Tag Archives: obsidian

During PAX, Joystiq held a panel titled Plot vs. Play: The Duality of Modern Game Design. On the importance of story in games, BioWare lead writer David Gaider said that with games, the player is invested in the story where as when watching a film, they are just an observer; therefore, he feels story is important. Obsidian Entertainment’s creative director, Chris Avellone, countered that he is not sure whether narrative matters too much when it comes to the gameplay experience. He said many players in the past have come to him saying their favorite moment from a game had more to do with a gameplay element attached to a storyline instead of the overall narrative. Irrational’s Ken Levine, also on the panel, said he is much more interested in environmental storytelling than the words he is going to write. It’s a rather interesting panel discussion, and you can watch it below. [image]

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Obsidian’s Chris Avellone wants to help hook students, interns and juniors up with new developers.

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South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone chose Obsidian to develop their RPG one year before THQ picked it up for publication.

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inXile’s Wasteland 2 Kickstarter has hit $2,008,284 thanks to 40,970 backers.

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inXile’s Brain Fargo has said he’s been working since the beginning on getting part of the band back together for Wasteland 2.

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Obsidian’s Chris Avellone has clarified what role he is likely to take in Wasteland 2′s development if the project’s Kickstarter reaches its target.

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Should the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter reach $2.1 million within the next 17 days remaining, Obisidian Entertainment along with the firm’s Chris Avellone will lend a hand with development.

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inXile Entertainment’s Brian Fargo has said “nothing would make” him “happier than reforming Black Isle Studios in some capacity.

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Obsidian’s classic RPG Neverwinter Nights 2 is on sale on the Mac App Store for 99 cents. That’s a very small amount of money for a highly rated RPG you can play on the office machines. You can grab it here. Neverwinter Nights 2 is the 2006 sequel to the BioWare original, and famously shipped with an extraordinary number of bugs. That’s all been patched to hell and back by now of course, and the game saw several expansions and eventual popularity.

Obsidian is reportedly being hit with a round of lay-offs due to the cancellation of a “future next-gen project” and more lay-offs on the “existing South Park team” according to Joystiq.

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Double Fine’s crowdfunding success has inspired other developers to consider a new method of sourcing development costs.

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Bethesda has released a video for the Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition which releases next month in Europe and the US. It comes complete with Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Courier’s Stash, and Gun Runners’ Arsenal which gives players access to the areas of: Sierra Madre Casino, Zion National Park, Big MT research crater and the Divide. Each of the four add-on packs increases the maximum level cap by five levels, ultimately raising the cap to level 50.

The Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition will be available on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 7 in North America and in Europe on February 10.

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Art and screenshots from Obsidian’s RPG, South Park: The Game, popped up on Ausgamers over the holiday break. Granted, some of these shots can be found over on Game Informer’s site, where it had exclusive month-long coverage of the game in December, so you may have seen some already. That being said, there isn’t such a thing as too much South Park in our book, so go have a look at the shots through the links. The game is slated for release during the second half of calendar 2012 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

In an interview with Game Informer, Obsidian revealed the fifth and final class in the South Park RPG: The Jew. The new class is described by Obsidian as a sort of Paladin/Monk high-risk/high-reward class.

“The closer he is to death, the more powerful his abilities become,” said Matt Mclean, lead designer on the game. “So you’re strongest when you’re at one hit point, but you’re also just about to die.”

The Jew joins the fighter, thief, mage, and cleric as the five classes of the game. We’re equal parts glad and horrified that the South Park game is obviously still willing to push the envelope.

When Obsidian showed South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker an early build of combat in the new RPG based on the series, the show’s creators told the firm it wanted the kids to not only cry more, but bleed more as well.

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Obsidian’s Chris Avellone is of the belief some of the mechanics implemented in RPGs over the years have “undermined” the genre, making it more about convenience than “the thrill of victory and discovery.”

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Chris Avellone, chief creative officer at Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment, has a pretty clear stance on the used game trade.

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Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer has suggested the reasons framerate slowing in the PS3 version of Skyrim are similar to those that plagued the Obsidian RPG.

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A NeoGAF user has received the January issue of Game Informer and has seen fit to post information regarding South Park: The Game in the works at Obsidian and to be published by THQ. You can assume that going below the break may contain a few spoilers, so don’t look below if you want to wait on your copy of the magazine to arrive in the mail.

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Game Informer has announced its January cover will be devoted to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park: The Game, which is being developed in collaboration with THQ and Obsidian. The game is a “full-scale RPG” where players step into the shoes of the new kid in South Park who must make new friends and “defend the town from a wide range of threats.” It is in development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, and the January issue of Game Informer will contain more information on it, as well as an interview with Parker and Stone. The game is slated for release in the second half of calendar 2012.