Archive for November 10th, 2007
November 10, 2007
Shortly after Halo 3 went on sale in North America in late September, much of Bungie Studios’ staff went on a long-overdue vacation. Only a few were on hand when the developer dropped the news bombshell that it was amicably separating from Microsoft. The unprecedented deal made Bungie a totally independent operation, a status it had not enjoyed since the 1990s, when it released Myth and the Marathon series.
However, the agreement didn’t mean that Bungie was walking away from Halo, the series that made it a household name. “Bungie and Microsoft have forged a deep and long-term development and publishing relationship focused on the continued success of the Halo franchise,” the company said in a statement. “It is also the intent of both parties to expand their partnership to include new IP created and owned by Bungie.”
Now, with Bungie employees snapping back into position, the plans laid out in the Bungie/Microsoft separation agreement are apparently proceeding apace. After largely shunning the US media, Bungie studio manager Harold Ryan told British-based
Develop magazine that “We’re actively engaged with the senior staff here on a couple of new IPs right now, but the team that can generate cool Halo games is still running full-speed as well.”
Although hard details on any new Halo games were hard to come by, Ryan did sound optimistic about the franchise’s future. “Both I and some of the more senior guys from the original Halo game have deep piles of game designs for the Halo universe that we are excited to build at some point,” he explained. “If the stars align and motivations are good, and the platforms are right, we’ll do them… We don’t have a shortage of people happy to make Halo games.” So far, the only Halo projects on the horizon are Ensemble Studios’ real-time strategy Xbox 360 game Halo Wars, and the mystery-shrouded Peter Jackson-produced project set in the game’s sci-fi universe.
However, as the split indicated, Ryan said Bungie is suffering a degree of Halo fatigue. “Obviously there are guys that have shipped Halo games for 10 years, and they are definitely ready to work on new IPs or create new things.” He did not elaborate on what said IPs might be.
November 10, 2007
We last had a look at Alien vs. Predator: Requiem back in August this year at a Sierra press event in Palm Springs. This week we received an updated build of the PlayStation Portable title, and for those who were already amped at the thought of slaughtering aliens as the Predator, good news–this game is for you.
For those who haven’t been following its development, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem is a third-person action tie-in game designed to go on sale alongside the cinematic release of the film in the later part of this year. In the game you’ll take on the role of a lone Predator, with the sole purpose of wiping out aliens and their remains in Gunnison, Colorado.
Our hands-on code included part of the single-player campaign, multiplayer, and a five-locale skirmish mode for quick play. The single-player in our code was broken up into a flat-view branching level system, allowing you to choose the location of your next chapter from several options. After a little alien spring cleaning at an alien crash site, you’ll move on to areas like forests complete with farms, sewers, a high school, and a cemetery.
Each location offers challenges specific to the area. For example, in the sewer zones you’ll need to find and activate power substations to pump water out of walkways in order to continue along your path–in addition to fighting off waves of aliens, of course. Completing tasks is as simple as approaching an objective and then interacting with it by hitting the X button to get things moving. You’ll spend a lot of time walking around looking for tasks, but once you find and complete them you’ll just need to backtrack to continue on your merry way to the end of the level.
Developer Rebellion is no stranger to the Alien vs. Predator concept, having created the well-received 1999 AVP title. While this current game is a handheld exclusive with only the Predator playable, it retains some of the original’s charm. Your Predator character features a variety of weapons and abilities, including the token hand blades, spear, shoulder cannons, and throwing disc. But you’ll also need to use his other skills to advance, namely the thermal, alien, and technology vision modes to spot prey, find remains, and solve basic environmental puzzles, such as downed power cables.
We’ll reserve final judgment until the game is finished and on shelves, but currently it looks about on par with the visuals of other PSP games. The character models are reasonably detailed, and the environments are varied. It does look like a modern-day graduate of the Quake School of Colour Palette Creation, relying largely on browns, olives, and darker colours, which makes it difficult to see, if you’re playing in a well-lit place.
The game uses a floating over-the-shoulder-style camera, which in itself is not a problem, but unfortunately it’s not a fixed perspective, meaning that as you turn you’ll need to manually adjust it with the left and right triggers on the PSP or tap both at the same time to snap back to centre. The system becomes particularly frustrating when you’re attacked from behind by aliens, and while you can attack straight away by pivoting with the analog stick, you leave yourself open to attack on your blind side.
Due out before the end of the year, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem may be a tie-in game, but camera system shortcomings aside, it’s shaping up to be a fun third-person action romp if you’ve been hankering for another game based on the popular sci-fi universe.
-If Its Games
November 10, 2007
TechWeb - Trend Micro claims that as game consoles with Web browsers proliferate, so too will security problems. To date, however, such risks remain largely theoretical.
November 10, 2007
Reuters - Mark Wahlberg is in negotiations to star in “Max Payne,” Fox’s adaptation of the hit video game.
November 10, 2007
NewsFactor - With the launch of a limited-time “Give 1, Get 1″ sales effort for the groundbreaking XO computer slated for Monday, Electronic Arts added to the momentum behind the green machine by announcing it is donating the original SimCity game to the One Laptop Per Child project.
November 10, 2007
Monolith’s Condemned was one of the better Xbox 360 launch titles, and although it was something of a cult hit, it will still be spawning a sequel. The follow-up, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, looks like it will substantially expand on the investigation elements in the first game, while the notorious hand-to-hand combat will be more realistic and gruesome than ever. Condemned 2 will launch on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2008, and we got to see it running on the 360 at a recent Sega preview event.
The combat system is now based around combos, and it’s even more brutally visceral than before.
Condemned 2 takes place a year after the events of the first game. You still play Serial Crimes Unit (SCU) investigator Ethan Thomas, although he’s become a little worse for wear in the interim. Dramatically affected by the trauma of his experience, he’s now a homeless alcoholic. He’s called into action by the SCU when his former partner goes missing, and the game begins as he starts to find his feet again.
The demo that Monolith showed us took place fairly close to the beginning of the game, with Thomas exploring a crack den alongside a team from the agency. Shortly into the demo, he fell down a lift shaft and was separated from the rest of the squad. Only just managing to escape the shaft before the lift fell down on top of him, Thomas was then forced to communicate with the rest of his team via radio, who ordered him to explore the area.
After this rather dramatic introduction, the Monolith representative armed Thomas with a brick as a basic means of defense. As in the previous game, hand-to-hand combat is still the backbone of Condemned 2, although the system has been refined significantly. Aside from making simple attacks, you can now employ a combo system by using the left and right triggers. If you land a blow with one button and follow up with the other, you’ll be able to link together much more powerful attacks.
Firearms make a return, although you’ll still have to rely on bricks and pipes when you run out of ammo.
The first game was certainly dark and violent, but the sequel ups the ante to become a complete assault on the senses. The hand-to-hand combat feels dirty and frantic, with enemies that pop out at you and get in your face. Credit has to be given for the impressive visuals and character design that were showcased in the demo, but most of the effect comes down to Monolith’s peerless audio design. If you crack an enemy in the face with a brick, you’ll hear the full impact of masonry on skull. This is amplified by the use of horror genre techniques–string instruments produce sharp, piercing screeches to heighten the tension. This works particularly well when you’re swinging a pipe at an enemy–a high note on the violin emphasizes the impact that you’re about to make on your foe. It’s horrific stuff.
However, Condemned 2’s not just about bashing in homeless people’s skulls. The innovative investigation system that debuted in the first game makes a return here in a much more expanded form, allowing you to choose from a variety of reports to send back to the office. In the demo, we saw a murdered policeman, and it was up to us to try to find out what had happened. With the SCU office asking questions on the radio, Monolith demonstrated how you could choose to give it five different responses based on what you saw. For example, the Monolith rep was asked questions about the gunshot trauma point and had to take photos to identify exit wounds.
Crime scene investigation fans will definitely be able to dig their teeth into the investigative elements of Condemned 2. The graphical detail made the process very involving, and the demo showed tools, such as UV lamps being used to trace blood. In this murder case, it was clear from the handprints that there had been some struggle, while the trail of blood that was smeared on the floor made it clear the body had been moved. All this was reported back to base, and in turn, your investigative skills are rated point by point once all the evidence is collected.
Further on in the demo, we saw some of the firearms that will make their way into the game, although ammunition will be fairly limited. The emphasis is on hanging back and avoiding this sort of combat because any shots that you take are potentially lethal. We saw an example of this in an outside environment, where rival gangs were involved in a street war. If you run in blindly, you’ll almost certainly be cut to shreds, but if you wait for them to kill each other out, you can steal their weapons. So far, we know that handguns and shotguns will make it into Condemned 2. We also saw how you can use gas canisters to create fire and explosions.
With Condemned 2, Monolith is refining the horror experience while expanding on the combat and investigation elements of the first game. If you’re playing with a surround-sound system, prepare to have your nerves torn to shreds. The only concern we have at this point is whether it will make it past the censors unscathed. One of the more violent environmental kills that we were told about was being able to break off someone’s head in a toilet bowl–a move not dissimilar to one in Manhunt 2. Assuming it passes certification, we’ll see the game sometime in 2008.
-If Its Games
November 10, 2007
Alexis Glick interviews Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime on Money for Breakfast. He discusses the Wii Holiday season and brand new Mario Galaxy game.
November 10, 2007
The Club is an interesting proposition. Bizarre Creations, the team best known for the Project Gotham Racing series, has decided to take what it has learnt from those games and apply it to the action genre. The result is a game that you’ll be able to blast through fairly quickly, but one that you’ll hopefully want to come back to again and again. It’s a risky proposition, but from what we’ve seen so far, Bizarre might just be able to pull it off.
The premise for the game is the idea of modern-day gladiatorial combat organised by the world’s richest and most powerful people. Entrepreneurs, politicians, movie stars–they all use their abundance of wealth and influence to hold bloody deathmatches to satisfy their bloodlust. Eight combatants are recruited–both willingly and unwillingly–to fight, and the game will follow them as they travel the world and engage in this highly illegal extreme sport.
The Club takes the action genre and refines it to provide pure arcade thrills.
If the setup for The Club sounds a little dark, it’s not really that important–it merely facilitates the game’s arcade gameplay. Each level has been designed like a racetrack, and you need to approach them with the same mentality: take them at speed. You need to kill enemies in succession as quickly as possible, with more points awarded for speed and accuracy. The points system works using a multiplier that increases with each successive kill. The trouble is, this multiplier is constantly dropping in value, so you need to kill again and again in order to retain it. The higher the value, the quicker it diminishes, and the game has an increasingly frantic feel as you struggle to keep your multiplier up.
Although it sounds relatively simple, it can take some adjustment to get your head around the concept. The layout of the levels remains constant every time you play, and as with racing games, it can take a few attempts to attain that perfect lap. The enemies always pop out from the same positions, and wall-mounted targets can be shot at in quiet periods to retain your multiplier bonus. After a few plays through the mansion level that was shown, we began to memorise the optimum route through the level, with substantial jumps in the final score each time. If you’re the sort of person who obsessively chases high scores, you’re going to love this game.
If you play games for story, emotional involvement, or just for casual fun, then The Club’s gameplay is probably going to leave you cold. The concept of repetition, perfect runs, and high scores is, well, a bit retro these days, although it’s something that Bizarre has succeeded with in PGR and Geometry Wars. Though it seems like the perfect concept for an Xbox Live Arcade title, Bizarre has invested a good deal of time to polish the game, and it will be released as a full game early next year.
We got to play only that one level at a recent Sega preview event, but the Bizarre Creations rep talked us through the rest of the game’s features. The structure has been based on that of Street Fighter II, with eight playable characters who each feature different strength and agility ratings. Judge Dredd writer Gordon Rennie was drafted in to create the characters, and the potential finalists were all sent around Bizarre for approval. However, rather than settling for the characters with the most approval, the team intentionally chose characters from both ends of the spectrum in order to polarise players. The rep said that they wanted players to have strong opinions about the cast, and intentionally created each character to have a “love ‘em or hate ‘em” quality. However, Bizarre had no answer when asked why there are no female characters in the final lineup.
Kill as many people as you can using a variety of weapons, including these gun emplacements.
The levels themselves offer a nice mix of locations, from German steel mills to English manor houses, as well as warehouses and ocean liners. As they did with Project Gotham, Bizarre traveled around the world and took reference photographs for each location. We especially liked Bizarre’s explanation of how The Club’s organisers manage to hold an event in the middle of Venice. Their wealth and power let them buy a section of the city that was falling underwater and seal it off. In turn, they invested money to renovate it and laid on fireworks to hide the noise of gunfire and explosions.
Although our look at the game was quite limited, we managed to sneak a peek at the game modes that will be included in the final game. The game mode we played was sprint, where the idea is to race through the level and not worry too much about killing every last enemy. Siege will take place in a more restricted area, and enemies will pour into the level until you die. Survivor is like siege but on a larger area, whereas run the gauntlet is all about racing to the finish as quickly as possible without dying. Our favourite mode from the description is time attack–you explode if the timer hits zero, and the only way to add seconds to your life is to keep killing people.
The Club holds a lot of promise, and we certainly had a lot of fun playing the game against other people at the preview event. It will definitely appeal to fans of old-school arcade shooters, and its stylish design and high-octane action may succeed in pulling in a few other fans, too. We hope to see more of the game ahead of its release, which is currently scheduled for Q1 2008.
-If Its Games
November 10, 2007
Renowned neuroscientist Dr. Kawashima claims that with Brain Training for DS you can train both your mental awareness and your memory. A New York Times article by brain scientists disagrees. Studies have shown that brain improving software only gives gains specific to the trained task. Unless the activities span a broad spectrum of abilities, there seems to be no benefit to general mental fitness. However studies have shown that 30-60 mins of exercise such as fast walking can improve basic functions like processing speed, response speed and working memory. The NY times recommends you join a gym or go for a brisk walk instead of wasting your money.
November 10, 2007
Naughty Dog has posted up a response confirming that the demo of Uncharted was region locked although this was not intentional. However, they state they are aware of the issue and hopefully they will have some kind of update soon enough.
November 10, 2007
Epic\’s Mark Rein has commented that the team are getting awfully close, and the PS3 version of UT 3 they had yesterday was close to being a release candidate build so they should be all complete very soon. He states that there is a good chance that it\’ll be out on the shelves just in time for Christmas.
November 10, 2007
The CEO of Howard Stringer recently commented that the Blu-ray disc format war was something of a stalemate at the moment with the competing HD DVD format. Stringer then went on to mention a few things about the PS3 including the console has been the best selling console in Europe following price cuts and in the US sales have doubled, commenting \’we are coming back up again\’.
November 10, 2007
Sony\’s semi official blog \’ThreeSpeech\’ has announced that Singstar will hit the UK on December 7th. They also put up an image of the official box art which isn\’t too pretty at all.
November 10, 2007
Epic\’s vice president Mark rein, believes that UT3 is a really high end experience that pushes the graphics bar up even higher than Gears of War. He said \”There\’s more polygons, there\’s more stuff going on, there\’s more explosions and there\’s more things happening, so we\’re just really pleased with the way the game runs on the PS3.\” He hopes it will be out in the US this year. However, due to certification issues he remained skeptical about a similar release date for the European version, instead suggesting early 2008.
November 10, 2007
PlayStation Store has been updated for Europe, Australia. Cool Boarders PSone game (AUD$8.45), Tekken 5: DR Online (AUD$29.95,