Super Hexagon hitting Steam next week, get your swear jars at the ready
If you own an iWhatsit, then there's a good chance you've spent the last two months trying to beat Terry Cavanagh at his own game (his own game being the minimalist reflex test known as Super Hexagon ).
). However, if you don't own an iWhatsit, you'll have had to make do with the original flash game, a clone, or watching the inside of a tumble dryer - until now. Cavanagh has just announced that Super Hexagon is coming to Steam next week.
Tuesday 27th November, to be exact, and for the pleasantly low price of $2.99 (the same price as the iOS game). Cavanagh's in talks with Valve to add a time-limited discount on top of that, but even at its RRP it seems like a bargain. Rather than merely port the game, he decided to take the hard road and rewrite the entire game in C++ (the original Flash version not performing to his satisfaction). As Cavanagh puts it, this new one "runs at a higher resolution than the iOS version, and runs fast and silky smooth on every machine I've been able to get my hands on." So while we've had to wait for it, it seems like we'll end up with the best version as a result. Score.
We haven't seen any images or videos of the PC (and Mac) game yet, so here's the original iOS trailer, complete with awesome chiptune soundtrack.
Report: Global PC games market bigger, free-to-play still profitable
The global PC games market is healthier than it's ever been, according to a new report from DFC Intelligence, as reported by GamesIndustry International.
The global PC games market is healthier than it's ever been, according to a new report from DFC Intelligence, as reported by GamesIndustry International. PC gamers are “willing to spend more money than ever,” and new free-to-play titles are bringing in new gamers by the truckload.
PC gamers can also thank our cousins in the console world for bringing more people to gaming overall. “We actually think the launch of the new console systems will help lift the PC game business because there is large overlap between console and PC gamers and it becomes another platform for developers," analyst Jeremy Miller told GamesIndustry International. The more people who play video games, the more people decide they'd like to check out PC games.
Image from GamesIndustry International.
Another surprise is the surge in free-to-play games, the growth of which has been almost perfectly mirrored by the decline of traditional MMOs. Check out the above graph, and then tell me who you'd rather be in 2014: designing a free-to-play MOBAlike League of Legendsor Defense of the Ancients, or preparing to unleash an ambitious MMO with a standard $15-per-month subscription fee? As PC gaming expands, it is becoming more friendly toward smaller, free-to-play games.
DFC has raised its forecasted global market numbers for 2014 to $25 billion, up from $22 billion. The high volume of cash and PC games fans is also good news for indie developers: there are an estimated 285 million people playing games on high-end PCs, which can add up to a lot of attention for Kickstarters, Greenlight campaigns and free-to-play games looking for eyeballs and receptive audiences. The full brief will be released by DFC on February 11, but you can see more early details here.
Thanks, GamesIndustry International.
Five reasons to get excited about EVO 2016
EVO takes place in Las Vegas.
It is finally upon us. Evolution Fighting Championships 2016 goes down live from Las Vegas this weekend on a whole bunch of Twitch channels and, for the first time, the top eight will be shown live on ESPN 2 in America. That’s a real TV channel, full of real sports that real people watch. Incredible. The finals day will be taking place in the MGM Grand Garden Arena, a venue that has hosted huge boxing and MMA fights and is a world apart from the convention halls that usually pack out for these sort of events.
If you’re new to watching competitive Street Fighter, there’s likely no better place to start than EVO, but even those of us who have been following it for years don’t really know what to expect from what is set to be the biggest event in its history. Over five thousand players have signed up to play Street Fighter V. Over the course of Friday and Saturday that number will be narrowed down to only eight, who will face off in the final on Sunday. There simply hasn’t been a fighting game tournament of this scale before.
It’s a new game
Street Fighter V has been out for six months, which in fighting game terms is absolutely nothing. People are still finding out so much stuff about the available characters on a weekly basis and, in terms of any concrete tier list, any character seems like a viable contender. With 5000 entrants and the very real prospect that half of those will be eliminated 0-2 on the Friday, there’s plenty of room for a whole load of upsets and a bunch of unknown underdogs to emerge from the pack. Two new characters were released a fortnight ago and are eligible for use in EVO, which could catch a few players by surprise given the strengths that Balrog and Ibuki appear to have against many of the more established characters
The top eight
Finals day is always spectacular in terms of the level of skill on display and the action that comes from pitting two top players against one another. We’re expecting another showdown between Tokido and Infiltration in the top 8, but which players are also likely to make the cut? Will the top eight be filled with well-known Street Fighter standards or will a few new names appear from the pack of 5000 to shock everyone? EVO’s final stages will also have the highest production values in the tournament’s 20 year history, as the top 8 represents the moment competitive Street Fighter play hits mainstream TV (in America, anyway.) It’s currently sandwiched between a live NBA Summer League game and a Baseball highlights show, which is absolutely wild.
Team America
America has never won the main Street Fighter game at EVO. The tournament is dominated by players from Asia, but two years ago France’s Luffy won first prize and got Europe into the winners circle before the US, which was quite the shock result. Justin Wong is currently sat at the top of the Capcom Pro Tour leaderboard and seemingly America’s best hope, but he has fallen short often in the past.
In the upper echelons, there’s one other American player—Team Echofox’s Julio Fuentes, one of the three elite Ken players in the US right now—who could break America’s EVO duck. Team Liquid’s NuckleDu appears to be going from strength to strength as of late and could be on the cusp of that marquee Pro Tour win, but will EVO be the place he finally does that? Finally, Panda Global’s brash and outspoken FChamp is one of the wildest Dhalsim players in the world and is enough of a veteran to not wilt under the glare of the TV cameras should he make the top 8. Is this the year the USA does it? It’d make a cracking storyline for SFV’s first ESPN broadcast if so.
World Warriors
EVO is the true embodiment of Street Fighter’s ‘World Warrior’ tagline, as players from across the globe gather to test their skills with their chosen character. As well as the masses of US players and the Japanese legends attending, there’s many notable players from all over the place attempting to win this first EVO of the Street Fighter V era. From South Korea, you’ve got Team Secret’s Poongko and current favourite to win the thing, Razer’s Infiltration. The world’s best F.A.N.G player (and recent Ibuki convert) Xian from Singapore is looking to win his second EVO tournament. From Europe, there’s current EU leaderboard number one Phenom from Norway and of course, former EVO winner Luffy, among others. EVO truly is the World Cup of fighting games and Street Fighter has the broadest international turnout of all of the games being played.
The Beast
Daigo claims he’s ‘not ready’ for EVO this year but you can never rule The Beast out. A genuine legend of Street Fighter, he has a book on sale exclusively at the event and will draw huge crowds for any of his matches. But how long can this continue for Daigo if he suddenly stops winning tournaments? He’s had some consistent finishes but a few players—especially Haitani, with his relentless Necalli play—appear to have Daigo’s number at the moment. Daigo is as close as you can get to being a superstar of Street Fighter, so the exponentially bigger scale of the event and media coverage shouldn’t phase him in the slightest, but if there’s one person who is feeling pressure to perform at the biggest EVO of all-time, it’s Daigo Umehara. Will he give us another EVO momentto endlessly show people whenever fighting games get discussed? Something like that, shown on a channel like ESPN, could be huge for Street Fighter as an eSport.
Find more information on EVO as well as stream and schedule details on the official site .
Does The Public Know About Wii U?
We here in the enthusiast press often find ourselves in an information bubble.
We here in the enthusiast press often find ourselves in an information bubble. We have known about the Wii U since E3 2011, but we have always been curious about how much the larger consuming public knows about Nintendo's next console.
This is a far cry from a scientific polling, but we sent associate editor Ben Reeves to walk the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota and talk to random people about their experience with video games and what they know about the Wii U. Their answers may surprise you.
To learn more about the games available on the Wii U, click on the link below to enter our coverage hub.
E3 2014: Predicions and wild, feral speculation
We used the only viable fuel source with the world's only time machine to visit E3 2014, and bring back the gaming news of the future for you, our loyal readers.
We used the only viable fuel source with the world's only time machine to visit E3 2014, and bring back the gaming news of the future for you, our loyal readers. The haters will say we could have done something more beneficial for humanity with this singular opportunity, but we usually just ban people like that. What new boxes will you be able to plug into your TV? Will everyone own a Rift? Do your emotional scars from Game of Thrones Season 3 ever heal? We have the 100 percent accurate, non-speculative answers to all this and more.
Be sure to stay tuned to PC Gamer all week for our coverage of this year's E3. It's not as cool as time travel, but we still think it's pretty nifty.
Five reasons to get excited about EVO 2016
EVO takes place in Las Vegas.
It is finally upon us. Evolution Fighting Championships 2016 goes down live from Las Vegas this weekend on a whole bunch of Twitch channels and, for the first time, the top eight will be shown live on ESPN 2 in America. That’s a real TV channel, full of real sports that real people watch. Incredible. The finals day will be taking place in the MGM Grand Garden Arena, a venue that has hosted huge boxing and MMA fights and is a world apart from the convention halls that usually pack out for these sort of events.
If you’re new to watching competitive Street Fighter, there’s likely no better place to start than EVO, but even those of us who have been following it for years don’t really know what to expect from what is set to be the biggest event in its history. Over five thousand players have signed up to play Street Fighter V. Over the course of Friday and Saturday that number will be narrowed down to only eight, who will face off in the final on Sunday. There simply hasn’t been a fighting game tournament of this scale before.
It’s a new game
Street Fighter V has been out for six months, which in fighting game terms is absolutely nothing. People are still finding out so much stuff about the available characters on a weekly basis and, in terms of any concrete tier list, any character seems like a viable contender. With 5000 entrants and the very real prospect that half of those will be eliminated 0-2 on the Friday, there’s plenty of room for a whole load of upsets and a bunch of unknown underdogs to emerge from the pack. Two new characters were released a fortnight ago and are eligible for use in EVO, which could catch a few players by surprise given the strengths that Balrog and Ibuki appear to have against many of the more established characters
The top eight
Finals day is always spectacular in terms of the level of skill on display and the action that comes from pitting two top players against one another. We’re expecting another showdown between Tokido and Infiltration in the top 8, but which players are also likely to make the cut? Will the top eight be filled with well-known Street Fighter standards or will a few new names appear from the pack of 5000 to shock everyone? EVO’s final stages will also have the highest production values in the tournament’s 20 year history, as the top 8 represents the moment competitive Street Fighter play hits mainstream TV (in America, anyway.) It’s currently sandwiched between a live NBA Summer League game and a Baseball highlights show, which is absolutely wild.
Team America
America has never won the main Street Fighter game at EVO. The tournament is dominated by players from Asia, but two years ago France’s Luffy won first prize and got Europe into the winners circle before the US, which was quite the shock result. Justin Wong is currently sat at the top of the Capcom Pro Tour leaderboard and seemingly America’s best hope, but he has fallen short often in the past.
In the upper echelons, there’s one other American player—Team Echofox’s Julio Fuentes, one of the three elite Ken players in the US right now—who could break America’s EVO duck. Team Liquid’s NuckleDu appears to be going from strength to strength as of late and could be on the cusp of that marquee Pro Tour win, but will EVO be the place he finally does that? Finally, Panda Global’s brash and outspoken FChamp is one of the wildest Dhalsim players in the world and is enough of a veteran to not wilt under the glare of the TV cameras should he make the top 8. Is this the year the USA does it? It’d make a cracking storyline for SFV’s first ESPN broadcast if so.
World Warriors
EVO is the true embodiment of Street Fighter’s ‘World Warrior’ tagline, as players from across the globe gather to test their skills with their chosen character. As well as the masses of US players and the Japanese legends attending, there’s many notable players from all over the place attempting to win this first EVO of the Street Fighter V era. From South Korea, you’ve got Team Secret’s Poongko and current favourite to win the thing, Razer’s Infiltration. The world’s best F.A.N.G player (and recent Ibuki convert) Xian from Singapore is looking to win his second EVO tournament. From Europe, there’s current EU leaderboard number one Phenom from Norway and of course, former EVO winner Luffy, among others. EVO truly is the World Cup of fighting games and Street Fighter has the broadest international turnout of all of the games being played.
The Beast
Daigo claims he’s ‘not ready’ for EVO this year but you can never rule The Beast out. A genuine legend of Street Fighter, he has a book on sale exclusively at the event and will draw huge crowds for any of his matches. But how long can this continue for Daigo if he suddenly stops winning tournaments? He’s had some consistent finishes but a few players—especially Haitani, with his relentless Necalli play—appear to have Daigo’s number at the moment. Daigo is as close as you can get to being a superstar of Street Fighter, so the exponentially bigger scale of the event and media coverage shouldn’t phase him in the slightest, but if there’s one person who is feeling pressure to perform at the biggest EVO of all-time, it’s Daigo Umehara. Will he give us another EVO momentto endlessly show people whenever fighting games get discussed? Something like that, shown on a channel like ESPN, could be huge for Street Fighter as an eSport.
Find more information on EVO as well as stream and schedule details on the official site .
Second Amendment is a short text adventure written in Unity 3D. An unwieldy mashing together of QWOP
-like, one-finger typing and straight-laced storytelling, the game is almost certainly one-of-a-kind. Gamasutra: Just to start out, would you mind sharing a bit about your respective backgrounds?
Why three indies built a one-of-a-kind text adventure in Unity
Gamasutra recently tracked down Second Amendment 's three developers -- Ramiro Corbetta, Jane Friedhoffand K. Anthony Marefat-- to get the inside story on how such an unconventional game came about.
Ramiro Corbetta: I’m the old guy in the group, I guess. I’ve been making games professionally since about 2005. Right now I'm working on Hokra , which is part of Sportsfriends -- that should be coming out in February or March, or so I hope. However, the three of us met through Parsons The New School for Design, particularly the design and technology MFA program.
Jane Friedhoff: Ramiro worked with me on my thesis game for Parsons, Vici . I also made a little thing called Hermit Crab in Space , which was part of the IndieCade East game jam and went on to be an IndieCade finalist.
K. Anthony Marefat: I’m currently attending Parsons in the same program Jane and Ramiro went through. Compared to them, I’m a relative newcomer in the whole indie game design thing. Code and I got along really well [when I was growing up] and I took a liking to programming, participating in jams and working on little projects here and there. As the credits on Second Amendment suggest, this is the first official game that I’ve released.
RC: And clearly, Second Amendment is our masterpiece. [laughs]
Gamasutra: How did the game come about?
RC: We were all in a class together at Parsons. It was a Unity development course being taught by Robert Yang( Radiator ), who is himself a recent graduate from the program.
We had reached a point where we had to figure out what our final project was going to be. And I joked, ‘You know what’s missing from Unity? Text adventures. No one’s making text adventures in Unity. What’s up with that?’ Anthony and I laughed, but then we took it further: how would it work? How would you control it? Obviously it would need to be in 3D, because Unity is a 3D tool and we need to use the tool to its fullest.
Our original idea would have you controlling the game with two mice, one for the right hand and one for the left. We didn’t end up doing that because… Well, I asked Anthony who agreed to look into it, I think. He spent two minutes on it and then we gave up and moved on.
KAM: I may have looked at like, the first two results on Google.
RC: We didn’t feel like clicking on the links. It was too much hassle.
KAM: We were too hyped on the concept to bother.
RC: And while we were having our conversation, Jane overheard us from across the room and spoke up, saying she wanted to make it with us. And we said ‘You’re crazy. Why would you want to do this?’ But I think it was actually Jane’s excitement that really committed us to doing it.
So we keep brainstorming. We came up with a simple interface, where the player would just click the left mouse button to press whatever key the hand was over -- but that didn’t make much sense for a human typist so we decided, also joking, that the character should be a bear. Bears can’t type, right? But we wanted the arm model to be human, so the concept evolved into ‘it’s a bear having a dream in which he thinks he’s a human, playing a text adventure.’
That was our whole idea process!
KAM: It was quite invigorating, even if that sounds like we were spiraling downwards.
Gamasutra: When did it get to the point where you went ‘okay, we are actually going to do this’?
RC: Well, Jane and I were in our final year working on our thesis projects. And Anthony was also working on a big project. So it came down to figuring out a time where we could actually meet. And what we realized was that we actually had no time to meet until the weekend before it was due.
So we met on that Thursday night, and we finished on Sunday night. And even then we were going ‘this is a stupid idea, it doesn’t make sense, let’s keep doing it.’ It was a really feverish three days.
JF: It was like a game jam.
RC: It was. We sat and worked together, we’d go home to sleep and then we’d come back. We worked on nothing else for three days. And I mean, we had worked on little bits of it before that throughout the term, and we spent some time polishing it in the months after before we released it online, but the majority of the game was put together in those three days.
KAM: The push that really sent it over the edge, that wrapped it up with a bow, was that Jane had written a whole text adventure framework to work in Unity 3D.
Gamasutra: How did that work?
JF: It was a parser script, and it was actually way more in-depth than it needed to be. It could recognize both lower- and uppercase letters, even though in the final game you can only write in uppercase. But it could parse text and check against what scene the player was currently in, what options there were for where to go next… It was actually pretty straight-forward. Honestly, the most complicated thing getting the blinking cursor to happen! Adding and subtracting 'blinkiness' without adding to the string – that actually took me way longer than getting the adventure text to work. Priorities there, clearly.
RC: Keep in mind that at the time we were doing this, none of us were Unity specialists at all. We were all kind of learning Unity as we went.
Let's Play courtesy of Kotaku. Warning: strong language.
Gamasutra: The game is compared to QWOP a lot, largely for the slapstick element. Do you feel it also says something about how we tell stories through games?
RC: There’s something to be said for comedy in storytelling. Here, the comedy is not in the writing at all. The text adventure itself is completely serious. I think the game we made almost doesn’t call for such good writing, not of the quality that Anthony delivered.
KAM: Well, the story does have an item called ‘Gun-Shaped Key’ at one point.
RC: [laughs] True, there’s that. But yes, I think that comedy through storytelling, and melding that through gameplay, is very interesting. Not many games attempt that, in my experience. Second Amendment is really more a comedy about storytelling rather than a comedy story.
KAM: We were cracking up the entire time we were making it, but the game itself isn’t funny. It isn’t laughing with you.
RC: The text adventure component is not laughing with you, but the game itself is.
JF: The moment that you see the Unity logo slide out from the side of the screen, but then you’re looking at a CRT monitor, that’s already told a bit of some kind of strange story.
I think a lot of the comedy and charm of Second Amendment comes from the fact that we used the absolutely least suitable tools, and underutilized them to an incredible degree to make the most inefficient user experience possible. I think there is something charming in that, using something in the absolute opposite way from how they were intended to be used. I don’t think I’ve seen another Unity text adventure; have you?
Gamasutra: Well, Naomi Clark had some high praise for the game, so perhaps we’ll start to see some imitators come out of this -- ‘Gun-Shaped Key-likes.’
JF: There you go! More seriously, I honestly think that that can be a really great place to start when you’re brainstorming: try to think of the absolute limits of whatever you’re working with and how to utilize them in an extremely optimized way -- or an extremely underutilized way, ignoring everything that you believe makes the tool relevant.
J.S. Joust is a good example. It uses the PlayStation Move controller, which is actually a really advanced piece of technology, but it uses it to track a very simple thing: has the controller tilted over enough to trigger this binary in-or-out condition. And that’s really interesting to me. It’s not interested in tracking what you’re doing with the rest of your body, but rather this one point, which is unconventional for motion games.
I think when you explore those margins, interesting -- and sometimes ridiculous -- things start to happen.
You can play Second Amendment
online here.
Resurrecting The Master Thief: Meet The New Garrett
Redesigning a classic character is an incredibly difficult challenge.
Redesigning a classic character is an incredibly difficult challenge. Stay too close to the original and the design seems antiquated and maybe even boring, while straying too far will alienate your most passionate fan-base. Thief's game director Nicolas Cantin was heavily involved in the redesign of the game's protagonist and pulled from his previous work designing the character of Altair for the Assassin's Creed series. Beyond the look of Garrett, narrative director Steven Gallagher describes his inspiration for the character's complex personality.
Watch the video below to learn about the reinvention of Garrett and why the team hopes players see him as more than just some "goth."
Click the banner below to go to our Thief hub, where you'll find additional exclusive content throughout the month.
E3 2013: The impact on the PC
The new consoles have the spotlight at E3 2013 this year, but what will the expo's many reveals, demos, hardware rollouts, and buzzwords mean for the PC?
The new consoles have the spotlight at E3 2013 this year, but what will the expo's many reveals, demos, hardware rollouts, and buzzwords mean for the PC? Is this even a show for us at all, with the focus on the brick and mortar retail market? We discuss the implications, and speculate on which of the big, all-star console titles will eventually make it to our corner of the gaming universe.
Stay tuned over the next couple of days to hear us talk more about what the new consoles mean for us as PC gamers, and stare into the actual crystal ball we got a sweet deal for on Craigslist to foreshadow E3 2014.
Hands-on with Videoball: a local multiplayer electronic sport for the living room
It's been two weeks since I played Videoball, and I still think about it at least once a day.
It's been two weeks since I played Videoball, and I still think about it at least once a day. The game has been playing on repeat in my brain for two reasons. One: it's that addictive sort of fun that makes you want to play just one more round. Two: Videoball and some other games coming out this year, like Hokraand Towerfall, have me more excited than I've ever been about local competitive PC gaming.
Videoball's designer Tim Rogers calls it "an abstract minimalist electronic sport," and an early trailer for the game describes it as "casual enough for a child's birthday party, hard enough to televise in prison." Both of these statements sound silly, but they're also true. Videoball is one of those games that you look at and go "Hmm. Okay. Looks fun, I guess?" And then you play it, and you go " Oh ," and then you don't want to stop until you've mastered it.
I knew I liked Videoball's minimalist aesthetic and peppy music and chirpy sound effects, but had no idea how it would really feel to play. Textures are nowhere to be found in Videoball—the art is all solid colors and basic geometric shapes. The "players" on the field are simple triangles that harken back to the ship from Asteroids. The ball, which you try to knock into the other team's endzone, is a simple circle. Blocks, which are used to block the ball, are simple squares.
" Oh " was the response I had once I played Videoball, because I realized its minimalism extends beneath its colorful skin. Minimalism is the guiding force behind Videoball's design, and the game wields simplicity like a machete. Its controls (a single analog stick handles motion, a single button does everything else) and straightforward goal (knock a ball into the other team's endzone) slice away the hundred hour learning periods of competitive games like League of Legends.
"It started out as a dare between my friend Bennett Foddy who made the game QWOP," Rogers said. "We were talking about making minimalist, one button Starcraft. I must've made 40 or 50 prototypes of one button Starcraft...none of those turned into anything that I would be willing to show anyone else. So then it's like, well, why not put an analog stick in there? Why not make it so you can move the thing around?"
That's more or less how Videoball became a minimalist sports game, though Rogers noted that it played more slowly at the start—more like a strategy game—and morphed into the fast-paced game we played.
Or, as Tim Rogers explained through analogy, "There's a fine balance between making this game Mario Party-ish and making it Bomberman-ish. Making it friendly to somebody who just wants to party, and friendly to somebody who wants to get real mad at a party."
The rhythm is the thing," says Soul Fjord composer Austin Wintory. "It's the thing of most importance
. The melody and baseline act in service of the game experience, but it's the beat that's tied directly to the core mechanics." "The rhythm is the thing," says
Upcoming Ouya exclusive Soul Fjord , the latest by Portal designer Kim Swift and the good folks at Airtight Games, is a combination rhythm game and roguelike.
Pining for the Soul Fjord : A peek under the hood of Kim Swift's next game
designer Kim Swift and the good folks at Airtight Games, is a combination rhythm game and roguelike. By necessity, the game must play with hards and softs -- peaks and troughs in intensity and difficulty, some of which are hard to predict, due to the random level generation.
Well-known for his adaptive scores in games such as flOw and recently The Banner Saga , Austin Wintory is perhaps uniquely suited to bringing a dynamic and pleasurable audio experience to such a game.
"Earlier prototypes were much more complex about responding to events on the screen," Wintory tells Gamasutra. "For instance, we had a series of overlapping guitar lines that would come in when the player takes damage, with the idea being that that sort of jarring dissonance would create an appropriate feeling of distress. But what we found was that it was too much. The roguelike nature of the game, with all the quick rises and falls, meant it ended up having too many shapes."
The current system is a lot more elegant, with an emphasis on rewarding success than punishing failure. The result is a more "compact" adaptive score, in which guitar lines are tuned in proximity to enemies and attacks synchronize with the baseline.
"'Funk' can mean a lot of different things," Wintory offers. "For this, I didn't want to channel the stalwarts of the genre so much as inject the music with its own personality."
Meanwhile, the Nordic overtones to Soul Fjord 's funk vibe, which plays out across its visual aesthetic as well, draw heavily from the imagination -- since musicologists don't actually know very much about what Viking music sounded like. Coming off of his work on Stoic's Banner Saga , which bears out of a similar setting but "a completely opposite tone," Wintory found he could piggyback off that feeling to discover the "overt silliness" of Soul Fjord .
"Think of the imagery and sounds that a phrase like 'raw turkey leg' summons up," Wintory suggests. "That's the sort of 'Vikingness' we're after here."
'Unheard-of enthusiasm'Airtight Games tooled around with many concepts for its rhythm game, and pitched its 'Viking Funk' aesthetic to several companies. Ouya met the team's pitch with, in creative director Kim Swift's words, "Totally unheard-of enthusiasm."
"Usually developer contracts can take around something like three months," Swift tells Gamasutra. "After we pitched it to Ouya, [company CEO] Julie Uhrman said 'How about we sign, oh, next week?' So that's been amazing ."
Airtight did extensive research into Soul Fjord 's influencing genres -- rhythm games and roguelikes -- to find a perfect balance between the two. Pyramid's Patapon and Edmund McMillen's The Binding of Isaac were among the game's touchstones.
"It was a matter of figuring out where we wanted to lie on the spectrum between those two types of games," Swift explains.
In search of that balance, Soul Fjord ties challenge with the beats per minute of each level's distinct song, allowing Wintory's "simple but not simplistic" dynamic score to scale with the roguelike difficulty.
"Playtesting has been hugely essential to fine-tuning the sound of the game," says Wintory. "When an audio designer comes onto a project, the first question should be: what is the technology capable of? Then the next thing is to dive right in and get your hands on it, preferably from the earliest prototypes possible. I wish more composers made that part of their compositional process. It leads you down paths that thinking in the abstract simply can't."
Soul Fjord arrives on the Ouya on January 28th. You can learn more about the game's development process from its official website.
Looking Back At Thief, A Series That Defined The Stealth Genre
Nineteen ninety-eight saw the release of two landmarks in the stealth genre.
Nineteen ninety-eight saw the release of two landmarks in the stealth genre. The most notable was Metal Gear Solid, a game that is considered one of the best stealth games in history. However, there was another title that came out shortly after Metal Gear that played an important role in defining the stealth genre. This was Thief: The Dark Project by Looking Glass Studios. Unlike other games that have heavy stealth components, such as Deus Ex, Tenchu, and even Assassin’s Creed, stealth is the only way to progress through Thief: The Dark Project and its two sequels, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Thief: Deadly Shadows. With Square Enix and Eidos-Montreal working on a new game in the series and other current games like Dishonored that seem to draw inspiration from the project, we thought it was time for a look back at the landmark series. [ This article was originally published on July 26, 2012 ]
In Thief: The Dark Project, players are cast as Garrett, a master thief who uses wits and guile to survive in the underworld of a steampunk city that contains both Victorian style castles and sophisticated electronic alarm systems. Garrett is agile, but not powerful or unusually skilled in combat. Because most enemies are too tough to be confronted directly, he must use stealth and cunning to catch them by surprise.
However, guards and traps aren’t the only hazards. In Thief, light and sound can be as deadly as any blade. Guards will detect any disturbance, unless the player is hidden in the shadows and completely silent. As formidable as the enemies are, Garrett is an adept master thief, using tricks and tools such as water arrows to extinguish torches or moss arrows to silence the sound of footsteps. Thief is a game of skill and planning in which patience is rewarded and one false step could get you killed.
In addition to the unique gameplay, Thief also has an engrossing story. At the outset, Garrett has one goal: get rich as quickly as possible. His skills at burglary catch the eye of a mysterious nobleman named Constantine, who contracts Garrett to retrieve a mystical gem called the “Eye.” Since the jewel is in the possession of a fanatical sect called The Hammers, this won’t be an easy task. At this point, the gameplay shifts away from dodging guards and grabbing loot to include more combat. As the plot deepens, Garrett must eventually confront the evil god, Trickster, before he destroys the city.
A sequel, Thief II: The Metal Age, was released in 2000. A chief criticism of the first game was that the player should have spent more time thieving and less time combating supernatural forces. As a result, when the team at Looking Glass approached Thief II, they built the levels first and then wrote the story afterwards. This was to make sure that the player would spend a majority of their time fulfilling the role of a master thief. In addition to this new approach to story, Thief II also improved on the basic Thief mechanics. These changes included adding more gadgets, like a thrown spy camera, and smarter enemies, who would investigate when torches suddenly went out. The look and feel of the game was almost identical to the first, but the experience was centered on robbing the rich rather than the more story-driven experience of its predecessor.
When Looking Glass Studios went out of business shortly after releasing Thief II, it looked to be the end of the series. However, the developers from the Thief team who moved to Warren Spector’s Ion Storm were determined that Garrett live on. Ion Storm released Thief: Deadly Shadows in 2004 for Xbox and PC. The game featured vastly updated graphics and mechanics that took the best parts of Thief and made them better. For example, the point-and-click style of lock picking from the first two games was replaced with a minigame similar to that of Fallout 3. Still, because the game featured a more story-driven structure, similar to the first one, it is not as fondly remembered by fans of the series as The Metal Age. But there is one level in Deadly Shadows that stands out in the minds of most fans of the series. In the level “Robbing the Cradle,” Garrett breaks into a hybrid orphanage and insane asylum and is confronted by the ghosts of the inmates that it housed. It is one of the scariest levels in video game history.
Still, it was not enough to make most fans appreciate Deadly Shadows as much as the first two games. Even so, there’s a lot to recommend about this third installment. Deadly Shadows takes the strong elements of its predecessors and updates them with better graphics, AI, and other technological advancements.
Regardless of how the series changed throughout the years, it is the fundamental gameplay established in the first game that has made the series so enjoyable. In a world where stealth has been relegated to an option in games, it’s refreshing to play a game that remains so strongly focused on the core experience of sneaking through the dark.
[Update]
We've since pulled back the curtain on Eidos-Montreal's reboot of the Thief series in issue #240. Be sure to check out the story for the details of Garrett's return and visit the hubto learn more about the project.
Bioware loves the PC and should marry it
Bioware will keep making PC games forever and ever, they told Tim Ingham of CVG.
Bioware will keep making PC games forever and ever, they told Tim Ingham of CVG. They say that the PC is "made for games" and that they don't wonder if PC gaming is dying or whether or not they should support it. "Every two or three years we hear the announcement of fantasy being dead, PC gaming being dead and RPGs being dead," he said. "And yet, all of the biggest games that ever come out - that set the records - are nearly always PC games, and a lot of them are fantasy games. The biggest game in the world is a fantasy, PC, RPG MMO." What, Allods Online? What's he talking about?
[via CVG]
Evolve goes free-to-play, beta starts tomorrow
Following the appearance of a mysterious counter on the Evolve website this week, and the game's removal from Steam, many speculated that the game was about to go free-to-play.
on the Evolve website this week, and the game's removal from Steam, many speculated that the game was about to go free-to-play. Well, it turns out those speculations were correct, because studio Turtle Rock has confirmed as much in its official forums.
Studio co-founder Chris Aston made the announcement, revealing that the newly resurrected monster shooter will go into beta on July 7 (or July 8 in the southern hemisphere), allowing time to iron out bugs "over a period of weeks and months". Those who already own Evolve will get "Founder status" in the free-to-play version, with all owned content still accessible, and the promise of "gifts, rewards and special access" in the future.
Meanwhile, the studio is making a series of improvements to the game. Most importantly, experienced trapper and medic players won't be as essential as they were. Maps and UI are being tweaked, more customisation options will be available, and the game's progression system and tutorials are being completed "reworked". Performance and loading times are being seen to as well.
In the announcement, Ashton admitted that while the original version of the game was highly anticipated, it failed to have the impact the team expected. "We worked on it for years and then, suddenly, people got to experience our game, controller in-hand," he said. "There was genuine excitement – real joy – when people played. It was like nothing they’d ever played before and watching it happen was like no high we ever felt."
But the game's well-documented and heavily criticised season passremoved most of that lustre. "When Evolve launched, the reception wasn’t what we expected," he continued. "Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment – for players and for us. The DLC shitstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience."
There's no word as yet on how the studio plans to make money from the free-to-play version, but whatever the case, it's worth having a go when the beta launches tomorrow. In his review, Evan Lahti described Evolve as "a refreshingly asymmetrical FPS with terrific competitive depth, but the thrill of the hunt eventually begins to wane."
The History Of Thief's Long Walk Out Of The Shadows
Back in 2009 the general manager for Eidos-Montreal announced that the studio was creating the next entry in the long-dormant Thief series.
Back in 2009 the general manager for Eidos-Montreal announced that the studio was creating the next entry in the long-dormant Thief series. Then the studio was silent. Rumors of cancellation and leaked videos kept fans on pins and needles for the next four years. Our cover story announcingthe Thief reboot marked the studio's emergence from the shadows with a focused and promising new game.
So what went wrong? Why was Eidos-Montreal quiet for so many years? Watch the video below to hear the leaders of the team explain why they announced the game so early, the missteps along the way, and why they are now confident in their new vision for Thief.
Click the banner below to go to our Thief hub, where you'll find additional exclusive content throughout the month.
Evolve Stage 2 details revealed
I suppose it's fitting that Evolve should be the game to shed its skin and re-emerge glistening as a free-to-play game .
. 'Stage 2' as it has been dubbed goes live in beta form today. As well as the missing price tag, returning players can expect a massive overhaul.
In a message to the community, Turtle Rock co-founders Chris Ashton and Phil Robb explained the move.
"When Evolve launched, the reception wasn’t what we expected. Sure, there were some good reviews. There were also bad reviews. Yes, there was excitement. There was also disappointment – for players and for us. The DLC shitstorm hit full force and washed away people’s enthusiasm, dragging us further and further from that first magical pick-up-and-play experience.
"We want that magic back and we aim to make it happen. We’ve made a lot of changes, improvements and additions to Evolve over the past year and we’ve got a lot more coming. In short, we’re giving this game a vigorous overhaul!"
Major changes include a renewed focus on the signature 4v1 Hunt mode, with rejigged classes to lighten the load for inexperienced Medics and Trappers:
The MOBILE ARENA is now a shared ability that always centers on the Monster, and all four hunter classes have been redesigned to be more easily accessible and have better team synergy even when you’re not playing with friends. TRAPPER – With the mobile arena a shared ability, all Trapper class hunters now come equipped with a PLANET SCANNER ability that tells the hunters generally which direction the monster is located within the map. Trappers also get a speed boost when activating the ability to help them close the distance and Dome the Monster. MEDIC – All Hunter classes now have passive health regeneration that automatically heals players when they aren’t taking damage. SUPPORT – All Support class hunters now have a SHIELD BURST ability that automatically charges the shields of teammates that are close enough to the Support. All Assault class hunters now have a DEFENSE MATRIX ability that replaces the personal shield’s invulnerability and instead provides damage reduction to the Assault character. MONSTER – All Monsters now have more health and start with enough skill points to activate all four abilities at the start of a match. Alongside new found power and speed, the Monsters are back to terrorize Shear. VISUAL FX and UI have been redesigned to provide a cleaner, more easily understandable experience for players of all skill levels. MAPS have been redesigned specifically for HUNT using countless hours of gameplay data and player feedback since launch, resulting in maps that create consistently fair fights for Hunters and Monsters.
Evolve's considerable cast of characters and cosmetics will be unlockable using an in-game currency called Silver Keys, earned by playing. There's no mention yet of whether you'll be able to pay cash.
And what if you're miffed at having bought Evolve and, potentially, a load of DLC to go along with it? All your paid content will automatically unlock in Stage 2, and you'll be awarded 'Founder' status.
3,000 Silver Keys, all past and future Adaptations for previously owned Hunters and Monsters, dozens of Weapon Skins, and four unique, animated Founder badges. If you owned any Hunters, Monsters, or Skins previously, those will be carried over to Evolve Stage 2.In future, there will be new, exclusive badges, skins and assorted cosmetics for Founders.
Evolve was full of promisewhen it launched, but proved unable to maintain a player base. An overhaul and the alluring price tag of 'free' could well fix that problem.
RadarPlays - Kung Fu Rider
When you’re on the run from Triad gangsters, what’s the best getaway vehicle? WRONG! The answer is an office chair. In this week’s RadarPlays Freaky, Lucas, Ryan, and Greg take on the unique hilarity of Kung Fu Rider, which accurately simulates the intensity of rolling down a crowded hill on wheeled furniture at 50 mph while being accosted by mobsters. This one’s got it all, people--cash grabs, jiggly
Replay – Thief: The Dark Project
In the mid '90s, Looking Glass Studios innovated on the FPS genre by creating a slow-placed stealth game fraught with tension.
In the mid '90s, Looking Glass Studios innovated on the FPS genre by creating a slow-placed stealth game fraught with tension. The game won numerous awards and was praised by critics, but does this innovative title still hold up a decade and a half later? We find out.
Watch Andrew Reiner, Ben Hanson, Dan Ryckert, and I stumble through one of Thief's early levels. Then stay tuned as the final four duke it our in our Replay Showdown.
Also be sure to check out our month of cover story coverage for Eidos-Montreal's upcoming Thief reboot.
Werewolves Within is a VR "social deduction" party game coming this fall
The most effective VR games, as EVE: Valkyrie Executive Producer Owen O'Brien explained in 2014 , tend to jam players into a cockpit of some sort in order to work.
, tend to jam players into a cockpit of some sort in order to work. Ubisoft's Werewolves Within does something similar, and yet quite a bit different, by planting its players firmly upon small wooden benches, from where they can make speeches, tell lies, and cast judgment upon one another. It's a multiplayer party game—a “social deduction game,” to use Ubi's parlance—in which five to eight players gather each night in the virtual village to Gallowston to determine who among them is the titular werewolf who's been terrorizing the local populace.
Werewolf (aka Mafia) is already a popular party game, with a few variations out there. Games are played through quickly in this case, and as usual roles are assigned randomly at the beginning, some of them providing special abilities that will help uncover the shape-shifting menace. But because it's not played in person, Werewolves Within's real promise lies in its use of “voice detection, Red Storm's positional tracking technology, and animations based on voice inflection analysis” to translate real-life movements and body language into the VR space. Players can even lean toward one another and conspire in whispers, just as they would if they were sitting around a real table.
In a way, it sounds not too terribly different from conventional videogames, except that instead of learning, for example, complex combos in a fighting game, you'll be learning to control the "physical presence elements," as Lead Designer Justin Achilli refers to them in the video, like your vocal inflections and physical movements, to reflect the lies you want to tell and the secrets you want to keep.
It remains to be seen whether those small tics, be they sincere or deceptive, will translate into the digital space as near-perfectly as Ubisoft says, and putting together a table of five VR-equipped friends may prove challenging too. (Fortunately, Werewolves Within's matchmaking functionality will support quick matches with strangers.)
There's no hard release date yet but Ubisoft says it's coming to “major VR platforms” this fall. Find out more at werewolveswithin.com.
Up close with every class weapon in the Battlefield 1 alpha
We’re hours into the Battlefield 1 alpha, EA and DICE’s trip back in time to WW1, sort of.
alpha, EA and DICE’s trip back in time to WW1, sort of. Historical accuracy isn’t its intent, primarily using the backdrop and technology as thematic tools in Battlefield’s signature sandbox multiplayer. Since we’ve already let you know what we thinkof it—the alpha and E3 builds are virtually the same—and shared a tonof gameplay footage, it’s time to take a closer look at the Battlefield’s building blocks, starting with the main playable classes (not including the tanker and pilot classes) and their primary firearms.
Below, Tyler and I (James) embedded gifs of all the primary class weapons available in the alpha (more are coming in the final release) and gave a quick rundown on their functionality, personality, and how they affect their class role.
But first, a quick rundown of each class and their duty:
Assault: the frontline, pushing towards enemy positions and dealing primarily with infantry.
Medic: healing class, comes with deployable medkits and revive syringes. Keeps frontline and.or backline afloat.
Support: lays down suppressing fire, enables infantry to cross open terrain. Comes with deployable ammo refills and anti-tank mines.
Scout: long distance support that calls out enemy positions. Great for harassing backline support and countering other scouts.
Assault
Automatico M1918
This submachine gun is a fairly routine Battlefield weapon that does a lot of damage quickly, but with a wide spray and magazine that empties in just a few seconds. In steady hands, it’s a great tool for mid-range combat, but doesn’t really change the assault role in a significant way. The overhead magazine and rapid chamber reset of the bolt on the right side are an authentic touch that adds character to an otherwise routine weapon. — James
Model 10-A
Sneaky assault players will love the Model 10-A pump action shotgun. It’s almost useless in the majority of Battlefield’s wide open spaces, but if you stick to cover and flank unnoticed, it’ll drop a soldier with one shot. It’s also great for defense. If the enemy is assaulting your position, hole up in a house or bunker with one of these and take them by surprise. Shots look like a barely controlled explosion, which isn’t authentic, but Battlefield 1 doesn’t seem too worried about realism. The 10-A was rarely used in WWI anyway, as most opted for the Winchester Model 1897. — James
MP 18
Say hello to the first SMG ever used in combat, a weapon that made such an impression on the Allies that further study and manufacture of such weapons by Germany was banned in the Treaty of Versaille. But the MP 18 slipped through those cracks, and became the basis for most SMG design until the 60s. In Battlefield 1, it functions as a mid-to-close range weapon, originally meant for trench warfare (but it’s still fun to fire on top of a zeppelin). It uses a snail drum magazine that also functions as a grip for easier reloads. There’s nothing too distinct about how it affects the assault role in BF1—the hip-firing accuracy is super high, but the damage output is super low. A mobile, accurate, and reflexive player may find success with it. — James
Medic
Cei-Rigotti
This long to medium-range automatic/semi-auto rifle wasn’t actually adopted by any nation in WWI—it was a prototype created by Italian officer Amerigo Cei-Rigotti. But Battlefield wanted a few early automatic rifles in the mix, so here we are. The Cei-Rigotti can be used at range like the other medic guns, but its fast rate of fire and automatic mode give it an obvious advantage up close. Even though automatic rifles were used in WWI (e.g. the BAR), they lend more of a WWII flavor to me, and I’ve mostly avoided them so far. Semi-auto and bolt action are where it’s at. — Tyler
M1907 SL
The bulky design and ball head pin sight can make distance shots tricky to aim, but the semi-auto M1907 is my favorite medic gun. There’s a full automatic variant, but it’s wildly inaccurate. I prefer carefully placed shots, and with a steady fire rate (fast clicking even in semi-auto mode can erratically spray bullets) this is a nasty medium-range lobber. It does well from the hip and the detachable magazine makes reloading fast. The design is a bit plain compared to BF1’s other guns, but I like the simple Winchester look. — Tyler
Mondragon
The Mondragon is a long tube of a self-loading rifle with a bit of zoom when in sights and a marksman variant with a scope. It's better at range than the M1907 or Cei-Rigotti, but partial reloads are slow and it’s very inaccurate from the hip. It fires fast enough for that not to be a big problem at very close range, as you can see in the GIF, but it won’t get you out of trouble often in tight quarters. I’d rather use one of the Scout weapons to snipe. Overall, the medic guns are a decent way to defend yourself when lying prone near a point, or coming at one from a distance, but they aren’t for clearing houses. — Tyler
Support
Lewis Gun
I love the Lewis Gun for its prototypical design—it’s so mechanical, as if it was slapped together from old machinery in grandpa’s garage. The rotating pan magazine, muzzle flash, and recoil animation give it a very tactile, heavy feel. Like most LMGs, the magazine has a huge capacity, but the Lewis Gun isn’t a huge damage dealer. It’s super accurate and great for suppressing enemy infantry, but in a one-on-one shootout, the firing rate and damage output may not be enough. — James
M1909 Benét–Mercié
Used by France and Britain throughout WWI, the M1909 Benét–Mercié is a gas-operated LMG, and it might have the best magazine animation in all of Battlefield 1 so far. I like to imagine the gun making vigorous and happy eating sounds as it fires. Free-aiming makes it recoil wildly, but aiming down the sights holds the M1909 super still, making it great for more precise observation of enemy positions and elimination of infantry. — James
Madsen MG
As the first LMG produced in mass quantities, the Madsen MG was used in official military capacities up until 1996, which makes it feel like the least surprising support class weapon in Battlefield 1. Still, the gravity fed overhead magazine gives it a bulky recognizable profile, and the jiggly handle is a nice detail. It’s made for a mobile support player since its hip firing accuracy nearly doubles the other LMGs, just don’t expect to lay down effective suppression fire or set up a defensive position. — James
Scout
Gewehr 98
The side-mounted scope is a nice bit of flavor, though it makes no practical difference—this rifle functions like other Battlefield bolt-action rifles, lobbing a glowing projectile in a shallow arc. Scouts won’t find the role much different—if you’re good, you’ll annoy the hell out of the enemy, and if you’re bad, you’ll spend the match aerating the soil—but it’s a stylish weapon, and I especially like the details on my uniform as I reload. Another note: I never once used the 'steady scope' function, as it doesn't seem like any wobble is implemented yet. — Tyler
SMLE MkIII
This Lee–Enfield can be used with a bulky scope or iron sights. The SMLE does its highest damage at close-to-medium range, but keeps its base damage for long shots. Its bullets drop off a bit quicker than the Gewehr’s, and I haven’t found a great reason to use it over that rifle other than its larger magazine. — Tyler
Russian 1895
A fast lever action rifle with a simple fine crosshair, this is my favorite of the sniper rifles. In scope it offers lots of visibility, making it good for hovering around the outskirts of a point marking and taking out invaders your teammates may not see. It does much less damage at range than the other rifles and its bullets fall off quick, so it’s not intended for cross-the-map shots like the Gewher. If you’d rather be in the thick of it instead of prone on a hilltop somewhere, this is your scout gun. — Tyler
RadarPlays - Kabuki Warriors
When a game gets low review scores across the board, you know it must be good. Not good as a product--in the case of Kabuki Warriors, it's atrocious--but good for a RadarPlays Freaky. Lucas, Greg, and new intern Donny take you to the stage of Japanese theater in this original Xbox fighting game. Face paint will be smeared, swords will be unsheathed, and backdrops will be mocked. Does Kabuki Warriors
Building Garrett's Bow: Bringing Thief's Deadly Weapon Into The Real World
The latest Thief game from Eidos-Montreal has been in development for a long time.
The latest Thief game from Eidos-Montreal has been in development for a long time. While the development team was hard at work designing and redesigning the systems, a small forge in Montrealwas given the task of building the protagonist's bow for both marketing and research. In the spring of 2010, machinist Dan Nyborg and blacksmith Mathieu Collette spent one month designing and bringing Garrett's weapon to life. The forge has made props for films like the upcoming Riddick sequeland the unforgettable Adventures of Pluto Nash , but the complex and mechanical bow from Thief was one of their biggest challenges.
Watch the video below to see how the team created Garrett's bow and how their hard work ended up changing the weapon's design in the final game.
To learn more about the gameplay and world of the Thief reboot, click on the banner below to enter our content-filled hub.
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Our Verdict
Rambling plot aside, Burial at Sea, Episode 2 is an entertaining stealth-lite shooter with a likeable lead.
A lot happens in the opening moments of Burial at Sea: Episode 2. You'll meander through a Disneyfied version of Paris, one that's a garlic garland short of full stereotype; be threatened by Atlas back in the post- Episode 1version of Rapture; and discuss pseudo-quantum science with an incorporeal Booker. As a concentrated dollop of Bioshock lore, it's alienating but also strangely liberating. Halfway through Infinite, we started to jump the infini-sharks, now the game is willing its players to give in and enjoy the view.
This time, you're playing as Elizabeth. Only, for reasons directly tied to the opening whirlwind of plot, it's an Elizabeth that's no longer omniscient, or able to open tears. What she can do is bonk splicers on the back of the head with a Sky-Hook—a trick that comes in useful as you work through more remnants of Fontaine's department store/sunken prison.
Significantly more fragile than Booker, Elizabeth has no shield and a limited set of weapons. Stealth is the focus for the first time in the series, and the new weapons and plasmids have been designed for that purpose. The most useful of these is Peeping Tom, which doubles up as both X-ray vision and invisibility, but you'll also find tranquiliser darts and a selection of lethal weapons that provide options when sneaking fails.
As a set of systems, the stealth is simplified and exaggerated, but nonetheless entertaining to play with. The near-sighted splicers suggest that Ryan's objectivism failed to attract any opticians, so vision is less a factor in discovery than noise. As Elizabeth crouch-walks through the levels, she won't raise any alarms on regular surfaces, but shattered glass and water puddles produce an almost comedic cacophony that alerts anyone in the vicinity.
Although it's not the most elegant introduction of stealth, it works because of the pacing and smooth escalation of difficulty. Episode 2 is much slower than Episode 1's frantic resource scavenging, and that more deliberate pace gels well with the series' emphasis on fully exploring its environments. More than that, though, with the focus no longer on all-out combat, I found those moments when I was forced to go loud—pulling out the shotgun to blast my way out of danger—a refreshing change, rather than an increasingly stale necessity.
It turns out that deranged magical junkies aren't the smartest of pursuers, so escape from their immediate vision and they'll quickly lose track of your location. In the more open areas this can be as simple as leaping towards a ceiling hook, at which point you can land in a crouch behind the nearest splicer to deliver an unseen melee attack from behind. Here, it feels like an incredibly basic version of Arkham's gargoyle sections, but the satisfying and speedy swooping across rooms still nicely punctuates the periods of caution.
With no Booker to aid, Elizabeth no longer spends her time tossing ammo and coins. There are still locks to be picked though, and that means a mini-game. As with the other new systems, it's a pretty basic interaction. The pick automatically moves back and forth a series of tumblers, requiring you to make a selection. These can't be failed, but certain tumblers are colour-coded. Hit a red one, and an alarm goes off, drawing any nearby splicers. Pick a blue one, and you're given a noisemaker dart—useful for distracting groups of enemies, or the unkillable Big Daddy that roams an early hub area.
Thorough exploration rewards with plasmid upgrades that drastically improve your abilities. Maxing out the Peeping Tom, I was able to turn invisible at no cost to Eve as long as I remained immobile. In some respects it feels overpowered, to the point that I rarely felt threatened across the just-under-four hours of my normal difficulty playthrough. In the new 1998 mode, which only allows for non-lethal takedowns, being able to easily slip away feels like a more integral ability.
As a whole, Episode 2 feels like the most cohesive Bioshock Infinite campaign. It's certainly more so than Episode 1, which had a hard divide separating its combat and story. But even the main game's action-oriented combat was often at odds with its attempts to present a living world. Here, Elizabeth is always in danger, and always the outsider—creeping unseen through a world she isn't part of. In this, the character and combat are completely in sync.
It also helps that Elizabeth is perhaps the most likeable protagonist of the series. As haunted and flawed as any other Bioshock lead, she carries that burden with a sorrow that makes her all the more sympathetic. Over the years, the Bioshocks have utilised elements of horror, mystery, science-fiction and detective noir. In Episode 2, at a character level, it also makes for an effective tragedy.
It's let down by an overarching plot that feels inconsequential, despite this episode being significantly more substantial than the first. At times it tips into self-indulgence—specifically with a ham-fisted retconning of the Vox Populi's most controversial story beat. Throughout, this final expansion plays around in plot holes that never needed filling, which makes for an unsatisfying resolution.
As Irrational's final work, Episode 2 is a fitting epitaph; both in its ability to offer a fresh perspective on the series, and in the way it obsesses over past triumphs.
The Verdict
Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode 2
Rambling plot aside, Burial at Sea, Episode 2 is an entertaining stealth-lite shooter with a likeable lead.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Phil has been PC gaming since the '90s, when RPGs had dice rolls and open world adventures were weird and French. Now he's the deputy editor of PC Gamer; commissioning features, filling magazine pages, and knowing where the apostrophe goes in '90s. He plays Scout in TF2, and isn't even ashamed.
We recommend By Zergnet
Designing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
One thing was made very clear when we visited CD Projekt in Poland: the studio cares about their fans.
One thing was made very clear when we visited CD Projekt in Poland: the studio cares about their fans. When designing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz tried to incorporate as much feedback from The Witcher 2 as possible.
Watch the video interview below to hear the developers talk about the lessons from their past work, the goals for The Witcher 3, and why the ending of the trilogy might surprise you.
To learn more about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, stay tuned to our hub below for a full month of exclusive video coverage.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes has sold over 200,000 copies
Indie VR party game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes first launched on Gear VR back in June of last year, releasing on Steam a few months later in October .
. It works like this: one player in VR (or looking at a private screen) attempts to diffuse a bomb while the other players, who have the defusal manual, frantically explain what to do. According to co-creator Ben Kane at his GDCtalk today, the idea's a hit: Keep Talking has sold over 200,000 copies. While not quite as impressive as some recent indie hits, it's still a great success—especially considering it was primarily targeted at owners of VR headsets at a time where not many people have them.
In his GDC panel, Kane attributed part of the success to the unexpectedly wide appeal of the game. He said that early in development, they assumed VR early adopters would be excited about it, but that during their play testing at conventions it became clear their demographic wasn't so limited. Young kids, families, and even people who said they usually don't play video games found it appealing. Kane said this wide audience made them realize that Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes wasn't actually a bomb-defusal game, but "a communication party game that just happened to be bomb-themed," and pushed the development away from darker themes (like the inclusion of a bomber or mentions of death) and toward the more friendly version of the game we see now.
Kane referred to their convention demos as the place they really figured out what they were making, saying "demoing was going to fundamentally shape what our game would be." This decision was made partly because the original prototype was made at a game jam and shown off quickly after, so "the cat was out of the bag," as Kane put it, and also because not many people had access to VR to try it at home. Those public forums allowed the team to "eavesdrop" on people playing and iterate as they saw issues.
Another interesting reveal from Kane at GDC was what he called the "secret sauce of Keep Talking." We already knew that the bombs were procedurally generated—with randomness to which modules appear and how they look—but Kane added that the rules for disarming each module (as in, "if there's one red wire, cut the red wire") were procedurally generated as well. Though they've since been made static, the solutions were constantly shifting whenever they showed off the game. Kane mentioned that this meant the groundwork was already laid if they wanted to potentially bring that randomness back in for an added challenge.
10 positive games to distract you from our impending doom
We all need cheering up every now and then, especially in 2016, as the world drifts closer to a complete catastrophe mostly of our own making.
We all need cheering up every now and then, especially in 2016, as the world drifts closer to a complete catastrophe mostly of our own making. Games can offer that escape. We’ve selected ten games here that are guaranteed to cheer you up as we gradually sink into the abyss—many of them will make you laugh, while some just offer a pleasing escape from the bad timeline.
Jazzpunk
Phil compared Jazzpunk to comedy films like Airplane and Naked Gun in his review, and that’s spot on. This is a game that fires jokes at you out of a minigun, a mix of good writing, slapstick and offbeat asides, where you’re permanently allowed to be part of the joke yourself. This surprisingly cinematic first-person interactive game is about 4 hours along, and there are a lot of locations and varied gags contained within that. Chances are, if you’ve been keeping an eye on Humble Bundle, you’ve ended up with Jazzpunk in your library at some point. One of the weirder treats to be found on Steam. If you don’t like one joke in Jazzpunk, it’s fine—there’ll be a load more along in just a few seconds. —Samuel Roberts
Link: Official site
South Park: The Stick of Truth
A really simple RPG, so simple that the Mario RPG-inspired turn-based combat essentially just functions as a vehicle for South Park’s typical mix of incisive humour and all-out childish nonsense. This is one of the best licensed games ever, with frequent laughs to be found just by exploring the town—Obsidian and Ubisoft managed to make the town feel like a coherent RPG overworld that’s just fun to poke around. It’s usually found in Steam sales for about £6/$8, which is absurdly good value for a fan service-rich game that offers a 20-hour hiatus from pondering the world’s impending catastrophes. —Samuel Roberts
Link: Official site
Portal
It may not sound like the most relaxing time, to put your life in the hands of a rogue AI who sees human beings as odd squishy playthings. Laughter is good for the soul, however, and Portal is very funny. Even if you know all the lines it’s fun to crawl back into this maze of testing chambers and ace the puzzles, while enjoying the simple pleasure of placing portals and making reality bend in ways it shouldn’t. Even the sound of placing a portal is wonderful, making it into the PCG roundup of our favourite sound effects in PC gaming. —Tom Senior
Link: Steam
Proteus
Proteus is a sensory massage designed to immerse you in a soothing world of things that go ‘plink’, and sometimes ‘plonk’, depending on the whim of the game’s music generation system. You explore an island across four seasons, listening to the shifting emergent soundtrack and sinking into the vibe. There are some odd secrets to discover hidden among the forests and miniature mountains, but really this is a calm meditative experience, and very effective. Put aside a couple of hours for a soothing virtual hike. —Tom Senior
Link: Official site
Grim Fandango
Relax, the worst has already happened. As salesman Manny Calavera, you’ve already died and made it to the afterlife, albeit minus some skin. You've lost all your skin, but otherwise purgatory is a pretty good place, and looks a lot like Art Deco New York with colourful Mexican Day of the Dead influences. Here everyone is snarky toward each other, but unlike the real world, 90% of everything everyone says is amusing. There’s a big orange demon called Glottis that you'll probably really want to hug—he drives cars and plays mean jazz piano. There’s a conspiracy, too, with bad guys to thwart and femme fatales to spar with. Fire could be raining down outside but in the safety of this classic Lucasarts adventure game all you have to do is don a white suit, run the roulette tables and assume the rictus grin of the recently deceased. —Tom Senior
Link: Official site
Botanicula
There is peril in the world of Botanicula, but it's the sort of peril that can be solved through rhythmic hijinks. A point 'n' click adventure from the creators of Machinarium, Botanicula is about music, nature and the joy of interaction. There's a bit where you go out onto a cliff face, and some little guy dangles down in front of you and sticks out his tongue. You can grab his tongue, and wiggle it about—changing the pitch of the noise he makes as you do. It makes me laugh every time. Also, there's the soundtrack. How can you feel bad when you're listening to this? —Phil Savage
Link: Official site
Psychonauts
Tim Schafer’s influence is already here, in the form of the marvellous Grim Fandango, but if you’d rather avoid gallows humour then the youthful exuberance of Psychonauts is there for you instead. It’s a platforming game with hub areas and lots of collectibles, but the abundance of imagination that’s gone into each level, and the vivid characters you meet, make Psychonauts special. —Tom Senior
Link: Official site
Grow Home
You’re a little robot who loves to climb in this adorable Ubisoft game about growing a colossal beanstalk to return home. The physics-driven climbing system sees your little guy swing frantically back and forth as he activates pods and guides new shoots to higher points in the stratosphere. From the music to the brightly coloured polygonal art style, Grow Home is completely charming. —Tom Senior
Link: Official site
Stardew Valley
Carve out a new life of idyllic rural bliss in this farming sim, featuring a host of cuddly locals and lots of relaxing tasks. Plant things, unplant things, rearrange your fields to make them more aesthetically pleasing, bond with the vagrant Linus, upgrade your house. Stardew Valley’s cheery, laid-back pace is a good antidote to the end-of-the-world blues. —Tom Senior
Link: Official site
Rayman: Legends
The screenshots do not do it justice. Rayman: Legends, and Origins before it, are an explosion of colour when seen in motion. Both are frivolous platformers with a great sense of pace and variety to recommend them. Enjoy a smile as Rayman dashes and swings his way through each game's kaleidoscopic realms and forget all about the apocalypse outside. —Tom Senior
Link: Official site
We Are Rebels: The Business Of The Witcher And CD Projekt Red
Based in Warsaw, Poland, CD Projekt Red has quietly become one of the most beloved studios in the gaming industry.
Based in Warsaw, Poland, CD Projekt Red has quietly become one of the most beloved studios in the gaming industry. The game development studio is housed under the larger CD Projekt company that also distributes Disney films in Poland and runs GOG.com. Based on the Polish novels, the Witcher license has given CD Projekt Red an opportunity to create mature RPGs that have garnered high critical praise and a devoted fanbase. Partnering with publishers like Atari and Warner Bros. in the past only to help distribute their games across the world, the studio puts a strong emphasis on creative independence.
Watch the video below to learn from the vice president of business development at CD Projekt Red how the studio acquired the Witcher license and how they are funding the massive project that is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
To learn more about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, stay tuned to our hub below for a full month of exclusive video coverage.
Rumour: Has Sylvester Stallone joined Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2?
Sylvester Stallone may have missed out on the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last month, but it looks like his luck could be changing for the better. According to the New York Daily News , the actor may be set to star in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Stallone was spotted leaving the Atlanta hotel where the cast is currently staying, clutching what looked like a copy of the script, and getting into a
Comparing The Open World Of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Some fans might be worried about The Witcher 3's leap to an open world, that the tightly-constructed narrative of previous entries might be sacrificed to appease a growing trend in the industry.
Some fans might be worried about The Witcher 3's leap to an open world, that the tightly-constructed narrative of previous entries might be sacrificed to appease a growing trend in the industry. Rest assured, the development team at CD Projekt RED is confident that they have created the perfect fusion of exploration and narrative.
Watch the video interview to hear the game's director and lead quest designer talk about converting the world of The Witcher and what lessons they have learned from games like Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and Assassin's Creed 3.
To learn more about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, stay tuned to our hub below for a full month of exclusive video coverage.
Nintendo has a new president and it's no one you've ever heard of
Nintendo has announced its new president following the tragically young death of Satoru Iwata . Say hello to Tatsumi Kimishima, a former HR head who had previously held Reggie Fils-Aime's job as President of Nintendo America. Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto, who had been running the company in the interim, are now 'Technology Fellow' and 'Creative Fellow' respectively according to the press release
Monster Hunting In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
As the protagonist of The Witcher series, one of Geralt of Rivia's defining characteristics is also his profession: monster hunting.
As the protagonist of The Witcher series, one of Geralt of Rivia's defining characteristics is also his profession: monster hunting. While the team at CD Projekt RED touch on this mechanic in past entries, tracking and killing creatures for a bounty is one of the pillars of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Watch the video below to hear gameplay designers Maciej Szczesnik and Marvin So explain how the new system will work and why they think it will help immerse players in Geralt's world.
To learn more about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, stay tuned to our hub below for a full month of exclusive video coverage.
Nintendo announces first mobile game, Miitomo, set for March 2016
By now, we've had plenty of time to theorize what would come of Nintendo's partnership with DeNA , representing the gaming giant's first ever venture into smartphone territory. We now have a game name: Miitomo, which has been pushed back to March 2016, along with the announcement of a new service called Nintendo Account. Very little's been shown of Miitomo so far, but this free-to-play app (with purchasable
The 20 greatest moments in Pokmon history
As of the February 27, 2016, Pokemon will have been around for 20 years . While you’re internally screaming at just how fast all of those years have passed by, let’s take a breather to look at the greatest moments of one of the most iconic gaming series of all time. From the historically important, to personal milestones, and the surreal , these are the most significant moments in Pokemon’s history
The Story Of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
CD Projekt RED has been lauded for the studio's implementation of a mature and gripping storyline throughout The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.
CD Projekt RED has been lauded for the studio's implementation of a mature and gripping storyline throughout The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Despite the new open-world structure for the third and final game in the trilogy, the writers behind The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are hoping to make the story in the new game the most satisfying yet.
Watch the interview below to hear the writers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt explain where the story of the game begins and where Geralt's new perspective on life will bring him.
To learn more about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, stay tuned to our hub below for a full month of exclusive video coverage.
Woo hoo! Nintendo rides coming to Universal Parks
Are the Incredible Hulk ride and the Revenge Of the Mummy rollercoaster just not videogame related enough for you? Good news. Universal Parks and Resorts is now working with Nintendo to build the world’s first-ever theme park rides based on “Nintendo’s beloved games and characters.” Yes, this is just as ridiculously exciting as it sounds with the press release stating that Nintendo and Universal will
12 Pokemon that just aren't trying hard enough
Game Freak, Inc. did themselves no favors when they made Pokemon Red and Blue 20 years ago. Collecting 150 Pokemon is a great hook when you’re only making one game, but what about when you have to make a second? A whole other game with a brand new army of adorable little beasts? Or how about six games? Making all 721 of your pocket monsters instantly memorable is an impossible task. Still, some of
Capturing The Animations And Combat For The Witcher 3
While visiting the studio for this month's cover story, CD Projekt RED was eager to show off its new in-house motion capture studio.
While visiting the studio for this month's cover story, CD Projekt RED was eager to show off its new in-house motion capture studio. While the main actors and cutscenes are recorded elsewhere, lead animator Tomasz Zawada is taking advantage of the new space and equipment to ensure that The Witcher 3 has a much larger library of animations than previous entries. With the help of master swordsman Maciej Kwiatkowski ( from the stunt group called Stunt Forces), the space is also used to practice and capture Geralt's movements and all of the other combat animations for the game.
Watch the video below to learn how the team captures characters, monsters, and battles for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
It is worth noting that the model of Triss in the video is from The Witcher 2 and that the woman in the suit is not her actress, but just a volunteer from the studio.
To learn more about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, stay tuned to our hub below for a full month of exclusive video coverage.
Before working as a script producer on The Elder Scrolls Online , developer Alex Horn worked with Ken
Rolston of Morrowind and Oblivion fame. Here's what Horn learned. Before the much publicized closure of 38 Studios/Big Huge Games I had the fortune of sharing an office with the inimitable Ken Rolston (pictured below).
Three design lessons from working with RPG legend Ken Rolston
(pictured below). You might know Mr. Rolston from the Elder Scrolls titles Morrowind and Oblivion , or from his contributions to the tabletop RPG Paranoia and the board game Tales of the Arabian Nights. Some only recently learned of Mr. Rolston from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning ; others know of him from his old-school, pen-and-paper contributions. Whether or not you're familiar with his games, you've most likely played something influenced by him.
And what are the hallmarks of his legacy? The type of fun he wants to elicit in a video game can just as easily be found in Paranoia or Tales of the Arabian Nights. His creativity seems to spark from that same kernel of imagination that is so integral to what makes table-top RPGs viable. It's a smile or a sense of accomplishment, but more importantly it's your smile or your sense of accomplishment. It's emergent narrative in the truest sense, and he instills it in everything he touches.
And how does he bring about his particular brand of emergent narrative, you might ask? I will hereby endeavor to translate as best I can the incoherent ramblings of genius.
Disclaimer: The following design principles are not meant to be representative of Mr. Rolston's design philosophy in toto. They are simply three digestible points made by Ken frequently enough to leave a lasting impression. These three principles are Ken's Four Pillars of Open World RPGs, the Rolston Switch, and the Importance of Competitive Research.
The Four PillarsI first heard the definition of the Four Pillars from Ken. As he explained it, they are Exploration, Combat, Advancement, and Narrative. While this is not revolutionary by itself, Ken's interpretation of how these pillars work for an open-world RPG, specifically, was eye-opening.
Exploration and Advancement were defined as "the candy," and probably closest to French game theorist Caillois' concept of Alea (with a bit of mimicry as well). Randomly generated loot, beautiful vistas or hidden caves, all of this was the carrot dangling before the player, motivating them to continue.
Combat was of specific importance to Ken on Reckoning . This was the "signal-to-noise" or input-output ratio; i.e. the better the combat, the more gratifying the moment-to-moment game-play, and therefore experience for the player. Because Ken was not happy with the combat of his previous games, he focused a lot of critical attention to this pillar.
Narrative was surprisingly the most contentious. Let me preface the argument by saying that Ken is a man of words. Not only will he happily engage in any and all conversation (he frequently does), but he is also as learned a scholar as you will find in our industry, a former English teacher, and a patron of theatre.
All of that is to say, Ken hates dialogue, all dialogue, all of the time; the less the dialogue, the better. If he could, he would do away with dialogue completely.
Taken with a grain of salt, the rationale is solid: when enjoying an open-world RPG, the signal-to-noise ratio of player activity is normally very good. The player is out Exploring, Combating, or Advancing, thoroughly engaged in (ideally) attention-arresting gameplay. What they are doing is matched by what they are experiencing. And then the dialogue screen appears, hijacking the entire experience and transforming it into something much less fun than "dropping comets on people."
Although I was at first skeptical, I knew there was a method to Ken's madness. Most dialogue and cutscenes in games are movies stuffed between bouts of gameplay, and the more adrenaline pumping and heart-racing the gameplay is, the more noticeable the difference becomes.
Ken was excited about the prospect of fixing this problem. While the solutions thrown around are beyond the scope of this article, what we can take from this lesson is that Narrative should not be confused with dialogue. There are other, better ways to support the Narrative pillar, such as...
The Rolston SwitchIf you've played Ken's games, you're familiar with what I'm calling the good, old Rolston Switch. I'm sure Ken wasn't the first person to think of it, but he's one of the best at it. "It" is the element of surprise as a game design principle, or as he liked to say, "the joke."
The player should often ask "what happens when I do this?" with genuine uncertainty.
Quests should throw curveballs, rewards should not be quite what they seem, and the player should often ask "what happens when I do this?" with genuine uncertainty. It's part sadistic prank, part creative accident. The process is simple, set up player expectations and then shatter them. What is interesting about the idea isn't the idea itself but the results of its implementation.
The first is fun. As my brilliant wife Dr. Joan Jasak recently reminded me, a player does not interact with a game, a player interacts with a designer via a game. If this is true, then clearly the Rolston Switch is a fun experience for the player, i.e. your eccentric Uncle Ken is playing a practical joke on you. It is also an emergent experience for the player. This is real dialogue. It creates and strengthens the bond between player and designer.
The second is that it creates possibility space for emergent narrative. Now, some readers might feel that the opposite is true, that surprises in games are more likely to take the player out of the experience. But even though Ken was never afraid to lean on the fourth wall, the Rolston Switch is not the M Knight Shyamalan Switch; it's not a simple reversal. It is closer to what Keats says about poetry, it "should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance." In this regard, the "joke" isn't so much "ha-ha" funny, as it is funny "hmm."
When you combine those two processes, (a player-designer bond and an unexpected experience that the player feels is theirs) emergent narrative is more easily achieved.
The Importance of Competitive ResearchNowadays, I find myself in a common game developer plight: too many games and not enough time to play them. Many of us know that it's important to research new trends in games, as well as have a healthy understanding of the history of game design. It's easy to forget, however, that that means we have to actually sit down and play games. Ken spent a large part of his time playing games and dissecting them. You'd imagine someone who has as much experience as Ken wouldn't necessarily need to endlessly comb through titles, but there were several benefits to his research.
Being well-versed in as many genres and titles as possible is part of our craft.
Games served as inspiration for Ken. Whether he was gleefully singing a game mechanic's praises, or outlining a game's tragic flaws, it almost always led to something constructive. Sometimes it was immediately applicable to our project and other times it had a roundabout relevance, but Ken always gained something from his play time.
Another invaluable takeaway was secondary to the game playing. Ken constantly challenged us to create something new, and in order to know a novel idea when he saw one, he had to have a grasp of what came before. This could sometimes manifest as the cranky old grandfather claiming there is "nothing new under the sun," but it forced innovation.
This shouldn't be a shock to experienced devs, but it is an important reminder. Being well-versed in as many genres and titles as possible is part of our craft. If, for example, you never play social games because you don't make social games, you are probably missing something significant to add to your repertoire of game design tools.
So, those are three of the more salient game design lessons I learned from Mr. Rolston. I hope you can take some of these pearls of wisdom and apply them to your craft, as it's sure to make any game that much better.
Bio: Alexander Horn is a writer and game designer with over six years of experience producing content in the interactive entertainment and games industry. He specializes in writing and editing dialogue as well as designing and implementing narrative systems. Currently, he is responsible for all things VO as the Script Producer for The Elder Scrolls Online .
