its own good, I suppose. Anyway, I am sure we’ll be hearing more about this soon.
Read the rest of this entry »
2K games, CivWorld, Firaxis, free.
The origin of specious argument
By Alec Meer on July 7th, 2011.
We never got a proper answer about what dark force it was which led to a few EA games – most noisily Crysis 2 – suddenly vanishing from Steam last month. Valve have kept entirely mum about their side of the story, but EA claim it was Valve who wielded the axe, due to a mystery transgression of Steam’s terms and conditions. Of course, all this rather neatly coincided with the launch of Origin, EA’s latest attempt at their own PC game download service (now with extra social stuff).
Everyone was to blame, no-one was to blame, we all picked our villains and passive-aggressively shook our e-fists at them, and then it went quiet again. Now, EA has broken cover to offer a little more – while the full explanation isn’t there, we’ve got some pretty strong hints as to just why a bunch of their big games were unceremoniously booted off Steam.
Read the rest of this entry »
Crysis 2, Electronic Arts, feature, origin, Steam.
Where War Men May Go Next
By Tim Stone on July 7th, 2011.
My aim? In the reach zone. My fingers? Poised over the old word-piano ready to impart the following vague but important snippet of Men of War news. In addition to toiling away on MoW: Vietnam, MoW: Condemned Heroes (a standalone title based on the activities of a Soviet Penal battalion), and more DLC for Assault Squad, 1C are currently planning Men of War II. It’s very early days yet, but last week in Prague, series producer Sergey Gerasev dropped some interesting hints as to possible directions. Read the rest of this entry »
Men Of War, Men of War 2, Men Of War: Assault Squad, Men of War: Condemned Heroes, Men of War: Vietnam.
By John Walker on July 7th, 2011.
A million is a big number. For instance, if you put a million hairbrushes in a pile end to end it would reach Pluto. That’s not true, but it serves as a useful illustration for a million being a big number. Still not got it? Well, imagine a tennis ball. Now imagine a million of them. See, that’s a lot of tennis balls! Also, Torchlight has sold a million copies.
Read the rest of this entry »
runic games, torchlight, Torchlight II.
By Jim Rossignol on July 7th, 2011.
Petroglyph’s take on the “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena“, which is called Rise Of The Immortals, has now entered an open-beta stage. That means that you can play this free to play game for free. Uh, so that’s good. Anyway, sign up here if you’re interested, and take a look at the footage from the closed beta (below) for a glimpse of what awaits you within its warm, free, digital folds.
Read the rest of this entry »
free, petroglyph, Rise Of The Immortals.
By John Walker on July 7th, 2011.
You know what always goes well? When Valve offers to release something early if only customers do something for them. That’s something with a solid history. Leaping onto this unwaveringly endorsed theme once more, Valve have announced plans on the Left 4 Dead blog to release Dead Air from community-co-created Cold Stream DLC pack early if enough people bug test the new campaign for them.
Read the rest of this entry »
Cold Stream, dlc, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Valve.
