It must be quite gruesome for a developer to work on the same franchise repeatedly for many years . For DICE, it would be the Battlefield franchise. So what would DICE create if they had free reign over a project? Mirror’s Edge.
Below is an interview with one of the producers from DICE and Mirror’s Edge describing what their new IP is all about. It has potential to be something truly unique with its first person free roaming parkour. Unfortunately, there’s only stills available — no gameplay.
Microsoft’s XNA initiative, which allows amateur game developers create and share games on XBOX Live! Arcade, is something they hope will catch on with gamers. I don’t know how it will be received by others, but I thought it was solid idea with a huge amount of potential. The entire initiative could be described as the YouTube of Games and as with most YouTube content: quality will vary. After installing the XNA game launcher and trying out most of what was available, the stand out was definitely The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.
Did you people like all the Game Developer Conference’s stuff I posted? I thought there were plenty of interesting bits of news from this year’s GDC. The keyword is ‘bits’ since nothing huge and/or surprising was revealed. The best of GDC was in listening to all the developers talk about their games, the industry and just shootin’ the shit. 1UP’s coverage of this year’s GDC was immaculate. The podcast discussions were both very informative and entertaining. It’s just something you cannot do via an formal interview. Well done, 1UP.
Personal highlights from this year’s GDC were as follows:
A classic 2-D game which I never had the pleasure of playing was Bionic Commando. So what better way to play than through a modern remake dubbed Bionic Commando Rearmed. Co-op play?! I’m there. Day one. Companies need to put more classics out like this.
Peter Molyneux talks a lot. He says lots of nice things and promises many features for his games, but more often than not: he fails to deliver. Or so they say. I personally tuned him out and conciously not get swept away by the hype of any of games. I am trying to create the same kind of scenario I came into Fable with. I knew very little about the game or its promises and I enjoyed it a lot more.
Fable 2 is his latest project and it looks to be very impressive. GameTrailers has some of his demonstrations below which showcase some of the game’s family features and co-op function. An RPG with co-op? Neat. By the looks of it, it appears to be offline co-op. Why else do they need both players to be on the same screen? Anyways, check out the demonstrations below and be sure to wear sunglasses because there’s some ridiculous amount bloom in that game.
There’s also some kind of XBLA game which can earn you Fable 2 money.
Action adventure fans are blessed this year. First with Devil May Cry 4 (which I’ve received from FutureShop finally). God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PlayStation Portable next month and then Ninja Gaiden 2 for the XBOX 360 in June.
Too awesome. Just like the gameplay trailer below:
PC gaming isn’t dead, but it is in disarray as some people put it. Initiatives like Steam and SteamWorks are solid attempts in making things easier for developers, but one company can only do so much. Have no fear. The PC Gaming Alliance is here to save PC gaming.
The alliance consists of Nvidia, AMD, Acer, Alienware, Intel, Dell, Gateway, Activision, Microsoft, Epic and hopefully more by the end of the year. With both major hardware and software manufacturers on board, the PCGA is hoping to raise awareness concerning PC gaming’s health, standardize minimum system requirements for games, address piracy issues and even improved distribution models.
Things look promising, but until I start seeing results: I’ll be cautiously optimistic.
Microsoft announced what could be described as the “Youtube of Game Development”. Amateur/independent developers will be able to submit their own small games to XNA Games Studio and have it distributed through XBOX Live! Arcade for others to try, play and critique. For more details on how it all works, check out the Kombo article.
A handful of demos including the blood soaked hack n’ slasher, The DishWasher, is available on Xbox Live! Arcade right now.
What a surprise! Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios announced that Gears of War 2 is coming out November 2008. Looking for details? There’s very little right now. There is a teaser trailer though! There’s also a demonstration of the new features found in Unreal Engine 3 which could appear in Gears of War 2.
I’m excited to see what changes CliffyB is going to work in.
Honestly, Gears of War 2 was not a surprise. We knew it was coming. However, even without rumors there was nothing else big enough to fill the holiday lineup shoes Halo 3 filled last year and the original Gears of War filled in 2006.
For the lazy, there’s a GameTrailers version of the teaser trailer below.
What a surprise! Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios 