Monthly Archives: February 2008

Any LotRO players attending Connect later this month are going to be walking away – virtually, obviously – with a free in-game Ranger cloak. Apparently This will be the first time this cloak is made available. It has a unique design and a limited duration 5 percent speed boost as an effect.

It says so here.

Here. As previously reported, the GameCube port is unlikely to make it out of Japan, but still, they’re pretty enough screens. Playing Resident Evil games in Japanese is always fun, anyway. You’ve got years to waste, right? Go see.

The humanity. Leipziger Messe announced this morning that Video Games Live – the games music orchestra show – is to kick of Games Convention this year, playing for the first time in Germany on August 20.

More than 6,000 people will be able to see the event, said the Messe, just making the point that lots and lots of people can be accommodated in Leipzig, as opposed to Cologne. We doubt anyone in Leipzig is going to be mentioned the “C” word for a while.

Press release after the link.

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According to this, Blizzard creative boss Chris Metzen has said StarCraft II “feels like the best work we’ve ever done”.

He added: “It’s been very, very rewarding to see this thing take shape. Just getting back to that Blizzard of yesteryear where it’s not all about WoW – don’t get me wrong, I love WoW! But we’re so much more than that.”

These quotes are taken from a Blizzard podcast. Get it here.

The PC version of Mass Effect will hit Australia on May 15, according to this. The new version’s releasing in America on May 6, and there’s still no word on a European date.

So says this. The two games are this week’s VC update in all PAL territories.

Super Turrican, developed by Factor 5, rocks up for the usual 800 Wii Points and supports the Classic and GameCube controllers.

Psychosis, meanwhile, is from Naxat Soft, costs 600 Wii Points, and supports the Classic and Cube pads as well as the Wiimote for control.

We found him. Phil Harrison was at the 1 million PS3 party in London last night, and wasn’t giving many clues about what happened to cause his resignation or where he was going after Sony.

“He was completely avoiding saying anything about where he was going,” said one reveler. “He just laughed off the fact that people think he’s going to Atari by saying something like, ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.’”

Another mole described Harrison as “coy”.

“He just wouldn’t talk about [why he'd left Sony], and we were pretty much instructed by Sony just to leave him alone and let him have a nice evening. It was the first thing [UK PR] said: he doesn’t want to talk about leaving or anything to do with it and just let him get on with it, sort of thing. He was chatting to everyone. He wasn’t hiding, or anything.”

Harrison, president of worldwide studios for Sony, quit the company this week. He’s worked at SCEE for the past 15 years. Talk of a move to Atari quickly emerged, but, as you can see, nothing’s been confirmed as yet.

It’s DICE day. We got to see EA’s Battlefield Heroes at GDC as well as next-gen first-person game Mirror’s Edge, and it’s all sounding promising. Great news arrives in these impressions that there won’t be any in-game ads at all. The shooter will be funded purely from ads on the game’s website, where you create your character and launch the game. Read below.

DICE has revealed their free-to-play PC shooter for the first time. The demo, fronted by producer Ben Cousins, revealed the latest Battlefield game to have a comedic take on combat, set in a cartoon World War. The concept is a kind of design caricature of the original Battlefield games: all the elements are there, but simplified. The point-capturing dynamic is the same, and the vehicles are still there. This time, however, it’s all a little more approachable and accessible.

Cousins explained that the game would run on a 1Ghz chip and integrated graphics – ie your crappy laptop. The game would also track player skill and select exactly the right instant game for you to play in. Heroes’ level of accessibility means that you won’t even have to use a server browser to get into the game. “We use a bunch of methods to match up players,” explained Cousins. “You won’t get your arse kicked by a fourteen year old.”

“The character creation is all done on the website,” said Cousins, as he demonstrated the MMO-style character creation process. “Then the game is launched via the website.” The war between the “Royal Army” and the “National Army” looks a lot like a cuddly World War II. Cousins explains that the two empires are at war over the results of a sporting competition. It’s all incredibly friendly and not – as some people have speculated – much like a rip-off of Team Fortress 2. Cartoony it might be, but Battlefield Heroes has its own style. In fact, it’s rather more like World Of Warcraft: the game is played in third person. Again, explains Cousins, it’s about accessibility.

The live demo shows us the game in action, with the three character classes showing off quite different skills and abilities. A light class enables stealth and sneak attacks, the medium is your average machine gun soldier, and the slow moving heavy racks up lots of firepower. Each of the character classes is able to pick up a number of powers, including group-heals, grenades and wall-hacks that allow them to spot (or set up) ambushes.

All this, for free. Cousins explained that the game would depend entirely on the website adverts that players saw when launching the game, and during loading. “We won’t be putting billboards in the game,” he said, as the team wanted to preserve the clean, cartoonish world they’ve created. The crowd murmured as the game loaded and we were stuck looking at an advert for Crysis. “We’ve been known for our long loading times,” Cousins jested. “Don’t worry, we’re going to optimise.”

“Don’t forget, it’s completely free,” Cousins told us, just to be sure.

Battlefield Heroes releases this summer.

Our man at GDC was granted a viewing if DICE’s “revolutionary” first-person action game Mirror’s Edge at GDC last week. As you’ll see, his mind was well and truly blown.

The behind-closed-doors unveiling of Mirror’s Edge was one of the most impressive events of last week’s Game Developers Conference. Presented by producer Owen O’Brien, the free-running sci-fi game had some of the crowd suffering vertigo.

“Red is a very important colour in the game,” O’Brien explains, as the first-person demo sees us leaping from a rooftop onto the arm of a crane. “The player should be able to see the route forward in any situation.”

Momentum, explains the bearded Irishman, is everything in this game. Red, which seldom looks out of place in the clean, Utopian cityscape, allows gamers to instantly calculate the best possible angle of travel. When you’re leaping across rooftops under fire from half a dozen hi-tech security guards, thinking has to be quick.

What DICE has realised – seemingly in parallel with Radical’s Prototype game – is that no one has really tried to simulate real movement in videogames. The first-person free-running of the female protagonist is astounding to behold, and we watch as the entire crowd wobbles and leans in response to the running and leaping on-screen. With just a press of a button the demo-player is able to skid underneath pipes, or vault over them. He can vault fences and can flow leap across rooftops into a run with a single crash roll. Never has an FPS tracked inertia and human movement in this way.

Combat, meanwhile, focuses on hand to hand melee. Enemies get close and it’s time for kung fu. Arms are twisted and necks are stamped on: “Guns will be just a temporary power-up, lasting until the end of the clip,” said O’Brien. “The focus is on the person.”

The session shows our hero travelling across a series of rooftops to hand-off a valuable piece of information to another runner. At one point she’s trapped inside and must vault up inside a corridor to reach an escape hatch (again, highlighted in red). O’Brien explains that because of the nature of the game, these physical, spatial puzzles will be routine, throughout the game. Finally our runner is trapped on a rooftop, under a hail of bullets, unable to escape. She leaps, risking death, to catch hold of the landing gear of a news helicopter that has been trailing her. The sessions closes with the player looking into a mirror skyscraper, and seeing our hero hanging from the helicopter. It’s an awesome piece of visual design.

This game, you could say, will do for movement and inertia what Thief did for stealth and sneaking. It’s a paradigm shift, and gaming might never be the same again.

Mirror’s Edge is slated for a calendar 2008 release for PC, PS3 and 360.

According to this, MGS4 will only include one language per region because of disc space.

“Unfortunately because of disc space, we don’t have the space to include other languages, other voice over files for the respective versions,” said producer Ryan Payton. “So the Japanese version’s not gonna have English VO, and the North American and European versions won’t have Japanese VO.”

Obviously, this means if you buy the Japanese version, you won’t be able to understand any of it. Unless you speak Japanese, of course.

The game’s now been confirmed for a June 12 release for both the US and Europe.

According to this, MGS4 will be released on June 12 in Europe as well as the US. The piece says it’s from an announcement, but we haven’t seen it yet.

Update: The announcement’s been made. Press release after the link.

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Oh dear. According to this, SCi has announced radical restructuring plans which are to include sizeable lay-offs and a move to Canada to take advantage of all those lovely tax breaks.

“The company plans to operate at a maximum head count of 800, a reduction of 25 percent, while the board has decided to cancel 14 projects currently under way as they will not generate an acceptable return on investment or are not of sufficient quality,” said that GI report.

The company plans to switch from a centrally controlled development and publishing model to a studio-led business focusing on its core products – Tomb Raider, Hitman, Championship Manager and Deus Ex.

“Our quality has slipped below acceptable standards and, through disappointing game development and working within an ineffective operating structure, we are failing to realise the commercial return our creative ability and our shareholders demand,” said the company. “Our infrastructure is too big and expensive for the scale of the business.”

Full thing through the link.

Speaking here, Flagship COO Max Schaefer has said that PC developers need to get over the whole “disarray” mindset and start thinking about how best to enjoy the massive PC install base.

“PC gaming isn’t going anywhere until people stop having PCs,” he said. “It’s up to developers and publishers to keep it fresh and keep bringing creative, entertaining games to market. PC still is the only platform with decent chatting ability and people are by necessity in front of their PCs for many hours a day.

“We have a captive audience, we just need to do a better job of reaching out to them.”

Hit the link for more.

Eidos has confirmed a new Battlestations game, says this, titled Battlestations: Pacific, to release on PC and 360

The original, Battlestations: Midway, was all about being able to use multiple verhicles – planes, ships, etc – in the Pacific theatre of WWII. As the new title suggests, the second affair is no different, this time reliving the battles for control of Okinawa at the end of the War.

You’ll be able to play as either the US or Japanese forces in this one. No release date as yet.

According to this, Lizardman, Kilik, and Xianghua are all to be included in Soul Calibur IV. Lizardman’s the brutish guy with the sword and shield, and Kilik’s the button-masher favourite with the big pole. Xianghua’s the woman hardly anyone used.

New shots through that link. This is down for a summer release, apparently.

Scans of the GoldenEye XBLA article from UK mag Xbox World 360 are now available, showing some new screens and apparently blaming Nintendo president Satoru Iwata for the fact the game’s never going to release.

Iwata reportedly said he didn’t want it appearing on any other console under any circumstances, although NOA’s Reggie Fils-Aime was on board with the project. Sounds as though they didn’t get very far, anyway – only the dam level was ever completed.

Take a look at the pages.

God. Contrary to this, the US Essential Collection version of the original Metal Gear Solid won’t be ported to a PS2 DVD after all. The game originally came on two CDs, and nothing’s going to change for the new pack.

Just to be absolutely sure – this information apparently comes from Konami US PR, but it’ll probably change tomorrow – the set contains four discs: two for MGS1, one for MGS2: Substance, and one for MGS3: Subsistence.

OK? Can we have it in Europe now?

According to this, Capcom’s got rid of the little black borders at the side of the screen on the Wii version of Okami. You really hae no excuse but to buy it when it releases at the end of March.

News from the GTA IV preview cavalcade last night says that the game is about 100 hours long and there’ll be no cut down version prior to release. Thanks to the sites that could be bothered to read through all the breathless gushing to extract the information.

In case you want another 50,000 words telling you why the game’s going to be good, here’s another preview.

Speaking to IGN, John DiMaggio – both the voice of Bender in Futurama and Marcus Fenix in Gears of War – has remarked about the second game in Epic’s console shooter series, using the word “dude”.

“Oh man, dude,” he said. “There’s new weapons, new beasts, there’s a couple of new characters, and it’s just badass.”

“It looks cool as shit,” he added. “The storylines are really cool and the relationships of the guys in the game – the sequences that explain things that are going on – they’re a lot deeper.”

Has everyone involved with the game been programmed to say how “badass” it is, or something? Stanger things have happened, to be honest.